The Merchant's Mark

by Pat McIntosh

  There was general laughter, and Hog said, ‘Is that it, then? You’ve seen it, lassie. Can I put it by now?’

  ‘In a moment,’ said Alys. She opened her purse, at which Hog looked hopeful, but all she drew out was a white cloth, which she unwrapped to disclose a small flask.

  ‘What’s that?’ demanded Hog, all his suspicion returned. ‘It’s no holy water, is it?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Alys soothingly, and drew the stopper. ‘Only well-water.’ She tilted the flask so that water ran on to the cloth, then bent over the puncheon as Andy had done.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ said Hog, alarmed, ‘I’m no wanting it washed!’ He tried to pull the barrel away, but Andy prevented him with a firm grip of the rim.

  ‘What are you after, mistress?’ asked the man with Eppie. ‘Is it bloodstains you’re looking for?’

  Alys, intent on her work, did not answer him.

  ‘Gold dust, likely,’ offered the girl who had asked about treasure.

  ‘What, on the outside?’ said someone else.

  Kate, looking about the room again, found the bystanders had shifted. The familiar face was still hidden, but this time she could see the back of its owner’s shaggy, sandy head, the shoulders hunched uncomfortably away from her where he sat at the long table. Who, she wondered, was Billy Walker talking to in this tavern? She turned carefully, so that she could keep an unobtrusive watch in that direction, but a squat man in a patched red doublet kept getting in her way and all she could establish was that it was someone large, wrapped in a dark cloak despite being seated close to the fire.

  ‘And may I see the head?’ said Alys. Andy lifted it for her, and balanced it on the rim of the puncheon; she folded her damp cloth again and began dabbing at the planks, paying careful attention to the joints and the edges.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Hog again. Alys finished, and unfolded the cloth and held it up. It was a piece of old table linen, much-mended and bleached white, and even this far from the door the dark smudges were clearly visible on the diaper weave.

  ‘Is that blood?’ said the treasure-seeker eagerly.

  ‘No, not blood,’ said Alys. ‘Logwood. The cart lay one night in a dyer’s barn on the way home, we are told, and the carter complained he had logwood stains on his hose.’

  ‘So what’s that tell us?’

  ‘Tells them the barrel was on the cart,’ said Eppie.

  ‘We knew that,’ said Andy.

  ‘Billy Walker was right,’ said Alys. Kate, glancing down the room again, found that the squat man had moved. Billy’s sandy head turned sharply as he picked his own name out of the conversation, and the cloaked man opposite him looked up. Kate had a glimpse of a broad, flat, big-featured face with a tuft of beard on the lower lip; then the man’s eyes met hers, and he smiled. She looked away quickly, a sudden trickle of fear running down her spine.

  ‘Have ye seen enough, mistress?’ demanded Hog.

  ‘I have, indeed,’ said Alys. ‘Thank you, Maister Hog.’

  She opened her purse again, and this time a coin changed hands. Hog, looking less surly, twirled his property away behind the tapped barrel, and returning went so far as to say, ‘And thank you, mistress. Ye’ll aye be welcome in Mattha Hog’s tavern, and I hope you’ll tell all your gossips what’s here.’

  ‘Oh, be sure of that, Maister Hog,’ said Alys with a sweet smile. Kate bit her lip appreciatively, and turned towards the door as Andy began the task of shepherding his two charges out of the tavern.

  There was some disturbance behind them, movement in the press of people, and exclamations of annoyance, but intent on making her way out without setting her crutches down on any of the feet Kate did not look round. She was unprepared, therefore, for the man who pushed roughly past her, putting her off balance. Recovering herself, she was aware of Eppie’s indignant shouting, and of a shaggy head against the light in the doorway; then something struck her right crutch a heavy blow. It gave way under her, and she went sideways on to an acrid lap, and then as its owner, too, overbalanced they both went sprawling. There was more shouting, an exclamation from Alys, a furious bellow from Andy.

  ‘Are ye hurt, lassie?’ said a voice nearer her ear. ‘Only if my wife was to hear o this, I’ll get her rock about my ears when I get home the night.’

  She pushed herself up, embarrassed, then moved her hand hastily and apologized.

  ‘Oh, never apologize for that,’ said the man, grinning, and heaved himself back up on to his stool. ‘Can ye rise?’

  ‘Are ye hurt?’ said someone else. ‘What did he do to ye? Was that an axe he had?’

