St Mungo's Robin

Chapter Ten

There was a thunderous sound, somehow entangled with a dream about Paris. He knew it must be a dream, because he had not had a drinking head like this since he left France. The thunder went on, and on. So did the dream, which became more vivid. Not only a headache as if an axe was buried in his brow, but a tongue too big for his mouth which tasted like an ashpit. Socrates barked near at hand, once, then again, and a voice exclaimed,

‘Maister Cunningham! Maister Cunningham, can you waken!’

‘Likely no. He was ower late home last night, and a skinfu’ wi it.’ That was Maggie. Not a dream, then. ‘Out the way, son. I’ll sort him.’

Light, and footsteps. He was aware of a distant shouting, and the dog’s paws scrabbled as he left. Then cold water stung his face and neck. He surfaced, spluttering and wincing, to find Maggie staring down at him by the light of a candle. Someone stood behind her in the shadows.

‘Are ye awake, Maister Gil, or do ye want the rest of the jug?’ demanded Maggie. Gil struggled on to one elbow and shielded his eyes from the candle. There was more distant shouting, and the dog barked, equally distant now.

‘Awake,’ he managed. ‘What’you do that for?’

‘Aye, well, there’s trouble below stairs,’ she informed him grimly. ‘Here’s Sir James Douglas round from the bedehouse and raging like Herod in the hall, and your uncle from home, as he might ha kent at this hour. Will you get up, man, and deal wi him?’

‘Bedehouse.’ Gil sat up shivering and wringing water from his hair and his shirt. This did not seem to make sense. What bedehouse?

‘St Serf’s,’ persisted Maggie. ‘Aye, I thought you were well away when you got home last night. Get you away down to my kitchen, young Lowrie,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘and if you’d be so good as to put another stoup of ale next the fire in the blue-glazed pint pot, it would speed matters. As for you, Maister Gil,’ she turned back to Gil as footsteps clattered away through the attic, let’s have you out of there.’

Bemused, he allowed himself to be dragged out of bed, his shirt pulled over his head, a cold wet cloth scrubbed across his shrinking flesh. When she began to rub him dry with energetic strokes of the discarded shirt, he stuttered a protest.

‘Maggie, what’s this about? No, I’m awake, I’m awake!’

‘Then you can drink this, and wash the rest yoursel.’ She thrust a beaker at him. The contents fizzed darkly, and a familiar mysterious, pungent smell hit his nose: Maggie’s poison, his brothers had called it. Her cure for a night’s drinking. He swallowed it like medicine, and she turned her back to let him strip, pronouncing, ‘I’ve no idea what’s ado, Maister Gil. All I ken is, your godfather’s down there calling for you or your uncle, abusing his Michael that’s your mother’s godson, and like to take an apoplexy with fury. And two of his men cluttering up my kitchen, I could do without.’

This hardly made sense either. He groped his way into clean linen, hose and doublet, tied his points with difficulty, found a jerkin and a budge gown in the kist at the bed-foot, took a moment to salute St Giles and his white doe and promise them a more formal obeisance later. As soon as he was covered Maggie dragged the window-hangings back, the rings rattling on the pole, and the room was flooded with unpleasantly bright light.

‘When did I get home, Maggie?’

‘How would I know? Long after the curfew it was, Our Lady alone kens how you wereny taken up by the Watch, the way you came stotting up the road.’

Memory surfaced. There had been singing. He and Pierre had gone from one tavern to another looking for, what was the fellow’s name, Veitch, and the other one. Had they found him?

‘Was I on my own when I came in?’

‘Maister Mason saw you to the kitchen door.’ She lifted the cooling candle to follow him down the stairs. ‘I’ll have a word to say to him when I see him, and all,’ she added grimly.

That was something, anyway. More memories rose up. Some of the singing had been sea songs. Yes, they had found John Veitch, and the man Elder — that was his name. They had had a long conversation somewhere, the four of them. He recalled writing something down in his tablets, and felt in his sleeve. No, not this gown. Purse? His purse was at his belt. He patted it to make sure the tablets were in it, and crossed the solar to go down to the shouting in the hall.

His godfather, lightly built and balding, was standing in front of the hearth, arms akimbo so that his short furred gown spread round him like the wings of an angry hawk. The steel-blue of gown and jerkin added to the effect, but his expression was more like a wild-cat’s than a hawk’s as he roared at his youngest son.

‘You’ll no preach family in my lug! What right have you to use the word in my hearing, you ill-faring halflins custril? A pick-thank attercap I’ve raised to be my Benjamin!’

