The Merchant's Mark (33 page)

‘Aye, sir, you can be certain,’ said Knollys, smiling. Blacader watched him across the table, his face inscrutable.

‘And you, Maister Cunningham,’ said James, ‘can find me the name of the man wi the axe and his confederates. But I’d sooner you stayed in one piece yourself, maister, for
Scotland can do with clear thinkers.’

‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ said Gil.

‘And now,’ said the King, ‘shall we have the servant lass and the merchant in, and set all these tales thegither?’

‘Is it not ower late for that, sir?’ suggested Blacader.

‘Havers. It canny be past midnight,’ said James. ‘Fetch them in.’

Gil, in a moment’s hesitation, considered announcing that his tale was not finished, dismissed the idea, and found he was aware of someone else hesitating in the same way. He looked from
one blue-chinned face to the other on either side of the table. Blacader’s gaze slid sideways from his towards the door, where a servant was just leaving; Knollys said pleasantly, ‘You
had a good day for such a long ride, Maister Cunningham. What road did you take to reach Glasgow?’

‘It was,’ Gil agreed, following this lead. ‘Dry, but no too hot. I came direct from Roslin, so I rode through Bathgate and the Monklands, and it was dry all the way.’

‘It’s been a good week for the harvest,’ said James, looking round from a low-voiced conversation with Angus.

By the time Augie Morison and his servant were escorted before their King this topic was being generally explored. It was clear that James had a good understanding of the work of the land and
its place at the centre of existence. Gil, who had met scholars older than James who failed to accept this, was favourably impressed.

Someone had evidently taken care of Mall for the evening. Her face and hands were clean, her hair combed out over her shoulders, and though nervous of all the fine people she seemed much calmer
than the grief-stricken girl Kate had described from the previous morning. As she knelt before him, the King broke off what he was saying and turned to her.

‘And here’s this bonnie lass again,’ he said. Gil, comparing Mall’s plump bosom and round cheeks adversely with Alys’s fine-boned person, drew his own conclusion
about how the King liked them. ‘And Augustine Morison, merchant of Glasgow,’ he went on, looking past her. Morison also dropped to his knees. ‘We’ve learned a wee thing or
two more about this business, and it’s time to go over it all again.’

‘Aye, your grace,’ said Morison into the pause. He threw an apprehensive look at Gil, who smiled at him as reassuringly as he could, trying not to show the pity he felt. Two
nights’ confinement, however gentle, had left its mark on the man; he was drawn and anxious, with a haunted look in his eyes. Gil guessed he had spent the time worrying about his
children.

‘Now, Mall,’ James continued, ‘you asked us for justice for your man, since he was killed by an intruder in the night. But tell me this, lass. He was a thief himself. What
justice does he deserve?’

Mall, hands clamped together before her waist in a pose of prayer which, deliberately or no, made the most of the view down her bodice, bent her head and said, ‘Aye, your grace, he was
taken thieving from our maister’s house.’ She ducked her head even further, as if to avoid meeting the master’s eye. ‘But that never deserved death, your grace, least of all
s-such a death –’ She bit her lips, and after a moment went on, ‘It’s just no right, your grace, it’s no right at all.’

There was something in one of the old statutes, thought Gil. He could visualize the section of the St Mungo’s copy. Which one was it?

‘Are you saying that even a thief deserves justice?’ said Blacader. She glanced fleetingly at him under her eyebrows and nodded. ‘Why not leave it to the Provost? Is there no
justice in Glasgow?’ Behind her, Morison closed his eyes. Across the card-table, Knollys’s eyes seemed like to pop out of his head and down the girl’s bodice.

‘I’m feart they’ll no trouble themselves further,’ she whispered. ‘They brocht it in as murder by a stranger and I’m feart that’ll be the end on
it.’

‘And is it not murder by a stranger?’ asked James.

‘I seen the man,’ she said desperately. ‘Like I tellt your grace, I seen the man. I heard what he said to my Billy. Surely he can be socht and hangit for his death?’

‘Quoniam attachiamenta,’
said Gil, and several of the bystanders nodded. The King raised his eyebrows. ‘It provides,’ Gil went on, and heard his uncle’s
voice in his own, ‘that where a thief has been killed secretly, without calling the watch or bailies, the thief’s kin or the bailies can charge his killer with murder just as if he had
not been a thief.’

