Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘There was quite a crowd when he was found, then,’ he said.
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Nick Kennedy sourly. ‘The whole house of them was here, and Sissie Mudie as well, all standing round arguing what to do next. And us and all,’ he
added.
Gil nodded, still looking at the garden. ‘Pierre, how much can we learn if we examine him before he softens, do you think?’
‘Likely we can see the wound,’ the mason said, straightening his back carefully. ‘There will be no stripping him before tomorrow, I should say, unless we cut the clothes from
him, but we can look at his hands and such matters.’
‘His – his hands?’ echoed Millar. ‘Why do you want to see his hands? They’re clean enough. What can you learn from that?’
‘Then I think we’d best get him in out of the rain. Maister Millar, is there a cart or something of the sort stowed away, that we could move him on, or should we try to lift him by
his gown between us?’
‘I – I –’ began Millar.
‘Sissie might have such a thing,’ prompted Maister Kennedy.
‘I’ll go ask her,’ volunteered Lowrie, and hurried off through the drizzle without waiting for a reply.
‘You could get a closer look at him under cover, Pierre,’ Gil prompted, ‘and I’ll cast about this place where he’s lying before it gets any wetter. And then
we’d best start asking questions.’
Maistre Pierre nodded morosely, and pushed the hood of his heavy cloak back a little so he could see the sky.
‘Wetter it assuredly will be,’ he said. Gil looked from his friend to the body.
‘Where’s his hat?’ he said suddenly. ‘He’s bareheaded.’
‘I was wondering that,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘And how about a cloak and all?’
‘He aye wears – wore a cloak,’ said Millar. ‘His bedehouse cloak. Like – like mine, only with the Deacon’s braid on. And a velvet hat wi a brim.’
‘We need to find those,’ said Gil. ‘We’ll need to make a search. Michael, could you – Michael? Where is he?’
‘He came out behind me,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Has he slipped away?’
‘I’ll find him later,’ said Gil. ‘Maister Millar, I believe you should be present while the body is examined.’ Millar grimaced, and clutched his cloak tighter round
him, but nodded agreement. ‘Nick, when must you and these fellows be back at the college? Have you time to spare?’
‘I need to get down the road,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘The joys of Peter of Spain are waiting for the bachelors at nine o’clock, though I dare say they’d not be
sorry either if I missed their lecture. But Lowrie and Michael could stay and gie you a hand, Gil, if they’re any use, for I ken they’ve no lectures till eleven this day.’
There was a rumbling and clattering in the passageway through the main range. Socrates growled warily, his hackles rising. ‘Quiet,’ Gil said to him, as a woman’s voice joined
the sounds. Lowrie appeared, pushing a small handcart and hindered by a stout woman bundled in a blue checked plaid over her black gown and white linen headdress, who trotted beside him exclaiming
in annoyance all the way down the path.
‘It’s no right, he should be washed and made decent, what need have you to meddle wi the corp anyhow? Maister Millar, can you no put a stop to this? It’s no right at all, my
old men are fair owerset wi it, the souls, keeping him lying out here in the rain like this, and standing about staring at him –’
Millar turned to look at her, opening and closing his mouth like a carp in a pond, but failed to produce any sound. Maister Kennedy gave him a moment, then broke in:
‘Deacon Naismith’s been stabbed, Sissie, no dropped down with a seizure. We need to find who killed him. Here’s Maister Cunningham, that’s Robert Blacader’s man and
responsible for finding out what we can. He needs a sight of the place where it happened, afore we can do anything at all wi the corp. And I’d say your old men wereny greatly harmed by the
excitement,’ he added, glancing at the windows of the hall, where a row of elderly faces peered avidly out at them.
‘This is not where it happened,’ said Maistre Pierre authoritatively. Gil nodded, but everyone else stared at him. Mistress Mudie recovered first.
‘Well, if that’s so, we can take him in-by, out this rain, and make him decent,’ she proposed. ‘At least somebody wi a sense o what’s right has closed his een, but
what prayers he’s had I canny tell, what wi you heathens poking and prodding at him, no better than Saracens –’
With some difficulty, the body was hoisted on to the cart and wheeled away by Maistre Pierre and Andrew Millar, with Mistress Mudie hurrying behind them like a sheepdog, talking unceasingly
about the washhouse, the laying-out board and the bedehouse mort-cloth. Maister Kennedy watched them go, then glanced automatically at the unhelpful grey sky and said to Gil, ‘I’d best
lift my gear from the chapel and be away down the road. Come by the college and find me when you get a chance, and I’ll tell you what I can.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Gil agreed.
