Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘May I see that one, sir?’ said Alys, nodding at the copy further from her. The Official handed it over, avoiding the candles, and stepped back.
‘It’s ower hot here wi all these lights,’ he complained. ‘I’ve seen as much as I want for the now, let’s be more comfortable. Maggie, is there more o that
spiced ale?’
‘There could be if you’re wanting it, maister,’ said Maggie. ‘Have you no found what’s wrong wi the papers then?’
‘I think I have,’ said Alys. ‘Look here.’ She spread out the document she held in front of the Annunciation. ‘All the signatures and the seals are here at the foot
of the writing.’
‘Where you would look for them, in effect,’ said her father.
She flicked him a brief glance and went on, ‘There’s a crease right across between the signatures and the main text, but otherwise nothing to show any difference. Not even a change
of colour. But if you look on the back of the skin –’ She turned over one margin of the document. ‘See here? See the join? It doesn’t lie on the crease on this side, it is
easier to see.’
‘It is,’ said Gil, feeling carefully. ‘It is a join. He’s scraped the skin down so well it barely shows, and the colour matches as you say, Alys.’
‘Is that how you mend parchment, then?’ said Maggie with interest from behind Gil’s shoulder. ‘You make the two edges thin and then stick it thegither? It’s just
like joining pastry.’
‘Before or after the inscription was written, do you think?’ asked the Official, peering at the fold of parchment. ‘Maggie, what about that spiced ale?’
‘If I was using a mended piece like this,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘I’d turn it so that I wrote across the join, simply to avoid questions like that.’
His uncle nodded. ‘Aye, you’ve a point there.’
‘The signatures have been removed from the original,’ said Alys, ‘and attached to a different text.’
‘
Mon Dieu!
’ said the mason. Gil nodded.
‘Well, well,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘You’ve sharp eyes, lassie. I’ll ha you to my clerk any time Richie’s away. And which copy is this, then, that’s
been tampered wi?’
‘The family copy,’ said Alys. ‘The copy which was with Maister Agnew’s tablets.’
‘So whose work is that?’ demanded Maggie. ‘Why would the man change one copy and no the other?’
‘He had not yet succeeded in altering the bedehouse copy,’ said Alys. ‘Gil, did you not say he was looking for it?’
‘He was,’ agreed her father.
‘It would not have been easy to convince other people his was the true version,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘for the Deacon had clearly looked at his copy recently. See,
Father.’ She handed him the paper which had been folded inside the disposition. He gave her a quizzical look, but tilted it obediently to the light, and whistled.
‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Look at this, David. The man had most ambitious plans for the plot that was gifted.’
Alys stepped away from the window-embrasure and Gil followed her.
‘I meant to tell you as well, Gil,’ she remembered, ‘that our man Thomas told me he met a stranger by the Consistory tower, today about Sext, who asked the way to Vicars’
Alley. Could that have been John Veitch?’
Gil nodded absently, and looked about the hall. Maggie had gone to fetch the second batch of spiced ale, their elders were still discussing Naismith’s building project, and they had a
moment to themselves.
‘Alys,’ he said softly, taking her hand. She looked up at him, with that expression which always made his heart turn over. ‘Sweetheart, I’ve worked it out, I think. What
Dorothea meant.’ And no need to admit my youngest sister had to help me, he thought. Alys had dropped her eyes, colouring up in the candlelight. ‘We won’t – we don’t
have to do anything we don’t want to.’
‘That’s the trouble,’ she whispered. ‘I do want to. I just –’
He pulled her into his arms, and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was silky under his lips, and smelled of rosemary.
‘All will be well,’ he promised. ‘We love one another. Nothing else matters.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘I’d swear to it being the same cart,’ said Tib, eyeing the heap of matting askance. ‘The more so wi that great bundle of stuff on top of it. What is
it, anyway?’
‘More evidence,’ said Gil. ‘It’s the flooring from Agnew’s hall, that I want a look at. You’re sure, then?’
‘Aye.’ She bent to trace the swirls of white paint on the dark end panel of the handcart. ‘I mind thinking it was unusual, these curly bits instead o denticles or arcading or
the like.’
‘Thanks, Tib.’ Gil took hold of a corner of the matting, and pulled. The bundle came off the cart, and he shook it so that the stiffened folds opened out across the flagged floor of
the washhouse. Socrates loped in from the yard to look, but Tib stepped back, gathering her skirts together.
