The Merchant's Mark

Chapter Two

‘Mind you, I thought James Third’s treasure had all been found,’ said Maister Morison.

‘Not all,’ said Canon Cunningham.

They were in the garden of the stone house in Rottenrow, where Gil and his companions had called on their way to the Archbishop’s castle. They had found the Official admiring a bed of brightly coloured pinks before he returned to his chamber above the Consistory Court, in the south-west tower of St Mungo’s. He had listened attentively to Gil’s account of the morning, ignoring the interruptions from Maistre Pierre and Augie Morison, and inspected the contents of the still-wet saddlebag with interest.

‘Robert Lyle spent most of two weeks carping on about it,’ he continued, ‘when the Lords of the Articles met in February there to approve the Treasurer’s accounts.’

‘Lord Lyle?’ said Maistre Pierre quickly. ‘He is one of the Auditors, no? And a friend to the old King, if I recall. One might suppose he had some idea of how much should still remain.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Canon Cunningham. ‘I think we all assumed he was simply attacking Treasurer Knollys, and that what was recoverable was now recovered, and any still at large was spent long since. In the end we issued orders to the Sheriffs to hold secret enquiries about it, only to silence him so he would audit the accounts. In the face of a sum of this size together with these jewels, which are certainly from the King’s own treasury, there can be no doubt that we were wrong and Robert was right.’

‘Knollys,’ said Maistre Pierre thoughtfully. ‘This is the man who is also Preceptor of the Knights of St John at Torphichen — ’ he pronounced the name with some care — ‘although he has never been either cleric or knight, or been at Rhodes to be confirmed in the post.’

‘The same,’ agreed Canon Cunningham without expression. ‘He sits in Parliament as Lord St Johns. He is a most successful merchant.’

Morison looked from one to the other, baffled by this exchange.

‘But why was all the money in a barrel with the head of an unknown man?’ he asked. ‘Where has it been these four years?’

‘Agreed,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I do not think that poor soul had been in salt for so long, I would say no more than a few days, and nor has the coin, so the treasure must have been elsewhere in the meantime.’

‘Good questions,’ said David Cunningham. He clasped his hands behind his back under his rusty black gown, and paced away from them along the gravel path. Maister Morison, crushing a sprig of lavender between his fingers, watched him anxiously. Gil bent to rub the ears of the young hound Socrates, who had recovered from his initial paroxysms of welcome and was now sitting with his head firmly thrust against Gil’s knee.

‘Aye, good questions,’ repeated the Official, turning at the far end of his traverse. ‘However, since the head and the treasure both were found in the burgh, it becomes a burgh matter and it is out of my jurisdiction.’

‘No harm in speculating,’ Gil commented.

His uncle threw him a sharp look, and continued, pacing back towards them, ‘If ye’d been a couple of hours sooner, the Provost could have sent it to Stirling with an armed escort. My lord of Angus was in Glasgow, with the Chancellor and Andrew Forman, lying at the castle overnight. They left before Terce. Something about reporting a gathering in Ayrshire.’

‘What, is Hugh Montgomery causing trouble?’ said Gil.

‘So it seems. Armed encounter at Irvine betwixt Cunninghams and Montgomerys.’

‘If the Montgomery will not listen to the Earl of Angus,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘he will surely listen to the King.’

‘I think that was Angus’s idea.’

‘But until it’s settled,’ said Gil uneasily, ‘I had better not go alone into Ayrshire. That’s awkward — I want to go to Kilmarnock.’

‘I would agree,’ said his uncle severely. ‘Forbye you will be required when the Provost takes an inquest into the matter. You may have an income now, Gilbert, but no need use it to pay the fines for non-compearance before the Archbishop’s justice.’

‘The inquest on the head is for this afternoon,’ said the mason. ‘The bellman was crying it as we came up the town just now.’

The Official looked down at the bright majolica dish lying on the grass, in which the saddlebag still wept salt tears, and nudged it with one well-shod foot.

‘As for this,’ he said, ‘there may well be a reward for the finding. Maister Morison deserves some compensation.’

‘Aye, for our books,’ said Morison, reminded of his loss.

‘You could take an inventory,’ Canon Cunningham remarked, ‘and count the coin. No doubt Sir Thomas would find it helpful.’

‘I can do that, I suppose,’ said Morison reluctantly.

‘Come, come, maister,’ said the mason. ‘The money does not smell. We can count it together, and my son-in-law can write down the jewels.’ He lifted the majolica dish on to the bench and sat down beside it.

