The Nicholas Feast

Chapter Three

‘What does he say?’ demanded Dean Elphinstone from the dais. There was a sudden buzz of sound as those nearest, who had heard, informed those who had not.

‘Haivers!’ said the boy who had played Knowledge. ‘Not our William!’

‘Speak Latin, Walter,’ said the Principal automatically.

‘Quid est Latinus pro haivers?’ muttered Walter.

‘How can he ken that?’ the Dean pursued in Scots. ‘Maister Harper, what gars ye — ’

‘I am a harper,’ said Angus McIan. ‘It is given to me.’

‘Aye, well, so was old Rory MacDuff a harper when I was a bairn,’ said the Dean, ‘and he didny take these strunts.’

‘Best you look for the one who is missing,’ said Ealasaidh urgently to Gil. ‘Himself will not be right till the daylight reaches the dead man.’

‘It came to him,’ said Gil to a nodding Maister Coventry, ‘when the Dean asked where was William. Moreover the Dean has already said — ’

‘Maister Kennedy,’ said the Dean, cutting across the rising noise in the hall. ‘Rehearse to us the names of those who took part in this play, edifying and entertaining us with well-turned verse and golden precept.’ He looked, Gil thought, as if the balanced phrases tasted sour.

Nick, stumbling slightly over the Latin forms of the surnames, listed his cast and the roles they had performed, deprecating the play and commending the players who had learned their parts, identifying William last as Fortune and the dragon Idleness. From time to time he glanced at the door, as if he expected the missing boy to appear round it at any moment. The Dean replied in another elaborate speech, promising each of the cast by name some academic exemption or dispensation as a reward for hard work. At the end of the dais, David Gray scribbled notes, prodding at the wax in his tablet with jerky movements. Gil, watching him, thought he looked dazed, and wondered how accurate the final list would be.

The boy who had played Collegia was pushed forward, and in bleating Latin produced a short but formal acknowledgement of the favours granted in return for this poor entertainment, so ably supervised by their well-loved teacher Maister Kennedy.

‘And now William Irvine is to be sought for. His reward will be granted when he is present.’

‘Now, Dean?’ said Nick.

‘Now. I wish to speak to him.’

The well-loved teacher clapped his hands at the cast.

‘Find William, then!’ he said. ‘Hurry! You know the kind of places to look.’

Gil disengaged his hand from the harper’s with a quiet word, and went forward to join Nick as the students made for the door. On the dais, the senior members of the Faculty were watching in varying degrees of disapproval; around the hall, now that the harper had stopped providing entertainment, the sweetmeats and spiced wine were circulating again.

‘If he is not in his chamber,’ said Patrick Coventry at Nick’s other elbow, ‘nor in the library, then are there likely spots to search or do we comb the entire college?’

‘Yes,’ said Maister Kennedy, following the group of students. ‘It’s one of the things I dislike about him,’ he added, pausing on the steps outside. ‘He crops up everywhere, like columbine-weed, whether he has any business to be there or not. Henry, Walter!’ he called. ‘Go and check William’s chamber. Andrew and Ralph, see if the library is unlocked and if so whether he is there. Ninian, Lowrie, Michael — ’

‘I thought we’d search the Inner Close, Maister Kennedy,’ said the yellow-haired tenor, a lanky youth just beginning to broaden at the shoulders, ‘and see if he’s troubling the kitchens as well.’

‘Very good, Lowrie. You do that. Robert Montgomery, Richie Shaw, you search the Inner Close as well.’

‘Please, Maister Kennedy.’ The treble from the singing group put his hand up, snapping his fingers like a schoolboy. ‘What will David and me do?’

‘You and your brother may run to the Arthurlie building,’ said Maister Coventry promptly, ‘and ask anyone you meet there whether William Irvine has been seen.’

‘And come back and report to me here,’ said Nick as the boys scattered across the wet flagstones.

Gil made his way down the steps. Patrick Coventry followed him, saying thoughtfully, ‘Why the kitchens?’

‘I wondered that,’ said Gil. ‘I noticed those three come back together after the rain started, and one of them is lacking his belt.’

