by Pat McIntosh
‘No,’ agreed Kate, since something was obviously expected of her.
‘It wasny –’ He stopped again, and swallowed. ‘It wasny a clean kill. He’d tried to get away, poor loon. That’s why I wanted to stop the lassie going to see him. Thievin’ wretch she may be, but he was her leman. Hacked into pieces, he was, and blood all over the coalheap.’
‘We must wash that,’ said Alys immediately, ‘before it sets any further.’
‘Likely you could sell the whole load o coals to Mattha Hog just as they are,’ said Andy darkly. ‘If I ken my maister he’ll no want to burn them, that’s for sure, washed or no. Our Lady be praised, we’ve enough broken barrels and that on the woodheap to burn till we can order up more.’
‘Aye, we could sell it and be rid of it, if the serjeant has seen all he needs to,’ said Kate.
‘He’s seen it,’ said Andy. ‘He looked at the coal-house, and the blood everywhere, and he looked at me and the men, no what ye’d call clean since they’re good workers but none o us wi blood on his shoes or his clothes, except my boots from when I found him, and he said it wasny any of us, it must ha been another intruder, maybe Billy’s accomplice, and lucky we were no to have been cut up oursels. And for once in his life,’ he added drily, ‘I think John Anderson’s right.’
‘I want a look at these marks on the door,’ said Alys.
‘And I,’ said Kate, and reached for her crutches.
The coalhouse was part of the stone structure containing the kitchen, the laundry and several other storehouses. Each of these had a stout door of broad planks, the storehouse doors secured by a wooden bar lodged in slots in the stone jambs. The coalhouse was nearest to the kitchen; Kate, approaching it, looked back along the length of the house and saw that the kitchen building was not so deep as the timber-framed hall and chambers, so that its doors were set some way back compared to the house windows. Besides, the windows of the room where she and Babb had slept, with difficulty, after the excitements of the midnight had been firmly shuttered. Small wonder that she had heard nothing.
The men at their weeding and tidying glanced sideways at them, but carefully paid no more attention. Babb, restacking huge yellow pots on a rack near the gate, straightened up to see if her mistress required her, then went back to her task.
‘There ye are,’ said Andy, gesturing at the coalhouse. ‘That’s about how I found it, my leddy.’
The door was standing shut, the bar lying on the ground beside it. There was a single large handprint, slightly smudged and now quite dry, showing dark against the bleached wood, as if someone had set his hand against the door to push it to. Kate, balanced on her crutches, put her own hand up without touching the mark.
‘A bigger hand than mine,’ she said, ‘and someone taller than me.’ She remembered the big man she had seen in the Hog, the flat, ugly face with its wisp of beard, and shivered.
‘His left hand,’ observed Alys. ‘And the bar laid down this side. I wonder if the man is left-handed?’
‘He went by on my right,’ contributed Kate, ‘and hacked at this pole.’
Alys nodded. ‘May we open the door?’
‘You don’t need to open the door,’ said Andy roughly. ‘I’ve tellt you what’s inside.’
‘I want to see,’ said Alys. Kate moved aside, and Andy opened the door with reluctance. Kate peered inside, and swallowed. She had not been prepared for the way the heap of coal betrayed Billy’s last moments so clearly, the pits and hollows where he had trampled about trying to escape his executioner, and the blood smeared among the coal-dust halfway up the walls as well as caked among the loose coal. She thought of the man in the Hog, and the long reach and swing of a Lochaber axe. With that great bulk blocking the doorway, there would have been no escape.
Beside her Alys stared dispassionately, but her hand crept out and closed over Kate’s where it gripped the crutch.
‘We must certainly have this out of here,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘And the walls scrubbed down before you order a new load of coals.’
‘Christ and Our Lady have compassion on him,’ said Kate, and crossed herself. ‘It is still extraordinary,’ she added, ‘that none of us heard anything. Surely he had time to cry out?’
‘Perhaps he was t-too busy trying to get out of reach,’ said Alys, her hand still tight over Kate’s.
‘Seen enough?’ said Andy, and shut the door without waiting for an answer. ‘What now, my leddy?’
