The Merchant's Mark

Chapter Twelve

‘Are ye for Rottenrow, Maister Gil,’ asked Tam as they picked their way along the Gallowgait, ‘or are ye going straight to your sweetheart?’

The warm dusk was deepening fast. Gil had paid off Sinclair’s escort outside the gates; they could command a lodging at a house Sinclair owned near the crumbling Little St Mungo’s chapel. He and Tam had only got into Glasgow after a brisk and personal discussion between Tam and the gate-wards, who were just about to go off duty and were reluctant to unseat the great bar which held the gate shut. Most of the houses they passed were quiet, the fires smoored so that only a trickle of smoke floated from chimney or thatch, the shutters firmly latched against the night air. Taverns here and there spilled lamplight and laughter, and some of their patrons were ambling homewards, forming a shifting hazard to horse traffic. Gil’s horse was too tired to resent this, but the pack-mule seemed to be looking for an opportunity to kick.

‘I ought to go to Rottenrow,’ he said now, in answer to Tam’s question. ‘They need to know about Rob.’

‘But the lassie needs to ken what’s come to her da,’ the man said. ‘I’ll take the mule on to our house, maister, and break it to them there. Will I take your beast and all? And the dog?’

‘The dog will stay wi me.’ Gil looked down at the animal, wedged snoring across his saddlebow. ‘Tam, I’m grateful. Ask Maggie not to bar the door yet.’

At the mason’s house there was candlelight in the hall windows. Crossing the shadowy courtyard, Gil wondered where Alys would be waiting. On the settle by the empty fireplace, with a stand of candles and a book? Upstairs, in her father’s panelled, comfortable closet, with a book or her lute or the monocords, practising some of the keyboard music which arrived occasionally from France? He whistled to Socrates, and rattled at the front door latch.

‘Oh, Maister Gil,’ said Kittock, opening the door to him. ‘The mistress is no here.’

‘No here?’ he repeated.

‘Madam Catherine’s in the hall,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘Come you in and get a word wi her. Is the maister no wi you, sir?’

In the hall, on the settle by the empty hearth, Alys’s aged aristocratic nurse Catherine was seated under a branch of candles, staring at the wall-hangings while her fingers moved automatically with thread and hook. The long strip of lacy stuff twitched across her black skirts as she worked. As Gil stepped into the hall she looked round and set down her work.

‘Bon soir, maistre,’ she said. ‘Welcome home. Is our master not with you?’

‘I left him in Roslin.’ At her invitation Gil sat down opposite her.

‘Where? I trust he is well.’ She paused to acknowledge Socrates, who had padded forward to nudge her hand with his long nose.

‘He has taken some hurt. I left him well looked after,’ he assured her. Inevitably this was not enough; he had to detail the mason’s injuries and treatment while she listened with a critical frown. Finally he managed to say, ‘Where is Alys, madame? She should be told.’

‘I regret,’ said Catherine disapprovingly in her beautifully enunciated French, ‘the demoiselle has not been home today. She spent yesterday with your sister, monsieur. Then she went out early this morning and she is not returned. She sent word a little time ago that she would remain the night with your sister.’

‘You mean she’s in the Upper Town, madame?’ said Gil in some chagrin.

‘But no,’ replied Catherine, her toothless mouth primming up again. ‘The demoiselle and your sister are both at Morison’s Yard.’

‘Whatever are they doing there?’ he demanded. ‘Did Alys say why she would not be home?’

‘I sent one of the girls for her more than an hour ago,’ said Catherine in mounting indignation, ‘and that was all the word she brought back. What her father would say if he heard of it — though perhaps,’ she added, as if she had just thought of it, ‘they are still trying to restore matters after the burglary.’

‘Burglary?’ Gil stared at her. ‘Where? What burglary? What are you telling me, madame?’

‘A thief broke into Maister Morison’s house last night. He took nothing,’ she assured him, ‘and he was captured. By your sister, I understand, sir.’

‘Kate?’ said Gil in amazement. ‘Sweet St Giles, how did she manage that?’

‘I have not heard,’ said Catherine resentfully.

‘I must go and see what is happening.’ Gil looked at the dog, who had flopped on to his side and was already snoring faintly. ‘I’ll leave Socrates with you, if I may — he’s had a hard day, poor beast.’

