The Nicholas Feast (28 page)

Small and clear, images danced across his vision. A man with a sword, who might or might not be Hugh Montgomery. Three armed men, leaping round him in twilight. The lanky, red-haired William, a
busy ghost aye flickering to and fro,
darted from victim to victim, gowned scholars who flinched away from him under the arched branches of the apple-trees, until he became a victim himself.

‘William’s victims,’ he said aloud, and opened his eyes. The blackbird was still singing, but most of the students had gone.

Is that the key? he wondered. The list of those the boy confronted? The names in the red book? And how was Jaikie’s death connected?

And meantime his own problems loomed large. At twenty-six he needed nobody’s permission to marry, though since his uncle was his sponsor into the Law it would be foolish to act without the old man’s approval. He knew he had that, and it had been an unpleasant surprise to discover that his mother held other views.

But what are her objections? What did she say this morning? That there was no more money – well, I knew that – that he was educated for the Church and the Law – but I will still embrace the Law. And that he must pray for his father and brothers.

I wonder, is that the crux of the matter? he thought, and recalled the last year-mind service in the church in Hamilton. The small altar beside his father’s box tomb had been dusty and neglected, and the brocade altar-cloth was so old that mice or moths had eaten it into holes. Beside it the newly painted carving had been bright in the candlelight: the family blazon in the centre of one long side of the tomb, with a kneeling knight on one side, a lady on the other, and their three sons and five daughters ranked neatly behind them.

He could see it now as if he was there. Two of the small male figures were in armour, the third gowned as a scholar. One of the daughters was in her shroud, two had flowing, improbably yellow hair, one wore the same kind of elaborate gold-painted headdress as the kneeling figure of their mother, and the eldest was in the white robes of a Cistercian nun. The image was so vivid that he was quite unsurprised when the nun turned her head and looked directly at him, her long-chinned face narrow and intent within the folds of her veil.

‘Gil,’ she said clearly. ‘Slip the collar, and you will win free.’

‘Dorothea?’ he said, but she had turned back to her prayers. ‘
Slip the collar and you will win free
,’ he repeated, and woke with a start.

As he turned in at the mason’s pend, under the swinging sign with its bright image of a white castle, a voice in the shadows said, ‘And here is Maister Cunningham. Good day to you, maister.’

He checked, and the harper and his sister emerged into the light. Ealasaidh was clad as usual in her loose checked dress, but McIan was in silk and velvet as if he had been playing for one of the wealthy households of the burgh.

‘The bairn has fed,’ continued Ealasaidh abruptly.

‘Thanks be to God,’ said Gil.

She crossed herself with her free hand, but McIan said in his resonant voice, ‘Thanks to the dog, it seems. A blessing on the beast, for now I think my son will live.’

‘It seems so,’ agreed Gil. ‘We can all be glad of it. How are you both? Are you well, after yesterday’s stushie?’

‘Well enough,’ said Ealasaidh sourly. ‘Maister Cunningham is kind to ask it. At the Provost’s lodging they were more anxious to hear about the stushie at the college, as you cry it, than to hear us play.’

‘We are both well,’ said her brother, ‘but you have taken some small hurt, they tell me at the house. Brawling in the street, is it? A fine thing for my son’s tutor.’

‘I’ll try to deport myself more seemly,’ Gil said.

The harper turned blank eyes on him, and his white beard twitched as if he smiled slightly. ‘You should not be risking your hands like that again. A scholar must write, as a musician must play. And have you ended the other matter yet? Have you found the ones that you are hunting?’

‘Not yet.’

‘It will be soon,’ said McIan. ‘But you must be very certain. You will take the holy woman’s advice.’

‘Your pardon, sir?’ said Gil, startled.

‘Och, come away,’ said Ealasaidh, as Gil stared open-mouthed. ‘We must go offer a candle at St Mary’s for the bairn’s breaking his fast, and Maister Cunningham wants his dinner. Good day to you, maister.’

