by Pat McIntosh
‘No,’ said Ysonde.
‘Do as you’re bid, now,’ said Jennet, trying to get hold of their hands. Wynliane allowed herself to be captured, but Ysonde squirmed out of reach.
‘Talkin’ to the lady,’ she said indignantly.
‘You can talk to Lady Kate the morn,’ said Jennet, ‘for she’ll be here then and all.’
Ysonde looked searchingly at Kate. ‘Will you?’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Kate. ‘Go with Jennet now. Maybe she’ll tell you a story, if you go to bed quickly.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Jennet. ‘A’body needs a story once they’re in their bed.’
The child stared at Kate a moment, lower lip stuck out; then she looked consideringly at Jennet, sighed heavily and offered her hand to be led away.
‘And ask Lady Kate for her blessing,’ prompted Jennet, ‘like good wee lassies.’
Kate, taken aback, recalled her own nurse giving her the same order before carrying her up the wheel stair to the chamber she shared with her sisters. She had a moment’s panic as she tried to recall the blessing her mother had used, and then found her hand raised to make the sign of the Cross and the words coming readily to her tongue.
‘Christ and His blessed mother guard your sleep, my poppets.’
‘Amen,’ said Jennet firmly, and led the children away.
‘The linen is of the best quality,’ said Alys, ‘but it has been neglected. We found a pair of sheets fit for use, and good blankets, and you should be comfortable enough here.’
‘I should say so,’ agreed Kate. ‘We’ve shared worse, Babb and I.’
‘And I tightened the strapping,’ said Babb. ‘Sagging to the floor, it was.’ She prodded the pile of blankets on the truckle bed and it creaked in a satisfactory way.
‘You would hardly have slept in the great bed,’ said Alys, ‘but it must be cleaned before anyone does, or they will choke on the dust.’
They were in the chamber next the hall, at the head of the short stair down into the stone kitchen wing. Maister Morison’s best bed stood against one wall, imposing in a set of very dusty hangings of dark blue dornick. Two plate-cupboards, bare and equally dusty, occupied two other walls; the plate was presumably locked in the iron-strapped kist at the foot of the bed which completed the major furnishings of the chamber. Several stools had been rounded up and set aside, and the truckle bed drawn out and made up on the inmost side of the room, away from the window.
‘The moon’s well past the full,’ continued Alys, ‘but I thought best to keep you out of its light just the same. You must be very weary, and it might keep you awake.’
‘At least I have my other crutches now,’ said Kate.
Babb snorted. ‘The laddie took his time about getting back wi them. As for that Matt, down here speiring how you were –’
‘My uncle will have sent him,’ said Kate.
‘Aye, very likely. But coming in here, looking about him and going away with never a word,’ said Babb indignantly, ‘was that not just like him, my leddy?’
‘I must go home,’ said Alys. ‘I will come back tomorrow, and we will consider what to do next.’
‘About what, exactly?’ asked Kate. Their eyes met, and Alys nodded.
‘There are many different problems,’ she acknowledged. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ agreed Kate.
Lying awake in the dark, listening to Ursel’s snores from the upper floor and Babb’s quiet breathing at her back, Kate found the problems crowded in on her without waiting for the morrow. They tangled round her like ropes, and whenever she tried to pick at one, another tightened its grip. She could not bear to think about her experience this morning, of the end to her hopes of a miracle or the bitter flavour left by the words of the man in her dream, but if there was to be no miracle, what of the other things which had happened in this very long day and which somehow demanded her attention? Here in Maister Morison’s own house, it seemed impossible not to help him in his difficulties, but what could she do, thumping about on two sticks or carried up stairs by her muscular servant, that could not be done faster and better by another? Would he wish to be helped, or was it simply meddling?
The house itself, neglected for two years by a dwindling succession of careless servants, cheerless and disordered, begged to be put right. It needed willing workers and someone to direct them. As for the two little girls – the older one, whatever was wrong with her, had a sweet face and seemed to have the nature to match. Her sister, on the other hand, reminded Kate of a nest of wild kittens she and Tib had once found. The mother was a house cat, not a wildcat of the woods, but she had reared the kits away from people, and they were fierce and furious, with no smatch of timidity in them, spitting and lashing out with sharp little claws at a grasping hand.
