The Merchant's Mark

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Not as much as a week,’ said Morison nervously. ‘The carts only came home yestreen. No, the day before now. I convoyed them straight from Linlithgow after the whole load was put ashore at Blackness on Monday.’

  ‘And ye had it under your eye all that time, maister?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Morison. ‘Well,’ he amended, ‘save for when it was warded for the night, and then there was a guard on it.’

  ‘Was there aught else in the puncheon?’ asked a man with the stained hands of a working dyer. Morison looked at the Provost, who intervened.

  ‘Aye, there was, Archie Hamilton, but it’s a matter for a higher court than this one. It’s all in hand, so ye’ve no call to speir at that.’

  ‘And there was a deal of brine,’ added Morison.

  ‘Is he a Scot?’ asked another man with a strong likeness to the dyer. ‘Or is he some kind o foreigner? A Saracen, maybe? Or English, even?’

  ‘What would a Saracen be doing in Glasgow?’ demanded Sir Thomas in exasperated tones. ‘And if he’s English, he’s past telling us himself, I warrant you, Eckie. He could be anyone. He’s been a grown man, wi one blue eye and one brown, and his hair’s dark, and that’s all we ken.’

  ‘And he’s no half an ell high,’ said someone from the back of the crowd, to general laughter.

  ‘It’s Allan,’ said someone else. ‘Like the sang. Gude Allane lies intil a barell.’

  This raised more laughter, but there seemed to be no further questions or information. Sir Thomas withdrew, and the assizers were ceremoniously released from their pen and escorted into confinement in the hall of the Provost’s lodging to deliberate on what they had heard.

  ‘How long will this take?’ asked Maistre Pierre as the last man disappeared, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk.

  ‘There’s a refreshment to be served,’ Morison said. ‘They’ll be no quicker than it takes to get that by, and maybe a lot slower.’

  ‘A refreshment? I thought such a jury should be starved to hasten its decision.’

  ‘How would you get anyone to serve if you starved them?’ Gil asked. ‘What is Andy doing there, Augie?’

  ‘Giving Billy orders for the rest of the day, maybe.’ Morison watched the two men, who were conversing in a fierce undertone. ‘Tell your sister again how sorry I am, Gil, that the saint never answered her prayer. What will she do now?’

  ‘I have wondered that,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘I’ve not asked her. Go back to Carluke, likely, and try to accept her lot. She and Tib have no tocher,’ Gil said directly, turning to look at Morison, ‘and who would take her with that leg and no land to sweeten the bargain?’

  ‘Courage and a bonnie face might make a tocher,’ said Morison diffidently, ‘to the right man.’

  ‘They don’t bring in rents,’ said Gil. ‘And Kate isn’t one to take bread at a man’s hand either.’

  Andy was still haranguing his junior. As Gil watched over Morison’s shoulder the younger man turned away with a self-righteous air; at the same moment Andy swung round and marched back to their master, every line of his small bow-legged frame expressing anger. Billy glanced after him to thumb his nose again, at which the men round him nudged one another and sniggered.

  ‘Arrogant wee scunner,’ said Andy, rejoining them. ‘By here, that was quick.’ He nodded towards the Provost’s lodging. ‘The assize is coming out.’

  The fifteen men of the assize filed down the steps, preceded by the serjeant with the mace, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk, and were herded into their roped enclosure again. The serjeant went back to conduct Sir Thomas, and then climbing on the mounting-block shouted for silence and got it. Sir Thomas nodded to Gil and his friends, and in a short speech reminded the assize of the penalties for a wilful false verdict and asked them if they had selected someone to speak for them.

  ‘Aye, maister, we have that,’ said the grey-haired tavern-keeper, ‘and it’s me. Mattha Hog, keeper of the Hog tavern, and we’ve a new barrel of ale –’

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ said Sir Thomas sharply. ‘Well, Mattha, what has the assize found in this death? Do ye ken who he was?’

  ‘No, maister, we do not, except maybe he was a Saracen. Ye said so yerself, that we didny ken him,’ Mattha reminded the Provost.

  ‘And were you unanimous in that decision?’

  Mattha looked alarmed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, indeed, it didny take long to decide at all. We were all agreed, you see.’