She bowed, gathering her plaid about her, and tugged at her brother’s arm, to draw him down the High Street towards their lodging. He turned obediently, but added over his shoulder to Gil, ‘It will be as the cartes fall, even if you are playing with a damaged hand.’

‘What cards?’ Gil asked, but the two continued down the street without seeming to hear him.

Alys was crossing the hall as he entered from the fore-stair. Her face lit up, and she came to greet him, then drew him to the nearest window-seat, saying in concern, ‘Gil, you have done too much. Have they fed you at the college?’

‘I’m all right,’ he said, sitting down gratefully. He raised her hand to his lips, and she turned it and stroked his cheek, a little shyly.

‘I will fetch food.’ She slipped away, and he sat with his palm to the place she had touched, marvelling at the feel of her fingers on his skin. Musician’s fingers, he thought, and found himself trying to make sense of the harper’s words. And had he really seen Dorothea? And what was he thinking about before that?

‘William’s victims,’ he said, opening his eyes.

‘We must make a list,’ said Alys, seated opposite. The wolfhound raised its head from his knee and beat its tail on the cushion.

‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said hastily. ‘I was thinking.’

‘Good. Drink this.’

‘More willow-bark tea?’ She nodded, and he drank off the little beaker and handed it back to her. ‘Still not foul enough. You’ll never get your ’pothecary’s licence.’

She smiled, and the elusive dimple flashed. ‘Now eat. What were you thinking?’

‘It seems very likely,’ he said, reaching for the pasty on the tray beside him, ‘that William was killed by one of the people on whom he had practised or attempted his extortion.’

‘It’s very possible,’ said Alys, as he paused to take a bite. Flakes of pastry scattered down his doublet, and the dog’s nose twitched. ‘How many are there? You have mentioned several already.’

‘Not more than a dozen or so.’

‘So many? Are you joking?’

‘No,’ he said ruefully. ‘Alys, what’s in this pasty? It’s very good.’

‘Cheese and roots and fresh herbs,’ she said dis-missively ‘But also, Gil –’

‘Ah, Gilbert,’ said the mason, emerging spruce and newly barbered from the stair which led to the upper floor. Alys glanced at him, and away again. ‘Good, you have been fed. What did you learn from the chaplain?’

‘He claims he was never in the Outer Close after he left at the end of the play.’

‘He was seen there,’ Alys said.

‘I think he was the one who searched William’s chamber,’ said Gil, ‘which would take him across the Outer Close. What I am not yet certain of is when or why he did so. What was he looking for?’

‘Papers,’ said the mason. ‘Secrets. We know William collected secrets.’

‘It could be.’ Gil poured himself a beaker of ale from the jug on the tray. ‘Father Bernard is kin to the Earl of Lennox, who was a supporter of James Third but is now in favour with the present King, so I suppose William could have learned something inconvenient to him.’

‘The letter you delivered for Kittock’s guest?’ suggested Maistre Pierre.

‘No,’ said Gil doubtfully. ‘That came ultimately from the boy’s mother, and William seemed not to know what was in it. Although,’ he added, ‘after he read it he demanded a word with Father Bernard, which I do not think he got.’

‘What about the spying?’ said Alys. ‘Could that have brought about his death?’

‘I’m reluctant to put much weight on something Father Bernard suggested.’

‘No, but it is true. He was dealing in information. It is clear from the letter to Lord Montgomery –’

‘You have deciphered that?’

Alys, with a triumphant air, drew a little sheaf of papers from the hanging pocket at her waist and held it out. Biting off another mouthful of pasty Gil set the savoury thing down on the tray and took the bundle one-handed, tilting the papers to the light.

‘Well!’ he said after a moment. ‘Sweet St Giles, the boy was in deep.’

‘Is it all genuine, then? Who is this A he refers to? Is it the Earl of Angus?’

‘It looks it.’ Gil returned to the beginning of the letter with its formal salutation to William’s
richt weel-belovit & respectit kinsman, the Lord Hugh, Baron Montgomery.
In Alys’s elegant, accomplished hand, the dead boy’s voice was still clear.
I have stablisshit,
he had written, and again,
I have maid certaine of this.
‘I think it must be Angus. He mentions a betrothal. It must mean this betrothal of Angus’s daughter to my kinsman Kilmaurs.’

