St Mungo's Robin

Chapter Eight

Tib was still sitting at the window, the dog at her feet, staring anxiously at the door, when he returned to the upper chamber.

‘What was it?’ she asked.

He sat down, sighing. ‘The mad bedesman tried to kill his brother.’

‘Mad? I didn’t know one of them was mad!’

‘I’ve mentioned it before,’ he said mildly. ‘He’s shut in with Mistress Mudie now. She’ll dose him with something to calm him, and the others are no harm to anyone. Except Maister Veitch,’ he added, ‘who beat me black and blue to get the Latin into me.’

She sat in subdued silence for some time, then said, ‘Gil.’

‘Mm?’ He set down the paper he was studying.

‘This is a deal more work than I imagined you did.’

‘It’s all in the detail.’

‘And in mad people trying to kill each other.’

‘That doesny happen often,’ he said reassuringly.

‘I hope no,’ she said. Then, turning her head, ‘My, is that sunshine?’ She stretched her back. ‘Gil, would it be safe now if I go down into the garden for a wee while? I’ve not seen the sun for days.’

‘Humphrey won’t go for you even if he sets eyes on you. Don’t annoy Mistress Mudie,’ he said. She snorted. ‘And for God’s sake, Tib, if any of the old men speaks to you, be civil.’

‘What d’you take me for?’ She shook out her skirts and pushed her hair back from her brow, arranging the curling locks with a gesture Gil realized he had seen in all his sisters except Dorothea. ‘Can I no question them for you?’ she added with an air of innocence. ‘Old men like me. They try to pinch my chin.’

He grinned, and waved her towards the door.

‘Get away out and walk in the garden,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in a wee while.’

Is it simply because she is my sister, he wondered, as her footsteps receded down the creaking stair, or are our natures incompatible? With Alys beside me I get more done than when I’m alone, but with Tib in the room I can’t concentrate.

Socrates lay down on his feet. He sighed, and bent his head to the documents again. Somewhere in this dusty pile was the reason for Naismith’s death, he was certain.

He had turned over only another two pages when more steps on the stair heralded Maistre Pierre, a neat hank of linen tape in his hand.

‘I have measured the distance between those feet,’ he said without preamble, ‘and sent the men out, since they are doing nothing useful today. Wattie has the joint-ill and cannot hold a mallet, and the journeymen were celebrating something last night and will not be fit to work safely before noon. If Robert Blacader ever wishes to see his aisle finished, he had best pray for a miracle. So they may as well search the Upper Town for our ladder.’

‘Oh, the ladder!’ repeated Gil, in some relief. ‘I was thinking of the wrong kind of feet. That would be valuable, Pierre.’

The mason checked a moment, staring at him, then guffawed.

‘Feet? What kind of feet had you in mind?’ he demanded. Gil shook his head, aware that his colour was rising, hardly recognizing why. ‘No, I only measured the ladder. Feet!’

‘Is my sister in the garden?’

‘Yes, she was out there, talking to those two students. I would say she was well entertained. Certainly she hardly noticed me at the gate.’ Maistre Pierre set a familiar bunch of keys on the table. ‘And it seems the talking woman has finished laying out the corpse. Do you wish to come down and inspect it?’

Gil rose and crossed the room to the window where Tib had been sitting. Out in the garden was a tableau: the three young people stood conversing by the door of the Douglas lodging, Tib with her hands demurely folded at her waist, Michael leaning casually against the house wall, Lowrie tossing up his felt cap and catching it again. Seeing movement at the window he looked up, clapped the hat on his fair head in order to take it off again, and called, ‘Good day, Maister Cunningham. What more have you found?’

Tib turned sharply.

‘See who’s here, Gil!’ she exclaimed with a bright smile. ‘You mind Michael, don’t you?’

Gil, with a sneaking feeling of shame, recognized rescue.

‘I mind Michael well,’ he agreed from the window, ‘and Lowrie. Good day, the both of you. Were you going down the road any time soon? Could you see Lady Tib to where she wants to be next?’

Robert Naismith was laid out on the board in the washhouse, with linen under him, and the length waiting to complete the embrace piled in creamy folds at his feet. His mouth was already closed and bound, sealing in the lentils and the scent of wine. Gil thought of Thomas Agnew’s vile Malvoisie, and wondered where the dead man had drunk his last draught. There were candles at the head of the board, and Sir Duncan Fraser with a fearsome set of beads at its foot, shining head bent over his fingers while the prayers slid out from under the luxuriant moustache. The dog padded in past Gil to check the space, raising his long nose to sniff at the hanging edge of the linen shroud.

