The Nicholas Feast (30 page)

‘All the dogs from Dunbar to Dunblane,’
said Gil. Maister Doig had clearly heard the quotation before. ‘Are these all your breeding?’ Gil continued, peering into a pen of spaniels. A black-and-white speckled bitch stood up against the palings to speak to him, and he offered her the back of his hand to sniff.

‘That’s Bluebell. Soft as butter she is. Had five good litters off her,’ confided Maister Doig, ‘but she’s resting the now. Aye, they’re mostly mine. That one there I got off Jimmy Meikle out past Hamilton.’ He pointed to another pen. ‘He throws good deerhounds, but his tail’s a wee thing short. The gentry likes a dog wi’ a good long tail.’

‘That never bothered us,’ said Gil, scratching the spaniel’s ears. ‘How is Jimmy Meikle? He was our dog man,’ he added to Maistre Pierre.

‘Jimmy Meikle’s deid,’ said the dog-breeder curtly, ‘as you’d surely ken if he was your dog man.’

‘We lost the land in ’88,’ Gil reminded him. ‘He went to the Hamiltons, like all else. I’m sorry to hear that, for he knew dogs like no other. That’s another of his breeding, isn’t it?’

‘No, she’s mine,’ said Maister Doig, ‘but you’re right, her sire was one of Jimmy’s.’ There was a pause, in which the terriers could be heard snarling. ‘So what did you want to discuss, maisters?’

‘How did you come to meet William Irvine?’

‘How did he die, maisters?’ countered Doig, looking from one to the other. ‘It was sudden, I take it, for he was well enough on Saturday.’

‘You could say that. It was murder,’ said Gil.

Maister Doig’s big-featured face tightened briefly.

‘How?’ he said after a moment. ‘Where did it happen? Jaikie never –’

‘Strangled,’ said Gil, ‘within the college.’

‘No by Jaikie?’ speculated the dog-breeder. ‘He threatened it often enough.’

‘Probably not by Jaikie,’ said Gil. ‘Do you know of any other enemies William had?’

‘Me,’ said Maister Doig frankly, ‘but I wasny by the college till after he was found. I came up to ask for the dog as arranged and Jaikie told me William was dead and he didny ken where the pup was.’

‘Why would you have killed him?’ asked the mason curiously. ‘What did you have against him?’

‘I never said I would have killed him,’ retorted Doig. ‘I said I was one of his enemies.’

‘You would have killed him if you had the chance?’

The light eyes under the grey brows turned to Maistre Pierre.

‘Look at me, maister. How could I kill something the height of that laddie?’

‘I look at you,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I see a very strong man.’

‘Aye, well.’ Maister Doig turned away. ‘I didny. As for why I might have, maister, he was a boldin wee bystart, and no near as clever as he thought he was.’

‘Was he no?’ asked Gil with interest. ‘His teachers were pleased with him.’

Doig grunted.

‘But he was a customer,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Did he pay well?’

‘Him?’ said Doig witheringly ‘Aye after what he could get, and never opened his purse if he could avoid it.’

‘So what arrangement did you have with him?’ Gil asked.

‘Arrangement?’ said Doig, visibly startled. ‘About the dog, you mean? I kept him here. Is he well, maister?’

‘He’s well. Someone broke his head for him, but it’s a skin wound only, and Maister Mason’s daughter physicked it –’

‘What wi’? What did she put on it?’

‘Comfrey,’ said the mason confidently. Maister Doig pursed his wide mouth and nodded.

‘He’s like to eat the kitchen bare. If I can settle it with William’s kin, I’d like to keep him,’ said Gil casually, ‘so I’ll want to know about his feeding and rule. What did William name him?’

‘Mauger,’ said Doig.

‘Despite,’ Gil translated into French for the mason. ‘Not a bad name for a wolfhound. So he lived here, did he? And you took him up to the college now and then?’

‘Aye, to get to know his master.’

‘More usual, surely,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘for the boy to visit the dog?’

A seismic movement of the massive shoulders appeared to be a shrug.

‘It suited. It would ha’ suited better if Jaikie had been less of a glumphy scunner.’

‘So the dog passed back and forth between you,’ said Gil, ‘with Jaikie as middle-man.’

The spaniel he was still petting dropped on to four paws and rushed to the corner of her pen where she stood whimpering and peering through the slats, her tail going.

