The Merchant's Mark (32 page)

‘We were right!’ she said to Alys. ‘The Preceptory is involved! Mall said a strange thing,’ she explained to Gil. ‘She heard the man with the axe say to Billy that
the Baptizer wanted his gear back. At first we wondered if it might mean the Knights of St John. It is the Baptist that’s their patron, isn’t it, not the Evangelist?’

‘It is,’ he agreed, through another mouthful of bannock.

‘But then the old man said the Treasurer’s title is Lord St Johns, so could it be him?’

‘The Baptizer,’ he repeated. ‘Well, the Preceptory is involved, I ken that for certain now. The Baptizer might fit. Listen to the rest of it.’

He went on with the tale. They heard him out, Kate frowning, Alys thoughtful.

‘I am truly sorry about Rob,’ she said when he had finished. ‘He was a good servant, and kind to the horses.’

‘Aye,’ said Kate. ‘He’d been to Rome, had he not, Gil? St Peter bring him to bliss, then.’

‘Amen,’ said Alys, and they all crossed themselves.

‘We have nearly all we need,’ Gil said after a moment. ‘We’ve still to find the man Baldy, and the one with the feather in his hat, and find out which side they were
working for. Did you say they’d been seen in the Hog?’

‘On Wednesday,’ Kate nodded. ‘It sounds like the same men. And the fellow who saw them thought Mattha Hog knew them. Mind, it’s second-hand news, Gil. The two we sent
down there last night were tellt this by another.’

‘There are more than two sides,’ said Alys, ‘that is obvious.’

‘The cooper is Sinclair’s man,’ said Kate, counting them off on her fingers. ‘So was the man in the barrel, Our Lady defend him. This Johan and the knight were for the
Preceptory. The Axeman – I’m right glad to hear he’s dead, and so will Babb be – he was against both the others, but were Sinclair and the Preceptory acting
together?’

‘Not entirely,’ Gil admitted. ‘However that’s sorted now. And I did think that Treasurer Knollys was very eager that I should go into Ayrshire.’ He reached for
another bannock, and found the platter empty.

‘So the old man said. But surely he’s involved anyway,’ said Kate, ‘both as Treasurer and as Preceptor.’

‘The two interests may conflict,’ said Alys.

‘But then who did the Axeman mean by the Baptizer?’ wondered Kate again. ‘Who was he working for? The Preceptory, or Knollys, or someone else? And who is his woman? We’ve
had no luck asking about this Maidie.’

‘He called his axe Maidie,’ recalled Gil.

‘His
axe?’

‘He cannot have been from the Preceptory,’ said Alys.

‘You see that too?’ said Gil. Kate looked from one to the other. ‘He wasn’t with the cooper,’ Gil expanded, ‘else he would never have had to ask about the
carts, and the cooper would never have told me he did ask. But we ken the cooper is with the Preceptory, since he sent Simmie to warn them we were on the road.’

‘Um,’ said Kate. ‘It’s far more complicated than I realized. I thought you just went about asking questions till the right answer came out.’

‘But how do we get proof?’ said Alys, pursuing her own train of thought. ‘He will never admit it without some kind of proof.’

‘It may be more complicated than that anyway,’ suggested Gil. She nodded absently.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Kate. ‘Have I missed part of the conversation?’

‘It depends who paid the man Baldy,’ said Alys suddenly. ‘What a pity you did not catch him too.’

‘We lacked forethought there,’ he admitted, and she giggled, and then finally met his eye and smiled at him a little sheepishly.

‘Could it have been Noll Sinclair who paid him?’ said Kate. ‘Or the cooper, even, setting a trap for someone with you as the bait?’

‘Now I never thought of that,’ admitted Gil. ‘Though I thought the trap was for us. I still feel a fool, being decoyed up on to the hillside to look for a dead pig’

‘We know the Axeman killed Sinclair’s man in the cooper’s yard,’ offered Kate.

‘Something was killed in the cooper’s yard,’ corrected Gil. She pulled a face, but nodded agreement.

‘And probably the same night,’ supplied Alys, ‘the barrel of books was taken off Maister Morison’s cart and the barrel with the head and the treasure put on
it.’

‘Why?’ said Gil. ‘That’s the strange thing. Why send the barrel to Glasgow?’

‘Accident,’ said Alys. She sat up straight. ‘I know! Kate, you know we thought the Axeman was left-handed. It is the kind of mistake they make. We had a left-handed
kitchen-lassie once and she could never put things in the proper place.’

‘So it simply went on the wrong cart!’ said Kate.

‘That must be it. It should have gone to Leith.’

