St Mungo's Robin

Chapter Fourteen

‘I’d swear to it being the same cart,’ said Tib, eyeing the heap of matting askance. ‘The more so wi that great bundle of stuff on top of it. What is it, anyway?’

‘More evidence,’ said Gil. ‘It’s the flooring from Agnew’s hall, that I want a look at. You’re sure, then?’

‘Aye.’ She bent to trace the swirls of white paint on the dark end panel of the handcart. ‘I mind thinking it was unusual, these curly bits instead o denticles or arcading or the like.’

‘Thanks, Tib.’ Gil took hold of a corner of the matting, and pulled. The bundle came off the cart, and he shook it so that the stiffened folds opened out across the flagged floor of the washhouse. Socrates loped in from the yard to look, but Tib stepped back, gathering her skirts together.

‘What’s the stains on it? Is that blood, Gil?’

‘It is.’ He was bending over the creases. ‘This is where the man died yesterday.’

‘The man John Veitch slew?’ She crossed herself.

‘The man John Veitch found dead,’ he corrected. ‘No, this tells me little enough. It must have lain — ’ He dragged another fold aside. ‘Something like that, I suppose. The man lay on his belly about here, and these are the — ’

‘Ugh!’ said Tib, crossing herself again. ‘But what does it tell you? Can you say who killed the man, if it wasny John Veitch?’

‘No,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘No yet. I wonder why he was lifting the matting?’ He looked over his shoulder at the door of the outbuilding. ‘Is it still dry out in the yard? Aye, dry enough. Tib, go and see if one of the men’s about, to give me a hand wi this.’

‘I’ll help,’ she offered, a little reluctantly, and bent to lay hands on an unmarked section. ‘Do you want it out in the daylight?’

They carried the bundle out between them, and spread Thomas Agnew’s prized possession on the damp cobbles.

‘Aye, it was this way up,’ said Gil. Socrates stepped delicately on to the braided squares, his nose a nail’s breadth from the rushes, his hackles standing up all down his narrow back. Gil pushed the dog away, arranging the folds again. ‘And he lay there. But what’s this?’

Tib came to look where he pointed, using her knee to keep the dog off.

‘It’s all just blood,’ she said. ‘You’d think the poor man had been cut like a stag.’

‘Oh, he was.’ Gil drew the overturned folds of the matting further. ‘He bled to death. No that he could ha been saved, by what Pierre says, but he needn’t a been left to die alone. Look at this, though, Tib. Would you say these two stains were the same age?’

‘What would that mean if they were?’ She bent closer. ‘Anyway, they areny. That’s nearly fresh, and this is going brown. Socrates, get off. Leave it!’

‘That’s what I thought. And it doesny go right through the matting the way the fresh one does. Are there more like the older one?’ He shifted the folds again, and Tib pounced, just ahead of the dog.

‘There! And there’s another.’

‘And here,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘is one where the fresh one crosses the older one.’

‘So what does that tell you?’ she asked, straightening up. Socrates, finally unimpeded, blew relentlessly across the stained squares.

‘It tells me why Hob was killed.’

‘Why?’

‘For doing what he was paid to do,’ said Gil grimly. He sat back on his heels, rubbing at his palm where the braided rushes had left their mark, then paused, staring at his hand. The impression on the skin was ridged and furrowed, like ploughland left to grazing, like a rope binding. ‘And it tells me more than that,’ he said after a moment. He pushed the dog away, drew the layers of matting on top of one another and lifted one end. ‘Give me a hand to put this back under cover, Tib. I’ll need to take it to the quest, but first I’ll need to get a word wi the Sheriff.’

The interview with the Sheriff did not take long. Sir Thomas was distracted by a demand from his overlord the Archbishop for some information which he was sure had already been sent, and agreed to Gil’s request without undue argument.

‘Could it be in the press there, Walter? If your notion clarifies the business so the assize brings in the right verdict, maister, I suppose it’s worth the time,’ he said, flapping a hand at his clerk. ‘Take a note o that, Walter. We’ll take the two quests thegither and hear all the evidence, and the same assize will do for both.’

‘It should save time, Sir Thomas,’ commented the clerk, reaching for the tablets hung at his waist. ‘It’s all called for noon, the Serjeant says, and a sound assize assembled.’

‘Aye, likely,’ said Sir Thomas, rather muffled, his head in the wall-cupboard. ‘Walter, I canny see that docket. I’ll swear it went to my lord last month. You have a look, man.’

Gil removed himself. After a word with the journey-man Thomas in the masons’ lodge in the building site by St Mungo’s, he extracted Maistre Pierre from its snug shelter and led him round to the little chapel in Vicars’ Alley.

‘But what do we do here?’ complained his prospective father-in-law. ‘We were here last evening and there is no more to be seen in a place this size.’

‘That’s what you think.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Maistre Pierre eyed the space beyond the chancel arch, where the clerks had finished Sext and disrobed, and were now engaged in their endless tidying round the altar. Gil ignored him, cast along the western wall of the nave until he found the marks he had noticed before, and stepped back, peering up into the rafters past the wreaths and votive objects.

‘It should be about there, I think,’ he said. ‘Pierre, could you give me a leg up here? Or make a back, or something,’ he added, recalling belatedly that his companion had been injured barely three months earlier and was not fully recovered.

