St Mungo's Robin

Chapter Eleven

In the event, there was no need of a pretext for calling at Agnew’s house. As they rounded the corner of the little chapel at the near end of Vicars’ Alley, a clamour broke out ahead of them, with shouting and indignant exclamations. Socrates growled warily, his hackles rising.

‘Mon Dieu, que passe?’ demanded Maistre Pierre. Gil made no answer but quickened his pace as a number of people emerged from the house next to the chapel and trampled noisily across its small garden, a powerful voice roaring at the centre of the group.

‘Ye willny take me! It wasny me killed him! Get yir hands off me!’

Doors opened along the street, heads popped out into the grey light, as servants and a few of the clerical residents responded to the noise. Socrates barked, other dogs joined in. Thomas Agnew appeared in his doorway, hat askew, shouting hoarsely over the tumult in his yard:

‘Take him if ye can, send for the Serjeant! Send to the Sheriff!’

‘What’s ado?’ Gil demanded of the nearest figure, just as the man tripped over a flying foot and went down full length. Helping him up, Gil found he knew him. ‘Habbie Sim, what are you at, brawling like this in the midst of the street?’

‘Agnew’s man’s dead,’ responded Maister Sim, brushing damp earth from his grey chequered hose, ‘and this fellow was found redhand wi the corp. But he’s no for being held.’ He settled his red velvet hat straight on his tonsure and turned back towards the action.

‘Hob dead?’ repeated Gil in astonishment.

‘I never touched him! I found him like that — ’ The man at the centre of the swaying, struggling group was on the ground too, pinned down among the winter kale with a captor kneeling on each limb. Gil craned round a liveried back and the prisoner saw him. ‘Gil Cunningham! You’ll speak for me — I’d no cause to kill this fellow, I never seen him afore in my life. Make them let me up!’

‘John Veitch,’ said Gil. ‘If they let you up, will you stand and answer?’

‘I will. I swear it.’ The big seaman wrenched at one arm, nearly unseating the fellow holding it. ‘I swear by St Nicholas’ pickle-tub. Only let me up off this kale!’

‘No — no — he’s slain Hob,’ cried Agnew wildly. ‘He’s lying in there in all his blood, the puir chiel, and this fellow standing ower him — ’

‘He’s sworn he’ll stand and answer,’ Gil said. ‘We can accept that, maister. I know John Veitch well.’ But well enough? he wondered. The five or six men who had taken the big seaman prisoner were reluctantly persuaded to let him stand up, and surrounded him watchfully as he lifted his plaid from the mud, then pulled his furred gown straight, replaced his lop-eared bonnet, and braced himself to face the crowd around him. Agnew was still demanding the presence of Serjeant or Sheriff and lamenting his servant. Gil cast a quick look round the gathering and turned to the other man of law.

‘Maister Agnew, wait a space,’ he said. ‘Here are ten of us in your yard, and five at least are householders. We can make a start on the matter, even if we still need to send to the Sheriff when we’re done.’

‘Aye, certainly,’ said Maister Sim eagerly at his elbow, ‘and find out what’s been going on here.’

‘Bloody death has been going on,’ pronounced Maistre Pierre, appearing on the doorsill behind Agnew. He met Gil’s eye over the heads of the crowd. ‘As has been said, a man lies within, dead in his blood and cooling fast. I would say he is dead at least an hour, perhaps two.’

‘An hour!’ repeated Agnew, turning to look at him.

‘An hour ago I was wi my uncle at the bedehouse,’ protested Veitch. ‘Send and ask him, he’ll tell you!’

‘Aye, nae doubt he will,’ said the man grasping his elbow, and there was some laughter. ‘But where were you in truth?’

‘We’ll begin at the beginning,’ said Gil. ‘Who accuses this man?’

‘Maister Agnew,’ said several voices. Agnew pulled himself together, smoothed down the breast of his dark red gown, and shooed away Socrates who was sniffing with interest at its furred hem. Gil snapped his fingers, and the dog came obediently to sit beside him.

‘I accuse him,’ Agnew said. ‘I am Maister Thomas Agnew, as you ken well, Maister Cunningham, and I’m a man of law practising here in the burgh.’ Heads were nodded round him in agreement. This was proper procedure.

‘And who is the man accused?’

‘John Veitch, as you ken well, Maister Cunningham,’ said the accused with a resilient gleam of humour. ‘Maister’s mate and one-third partner in the Rose of Irvine now lying at Dumbarton.’

‘He’s accusit,’ pursued Agnew without waiting for his cue, ‘that he slew my servant Hob, who lies in there dead, which I ken he did for I found him standing ower the corp when I came back to the house the now.’

Some of the group nodded again, but Gil’s friend Habbie Sim objected.

‘Tammas, if the man’s been dead an hour or more, that canny be right. It’s no as much as an hour since you came running out shouting. It canny be a halfhour, indeed.’

‘Aye, very true,’ agreed the man next to him.

‘An hour, half an hour, what matter?’ exclaimed Agnew. ‘I saw him, I tell you, neighbours, standing above the corp.’