He headed for the vaulted tunnel which led between the silent Law lecture-rooms and into the inner courtyard, Maister Coventry behind him. As they emerged into the daylight, shouting erupted in the kitchens at the far side of the courtyard. Gil, hitching up cope and cassock, quickened his pace, and sprang up the kitchen stair in time to meet the tenor and his two friends, retreating backwards from a gaunt woman enveloped in a sacking apron.

‘And stay out of my kitchen!’ she ordered shrilly, with a threatening sweep of her ladle.

‘I’m sorry, Agnes,’ said one of the boys, the fineboned mousy-haired one. ‘We didny mean to annoy you — ’

‘Annoy me, he says! Three great louts under my feet asking daft questions — get out of my way, and don’t let me set eyes on you this week!’

‘Agnes Dickson,’ said Gil from behind the students. One of them turned to look at him, and the cook paused open-mouthed. ‘I knew you were still cook here as soon as I saw the Almayne pottage,’ Gil pursued, with perfect truth. ‘I’ve tasted nothing like it since I left the college.’

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Mistress Dickson, less shrill but still hostile. ‘Is this lot anything to do with you? Getting in my way when I’m short-handed, with the rest of the college still to feed, and half the dishes up in the Fore Hall. They should know better by their age.’

‘Senior bachelors are always a trial,’ said Gil sympathetically. ‘We’ve lost one — ’

‘He’s a junior,’ said the mousy-haired boy quickly.

‘Have you seen William Irvine, Agnes?’

‘I have not, the saints be praised. I can’t be doing with that laddie, aye on my back about the cost of this and that and who’s getting extra food at the buttery door. Away and look for him elsewhere. And you, Gil Cunningham, come back when I’m less taigled and tell me if your minnie likes your marriage.’

She brandished the ladle again, and the three senior bachelors slid past Gil and thudded down the stairs. Gil took off his bonnet and bowed, but Mistress Dickson was already retreating into her kitchen where someone demanded to know if he had pounded these roots enough. Gil descended to the courtyard, where the tenor and the mousy-haired boy were making exaggerated gestures of relief.

‘Thank you, maister,’ said the third student, a stocky fellow with a round red face. ‘Agnes can be a bit — ’

‘She can indeed,’ Gil said. Beyond Maister Coventry, Richie the Scholar and the Montgomery boy appeared from one stair and disappeared into another, like rabbits in a warren.

‘Did the harper no say William was behind a lock?’ asked Lowrie the tenor. ‘Why don’t we check the cellars while we’re here?’

Gil met Patrick Coventry’s blue glance.

‘But have we a key?’

‘I have one,’ said Maister Coventry. The three students had already plunged into the vaulted passage behind the kitchen stair, and were trying doors.

‘Not in the wellhouse. Look in the feed store, Michael.’

‘William? You there? No, not a sign.’

‘Not in the feed store. What about the limehouse?’

‘The door’s open. Didn’t we — shouldn’t it be barred?’

‘St Eloi’s hammer, it’s dark in here. He’s no here.’

‘He’s no here?’ repeated the tenor, on a rising note of incredulity.

‘Don’t think so. Fiend hae these sacks — ’

‘Don’t lick your fingers, you fool! Try that corner.’

‘No, he’s no here.’

‘Should we look in the coalhouse?’

‘Aye, try the coalhouse.’

‘But we left him — ’

‘Wheesht, you gormless — ’

‘The coalhouse is locked.’

‘Isn’t it always locked?’

‘No in the daytime. The kitchen needs in to get coals for the dinner.’

‘It’s locked now. William? You there?’

‘Stand back, please.’

Maister Coventry, after some ferreting under his brocade cope, had produced a large key. As two more students came running across the courtyard he fitted it into the coalhouse lock and turned it. The door swung outwards, boxing the three senior bachelors into the dark passage beyond it.

‘He’s no in the library,’ said someone behind Gil, ‘and John Hucheson says he’s no been there, and Walter says his chamber door’s locked.’

‘Speak Latin, Ralph,’ said Maister Coventry, ‘and stand back out of the light. William?’ He peered into the coalhouse. ‘William?’

