The Merchant's Mark (22 page)

‘That’s why Billy was so certain there should be another bag hid in the house,’ said Kate thoughtfully. ‘And you never learned his name, or anything about him? He never
mentioned any other names?’

Mall shut her eyes again, thinking.

‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘No that I recall. I canny mind clear.’ She sniffed, and managed a watery smile. ‘Oh, aye. There was one orra thing. He was saying
the Baptizer wanted his goods and gear back, and Maidie would help him. Was that no a strange thing to say?’

‘The Baptizer?’ Kate repeated. ‘St John Baptist, did he mean? Was it a joke, maybe? Was he talking about the man whose head was in the barrel?’

‘Maybe he was.’

‘And who might Maidie be?’ said Andy.

‘Oh, his strumpet, for certain,’ said Ursel grimly.

Mall shook her head. ‘I wouldny ken.’

‘Have you kin in Glasgow, Mall?’ said Alys from the doorway to the stairs.

The girl looked at her, while the question sank in. ‘My sister dwells in Greyfriars Wynd,’ she said drearily. ‘I lay there last night.’

‘I think you should go to her now. Andy, may one of the men take her there?’

‘No need to disturb the men, when they’re working,’ said Ursel grimly. ‘I can leave the dinner for now, mistress. I’ll see her to her sister’s door.’
She untied her apron and took her plaid down from its nail on the back of the door, saying with rough sympathy, ‘Come, lass. You’ll be best wi your kin the now.’

‘And Mall,’ said Kate urgently, ‘don’t say aught about the man with the axe.’ Mall, halfway across the kitchen, turned to stare at her. ‘Not to your sister,
nor anyone else, unless the Provost himself.’

Mall’s pale eyes grew round again. Her hand went up to cover her mouth, and she nodded emphatically as Ursel drew her from the kitchen.

‘Well!’ said Andy.

‘Well!’ said Alys.

‘How much did you hear?’ asked Kate.

‘From the hayloft onwards.’ Alys came forward, her smile flickering, and sat down beside Kate on the settle. ‘She may have more to mind Billy by than she bargains for, poor
lass, if they trysted in a hayloft.’

‘And what’s this daft stuff about the Baptizer?’ said Andy. ‘What’s he mean by that?’

‘The Axeman’s maister, surely,’ said Kate. ‘Some kind of by-name, I suppose. Could it be a priest? Someone who baptizes people? Is he from Perth, maybe, or is there a
church of St John hereabouts?’

‘Could it be the Knights of St John?’ suggested Alys.

‘You mean, the Axeman is from Torphichen?’ Kate frowned. ‘There was no cross on his cloak. And would the Knights kill, in secret like that?’

‘They would kill,’ said Alys, ‘but not like that. Either more secret, so that nobody knew how or who, or else quite openly.’

Kate eyed the younger girl speculatively, but said nothing. Andy said, ‘And was that Matt Hamilton in the yard, my leddy?’

‘It was, with a nurse for the bairns.’

‘A good woman, too,’ said Alys approvingly. ‘She held Wynliane for me to wash her ears and put drops in them – oh, they were bad, I’ve never seen such a crust on a
bairn’s ears – and she paid no attention when the little one was rude. I left her just now singing to them.’

She turned her head as footsteps clopped on the stairs, and Ysonde appeared round the curve of the spiral and stepped into the kitchen with her sister and their new nurse behind her. Seeing
Kate, Ysonde made her way directly towards her and announced gruffly, ‘This is Nan. She’s come from Dumbrattan – Dumbarton,’ she corrected herself, ‘to mind us for a
bit. She kens stories.’

Nan Thomson bobbed a brief curtsy and smiled at Kate.

‘You’re Matt’s Lady Kate, mem, aren’t ye no?’ she said. ‘He’s tellt me about you.’

She was a bulky, black-browed woman in a widow’s headdress and a worn homespun gown, but she had a comfortable bosom and capable hands, one of which was curved round Wynliane’s
shoulder at the moment.

‘I can see there’s plenty for me to be doing,’ she added.

‘Has Matt explained?’ asked Kate.

The linen headdress nodded. ‘We’ll see how we all get on, mem,’ Nan said firmly.

Introduced to Ursel and Andy, she gave them both a friendly smile, and then gathered up Ysonde’s hand and announced, ‘We’ll see you all later. These two good lassies are going
to show me their chamber where they sleep, aren’t you, my poppets?’

Ysonde stuck out her lower lip and nodded; Wynliane peeped up at her and turned obediently back to the stair.

