The Merchant's Mark (2 page)

‘I’m sorry, maisters,’ said Maister Morison. ‘The lassie that has charge of them takes her task ower lightly.’

‘Can you not hire a better?’ asked the mason.

‘They won’t stay. Now – come look at this puncheon, and once it’s broached we can sort the laidin’ over a jug of something. Maister Halyburton’s a good judge
of print,’ he added, eyes brightening. ‘There was a
Blanchard and Eglantyne
last time, from Caxton’s workshop ye ken, and some Italian astronomy.’

‘Did you ever get
Albert on Buildings
?’ asked the mason hopefully.

‘Never yet, but we might be lucky,’ said Morison. He led the way out and down the steps, saying to Gil as they reached the yard, ‘Andy tells me Lady Kate’s petition had
no success.’

‘Worse than that,’ said Gil.

‘How so?’ asked Morison, startled. ‘Was she harmed by it? What came to her?’

Gil shrugged. ‘Not a lot to tell. She slept the night in the arcading in the tomb, in the space that pilgrims crawl through if they’re allowed the close approach.’ Morison
nodded, familiar with the custom. ‘She woke about dawn, from a dream that she could walk like any lass in Scotland, and found there was nothing changed.’

‘Oh, poor lady!’ said Morison. ‘Pray God the saint shows her his favour some other way.’

‘Amen to that,’ agreed Gil, deciding not to untangle the theology of the remark.

‘She feels St Kentigern has mocked her,’ said Maistre Pierre, giving the saint his other, more formal name.

‘What is her trouble?’ asked Maister Morison. ‘I mind she went on two sticks when we were young, but I never thought to ask, at that age – is it the rheumatics, or
something?’

‘When she was six,’ said Gil, ‘and I was ten or so, there were just the three youngest ones left at home. I was at the grammar school in Hamilton, Margaret and Dorothea were
with our Boyd cousins in Ayrshire, and my brothers had gone as squires to Kilmaurs. There was a fever in Hamilton –’

‘Oh, I mind that. Con had it too.’

‘– and the three of them took it. Their nurse always said, although they had the spots the same as the other bairns in Hamilton, it seemed like they’d some other infection as
well. I wouldn’t know. Anyway Tib had it light and recovered, Elsbeth died, and Kate was left with her right leg withered. It’s not numb, indeed she says she feels a knock harder than
in the other leg, but she has no power below the knee.’

‘Poor lassie! God send her some remeid,’ said Maister Morison, and crossed himself.

The mason did likewise. ‘She has tried prayer and fasting and many remedies, so she tells me,’ he explained, ‘and made pilgrimages all over Scotland. St Mungo was her last
resort. She is at her prayers just now, and my daughter with her.’

‘We may yet hope for a miracle, then,’ said Maister Morison, and clapped Gil awkwardly on the elbow. ‘Come and look at these books. Is she still a reader? Maybe there would be
one she might like.’

Across the yard, in a small shed full of racks of barrel-staves and odd timbers, the barrel had been set up on a low platform. It was not one of the huge pipes used to transport wine, which Gil
was used to seeing cut in half once empty to do duty as a bath or brewing-tub. This was a small cask, less than three feet high, neatly hooped with split withies and branded with several marks,
most of them cancelled by splashes of tar.

‘I’ve the mallet and hook waiting,’ said Andy from the far end of the bench as they entered the shed. ‘Have you the tally, maister?’

‘I have.’ His master patted his chest, felt in his sleeves, and finally drew from inside his doublet a bundle of papers.

‘A pipe of dishes, with the yellow glaze,’ he muttered, leafing through them. ‘That’s what Billy and Jamesie are seeing to now, over in the barn. The sale of two sacks of
wool sent by Robert Edmiston. Aye, here we are. Andrew’s writing gets worse every time he sends me. To a puncheon of books, packed in Middelburgh and laid in Thomas Tod’s ship. Item,
cost of the puncheon, item,
pynor
fee and
schout
hire –’

‘That’s Low German,’ Andy commented. ‘Porter fee and boat hire. A
schout
’s one of their funny wee boats for getting the barrels out to the ship.’

‘I’ve been to the Low Countries,’ Gil said.

‘Maister,’ said Andy thoughtfully, lifting mallet and hook from the pouch of his leather apron, ‘did ye say this was laid in Thomas Tod’s ship?’

‘Indeed it was. I saw it hoisted out myself, while you were in Linlithgow at Riddoch’s yard.’

‘Because it’s odd, in that case,’ Andy continued, ‘that there’s no mark of Tod’s on the wood.’ He tapped with the iron hook. ‘There’s
William Peterson’s shipmark, and James Maikison, and a couple more under the tar here, and a crop o’ merchant marks. There’s ours. But I don’t see Tod’s
mark.’