‘What is it? Have we found him?’ said someone else from the courtyard.

Gil, looking over Maister Coventry’s head, shaded his eyes against the light from the courtyard, and suddenly turned to the students at the mouth of the passage.

‘Go and tell Maister Kennedy to come here,’ he ordered, ‘and bring a good lantern.’

‘You gentlemen too,’ said Maister Coventry, closing the door over so that the group beyond it could emerge. ‘Go and send Maister Kennedy, and then wait in the Outer Close.’

‘Why?’ said Lowrie. ‘Is William there? But how did he get in there?’

‘Is he — is he hurt?’ asked the mousy-haired one. The stocky boy said nothing, but stared at the door as he edged past it into the courtyard, then suddenly broke into a run. His friends galloped after him, and they went into the tunnel to the outer courtyard in a tight knot. Gil watched them out of sight, then reached over Patrick Coventry’s head and opened the door again.

‘Is it William?’ asked the Second Regent.

‘I think it must be.’ Gil stepped forward, cautious in the dim light. ‘Ah, there is a window.’ He unbarred the shutters and turned to look at what lay at the foot of the heap of coal, nearest the window, furthest from the door.

‘Lord have mercy on us,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘Are you certain? It doesn’t look like — ’

Gil swallowed hard, suddenly regretting the Almayne pottage.

‘The clothes are William’s,’ he said, ‘and the build and the hair are William’s. He has been strangled, which is why he is unrecognizable. And look at this. Look what was used to strangle him.’

He bent to close the bulging eyes so far as was possible. The effect, if anything, was worse. Averting his gaze, he lifted the end of the leather strap which lay across the shoulder of the blue gown.

‘This is someone’s belt,’ he said.

‘The poor boy,’ said Maister Coventry.

‘There’s worse,’ said Gil, still peering at the body. ‘Look — his hands are bound.’

Producing a set of beads from his sleeve, Patrick Coventry bent his head and began the quick, familiar muttering of the prayers for the dead. Gil stepped past him and out of the coalhouse as the sound of hasty feet in the courtyard heralded Maister Kennedy.

‘Nick,’ he said.

‘Where is the boy? What’s come to him? Andrew and Ralph said — ’

‘Nick, are you wearing any sort of belt?’

His friend stared at him, his mobile brows twitching.

‘My belt? No, as a matter of fact, I’m not. No room for a purse under this, and no need for one over it, in these robes.’

‘Do you have one? Where is it?’

‘In my chamber. Do you need it? What’s happened, Gil?’

‘William’s dead,’ said Gil bluntly. ‘He’s been strangled, with someone’s belt, and his hands are tied with another one. Whoever makes enquiry into this will be very interested in belts.’

Nick Kennedy looked from Gil, to Patrick Coventry still murmuring prayers, to the shadows in the coalhouse.

‘Christ aid,’ he said. ‘He will, won’t he. Let’s have a look.’

Gil slipped past the Second Regent and into the dim space again, positioning himself carefully away from the window. Nick, following him, checked visibly at the sight of the distorted face and lolling tongue.

‘Christ aid,’ he said again. ‘You wereny mistaken about the strangling. Well,’ he said to the indifferent corpse, ‘I’ve threatened to throttle you myself often enough, but I suppose I’m sorry now someone’s done it. Poor laddie. Should we no move him, Gil?’

‘William is certainly beyond aid,’ Gil pointed out. ‘There is little point in moving him, and I think we should notify the Dean and the Principal first. Moreover, this is clearly secret murder, and I know last time I viewed a body I could have done with seeing her where she died.’

Nick looked from the corpse to the shadowy heaps of coal and stacked wood.

‘If you say so,’ he said. ‘Well, I’d better tell them. Will you bide here or come with me?’

Gil, who had been giving some thought to exactly this question, said, ‘Would you say, Nick, we three have been within sight of one another the whole time, since the end of the play?’

Both men stared at him. Maister Coventry’s lips still moved, but Maister Kennedy’s mouth had fallen open. After a moment he recovered it.

