Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘True.’
‘Could he have done it?’
‘I would have said so. Moreover, there is a path along the riverbank which would bring him home without going through the burgh. Provided he knew the ground,’ Gil qualified.
‘Leaving his sister to be the extra worshipper at Mass in the morning.’
‘Aye.’ Gil pulled a face, peered into the jug, found it empty, and put his beaker down beside it. ‘We had best go home. I need to wash before I bring Dorothea down to
supper.’
‘Before we go,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘what is the one about the bridegroom and the turnip?’
‘And he gave us his blessing, only this morning,’ said Alys. ‘That was a grace, that he remembered his calling before he died.’
Dorothea nodded and crossed herself, murmuring
Amen
, and Maistre Pierre did likewise.
The supper was long since cleared away; the household had retired to the kitchen to exchange new tales with Agnes the lay sister, and family and guests were seated round the brazier in the hall
of the mason’s big stone house. The three women were together on the high-backed settle, Alys’s honey-coloured locks gleaming in the candlelight between Dorothea’s black veil and
Catherine’s black flowerpot cap and embroidered gauze. In the shadows at the edge of the group, Herbert the secretary murmured softly over his beads.
Gil moved his feet from under Socrates, and said, ‘I wish I was certain of what had happened.’
‘You think,’ said his sister, ‘that it might not have been his own action?’
‘It was one or the other,’ said Gil. ‘Either he hanged himself, from grief or remorse or the realization that he was mad, or someone did it for him.’
‘How easy would that be?’ speculated Alys. ‘I thought you said Humphrey nearly had the better of it this morning. Could one of the old men have the strength? If it was his
brother –’
‘Has anyone else a reason to kill him?’ asked Dorothea.
‘Not that I can see, and I can’t see why his brother would kill him either,’ admitted Gil. ‘He’s been – he was well supported and well cared for there in the
bedehouse, no need to worry about him.’
‘– then surely,’ Alys persisted, ‘after this morning’s fight, his brother would find it the more difficult to get the better of him and hang him. His hands were not
bound, were they?’
‘What, like an execution? No, and his fingers had bled recently, though that’s no proof.’
‘Was the rope marked with his blood?’
‘What rope was it?’ asked Dorothea. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘I asked,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It was the length they use to keep the yett open when needful. It hangs on the back of the yett mostly. It was wet with the rain,’ he
added, ‘there were no marks to see on it.’
‘On the back of the yett,’ repeated Alys. ‘Out at the street? How did Humphrey come by that? Mistress Mudie would never have let him go out across the yard.’
‘He might have slipped out without her seeing,’ said Gil. ‘After all, Agnew got in without her seeing him twice today.’
‘So either,’ said Alys, ‘Maister Agnew went in, with the rope, and got the better of a man who nearly killed him this morning –’
‘– who left him still badly shaken when Pierre and I met him this evening,’ Gil added. She nodded acknowledgement.
‘– or some mysterious other got in very quickly and did the same between Agnew leaving the bedehouse and Mistress Mudie finding him and then left unseen, or else Humphrey went out to
the gate after his brother left and got the rope, and – and –’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh, the poor man. And poor Mistress Mudie.’
Catherine nodded and reached for her beads. Dorothea put her hand over Alys’s other one and said, ‘None of these seems very likely, and none of them has a reason. Do you suppose
it’s connected to the death of the Deacon, Gil?’
‘More logical to assume it is,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘And how far have you got with that?’
‘Not very. Oh, Maggie handed me back this.’ He dug in his purse and drew out the length of linen they had found in the trees. Was it really only the previous day? ‘Cluttering
up her kitchen long enough, she said.’ He spread it out across his knee. Maistre Pierre reached out and drew the stand of candles closer, and they all peered at the strip of cloth. Stiff from
drying above the kitchen fire, it was creased and marked, but the quality of the cloth was obvious.
‘And the stitching,’ said Alys, leaning forward to touch the hemming. ‘This is fine work. And see, a little ornament at either end, done in the same thread.’
‘Are you sure it’s a neck-kerchief and not a household towel or such?’ said Dorothea.
‘No,’ said Gil. ‘All I know is where we found it and what the dog thought of these.’ He traced the dark stains on the cloth. ‘Hard to be sure in this light, but by
daylight it certainly looked like blood.’ Catherine crossed herself again and renewed her efforts with her beads. ‘I’d say someone had wiped his blade here, but this bigger stain
is more as if he had staunched a wound.’