‘Sir Duncan,’ Gil said softly. The old man looked up, still murmuring. ‘Did you hear anything, the night Deacon Naismith died?’

The prayers halted, and Sir Duncan peered at him with watery blue eyes. After a moment he shook his head, absently stroking Socrates. ‘Naither eechie nor ochie. A tauld ’e.’

‘Nor see anything, out in the garden?’ Gil asked hopefully. ‘Lights, maybe, or movement?’

The old man considered, his bushy eyebrows meeting in a frown. ‘A seed wir boanie Andro come hame, wi’s lantron. Gaed up his steps, juist as ayeways.’

‘What time was that?’ Gil asked, following this with difficulty.

‘Late. Lang efter Sissie was dune wi Humphra, peer saal.’

Gil nodded, and patted Sir Duncan’s bony elbow.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll not keep you from your prayers.’

‘Ye’re a lang-heidit laddie,’ said Sir Duncan approvingly. ‘Collogue wi Frankie, at’s my rede.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Gil. He was still holding his hat, out of respect for the corpse, but he bent knee and head in salute to the old man, and turned to Maistre Pierre as the lumpy black beads in the gnarled fingers slipped round and the soft ripple of prayers began again. Socrates, having completed his survey, paced out into the yard.

Maistre Pierre was peering at the back of the Deacon’s head. ‘I can find no other injury than the knife wounds,’ he reported. ‘There is only this, which still puzzles me.’ He laid the head down and turned it so that the light fell on the undamaged ear. ‘It begins to fade as he softens, but it can still be seen, this pattern on his ear and jaw.’

Gil shielded his eyes from the candles and examined the marks again. Ridges and hollows marked the skin, showing up in certain angles of the light. He touched the cold flesh, but could make no sense of the impressions.

‘I wonder, should we draw it?’ he suggested, ‘since it will fade, as you say.’

‘A good idea,’ agreed Maistre Pierre with enthusiasm, extracting his tablets from his sleeve. ‘I do that, while you inspect his clothes yonder. I hope that excellent woman has not brushed and shaken them already,’ he added in guarded tones.

Gil lifted the pile of tawny woollen and stained linen and took it to the daylight, where he turned the garments cautiously one by one. The furred gown offered no new information, other than a few pulled threads in the dark brown stuff of one sleeve which fitted well enough with the idea that the body had been put over the wall. He shook out the stinking hose and scrutinized them, holding them fastidiously by the points still threaded in the eyelets at the waist, and was rewarded by two more pulled threads and another scrap of straw caught in the weave. Agnew’s chamber in the tower had left its trace.

The jerkin and shirt, stiffened with blood across the breast, were slashed where the knife had gone through them. Was this why Humphrey said the Deacon was a robin, he wondered, seeing the extent of the dark stain. He was examining the cuts in the linen when Socrates, ranging about the yard, pricked his ears and bounded towards the entryway, tail waving. Gil heard the light footsteps in the same moment. The whole day brightened round him, and he set down the armful of fouled garments as Alys appeared round the corner of the chapel, plaid over her head against the chilly breeze. Socrates leapt round her, pushing his long nose under her hand, and she paused to greet him, then crossed the yard to meet Gil.

‘Nou skrinketh rose and lylie flour. My hands stink,’ he said, ‘I won’t touch you,’ and bent to kiss her as she tilted her face. She put up her own hand to touch his jaw, and smiled up at him.

‘I have spoken to the painter’s man,’ she said, ‘and I thought I would come out and tell you what I learned from him. Gil, what has happened? You look as if something is awry.’

‘Ah — Alys,’ said Maistre Pierre from inside the washhouse before Gil could answer. ‘We are inspecting the body. Come tell me what you think of this.’

Comparing her father’s competent rendering with the original impression on Naismith’s softening flesh, Alys said after a moment, ‘It reminds me of something. He has lain on something after he died, I suppose.’ Maistre Pierre nodded. ‘But what? Not rope, but could it be string, set close together? Something with cord wrapped round it?’ She demonstrated with her hands. ‘Where was he?’

‘I wish we knew,’ said Gil. He turned to set the pile of clothes back where he had found it. ‘He certainly went to see Agnew, and brought the proof away with him in these scraps of straw, but after that — Pierre, is the man’s purse still in his lodging?’