‘St Peter’s bones,’ he said, without inflection. ‘Someone did this, didn’t they? And I threatened to throttle him. I swear by the Rood, Gil, I’ve never been so glad in my life to have taken a driddle in company. We were maybe not all three in sight of one another, but none of us could have got here from the Arthurlie garden with time to do this and be back before the other two noticed he’d gone.’

Gil nodded.

‘Maister Coventry,’ he said. The Second Regent raised his head. ‘I suggest you lock the door and let none past until the Dean and Maister Doby are here.’

The small man nodded, without interrupting his prayers, and followed them out of the coalhouse. Locking the door carefully, he stationed himself in front of it and took up his beads again as Gil and Nick set off across the courtyard.

The students who had formed the search party were at the foot of the stairs to the Fore Hall. The three senior bachelors were standing aside in a row, the stocky boy in the middle; two more were wrestling, some others kicking a stone about. As their seniors approached the games ceased.

‘Is it William, Maister Kennedy?’ said someone. ‘Is he hurt?’

‘Why was he in the coalhouse?’ asked someone else.

‘It is William,’ said Nick. ‘Yes, he is hurt. He is hurt bad.’

‘Will he die, maister?’ asked one of the two Ross boys, seated wide-eyed by his brother on the bottom step.

‘He is dead,’ said Nick.

‘Ninian!’ said Lowrie the tenor. ‘Catch him, Michael!’

Nick was already there as the stocky boy’s knees buckled. With Gil’s assistance he got the dead weight over to the stair and folded it up on to the bottom step beside the younger Ross, who scrambled out of the way, looking alarmed.

‘Loose his collar,’ recommended someone.

‘A key down his back.’

‘That’s for nosebleeds. Cold water on his neck.’

‘Be the first time in months,’ someone else muttered.

Maister Kennedy, ably thrusting Ninian’s head down, said, ‘I heard that, Walter. Maister Cunningham, can you go up and speak to the Dean and Principal? Michael, give a hand here. Lowrie, you know the prayers we should be saying for William. Will you begin, please?’

When Gil came down the stairs again, with the Dean and the Principal following him, the students were not visible, but the door to the Bachelors’ Schule was ajar, and a low hum of prayers floated out. Gil, reflecting on his uncle’s dictum that teachers are born, not made, led the way to the inner courtyard. Behind him, Maister Doby was still exclaiming distressfully.

‘I cannot believe it to be murder. Are you not mistaken, Gilbert, and it is merely some accident? And why should the boy be here, in the coalhouse? Oh, it is all deplorable.’

‘John,’ said the Dean in Scots, peering into the shadows at the body. ‘Haud yer wheesht.’ He stepped cautiously closer, holding his fine silk gown away from the gritty floor. ‘Aye, poor laddie. John, this is certainly murder.’

‘No a mischance?’

‘It canny be any kind of mischance,’ said Gil, understanding the anxious tone. ‘See, the buckle of the belt lies at the back of his neck. Somebody else did that to him, and did it deliberately.’

‘Aye. I see.’ Maister Doby bent his head, briefly.

Behind him in the vaulted passage, Patrick Coventry said suddenly, ‘Should we close the yett? Whoever did this may still be in the college.’

‘I asked the Steward to order it closed,’ Gil said. ‘But there is the Blackfriars gate, and the Arthurlie yett. The college is hardly secure.’

‘Well,’ said the Dean. He emerged from the coalhouse, and turned the key in the lock. ‘That puts paid to the Montgomery gift, I fear, John.’

‘I doubt you’re right, Patrick.’

‘We must inform the Faculty,’ continued the Dean, setting off across the courtyard with his black silk sleeves streaming behind him, ‘and our colleagues in Law and Theology. We must also inform the Chancellor.’

‘What, now?’ said Maister Doby, hurrying after him. The Dean glanced at him and paused thoughtfully.

‘You mean, I take it,’ he said, ‘that we should hesitate to disturb the Archbishop more often than strictly necessary.’

‘Aye. Forbye I think he’s at Stirling the now, with the King,’ added the Principal. ‘The messenger might as well wait till we’ve something better to send.’

