The Nicholas Feast

Chapter Ten

As he turned in at the mason’s pend, under the swinging sign with its bright image of a white castle, a voice in the shadows said, ‘And here is Maister Cunningham. Good day to you, maister.’

He checked, and the harper and his sister emerged into the light. Ealasaidh was clad as usual in her loose checked dress, but McIan was in silk and velvet as if he had been playing for one of the wealthy households of the burgh.

‘The bairn has fed,’ continued Ealasaidh abruptly.

‘Thanks be to God,’ said Gil.

She crossed herself with her free hand, but McIan said in his resonant voice, ‘Thanks to the dog, it seems. A blessing on the beast, for now I think my son will live.’

‘It seems so,’ agreed Gil. ‘We can all be glad of it. How are you both? Are you well, after yesterday’s stushie?’

‘Well enough,’ said Ealasaidh sourly. ‘Maister Cunningham is kind to ask it. At the Provost’s lodging they were more anxious to hear about the stushie at the college, as you cry it, than to hear us play.’

‘We are both well,’ said her brother, ‘but you have taken some small hurt, they tell me at the house. Brawling in the street, is it? A fine thing for my son’s tutor.’

‘I’ll try to deport myself more seemly,’ Gil said.

The harper turned blank eyes on him, and his white beard twitched as if he smiled slightly. ‘You should not be risking your hands like that again. A scholar must write, as a musician must play. And have you ended the other matter yet? Have you found the ones that you are hunting?’

‘Not yet.’

‘It will be soon,’ said McIan. ‘But you must be very certain. You will take the holy woman’s advice.’

‘Your pardon, sir?’ said Gil, startled.

‘Och, come away,’ said Ealasaidh, as Gil stared open-mouthed. ‘We must go offer a candle at St Mary’s for the bairn’s breaking his fast, and Maister Cunningham wants his dinner. Good day to you, maister.’

She bowed, gathering her plaid about her, and tugged at her brother’s arm, to draw him down the High Street towards their lodging. He turned obediently, but added over his shoulder to Gil, ‘It will be as the cartes fall, even if you are playing with a damaged hand.’

‘What cards?’ Gil asked, but the two continued down the street without seeming to hear him.

Alys was crossing the hall as he entered from the fore-stair. Her face lit up, and she came to greet him, then drew him to the nearest window-seat, saying in concern, ‘Gil, you have done too much. Have they fed you at the college?’

‘I’m all right,’ he said, sitting down gratefully. He raised her hand to his lips, and she turned it and stroked his cheek, a little shyly.

‘I will fetch food.’ She slipped away, and he sat with his palm to the place she had touched, marvelling at the feel of her fingers on his skin. Musician’s fingers, he thought, and found himself trying to make sense of the harper’s words. And had he really seen Dorothea? And what was he thinking about before that?

‘William’s victims,’ he said, opening his eyes.

‘We must make a list,’ said Alys, seated opposite. The wolfhound raised its head from his knee and beat its tail on the cushion.

‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said hastily. ‘I was thinking.’

‘Good. Drink this.’

‘More willow-bark tea?’ She nodded, and he drank off the little beaker and handed it back to her. ‘Still not foul enough. You’ll never get your ’pothecary’s licence.’

She smiled, and the elusive dimple flashed. ‘Now eat. What were you thinking?’

‘It seems very likely,’ he said, reaching for the pasty on the tray beside him, ‘that William was killed by one of the people on whom he had practised or attempted his extortion.’

‘It’s very possible,’ said Alys, as he paused to take a bite. Flakes of pastry scattered down his doublet, and the dog’s nose twitched. ‘How many are there? You have mentioned several already.’

‘Not more than a dozen or so.’

‘So many? Are you joking?’

‘No,’ he said ruefully. ‘Alys, what’s in this pasty? It’s very good.’

‘Cheese and roots and fresh herbs,’ she said dis-missively ‘But also, Gil — ’

‘Ah, Gilbert,’ said the mason, emerging spruce and newly barbered from the stair which led to the upper floor. Alys glanced at him, and away again. ‘Good, you have been fed. What did you learn from the chaplain?’

‘He claims he was never in the Outer Close after he left at the end of the play.’

‘He was seen there,’ Alys said.

‘I think he was the one who searched William’s chamber,’ said Gil, ‘which would take him across the Outer Close. What I am not yet certain of is when or why he did so. What was he looking for?’

‘Papers,’ said the mason. ‘Secrets. We know William collected secrets.’

‘It could be.’ Gil poured himself a beaker of ale from the jug on the tray. ‘Father Bernard is kin to the Earl of Lennox, who was a supporter of James Third but is now in favour with the present King, so I suppose William could have learned something inconvenient to him.’

‘The letter you delivered for Kittock’s guest?’ suggested Maistre Pierre.

‘No,’ said Gil doubtfully. ‘That came ultimately from the boy’s mother, and William seemed not to know what was in it. Although,’ he added, ‘after he read it he demanded a word with Father Bernard, which I do not think he got.’

‘What about the spying?’ said Alys. ‘Could that have brought about his death?’