‘It is.’ The mason stepped away from the corpse, bowed to it and crossed himself. ‘I think the dead has no more to tell us. Now you are here, come up and help us with these accounts, ma mie. I am certain there is more to be learned from them. Gilbert, you may wash your hands at the kitchen drain if they trouble you.’

Gil, making his way obediently towards the kitchen, found Alys at his elbow.

‘I met with your sister on the road,’ she began quietly.

‘Which sister?’ he asked, pausing by the door into the building.

‘Lady Tib.’ He noted the formal reference, where Kate was always Your sister Kate or simply Kate. ‘She was with Michael Douglas and the other young man, you called him Lowrie.’ Gil nodded. ‘We stopped to pass the time of day, and she told me of the incident earlier, and also made some reference to madame here at the almshouse. I wondered,’ she went on diffidently, ‘whether anything required to be smoothed over.’

They were speaking in French, but he still dropped his voice.

‘Oh, Alys. Yes, indeed.’ He moved away from the door and from the range of outhouses, and explained rapidly. ‘She wanted to help me, so I set her to question the kitchen hands, and somehow it didn’t work. There are two women there, who began talking about witchcraft, and the kitchen-boy took fright and summoned his mistress, who was incensed.’

She nodded, her elusive smile flickering, and turned towards the buildings.

‘I’ll see what I can learn,’ she promised.

He could not work out how she did it. As they reached the kitchen door Mistress Mudie appeared from her own chamber, and cast them a glance of weary belligerence.

‘- it’s that man of law again, I hope wi no more questions, kind as he is, for my head’s as empty as a pint pot by now, and another lass wi him, is it your bride this time, maister? That’s right kind of you to bring her to see us, and such a bonnie lass and all, but I’m no certain it’s the time of day for visitors — ’

‘You must be Mistress Mudie,’ said Alys. ‘I’m Alys Mason. I’m told you are herb-wise, and I wished for your advice, madame.’

Mistress Mudie’s expression altered. ‘- depends what you were wanting, there’s matters I’ll no deal wi — ’

‘Of course there are,’ agreed Alys. She stepped into the kitchen and bobbed a neat curtsy. The two women exchanged formal kisses, and though Mistress Mudie’s conversation did not seem to halt as she bustled in and out of her own chamber, by the time Gil had rinsed the uncompromising smell of stale urine off his hands at the stone sink in the corner she and Alys were seated at the long table discussing a small pot of ointment, while Socrates watched alertly from the doorway and the young man hacking vegetables worked on at the other end of the board. A coin was exchanged, Alys murmuring something about a donation, and Mistress Mudie’s dimple appeared as she smiled.

‘- oh, that’s kind, I canny take payment in course but this’ll buy a wee treat for my old men, this should sort your lassie’s hands in a day or so, dearie, Mallie there has the same trouble and I aye give her some of this to put on when it’s bad — ’ The two kitchenmaids looked round at this, then returned hastily to their work as Mistress Mudie glared at them and chattered on, now apparently to Gil, ‘- that good of you to come out to help us when you’re as taigled, but the idea that someone made away wi the Deacon I canny get used to, it’s surely a mistake of some sort, it’s made Humphrey sore distressed, the poor soul, you saw him the now, he’d like a wee word, if you’d be so good, he’s still here in my chamber where his brother canny find him if he comes by again wi no warning — ’

‘Maister Humphrey?’ said Gil, picking this thread out of the tangle. ‘How is he now?’

‘- oh, he’s as jumpy as a flea, and no wonder, wi his own kin making such accusations against him, so if the two of you could indulge him, lassie, Maister Cunningham, I’d take it as a real deed of charity — ’

‘I’ll speak to him, of course,’ said Gil, wondering how it was that he was still Maister Cunningham but Alys was lassie as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. ‘Alys?’

‘And I,’ she said, a little reluctantly.

Humphrey was sitting by the brazier in Mistress Mudie’s chamber, biting at his cuffs and staring anxiously at the wall. Hoccleve again, Noon abood, noon areest, but al brain-seke, thought Gil. When they entered he looked round sharply, shrinking back, but recovered when he recognized a familiar face.

‘It’s you that’s asking the questions,’ he said through Mistress Mudie’s tumbling speech. ‘I saw you this morn. And this one’s your bonnie make.’ Alys, tense beside Gil, nodded in acknowledgement. ‘And I see it now, maister, you’re no a hoodie. I took you for a hoodie, but I can tell now you’re a heron.’

