by Pat McIntosh
Chapter Fourteen
‘This curst litter is full of boulders,’ complained Maistre Pierre.
‘We’re nearly at Glasgow now,’ said Gil, hiding a grin. ‘You’ll be home in an hour or two, and then you can lie in your own bed.’
He looked over his shoulder at the small cavalcade of their baggage and the escort Sinclair had provided. It had taken them two days to travel from Roslin, and Maistre Pierre had grumbled most of the way, about the horse he was expected to ride, about the litter which he did not need, about not having found a barber in Roslin, or about any other subject which came to mind. Clearly, the ten or twelve days he had spent being nursed by Mistress Robison had done little for his temper.
‘Why should I wish to lie in any bed?’
‘I’ve sent Luke on ahead,’ Gil said, ignoring this, ‘to warn the two households. I thought my uncle and Kate should know we’re near home, as well as Alys.’
‘And what if they don’t wish to know?’
‘And I need to get a word with Augie,’ Gil added. ‘He was wanting to speak to me the day I left, but Robert Blacader was back in Glasgow and sent for me, and there was no time.’
‘Tell me again what his lordship said.’
‘I’m attached to his retinue,’ said Gil. ‘It’s a formal appointment, with the title of Quaestor, and a benefice attached.’ He grinned. ‘Somewhere in Argyll. Not one of the fat ones, of course, no manse in the Chanonry or seat in Chapter, but still it’s a benefice, with enough to pay a vicar and still have a bit income.’
‘And the duties of this appointment?’
‘I’ve to do more or less what we’ve been doing. Look into any case of secret murder within the diocese, or maybe the entire Archdiocese, I wasn’t quite sure which he meant. Go where his lordship sends me, I suppose. Report to him, find justice for the dead.’
‘A wide remit,’ said Maistre Pierre doubtfully. ‘And when you are not so employed?’
Gil shrugged, and steered his horse round a pothole in the road. ‘I’ll have to wait and see if Blacader wants me at his side or not. If not, then I can live in Glasgow and set up as a notary, fetch in a little more money.’
‘So we may set a date for your marriage.’
‘Yes,’ said Gil with satisfaction. I long for the wedding, he thought. The lute tune sprang into his head, and with it the image of the three lutenists in Stirling bent together over their instruments, passing not that melody but its companion from one to another, runs and trills and doubling passages thickening the texture, while McIan sat in his great chair clasping his harp and listening intently. All will be well, he had said, and it was.
‘Does Alys know?’
‘I took the time to go by the house and tell her before I left Glasgow. When I came away she was considering the dry stores. She seemed to feel there were not enough almonds in Glasgow for her purpose.’
‘More than likely. I suppose she will want a second fine gown to be married in,’ said her father, with spurious resignation. ‘Black brocade is likely too sombre.’
They went on in silence for a while, past Garrowhill and Springboig. Maistre Pierre lay back among the cushions which supported him, staring at the swaying roof of the litter. The escort started an argument about a battle a few of them had been in, which someone tried to settle by singing a ballad in High Dutch. Gil thought of Rob, and then of Johan.
‘Will you stay in Scotland now?’ he asked.
Maistre Pierre turned his head to meet his eyes. ‘Why ever not?’
‘I wondered,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘if your task was now over.’
The mason considered him for a short time, then grinned without humour.
‘Well, I liked you for Alys because your mind is at least as good as hers, so I should not be surprised. No, my task is not over, Gilbert. That was only a part of it.’
‘So you remain in Scotland.’
‘I do.’
‘Good,’ said Gil lightly.
‘What brought it to your notice? I suppose I have been clumsy.’
‘I’ve been in the church at Brinay. While I was in Paris I had a friend came from near there.’
‘Now that I would never have expected. I have not, as you may have guessed.’
‘I wondered,’ said Gil. ‘My friend took me down to his father’s home for a week’s hunting one spring, and we went over to look at the church.’
‘Ah,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘It’s a tiny building, with a truly astonishing set of wall-paintings,’ Gil went on, ‘well worth the ride over there, but not a pillar to its name.’
‘So naturally you began to pay attention to such remarks.’
