The Merchant's Mark (12 page)

‘Hmf,’ said Babb, getting between the mule and the cart.

‘No, let him see it go past, or he’ll think it’s still waiting for him.’ Babb let go the reins but took hold of the animal’s bridle. He turned his head into her
grasp, attempting to bite. ‘Deil take you, Babb,’ Kate exploded, ‘will you let me ride my own mule?’

‘Oh, I will, my doo,’ said Babb innocently, ‘just as soon as he’s minding you.’

‘Andy has gone up that vennel,’ said Alys over her shoulder. Wallace flicked his ears towards her voice, then suddenly decided the cart was not a threat and moved on, tugging at
Babb’s grasp on his bridle, to follow Alys into the vennel. Two doors down, Andy was waiting for them under a crudely painted sign: a boar with curling white tusks.

‘Will the mule be safe here?’ said Kate doubtfully, as she became aware of curious neighbours appearing in doorways.

‘Aye, if I stay wi him,’ said Babb, helping her down. She handed over the crutches, one by one, and took hold of the bridle again. ‘You go wi Andy, Lady Kate, and be sure and
mind what he says. And the same for you, mistress,’ she added sternly to Alys, who smiled quickly and followed Andy into the tavern. Kate adjusted her grip on her crutches and swung after
her.

There was one crowded room. By the door, near the barrel of ale on its trestle, groups of people stood about or sat on stools or benches, discussing the day’s work in loud voices. Beyond
them some were eating at a long table, and at the far end of the room a peat fire glowed in a brazier and a woman was stirring something in a big cooking-pot hung from an iron crane. The flagstone
floor had not been swept that day. As the smells and voices hit her, Kate realized with some relief that there were other women in the place apart from the cook. One of them was saying, across the
noise, ‘Yir tavern’s fairly coming on, Mattha. There’s the gentry come calling now.’

A grey-haired man in a tavern-keeper’s apron bustled forward from beside the big barrel, peering intently at their faces.

‘And how can I help ye, leddies?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘What’s your will of the house, then? We’ve a barrel of good ale, broached just yesterday, and a wee tait o
the twice-brewed from last week, and a pot of mutton broth on the cran, wi barley and onions in’t,’ he recited, still watching them carefully. Kate, testing the manifold odours of the
place, identified all these, and wondered if there were turnips in the broth as well.

‘Aye, Mattha,’ said Andy. ‘I sent the boy down no an hour ago to ask about the puncheon.’

‘Oh, aye, Andy Paterson, so ye did,’ said the other man, his suspicions obviously borne out. ‘What was it ye wanted about it?’

‘I’d like to look at it,’ said Alys, smiling at him. He looked at her blankly. ‘Was that not why you bought it? So that people would come into your tavern to see
it?’

‘There you are, Mattha,’ said a bystander in jocular tones. ‘It’s fetching folk in already.’

‘It’s no much to see, mistress,’ said a man seated near Kate. ‘It’s just an ordinary barrel. No even any bloodstains.’

‘It’s my belief it’s the wrong barrel,’ said the stout woman with him. ‘It’d no be the first time Mattha Hog cried up wares he never had.’

‘It is the right barrel an all, Eppie!’ said Hog indignantly. ‘I bought it off the serjeant afore ever I left the castle this morning, and fetched it home myself on Willie
Sproat’s donkey-cart. You tell her it’s the right barrel, Andy Paterson!’

‘I canny tell her that,’ said Andy reasonably, ‘till I set my own een on it. So where is it, Mattha?’

‘Aye, bring it out, Mattha,’ said the man with Eppie. ‘Let’s all hear what he has to say.’

Kate, standing back on her crutches, watched as the barrel was handled out from behind the trestle. The bystanders fell silent, though the noise in the room was not much diminished. Andy bent to
look at the marks on the staves, muttering names to himself, and then took the barrel-head from Hog and tilted it to the light from the door.

‘Well?’ demanded its owner.

‘Oh, aye,’ said Andy sourly. ‘It’s the same puncheon I opened yesterday morn. Ye can see where I set the hook to the withies.’

‘It was you that opened it?’ said a younger woman hopefully. ‘And what all was in it? Was it a Saracen’s head? And is that right there was treasure?’

The last word fell into a break in the noise, and heads turned. Kate, watching, had a glimpse of a face on the edge of her vision which seemed to be familiar, but when she looked round the room
she could not see it.

‘What was in here,’ said Andy, ‘all went up to the castle. The Sheriff kens all.’

‘Aye, right,’ said someone else, with irony.