‘A heron?’ said Gil involuntarily. ‘Why ever a heron?’

Humphrey gave him his blank smile.

‘Oh, it’s quite clear to me. A heron that goes stepping about in all the mud,’ he demonstrated the deliberate gait with his hands, ‘watching his feet, and then stabs! wi his beak.’ Gil felt Alys flinch beside him as Humphrey stabbed with his beakless head. ‘And this is your make, maister. A heron like yoursel, she is.’

‘This is Mistress Mason,’ said Gil formally. A heron? he thought. In her blue woollen gown, the grey plaid over her shoulders, her plumage was the right colour, but that was all.

‘- no a very nice thing to call a bonnie lassie — ’ agreed Mistress Mudie.

‘Maister Humphrey,’ said Gil, on a venture. Humphrey turned his blank smile on him again. ‘You mind you told me that Deacon Naismith is a robin, now that he’s dead?’

‘Aye, that’s right, he’s a robin,’ agreed Humphrey.

‘So who’s the sparrow?’ Gil asked hopefully.

Humphrey shook his head. ‘No, no. There’s no sparrow here. Frankie’s a kestrel, see, and Anselm’s a coal-tit, and Cubby’s a yaffle,’ he counted on his fingers, ‘and Barty’s a barn-owl, and Duncan’s a jay, you can tell, but there’s no sparrow in the place.’

‘And Maister Millar?’

‘Andro’s another owl,’ Humphrey said confidently.

‘Now that’s enough, my poppet, you and your games, calling folk all sorts — ’ said Mistress Mudie reprovingly.

Humphrey ignored her, and looked from Gil to Alys again. ‘And you’re to be wed soon, wi kirk and Mass, Sissie tells us.’

‘That’s right.’

With unnerving suddenness, Humphrey’s eyes focused, and his expression changed to one of professional pastoral concern. He raised his right hand with its bleeding nails, and pronounced a blessing on their coming marriage in rolling Latin phrases. Gil found his throat stopped, but Alys’s tongue was loosed. Bending her head she crossed herself and said gently, ‘Thank you indeed, Maister Humphrey. I hope you’ll pray for us.’

‘And you for me, my lassie, if you will, for Our Lord kens I need it,’ said Humphrey. Then, abandoning sense, ‘Sissie, have you a bit fish for these two herons?’

‘They’ll eat in their own place, my poppet,’ said Mistress Mudie, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘And maybe you’d best go now, for he’s no been good the day, it was all too much for us yesterday what wi one thing and then another — ’

‘The poor man,’ said Alys as they stepped into the yard.

‘Much sorwe I walke with For beste of boon and blood,’ Gil quoted. ‘It seems he is mad for grief and guilt.’

She nodded, then looked around, and drew Gil to the chapel. The little building was full of shadows leaping from the two candles on the altar; nothing else moved, although it felt almost as if someone had left as they entered. Through the roof? Gil wondered, amused at himself. There’s only the one door.

‘The two women sleep out,’ Alys was saying quietly, ‘as I suspected when you said they were talking about witchcraft. No wonder the laddie was frightened. And he sleeps under the table or on the hearth, and saw and heard nothing moving, not even the Devil.’

‘Alys, that’s marvellous,’ he said, drawing her into his arms.

‘I do wonder,’ she went on, ‘now I have seen the boy, whether he would think to mention it if Mistress Mudie had left her chamber later. He must be used to her going in and out at all hours if she’s needed.’

‘Difficult to find out.’ Gil tightened his clasp. ‘What did you learn from the painter’s man?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She paused, ordering her thoughts. ‘He spoke to his cousin last night, indeed she must have told the half of Glasgow about it all. The only new thing I learned is that Naismith may have known the little girl was not his. You said the dates didn’t add up, didn’t you?’

‘Mm,’ he said, and kissed the top of her ear.

‘I wondered if her brother thought it was Naismith’s.’

‘What would that do?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. It gives him the more reason to dislike the man, if Naismith was repudiating his mistress and his child as well.’

‘Did Daidie know who is the child’s father?’

‘He said not.’

‘If this was a verse romance, it would turn out to be the mysterious watcher.’

‘Oh, Daidie mentioned him too. By today he’d become a giant with a black beard and a bloody sword.’ She looked up at him, her quick smile flickering. ‘The Watch won’t venture along the Drygate this night, I imagine.’

‘I wonder what Bel really saw? I’m not inclined to believe in her watcher, giant or not.’