  ‘I can’t get up my lone,’ she admitted furiously. ‘My leg –’

  ‘An axe?’ said Andy, hauling ineffectively at Kate’s shoulders. ‘Did somebody say an axe? What did he do wi it? Was that Billy Walker I seen? Surely he never had an axe!’

  ‘Has he cut her leg off?’ said the treasure-seeker.

  ‘Fetch Babb,’ said Kate urgently, knocking Andy’s hands away, and scrambled round into a sitting position. ‘Andy, get Babb here to me.’

  But Babb was already there, elbowing people aside, ranting angrily about Andy’s lack of care.

  ‘As for you, my leddy,’ she said furiously, getting a capable grip as Kate reached up to link her arms round her neck, ‘you’ve no the sense you was born wi, coming into a dirty place like this where folks has no more courtesy than knock down a lassie off her oxter-poles.’

  She hoisted, with practised ease, and set her mistress upright.

  ‘It was Billy Walker,’ said Andy, dusting at Kate’s sleeve. Alys appeared anxiously at the doorway, with Wallace’s soft enquiring nose beside her. ‘Did he hurt you, my leddy?’

  ‘It couldny ha been one of my customers,’ claimed Hog in haste. ‘I never seen him afore he was in here this day.’

  ‘It was a great big man wi an axe,’ said Eppie, ‘for I seen it catch the light all blue. An axe on a long haft. What did he do wi it, lassie?’

  ‘He knocked my pole from under me,’ said Kate shakily, accepting one of her crutches from Andy.

  ‘She’s complaining o her leg,’ said the man she had fallen on, dusting himself down.

  ‘And why should she no,’ said Babb, still angry, ‘when it’s never worked since she was six years of age? And St Mungo himself refusing to do anything for her –’

  ‘Babb!’ said Kate.

  ‘Oh, are ye that lassie?’ said Eppie. ‘We was all hoping the saint would listen to ye, with them letting ye in for the night. I was heart sorry to hear it never worked, hen.’

  ‘You’re kind,’ said Kate. Someone handed her the other crutch, and she set it to the floor. ‘Oh!’

  ‘What now?’ said Babb, and stared in astonishment with her.

  The padded top of the crutch, which should lodge neatly under Kate’s arm, barely reached above her waist. Kate upended the thing to look at the other end, and several people exclaimed around her. Instead of the metal-shod tip which still graced its pair, the shaft ended in raw wood, half cut, half splintered.

  ‘Would ye look at that!’ said the man she had fallen on.

  ‘I tellt ye he had an axe,’ said Eppie triumphantly.

  Chapter Five

  ‘It could have been a dear sight worse, my leddy,’ said Ursel forthrightly, handing Kate a beaker of spiced ale.

  They were in the kitchen at Morison’s Yard, a stone structure down the slope next to the timber-framed house. It was far less gloomy and better cared-for than the hall. Cooking-crocks and metal pans were ranged on a set of shelves, a small spice-chest stood on another set among crocks of dried fruit, the wooden bowls and platters the men ate off were stacked neatly in a rack near the fire. Babb had brought Kate in there, at Ursel’s urgent invitation, as being the most comfortable place in the house, and the old woman had immediately set a jug of ale to warm, with spices to lift the spirits, as she said.

  ‘So I thought too,’ said Alys. ‘When I saw Babb, here, carry
you out of the tavern, I truly feared for you. It was a great relief to find you were not injured.’

  ‘I should never ha taken yez,’ said Andy from the doorway. He came into the kitchen, accepted ale from Ursel and sat down on a stool. ‘Your mule’s stabled, Lady Kate, alongside the old mare. Where are those bairns, Ursel?’

  ‘That lassie Jennet that Mistress Mason sent down,’ said Ursel, nodding at Alys, ‘she’s taken them away up to wash them and redd up a bit, to let me see to my kitchen. She’s a good worker, mistress.’

  ‘She is,’ agreed Alys, ‘and has five sisters, so she can deal with bairns.’

  ‘We’ll see if she can deal wi these bairns,’ said Andy sceptically. ‘And what about yersel, Lady Kate? I should never have let the pair of you into that place,’ he repeated. ‘I kent from the minute you asked me about the barrel, mistress, there would be trouble.’