‘John Veitch,’ said Gil formally, ‘what do you say?’

‘I slew nobody this day,’ said Veitch. A strange turn of phrase, thought Gil. ‘I came to the house to seek a word wi Maister Agnew here, and found the door standing unlatched. So I stepped in to wait, and found the servant lying in the hall,’ he nodded at the hall window, ‘and afore I could decide whether to call for help or if he was past aid, in comes Agnew and begins shouting Murder for the Serjeant.’

‘As well I might, seeing him standing there wi his hands all bloody!’

Veitch turned up his palms and looked at them.

‘One hand,’ he corrected. ‘Just the fingers, where I touched him.’ He held out both hands to Gil; as he said, the fingers of the right were sticky with blood, but neither the thumb nor the palm was marked. Gil pointed this out to the bystanders.

‘Aye, but it’s the man’s blood, sure enough,’ argued the man at Veitch’s other elbow, a stout fellow in St Mungo’s livery.

‘We canny tell that,’ said Gil mildly. ‘I see no other source of blood hereabouts, I agree, but it canny be proved that it is or it is not Hob’s blood. Now somebody has to view the body.’ He looked round the gathering again. More people had joined them, including some of the few women who dwelt in this street of clerics and songmen, but the original group would supply an assize. Selecting four of the likeliest including Maister Sim, he led them into the house. Agnew followed, gobbling indignantly.

‘Can we no get this over wi, send for the Serjeant and get the man taken away, so I can treat my poor servant decent and get his blood washed off him?’

‘It’ll no take long, Tammas,’ said Maister Sim, closing the door firmly in the faces of the interested bystanders.

The scene they encountered would give some of them ill dreams for months, Gil estimated. The hall stank of blood, and at its further end, on a crumpled heap of the fine rush matting, the man Hob was sprawled on his belly. Beside him, incongruously, lay a bundle of yellow-green kale leaves. The mats under him were soaked dark red, and his face was turned towards them, fixed in a grimace of astonishment. Socrates, head down and hackles up, stared warily back.

‘Aye, poor Hob,’ said one of the assize, and crossed himself. ‘He was a surly bugger, but he never deserved this. St Andrew call him from Purgatory.’

There was a general murmur of Amen and flurry of signings.

‘I have touched nothing save his cheek, to gauge how far he had cooled,’ said Maistre Pierre at Gil’s shoulder, ‘but so far as I can see it was several wounds to chest and belly that have bled like this’

‘Like Naismith,’ said Gil.

‘Aye, but all by the same hand by the look of it. None was like to be his death instantly, I would say he bled to death and it may have taken the length of a Te Deum.’

‘A good quarter o an hour,’ said Maister Sim the songman. ‘Wi all the trimmings.’

‘So it wasny a quick stab and Hob dropped deid,’ proposed the man who had spoken first.

‘Aye, you’re right, Willie,’ agreed another.

‘No, it was a savage attack on an innocent man!’ said Agnew.

‘Do you mean,’ said Maister Sim, shocked, ‘that Veitch stabbed him and then stood and watched him dee?’

‘We cannot tell that,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Certain he died unsuccoured, you have only to look, but there is nothing to say that he was watched.’

‘Now we’ve seen how he lies,’ said Gil, ‘we can look at the wounds. Pierre, give me a hand to turn him.’

They rolled Hob’s limp form over and laid him straight, staring now at the wall beyond the crumpled mats. Maister Sim, biting his lip, stepped closer but like the mason touched only the cheek of the reeking corpse, gathering his green brocade gown away from harm with the other hand.

‘I should say any of these wounds would have killed him eventually,’ said Maistre Pierre, turning back the slit and saturated jerkin. ‘You see them, maister?’

‘Aye, I see them,’ said Maister Sim, peering at the clotted hairy flesh. ‘Three to his chest at least, and a couple more in his wame.’ He retreated with some relief and looked at Gil thoughtfully. ‘You’re the Quaestor, man, and the huntmaster and all. What do you read here?’

‘There’s no sign he fought back,’ said Gil.

‘What about these mats,’ objected the fourth member of the assize, a minor cleric whose name Gil could not recall. ‘They’re turned up just where he lies, you see that.’

‘They’re none so easy rucked up,’ said the man called Willie, scuffing at the mat he stood on. ‘And there’s no other sign o a rammy Nothing owerset, and that fine pricket-stand still by the wall. Now me,’ he expanded, ‘if someone cam at me wi a knife, I’d ha seized that for a weapon. It’d take the feet from under anyone, that would.’

‘Aye, you’re right, Willie,’ agreed his friend. ‘So that’s a puzzle, that is.’

‘Was he maybe in the act of turning the mats?’ suggested Maister Sim, prodding the braided rushes with one red shoe. ‘These squares are stitched together, are they, six or eight at a time.’ He gestured to outline a mat. ‘So he was just turning a couple of them when he was surprised.’

‘Cut down in the midst of his day’s darg!’ exclaimed Agnew bitterly. ‘How long shall the wicked exult?’

‘Aye, but how was he no stabbed in the back?’ said Willie’s friend. ‘If he was bending to his work?’