‘She looks a good worker,’ said Ursel once the footsteps had died away into the hall.

Alys’s eyes danced. ‘Matt got a very hearty buss when he left. I think they know one another well.’

‘Andy,’ said Kate, ‘tell me again how you found Billy.’

Nothing loth, he sat down on a stool and launched into what was clearly becoming a well-practised recital.

‘I went to the coalhouse, like you tellt me, my leddy, to fetch him in to see if he’d changed his story at all, afore we called the serjeant. And the first thing I noticed, the bar
wasny on the door.’

‘Where was it?’ Kate asked.

He halted, clearly not having considered this before. ‘Laid on the ground at the side of the door,’ he said after a moment, gesturing with his left hand. ‘And I thocht to
mysel, I thocht, Oh, our man’s away, he’s got out while we was all sleeping. The next I noticed was the marks on the door, like someone’s hand. So I opened the door, and what I
saw –’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I’ve been on a battlefield, my leddy. I’ve seen the kind o thing afore. But this was, this was – and a man doesny expect to meet it
in his own yard.’

‘No,’ agreed Kate, since something was obviously expected of her.

‘It wasny –’ He stopped again, and swallowed. ‘It wasny a clean kill. He’d tried to get away, poor loon. That’s why I wanted to stop the lassie going to see
him. Thievin’ wretch she may be, but he was her leman. Hacked into pieces, he was, and blood all over the coalheap.’

‘We must wash that,’ said Alys immediately, ‘before it sets any further.’

‘Likely you could sell the whole load o coals to Mattha Hog just as they are,’ said Andy darkly. ‘If I ken my maister he’ll no want to burn them, that’s for sure,
washed or no. Our Lady be praised, we’ve enough broken barrels and that on the woodheap to burn till we can order up more.’

‘Aye, we could sell it and be rid of it, if the serjeant has seen all he needs to,’ said Kate.

‘He’s seen it,’ said Andy. ‘He looked at the coal-house, and the blood everywhere, and he looked at me and the men, no what ye’d call clean since they’re good
workers but none o us wi blood on his shoes or his clothes, except my boots from when I found him, and he said it wasny any of us, it must ha been another intruder, maybe Billy’s accomplice,
and lucky we were no to have been cut up oursels. And for once in his life,’ he added drily, ‘I think John Anderson’s right.’

‘I want a look at these marks on the door,’ said Alys.

‘And I,’ said Kate, and reached for her crutches.

The coalhouse was part of the stone structure containing the kitchen, the laundry and several other storehouses. Each of these had a stout door of broad planks, the storehouse
doors secured by a wooden bar lodged in slots in the stone jambs. The coalhouse was nearest to the kitchen; Kate, approaching it, looked back along the length of the house and saw that the kitchen
building was not so deep as the timber-framed hall and chambers, so that its doors were set some way back compared to the house windows. Besides, the windows of the room where she and Babb had
slept, with difficulty, after the excitements of the midnight had been firmly shuttered. Small wonder that she had heard nothing.

The men at their weeding and tidying glanced sideways at them, but carefully paid no more attention. Babb, restacking huge yellow pots on a rack near the gate, straightened up to see if her
mistress required her, then went back to her task.

‘There ye are,’ said Andy, gesturing at the coalhouse. ‘That’s about how I found it, my leddy.’

The door was standing shut, the bar lying on the ground beside it. There was a single large handprint, slightly smudged and now quite dry, showing dark against the bleached wood, as if someone
had set his hand against the door to push it to. Kate, balanced on her crutches, put her own hand up without touching the mark.

‘A bigger hand than mine,’ she said, ‘and someone taller than me.’ She remembered the big man she had seen in the Hog, the flat, ugly face with its wisp of beard, and
shivered.

‘His left hand,’ observed Alys. ‘And the bar laid down this side. I wonder if the man is left-handed?’

‘He went by on my right,’ contributed Kate, ‘and hacked at this pole.’

Alys nodded. ‘May we open the door?’

‘You don’t need to open the door,’ said Andy roughly. ‘I’ve tellt you what’s inside.’

‘I want to see,’ said Alys. Kate moved aside, and Andy opened the door with reluctance. Kate peered inside, and swallowed. She had not been prepared for the way the heap of coal
betrayed Billy’s last moments so clearly, the pits and hollows where he had trampled about trying to escape his executioner, and the blood smeared among the coal-dust halfway up the walls as
well as caked among the loose coal. She thought of the man in the Hog, and the long reach and swing of a Lochaber axe. With that great bulk blocking the doorway, there would have been no
escape.