  ‘But nobody was hurt,’ said Alys. ‘Kate has sent up to Rottenrow for her spare crutches, and the broken one can be replaced. And Our Lady be praised,’ she added to Kate, ‘that I do not have to tell Gil you were hurt about something I started.’

  ‘I should have gone myself,’ said Andy obstinately. ‘You could have tellt me what you wanted. And what were you about, anyway, mistress? What did we achieve wi that? Was there anything on your wee bit cloth?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Alys opened her purse and drew out the cloth, unfolding it to exhibit the blue-purple streaks on the white diaper. ‘See, there was certainly logwood dust in the joints of the barrel-head, and also lodged in the hoops.’

  ‘So that barrel was at the dyer’s yard,’ said Andy.

  ‘It was at a dyer’s yard,’ corrected Kate.

  Alys nodded. ‘Yes, unfortunately, we can’t be sure it was the same one.’

  ‘It’s a coincidence, if it’s no the same barrel,’ said Andy.

  ‘And my father always says he does not believe in coincidence.’ Alys looked thoughtfully at the stained cloth. ‘But even if it’s the same barrel, we are very little forward.’

  ‘How?’ said Andy.

  ‘That barrel must have been at the dye-yard on Tuesday night,’ said Alys, ‘but it could have been put on the cart at any time before that.’

  ‘Or after it reached the yard,’ Kate supplied.

  ‘We could have guessed that already,’ said Andy. Alys nodded, and folded the cloth again.

  ‘You mean all that was for nothing?’ said Babb. ‘And my leddy cast on the floor and her stick chopped in two, just for something we kent before?’

  ‘There’s one thing more,’ said Kate. They looked at her where she sat enthroned on the kitchen settle, even Ursel turning from the cooking-pots she was scouring. ‘Billy Walker was in the tavern –’

  ‘I was that sure I saw him!’ said Andy.

  ‘Aye, and I did and all,’ said Babb, ‘when he pushed out of the door, just afore you came out, mistress, to tell me my leddy needed me.’

  ‘The cheek of him!’ said Ursel.

  ‘Talking,’ Kate continued over them. ‘Talking to a big man in a dark cloak. Billy was trying to hide his face, but I knew him. The other one was a stranger, but I got a look at him.’ She stopped, thinking of the leering smile, and bit her lip. ‘I think I’d know him again,’ she added. ‘I never saw a weapon. I suppose he had it hidden under his cloak.’

  ‘It was him had the axe,’ said Babb, ‘for he followed Billy out the tavern. A big man in a dark cloak, as my leddy says. I never paid any mind to him, since he was a stranger, but I seen the axe, for it was in his hand, and he raised it up and kissed the flat o the blade. It wasn’t under his cloak then,’ she added darkly.

  ‘Kissed it?’ repeated Alys. Babb nodded, and Kate felt a shiver down her spine again.

  ‘But why did they knock her down?’ asked Ursel. ‘Was it that crowded?’

  ‘There was room and to spare,’ said Andy witheringly ‘He aye was a clumsy –’

  ‘It was no accident,’ said Alys, ‘for I saw. There was room to get by, as Andy says, though maybe not to spare. Billy pushed her quite deliberately. The other man went by just after him, and I suppose struck at her crutch as he went past.’

  ‘Out of spite,’ said Babb, ‘the nasty creature.’

  ‘Not only spite,’ said Kate thoughtfully, ‘for if I did anything, falling on that poor man, I provided a diversion.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘So they could get away unchallenged,’ said Alys. Kate nodded. ‘So it was important they get away!’

  ‘But who was it Billy Walker was talking to?’ asked Ursel.

  ‘Some broken man, likely,’ said Andy. ‘Who else would have a weapon like that in a Gallowgait tavern?’

  ‘Would the serjeant know him?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Him?’ said Andy witheringly ‘Forbye he’s a friend of Mattha Hog’s.’ Kate understood this to be a dismissal of her suggestion. ‘No, I don’t see that we can find the man, and I don’t see that it’s any of our worry. We can give thanks Lady Kate’s taken no hurt, and put the matter by. I’ve enough to look to, my leddy, mistress, wi keeping this place orderly for my maister.’ He tossed back the last of his ale and rose. ‘And I better go and see what the men are at.’

  As the door closed behind him, the four women looked at each other.

  ‘Now,’ said Alys, with an air of rolling up her sleeves, ‘we have work to do. Lady Kate will stay here tonight, Ursel, and Babb and Jennet will have an eye to the bairns until Andy can find a nursemaid for them.’