‘I’m reluctant to put much weight on something Father Bernard suggested.’

‘No, but it is true. He was dealing in information. It is clear from the letter to Lord Montgomery — ’

‘You have deciphered that?’

Alys, with a triumphant air, drew a little sheaf of papers from the hanging pocket at her waist and held it out. Biting off another mouthful of pasty Gil set the savoury thing down on the tray and took the bundle one-handed, tilting the papers to the light.

‘Well!’ he said after a moment. ‘Sweet St Giles, the boy was in deep.’

‘Is it all genuine, then? Who is this A he refers to? Is it the Earl of Angus?’

‘It looks it.’ Gil returned to the beginning of the letter with its formal salutation to William’s richt weel-belovit amp; respectit kinsman, the Lord Hugh, Baron Montgomery. In Alys’s elegant, accomplished hand, the dead boy’s voice was still clear. I have stablisshit, he had written, and again, I have maid certaine of this. ‘I think it must be Angus. He mentions a betrothal. It must mean this betrothal of Angus’s daughter to my kinsman Kilmaurs.’

‘It is confusing,’ said Alys thoughtfully, ‘that the Earl of Douglas was a Douglas, but the Earl of Angus is not an Angus but another Douglas.’

Gil nodded, half listening. Most of the document concerned the doings of the Earl of Angus, the ambitious, misguided head of the house of Douglas. I have learned what is to be the marriage settlement, William had written, and gave the details. From Gil’s conversations with his uncle, he judged these to be accurate. A is gathering his men at Kilmarnock, the letter went on. And then, sending Gil’s eyebrows up, the statement: I have seen by means of M the copy of a letter of A to the king H.

‘Sweet St Giles!’ he said again. ‘Alys, you are certain of this part? That Angus is writing to English Henry?’

She twisted her head to look. ‘Quite certain. I went over it several times.’

‘What is it?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘There’s been a rumour of this.’ Gil handed the papers to his prospective father-in-law, took another bite of the pasty, and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Michael mentioned it earlier. My uncle thinks it won’t harm Angus with King James, who likes him, but Chancellor Argyll is a different matter.’

‘And the Montgomery has his ear,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Exactly And proof of the correspondence — I wonder if the letter he saw is genuine?’

‘There is a truce with England just now, is there not?’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Quite so. But Angus is neither a councillor nor an ambassador, he has no authority to be dealing with King Henry. Proof of the correspondence could damage him badly, and the Cunninghams don’t want that, not just now.’

‘And who is M?’ said Alys. ‘It can hardly be Montgomery himself.’

‘It could be Michael,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘but when he spoke to me I did not get the idea he had seen such a letter, much less shown it to William.’

‘How can you say the King likes Angus?’ objected the mason, looking up from the letter. ‘He stripped him of his Lanark honours and all his holdings in Teviotdale, only last Yule.’

‘But then he gave him the lands and lordship of Kilmarnock,’ Gil pointed out, ‘in the hope that he would live in Ayrshire and put down Hugh Montgomery and his arrogance, which is no doubt why my kinsman is marrying his daughter. Angus goes on pilgrimage with the King, and they play cards together. Angus’s countess is a Boyd, from Kilmarnock and those parts,’ he added. ‘She is some kind of cousins with my mother.’

‘Do you think someone killed William because he knew this?’

‘This or something else. It’s possible.’

‘Where did he get all this from?’ Alys wondered. The mason cut himself a slice from the wedge of cheese on the tray and popped it in his mouth, watched intently by the wolfhound.

‘Here and there?’ he suggested. Alys glanced briefly at him again, expressionless.

‘Very possibly,’ said Gil. ‘Not all of this is new. The marriage has been known in my family for some weeks, though the settlement is not common knowledge, and the matter of the old title is very cold kale. Only Angus’s letter is fresh news. I do not like this.’

‘So does it seem William was killed by a supporter of the Douglases?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘The boy Michael, for instance?’

‘Michael has witnesses to show he was elsewhere,’ said Gil, and was aware of a strong sense of relief. This would not be a good time to accuse my mother’s godson of murder, he thought. But spying for the Montgomery? ‘No, I think if this had been the immediate cause of William’s death the letter would have been removed from his purse. We must leave this piece in play, but it doesn’t check anything.’

‘So what must we do now? Make a list of the pawns?’

‘Precisely All those on whom William tried his extortion.’

Alys, without comment, drew a pair of wax tablets from her pocket and opened them. Smoothing the wax with the bone stylus which fitted in the box, she said, ‘Do we begin at the top? Did William approach the Dean?’

‘I hardly think the Dean would like to be referred to as a pawn,’ said Gil, ‘but yes, write him down, though I don’t know that William spoke to him privately. I know he did speak to Maister Doby, and there are the two men of law — that’s Archie Crawford and David Gray.’

‘But they all swear to each other,’ objected the mason.

‘I know.’ Gil frowned, trying to recall names. ‘Nick Kennedy swore in my hearing he’d throttle the boy. Patrick Coventry. Maister Forsyth. That’s all the regents I can think of. John Shaw the Steward.’

‘Father Bernard,’ said Alys, writing carefully.