She nodded, and laid her head briefly on his shoulder, then drew away slightly. Reluctantly, he let her go, and she bent the knee to the altar and crossed herself.

‘What is my father doing with the accounts?’ she speculated. Heart heavy, he followed her out across the yard and up the sounding stair.

Maistre Pierre had all the bundles of paper arranged on the polished surface of the table, and was peering at one sheet held at a distance, his tablets in his other hand.

‘The man wrote appalling small,’ he complained as they entered. ‘This is that very profitable estate, you recall, Gil, out by Kilsyth. The total is considerable.’

‘May I see?’ Alys took the paper he held, and ran a finger down the returns. ‘Where was it all going? This alone would keep the bedehouse in comfort, I should have thought. Whose gift was it?’

‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Gil, scrutinizing the opened packet on the table. ‘It was gifted by the parents of Humphrey Agnew, specifically for his keep.’

‘Surely that isn’t the original?’ asked Alys, looking round his shoulder.

‘No, an extract only.’ He was still studying the abbreviated phrases. ‘The parchment must be filed safe elsewhere. See, here it merely says, ad domusdei S Servi, de Thomasi Agnew et Anna Paterson ux suis, pro bono Umfridi fil eis.’

‘I would have expected better Latin,’ she said critically.

‘Not necessarily.’ He turned the leaf and skimmed over the other side. ‘This lists the boundaries of the land, and the buildings and tenants. It seems to include an entire ferm-toun. Nothing here about the terms of the gift. The parchment will have the detail — what prayers are expected, and how much care Humphrey gets in return for the income.’

‘He must need a deal of care, poor man,’ said Alys. ‘Gil, what is all this about birds?’

‘He seems to see the folk around him as birds,’ Gil agreed. ‘Maister Cubby as a woodpecker, Millar as an owl. And the Deacon was a shrike and then a robin.’

‘Why a robin?’

‘Because he’s dead,’ Gil quoted. ‘Whether he means the one in the bairns’ rhyme — I said the sparrow with my bow and arrow — or the one St Mungo brought back to life, I’ve no notion.’

‘St Mungo’s robin? But the saint will not bring the Deacon back to life.’

‘It seems unlikely.’

‘Naismith was making a good profit from the situation,’ said Maistre Pierre. He had gone on to another sheaf of paper. ‘Now this is a Douglas gift. If the family uses the place as a townhouse, I imagine the Deacon would have less freedom to divert these funds.’

‘And you said the man’s own papers are in his kist,’ Alys prompted.

‘It is locked,’ said her father without looking up. ‘The keys are yonder.’

Following her after a short time, Gil found her on her knees before the painted kist, its lid open. She was going methodically through the packets of paper and parchment from one of the inner compartments, but as he knelt beside her she inspected the last one and gathered them up to put them back in the kist, their dangling seals clicking together.

‘I wondered if the bedehouse papers were here,’ she said, ‘but these are the documents for the man’s own possessions. What about this? Ah!’ She scooped another handful from a different compartment and gave half to Gil. He contrived to touch her fingers as he took them, and she looked round, smiled as their eyes met, looked quickly away. What is the matter, he wondered, trying not to look at the bed beyond her. Mistress Mudie had obviously been up to clean the lodging, for the mattress was stripped, the bare pillows piled at its head and the tapestry counterpane folded neatly at the foot.

‘Here is the Kilsyth gift,’ said Alys. She handed him the crackling document. ‘Is this the complete disposition?’

‘It is,’ he agreed, running his eye down the lines of careful script. ‘Drawn up by Thomas Agnew the younger, it says — ’

‘Is that the same man?’

‘It must be. It doesn’t add much to what we know already,’ he admitted. ‘The property seems to be dedicated to Humphrey’s keep, and to revert to the bedehouse absolutely after his death.’

‘Unwise,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘What if he became worse and had to be sent somewhere he could be shut away? How would he be supported then?’

‘I suppose the parents felt the bedehouse would pay for that out of this gift.’

‘Perhaps the previous Deacon was less acquisitive.’

He nodded, and folded the parchment carefully back into its creases. ‘I’ll ask Millar if I may take all these documents for safe keeping just now. Then we can go through them at more leisure.’

‘A good plan. And what is this?’ Alys lifted a piece of paper from the floor. She turned it over, looking at the writing, and unfolded it. ‘It’s a map, with notes. Did it fall out when I unfolded that disposition? There are names on it — is that Auchenreoch? Queenzie?’