‘It is confusing,’ said Alys thoughtfully, ‘that the Earl of Douglas was a Douglas, but the Earl of Angus is not an Angus but another Douglas.’

Gil nodded, half listening. Most of the document concerned the doings of the Earl of Angus, the ambitious, misguided head of the house of Douglas.
I have learned what is to be the marriage settlement,
William had written, and gave the details. From Gil’s conversations with his uncle, he judged these to be accurate.
A is gathering his men at Kilmarnock,
the letter went on. And then, sending Gil’s eyebrows up, the statement:
I have seen by means of M the copy of a letter of A to the king H.

‘Sweet St Giles!’ he said again. ‘Alys, you are certain of this part? That Angus is writing to English Henry?’

She twisted her head to look. ‘Quite certain. I went over it several times.’

‘What is it?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘There’s been a rumour of this.’ Gil handed the papers to his prospective father-in-law, took another bite of the pasty, and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Michael mentioned it earlier. My uncle thinks it won’t harm Angus with King James, who likes him, but Chancellor Argyll is a different matter.’

‘And the Montgomery has his ear,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Exactly And proof of the correspondence – I wonder if the letter he saw is genuine?’

‘There is a truce with England just now, is there not?’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Quite so. But Angus is neither a councillor nor an ambassador, he has no authority to be dealing with King Henry. Proof of the correspondence could damage him badly, and the Cunninghams don’t want that, not just now.’

‘And who is M?’ said Alys. ‘It can hardly be Montgomery himself.’

‘It could be Michael,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘but when he spoke to me I did not get the idea he had seen such a letter, much less shown it to William.’

‘How can you say the King likes Angus?’ objected the mason, looking up from the letter. ‘He stripped him of his Lanark honours and all his holdings in Teviotdale, only last Yule.’

‘But then he gave him the lands and lordship of Kilmarnock,’ Gil pointed out, ‘in the hope that he would live in Ayrshire and put down Hugh Montgomery and his arrogance, which is no doubt why my kinsman is marrying his daughter. Angus goes on pilgrimage with the King, and they play cards together. Angus’s countess is a Boyd, from Kilmarnock and those parts,’ he added. ‘She is some kind of cousins with my mother.’

‘Do you think someone killed William because he knew this?’

‘This or something else. It’s possible.’

‘Where did he get all this from?’ Alys wondered. The mason cut himself a slice from the wedge of cheese on the tray and popped it in his mouth, watched intently by the wolfhound.

‘Here and there?’ he suggested. Alys glanced briefly at him again, expressionless.

‘Very possibly,’ said Gil. ‘Not all of this is new. The marriage has been known in my family for some weeks, though the settlement is not common knowledge, and the matter of the old title is very cold kale. Only Angus’s letter is fresh news. I do not like this.’

‘So does it seem William was killed by a supporter of the Douglases?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘The boy Michael, for instance?’

‘Michael has witnesses to show he was elsewhere,’ said Gil, and was aware of a strong sense of relief. This would not be a good time to accuse my mother’s godson of murder, he thought. But spying for the Montgomery? ‘No, I think if this had been the immediate cause of William’s death the letter would have been removed from his purse. We must leave this piece in play, but it doesn’t check anything.’

‘So what must we do now? Make a list of the pawns?’

‘Precisely All those on whom William tried his extortion.’

Alys, without comment, drew a pair of wax tablets from her pocket and opened them. Smoothing the wax with the bone stylus which fitted in the box, she said, ‘Do we begin at the top? Did William approach the Dean?’

‘I hardly think the Dean would like to be referred to as a pawn,’ said Gil, ‘but yes, write him down, though I don’t know that William spoke to him privately. I know he did speak to Maister Doby, and there are the two men of law – that’s Archie Crawford and David Gray.’