‘He denied that William approached him,’ said Maistre Pierre. Alys glanced at him again, and went on writing.

‘Now the scholars.’ Gil took another draught of ale. ‘Michael Douglas. Richie — now what is his name? Write down Richie Scholar, Alys. And I suppose Ninian Boyd.’

‘Any more?’

‘Agnes Dickson and one of the kitchen hands. Tam, I think his name is, like my uncle’s man.’

‘The boy’s friends?’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘That poor Ralph and the young man Montgomery.’

‘Yes, if you think Ralph has the gumption to do such a thing. As Nick said, I’d put nothing past the Montgomery, but Robert was in the kitchens with Nick Gray.’

‘Laughing a vengeful laugh,’ said Alys. Her father looked startled.

‘Who else?’ Gil wondered. ‘It must all be in the book, which we must look at next.’

‘That makes sixteen names,’ said Alys.

‘The porter?’ suggested the mason. ‘This elusive dog-breeder?’

‘The dog man was at the door,’ said Alys. ‘I’m sorry, I had forgotten. He came by this afternoon asking for you by name.’

‘Did he so?’ Gil stared at her. ‘What did he want?’

‘He asked after the dog. He was supposed to take it back to his kennels yesterday morning, but he didn’t get it before William died. Its keep is paid for, it seems.’

‘And he is worried by this?’ asked the mason. Alys flicked him another glance, and tightened her mouth.

‘I thought he was concerned for the dog,’ she added to Gil. ‘About its food, and whether you had collar and leash for it. I assured him you were well able to rear and train a hunting dog, and he went away.’

‘Collar and leash?’ repeated Gil. He reached into his doublet. ‘We found a collar and leash in the press in Jaikie’s chamber.’ And was this the collar Dorothea meant in my dream? he wondered.

‘The dog’s, do you think?’ said the mason. ‘Certainly the boy Livingstone assumed it.’

The pup stood up to put a paw on Gil’s knee, and sniffed carefully at the strips of leather.

‘He recognizes it,’ said Alys.

‘And I recognize the badge on the leash.’ Gil held it out. ‘I’d say it was a piece off someone’s bridle, put to good use, and look what’s stamped on it. Little fish-tailed crosses, all along the leather.’

‘The cross of St John,’ said Alys.

‘Oh!’ said her father, craning to see. ‘And where has that come from, do you suppose?’

‘Anyone may use a second-hand bridle,’ said Alys thoughtfully.

‘I think they were gilded.’ Gil tilted the leather so that it caught the light. ‘This has been expensive work.’

‘Something the dog man had by him?’ said Alys.

‘I had best go and speak to him,’ said Gil. ‘It sounds as if he feels responsible for the beast.’ He glanced at the sky. ‘It’s still an hour or more to Compline. I can go down there after we finish making this list.’

‘And what about the porter’s death?’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Michael Douglas again,’ said Gil, ‘and Robert Montgomery and his uncle Hugh.’

‘I know where my money lies,’ said the mason. He cut himself another slice of cheese. Gil did the same, and shared it with the dog.

Alys, writing names, said, ‘So two people are on both lists.’

‘My own thought is that Hugh Montgomery killed Jaikie,’ said Gil, ‘though I have no firm knowledge of why, but the two scholars were also at the yett without witnesses shortly before he died.’

‘The Montgomerys will bear witness for each other,’ observed the mason.

‘My point precisely,’ said Gil.

‘Do all these names remain on the list?’ asked Alys, surveying it. ‘I am sure you said these two were under your eye, and these four, no, five remained together.’

‘I am certain of Nick Kennedy and Maister Coventry,’ Gil agreed. ‘The group of five all swear to one another, so unless we impute conspiracy as well as secret murder to the senior members of the Faculty, we must cross them off. A pity,’ he added, ‘for they were the only ones who ate the spiced pork, apart from Jaikie and the kitchen hands.’

‘I told you before you should question the kitchen,’ Alys said.

‘The scholars — Michael and Ninian can go, and Ralph. Who does that leave us with?’

‘John Shaw the Steward,’ Alys read, smoothing names out of the wax. ‘Father Bernard. Robert Montgomery and Richie Scholar. Mistress Dickson and Tam.’

‘All equally unlikely but one,’ said the mason gloomily.

‘I agree, there is a case against him,’ said Gil. ‘But the trouble is, while he denies that William approached him, I don’t know what reason he would have to kill him, and in fact I suspect he might have had good reason to give the boy support and some sort of acknowledgement.’

‘What?’ said the mason.

‘Father Bernard,’ Gil pointed out, ‘knew exactly how old William was.’

The shops and stalls at Glasgow Cross were being packed up, with a lot of shouting and joking about the day’s trade. Apprentices cleared their masters’ wares off counters which would fold upwards like shutters, journeymen stowed the stock in bags or boxes or great trays. The burgh’s licensed beggars whined hopefully round the food stalls.

‘And there,’ said Maistre Pierre, nodding at one of the booths against the Tolbooth, ‘is William’s barber. I asked another of the students, before you reached the college this afternoon.’

