The Merchant's Mark

Chapter Nine

They were clearing the table away after the midday bite when the gate thumped. Andy, gathering his workforce together as the women carried out the empty dishes, turned to peer out of the hall window.

‘St Mungo’s banes,’ he said, staring. ‘Is this no your uncle, my leddy?’

‘My uncle?’ Kate swung herself towards the window. Out in the yard, severe in his long black gown and acorn-shaped hat, Canon Cunningham was gazing about him with the air of one surveying a battlefield. Beside him Matt was looking hopefully at the house. ‘Indeed it is. What’s brought him down here?’

‘I hope nothing is wrong!’ Alys joined her with an armful of folded linen. ‘No, he does not look as if he brings bad news.’

‘That’s good lassies,’ said Nan, handing a wooden platter to each of the little girls. ‘Take those down to Ursel, now, just like Jennet did, and then we’ll go out in the yard.’

‘Likely he’s come to see what you’re about, the two of you,’ surmised Babb from across the room. ‘Let him in and bid him sit down, my doo, since we’ve made oursels at home.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Alys moved to stow the linen in the great press, and paused. ‘I wonder, has he eaten? Do you suppose Ursel …’

‘No, no,’ said Canon Cunningham when she asked him the same question. ‘I’ve eaten well, my lassie. You ken the kitchen Maggie keeps. Thank you for asking,’ he added. Seating himself on one of Maister Morison’s backstools he looked closely at his niece. ‘Well, Kate.’

‘Well, sir,’ she responded, seated opposite him and wondering why she felt as if she had been caught in mischief.

‘Tell me, what are you at here? What about all these tales reaching the Chanonry?’

‘What tales are those, sir?’

‘You had a thief in the house last night, did you no? And a murder this morning.’ The Official looked round him at the gloomy hall. ‘Was it just the one murder, or was it half the household as Maggie swears that Agnes Dow tellt her?’

‘Just the one, sir,’ Kate assured him, her mouth quirking in spite of herself.

‘So it’s true, then?’ Her uncle raised one eyebrow. ‘Who?’

‘The thief, Christ assoil him. Babb and I took him redhand at his master’s kist, and we shut him in the coalhouse till morning. Then when Andy Paterson went to fetch him out, he was dead, slain by another inbreaker.’

‘I don’t know, it’s fair coming to it when a decent young woman canny sleep safe in her bed at night. Are you sure you’ve taken no hurt, lassie?’

‘I’m not hurt, sir.’

David Cunningham tut-tutted, shaking his head.

‘It’s the fault o that brother o yours,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we never had the half of these killings before he started looking into them. And your father just encourages him,’ he added severely to Alys. Her elusive smile flickered, but she made no answer. ‘What was a thief doing in the house anyway? And then another ill-doer in the yard. And what were you doing sending a man up for your spare poles? What came to the good set?’

They explained, as clearly as they might, and he listened intently, asking the occasional penetrating question. When they had done he sat silent, sipping at the tiny cup of Dutch spirit which Babb had quietly brought in while they talked.

‘So who is this man with the axe working for?’ he said at length. ‘It seems to me you need to find that out.’

‘We thought,’ said Alys, ‘to send two of the men down to the Hog after dinner, to see what they might learn.’

‘Aye,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It would need to be done wi care, but it might pay you.’ You, thought Kate, and exchanged a glance with Alys. ‘You got a sight of him, did you say, Kate?’

‘I did, sir,’ she agreed. ‘I’d ken him again — even if he shaved his wee beard. But there was no badge on his cloak that I could see.’

‘I never seen one neither, Maister David,’ said Babb from behind Kate’s chair. ‘And I got a right look at him as he cam out of that nasty tavern.’

‘And what did the servant lassie say about him? Do you think you can believe her?’

‘She thought he was a stranger to Glasgow,’ supplied Alys, ‘with an accent from Stirling or Edinburgh or some such place.’ She grimaced. ‘I confess I would not hear the difference. He pressed Billy to complete some task, and Billy said he was paid only to open the yett. She thought they did not mean this yett. Then the man ordered him to get his master arrested for murder, and to steal the key to the kist.’

‘The Axeman seemed certain there should be more treasure,’ added Kate. ‘Oh, and there was that odd thing he said about his own master.’

‘He did not say it was his master,’ objected Alys scrupulously.

‘True. He said — Mall told us he said, The Baptizer wanted his goods and gear back. We assumed he meant his master.’

‘I think we can believe the girl,’ Alys said judiciously. ‘She was in such great distress, I do not think she was lying, and the rest of her story knits well with what we know already.’