‘Aye,’ said Dean Elphinstone in his turn. He looked at the key in his hand. ‘Whose is this?’

‘It is mine,’ said Maister Coventry.

In the Fore Hall, most of the Masters who had been present at the feast still sat talking. The harper was playing quietly, cups of spiced wine were still circulating, but the sweetmeats appeared to be finished. As the Dean appeared, conversation faltered, and those who followed him walked into a spreading silence. Behind Gil, Maister Kennedy and the cast of the play entered and clustered in a knot by the door. The young man Ninian looked ill but seemed in control of himself, his friends on either side of him. Another boy had certainly been weeping; even the gap-toothed Walter seemed subdued.

The Dean stepped on to the dais and nodded significantly to John Shaw the Steward, who took up position in front of him and thumped his great staff three times on the floor to attract attention.

‘Silence for the Dean,’ he commanded unnecessarily, bowed and stepped aside. The Dean’s blue gaze swept the hall. Gil moved back against the wall and watched the faces. Old Tommy Forsyth, anxious beneath his felt cap. David Gray still in his dazed state, with a faint dawning of — was it relief? Archie Crawford, the Faculty’s blue-jowled man of law, frowning critically. The harper and his sister, intent and concerned, the harper’s strange mood dissipated as his sister had predicted now that the body had been found.

‘Horribile dictu,’ began the Dean, and Gil, despite himself, felt a twinge of amusement. The phrase was used as an example in grammar schools all over the educated world, and he had never thought to hear it spoken in earnest. But what the Dean was recounting in his measured Latin was indeed horrible to relate.

In the buzz of shocked conversation which greeted the announcement, Maister Forsyth rose from his seat and bowed formally.

‘Dean,’ he said. ‘This is a dreadful thing which has happened.’ Many people nodded agreement. ‘Nevertheless, it is a deed committed by human hand. It is incumbent upon us to find the perpetrator and render justice to our dead fellow. The Faculty must act, and soon, to name one or more people to be responsible for this solemn duty.’

Maister Crawford rose in his turn, to stand small and neat staring across the width of the dais at the Dean.

‘Is it not rather,’ he began, ‘the duty of the Faculty to report this deplorable deed to the Chancellor, Robert our Archbishop? This having been done, he may consider the facts and name some one of our number to be quaestor.’

‘He’s feart the Faculty would pick him,’ said Patrick Coventry in Scots at Gil’s side.

‘You can tell,’ agreed Gil, grinning.

Maister Doby was explaining that the Chancellor was in Stirling with the King when he was interrupted.

‘Magistri, scholastici.’ McIan had risen to his feet. ‘I ask leave to speak. There is one here,’ he continued without waiting for permission, his Highland accent very strong, ‘has won justice already for the woman dear to me, murdered in secret in St Mungo’s yard.’ The outflung hand indicated Gil’s direction. He heard me answer Patrick Coventry just now, thought Gil. ‘He is careful and discreet and a member of your community. I commend him to you.’

‘There was some debate,’ said Gil to Maister Peter Mason. ‘But eventually it was agreed. Then I asked permission to send for you, and my clothes.’

He bundled cope and cassock together, put them down on the bench of Maister Kennedy’s reading-desk, and began to lace himself into his doublet.

‘I appreciate your wish for my support,’ said his prospective father-in-law. ‘I think,’ he added. He inspected the bench, appeared to decide it would take his weight, and sat down cautiously, his short black beard jutting against the light from the open window. ‘The more so, indeed, as the baby has refused the infallible remedy and is still crying. Alys was a good child,’ he added reflectively. ‘I had forgotten how fatiguing a crying baby is to listen to. What must we do, then? What have you set in motion?’

‘I have someone making a list of all those who were present at the feast,’ said Gil, ‘and what each of them claims he did after the end of the play. That is urgent, I thought. We can hardly imprison the entire Faculty of Arts until we find justice for William.’

‘You are certain it was someone at the feast?’

‘No,’ Gil admitted. ‘There are the members of other faculties, there are the students who couldn’t afford the necessary contribution for the feast, there are the college servants. The Blackfriars have access to the college without going past the porter at the yett.’