Socrates barked again, and pain stabbed through Gil’s temples. Seeking his dog, he discovered him at the other side of the room, head down and hackles up, standing protectively in front of Tib who was seated white-faced in their uncle’s great chair. Sir James, seeing him enter the hall, jerked an arm in an imperious gesture.

‘Come here, godson, and tell me how much of this you’re responsible for.’

‘How much of what?’ Gil asked, crossing the room. The answer struck him just before Sir James spoke, so that he heard his own words through a rising, roaring anger. He stopped in the middle of the floor to wait for it to ebb, staring at his godfather.

‘This pair of masterless blichans, these sliddery dyke-lowpers,’ said Sir James, not mincing words, ‘have beddit one another. As to whose notion it was, I’ve my own ideas, but what are you going to do about it, Gilbert, tell me that?’

‘Tib,’ said Gil grimly, turning to look at his sister. She got to her feet, her eye sliding from his, swallowed hard and nodded. ‘And Michael,’ he went on. Michael looked sideways at him round his own shoulder, with a faint grimace of apology. As well you might, thought Gil. No wonder you were afraid of me, that morning in the bedehouse chapel.

‘Well?’ demanded Sir James. ‘Is that all you’ve to say, sir?’

‘It’s all I can say, till I ken the facts, sir,’ responded Gil.

‘Oh, the facts! The facts are easy enough to be discernit. Our tottie litchour here, having the keys o the lodging in his hand, made use of them to slip his leman into the place, the which I spied as soon as I was within the door yestreen.’ Gil recalled the sudden, early arrival of the Douglas outriders, and with it the rest of the events of his visit there. ‘And while I mind o’t, what’s going on in the place? All this about the Deacon found dead, locked in the garden, and one of the brothers dead by his own hand and all? What’s ado? Did he slay the Deacon and then himsel? Have ye found that out yet, or has that passed by your attention and all?’

‘I’m working on it, sir,’ responded Gil automatically.

‘Hah!’ said Sir James witheringly. ‘If it wasny him that’s slain himsel it’ll be some enemy of the man’s from Stirlingshire. I kent I should never have appointed a Kilsyth man, whatever the Veitches said. That’s if it’s no Frankie Veitch, who I never trusted, no since he tried to tell me Michael’s cousin Gavin wrote verse. And this ill-doer here has taken advantage of all the stramash, bringing a woman into the almshouse my grandsire built. But it wasny till I set eyes on him this morn,’ he snarled, ‘and persuaded the truth from him wi a belt’s end, that I kent just how bad.’

Tib came forward past Gil, the dog pacing watchfully beside her, and stopped beside Michael. Gil could see how their hands touched and twisted together, hidden from Sir James by the folds of her grey gown.

‘Aye, sir,’ she said clearly. ‘We’ve beddit. We’re promised, each to ither.’

‘By all the saints, you’re no!’ he roared at her. The hands tightened on one another. ‘You shameless racer, what makes you think you’ve a claim on my lad? I’ve better things in mind for him than marriage wi a wee trollop that parts her legs as soon as her hair!’

‘You’ll no say that about my mother’s daughter, if you please, sir,’ said Gil politely.

‘I’ll say what I like if your mother canny control her daughter, godson,’ snarled Sir James.

‘That comes well from a Douglas,’ remarked Gil. ‘Do you suppose your kinsman William Elphinstone would have a post about him for Michael, sir? Something in Aberdeen, maybe?’

There was a difficult silence. Then Sir James, nephew of that Douglas lady whose bastard son was now Bishop of Aberdeen, swore savagely at Gil, flung away across the room and sat down in the great chair Tib had vacated. The two young people turned to face him, Michael putting his arm round Tib, at which his father glowered.

‘How often?’ he demanded. ‘How many times has this happened? How long — ’

‘A month or more since we met,’ said Michael, his deep voice very shaky. ‘But that was the first time we — ’

‘Our Lady be praised!’ said Douglas. ‘Wi any luck she’ll no howd from the one service, there’ll be nothing you’ll need to gie your name to.’

‘But we want to — ’

‘Michael,’ said Gil quietly. All three looked at him. ‘You can’t be wedded. There is an impediment.’

‘What impediment?’ said Tib in alarm.