The sky to the north was still light, but the first stars were pricking above the Tolbooth as he walked the short distance down the High Street. The leaves of Morison’s great yett were shut, but one of them yielded to pressure, and he stepped cautiously into the yard. Barn and sheds were dark shapes in the twilight, the racks of Morison’s wares were gathering pockets of shadow, and an occasional reflection gleamed on the rim or flank of a glazed pot; but even by this light it seemed to Gil there was less clutter underfoot.

The house door stood open, light spilling on to the steps. The hall was lit, but so also was the kitchen at the end of the range, and beyond it from the door of one of the outhouses came lamplight, voices and steam, a crashing of wooden buckets, and splashing water. Laundry? he thought. At this hour of night?

‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Is anyone home? Alys? Kate?’

‘Gil!’ It was his sister’s voice. Her crutches scraped and thumped, and she appeared at the house door, outlined against the light. ‘Gil, Our Lady be praised you’re back. Are you safe?’

‘Quite safe,’ he said, startled. ‘Is all well here? What’s this Catherine tells me? Where’s Alys, anyway,’ he demanded, getting to the nub of the matter.

‘She’s busy,’ said Kate. ‘She’ll be out in a little while. We never thought it would take so long. Come in, Gil. We have — we have something to tell you.’

‘What is it?’ he asked, alarm gripping his throat. ‘Is Alys — ’

‘Alys is fine,’ Kate assured him. ‘Come into the house, till I tell you what’s been going on here.’

‘You are getting more and more like Mother,’ he said, setting foot on the house stair. ‘Where is Alys? Catherine’s anxious, and — and Pierre has been hurt. I need to tell her.’

‘Her father hurt? Oh, Gil. And she feels guilty about what happened,’ said Kate, turning in the doorway so that he could enter the house, ‘but the fault was mine, really it was. You won’t be angry at her, will you?’

‘Kate, what is this about?’ he asked. ‘How do I know whether I’ll be angry till you tell me what you’re on about? Why would I be angry with Alys anyway?’

‘The inbreak,’ said Kate. ‘Not last night, but the night before. Thursday. We had an inbreak. A thief in the house.’

‘Catherine told me.’

‘Did she tell you there were two?’

‘What, two inbreaks?’ He stared at her. She turned again on her crutches to look at him, and nodded. Then, along the length of the house, from the vapour-bathed doorway beyond the kitchen, the screaming started.

Gil leapt from the fore-stair and set off running. As he was drawing his sword it dawned on him that it was not an adult screaming. It was a child, terrified.

Kate’s voice followed him: ‘Gil! Gil, come back, it’s all right!’

He kept running.

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Gil, without a great deal of hope. ‘You had two intruders in the place on Thursday night, you caught the first one opening Augie’s plate-kist, the second one chopped the first one into pieces, and you feel you owe me an apology.’

‘Not really,’ said his sister drily, ‘but I thought you might expect one.’

Alys said nothing. Gil gave her an anxious glance. He could not work out whether she was embarrassed, angry, offended or frightened for her father, and his head was still reeling with the sight which had met him earlier.

Reaching the door of the — bathhouse, laundryhouse, whatever it was, he had halted, staring, whinger in hand, unable to see the source of the screams. Amid clouds of lantern-lit vapour and a smell of soap, what seemed like a great number of women appeared and disappeared, sleeves rolled up, muscular forearms wet, around a tent of suspended linen, from which came splashing. Then, as the steam dissipated at one side of the chamber, he recognized Alys standing in a pool of water, her hair knotted up on top of her head, bending over a screaming, dripping child. A second child spoke, happily, inside the tent of linen.

‘Maister Gil!’ said someone out of the clouds. Alys straightened up with an exclamation, and he realized she was wearing only a very wet shift, in which she might as well have been naked. And she was standing next to a lantern.

He had backed away, stammering an apology, sheathing his sword, but he could not get the image out of his mind, of the fine wet linen clinging to her slender curves, of the way the light shone on shoulder, breast and thigh.

And now Alys, fully dressed, slightly damp and rather pink, was sitting upright and formal on a back-stool opposite him. She had failed to respond to his embrace of greeting, and though she had listened anxiously to his account of her father’s injuries and accepted his reassurances, she now would not meet his eye. Candlelight gilded her hair and skimmed the blue linen which covered the glories he had glimpsed. Beside him on the long settle his sister surveyed him with a sardonic expression.

