St Mungo's Robin

Chapter Thirteen

Sir Thomas Stewart, extricated without visible reluctance from an evening’s music in his own lodging, heard Gil’s report of Eck Paton’s evidence with a frown.

‘I see what you mean,’ he agreed at the end. ‘If the laddie’s that certain, our man had by far too little time to do his business afore Agnew came home. The corp was last seen alive just after Prime, you say? Did his maister say when he saw him last? Had he left by that hour?’

‘You’ll need to get that from him, sir,’ suggested Gil. ‘I ken I saw Maister Agnew at the bedehouse no long after Terce the day. I can ask Andro Millar what hour he got there.’

‘Aye, do that. And the bedehouse. The bedehouse!’ said Sir Thomas impatiently. Small, neat and balding, he tipped back his head and peered at Gil across his cluttered desk. ‘What’s this I hear about the second man that died? That was the bedesman, wasn’t it no? The one that’s mad? Only now he’s rose up and cured of his madness?’

‘So it seems,’ agreed Gil with caution.

‘Did the poor soul do away wi himself first,’ Sir Thomas crossed himself at the thought, ‘or did someone else do it for him? And if it was murder, was it this fellow Veitch? He’s got kin in the bedehouse, hasn’t he, he’d have the run of the place likely.’

‘Humphrey doesny recall,’ said Gil regretfully. ‘He says the last he minds is going to his rest after dinner yesterday. There’s some doubt in my mind whether he hanged himself or someone else did it for him, and if it was someone else, then it’s surely linked to the Deacon’s death some way. As to the servant in Vicars’ Alley, I need to find out more.’

‘The Deacon!’ said Sir Thomas. ‘I ken you’re looking into it, Maister Cunningham, but are you anywhere near bringing me a whole tale for the quest on Deacon Naismith?’

‘I might be,’ said Gil circumspectly.

‘Are they all separate? Two deaths in the bedehouse is bad enough, another in Vicars’ Alley as well is too much to swallow, maister. It wasny this man Veitch killed all three, then?’ suggested Sir Thomas again, without much hope.

‘Likely not all three,’ said Gil. ‘May I speak to him? I’ve a thing or two to ask him.’

‘Aye, you might as well speak to him. He’s not been questioned yet.’ Sir Thomas rose. ‘Is there anything else you need to tell me?’

‘Not at the moment,’ said Gil, considering the point. ‘I’ve the matting that Agnew’s servant lay on when he died. I’ll get a look at that the morn’s morn afore the two quests.’

‘What good will that do?’ demanded the Provost.

‘It might tell us how he bled, which of the wounds was the most fatal.’

‘I suppose so.’ Sir Thomas contemplated the idea, and gathered his wine-coloured velvet gown about him. ‘Sooner you than me, laddie. Come down now, and I’ll bid Archie let you in to see the man Veitch. And then, I suppose, I’ll have to get away back to hear these musicians my wife brought in. Howling like cats, they are, and all in French or some such tongue. What her ladyship’s thinking o I’ve no idea.’

John Veitch’s clothes were already showing the effects of half a day’s imprisonment. The cell he lay in stank of damp and human waste, and the smell and the green mould clung to his hose and his brown plaid and short furred gown. His spirit did not appear to be daunted.

‘Aye, Gil,’ he said. ‘I looked for you sooner. What’s ado, then, can you tell me that?’

‘No yet,’ said Gil. He looked about him in the light of the candle Veitch had been allowed, and sat down cautiously on the end of the stone bench. ‘Tell me what happened, John.’

‘Tellt you that already,’ Veitch pointed out, sitting down likewise. ‘I found the door standing unlatched, so I pushed it open and went in, and found the poor fellow lying in his blood. Then while I was still trying to see if it was worth calling help to him, his maister came in and set up a cry of Murder.’

‘As soon as he stepped in the door?’ Gil asked. Veitch looked sharply at him, suddenly very like his kinsman in the bedehouse.

