St Mungo's Robin (23 page)

She looked down modestly at the rush matting under their feet.

‘I –’ she began. Was she blushing? Gil thought not, though the candlelight made it hard to tell. ‘Well, indeed, maister. I confess that’s the case indeed. Maister Agnew
spent that night wi me in this house.’

The face remained downturned, the hand spread on her bosom, but she was looking sideways at Gil under her lashes, and the corner of her mouth quirked, inviting Gil to consider how Agnew had
spent the night.
Som can flater and some can lie
, he thought,
and some can sett the mouth awrie.
No accounting for tastes.

‘Thank you indeed, mistress,’ he said obtusely. ‘When did he arrive? Can you recall?’

‘Perhaps the middle of the evening?’ she suggested. ‘More than an hour after I’d eaten my supper, if I mind right.’

That fits, he thought. ‘And when did he leave? Late, I imagine,’ he said, giving her the oblique compliment she seemed to expect. She looked gratified, but shook her head.

‘No, no, it was early. Before it was light,’ she assured him.

‘You mean he was here the whole night? Most of the hours of darkness?’

‘Aye, that would be it,’ she said complacently.
Al nicht by the rose ich lay.
But this one’s flower was long since borne away, he guessed.

‘And had he a cloak with him? Do you recall which one it was?’

‘A cloak?’ she repeated. ‘Er – I think he did.’ Again the inviting glance, the quirk at the corner of the mouth. ‘I never saw him to the door,’ she
admitted. ‘I wasny dressed for it.’

Gil made his way back up to the Wyndhead in the rain, deep in thought. It was full dark now. The more public-spirited burgesses had already lit the lanterns or torches which they were required
to hang out at their house corners, and the deep shadows between these were broken by more lanterns, borne by people hurrying homewards as their working day ended. As he passed the end of Marion
Veitch’s wynd, he nearly collided with her brother, cloak pulled up about his nose and head down against the rain.

‘You again,’ said Veitch, recoiling. ‘Seems to me I keep meeting you round here. Here or the bedehouse – Frankie was just saying you’re never away from the
place.’

‘I’m still trying to find who killed the Deacon,’ said Gil mildly. ‘Your sister will be the better for knowing the answer.’

‘I doubt that,’ Veitch flung at him, tramping past towards the house. Gil watched him to the door, then plodded on up the busy street.

Reaching the crossing, he was unsurprised to see Maistre Pierre’s bulky form appear out of the darkness, illuminated by his own lantern.

‘Not a productive day,’ said his friend. ‘What have you discovered?’

‘One or two things,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve spoken to the Widow Napier, and I’ve just had a word with Agnew’s mistress. I was going round to the bedehouse to see how
Humphrey is.’

‘I join you.’ Maistre Pierre turned to stroll with Gil, lantern held low to light their steps. ‘The men have found a many ladders,’ he reported, ‘but none of them
the right size. If the uprights were the right distance apart, the feet were too big to have made those prints. I have a list of those places they were found, so we do not repeat the work
tomorrow.’

‘Good work, just the same.’

‘They did not think so. I had a full account of which households were friendly and which took exception to being asked such a thing. Luke seems to have met with most success.’

‘Luke’s a good laddie.’ Gil checked as he recognized an approaching figure. ‘Good e’en to ye, Maister Agnew.’

‘E’en,’ said the other man of law hoarsely, and paused. His face appeared drawn and strained in the pool of light from their combined lanterns, and he had a soft cloth wrapped
about his throat.

‘Have you been calling at the bedehouse again? How is your brother, poor fellow?’

‘Aye,’ agreed Agnew, speaking with difficulty. ‘Better. At’s prayers.’ He bent his head and crossed himself to indicate his meaning.

‘That must be some relief to you,’ said Gil. Agnew nodded, smiling, and put his free hand to his wellwrapped throat.

‘Forgive,’ he said. ‘Home.’

‘I hope your man can give you something to soothe that,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Red wine with syrup of cherries in it would be good, or a little poppy syrup perhaps.’

Agnew nodded and smiled again, raised his round felt hat and walked on. Gil looked after him, frowning.

‘I’m surprised he got access to his brother,’ he said quietly as they continued up the street. ‘Sissie would be watching him like a hen with one duckling after this
morning’s scene.’

‘Perhaps she was busy with the supper,’ suggested Maistre Pierre.