‘Eh? What have you found?’ Maistre Pierre came forward to stare upwards beside him. ‘I see nothing but shadows up there.’

‘I agree, but shadows can hide a lot.’ Gil tried jumping for the nearest of the painted crossbeams, but missed. ‘I’m a handspan short — make a back,’ he requested again. The mason bent obligingly and Gil scrambled on to his broad back, and pulled himself up to perch on the beam above him. It creaked in complaint, and the laths under the thatch rustled and cracked.

‘How old is this roof?’ wondered Maistre Pierre, straightening up to watch.

‘Who knows? Not too old to support me, I hope.’

Each of the crossbeams was the base of a triangular structure with two uprights in it, so that there were three spaces, one large enough for a man to pass and two small ones. Gil moved cautiously to the mid-space of the next beam. Wads of dust fell, scattering on a withered wreath of hawthorn leaves, and below him the mason stepped smartly aside. The building looked quite different from this perspective, and the smells of old incense, damp stone and damp thatch were overwhelming. Next to him was the beam nearest the wall-plate; directly below were the marks the handcart had made on the wall and flagstones.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded a voice from the chancel arch. ‘Sir John, thieves! Thieves in the kirk!’ Hasty footsteps echoed.

‘Fetching something,’ Gil returned, reaching into the shadowy triangular space across from him. His hand met only bare wood. Incredulous, he groped the length of the space, and nearly overbalanced, saving himself by snatching at the upright beside him.

‘There’s nothing there.’ A different voice. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Something we left here,’ improvised Maistre Pierre.

‘A cloak and hat.’ Gil pushed himself back into a stable position and looked down. The priest, a tubby balding man in a rusty black gown, was staring up at him, his two acolytes beyond at the chancel arch. A black cloak,’ he expanded, ‘with a lot of braid about it, and a velvet hat.’

‘Oh, aye. I took it for a donation at first,’ said the priest a little sadly. ‘Then I kent the badge on the cloak. You wouldny care to purchase it back, maister? It’d go to the lepers,’ he explained. ‘I could buy them blankets. They’re right cold at this time of year, the souls.’

‘I will certainly do so,’ said Maistre Pierre, patting his purse.

‘And I,’ said Gil. He dropped down from the roof and began brushing dust from his hose. ‘Tell me, sir, you leave the chapel unlocked?’

‘Aye, we do. The chancel gate has a good key.’ Gil glanced beyond the man, but the cast-iron yett was not visible in the shadows. ‘We leave that locked, so none can get in and steal the Host, but folk can aye come in here for a wee word if they wish it.’

‘And these garments. When did you find them, sir?’

‘Monday it would be,’ said one of the clerks, a skinny youth in an oversized jerkin. ‘You saw them after Terce, Sir John.’

‘Aye, that would be it,’ agreed Sir John. ‘As soon as it was light. You’d left yir bundle well enough hid,’ he said, ‘but for a corner hanging down, and it just catched the light coming in that window there.’ He turned away. ‘It’s in the cope-kist. Come and I’ll gie it you.’

‘But Sir John,’ said the other clerk, a smaller darker man still lurking within the chancel. The priest paused, looking at him. ‘How do we ken it’s theirs?’ he objected. ‘It hasny a name on it, only the badge.’

‘Nobody else has come looking for it,’ pointed out the priest, ‘and this fellow gaed straight to the place it was hid. Why did you hide it there, anyway?’

Gil looked at him, hesitated, and admitted, ‘It wasny me that hid it.’ The tubby man eyed him expectantly. ‘If you ken the badge, maister, you’ve maybe guessed who put it there.’

‘What’s he saying, Sir John?’ demanded the second clerk. ‘Will I call for the Serjeant? Is it thieved goods right enough?’

Several expressions crossed Sir John’s plump face. Puzzlement, understanding, surprise followed one another, and finally a wary look descended.

‘And what’s it to do wi you? I’ve seen you round the Consistory tower. You’re that nephew of David Cunningham’s, aren’t you no? What are you wanting wi the cloak, then?’

‘It’s wanted for the quest this noon,’ said Maistre Pierre, breaking a long silence.

‘What, about Hob next door?’ said the first acolyte.

‘Same as our handcart that the boy took away yestreen?’ said his fellow.

‘Aye, but Hob was slain yesterday by a madman,’ objected the first one, ‘the whole street kens that. That cloak was here on Monday after Terce.’

‘Would you swear to that afore the Sheriff?’ Gil asked. The three clerks looked at one another.

‘Aye, I suppose we could,’ agreed Sir John.

‘Then would you bring the cloak and hat to the quest at noon,’ said Gil, ‘rather than gie them to me?’

‘We could say Nones a bit early,’ suggested the younger acolyte, looking interested.

‘But what about the charity for the lepers?’ asked the priest anxiously.

Maistre Pierre reached for his purse. ‘This will warm the lepers,’ he said, extending a generous handful of coins. ‘Now will you bring the garments to the quest?’

‘We’ve a fair bit to determine,’ pronounced Sir Thomas, stepping on to the dais and sweeping the castle hall with his scowl, ‘so we’ll get on wi it. Who’s for the assize? They’ll need a strong stomach for it. We’re deciding on Deacon Naismith as well as Hob Taylor, and he’s been lying about a good wee while.’