‘Tell me it from the beginning,’ he said, collecting his mind with an effort.

‘Two days since,’ Kate began. ‘St Peter’s bones, was it only Thursday? Andy gave Billy Walker his room, but I managed to speak to the man first.’

As her account of the time since he left Glasgow unfolded, he listened in mounting alarm, visualizing the events she described so tersely.

‘What a thing for the two of you to get entangled in!’ he exclaimed.

‘Alys was out of the worst of it,’ she assured him, looking from one to the other. Alys stared resolutely at the jug of flowers in the fireplace.

‘I wish you had been too,’ he said. ‘The man with the axe is dead — it must be the same man — ’

‘Dead?’ she exclaimed. ‘When? How could he be? He was in Glasgow yesterday morning.’

‘He was in Roslin last night. If he left Glasgow when the gates opened,’ Gil calculated, ‘he could have got to Linlithgow in time to gather his friends and follow us from there. He likely got ahead of us,’ he speculated, sidetracked, ‘when we were up the hillside about the dead pig. But Kate, even so, Augie’s right, you should be out of this house — ’

‘Not till the bairns are safe,’ she stated. ‘Andy’s been too taigled here at the yard to go up for orders the way Maister Morison wished — ’

‘What, since yesterday morning? And whose doing was that?’ Gil asked shrewdly. She gave him another wry smile. ‘And Kate, how is it keeping the bairns safe to wash them — ’ he checked, glanced at Alys, swallowed, and went on — ‘to wash them at this hour, with the bathhouse door open and the yard gate unbarred?’

‘And five grown women in the bathhouse along wi them,’ she pointed out. ‘It would be a bold man who took on Babb and Nan Thomson together. They began in daylight, but it took near an hour to get the older child into the water, poor wee mite. Oh, Nan says she kens you, Gil. Matt brought her in from Dumbarton to mind the bairns.’

‘From Dumbarton?’ he said, diverted again. ‘Oh, I ken who that is. Matt drew her daughter’s rotten tooth last May. I think he’s been courting her ever since, he’d jump at the chance to get her settled in Glasgow.’ He returned to the point. ‘Kate, you should all be out of the house. Can you not take the bairns somewhere else till all’s settled, if you’re troubled for them?’

‘Likely I could,’ she said dismissively, ‘but hardly at this hour of night. Now tell us how the Axeman comes to be dead, Gil. Have you found a name for that poor man in the barrel? What did the King say? How did Maister Mason come to be hurt?’

‘I have the King’s thanks, and the reward for the hoard money,’ he said. ‘Augie can discuss that with Andy. And we’ve a name for the dead man, and I think it was this Axeman killed him. It was certainly him that injured Pierre. But I’ve still no more than a suspicion of who’s behind this.’

There were steps on the fore-stair, and Babb appeared, carrying a linen-swathed child. She crossed the hall to set her burden down at the door to the stair.

‘Stand nice now,’ she admonished, with a pat to its rear, and turned to speak quietly to her mistress. The child, ignoring the instruction, pattered over to stand directly in front of Gil. It had a cloud of short, fluffy fair curls, and a penetrating grey stare, and with some surprise he recognized Morison’s younger daughter.

‘Why are you in our house again?’ she demanded. ‘My da’s no here.’

‘I’m here to talk to the ladies,’ he answered her.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m going to marry one of them, and the other is my sister.’

She looked speculatively from Alys to Kate, then put a possessive small hand on Kate’s knee. ‘Can’t have this one.’

‘She’s my sister,’ said Gil. ‘So I can’t marry her.’ Kate’s face was unreadable. The child nodded, and pointed at Alys with the other hand. Some of her linen wrappings fell away, revealing a thin bare shoulder. Alys smiled at her, but got a scowl in return.

‘You can marry that one. She put Wynliane in the bath.’

‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘That’s the one I want. She is gentle and also wise; of all other she beareth the prize. And when I’ve married her, I’ll be the most fortunate man in Glasgow.’

‘Huh,’ said the child, and studied him for a moment with that penetrating stare. ‘Can me and Wynliane come to the feast?’