There was general laughter, and Hog said, ‘Is that it, then? You’ve seen it, lassie. Can I put it by now?’

‘In a moment,’ said Alys. She opened her purse, at which Hog looked hopeful, but all she drew out was a white cloth, which she unwrapped to disclose a small flask.

‘What’s that?’ demanded Hog, all his suspicion returned. ‘It’s no holy water, is it?’

‘No, no,’ said Alys soothingly, and drew the stopper. ‘Only well-water.’ She tilted the flask so that water ran on to the cloth, then bent over the puncheon as Andy had
done.

‘What are you doing now?’ said Hog, alarmed, ‘I’m no wanting it washed!’ He tried to pull the barrel away, but Andy prevented him with a firm grip of the rim.

‘What are you after, mistress?’ asked the man with Eppie. ‘Is it bloodstains you’re looking for?’

Alys, intent on her work, did not answer him.

‘Gold dust, likely,’ offered the girl who had asked about treasure.

‘What, on the outside?’ said someone else.

Kate, looking about the room again, found the bystanders had shifted. The familiar face was still hidden, but this time she could see the back of its owner’s shaggy, sandy head, the
shoulders hunched uncomfortably away from her where he sat at the long table. Who, she wondered, was Billy Walker talking to in this tavern? She turned carefully, so that she could keep an
unobtrusive watch in that direction, but a squat man in a patched red doublet kept getting in her way and all she could establish was that it was someone large, wrapped in a dark cloak despite
being seated close to the fire.

‘And may I see the head?’ said Alys. Andy lifted it for her, and balanced it on the rim of the puncheon; she folded her damp cloth again and began dabbing at the planks, paying
careful attention to the joints and the edges.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Hog again. Alys finished, and unfolded the cloth and held it up. It was a piece of old table linen, much-mended and bleached white, and even this far
from the door the dark smudges were clearly visible on the diaper weave.

‘Is that blood?’ said the treasure-seeker eagerly.

‘No, not blood,’ said Alys. ‘Logwood. The cart lay one night in a dyer’s barn on the way home, we are told, and the carter complained he had logwood stains on his
hose.’

‘So what’s that tell us?’

‘Tells them the barrel was on the cart,’ said Eppie.

‘We knew that,’ said Andy.

‘Billy Walker was right,’ said Alys. Kate, glancing down the room again, found that the squat man had moved. Billy’s sandy head turned sharply as he picked his own name out of
the conversation, and the cloaked man opposite him looked up. Kate had a glimpse of a broad, flat, big-featured face with a tuft of beard on the lower lip; then the man’s eyes met hers, and
he smiled. She looked away quickly, a sudden trickle of fear running down her spine.

‘Have ye seen enough, mistress?’ demanded Hog.

‘I have, indeed,’ said Alys. ‘Thank you, Maister Hog.’

She opened her purse again, and this time a coin changed hands. Hog, looking less surly, twirled his property away behind the tapped barrel, and returning went so far as to say, ‘And thank
you, mistress. Ye’ll aye be welcome in Mattha Hog’s tavern, and I hope you’ll tell all your gossips what’s here.’

‘Oh, be sure of that, Maister Hog,’ said Alys with a sweet smile. Kate bit her lip appreciatively, and turned towards the door as Andy began the task of shepherding his two charges
out of the tavern.

There was some disturbance behind them, movement in the press of people, and exclamations of annoyance, but intent on making her way out without setting her crutches down on any of the feet Kate
did not look round. She was unprepared, therefore, for the man who pushed roughly past her, putting her off balance. Recovering herself, she was aware of Eppie’s indignant shouting, and of a
shaggy head against the light in the doorway; then something struck her right crutch a heavy blow. It gave way under her, and she went sideways on to an acrid lap, and then as its owner, too,
overbalanced they both went sprawling. There was more shouting, an exclamation from Alys, a furious bellow from Andy.

‘Are ye hurt, lassie?’ said a voice nearer her ear. ‘Only if my wife was to hear o this, I’ll get her rock about my ears when I get home the night.’

She pushed herself up, embarrassed, then moved her hand hastily and apologized.

‘Oh, never apologize for that,’ said the man, grinning, and heaved himself back up on to his stool. ‘Can ye rise?’

‘Are ye hurt?’ said someone else. ‘What did he do to ye? Was that an axe he had?’

‘I can’t get up my lone,’ she admitted furiously. ‘My leg –’

‘An axe?’ said Andy, hauling ineffectively at Kate’s shoulders. ‘Did somebody say an axe? What did he do wi it? Was that Billy Walker I seen? Surely he never had an
axe!’

