The Merchant's Mark

by Pat McIntosh

  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?’

  ‘Not the knights,’ said Gil, almost to himself. James glanced briefly at him.

  ‘Not me,’ said Angus, still grinning. ‘It was you said it, my lord St Johns, not me. I’m saying Linlithgow’s full of men in black cloaks, no more than that.’

  ‘I never saw Billy talking to such a one,’ said Morison to Gil. Knollys subsided, glaring at Angus. ‘Maybe Andy or Jamesie saw, you could ask them.’

  Gil nodded.

  ‘This man Billy,’ said the King, ‘that the lassie wants justice for. Why did you keep him? Had he been a good servant?’

  ‘Not a bad servant, sir, anyways,’ said Morison, considering the matter. ‘He was pert, but they can all be pert. A good enough worker, a good carter, understood the old mare well. Understood barrels and all, with his father being a cooper.’

  Out in the High Street it was raining, though the gibbous moon sailed in broken cloud above the Dow Hill. The torchbearers in the escort the King had ordered for them made a great difference, Gil found, striding down the hill behind them with a bewildered Augie Morison at his side. Two other sturdy fellows in helm and breastplate followed, keeping a watchful eye on the shadows.

  There had been little more of use said after Augie’s revelation about Billy’s parentage. The Treasurer had shown signs of wishing to interrogate him further about Linlithgow, but the King, yawning ostentatiously, had announced, ‘Well, gentlemen, as you said a while since, it’s ower late. We’ll have this cleared away the now.’ A wave of relief swept round the crowded little room, and he smiled slightly. ‘We’ll be up early for Mass, after all. In the chapel here, my lord?’ Blacader nodded. ‘And after it,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I want a game of caich before we ride. Maister Cunningham, you look like a fit man. Do you play caich?’

  ‘I do, sir,’ Gil had said, slightly apprehensive. The quarry must feel that way, he thought now, when a twig cracks in the undergrowth.

  ‘You’ll gie me a game? Good! In the caichpele off the Drygate here – you ken?’

  Gil knew it. It belonged to one of the canons, who found the steady supply of pence from the tennis-players and spectators of the town made a valuable income. He had played there a few times, but he and his opponents among the poverty-stricken songmen generally used an improvised court in Vicars’ Alley, with two sloping roofs to be the pents and chalked marks on St Mungo’s north wall, renewed every time it rained, for lunettes. The scorer had to have sharp eyes.

  ‘Good,’ said James, and rose. Gil and the two elderly statesmen rose too, perforce. ‘I’ll meet you after Mass, say about Terce. And now we’ll have you seen home, maister. Where do you lie the night?’

  ‘David Cunningham’s house – the Cadzow manse in Rottenrow,’ supplied Blacader.

  Gil shook his head. ‘I’m bound for Maister Morison’s house in the High Street,’ he said. ‘My sister is there, and maybe Mistress Mason, keeping an eye on the bairns.’

  Morison, still kneeling at his feet, put one hand over his eyes. William Knollys looked round sharply, with the arrested expression of the stag who hears the hounds.

  ‘What does the lady there?’ he demanded. ‘Surely Maister Morison has servants of his own?’

  ‘My sister was concerned for the bairns,’ said Gil again. Knollys grunted, and turned casually away to speak to a man with the eight-pointed Cross of St John on the breast of his velvet doublet.

  ‘Find Davie Wilkie,’ he began in a low voice. The King spoke across him, directing someone to deal with Gil’s escort, someone else to take word to the Provost that his prisoner had been released at the King’s command.

  ‘Released?’ repeated Morison incredulously. ‘You mean – your grace means – I can go free? I can go hom
e?’

  ‘Aye, maister. Thanks to your friend here.’

  Blacader nodded approval; Angus was standing back, watching enigmatically. Knollys was still speaking to his servant in a confidential mutter. Gil thought he had caught another name: ‘Bid him and John Carson . . .’ He had heard these names before, in the same muttered tone. And why, he wondered, should getting a message to them be important enough to discuss before the King?

  A velvet-clad servant with the King’s badge on his chest appeared at his elbow, the King dismissed them, and they were both spirited out into the wet night where the gate-guards peered from under the vault of the gatehouse like deer in a forest. Morison seemed dumbstruck, floating along at Gil’s side staring at the torches, the people, the castle walls, as if he had never seen such things before.