‘Very proper,’ said James. ‘I’ll have justice for all Scots, gentlemen, be certain of that. Mind you,’ he added, humour tugging at his long mouth, ‘the case
is no that straightforward.’

‘Why should we believe a word of this?’ said Knollys. ‘The lassie’s lying all through. I can’t see why your grace is wasting time on her. She wants the attention,
and she’s getting it.’

She’s getting it, thought Gil, assessing the direction of the Treasurer’s popping eyes.

‘She’s getting it,’ agreed James, considering Mall again. ‘Surely she wouldn’t lie to her King?’ Mall shook her head energetically. ‘Especially not
before the relics. What is it you keep here in the chapel, my lord?’

What was this about? Gil wondered. What did the young King hope to draw from the girl? Or was it simply an excuse to keep Mall and her bodice in view as long as possible?

‘We’ve a fragment of St Bride’s veil,’ Blacader was saying, as Mall crossed herself, round-eyed and apprehensive, ‘and a fingerbone of St Martin. Either of those
would do, I should suppose.’

Dunbar slipped from the room, and after a time returned followed by two acolytes, a candle-bearer, and another priest robed and bearing a reliquary in the shape of a gold hand
with a jewelled cuff and several rings. Gil looked at the object and thought of the saint who shared his cloak with a beggar, but slid from his stool to kneel and cross himself when everyone else
did. The robed priest intoned a Latin prayer commending St Martin, and the King, seating himself and replacing his hat, said, ‘Now, Mall, tell us again here in front of the relics. What
happened between your man and this stranger?’

Mall, her eyes on the reliquary in the hands of the priest as if she thought it would turn and point an accusing finger at her, was led back through her story. To Gil’s ears it differed
little from the account Kate had summarized for him, but the statesmen picked carefully at the details.

‘What yett was this?’ Blacader asked her sternly. ‘Remember, woman, you must tell us the truth.’

‘I swear it’s the truth, maister,’ she said, crossing herself again. ‘I swear on that hand and all its jewels. May St Martin himself strike me dead unshriven if
it’s no the truth. They never said what yett it was, nor what else Billy had done.’

‘Surely it was your maister’s yett he was to open,’ said Knollys, hands in his gold satin sleeves.

‘No, sir, for it had never been opened when it shouldny.’

‘It was opened on the night the barrels were exchanged,’ suggested Knollys. ‘You and your limmer let him in and changed the barrels. Or was this fabulous man with the axe your
limmer and all?’ he persisted avidly.

‘No!’ protested Mall.

‘If you’ll tryst with one man in a hayloft, how about another? Tell us the truth, woman.’

‘The barrel we were expecting,’ said Gil, ‘the barrel which should have been on the cart, never left Linlithgow. We found it there. The exchange was made there, no in
Glasgow.’

Mall looked fearfully at him, and then at the King. She still had not looked at her master, who was listening with an expression of amazement.

‘Billy’s my – Billy was my dearie,’ she said steadfastly. ‘I never loved any man but him, nor I never trysted wi any other man. And we never opened the
maister’s gates. I never did my maister any harm,’ she said, beginning to sniffle, ‘till Billy bade me get his key to his big kist, and that was the first either of us did that
was a wrang to him.’

‘And why did Billy bid you do that?’ asked Blacader.

‘She admits it openly,’ said Knollys. ‘Why are we wasting our time with this thieving wee trollop, sir, when there are –’

‘I’ll decide how I spend my time,’ said James. ‘Answer your lord, lassie.’

Mall threw a doubtful look at the Archbishop, but said obediently, between sobs, ‘The man wi the axe had tellt Billy to get the key, for I heard him. I begged Billy to do no such thing.
But he was feart for the axeman telling the maister, and he wouldny hear me when I said the maister would forgive him.’ She was weeping openly now. ‘The maister’s a good man,
he’d maybe ha turned us off but he’d ha done no worse.’ Behind her Morison nodded, frowning.

‘Forgive him what?’ asked James. ‘What had he done?’

‘I never knew! He wouldny let on. It was something about when he opened the yett, but he wouldny tell me.’ Mall scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

‘This is all nonsense,’ said Knollys. He cast his hands in the air in a gesture of exasperation, and his rings glittered in the candlelight.

‘Why is she so sure it was the man with the axe killed her man?’ asked Angus from behind the King.

‘Tell us, lassie,’ said the King.

Mall looked up through her tears. ‘Who else could it ha been, sir?’

‘Any of the household, I should have thought,’ said Knollys impatiently.