‘This is a well-travelled barrel,’ remarked the mason.

‘Andy,’ said Maister Morison, ‘do that again, man.’

‘Do what?’

‘Hit the barrel. It didn’t sound –’

Andy rapped the head of the barrel with the hook, and then one of the staves, and cocked his head at the resulting dull thud.

‘It’s no right, is it?’ he agreed. He rocked the barrel, his ear close to the smooth tar-splashed planks of its head.

‘You think it is the wrong barrel?’ asked the mason in disappointed tones. ‘But it has your mark.’

‘Aye, it does.’ Maister Morison went to the door and opened it wider, to let in more light. ‘I’m wondering . . .’

‘You’re wondering if it’s an old mark,’ Andy prompted him.

‘One never cancelled, you mean?’ asked Gil. ‘Does that happen?’

‘Oh, it happens,’ said Morison, nodding earnestly.

‘So whose barrel is it?’ demanded the mason. ‘I suppose one of these other marks must be the right one, but I do not know them. And what is in it?’

‘It’s gey heavy,’ said Andy, ‘whatever’s in it.’

‘Books weigh heavy for their size,’ said Gil.

‘It must be the right barrel!’ said Morison. ‘I convoyed this shipment from Blackness myself. There was only the one puncheon. The rest was just the two big pipes out of
Maikison’s ship. They’re in the barn now, and the men unpacking them. Go on, Andy, lift the head out of it.’

Andy, wielding mallet and hook expertly, began coaxing the end hoop upward off the top of the staves. It was slow work, tapping round the hoop and round again, but by the third circuit it could
be seen that the withy was rising up the curve of the stave.

Maistre Pierre, peering closely at the rocking barrel, exclaimed something, at the same moment as Andy, setting mallet and hook for another blow, snatched his hands away, wiping his left hand on
his doublet.

‘What is it?’ demanded Morison.

‘Wet,’ said Andy. ‘My hand’s wet.’

‘Wet? How can it be wet? The books will be spoiled!’

‘Your books canny be in here, maister,’ said Andy. ‘Look at it. That’s a stout wet-coopered oak barrel, and the outside’s dry as a tinker’s throat. The wet
must be inside, and right to the top. It’s full of something.’

‘Wine?’ said the mason hopefully. He touched the trickling damp patch where two staves met, and sniffed his fingers. ‘No, not wine, nor vinegar.’ He tasted cautiously.
‘Salt. It is brine.’

‘Brine?’ said Gil.

‘Herrings, maybe,’ said Morison. ‘I never ordered anything in brine. And where are my books? I must have got the wrong barrel somehow.’

‘Not herring,’ said the mason, sniffing his fingers again.

‘We’ll have to open it now,’ Andy said, ‘and top up the brine, or it’ll spoil, whatever it is. Will I carry on, maister?’

‘Aye, carry on.’

Andy, tucking the hook in his apron, produced another implement and began screwing it into the tarry planks of the barrel head. When it was fixed to his satisfaction, he stepped on to the
platform to get a better leverage, rocking and twisting expertly.

‘It’s like drawing a cork,’ said the mason, watching him.

‘It is,’ said Andy. ‘Could one of you steady the barrel, maisters?’

Maistre Pierre stepped forward and gripped the puncheon between his big hands. Andy, with a final heave, dragged the head from its lodging and staggered backwards. The mason peered into the
depths of liquid in the cask.

‘It is mostly brine,’ he reported, ‘but I think there is something at the bottom.’

‘Use this,’ said Andy, handing him the metal hook.

Gil glanced across at Augie Morison, who was watching with a kind of puzzled dismay as Maistre Pierre trawled the puncheon with the barrel-hook. Beyond him there was movement, and Gil realized
that the two little girls were staring round the door.

‘Augie,’ he said, and nodded towards them.

Morison turned, and tut-tutted in exasperation. ‘I told you to stay with Ursel,’ he said, going to the door.

‘Mall’s back,’ said the younger one, ‘so Ursel sent us away.’

‘Well, go and stay with Mall now,’ said Morison, making shooing motions. ‘Get away, the pair of you! Take your sister to Mall and tell her I said you were both to stay with
her.’

They clopped away on their wooden shoes, the younger one glancing back just before they vanished out of Gil’s sight to see if her father was watching her. Morison stood at the door a
little longer, apparently making sure he was obeyed, and returned to the group round the barrel.

‘What is it, then?’ he asked.

‘A sheep’s head, maybe.’

‘A sheep’s
head?’
Morison repeated.