‘No always,’ said Doig. ‘Times William brought him back himself.’

‘Times I took him up for ye,’ said a harsh female voice at the house-corner. Gil turned, and saw an angular woman being towed across the yard by a leash of spaniels.

‘My wife, maisters,’ said Doig informally. Mistress Doig inspected her husband sharply, while the dogs pawed at their friends through the fence as if they had been parted for weeks. ‘Maister Cunningham’s asking about the wolfhound, mistress.’

‘I hear that, Doig,’ she said, turning the acute gaze on them. ‘And why would they be doing that?’

‘I’m trying to find out who killed William,’ said Gil, ‘so I’m asking questions of everyone that knew him.’

‘Well, you needny bother asking us,’ she said in her harsh voice, ‘for we didny kill him. Doig never saw him all day, did ye? For all he was up the town three times asking at the college yett. Did ye say about the collar?’ she added to her lord. He tipped his head back and gave her a hard look, and she turned to unleash the spaniels and let them into their pen, expertly using the bedraggled hem of her heavy homespun skirts to stop the other dogs getting out of the opened gate.

‘Collar?’ said the mason.

‘There’s a dog-collar of mine,’ said Doig, ‘outstanding as movable property. Cost me a penny or two at the cordiner’s, it did, and I’d be glad to see it back and the leash with it. What was on the pup when you had him?’

Gil opened his mouth to reply, but was forestalled by a fearsome outbreak of snarling, worrying noises from the terrier pen. Doig rolled across to bang on the gate and shout, without effect. The snarling grew more savage, and one of the dogs yelped in what sounded like pain.

‘Fiend take it, stop that!’ yelled Doig, fumbling at the catch to the gate. His wife hurried over to join him, and they hauled the gate open and pounced on the rolling mass of brindled fur which tumbled out. The dogs were dragged off one another, still snapping and snarling defiance, long white teeth bared. Mistress Doig bundled one into her brown woollen skirt, revealing a patched grey kirtle, and Doig thrust the other back through the gate with his foot and fell back, cursing a bitten thumb.

‘Mon Dieu,
have they run mad?’ the mason exclaimed. ‘You must have the bite burned.’

‘Naw. All terriers fight.’ Doig inspected the thumb and pushed it into his mouth. ‘You were telling me about the pup’s collar, maister.’

‘Just an ordinary collar,’ said Gil, as Mistress Doig shut the gate with her free hand. The mason leaned cautiously over the fence to look at the frantic dog, which was hurling itself against the fence raging at its kennel-mate. ‘But there was another in Jaikie’s chamber when we searched it, along with a great bundle of papers. Could that be the one you want?’

‘Along with the papers? Where?’ asked Doig round his thumb, frowning, but his wife turned with the latch-rope of the terrier pen still in her hand. The dog still bundled in her skirts squirmed convulsively.

‘Searched Jaikie’s chamber?’ she repeated. ‘Where was Jaikie? That sirkent ablach let ye search his chamber?’

‘After he was dead,’ explained the mason, and she stared at him.

‘Jaikie’s deid and all? When was this?’

‘This day about noon,’ said Gil, studying both Doigs.

‘About noon,’ repeated the dog-breeder, and gave his wife another hard look. ‘That would be about when I took the hounds up the Dow Hill, wouldn’t it no, mistress?’

‘Aye,’ she said, and licked her lips. ‘Aye, Doig, it would,’ she agreed earnestly.

‘We should get a Mass said for him,’ continued Doig. ‘He put folk in our way now and then. It’s aye good to get new custom,’ he said to Gil with a broad smile.

‘That’s true,’ agreed Gil, ‘though I would think you had custom enough. Dogs like these are far to seek.’

‘That’s a true word,’ agreed Doig. ‘My lord Bothwell had two off me last summer, and he put more of the Hepburns and the Humes on to me. I’d even the Earl of Angus after me for one of Bluebell’s last litter, but they were all spoken for already.’

‘You must hear a thing or two,’ said Gil. ‘You get a few men leaning over a fence like this, the talk must be of some strange matters.’

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Doig easily. ‘Only last week, there was two young Hepburns and a gentleman from the Bishop’s household – Archbishop,’ he corrected himself, ‘all wi’ wonderful tales of some merchant in the Low Countries and what like things he’d send. Fair to split his sides one of them was,’ he reminisced, ‘telling of how his lord sent for cushions and got a barrel full of straw mats.’