The place was full. Genuine witnesses, others who thought they might be witnesses, and anyone who wanted to hear more about the deaths of Hob and the Deacon of St Serf’s, were all crowded into the large space. John Veitch had been led in between two men-at-arms, his hands bound before him, to a volley of hissing and pointing. The corpses had been firmly excluded, and lay in state, sheltered from the rain under a striped awning in the castle courtyard, with two more men posted well upwind of the Deacon in his coffin.

Gil had found himself a place behind the table where the Sheriff’s clerk sat with his pen-case and inkwell, several pieces of clean parchment before him. Beside him Maistre Pierre stood studying the people assembling in the body of the hall, and fidgeted through the long procedure of selecting fifteen householders of good repute. Gil, well used to it, thought that it went faster than usual today. Most of those present wanted to get to the interesting part.

Once the assize was selected, the names written down, the men sworn in by Walter the clerk holding a worn copy of the Gospels, they were led outside to inspect the two bodies, and returned looking a little green in places.

‘Well, they were warned,’ said Maistre Pierre. Gil nodded.

‘Now,’ said Sir Thomas with relish, ‘we’ll take Hob Taylor first. Who identifies him?’

‘I do,’ pronounced Maister Agnew, standing forward out of the crowd. ‘That’s my servant Hob Taylor right enough, lying dead out there in his shroud, crying out for vengeance. And I accuse the man John Veitch yonder of his murder.’ He raised his arm and pointed at John Veitch, who looked back at him without expression.

‘He doesny look mad,’ observed a woman near Gil. ‘He’s a good-looking chiel.’

‘Och, you, Jennet Clark,’ said her neighbour.

‘Let’s hear your reasons,’ said Sir Thomas. Agnew launched into an account of returning to his house to find Veitch standing red-handed over Hob’s bloody corpse, a scene which caused him to wipe his eyes when he described it.

‘And what did you do then, maister?’ asked Sir Thomas.

‘I ran out into the street and shouted Murder,’ declared Agnew. ‘And all the neighbours came running and took the man captive, and we bound him wi stout ropes and brought him here to the castle.’

‘That’s no just how I heard it,’ said Sir Thomas, looking round. ‘Maister Cunningham, where are you? Step up here and tell the assize what you found.’

Gil came forward, bowed to Sir Thomas and to the assize, and then on a whim to the audience. They seemed to like it.

‘I got there just as John Veitch was taken captive,’ he said clearly, ‘along wi my friend Maister Peter Mason, master mason in this burgh and kent to many of you. We had a look at the corp, and so did one or two others that were standing by.’ He looked about him, and identified Maister Sim, standing near the dais with the other members of yesterday’s impromptu assize. He described the scene in Agnew’s hall, the blood-soaked matting, the pile of kale leaves, the way Hob lay face down in his blood, and Sim and the other three nodded as he spoke and gave their agreement at the end.

‘What’s these kale leaves to do wi it?’demanded Sir Thomas.

‘I’ll come to that, sir,’ said Gil.

‘The man was standing red-handed over my poor servant,’ said Agnew loudly. ‘Hae an end to this waste of your time, Sheriff, and take him out and hang him now, take a rope to him! Repay him for his iniquity, wipe him out for his wickedness,’ he declaimed.

‘No, no,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘No use of your Latin in my court, and this is a good tale. Go on, Maister Cunningham.’

‘Maister Mason had a look at the corp,’ said Gil.

Maistre Pierre stepped forward, to recount his conclusions about the length of time it would have taken for Hob to die.

‘You’re still saying this madman stood over him and watched while he bled to death!’ expostulated Agnew.

‘No,’ said Maistre Pierre simply, ‘for he had been dead some time when I saw him.’

‘How d’you ken that?’ asked a man in the assize, a blocky fellow in a shoemaker’s apron. ‘Had he set, maybe?’

‘Aye, he had,’ agreed the man called Willie, who was standing beside Habbie Sim. ‘I noticed that mysel. Just his head and his neck, see, so it wasny that long, but longer than the madman had been in the house.’

‘No telling how long he’d been there — ’ began Agnew.

‘Oh, that’s easy enough,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve questioned the sister of the accused man, and a working man who spoke to him on his way, and a witness who was in the next garden when he reached your house, maister, and they’re all agreed on that.’

‘Aye, where’s this laddie that was in the next garden?’ demanded Sir Thomas irritably. Eck Paton was dragged forward to the edge of the dais by several of his neighbours eager to see him make his contribution to the day’s entertainment, and stood reluctantly to be questioned by the Sheriff. His story seemed to disappoint many of the audience, and some of the assize tried to suggest he was mistaken.

‘No, no,’ he assured them, ‘for I wasny out that long, and I saw it all.’

‘Eck Paton’s story agrees wi the time the other witnesses gave us,’ Gil said.

‘Then the madman must have been there earlier,’ objected Agnew, ‘and slew Hob and went away.’

‘I never left my sister’s house till Sext,’ declared John Veitch from where he stood by the wall. One of his guards elbowed him sharply in the ribs, and he flinched.

‘You be quiet the now,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘You’ll get your chance if it’s needful.’

‘All these witnesses is all very well,’ said another of the assize from within their roped-off enclosure, ‘but you canny get past one thing, Sheriff, and that’s the way the corp himself sat up and accused the man that slew him. The whole town kens about it, and it canny be denied.’

‘He never sat up!’ declared Maister Sim. ‘I was there and saw it all!’