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘Is he any good?’

‘I may not go back, but he is certainly popular. He has two assistants, and there were several people waiting while I was barbered, even on a Monday.’

‘So what did you learn?’

His companion pulled a face. ‘The Watch cleared several alehouses last night. Two of the girls at Long Mina’s are planning to retire. Robert Blacader has made over land to somebody’s nephew. It may be that they were guarding their tongues because I am not a regular,’ he admitted. ‘In general I let Daniel Dickson clip me. But it does seem to me that one must spend a lot of time there to gather much information.’

‘So perhaps that wasn’t William’s source.’

They picked their way through the bustle, avoiding the rotting vegetables and broken crocks underfoot, and turned eastward past the Mercat Cross into the Gallowgait.

‘I can walk this far on my own,’ Gil said.

‘I am happy to leave the house. I am in disgrace, a little.’

Gil turned his head to look at his companion. ‘She was very much alarmed when Wattie came to the door asking for you.’

Maistre Pierre nodded. ‘Life was a little difficult before we left Paris,’ he admitted. ‘It is four years since, but Alys is still concerned if she does not know where I have gone.’

Gil waited, pacing along the sandy roadway, but no more information was forthcoming.

‘There was rioting on the Left Bank,’ he recalled, ‘when the King tried to impose his will on the Faculty of Theology again. Students on the Continent are more combative than in Scotland, I suppose because they are generally older.’

‘And the universities are larger, so there are more of them,’ said the mason absently.

They made their way to the East Port and out through the gate, nodding to the two keepers. The senior, a stout man who reminded Gil strongly of the late Jaikie, eyed them suspiciously, but appeared to decide that they had neither goods nor profits to be taxed, and waved them idly through.

‘Where does the dog-breeder stay?’ Gil asked, pausing.

‘It’s no far,’ said the younger gatekeeper, taller and more helpful than his colleague. He pointed. ‘A wee bit out yonder. Ye canny miss it, maisters, the reason being, all the dogs is barking. Ye can hear it from here.’

‘You can indeed,’ agreed the mason.

‘Just follow your ears,’ said the senior keeper, and laughed raucously.

‘We return before Compline,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Well, you’ll no return this road after it, maisters,’ said the younger man, ‘for we’ll shut the gate.’

Beyond the port, over the wooden bridge which crossed the Mill-burn, the condition of the roadway deteriorated sharply. Inside the burgh there were regulations about middens, about the housing of pigs, about keeping the street before one’s door passable. Since most of the burgesses observed these from time to time, particularly when threatened with a fine by the burgh officers, they had some effect. Outside the gate there were no regulations, and though the road which led in from Bothwell and Cadzow was well defined, since carts and pack-trains came in this way, it appeared to go through some of the middens. On either side was the usual suburban huddle of small houses, the homes of those who could not afford to live in the burgh, with a few larger properties among them where some tradesman had become wealthy enough to ignore the by-laws about indwelling burgesses. Children, pigs and hens scuffled in the alleys, a goat browsed thoughtfully on a patch of nettles, and over all the dogs howled.

‘That way, I think,’ said Maistre Pierre, gesturing to their left. ‘There is a vennel of sorts which goes in the right direction.’ His glance fell on the crumbling chapel standing where the paths diverged, and he added, ‘Ah, there is Little St Mungo’s. Your uncle was saying the roof needs repair, and he is perfectly right. Those children will have the building down.’

‘The vennel goes on to the Dow Hill,’ said Gil. ‘The dog man lives on the Gallowgait, so Robert Montgomery said.’ He caught the eye of a dirty boy, one of several waiting to swing on a heavy rope knotted into the overhanging eaves of the chapel. ‘Can you take us to Billy Dog’s?’

‘What’s it worth?’ demanded the child. Two or three more came jostling eagerly forward.

‘I ken, maisters. I’ll show ye! Dinna tak him, he’ll lead ye astray. I’ll show ye, maisters!’

The dog-breeder’s home, down Little St Mungo’s Vennel, was a low thatched cottage like its neighbours, distinguished mainly by being next to a tanner’s yard. One of the boys led them confidently past the interested stares of several gossiping women and stopped in front of the open door. He gestured at a well-trodden path which emerged round the end of the house and led down the vennel to a plank bridge over yet another burn.

‘That’s where she walks the dogs. Mistress Doig!’ he shouted. ‘Here’s two men wants ye!’

Gil handed over the coin they had agreed on, and the boy bit it, thrust it into some recess of his filthy clothing, and ran off, followed by the friends who had escorted them.

‘There is nobody at home,’ said the mason doubtfully. ‘Perhaps they have been driven out by the smell.’

‘I should have kept that compress on my wrist,’ said Gil.

‘It takes folk that way at first,’ said a rasping voice, low down behind them.

Gil turned, and stared.

The dog-breeder was not much taller than an ell-stick, and consisted mainly of a big-featured head and a barrel chest. His arms were short, bare and furred with coarse black hair, and at first glance he seemed to have no legs, but a pair of well-shod feet which were just visible under the turned-up hem of a leather apron. Gil found himself recalling one of his nurse’s tales.