‘As soon as he stepped in the door,’ he confirmed. ‘I heard the step on the doorsill, and turned my head, and he took one look and began to shout.’

‘When you got to Vicars’ Alley,’ said Gil after a moment, ‘did you speak to anyone?’

‘Oh, aye. I asked the way a couple of times, never having been there. It’s no easy to find, tucked away at the back of St Mungo’s like that. A woman at the Wyndhead, a fellow by the Consistory wi a mason’s apron. Then when I found it there was a lad cutting kale or something in one of the wee yards, and he pointed me at the door next to his, which was Agnew’s.’

Gil nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to the boy cutting kale,’ he said. ‘If we can get him to speak up the morn, he’ll confirm that.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Veitch grimaced. ‘A man can meet his end at any time, I ken that, but I’d as soon no meet mine being hung for a killing I didny do.’

‘And the man Naismith?’

‘I didny do that neither,’ said Veitch firmly. ‘The last I saw him, he went out my sister’s house in a strunt because she didny take it well that he was to wed and put her out from under that roof. I never set eyes on him again till he was laid out in the washhouse at St Serf’s.’

‘Would you swear to that?’

‘I would.’

Gil felt in his sleeve and produced the stained linen scarf again. ‘Have you seen this before?’

‘Is that — ?’ Veitch took it and turned it round, holding the embroidery to the light. He felt the stitched initials between finger and thumb, and nodded. ‘Aye, it’s mine. Where’s it been? How’d it get blood on it? It was clean the day I lost it.’

‘When was that?’

‘Same day I last saw Naismith.’ Gil raised his eyebrows at this, and Veitch frowned. ‘It’s a long tale.’

‘I’ve time to listen.’

It seemed to be only half the tale nevertheless. The previous Saturday Veitch had ridden in from Dumbarton where the Rose of Irvine was lying, and taken lodgings with the widow in St Catherine’s Wynd. On Sunday he had traced his sister to the house by the Caichpele, and appeared on her doorstep with gifts to receive a warm welcome from Marion and later a chillier one from the Deacon when he arrived to eat his supper and deliver his unwelcome news.

‘I judged she deserved better of him,’ said Veitch, indignation still warming his tone, ‘and tried to tell him so, but he wouldny listen to me, called me an ignorant mariner and accused me of wanting to live off my sister.’ He laughed shortly. ‘If he’d kent what the Rose’s last cargo was worth he’d ha sung another tune. So then he said he wouldny stay there to argue wi me, and he’d no look to find me there when he returned, and he went down the stair and collected up his cloak and hat and left. And I wondered if he’d lifted my neckie and all,’ he admitted, ‘for I couldny find it when I left the house myself, but searching for the thing by lantern-licht was a fruitless task. So where did you find it?’

‘On the Stablegreen,’ said Gil.

‘The Stablegreen? St Nicholas’ bones, man, how’d it get there?’

‘I’m still trying to find out.’ Gil reached out to take the object back. ‘What did you do after Naismith left the house?’

‘Now I tellt you that already as well. Comforted Marion so far as I might, sang the wee one a song when she was in her cradle, the bonnie wee lass she is,’ an involuntary smile spread across Veitch’s face, ‘and gaed down the hill to my lodging.’

‘And that would be what time?’

Veitch shook his head. ‘Two-three hour afore midnight, maybe. Time passes different on dry land, somehow.’

‘Did you meet anyone on the way?’

‘Oh, aye. No that it was busy, that time o night, but there was the usual traffic atween taverns, and the odd serving man or maid heading for home, and a pack o merchants’ sons whooping by the Tolbooth, out for trouble. Oh, aye, and one bonnie lass walking up the High Street. I thought of her when I saw the young callants, but she’d been up by the Bell o’ the Brae when I saw her, and she’d a man wi her, carrying her box on his shoulders, so I reckoned she’d be safe enough.’