‘I must away back up to St Mungo’s,’ said David Cunningham with some regret. ‘I believe I have a case waiting, and two sets of witnesses. What poor Fleming will have done wi them by now I canny think.’ He raised his hand, blessed Gil in particular and the company in general, stooped to pat Socrates and strode away under the archway which led to the kitchen-yard and the gate to the street. Just on the other side of the archway he checked, and they heard him say, ‘Aye, Kate. And Alys. Gilbert’s in the garden, with a wee pickle treasure.’

He strode on and out of sight, and Gil jumped to his feet, dislodging the dog, as the mason’s daughter came into the garden, a slender girl in a blue linen gown, her honey-coloured hair loose down her back. Her gaze found his immediately, and she smiled.

‘Treasure?’ She came to Gil’s outstretched arm, and curtsied to her father’s fellow burgess. ‘Good day, Maister Morison. What treasure is this?’

Morison, standing to greet her, opened his mouth to reply, and looked beyond her to the archway. He stopped, staring open-mouthed. Gil turned his head, and saw only his sister Kate coming through the archway on her two crutches, her gigantic waiting-woman Babb at her back.

‘Kate,’ he said. ‘You remember Augie Morison?’

‘I do,’ she said, swinging forward, the crutches crunching on the gravel. ‘Good day, maister.’

‘Lady Kate,’ said Morison, stammering slightly. He hurried forward, holding his hand out, and suddenly realized it was full of coins. Turning to put them back in the majolica dish, he came forward again but was too late to assist her to a seat in the arbour by the wall.

‘I’ll do here, Babb,’ she said, settling her tawny wool skirts about her. ‘You go and sit with Maggie in the kitchen, I’ll send when I need you.’

‘Aye,’ said Babb grimly. ‘And don’t be too long about sending, my doo.’

She propped the crutches against the wall, near to her mistress’s hand, and strode off, ducking under the archway. Morison cleared his throat and said, ‘I’m right sorry to see you like this, Lady Kate.’

‘Not as sorry as I am to be like it,’ said Kate.

‘I prayed for you yestreen.’

Kate’s chin went up. ‘You never thought there’d be a miracle, did you?’ she said challengingly.

‘Une tête?’ said Alys from beside her father. ‘A head? In a barrel?’

Gil grimaced. Kate looked from one to another of them, and then at the dish of coins on the bench, and raised her eyebrows.

‘It’s mine,’ said Morison awkwardly.

‘What, the head?’ said Kate, and he blushed.

‘Well, it’s not mine, it ought to ha been mine. The fill of the barrel, I mean.’ He took a deep breath and began again, with a more coherent explanation of the circumstances. The two girls heard him out, Alys sorting coins as she listened.

‘Why should you hand it to the Provost,’ asked Kate when he had finished, ‘and have him take the credit for finding it?’

‘He’s the Archbishop’s depute in the burgh,’ Gil pointed out. ‘It must all be done with due process.’

‘Hah!’ she said, but Alys looked up from a stack of coins and said seriously:

‘And who is the dead man? He cannot be a shore-porter from the Low Countries, can he, Gil? The serjeant must be wrong.’

‘Well, he might, but I don’t see how he can have died there,’ Gil agreed. ‘Unless the King’s treasure has been out of the country and back again. We need to find out where Balthasar of Liège has gone.’

‘Oh, is that why you wish to go to Kilmarnock?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘To trace the musician? It is now three months ago he went there. He has surely moved on by now.’

‘The McIans will know,’ said Alys. ‘But I think they are in Stirling.’

‘The McIans?’ said Morison. ‘Is that that harper you were telling me about? And you’re tutor to his son, you said.’ Gil nodded. ‘Is he not here in Glasgow?’

‘He and his sister came by the house last week,’ said Alys, ‘to see the bairn, and to say they were leaving the burgh for a time. They have invitations to play at one house and another, and I am sure he said they would be in Stirling by now. You could ask for them there, Gil, at least.’

‘These jewels are bonnie,’ said Kate. Gil looked round, and discovered that Morison had unrolled the wet velvet on the arbour bench beside her. ‘Look at the goldsmith work. And is that a sapphire? What a colour it is!’

Morison mumbled something. She looked sharply at him, and said as if recalling her manners, ‘I was sorry to hear of Agnes, maister. Two years past, isn’t it?’ He nodded, and opened his mouth, but she went on speaking. ‘And you’ve — two bairns, I heard. How old are they?’

‘Wynliane is near seven, and Ysonde is four,’ said their father.

She stared at him in disbelief. ‘What are their names? Wynliane — Ysonde! Augie Morison, only you could have named two bairns like that.’

‘They’re bonnie names,’ he protested, reddening. ‘Out of the romances.’

‘Oh, I ken that. Greysteil and Sir Tristram. Well, if they hope for either to come and carry them off, they’ll grow old hoping,’ said Kate acidly. ‘There are no heroes left in Scotland, maister. If you’ve a set of tablets on you we can make a list of these jewels, while my good-sister counts the coin.’