Canon Cunningham nodded, and took another sip of the Dutch spirit, rolling it thoughtfully on his palate.

‘Juniper,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Aye, Alys, she had reason to be distressed, I suppose.’

‘It makes no sense,’ said Kate. ‘There was a strange man’s head and a bag of coin and jewels in a barrel brought home from Blackness, and now another stranger running about Glasgow, persuading Billy there should be more of the coin and jewels still hid in this house, and killing him when he can’t find it.’

‘And chopping your oxter-pole in two and all, my doo,’ said Babb.

‘Maybe Gil has learned something more,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, Gilbert,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘Where did you say he was gone?’ he asked casually. The two girls looked at each other.

‘He was going to Stirling,’ said Alys. ‘He left with four of Sir Thomas’s men, I thought.’

‘Aye, and Rob and Tam from my household and all,’ agreed the Official. ‘I ken he went to Stirling. I’m just wondering where he would go after that.’

‘Linlithgow,’ said Alys positively. ‘My father left this morning, to go by Kilsyth and then meet him in Linlithgow. He would not change his plans without letting us know.’

‘Why do you ask, sir?’ said Kate.

‘No reason,’ said her uncle. He drew his spectacles from his sleeve, unfolded them and fitted them carefully on his nose. ‘I had a word from Robert Blacader,’ he went on, feeling in his sleeve again. ‘He writes that he saw your brother yestreen, and had the tale of the treasure and the quest from him. And,’ he glanced at Alys, ‘that he has bidden Gilbert report to him.’

‘Oh!’ said Alys, and her eyes shone.

‘Quite so,’ agreed the Official. He located the piece of paper, drew it from his sleeve and unfolded it. ‘Where are we now? Aye, and also that Will Knollys had a long word wi Gilbert after he spoke wi the King, and I am tellt he was avysit to carry his search intil Ayrshire.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Alys positively. ‘He was certainly to meet my father after he was in Stirling. To go to Ayrshire he must come back through Glasgow, not? Linlithgow is the other way, I think.’

‘I doubt whether your father would let him go into Ayrshire alone,’ Kate contributed.

‘Aye, I’ve no doubt you’re right,’ agreed her uncle. ‘We needny worry about Gilbert. He’s a man grown, after all.’

‘I never worry about him,’ said Kate.

Her uncle threw her a sharp look, and Alys said, ‘I know very little about Treasurer Knollys, sir. Do you know him?’

‘I do,’ said David Cunningham without expression. Alys waited hopefully.

‘Isn’t he one of the Knights of Rhodes?’ Kate asked.

Canon Cunningham snorted. ‘He contrived to be made Preceptor here in Scotland of the Knights of Jerusalem and Rhodes, the Order of St John, though he isny in minor Orders, let alone one of the Knights. He pays the Preceptory’s taxes,’ he added fairly, ‘as he can well afford to do, between the income he has from the Order and his own trading along the English coast. He’s been Treasurer of Scotland since the commencement of this reign, if I mind right, and spends a lot of his time bickering wi Robert Lyle about where the late King’s hoard went to and trying to lay his hands on what’s still to be found. He’d be overjoyed to see that bagful your brother found.’

‘Would he so?’ said Kate. ‘And to see it brought before the King like that?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said the Official, with the same absence of expression.

‘How did he serve the late King?’ Kate asked.

Her uncle threw her an approving look. ‘He was one of the custumars,’ he recalled, ‘and made a fair profit on the customs of Leith. I think he served for the King in that sorry business wi my lord of Albany’s treason, ten or more year ago, and I’ve no doubt the Preceptory held some of this same hoard for the King in ’88, when it was clear what way things were going.’

‘So why should he not know where the treasure is now?’ asked Alys.

‘The late King planted boxes of it all up and down the east side of Scotland before the rebellion,’ said Kate, ‘like a squirrel in autumn. Quite likely he’d not have recalled all of it himself, even had he lived, from all I’ve heard, let alone the rest of us guess where it might have gone.’

‘No to mention,’ added David Cunningham, suddenly abandoning legal discretion, ‘my lord St John of Jerusalem changing sides just afore the rising.’

‘Is that his title?’ said Alys, round-eyed. ‘Kate!’

‘Of course!’ said Kate. ‘The Baptizer!’

They exchanged glances all three.

‘It fits,’ agreed her uncle slowly. ‘It fits what I know of the man. But we have no proof.’

‘Proof is easy,’ said Alys sweepingly ‘It is merely a matter of evidence.’