Gil noted this, and set it aside to consider later. ‘And then what did you do?’

‘Went back to the Widow Napier’s house and gaed to my bed.’

Gil tipped his chin back and gave Veitch a challenging stare in the candlelight.

‘Did you so?’ he said.

‘Aye.’

‘That’s not what the Widow Napier said.’

‘Is it not?’

There was a pause, in which the man on guard outside could be heard whistling dolefully. Then Gil said, ‘It’s not what I think either. I think you went to Dumbarton.’ He patted the sleeve where he had stowed the embroidered linen. ‘I showed this to Marion and she denied knowing what it was, let alone whose, but when your friend Rankin Elder came into the house he knew it at once for yours, and said you’d missed it already the night you fetched him from Dumbarton.’ Veitch was silent under his gaze. ‘Did you borrow one of the boats down by Glasgow Brig?’

After a moment the other man grinned, and nodded.

‘If you’ve worked out that much,’ he admitted, ‘there’s no point denying it. Aye, I borrowed one of the fisher-folk’s boaties. Neat wee thing she was, got me down to Dumbarton afore midnight wi a sail someone had left in St Nicholas’ chapel at the vennel-foot, and the tide was just on the turn by that so we took a couple pair of oars out the Rose’s tender and came back up with the flow.’

‘And stowed the oars under the Widow Napier’s bed,’ Gil hazarded, suddenly recalling the bundle of timbers. Veitch nodded. ‘And the reason it was so needful to bring Elder upriver afore the dawn?’

‘You mean you’ve no worked that out yet?’ said Veitch mockingly

‘To protect your sister, of course,’ returned Gil, ‘but what had you done to make it so urgent?’

Veitch grimaced. ‘Nothing I’d done, Gil, I gie you my word on it. It was the state Marion was in at the thought o being homeless — threatening to do away wi herself at one point, crying out that she’d sooner be dead than back keeping house for our brother, which I can well understand, and then I put two and two thegither and realized Frankie was never Naismith’s get. She’s got Marion’s een, but wi that hair and the age she is, she has to be Rankin’s bairn. Now Rankin’s a sight closer to me than my brother William, we’ve shared a cabin on and off for four year, and he’s never mentioned a bairn. So I gaed down the water to have it out wi him, and as soon’s he heard — ’

‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘Nothing would do but he come up the river to speak to Marion?’

‘That’s it,’ agreed Veitch. ‘As soon as he could get into the house to see her in private, he did, and if we all come out of this wi our heads on, he’ll wed her within the week. They’ll no want a big occasion,’ he said ironically, ‘no like some.’

Ignoring this, Gil considered the big sailor carefully.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Anything else you want to tell me now?’

‘No that I can think of,’ said Veitch after a moment. He got to his feet as Gil did, and hesitated again. ‘Gil, what’s my chances?’

‘Better than they were afore I came in here,’ suggested Gil. ‘Beyond that, John, I’m no sure. I’ll do what I can. It depends on the assize.’

‘Should it not go to Edinburgh?’

‘You were found wi the corp. Sir Thomas would ha been within his rights to hang you this day.’

Veitch swallowed.

‘Pray for me, Gil,’ he said. ‘And Gil — will you tell my uncle, if nobody’s let him ken afore this?’

Canon Cunningham was seated in his hall, spectacles on his nose, working on a drift of papers by the light of a great branch of candles. Socrates was sprawled at his feet. They both looked up when Gil came in, and the dog leapt up to greet him. The Official marked his place with one long forefinger, and said, ‘Aye, Gilbert. And where are you at now wi all this? Is that right what Maggie tells me about the bedehouse?’

‘It depends what she told you, sir,’ said Gil, replacing his hat and acknowledging his dog’s welcome. He sat down, craning his neck to see the superscription on the documents, and Socrates leaned against his knee. ‘Is this the Murray perjury case you were talking about?’