‘I want to look at the back gate,’ said Kate, ‘where he likely got in, and then the men must have their noon bite, and someone must take those books to Maister Morison, and then . . .’
She looked at Alys.
‘What are you planning, Lady Kate?’ asked Andy suspiciously.
‘That’s just it,’ she said. ‘I think now it might not be so clever.’
Alys nodded ruefully.
‘What’s no so clever?’ Andy looked from one to the other of them. ‘Oh, no. No back to the Hog. I’ll take your mule up to Rottenrow my ain sel’ first, to keep you from going out.’
‘No need,’ said Kate, setting off towards the back of the yard. ‘I can see for myself that sitting in the tavern asking openly about this man that slips into places to kill by night is no the best way to carry on the enquiry.’
‘Just the same,’ said Alys. Kate paused, and looked at her again. ‘What if . . .’ she began. ‘What if someone went down to the Hog – don’t worry, Andy, we could send one of the men – to offer Mattha the chance to purchase these coals.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps he could take money,’ she continued, thinking aloud, ‘to buy Billy’s friends a drink.’
‘The whole of the Hog would turn out to be his drinking-fellows,’ objected Andy.
‘So they would. Then how can we learn more?’
‘What are ye after?’
‘Anyone who overheard him yesterday,’ said Kate. ‘Anything we can learn about the man with the axe and what he and Billy said to one another.’
‘But without the man with the axe learning we are seeking for him,’ supplied Alys.
Andy gnawed at his lip. ‘A tall order,’ he commented. ‘Jamesie and William might manage it. If we gied them some drinksilver after their dinner, and the message for Mattha right enough, they could sit a while and see what they might hear.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the industrious men, and grinned suddenly. ‘I’ve a notion they’d like it better than shifting broken crocks. I’ll have to let them all have the evening off.’
The back of the yard, beyond the barn and the cart-shed, was defined by a tall fence of split palings, well maintained, though the whitewash had worn off it. Kate commented on this, and Andy grunted.
‘I’ve kept the palings tied on,’ he said, ‘for it keeps the hens out the yard mostly, but we’ve no had the time for whiting things for a while. See, while we were at Linlithgow last week,’ he explained, dragging the gate open, ‘William and our John stayed here to mind the yard, but the other two fellows had the other cart to Irvine wi three great pipes for Ireland, laden wi crocks and St Mungo kens all-what gear. They brought back a couple of tuns of wine and some small stuff for Clem Walkinshaw and a few others, and they’d ha been out again the morn with another load if this hadny happened. He’s been driving us and himself, ever since – well, for the last couple of years.’
Beyond the gate the rest of the property sloped down towards the mill-burn, ending in another, lower fence with a gate in it, and the stable where Mall had waited for her sweetheart. Kate stood at the top of the slope, looking about her. The kale-yard nearest the fence, where the chickens were pecking, was obviously being worked, and was well tended, but beyond it to one side was a small pleasance whose formal shapes were outlined by untrimmed box hedges and full of weeds. There was a bench, disappearing under a rampant honeysuckle, and two strips of standing hay which were probably intended to be grassy paths, Kate thought.
‘The mistress sat there often,’ said Andy, seeing the direction of h
er glance.
Kate nodded. She remembered Agnes Cowan, a round-faced girl with brown curls, a ready laugh and a significant tocher. What, she wondered, had brought her down so far that she drowned herself, leaving her two little girls motherless?
Alys bent to look at the neat plots of vegetables.
‘I would like some seed off these turnips,’ she said. ‘They are different from mine. Who minds the garden?’
‘Our John,’ said Andy.
‘He would make a gardener,’ said Alys. ‘Kate, have you seen all you want?’
‘Aye. Not hard to get in by the fence down yonder,’ she said, ‘and this gate can be opened from either side. He’d have had no trouble getting into the yard.’
As they turned to go in, one of the men threaded his way between the buildings with a word for Andy, glancing sideways at Kate and Alys as he delivered it. Andy nodded, and sent him back.