‘I like the “merely”,’ said Kate.

‘No, but wait. What do we know? The man with the axe had paid Billy to open a gate somewhere, and he was sure there should be more treasure here in the house.’ She paused. ‘There was Billy’s tale of a thief in the yard at Linlithgow. What if the treasure had been held there, and the man with the axe was the thief?’

‘Billy said the thief ran off,’ objected Kate.

‘He said there was a fight,’ Alys reminded her, ‘so there must have been more than one man. He also said the thief was nowhere near the cart, but patently somebody was. If he lied in that, he may well have lied in other things.’

‘I wonder if Mall heard any more?’

‘We can hardly ask her just now, poor lass.’ Alys clasped her hands and gazed down at them. ‘If the treasure was hidden in the yard, and this man of Knollys’s came to fetch it, and something went wrong — I suppose it means that Knollys has known where this part of the treasure has been, and perhaps intended to keep it to himself for some reason.’

‘Will Knollys would need no reason to hold on to money,’ said David Cunningham. ‘It’s what makes him a good man for Treasurer. Your conjecture is no bad, Alys my lassie, but it could as well be Noll Sinclair.’

‘Sinclair?’ said Kate. ‘I mind him. We stayed at Roslin one time, my mother and sisters and me, when I was a wee thing. They were kind to me. Do you mind, Babb?’

‘No doubt,’ said her uncle, over Babb’s agreement, ‘but he holds land in Linlithgow, and I’m certain he’s let some part of it to a cooper. If the coin was hidden in the yard, it was hidden on Sinclair’s land.’

‘Is that likely, sir?’ Kate asked.

‘Oh, aye. Sinclair was aye a good friend to the Crown.’

‘But the man with the axe did not mention Sinclair,’ objected Alys.

‘You need more information,’ said Canon Cunningham firmly. Kate noted the you again. ‘But for now, lassies, what are the two of you to do? I suppose you must go home from time to time,’ he said to Alys, who smiled quickly. ‘But you, Kate, are you to stay here? I hardly think it safe.’

‘Maister Morison said the same,’ said Kate. ‘But I don’t like to leave the bairns. There should be someone in the house to take charge.’

‘Bairns?’

‘They’re in the yard,’ said Alys, ‘with Matt’s friend Mistress Thomson.’ The Official craned to see out of the window. His thin cheeks creased in a rare smile as he saw the little girls, who were industriously sweeping a small patch of ground with two very large brooms, while Matt and Mistress Thomson lifted broken crocks. ‘Kate is right, sir, there should be someone in control. There are only the two women in the house, and one of my lassies on loan, and though Andy has his master’s trust, he also has his hands full with the men and the yard. He can’t see to two bairns as well.’

And for how long? Kate wondered, biting her lip. What will come to their father? Imprisoned, however kindly, kept from his trade and his household -

‘What will happen to Maister Morison, sir?’ said Alys.

The Official abandoned the view of the children and sat back, looking from Alys to Kate.

‘That depends,’ he said. ‘He needs to show clearly he had no knowledge of the barrel, which is no an easy thing. This matter of his man breaking in and then being murdered, while he himself was held secure, should go in his favour.’ He paused to consider, eyeing Kate carefully. ‘Aye, I suppose you had best stay here the now, Kate. If it comes to a trial, no doubt the law will put someone in place, but the Justice Ayre won’t reach Glasgow for weeks.’ His thought was clear to Kate: At least it gives the lassie something to think about. She lifted her chin and eyed him back, and after a moment he gave her another of those rare smiles. ‘My, Kate. Times I see your father in you. Does it matter to you, what happens to Amphibal Morison’s boy?’

Kate opened her mouth to deny the imputation, closed it again, and looked down. Behind her Babb said, with a warmth equalling the sudden warmth of Kate’s face, ‘Who’d want to see a man brought to his end by a spiteful creature like Billy Walker? No wonder she’s taking an interest, Maister David!’

‘Aye,’ said Kate. ‘Babb’s right, sir.’

‘Aye,’ said her uncle, with that legal lack of expression, and rose. ‘Well, I had best be up the road. I have a case to look over for the morn. Gang warily, my lassies,’ he added, looking from one to the other. ‘You’ll keep me informed, won’t you?’

‘We’ll report to you, sir,’ agreed Kate. His mouth twitched, but he only raised his hand for the blessing.