‘It is. Maggie said one of the brethren was raised up in his shroud and going about doing miracles. Seems hard to credit in Glasgow.’

‘I wouldny put it that strong, sir. It’s the one who was mad. We certainly thought he was dead yesterday — Pierre said he could hear no heartbeat — and today he woke and is as clear-headed as any in the burgh.’

‘Well, well.’ His uncle removed his spectacles and polished the lenses on his sleeve. ‘Both risen and cured? How did he die?’

‘By hanging.’ Gil grimaced. ‘It was me that cut him down.’

‘Ah.’ Canon Cunningham closed his eyes and tipped his head back. ‘There was a man in Edinburgh, in ’79 I believe it was, hanged for stabbing his son’s schoolmaster afore witnesses, but breathed again afore he could be buried. And another at Perth, in James First’s time.’ He opened his eyes and looked at Gil.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Gil agreed.

‘I’m glad to hear it. Now what of the other matter? You said little enough at supper but I think there’s been another death?’

‘Aye, and John Veitch taken for it.’

Gil recounted the events in Vicars’ Alley. His uncle listened attentively but, somewhat to his disappointment, when he had finished only said, ‘Clear enough. You’ll present this at the quest, o course.’

‘Aye, and so much depends on the assize,’ said Gil.

‘Tommy Stewart’s no fool,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘Now away up and deal wi your youngest sister.’

‘Deal wi her?’ repeated Gil. ‘Surely it’s for my mother to chastise her? I’d not wish to usurp that.’

Their eyes met. The Official’s long mouth quirked, but he nodded solemnly.

‘That’s a true word, but you’re the head of the family, Gilbert.’

‘Not you, sir?’

‘No me. She’s expressed a bonnie contrition, though I doubt whether her confessor would be convinced by it, and she’s had my forgiveness, but that’s all I’ll take to do wi the matter, Gilbert. Dorothea tells me you demanded money off James Douglas.’

‘It was the first thing I could think of,’ Gil confessed.

His uncle nodded. ‘A good notion, for all that. Dorothea says it made him think.’

‘It stopped him roaring.’

‘I’m glad I wasny present,’ said David Cunningham, then, while Gil was still taking in this admission, ‘Away and speak to your sister. She asked me to say she wished a word wi you.’

‘And I’ve a thing or two to ask her,’ Gil admitted, getting to his feet. Socrates, sprawled by the brazier again, raised his head to watch him, but went back to sleep when he showed no sign of leaving the house.

Tib was seated by a small brazier in the bedchamber where their mother would sleep when she arrived, reading in a prayer book by the light of two candles. When Gil came into the room she put the book aside gratefully.

‘I’m trying to be good,’ she said, ‘but it’s no easy. My uncle was saying I should seek confession, but how can you be contrite about something you don’t regret, Gil?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Gil, drawing up another stool. ‘Maybe recognizing you shouldny ha done it would be the first step.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said, and sighed. ‘I never thought it would be such a — ’

‘Such a what?’ he said after a moment.

‘I thought it was just atween Michael and me,’ she said, her face softening as she spoke her lover’s name. ‘It never came into my mind that the rest of the family would make such a tirravee about it.’

‘That was foolish.’

‘I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘It still doesny seem right to me. Here’s you and Kate both wed for love — why can I no follow my liking too? It’s no fair, Gil.’

‘Life isny fair.’ He studied her face in the candlelight. Despite her brave tone, it was clear she had been crying. ‘Tib, I’ll do what I can for you, but I’ll make no promises. Sir James is very angry, and he’ll have to be talked round first afore anything else. As to what Mother will say when she gets here — and you’ll have to make your peace wi Kate as well.’

She nodded, shivering.

‘But no wi Alys,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you, Gil, I never took much to Alys till now. She’s been as kind to me the day — sitting up here letting me talk, when she’d all to do at her own house.’ She smiled briefly at Gil in a way that reminded him of Alys’s elusive expression, and went on diffidently, ‘And there was something she said that made me think a bit, Gil.’

