St Mungo's Robin

Chapter Two

‘A terrible thing,’ contributed Millar, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny neck. He had flung on a great black cloak like those worn by the bedesmen, with a badge over the heart which Gil could not make out within the heavy folds. Replacing his hat he drew the mantle closer about him, and added, ‘I canny think how it can have happened. He’s no enemies, surely, nobody that would do this to him a purpose.’

Gil made no comment, but hunkered down by the sprawling figure beneath the tree. Socrates came to his side to sniff at the wet clothing, and Maistre Pierre crossed himself, his lips moving.

They were looking at the body of a short, rather plump man, lying partly on his left side facing the foot of the wall, right arm flung backwards almost into the lowest branches of the yew. The eyes were closed, but the mouth was wide open, giving the appearance of someone in the grip of a dream. A dream from which you’ll not wake, Gil thought, looking the length of the corpse. It was wearing hose and long-sleeved jerkin of good tawny woollen with linen showing at the neck and wrists, darkened and reddened by a wide stain on the breast which Socrates was now inspecting closely, the coarse hair on his spine standing up. A long open gown of a darker brown was rucked up to waist level under the corpse’s torso, its fur lining spiky with the rain. A belt of stamped leather, with brass buckle and fittings, supported a well-filled purse, a dagger and matching whinger, and a large bunch of keys. The smell of blood and stale urine mingled with the resiny scent of the yew-trees.

‘What’s he doing out here?’ Gil wondered, pushing the dog’s muzzle away from the sodden codpiece.

‘Waiting for the Judgement,’ said Maister Kennedy obtusely.

‘Has he been moved at all since you found him?’ asked Maistre Pierre. Gil looked up at him.

‘I wondered that,’ he agreed.

‘No, no, Gil,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘This is where he was lying. I think Duncan tried to lift him, but he’s well set, and that was when they realized he was dead.’

‘He is indeed,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. He bent over the sprawled figure and tested the rigidity of the out-flung right arm. ‘Set, but not yet begun to soften. Dead sometime last night, I suppose. Well, it is Robert Naismith, Deacon of this place, on that we are agreed. And how has he died?’

‘Last night?’ said Lowrie. ‘Not this morning?’

‘Oh, certainly.’ The mason was feeling carefully at the chubby face, and round the neck and the back of the head. ‘He is like a stock. Gil, are his feet also hardened?’

‘They are,’ Gil agreed, attempting to flex one well-shod foot.

‘Late afternoon or evening of yesterday, then.’ Maistre Pierre turned his attention to the darkened breast of the jerkin. ‘And this looks like what gave him his quittance. A knife wound, likely. There is a slit,’ he poked cautiously, ‘no, more than one, in the jerkin.’

‘It’s certainly blood,’ said Maister Kennedy.

‘We learn more when he is stripped.’ One big hand explored under the corpse’s flexed calves, then turned back a fold of the rumpled gown. ‘No more than damp beneath him. Oui, certainement, it was dry last night, though it was raw cold. That fits.’

Gil stood up and looked about him. The grass was wet and trampled for some distance round the body.

‘There was quite a crowd when he was found, then,’ he said.

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Nick Kennedy sourly. ‘The whole house of them was here, and Sissie Mudie as well, all standing round arguing what to do next. And us and all,’ he added.

Gil nodded, still looking at the garden. ‘Pierre, how much can we learn if we examine him before he softens, do you think?’

‘Likely we can see the wound,’ the mason said, straightening his back carefully. ‘There will be no stripping him before tomorrow, I should say, unless we cut the clothes from him, but we can look at his hands and such matters.’

‘His — his hands?’ echoed Millar. ‘Why do you want to see his hands? They’re clean enough. What can you learn from that?’

‘Then I think we’d best get him in out of the rain. Maister Millar, is there a cart or something of the sort stowed away, that we could move him on, or should we try to lift him by his gown between us?’

‘I–I — ’ began Millar.

‘Sissie might have such a thing,’ prompted Maister Kennedy.

‘I’ll go ask her,’ volunteered Lowrie, and hurried off through the drizzle without waiting for a reply.

‘You could get a closer look at him under cover, Pierre,’ Gil prompted, ‘and I’ll cast about this place where he’s lying before it gets any wetter. And then we’d best start asking questions.’