By the time the two men selected by Andy for the task came home from their expedition to the Hog, the house was relatively quiet. The hall, swept and polished, bright with fire and candlelight, was strewn with cut pieces of linen, and more was stretched out on the great board which had been set on its trestles for the purpose. Round it, under the branches of light, the women were sewing, with the support of small cups of a reviving herbal cordial which Ursel had produced from her stillroom. When Andy stepped into the house with the two cheerful men behind him, he looked round approvingly.

‘Where’s the new one?’ he asked. ‘The nourice?’

‘She didny want to leave them,’ said Ursel. ‘Wynliane’s no right yet. Here, Jennet, that’s a sleeve to that shift, and I think Babb has the other.’

‘Aye, well, I tellt you how it would be,’ said Andy.

Kate grimaced, and Alys nodded. ‘You did indeed, Andy,’ she agreed, ‘but we had to try to bath them. I wonder if there is a better way to approach it,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps if an adult got in with them?’

‘We’d be better to wash the bairn standing in a basin,’ said Kate. ‘It can’t be good for her, upsetting her so she screams like that.’ She looked past Andy. ‘Jamesie, William. What did you learn?’

They came forward, dispensing fumes of ale and the greasy cooking smells which clung to their clothes. Ursel sniffed, and primmed up her mouth.

‘No a lot, my leddy.’ This was Jamesie, lanky and dark-haired, turning his bonnet in his hands. ‘Mattha Hog says he’d be right glad to take the coals off our hands, my leddy, but I never discussed the price, since you never tellt me to.’ Kate nodded approvingly. ‘And then we sat down, like Andy tellt us, and took a stoup of ale, and listened a bit, and talked a bit. They were wanting to hear how Billy dee’d.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Alys.

‘What we saw,’ said William. ‘How he was cut to pieces like wi an axe.’ He looked at his colleague. ‘I thought one or two folk looked sideways at that. As if maybe they were feart the fellow wi the axe was in the place the night.’

‘Aye, but he wasny,’ said Jamesie.

‘Naw. So then,’ pursued William, ‘one fellow asked what Billy was after when we took him redhand last night, so we tellt them what he said about the maister’s kist, and how a’body kens the maister keeps his coin up at the castle. And we tellt them how it was you and Babb that catched him,’ he added, ‘and how Babb wanted to put skelfs under his fingernails and set light to them — ’

‘That wasny me, it was Jamesie that wanted to set light to them!’ said Babb indignantly, needle poised over a scrap of linen.

‘I never!’ said Jamesie, equally indignant. ‘It was your brother Ecky, William Soutar.’

‘Whoever it was,’ said Kate, ‘we never took up the idea. What did the Hog have to say to that?’

‘Well, I think they’ll no come calling uninvited,’ said Jamesie, grinning.

‘It was so you,’ muttered William.

‘Did you learn anything more?’ said Kate, seeing the way the discussion was heading.

‘No in the Hog, no,’ admitted Jamesie. ‘But when we left — ’

‘Calling me a liar — ’

‘This fellow came out after us, casual-like, and had a wee word as we cam along the Gallowgait.’

‘What fellow was this?’ asked Alys.

Jamesie shrugged. ‘He never said his name. What he did say was, he’d heard Billy and this fellow wi the axe talking in the Hog yestreen. Afore you were there yourself, my leddy.’

‘Yes?’ said Kate.

‘Our Ecky never said such a thing in his life.’

‘He said there was something about a barrel, and a yett, and a key. And he said the fellow said Billy had cheated him.’

‘It was a’ havers,’ said William, suddenly abandoning his brother’s reputation. ‘You don’t need a key to seal a barrel.’

‘Did Billy seal the barrel?’ asked Alys hopefully.

Jamesie shrugged again. ‘He never said. He said Billy was feart for the Axeman.’

‘We kenned that,’ said Andy. ‘Is this all you’ve got, you pair of useless loons?’

‘Naw,’ said William unexpectedly. ‘Other thing he said, he’d seen the fellow wi the axe in the Hog afore. Wi two other men.’

‘Men? Not a girl?’ said Alys. ‘We still need to look for this Maidie.’

William shook his head. ‘He just said men.’

‘When?’ Kate asked. ‘Did he know the other men? Or describe them?’

‘He didny ken them, for we asked him that. He said one had a hat wi a feather in it.’

‘Like half the householders in Glasgow,’ said Andy in disgust. ‘You’re a useless — ’

‘When was this?’ Kate asked.

‘No yesterday but the day afore. Wednesday,’ said William, counting on his fingers.

‘Did he hear what they were saying?’ asked Alys.

‘Naw.’