  Why, Gil thought now, striding down the High Street, does my mind keep running on hunting? Is it because I am being followed? He turned his head from side to side, trying to see over his shoulders, but although the shadows beyond the pool of wet torchlight in which they moved were black and jumpy he could not focus any of his unease in them.

  ‘Nobody will try anything on six men, maister,’ said one of the two at his back, ‘and four of them in the King’s livery.’

  ‘That’s a true word,’ agreed the left-hand torchbearer.

  As he spoke, a group emerged from a vennel just ahead of them. Gil, bracing himself, was aware of sudden tension round him. Morison stared apprehensively. Four men with a lantern which gleamed on a selection of ill-fitting armour stared back at them in alarm; then one of them took a better grip on his cudgel and said firmly, ‘Who goes there, in the name of the King?’

  ‘It’s the Watch,’ said Gil in relief.

  The right-hand torchbearer was already answering: ‘The King’s men, about the King’s business.’

  The man with the lantern came closer, with his fellows straggling after him as if they would rather not be left in the dark. Gil could not recognize the men in this light, but felt it to be unlikely that any of them was a burgess. Most people sent a servant or other substitute when their turn to guard the burgh through the night came round. The lantern dwindled against the torchlight, which clearly showed the royal badge on cloak and velvet surcoat. Two of the Watch nodded.

  ‘Aye, Geordie, that’s the King’s badge,’ said one of them. ‘They’re likely from the castle.’

  ‘They’ll be seeing these fellows to their doors,’ said another. ‘And I hope neither of their women’s lying awake for them, for they’ll get a warm welcome, coming in at this hour o the night.’

  ‘Wheesht, Jaik!’ said the fourth man in a hissing whisper. ‘That’s Maister Morison. Him that found a heidit man in a barrel.’

  ‘Oh, aye, so it is,’ agreed Jaik in the same tone. ‘They must ha let him off wi it.’

  ‘On ye go, then, King’s men,’ said the one who had challenged them. ‘And a peaceful night to ye, maisters.’

  ‘And the same to yersels, neighbour,’ said the torch-bearer, and they moved on. The Watch plodded past them and on up the hill. After a little Gil found the feeling of being followed had dissipated, though he still felt on edge, as if the hunt was only on the next hillside.

  At the gate to Morison’s Yard he halted. Beside him Morison reached out and touched the heavy planks caressingly.

  ‘This is the place,’ Gil said to their escort.

  ‘We’ll see you through the gate, maisters,’ said the left-hand torchbearer in a strong Stirling accent. ‘Is it barred, maybe? Will you need to rouse the house?’

  Gil leaned on a leaf of the gate, and it swung easily, as before. Bait? he wondered. Or has there been trouble?

  He peered inside, but there was no movement in the yard. There was light at the house windows, and his sister’s voice came faintly, making Morison turn his head to listen. The moon slid out from behind a cloud and lit the open expanse between gate and door, silvering the wet edge of the fore-stair. Nothing there. Why do I still feel I’m being watched?

  ‘All quiet?’ said the torchbearer.

  ‘I think so,’ Gil said, a little reluctantly, and reached for his purse. ‘Thanks for your time, fellows. You can get up the road and into the dry.’

  The group, suitably rewarded, stepped back and waited while he drew Morison in and barred the gate. He heard them tramp off up the High Street and turned towards the house. The door was open, though nobody was visible. The back of his neck prickled. Drawing his whinger, catching his plaid round the other arm, he took Morison’s elbow and moved forward through the moonlit rain, two steps, three.

  The creak of the gate warned him, in the same moment as a quiet voice from the house said, ‘Behind you.’

  Heart thumping, he straightened his left arm, pushing the unarmed Morison sharply towards the house, and sidestepped, sword at the ready, turning towards the rush of footsteps.

  One figure was approaching from the gate, another leaping down from it as he looked. The nearest had a weapon raised against the dark sky, which he knocked spinning across the yard with a sweeping blow. Wood clattered on the flagstones, and there was time to think, This has happened before, and also, This is quite ridiculous.

  The other man seemed at first to have huge black wings, but as Gil ducked away, shouting, they turned into great folds of cloth which brushed across his arm. He dodged sideways and snatched out his dagger, then braced himself, the two blades poised to attack, and several more figures emerged from the shadows as if in answer.