Sir Thomas Stewart of Minto, the Archbishop’s civil depute in Glasgow, Bailie of the Regality and Provost of the burgh, small, neat and balding in good murrey velvet furred with marten, stood on the fore-stair of his lodging in the castle, surveyed the gathering in the outer yard and scowled.

‘Serjeant, ye’ve rounded up the scaff and raff of the town again,’ he said. ‘I’ll likely need my own men to keep the peace before this is over. Walter,’ he said to his clerk, ‘gang to Andro and bid him bring five-six of the men, just to keep an eye on things.’

‘It’s none of my doing if the better sort never answers the bellman,’ said the serjeant in righteous indignation as the clerk slipped away, his pen-case and inkhorn rattling at his waist. ‘I’ve a burgh to watch and ward, sir, I’ve no time to go calling on each man by name for a case like this.’

‘Aye, well,’ said Sir Thomas irritably. ‘Silence them, then, man.’ He glanced at Gil and his companions, standing nearest him. ‘These gentlemen at least have better matters to attend to than all this giff-gaff. We’ll get done wi and get about our day.’

He glowered at the source of the loudest conversation and comment, the group around the head, which was exhibited on a trestle in the centre of the yard and guarded by the same reluctant constable and a colleague. The barrel stood on the ground beside the trestle, and had come in for some attention itself; one tavern-keeper from the Gallowgait had already offered to purchase it from Maister Morison when all was done. Gil recognized Morison’s carter, the stocky, sandy-haired Billy, in the thick of the group, his blue bonnet wagging as he talked to those interested. What was he telling them? wondered Gil.

The serjeant, shouldering the burgh mace, stepped up on to the mounting block and shouted for silence, his voice carrying without effort across the yard. The clerk returned, half a dozen armed men tramped after him, and the proceedings began. Gil, used to the Scottish legal process, was not surprised by the length of time it took to select fifteen respectable men to form an assize, but as the sixth name was agreed upon, he could feel Maistre Pierre becoming restive at his side.

‘Is it always like this?’ the mason asked as someone objected to the proposed seventh juror on the grounds of infamy, since his wife was well known to serve ale in short measure.

‘We’re getting on well,’ said Morison at Gil’s other side. ‘Gil, tell me more of last night. What did they do for your sister, over yonder? Was there a Mass?’

Gil nodded, and glanced at the towers of St Mungo’s where they loomed above the castle wall.

‘My uncle said Mass for her,’ he said, ‘before the shrine.’

The saint’s shrine stood in the centre of the lower church, a dim, pillared place like the undercroft of a tower-house. Last night, entering the Laigh Kirk by its south door, he had paused to look out over St Mungo’s kirkyard in the evening light. Near at hand the ground was shadowed by the building site where the Archbishop’s plans to add to his cathedral were going ahead in fits and starts as the funding permitted. The clumps of trees cast long fingers beyond that, and the gable-ends of the tall stone manses at the edge of the kirkyard glowed bright where the light caught them. Eastwards the sky was darkening as he watched.

‘Gil?’ said his sister behind him. ‘You going to sleep there?’

He stepped aside quickly. ‘Forgive me, Kate. I’m keeping you standing.’

‘I can stand forever,’ she said. ‘It’s getting up or down that’s the difficult part. Come on, they won’t wait all night for us.’

She turned on her crutches with clumsy expertise, and thumped towards the few steps down from the doorway. Gil followed watchfully as she worked her way down into the shadows. He knew better than to offer help.

Under the vaulting immediately opposite the doorway, within the wooden screens which defined the Lady chapel, candlelight flickered on the carved latticework. The Virgin herself, small and ancient with a blackened foot, presided from her pillar, her babe perched on her arm. Kate paused, leaning on her crutches, looked towards the figure briefly, crossed herself, and swung to her left, towards the ornate structure of St Mungo’s tomb.

The altar to the west of the tomb was lit and furnished, and before it their uncle knelt in his Mass vestments, while the remainder of the little group waited in silence. Gil caught Alys’s eye over his sister’s shoulder, and smiled quickly at her. Maistre Pierre had his head bent over his beads; the two servants of the Official’s household who had known Kate since childhood were present, Maggie sitting on the base of a pillar with a lantern at her feet, Matt standing beside her, and beyond them towered Babb. She was gazing at the brightly painted end of the tomb, her lips moving silently. Kate on her crutches thumped past the draped side of the altar, David Cunningham rose from his knees, Gil moved hastily into place and lifted the smoking censer, and the Mass began.