‘You willny deny he groaned,’ said Agnew sharply, ‘and we all saw the blood run from his mouth, enough for the villain to bathe his feet in!’ He wiped at his eye again, and Maister Sim nodded reluctantly.

‘Aye, that’s true,’ he admitted.

‘That is wrong,’ Maistre Pierre muttered. ‘It is the righteous who will wash their feet in blood. We are in the Psalms, I fancy.’

Gil glanced briefly at his friend, and stepped forward again.

‘Maister Agnew,’ he said. Agnew looked at him, slightly suspicious. ‘I mind you took John Veitch’s hand, to make certain he touched the corp.’

‘Aye, I did.’

‘Would you show the assize how you took hold of him?’ Gil held his hand out. With some reluctance Agnew reached out and took hold of his wrist.

‘No, that wasny it,’ said Maister Sim from below the dais. ‘I could see that much from where I was standing. Your grip was lower down. Aye, more like that,’ he added as Gil shifted his hand within Agnew’s grasp. ‘You’d a good hold across the back o his hand, Tammas, and your fingers — ’ He stopped, and looked at the Sheriff. ‘His fingers went right round under his hand,’ he finished.

‘That’s what I recall,’ said Gil mildly. He turned to look at the members of the assize, and held his hand up, Agnew’s still clasping it. The other man snatched his away as he realized Gil’s intention, but at least some of the assize had seen how two sets of fingers were turned towards them. ‘Who touched Hob?’ Gil said to the crowded faces. ‘It looks to me as if they both did, so who did he accuse? Was it John Veitch, or was it his master?’

‘I’m never accused of his death,’ began Agnew.

‘I’m saying,’ said Gil, ‘that on this evidence you’d as well be accused as John Veitch, and the other evidence, of finding him red-handed, doesny stand up.’

‘So who slew the man?’ demanded one of the assize, as Agnew gobbled like a blackcock at this assertion.

‘Aye, well, that’s what we’re here to establish,’ said Sir Thomas crisply. ‘Get on wi it, Maister Cunningham. What have ye to tell us now?’

‘Can we turn to the other corp next, Sheriff?’ Gil asked formally.

‘We’ve no dealt wi this one yet,’ objected someone.

‘I hope we can wind up both matters at once,’ said Gil. ‘But maybe we should set John Veitch free, since it’s clear he couldny ha slain Hob Taylor.’

‘No yet,’ said someone in the assize. ‘I’m no convinced yet.’ There were rumbles of agreement round the audience.

‘No, no,’ concurred Sir Thomas. ‘We’ll keep him under guard a while longer.’

‘Is this a new heading?’ demanded the clerk Walter. ‘Or is it a whole new quest? Do I need a new bit parchment or no?’

‘Aye, a fresh page, Walter,’ said Sir Thomas, and the clerk muttered angrily and took out his penknife to scrape out a line he had written. Gil stared at him, and Sir Thomas went on, ‘Now, if we’re to look at the Deacon’s death, best get on wi it, maister.’ Distracted, Gil bowed, and made a handing-over gesture. ‘Oh, aye. Who identifies the other corp? I hope ye all had a good look at him.’

‘Aye, from upwind,’ said the shoemaker from the assize enclosure, and there was general laughter.

‘Did ye study the wounds?’

‘Aye,’ said another man doubtfully, ‘but no very close. It looks like there’s been more than one weapon at him, like it was a man wi dagger and whinger maybe.’

‘Aye, two weapons,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘Who identifies him, then?’

Andrew Millar pushed his way to the foot of the dais and agreed that the second corpse was that of his superior, Deacon Robert Naismith of St Serf’s bedehouse. The Sheriff dealt in short order with the finding of the body, the manner of death, and the probable time of death. Maistre Pierre, explaining this, made reference to the idea that the body had been moved, and the shoemaker spoke up again.

‘Let’s hear more about that, maister. How can you tell?’

‘He had begun to stiffen while he lay in one place,’ said Maistre Pierre, glancing at the Sheriff, ‘somewhere he lay on braided matting which left a mark on his face which was still visible the next day. Then he was moved, and continued to set in the new position in the garden.’

‘Could he no ha moved himself?’ asked another of the assize.

‘Don’t be daft, Rab,’ said his neighbour, ‘the man was deid, that’s why he’d begun to set. Who moved him, that’s what I’d like to ken.’

‘I hope we’ll find out,’ said Gil.

‘I fear it’s clear enough,’ put in Agnew. ‘My poor brother must ha stabbed the Deacon in his madness, and later bore the body out into the garden. He’s got no recollection of it now, but it’s the only explanation.’

‘No quite,’ said Gil. ‘For one thing, there’s no rush matting in the bedehouse.’

‘That’s his brother that’s rose up again,’ whispered someone behind him. ‘They’re saying he’s cured of his madness and seeing visions.’

Ignoring this, Gil led the assize carefully through what was known of the Deacon’s last movements, detailing the meal at the house by the Caichpele, the argument with Marion Veitch and her brother, at which several of the assize looked darkly at John Veitch where he stood under guard by the wall, and the departure to meet Thomas Agnew, who agreed that he had last seen Naismith an hour later. Andrew Millar came forward again to describe how he had heard footsteps in the Deacon’s lodging after he came in that night.