‘I’d have thought you’d be ware of it. Quite apart from the question of Michael’s future and your lack of a tocher, there’s the mutual spiritual relationship. Michael is our mother’s godson, you’re my sister and I’m godson to Michael’s father. Holy Kirk won’t — ’

‘But Gil, a dispensation, surely? It’s no as if it was real — ’

‘At a cost of £10 of Flemish money,’ said Gil, ‘which is near £25 Scots the now. Four or five years’ excess rents for a wealthy household, Tib, and we’re no wealthy.’

She stared at him, then turned her head to look at Michael.

‘No need of marriage, then,’ she said bravely. ‘I’ll be your mistress. There’s plenty clerks have a lady in keeping. Look at — ’

‘You deserve better,’ said Michael, going scarlet.

‘Better! A trollop like her! And I’ll not help you to ruin by buying you a dispensation, either,’ declared Douglas. ‘You’re bound for the Kirk, my lad, and service to the Crown. I’ll not have my plans set aside to satisfy a pair of radgie pillie-wantouns!’

‘Father,’ said Michael, his voice stronger, ‘I’ve no need to be a priest, surely, to serve the Crown? I’ve no notion to the priesthood, I canny — ’

‘What’s that to do wi it? You’ll do as you’re bid, Michael, or I’ll beat the daylights out of you. I’ll see you established on the ladder to fortune afore I dee, if it’s the last thing I do.’

Gil bit his lip, but neither of the young people noticed the infelicity.

‘Sir,’ said Tib from within her lover’s arm, ‘our families are old friends. I–I ken you were at school wi my own faither. Will you no be a faither to me, now he’s gone?’

Good, but ill-timed, Gil thought, flinching from the noise as Sir James boiled over at her in a torrent of indistinct rebuttals. If only his head was clearer. He was aware of little more than his own smouldering rage at the utter stupidity and self-indulgence of such behaviour.

‘I think we’re agreed, sir,’ he said firmly, cutting across his godfather’s tirade, ‘that this should never have happened and it should go no further.’

‘Gil!’

‘Aye, very likely,’ said Sir James, ‘but what do we do now, eh? That’s what I want to know of you, Gilbert. Or where’s your uncle? What’s David got to say about it?’

‘But we love each other!’

‘Father, I — ’

‘Be silent!’ roared Sir James, ‘or by the Deil’s bollocks I’ll have your tongue out!’

Gil suddenly recalled his father saying in exasperation, Trouble wi James is he’s more talk than thumbscrews, till you put a blade in his hand.

‘What we do now — ’ he began.

‘What we do now,’ broke in another voice, ‘is sit down quiet wi a drink and a bite.’

Dorothea came forward from the kitchen stair, Maggie behind her with a steaming jug and a platter of little cakes.

‘Good day to you, sir,’ she said, and bent her knee in a curtsy to the gaping Douglas. ‘It’s good to see you so little changed, after all these years. I’m right glad Maggie sent to tell me you were here in my uncle’s house.’

‘Dorothea,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘Sister Dorothea. Aye, well, it’s good to see you and all, lass. Are you well? No need to ask if you’re happy.’

‘I am indeed, sir.’ Gil set a stool for her, and she smiled quickly at him. ‘Shall we all be seated, and these two miscreants may serve us?’

Maggie set jug and platter down on the low cupboard at the end of the hall, and assisted Tib in finding the pewter beakers and pouring spiced ale for Michael to distribute. Then she stationed herself by the cupboard, obviously hoping to be unobserved. There was quiet movement on the kitchen stair, which Gil took to be Lowrie waiting to learn his friend’s fate. So that really was him with Maggie, he thought, when she came to wake me.

‘What’s done,’ said Dorothea, cutting across Sir James’s continued complaints, ‘is no to be undone, though I dare say many lassies wish it might be.’

‘I don’t!’ said Tib defiantly from where she stood with the platter of little cakes. ‘I don’t regret a thing.’

Michael slid her a glance under his eyebrows, and they exchanged a complicit smile. Gil found himself grappling with another surge of combined anger and envy.

‘Aye, but what do we do next?’ demanded Sir James. ‘Michael, come over here to my side, away from that wee trollop.’

‘Wait,’ said Dorothea. ‘We wait, sir.’

‘Oh, we do?’ he said. ‘And what use of waiting? Michael’s future is determined, madam, he’ll no step aside from it whatever comes to one ill-schooled lassie.’

‘You forget, sir,’ said Dorothea, rigidly sweet as a sugar-plate saint on a banquet table, ‘that Michael is my mother’s godson.’

‘Aye, and what Gelis Muirhead will say about this I canny think!’

‘I can,’ said Gil quietly.