‘What was that?’ he prompted when she paused.

‘Well. She’s got no mother, and no sisters, only that Catherine who’s more like a nun than our Dorothea is. She’s got no one to — ’

‘To what?’

‘Well, I asked Margaret years ago what it was like to lie with your husband,’ she said in a rush, ‘and she and Kate both had Mother’s wee lecture, which maybe I’ll be spared now, and I’d wager Dawtie kens at least as much as I did afore I went to Michael’s bed, but — but Alys — she doesny ken what to expect — ’

‘Are you saying she’s afraid?’ Gil demanded, enlightenment reaching him. Tib nodded. ‘Of me?’

‘No, not of you, of your — of bedding wi you.’

He was silent, staring at her. It would explain it, he thought, it would explain so much. The way she shied away from kissing, her reluctance to say what Dorothea had meant …

‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘Tib, my thanks for this. I should ha seen it for myself.’

‘You’re too close to see it,’ she said.

‘You’ll be as fearsome as Mother when you’re older,’ he said.

‘Spare me! I’d sooner be like our grandam.’

He sat staring at the brazier for a little longer, fitting the things which had worried him into this idea. It made sense. It might take longer to work out what he lacked himself, but that could be dealt with at another time. Just now he had a case to make out for John Veitch. He remembered the questions he had for his sister.

‘We found a handcart,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s here in our washhouse the now. If you get a look at it in the daylight, could you tell me if you mind it?’

‘I might mind it better by lamplight,’ she said reasonably. ‘Where was it?’

‘St Andrew’s chapel in Vicars’ Alley. It’s the one they use for gathering alms for the lepers. It was already at the gate to the bedehouse when you got there?’

‘It was. And someone moving about on the green, too.’

He thought a moment further, fishing for a distant memory.

‘Tib, did you say you’d seen John Veitch? When was that?’

‘Aye, I did. He was coming down from the Wyndhead when Andy Paterson and I came up the High Street. He’d a lantern, but I got a good look at him as well by someone’s torch on the end of the house-wall. I kent him well enough.’

‘What time would that be?’

She shrugged. ‘About nine o’ the clock or a bit after, maybe?’

‘And he was going down the hill,’ said Gil slowly, ‘and then when you got on to the Stablegreen, after you’d got rid of Andy,’ Tib gave him a contrite smile, ‘the handcart was there and there was someone in the trees. So John Veitch didny put the Deacon’s body over the wall.’

‘I never thought he did.’

‘But this makes it certain.’

‘I suppose it does,’ agreed Tib, sounding surprised. ‘Is that important?’

‘It is.’ Gil got to his feet. ‘Thanks for that, Tib. And for the other.’ He bent to kiss her, and she returned the salute.

‘Have I been a help?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He paused. ‘How did you get rid of Andy, anyway? Did Maggie not hear you in the yard?’

‘She was out,’ said Tib, ‘at some of her friends’, which was a bit of luck, and Matt was no to be seen either. There was only daft William in the kitchen. I never had to explain myself to anyone. Then I walked in in the morning as if Andy had just left me there.’

‘Maggie was out,’ repeated Gil. ‘Tib, you are a great help. And if you’ll look at that handcart the morn’s morn that’ll be a help too.’

He raised his hand to make the sign of the Cross, and recited their mother’s evening blessing. She spoke the familiar words with him, and he went out and back down to the hall, where his uncle was still immersed in the Murray perjury papers.

He sat down on the stone bench in his uncle’s oratory, staring at the gleam of candles on the Virgin’s gold-leaf halo and piecing the sequence of events together. He was nearly there, he knew it. Two of the stories were beginning to make sense, though the third one was harder to fit into the picture. What must I still do? he asked himself. Put my hand on Naismith’s cloak and hat, find the place where he was stabbed, identify the two weapons which stabbed him and hence name the guilty persons. Prove that John Veitch didn’t kill the man Hob, though I probably can’t prove who did kill him. And Humphrey — what about Humphrey? Does he truly not recall what happened, or is he simply not willing to tell it? And if he’s unwilling, then for which of two possible reasons?