‘None of the other men was marked,’ said Gil. ‘And whoever it was would certainly have blood on him, from what I have heard.’

Mall covered her face and moaned at the words, but James nodded his understanding.

‘And why were you to get the maister’s key?’ asked Blacader. ‘You realize what a sin you are confessing? To conspire to rob your own maister like this?’ Mall
nodded, and mumbled something into her hands. ‘What was that? Answer me openly, Mall.’

The girl kept her head down, but lowered her hands enough to be heard: ‘He wanted Billy to seek for the rest of the treasure. He kept on about it, how there should be another bag of it,
though Billy kept saying he kenned nothing of any treasure.’

‘How did he ken that?’ asked Angus. ‘This axeman – how did he ken so much?’

I would like to know that too, thought Gil.

‘He never said.’

‘Is there anything else you should tell us, daughter?’ asked the Archbishop.

Mall, slightly reassured by this form of address, raised her head enough to look at him sideways.

‘No, maister,’ she whispered. ‘I dinna think so.’

‘Well,’ said the King. ‘Mall, you have appealed to me for justice for your man, and as it happens, justice has been done.’ She stared at him. ‘The man with the axe
is dead, killed in a fight with Maister Cunningham here.’

She turned her head slightly, to glance at Gil, then returned her gaze to her monarch.

‘But there must be justice for you too, Mall,’ James continued. He looked at her as sternly as Blacader had done. ‘And for your maister. You must see that.’

She nodded, and whispered some affirmative. Blacader gestured, and Dunbar, with a resigned expression, came forward to help the girl to her feet. She bobbed a low curtsy to the King, and the
rest, and turning to go came finally face-to-face with her master. He looked up at her from where he knelt, with an earnest, pitying smile, and almost automatically she bobbed to him as well.
Morison acknowledged the curtsy, and sketched a cross.

‘Guid save you, my lassie,’ he said. ‘Our Lady guard your rest this night.’

She whispered something, and Dunbar led her past him and out of the room.

‘Well, Maister Morison,’ said the King. Gil, aware of the elderly Blacader shifting on his padded stool, found himself thinking, Christ aid us all, he’s indefatigable.
‘Come closer, maister, and tell us about Linlithgow.’

Morison, shuffling forward on his knees, stopped and stared open-mouthed at his monarch.

‘Linlithgow?’ he said blankly. ‘I – I mean, what did you wish to hear about it, sir?’

‘What passed the last time you were there?’

Morison paused, casting his mind back, and glanced at Gil.

‘Well, we – we took my goods off Thomas Tod’s vessel at Blackness,’ he said, ‘and took the cart back to Linlithgow. It was ower late to set out by then, we’d
never have made Kilsyth in daylight, so we ran the cart into William Riddoch’s barn, by the arrangement we’ve for three year now, and Billy Walker, Christ assoil him, slept under the
cart and the rest of us lay at the Black Bitch by the West Port.’

‘The rest of us?’ questioned Blacader. ‘Who was that?’

‘Me myself, and Andy Paterson my servant, and Jamesie Aitken my journeyman.’

‘And how did you lie that night?’ asked the King.

‘Well enough,’ said Morison wryly. ‘Since I’d no notion what was waiting for me. Oh,’ he said, grasping what was meant. ‘We lay in the one bed, the three of
us. I was at the wall, and Jamesie next me, and Andy at the outside, since he’s up and down in the night.’ Several of his older hearers nodded in sympathy at this.

‘May I ask something, sir?’ said Gil. The King gestured in reply. ‘Augie, tell me, when was Billy alone in Linlithgow? Had you lain there the night before?’

‘Aye, we had,’ Morison nodded. ‘He’d plenty time alone in the burgh. I let them be to drink or talk as they liked, I knew they’d not get ower fu or into bad company
. . .’ His voice trailed off and he smiled ruefully. ‘Aye. While I went about to get a word with one or two friends I have in the place.’

‘And did you see him at all while you went about the town?’

‘I caught sight of all three of them now and then.’

‘Was he talking to a big man in a black cloak?’

‘Linlithgow’s full of men in black cloaks,’ said Angus, grinning over the King’s shoulder.

William Knollys inflated himself and stretched his neck like a cockerel about to crow, the light gleaming on his gold satin plumage. ‘Are you implying, my lord, that the Knights of St John
are involved in this? That one of our brother knights slips about by night slaying unlawfully?’