Michael shivered, and Tib put her chin up, but Dorothea cast him a repressive glance and pursued, ‘Aye, sir. My mother is a Muirhead. Kin to Dean Muirhead of this chapter, kin to the Boyds whose daughter Marion goes with child to the King, kin to your cousin Angus’s lady.’

‘No need to involve Mother!’ said Tib sharply. ‘Or any of you! We’ll sort our own future. We love each other, we don’t need more than that.’

‘Aye, and how will you do that?’ Gil demanded over Douglas’s indignant spluttering. ‘What will you live on? Where? You can’t be married, what will you do? You need your kin to find Michael a place and some sort of income.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll determine in September next, we’ve got till then.’

‘Determine?’ repeated his father. ‘Determine? What makes you think I’ll pay for you to finish your studies, let alone take your degree? Do you ken what I laid out for your brother Robert at the end of his four years, in fees and graces to one regent or another? Why should I put out the same for a thankless loun such as you’ve proved to be? I’d sooner take you home wi me this day and put you down the bottle-hole.’

Gil, watching, thought this was perhaps the first time either Michael or Tib had realized that matters really might not fall out as they wanted. Horrified, they drew closer together; Michael transferred the jug to his other hand and put his arm about Tib again, and she shrank in against him. Dorothea said gently, ‘If you do that you’ll prevent him following the path you’ve set out for him, as well as any other path, sir.’

‘Aye, I will that,’ said Douglas fiercely.

‘Our mother might have a word to say about that, too,’ Gil commented.

‘It seems to me, Sir James,’ said Dorothea. Everyone looked at her. ‘It seems to me that there are several problems.’

‘Just the two,’ said Douglas.

‘There is Michael’s future,’ said Dorothea, ignoring this, ‘there is Tib’s future whatever it is, and if in some way these should be together there is the question of what Holy Kirk will say about it.’ Gil nodded. ‘None of them is simple, and all of them involve waiting a longer or shorter time.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Sir James. ‘Michael will do as I’ve planned for him. There’s a post for him wi the Treasury at Stirling next autumn, and he — ’

‘No!’ said Michael urgently. ‘Father, no! I’d sooner teach in the grammar school!’

‘Mother could do better for him than that,’ said Dorothea dispassionately.

‘And Tib — ’ Gil began.

‘I’ve said my last word on it,’ said Sir James. He got to his feet. ‘Michael, let go your wee trollop and say fareweel. And if I find you’ve set your een on her again I’ll burn them out.’

Jug and platter fell unheeded. The jug shattered, the pewter dish spun briefly then grounded on one of its cakes. Michael, his arms wrapped tightly round Tib, said over her head, ‘Sir, I’ve committed no crime — ’

‘You have, in fact,’ said Gil, ‘against me.’ Everyone turned towards him. If only his head would stop aching, he thought. ‘There’s the question of filial disobedience,’ he acknowledged to his godfather, ‘but Tib’s been robbed of her maidenhead, that was a part of her marriage portion, and as her lawful tutor I will require some recompense to her.’

‘You will?’ shrieked Tib, wrenching herself from her lover’s arms. ‘It’s nothing to do wi you! It’s my life, it’s my — ’

‘Tib!’ said Dorothea warningly

‘Recompense!’ repeated Sir James in incredulity. ‘It’s well seen you’re a man of law!’

‘I am,’ Gil agreed. ‘So what will you do about it, sir? I’ll agree Tib should ha been better schooled, but the same could be said of Michael, who’s taken a girl of good family to his bed without consulting his seniors or hers. There’s blame on both sides, but only the one’s been wronged, and it’s no Michael.’

‘He didny — ’ Tib began.

Dorothea rose and went to her. Maggie stepped forward to join their colloquy, and Gil said politely to his godfather, ‘So I’ll ask you again, sir. What recompense will you make her?’

There was a pause, in which the women whispered together, urgent and sibilant. Sir James said sourly, ‘What are ye after? Coin, is it? You want paid for her pearl?’

‘At its crudest,’ said Gil, ‘yes. I’d sooner see it as a way to dower her, since Michael’s robbed her of what was near her only asset. And should misfortune follow — ’

‘Oh, aye. If it should, how would we ken it for Michael’s?’

‘By the heart birthmark,’ suggested Gil before he could stop himself. Dorothea looked round with a brief, quelling glare.

‘She was a maiden when she came to my bed,’ said Michael, renewing his grip of Tib’s hand and lifting his pointed chin at his father. ‘I’ll not hear that said of her, sir.’