‘He would stand to greet whoever came in,’ said the cleric.

‘He’d a gone to the door, surely,’ said Willie.

‘No if it was someone he knew,’ objected his friend. ‘Maybe the fellow just opened the door and shouted, the way you do when my maister’s no at home, and stepped within.’

‘The man Veitch claims no to have set eyes on Hob till he found him dead,’ said the cleric thoughtfully. ‘Maister Agnew, had Veitch ever been at your house afore this?’

‘No,’ said Agnew with reluctance, ‘no that I can say. But who’s to say he wasny here at some time when I was out the house?’

‘What was the weapon?’ Gil asked. ‘Is there any sign of it?’

‘He’d put it up afore I found him!’ expostulated Agnew. ‘Of course it’s no here, it’s at his belt!’

‘Dagger,’ said Maistre Pierre briefly, bending to inspect the cuts more closely. ‘Much like any in this hall,’ he added, casting an eye round the group.

‘So what do you read, Gil?’ prompted Maister Sim again. Gil looked the length of the hall and then down at the corpse.

‘He was taken by surprise,’ he said slowly. ‘He was in the midst of his day’s work, as Maister Agnew said, suspecting nothing. If he did answer the door to whoever slew him, he went back to his work when the man came in, so he’d no mistrust of him.’

‘Now that’s no like Hob,’ said Willie, and his friend nodded agreement.

‘And then what?’ asked the cleric. ‘Do you say they quarrelled?’

‘Nothing to show that,’ said Gil. ‘But Hob wasn’t expecting violence. His own blade’s still at his belt. He’s never touched it.’

‘That fits wi what we can see,’ said Maister Sim, and the other men nodded.

‘Should we have the man in that’s accusit,’ proposed Willie, ‘and get a look at his dagger?’

‘Aye, and make him touch the corp,’ agreed his friend. ‘That’ll show us whether he’s guilty, that’s for certain.’

‘And then we can send to the castle,’ said Agnew, ‘and get him taken away.’

‘We can take him round there ourselves, if he’s guilty,’ said the cleric.

The superstition had been useful before, Gil reflected, turning to the door to summon Veitch and his self-appointed guards. The widespread belief that if a man’s killer touched his corpse it would accuse him in some way meant that making someone touch a body could provide a good measure of how much guilt he felt, unless, like Gil, he was not impressed by the idea.

Veitch stepped into the room, rubbing at his arms where his keepers had gripped them. As many people as would fit into the doorway craned after him, with excited comments about the blood and the body.

‘Look at his dagger!’ exclaimed Agnew. ‘It’s the right size. Has it been used? Has he cleaned it maybe?’

‘Let me see your dagger, John,’ said Gil, holding out his hand. Veitch looked at him, then at the corpse, took a moment to cross himself at the sight then unfastened the weapon from his belt and passed it to Gil.

‘It’s clean and oiled,’ he said. ‘I saw to it on Sunday after Mass, as it’s my habit to do. The only other blade I’ve on me’s my wee eating-knife, and who in his right mind uses his eating-knife for murder?’

‘No if he wants to eat wi it again,’ agreed Willie’s friend. Gil drew the dagger from its sturdy leather sheath and turned it towards the window. As Veitch said, it was clean and well-kept, sharpened and gleaming dully in the thin light.

‘This has not been used since last it was cleaned,’ he said, showing it to the assize. ‘And there’s been no time to clean it since Murder was cried. It was not this weapon killed Hob.’

‘Then he used another,’ said Agnew. ‘Maybe Hob’s own dagger! I tell you, I found him standing red-hand ower the corp, he must be guilty!’

‘Tammas, that doesny follow,’ said the cleric. ‘I’ve stood ower a many men, aye and women and bairns, that I never slew.’

‘Aye, but that’s your calling,’ protested Agnew. ‘No, maisters, it’s plain enough, this is the fellow that slew my servant and we should have the Sheriff here, no some daft laddie placed by Robert Blacader to please his family.’

Gil made no comment, but handed Veitch’s weapon back to him, at which Agnew howled indignantly. Ignoring him, Gil said, ‘John, will you touch the corp for us?’

‘Gladly, aye,’ said Veitch, bracing his shoulders. ‘Mind, I’ve already touched him.’ He displayed his marked fingers, and stepped forward.

‘And do it wi some respect,’ challenged Agnew.

Veitch moved along the room to where Maistre Pierre still stood by the corpse with his beads in his hand. Agnew hurried jealously at his elbow and the four men of the assize followed closely. Gil outpaced them and stepped beyond the corpse to a position where he could watch them all, avoiding the blood-soaked matting, Socrates keeping position by his knee.

Veitch nodded to him, then went down on one knee by the body, crossed himself and reached out to touch the averted face. Like a striking adder, Agnew’s hand shot out and closed on his.

‘Make sure you touch him,’ he said savagely. ‘We’ll ha no pretence, man!’ He jerked at Veitch’s arm, slapping his open palm heavily down on Hob’s bloody breast.