It was an experience he knew he would find it hard to forget. As the familiar, comforting phrases rolled into the vaulted roof, the light from the windows faded, and the candlelight flickered on his sister’s face. Taut, intense, she stared at their uncle’s back, apparently unaware that she was chewing the end of a lock of her long mouse-coloured hair. The invocation to St Kentigern, Mungo the dearly beloved founder, usually saved for his feast days, rose in the candlelight, and shadows jumped on the pillars and vaulting, on the arcading and miniature crocketed spires of the tomb on its four steps, until Gil began to think they were not in a church but in a forest.

Thump and shuffle as Kate moved forward and stood before her uncle to receive the Host, tears leaking from her closed eyes, sweat darkening the patches in the armpits of her woollen gown. Final encomium on Kentigern, praising his steadfastness in the faith and his generosity to his followers.

‘Ite, missa est.’

There was a long silence, in which Babb sniffled and Maggie fidgeted but Kate stared unmoving at the candles. Finally Canon Cunningham rose from his knees, crossed himself, and turned to look at them all.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Attend your mistress, then, Babb. We’ll wait you here.’

Babb moved forward, Maggie lifted the lantern and got stiffly to her feet. Kate wiped her eyes on her sleeve, looked from one to the other, then scowled over her shoulder and jerked her head at Alys. All four women moved off towards the chapter-house. Gil put the lid on the censer and exchanged a long look with Maistre Pierre.

‘We must hope,’ said his father-in-law in French, ‘and pray. We can do nothing else for the poor girl. And now you stand guard for her?’

‘I do.’ Gil smiled wryly. ‘When we were young, she liked to swim in the great pool in the burn near to where we were brought up. I used to stand guard, so nobody would catch sight of her in her shift. I’ll spend this night on my knees, but it’s the same thing.’

‘Likely St Mungo himself knew the Linn pool,’ said David Cunningham in Scots. ‘He was a great man for visiting his flock, we hear. I don’t doubt he knew Cadzow parish well. No harm in reminding him of the place in your petitions, Gilbert.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Gil turned as the door of the chapterhouse opened. Candlelight showed beyond the screens of the Lady chapel, and they could hear footsteps and the thump and scrape of Kate’s crutches. The little procession approached between the pillars, Kate at its head now barefoot, stripped to her shift. Behind her Babb carried a bundled plaid, Alys and Maggie a candle each. Kate worked her way down the three steps to the level of the altar, and came forward to stand before her uncle again.

‘Uncle David,’ she said, meeting his eye, ‘whatever comes of this, I’m grateful.’

‘Well, well,’ he said, and reached for the little flask of oil. ‘You’re a good lassie, Kate.’

Now, in the crowded castle yard, Maistre Pierre said, ‘She feels the saint has mocked her.’

‘Maister,’ said Andy behind them.

‘Indeed she must, poor lady!’ said Morison. ‘What a painful thing.’

Sir Thomas turned and scowled at them.

‘Maister,’ said Andy again. ‘Have ye looked at the assizers?’

‘Painful indeed,’ agreed Maistre Pierre.

‘For that’s Willie Anderson the cordiner from the Gallowgait, and John Robertson, and John Douglas, and Archie Hamilton the litster,’ Andy recounted, ‘and there’s Mattha Hog. And if ye’re thinking, maister, the same as I am, ye’re thinking they’re all friends of Serjeant Anderson’s.’

‘Maybe she asked too much,’ said Morison.

Gil was silent.

The waking in the dawn was inexpressibly painful to think about. Kate had sprung up out of her dream, out of the bundle of blankets, to stand upright in her shift with her face exalted in a beam of sunlight from the east window. Scrambling to his feet from knees stiffened by a night’s prayer, he had not been in time to catch her when she trod forward and fell her length, barely saving herself from rolling down the steps away from the elaborate painted tomb. Heart hammering, he had helped her to sit up, and she had elbowed him aside to snatch back the hem of her shift and stare at her shrivelled foot, pale and unchanged in the growing light from the nearer windows. He thought he had never seen such an expression of disbelief. He had spoken her name, but she ignored him, still staring, for a long moment, then threw back her head and howled like a gored hound. Babb had come running, and snatched her up in brawny arms, and she had clung to her and burst into a great storm of weeping.

‘None of us realized, I suppose, how certain she was that St Mungo would help,’ said Maistre Pierre. Sir Thomas turned and glared at them again. ‘Ah, we are near the number we require.’

‘And that’s Jemmy Walker,’ said Andy in ominous tones as the final assizer was named.

‘What, Billy’s cousin?’ said his master. The members of the assize made their way to the area roped off for them at the side of the courtyard, where Sir Thomas’s clerk approached them, wielding a copy of the Gospels in a much-rubbed leather binding.