‘You can be silent, you wanton,’ snarled his father. ‘Aye, well, godson, if that’s the attitude you’re taking, we’ll discuss this when it’s more convenient. And if I can agree wi you, we’ll hear no more of this, will we?’

‘Oh, I haveny offered that, sir,’ said Gil.

‘I’ll not be bought off like a side of mutton!’ said Tib furiously past the creamy wool of Dorothea’s shoulder.

‘What’s more,’ Gil added, ‘if Michael’s to attend you to my marriage, he’ll have to encounter Tib. He canny fail to set eyes on her.’

‘Then he’ll no attend me,’ said Sir James roundly. ‘I’ll have him gated in the college till next harvest, anyway.’

‘If they will each promise,’ said Dorothea, ‘swear before my uncle’s altar yonder, no to be alone with the other in the next month, would that satisfy you the now, sir? And meantime we may discuss it at more leisure, as you say.’

There was a pause. Maggie nodded. Tib bit her lip and looked uneasily at her lover, who gave her a reassuring smile.

‘Aye, it will have to do,’ said Douglas at length. ‘And St Bride send we’ve sorted it out by Yule.’

It was quiet in the Deacon’s lodging in the bedehouse.

Once Sir James had departed, still breathing fire and dragging his son by the arm, Maggie had begun a flood of recriminations about Tib’s behaviour which Gil could not staunch. She had eventually been persuaded down to the kitchen by the extraordinarily useful Lowrie, while Dorothea dealt with the furious weeping her words had provoked in Tib. It seemed likely that the noon bite would be late, or inedible, or both, and Gil had taken himself out of the house in the hope of finding distraction, the dog at his heels.

He should, he acknowledged, have gone down the hill to tell Alys this latest bitter crumb of family news, or to inform Kate, who would be tormented by guilt when she heard it, but instead he had found himself heading round to St Serf’s with the thought of a soothing time with the accounts. Sir James did not appear to be there, for which he was thankful, but before he could reach the upper chamber he had encountered Millar in the courtyard, in helpless discussion with Thomas Agnew.

‘Maister Cunningham!’ the man had said, in some relief. ‘It was y — it was you found poor Humphrey. Will you tell Maister Agnew — ’

‘What happened?’ asked Agnew hoarsely. ‘He was well enough when I left yestreen, just afore I met you in the way, Maister Cunningham. He seemed calm and resigned, just kneeling to his prayers. He’d asked my forgiveness for attacking me yesterday morn,’ he added, and turned his face away, wiping something from his eye. Millar made a sympathetic sound.

‘I trust for your sake he had it, maister,’ said Gil, and Agnew sighed and nodded and crossed himself. ‘I know little more than Maister Millar here. Sissie went to his lodging, and found him hanging in the dark. I ran to help, but she had dropped the lantern, so I could see nothing. When we got him down we found he’d used the rope from the gate here — ’

‘From the gate?’ repeated Agnew. ‘How did he get that?’

‘I ca — canny tell,’ said Millar, wringing his hands again. ‘He never got out here to the yard, Si — Sissie kept that good an eye on him.’

‘He got hold of it somehow,’ said Gil, ‘and he’d used that to hang himself from one of the beams of his lodging. I would say, if he was at his prayers when you left, he was hanging for no more than a quarter-hour, but it was long enough.’

‘Oh, my poor brother,’ said Agnew, crossing himself again. Gil and Millar did likewise.

‘So you’re saying he was calm and seemed as usual,’ prompted Gil. Agnew gave him a sharp look.

‘He wasny usually calm,’ he observed. ‘I’m saying I’d had a reasonable conversation wi him, the first in a good while, and he seemed quiet enough, resigned in his mood, just about to kneel.’

‘Had he a light?’

‘Why, no. We’d been sitting in the light of my lantern. I offered to set his candle for him, but he’d have none of it. I suppose he’d no need of it for what he intended. No wonder he seemed resigned,’ he added, with a painful smile, and added in Latin, ‘I am in great terror, in terror such as has not been. My poor brother.’

‘Resigned to what?’ Gil asked. The Psalter, he thought. Better than the Apocalypse, at all events. Agnew shook his head, and put a hand to his bruised throat.

‘His madness? The knowledge of what he could do in the wild fits? He never said.’ He turned to Millar. ‘Where is he? Can I see him?’

‘Oh — aye!’ said Millar. ‘Though I’d maybe best get Sissie away first if I can, she’ll no want to face you — ’

‘St Peter’s bones, why no?’