‘Gilbert,’ said his uncle’s voice, rather sharply, and he realized the Official had spoken several times already. ‘Either be quiet or speak loud enough for me to hear you. I canny be doing wi you muttering away over there.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ He rose from his seat, blinking as he turned his eyes away from the gleaming halo. ‘I was miles away.’

‘I can tell that,’ agreed his uncle. ‘It’s late, Gil. Bid Maggie set the ale on to warm if she’s not done it already.’

Gil moved towards the kitchen stair, but before he reached it there was a loud knocking at the street door. Socrates leapt up and barked once. Gil paused in surprise, and Maggie’s voice floated up from the kitchen.

‘Our Lady save us, who’s that at this hour, and Matt out winching and me wi my stays unlaced?’

‘I’ll get it,’ Gil called. He lifted a branch of candles and crossed to the other stair, wondering how many more times he would answer the door today. The dog followed him, paused in the doorway, then hurried down the stair, claws rattling on the stone steps, tail swinging in the candlelight.

‘It’s ower late,’ said Canon Cunningham disapprovingly. ‘Who would come calling at this time o night?’

‘I think I know,’ said Gil, his spirits lifting, as he heard voices, indistinct through the heavy oak door, one deep, one lighter, male and female.

‘I had to show you this,’ said Alys, under her father’s apologies to Canon Cunningham. ‘I’m certain it’s significant.’

‘She would come up the hill now, nothing would do but I bring her — I must apologize for disturbing you at this hour,’ Maistre Pierre was saying.

‘What is it?’ Gil asked, taking her hand. She’s afraid, he was thinking, afraid of — she’s a gently reared girl with no sisters and no mother. How do I reassure her?

‘No matter, no matter,’ said the Official. ‘Is it something important?’

‘I think it is, sir,’ said Alys. Her clasp on Gil’s hand tightened briefly, then she let go and went forward to greet Canon Cunningham. He kissed her with obvious pleasure and seated her on the bench by the brazier. Socrates sat down beside her with his chin on her knee.

‘It’s aye a pleasure to see you, lassie. Fetch some refreshment, Gil.’

‘No need for that,’ said Maggie from the stair door. She came forward, wrapped in her plaid for decency, and set down the tray of spiced ale and little cakes. ‘Good e’en to ye, maister, lassie. I hope nothing’s amiss down the road?’

‘No, all’s well,’ Alys assured her. ‘All goes ahead as we have planned. Only, I wished to show Gil what I have found in this document.’

‘Document?’ said Canon Cunningham, pricking up his ears. ‘What document, lassie? No your contract, I hope.’ He laughed drily at his own joke, and Alys’s elusive smile flickered.

‘No, sir. It relates to the death at the bedehouse.’ She opened her purse and drew out Agnew’s tablets in their brocade bag. Gil froze in dismay, but without glancing at him she went on, ‘I’m not at liberty to say how I came by this, sir. It is a set of tablets belonging to Maister Agnew, and with them this.’

She extracted the parchment with its dangling seals. The Official took it from her and unfolded it.

‘A disposition, ten year since,’ he said. Gil paused in handing beakers of spiced ale to look over his uncle’s shoulder. ‘For the support of their son Humphrey, Thomas Agnew and Anna Paterson gifting a significant plot of land …’ Canon Cunningham ran his eye down the crackling sheet. ‘And after his death — yes, yes, very provident.’

‘Provident?’ Gil leaned closer. ‘That wasny my opinion. What does it — ?’

‘No, no, it reverts to the donors or their heirs,’ said his uncle, tilting the document to the light. ‘It’s perfectly clear. Quite well worded, indeed. Thomas Agnew, younger, wrote this. Aye, very neat work.’