‘Maybe.’ The mason showed hairs caught between the tines of the barrel-hook. I try again.’ He rolled back his sleeve and stabbed the depths once more. ‘Ah!’

Something came up out of the salt water and hung briefly suspended from the barrel-hook. They had a glimpse of a tangle of dark hair which floated and clung, then as the mason’s free hand
collided with Andy’s the object evaded both of them and slid back into the dark.

‘That was never a sheep’s heid, said Andy grimly.

‘Then what?’ said Morison, with a dawning horror. Maistre Pierre exchanged a glance with Gil, crossed himself, rolled his sleeve back further, and reached into the puncheon.

‘Ah,
mon Dieu, oui,’
he said as his hand made contact. ‘Most certainly it is not a sheep. It’s a man.’

He hauled it out with a firm grasp of the dark wet hair, and Augie Morison whimpered as the pale brow, the half-shut eyes and slack jaw emerged to view, brine pouring from between the bloodless
lips.

‘A man’s head,’ said Gil.

Maistre Pierre set the thing on the platform, where the water ran from its hair in a spreading pool. He drew out his beads, crossed himself again, and began a familiar quiet muttering.

‘It was . . .’ Morison began, his eyes starting. He pointed from the head to the barrel and then at the oblivious mason. ‘It was in. And you. You tasted . . .’

He turned and stumbled out of the hut, and they heard him vomiting in the yard.

‘Anyone you know?’ said Gil to Andy over the mason’s pattering prayers.

The small man, staring morosely at the head, said, ‘Hard to say. Most folk I know’s taller than that.’

‘We need light,’ said Gil, grimacing at this, ‘but if we take it into the yard the bairns might see.’

‘Aye,’ said Andy. ‘It wouldny trouble that Ysonde, but if Wynliane takes one of her screaming fits we’ll have none of us any sleep the night. I’ll fetch a light,
Maister Gil, if you’ll have a care to my maister? He’d aye a weak stomach, but he’s no been himself since the mistress went,’ he confided. ‘Bad enough when the bairns
have frichtsome dreams, without him starting and all.’

Gil followed him into the yard, where he set off for the barn, remarking to his master in passing, ‘First barrel I’ve ever seen wi three heads, maister. You canny say Andrew
Halyburton doesny give good value.’

Morison, leaning pallidly on a huge rack of tin-glazed pots, grimaced faintly and wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

‘Forgive me, Gil,’ he said. ‘I was just stamagasted. St Peter’s bones, what a thing.’

‘Aye, he’s not a bonnie sight,’ agreed Gil. ‘Augie, we’ll need to look at it closer. Andy’s gone for a light. And you’ll need to decide what’s to
be done with it.’

‘Me decide?’ said Morison helplessly. ‘But it’s not mine!’

‘It was somebody’s. And it’s in your yard.’

‘But what needs done?’

‘He deserves a name, if it can be found,’ said Gil, ‘and his kin told. Serjeant Anderson’s the man to see to that, since it’s an unknown body turned up in the
burgh. He’ll call an inquest.’

‘Not a body,’ said Morison, and shivered. ‘Just the head. Christ preserve us, I’m as bad as Andy. Aye, we’d best send to the serjeant. Do you suppose he’ll
want to keep it? I don’t want it in the yard, Gil. It’s one thing if someone dies in the house, you lay them out and shroud them decently, but that – I don’t want the bairns
to see.’

‘Then send one of the men to the serjeant now.’

Morison shivered again, but nodded and shouted a couple of names at the barn. Some of the banging stopped, and a lean-faced, dark-haired head appeared round the door. Morison flinched visibly,
but the gangling body followed almost immediately.

‘Aye, maister?’ said its owner. ‘These yellow dishes has travelled fine. We’ve got the most of them out not even chipped.’

‘Leave that a wee while, Jamesie,’ said his master, ‘and step down to the Tolbooth for me. Bid Serjeant Anderson bring one of the constables and come here. I need him to look
at something.’

Jamesie nodded, and set off obediently, but another man, stocky and sandy-haired, appeared in the doorway in his place.

‘Bit trouble, maister?’ he asked casually.

‘None of your mind, Billy Walker,’ growled Andy, passing him with a lantern and a bundle of rags. Billy thumbed his nose at the smaller man’s retreating back.

‘Just go back to your task, Billy,’ said Morison, ignoring this.

‘Oh, aye, I’m away.’ Billy hitched up his sagging hose and turned away. ‘Trouble wi this place,’ he muttered as he retreated into the shadows. ‘A’body
knows everything, except the folk that does the work.’

‘I saw,’ said a small familiar voice. The two children emerged from beyond the rack of yellow pots, each carrying an armful of broken crocks. ‘I saw you spewing, Da.’