‘Clearly, they have never tried to import a wheelbarrow,’ said Maistre Pierre, without looking up from the silent terrier pen.

‘And what were you doing, Mistress Doig,’ Gil asked politely, ‘while your man was exercising the dogs on the Dow Hill? There must be plenty for two to do in a trade like this. Jimmy had two boys just to keep the pens clean, I mind.’

‘The pens is no bother,’ said Doig, ‘the reason being, I’ve an arrangement wi’ Sandy the Tanner next door. He sends two of his laddies twice a day wi’ buckets and shovels, and he gets to keep what they lift. So if you had they boots in Glasgow in the last four years, Maister Cunningham, it was my dogs provided the making of the leather.’ He grinned broadly, exposing the blackened teeth again. Gil looked down and flexed one ankle in the newly waxed boot.

‘They’re wearing well,’ he said. ‘Did he make that apron to you?’

The dog-breeder looked down at himself, and up again.

‘Aye. Aye, he did. That’s his work, right enough.’

‘I thought it might be. I can see he’s a good neighbour,’ said Gil. ‘Is that dog suffocating, mistress? He’s very quiet.’

‘He’s asleep.’ She let the layers of damp brown cloth fall over the grey kirtle, revealing a somnolent dog tucked under her arm. As they all looked, the little beast emitted a buzzing snore. ‘I’ll put him in an empty pen. We’ll ha’ to keep them apart for a bit, Doig.’

‘Aye, do that.’ Doig was wrapping his thumb in the hem of his jerkin.

‘So what were you doing, mistress?’

‘Seeing to the dogs’ feed,’ she said. She suddenly turned and bent to check that the latch-rope was fitted over the peg on the gate. ‘Aye, that’s right,’ she added, kicking the turnbutton on the bottom of the gate into place. ‘I was making the dogs’ dinner –’

At the word, the spaniels in the pen began to bark, leaping up and down, and every other dog in the place joined them. Gil covered his ears, laughing, and Maistre Pierre flinched.

‘Quiet!’ screamed Mistress Doig, and silence fell, broken only by excited whimpers from the nearest dogs. ‘Doig cuts the meat up fresh every time, but the mash takes the best part of an hour to boil beforehand. And they’re to be fed again, maisters, so if you’ll excuse us –’

‘We’ll get out of your way,’ agreed Gil. ‘I thank you for your time. Oh, one other thing.’

They stared at him, with identical expressions of faint dismay. Behind them, the mason stooped quickly to lift something from the cobbled surface of the yard.

‘William was given to extortion,’ Gil continued. ‘I wondered if he ever approached you, or any of your other customers.’

‘He tried nothing wi’ me,’ said Doig confidently, ‘for he’d ken fine that I would just turn round and let on to his teachers what he was up to. And if he’d spoke to the Hepburns or the Humes, maister, do you think they’d tell me?’

‘True,’ agreed Gil. ‘What do you mean, what he was up to? What would you tell his teachers?’

‘Why . . .’ Doig paused, and swallowed. ‘About him keeping the pup, and having it in his chamber, and coming down here, all at times he should ha’ been at his studying.’

‘No more than that?’

‘Is that no enough? I could have tellt his sponsor and all. The Lord Montgomery wouldny care to hear how his money’s being wasted,’ declared Doig with fluency.

‘Ah, well,’ said Maistre Pierre, leaving the terrier pen. ‘That expenditure is at an end now. God rest the boy’s soul.’

‘Amen,’ said Doig, and he and his wife crossed themselves. ‘I’ll see ye out, maisters. And if ye gang down this vennel and cross the Poldrait Burn, the track links up with the one frae the Old Vennel and yell find yourselves back on the High Street.’

‘That must cross the Mill-burn too,’ said Gil, interpreting the stumpy gestures. ‘Is that where you exercise the dogs, Maister Doig?’

‘Between the two burns,’ agreed the dog-breeder. ‘They need to get running about. They bring me a cony now and then,’ he added.

Pausing on the far bank of the Poldrait Burn, Gil looked back at the mason splashing through the shallows and beyond him, back up the track. Billy Doig still watched them, a small grotesque figure like a chess-piece standing in the middle of the way. As Gil looked, he nodded briefly and turned to shamble back into his own yard.