‘It must have,’ said Gil, answering her second question. ‘Those are names from the Kilsyth property.’

‘Someone has planned great things.’ She turned the sheet of paper to read more of the notes. ‘A vast house, by the look of it. How many cartloads of stone? Do you know the writing?’

‘It’s Naismith’s.’ Gil grinned. ‘The bedehouse properties are at the Deacon’s disposition, and he has certainly made the most of the situation, as your father said. Ambitious!’

‘Did you say,’ she recalled thoughtfully, ‘that the man of law suggested he might have been altering the terms of the dispositions?’

‘I did.’ Gil unfolded the parchment again and spread it out on the swept boards between them. ‘I wonder. What do you think? I see nothing irregular here.’

‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s all in the one hand, isn’t it.’

He looked down at the neat paragraphs, and then at her face beside his, leaned forward and kissed her. She moved at the last moment, so that it landed on her cheek rather than her mouth, but she turned her head slightly and returned the salute, a single, clinging kiss. Then, with a little shiver, she drew away and scrambled to her feet.

‘I must go down the hill,’ she said. ‘There are things I must see to.’

‘We’ll show this to Pierre,’ said Gil, ‘and get these papers packed up, and then I’ll come with you. I have to find John Veitch’s lodging and speak to the widow.’

Leaving Maistre Pierre planning to go out and find his men, they set out to walk down the High Street, arm in arm, the dog at their heels. The wind was still chilly, with spatters of rain in it.

‘I hope it will be dry next week,’ said Alys doubtfully, pulling her plaid up with her free hand. ‘The brocades will be spoiled if it’s wet.’

‘We should have made it a double wedding with Kate and Augie Morison, in September, as they suggested. They had a fine day.’

‘I wish we had, now.’ She looked up at him, and quickly away. ‘It would all be …’

‘All be what?’ Gil drew her aside to avoid a ranging pig outside one of the small cottages on the steep slope called the Bell o’ the Brae. ‘All be over by now? Is that how it seems to you, Alys?’ He stopped, turning to look down at her. ‘Something to be got over?’

‘No!’ she protested, going scarlet. ‘Gil, no!’ She glanced about them, moved closer and put her hand on his chest. ‘I want to be married, more than anything, I swear it. We’ll be together, we’ll be partners, man and wife. It’s just …’

‘Just what?’

She looked away, biting her lips.

‘I can’t explain. I don’t know.’

‘Alys.’ He gathered both her hands in his. ‘Something’s troubling you. Tell me.’

‘I can’t explain,’ she repeated, shaking her head. Resolutely she pulled away, took his arm and set off down the street again. ‘Gil, can you tell me anything about this — this bed your mother has sent?’

‘Bed,’ he repeated. ‘Oh, Pierre mentioned it.’

‘Sh-she says it was her marriage bed.’

‘If it’s the one I think,’ he said cautiously, ‘it’s a box bed like the one in Naismith’s lodging, much the same size but with a lot of carving about it. Saints and Green Men and so forth. The hangings were red cloth, if I mind right.’

‘Red,’ she said doubtfully. ‘They are still in the canvas. Lucky we decided on blue for the walls, then. It ought to fit in the chamber if it’s a box bed. I was afraid it might be a tester-bed,’ she admitted, ‘built for a higher room.’

‘Do you mind?’

‘It’s generous of her.’

‘That doesn’t answer me.’ She was silent. ‘Did we have a bed other than this one?’

She shook her head. ‘I hadn’t — I was going to — there are several beds in the house that would be suitable.’

‘Your mother’s bed?’

She crossed herself at the mention of her dead mother. ‘My father sleeps in that.’ She sighed. ‘Red hangings will be very smart, and I expect the men can set it up easily once the painters are done. Perhaps we should get the hangings out of their canvas now and air them.’

Gil whistled to the dog as they reached the pend which gave entry to the mason’s sprawling house.

‘I’ll leave you here, sweetheart,’ he said, handing her the packet of the bedehouse documents. ‘We need to talk, but I must get this matter out of the way as soon as I can.’

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘Do you want to leave Socrates with me? He can play with John in the kitchen till you come back.’

The children running in St Catherine’s Wynd broke off their chase and nodded when he asked for Veitch’s landlady, grinning and pointing at the building beside them, and one boy who seemed to be their leader shouted up at the windows, ‘Haw, Widow Napier! Mistress Napier! Ye’re socht!’