‘Exactly,’ said Alys, meeting Gil’s eye across the hearth. ‘Do you have the bedehouse copy, Gil? You were going to bring it here for safe keeping.’

‘If it’s that poke of dusty papers you brought in the other day, Maister Gil, it’s under your bed,’ said Maggie from where she stood in the shadows.

‘Why?’ demanded her father. ‘What is this? She has not explained it yet.’

‘The bedehouse copy wording isny the same,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘I’m sure I mind a quite different final disposition.’ He handed over the beakers he carried, and made for the stair. ‘I’ll fetch it down the now.’

‘Are you saying the two copies do not agree?’ said his uncle as he left the hall. ‘I would ha thought better of Thomas Agnew.’

Returning with the sack full of documents, Gil sat down beside Alys. She reached in to extract the nearest bundle and inspected it, oblivious to her father and Canon Cunningham who were still exploring the different ways in which the two copies might have come to differ. The bundle they wanted was, inevitably, the last; Gil shuffled the rest back into the sack, while Alys untied the tape and picked through the folded dockets.

‘This is it,’ she said, opening it out. ‘And the map that was with it, as well. Yes, I was sure this was what I remembered, Gil.’

‘Well?’ demanded her father. ‘What does it say? Was it worth dragging me up the hill at this hour in the rain?’

‘Oh, it was,’ said Gil. ‘This version has the property revert to the bedehouse absolutely after Humphrey’s death.’

‘Ah!’ said his uncle.

‘And what happens now, maister?’ asked Maggie from the shadows. ‘The man’s deid, right enough, but he’s risen again. Does it stay wi the bedehouse, or go back to his family, or what? What’s the law when someone rises up?’

‘What’s more to the point,’ pronounced the Official, ‘is, why are these documents no the same and which is the true one?’ He straightened his spectacles and looked about him. ‘We need a good table. Over yonder.’

With the two documents spread out side by side on the altar in the oratory, lit by all the candles they could squeeze into the space, all four of them peered at the lines of neat writing while Maggie waited hopefully by the hearth.

‘Neither looks to have been altered,’ said Gil after a moment. ‘The dates are the same, and it’s all scribed in the one hand. Agnew tried to suggest to me,’ he explained to his uncle, ‘that Deacon Naismith might have altered some of the papers.’

‘No,’ said Canon Cunningham thoughtfully. ‘The one man has writ all of both these, and the hand and the pen are the same in the text as in his signature and monogram. I’d no swear to it being the same batch of ink, but that happens to all of us. I wonder …’ He ran careful ink-stained fingers over the surface of the parchment nearer him. ‘Gilbert, what do you think to this?’

Gil did the same, then bent to view the document against the light of the candles. It took a little time as he found separate angles to view the several folds of the parchment, but eventually he shook his head.

‘This one’s a single draft,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s been no erasure. No even a word scraped out, that I can detect.’

‘Nor this one,’ said Alys in puzzled tones. ‘There’s a correction here to the name of the bedehouse, but that is the only one.’

‘The signatures,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Do they accord?’

‘Whose marks are they?’ Alys asked. ‘The Deacon’s is there — whatever is his name? Aller — Allerinshaw? Diaconus sancti Servi. And the sub-Deacon. Both these are the same on the two documents.’

‘Here is Thomas Agnew of Kilsyth,’ supplied Maistre Pierre, ‘and his wife’s mark below it, properly attested in both places. And also their son Thomas Agnew younger, who I suppose is the man we know. Is this what you mean by his monogram?’ he asked, one large forefinger on the elaborate penwork below Agnew’s signature. ‘What does it depict? A mercat cross?’

‘Aye, that’s his monogram,’ agreed Gil. ‘And the witnesses — James Paton, William Scott. I wonder if either of them would recall the terms of the gift? No, I doubt it, they’re both clerks in the tower, aren’t they, sir? They’ll witness a dozen such things in a week, and this was ten years ago.’

