The Nicholas Feast (14 page)

‘So the college servants were clearing the crocks,’ said Gil, ‘and crossing back and forth through the Inner Close and the Outer. Did all these four go back to their task after the play?’

‘It seems so. These two – the young men Muirhead and Maxwell – were handing sweetmeats and wine, and the other two were helping to shift the last of the crocks. That dog has done his duty. Should we go and pay our respects to the dead?’

In the bellhouse, which also served as mortuary chapel, there were candles and nose-tickling incense, and a rapid mutter of prayers. A pair of the Dominicans knelt, one on either side of the convent’s bier, where the corpse lay shrouded already. Their fingers flickered over their plain wooden rosaries.

‘I asked that he be left clothed till we could be there,’ said Gil, in some annoyance.

‘He was beginning to set,’ said Maister Forsyth, coming forward from the stone bench at the wall. ‘Aye, Maister Mason. Are ye well? His clothes are here, Gilbert, I kept them back, but the laddie himself is washed and made decent. And what have you deduced this far?’

‘Precious little,’ admitted Gil. ‘Can you tell me about William, maister?’

‘Not a lot, you know.’ The old man made his way back to the bench, and Gil and the mason settled on either side of him. ‘Let me see. He must be fifteen or so. A very able scholar, very good in the Latin, a few scraps of Greek, a little French. A good grasp of logic, a very clever disputant. A liking for secrets, and a powerful memory for oddments of knowledge. He had the occasional moment of generosity – I have seen him give coin to a beggar – but for the most part very close with his property or his learning.’

‘You did not like him,’ Gil suggested.

Maister Forsyth turned to look at him, the candlelight glittering in his eyes. ‘Have I said so?’

‘Was he likeable?’

‘No,’ said the old voice after a moment. ‘God has not given it to all of us to be lovable.’

‘God himself loves us all, even so,’ said the mason.

‘Amen,’ agreed Maister Forsyth. ‘William was admirable, but no lovable. One of the clever ones, for whom it is never enough.’

‘Erth upon erth wald fain be a king,’
Gil offered.

‘Indeed. And it goes on, does it not,
And how that erth goes to erth thinks he no thing.
Poor laddie. He made me think of a flawed diamond. Brilliant and glittering, ye ken, but if we tried to cut or polish him more he would fly in pieces. Now you, Gilbert, are like ivory or maybe jet.’

‘Jet?’ Gil repeated, startled.

‘Aye. Plain and serviceable, no show about ye, but taking a fine polish. A fine polish,’ he repeated approvingly.

‘Do diamonds have flaws?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Who knows? But the figure is instructive.’

Gil, recovering his poise, said after a moment, ‘What do you suppose William meant by his questions at this morning’s meeting?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Maister Forsyth promptly in Latin. ‘It was a quite regrettable display of malice, but whether it was founded in any fact I do not care to speculate.’

‘Malice,’ repeated Maistre Pierre in French. ‘Was it only that?’

‘Maister Doby thought the remark about money might be a misunderstanding of the problem the college had about John Smyth’s loan,’ Gil said.

His teacher stared at the candles, while the prayers drummed on like rain.

‘It might be,’ he said at length. ‘It might be. John would remember that tale better than me, he was Wardroper at the time.’

‘Or it might be a dig at the Steward,’ Gil continued. ‘I gather William was exercised about the cost of food going through the kitchen.’

‘You canny starve growing laddies.’ Maister Forsyth was still watching the candles. ‘No, Gilbert, I dinna ken. Nor have I the smallest idea of what prompted the hints about heresy,’ he added in Latin.

‘It is an unpleasant thing to suggest,’ said Maistre Pierre in French.

The old man shook his head. ‘Ask another question, Gilbert.’

‘It seems,’ said Gil with some delicacy, ‘that William was given to extortion. Do you have any knowledge of this, maister?’

‘It grieves me to say it,’ admitted Maister Forsyth, ‘but I do.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘The poor laddie. I feared as much.’ He looked round at Gil. ‘He came to me privately one day last autumn, with a list of things I had said, taken out of context, hinting that it might be worth his while repeating them to Robert our Archbishop.’ He shook his head again. ‘I showed him the error of what he was doing. I also assured him,’ he added, with a gleam of humour, ‘that I had made most of these remarks to Robert Blacader in the first place. He went away, and I have prayed for him since. I feared that if he approached me in such a way he might approach others, to the danger of himself or of his . . .’ He paused, considering the next word. ‘Victim,’ he finished.