‘Oh, ye’re listening, are ye? Look at that fifteen men, maister, and tell me how many of them’s a friend to you?’

‘Wheesht, Andy. They’re fencing the court now.’

After the long process of swearing-in, Sir Thomas addressed the assize, explaining clearly that they were there to establish who the dead man was, how he had died, and who was responsible for his death; but that if they were unable to say any of these things for certain, ‘which seems the maist likely circumstance, neighbours,’ he added, they were to admit it clearly rather than bring an accusation which could not be proved. Gil, watching, saw the sidelong glances some of the men exchanged, and was suddenly uneasy.

As he had proposed an hour earlier when they delivered the treasure to him, Sir Thomas began by drawing from Maister Morison an account of the opening of the barrel.

‘It was well sealed before you broached it?’ he prompted.

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Morison. ‘Sound and tight.’

‘And you expected to find books in it,’ the Provost went on, with faint incredulity. ‘What books in particular?’

‘Just what Andrew Halyburton was able to send,’ said Morison, his eyes brightening. ‘We were in hopes that he’d get books neither one of us owned yet.’

‘Aye, well, it’s an odd way of doing business,’ Sir Thomas commented. ‘And that’s the barrel yonder, is it? Has it your mark on it, maister?’

‘It has,’ agreed Morison. ‘And two shipmarks forbye, and some other folk’s merchant marks.’

‘But never Thomas Tod’s shipmark,’ said a voice loudly from the crowd. Sir Thomas stared round, frowning.

‘Who said that?’ he demanded. There was a disturbance, and the sandy-haired Billy made his way to the front.

‘Me,’ he said. ‘Billy Walker, that’s journeyman carter to Maister Morison. See that puncheon,’ he went on, without waiting for encouragement. ‘It’s not got Thomas Tod’s shipmark, for all my maister says it’s the one that cam out of Tod’s ship. I just thocht it was strange, that.’

‘Is that right?’ Sir Thomas said to Maister Morison, who nodded.

‘Both right,’ he said. ‘I saw it lifted from Tod’s ship myself, and so did Billy here, the only puncheon in the shipment, but it’s not got his mark on it. We thocht it was strange and all.’

‘Did you ask Tod why it was in his ship, if it never had his shipmark?’

‘No, for we only saw it was lacking his shipmark when we had it here in Glasgow and set up ready for broaching,’ said Morison reasonably.

‘The carter has changed his tune from this morning,’ said Maistre Pierre in puzzled tones. Gil nodded absently, staring over the heads of the onlookers. At the back of the crowd was a man as tall as himself, in a black cloak and felt hat. He was watching Billy intently, his flat, big-featured face expressionless. Then, as if aware of Gil’s scrutiny, he looked round, and suddenly smiled, a sneering expression that made his tuft of a beard twitch, and ducked away among the crowd. He had a long-hafted weapon in a vast leather sheath on his shoulder.

‘Who was that?’ Gil said. ‘I’ve not seen him in Glasgow before.’

‘Who?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Hush,’ said Morison.

Sir Thomas, frowning again, persevered with the account of the summoning of the serjeant, and finally obtained corroboration from Morison’s companions by the simple method of saying rapidly, ‘And you gentlemen agree with that? And you, Andy Paterson? Good. Now, has any of you ever seen this man before?’

‘Never,’ said Morison confidently.

‘Nor I.’ Maistre Pierre nodded agreement. Gil opened his mouth to speak, but Sir Thomas had already turned to the assizers. They agreed, with much mumbling and shuffling, that they thought the man was a stranger.

‘I seen him afore,’ said Billy Walker from the front of the crowd. Morison turned his head to stare at him, open-mouthed, and Gil was aware of some muttering among the assizers where they stood penned at Sir Thomas’s right hand.

‘Where have ye seen him, man?’ demanded Sir Thomas. ‘Who is he, then?’

‘I’ve no notion who he is,’ said Billy hastily. ‘Just I’ve seen him somewhere.’

‘That’s no help,’ said Sir Thomas crisply. ‘Now, I’ve looked at the head myself, and so has Maister Mason here. He looks to us like a fighting man, and it seems possible he was heidit after he was dead, no killed by being heidit, but there’s no more to be told beyond that. Does anyone present have anything more to tell the quest?’

‘Aye,’ said Billy. ‘Just this, sir. If they’ve no seen him afore, how come my maister and Andy and those got Jamesie Aitken and me out of the way while they broached the puncheon, and what was it they were agreed no to tell the serjeant?’

‘What are you saying?’ demanded Sir Thomas. The courtyard was suddenly full of noise. Over it the serjeant shouted for silence, with little success.

‘I’m saying they were for leaving Serjeant Anderson out of it,’ repeated Billy in righteous tones, ‘for I heard one of them say it.’