Everyone present heard the faint groan which escaped the dead man under the blow. Gil felt the hair on his neck stand up.

‘Christ and Our Lady protect us!’ said Willie, stepping back and crossing himself.

‘Look! Look!’ crowed Agnew, white-faced. ‘I said — I said he slew Hob, and Hob himsel has tellt us it’s the truth!’

Veitch stared where he pointed, and then looked up at Gil, horrified. From the pallid lips of the corpse a thread of fresh blood was trickling.

‘It was the force of the blow caused him to groan,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘As I told the Sheriff. The last breath was still in the man’s lungs, and the blow forced it out.’

Gil nodded, aware of a level of relief at the explanation quite ridiculous in a rational man. ‘As if I punched you in the breastbone.’

‘Precisely. And if there was still liquid blood from where he bled inwardly, it might have gathered when you and I moved him, and that also was released by the blow. But I suppose,’ the mason continued gloomily, stepping over the puddle at the castle gatehouse, ‘there is no use in telling it to the witnesses.’ He looked back over his shoulder at the tower where John Veitch was now imprisoned, still vehemently protesting his innocence. ‘How long have we got?’

‘The morn’s morn, Sir Thomas said,’ Gil quoted in Scots. ‘Properly the law should be done on him within this sun, wi no more ado.’

‘If we ever see the sun,’ commented his friend in French.

‘Indeed. But since he won’t confess to guilt, and you’ve cast some doubt on it, there must be a more formal quest, and it might as well follow on from the quest on Deacon Naismith. I wish Sir Thomas had let me question John just now, but he was within his rights to refuse it. What worries me is that with three deaths in the Upper Town within three days, John may simply hang for the lot and the investigation will be closed whether I like it or no.’

‘Can the Sheriff do that? Surely your commission is direct from the Archbishop.’

‘Aye, and as Archbishop not as overlord,’ Gil agreed, ‘but ultimately, in Blacader’s absence, Sir Thomas represents the law in the burgh.’ They reached the Wyndhead, and he paused, looking down the Drygate. ‘Look at this. Someone must have taken the news to her.’

Marion Veitch was hurrying towards them, skirts gathered up, the ends of her plaid flying, the kitchenmaid Bel at her side. Seeing them she changed direction and halted in front of them, panting.

‘Gil Cunningham, what’s this they tell me about my brother?’ she demanded. ‘He never slew a man in Vicars’ Alley! I’ll no believe it!’

‘I don’t believe it either, but he was found standing above the body,’ said Gil, and she clapped both hands over her open mouth. ‘I tried to act for him, Marion, but the bystanders insisted he touch the dead and the corp bled. He’s in the castle now, and there’s to be a quest on it the morn’s morn.’

She swayed, and Bel jumped forward to support her.

‘There, mistress, hold up!’ she said. ‘Come and sit down yonder.’

Maistre Pierre took her other arm, and they helped her to the foot of the Girth Cross where she sat limply on the steps, staring at Gil.

‘He never,’ she said. ‘He never.’

‘Why did he go to Agnew’s house?’ Gil asked. She shook her head. Socrates sat down beside her, and she patted him mechanically.

‘To ask about the will. Is it Agnew that’s slain? What happened, Gil? Why’s John been taken?’

‘Agnew came back to his house, so he says,’ Gil related precisely, ‘and found his man Hob stabbed and bled to death, and John standing above the corp.’

‘When did your brother leave you?’ Maistre Pierre asked. She rubbed a hand across her brow, pushing her linen cap askew.

‘Kind o late in the morning. After Sext, maybe?’ She shivered, pulling her plaid closer about her, and Bel bent to put an arm round her.

‘Come back to the house, mistress,’ she urged. ‘There’s nothing you can do the now.’

‘No — no, I want to see John. He’ll be — ’

‘They’ll no let you in, mistress. Come back and get warm,’ Bel coaxed.

‘Indeed I think it wiser,’ offered Maistre Pierre. ‘Come, we will walk with you.’

After a little more argument she got to her feet and set off weakly down the Drygate, her maid supporting her protectively. The street was busy, with people returning from the market further down the High Street, but she made her way among the passers-by without apparently seeing them.

‘I’ll no believe it,’ she said again. ‘He’d no call to. He’d not been to the man’s house afore, he’d likely have to ask the way. Why should he kill someone he never saw afore?’

‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘Now if we can find whoever he asked — ’

‘Would you?’ She turned her blue eyes on him. ‘Would you ask about, Gil?’

‘I will,’ he said, ‘if you’ll answer a few things for me.’

‘Aye,’ she said after a moment. ‘I suppose. Fair’s fair.’

Back at the house she seemed to have recovered a little from the shock of John’s arrest, and dismissed Bel with affectionate thanks, though the girl would have stayed with her. Seated in the hall, upright and formal in the great chair which must have been Naismith’s, her visitors on the tapestry-upholstered stools, she said, ‘Did you find that woman you were asking for?’

‘I did,’ said Gil. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you at a bad moment yestreen. This is no a lot better.’

‘Oh, I’m no much occupied right now,’ she said, with faint irony. ‘What are these questions you’ve got?’