A black-browed woman Gil faintly recalled from a difficult morning in Dumbarton entered the hall with another linen-wrapped child in her arms. She took in the situation and said firmly, ‘Come away now, Ysonde!’ Finding she was ignored, she set down the little girl she carried. There was a small sound of protest, and a hand emerged from its wrappings and clung to her skirts. ‘Come up, poppet, and go to your bed.’

‘Can we?’ said Ysonde, still staring at Gil.

‘If your da says you may,’ he said diplomatically.

‘Ysonde!’ Mistress Thomson came forward to take her hand, trailing the other child, and paused to bob to Gil. ‘Good e’en to ye, maister. I hope I see you well. Come up, my lammie. Time you were in your bed.’

‘Ask the lady for her blessing,’ said Ysonde, pulling away and sticking out her lower lip. Her sister, silent within her cocoon of linen, nodded agreement. Kate, to Gil’s surprise, without hesitation delivered the blessing their mother had used all their lives. Ysonde submitted to being shepherded towards the stairs, and as their new nurse paused at the cupboard by the doorway to light a candle for the ascent peered past her sister and suddenly gave Gil a brilliant smile.

Babb had gone into the other room, and now returned and strode out of the house with a bundle of linen. Kate watched her go, then said, ‘The Axeman killed the man in the barrel? So does that mean Augie — Maister Morison’s not like to be tried for the murder?’

Alys raised an eyebrow, with a glance at Gil, before she recalled herself and looked away again.

‘I hope Augie’s in the clear, for we found, or to be exact Socrates found where the man was likely killed, in Linlithgow.’ Kate muttered something, closing her eyes, and crossed herself. ‘It seems to me Billy was involved in the death, which might be bad for Augie, but Billy’s actions since have not suggested they were in it together.’

‘So what did you find?’ Kate pressed. ‘Tell us.’

‘Can I not get a drink first?’ he parried. ‘Is all the household out at the laundry?’

Alys, tight-lipped and blushing darkly, rose and took a candle out to the kitchen. Gil watched her go, and looked anxiously at his sister, who shook her head and shrugged. After a little Alys returned with a tray, and handed cups of ale, not looking at Gil and deftly eluding his attempt to touch her fingers as he took his. She had brought a platter of bannocks and cheese; wary of causing further offence, he took one when she offered it, but when he bit into it found that he was hungry.

‘I needed this,’ he said. She still did not meet his eye, but her expression lightened a little. He went on eating, and between mouthfuls gave them a description, as terse as Kate’s, of the events of his journey, from the musicians in Stirling to Rob’s burial in Roslin that morning. Alys listened as intently as his sister, and when he described the fight above Linlithgow her hand went up to her mouth, though she still did not speak. At the mention of de Brinay and his men, Kate clapped her hands together.

‘We were right!’ she said to Alys. ‘The Preceptory is involved! Mall said a strange thing,’ she explained to Gil. ‘She heard the man with the axe say to Billy that the Baptizer wanted his gear back. At first we wondered if it might mean the Knights of St John. It is the Baptist that’s their patron, isn’t it, not the Evangelist?’

‘It is,’ he agreed, through another mouthful of bannock.

‘But then the old man said the Treasurer’s title is Lord St Johns, so could it be him?’

‘The Baptizer,’ he repeated. ‘Well, the Preceptory is involved, I ken that for certain now. The Baptizer might fit. Listen to the rest of it.’

He went on with the tale. They heard him out, Kate frowning, Alys thoughtful.

‘I am truly sorry about Rob,’ she said when he had finished. ‘He was a good servant, and kind to the horses.’

‘Aye,’ said Kate. ‘He’d been to Rome, had he not, Gil? St Peter bring him to bliss, then.’

‘Amen,’ said Alys, and they all crossed themselves.

‘We have nearly all we need,’ Gil said after a moment. ‘We’ve still to find the man Baldy, and the one with the feather in his hat, and find out which side they were working for. Did you say they’d been seen in the Hog?’

‘On Wednesday,’ Kate nodded. ‘It sounds like the same men. And the fellow who saw them thought Mattha Hog knew them. Mind, it’s second-hand news, Gil. The two we sent down there last night were tellt this by another.’

‘There are more than two sides,’ said Alys, ‘that is obvious.’

‘The cooper is Sinclair’s man,’ said Kate, counting them off on her fingers. ‘So was the man in the barrel, Our Lady defend him. This Johan and the knight were for the Preceptory. The Axeman — I’m right glad to hear he’s dead, and so will Babb be — he was against both the others, but were Sinclair and the Preceptory acting together?’