The man moved forward, raising his blue woollen bonnet, and ducked a grotesque courtesy which made it clear that his legs were short and bowed.

‘Good e’en to ye, maisters,’ he said politely, though from his wry smile he knew exactly Gil’s thoughts. ‘And what can Billy Doig do for ye?’

Gil, recovering his own manners, introduced himself and the mason with equal politeness.

‘I’ve got William Irvine’s dog in my keeping,’ he said.

‘I hear he’s deid, poor laddie.’ Maister Doig crossed himself with a hairy paw.

‘He is,’ said Gil. ‘I think you had some arrangement with him about the pup’s keep.’

‘Oh, I had,’ said Billy Doig rather hastily, ‘but the money’s all used up, maister. If I was to get the dog back, I’d need more coin for it.’

‘That’s understood,’ said Gil. ‘What was the arrangement you had?’

Maister Doig looked at them, his eyes wary under thick greying brows.

‘Come in the house,’ he said. ‘No need to discuss it afore half the Gallowgait.’

‘May we not rather go round to the dog-pens?’ asked the mason.

‘Aye,’ said Maister Doig after a moment, and set off with a rolling gait like a cog in a cross-wind, round the end of the house.

The barking redoubled in volume as they followed him into the yard at the back. It was lined with rows of pens, from which big dogs, little dogs, wolfhounds, deerhounds, otterhounds, spaniels, two sorts of terrier, barked and howled and leapt up and down, tails going madly, demanding attention.

‘Mon Dieu!’ said the mason.

‘What a lot of dogs,’ agreed Maister Doig, with irony. ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted, and most of the dogs fell silent, watching him intently. A pair of terriers in the nearest pen yipped impatiently. ‘Quiet, youse!’ he said again, and they scurried to the back of their cage, where they could be heard squabbling over something.

‘All the dogs from Dunbar to Dunblane,’ said Gil. Maister Doig had clearly heard the quotation before. ‘Are these all your breeding?’ Gil continued, peering into a pen of spaniels. A black-and-white speckled bitch stood up against the palings to speak to him, and he offered her the back of his hand to sniff.

‘That’s Bluebell. Soft as butter she is. Had five good litters off her,’ confided Maister Doig, ‘but she’s resting the now. Aye, they’re mostly mine. That one there I got off Jimmy Meikle out past Hamilton.’ He pointed to another pen. ‘He throws good deerhounds, but his tail’s a wee thing short. The gentry likes a dog wi’ a good long tail.’

‘That never bothered us,’ said Gil, scratching the spaniel’s ears. ‘How is Jimmy Meikle? He was our dog man,’ he added to Maistre Pierre.

‘Jimmy Meikle’s deid,’ said the dog-breeder curtly, ‘as you’d surely ken if he was your dog man.’

‘We lost the land in ’88,’ Gil reminded him. ‘He went to the Hamiltons, like all else. I’m sorry to hear that, for he knew dogs like no other. That’s another of his breeding, isn’t it?’

‘No, she’s mine,’ said Maister Doig, ‘but you’re right, her sire was one of Jimmy’s.’ There was a pause, in which the terriers could be heard snarling. ‘So what did you want to discuss, maisters?’

‘How did you come to meet William Irvine?’

‘How did he die, maisters?’ countered Doig, looking from one to the other. ‘It was sudden, I take it, for he was well enough on Saturday.’

‘You could say that. It was murder,’ said Gil.

Maister Doig’s big-featured face tightened briefly.

‘How?’ he said after a moment. ‘Where did it happen? Jaikie never — ’

‘Strangled,’ said Gil, ‘within the college.’

‘No by Jaikie?’ speculated the dog-breeder. ‘He threatened it often enough.’

‘Probably not by Jaikie,’ said Gil. ‘Do you know of any other enemies William had?’

‘Me,’ said Maister Doig frankly, ‘but I wasny by the college till after he was found. I came up to ask for the dog as arranged and Jaikie told me William was dead and he didny ken where the pup was.’

‘Why would you have killed him?’ asked the mason curiously. ‘What did you have against him?’

‘I never said I would have killed him,’ retorted Doig. ‘I said I was one of his enemies.’

‘You would have killed him if you had the chance?’

The light eyes under the grey brows turned to Maistre Pierre.

‘Look at me, maister. How could I kill something the height of that laddie?’

‘I look at you,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I see a very strong man.’

‘Aye, well.’ Maister Doig turned away. ‘I didny. As for why I might have, maister, he was a boldin wee bystart, and no near as clever as he thought he was.’

‘Was he no?’ asked Gil with interest. ‘His teachers were pleased with him.’

Doig grunted.

‘But he was a customer,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Did he pay well?’

‘Him?’ said Doig witheringly ‘Aye after what he could get, and never opened his purse if he could avoid it.’

‘So what arrangement did you have with him?’ Gil asked.

‘Arrangement?’ said Doig, visibly startled. ‘About the dog, you mean? I kept him here. Is he well, maister?’

‘He’s well. Someone broke his head for him, but it’s a skin wound only, and Maister Mason’s daughter physicked it — ’

‘What wi’? What did she put on it?’