‘They are.’ David Cunningham was still running his fingers over the lines of script on the two documents. ‘This is very odd, Gilbert. I canny think what he’s been about here. The seals are undisturbed, all the signatures compare, the writing is original in both, and yet — ’

‘May I see that one, sir?’ said Alys, nodding at the copy further from her. The Official handed it over, avoiding the candles, and stepped back.

‘It’s ower hot here wi all these lights,’ he complained. ‘I’ve seen as much as I want for the now, let’s be more comfortable. Maggie, is there more o that spiced ale?’

‘There could be if you’re wanting it, maister,’ said Maggie. ‘Have you no found what’s wrong wi the papers then?’

‘I think I have,’ said Alys. ‘Look here.’ She spread out the document she held in front of the Annunciation. ‘All the signatures and the seals are here at the foot of the writing.’

‘Where you would look for them, in effect,’ said her father.

She flicked him a brief glance and went on, ‘There’s a crease right across between the signatures and the main text, but otherwise nothing to show any difference. Not even a change of colour. But if you look on the back of the skin — ’ She turned over one margin of the document. ‘See here? See the join? It doesn’t lie on the crease on this side, it is easier to see.’

‘It is,’ said Gil, feeling carefully. ‘It is a join. He’s scraped the skin down so well it barely shows, and the colour matches as you say, Alys.’

‘Is that how you mend parchment, then?’ said Maggie with interest from behind Gil’s shoulder. ‘You make the two edges thin and then stick it thegither? It’s just like joining pastry.’

‘Before or after the inscription was written, do you think?’ asked the Official, peering at the fold of parchment. ‘Maggie, what about that spiced ale?’

‘If I was using a mended piece like this,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘I’d turn it so that I wrote across the join, simply to avoid questions like that.’

His uncle nodded. ‘Aye, you’ve a point there.’

‘The signatures have been removed from the original,’ said Alys, ‘and attached to a different text.’

‘Mon Dieu!’ said the mason. Gil nodded.

‘Well, well,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘You’ve sharp eyes, lassie. I’ll ha you to my clerk any time Richie’s away. And which copy is this, then, that’s been tampered wi?’

‘The family copy,’ said Alys. ‘The copy which was with Maister Agnew’s tablets.’

‘So whose work is that?’ demanded Maggie. ‘Why would the man change one copy and no the other?’

‘He had not yet succeeded in altering the bedehouse copy,’ said Alys. ‘Gil, did you not say he was looking for it?’

‘He was,’ agreed her father.

‘It would not have been easy to convince other people his was the true version,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘for the Deacon had clearly looked at his copy recently. See, Father.’ She handed him the paper which had been folded inside the disposition. He gave her a quizzical look, but tilted it obediently to the light, and whistled.

‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Look at this, David. The man had most ambitious plans for the plot that was gifted.’

Alys stepped away from the window-embrasure and Gil followed her.

‘I meant to tell you as well, Gil,’ she remembered, ‘that our man Thomas told me he met a stranger by the Consistory tower, today about Sext, who asked the way to Vicars’ Alley. Could that have been John Veitch?’

Gil nodded absently, and looked about the hall. Maggie had gone to fetch the second batch of spiced ale, their elders were still discussing Naismith’s building project, and they had a moment to themselves.

‘Alys,’ he said softly, taking her hand. She looked up at him, with that expression which always made his heart turn over. ‘Sweetheart, I’ve worked it out, I think. What Dorothea meant.’ And no need to admit my youngest sister had to help me, he thought. Alys had dropped her eyes, colouring up in the candlelight. ‘We won’t — we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to.’

‘That’s the trouble,’ she whispered. ‘I do want to. I just — ’

He pulled her into his arms, and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was silky under his lips, and smelled of rosemary.

‘All will be well,’ he promised. ‘We love one another. Nothing else matters.’