‘Aye, aye, hold up here,’ said an assizer. ‘This was at an hour or two afore midnight, did ye say?’ Millar nodded. ‘And we’ve just heard, wi the way the corp was set, it looked as if he was deid no long after supper.’ Millar glanced at Gil, and nodded again. ‘So who was it was walking about in his lodging, maister?’

‘I’d like to hear the answer to that and all,’ put in Sir Thomas.

‘You’ll have your answer,’ Gil assured the man. ‘Once we’ve all the facts, the answer will be clear enough.’

‘So you say,’ said Agnew, ‘but I maintain it’s obvious already. Can we no ha done wi this nonsense, Sheriff, and get about our business?’

‘Let’s hear your facts, Maister Cunningham,’ said Sir Thomas, ignoring him.

Gil took a deep breath, and bowed to all his hearers again. This was extraordinary. He had expounded his solution to a death before, to much smaller groups; making it clear to fifteen householders whom he did not know, and a hall full of onlookers, was quite different, but he was enjoying it.

‘The corp was found near the back wall of the bedehouse garden,’ he began. Carefully he explained where the body was lying, what made him think it had been put over the back wall, and how it had been taken round to the Stablegreen. Without naming his sister, he told the assize about the handcart, with its burden, and the movements in the dark.

‘Now the same person,’ he said, ‘had seen John Veitch going down the High Street not half an hour earlier. It wasny John Veitch put the Deacon’s body over the wall.’

One or two of the assize nodded. A small flurry of movement and hissing whispers behind Maistre Pierre suggested Marion had tried to speak and been hushed.

‘What I think happened,’ Gil went on, watching the members of the assize, ‘is this. Deacon Naismith ate supper in the house by the Caichpele, and announced that he was about to make a will. Then he left the house, and went to meet somebody else. Sometime that evening he was stabbed. He was left where he died, for an hour or two, and then moved on the handcart, put over the wall at the back of the bedehouse garden, and the handcart returned to its place. Then the person who stabbed him walked into the bedehouse wearing his cloak and hat, and slept the night in the Deacon’s lodging. In the morning he joined the bedesmen for the first Office of the day, and then left the chapel and went back to his own house.’

‘How was he no recognized in the chapel?’ demanded the shoemaker.

‘It’s dark in the chapel, even by daylight, and this was well afore the dawn,’ said Gil. ‘He was seen in the shadows, and taken for the Deacon sitting out of his own seat.’

‘And what happened to the garments?’ asked Sir Thomas, regaining control of his enquiry. ‘Since I take it he wasny seen in the street and taken for the Deacon, else you’d ha tellt us by now. Did he plank them in the washhouse, or something, afore he went out?’

‘I think he took the risk of being seen,’ said Gil, acknowledging the witticism with a grin. ‘Since we’ve tracked them down.’

‘What, wi that dog o yours?’ said someone from the hall, and there was laughter. Gil shook his head, looking round for the three men of St Andrew’s. He found them near the back, and pointed to them.

‘Sir John and his clerks found them,’ he said, ‘and took them for a donation to the lepers. Come forward, Sir John, and tell the Sheriff about it.’

The tubby little priest made his way to the front, his acolytes behind him carrying the two garments. One or two bystanders attempted to snatch the hat from the small dark clerk, until Sir Thomas rose and snarled, ‘We’ll ha none o that now! Meddling wi the evidence is worth a fine, and I saw ye, Will Cowan, Jaikie Renton. Right, Sir John,’ he turned to the witness in front of him, switching voices. ‘Tell us about this cloak and hat then.’

Backed up by his subordinates, Sir John identified himself and his charge, described finding the garments tucked into the rafters of his church, and agreed that it had been on Monday after Terce and no later.

‘And you didny see who put them there?’ asked Sir Thomas. The three men looked at one another, shaking their heads. ‘No, I see you didny. How did they get into the roof, Maister Cunningham? Are we looking for a man three ells high? He should be easy enough to discern in this burgh if that’s so.’

‘No, no,’ said Sir John through the laughter, ‘no need for a tall man, for they were stowed above where we keep the handcart. He’d but to climb onto it and stretch up, to put his hand on the roof-beams. That was how Mattha here got them down.’

‘Aye, this handcart,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘We’ve heard a deal about it. When are we going to see it, then?’

‘When you like, sir.’ Gil nodded to Maistre Pierre, who nodded in turn to his man Thomas waiting by the nearest door. With some thumping and cursing, the little cart was handled through the door, into the hall and up on to the dais, through a growing murmur of exclamations.

‘What’s this? What’s this?’ demanded the Sheriff as the cart and its burden emerged from the crowd in front of him. ‘What have you brought here, maister? This should be on a garden fire somewhere, no cluttering up my court session. What is it anyway?’

‘It’s the mats from my hall, stained wi my servant’s blood,’ said Thomas Agnew angrily. ‘I gied them to a man to take and burn, yestreen! How did you no do as I bade you, fellow?’ he demanded of Luke. ‘Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity!’

‘My maister bade me itherwise,’ said Luke simply.

‘It’s the mats that Hob Taylor was lying on when he bled to death,’ Gil agreed, and gave Luke a hand to lift the bundle down onto the dais.

‘Get them out of here!’ exclaimed Agnew. ‘This has nothing to do wi the matter! We’re dealing wi the Deacon’s end now, no Hob’s, we don’t want all this lying about. Take it away, clear it away out o here! Pluck it up from the land!’