She smiled into the dark, thinking of what had happened after Alys left. Not yet ready to sleep, Kate had taken herself into the hall again, to look at the jumble of dusty instruments in the corner. A lute with five broken strings lay on top of a harp-case, two recorders had rolled against the panelling, and under all was a painted box. Babb, with much argument, had dragged this out and set it on a small table for her, and she had opened the lid. As she had suspected, it contained a set of monocords, the dark keys and brass wires dull with disuse but clean inside their case. She opened out the folding prop for the music.
‘Now, my doo, that’s none of yours,’ Babb had protested. Ignoring her, Kate pressed one or two of the boxwood keys. To her surprise, the little instrument was out of tune but otherwise in good order.
‘It’s a good set,’ she said, reaching for the tuning-key in its slot at the side of the lid. ‘It’s not been touched for a while.’
‘No, and you shouldn’t be touching it,’ grumbled Babb. ‘It’s time you were in your bed, my doo.’
‘I wish we’d never sold mine.’ Kate bent down to hear the faint silver notes. ‘Mother never got the price we’d paid for them.’ She tapped one key, tightened the string again, then tested the other keys which struck the same string. Satisfied, she moved the tuning-key to another pin. Babb snorted, and stalked away.
Once she had brought the whole instrument into agreement with itself, and confirmed the tuning with the proper broken chords and scales, she picked out a few familiar turns and trills, then moved on to such music as she could remember. The stiff keys eased as she worked on them, and the sound they struck from the wire strings was sweet and delicate.
She had no idea how long she had been playing when there was movement in the corner of her eye. Caught in the tune, her hands kept going of their own accord as she glanced sideways, to find a pale little figure almost floating at the foot of the stairs: Ysonde in her clean shift, unaware that she was observed, dancing barefoot to the music.
She kept the tune going, glancing up from time to time, noting that the small feet kept exact time with her fingers. When the dance wound to its end she took her hands from the keys and held one out to Ysonde.
‘Where’s Jennet?’
The child paused, staring at her across the shadowy hall. ‘Asleep.’
‘So should you be.’
‘It was dancy. Do some more.’
‘Not now,’ said Kate, ‘but if you go back to bed I’ll play some more tomorrow.’
Ysonde considered this. ‘Will you say that thing again?’ she bargained.
‘What thing?’
‘Christ a blessed mother.’ Ysonde held up her hand. Kate, keeping her face straight, delivered the blessing, and the child vanished back up the stair. A bump and a distant murmur suggested that she had returned to bed.
Above Kate, now, Ursel’s distant snores stopped for a moment then started again on a different note. The bars of moonlight beyond the great bed moved slowly across the wall, and timbers creaked round her as the house settled into the night. Used to a stone tower-house, Kate found the noises unsettling, but Babb’s sleeping presence was a comfort.
What did the two children need? Ysonde sho
uld be sharp enough to learn her letters and some music, young as she was. It might be possible to teach Wynliane to read, even if she never spoke. Did she hear? Kate wondered. If the child was deaf, it would explain a lot.
The house creaked again. Kate turned on her back and lay with her ears stretched, and Ursel snorted upstairs.
As for Maister Morison’s most immediate problem, this charge of murder from the inquest on the head in the barrel – was there anything more she and Alys could do about that? So far, she had to admit, their meddling had only achieved the loss of two of his servants and the partial confirmation of Billy Walker’s account of the bringing home of the barrel. Chaucer came to her mind: many a servaunt have ye put out of grace. Perhaps Gil is doing better, she thought, staring at the bars of moonlight. How did it go on? I take my leve of your unstedfastnesse. Would Maister Morison see it that way?
Something moved across the moonlight.
Tucked in the darkness beyond the blue dornick hangings, Kate froze, concentrating on the movement she had seen, desperately praying that she was invisible in the shadows and that Babb would make no sound in her sleep beyond her steady breathing.
For a long moment there was no further sign. Then a chink of metal sounded, followed by a small scuffle. Someone was by the kist which stood at the foot of the great bed.
Kate lay still, hardly breathing. The sounds were repeated, stealthily. There was an indrawn breath, and a muttered word too soft to make out. Another chink of metal, and then a clatter as if something had been dropped on the floor, and a muffled curse. A man’s voice.