‘What’s the stains on it? Is that blood, Gil?’
‘It is.’ He was bending over the creases. ‘This is where the man died yesterday.’
‘The man John Veitch slew?’ She crossed herself.
‘The man John Veitch found dead,’ he corrected. ‘No, this tells me little enough. It must have lain –’ He dragged another fold aside. ‘Something like that, I
suppose. The man lay on his belly about here, and these are the –’
‘Ugh!’ said Tib, crossing herself again. ‘But what does it tell you? Can you say who killed the man, if it wasny John Veitch?’
‘No,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘No yet. I wonder why he was lifting the matting?’ He looked over his shoulder at the door of the outbuilding. ‘Is it still dry out in
the yard? Aye, dry enough. Tib, go and see if one of the men’s about, to give me a hand wi this.’
‘I’ll help,’ she offered, a little reluctantly, and bent to lay hands on an unmarked section. ‘Do you want it out in the daylight?’
They carried the bundle out between them, and spread Thomas Agnew’s prized possession on the damp cobbles.
‘Aye, it was this way up,’ said Gil. Socrates stepped delicately on to the braided squares, his nose a nail’s breadth from the rushes, his hackles standing up all down his
narrow back. Gil pushed the dog away, arranging the folds again. ‘And he lay there. But what’s this?’
Tib came to look where he pointed, using her knee to keep the dog off.
‘It’s all just blood,’ she said. ‘You’d think the poor man had been cut like a stag.’
‘Oh, he was.’ Gil drew the overturned folds of the matting further. ‘He bled to death. No that he could ha been saved, by what Pierre says, but he needn’t a been left to
die alone. Look at this, though, Tib. Would you say these two stains were the same age?’
‘What would that mean if they were?’ She bent closer. ‘Anyway, they areny. That’s nearly fresh, and this is going brown. Socrates, get off. Leave it!’
‘That’s what I thought. And it doesny go right through the matting the way the fresh one does. Are there more like the older one?’ He shifted the folds again, and Tib pounced,
just ahead of the dog.
‘There! And there’s another.’
‘And here,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘is one where the fresh one crosses the older one.’
‘So what does that tell you?’ she asked, straightening up. Socrates, finally unimpeded, blew relentlessly across the stained squares.
‘It tells me why Hob was killed.’
‘Why?’
‘For doing what he was paid to do,’ said Gil grimly. He sat back on his heels, rubbing at his palm where the braided rushes had left their mark, then paused, staring at his hand. The
impression on the skin was ridged and furrowed, like ploughland left to grazing, like a rope binding. ‘And it tells me more than that,’ he said after a moment. He pushed the dog away,
drew the layers of matting on top of one another and lifted one end. ‘Give me a hand to put this back under cover, Tib. I’ll need to take it to the quest, but first I’ll need to
get a word wi the Sheriff.’
The interview with the Sheriff did not take long. Sir Thomas was distracted by a demand from his overlord the Archbishop for some information which he was sure had already been
sent, and agreed to Gil’s request without undue argument.
‘Could it be in the press there, Walter? If your notion clarifies the business so the assize brings in the right verdict, maister, I suppose it’s worth the time,’ he said,
flapping a hand at his clerk. ‘Take a note o that, Walter. We’ll take the two quests thegither and hear all the evidence, and the same assize will do for both.’
‘It should save time, Sir Thomas,’ commented the clerk, reaching for the tablets hung at his waist. ‘It’s all called for noon, the Serjeant says, and a sound assize
assembled.’
‘Aye, likely,’ said Sir Thomas, rather muffled, his head in the wall-cupboard. ‘Walter, I canny see that docket. I’ll swear it went to my lord last month. You have a
look, man.’
Gil removed himself. After a word with the journey-man Thomas in the masons’ lodge in the building site by St Mungo’s, he extracted Maistre Pierre from its snug shelter and led him
round to the little chapel in Vicars’ Alley.
‘But what do we do here?’ complained his prospective father-in-law. ‘We were here last evening and there is no more to be seen in a place this size.’
‘That’s what you think.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Maistre Pierre eyed the space beyond the chancel arch, where the clerks had finished Sext and disrobed, and were now engaged in their endless tidying round the altar.
Gil ignored him, cast along the western wall of the nave until he found the marks he had noticed before, and stepped back, peering up into the rafters past the wreaths and votive objects.