‘Make it an hour when I’m no teaching,’ Maister Kennedy added, ‘and we’ll try a jug of the new Malvoisie.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Gil said, grinning. His friend nodded, and strode off, leaving Lowrie Livingstone standing by the gate to the Stablegreen.
‘What are we looking for, maister?’ he asked.
‘Anything out of place,’ Gil answered, noting the pronoun with interest. He hunkered down again and confirmed for himself Maistre Pierre’s finding that the grass was no more
than damp where the corpse had lain, then leaned forward to sniff at the flattened blades. Lowrie had stepped back along the wall, away from the gate, and was looking along its length, fair head on
one side.
‘You said,’ he continued, elaborately casual, ‘that is, Maister Mason said, he died yesternight. Or after sunset, anyhow. Is that sure?’
‘He was well set.’
‘Mm.’ Lowrie walked cautiously round the yew-tree and looked at the scene from the other end. ‘He couldny have set quicker for some reason? Does that happen?’
Gil sat back on his heels and looked at the younger man.
‘Possible,’ he admitted, ‘but unlikely. How much quicker?’
‘And you thought he might not have died here.’
‘That’s for certain,’ Gil said. ‘Even with all the trampling there’s been, the traces are clear enough, or the lack of them. There’s never a drop of blood on
the grass, nor any trace of where he voided himself as he died, though his hose stank of it and his gown was up round his waist. And I can see no sign of either hat or cloak.’
‘I see.’ Lowrie looked about him. ‘You think he was carried here? When?’
‘That’s what I have to work out.’
‘None of these footprints is deep enough for someone carrying something.’
‘That’s what worries me.’ Gil got to his feet and stepped across the Deacon’s resting-place. ‘He can hardly have flown here, before or after death, unless he was
some kind of saint.’
‘No,’ said Lowrie, in positive tones. ‘That he wasny.’ He was surveying the gate now, peering closely at its interlaced iron straps. ‘This was locked. It still
is.’ Gil grunted. ‘And that was sometime yesternight he was put here, you think?’
‘All we can say the now,’ said Gil, ‘is that it was between whatever time he was killed and the time he was found.’
‘But do we ken when he was killed?’
‘Not yet.’
‘How will you find who killed him, then?’
‘By asking questions.’ Gil stood up. ‘Let’s go in out of the rain. I wonder what Pierre has discovered from the corp?’
Socrates was sniffing intently at the door of one of the little houses, but when Gil whistled he came to join him with an amiable grin. Lowrie offered his hand for inspection, then followed Gil
into the main range, slipping past him to open the heavy wooden door to the outer yard. As it swung open, the sound of raised voices met their ears.
‘I canny believe it! Let me see my brother, he must –’
‘– no the now, it’s no suitable, they’ll go to offer prayers for him in a –’
Andrew Millar was standing by the chapel door, in lively discussion with Mistress Mudie and a stocky man in legal dress whom Gil had often seen about the Consistory tower. Noticing him emerge
from the main range, Millar said in relief, ‘Here’s Gil Cunningham, that’s the man that’s dealing wi it. Maister Cunningham, here’s Humphrey’s brother, Maister
Thomas Agnew, wanting to know what’s going on.’
‘– and I canny have him talking to Humphrey the now, I’ll not answer for it if his brother gets him worked up again, the soul –’
‘I know you,’ said Agnew. ‘David Cunningham’s nephew, aren’t you no? Is it you that’s to be married soon? What’s been happening here?’
‘The Deacon’s dead,’ said Gil baldly. ‘Taken up dead in the garden this morning. It seems as if he’s been stabbed.’
‘Stabbed?’ repeated Agnew in amazement. ‘That’s what Millar said and all, but I thought surely – who would do a thing like that? I hope no my brother,’ he
said anxiously.
‘– and what kind of a brother would make a suggestion like that about a poor soul like Humphrey, I’d like to know –’
‘Humphrey’s been as vexed as any of them,’ Millar reassured him. ‘I canny think it was him, Maister Agnew. And it’s no a good moment to speak to him, for
they’re about to go to Terce and Sext and then they’ll say extra prayers for the Deacon, as Sissie says, and keeping the Office hours aye calms him.’
‘Oh, aye, I suppose,’ said Agnew reluctantly. ‘And when did it happen? Naismith was wi me yestreen, but he left me after an hour. That’s the last I spoke to
him.’