Maistre Pierre nodded morosely, and pushed the hood of his heavy cloak back a little so he could see the sky.

‘Wetter it assuredly will be,’ he said. Gil looked from his friend to the body.

‘Where’s his hat?’ he said suddenly. ‘He’s bareheaded.’

‘I was wondering that,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘And how about a cloak and all?’

‘He aye wears — wore a cloak,’ said Millar. ‘His bedehouse cloak. Like — like mine, only with the Deacon’s braid on. And a velvet hat wi a brim.’

‘We need to find those,’ said Gil. ‘We’ll need to make a search. Michael, could you — Michael? Where is he?’

‘He came out behind me,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Has he slipped away?’

‘I’ll find him later,’ said Gil. ‘Maister Millar, I believe you should be present while the body is examined.’ Millar grimaced, and clutched his cloak tighter round him, but nodded agreement. ‘Nick, when must you and these fellows be back at the college? Have you time to spare?’

‘I need to get down the road,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘The joys of Peter of Spain are waiting for the bachelors at nine o’clock, though I dare say they’d not be sorry either if I missed their lecture. But Lowrie and Michael could stay and gie you a hand, Gil, if they’re any use, for I ken they’ve no lectures till eleven this day.’

There was a rumbling and clattering in the passageway through the main range. Socrates growled warily, his hackles rising. ‘Quiet,’ Gil said to him, as a woman’s voice joined the sounds. Lowrie appeared, pushing a small handcart and hindered by a stout woman bundled in a blue checked plaid over her black gown and white linen headdress, who trotted beside him exclaiming in annoyance all the way down the path.

‘It’s no right, he should be washed and made decent, what need have you to meddle wi the corp anyhow? Maister Millar, can you no put a stop to this? It’s no right at all, my old men are fair owerset wi it, the souls, keeping him lying out here in the rain like this, and standing about staring at him — ’

Millar turned to look at her, opening and closing his mouth like a carp in a pond, but failed to produce any sound. Maister Kennedy gave him a moment, then broke in:

‘Deacon Naismith’s been stabbed, Sissie, no dropped down with a seizure. We need to find who killed him. Here’s Maister Cunningham, that’s Robert Blacader’s man and responsible for finding out what we can. He needs a sight of the place where it happened, afore we can do anything at all wi the corp. And I’d say your old men wereny greatly harmed by the excitement,’ he added, glancing at the windows of the hall, where a row of elderly faces peered avidly out at them.

‘This is not where it happened,’ said Maistre Pierre authoritatively. Gil nodded, but everyone else stared at him. Mistress Mudie recovered first.

‘Well, if that’s so, we can take him in-by, out this rain, and make him decent,’ she proposed. ‘At least somebody wi a sense o what’s right has closed his een, but what prayers he’s had I canny tell, what wi you heathens poking and prodding at him, no better than Saracens — ’

With some difficulty, the body was hoisted on to the cart and wheeled away by Maistre Pierre and Andrew Millar, with Mistress Mudie hurrying behind them like a sheepdog, talking unceasingly about the washhouse, the laying-out board and the bedehouse mort-cloth. Maister Kennedy watched them go, then glanced automatically at the unhelpful grey sky and said to Gil, ‘I’d best lift my gear from the chapel and be away down the road. Come by the college and find me when you get a chance, and I’ll tell you what I can.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Gil agreed.

‘Make it an hour when I’m no teaching,’ Maister Kennedy added, ‘and we’ll try a jug of the new Malvoisie.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Gil said, grinning. His friend nodded, and strode off, leaving Lowrie Livingstone standing by the gate to the Stablegreen.

‘What are we looking for, maister?’ he asked.

‘Anything out of place,’ Gil answered, noting the pronoun with interest. He hunkered down again and confirmed for himself Maistre Pierre’s finding that the grass was no more than damp where the corpse had lain, then leaned forward to sniff at the flattened blades. Lowrie had stepped back along the wall, away from the gate, and was looking along its length, fair head on one side.

‘You said,’ he continued, elaborately casual, ‘that is, Maister Mason said, he died yesternight. Or after sunset, anyhow. Is that sure?’

‘He was well set.’

‘Mm.’ Lowrie walked cautiously round the yew-tree and looked at the scene from the other end. ‘He couldny have set quicker for some reason? Does that happen?’