‘It should be about there, I think,’ he said. ‘Pierre, could you give me a leg up here? Or make a back, or something,’ he added, recalling belatedly that his companion
had been injured barely three months earlier and was not fully recovered.
‘Eh? What have you found?’ Maistre Pierre came forward to stare upwards beside him. ‘I see nothing but shadows up there.’
‘I agree, but shadows can hide a lot.’ Gil tried jumping for the nearest of the painted crossbeams, but missed. ‘I’m a handspan short – make a back,’ he
requested again. The mason bent obligingly and Gil scrambled on to his broad back, and pulled himself up to perch on the beam above him. It creaked in complaint, and the laths under the thatch
rustled and cracked.
‘How old is this roof?’ wondered Maistre Pierre, straightening up to watch.
‘Who knows? Not too old to support me, I hope.’
Each of the crossbeams was the base of a triangular structure with two uprights in it, so that there were three spaces, one large enough for a man to pass and two small ones. Gil moved
cautiously to the mid-space of the next beam. Wads of dust fell, scattering on a withered wreath of hawthorn leaves, and below him the mason stepped smartly aside. The building looked quite
different from this perspective, and the smells of old incense, damp stone and damp thatch were overwhelming. Next to him was the beam nearest the wall-plate; directly below were the marks the
handcart had made on the wall and flagstones.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded a voice from the chancel arch. ‘Sir John, thieves! Thieves in the kirk!’ Hasty footsteps echoed.
‘Fetching something,’ Gil returned, reaching into the shadowy triangular space across from him. His hand met only bare wood. Incredulous, he groped the length of the space, and
nearly overbalanced, saving himself by snatching at the upright beside him.
‘There’s nothing there.’ A different voice. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Something we left here,’ improvised Maistre Pierre.
‘A cloak and hat.’ Gil pushed himself back into a stable position and looked down. The priest, a tubby balding man in a rusty black gown, was staring up at him, his two acolytes
beyond at the chancel arch. A black cloak,’ he expanded, ‘with a lot of braid about it, and a velvet hat.’
‘Oh, aye. I took it for a donation at first,’ said the priest a little sadly. ‘Then I kent the badge on the cloak. You wouldny care to purchase it back, maister? It’d go
to the lepers,’ he explained. ‘I could buy them blankets. They’re right cold at this time of year, the souls.’
‘I will certainly do so,’ said Maistre Pierre, patting his purse.
‘And I,’ said Gil. He dropped down from the roof and began brushing dust from his hose. ‘Tell me, sir, you leave the chapel unlocked?’
‘Aye, we do. The chancel gate has a good key.’ Gil glanced beyond the man, but the cast-iron yett was not visible in the shadows. ‘We leave that locked, so none can get in and
steal the Host, but folk can aye come in here for a wee word if they wish it.’
‘And these garments. When did you find them, sir?’
‘Monday it would be,’ said one of the clerks, a skinny youth in an oversized jerkin. ‘You saw them after Terce, Sir John.’
‘Aye, that would be it,’ agreed Sir John. ‘As soon as it was light. You’d left yir bundle well enough hid,’ he said, ‘but for a corner hanging down, and it
just catched the light coming in that window there.’ He turned away. ‘It’s in the cope-kist. Come and I’ll gie it you.’
‘But Sir John,’ said the other clerk, a smaller darker man still lurking within the chancel. The priest paused, looking at him. ‘How do we ken it’s theirs?’ he
objected. ‘It hasny a name on it, only the badge.’
‘Nobody else has come looking for it,’ pointed out the priest, ‘and this fellow gaed straight to the place it was hid. Why did you hide it there, anyway?’
Gil looked at him, hesitated, and admitted, ‘It wasny me that hid it.’ The tubby man eyed him expectantly. ‘If you ken the badge, maister, you’ve maybe guessed who put it
there.’
‘What’s he saying, Sir John?’ demanded the second clerk. ‘Will I call for the Serjeant? Is it thieved goods right enough?’
Several expressions crossed Sir John’s plump face. Puzzlement, understanding, surprise followed one another, and finally a wary look descended.
‘And what’s it to do wi you? I’ve seen you round the Consistory tower. You’re that nephew of David Cunningham’s, aren’t you no? What are you wanting wi the
cloak, then?’
‘It’s wanted for the quest this noon,’ said Maistre Pierre, breaking a long silence.
‘What, about Hob next door?’ said the first acolyte.