Gil, with a sinking feeling, stepped forward and caught the Provost’s eye, and when Sir Thomas leaned towards him he said quietly, ‘I mind saying that, sir. It was in connection with the other matter, the one we discussed the now, that’s to go to the King.’

Sir Thomas nodded, and gestured again at Serjeant Anderson, who renewed his stentorian calls for silence. When he was eventually successful, the Provost said resonantly, ‘That was a matter which came straight to me, and very properly too. What about this, of getting you and the man Aitken out of the way?’

‘It must ha been when they found the heid,’ said Billy obligingly. Morison looked at Gil in dismay, and one or two of the assize nudged each other and pointed at this. ‘Me and Jamesie was kept working in the barn, and first they never said a word to us about what was in the puncheon, just bade Jamesie go for Serjeant Anderson instead of setting up a hue and cry of murder, and then after the serjeant took the heid away Andy Paterson sent us down the back to wash carts. But I’d to go back up into the yard for cloths and a bucket,’ he explained virtuously, ‘since Andy never furnished us ony, as Jamesie’ll bear me out, and I heard them saying this about keeping the serjeant out of it.’

‘Ah, mon Dieu,’ muttered the mason. Andy drew a long breath through his teeth.

‘Keeping the serjeant out of it’s no matter,’ declared Sir Thomas, ‘for I ken what that was for and it’s none of his mind. It’s already gone to the Archbishop. And Maister Morison got the serjeant to see to the head afore the other matter came to light, as you’ve just told us, Billy Walker. But why did you no set up a hue and cry, maister? The law’s quite clear on that.’

‘I was just horror-struck,’ Morison protested. ‘We all were. And my bairns were about the yard, I didny want them to see — that.’ He nodded at the trestle with its burden.

‘I never saw the bairns about the yard,’ asserted Billy. Several of the assizers looked at one another and nodded significantly at this. The man Andy had identified as Billy’s cousin was speaking in confidential tones to his neighbour.

‘This man is destroying his own employment,’ said Maistre Pierre in Gil’s ear. ‘What is he about?’

‘I wish I knew,’ said Gil. ‘But I don’t like the look of the assize.’

‘Serjeant,’ said Sir Thomas irritably, ‘can you add any sense to this?’

‘All I can say is, I never saw any bairns either,’ said Serjeant Anderson portentously. ‘What’s more, sir, when I asked the gentlemen to touch the corp they all did it very willingly except — ’ he paused dramatically — ‘for Maister Morison.’

‘And did the corp bleed?’ asked an assizer from behind the rope.

‘How could it bleed?’ asked Sir Thomas irritably. ‘He’s been heidit. He’s no blood left.’

‘No, it never bled,’ admitted the serjeant regretfully.

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ declared the Provost. ‘Has the assizers any questions they want answered? Or anything more to tell the inquest?’

‘Aye. I’d like to know how long Maister Morison had the puncheon in his keeping,’ said a grey-haired man in a tavern-keeper’s apron.

‘Not as much as a week,’ said Morison nervously. ‘The carts only came home yestreen. No, the day before now. I convoyed them straight from Linlithgow after the whole load was put ashore at Blackness on Monday.’

‘And ye had it under your eye all that time, maister?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Morison. ‘Well,’ he amended, ‘save for when it was warded for the night, and then there was a guard on it.’

‘Was there aught else in the puncheon?’ asked a man with the stained hands of a working dyer. Morison looked at the Provost, who intervened.

‘Aye, there was, Archie Hamilton, but it’s a matter for a higher court than this one. It’s all in hand, so ye’ve no call to speir at that.’

‘And there was a deal of brine,’ added Morison.

‘Is he a Scot?’ asked another man with a strong likeness to the dyer. ‘Or is he some kind o foreigner? A Saracen, maybe? Or English, even?’

‘What would a Saracen be doing in Glasgow?’ demanded Sir Thomas in exasperated tones. ‘And if he’s English, he’s past telling us himself, I warrant you, Eckie. He could be anyone. He’s been a grown man, wi one blue eye and one brown, and his hair’s dark, and that’s all we ken.’

‘And he’s no half an ell high,’ said someone from the back of the crowd, to general laughter.

‘It’s Allan,’ said someone else. ‘Like the sang. Gude Allane lies intil a barell.’

This raised more laughter, but there seemed to be no further questions or information. Sir Thomas withdrew, and the assizers were ceremoniously released from their pen and escorted into confinement in the hall of the Provost’s lodging to deliberate on what they had heard.

‘How long will this take?’ asked Maistre Pierre as the last man disappeared, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk.

‘There’s a refreshment to be served,’ Morison said. ‘They’ll be no quicker than it takes to get that by, and maybe a lot slower.’