‘Of course,’ said Gil. ‘The cart for Leith was a big mixed load, so Riddoch said. Far likelier, if it went on that, the exchange could have gone unnoticed till it could be
collected.’

They exchanged another look, and Alys nodded agreement.

‘And if the Axeman did not enquire at the cooper’s until Wednesday, there had been time for him to go to Leith and find his barrel was not there and return to Linlithgow. And then he
came straight to Glasgow,’ she speculated. ‘He must near have worn a groove in the road.’

Gil, rarely aware of her accent, was suddenly, delightfully, distracted by the foreign turn she gave to the Scottish placenames. Concentrating with an effort, he found his sister saying,
‘But we still don’t know who the Axeman was, or who this Baldy and Feather Hat might be, or whose men they are, or why they are so persistent about it.’

‘A fair summary,’ said Gil.

‘You forgot Sinclair and Knollys,’ said Alys.

Gil opened his mouth to answer her, and was forestalled by a sudden commotion outside in the dark yard. Shrill voices, a thump as if the gate had been slammed, questions and shouting.
Women’s voices. Then, through it, a deeper note: ‘Friend, I’m a friend. Word for Maister Cunningham. Is that you, Babb? Is Nan no here?’

‘Matt?’ said Gil. He jumped up and hurried to the house door just as his uncle’s man reached the top of the fore-stair. ‘Matt, is all well?’

Matt stepped in and pulled off his bonnet, saying drily, ‘Aye, Lady Kate. Your watch is waukin.’

‘I never expected callers this late,’ said Babb from the doorway.

‘Watch?’ said Gil. ‘What watch? Kate, what is going on here? Where are the men, anyway?’

‘Sleeping,’ she said, ‘save for two we sent down the Hog again. The rest of them will watch the second half of the night, we’re taking the first half.’

‘Kate!’

‘You can see for yourself it works,’ she pointed out, laughing at him. ‘They caught Matt, but they’ve done him no damage.’

‘Kate, this is a fighting man we’re seeking. How can a bunch of women –’

‘Wi no argument,’ said Matt succinctly.

‘Aye, well, you came quiet,’ said Babb, grinning, before she turned away to go back down the stair into the yard.

‘I’ll stay here, then,’ said Gil.

‘You will not,’ said his sister, though Alys’s expression brightened.

‘No,’ said Matt. ‘You’re sent for, Maister Gil. The castle. Robert Blacader wants a word.’

‘To the castle?’ repeated Gil blankly. ‘Whatever does he want?’

‘How did he know you were back in Glasgow?’ said Alys.

The moon, five days past the full, was just rising behind the towers of St Mungo’s as Gil made his way by lantern-light up from the Wyndhead towards the castle gatehouse.
Noise and bustle floated over the wall; lute music came from the Archbishop’s lodging, a more raucous singing from one of the towers, and a smell of new bread suggested the episcopal
bakehouse was working through the night.

Gil gave his name to a guard, and after a short wait a sleepy-eyed page in a velvet jerkin appeared and conducted him across two courtyards, past the fore-stair of the Provost’s lodging
– Sweet St Giles, Gil thought, was it only two days since that we had to climb that in a hurry? – and up a turnpike stair. There were lights at most of the windows, and torches burned
beside other doorways.

Robert Blacader had given up his own lodging to his monarch. Beyond the great hall and the entrance to the Archbishop’s private chapel, the outer and inner chambers of his suite were
crowded, like the string of stuffy chambers at Stirling, with weary members of the court playing cards or dice to music from competing lutenists or discussing the best road to Kilmarnock.
Mismatched tapestries hung on the walls, and there seemed to be a shortage of seating. Off the inner chamber, with its ostentatious display of plate set out on the cupboard, the page opened a door
and ushered Gil through it.

The closet was panelled, painted and ablaze with light. There were several dozen candles burning round the walls, and more in pricket-stands here and there, flickering in the draught from the
window which had been opened to let the heat out. Gil, blinking in the brightness, took in rather slowly that the room was also full of richly dressed people, and that only one of them was wearing
a hat.

He snatched off his felt bonnet with an apology, and dropped to one knee.

‘Get up, Maister Cunningham,’ said James Stewart from the centre of the group, ‘and come and tell us how you’ve progressed since we saw you last.’