  Sir Thomas exchanged a brief glance with his clerk, who bent his head over his notes again with a smile quirking his mouth.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Provost. ‘And do ye ken how he died?’

  ‘No, not that either,’ said Mattha. ‘We wereny agreed on that,’ he admitted, ‘for some of us thought he was heidit, and some of us not, but you tellt us yerself, maister, there’s no knowing now. He’s too long deid, and in that brine and all.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘The clerk of the court will write that out, and read it to you, and you will affix the seal of the assize to the record –’

  ‘Aye, but sir,’ said Mattha, ‘we’re not finished.’

  Sir Thomas stopped to stare at him.

  ‘You tellt us to decide on who saw to his death,’ continued the tavern-keeper with the air of a man about to set off a culverin. ‘So we did, and we were agreed on it. Well, nearly all of us was agreed on it,’ he modified as someone growled from the back of the group. ‘We reckon there’s one man knows more about the whole matter than he lets on, and we say he should be held and put to the horn for the killing, and that’s Maister Augustine Morison.’

  ‘What?’ Morison almost shrieked.

  Uproar broke out. Several men from the crowd rushed eagerly forward to seize the merchant, who dived hurriedly towards the Provost for protection. Sir Thomas gestured angrily to his own men, who were already advancing towards the fore-stair using their mailed arms and boots, and dragged Morison on to the stair and out of the grasp of those nearest him. Andy, knife drawn, scrambled up the steps beside his master, and Maistre Pierre also stepped into the mêlée. Gil tried to address Sir Thomas, but could not make himself heard above the noise of the onlookers and the serjeant bellowing from his mounting-block for silence and order. Anxiously he worked his way towards the stair.

  ‘Should we all withdraw, sir?’ he suggested when he was close enough. ‘Debate this in private?’

  ‘Aye, come up, come up!’ shouted Sir Thomas as his men formed a barrier at the foot of the stair. ‘Let him through, Andro! Serjeant!’ he bellowed.

  The serjeant paused in his red-faced appeals for silence.

  ‘I’m away into the house. I’ll come back out when you’ve silenced them, man.’

  One of the constables struggled through the throng, and appeared to be trying to tell Sir Thomas something. The Provost waved him away, waited until he saw that Gil was safely on to the steps, and retreated through his own door. Following him, Gil was aware of the serjeant descended from his mounting-block, laying about him with the burgh mace.

  Within, Morison was saying desperately, over the noise from the yard, ‘I didn’t kill him, I don’t even know who he is. I never saw him till we opened the barrel!’

  ‘Augie,’ said Gil.

  Morison stopped to look at him, open-mouthed, and Sir Thomas said into the pause, ‘It’s all a muddle. I’ll have to hold ye, maister, since they’ve brought in that verdict, and I don’t believe a word of it either.’

  ‘I think it is malice,’ declared the mason from beside the empty hearth.

  ‘And either I hold a man or I put him to the horn, one or the other, not the both at once. Where’s the point in sounding the horn at the Mercat Cross and calling a search for him if he’s lying in a cell in my castle?’

  ‘But I never –’

  ‘Augie,’ said Gil again, ‘if you’re charged, will you deny it?’

  ‘Of course I will –’

  ‘Then don’t say any more
now,’ Gil advised. Walter the clerk gave him an approving look. ‘The plea is twertnay, and that’s all you need to say.’

  ‘Oh.’ Morison stopped, and repeated the word soundlessly a couple of times.

  ‘I still think it malice,’ said Maistre Pierre. The noise from the yard had dropped.

  ‘Aye, you could be right, maister,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘A wilful false verdict. I’m not happy about the assize, that’s certain. Walter, you have all their names writ down, have you?’

  ‘All writ down, Provost,’ agreed the clerk. ‘We can get them back any time we want, provided they’ve not run.’

  ‘Then I’ll go out and discharge them. Bide here, gentlemen. Walter, I’ll need you.’

  He went out, and shortly could be heard haranguing the members of the assize. The four left in the hall looked at one another.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Morison, whose teeth were beginning to chatter. ‘Oh, Christ assoil me, what of my bairns?’

  ‘Must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

  ‘I’m more practised in the canon law than the civil,’ said Gil, ‘but I’d say he must be held. It’s a charge of murder, so he can’t be released on recognition.’