‘It must have been this morn,’ said Millar before Gil could speak, ‘or maybe in the night, for he was in his own lodgings when I came home about ten o’clock, and I canny
think how it could have happened. Because,’ he added to Gil, ‘it’s just come to me, the door here.’ He waved at the door Gil had just stepped through. ‘I locked it
when I came in and went to my own bed, and it was locked just as usual this morn when we came through to say Matins. Deacon Naismith had a key on his ring, but –’
‘Locked?’ said Agnew. ‘You mean this door’s aye locked at night?’
‘– in course it is, and the gate locked at the other end of the garden, some of these poor souls would be away down paddling in the Girth Burn if they wereny watched at night, your
own brother’s one of them, he’d a bad turn yestreen just after I’d got Anselm settled, he must have sung me out half the Apocalypse before I got the sleeping-draught down him
–’
‘That’s a relief to hear, Mistress Mudie,’ said Agnew warmly. ‘D’you ken, I don’t think Maister Naismith ever told me that. It’s a great comfort to me,
mistress, that you’ve such a close eye to my brother.’
Mistress Mudie smiled at that, and the light, catching one plump cheek, showed a dimple that came and went. She crossed her arms below her comfortable bosom, the movement shedding a waft of a
strong herbal smell Gil could not place, and rattled on.
‘– no more than my duty when all’s said and done, but I’ve a liking to your brother, maister, he’s a poor creature just like the others –’
‘So what’s ado, Maister Cunningham?’Agnew asked. ‘Millar tells me you’re looking into this for Robert Blacader.’
Gil admitted this.
‘I’ve not had time to learn much so far,’ he added. ‘The man was found stabbed this morn, and we know he was home last night –’
‘Aye,’ agreed Millar, nodding earnestly.
‘– and that’s about it. Might I come by and talk to you later?’ he asked.
‘To me?’ Agnew’s brows rose under his legal bonnet.
‘You may have been the last to speak to him,’ Gil pointed out. I hope you might be able to tell me something useful.’
‘I don’t see that,’ said Agnew dubiously. ‘If you ken he was here after he saw me –’
‘– no doubt of that, his boots going up and down over my head, never troubled to put his house shoon on his feet, and when that man’ll be done in the wash-house I canny tell, I
haveny all day to wait to lay him out, and I’ve still to put his chamber straight, what wi seeing to that stramash and finding the barrow, and answering Frankie’s kin that’s home
from sea, that was here looking for the Deacon as well, though I canny see how he didny tell the lad himself, the dinner will be late if I canny get on –’
‘None the less,’ persisted Gil, ‘I’d be glad of a word. Will you be in your own chamber in the Consistory later today?’
The washhouse was one of the outhouses leaning against the north wall of the yard. Led to it by Mistress Mudie in full tongue, they found the Deacon laid on a board balanced
across two of the great washtubs, his outstretched right arm pointing accusingly at the rafters. Maistre Pierre, a lantern in his hand, was carefully examining so much of the corpse as he could in
its present rigid state, but looked up as they entered.
‘Ah, Gilbert, there you are,’ he said, and nodded to Lowrie. ‘We have got the gown off him at least, which gives us a
better look at the rest.’
‘– never have tolerated such a thing for any of the bedesmen, why any Christian soul should have to put up with it for himself I canny tell –’ said Mistress Mudie behind
Gil.
‘What have you found?’ Gil asked.
‘He had been drinking,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Not to excess, I am not suggesting he was drunk, but he had taken a refreshment. Also his supper, which one may clearly see was
kale with lentils and meat of some sort.’
‘Sweet St Giles,’ said Gil. ‘Can you tell me the vintage of the wine?’
‘No,’ said Maistre Pierre regretfully, ‘though I think it was fortified. The smell is still in his mouth, very faint. Try for yourself.’
Gil bent, quelling his distaste, and sniffed at the open mouth. The cold lips and ginger-bristled jaw were still wet with rain and smelled of the man’s stale breath, and a faint scent of
the yew-tree under which the corpse had lain clung to the flesh, but there was also an intimation of alcohol, the treacly savour of a fortified wine. Malvoisie, perhaps, he thought, or sack or that
stuff from Xerez. A lentil, fragments of dark green matter and a wisp of meat clung unpleasantly to the back teeth in the lantern-light.
‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘And his death?’
‘Stabbed,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘as I surmised. See.’ He turned back the blood-stiffened folds of cloth fastidiously, exhibiting the wounds on the fleshy torso.
‘This one, and this, have bled quite badly, but I think this is the one that reached the heart.’