‘Has he cut her leg off?’ said the treasure-seeker.

‘Fetch Babb,’ said Kate urgently, knocking Andy’s hands away, and scrambled round into a sitting position. ‘Andy, get Babb here to me.’

But Babb was already there, elbowing people aside, ranting angrily about Andy’s lack of care.

‘As for you, my leddy,’ she said furiously, getting a capable grip as Kate reached up to link her arms round her neck, ‘you’ve no the sense you was born wi, coming into a
dirty place like this where folks has no more courtesy than knock down a lassie off her oxter-poles.’

She hoisted, with practised ease, and set her mistress upright.

‘It was Billy Walker,’ said Andy, dusting at Kate’s sleeve. Alys appeared anxiously at the doorway, with Wallace’s soft enquiring nose beside her. ‘Did he hurt you,
my leddy?’

‘It couldny ha been one of my customers,’ claimed Hog in haste. ‘I never seen him afore he was in here this day.’

‘It was a great big man wi an axe,’ said Eppie, ‘for I seen it catch the light all blue. An axe on a long haft. What did he do wi it, lassie?’

‘He knocked my pole from under me,’ said Kate shakily, accepting one of her crutches from Andy.

‘She’s complaining o her leg,’ said the man she had fallen on, dusting himself down.

‘And why should she no,’ said Babb, still angry, ‘when it’s never worked since she was six years of age? And St Mungo himself refusing to do anything for her
–’

‘Babb!’ said Kate.

‘Oh, are ye
that
lassie?’ said Eppie. ‘We was all hoping the saint would listen to ye, with them letting ye in for the night. I was heart sorry to hear it never worked,
hen.’

‘You’re kind,’ said Kate. Someone handed her the other crutch, and she set it to the floor.
‘Oh!’

‘What now?’ said Babb, and stared in astonishment with her.

The padded top of the crutch, which should lodge neatly under Kate’s arm, barely reached above her waist. Kate upended the thing to look at the other end, and several people exclaimed
around her. Instead of the metal-shod tip which still graced its pair, the shaft ended in raw wood, half cut, half splintered.

‘Would ye look at that!’ said the man she had fallen on.

‘I tellt ye he had an axe,’ said Eppie triumphantly.

‘It could have been a dear sight worse, my leddy,’ said Ursel forthrightly, handing Kate a beaker of spiced ale.

They were in the kitchen at Morison’s Yard, a stone structure down the slope next to the timber-framed house. It was far less gloomy and better cared-for than the hall. Cooking-crocks and
metal pans were ranged on a set of shelves, a small spice-chest stood on another set among crocks of dried fruit, the wooden bowls and platters the men ate off were stacked neatly in a rack near
the fire. Babb had brought Kate in there, at Ursel’s urgent invitation, as being the most comfortable place in the house, and the old woman had immediately set a jug of ale to warm, with
spices to lift the spirits, as she said.

‘So I thought too,’ said Alys. ‘When I saw Babb, here, carry you out of the tavern, I truly feared for you. It was a great relief to find you were not injured.’

‘I should never ha taken yez,’ said Andy from the doorway. He came into the kitchen, accepted ale from Ursel and sat down on a stool. ‘Your mule’s stabled, Lady Kate,
alongside the old mare. Where are those bairns, Ursel?’

‘That lassie Jennet that Mistress Mason sent down,’ said Ursel, nodding at Alys, ‘she’s taken them away up to wash them and redd up a bit, to let me see to my kitchen.
She’s a good worker, mistress.’

‘She is,’ agreed Alys, ‘and has five sisters, so she can deal with bairns.’

‘We’ll see if she can deal wi these bairns,’ said Andy sceptically. ‘And what about yersel, Lady Kate? I should never have let the pair of you into that place,’ he
repeated. ‘I kent from the minute you asked me about the barrel, mistress, there would be trouble.’

‘But nobody was hurt,’ said Alys. ‘Kate has sent up to Rottenrow for her spare crutches, and the broken one can be replaced. And Our Lady be praised,’ she added to Kate,
‘that I do not have to tell Gil you were hurt about something I started.’

‘I should have gone myself,’ said Andy obstinately. ‘You could have tellt me what you wanted. And what were you about, anyway, mistress? What did we achieve wi that? Was there
anything on your wee bit cloth?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Alys opened her purse and drew out the cloth, unfolding it to exhibit the blue-purple streaks on the white diaper. ‘See, there was certainly logwood dust in the
joints of the barrel-head, and also lodged in the hoops.’

‘So that barrel was at the dyer’s yard,’ said Andy.