‘I remember the porter,’ said the mason, pulling a face. ‘And I have done some repairs to the Blackfriars gate. It leads into the kitchen-yard, not so? Do you suspect them?’

‘We must suspect everybody’ Gil shrugged on his short gown and lifted the master’s bonnet to which the Dean had taken exception. ‘Come and view the corpse. I have a lantern now.’

Maistre Pierre, confronted by the gruesome scene in the coalhouse, contemplated it in silence for a short time, swinging his Sunday beads in one big hand, then remarked, ‘There have been too many people across this floor. I suppose the kitchen must want coals several times a day, but I see more than one pair of feet here.’

Gil nodded. ‘So I thought. At least I prevented them moving the body’ He peered round. ‘If he was killed in here I would expect more sign, nevertheless. There are all these tracks from the door to where he lies, and those are my prints from when I opened the window. Someone bound his hands and then strangled him, but his feet were free, and all students play football, he could have kicked hard, or run away, or put up some sort of struggle, and I see no sign.’

‘Was he perhaps attacked by more than one person?’

‘It’s possible, but I would expect to see sign of that too. I wonder if he was killed elsewhere and then put here.’

‘I agree,’ said the mason after a moment. ‘These are the prints of whoever carried him in here. Look, there is one as he stepped round to this side of the heap of coals. A pity they are so scuffed. But why? Why move him here?’

‘For secrecy?’

‘It was not secret for long.’

‘Long enough, perhaps.’

‘He was last seen alive at the end of the play, you say?’ said Maistre Pierre thoughtfully. ‘How long ago was that?’

‘More than two hours since.’ Gil was feeling the swollen face. ‘He’s cold, and beginning to set. It is cold in here under the vault, and the shutters were closed. He would cool quite fast.’

‘Should we unbind his hands?’

‘I want to move him into the light first.’ Gil reached for the lantern. ‘Take note of how he lies, Pierre.’

William was sprawled on his left side, his bound hands awkwardly in the pit of his belly, his head tipped back and the dreadful distorted face turned towards the light from the window. The right arm was cocked up so that a darn in the elbow of the blue gown showed. His legs, half-flexed under the skirt of the gown, ended in a pair of expensive-looking boots.

‘How do we move him? And to where?’

Two college servants and a hurdle saw the corpse removed from the coalhouse and set down in the courtyard, the dreadful face covered by a cloth begged from the kitchen. A small crowd gathered immediately, commenting with interest on the spectacle. It included some of the kitchen hands and also Maister Forsyth, who stepped forward at the same moment as the Dominican chaplain emerged from the pend that led to the kitchen-yard.

‘Will you be long, Gilbert?’ he asked. ‘It is urgent that Father Bernard and I begin the Act of Conditional Absolution, you understand.’

‘Not long, sir,’ said Gil. ‘Could you perhaps …?’ He waved at the crowd, and Maister Forsyth nodded and turned to make shooing motions which were largely ignored. Gil bent over the corpse, considering the white dust caked on the blue wool of the gown, and sniffed.

‘Pierre, do you smell cumin?’

‘Cumin?’ Maistre Pierre stepped closer. ‘I do. Not strong, but — was there a dish with cumin at the feast?’

‘Not at our table, we had rabbit and ground almonds and a couple of flans. Perhaps one of the other tables. That might be it.’

‘Now we loose his hands?’ prompted the mason.

They rolled the limp body over on the hurdle to get access to the buckle, and eased it free. The boy’s bony wrists were marked where the coils of leather had dug in. Gil turned them carefully, looked at the small neat hands, pushed up the sleeves to look at the forearms.

The mason, working on the unpleasant task of unfastening the other belt, remarked, ‘His gown is dry on the shoulders. He has not, I think, been out in the rain lately.’

‘Interesting,’ said Gil. ‘The hem is damp, at the back only, here where the scorch marks are, and there is coal-dust on one elbow and something white on the other.’

‘And on the skirt of his gown,’ said Maistre Pierre, looking along the length of the garment.