‘Comfrey,’ said the mason confidently. Maister Doig pursed his wide mouth and nodded.

‘He’s like to eat the kitchen bare. If I can settle it with William’s kin, I’d like to keep him,’ said Gil casually, ‘so I’ll want to know about his feeding and rule. What did William name him?’

‘Mauger,’ said Doig.

‘Despite,’ Gil translated into French for the mason. ‘Not a bad name for a wolfhound. So he lived here, did he? And you took him up to the college now and then?’

‘Aye, to get to know his master.’

‘More usual, surely,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘for the boy to visit the dog?’

A seismic movement of the massive shoulders appeared to be a shrug.

‘It suited. It would ha’ suited better if Jaikie had been less of a glumphy scunner.’

‘So the dog passed back and forth between you,’ said Gil, ‘with Jaikie as middle-man.’

The spaniel he was still petting dropped on to four paws and rushed to the corner of her pen where she stood whimpering and peering through the slats, her tail going.

‘No always,’ said Doig. ‘Times William brought him back himself.’

‘Times I took him up for ye,’ said a harsh female voice at the house-corner. Gil turned, and saw an angular woman being towed across the yard by a leash of spaniels.

‘My wife, maisters,’ said Doig informally. Mistress Doig inspected her husband sharply, while the dogs pawed at their friends through the fence as if they had been parted for weeks. ‘Maister Cunningham’s asking about the wolfhound, mistress.’

‘I hear that, Doig,’ she said, turning the acute gaze on them. ‘And why would they be doing that?’

‘I’m trying to find out who killed William,’ said Gil, ‘so I’m asking questions of everyone that knew him.’

‘Well, you needny bother asking us,’ she said in her harsh voice, ‘for we didny kill him. Doig never saw him all day, did ye? For all he was up the town three times asking at the college yett. Did ye say about the collar?’ she added to her lord. He tipped his head back and gave her a hard look, and she turned to unleash the spaniels and let them into their pen, expertly using the bedraggled hem of her heavy homespun skirts to stop the other dogs getting out of the opened gate.

‘Collar?’ said the mason.

‘There’s a dog-collar of mine,’ said Doig, ‘outstanding as movable property. Cost me a penny or two at the cordiner’s, it did, and I’d be glad to see it back and the leash with it. What was on the pup when you had him?’

Gil opened his mouth to reply, but was forestalled by a fearsome outbreak of snarling, worrying noises from the terrier pen. Doig rolled across to bang on the gate and shout, without effect. The snarling grew more savage, and one of the dogs yelped in what sounded like pain.

‘Fiend take it, stop that!’ yelled Doig, fumbling at the catch to the gate. His wife hurried over to join him, and they hauled the gate open and pounced on the rolling mass of brindled fur which tumbled out. The dogs were dragged off one another, still snapping and snarling defiance, long white teeth bared. Mistress Doig bundled one into her brown woollen skirt, revealing a patched grey kirtle, and Doig thrust the other back through the gate with his foot and fell back, cursing a bitten thumb.

‘Mon Dieu, have they run mad?’ the mason exclaimed. ‘You must have the bite burned.’

‘Naw. All terriers fight.’ Doig inspected the thumb and pushed it into his mouth. ‘You were telling me about the pup’s collar, maister.’

‘Just an ordinary collar,’ said Gil, as Mistress Doig shut the gate with her free hand. The mason leaned cautiously over the fence to look at the frantic dog, which was hurling itself against the fence raging at its kennel-mate. ‘But there was another in Jaikie’s chamber when we searched it, along with a great bundle of papers. Could that be the one you want?’

‘Along with the papers? Where?’ asked Doig round his thumb, frowning, but his wife turned with the latch-rope of the terrier pen still in her hand. The dog still bundled in her skirts squirmed convulsively.

‘Searched Jaikie’s chamber?’ she repeated. ‘Where was Jaikie? That sirkent ablach let ye search his chamber?’

‘After he was dead,’ explained the mason, and she stared at him.

‘Jaikie’s deid and all? When was this?’

‘This day about noon,’ said Gil, studying both Doigs.

‘About noon,’ repeated the dog-breeder, and gave his wife another hard look. ‘That would be about when I took the hounds up the Dow Hill, wouldn’t it no, mistress?’

‘Aye,’ she said, and licked her lips. ‘Aye, Doig, it would,’ she agreed earnestly.

‘We should get a Mass said for him,’ continued Doig. ‘He put folk in our way now and then. It’s aye good to get new custom,’ he said to Gil with a broad smile.

‘That’s true,’ agreed Gil, ‘though I would think you had custom enough. Dogs like these are far to seek.’

‘That’s a true word,’ agreed Doig. ‘My lord Bothwell had two off me last summer, and he put more of the Hepburns and the Humes on to me. I’d even the Earl of Angus after me for one of Bluebell’s last litter, but they were all spoken for already.’

‘You must hear a thing or two,’ said Gil. ‘You get a few men leaning over a fence like this, the talk must be of some strange matters.’