‘That is valuable information, maister,’ said Gil.

‘Well, well. Do you have more to ask me?’

‘What did you have to eat at the feast, sir?’

‘At the feast?’ Maister Forsyth smacked his lips reminiscently ‘Agnes did well, on the money we gave her. Spiced pork with raisins. Fruminty There was a pike, but I canny take pike. Tastes of mud. A great onion tart with cloves. Agnes canny cook Almayne pottage, but she’s a good hand with pastry. It was a good feast, and the spiced pork hasny repeated on me the way it often does. And then we had the play, and William’s costume was torn. A pity, that. The dragon is always popular with the younger students.’

‘And what did you do at the end of the play?’

The round felt hat bobbed as Maister Forsyth turned to look at Gil again.

‘The senior members of the Faculty retired to the Principal’s residence to ease themselves. We remained there for perhaps the quarter of an hour, and then went in procession back to the Fore Hall.’

‘Who are the senior members?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Maister Forsyth, finally accepting the mason’s understanding of Latin, enumerated the Dean, the Principal, the two lawyers and himself.

‘And Maister Coventry was not there,’ said Gil.

‘No,’ agreed Maister Forsyth, ‘though he ought to ha been. I thought I saw him and Nick Kennedy gang the other way, to the Arthurlie building.’ He looked down at the pup, which after nosing the bundle of William’s clothes carefully had gone to sleep on Gil’s knee. ‘And what is this, Gilbert?’

‘We found him in William’s chamber. It’s against the statutes to keep a dog, isn’t it?’

The old man tut-tutted. ‘There ought to be a statute about keeping statutes. They mostly gets ignored. It’s fair taken on wi ye, Gilbert.’

‘Do we wish to look at the dead?’ asked Maistre Pierre. Gil nodded, and gathering up the pup under his arm rose to his feet. The two friars by the bier ignored him as he loosened the tape holding the shroud in place and folded the linen back. The dog stretched its neck and extended a long nose to sniff the red hair, bright even by candlelight, and Gil turned in haste to hand the animal to the mason.

‘Poor beast, I never thought – hold him for me, Pierre.’

‘I do not think him distressed,’ the mason said, watching as Gil felt carefully over the dead boy’s skull. ‘He may not recognize the scent. All I can smell is incense and soap. What have you found?’

‘Confirmation.’ Gil parted the springy hair, and moved one of the candles closer. ‘Aye, he’s hit his head on something. There’s a lump, and a bruise. That’s all I need, I think.’ He straightened up. ‘Bring the pup here.’

The pup, held up to see the corpse, sniffed briefly at the ghastly face, paid a little more attention to the grooved and swollen neck, then laid its head on Gil’s arm in a manner which spoke volumes. The nearer of the two bedesmen reached up without missing a syllable to scratch the rough jaw and was rewarded, as Maister Doby had been, with an infinitesimal lick.

‘One final thing,’ said Gil, gathering up the ill-smelling bundle of William’s clothes with his free hand. ‘Who would have a reason to kill him?’

‘Many people might have a reason,’ said Maister Forsyth, ‘but that doesny say they did it.’

‘Agreed,’ said Gil, but the old man would say no more.

‘Now what do we do, my plain and serviceable son-in-law?’ said the mason, closing the Blackfriars gate behind them.

‘But well-polished,’ Gil reminded him, setting the dog on its own paws. ‘We must look at these garments and then send them to be washed. We must speak to William’s friends. I must talk to Nick Kennedy about that list he made for me. Then, I hope, we can go back to supper and I must speak to Mistress Irvine.’

‘Ah, good, a short day’ Maistre Pierre looked about him. ‘This is good land the college owns. They could rent it out.’