Gil sat back on his heels and looked at the younger man.

‘Possible,’ he admitted, ‘but unlikely. How much quicker?’

‘And you thought he might not have died here.’

‘That’s for certain,’ Gil said. ‘Even with all the trampling there’s been, the traces are clear enough, or the lack of them. There’s never a drop of blood on the grass, nor any trace of where he voided himself as he died, though his hose stank of it and his gown was up round his waist. And I can see no sign of either hat or cloak.’

‘I see.’ Lowrie looked about him. ‘You think he was carried here? When?’

‘That’s what I have to work out.’

‘None of these footprints is deep enough for someone carrying something.’

‘That’s what worries me.’ Gil got to his feet and stepped across the Deacon’s resting-place. ‘He can hardly have flown here, before or after death, unless he was some kind of saint.’

‘No,’ said Lowrie, in positive tones. ‘That he wasny.’ He was surveying the gate now, peering closely at its interlaced iron straps. ‘This was locked. It still is.’ Gil grunted. ‘And that was sometime yesternight he was put here, you think?’

‘All we can say the now,’ said Gil, ‘is that it was between whatever time he was killed and the time he was found.’

‘But do we ken when he was killed?’

‘Not yet.’

‘How will you find who killed him, then?’

‘By asking questions.’ Gil stood up. ‘Let’s go in out of the rain. I wonder what Pierre has discovered from the corp?’

Socrates was sniffing intently at the door of one of the little houses, but when Gil whistled he came to join him with an amiable grin. Lowrie offered his hand for inspection, then followed Gil into the main range, slipping past him to open the heavy wooden door to the outer yard. As it swung open, the sound of raised voices met their ears.

‘I canny believe it! Let me see my brother, he must — ’

‘- no the now, it’s no suitable, they’ll go to offer prayers for him in a — ’

Andrew Millar was standing by the chapel door, in lively discussion with Mistress Mudie and a stocky man in legal dress whom Gil had often seen about the Consistory tower. Noticing him emerge from the main range, Millar said in relief, ‘Here’s Gil Cunningham, that’s the man that’s dealing wi it. Maister Cunningham, here’s Humphrey’s brother, Maister Thomas Agnew, wanting to know what’s going on.’

‘- and I canny have him talking to Humphrey the now, I’ll not answer for it if his brother gets him worked up again, the soul — ’

‘I know you,’ said Agnew. ‘David Cunningham’s nephew, aren’t you no? Is it you that’s to be married soon? What’s been happening here?’

‘The Deacon’s dead,’ said Gil baldly. ‘Taken up dead in the garden this morning. It seems as if he’s been stabbed.’

‘Stabbed?’ repeated Agnew in amazement. ‘That’s what Millar said and all, but I thought surely — who would do a thing like that? I hope no my brother,’ he said anxiously.

‘- and what kind of a brother would make a suggestion like that about a poor soul like Humphrey, I’d like to know — ’

‘Humphrey’s been as vexed as any of them,’ Millar reassured him. ‘I canny think it was him, Maister Agnew. And it’s no a good moment to speak to him, for they’re about to go to Terce and Sext and then they’ll say extra prayers for the Deacon, as Sissie says, and keeping the Office hours aye calms him.’

‘Oh, aye, I suppose,’ said Agnew reluctantly. ‘And when did it happen? Naismith was wi me yestreen, but he left me after an hour. That’s the last I spoke to him.’

‘It must have been this morn,’ said Millar before Gil could speak, ‘or maybe in the night, for he was in his own lodgings when I came home about ten o’clock, and I canny think how it could have happened. Because,’ he added to Gil, ‘it’s just come to me, the door here.’ He waved at the door Gil had just stepped through. ‘I locked it when I came in and went to my own bed, and it was locked just as usual this morn when we came through to say Matins. Deacon Naismith had a key on his ring, but — ’

‘Locked?’ said Agnew. ‘You mean this door’s aye locked at night?’

‘- in course it is, and the gate locked at the other end of the garden, some of these poor souls would be away down paddling in the Girth Burn if they wereny watched at night, your own brother’s one of them, he’d a bad turn yestreen just after I’d got Anselm settled, he must have sung me out half the Apocalypse before I got the sleeping-draught down him — ’

‘That’s a relief to hear, Mistress Mudie,’ said Agnew warmly. ‘D’you ken, I don’t think Maister Naismith ever told me that. It’s a great comfort to me, mistress, that you’ve such a close eye to my brother.’