‘Who seeks me?’ returned a shrill voice. A shutter two floors up was flung wide, and a white-coifed head peered out. ‘And you bairns should be away hame for your noon bite by this, the lot of ye!’

‘We’re to get one last game, Mistress Napier,’ called the ringleader. ‘You’re het, Davie Wilson.’

Gil identified himself as the children scattered again, and the widow peered suspiciously down into the wynd.

‘You’d best come up, sir,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s yon stair there, two up and at your left.’

The building was a timber-framed structure with a skin of boards, and a peeling figure of some saint painted near the stair door might have been St Nicholas, patron of children, students and sailors. As he picked his way cautiously round the turns of the stair Gil reflected that not only the presence of the patron saint of sailors might make John Veitch feel at home here; the building creaked like a carvel in a gale.

‘And what’s your business wi me, maister?’ demanded the widow in her doorway.

‘I think you’ve a man John Veitch lodging wi you,’ said Gil, halting a couple of steps below her landing so that his head was level with hers. She was a skinny little woman, clad in decent homespun with a clean white linen headdress. One hand clutched her beads for protection.

‘Is John a friend of yours?’

‘I knew him when we were boys,’ said Gil. ‘I blacked his eye a couple times.’

She relaxed a little at that.

‘Aye, well, he’s no here the now,’ she said in her shrill voice. ‘He’s at his sister’s, where they’ve no their troubles to seek for, you’ll maybe have heard.’

‘Is that right?’ said Gil, hastily revising his approach to this witness. ‘No, I’ve not heard. I’m sorry if he’s got troubles in the family. I only came by to ask his pardon for no meeting him last night — no, the night before that it would be now.’

‘Night afore last, maister?’ she said, staring at him. ‘I wouldny ken about that.’

‘Oh,’ said Gil. ‘I’d trysted wi him for the Compline hour at a tavern up the High Street, and I never got there till near an hour after it. Likely he went on somewhere else,’ he suggested.

‘Oh, very likely,’ she agreed, nodding hard. ‘He’s no here the now. Are you a writing man, maister?’ she speculated, eyeing the pen-case hung at his belt. ‘You could leave him a scrape o your pen if you wanted.’

‘That would be kind, if you’d pass it on.’

‘Oh, no trouble. And while you’ve your pen and ink out, maybe you’d scrieve a wee thing for me and all?’ she said hopefully. ‘Come away in, then, maister, and get a seat.’

The widow’s message was for her sister in Dumbarton, a list of disjointed statements about members of their kindred. Perched on the stock at the edge of yet another bed, its curtain draped over his back, bent nearly double to lean on the stool she had offered him as a writing-surface, Gil made notes in his tablets, then selected a piece of paper from the small store he carried in his pen-case, flattened it out, weighed it down with the beaker of ale she had insisted on pouring for him, and began compressing the string of facts into the smallest space he could manage while she assured him that her sister’s neighbour’s son would be able to read it for her, or if not, then the priest would likely oblige. ‘Though I don’t know,’ she said doubtfully, ‘she said Sir Alan read her the last one, a year ago, and when I saw her at Yule she hadny heard the half of what I sent by it.’

‘I’ll write as clear as I can,’ he said. Behind his heels, under the creaking frame, lay a low truckle-bed, covered in a worn checked plaid, along with a bundle of unidentified timbers fully as long as the bed. Presumably the widow let out one bed and slept in the other, he speculated, copying his note about her sister Christian’s son Will’s new apprentice. ‘Did John say where he went the other night when I missed him?’ he asked.

‘No, no, maister, he never said, but I’m thinking it was some kind of mischief,’ she said tolerantly, ‘for the pair of them came in here after daylight, having hid in a pend from the Watch, so they tellt me, and John had his boots wet as wet, it was a mercy he had his seaboots wi him and could put those on when he went out again and his friend got a bit sleep. There’s his good ones still hung up filled wi moss and rags, but he wasny that worried. Sailors gets used to wet feet, he tellt me.’

She pointed at the window, where a pair of sturdy leather boots hung in the opening.

‘Good boots,’ said Gil, eyeing them. ‘They’re never local make, though.’

‘No, he said he got them in some foreign place. Spain, or Portingal, or the like. They’ve both got all kinds of foreign stuff about them.’

‘They?’ said Gil. ‘Has he a friend lodging wi him? He never said.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Relaxing further, she confided, ‘I’m right glad he brought him here. It brings me in a bit more coin, for I never like to ask strangers to be bedfellows.’