‘They stayed in a wee corner, by theirsels,’ elucidated Jamesie.

‘But,’ said William, ‘he reckoned Mattha Hog knew them, for they got the good ale without asking for it.’

‘A pity they never got the fellow’s name,’ said Kate, once the men had been thanked and sent out to the bothy.

‘I said the man with the axe was not acting alone,’ said Alys. ‘But why was he in Glasgow on Wednesday? That was before the cart ever came home with the barrel on it.’

‘Maybe they’d missed it on the road,’ suggested Babb, running her thread across the beeswax.

‘It still makes little sense,’ said Alys, and frowned down at her seam.

‘I think we only have half the picture,’ said Kate. ‘We’ve no more than we can learn here in Glasgow. Gil may have the other half.’

‘True,’ agreed Alys, and sighed. ‘I wonder when he will be home?’

And when he comes home, thought Kate, will he set Augie Morison free?

The inquest on Billy Walker was an altogether more expeditious affair than the one on the unknown head in the barrel. This probably had something to do with the imminent arrival of the King and half the court; most of the supporting column had already arrived and the outer yard was full of men shouting over laden mules and oxcarts full of cushions, folding furniture and half of the Master Cook’s batterie de cuisine. French curses floated over the chaos; as Kate was hoisted by Babb up the fore-stair into Sir Thomas’s own lodging she heard Alys giggle.

The corpse lay on a hurdle propped on trestles in the midst of the hall. In deference to Mall’s feelings, and possibly those of the other women present, someone had spread a length of canvas over it. Mall herself was stationed near the bier, dry-eyed and apprehensive, her beads in her hand and a clean apron over her worn blue gown. The woman beside her was so like her she could only be the sister from Greyfriars Wynd.

‘He’s done better wi the assizers this time,’ muttered Andy as one of the men-at-arms set a chair for Kate. ‘There’s Mattha Hog again, but the rest’s no so close wi him as Thursday’s lot was. Just the same, I should ha sent our men to find some of our own friends. And you stand here, Ecky Soutar, where I can keep my eye on you.’

The serjeant bore in the burgh mace, and Sir Thomas made an entrance, took his seat on the dais and dealt briskly with the business of choosing the assizers, ignoring any suggested names of which he did not approve and ending with a group of sheepish citizens being sworn in by the clerk in batches of five.

‘Right, neighbours,’ said the Provost when this was complete. ‘We’ve the body of a man here, and this court is convened to establish who he is, how he died and if we can tell who was responsible.’

‘If ye dare,’ said someone from behind Kate.

Alys twisted round to look, and Sir Thomas stretched himself up, glaring. ‘Who said that? Andro, see who it was. Another word and you’re out of this chamber, whoever you are.’

‘Jemmy Walker, was it no, maister?’ muttered Ecky Soutar to Andy, who gave him a look that silenced him. Sir Thomas was speaking again.

‘Now, neighbours, the first thing is to determine who the dead man is. Has any of you looked on him?’

With some shuffling of feet, the assize admitted that the most of their number had keeked under the canvas, and that those who had done so were agreed that the corp was Billy Walker, that had been carter to Maister Augustine Morison of Morison’s Yard in the High Street. Sir Thomas nodded, and his clerk wrote the name down.

‘And who found him dead?’ he asked.

‘That was me,’ said Andy with reluctance.

After her recent experience of questioning witnesses, Kate admired the economy with which Sir Thomas extracted what Andy had seen when he opened the coalhouse door, and had it confirmed by the serjeant, who was more subdued than Kate had seen him. Then it was her turn; Sir Thomas very courteously bade her stay where she was, and came down into the hall to take her evidence, followed by his clerk. The assize were let out of their pen to come closer, so that they could hear her, and she described how Billy had broken into the house, how she and Babb had trapped him, and how they had questioned him and shut him in the coalhouse.

‘We thought he’d be safe there till the morning,’ she said, and was surprised to find her voice shaking.

Alys, beside her, put a hand on her shoulder, and Sir Thomas said gruffly, ‘There, now, you wereny to ken. Is there any questions?’ he demanded fiercely of the assize.

‘Aye,’ said someone. ‘Ask the leddy what Billy Walker was after, breaking in like that.’

‘He said he was looking for treasure,’ said Kate. They keep coming back to that, she thought. We can’t deny it forever.

‘Which is daft,’ said Andy at her other side. ‘When it’s well kent my maister keeps his coin up here wi you, Provost, and there’s never been treasure in Morison’s Yard.’