Gil looked at Maistre Pierre, but found his friend’s attention on the ceiling, beyond which Frankie was talking to someone. Occasional sounds of sweeping suggested it was Eppie.

‘One or two things,’ Gil said, and hesitated. ‘Marion, you said John went to ask about the will. Do you ken what the Deacon’s original will was like?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘He never showed you it?’

‘No,’ she said again. Under the crooked cap her oval face was pale and pinched. Above them the child began singing again, the same tune as last night. Socrates cocked his ears to listen, but did not move from his position at Gil’s feet.

‘I know what the new one was to have been,’ Gil persisted, and checked as he realized that Agnew’s tablets were still in his sleeve. Well, it had been no moment to return them. ‘I wondered how much you were to lose by it,’ he went on.

‘He said he’d see me right,’ she said indifferently. ‘I aye trusted him.’

‘But the trust was misplaced,’ said Maistre Pierre. She flicked a quick glance at him — was she startled? Gil wondered.

‘Yes,’ she said, and shivered.

‘He never settled any property on you?’ Gil asked. She shook her head. ‘Or got you to witness any of his papers?’ Another shake of the head. ‘Did you sign anything for him?’

‘He kept all his business separate,’ she said at last. ‘I kent nothing about the bedehouse, nor his transactions in the burgh. Thomas Agnew tells me they’re considerable, but I never heard of any of them.’

‘Agnew’s spoken to you?’ said Gil, startled. ‘What was that about?’

‘Oh, aye. This morning.’

‘This morning?’ repeated Gil. ‘Before or after John went to see him?’

‘Oh, long afore. That’s why he went, see,’ she explained. ‘The man was here and spoke to me about the Deacon’s business, explained that all he left uncompleted would be void now, but he never said aught about the will. So John gaed to ask him when he came back fro the bedehouse.’

Gil waited, but no more was forthcoming. After a moment he changed the subject.

‘Marion, when did your brother come to Glasgow?’

Another quick glance.

‘Two days since,’ she said. ‘No, it’s the day afore that now, isn’t it? The day Naismith dined here and then — ’ She stopped, apparently unwilling to finish the sentence, her expression quite blank. ‘John turned up at my door afore noon that day,’ she resumed, ‘and I was fair glad to see him, for he’d been away almost four year. He’d never set een on my wee girl.’

‘He was on his own?’

‘On his own.’

‘Was it a good venture?’ asked Maistre Pierre with professional interest. ‘Where had he been?’

‘He’s pleased enough,’ she said. ‘I don’t know all where he’s been. Spain and the Middle Sea and Araby maybe.’

‘As far as cercled is the mappemounde,’ offered Gil.

Marion glanced briefly at him, but merely went on, ‘He’s come home a wealthy man.’ She put up a hand to cover her mouth. ‘And what good it’ll do him — ’

‘Has he been to Portingal?’ suggested Maistre Pierre. The smile vanished.

‘No, that was — ’ She bit off the words. ‘That was one place he never said,’ she finished carefully. Maistre Pierre looked at her oddly, but did not comment.

Gil felt in his sleeve and drew out the stained scarf.

‘Do you ken this piece of linen, Marion?’ he asked, unfolding it. She looked at it, and her gaze sharpened.

‘No,’ she said. ‘What is it? Where did you get it?’

‘It has an initial on it,’ he said, turning the end of the strip towards her. She made no attempt to reach for it. ‘Or perhaps two. It might be N, it might be I V.’

‘It might be a number,’ she suggested. ‘What’s the stains on it? Where did you get it?’ she asked again.

‘I think it was dropped by whoever put Deacon Naismith into the bedehouse garden,’ said Gil, watching her carefully. Her eyes widened slightly.

‘You mean it was in the garden?’ she said, still staring at the thing.

‘Not in the garden,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Maister Cunningham’s dog found it.’

Again the quick glance at him. Then her eyes went back to the scarf, studying the fine white stitchery on the end Gil was holding up.

‘I’ve never seen it afore,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ Gil asked. ‘We thought it might be a towel, or else a neck-scarf, but women ken more about such things.’

She shook her head. ‘It could be either.’ Gil held it out to her, and she shrank away from it. ‘Where did you say you found it?’

‘Where would you think such a thing might be found?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘How would I ken?’ she asked, her voice rising slightly. ‘I–I don’t — I’ve never seen it afore,’ she reiterated.

The house door opened. She looked up, and something like relief crossed her face. Socrates scrambled to his feet and Gil turned, as a man’s voice demanded, ‘Marion, have you seen John this day?’

A big voice, not shouting but pitched to carry in a gale. Maistre Pierre looked at Gil, his eyebrows rising, and round the open door appeared a man to match the voice, big and broad, booted feet planted firmly on the wide boards, his short dark curls level with the carved lintel. Rankin Elder, drinking companion of John Veitch, who had told them the tales of flying fishes in a tavern on the High Street.

‘You!’ he said, staring at them, and put his seaman’s bonnet back on his head. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Rankin — John’s been taken up by the constables!’ said Marion. ‘They’re saying he’s killed a man in Vicars’ Alley.’