‘That’s one of the constables at the yett, Jamesie says,’ he reported. ‘We’re all summoned to the quest on Billy. They want it for the morn, after Terce, to get it out the way afore the King gets here.’
‘I have never seen such a quest,’ remarked Alys.
‘I’ve seen one too many,’ said Andy sourly. ‘You can come along if you will, mistress. I’ve no doubt Lady Kate’d be glad o yir company.’
Chapter Nine
They were clearing the table away after the midday bite when the gate thumped. Andy, gathering his workforce together as the women carried out the empty dishes, turned to peer out of the hall window.
‘St Mungo’s banes,’ he said, staring. ‘Is this no your uncle, my leddy?’
‘My uncle?’ Kate swung herself towards the window. Out in the yard, severe in his long black gown and acorn-shaped hat, Canon Cunningham was gazing about him with the air of one surveying a battlefield. Beside him Matt was looking hopefully at the house. ‘Indeed it is. What’s brought him down here?’
‘I hope nothing is wrong!’ Alys joined her with an armful of folded linen. ‘No, he does not look as if he brings bad news.’
‘That’s good lassies,’ said Nan, handing a wooden platter to each of the little girls. ‘Take those down to Ursel, now, just like Jennet did, and then we’ll go out in the yard.’
‘Likely he’s come to see what you’re about, the two of you,’ surmised Babb from across the room. ‘Let him in and bid him sit down, my doo, since we’ve made oursels at home.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Alys moved to stow the linen in the great press, and paused. ‘I wonder, has he eaten? Do you suppose Ursel . . .’
‘No, no,’ said Canon Cunningham when she asked him the same question. ‘I’ve eaten well, my lassie. You ken the kitchen Maggie keeps. Thank you for asking,’ he added. Seating himself on one of Maister Morison’s backstools he looked closely at his niece. ‘Well, Kate.’
‘Well, sir,’ she responded, seated opposite him and wondering why she felt as if she had been caught in mischief.
‘Tell me, what are you at here? What about all these tales reaching the Chanonry?’
‘What tales are those, sir?’
‘You had a thief in the house last night, did you no? And a murder this morning.’ The Official looked round him at the gloomy hall. ‘Was it just the one murder, or was it half the household as Maggie swears that Agnes Dow tellt her?’
‘Just the one, sir,’ Kate assured him, her mouth quirking in spite of herself.
‘So it’s true, then?’ Her uncle raised one eyebrow. ‘Who?’
‘The thief, Christ assoil him. Babb and I took him redhand at his master’s kist, and we shut him in the coalhouse till morning. Then when Andy Paterson went to fetch him out, he was dead, slain by another inbreaker.’
‘I don’t know, it’s fair coming to it when a decent young woman canny sleep safe in her bed at night. Are you sure you’ve taken no hurt, lassie?’
‘I’m not hurt, sir.’
David Cunningham tut-tutted, shaking his head.
‘It’s the fault o that brother o yours,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we never had the half of these killings before he started looking into them. And your father just encourages him,’ he added severely to Alys. Her elusive smile flickered, but she made no answer. ‘What was a thief doing in the house anyway? And then another ill-doer in the yard. And what were you doing sending a man up for your spare poles? What came to the good set?’
They explained, as clearly as they might, and he listened intently, asking the occasional penetrating question. When they had done he sat silent, sipping at the tiny cup of Dutch spirit which Babb had quietly brought in while they talked.
‘So who is this man with the axe working for?’ he said at length. ‘It seems to me you need to find that out.’
‘We thought,’ said Alys, ‘to send two of the men down to the Hog after dinner, to see what they might learn.’
‘Aye,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It would need to be done wi care, but it might pay you.’ You, thought Kate, and exchanged a glance with Alys. ‘You got a sight of him, did you say, Kate?’
‘I did, sir,’ she agreed. ‘I’d ken him again – even if he shaved his wee beard. But there was no badge on his cloak that I could see.’
‘I never seen one neither, Maister David,’ said Babb from behind Kate’s chair. ‘And I got a right look at him as he cam out of that nasty tavern.’