Beside her, Kate became aware that Babb was awake. The woman did not stir, but the change in her breathing and the tension in her big frame were unmistakable. As the dropped item was picked up, scraping on the boards, Kate reached out under the sheet and grasped her servant’s hand. She squeezed once, twice, and Babb returned the pressure.
Ursel snorted again above-stairs, and the stealthy movements at the foot of the carved bed checked, then continued. In the truckle bed, Babb gathered herself, and slowly turned back the bedclothes, ready to swing her legs out and stand up as quietly as she might. Kate reached down on her side of the truckle bed and grasped one of the crutches laid ready as they always were.
There was a rattle and click at the bed-foot, a soft exclamation of satisfaction, and a long creak. Babb seized her chance and rose to her feet in her shift. Kate, gripping the crutch, swung it up and on to the bed to meet Babb’s groping hand. Armed with a four-foot stave of stout timber, Babb stepped forward into the moonlight, and with a sweep of her free hand slammed the lid of the kist down.
The intruder cried out in pain and alarm, and there was a scuffling as he tried to rise, to escape, but Babb pounced.
‘What are ye about?’ she demanded, dragging him away from the kist. ‘Who is it, anyway, creeping into decent folk’s houses in the night? Who are ye? What are ye after?’
‘Let me go, you fairground show!’ said her captive breathlessly, writhing in her grasp in the barred light. ‘Let me go! Ah, you’ve broke my wrists!’
Kate, trying to make out the two struggling figures, saw Babb shake the intruder by the back of his shirt. Then it appeared as if he flung up his arms and ducked, almost seeming to vanish. Babb exclaimed in annoyance and plunged towards the door, but before she reached it there was a flurry of movement and a sharp agonized scream. Something large scurried across the floor towards Kate, but the yelling continued.
‘I’m stabbed, I’m bit! I’m dying! What is it, get it off me!’
‘What on earth –?’ demanded Kate, reaching for the tinderbox under her pillow. Her hands were shaking so much it was difficult to light the tinder, but finally she set a flame to the candle on the stool by the bedhead. In its sputtering glow she saw Billy Walker, bare to the waist, one arm clutched in Babb’s renewed grasp. With his free hand he was rubbing at his hindquarters, gibbering in fear and what seemed to be genuine pain. The shirt he had ducked out of lay where Babb had dropped it.
‘What ails ye, fool?’ demanded Babb, shaking him energetically.
He howled, and twisted to look at the seat of his hose. ‘I’m bleeding! What was it? What did ye set on to me, witch? I’m bitten! Look at the blood there!’
‘There’s no blood,’ said Babb, turning him so that the light fell on the afflicted portion. ‘Well, maybe a wee drop. Nothing’s bitten you, man, unless it was one o yir ain fleas. More likely ye’ve stabbed yersel with whatever ye were using to get into Maister Morison’s big kist, you nasty wee rugger.’
‘I never! It was something wi teeth, for I felt them.’
‘What’s wrong?’ called an anxious voice on the stair. ‘What’s to do down there? Are ye hurt, mem? Is it a thief in the house?’
‘Jennet!’ answered Kate. ‘Put your shoes on and come down, lassie. I need you to go out to the bothy and waken Andy.’
‘What’s bit this thievin’ creature? Was it a ratton, maybe?’ asked Babb nervously.
‘A ratton?’ exclaimed Billy. ‘It was bigger than that. It was like to take my leg off!’
Kate shook her head, smiling. ‘No ratton,’ she said. ‘A wildcat, more like.’
She turned back the bedclothes to reveal Ysonde in her clean shift, curled in a ball at her side. The child looked up, and the candlelight showed her wicked grin.
‘I bited him on the bum,’ she said triumphantly.
‘Should we send for the Watch, Lady Kate? There’s nowhere we can shut him away,’ said Andy anxiously, ‘except the cart-shed, and I doubt me he’d get out o that no bother.’
‘Is there nowhere in the house?’ Kate asked. She was seated once again in Maister Morison’s great chair, uncomfortably aware of how hastily Babb had laced her gown for her. ‘A larder, maybe? The coalhouse?’