‘Not entirely,’ Gil admitted. ‘However that’s sorted now. And I did think that Treasurer Knollys was very eager that I should go into Ayrshire.’ He reached for another bannock, and found the platter empty.

‘So the old man said. But surely he’s involved anyway,’ said Kate, ‘both as Treasurer and as Preceptor.’

‘The two interests may conflict,’ said Alys.

‘But then who did the Axeman mean by the Baptizer?’ wondered Kate again. ‘Who was he working for? The Preceptory, or Knollys, or someone else? And who is his woman? We’ve had no luck asking about this Maidie.’

‘He called his axe Maidie,’ recalled Gil.

‘His axe?’

‘He cannot have been from the Preceptory,’ said Alys.

‘You see that too?’ said Gil. Kate looked from one to the other. ‘He wasn’t with the cooper,’ Gil expanded, ‘else he would never have had to ask about the carts, and the cooper would never have told me he did ask. But we ken the cooper is with the Preceptory, since he sent Simmie to warn them we were on the road.’

‘Um,’ said Kate. ‘It’s far more complicated than I realized. I thought you just went about asking questions till the right answer came out.’

‘But how do we get proof?’ said Alys, pursuing her own train of thought. ‘He will never admit it without some kind of proof.’

‘It may be more complicated than that anyway,’ suggested Gil. She nodded absently.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Kate. ‘Have I missed part of the conversation?’

‘It depends who paid the man Baldy,’ said Alys suddenly. ‘What a pity you did not catch him too.’

‘We lacked forethought there,’ he admitted, and she giggled, and then finally met his eye and smiled at him a little sheepishly.

‘Could it have been Noll Sinclair who paid him?’ said Kate. ‘Or the cooper, even, setting a trap for someone with you as the bait?’

‘Now I never thought of that,’ admitted Gil. ‘Though I thought the trap was for us. I still feel a fool, being decoyed up on to the hillside to look for a dead pig’

‘We know the Axeman killed Sinclair’s man in the cooper’s yard,’ offered Kate.

‘Something was killed in the cooper’s yard,’ corrected Gil. She pulled a face, but nodded agreement.

‘And probably the same night,’ supplied Alys, ‘the barrel of books was taken off Maister Morison’s cart and the barrel with the head and the treasure put on it.’

‘Why?’ said Gil. ‘That’s the strange thing. Why send the barrel to Glasgow?’

‘Accident,’ said Alys. She sat up straight. ‘I know! Kate, you know we thought the Axeman was left-handed. It is the kind of mistake they make. We had a left-handed kitchen-lassie once and she could never put things in the proper place.’

‘So it simply went on the wrong cart!’ said Kate.

‘That must be it. It should have gone to Leith.’

‘Of course,’ said Gil. ‘The cart for Leith was a big mixed load, so Riddoch said. Far likelier, if it went on that, the exchange could have gone unnoticed till it could be collected.’

They exchanged another look, and Alys nodded agreement.

‘And if the Axeman did not enquire at the cooper’s until Wednesday, there had been time for him to go to Leith and find his barrel was not there and return to Linlithgow. And then he came straight to Glasgow,’ she speculated. ‘He must near have worn a groove in the road.’

Gil, rarely aware of her accent, was suddenly, delightfully, distracted by the foreign turn she gave to the Scottish placenames. Concentrating with an effort, he found his sister saying, ‘But we still don’t know who the Axeman was, or who this Baldy and Feather Hat might be, or whose men they are, or why they are so persistent about it.’

‘A fair summary,’ said Gil.

‘You forgot Sinclair and Knollys,’ said Alys.

Gil opened his mouth to answer her, and was forestalled by a sudden commotion outside in the dark yard. Shrill voices, a thump as if the gate had been slammed, questions and shouting. Women’s voices. Then, through it, a deeper note: ‘Friend, I’m a friend. Word for Maister Cunningham. Is that you, Babb? Is Nan no here?’

‘Matt?’ said Gil. He jumped up and hurried to the house door just as his uncle’s man reached the top of the fore-stair. ‘Matt, is all well?’

Matt stepped in and pulled off his bonnet, saying drily, ‘Aye, Lady Kate. Your watch is waukin.’