‘The more so as de Brinay himself didn’t correct you.’
The litter swayed on. Behind them, the escort had moved on to drinking songs. Their repertoire seemed to be considerable.
‘I am able to tell you very little,’ said Maistre Pierre at length. ‘The facts are not mine to reveal.’
‘That doesn’t concern me,’ said Gil. ‘You wouldn’t reveal the inmost secrets of the mason’s craft either.’ They looked at each other again. A small smile flickered in the depths of the mason’s untrimmed beard, the first time Gil had ever seen that trait of Alys’s in him. ‘No, what I would like is an assurance that you do not act to the detriment of my country.’
The litter lurched as one of the horses put its foot in a rut. Its passenger exclaimed sharply. Gil put a quick hand to the roof of the structure, but the animal recovered, and the litter swayed on.
‘At present,’ said Maistre Pierre after a little, ‘I am not acting, nor am I asked to act, to the detriment or danger of Scotland. France is an ally of Scotland,’ he pointed out.
‘But you aren’t acting for France,’ said Gil.
‘I am not acting against your country, Gilbert. I will swear it on anything you choose.’
‘Your word will do me.’ Gil studied his friend a moment longer, then reached down, and they shook hands. ‘What does it do to Alys’s status?’
‘Nothing. I was lawfully wedded to her mother, Christ assoil her, and can you doubt that she is my daughter?’
‘No,’ admitted Gil, and grinned again, thinking of the strong resemblance between the two. ‘Not that it would trouble me,’ he added, ‘but there are legal considerations.’ He looked about him. ‘Have we passed Carntyne already? We must be less than two miles from home.’
Kate Cunningham, sitting in the arbour in her uncle’s garden where it seemed to her it had all begun, stared out over the lower town and thought bleakly of her future.
There was really, she thought, very little about it that was positive. Less than three weeks since, on the morning after her failed petition to St Mungo, Alys had said to her, What has changed? and she had said, All my hopes are away. In taking brief charge of Augie Morison’s house and children, she had found first distraction and then, like green shoots in the snow, a new hope. But the buds, it seemed, were frost-bitten and would not flower. What a literary metaphor, she thought bitterly. Worthy of Augie Morison himself. Better with Chaucer: Love hath my name ystrike out of his sclat.
The last good moment she could think of had been when the King’s procession paused outside Morison’s Yard, on its way out of Glasgow on the Sunday morning, the day after Augie – after Maister Morison had been freed. Alerted by a servant in blue velvet, the entire household had been out at the gate, herself and Alys on either side of Morison, the men around them, Nan and Babb with the little girls at the back of the group. The King, glowing in blue satin and black velvet, his chestnut hair combed down over his shoulders, a gold chain with a sapphire jewel gleaming on his chest, had halted his dappled horse as everyone round Kate bent the knee.
‘Maister Morison,’ he had said. ‘I hope you found all in order when you got home.’
‘Y-yes, sir,’ managed Morison, straightening up, and he stepped forward in response to the King’s beckoning hand.
‘You lie, maister, you
lie,’ said James in great good humour. ‘You mind, I’ve had a game of caich with Maister Cunningham this morning. I’ve heard about last night’s inbreak, just as you got to your own gates. Two of my lord St Johns’ men,’ he said, audible to all the neighbours, ‘taken in the act of housebreaking by the women of the household. I’ve thanked Maister Cunningham already, and I thank you now, maister, for your help in righting more than one great wrong these last few days.’
Morison bowed and stammered inarticulately. James drew the gold chain with its sapphire over his head and leaned gracefully down from the saddle. He must have practised that, thought Kate, watching.
‘A small token,’ said the King, setting the chain about Morison’s neck. As Augie, extinguished with amazement, backed away, James looked beyond him and called Kate and Alys forward.
Kate could hardly remember what he had said first, except for a teasing remark about Alys’s wisdom which had sent the younger girl’s chin up. There had been an exchange of sorts, and then the King had said seriously, ‘Scotland needs folk wi courage and a love of justice, ladies, and if the women of Scotland have such attributes as well as her men, we’ll breed sturdier sons to defend this realm. I’m proud to have such as you among my subjects.’