The King was seated near the fireplace, a card-table beside him as before, though this time it bore only a jug and some glasses. Tonight he was wearing tawny woollen and black silk, the huge
sleeves of his gown decked with amber-coloured ribbons. Gil, thinking of his sister’s much-worn gown of the same colour, made a note to tell her about the ribbons. On one side of the table
Robert Blacader acknowledged Gil’s salute with a wave of his ring; on the other, expansive in gold-coloured satin with wide fur facings, William Knollys smiled affably. Behind the King a
cleric was in deep discussion with the Earl of Angus and my lord Hume the Chamberlain; as he turned his head Gil recognized Andrew Forman the apostolic protonotary, whom he knew to be a friend of
his uncle’s. Beyond him a familiar profile must be his mother’s cousin, Angus’s brother-in-law Archie Boyd.

‘Come, maister,’ said the King again. ‘Is there a seat for Maister Cunningham? Now tell us, have you put a name to your man in the barrel?’

‘He’s none of mine, sir,’ said Gil hastily. One of the liveried servants brought forward a stool, and he sat down, assembling his thoughts, filtering, sifting. ‘I have
his name and I think I know who killed him and where,’ he added. ‘But I’ve not found the rest of him.’

Choosing his words with caution, passing lightly over any mention of the purpose of moving the treasure, he recounted his visit to the cooper’s yard and what he had learned there, the
finding of the patch of blood, the empty barrel, the idea that the other barrel had gone on the wrong cart through simple error.

This was not like discussing matters with Alys or his sister. Every step, every word had to be explained, justified, expounded, to one or other of the two plump, blue-jowled faces scrutinizing
his account. Blacader’s questions betrayed a deep concern for the truth, but Knollys’s seemed more directed towards dismantling Gil’s theories and suppositions. At times Gil was
aware of impatience in James’s movements, but he listened carefully to the questions and to Gil’s answers, nodding now and then. Behind him the Earl of Angus watched intently.

‘But your own suspicions, maister. Surely you suspect more than you’ve learned?’ the King said, when Gil had recounted his conclusions after his interview with the cooper.

‘I do, sir,’ agreed Gil.

‘You’ve little enough proof for some of your tale, it seems to me,’ said Knollys, still wearing his open smile, though the yellow gems in his rings flashed in the light.
‘Most of the carter’s actions can only be guessed at, for one thing.’

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Gil, ‘but someone opened the gates, someone swept up the shavings, and I think the cooper was telling the truth.’ In that, at least, he thought.

‘And this man with the axe,’ said the King reflectively. ‘He fair gets about. Linlithgow, Glasgow, maybe Leith.’

‘He got about,’ Gil agreed, ‘but he’ll go no further. He’s dead, last night, sir.’

‘Dead?’ said the Archbishop. Gil was aware of sharp attention from the group. ‘How did that come about?’

‘Did you question him?’ asked Knollys. ‘Who was he?’

‘We had no chance,’ said Gil. Who had relaxed a little? he wondered. It was hard to keep an eye on everyone present, particularly in the leaping candlelight. ‘We took him
prisoner when he attacked our party, but he died before we could question him.’ And I know his name, he thought, but we’ll keep that quiet just now.

‘And you’re saying,’ said James, ‘this is the same man that slew the carter here on Thursday night? The carter’s lassie was before us earlier this night, asking
justice for her man. Do we have more than her word to link this axeman to this carter?’ He held out his hands, one for each miscreant, and linked the fingers to illustrate his meaning.

‘My sister saw them talking in a tavern,’ said Gil.

The King’s eyebrows went up, and the Treasurer said, laughing indulgently, ‘Now, maister, surely not! Your sister would never be in the kind of tavern such a man would drink
in!’

Gil, preserving his expression, explained the purpose which had taken Alys and Kate to the tavern. James nodded in approval.

‘A clever notion,’ he said. ‘Very clever. That’s a good-thinking lassie you’re betrothed to, Maister Cunningham.’

‘She’s the wisest lassie in Glasgow,’ said Gil, and could not keep the warmth out of his voice.

The King grinned at him, a sudden man-to-man look. ‘You like them clever, do you, maister?’ he said. Before Gil could find an answer to this he went on, ‘Well, we’ve a
name for the man in the barrel, but no body, and now we’ve a body for the man with the axe, but no name. This’ll not do, gentlemen. My lord St Johns,’ he said formally to Knollys,
‘I hope you can write the morn’s morn as Sheriff of Linlithgow, and have your depute get a search made up on the hillside for the body that went out those gates.’ Knollys bowed
his head, and behind him a servant in the St Johns livery drew a set of tablets from his purse and made a note. The men of Linlithgow will love that, thought Gil, just at harvest-time. ‘And,
my lord Treasurer,’ continued the King, ‘I hope you’re searching already for the place where the treasure was hidden. Where there’s some of it, there might be
more.’