‘The Psalter again,’ muttered Maistre Pierre. ‘Gil, be wary of this man.’

‘No, no,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘If that’s what they are, maister, we’ll let them alone the now and just get on wi the Deacon. So this is the handcart, is it, Maister Cunningham?’

‘Yon’s the St Andrew’s cairtie,’ said the man Willie, still watching with Maister Sim at the corner of the dais, and his friend nodded agreement. ‘I ken it by the pattern atwixt the shafts. It’s no like any other in the Chanonry wi they curlicues.’

Sir John, appealed to, confirmed this.

‘It’s been recognized by those same curlicues, as the cart that was by the bedehouse gate,’ Gil said.

‘So does that mean the man was stabbed in St Andrew’s?’ said one of the assize dubiously.

‘Surely no!’ exclaimed Sir John, crossing himself in dismay.

‘No, no,’ said Gil. ‘I think he was stabbed elsewhere. Maister Agnew,’ he said, turning to the other man of law. ‘You’ve told us you saw Deacon Naismith in your chamber in the Consistory tower.’ Agnew nodded. ‘What were you discussing, maister?’

‘Why — as I said afore,’ said Agnew, a little impatiently, ‘his new will.’

‘Why did he need a new will?’ demanded Sir Thomas. ‘He wasny sick to death, was he? Nor like to be wed?’

‘Well, as it happens, he was like to be wed,’ said Agnew, ‘to a kinswoman of mine.’

‘Ah,’ said the Sheriff, nodding, ‘so he wanted to arrange his affairs. Very proper.’

‘And then he left you,’ said Gil. ‘What time would that be?’

‘Maybe an hour after he joined me,’ suggested Agnew.

‘And you went out after him?’

‘I did.’

‘Was St Andrew’s dark as you passed?’

Agnew looked sharply at him. ‘You don’t pass St Andrew’s leaving the Consistory tower,’ he said. ‘I went down the Drygate to a friend’s house,’ his smile to the assize conveyed what sort of friend he meant, ‘so I was nowhere near St Andrew’s till I went home in the morning.’

‘What’s it to do wi the man’s death,’ asked the shoemaker, ‘where Maister Agnew was the rest of the nicht?’

‘No a lot that I can see,’ said Sir Thomas irritably. ‘The light’s going, Maister Cunningham. Let’s get this over afore we have to bring in torches.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Gil, bowing. ‘We’ll take a closer look at this matting, then.’

Under the Sheriff’s scowl, he and Maistre Pierre arranged the rustling bundle as near as they could in the same stiffened folds he had displayed to Tib earlier. The assize were released from their pen and stood round it, with members of the audience complaining loudly that they could not see, while Gil pointed out the way Hob had lain, the way the blood had soaked into the folds of braided rushes, and where the pile of kale leaves had lain. He called Maister Sim up to confirm what he said, but Sir Thomas cut across his agreement.

‘Here’s these kale leaves again. What have they to do wi the matter, maister?’

‘Hob had cut them earlier,’ Gil said. ‘He cut them to use in cleaning this matting, which was stained. He and his maister separately told me Maister Agnew had turned it because it was marked.’

‘Aye, wi a spilled drink,’ agreed Agnew loudly. ‘I spilled a glass of Malvoisie — ’

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I think there was no spilled drink, though Hob had found a glass in a corner of your hall. What Hob found,’ he bent to twitch a corner of the matting into a better position, ‘when he turned back the piece you had already reversed, was this.’ He pointed. Several members of the assize craned closer.

‘That’s blood and all,’ said the shoemaker.

‘It’s more of Hob’s blood, surely,’ said his neighbour.

‘No,’ said another man. ‘It’s older. That’s a different stain.’

Sir Thomas rose and shouldered his way between the assizers, to bend over the marks Gil pointed out to him. He studied them carefully, and stepped back, eyeing Gil.

‘Go on, man,’ he said. ‘Where are ye taking this?’

Gil waited while the assizers were led back to their roped enclosure, then looked round the faces at the edge of the dais. Alys, his sister, Marion Veitch at one corner; Andrew Millar, Habbie Sim, the plump priest of St Andrew’s, all looked back him. Alys smiled as his eye met hers, and he turned back to the Sheriff, spirits rising.

‘It’s blood,’ he agreed, ‘a day or two older than the stains from Hob’s blood. How did it get there?’

‘A good question,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘How did it get there, Maister Agnew?’

‘Nonsense,’ said Agnew, with icy calm. ‘We’ve all heard enough of these dunderheidit blethers. I’ve a friend who’ll swear to where I was that whole night, and it wasny wandering the Upper Town wi a corp on a handcart.’

Aha! thought Gil.

‘Aye, Ellen Dodd,’ said a voice from the hall. There was some laughter, and a few comments, until another voice rose over the rest.

‘Is that Ellen Dodd that dwells off the Drygate?’ it said. Gil turned to look, and found attention centred on a plump woman in a crisp white headdress, a grey plaid round her shoulders. She coloured up as people stared at her. So Maggie found you, mistress, thought Gil gratefully. ‘Well, is it?’ she persisted.

‘That’s who I spoke to,’ Gil agreed. ‘She said Maister Agnew had been with her from the middle of the evening.’

‘Is that right, maister?’ Sir Thomas asked Agnew.

‘Aye,’ he said reluctantly.