‘Aye, the coalhouse,’ said Andy, brightening. ‘And did ye say he was at the maister’s big iron kist, my leddy? What did he get from it?’
‘A bruising,’ said Babb with satisfaction, indicating Billy’s swollen wrists. Pinned between two former workmates, he glowered sullenly at her across the lit hall, but did not speak. ‘I slammed the lid on him,’ she added. ‘It’s an auld trick, but it works fine. No, he got nothing out the kist, for I stopped him.’
‘But how did he open it?’ wondered Andy.
‘He had a key,’ said Kate, holding it up. ‘He woke Babb when he dropped it.’
‘Well, how was I to ken a pair of meddlesome witches was sleepin’ there?’demanded Billy. One of the men holding him shook his arm, and he winced visibly.
‘You just keep a civil tongue in your heid, Billy Walker,’ his colleague admonished. ‘And where did you get the maister’s key, that’s what I’d like to ken.’
‘None o your mind, Jamesie Aitken,’ said Billy.
‘Oh, but it is,’ said Kate. ‘How did you get a key like this one? And what were you after, anyway?’
‘Money,’ he said insolently, ‘what do you think?’
‘And that’s a lee!’ exclaimed the man who had spoken before. ‘When all of us kens the maister keeps his coin up at the castle wi the Provost. Come on, tell the leddy. What were ye after?’
‘Up at the castle!’ repeated Billy, and spat. ‘Believe that, you’ll believe anything.’
‘Watch your manners!’ began Andy, but Kate leaned forward from Maister Morison’s great chair.
‘What does that mean, Billy?’ she asked. ‘Do you know something we’re not privy to? What does Maister Morison keep in that kist?’
‘It’s just the plate-chest,’ Andy said.
‘Billy knows different,’ said Kate, watching the man in the light of the three candles on the pricket-stand. ‘Well, Billy? What were you after? Was it coin, right enough, or treasure? What did the man with the axe send you for?’
It had been a shot almost at a venture, but it struck home. Billy jerked back, gaped at her, and then said in panicky tones, ‘Ye never saw me! I wasny there!’
‘Oh, but
I did,’ she said.
‘Where were you no?’ said Andy. ‘For if it’s the Hog you mean, I saw you an all, Billy Walker. As for pushing Lady Kate off her crutches, I’ll pay you for that some day.’
‘I’ll pay him first,’ said Babb darkly.
‘I never! It wasny me that couped her ower!’
‘He kens a lot for one that wasny there,’ said Babb.
Kate nodded. ‘So the man with the axe sent you for something in the kist,’ she said.
‘No, he never,’ said Billy wildly. ‘He never had anything to do wi it. He wasny there!’
‘You broke in of your own accord?’
‘Aye,’ said Billy in relief. ‘It was my idea. To look for the . . .’
‘The what?’
‘I forget,’ said Billy.
Kate looked at Andy. ‘He breaks into his master’s house,’ she said, ‘opens his iron kist with a key, and then forgets what he was looking for.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Andy, ‘maybe the serjeant can help him remember the morn. He’s got a set of thumbscrews he’s a great hand at using,’ he continued, without conscious humour. ‘I’ve no doubt he’d get an answer in no time.’
‘We’ve no need to wait to the morn,’ said Babb. ‘Ursel’s got a pile o kindling in the kitchen. We could get wee splinters and put them under his fingernails.’
‘Ye can set light to them and all,’ said the man at Billy’s other side unexpectedly. Billy flinched.
‘What were you looking for, Billy?’ asked Kate. ‘You might as well tell us, for we’ll have it out of you sooner or later. If we don’t, the Provost will. For a start, where did you get the key to the kist?’
‘Likely his lassie gied him it,’ said Jamesie Aitken. ‘Her that took a strunt and went off without her dinner. Mall Anderson.’
‘I said she had something down her busk!’ said Andy inaccurately. ‘Ten to one it was the key she took from the kist upstairs that we all heard her opening.’
‘What if she did?’ said Billy with an attempt at bravado. ‘It doesny prove I took it from her. Maybe I was bringing it back,’ he added. Kate laughed aloud at this effrontery, but Andy produced a menacing growl. ‘Anyway you never saw it in my hand,’ he added. ‘You canny prove I brocht it wi me or that I made use of it to open the kist.’
