The Merchant's Mark (17 page)

Gil took his own ale and a second wedge of bread over to the window, thinking about what he had heard. Out in the yard Maister Riddoch’s men were hard at work with hammer or drawknife. In
the centre of the open space a man was working with an adze. Lifting a long narrow plank from the stack beside him he trimmed one end, first one side and then the other, with quick even strokes of
the adze, then tossed the stave in the air, caught it the other way up and set about shaping the other end. Gil found himself watching, fascinated.

‘That’s David Seaton,’ said Maister Riddoch at his elbow. ‘No a stave-maker his like in the country, I dare say. I’m no equal to cutting staves now, I’m too
stiff for it, but I think he’s as good as I ever was.’

‘He’s been well taught,’ said his wife from across the room. Riddoch did not look round, but the corners of his mouth quirked. ‘Is it time for the men’s noon piece,
husband?’

‘Aye, call them in, lass,’ he said. ‘We can serve ourselves wi the rest in here.’

‘May we look at the barn, once we have eaten?’ Gil asked, as Mistress Riddoch bobbed to her guests and left. ‘I’d like to understand how the cart was stowed on Monday
night.’

‘I can see you would,’ said the cooper, nodding, ‘but it seems to me it’s most likely Augie’s men loaded the wrong puncheon at Blackness. I’ll show you the
barn, maisters, and anything else you’ve a notion to see.’

Gil broke the last of his bread in half and gave a portion to Socrates, watchful at his feet. The dog took it delicately and swallowed it whole, and Gil held out the other piece.

‘When you’re ready, maister,’ he said.

They went out through the hall, where Mistress Riddoch presided over the long board, and the men and three maidservants were addressing barley bread and stewed kale. Once in
the yard, the cooper showed an inclination to explain the entire process of making a barrel, and Maistre Pierre took this up with interest. Gil listened, looking carefully about him at wood-stacks
and benches, the workspace in the two open sheds, and the brazier with its smouldering fire. Nothing seemed to be amiss.

‘You’ll have to be wary of the fire,’ he suggested.

Riddoch nodded. ‘Aye, you’re right, maister, particular when it’s windy. The shavings blow about.’ He looked at the heap of shavings waiting to be burned, and tut-tutted.
‘That lad Simmie! I’ve tellt him and tellt him, and he aye gathers the scraps too close to the barn. Simmie!’ he shouted at the house. After a moment the young journeyman who had
been sweeping earlier appeared in the doorway, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Simmie, get this moved, now.’

‘Now?’ repeated Simmie, taken aback.

‘Aye, now, afore you finish your kale. If the wind were to change, and sparks blow into they scraps there, the barn would go up afore we kent what was happening, and then the whole yard,
and you’d have no living, Simmie. So get it moved.’

Simmie scowled, but rolled up his sleeves and came across the yard to lift his besom.

‘’S none o my part to sweep the yard,’ he muttered. ‘If we hadny run out of withies I’d be making hoops, no sweeping the yard. When that lazy Nicol gets back,
I’ll black his ee for this, see if I don’t.’

‘What was that?’ demanded his master.

‘And another thing, maister,’ added Simmie aloud. ‘You’ve been on at me all week to move it, every time I sweep it here, but you put this heap here your very self the
other day, so why are you –’

‘I never did, you daftheid!’

‘Aye, you did, maister. For it wasny me, nor any of the other men, and the lassies wouldny come out sweeping in the yard –’

‘What are you talking about, man?’ demanded Riddoch.

‘Just the other day,’ repeated Simmie. ‘I cam in at the day’s start, and all the shavings in the yard was swept up, but they wereny where I’d put them the night
before, they were here.’

‘They must have blown, you great lump. I’d never put them here. Now get them over where they belong, and stop arguing.’

‘No arguing,’ muttered Simmie, bending to his broom. ‘I’ll get that Nicol for this, so I will.’

‘What day was that?’ Gil asked casually. Riddoch turned to look at him. ‘What day did Simmie find the chips swept over here?’

‘What way?’ repeated the cooper. ‘It must ha been the wind.’

‘What
day
, maister,’ said Simmie, pausing to lean on his broom. ‘What day? Well, it wasny yesterday.’ He thought deeply. ‘It might ha been Wednesday,’
he admitted.

‘Tuesday? Monday?’

‘No Monday. I’d a heid like a big drum on Monday, I’d no ha noticed a deid ox in the yard.’ He grinned, and mimed pounding on his skull. ‘Might ha been
Tuesday.’

‘Tuesday or Wednesday,’ said Gil, and the man nodded. ‘And the chips and shavings were all swept over here?’