‘And what was the leddy doing in Morison’s Yard anyway?’ said another voice. ‘It’s nane o your house, is it?’

‘I’m there to keep an eye on the bairns,’ said Kate, raising her chin.

‘Oh, aye,’ said the serjeant. ‘These bairns I never saw. I didny see them yesterday either.’

‘They’re six and four year old, a bit big to miss. Maister Morison fetched a barrel of spectacles last week to the pothecary’s,’ said Kate rather tartly. ‘Maybe you should go and try some, serjeant.’

There was laughter, and Serjeant Anderson scowled. Sir Thomas looked round.

‘Is there any more questions for Lady Kate?’ he demanded. ‘Right. Thank you, my leddy. Now who was it heard a noise in the yard?’

Ecky Soutar stood forward and admitted to having heard a noise, thought it was a cat knocking something down, and gone back to sleep.

‘Hmph,’ said the Provost. ‘I’ll wager your master’s steward had a word to say about that.’ Ecky’s eyes slid sideways to Andy, and he gave a shamefaced nod. ‘Well, and what time was this?’

‘I don’t know, maister,’ said Ecky. ‘It was still dark, that’s all I can say, sir.’

With some evidence from the serjeant about the amount of blood on the coal, at which Mattha Hog looked smug and Mall looked as if she might faint, and about the absence of blood on any of Morison’s household, Sir Thomas wound up the questioning. The assize was led off to the refreshment presumably waiting in an inner chamber, and Sir Thomas stepped down from the dais again and came to speak to Kate.

‘A bad business, my lady,’ he said. ‘It must have been a shock to you.’

‘A shock to the whole household,’ said Kate. ‘Andy, here, found him, as he just tellt you, sir, and the other men were working wi him the day before.’

‘And why were you in the house, anyway?’ Sir Thomas went on in a low voice.

‘As I said,’ said Kate, ‘I’m there to mind the bairns till we sort out this charge against their faither. He’s an old friend, sir, and a friend of my brother’s. I knew his wife, I’ve known Maister Morison since I was the age his bairns are.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Sir Thomas nodded. ‘You’re acting for your brother, are you?’

‘What about the man wi the axe?’ said a voice behind Sir Thomas before she had to answer this. The Provost turned sharply, and Mall came into Kate’s view, dry-eyed and pinched with grief, her sister beside her. ‘You never mentioned him,’ she went on, looking at Kate, ‘you never named the weapon that killed my Billy. Is he to get off wi it?’

‘Speak respectful to my leddy, you,’ said Babb over Kate’s shoulder.

‘What’s this? What’s this?’ demanded Sir Thomas.

‘It’s Billy’s sweetheart, Mall Anderson,’ said Kate. ‘Mall, did you not speak to the Provost before?’

‘I tried,’ she said, ‘but my uncle wouldny let me.’ She jerked her head towards Serjeant Anderson, who had just reappeared leading the assize from the inner room.

‘Oh, he wouldny?’ said Sir Thomas a little grimly. ‘What’s this about a man with an axe, lassie? Tell me quick.’

‘There was a m-man wi an axe at the back yett to our yard,’ said Mall, stumbling over her words, ‘I heard him talking to my Billy, and he threatened him to d-do what he wanted, to break into his maister’s house and steal for him, and it must ha been him that slew him, sir, and is he to get off free?’

‘It’s no right, maister,’ said her sister at her elbow.

‘Do you ken this man’s name, lassie?’ asked the Provost severely. Mall stared at him, and shook her head. ‘If we canny name him, we canny put him to the horn. Still I wish it had come out afore this, for someone in the room might ken him.’ He turned as the men of the assize were herded behind their rope again. ‘Aye, neighbours,’ he said, making for his chair on the dais. ‘Have you reached a verdict, then? And are you minded o the penalties for a false assize?’

‘At least they brought it in murder,’ said Alys, as Kate settled herself on her saddle.

‘That wasn’t enough for Mall,’ said Kate, who had seen the girl’s face as the verdict had been announced. ‘I think she feels if the weapon had been named, the man might somehow be taken for the killing.’

‘Hah!’ said Babb beside her, taking up Wallace’s reins. ‘She expects justice for a common wee thief, that got his own master put in prison unjustly?’

‘It’s different when it’s one of your own that’s affected,’ said Alys.

Kate said nothing; she was thinking of the conversation she had just had with the prisoner, fetched down to the yard to speak with her while Alys snatched a quick word with a harassed Lady Stewart.