‘A refreshment? I thought such a jury should be starved to hasten its decision.’

‘How would you get anyone to serve if you starved them?’ Gil asked. ‘What is Andy doing there, Augie?’

‘Giving Billy orders for the rest of the day, maybe.’ Morison watched the two men, who were conversing in a fierce undertone. ‘Tell your sister again how sorry I am, Gil, that the saint never answered her prayer. What will she do now?’

‘I have wondered that,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘I’ve not asked her. Go back to Carluke, likely, and try to accept her lot. She and Tib have no tocher,’ Gil said directly, turning to look at Morison, ‘and who would take her with that leg and no land to sweeten the bargain?’

‘Courage and a bonnie face might make a tocher,’ said Morison diffidently, ‘to the right man.’

‘They don’t bring in rents,’ said Gil. ‘And Kate isn’t one to take bread at a man’s hand either.’

Andy was still haranguing his junior. As Gil watched over Morison’s shoulder the younger man turned away with a self-righteous air; at the same moment Andy swung round and marched back to their master, every line of his small bow-legged frame expressing anger. Billy glanced after him to thumb his nose again, at which the men round him nudged one another and sniggered.

‘Arrogant wee scunner,’ said Andy, rejoining them. ‘By here, that was quick.’ He nodded towards the Provost’s lodging. ‘The assize is coming out.’

The fifteen men of the assize filed down the steps, preceded by the serjeant with the mace, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk, and were herded into their roped enclosure again. The serjeant went back to conduct Sir Thomas, and then climbing on the mounting-block shouted for silence and got it. Sir Thomas nodded to Gil and his friends, and in a short speech reminded the assize of the penalties for a wilful false verdict and asked them if they had selected someone to speak for them.

‘Aye, maister, we have that,’ said the grey-haired tavern-keeper, ‘and it’s me. Mattha Hog, keeper of the Hog tavern, and we’ve a new barrel of ale — ’

‘That’s enough of that,’ said Sir Thomas sharply. ‘Well, Mattha, what has the assize found in this death? Do ye ken who he was?’

‘No, maister, we do not, except maybe he was a Saracen. Ye said so yerself, that we didny ken him,’ Mattha reminded the Provost.

‘And were you unanimous in that decision?’

Mattha looked alarmed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, indeed, it didny take long to decide at all. We were all agreed, you see.’

Sir Thomas exchanged a brief glance with his clerk, who bent his head over his notes again with a smile quirking his mouth.

‘Very well,’ said the Provost. ‘And do ye ken how he died?’

‘No, not that either,’ said Mattha. ‘We wereny agreed on that,’ he admitted, ‘for some of us thought he was heidit, and some of us not, but you tellt us yerself, maister, there’s no knowing now. He’s too long deid, and in that brine and all.’

‘Very good,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘The clerk of the court will write that out, and read it to you, and you will affix the seal of the assize to the record — ’

‘Aye, but sir,’ said Mattha, ‘we’re not finished.’

Sir Thomas stopped to stare at him.

‘You tellt us to decide on who saw to his death,’ continued the tavern-keeper with the air of a man about to set off a culverin. ‘So we did, and we were agreed on it. Well, nearly all of us was agreed on it,’ he modified as someone growled from the back of the group. ‘We reckon there’s one man knows more about the whole matter than he lets on, and we say he should be held and put to the horn for the killing, and that’s Maister Augustine Morison.’

‘What?’ Morison almost shrieked.

Uproar broke out. Several men from the crowd rushed eagerly forward to seize the merchant, who dived hurriedly towards the Provost for protection. Sir Thomas gestured angrily to his own men, who were already advancing towards the fore-stair using their mailed arms and boots, and dragged Morison on to the stair and out of the grasp of those nearest him. Andy, knife drawn, scrambled up the steps beside his master, and Maistre Pierre also stepped into the mêlée. Gil tried to address Sir Thomas, but could not make himself heard above the noise of the onlookers and the serjeant bellowing from his mounting-block for silence and order. Anxiously he worked his way towards the stair.

‘Should we all withdraw, sir?’ he suggested when he was close enough. ‘Debate this in private?’

‘Aye, come up, come up!’ shouted Sir Thomas as his men formed a barrier at the foot of the stair. ‘Let him through, Andro! Serjeant!’ he bellowed.

The serjeant paused in his red-faced appeals for silence.

‘I’m away into the house. I’ll come back out when you’ve silenced them, man.’

One of the constables struggled through the throng, and appeared to be trying to tell Sir Thomas something. The Provost waved him away, waited until he saw that Gil was safely on to the steps, and retreated through his own door. Following him, Gil was aware of the serjeant descended from his mounting-block, laying about him with the burgh mace.