Elder pursed his lips in a silent whistle, and came forward to Marion’s side, putting one hand on the back of her chair and looking down at her in concern, his manner subtly possessive.

‘And did he?’

‘We do not think so,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Is there any need for you to be here?’ demanded Elder, turning his head to look at them again. ‘Mistress Veitch is grieving for her friend,’ he added formally, ‘and she doesny need to be pestered wi questions.’

‘I’m trying to find out who killed her friend,’ said Gil, putting a little emphasis on the term. And why did he assume we’re questioning her, he wondered. ‘That’s why I’m asking questions. Have you seen this before?’

He held up the strip of linen. Elder cast it a cursory glance and said, ‘Looks like John’s neckie. He’d lost it. Where did you — Is that blood on it? When did that happen? He was well enough the morn when he left the lodging.’

‘When did he lose it?’

‘Och, it was days ago.’ The man relaxed. ‘Was it the night he fetched me from Dumbarton that he missed it?’ Marion was staring up at him, frozen with dismay. Belatedly he met her eyes, and backtracked. ‘I don’t recall. Might ha been sooner than that.’

‘When was that?’ asked Gil.

‘Three nights since, if it’s any of your mind.’

‘Three nights? The night Naismith died? When did he set out to fetch you?’

‘I’ve no idea about that,’ said Elder. ‘He reached me some time the third watch. And that’s certainly none of your mind.’

‘And you’re sure the scarf is John Veitch’s property?’

‘No,’ said Elder. He looked at Marion again. ‘And now you’ll leave, gentlemen, while we think what’s to do about John. And whatever we do, we’ll do it without your help.’

The noon bite in the house in Rottenrow was much as Gil had feared. However since his uncle was not present and Alys was, he could have eaten dry stockfish and not noticed.

She was in the hall, helping Maggie and Sister Agnes set up the board for the meal when they came in. Socrates hurried forward to speak to her, nudging her with his long nose. Her face lit up, and as soon as the cloth was straight she left the task and came to kiss Gil.

‘Dorothea has told me,’ she said quickly in French. ‘About Tib, I mean. I came up — I’ve been with her — Gil, you won’t be severe with her, will you?’

He had no chance to answer before her father claimed her, embracing her as if he had not seen her a few hours previously. Maggie eyed Maistre Pierre and said, through the clatter of the wooden trenchers she was distributing, ‘There’s just the one hot dish for the table, since we’re all owerset the day, but there’s plenty bread and half a kebbock o cheese. We’ll no go hungry.’

‘Where is Tib?’ Gil asked. Maggie grunted.

‘Shut in her chamber and willny speak to me,’ she announced. ‘Says she’ll no eat. Lady Dawtie’s wi her the now, but …’ Her voice trailed off, and she continued setting the table. Alys returned to help her, and Gil gestured for Maistre Pierre to wash his hands at the bright majolica cistern by the door.

‘Have you been at the bedehouse?’ said Alys in Scots. ‘How are they this morning?’

‘The old men are all very shaken, and Mistress Mudie hasn’t spoken since last night, I think.’

‘Ah, the poor woman. She has suffered a great loss — that man was the centre of her life.’ Alys inspected the table. ‘Is that it, Maggie? Shall I tell Dorothea we are ready?’

When the household was seated, without Tib, and Dorothea’s secretary had said Grace for them, Alys returned to the same subject. Gil appreciated her restraint; he had no wish to discuss Tib’s misbehaviour in the hearing of the stable-hands. It was surprising how much French the men understood, particularly at times like this when they probably knew more than he did about the subject already.

‘Did you learn any more, Gil? Is there anything new since last night?’

‘Not at the bedehouse,’ said Gil. ‘Anselm had an odd tale about Agnew, but that was all.’

‘No,’ said her father gloomily, ‘all is happening elsewhere today.’

‘Why, what’s happening?’ asked Dorothea.

‘John Veitch is taken up for killing Agnew’s servant,’ supplied Gil.

‘I heard that!’ exclaimed Tam from further down the table. ‘Is that right the corp sat up and accusit him?’

‘That Hob wouldny tell you the time o day,’ objected the other stable-hand, Patey. ‘I canny see him telling tales like that after he’s deid.’

Beside him Matt nodded agreement, but did not speak.

‘Does Marion know?’ asked Dorothea.

‘She does.’ Gil described their meeting with Marion and the encounter with Rankin Elder at the house.

‘A sailor?’ said Maggie. ‘That would explain it, wouldn’t it no? If he’s been at sea all this time.’

‘It would explain much,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, accepting the dish of bannocks from Gil. Dorothea cocked her head enquiringly, and he set the bannocks down and began to enumerate on his fingers. ‘Item. She said she had never seen Naismith’s original will, did not know what was in it, but she was seated in the master’s great chair as if she is now owner of the house.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Alys. She captured the bannocks and sent them down the table. ‘She is about to become a respectable wife.’ She glanced quickly at Gil and away again, blushing.