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Doig easily. ‘Only last week, there was two young Hepburns and a gentleman from the Bishop’s household — Archbishop,’ he corrected himself, ‘all wi’ wonderful tales of some merchant in the Low Countries and what like things he’d send. Fair to split his sides one of them was,’ he reminisced, ‘telling of how his lord sent for cushions and got a barrel full of straw mats.’

‘Clearly, they have never tried to import a wheelbarrow,’ said Maistre Pierre, without looking up from the silent terrier pen.

‘And what were you doing, Mistress Doig,’ Gil asked politely, ‘while your man was exercising the dogs on the Dow Hill? There must be plenty for two to do in a trade like this. Jimmy had two boys just to keep the pens clean, I mind.’

‘The pens is no bother,’ said Doig, ‘the reason being, I’ve an arrangement wi’ Sandy the Tanner next door. He sends two of his laddies twice a day wi’ buckets and shovels, and he gets to keep what they lift. So if you had they boots in Glasgow in the last four years, Maister Cunningham, it was my dogs provided the making of the leather.’ He grinned broadly, exposing the blackened teeth again. Gil looked down and flexed one ankle in the newly waxed boot.

‘They’re wearing well,’ he said. ‘Did he make that apron to you?’

The dog-breeder looked down at himself, and up again.

‘Aye. Aye, he did. That’s his work, right enough.’

‘I thought it might be. I can see he’s a good neighbour,’ said Gil. ‘Is that dog suffocating, mistress? He’s very quiet.’

‘He’s asleep.’ She let the layers of damp brown cloth fall over the grey kirtle, revealing a somnolent dog tucked under her arm. As they all looked, the little beast emitted a buzzing snore. ‘I’ll put him in an empty pen. We’ll ha’ to keep them apart for a bit, Doig.’

‘Aye, do that.’ Doig was wrapping his thumb in the hem of his jerkin.

‘So what were you doing, mistress?’

‘Seeing to the dogs’ feed,’ she said. She suddenly turned and bent to check that the latch-rope was fitted over the peg on the gate. ‘Aye, that’s right,’ she added, kicking the turnbutton on the bottom of the gate into place. ‘I was making the dogs’ dinner — ’

At the word, the spaniels in the pen began to bark, leaping up and down, and every other dog in the place joined them. Gil covered his ears, laughing, and Maistre Pierre flinched.

‘Quiet!’ screamed Mistress Doig, and silence fell, broken only by excited whimpers from the nearest dogs. ‘Doig cuts the meat up fresh every time, but the mash takes the best part of an hour to boil beforehand. And they’re to be fed again, maisters, so if you’ll excuse us — ’

‘We’ll get out of your way,’ agreed Gil. ‘I thank you for your time. Oh, one other thing.’

They stared at him, with identical expressions of faint dismay. Behind them, the mason stooped quickly to lift something from the cobbled surface of the yard.

‘William was given to extortion,’ Gil continued. ‘I wondered if he ever approached you, or any of your other customers.’

‘He tried nothing wi’ me,’ said Doig confidently, ‘for he’d ken fine that I would just turn round and let on to his teachers what he was up to. And if he’d spoke to the Hepburns or the Humes, maister, do you think they’d tell me?’

‘True,’ agreed Gil. ‘What do you mean, what he was up to? What would you tell his teachers?’

‘Why …’ Doig paused, and swallowed. ‘About him keeping the pup, and having it in his chamber, and coming down here, all at times he should ha’ been at his studying.’

‘No more than that?’

‘Is that no enough? I could have tellt his sponsor and all. The Lord Montgomery wouldny care to hear how his money’s being wasted,’ declared Doig with fluency.

‘Ah, well,’ said Maistre Pierre, leaving the terrier pen. ‘That expenditure is at an end now. God rest the boy’s soul.’

‘Amen,’ said Doig, and he and his wife crossed themselves. ‘I’ll see ye out, maisters. And if ye gang down this vennel and cross the Poldrait Burn, the track links up with the one frae the Old Vennel and yell find yourselves back on the High Street.’

‘That must cross the Mill-burn too,’ said Gil, interpreting the stumpy gestures. ‘Is that where you exercise the dogs, Maister Doig?’

‘Between the two burns,’ agreed the dog-breeder. ‘They need to get running about. They bring me a cony now and then,’ he added.

Pausing on the far bank of the Poldrait Burn, Gil looked back at the mason splashing through the shallows and beyond him, back up the track. Billy Doig still watched them, a small grotesque figure like a chess-piece standing in the middle of the way. As Gil looked, he nodded briefly and turned to shamble back into his own yard.

‘That was interesting,’ said Maistre Pierre, coming up out of the burn. He stamped water from his boots and went on, ‘He knew more about William’s doings than he would admit.’

‘I agree.’ Gil began to stroll up the track away from the burn. ‘It was also interesting that he asked about William’s death but not about Jaikie’s.’

‘There is more than that.’ Maistre Pierre groped in his purse. ‘What about this?’

He handed over a twist of wet rag. Gil shook it out to inspect it, and a waft of spirits reached his nose.

‘Usquebae!’ he exclaimed.