‘She’s leein,’ said the woman bluntly. Some can flater and some can lie, thought Gil. So I was right. Agnew reddened, and made his gobbling gamecock noise again. ‘I’m Jennet Clark, sir,’ Mistress Clark curtsied to the Sheriff, ‘and Ellen Dodd was in my house the whole of that evening till near midnight, we were telling tales and casting futures and she was at the crack wi the best of us. There’s four or five o my freens will swear to it, sir, and see if I ever let her across my door again, I’ll be coffined first.’

‘You’ve mistaken the day, woman,’ said Agnew fiercely. ‘She — my friend will support me — ’

‘Aye, maybe,’ said the Sheriff. ‘Maister Cunningham, I see where this is going now, but you canny get past one thing. There was two weapons slew Deacon Naismith, we’ve heard that already. Who was the other man?’

‘What other man?’ demanded Agnew, alarm in his voice for the first time. ‘Sheriff, what are you saying?’

‘There was no other,’ said Gil. ‘Naismith was talking to his man of law. They were working on his will when they quarrelled. A scribe works wi his pen in one hand and his penknife in the other.’

‘His penknife,’ repeated Sir Thomas. ‘You’re saying, Maister Cunningham?’

‘I’m saying, sir, that Thomas Agnew stabbed Naismith left-handed wi his penknife, and then drew his dagger and completed the task.’

‘No!’ shrieked Agnew as the noise increased in the hall. ‘No, I — ’

‘Hold him!’ Sir Thomas rose, pointing. ‘Hold and bind him, Archie!’

‘Why should the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? I did not — ’

‘In his own hall, maister? Aye, there’s the blood to show it, I suppose.’

‘And the marks of the matting on Naismith’s face,’ Gil added, ‘where he lay on it as he began to set.’

‘No, no!’ shouted Agnew. ‘Not the ropes, not the ropes!’

‘And what about the servant?’

‘Thomas Agnew came home yesterday after Terce,’ Gil said over the uproar, stepping back from the rush as two of the men-at-arms dragged Agnew struggling to the wall beside John Veitch, ‘and found Hob turning over the matting to clean off the stains he had talked about. Maybe Hob saw they were bloodstains and accused him of killing the Deacon, maybe he asked him for money to keep quiet. Agnew stabbed him, and went away leaving him to die. He returned later, found John Veitch with the body, and set up a cry of Murder.’

‘So it wasny the madman at all?’ said one of the assize.

‘He’s just proved it wasny,’ said another. ‘Listen to what’s said, man.’

‘But why should Maister Agnew ha stabbed the Deacon?’

‘Aye, a good question,’ said Sir Thomas, and turned to Agnew, just as one of his guards struck the man a great buffet on the side of the head. ‘Why did you kill the Deacon, man? What profited ye?’

‘No profit,’ shouted Agnew, spitting blood, ‘but vengeance, the vengeance of the fatherless and the orphan! Loose these ropes from me, for I am justified!’

‘I suppose it was the question of his brother’s support,’ said David Cunningham. He had demanded a dissection of the whole affair as soon as he came home from the Consistory tower; Maggie was listening avidly, and it seemed likely the dinner would be late.

‘That’s it, sir,’ agreed Gil, and sat down beside Alys. She put her hand in his; he rubbed its back with his thumb, and they smiled at one another.

‘Has he admitted it?’ asked Tib.

‘Not yet,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘He may not,’ said Gil reluctantly. ‘I suspect he has inherited Humphrey’s madness. The way he was spouting vengeance and bloodshed from the Psalter at the quest, I don’t see him being fit to plead.’

‘I think the Sheriff will put him to the question none the less,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘So how do you know it’s about his brother?’ Tib persisted.

‘Was it him that hanged his brother, anyway?’ Maggie demanded across the hearth.

‘No way to tell,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Humphrey insists that he recalls nothing.’

‘It’s not about his brother,’ Gil corrected Tib, ‘but about the land which was given to support Humphrey. Naismith was appropriating it to his own use, and Humphrey’s dole was getting less and less. Bad enough the land going to the bedehouse, but if it was to end up in Naismith’s hands, I think Agnew couldny stand it.’

‘But is that reason enough to kill someone?’ Tib asked.

‘It’s a valuable parcel of land,’ Gil said, ‘but I think it was maybe the way Naismith planned to use it that angered Agnew. His notes for the new will end at that property, though the Deacon had plenty more to dispose of.’

‘So he enticed Naismith round to his own house, you think,’ said Canon Cunningham, ‘to drink a toast to the marriage, and then stabbed him.’

‘I think so,’ Gil agreed.

‘Why not in the Consistory tower?’ Alys asked.

‘Too public. There was always the chance of meeting someone on the stair. Not to mention the problem of getting a corpse as big as himself down that stair,’ Gil added. ‘If he got him back to Vicars’ Alley he could leave him in his house while he worked out how to get rid of the body. Then I suppose it occurred to him to try to put the blame on Humphrey by putting the corpse in the garden.’

‘And after that he went round into the bedehouse and pretended to be the Deacon.’ Dorothea leaned back against the settle. ‘It’s been a right fankle, Gil, and you’ve unravelled it well. I see now how Robert Blacader thinks you’re worth a benefice.’

‘Of course he is,’ said Alys indignantly.