‘Or wiped up a splash of – of whatever it was,’ said Alys. ‘May I see?’
Gil handed it over. Their eyes met, but she took the piece without any attempt to touch his fingers. She and Dorothea scrutinized it carefully, paying close attention to the embroidered ends.
After a moment Dorothea said, ‘Look here, Alys. Is it an initial? A mark of some sort?’
‘You are right,’ said Alys, tilting her head. ‘What is it? Could it be
N
?’
‘It could,’ said Dorothea doubtfully, ‘or it could be two letters. What about
I V
?’
‘For John Veitch?’ said Gil with reluctance.
‘Marion does fine sewing,’ said Dorothea. Brother and sister looked at one another.
‘John had cause to kill the man, for certain, though I don’t know yet what Marion inherits under Naismith’s original will, and he lied to me about where he was that
night.’
‘Could he have done it?’ asked Alys.
Gil nodded, sighing. ‘Not only could he have done it, I don’t know who else might, since the last person to see Naismith has someone to swear to his whereabouts later.’
‘We have two deaths to consider now,’ said Alys. Gil looked up at the
We
and she smiled faintly at him. ‘If the Deacon was killed outside the bedehouse it could have
been almost anyone, I suppose –’
‘Except that whoever it was, he knew a lot about the customs of the house,’ said Dorothea.
Alys nodded. ‘John Veitch had good reason to kill him, as you say, Gil, and he has lied about where he was that night, and here is this scarf which may be his, found in the Stablegreen,
but would he have known all the things the killer evidently knew?’
‘His uncle could tell him those,’ said Gil.
‘Or the woman helped him,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘Surely if it was his uncle who helped, John had no need to carry the body round to the Stablegreen,’ objected Dorothea. ‘The old man could have told him enough to put it in
the Deacon’s lodging, where it would never have been found till the morning.’
‘Maister Veitch would have known Sissie was listening,’ said Gil. ‘All would have to sound as usual.’
‘And why would John find it needful to kill Humphrey?’ said Alys.
‘We know he was at the bedehouse this evening,’ said Gil. ‘I met him on the Drygate, Pierre, just before I met you. Oh, and there was a man above in Marion’s house when I
called, teaching the child another song. I wonder if it was this fellow Elder.’
‘Why might John Veitch kill Humphrey?’ asked Maistre Pierre rhetorically. ‘Had Humphrey perhaps seen or heard something to his disadvantage?’
‘Humphrey said nothing that made any sense about the night the Deacon died,’ said Gil, ‘except something about seeing a light in the Deacon’s lodging, but that only
confirmed Sissie’s account.’
‘Perhaps he had said something to the other bedesmen,’ offered Dorothea.
‘I need to ask,’ agreed Gil. ‘I must question them about this afternoon, but it was hardly the moment when we were there, what with Duncan demanding his supper and my godfather
arriving at the door.’
‘It doesn’t work, does it?’ said Alys. ‘What about Humphrey’s brother? He was the last man to see the Deacon, so far as we know. Could it have been him?’
‘I haven’t yet found a reason, and I doubt now if he had time,’ said Gil. ‘His mistress says he was with her that night, from an hour after supper – he must have
gone straight there after Naismith left him.’
‘But he could have killed his brother,’ said Alys thoughtfully.
‘Why?’
‘You don’t need a sensible reason to want to kill a brother,’ said Dorothea. Gil looked at her in astonishment. ‘Or a sister,’ she qualified the statement, and
smiled at him. ‘Not a sensible reason, just a strong one.’
‘He had the opportunity,’ persisted Alys, ‘if he was in the bedehouse just before Humphrey was found, and he might have managed to get the better of him and –’ She
pulled a face, and Dorothea nodded.
‘Or what of the bedesmen?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I should say the only one with the strength is your teacher, Gil.’
‘He had a strong arm when I was a boy,’ agreed Gil, ‘but he’s past sixty now, could he have carried Naismith any distance, or lifted Humphrey to get him suspended the way
we found him? I admit he’d enough reason to kill Naismith, and living with Humphrey would drive anyone to murder I would think, poor soul.’
‘Still questions to ask,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘Many questions,’ said Gil. Tomorrow I’d like to find this mysterious friend of John’s, who might tell us something to the purpose, and locating the weapon and the place
Naismith was killed would be good.’