‘I suspect the two little dogs were quarrelling for possession of that cloth. It fell when they came out fighting and were seized by their owners. The dogs,’ said the mason portentously, ‘were not mad, but drunk.’

‘Jaikie’s missing bottle?’

‘Was in the pen. I saw it. It had been hidden under the straw, I surmise, and the dogs found it. The one that was put back into the pen had also fallen into a stupor, like his brother. I never knew that dogs would take spirits.’

‘We had one liked red wine,’ said Gil, ‘and most will drink ale if they get the chance. These two must have liked the smell on the rag, and unstopped the bottle when they fought over it.’

‘It was on its side, half-hidden. They may not have had much.’

‘Enough to make them fighting drunk. Sweet St Giles, I wouldn’t like to have to handle them tomorrow!’

‘But you see what this means.’

‘I do.’ Gil paused where the track branched, on the spur between two burns. ‘The laddie that led us to the Doigs’ door said That’s where she walks the dogs, but Harry Hubbleshaw yonder — Doig himself — said he had walked them today at noon.’

‘I thought this was news to his wife,’ commented the mason.

‘So did I. You see, this goes over the Mill-burn and into the High Street as Doig said, and that goes out on to the Dow Hill and the butts.’ He looked down the track to the wooden bridge that led back into the burgh, and pointed. ‘Isn’t that your garden?’

‘It is,’ agreed the mason in slight surprise. ‘It looks different from here. And there is the land of Blackfriars, and beyond it the college kitchen-yard. I do not come here often.’

‘I have, on my way to the butts to practise archery when I was a student, but we’d have had no reason to take the other track, I had no idea where it went. It would be easy enough for both the Doigs to come this far while the neighbours were watching, and then go separate ways.’

‘You think the woman killed the porter?’

‘There was no blood on her gown,’ said Gil with regret, ‘and she seemed startled to learn of his death.’

‘Whereas the dwarf wore a leather apron which would successfully conceal any stains.’

‘And which was much too long for him. I suspect it is his wife’s.’

‘But why should he kill the porter? And is he capable of it?’

‘I wonder.’ Gil looked back along the way they had just come. ‘He picked up my reference to the bundle of papers as if he had seen them.’

‘You mean,’ said the mason after a moment, ‘he was in the porter’s chamber after the Montgomery men?’

‘Instead of walking the dogs.’ Gil handed the reeking rag back to Maistre Pierre and set off down the slope to the wooden bridge over the Mill-burn. ‘I would say he has the strength to bind bears, like the dwarf in the play, and if he cuts up the dogs’ meat he is used enough to wielding a knife. Whether he has the reach — ’

‘The wound that killed the man went straight in, I thought, between two ribs.’ The mason demonstrated, levelling two fingers at the palm of the other hand. ‘It must have pierced the heart or come near it, to cause blood to run from his mouth after he fell down. Doig could have reached so high, I suppose, and struck level, but would such a blow have the necessary strength or accuracy?’

‘Unless Jaikie had been drinking again,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘You asked me if there was a fight, and I thought not, but Jaikie could have fallen over, or out of his chair.’

‘You mean he was stabbed when lying on his back?’ The mason considered this. ‘It would work. Or perhaps the boy Ninian had struck him down for snooping, as he did William. He was certainly very much overcome by the porter’s death.’

‘I don’t like that,’ said Gil after a moment. ‘It could have happened, but it is too symmetrical. Let us suppose Jaikie was drunk as usual, and fell over. Easy enough for Doig to strike, vertical and true. There still remains the question why? And when? Why was Doig up at the college this noon?’

‘Seeking the dog, surely. Then he came straight by my house and spoke to Alys.’ Maistre Pierre grimaced and looked about him at the fenced gardens of the small houses on either side of the vennel. Further up the fences gave way to walls, then to the stone flanks of the grander buildings on the High Street. ‘We are overheard, perhaps. We discuss this in my house. Also the question of your betrothal,’ he added. ‘Now your mother is here we should go ahead with signing the contract.’

‘Aye.’ Gil turned his head to look at the mason. ‘Though she may not be present. She was very civil to Alys this morning, but she wouldn’t let me mention the marriage.’

‘Why? What is wrong?’

‘You saw her letter. She must have a reason, but I don’t know it yet.’

‘Ah.’

They walked on in silence. Gil was becoming aware of his aches and bruises again, and was conscious of a feeling that his own bed, in the attic of his uncle’s house in Rottenrow, would be a welcome sight. The vennel debouched on to the High Street, where a few people were still about, and as they turned down the hill towards Maistre Pierre’s house the bell began to ring in Greyfriars.

‘Can that be Compline already?’ wondered the mason.

‘I think it must be,’ Gil began, and was interrupted. From above his head a harsh, familiar voice spoke.

‘You! Cunningham law man! A word wi’ you.’

He paused, looking up. They were passing the tall stone tower-house with the Montgomery badge over the door. The shutters of one of the windows stood open, and leaning on the sill, glaring down at him with that dark glow of rage, was the owner.

‘Come up, Cunningham,’ said Hugh, Lord Montgomery. ‘I want to talk.’