‘They use it.’ Gil was heading downhill under the apple-trees, towards the kitchen garden which lay at the back of the sprawling college buildings and sloped down to the Molendinar burn and its watermills. ‘The students gather here on fine evenings to dispute or to hear half-solemn disputes between two of their teachers. They play football here too,’ he added, ‘though they should really go out to the Muir Butts for that.’

‘Half-solemn? You mean only one disputant may make jokes?’

Gil grinned, but before he could answer Maister Kennedy appeared round the corner of the buildings, exclaiming, ‘Gil! There you are! You’re wanted, man. Montgomery’s here, and he wants blood. Come and defend us.’

‘Not my blood, I hope,’ said Gil.

‘Possibly not,’ said Nick. ‘It seems he’d just ridden into the burgh, and when the Dean sent word concerning William he came round breathing fire. There’s been a bit of a ding-dong already.’

‘What help am I likely to be?’ asked Gil, following Maister Kennedy through the pend into the inner courtyard. ‘He’ll no be comforted to learn that a Cunningham’s trying to track down whoever it was killed his kinsman.’

‘Have you nothing to tell him? At least you can assure him you’re doing something.’

Hugh Lord Montgomery was standing before the empty fireplace in the Principal’s lodging, radiating rage like a hot brick. When Gil entered the room, with the mason watchful at his back, the Dean was explaining why no word had yet been sent to Archbishop Blacader.

‘You tellt me all that already,’ said Montgomery, glaring at Gil. ‘Is this what’s trying to sort it out? This – this Cunningham?’

‘Gil Cunningham, of the Cathedral Consistory,’ said Gil, bowing with a flourish of the illegal master’s bonnet. ‘And this is Maister Peter Mason, of this burgh.’

The man who had been head of his house since he turned fourteen, who had personally killed two Cunninghams and a Boyd, was big, though not so big as the mason, and his dark hair sprang thickly above a square-jawed face. Dark angry eyes glittered under thick brows as he stared down his nose at Gil.

‘And what, if anything, have you done to the point?’ he asked. ‘Why have ye no hangit the ill-doer already?’

‘Gilbert is an able
-’
began the Principal injudiciously.

I dinna want
able,’
said Montgomery quietly. I want
quick.’

‘The trouble with
quick,’
said Gil, ‘is that it might also be
wrong,
and then where would we be? Supposing we hangit a Drummond or an Oliphant, or worse, a Murray or a Ross, and then found out he wasny guilty, my lord, who do you think his kin would attack? The college or the Montgomerys?’

‘I’ll take my chance on that,’ said Montgomery.

I think the college would prefer not to,’ said Gil. There was a pause, which seemed very long. Then Montgomery produced a sound like a snarl and flung himself down in the Principal’s great chair.

‘Well, tell me what you have found, then,’ he said savagely.

‘The young man called William Irvine was strangled with his own belt,’ said Gil, picking his words with care, ‘and hidden in the college coalhouse. This makes it secret murder, not murder
chaud-mellé.
We are working from two directions, trying to establish who had a reason for killing him and also who had the opportunity.’

‘And who had a reason?’

I have found no good reason so far,’ said Gil.

‘Folk gets killed for bad reasons,’ said Montgomery. ‘Look for the bad reasons, Cunningham law man. What about opportunity? Who had the chance to kill him?’

‘Most of the college, at the moment,’ said Gil. ‘We will get closer than that once we speak to everyone.’

‘Pick a likely culprit and put him to the thumbscrews,’ said Montgomery. ‘I’ve a set I can lend ye, if the college has none. That’ll get ye a confession, quick as winkin.’

‘That will not be necessary,’ said the Principal.

‘Listen, Maister Doby,’ said Lord Montgomery, getting to his feet. ‘This is Sunday, right? We’ll have the funeral Tuesday or Wednesday, and if this long drink of water hasny named our William’s killer to me by the time William’s in the ground, I’ll come in here myself with the thumbscrews and –’

‘Not,’ said the Dean in glacial tones, ‘on University premises.’

There was another of those pauses.

‘No?’ said Lord Montgomery softly. ‘Then how about outside? Ye canny hide in yir two closes
in saecula saeculorum,
clerk. I’ll be waiting. I’ll pick them off as they go into the town, and put them to the question. Ye’ve got till after the funeral,’ he said again to Gil, and strode past him.