‘And the ladder,’ supplied Maistre Pierre.
‘Look for an unclaimed lantern and a patch of blood somewhere about the old men’s houses. Question the old men themselves about Humphrey. And there is probably more. But chiefly,
what I would like to find would be a clear reason for someone to kill either man. I still think Naismith’s death may lie in the accounts.’
‘Yes,’ said Alys. ‘It hangs on that. Too many had the opportunity.’
Dorothea nodded agreement.
‘I wish you were free to help me,’ Gil said, looking at Alys. She met his eye and nodded seriously.
‘There is all to supervise here,’ said Catherine in French, breaking off her prayers.
Gil studied the row of faces opposite him. He was certain that Catherine approved of Dorothea, and that Dorothea liked Alys; he no longer trusted his ability to read Alys’s response to his
sister. He tried to tell himself it hardly mattered, that Dorothea would return to Haddington and he might not see her face to face again in this life, but it was still important.
‘I have been thinking,’ announced Maistre Pierre, ‘that a likely place to find two sailors is in a tavern, no? Suppose after we escort Sister Dorothea back to the castle, you
and I were to go drinking?’
Chapter Ten
There was a thunderous sound, somehow entangled with a dream about Paris. He knew it must be a dream, because he had not had a drinking head like this since he left France. The
thunder went on, and on. So did the dream, which became more vivid. Not only a headache as if an axe was buried in his brow, but a tongue too big for his mouth which tasted like an ashpit. Socrates
barked near at hand, once, then again, and a voice exclaimed,
‘Maister Cunningham! Maister Cunningham, can you waken!’
‘Likely no. He was ower late home last night, and a skinfu’ wi it.’ That was Maggie. Not a dream, then. ‘Out the way, son. I’ll sort him.’
Light, and footsteps. He was aware of a distant shouting, and the dog’s paws scrabbled as he left. Then cold water stung his face and neck. He surfaced, spluttering and wincing, to find
Maggie staring down at him by the light of a candle. Someone stood behind her in the shadows.
‘Are ye awake, Maister Gil, or do ye want the rest of the jug?’ demanded Maggie. Gil struggled on to one elbow and shielded his eyes from the candle. There was more distant shouting,
and the dog barked, equally distant now.
‘Awake,’ he managed. ‘What’you do that for?’
‘Aye, well, there’s trouble below stairs,’ she informed him grimly. ‘Here’s Sir James Douglas round from the bedehouse and raging like Herod in the hall, and your
uncle from home, as he might ha kent at this hour. Will you get up, man, and deal wi him?’
‘Bedehouse.’ Gil sat up shivering and wringing water from his hair and his shirt. This did not seem to make sense. What bedehouse?
‘St Serf’s,’ persisted Maggie. ‘Aye, I thought you were well away when you got home last night. Get you away down to my kitchen, young Lowrie,’ she said over her
shoulder, ‘and if you’d be so good as to put another stoup of ale next the fire in the blue-glazed pint pot, it would speed matters. As for you, Maister Gil,’ she turned back to
Gil as footsteps clattered away through the attic, let’s have you out of there.’
Bemused, he allowed himself to be dragged out of bed, his shirt pulled over his head, a cold wet cloth scrubbed across his shrinking flesh. When she began to rub him dry with energetic strokes
of the discarded shirt, he stuttered a protest.
‘Maggie, what’s this about? No, I’m awake, I’m awake!’
‘Then you can drink this, and wash the rest yoursel.’ She thrust a beaker at him. The contents fizzed darkly, and a familiar mysterious, pungent smell hit his nose: Maggie’s
poison, his brothers had called it. Her cure for a night’s drinking. He swallowed it like medicine, and she turned her back to let him strip, pronouncing, ‘I’ve no idea
what’s ado, Maister Gil. All I ken is, your godfather’s down there calling for you or your uncle, abusing his Michael that’s your mother’s godson, and like to take an
apoplexy with fury. And two of his men cluttering up my kitchen, I could do without.’
This hardly made sense either. He groped his way into clean linen, hose and doublet, tied his points with difficulty, found a jerkin and a budge gown in the kist at the bed-foot, took a moment
to salute St Giles and his white doe and promise them a more formal obeisance later. As soon as he was covered Maggie dragged the window-hangings back, the rings rattling on the pole, and the room
was flooded with unpleasantly bright light.