The Merchant's Mark (18 page)

‘Past twenty but not thirty years, short dark hair, one ear pierced,’ said Maistre Pierre concisely, ‘and odd-coloured eyes. One blue eye, one brown.’

‘Nobody we ken,’ said Riddoch quickly. His wife looked down at him, opened her mouth, closed it again.

‘You’re sure of that?’ said Gil. ‘Mistress? Would you ken anyone like that?’

‘N-no,’ she said. ‘No. Nobody like that.’

‘Nobody we ken,’ repeated Riddoch. ‘Was there aught else with the head?’

‘What should there be?’ asked Gil, and the cooper looked wary.

‘Nothing, maybe. Just I wondered if there was, well, any more of him, or any of his gear perhaps, that might tell you who he was, Christ assoil him.’ He crossed himself again, and
his wife and Maistre Pierre did likewise.

‘Maister,’ said Gil, ‘consider what we have found. The barrel that was missing off Maister Morison’s cart has appeared in your barn, empty.’

‘And has been there for no more than a few days, it is obvious,’ put in Maistre Pierre.

‘There is a great patch of dried blood on the cobbles in the yard.’

‘Blood?’ repeated Mistress Riddoch. ‘Where? What –’ She looked down at her husband again, and bit her lip.

‘Under the pile of shavings, at the end of the barn,’ said Gil. ‘Socrates, here, found it when Simmie swept it clear.’ Socrates’ ears twitched at the mention of his
name, but he kept his head pointedly averted from his master. ‘And I’d like another word with Simmie, maister,’ he added to the cooper.

‘He’s away an errand,’ said Riddoch. ‘He’ll be an hour or so, if ye can wait.’ His wife turned her head sharply to look at him. ‘Himself wanted a word
carried out-bye,’ he muttered, in response to the question in her eyes. She pursed her mouth, and turned to Gil again.

‘A pile of shavings by the barn? But Riddoch never lets the men keep it there, for fear of fire. It’s only sense.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed Gil. ‘So who first moved the heap from its usual place?’

‘It doesny have a usual place,’ she said. Her husband sat silent. ‘The men just sweep up where there are the most scraps.’

‘And the barrel that reached Glasgow,’ pursued Gil, ‘contained a man’s head.’ He studied Mistress Riddoch for a moment. ‘When did you last put up salt fish,
mistress?’

She jumped as if he had struck her, and one hand rose to cover her mouth.

‘Tuesday,’ she said. ‘It was late for the quarter-day, but himself had never sent for the rent. I had two baskets of herring off Lizzie Cowan on Tuesday morn, and just in
time.’ She lowered the hand, and her husband put up his own to grasp it. ‘I made the brine on Monday, sirs. It stood in the vat in the storehouse overnight, to let the sand settle, and
the barrels washed and waiting beside it.’ She looked down at Riddoch. ‘I said I was one short in the morning, Riddoch, didn’t I? I kent we’d washed six.’

‘You did, lass,’ agreed her husband heavily.

‘Was the storehouse locked?’ asked the mason.

‘No, no.’ She laughed nervously. ‘Who’d steal an empty barrel?’

‘Quite so,’ said Gil. ‘And it was Monday night there was the disturbance in the yard.’

‘But Morison’s own man said the thief got away!’ said Riddoch.

‘He did, didn’t he,’ said Gil. ‘I think I need to talk to Morison’s man.’

‘This is not the way we came,’ said Maistre Pierre. He looked out over the low hills towards the Forth and waved an arm. ‘We are going east.’

‘That’s right, it’s the way to Roslin,’ said Gil. Behind them rode the three men, deep in an argument about football. Socrates was ranging round the party, inspecting the
scents of the neighbourhood and carefully ignoring his master.

‘And why are we going to Roslin? I thought you wanted to speak to Maister Morison’s carter, whatever his name is.’

‘Billy He’ll keep, I hope, though we do need to question him. We’re going to Roslin because Riddoch paid his rent this morning, in barrels of salt herring.’

The mason eyed him resentfully for a few strides, then continued, ‘And where are your books, do you suppose?’

‘They’ll be at Roslin too, I hope. With Oliver
li proz e li gentil.’
Gil turned in the saddle to interrupt the discussion behind them. ‘Did you learn any more in
the Black Bitch, Rob?’

‘No a lot, Maister Gil,’ admitted Rob.

‘The ale’s good,’ said Tam, grinning.