  ‘But –’ began Morison, and stopped. ‘Twertnay,’ he said carefully. ‘Gil, will you help me? You found out who killed those other folk – the woman in St Mungo’s yard and the one at the college. Can you find out this for me?’

  ‘I can try,’ said Gil.

  ‘I’ll gie ye a hand, Maister Gil,’ said Andy.

  ‘I’ll need you to see to the yard,’ said his master, sinking on to a stool. ‘The business, the bairns, the household – what’s to come to any of them if I’m chained up here?’

  ‘I’ll have to hold ye,’ said Sir Thomas in the doorway, ‘since it’s a charge of murder, but I’m not putting ye in chains, maister. If you’ll give me your word not to run, you can bide here in the castle. I’ll find a chamber.’

  ‘I’ll see to the yard, maister, if that’s what’s wanted,’ said Andy. ‘And the first thing, I’ll give Billy Walker leave to go before I throttle him.’

  ‘No, Andy,’ said Morison, ‘he told the truth as he saw it.’

  ‘Aye, and as he hoped it would harm you, maister,’ said Andy bluntly.

  ‘For how long must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

  Sir Thomas shook his head. ‘I need to send to my lord Archbishop. I wish I’d waited to report the coin, the one man could ha carried both words. Robert Blacader will decide whether to set the matter aside or to pursue it, and in what court. After that, who knows? If Maister Morison’s being held at his expense,’ he added shrewdly, ‘he’ll want to resolve it sooner than later.’ Voices rose in the yard again, and he turned his head to listen. ‘Walter, sort that, would ye, man?’

  As the clerk went out on to the fore-stair again, Gil said formally, ‘If you’re sending to my lord, may I ride with the messenger? Maister Morison has asked me to make enquiry into the death of the man whose head we found in the barrel, and my first road must be to Stirling.’

  ‘Aye, very wise.’ Sir Thomas scowled at Gil. ‘And let me know what ye find and all.’

  ‘Unless there is a conflict of interests,’ agreed Gil.

  The Provost stared at him for a moment, then nodded grimly. ‘I suppose it might happen,’ he admitted. ‘Aye, you may ride. You can be the messenger, indeed. If you can be ready within the hour.’

  ‘I need to question Maister Morison.’

  ‘Aye, and the men must eat,’ admitted Sir Thomas, reconsidering. ‘Two hours, then. No longer.’

  ‘Maister,’ said Walter the clerk, reappearing at the door, ‘it’s a messenger from my lord Archbishop.’

  ‘What?’ Sir Thomas turned to the man in dusty riding-clothes who followed Walter into the hall. ‘I trust my lord’s well?’ he said, removing his murrey velvet hat.

  ‘He is well,’ said the messenger, bowing and holding out a letter with a dangling seal, ‘and he sends to let you to know, Provost, that he will lie here at Glasgow the morn’s night, together with his grace the King and my lord of Angus and others as numbered in his letter.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘We need all you can tell us,’ said Gil.

  ‘About what?’ said Morison blankly.

  ‘About this barrel,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  They were in the chamber which Sir Thomas, muttering curses, had allotted as a prison cell before he hurried off to see to the preparations for the arrival of the Archbishop and more particularly of the King. It was a small, pleasant room two storeys up one of the towers, with a view of the west towers of St Mungo’s and a bed at least as good as Gil’s own on which Morison was seated, leaving Maistre Pierre the stool while Gil hunkered down against the wall.

  ‘You were there when we broached it,’ said the merchant, ‘you know as much as I do.’

  ‘Tell us from the beginning,’ Gil said patiently, ‘when you saw it hoisted from Tod’s ship at Blackness. You said it was the only one that size. Are you certain of that?’

  ‘Well, it’s what Tod said,’ said Morison. ‘I think. It’s all tapsalteerie in my head, Gil.’

  ‘You didn’t look in the hold yourself?’

  ‘I was never on Tod’s deck. I stayed on the shore and had an eye to the cransman,’ said Morison more confidently.

  ‘Certainly he’d no reason to say so if it wasn’t true,’ said Gil. ‘And then what happened? It was put on the cart?’

  ‘Aye. Well, it stood on the shore till we saw how much there was to go on the cart.’