Rhetoric, thought Kate, is a royal study.
‘Now, I hope you’ll divide this among the folk of the household,’ he tossed a fat purse to Morison, who caught it at the last moment as his men grinned hopefully, ‘and here’s another wee token for the two of you ladies and all.’
Then there had been a heavy purse of red velvet in her hands, she had bowed her head, Alys was curtsying to the ground with another such purse clasped in the crook of her arm. The King’s voice above her head bade them Good day, his horse wheeled and set off down the High Street, and the procession clattered after it.
There was a hundred merks in the red velvet purse. Apart from the heap of coin which Morison and Maister Mason had counted on the majolica plate across the grass here, it was more money than Kate had seen together since her father’s death. If she had ever had any prospects of marriage, it would make a tocher, she thought. Or maybe she could buy a bit of land with it, rent it out, get some income that way. What point was there? she thought wearily.
‘Are you ready, my doo?’ said Babb now at her elbow.
‘Ready?’
‘We’re to go down the hill. Maister Mason cam home yesternight –’
‘I know that,’ she said impatiently.
‘And we’re all bidden to his house the day. Maister Gil told you yestreen, for I heard him.’
‘So he did,’ she said. He had also told her, grinning like an ape, that he would be able to set a date for his wedding. She had heard the news from Alys already, and listened to her for three days while he was away thinking aloud about her plans; she had smiled, at both of them, and said the right things.
‘Come on, lassie, Maister David’s waiting,’ said Babb, with rough tenderness. ‘Do you good to get out. Mistress Mason’s company’s no that bad. Come on,’ she coaxed.
‘I saw Mistress Mason yesterday,’ said Kate. But she allowed Babb to hoist her upright, accepted her crutches, and clumped into the stable-yard where her mule waited for her. He turned as he heard her approach, and whuffled at her, nuzzling hopefully at her hand when she stroked his face.
‘Aye, Kate,’ said her uncle, stepping out at the house door as Babb led the mule round from the stable-yard. ‘Are we to get the whole tale of what happened now, do you suppose? Now that you and your brother and Peter Mason can each tell us a chapter?’
‘I never thought of that,’ she admitted. ‘There’s not been the time to fit it together, has there, what with Gil taking Alys to Roslin last week to see how her father did, and then going back this week to fetch him home. Aye, you could be right, sir.’
‘Good,’ said Canon Cunningham, striding out beside her towards the Wyndhead. ‘For I canny make sense of the half of it I’ve heard.’
Away down the High Street, dismounting before the mason’s house, Kate tried hard not to glance at the gates of Morison’s Yard four doors away. Babb was less inhibited.
‘They’ve painted that yett, I see,’ she said as Wallace was led away. ‘Matt was saying they were working on the yard. So I should hope, the work we put in to redd it up. Matt tells me they’ve been building and all,’ she added, in the face of her mistress’s indifference. ‘He’s put new glass windows into hall and chambers, so he says, and sent all the hangings to be cleaned, and hired two new lassies that Matt says’ll no last long what wi Ursel and Nan wanting them to work harder than they like.’
‘It aye surprises me,’ said Kate acidly, ‘how much Matt can tell you of other folk’s business, considering how little he ever says.’
‘Aye but,’ said Babb cheerfully, following her into the pend and missing the point of her remark, ‘he’s Maister David’s man. He’s bound to take an interest in other folk’s business. And those bairns are doing well wi Nan, he says.’
‘He would say that,’ said Kate, making her way across the courtyard between the bright tubs of flowers.
‘Aye, likely. Mind you the wee one’s as wild as ever, but the dumb one’s chattering away now, it seems, and their faither’s trying to learn them a wee poem. Did you ever hear the like? Can you do that stair the day, do you think, or will I lift you, my doo?’
Canon Cunningham was already within doors, seated beside Catherine near the hearth with its bowl of flowers and congratulating Maistre Pierre on his return home. He looked round as Kate found her balance, took her crutches from Babb and thumped into the hall from the fore-stair. Socrates paced over to greet her, his claws clicking on the polished boards.
‘Aye, here’s my niece. Our friend looks well, doesn’t he, Kate, for someone whose life was saved by a lute-string?’