‘She’s took it into her head you’ve something to do wi his death,’ said Maister Veitch, approaching from the door to the main range. ‘Andro, will I draw her away for you?’

‘If you would, Frankie,’ said Millar gratefully. ‘And we’ll ne — need to talk of his burial, Maister Agnew. It’ll be a difficulty. He’ll go in our own place, never fear that, but I canny tell when. He’s still not stiffened, but Sissie willny let us wash him yet, for all that.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Agnew. ‘I can see it’ll be an inconvenience.’

Gil watched them go off along the passage through the main building, and in a moment Maister Veitch returned, supporting Mistress Mudie. She clung to his arm, her head bowed, her linen headdress unpinned and its folds pulled across her face, and the two figures reminded Gil of the supporters at the foot of a Crucifixion. They vanished into the kitchen; he waited, obedient to the significant look his teacher had given him, and after a while the old man emerged into the passage again and jerked his head.

‘Anselm has a word for you,’ he said. ‘Did you catch all the man said?’

Gil nodded.

‘He never left straight away,’ said Maister Veitch, ‘whatever he lets on.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ll let Anselm tell you.’

The remaining brethren were by the brazier in the hall as usual. Gil, looking round the group, saw that this second death had shaken most of them far more than the first. Cubby’s tremor was preventing him from speech, Duncan and Barty sat staring distantly into the charcoal glow mouthing at nothing, Maister Veitch himself looked more like a death’s-head than ever. Anselm, on the other hand, was livelier than Gil had yet seen him.

‘There you are, laddie. I’ve to tell you this,’ he said without preamble. ‘He says so. He says you’ll ken what to make of it.’

‘What have you to tell me?’

‘I’m telling you, am I no?’ The old man reached out to pat Socrates’ head, and the dog licked his wrist. ‘See last night, laddie. That man was here, aye? Puir Humphrey’s brither. I kent he was here, though nobody else did, for I saw him.’

‘Where did you see him, sir?’ asked Gil, since this seemed to be the expected question.

‘In the chapel,’ said Anselm, nodding triumphantly. ‘I was in there mysel, having a wee word. Times my own prayer-desk’s the right place, you see, and times the chapel’s right.’ He grinned toothlessly as Gil showed his understanding of this. ‘Agnew came in, and knelt at the altar steps. He seemed gey ower-wrought, muttering away, asking forgiveness for something. He never noticed me,’ he asserted, ‘for I wasny in my stall, I was outside the choir in a wee corner of my own I like to sit in. Then at the last he rose and went out.’

‘How long was he there?’ Gil asked. ‘When was this?’

‘It was just afore you came in,’ said Anselm firmly, ‘for I rose after him and went to see if the supper was ready, and I’d just sat down when you and your friend came in. And he’d been there a good time. Maybe the quarter of an hour, maybe as much as half an hour. And I’ll tell ye, I saw his face as he went, and I canny think he got what he asked.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Gil. ‘It’s good of you to take the trouble.’

‘Oh, I wouldny ha bothered,’ declared Anselm, ‘but he said it was a thing you should hear of.’

Gil withdrew, and cast a glance in at the door of the kitchen where Mistress Mudie sat lost in her terrifying silence while the three servants stood watching her; then he climbed up to the Deacon’s lodging, where at last there was the peace he craved.

He arranged the bundles of tape-bound accounts on the polished wood of the table, but he sat for some time with his hands folded on top of the nearest, staring unseeing at the bare trees of the Stablegreen visible in the thin sunshine beyond the end of the garden, with the dog lying on his feet.

He knew he should be considering how best to amerce his sister’s appalling misdemeanour, and how to break the news to his uncle, or else dealing with the almshouse and its problems — and what should he make of Anselm’s tale? Instead he found himself still resonant with that anger which had struck him in the hall in Rottenrow when he realized what his godfather was implying, combined with — yes, it was envy, he admitted. It had been Tib who trysted with Michael, Tib who waited in the dark outside the gate which he could just see, for her lover to bring the key and let her in. He shied away from imagining the embraces in privacy, the sweet surrender — but he saw again, clearly, the way she had swayed into Michael’s arms in the hall. The way Alys used to lean on me, he thought. St Giles assist me, I must deal justly with Tib, though I don’t know what justice might mean in the case. And there’s the bedehouse to consider too, though my head feels like a rotten turnip.