Mistress Mudie smiled at that, and the light, catching one plump cheek, showed a dimple that came and went. She crossed her arms below her comfortable bosom, the movement shedding a waft of a strong herbal smell Gil could not place, and rattled on.

‘- no more than my duty when all’s said and done, but I’ve a liking to your brother, maister, he’s a poor creature just like the others — ’

‘So what’s ado, Maister Cunningham?’Agnew asked. ‘Millar tells me you’re looking into this for Robert Blacader.’

Gil admitted this.

‘I’ve not had time to learn much so far,’ he added. ‘The man was found stabbed this morn, and we know he was home last night — ’

‘Aye,’ agreed Millar, nodding earnestly.

‘- and that’s about it. Might I come by and talk to you later?’ he asked.

‘To me?’ Agnew’s brows rose under his legal bonnet.

‘You may have been the last to speak to him,’ Gil pointed out. I hope you might be able to tell me something useful.’

‘I don’t see that,’ said Agnew dubiously. ‘If you ken he was here after he saw me — ’

‘- no doubt of that, his boots going up and down over my head, never troubled to put his house shoon on his feet, and when that man’ll be done in the wash-house I canny tell, I haveny all day to wait to lay him out, and I’ve still to put his chamber straight, what wi seeing to that stramash and finding the barrow, and answering Frankie’s kin that’s home from sea, that was here looking for the Deacon as well, though I canny see how he didny tell the lad himself, the dinner will be late if I canny get on — ’

‘None the less,’ persisted Gil, ‘I’d be glad of a word. Will you be in your own chamber in the Consistory later today?’

The washhouse was one of the outhouses leaning against the north wall of the yard. Led to it by Mistress Mudie in full tongue, they found the Deacon laid on a board balanced across two of the great washtubs, his outstretched right arm pointing accusingly at the rafters. Maistre Pierre, a lantern in his hand, was carefully examining so much of the corpse as he could in its present rigid state, but looked up as they entered.

‘Ah, Gilbert, there you are,’ he said, and nodded to Lowrie. ‘We have got the gown off him at least, which gives us a better look at the rest.’

‘- never have tolerated such a thing for any of the bedesmen, why any Christian soul should have to put up with it for himself I canny tell — ’ said Mistress Mudie behind Gil.

‘What have you found?’ Gil asked.

‘He had been drinking,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Not to excess, I am not suggesting he was drunk, but he had taken a refreshment. Also his supper, which one may clearly see was kale with lentils and meat of some sort.’

‘Sweet St Giles,’ said Gil. ‘Can you tell me the vintage of the wine?’

‘No,’ said Maistre Pierre regretfully, ‘though I think it was fortified. The smell is still in his mouth, very faint. Try for yourself.’

Gil bent, quelling his distaste, and sniffed at the open mouth. The cold lips and ginger-bristled jaw were still wet with rain and smelled of the man’s stale breath, and a faint scent of the yew-tree under which the corpse had lain clung to the flesh, but there was also an intimation of alcohol, the treacly savour of a fortified wine. Malvoisie, perhaps, he thought, or sack or that stuff from Xerez. A lentil, fragments of dark green matter and a wisp of meat clung unpleasantly to the back teeth in the lantern-light.

‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘And his death?’

‘Stabbed,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘as I surmised. See.’ He turned back the blood-stiffened folds of cloth fastidiously, exhibiting the wounds on the fleshy torso. ‘This one, and this, have bled quite badly, but I think this is the one that reached the heart.’

‘In the chest, no the back,’ said Gil. “And the weapon? No a large one, I’d have said.’

‘Well, for these, an ordinary small dagger, not much bigger than an eating-knife if that. But look at this.’ He pointed carefully with one big forefinger. ‘I checked the direction of the cuts. These two that bled are quite shallow, as if he was stabbed in anger by an opponent standing in front of him and using his left hand. The third is deeper, done with a bigger blade, and goes in direct, but also from in front, and has found the heart.’

‘Two assailants? And one of them left-handed,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘Has his own dagger been used?’