‘Andy tells me they questioned you about you being in my house,’ he had said in embarrassment. ‘Lady Kate, there’s no end to the trials you’re undergoing on my account.’

‘I’ll survive,’ she had said lightly. ‘It’s a different kind of trial, maister. Makes a change from wondering how to get up a stair. Mattha Hog tried the same questions, when I spoke to him this morning, but I dealt with him and all.’

‘Hog?’ he said, startled. ‘How so? What kind of a word?’

‘I sold him the tainted coals,’ she said. ‘From the coalhouse where Billy was killed.’

‘Andy was saying something about them. I never took it in. You bargained with Mattha Hog? What did you get off him?’

She told him, and he gave her an admiring look.

‘That’s as much as I paid for the whole load, my lady. It’s not many can get the better of Mattha Hog.’

‘You’ve never heard my mother selling horseflesh, maister,’ said Kate, with her wry smile.

Morison smiled in answer, and then bit his lip, and put his hand out to touch hers. ‘D’you know, I mind carrying you up our fore-stair in Hamilton one time.’

‘You’d not find it so easy now.’

‘And those days, Lady Kate,’ he said, and hesitated. She looked up, and met his blue gaze. ‘You used to call me by my name. My own name — my given name.’

‘So did you,’ she said after a moment. ‘We’re old friends, Augie.’

‘Aye, Kate. We are that.’

‘So we’ll hear less about what I’m undergoing on your account.’ He seemed about to reply, but Alys arrived beside them. ‘You’ll scarce know your bairns when you join us again,’ she went on. ‘We’ve clipped their hair short, the better to wash it, and we’ve been making wee gowns for them, that they can run about the yard in.’

‘There’s been precious little sewing done in the house this while,’ he said. ‘But I thought you were to send Andy up to me, for orders to take the bairns to Bothwell.’

‘You’d hardly have sent them to their uncle with the clothes they had in their kist,’ said Kate briskly. ‘We’d to get those gowns finished.’

Morison’s mouth twitched in a reluctant smile.

‘They had the first ones on this morning,’ said Alys, ‘of blue linen, and they looked like two little flowers.’

‘Aye, they would,’ he said, and covered his eyes. Kate, in her turn, put a hand over his other one.

‘They’re well,’ she said. ‘They’re safe, and we’ve found a good nourice to them. You’ve no need to concern yourself about them for now, Augie.’

‘Aye,’ he said again. He lowered his hand and looked at her with that blue gaze. For a moment he seemed about to say more, but at length he managed only, ‘My thanks, Kate.’

By the time the dinner was ready, both Kate and Alys felt some sense of achievement. With Babb and Jennet they had made a more thorough attack on the hall, swept, dusted and polished again, taken the hangings outside and beaten them with sticks and rehung them, and done the same for everything in the chamber where Kate and Babb had slept except the great bed. Kate had wiped and oiled the heap of neglected instruments and cleaned candlesticks, Mistress Thomson had beaten cushions, and polishing the stools, with a rag each and a pot of Ursel’s sweet-smelling beeswax and lavender polish, occupied the children spasmodically for most of the afternoon. However now the army of cleaners had reached the door of Maister Morison’s counting-house at the other end of the hall.

Here they met a predictable obstacle.

‘That’s my da’s chamber,’ said Ysonde, lower lip stuck out, a smear of polish on her nose. ‘Not to go in there.’

‘Now, poppet,’ began Jennet.

‘What does your father keep there?’ asked Alys. ‘Is it all his order-books and counting-books?’

Ysonde looked hard at her, and nodded. ‘And all his books with poetry in, no-to-touch-wi-sticky-fingers. Wynliane’s in a poetry book,’ she announced proudly, ‘and so’m I. But you’re not to go in.’ Beside her, Wynliane shook her head and her mouth framed a silent No.

‘We only want to sweep and dust,’ said Jennet.

‘There’s a good lassie, taking heed to what her da said,’ announced Nan. ‘You come wi me now, poppets, and we’ll see what there is for your dinner.’

‘No,’ said Ysonde. Wynliane shook her head again. Nan was just holding out her hand when there were hasty steps at the house door, and Andy’s nephew John appeared in the hall. Behind him Kate heard distant shouting, and the tuck of a drum, and then a fanfare.

‘Here’s a great procession coming down the High Street!’ John said in excitement. ‘There’s horses, and trumpets, and folk in velvet and satin, and fancy livery. Come and watch!’

‘My!’ said Nan. ‘A procession! I’ve not seen a good Glasgow procession in years. We don’t get them the same in Dumbarton,’ she confided. ‘Will you come and help me watch the procession?’