He rose and began pacing about, trying to marshal his thoughts about the bedehouse. The Deacon had almost certainly been killed elsewhere and put over the back wall an hour or two later, and left to stiffen under the trees. Meanwhile his killer, or another, had spent the night in this lodging, slept in the Deacon’s bed however briefly, attended Mass in his cloak and hat and then left the premises.

Why? he asked himself. The accounts, yes, but why the accounts? Why not the other papers? They were locked in the kist and the key was on the Deacon’s belt in the garden, of course. He paused a moment to think of the killer’s reaction at that point, and looked at the bundled accounts ranged across the table. We probably have all we’re going to get from these, he thought. The documents I took back to Rottenrow are the next step.

And Humphrey’s death last night, how did that fit? How much of Anselm’s story, which his invisible friend thought so important, should he take into account? Had Agnew talked his brother into a state where he would hang himself, and if so was it done deliberately? Had he done more than that? Or had John Veitch called for more reason than to see his uncle? Why would John need to dispose of Humphrey? Why would anyone, indeed, he wondered.

There were familiar footsteps on the stair up from the courtyard. Socrates raised his head and beat his tail on the floor as the door opened, then rose to greet the newcomer.

‘I went round by the house. Sister Dorothea thought I should find you here,’ said Maistre Pierre, patting the dog. He pulled another of the leather backstools up to the table and sat down. ‘She bade me tell you she would speak to Lady Kate. A bad business, Gil.’

‘Yes,’ said Gil baldly.

‘What will you do?’

Gil shrugged. ‘Wait. Think it over.’ He pulled himself together. ‘Did you manage to avoid Maggie? She was threatening a word with you.’

‘She got it, but she seemed subdued.’

‘St Giles be thanked. She should be grateful to you for seeing me home. As I am.’

‘How do you feel this morning?’

‘Evil,’ he admitted.

‘I am not surprised. I tell you, it’s the last time I suggest an evening’s drinking. I had no idea men of law could hold so much and still stay upright.’

‘Cunninghams are hard-headed.’

‘Like sailors.’ His friend eyed him carefully for a moment, then drew a bundle of papers towards him. ‘These are the tithes from Elsrickle,’ he said, mangling the name. ‘Where is that?’

‘The Upper Ward,’ said Gil, turning his head cautiously to read the superscription. ‘Beyond Biggar. It’s wool country, the takings should be good. Aye, maybe we need to go over these again. I’m certain there’s something in the papers I need to know.’

‘Perhaps also in the notes for the man’s new will.’

‘Well, those are in Agnew’s hands.’

‘But no. You have them.’

‘I do?’ Gil stared at him. ‘No, they’ll be in his chamber in the Consistory.’

‘They were,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, ‘but they are now in your possession. Do you not recall?’

‘Recall what?’ said Gil, in growing dismay. ‘When? What are you saying?’

‘Last night.’

‘Pierre, what are you talking about? What did we do?’

Maistre Pierre looked hard at him across the table.

‘We met the men we sought,’ he said, ‘in the fourth or fifth tavern.’

‘I recall that,’ Gil admitted, searching his memory. Details began to surface. The conversation with John Veitch had been difficult at first. It had taken a while to persuade the two sailors that he and Pierre were friendly, but they had succeeded eventually. It seemed the pair had not identified Gil with the man who had called at their lodging. Then what had happened? There were mariners’ tales in his head, one about a great worm that ate ships, another about fish which flew like birds. No certain information. ‘They told us little, I think,’ he prompted hopefully.

‘Oh, very little. They insisted they were on their ship the night we were asking about, which is patently not true, and I recall they told us a tale about how Dumbarton Rock fell from a giant’s apron. I think they said his apron.’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Gil vaguely.

‘Then the Watch came by and cleared the tavern, and you set off up the street.’ There was a gleam of humour in Maistre Pierre’s eye. ‘I thought I had best come too, and followed you, whereat you decided that we two must go and look at Agnew’s chamber.’

Gil shook his head. ‘I didn’t. Surely I didn’t.’

‘Oh, but you did. We had two lanterns, after all, and the tower was empty and you had your key to the great door.’ He grinned as Gil’s expression turned to horror. ‘All you lifted were the tablets.’

‘Then where are they now?’

‘You put them in your purse.’

‘No, these are mine — ’ He opened the purse and reached in, and froze as his fingers encountered, not the soft leather pouch in which his own set lived, but folds of brocade and a loop of braid. ‘Sweet St Giles protect me!’ he said. He set the alien object on the table and stared at it in deep dismay. ‘If these are Agnew’s, where are mine, Pierre?’