‘Aye. Just like this. A neat job someone had made of it.’

‘Well, get on with it, and make a neat job of it now,’ said his master, ‘or you’ll no get your kale.’ He marched past his henchman and pushed open one leaf of the
door to the barn. ‘You wanted to see this, maisters.’

The barn was a substantial building, nearly as big as Maister Riddoch’s house, but without the upper floor. Gil stood while his eyes adjusted to the light which filtered under the eaves;
over his head swallows darted in and out to nests of shrieking young among the rafters. The floor was packed earth, swept clean; stacks of barrels, bundled staves, folded canvas cart-aprons, spare
workbenches, were ranged round the walls

‘Augie’s cart was here first, if I mind right,’ said Riddoch, pointing with his left hand, ‘so it would lie there, up this end, this corner. Now whose was next?’ he
wondered. ‘He was bound for Leith, I mind that. It’ll come to me. That lay in the other corner, side by side wi Augie’s. And last in was a great pipe o clarry wine, off a ship at
Blackness and bound for Irvine, though why he never brought it ashore at Irvine in the first place – that’d be down here, near the door. Last in and first out, it was, out on the road
so soon as the gates was open, for my lord Montgomery must have his clarry wine it seems. There was just the great pipe on the cart.’

‘I know Montgomery,’ said Gil rather grimly. ‘If it was just the one pipe of wine, our barrel can’t have come off his cart. What about the other? What sort of load was
it?’

‘A big load,’ said Riddoch. ‘Mixed. More than a dozen puncheons and kegs, off different coopers, and a hogshead or two and all. Salt fish, the most of them, by what the man
said. But how would a barrel jump from one cart to another, maister?’ He led the way to the end of the barn, while the swallows whirred and twittered overhead. ‘See –
Augie’s cart lay here, maybe this wide. Robert Henderson’s – aye, I kent it would come to me. He’s a Kilsyth man. Robert Henderson’s lay here, there would be more than
an ell between them, and a full puncheon’s no light weight. It wouldny happen by chance.’

‘No,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘And Augie’s man said the fellow he saw never came into the barn?’

‘This does not make sense,’ complained Maistre Pierre. ‘Three thieves who stole nothing, a barrel which vanishes, a watchman who did not see it.’

‘But did it vanish?’ Gil looked about him. ‘Where would you hide a barrel, Pierre?’

‘Maister?’ Simmie’s large ears were outlined against the light at the barn door. ‘Could you call your dog, maybe?’

‘The dog?’ Gil strode towards him. ‘What’s he up to? Socrates!’

‘It’s just he’ll no leave this bit alone,’ explained Simmie. ‘He’s found a scent he likes, and I canny sweep round him.’

‘Socrates!’ Gil stepped out into the sunlight. Shading his eyes he found his dog sniffing intently at the newly swept cobbles by the end of the barn. ‘Come here!’ he said
sharply. Socrates wagged his stringy tail, but gave no other sign of hearing. His head was down, his muzzle close to the stones, and the rough grey coat was standing up on his shoulders and spine.
Gil seized the animal’s collar to pull him away, and realized he was growling quietly.

‘What have you found?’ he said. ‘Leave it! Leave!’

‘What’s drawing him?’ asked the cooper. ‘What’s he scented? Have we emptied a load o fish there, or what?’

Gil bent to look closer at the patch which interested the dog.

‘There’s something caked between the stones,’ he reported. He rubbed at it and sniffed his fingers.

‘What is it?’ said the cooper.

‘Gilbert!’ called Maistre Pierre sharply from inside the barn. ‘I think you were right. Come look at this!’

He was poking about at the far end of the barn, near the place where Morison’s cart had stood. As Gil entered the barn towing a reluctant Socrates he turned his head, and indicated a
shadowy corner.

‘Look here!’ he said dubiously. ‘It has been opened and emptied, but it is very like the barrel we had, the head here has by far less birdlime on it than on the goods beside
it, and though the light is bad I think it has both Maister Morison’s own mark, and also Tod’s shipmark. Could this be our missing barrel?’

‘Aye, very likely it is,’ said Gil in Scots, ‘for what the dog wouldny leave out there is a great patch of blood. I’d say it’s no more than a few days
old.’

‘Blood?’ repeated Riddoch in growing dismay. ‘In my yard? What’s been going on?’ He looked from one to the other of them. ‘What was in the barrel you had
home, anyway?’

‘Let us get this one outside,’ requested Maistre Pierre, ‘and we will tell you.’