‘Quite clean,’ reported Lowrie, investigating both weapons where they lay by the corpse’s well-shod feet. ‘And so’s the whinger. And his boots are no worse than you’d expect if he was out in the burgh yestreen. Splashes of mud, no more.’

‘Anything else? What’s in his purse?’

‘I have not yet examined the purse.’

‘- the very idea, going through the poor man’s things like this, and all before he’s made respectable, lying there in all his dirt, the soul — ’

‘There is blood in the creases of his right hand, as if he put it to the wound, no more, but his fingernails are not damaged. And there is something else strange.’ The mason ducked round Naismith’s outstretched, accusatory arm to reach the head, and began to smooth the lank brown hair aside with a surprisingly delicate touch. ‘Bring the light here, will you.’

Gil took up the lantern and obeyed. Lowrie followed him.

‘- at least his eyes are closed, but can he no be left at peace under a decent length of good linen till he softens, with maybe a couple candles and one of my old men to — ’

‘There are these marks on his cheek, which I am not certain about, but also you must look at his other ear,’ said Maistre Pierre. He took the light and held it carefully to shine across the left side of Naismith’s face. ‘See, this pattern in the skin.’

‘Ridges and furrows,’ said Lowrie, craning round Gil’s elbow. ‘It’s almost like the marks on ploughland that’s been left to grazing for a year or two.’

‘It’s as if he’s lain on something uneven,’ said Gil. ‘After death, do you suppose? While he set?’

‘I thought so too,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, ‘though I cannot decide what. But there is also the ear. You see?’ He moved the lantern, and pointed at the edge of the corpse’s right ear.

‘It’s torn,’ said Lowrie in astonishment. ‘But there’s no blood.’ He looked from Maistre Pierre to Gil. ‘I nicked Ninian’s ear on the rim like that with a broken jug last year, and it bled all over him. Is it an old injury maybe?’

‘There are little tags of skin,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It has not healed in any way, but nor has it bled.’

‘So — ?’ Gil prompted, and recognized his uncle’s teaching methods. Lowrie bent to look closer at the injury.

‘So I suppose this must have happened after he died too. How? Is it related to the other marks? Are they both from some kind of rough treatment, maybe when he was moved to where we found him?’

‘It fits,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘Look at him.’ He stood back, gesturing at the length of the body. ‘Apart from that arm, he lies level from the feet to the shoulders, just as he was on the grass. But his head does not rest on this board, it did not rest on the grass, it lies as if on a cushion. A thin cushion,’ he qualified.

‘- as for sticking knives into him once he’s dead, I never heard of such a thing, even if he is asking for a cushion for the poor soul’s head now, and I don’t have such a thing — ’

‘Do you mean, maister,’ said Lowrie slowly, ‘are you saying that he was already part stiffened when he was moved?’

Maistre Pierre grinned approvingly his teeth showing white in his neat black beard.

‘Indeed, I think so. Face, jaw and neck, perhaps, were already set. Then he was disturbed, and taken into the garden, a task I would not care for myself, and fell into the position in which we found him. In which we see him now,’ he nodded at the unresponsive corpse. ‘I suppose if the shoulders lay differently when he was set down, the head would not touch the ground.’

Gil studied the face, still locked in its dream.

‘So he was stabbed in some other place,’ he said slowly, ‘and his eyes closed. Then he was kept there for some time, maybe an hour or two — ’

‘Perhaps as much as three, when the weather is so cold,’ advised Maistre Pierre. Millar exclaimed inarticulately in the doorway.

‘- maybe three, and then borne into the garden and left there. Why?’ Gil lifted the fur-lined gown from the bench where Maistre Pierre had laid it, and began to turn it carefully, inspecting its heavy folds.

‘- what a thing to be suggesting, that’s no way to be treating a Christian corp — ’

‘He couldny stay where he was killed,’ suggested Lowrie.

‘Well, yes, but why? And why go to so much trouble? Why not simply leave him on the Stablegreen or out in the street? How was he got past the locked door here?’

‘His own keys?’ suggested Lowrie.

‘But the keys are on his belt, so how did his bearer get out again?’

‘Over the wall?’

‘Mm,’ said Gil doubtfully, and peered into the wide sleeve of the garment he held. ‘What is this lodged in the fur?’ He picked the pale scraps out of the soft hairs, and held them nearer the light. ‘Grass, is it? Straw? Hay?’