Within, Morison was saying desperately, over the noise from the yard, ‘I didn’t kill him, I don’t even know who he is. I never saw him till we opened the barrel!’

‘Augie,’ said Gil.

Morison stopped to look at him, open-mouthed, and Sir Thomas said into the pause, ‘It’s all a muddle. I’ll have to hold ye, maister, since they’ve brought in that verdict, and I don’t believe a word of it either.’

‘I think it is malice,’ declared the mason from beside the empty hearth.

‘And either I hold a man or I put him to the horn, one or the other, not the both at once. Where’s the point in sounding the horn at the Mercat Cross and calling a search for him if he’s lying in a cell in my castle?’

‘But I never — ’

‘Augie,’ said Gil again, ‘if you’re charged, will you deny it?’

‘Of course I will — ’

‘Then don’t say any more now,’ Gil advised. Walter the clerk gave him an approving look. ‘The plea is twertnay, and that’s all you need to say.’

‘Oh.’ Morison stopped, and repeated the word soundlessly a couple of times.

‘I still think it malice,’ said Maistre Pierre. The noise from the yard had dropped.

‘Aye, you could be right, maister,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘A wilful false verdict. I’m not happy about the assize, that’s certain. Walter, you have all their names writ down, have you?’

‘All writ down, Provost,’ agreed the clerk. ‘We can get them back any time we want, provided they’ve not run.’

‘Then I’ll go out and discharge them. Bide here, gentlemen. Walter, I’ll need you.’

He went out, and shortly could be heard haranguing the members of the assize. The four left in the hall looked at one another.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Morison, whose teeth were beginning to chatter. ‘Oh, Christ assoil me, what of my bairns?’

‘Must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘I’m more practised in the canon law than the civil,’ said Gil, ‘but I’d say he must be held. It’s a charge of murder, so he can’t be released on recognition.’

‘But — ’ began Morison, and stopped. ‘Twertnay,’ he said carefully. ‘Gil, will you help me? You found out who killed those other folk — the woman in St Mungo’s yard and the one at the college. Can you find out this for me?’

‘I can try,’ said Gil.

‘I’ll gie ye a hand, Maister Gil,’ said Andy.

‘I’ll need you to see to the yard,’ said his master, sinking on to a stool. ‘The business, the bairns, the household — what’s to come to any of them if I’m chained up here?’

‘I’ll have to hold ye,’ said Sir Thomas in the doorway, ‘since it’s a charge of murder, but I’m not putting ye in chains, maister. If you’ll give me your word not to run, you can bide here in the castle. I’ll find a chamber.’

‘I’ll see to the yard, maister, if that’s what’s wanted,’ said Andy. ‘And the first thing, I’ll give Billy Walker leave to go before I throttle him.’

‘No, Andy,’ said Morison, ‘he told the truth as he saw it.’

‘Aye, and as he hoped it would harm you, maister,’ said Andy bluntly.

‘For how long must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Sir Thomas shook his head. ‘I need to send to my lord Archbishop. I wish I’d waited to report the coin, the one man could ha carried both words. Robert Blacader will decide whether to set the matter aside or to pursue it, and in what court. After that, who knows? If Maister Morison’s being held at his expense,’ he added shrewdly, ‘he’ll want to resolve it sooner than later.’ Voices rose in the yard again, and he turned his head to listen. ‘Walter, sort that, would ye, man?’

As the clerk went out on to the fore-stair again, Gil said formally, ‘If you’re sending to my lord, may I ride with the messenger? Maister Morison has asked me to make enquiry into the death of the man whose head we found in the barrel, and my first road must be to Stirling.’

‘Aye, very wise.’ Sir Thomas scowled at Gil. ‘And let me know what ye find and all.’

‘Unless there is a conflict of interests,’ agreed Gil.

The Provost stared at him for a moment, then nodded grimly. ‘I suppose it might happen,’ he admitted. ‘Aye, you may ride. You can be the messenger, indeed. If you can be ready within the hour.’

‘I need to question Maister Morison.’

‘Aye, and the men must eat,’ admitted Sir Thomas, reconsidering. ‘Two hours, then. No longer.’

‘Maister,’ said Walter the clerk, reappearing at the door, ‘it’s a messenger from my lord Archbishop.’

‘What?’ Sir Thomas turned to the man in dusty riding-clothes who followed Walter into the hall. ‘I trust my lord’s well?’ he said, removing his murrey velvet hat.

‘He is well,’ said the messenger, bowing and holding out a letter with a dangling seal, ‘and he sends to let you to know, Provost, that he will lie here at Glasgow the morn’s night, together with his grace the King and my lord of Angus and others as numbered in his letter.’