‘And these boots are scuffed on the toes.’

‘Many people scuff their toes.’

‘The boots are quite new and otherwise well cared for.’ Gil took the belt from the corpse’s wrists, a well-worn strap of ordinary cowhide with a cheap buckle, tried it round the waist of the gown, then rolled it up and put it in the breast of his doublet.

The other belt had sunk deeply into the swollen flesh of throat and neck and required to be coaxed, but finally came free. To judge by the mark on the leather it belonged to someone of heavier build than the first one, but it was otherwise just as unremarkable. Gil measured it likewise against the corpse’s waist, then examined the length of it closely, to muttered comments from the group of onlookers.

‘Why’s he doing that?’

‘College canny afford a bloodhound.’

‘Pierre, will you take this?’ Gil said, handing it over. ‘We need to keep the two belts separate, I think. I wonder where his purse is?’ He patted the breast of the faded blue gown, but found nothing. ‘That is odd,’ he added, searching more carefully. ‘I’ll swear he had a purse earlier.’

‘Is there anything else to learn from him?’ asked the mason, sitting back on his heels.

‘I don’t think so.’ Gil turned the empurpled face to look at it. ‘Perhaps I spoke too soon. Look at this.’

‘What is it?’

Gil touched the mark carefully. ‘Aye, the skin’s split. The flesh is much swollen but I think the jaw must be about there.’

‘ Someone has fetched him a blow.’ The mason made an involuntary movement with one fist.

‘I think so. You know, that’s a relief. It’s possible he was dazed or unconscious when he was throttled. I must ask someone that he shouldn’t be stripped until we can be present.’ Gil got to his feet, looking round for Maister Forsyth, who hurried forward followed by a student with a censer and another with holy water and an asperger. ‘Now we have to report to the Principal.’

The Dean, the Principal and the two men of law were in the Principal’s house, where the great chamber was hung with painted cloths depicting various learned men as bearded worthies in academic robes. In front of a long-nosed Socrates receiving a scroll from Philo-sophia herself, Maister Doby waved them to padded stools and said anxiously, ‘Well, Gilbert, what can ye tell us?’

‘Little more yet,’ said Gil. ‘We are both certain it is murder rather than any sort of accident, but beyond that — ’

‘The belt about his neck must belong to someone,’ said the Dean in incisive Latin. ‘Find the owner and we have found the culprit.’

‘The belt about his neck may be his own,’ said Gil. ‘However I agree that the other may very probably lead us to the malefactor.’

‘But can we offer a better scent to the hounds?’ asked Maistre Pierre in French. ‘Did the young man have enemies?’

‘At least one, clearly’ Archie Crawford still wore the critical frown. ‘What do you mean, very probably? I should have said it was a certainty.’

‘He means, Archibald, that the malefactor might have used the property of another,’ said Maister Doby kindly. ‘What must you do next, Gilbert? How should the Faculty help you?’

‘Tell me about the dead boy,’ Gil invited.

There was a brief stillness, in which he was aware of powerful minds working; then the Dean said firmly, ‘An able student, an ornament to the college. Learning has lost one of her dearest sons.’

‘That will sound well in the letter to his family’ Gil looked from face to face. ‘Was he really that able? The impression I had, seeing him today, was of someone a little too clever for his own good.’

A flicker of something like agreement crossed Maister Doby’s expression, but the Dean said, ‘How can one be too clever?’

‘What are the facts, then?’ said Gil. ‘Who was he? Was he an Ayrshire man, as the surname suggests?’

‘He was a bastard,’ said David Gray suddenly and ambiguously.

‘His mother, it seems, is an Ayrshire lady now married to another,’ said the Dean, ‘and his father is a kinsman of Lord Montgomery.’

‘Supported by the Montgomerys? In their favour?’

‘Yes,’ said the Dean, as if the word tasted bad. ‘And well supported.’

‘A rich bastard,’ qualified Maister Gray. He still seemed dazed, like a man who can hardly believe what fortune has brought to him. Good fortune or bad? Gil wondered.