‘And what did the servant lassie say about him? Do you think you can believe her?’
‘She thought he was a stranger to Glasgow,’ supplied Alys, ‘with an accent from Stirling or Edinburgh or some such place.’ She grimaced. ‘I confess I would not hear the difference. He pressed Billy to complete some task, and Billy said he was paid only to open the yett. She thought they did not mean this yett. Then the man ordered him to get his master arrested for murder, and to steal the key to the kist.’
‘The Axeman seemed certain there should be more treasure,’ added Kate. ‘Oh, and there was that odd thing he said about his own master.’
‘He did not say it was his master,’ objected Alys scrupulously.
‘True. He said – Mall told us he said, The Baptizer wanted his goods and gear back. We assumed he meant his master.’
‘I think we can believe the girl,’ Alys said judiciously. ‘She was in such great distress, I do not think she was lying, and the rest of her story knits well with what we know already.’
Canon Cunningham nodded, and took another sip of the Dutch spirit, rolling it thoughtfully on his palate.
‘Juniper,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Aye, Alys, she had reason to be distressed, I suppose.’
‘It makes no sense,’ said Kate. ‘There was a strange man’s head and a bag of coin and jewels in a barrel brought home from Blackness, and now another stranger running about Glasgow, persuading Billy there should be more of the coin and jewels still hid in this house, and killing him when he can’t find it.’
‘And chopping your oxter-pole in two and all, my doo,’ said Babb.
‘Maybe Gil has learned something more,’ said Alys.
‘Aye, Gilbert,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘Where did you say he was gone?’ he asked casually. The two girls looked at each other.
‘He was going to Stirling,’ said Alys. ‘He left with four of Sir Thomas’s men, I thought.’
‘Aye, and Rob and Tam from my household and all,’ agreed the Official. ‘I ken he went to Stirling. I’m just wondering where he would go after that.’
‘Linlithgow,’ said Alys positively. ‘My father left this morning, to go by Kilsyth and then meet him in Linlithgow. He would not change his plans without letting us know.’
‘Why do you ask, sir?’ said Kate.
‘No reason,’ said her uncle. He drew his spectacles from his sleeve, unfolded them and fitted them carefully on his nose. ‘I had a word from Robert Blacader,’ he went on, feeling in his sleeve again. ‘He writes that he saw your brother yestreen, and had the tale of the treasure and the quest from him. And,’ he glanced at Alys, ‘that he
has bidden Gilbert report to him.’
‘Oh!’ said Alys, and her eyes shone.
‘Quite so,’ agreed the Official. He located the piece of paper, drew it from his sleeve and unfolded it. ‘Where are we now? Aye, and also that Will Knollys had a long word wi Gilbert after he spoke wi the King, and I am tellt he was avysit to carry his search intil Ayrshire.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Alys positively. ‘He was certainly to meet my father after he was in Stirling. To go to Ayrshire he must come back through Glasgow, not? Linlithgow is the other way, I think.’
‘I doubt whether your father would let him go into Ayrshire alone,’ Kate contributed.
‘Aye, I’ve no doubt you’re right,’ agreed her uncle. ‘We needny worry about Gilbert. He’s a man grown, after all.’
‘I never worry about him,’ said Kate.
Her uncle threw her a sharp look, and Alys said, ‘I know very little about Treasurer Knollys, sir. Do you know him?’
‘I do,’ said David Cunningham without expression. Alys waited hopefully.
‘Isn’t he one of the Knights of Rhodes?’ Kate asked.
Canon Cunningham snorted. ‘He contrived to be made Preceptor here in Scotland of the Knights of Jerusalem and Rhodes, the Order of St John, though he isny in minor Orders, let alone one of the Knights. He pays the Preceptory’s taxes,’ he added fairly, ‘as he can well afford to do, between the income he has from the Order and his own trading along the English coast. He’s been Treasurer of Scotland since the commencement of this reign, if I mind right, and spends a lot of his time bickering wi Robert Lyle about where the late King’s hoard went to and trying to lay his hands on what’s still to be found. He’d be overjoyed to see that bagful your brother found.’