‘There is a strange thing,’ said Maistre Pierre, with an indulgent smile at his daughter. ‘Since Humphrey’s resurrection, or whatever one calls it, there have been some remarkable happenings at the bedehouse.’

‘Remarkable?’ said Dorothea.

The mason shrugged. ‘Maister Barty has his hearing back. The one with the trembling-ill is by far steadier, the one we could not understand has recalled his Latin and also speaks Scots like a Christian, the very old man — Father Anselm, is it? — is clearer in his head than he was — all small things, but each in its way a grace.’

‘Mistress Mudie is silent,’ contributed Alys, ‘as if she has obtained peace.’

‘Millar has lost his stammer,’ said Gil, ‘and seems by far more confident.’ And Alys and I have got past whatever was troubling us, he thought, and smiled at her again.

‘And yet Humphrey’s own brother has received nothing,’ went on Maistre Pierre, ‘is taken up for murder and will be tortured for his confession.’

‘He has Humphrey’s forgiveness,’ said Alys. ‘That must count.’

‘If he was the instrument of Humphrey’s martyrdom, maistre,’ said Dorothea, ‘he will obtain a special judgement. Nevertheless, if he murdered his servant and the Deacon, he must pay the price the law requires.’

The final fragment of the picture only dropped into place a week later.

On the morning after the wedding, Gil woke in the late November dawn, warm and comfortable, and fully aware of where he was and why. Alys was curled relaxed against him, her hair silky on his cheek, and the steady sound of her breathing was intensely pleasant in his ear.

Al nicht by the rose ich lay. He spent some time dwelling with satisfaction on the events of the last twelve hours, the verse going round in his head. And before that — before they had avoided the wild jokes of the bedding-party and the rough music in the courtyard, before the dancing in the drawing-loft and the feast in the hall, there had been the moment when he and Alys stood in front of his uncle in a side-chapel of the cathedral and exchanged promises and rings. She had smiled up into his face, confident and confiding. All would be well.

The whole day had gone well, though he suspected Alys had moved through it in a daze. All the guests had enjoyed themselves, only a few had become unpleasantly drunk, and he had noticed his mother talking intensely to his godfather at one point, her gestures emphatic. Her glance had flicked to Tib in her scarlet gown, Michael in dull green velvet, in opposite corners of the room, and the fiery Sir James had nodded meekly and offered her his hand. It seemed likely that some sort of future awaited the miscreants.

He turned his head on the pillow and drew the red woollen curtain aside to look out into the chamber, where the early light was growing. The blue milk-paint had dried to a pleasant misty shade, though now it looked colourless. The four Cardinal Virtues showed up well on the wall by the hearth behind his head, and opposite them, facing the foot of the bed, Maister Sproat had depicted his own choice of saints: the Visitation, with the Virgin and St Elizabeth dressed like Scots women and crowned with jaunty rose-bordered halos; and in plain halos, St Giles and his pet doe standing stiffly by St Mungo. One could tell it was St Mungo; he had a mitre as well as a halo, and held a green branch in one hand and a robin the size of a goshawk on the other, its red breast showing bright already as the light strengthened.

Like any son of the grammar school or the University, Gil knew the story, how Mungo’s fellow pupils had killed the bird to get him into trouble with their teacher St Serf, whose pet it was, and how Mungo had brought it back to life. He lay in the dawn looking at the image, wondering if he could bear seeing it every morning in life, and suddenly recalled Humphrey. He was a shrike, but now he’s a robin, because he’s deid.

‘Of course he was a robin!’ he said aloud. ‘He was left in the garden to get someone else into trouble.’

‘Mmf?’ said Alys. He turned to her, getting up on one elbow. She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. Now this on the other hand, he thought, I really could bear to see every morning when I wake.

‘Naismith,’ he said. ‘You remember Humphrey said he was a robin.’ She made a faint noise of assent. ‘I was looking for a sparrow, but I had the wrong robin. Agnew tried again and again to get Humphrey into trouble — to get him accused of killing the Deacon. Of course Humphrey said Naismith was a robin. St Mungo’s robin, who was killed to get him into trouble.’

‘Of course,’ said Alys, blinking sleepily at him.

He leaned down and kissed her, and she put her arms round his neck and kissed him back.

‘Gil, are we really married?’ she said after a moment. ‘I didn’t dream it all?’

‘We’re really married,’ he agreed. ‘And no prospect of an annulment, if I mind matters aright. Darf ich naught the rose stele, And yet ich bar the flour away.’

‘I don’t know why I was afraid,’ she admitted.

‘I hope you’ll never fear me again,’ he said seriously.

‘It wasn’t you I feared.’ She curled closer to him. ‘Gil, listen. When my father bought this house, there was a ceremony with the two men of law, when they handed him a padlock and some earth — ’

‘Sasine,’ he agreed. ‘He would have to take sasine of the property, and those represent the building and the land it’s on.’

‘Yes. And I thought, yesterday, that the rings we gave.’ He felt the hand at the back of his neck stir as if she was rubbing her ring with her thumb, the fine gold circle with the little hearts and the Latin word SEMPER. ‘That was as if we exchanged sasine, wasn’t it?’

‘Sasine of one another,’ he amplified, and tightened his clasp on her, charmed by this idea. ‘So you’re mine, and I’m yours, sasine given and taken, without limit of term.’

‘For always,’ she agreed, and drew the covers further up round them both. ‘Just as it says on my ring. Always.’