‘I never expected callers this late,’ said Babb from the doorway.

‘Watch?’ said Gil. ‘What watch? Kate, what is going on here? Where are the men, anyway?’

‘Sleeping,’ she said, ‘save for two we sent down the Hog again. The rest of them will watch the second half of the night, we’re taking the first half.’

‘Kate!’

‘You can see for yourself it works,’ she pointed out, laughing at him. ‘They caught Matt, but they’ve done him no damage.’

‘Kate, this is a fighting man we’re seeking. How can a bunch of women — ’

‘Wi no argument,’ said Matt succinctly.

‘Aye, well, you came quiet,’ said Babb, grinning, before she turned away to go back down the stair into the yard.

‘I’ll stay here, then,’ said Gil.

‘You will not,’ said his sister, though Alys’s expression brightened.

‘No,’ said Matt. ‘You’re sent for, Maister Gil. The castle. Robert Blacader wants a word.’

‘To the castle?’ repeated Gil blankly. ‘Whatever does he want?’

‘How did he know you were back in Glasgow?’ said Alys.

The moon, five days past the full, was just rising behind the towers of St Mungo’s as Gil made his way by lantern-light up from the Wyndhead towards the castle gatehouse. Noise and bustle floated over the wall; lute music came from the Archbishop’s lodging, a more raucous singing from one of the towers, and a smell of new bread suggested the episcopal bakehouse was working through the night.

Gil gave his name to a guard, and after a short wait a sleepy-eyed page in a velvet jerkin appeared and conducted him across two courtyards, past the fore-stair of the Provost’s lodging — Sweet St Giles, Gil thought, was it only two days since that we had to climb that in a hurry? — and up a turnpike stair. There were lights at most of the windows, and torches burned beside other doorways.

Robert Blacader had given up his own lodging to his monarch. Beyond the great hall and the entrance to the Archbishop’s private chapel, the outer and inner chambers of his suite were crowded, like the string of stuffy chambers at Stirling, with weary members of the court playing cards or dice to music from competing lutenists or discussing the best road to Kilmarnock. Mismatched tapestries hung on the walls, and there seemed to be a shortage of seating. Off the inner chamber, with its ostentatious display of plate set out on the cupboard, the page opened a door and ushered Gil through it.

The closet was panelled, painted and ablaze with light. There were several dozen candles burning round the walls, and more in pricket-stands here and there, flickering in the draught from the window which had been opened to let the heat out. Gil, blinking in the brightness, took in rather slowly that the room was also full of richly dressed people, and that only one of them was wearing a hat.

He snatched off his felt bonnet with an apology, and dropped to one knee.

‘Get up, Maister Cunningham,’ said James Stewart from the centre of the group, ‘and come and tell us how you’ve progressed since we saw you last.’

The King was seated near the fireplace, a card-table beside him as before, though this time it bore only a jug and some glasses. Tonight he was wearing tawny woollen and black silk, the huge sleeves of his gown decked with amber-coloured ribbons. Gil, thinking of his sister’s much-worn gown of the same colour, made a note to tell her about the ribbons. On one side of the table Robert Blacader acknowledged Gil’s salute with a wave of his ring; on the other, expansive in gold-coloured satin with wide fur facings, William Knollys smiled affably. Behind the King a cleric was in deep discussion with the Earl of Angus and my lord Hume the Chamberlain; as he turned his head Gil recognized Andrew Forman the apostolic protonotary, whom he knew to be a friend of his uncle’s. Beyond him a familiar profile must be his mother’s cousin, Angus’s brother-in-law Archie Boyd.

‘Come, maister,’ said the King again. ‘Is there a seat for Maister Cunningham? Now tell us, have you put a name to your man in the barrel?’

‘He’s none of mine, sir,’ said Gil hastily. One of the liveried servants brought forward a stool, and he sat down, assembling his thoughts, filtering, sifting. ‘I have his name and I think I know who killed him and where,’ he added. ‘But I’ve not found the rest of him.’

Choosing his words with caution, passing lightly over any mention of the purpose of moving the treasure, he recounted his visit to the cooper’s yard and what he had learned there, the finding of the patch of blood, the empty barrel, the idea that the other barrel had gone on the wrong cart through simple error.