‘Item. She has spoken to the man of law this morning but it seems they spoke only about Naismith’s transactions in the burgh. Item. Her brother returned the day the man was killed, apparently alone, from a successful venture to Spain and the Middle Sea, but not to Portugal though the child was singing a Portuguese song.’

‘Oh, is that what it was?’ said Gil, understanding.

The mason nodded. ‘And then the linen cloth,’ he went on.

‘She knew it well,’ Gil said. ‘I would say she knew every stitch.’

‘When she realized it was connected with Naismith’s death, she was frightened,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘She pretended not to know what the stains were.’ Dorothea snorted inelegantly, and Alys coloured. ‘That was when our drinking-companion of last night appeared.’

‘I heard about last night,’ said Dorothea, with an amused look at Gil. ‘Maggie seems to feel there’s no ale left in Glasgow today. How’s your head?’

‘Don’t ask.’ Gil took up the thread. ‘Anyway Rankin Elder recognized the piece of linen as John’s property, which he had lost — ’

‘Ah!’ said Dorothea.

‘Exactly,’ agreed Maistre Pierre.

‘Which he said John had already lost when he fetched Elder from Dumbarton three nights since.’

‘Three nights?’ queried Alys. ‘What did he mean by that? Before or after the Deacon died?’

‘He was not in the mood to answer more questions,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘It doesn’t work,’ said Gil, rubbing his forehead. ‘There isn’t time.’

‘Time?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘For John to have gone to Dumbarton the same night the Deacon died,’ supplied Dorothea, ‘whether this other man helped him at the bedehouse or not.’

‘And yet the widow said John wasn’t in his bed that night, but turned up in the morning along with Elder, as if the two of them had made a night of it.’

‘With their feet wet, you said,’ the mason recalled.

‘Elder’s boots are too big,’ said Gil, ‘but John’s that were drying — the ones that had got wet — are a good size to have made the prints we found.’

‘He’d a temper,’ said Matt from further down the table. Gil looked at him. ‘Veitch.’

‘He’s right, you ken,’ said Maggie doubtfully. ‘I mind you and him fighting, Maister Gil. I’ve no knowledge o this man Elder — did I hear he was an Ayrshire man, from whatever port John sails out of?’

‘That would be the accent,’ Gil agreed.

‘They’re saying he’s her sweetheart home from sea,’ contributed Tam from opposite Matt. ‘And he’s driven off this giant wi the bloody sword that was haunting the wynd where she dwells.’

‘Certainly,’ said Gil, ‘I’d believe he was wee Frankie’s father.’ He looked at Alys. ‘Just like that romance we thought of. She’s even named the child for him, if Rankin is a by-name for Francis the way it usually is.’

‘Is that right!’ said Maggie. ‘I aye thought it wasny the Deacon.’

‘Maister Gil,’ said Matt. ‘The woman Chisholm.’

‘I found her,’ said Gil, ‘but she’s no a Chisholm, she’s a Dodd.’

‘Oh, her,’ said Patey ‘My sister Jessie and her waiting-woman is gossips. Thinks gey well o herself, she does.’

‘Chisholm, Dodd. One of they names,’ said Matt, spooning yesterday’s kale.

‘A Dodd? Is that Ellen Dodd?’ said Maggie sharply. ‘Dwells off the Drygate?’ Gil nodded. ‘Well, well. Thomas Agnew’s mistress, is she? No wonder she puts on airs. Her and her jewels.’ She spread one large red hand and looked at it. ‘If I’d gone that road, nae doubt I’d have jewels and all.’

‘You have treasure in Heaven, Maggie,’ said Dorothea softly.

Maggie sniffed. ‘Aye, very like. But I’ll have a word to say to Jennet Clark, so I will, letting her sit in at her hearth talking as if she’s a married woman.’

When the meal was ended, the table cleared, the men retired to the kitchen with Maggie, and the family gathered round the hearth, Dorothea and Alys looked at one another. Dorothea nodded slightly, and Alys turned to Gil.

‘Gil,’ she said formally, ‘Tib has something to say to you. Will you hear her?’

Assuming the well-worn phrase meant an apology of some kind, Gil grimaced, but nodded, and she slipped from the hall.

‘Did you tell Kate?’ Gil asked Dorothea.

‘I did, and stayed with her a while,’ agreed his sister. ‘She’s fair grieved to think Tib met the laddie under her roof, but I think that can’t be right.’

‘Surely not,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Perhaps in the market, or about the burgh?’

‘She’s known him most of her life,’ Gil pointed out, ‘and so has Kate. None of us could ha guessed they’d — ’ He stopped, biting off the words.

‘Bed one another,’ supplied Dorothea bluntly, just as Alys returned hand-in-hand with Tib. There seemed to be a new understanding between the two girls; Gil glanced at Dorothea, who smiled encouragingly. Maistre Pierre strolled casually to the far side of the room, and fell into contemplation of the little altarpiece in David Cunningham’s small oratory where master secretary Herbert was already engrossed in copying out a document. Tib let go of Alys and came forward to where Gil stood by the hearth. Stiff-necked, she went down on one knee and whispered uncomfortably,

‘My brother, I acknowledge that I have behaved badly, and I ask your pardon.’