‘It’s been quiet since the court left,’ volunteered Luke, ‘but there’s been a wheen strangers in the place just the same.’

‘Would they notice strangers?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘A busy place like this?’

‘Aye, but I just said it’s been quiet, maister,’ Luke pointed out.

‘They noticed us,’ said Tam. ‘Brought out all the long tales. The serjeant’s boar run wild and slain two chickens, three geese and a dog, they said. Show me it, I said,
and they said, No, it hasny been seen for days. A likely tale. And the burgh muir’s haunted, there’s been a gathering of corbies over the hill behind the Whitefriars this week past,
there’s a black ship on the Forth if you see it you’ll be deid within the year –’

‘Aye, Andro Wood’s
Flower
,’ said Rob, to general laughter.

‘The corbies,’ said Gil. He shaded his eyes in his turn to peer into the light. ‘I had noticed them. A week, you said? And nobody took thought to look at what they’ve
found?’

‘This close to harvest and all?’ said Rob. ‘Naw.’

‘Surely a week is too long,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘What is it, Maister Gil?’ asked Tam. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking we can take that track we passed a quarter-mile back,’ said Gil. ‘It seems to go the right way.’

‘Where is Socrates?’ wondered the mason.

‘He went off after a rabbit. He’ll find us when he’s forgiven me,’ said Gil confidently.

He turned his horse and rode back the way they had come, whistling now and then for the dog. Behind him the men grew silent; at his side the mason appeared deep in thought.

The crows were clearly to be seen from the road, circling and dropping, spiralling up again, centred always round one particular patch on the hillside. Gil, following the track up through the
farmlands and past the stone buildings of the Carmelite friary, was reminded of the pillar of cloud.

‘So what have we learned?’ demanded Maistre Pierre, giving up the contest. Gil turned to look at him. ‘They denied all, the
tonnellier
and his wife, indeed he was an
example of how to be hospitable but taciturn. But did they in fact know all?’

‘Not all,’ said Gil, ‘but more than they admitted. They looked for the boy back sooner than this, they feared it might have been him in the barrel – they must be beside
themselves with worry, though they concealed it.’

‘But if Sinclair is involved, had he not told them what is afoot?’

‘I don’t think so. Or not all of it.’

‘Do you think Riddoch has guessed? Could he have told us his suspicions?’

‘In his place, I’d ask questions and keep my own counsel. He truly feared for his son, you noticed. And he asked what else was in the barrel, as if he expected there to be
something.’

‘And where has the boy been? His wife said, when I asked her, they had expected him on Monday. Where is he now? And who were the thieves?’

‘We need to find that out.’

‘I had a word with Maister Riddoch,’ divulged Maistre Pierre, ‘while you were writing down what his wife had seen.’

‘And they were very reluctant to talk to me separately. What did he say to you?’

‘He told me that one had arrived at his yard on Wednesday, asking about the carts that had lain there on Monday.’

‘What kind of a one? And only one? What prompted him to tell you this?’

‘I asked that also. He said, The Axeman, as if he expected me to know who that was. I said, What axeman, did he mean his man who was shaping staves, and he laughed as if I had uttered some
piece of bravado. So I asked what this axeman looked like, and he described a big ugly man, wearing black, and carrying a poleaxe maybe,’ he measured with both hands, ‘five foot long.
Which I suppose might mean it was four foot.’

‘A Lochaber axe? That’s a fighting man’s weapon – a mercenary, or someone’s man-at-arms. And this man was asking about the carts from Monday night,’ said Gil
thoughtfully. ‘Did Riddoch say what he told him?’

‘I understood,’ said Maistre Pierre, retrieving his reins, ‘that he told him what he has told us. One for Leith, one for Irvine and one for Glasgow, and the names of the
owners.’

They rode on, past a small farm-town whose barley was ripening in the field.

‘They’ll be shearing that soon, now they have the hay in,’ said Gil. He leaned down to listen to the grain, then went on in silence for a few minutes, reviewing the
conversation they had had with the cooper and his wife. ‘Provided Mistress Riddoch was not dreaming,’ he said at length, ‘we can assume that at least one man arrived at the yard
and was attacked by two or three others.’

‘Unless they fought among themselves.’

‘I suppose so. Anyway, I think it’s clear enough that one man was killed in that yard, probably by beheading, possibly by a Lochaber axe and probably not by Riddoch himself, and his
head put in a barrel of brine out of Mistress Riddoch’s brine-vat. I wonder who knew she had made brine that day?’