  ‘And how much was that?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

  Morison dragged his gaze from the towers of St Mungo’s and looked apologetically from one to the other.

  ‘I canny mind,’ he said. ‘I canny think. It’s all tap-salteerie,’ he said again, demonstrating inversion with one hand. ‘There’s nothing left in my head but the thought of what’s to come to my bairns if . . . if . . .’

  ‘This is the best way to help your bairns,’ Gil said bracingly, though sympathy gnawed at his gut. ‘When you got the cart home, how much was there to be unloaded?’

  ‘Oh. Aye.’ Morison frowned at his feet. ‘There was the two great pipes that came out of Maikison’s vessel. One was mostly tin-glazed, with a couple steeks velvet for Clem Walkinshaw on the top, and the other was a mixed load. Aye, just the two,’ he nodded. ‘And the puncheon which,’ he went on more certainly, ‘went on at the tail of the cart, roped well in place.’

  ‘Who roped it on?’

  ‘One of the men, I suppose. Likely Billy, he’s my carter.’

  ‘And how many carts did you have with you?’

  ‘Just the one. Billy and Andy saw to the driving, and Jamesie and I rode alongside.’

  ‘And where did the cart go?’ prompted Maistre Pierre.

  ‘Why, it came home,’ said Morison, the blank look appearing again.

  ‘Straight home in one day?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Gil!’ Morison paused. ‘Oh, I see what you want. We lay at Linlithgow Monday night, and Kilsyth on Tuesday.’

  ‘And what happened to the cart each time? Did you leave it in the inn-yard?’

  ‘No, no. I take better care of my goods than that. We’ve an arrangement wherever we lie, to run the cart into someone’s yard where it can be secure, and Billy sleeps with it as well.’

  ‘We’ll need the names of the yards,’ said Gil. ‘Now, after it came home, where did the barrel lie? Where was it yesternight?’

  ‘Last night.’ Morison frowned. ‘Is that right? Just last night? I suppose it must be. We were so late back, we ran the cart into the barn and shut the doors on it. Billy had to take the mare down to stable her, but I’d not the heart to make them start on the load after.’

  ‘So the barrel sat in the barn overnight with the rest. Was it undisturbed when you saw it this morning?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, it must have been,’ qualified Morison, ‘for there had been nobody
in the barn. Then I got Andy to roll it down and handle it into the shed, and sent him for you while the other men made a start on the pipe of tin-glazed, and . . . and . . .’ He paused, staring at nothing. ‘St Peter’s bones, Gil, when he came up out of the water like that!’

  ‘He was a gruesome sight, poor devil,’ Gil agreed.

  ‘Aye, but . . . aye, but . . .’

  ‘What is it, Augie?’ Gil asked. It was clear the man needed to say something, and was reluctant to form the words. ‘Out with it, man!’

  ‘It was the way the water ran from his mouth,’ said Morison in a rush, his face reddening. ‘When – when I saw my Agnes lifted from the milldam. She was all white like that, and she could have been asleep, only for the water running out of her mouth – oh, Gil, it minded me so strongly!’

  He scrubbed at his eyes with a sleeve, turning his face away.

  Orpheus, thought Gil. Quhair art thow gone, my luve Ewridicess? He rose and walked about the small room, overcome with embarrassment. Behind him Morison groped for his handkerchief and hiccuped, while Maistre Pierre tut-tutted in sympathy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gil said at last. ‘I never realized she had –’

  ‘It was the melancholy,’ Morison explained, and blew his nose resoundingly. ‘After the bairn died. He only lived a week, the poor wee – and I knew she was – I’d to be away too much, but how could I leave the business? And now if my wee lassies are to be left with neither father nor mother, what’s to come of them? What’s to come of the household?’ He turned away again, ramming the damp linen against his eyes.

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ Gil said firmly. ‘Would you like to see a priest? I forget who’s chaplain here when Robert Blacader’s away, but there’s plenty priests over yonder.’ He waved at the towers of St Mungo’s.

  Morison nodded, sniffing unhappily, but said, ‘Or maybe someone from the Greyfriars?’

  ‘I can send to Greyfriars for you,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Sir Thomas, and then I’ll get away, Augie, for the first thing I need to do is speak to someone about the treasure.’