It was a bad moment to call at the bedehouse too. The old men were gathered round the fire in the hall, discussing the morning’s events, while the kitchen-boy and one of
the women set up their table and spread a mended linen cloth. The brethren greeted them as familiars, but Cubby said straightly ‘The half of Glasgow’s been here the day. Frankie’s
nephew’s just left us. You’ll no be wanting to stay while we get our supper, will you?’

‘No, no,’ Gil assured him. ‘We’re expected at home soon.’

‘The meals are the highlights of our day,’ Maister Veitch said. ‘When Humphrey doesny outshine them.’

‘Where is that poor man?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘We met his brother on the way.’

‘His brother?’ Maister Veitch looked from him to his neighbours in some concern, and craned to see out of the window. ‘There’s been no shouting,’ he said,
‘and there’s no light at his window. I hope he’s no ill.’

‘Shall I go and see?’ Gil suggested.

‘Better to let Sissie ken, and she’ll see to him. He’s been as jumpy as a squirrel all day, and no wonder.’

Gil went out obediently and found Mistress Mudie just overseeing the dishing up of the supper. She greeted him with disfavour, but when he explained his presence she snatched up a lantern, lit
it and set off indignantly into the garden.

‘– never kent that man was here again, if he’s done my poppet any harm I’ll see him in the Bad Place for it, what a way for anyone to treat his brother –’

Gil, standing in the doorway of the main range, watched her trotting down the path to the door of Humphrey’s darkened lodging. She rattled at the latch, and opened it, her loving words
floating through the rain, and stepped in.

She cried out, and dropped the lantern. It fell with a crash, and went out, and in the sudden dark she screamed and screamed.

‘Pierre, bring lights!’ Gil shouted, hurrying down the garden. ‘Bring lanterns!’

Inside the little house he bumped first into Mistress Mudie, her familiar herbal smell overlaid with sharp terror, and then into Humphrey. It had to be Humphrey, he smelled of damp wool and
almond milk like Humphrey, but he was taller than Gil, and moved oddly as he recoiled from the encounter. Mistress Mudie was still screaming, huge ragged sounds that tore at the ears. Humphrey
bumped into him again, and Gil realized what was wrong just before Maistre Pierre appeared at the doorway with a lantern.

‘
Mon Dieu!
’ he said. ‘He has hanged himself!’

‘We must cut him down!’ said Gil. ‘Set the light there and hold him for me!’

He dragged a stool from the hearth and stood on it, drawing his dagger to saw at the rope as the mason raised the black-faced body on his shoulder. Several of the bedesmen arrived at the door,
exclaiming and asking questions to which there was no answer. Maister Veitch and the deaf Barty failed to make Mistress Mudie sit down, but did succeed in halting her dreadful screams, and Millar
pushed his way into the house as Maistre Pierre set Humphrey’s body carefully on the ground. Mistress Mudie flung off Barty’s restraining grip and threw herself to her knees beside her
darling, fumbling with the rope at his throat. She got it free and flung it aside, then fell to patting and rubbing at the limp and bloody hands, all the while making a thin wailing sound which
made Gil’s hair stand up.

‘What’s happened?’ Millar demanded unnecessarily. ‘Humphrey! What’s he done? Christ and His saints, is he dead?’

‘I would say so,’ pronounced Maistre Pierre, who had been feeling for a heartbeat. ‘He must have been hanging for a quarter-hour at least, maybe longer.’

‘The candle is cold,’ said Gil, feeling it and setting it back on the mantel-shelf. Millar looked at him blankly, and back at Mistress Mudie sobbing over Humphrey’s body.

‘But why?’

‘His brother was here again,’ said Maister Veitch. ‘So Gibbie says.’

‘Aye, he was, but –’

‘We met him on the road,’ Gil expanded. ‘He said he’d left Humphrey at his prayers.’

‘I doubt he’s persuaded the poor soul it was him killed the Deacon,’ speculated Cubby from the doorway. ‘And he’s hanged himsel for remorse.’

‘We canny tell it was remorse,’ said Maister Veitch argumentatively ‘He’s no left a note or anything, has he?’

‘Why other would he do sic a thing?’

‘Maybe he realized he was mad.’

‘He knew he was mad,’ Gil said. ‘Just today he asked Mistress Mason to pray for him because he needed it, he said.’ And her prayers would be doubly important now, he
reflected.

‘What a thi – what a thing to happen!’ exclaimed Millar. ‘St Serf protect us! Oh, this is a dreadful time! And I’ll ha to send to le – to let Agnew ken. He
was here just the now, asking me about the Deacon’s papers. And the Deacon laid out in the washhouse already, and now another grave to be ordered –’

‘We cannot leave him here on the floor,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Where can we lay him?’