Lowrie came to look, and lifted one of the flakes from Gil’s palm.

‘Straw, isn’t it,’ he agreed. ‘Has he been kept in a hayloft or something?’

‘- and anyway I heard him myself last night, he was certainly home by the time I had Humphrey settled, the poor soul, and in his bed no long after — ’

‘What was that, madame?’ said Maistre Pierre, turning sharply.

Mistress Mudie, half his size, recoiled for a moment, recovered herself, and said again, ‘I heard him last night wi my own ears, tramping about the boards over my head. He was in his own lodgings a couple hours afore midnight, maister, my word on it.’

‘Tell us about it, mistress,’ suggested Gil. Unnecessary, he thought, we’ll hear more than we want to. ‘Did you see him at all?’

‘Oh, aye, of course I saw him,’ she said, plump cheeks puffing out with importance. ‘We had the accounts to see to in the afternoon, same as always, and then he had a word for the whole community, and then they all went to Vespers and Compline, and after it he went out of the almshouse in his good cloak and velvet hat.’

‘It was dark by then?’ said Gil, attempting to follow this headlong description.

‘Compline’s over by maybe half an hour after five o’clock,’ supplied Millar.

Gil nodded acknowledgement, but Mistress Mudie rattled on. ‘Oh, aye, full dark, but I seen him go out at the gate wi a lantern. And then,’ pursued Mistress Mudie without apparently pausing for breath, ‘I had supper for my old men to see to, and they talked a while by the fire, and then there’s one or two I have to help to their beds, and Humphrey and all, and after I seen to that I was in my own lodging next the kitchen, and heard Deacon Naismith come in and walk about on the boards over my head, and eat the collation that I leave him in the court-cupboard to break his fast wi, and drink a beaker of wine, and then ready himself for his bed. And that,’ she concluded triumphantly, ‘was just afore you came in, Maister Millar, so you see there’s no need of saying he was stabbed or anything, because it must have been someone in here if he was, and who’d do a thing like that to the Deacon I’d like to know?’

‘So would I, indeed,’ said Gil politely. ‘Tell me, mistress, do you know where the Deacon went when he left yesternight?’

‘Well, of course I do, though that’s to say, he never said, but a body could tell,’ she dimpled at Gil suddenly, ‘ye can aye tell when a man’s going to his mistress, the more so after what he tellt us all in the afternoon, will you be seeing yours when you’ve done asking questions here, maister?’ I will indeed, thought Gil uneasily. ‘He went out the gate in his good cloak and hat wi his Sunday gown under them, the same one he died in, look at him there, the soul, and his shoulders back, right pleased wi himself,’ she demonstrated, causing a major upheaval under her decent black gown, ‘he’d be going to his house by the Caichpele where the woman Veitch dwells, where he often goes for his supper — ’

‘So he was out of this place before six,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘and returned — when?’

‘I was back here about ten,’ said Millar uneasily. ‘And he was already home.’

‘Returned before ten.’ Maistre Pierre raised his eyebrows. ‘A short evening with one’s mistress.’

‘How long does it take?’ said Gil absently, and caught his breath. ‘I mean — ’ He broke off, and felt his face burning.

‘Longer than that, I hope, the first time,’ said his betrothed’s father unanswerably.

‘- and he was later back than he’s often been,’ supplied Mistress Mudie, to Gil’s relief, ‘for it’s quite usual he’s in his lodging and walking up and down over my head before St Mungo’s Vespers is ended, maybe eight o’clock — ’

‘I saw him go out,’ said Millar. ‘I was ju — just leaving, myself — a late lecture, six o’clock — I’m studying Theology,’ he expanded, ‘and he left ahead of me.’

‘And you weren’t back until ten?’ Gil asked.

‘- oh, aye, it was late, I’d to see Anselm and Duncan to their beds on my own, and Anselm was well worked up, the soul, I canny tell what about — ’

‘We sat a while discussing the lecture, and so forth. It must ha been ten o’clock I came up the road. I saw there was a light in the Deacon’s lodgings, so I locked up and went to my own bed.’ He turned in the doorway and pointed at the main range with its top-heavy dormer windows. ‘That’s my lodging at the end, you see, I reach it from the inner yard. The Deacon’s bedchamber is just through the wall from me. I could hear him moving about and all.’