Beside her Alys stared dispassionately, but her hand crept out and closed over Kate’s where it gripped the crutch.

‘We must certainly have this out of here,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘And the walls scrubbed down before you order a new load of coals.’

‘Christ and Our Lady have compassion on him,’ said Kate, and crossed herself. ‘It is still extraordinary,’ she added, ‘that none of us heard anything. Surely he had
time to cry out?’

‘Perhaps he was t-too busy trying to get out of reach,’ said Alys, her hand still tight over Kate’s.

‘Seen enough?’ said Andy, and shut the door without waiting for an answer. ‘What now, my leddy?’

‘I want to look at the back gate,’ said Kate, ‘where he likely got in, and then the men must have their noon bite, and someone must take those books to Maister Morison, and
then . . .’

She looked at Alys.

‘What are you planning, Lady Kate?’ asked Andy suspiciously.

‘That’s just it,’ she said. ‘I think now it might not be so clever.’

Alys nodded ruefully.

‘What’s no so clever?’ Andy looked from one to the other of them. ‘Oh, no. No back to the Hog. I’ll take your mule up to Rottenrow my ain sel’ first, to keep
you from going out.’

‘No need,’ said Kate, setting off towards the back of the yard. ‘I can see for myself that sitting in the tavern asking openly about this man that slips into places to kill by
night is no the best way to carry on the enquiry.’

‘Just the same,’ said Alys. Kate paused, and looked at her again. ‘What if . . .’ she began. ‘What if someone went down to the Hog – don’t worry, Andy,
we could send one of the men – to offer Mattha the chance to purchase these coals.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps he could take money,’ she continued, thinking aloud, ‘to buy
Billy’s friends a drink.’

‘The whole of the Hog would turn out to be his drinking-fellows,’ objected Andy.

‘So they would. Then how can we learn more?’

‘What are ye after?’

‘Anyone who overheard him yesterday,’ said Kate. ‘Anything we can learn about the man with the axe and what he and Billy said to one another.’

‘But without the man with the axe learning we are seeking for him,’ supplied Alys.

Andy gnawed at his lip. ‘A tall order,’ he commented. ‘Jamesie and William might manage it. If we gied them some drinksilver after their dinner, and the message for Mattha
right enough, they could sit a while and see what they might hear.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the industrious men, and grinned suddenly. ‘I’ve a notion they’d like it
better than shifting broken crocks. I’ll have to let them all have the evening off.’

The back of the yard, beyond the barn and the cart-shed, was defined by a tall fence of split palings, well maintained, though the whitewash had worn off it. Kate commented on this, and Andy
grunted.

‘I’ve kept the palings tied on,’ he said, ‘for it keeps the hens out the yard mostly, but we’ve no had the time for whiting things for a while. See, while we were
at Linlithgow last week,’ he explained, dragging the gate open, ‘William and our John stayed here to mind the yard, but the other two fellows had the other cart to Irvine wi three great
pipes for Ireland, laden wi crocks and St Mungo kens all-what gear. They brought back a couple of tuns of wine and some small stuff for Clem Walkinshaw and a few others, and they’d ha been
out again the morn with another load if this hadny happened. He’s been driving us and himself, ever since – well, for the last couple of years.’

Beyond the gate the rest of the property sloped down towards the mill-burn, ending in another, lower fence with a gate in it, and the stable where Mall had waited for her sweetheart. Kate stood
at the top of the slope, looking about her. The kale-yard nearest the fence, where the chickens were pecking, was obviously being worked, and was well tended, but beyond it to one side was a small
pleasance whose formal shapes were outlined by untrimmed box hedges and full of weeds. There was a bench, disappearing under a rampant honeysuckle, and two strips of standing hay which were
probably intended to be grassy paths, Kate thought.

‘The mistress sat there often,’ said Andy, seeing the direction of her glance.

Kate nodded. She remembered Agnes Cowan, a round-faced girl with brown curls, a ready laugh and a significant tocher. What, she wondered, had brought her down so far that she drowned herself,
leaving her two little girls motherless?

Alys bent to look at the neat plots of vegetables.

‘I would like some seed off these turnips,’ she said. ‘They are different from mine. Who minds the garden?’

‘Our John,’ said Andy.

‘He would make a gardener,’ said Alys. ‘Kate, have you seen all you want?’

‘Aye. Not hard to get in by the fence down yonder,’ she said, ‘and this gate can be opened from either side. He’d have had no trouble getting into the yard.’