This was not like discussing matters with Alys or his sister. Every step, every word had to be explained, justified, expounded, to one or other of the two plump, blue-jowled faces scrutinizing his account. Blacader’s questions betrayed a deep concern for the truth, but Knollys’s seemed more directed towards dismantling Gil’s theories and suppositions. At times Gil was aware of impatience in James’s movements, but he listened carefully to the questions and to Gil’s answers, nodding now and then. Behind him the Earl of Angus watched intently.

‘But your own suspicions, maister. Surely you suspect more than you’ve learned?’ the King said, when Gil had recounted his conclusions after his interview with the cooper.

‘I do, sir,’ agreed Gil.

‘You’ve little enough proof for some of your tale, it seems to me,’ said Knollys, still wearing his open smile, though the yellow gems in his rings flashed in the light. ‘Most of the carter’s actions can only be guessed at, for one thing.’

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Gil, ‘but someone opened the gates, someone swept up the shavings, and I think the cooper was telling the truth.’ In that, at least, he thought.

‘And this man with the axe,’ said the King reflectively. ‘He fair gets about. Linlithgow, Glasgow, maybe Leith.’

‘He got about,’ Gil agreed, ‘but he’ll go no further. He’s dead, last night, sir.’

‘Dead?’ said the Archbishop. Gil was aware of sharp attention from the group. ‘How did that come about?’

‘Did you question him?’ asked Knollys. ‘Who was he?’

‘We had no chance,’ said Gil. Who had relaxed a little? he wondered. It was hard to keep an eye on everyone present, particularly in the leaping candlelight. ‘We took him prisoner when he attacked our party, but he died before we could question him.’ And I know his name, he thought, but we’ll keep that quiet just now.

‘And you’re saying,’ said James, ‘this is the same man that slew the carter here on Thursday night? The carter’s lassie was before us earlier this night, asking justice for her man. Do we have more than her word to link this axeman to this carter?’ He held out his hands, one for each miscreant, and linked the fingers to illustrate his meaning.

‘My sister saw them talking in a tavern,’ said Gil.

The King’s eyebrows went up, and the Treasurer said, laughing indulgently, ‘Now, maister, surely not! Your sister would never be in the kind of tavern such a man would drink in!’

Gil, preserving his expression, explained the purpose which had taken Alys and Kate to the tavern. James nodded in approval.

‘A clever notion,’ he said. ‘Very clever. That’s a good-thinking lassie you’re betrothed to, Maister Cunningham.’

‘She’s the wisest lassie in Glasgow,’ said Gil, and could not keep the warmth out of his voice.

The King grinned at him, a sudden man-to-man look. ‘You like them clever, do you, maister?’ he said. Before Gil could find an answer to this he went on, ‘Well, we’ve a name for the man in the barrel, but no body, and now we’ve a body for the man with the axe, but no name. This’ll not do, gentlemen. My lord St Johns,’ he said formally to Knollys, ‘I hope you can write the morn’s morn as Sheriff of Linlithgow, and have your depute get a search made up on the hillside for the body that went out those gates.’ Knollys bowed his head, and behind him a servant in the St Johns livery drew a set of tablets from his purse and made a note. The men of Linlithgow will love that, thought Gil, just at harvest-time. ‘And, my lord Treasurer,’ continued the King, ‘I hope you’re searching already for the place where the treasure was hidden. Where there’s some of it, there might be more.’

‘Aye, sir, you can be certain,’ said Knollys, smiling. Blacader watched him across the table, his face inscrutable.

‘And you, Maister Cunningham,’ said James, ‘can find me the name of the man wi the axe and his confederates. But I’d sooner you stayed in one piece yourself, maister, for Scotland can do with clear thinkers.’

‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ said Gil.

‘And now,’ said the King, ‘shall we have the servant lass and the merchant in, and set all these tales thegither?’

‘Is it not ower late for that, sir?’ suggested Blacader.

‘Havers. It canny be past midnight,’ said James. ‘Fetch them in.’

Gil, in a moment’s hesitation, considered announcing that his tale was not finished, dismissed the idea, and found he was aware of someone else hesitating in the same way. He looked from one blue-chinned face to the other on either side of the table. Blacader’s gaze slid sideways from his towards the door, where a servant was just leaving; Knollys said pleasantly, ‘You had a good day for such a long ride, Maister Cunningham. What road did you take to reach Glasgow?’