‘I have them. You put them down, possibly as an exchange, which I felt to be a bad idea.’ Maistre Pierre felt in a sleeve and produced Gil’s own set in its pouch. Gil looked from one to the other and buried his aching head in his hands.

‘This is theft,’ he said. ‘What was I thinking of? He could have me taken up by the Serjeant, or fined by the Sheriff.’

‘He need not know you took them,’ said Maistre Pierre reassuringly. ‘I am hardly like to tell him, since I was there, I am complicit in the theft.’

‘Did anyone see us in the tower?’

‘I do not think it. I saw no lights, at all events.’

‘St Giles be praised, I had no recollection of this when I saw the man here this morning. Is he still on the premises?’ Maistre Pierre shrugged. Gil stared at the brocade bag. ‘Perhaps I can put them back. Or maybe I could leave them in St Mungo’s, or the like.’

‘Without reading the notes?’

‘They may not help. Most of us use some private shorthand of broken words and odd letters, we may not be able to read his.’

‘I too,’ agreed the mason. ‘We can try.’

‘We could, I suppose.’

Almost of their own volition, Gil’s hands went out to the brocade bag and drew out the tablets it held. Maister Agnew had selected a set with covers of carved bone; the image on the front was a Crucifixion attended by a pair of gigantic robed figures, bowed in grief like Maister Veitch and Mistress Mudie.

‘Clumsy work,’ said Maistre Pierre disparagingly. ‘You cannot tell Our Lady from the Evangelist. Local, do you think?’

‘Not a Glasgow workshop.’ Gil reluctantly unwound the strip of braid which held the covers shut, and turned back the Crucifixion to reveal the first leaf, its hollowed surface filled with greenish wax and marked by neat lines of quickly incised notes. ‘Well, it makes sense of a sort, though his writing is not easy.’ He turned the leaf to study the other side. ‘These are notes from a few days ago. St Giles be thanked, he has dated them.’

‘What do they deal with?’

‘Not bedehouse business. A couple of dispositions. I mind my uncle mentioning this one, it’s been discussed in Chapter.’ He turned the next slat, and the next. ‘Aha! This one is headed Robt Nasmyth. Yes, this is it.’

‘And what does it say?’ asked Maistre Pierre after a moment. Gil tilted the leaf towards him. ‘No, I can make little of this. Scots I can read, but abbreviated Scots is another matter.’

‘I’d need the existing will to compare it,’ said Gil, ‘but it seems to be a fresh document rather than a codicil. He’s listing his possessions. As you said, properties in several parts of Glasgow. The furnishings here. A gold chain and some other jewels. The chain to Andro Millar if he is still sub-Deacon, the furnishings to a kinsman in Kirkintilloch, a property in the Gallowgait to Mistress Marion Veitch on condition, and the bulk of the rest to a Mistress Elizabeth Torrance, relict of one Andrew Agnew of Kilsyth.’

‘Brutal,’ commented Maistre Pierre.

‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘Interesting. The notes simply stop there. No sign of the residual legacy being conditional on the marriage.’ He lifted his own tablets and slid them from their purse. ‘These must go back, somehow, but first I’ll copy the dispositions. And then — I wish I could think clearly. I don’t understand what has happened here at all.’

‘If we go on asking questions, we may find out,’ said Maistre Pierre comfortably. ‘I have set the men to continue the search for the ladder.’

‘That’s good, though I suppose even if we do find it we may not learn much from it.’ Gil finished the copy and fastened the strip of brocade round the misappropriated tablets. ‘St Giles aid me, I must get these back without being caught.’ He lifted the brocade bag to push the tablets back in, and checked as something crackled inside it. ‘What’s this?’

‘Yet another document,’ said Maistre Pierre as Gil drew out a folded parchment. ‘Has he been working on it, to have left it with his tablets?’

‘I don’t know.’ Gil looked at the superscription. ‘It’s a copy of the Kilsyth disposition. It must be the family copy — he would have it, of course, if the parents are dead.’ He refolded the parchment carefully, tucked it back into the bag with the tablets, and put the whole thing into his purse. ‘We must confront Marion and possibly her brother as well with the scarf, I must try to recall what we learned from the sailors last night. There’s all to do here. And I suppose I have to speak to Tib. But first I must return these.’

‘Have you a pretext for calling on the man? Condolence, questions, information?’

‘Aye, that would be the best way. I’ll think of an excuse on the way round there.’ He rubbed at his eyes. ‘I’m too old for drinking sessions like that.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said his future father-in-law.