‘And you’re certain it was as late as ten?’ Gil prompted.

Millar shook his head. ‘I ken all was dark at St Mungo’s and at St Nicholas when I came through the Wyndhead.’

‘Ten o’clock,’ said Maistre Pierre disapprovingly. ‘I should have said earlier, but I suppose it is possible.’

‘And this was all just as usual?’ Gil asked.

‘- usual enough, save they were all late back, for it’s only the two nights in the week Maister Millar’s no here to help me wi Anselm, and what he was on about I’d like to ken, his friend had tellt him all was well but he couldny see it and kept asking me — ’

‘Usual enough,’ agreed Millar. ‘The Deacon was often out in the evening, and back at a variable time, and as Mistress Mudie says I’ve two late lectures in the week, and I’m often gey late home after them. You can check that wi Patey Coventry,’ he added anxiously, ‘he’s in the same class.’

‘Oh, the Bachelor of Sacred Theology course?’ Gil said in Latin. Millar nodded, looking relieved.

‘- needing me much longer, I’d like to get the Deacon made decent, for I’ve the crocks to see to after their porridge and the lassie to send to the market, and then I’ve the dinner to get started, and the Deacon’s lodging to redd up and the accounts to manage and I hope you’ll oversee the accounts for today, Maister Millar, since Deacon Naismith’s no able — ’

‘I have learned all I may from him just now,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘What do we do now, Gilbert?’

‘I’d like to see the Deacon’s lodgings,’ said Gil, ‘you should be present, Maister Millar, but I think we could let Mistress Mudie get on now.’

‘- I tellt ye, I’ve no had a chance to get up there to redd up, I’d no like ye to think it aye looks the way it does first thing, but at least I can make sure Humphrey gets his draught — ’

‘I can let you in,’ said Millar, ‘but I need to take the old men to Terce. Maybe Cubby could lead the Office,’ he said doubtfully, ‘if Frankie’s no back. He’s got the best voice, they can all hear him. Then I could come back and help.’

‘If you could. And you two,’ Gil turned to Lowrie. ‘If you can find Michael,’ he amended, ‘the pair of you could look for the Deacon’s cloak and hat if you would. I’ll send the dog with you, and you can tell me if he pays attention to any place in particular.’

‘They mi — might be in his lodging,’ said Millar. ‘The cloak and hat.’

‘True,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, ‘but having taken the time to put his boots on, why would he then go out bareheaded?’

‘Michael’s likely in the Douglas lodging,’ said Lowrie. ‘Socrates and I can go see.’

‘And then,’ said Gil reluctantly, ‘I’ll need to talk to the brothers. I’ve a notion one or two might have something useful to tell us.’

‘- and that’ll make a nice change for them, a civil learned young man to talk to, they aye like a new ear for their tales, the souls, and if that’s you done here, maister, I’ll see to covering him and a couple of candles the now till he softens and we can make all decent — ’

Lowrie paused at the doorway, cast a sidelong, reluctant glance at the corpse in its pool of lamplight and crossed himself.

‘It’s an odd thing,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve been at the hunt, I’ve witnessed a many stags unmade and lesser game cut up, but this is no the same at all.’

‘No,’ agreed Gil. ‘It’s no the same at all. Say a word for him when you get the chance,’ he suggested, miming counting his beads. ‘It helps.’

The young man nodded, and swallowed hard.

‘I’ll do that,’ he said. ‘Thanks, maister.’

Out in the yard, the rain was heavier. Lowrie ducked his head in a brief bow and hurried for the hall door, and Millar led the way to the fore-stair of the Deacon’s lodging. Socrates, following Lowrie, checked at the threshold and emitted one staccato bark. Gil looked back from the stair and gestured, and the dog obediently padded off after the young man.

‘Not locked,’ said Maistre Pierre as the latch rattled.

‘Oh, no,’ agreed Millar, pushing the door open. ‘We lock the outer gate by night, ye ken, and the hall door, and the back yett as Sissie said, but we’ve no locks to our own doors, save for the Douglas lodging, a course, and the boy has that the now.’