‘All the household, I suppose.’

‘Aye, but who else?’

‘And who sealed the barrel so expertly?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘That was done by a cooper – by a craftsman. Moreover, it is a noisy process. Riddoch showed me just now,
and I have seen it before. It should have woken Mistress Riddoch, if not her man.’

‘She dreamed about the men working.’

‘You mean she may have heard the noise, but not woken?’

‘Aye. And when she did wake, she saw someone in black carrying something long and heavy towards the gate.’

‘And you think that is what we seek just now.’ Maistre Pierre gestured towards the spiralling crows.

‘It could be.’

‘Or it could be a dead sheep.’

‘We still have no name for him.’

‘Oh – and another thing I learned while you were making your notes. I remarked, as by chance you understand, that we were seeking the musician. I gave both his names, and Mistress
Riddoch said, Oh, no, she had not seen Barty in the town for a week or two.’

‘So they did know a man with odd-coloured eyes. I rather thought so.’

‘She might not have been close enough to see his eyes,’ admitted the mason fairly, ‘but it is a very noticeable feature.’

‘If she knew him well enough to use his right name,’ said Gil, ‘she knew him enough to see the colour of his eyes. They are not good liars, either of them.’

‘Which makes it the more likely that they did not kill our man.’

‘True.’ Gil stopped talking while he persuaded his horse past a boulder which it seemed to find alarming. Once past, he continued, ‘I hope Andy has not carried out his threat
to dismiss Billy.’

‘The carter, you mean? Indeed, yes. What did Riddoch say of him just now? He offered to keep watch so the other carters might go drinking,’ Maistre Pierre recalled, itemizing the
points on one large hand, ‘he claimed to have seen only one man, improbably dressed for an evening’s thieving, running towards the gate, and he said nobody went near the
carts.’

‘I wonder how much we can believe?’

‘You said yourself, Riddoch is a poor liar.’

‘I have no doubt he reported truthfully,’ agreed Gil, ‘but were the words he reported the truth?’

‘They corbies is fair noisy,’ commented Rob from behind them. Gil looked up, and checked his horse.

‘They are,’ he agreed. ‘There’s no doubt they’ve found something. Can you work out where it’s lying?’

The crows were circling above a stand of trees, off the track and up to their right, with much cawing and croaking, but after they had all studied the movement of the birds for a time Maistre
Pierre said, ‘I think they come and go from behind that dyke yonder.’

‘And nane do ken that he lies there,’
said Gil. ‘I agree. If we stay a-horseback the birds won’t take fright, and we can keep the spot marked. Come on.’

‘Must we?’ muttered someone behind him.

Gil looked over his shoulder. ‘We’ll circle round,’ he said, ‘come down on it from upwind.’

This proved to be a necessary precaution. Even from upwind, the smell of death reached them several yards away.

‘Sweet St Giles,’ said Gil.

Luke gagged, and Rob said uneasily, ‘Likely it’s just a sheep, maister. Can we go now?’

‘Then sall erth of erth raise a foul stink.
You can get back out of range,’ said Gil, wadding his handkerchief over his nose. The mason said nothing, but dismounted and gave
his reins to Tam, who immediately led the animal away upwind. Two crows perched on the drystone wall watched with identical bright glares, and another flew up with something dangling from its long
vicious beak as the two men approached across the rough grass of the field.

There was a ditch below the dyke, over which the grass grew long. The crows and other creatures had trampled a narrow path through it into the ditch; something pale could just be seen in the
shadows, and the grasses themselves were spotted and specked with fragments, of flesh, of bristly skin. Gil pressed his handkerchief tighter against his nose, stepped forward and parted the grasses
with his boot.

They looked in silence at what lay there.

‘Poor devil,’ said Gil after a moment.

‘How long, would you say?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘There’s been a fox at his legs, would you say, as well as the crows. Four or five days would be about right.’

‘He is well blown,’ agreed his companion, considering the bloated belly. ‘I think so too. That would account for the time the crows are said to have been here. Well, there is
no more to be done.’ He backed away, and called over his shoulder, ‘We are both wrong, Rob. Neither a sheep nor a dead man, but a pig. A great boar, overturned in the ditch.’

They turned to tramp back across the rough grass to join the men. Rob said, ‘The burgh serjeant’s boar –’

‘Maister Gil!’ said Tam urgently. ‘Look yonder!’ He gestured at the stand of trees where the crows were still circling and cawing.