‘I’m sure that’s wise,’ said Gil solemnly. ‘I wonder, is it anyone I know? His brother William, maybe?’

‘Oh, no, it’s no his brother, he’s no like him at all. Dark-headed, and a great black beard. It’s a fellow called Rankin Elder. Off the same ship, they tell me.’

‘Is that right? Well, likely I’ll meet him if I catch up with John. And does John have my cloak, would you know?’

‘Your cloak, maister? What like is it?’ she said, peering at him.

‘A black one, with a collar, and braid on it.’ He finished the letter. ‘What name shall I put at the foot, mistress?’

‘Sybilla Thomson,’ she said promptly, ‘relic of John Napier. A black cloak wi braid and a collar, sir? No, John’s got nothing like that. He’s got his boat-cloak, but that’s brown, just the brown fleece.’ She reached past him to draw aside the curtain, revealing the interior of the bed. Striped blankets were neatly folded back and a greyish sheet was stretched over the bolster at the head. Two scrips lay at the foot, neither one big enough to hold the bulky folds of material which made up a bedehouse cloak. ‘He must be wearing his cloak, a cold day like this, and the other fellow the same. There’s all they brought with them from Dumbarton, maister.’

Down in the street, he put the widow’s small coin in his purse, making a mental note to give it to St Nicholas at the first opportunity, and walked on to the end of the wynd. It petered out into a narrow track between a diminutive chapel and two leaning sheds, and suddenly debouched on to the riverside. He looked up and down the banks, and at the gold-brown water of the Clyde, the same colour as Alys’s eyes, chattering over the sandy shallows in midstream. The biting wind whipped at its surface, raising silvery ruffles. Under the bank, where the water was deeper, one or two small boats were tied up, their oars presumably gone home with their owners, and several larger craft had been dragged out on to the opposite shore. There was a cormorant drying its wings on the sternpost of one. On this shore, a well-trampled path led downriver along the bank.

He turned to walk back through the wynd. The little alley was quiet, the children presumably called home for their midday meal. Which was where he should be, he realized in dismay.

‘I told you this morn,’ said Maggie grimly. ‘Lady Dawtie was here and away again, and got a bite wi your uncle and the household. And where’s Lady Tib, I’d like to know? I’ve kept you two-three bannocks and cheese, and that’ll ha to do you, Maister Gil, for I’ve more to do than run about cooking twice for them that canny come home at the right time.’

‘It’s more than I deserve, Maggie,’ he agreed, sitting down on the settle by the kitchen fire. The kitchen-boy gaped at him, and moved anxiously to the other end of the spit. ‘Give me that in my hand and get on with your work, and I’ll be away out from under your feet as soon as I’ve eaten it.’

She snorted, but seemed to be mollified.

‘I’ve a word for you, too,’ she said, pounding heavily at something in the big stone mortar. ‘I asked Matt about the man Agnew, and he says, Aye, he has a mistress.’

‘Oh?’ he said hopefully, and took a bite of a bannock. William the kitchen-boy suddenly got to his feet and scurried out into the scullery.

‘He’s no sure where she dwells,’ she added. ‘He says he thinks she might be a Chisholm or some surname from that part.’ William returned, walking carefully and bearing a brimming cup of ale. ‘Oh, a clever laddie!’ Maggie exclaimed. The boy glanced at her, moon-face beaming, and ale splashed on the flagstones at his feet. Gil hastily took the beaker and thanked him, and William grinned again, ducked his head in embarrassment and went back to his post at the spit. ‘Anyway he says he’ll ask about and see what he can learn. Did you no find Agnew’s man Hob? Tam said he’d ken the woman’s lodging.’

‘Not yet.’ Gil took a pull at the ale. ‘I’ve one or two things to see to in the Chanonry I’ll likely come across the man while I’m about them. You mind I’ll be out for supper tonight? I’m to take Dorothea down to meet Alys.’

‘Lady Dawtie let me know.’ Maggie sifted the fragments in the mortar through her fingers, and applied the pestle again. ‘I tellt her she’d relish her supper. Your lassie keeps a good kitchen.’ She looked sharply at him. ‘Is all well wi you, Maister Gil? Have you and her had a falling-out?’

‘No,’ he said hastily. ‘No such thing.’

‘She’s likely doing too much. She’ll be fine by the morning after you’re bedded,’ said Maggie cheerfully.