‘No,’ said Ysonde.

Kate, seated on a newly brushed tapestry backstool, reached for her crutches and said, ‘We’ll all go and watch the procession. Every one of us.’

John, hovering in the doorway, took in the situation and added his mite: ‘They’re saying it’s the King. Come and see!’

By the time they reached the gate the outriders had already passed, drum and trumpet briefly silent. They were followed by what seemed like an endless, clattering, richly dressed cavalcade, silks and velvets glowing in the afternoon sunshine, jewels glinting on hats and gowns, the horses draped in dyed leather and turkey-work. The inhabitants of Glasgow, drawn by the fanfares, watched and commented, dogs and small boys ran alongside in excitement. The outriders raised their instruments and put up another resonant blast, but from further up the street over the noise Kate could hear cheering and shouts of, ‘Guid bless the King! Jamie Stewart! Guid save the King’s grace!’

The trumpeters had reached the Tolbooth and were blowing another fanfare as the King drew abreast of Morison’s Yard. Kate, who had seen the late King and had also, as a little girl, been presented to Margaret of Denmark, had no difficulty in recognizing the young man at the centre of the group, and Alys, used to the comings and goings through the town, identified some of the others for her.

‘That’s the Archbishop, you can see his ring, and that’s my lord of Angus — ’

‘I ken him.’

‘Those two are Boyds, I think, are they your cousins?’

‘Sandy and Archie, that’s right.’

‘That is my lord Hume, and there is Maister Forman.’ Alys paused to curtsy as the King drew level, and the men around them pulled off hats and bonnets and flourished them in the air. Ysonde clapped her hands in excitement on Andy’s shoulders, and even Wynliane, held up in Babb’s arms, smiled and waved.

‘I think,’ Alys continued, ‘that may be the Abbot of Cambuskenneth. And Kate, could that be my lord Treasurer? With that badge it must be, surely!’

‘Aye,’ said Kate, looking at the blue-jowled, smiling man with the eight-pointed cross on his cloak. ‘I think it must be.’

The procession clattered onwards, and was greeted further down the street by another blast of the trumpets. The outriders had rounded the Mercat Cross and were working their way back up the High Street. The denizens of the lower town were to get two opportunities to hail their King and his government.

By the time the King had passed the gates the second time, Kate had had enough. The day had begun early, she had had two broken nights in succession and a third in a strange bed, and she was extremely tired.

‘Time for dinner,’ she said.

‘I want to see!’ objected Ysonde.

‘Let her see the last of it,’ said Andy tolerantly.

‘What’s going on up-by?’ asked Babb, staring up the street past the child in her arms. ‘They’ve stopped by the Greyfriars Vennel.’

‘Someone’s spoke to the King, I think,’ said one of the men.

Babb narrowed her eyes, peering over the heads. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s that Mall Anderson again.’

‘What’s she up to?’ demanded Andy.

‘Stepped into the procession and caught hold of the King’s stirrup,’ reported Babb.

As the riders round the King halted, those behind them caught up and also halted in a trampling, disorderly crowd. Someone’s horse backed in a circle and onlookers shouted as an apprentice narrowly avoided being stepped on. Other voices, from up the street, were commenting adversely on the delay. Beside Morison’s Yard a rat-faced cleric on a piebald horse said sourly, ‘What’s holding us up now?’

‘Some lassie wanting justice,’ pronounced a rider from nearer the King. A name was called. ‘Here, William, you’re wanted.’

‘Oh, aye,’ said the rat-faced man. ‘No doubt of that. All the tiresome tasks for William Dunbar. Gie me room, there.’ He spurred his horse forward through the crowd, with some difficulty, and by the time the procession set off again Mall was perched on his saddlebow.

‘Well!’ said Babb.

‘My, the effrontery!’ said Ursel at Kate’s elbow. ‘And what will it gain her?’

‘Trouble,’ said Andy.

‘After this morning,’ said Kate, ‘she likely thinks it’s her only hope of justice.’

‘She’s in it as deep as he was,’ objected Andy.

‘She may not realize that,’ said Alys. ‘Now, I believe it is dinnertime. Then we may do a little more cleaning, and after that surely the water will be hot enough.’

Kate turned herself, to go back into the yard. Beside her Babb straightened up from setting Wynliane on the ground, and met her mistress’s eye.

‘It may no be for Mall Anderson,’ she said grimly, ‘but there’s trouble in that for somebody, my leddy, or I’m Kate Bairdie’s coo.’