‘It was,’ Gil agreed, following this lead. ‘Dry, but no too hot. I came direct from Roslin, so I rode through Bathgate and the Monklands, and it was dry all the way.’

‘It’s been a good week for the harvest,’ said James, looking round from a low-voiced conversation with Angus.

By the time Augie Morison and his servant were escorted before their King this topic was being generally explored. It was clear that James had a good understanding of the work of the land and its place at the centre of existence. Gil, who had met scholars older than James who failed to accept this, was favourably impressed.

Someone had evidently taken care of Mall for the evening. Her face and hands were clean, her hair combed out over her shoulders, and though nervous of all the fine people she seemed much calmer than the grief-stricken girl Kate had described from the previous morning. As she knelt before him, the King broke off what he was saying and turned to her.

‘And here’s this bonnie lass again,’ he said. Gil, comparing Mall’s plump bosom and round cheeks adversely with Alys’s fine-boned person, drew his own conclusion about how the King liked them. ‘And Augustine Morison, merchant of Glasgow,’ he went on, looking past her. Morison also dropped to his knees. ‘We’ve learned a wee thing or two more about this business, and it’s time to go over it all again.’

‘Aye, your grace,’ said Morison into the pause. He threw an apprehensive look at Gil, who smiled at him as reassuringly as he could, trying not to show the pity he felt. Two nights’ confinement, however gentle, had left its mark on the man; he was drawn and anxious, with a haunted look in his eyes. Gil guessed he had spent the time worrying about his children.

‘Now, Mall,’ James continued, ‘you asked us for justice for your man, since he was killed by an intruder in the night. But tell me this, lass. He was a thief himself. What justice does he deserve?’

Mall, hands clamped together before her waist in a pose of prayer which, deliberately or no, made the most of the view down her bodice, bent her head and said, ‘Aye, your grace, he was taken thieving from our maister’s house.’ She ducked her head even further, as if to avoid meeting the master’s eye. ‘But that never deserved death, your grace, least of all s-such a death — ’ She bit her lips, and after a moment went on, ‘It’s just no right, your grace, it’s no right at all.’

There was something in one of the old statutes, thought Gil. He could visualize the section of the St Mungo’s copy. Which one was it?

‘Are you saying that even a thief deserves justice?’ said Blacader. She glanced fleetingly at him under her eyebrows and nodded. ‘Why not leave it to the Provost? Is there no justice in Glasgow?’ Behind her, Morison closed his eyes. Across the card-table, Knollys’s eyes seemed like to pop out of his head and down the girl’s bodice.

‘I’m feart they’ll no trouble themselves further,’ she whispered. ‘They brocht it in as murder by a stranger and I’m feart that’ll be the end on it.’

‘And is it not murder by a stranger?’ asked James.

‘I seen the man,’ she said desperately. ‘Like I tellt your grace, I seen the man. I heard what he said to my Billy. Surely he can be socht and hangit for his death?’

‘Quoniam attachiamenta,’ said Gil, and several of the bystanders nodded. The King raised his eyebrows. ‘It provides,’ Gil went on, and heard his uncle’s voice in his own, ‘that where a thief has been killed secretly, without calling the watch or bailies, the thief’s kin or the bailies can charge his killer with murder just as if he had not been a thief.’

‘Very proper,’ said James. ‘I’ll have justice for all Scots, gentlemen, be certain of that. Mind you,’ he added, humour tugging at his long mouth, ‘the case is no that straightforward.’

‘Why should we believe a word of this?’ said Knollys. ‘The lassie’s lying all through. I can’t see why your grace is wasting time on her. She wants the attention, and she’s getting it.’

She’s getting it, thought Gil, assessing the direction of the Treasurer’s popping eyes.

‘She’s getting it,’ agreed James, considering Mall again. ‘Surely she wouldn’t lie to her King?’ Mall shook her head energetically. ‘Especially not before the relics. What is it you keep here in the chapel, my lord?’

What was this about? Gil wondered. What did the young King hope to draw from the girl? Or was it simply an excuse to keep Mall and her bodice in view as long as possible?

‘We’ve a fragment of St Bride’s veil,’ Blacader was saying, as Mall crossed herself, round-eyed and apprehensive, ‘and a fingerbone of St Martin. Either of those would do, I should suppose.’