‘We have prayed for him,’ said Catherine in French. Kate caught sight of Alys, beyond her father’s chair, biting her lip and crossing herself.
‘We won’t think about that now, sir,’ she suggested, and came forward when Maistre Pierre waved her to a seat. Socrates sat down with his chin on her knee, and she stroked his head. ‘Did you ever get a look at the church at Roslin by daylight, Maister Mason? It was still building when I visited there, and they would never let me look close at it.’
‘Indeed aye,’ exclaimed her uncle, accepting a glass of Alys’s cowslip wine. ‘I’ve seen it once, but that was a good while since. Is that right they’ve stopped the building at the crossing? What kind of a roof have they put on it?’
Alys flinched again. Kate took the proffered glass and drew the other girl down on the settle beside her.
‘Let them talk,’ she advised. ‘No good ever came of making them bite their tongues.’ Alys nodded, pulling a face of resignation. ‘Where has my brother got to?’
‘He was here earlier, but he went out,’ said Alys vaguely ‘He had an errand of some sort in the town.’
‘How is your father? He looks well enough.’
‘Tired from the journey. He may not dine with us, if I can persuade him –’
‘Small chance, I would say.’
‘Likely But the wound is well mended.’ She shivered. ‘I’ve always feared a fall from scaffolding for him – I never thought of him meeting a man with an axe up there.’
‘It was the Axeman that fell,’ said Kate firmly, ‘and my brother that pushed him down.’
‘He said it was not,’ said Alys, her expression softening as she thought of Gil.
Save us from young lovers, thought Kate, but hid her exasperation. ‘He confronted Gil, and he fell,’ she said. ‘So put the Axeman out your head, he’s gone now. And falling to his death in a church like that,’ she added, ‘is a certain judgement.’
‘So Catherine says,’ admitted Alys. ‘I am less convinced.’
‘Oh, there’s no doubt at all, mistress,’ said Babb stoutly from behind Kate. ‘A clear judgement on him, for slaying folk behind barred doors and chopp
ing folk’s oxter-poles in two.’ The door opened, and Socrates scrambled to his feet and hurried forward, his tail wagging furiously. ‘Aye, Maister Gil,’ added Babb.
Alys jumped up and went to meet Gil. He took her hands and kissed them quickly, and a significant look passed between them before he turned to bow to his uncle, greet Kate, draw a backstool into the circle and sit down.
‘Well, you’ve cast down more than this fellow with the axe, it seems, Gilbert,’ pronounced Canon Cunningham. ‘Oh, certainly I’ll have more of your wine, lassie. I’ve a letter this morning from Robert Blacader with the details of your appointment, and he tells me my lord St Johns is in some difficulties.’
‘He was removed with great suddenness, by what Gil tells me,’ said the mason. ‘I suppose he had not time to tidy matters as he might have wished.’
‘He has certainly been up to some joukery-pokery,’ said the Official. ‘I wish I could understand his part in what happened his last few days in office.’
‘Simple enough, sir,’ said Gil. Maistre Pierre rolled his eyes at him. ‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘perhaps not that simple. I think,’ he said with care, ‘we were pursuing two lots of coin, which were being moved about together. One was part of the old King’s hoard, as we thought, and the other was a loan from the Order of St John of Jerusalem to James Third, which I suspect that James never saw. It seems as if Knollys gave both to Sinclair for safe keeping, without telling him what it was, about the time of Stirling field. They were both friends of the old King, after all, it would be natural enough.’
‘Ah,’ said David Cunningham. ‘Instead of using either sum to the King’s benefit.’
‘Aye. But it seems word has come to the Preceptory from abroad to get the loan money back. Knollys asked Sinclair for it, and Sinclair realized what he held and rather than give it back he decided to move the whole lot, the St Johns money and the King’s hoard both, to . . .’ Gil hesitated. A strange look crossed his face. Where has he been, Kate wondered, and what has he seen? ‘To a place where it would be well protected,’ he continued. ‘By his account, he wanted to find out more about who was now responsible for the two sums of money. But Knollys, learning it was on the move, decided to seize it anonymously, so to speak.’