Naismith’s apartment was both commodious and clean. The door admitted them to an outer room fashionably and expensively furnished with a handsome court-cupboard, four leather backstools and a table with carved legs. In one corner of the room stood a tall rack of shallow drawers, bundles of papers showing at their open fronts. Wall-hangings of verdure work made the place comfortable, and on an embroidered linen cloth on the table sat the remains of Mistress Mudie’s collation: a wooden platter with the crumbs of an oatmeal bannock, the leaf wrappings of a green cheese, an apple-core. Windows facing on to either yard were stoutly shuttered, but a grey light fell through their glazed upper portions just under the thatch.

‘And the bedchamber’s yonder,’ said Millar, nodding at the far end of the room. ‘Now I’d best get down to see to the Office.’

‘Mistress Mudie keeps house for the Deacon as well as for the brothers?’ Gil asked. ‘Alone?’

‘Aye, and for me.’ Millar grimaced. ‘She’s a good woman, and she loves caring for the old men, it’s no just a duty, and she’s a good housewife, wi two-three kitchen hands under her, though you’d never think it the way she goes on about the cooking. Her talk doesny bother the brothers,’ he added, with a wry grin, ‘the most of them canny hear her.’

‘I have no doubt she is a good woman, as you say, but her tongue would drive me raving wild in a day,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Your semly voys that ye so smal out-twyne Maketh my thoght in joye and blis habounde,’ remarked Gil. Millar grinned again, then hastily rearranged his features in solemnity. ‘So the Deacon left just before you did,’ Gil continued, ‘and came back late. How did he get up the stair last night? The moon’s at the quarter, but it was full cloud. I’d need of a lantern myself, out in the street, even with the lights on the house corners, and in the yard here it would be like the inside of a barrel.’

‘Oh, he’d a la — lantern,’ said Millar, pausing on the doorsill. ‘It’s here. He’s brought it home with him.’

‘His own lantern? You can identify it?’

‘Oh, aye.’ Millar waved a hand at the object where it sat on the court-cupboard. ‘Well, it belongs to the bedehouse. You can see, it’s got the badge on the handle, and all.’

Gil went over and lifted the lantern. It was a well-made and well-worn specimen, of tooled brass set with pieces of mica. The shutter was fastened by a neat clasp whose pin was attached by a fine chain, and the handle was smoothly shaped and ornamented by a small shield with a heart on it.

‘Douglas?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘The Douglas arms? The same which you wear, maister?’

Gil looked attentively, for the first time, at the embroidered badge on Millar’s cloak.

‘The Douglas arms, with a difference. A heart on a shield,’ he said, ‘and an open book below it. Was it a Douglas founded the place?’

‘The shield should be chained to the book,’ said Millar, distracted, ‘and LP on the pages of the book, to signify the House of Leirit Puirtith, but the stitches aye wear away. It was James Douglas of Cauldhope was our founder, near sixty year since, as a house to support ten poor learned men. We pray daily for his soul and his wife’s.’

‘I never realized that,’ said Gil. ‘That must have been my godfather’s sire — or his grandsire, indeed. Ten, is it? You don’t have ten staying here now, do you?’

‘No, no,’ said Millar anxiously. ‘There are si — six bedesmen. And I’d best leave you now, maisters, and go and lead them to Terce. I’ll come back as soon as they’ve right started.’

‘We must not delay the Office,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, and Millar hurried off down the creaking fore-stair. Gil set the lantern back on the court-cupboard and prowled round the chamber, opening the shutters so that the damp air stirred and more light fell on the well-swept boards under their feet. Maistre Pierre laid the dead man’s purse and belt on the table and looked about him.

‘He did himself proudly,’ he commented. He moved to the rack of papers and drew out a bundle. ‘What are all these, I wonder? The accounts of the bedehouse, I suppose. I wonder where he wrote? I see no pen or ink. Perhaps in the inner room.’

‘This does not add up,’ Gil said. His companion nodded, peering at the papers he held. ‘He was moving about up here two hours before midnight, with a locked door between him and the place where he was found dead this morning. He must have been killed almost immediately after he was heard here, but where did it happen?’

‘His keys were on him. They could have been used to open the door.’

‘But how did his killer get out again, through the locked door?’

‘Perhaps it was one of the old men. Or Millar, or that talking woman. Who else has a key?’

‘I hope the boys may find something to the purpose.’ Gil turned his head as a sound of shuffling feet rose from the yard. ‘And there is Naismith’s bedchamber to search.’