Embarrassed and astonished, he stared at her. Although she had obviously spent the morning weeping, behind the puffiness her eyes were hot with anger. The formal apology was costing her dear. Nor, it occurred to him, had she expressed any sort of contrition. She had said just enough to allow him to answer her without loss of dignity as nominal head of the family, a consideration which meant nothing to him but a great deal to Alys.

Across the hearth Dorothea cleared her throat meaningfully, and he realized that he was still staring at Tib, who was beginning to look apprehensive.

‘Oh, get up, Tib,’ he said, putting his hand out to her. ‘That was well done. Do it again for the old man and we may dig you out of the pit yet.’

She scrambled to her feet, acknowledging his comment with a wry look, accepted his kiss and said, ‘Aye, but there’s more, Gil.’ Alys came forward to stand beside her, and she looked along her shoulder at the other girl. ‘Alys thinks I might have something useful to tell you.’

There was a muffled exclamation, and Maistre Pierre swung round from his study of the little Annunciation scene. Gil stared at his sister in dismay, and after a moment she looked down, fidgeting with one foot.

‘I never thought, till the day,’ she admitted. ‘And how could I ha told you if I had?’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Gil fairly. ‘Go on.’

‘When I was — when I — ’ She swallowed, straightened up, and began again in the middle of the tale. ‘I went to the back gate of the bedehouse and waited for M-Michael to let me in.’ Gil nodded. ‘I had a light, but I held it low. There was somebody else moving about the Stablegreen, wi no light, or maybe a shut-lantern. I saw nothing, but I could hear movement.’

‘Could it have been an animal?’ Gil asked. ‘A goat, maybe? A pig?’

She shook her head.

‘It was bigger than that. It could ha been Finn mac Cool,’ she said, with a sort of inverted bravado. ‘I was that feart, and Michael took for ever to come to the gate, and someone had left a great cart by the wall that I walked into and bruised my hip. I tell you, Gil, by the time I got through the gate and into the light I was near screaming.’

‘A cart,’ he said. Alys nodded; beyond the hearth Dorothea turned and moved to the settle. ‘What kind of cart, Tib?’

‘One of those handcarts. Two wheels and two handles.’

‘And two legs at one end to hold it steady when it’s not being pushed along,’ he said, and met Maistre Pierre’s eyes across the room. ‘What like was it, Tib? Did you see what colour it was?’

‘Colour? By lantern-light? It was dark-coloured,’ she said rather sharply, ‘that’s all I can tell you, and there was a fancy pattern on the end bit between the handles, done in light paint.’

‘But no name or sign of who it belonged to?’ She shook her head. ‘Could you draw me the pattern?’

‘Likely.’

‘Tib, was the cart empty?’

She swallowed hard. ‘No, it wasny. There was a kind of big dark bundle tied on it wi a rope. Was — was that the dead man, Gil?’

‘You tell me,’ he said. ‘Was it big enough to be a body?’

‘It could have been,’ she said, and swallowed again. ‘If he was maybe curled up.’ She bent her head and whispered something he did not catch.

‘Oh, no, Our Lady be praised you did not look closer!’ said Alys, putting an arm round her. ‘Who knows what might have happened?’

‘Amen to that,’ said Gil.

There was a pause, and then Tib looked up in consternation. ‘Yo u’re saying it was whoever killed him that I heard moving about out on the Stablegreen? So I was right to be feart?’

‘Likely it was,’ agreed Gil. Across the room Maistre Pierre met his gaze again, and reached for his cloak. As his friend’s footsteps diminished down the stair to the front door, Gil continued, ‘Tib, thank you for telling me this. I’d ha thought of asking you sooner or later, I’ve no doubt, but you’ve saved us some time.’

‘Aye, well. You haveny gone into the speech about See what happens when a lassie misbehaves,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful for that, Gil.’

‘Can you add anything else?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve thought and thought, but I don’t recall any more.’

‘The gate was locked, was it? And you left it locked again?’

‘Oh, the gate. Aye, it was locked fast, and M-Michael took the time to secure it again, though I was trying to pull him away to come into the light. And in the morning …’ She paused, thinking it through. ‘Aye, it was still locked in the morning.’

‘What about lights in the bedehouse? Movement?’

‘I wasny attending,’ she said, with one of her wry looks, and suddenly blushed scarlet. Then, just as suddenly and to her own obvious embarrassment, she began to cry. ‘Oh, Michael! Oh, Alys, when will I see him again?’

Alys exclaimed in sympathy and drew her to the settle, but Dorothea took her hand and said more astringently, ‘Come on, come on, Tib. Greeting’s no help. Far better to be at your prayers in your own chamber.’

‘What, for forgiveness?’ said Tib sharply through her tears.

‘Contrition has to come first,’ said Dorothea. ‘More use to ask Our Lady for a solution to your difficulties.’

‘That is true. You might get an answer,’ said Alys, patting her other hand.

‘Oh, she’ll get an answer. And it might not be No.’