‘Certainly there has been no shortage of drinksilver,’ agreed the Principal.

‘What, actual silver?’ said Gil in surprise. ‘Not meal or salt fish like the rest of us?’

‘Oh, that as well,’ said the Dean. ‘But he has always seemed to have coin.’

‘And more of it lately,’ said Maister Doby in thoughtful tones.

‘Was he liked? Who were his friends?’

There was another of those pauses.

‘He had no particular friends, I thought,’ said the Principal with reluctance. ‘When he was a bejant he roomed with his kinsman Robert, and Ralph Gibson, and they were mentored by Lawrence Livingstone and his friends, but I do not think he has — ’

‘What friends are those?’ Gil asked. ‘Of the boy Livingstone, I mean.’

‘Ninian Boyd and Michael Douglas,’ said the Principal. ‘Ninian played Diligence very well, I thought. I wish he knew the meaning of the word in his studies.’

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘Michael must be my godfather’s youngest. I thought I knew that jaw. A Livingstone, a Boyd, a Douglas — what a conspiracy!’

‘Indeed, I do not think that can be right, Gilbert,’ said the Principal seriously.

‘William spends — spent time with Robert Montgomery,’ the Dean interposed, ‘and with Ralph Gibson, poor creature. Either of these may tell you more than his teachers.’

‘Did he still share a chamber with them?’ Gil asked.

‘He did not,’ said Maister Doby, shaking his head. ‘Sooner than share his good fortune with them, whatever its source, he has withdrawn from his friends this year. He has a room here in the Outer Close. John Shaw assures me all is paid for.’

‘And yet his legitimate kinsman has a shared chamber in the older part of the building,’ said Gil.

‘I told you he was a bastard,’ said David Gray. Gil looked at him, and wondered if he was sober. Certainly his narrow face was flushed, the colour contrasting unbecomingly with the red hood still rolled down about his neck.

‘Where did the money come from?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘From his home, I suppose,’ said the Principal. ‘He had no benefice or prebend as yet. Where else would he get money?’

‘Was there money on him?’ asked Maister Crawford. ‘Maybe he was robbed.’

‘By a fellow student?’ said the Principal, shocked. ‘Surely not!’

‘Don’t be daft, John. One of the servants, maybe, or some passing — ’

‘It was hardly a passing robber,’ said the Dean, ‘that left him locked in the coalhouse. And I hope our servants are more conscious of the good of the college than — ’ He stopped, apparently unwilling to finish the sentence.

‘Do you wish to ask us anything else,’ demanded Maister Crawford, ‘or can we get on with our own business?’

‘I have two further questions,’ Gil admitted. ‘In the first place, when William rose at the Faculty meeting — ’

‘I have no idea,’ said the Dean firmly. ‘I know neither what prompted him to speak nor what the matters were of which he spoke.’

‘Ask his friends,’ said Maister Crawford.

‘He hinted at heresy and peculation,’ Gil said. ‘These are both matters of some importance. Could he have misinterpreted something?’

‘I have no idea,’ said the Dean again. ‘And the other question?’

‘I must ask this of everybody, you understand,’ Gil said. They watched him with varying expressions: Maister Gray wary, Maister Crawford still critical, the Principal with the intent look of a teacher with a good student, the Dean clearly formulating his answer already. ‘After the end of the play, where were you all before returning to the Fore Hall? And who was with you?’

‘Most of the senior members came here to the Principal’s house,’ said the Dean promptly. ‘The four of us now present, Maister Forsyth, Maister Coventry — ’

‘Not Patrick Coventry,’ said the Principal. ‘He and Nicholas went over to the Arthurlie building. You were with them, Gilbert, were you not?’

‘We were here perhaps a quarter-hour,’ the Dean continued, ‘in this room or near it, standing or walking about, until Maister Shaw came to inform us that the procession was re-forming. Is that what you wish to know?’

‘Were you all within sight of one another for most of that time?’

The four men exchanged glances, and nodded.

‘I should say we were,’ pronounced the Dean.

‘Would you swear to it if necessary?’

There was another of those pauses.

‘I should swear to it,’ agreed the Dean.