‘On his bed,’ suggested Gil.

Mistress Mudie was prised away from the body with difficulty, and it was borne through and laid on the narrow bed in the inner chamber. Gil drew the checked blankets back to the foot of the bed,
and laid the sheet over the engorged face, but Mistress Mudie snatched the linen away and tucked the blankets round Humphrey as if he was asleep, then dropped to her knees beside the bed, hands
over her face, and rocked helplessly back and forward, sobbing thinly.

‘
Who can not wepe com lerne of me
,’ said Gil quietly. Maister Veitch glanced at him and nodded.

‘Far’s wir supper?’ demanded Duncan from the garden. ‘It mun be spiled by noo.’

‘Sissie,’ said Millar, bending over her. ‘Sissie, will you see to the supper?’

She shook her head, still rocking over the body.

‘Leave her,’ recommended Maistre Pierre. ‘Surely the kitchen can serve it out by themselves? The old men must eat.’

‘Eat? Surely not! I don’t think I could,’ said Millar.

‘When you get to be our age, Andro,’ said Maister Veitch in the house doorway, ‘you see these things different. We’ll hae our supper, and I’ll say Grace if
you’ve no mind to.’

‘Aye, do that, Frankie,’ said Millar gratefully, and turned to speak to Gil just as heavy footsteps sounded in the passageway in the main building. Millar swung back, wearing the
expression of a man who has reached the end of his endurance, and two muddy men in jacks and steel helmets tramped across the garden carrying lanterns. The badge painted on their worn leathers was
clearly visible, the Douglas heart on a white ground.

‘Christ and his saints preserve us, I thought Sir James was to be here the morn’s morn,’ said Millar faintly.

‘He set out early, a cause of the weather,’ said the first man-at-arms. ‘He’ll be at the door in a quarter hour or so. Is the lodging open, maister? We’ve a couple
pack-loads of hangings and such out in the street.’

‘I feel guilty,’ said Gil with some compunction, ‘leaving Millar in such a hideous case, but I do not feel I can face my godfather just now.’

‘Difficult, is he?’ said Maistre Pierre.

They were in a tavern at the top of the Drygate, where they had taken brief refuge from the cold wind after stopping at the chapel of St Nicholas’ bedehouse. The house was packed with
other people who had the same idea, but they had managed to get two seats, and a harassed girl had brought them a jug of ale and two beakers. Gil poured for both of them, and said in French, above
the noise of the place,

‘Quite apart from what’s just happened at St Serf’s, he’ll be full of questions about the marriage and doubtful jokes. Did you hear the one about the bridegroom and the
turnip, that kind of thing. I was at his daughter Janet’s wedding. Neither bride nor groom knew where to look at one point.’

‘We all have kin like that. Mine are in France, I thank God. What do you make of what has just happened at St Serf’s?’

‘A sorry thing. What do you?’

Maistre Pierre shook his head. ‘It might have been suicide.’

‘No note, as old Veitch said.’

‘The man was deranged. He might not have seen the need for a note.’

‘He was priested, and what’s more, he recalled it this morning.’

‘I have known priests take their own life before now. Lives,’ the mason corrected carefully.

‘There was no stool near where he was hanging, that he might have stepped off.’

‘That is a stronger argument. And his fingers had bled.’

‘He bit his nails badly,’ Gil observed. ‘They had bled before.’

Maistre Pierre finished his ale, and reached for the jug. ‘So the only sign is the absence of a stool.’

‘Perhaps Sissie kicked it out of the way when she went into the house.’

‘I saw none closer than the hearth.’

‘We can hardly expect to get sense out of Sissie tonight.’

‘True. Let us leave the question for now. What else have you found today?’

Gil leaned forward, to avoid having to shout, and described his afternoon: Marion Veitch’s demeanour, his encounter with Hob, and what he had learned from Mistress Dodd and the Widow
Napier. Maistre Pierre listened, frowning, and tapping his beaker on his knee.

‘So Veitch lied,’ he said. ‘I wonder what he was doing. Do you think he was hiding from the Watch, or was he here in the Chanonry stabbing the man Naismith?’

‘One or the other,’ said Gil, ‘though if he was truly hiding from the Watch I do not know why he lied to me. When I saw him, he had not the look of a man who had spent the
evening drinking.’

‘Sailors are hard-headed.’