Out in the light, the puncheon he had found was indeed very like the one which had reached Morison’s Yard. Gil thought he recognized several of the marks, and the additional brand on head
and flank seemed to be a fox’s head, which was presumably Thomas Tod’s mark. It was dry inside, and held a few handfuls of the chopped lint which had padded the contents. Gil shook the
barrel so that the lint shifted, and something white showed under the fluffy clumps. Letting go the dog, who immediately slipped back to the interesting cobbles, he leaned in to extract a folded
paper.

‘Is that the docket?’ said Maistre Pierre hopefully.

‘It is indeed.’ Gil scanned the small looped writing. ‘Well! He has done us proud – Pierre, we must find this load. Look at this!’ He handed the sheet to the mason,
who bent to inspect it.

‘What was in the barrel that went to Glasgow?’ asked Riddoch again, frowning. ‘You’re very close about it, maisters.’

Gil looked directly at him, dragging his mind back to the matters of most concern.

‘Maister,’ he said, ‘what like is your missing laddie?’

The frown drained from the cooper’s face, leaving open-mouthed dismay.

‘Nicol?’ he said hoarsely, and crossed himself. ‘Christ aid us, what’s come to him?’

‘Can you describe him?’ pursued Gil. ‘What colour is his hair? His eyes? What age is he?’

‘Now that I can tell you,’ said Riddoch, licking his lips. ‘He was born the same year as the King’s brother Prince James. He’s sixteen past at Corpus Christi.
Sinclair never – I – I beg you, maister, if you ken aught about him, tell me now. He’s my son.’

‘Does he resemble you, maister?’ asked the mason, looking at the neat-featured face before him.

‘They tell me he does, aye.’ Riddoch looked from one to the other of them, not daring to repeat his question. ‘His een are grey. Like his mother’s, God rest her
soul.’

‘Then all I can tell you is we ken nothing about him,’ said Gil.

Riddoch clutched at the rim of the barrel in front of him, as if for support.

‘Our Lady be thanked for that!’ he muttered, crossing himself again.

‘Now can you tell us in return,’ said Gil, ‘who found and emptied this barrel?’

Seated once more in the cooper’s best chamber, with an offended dog at his feet, Gil repeated the question.

‘Who emptied the barrel, maister?’

‘I’ve no a notion,’ said Riddoch firmly. He had found a new confidence; Gil, eyeing him, regretted reassuring the man about his son. And yet, in conscience, he thought, could I
have left him in anxiety any longer?

‘Where has your son gone?’ he asked. ‘Was he alone?’

‘He went into Stirlingshire,’ said Riddoch cautiously. ‘He’s done the journey afore, he kens the road. For withies,’ he added.

‘Where do you get them?’ asked the mason curiously. ‘I should have thought there was a supply closer to hand.’

‘We get them at a good price from his lordship,’ said Riddoch.

‘Sinclair, you mean?’ said Gil casually. Riddoch froze a moment, then nodded. ‘Has the boy been away long?’

‘Aye.’ This appeared to be surer ground. ‘We’ve kin there, he was to visit his uncle.’

‘And you looked for him back before now,’ Gil stated. Riddoch nodded with reluctance. ‘When? How long overdue is he?’

‘A few days now.’

‘How would he carry the withies?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘He’d pack them on the old horse. Or if he got a double load,’ qualified Riddoch, ‘they might hire him a cart. And that’s another thing. We’ll need the beast
shortly, to take our turn at the carts when we win the hay off the burgh muir. The laddie kens that.’

Gil turned a little to face Riddoch directly. ‘The barrel which should have reached Glasgow,’ he said, ‘the one we found empty in your barn the now, would have held
books.’

‘Books?’ Riddoch laughed, with little humour. ‘I’d like to ha seen that!’

‘Seen what?’

‘When it was opened. A right laugh that would be.’ He looked at Gil. ‘And the one you did get? What was in it, maister?’

‘Brine.’

‘Brine?’ repeated Riddoch. He licked his lips. ‘Just brine? I mean – was there aught in the brine? Fish, maybe, or salt meat? Or –’

‘Not salt meat, no,’ said Gil, grimacing. ‘We found a man’s head. And a few shavings of wood, very like what’s blowing about your yard.’

The cooper gaped at him.

‘A man’s head, in one of our barrels?’ said Mistress Riddoch from the door. She came into the room to stand beside her husband’s chair. ‘What like man,
maister?’ she asked, her voice high and tense.

‘It’s no the boy, Jess,’ said her husband. They crossed themselves simultaneously.

How long had she been there, Gil wondered. Long enough to govern her countenance, though not her voice.