  ‘Andy find them a nourice?’ repeated Ursel doubtfully. ‘He found the last two, mistress. They couldny deal with the bairns. They’re orra bairns,’ she said lovingly. ‘The wee one’s so sharp she’ll cut herself, and Wynliane’s a poor wee thing, but I’ve never found them any trouble. It’s my belief they want a grown woman to mind them, no some bit lassie wi no sense.’

  ‘That’s a good word,’ said Babb.

  ‘Could you no help us yoursel, mistress? Does maybe someone in your household ken a woman looking for a place?’

  ‘I will ask,’ Alys promised. ‘But for now, Babb and I need to make up a bed for Kate.’

  Ursel bit her lip and turned away from the pots, drying her hands on her apron.

  ‘You’ll no want to get up the stair to the sleeping chambers, my leddy,’ she said, considering the matter. ‘There’s a truckle bed under my maister’s great best bed, in the chamber next the hall, but I’ve no notion what the strapping’s like, it’s that long since either was slept in.’

  ‘We can sort the strapping,’ pronounced Babb confidently.

  Ursel nodded, and turned to Alys. ‘I’ll show ye where the linen’s kept, mistress, but it’s no in very good order either. I’ve done my best, but I’ve as much to do keeping the kitchen, and none of the other women would stay, with no mistress about the place.’

  ‘Indeed, you keep a good kitchen,’ said Alys, looking about the well-ordered room. ‘Come and we will see what can be done.’

  Kate, left alone by the fireside, leaned back on the settle and closed her eyes.

  She remembered Augie Morison as a friend of her brothers, an awkward fair boy who would wait for a struggling small girl on two sticks while the others, even Gil her favourite brother, ran ahead. He seldom spoke to her, but hovered nearby, making certain she could manage rough ground without help, or finding an easier path to take. At the time, she recalled, this had made her very angry, but curiously she had been just as angry when she heard he had married Agnes Cowan and settled in Glasgow. It was very strange now to be sitting stranded in his house in his absence.

  Gil had passed on his message of sympathy before he left. That was like the boy she remembered, to think of her problems in the midst of his own. And surely he had problems enough, she thought, before ever they opened that accursed barrel. This bleak, ill-kept house, the ungoverned children, the thieving servant – he needs a housekeeper, she thought.

  ‘The lady’s sleepin’,’ said a little voice. She opened her
eyes, and found the little girls standing in front of her hand in hand, completely naked and dripping wet. The older one peeped at her with one eye from behind the elf-locks, but the younger was surveying her with that direct scowl. A trail of wet footprints led across the flagstones to the stair.

  ‘Jennet will be looking for you to dry you. Why are you two poppets not in bed?’ she asked them.

  Ysonde shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Why are you sitting in Ursel’s kitchen?’

  ‘Because I canny walk about.’

  ‘How not? Did the man with the axe cut off your leg?’ enquired Ysonde with interest.

  Kate bit back her first response. These children, like their father, had problems enough. No need to leave them with the seeds of bad dreams.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He broke my crutch, but he never touched my leg.’

  ‘Why can you no walk about, then?’

  ‘My leg doesn’t work.’

  ‘How not?’

  ‘When I was Wynliane’s age,’ she said patiently, ‘I was sick with a fever, and after I got better my leg never worked any more.’

  They both stared at her, Ysonde with a sceptical air. After a moment Kate drew up her tawny woollen skirts and displayed both legs, the left one sound and muscular in a striped stocking and stout leather shoe, the right one shrivelled and shortened below the knee, the curled foot encased in its soft slipper.

  ‘You’ve got odd stockings,’ said Ysonde. But Wynliane, letting go her sister’s hand, leaned forward to stroke the white knitted stocking on Kate’s right leg, with gentle, wet fingers. Her lips moved soundlessly. Ysonde looked at her, and then at Kate.

  ‘Wynliane wants it to get better,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, my poppets,’ said Kate, and tears sprang to her eyes. ‘If anything could mend it, I think that would.’

  Footsteps on the stair down from the main house made her hastily rearrange her skirts, but only heralded the arrival of a flustered Jennet.

  ‘There you are, you wild bairns!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come and be dried before you catch your deaths! I’m sorry for this, mem, I turned my back a moment to find them clean shifts and they were away. Come back up, the pair of you.’