  ‘Aye, Maister Gil!’ said one of them in Andy’s voice, and bent to seize the cudgel as it rolled across the yard. The man who had wielded it tripped over his stooping form, knocking him flat, stumbled over him and ran cursing for the gate, closely pursued by two more of the shadowy figures. The other assailant was struggling with someone, but a dark shape which could only be Babb loomed over the conflict and pounced; there was a startled yelp, and in the same moment a thump and rattle from next to the gate, an outcry, and then a long-drawn-out sliding, slithering crash.

  Someone groaned.

  ‘Well done!’ said Kate from the house door. The whole thing had taken only a few heartbeats.

  ‘Christ and his saints preserve us!’ said Andy’s voice. Gil, peering round, placed the small man, just climbing to his feet. ‘Have we got them, then?’

  ‘Well, that was a welcome,’ said Morison from the darkness, sounding more alert than he had for the past hour.

  ‘Maister?’ said Andy, and started forward.

  ‘Augie?’ said Kate from the door. Morison turned and moved towards her.

  ‘What the deil’s name’s goin on out there?’ bellowed a voice from overhead. Gil looked up, and saw Maister Morison’s neighbour leaning out of an upper window, his linen nightcap pale in a brief gleam of moonlight. ‘Is it more thieves in the yard there?’

  ‘Aye, Maister Hamilton, it’s thieves,’ answered Andy. From under the thatch of Morison’s house came a child’s wail.

  ‘Yell need to put up a sign for them,’ said Maister Hamilton in disgust, ‘then they can just come in quietlike. Call the Watch, man, and let’s us get our sleep.’

  ‘We’ve got this one,’ said Babb, shaking her catch.

  ‘We have this one also,’ said Alys from the shadows by the gate, ‘but I think he is hurt.’

  ‘Alys!’ said Gil. ‘Alys, what are you –?’

  He sheathed his blades and hurried over. She was bending over two shapes, which as the moon came out again resolved into a kneeling man with a knife at the throat of a recumbent one. The light slid on the glazed rims of countless tumbled pots and dishes which surrounded them. The recumbent man groaned again. Under the roof the child was still wailing.

  ‘The rack fell,’ Alys said. ‘All these crocks landed on him. Gil, was that Maister Morison?’

  ‘Come on, man,’ said the one kneeling. ‘Get on your feet.’

  ‘I canny,’ said the recumbent man with difficulty. ‘I’m hurt. I’m hurt bad.’
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  ‘Let’s get him in the house,’ Gil said, ‘and the other one, and see how bad it is. Andy, is there a hurdle we can put him on?’

  ‘Aye, do that,’ shouted Maister Hamilton, ‘and be quiet about it!’

  ‘What’s to do?’ demanded another voice, from somewhere across the street.

  ‘Thieves at Augie’s yard,’ responded Hamilton. A dog started barking, and another answered it. ‘They should call the Watch, and let the rest of the town get some sleep.’

  ‘I’m right sorry, Andro,’ began Morison, from the fore-stair.

  ‘Augie! Is that you let loose, man? Did they let you off, then?’

  To an accompaniment of mixed congratulation and heckling from neighbours and dogs, the injured man was heaved groaning on to a wicker hurdle and carried indoors. Morison issued a general invitation for the morning and went in, Babb’s prisoner was dragged in after him, and for a precious moment, as windows slammed shut to one side and another, Gil was alone in the yard with his betrothed.

  ‘Alys, are you all right?’ he said in soft French, and reached out to her. She came willingly to his embrace, and he drew her close, relishing the feel under his hands of the warm curves he had glimpsed earlier.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Why should I not be? That was exciting.’

  He stared down at the pale outline of her face in the moonlight, struck yet again by her power to astonish him.

  ‘Perhaps I should teach you to use a sword,’ he said, and kissed her.

  ‘I should like that,’ she said hopefully after a moment, leaning against him. ‘We ought to go in, Gil. These men must be questioned. And was that really Maister Morison? Is he free?’

  ‘Soon,’ he said, and kissed her again. ‘Oh, I have missed you. Nas never pyke wallowed in galantyne As I in love am wallowed and ywounde.’

  ‘And I have missed you, trewe Tristram the secounde,’ she said, capping the quotation, and kissed him back.