The Nicholas Feast (36 page)

‘Alexander Montgomery,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘But is this a reason to kill the boy?’

‘There is another name missing,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘The officiating priest usually signs this kind of document. It says
This day were joined by me– I
think he did put his name to it.’

‘You think that was why William wanted to speak to Father Bernard?’ said Alys.

‘You mean it was his name? He married them?’ The mason craned his neck to see the ragged edge of the paper. ‘No, there is no more writing. The dog must have eaten it. May I assure you now, I shall not follow him round the yard waiting for the facts to emerge.’

‘Nor I.’ Gil sat down again, looking at the fragile document. ‘If Bernard Stewart did marry these two, he would be in some trouble, even sixteen years later, both from the Montgomery for going against his wishes, and from his Order for marrying two people who were within the forbidden degrees of relationship.’

‘Surely he could brazen it out?’ suggested the mason.

‘One of the pages in the notebook was headed
B.S.
and contained a number of reformist quotations which I would not like to have imputed to me,’ said Gil. ‘What if William did have speech with Father Bernard on Sunday morning? He – Father Bernard told me he had to arrange for the music to be carried to St Thomas’s, and therefore had no time for the boy, but John Shaw itemized the music in the list of things he had had to see to.’

‘So he did,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I remember.’

‘If William showed Father Bernard this document,’ said Gil, ‘or at least told him he now had possession of it, and threatened to report him for heresy if he would not support a claim of legitimacy –’

‘I should think Father Bernard would be desperate,’ said Alys.

‘He would lose either way,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘But is it sufficient reason?’ Gil looked up as the Blackfriars bell began to ring. ‘Plague take it, that must be for the boy’s funeral! I meant to borrow a Master’s gown and hood and join the procession, but it’s too late now. I must go as I am and slip in at the back. Pierre, are you coming? Does Mistress Irvine go?’ He folded the paper with care and tucked it into his purse.

‘Brother Andrew forbade it,’ said Alys. ‘She is still sore stricken with grief. Gil, I know you have no gown, your own won’t come back for several days. That kind of mending is specialized work. But at least let me find the funeral favours, so Lord Montgomery won’t be offended.’

‘It was Montgomery’s men who ruined my gown,’ Gil pointed out, but she had hurried off up the stairs.

Blackfriars kirk was half-full. Gil made his way in by the west door just as the first singers of the University procession reached the north porch, and was surprised by the numbers already present, and the buzz of conversation in the nave.

‘I suppose half the town is here out of interest,’ said his friend behind him.

‘You could be right,’ Gil answered him, staring over the heads. Seats had been placed nearest the nave altar for the Dean and Principal and other senior members of the college, and the small stout Dominican who had laid Jaikie out was keeping space behind these for the ranks of scholars, not without some difficulty. On trestles before the altar, with candles at head and foot, lay a solid elm coffin. Hugh Montgomery had evidently decided to do the thing properly. He and his henchmen were standing on the south side of the church, their predatory stares directed at Father Bernard who was fidgeting about on the altar steps. The procession sang its way into the nave and filed into its places. Dean Elphinstone, in his silk gown and hood with the red chaperon pinned to his shoulder, glared along the length of the coffin at Lord Montgomery while the scholars, behind him, worked their way through an elaborate setting of the funerary sentences.
Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live
. . . But some of the singers were younger than the dead boy, Gil reflected. It seemed unkind to put these words into their mouths. And what Patrick Paniter, chanter at St Mungo’s, would make of their rendering of his setting did not bear thinking about.

The last of the sentences wound to a close, and Father Bernard lifted up his powerful, musical voice in the opening words of the funeral Mass. Gil, half attending, surveyed the congregation and turned over in his mind what he must say to the Faculty afterwards.

As Maistre Pierre suggested, a number of those present were probably moved by curiosity. A burial following a murder that touched the college and also the landed class would be a great draw. But the Provost’s steward was here as a courtesy to the college, and there was also a scattering of journeymen from within the burgh. Gil recognized James Sproat’s junior man, come straight from the cordiner’s shop with his leather apron bundled under his arm. William must have been a good customer, he reflected.

The Dean was speaking. The Latin phrases flowed elegantly over the heads of most of his hearers, who took the opportunity to continue their various conversations. Two men near Gil appeared to be compounding some transaction concerning their masters’ goods, to be ratified by their principals later in the week. Behind the Dean the scholars stood in obedient silence with the younger regents watching them. Gil saw Maister Kennedy glare at Walter. At the other end of the same row Ralph Gibson was weeping openly, and Patrick Coventry put his arm about the boy’s shoulders.

In the middle of the ranks of bachelors, both junior and senior, Robert Montgomery stood, head tipped back, glaring down his nose at the Dean’s back. Gil glanced at the other side of the church, and found Hugh, Lord Montgomery, in identical pose, glaring at the Dean’s face.

‘They breed true, these Montgomery men,’ said the mason, who had evidently seen where he was looking.

‘They do,’ said Gil, adding absently, ‘
Lyk as a strand of water of a spring Haldis the sapour of the fontell well
.’

He was very close to the solution, he was certain. He could feel the shape of the argument. But there was still something missing, something which did not quite support his proof.

The Dean’s address wore on, but from the back of the church, what with the surrounding noise, Gil could hear only the occasional word. Those phrases he did catch seemed to convey the wish, rather than the hope, that William’s time in Purgatory would be shortened by his academic achievements and the respect he had borne his teachers. Maister Kennedy’s face as he heard this was studiously blank, and Gil recalled that his friend had seen the Dean’s notes.

The Dean reached a benediction, and seated himself. One of the Theology students leaned forward and gave out a note, marking the beat with his hand raised above his head, and the scholars launched into another funerary setting.

‘I must go outside,’ Gil said to Maistre Pierre, and got a nod in reply. He slipped out of the open west door into the yard, and stood for a moment in the brighter light, looking about him. To his right, at the corner of the church, was the bell-tower whose base served as mortuary chapel. It seemed likely that Jaikie was still laid out there. To his left the cloister wall extended south of the church, with the small guarded gate by which guests entered or the friars went out into the burgh to preach. In front of him, stretching to the back walls of the small properties on the High Street, the lumpy grass of the public graveyard was broken by a few bushes and the occasional marker of wood or stone. A mound of fresh earth near the bell-tower indicated William’s immediate destination. Trying not to think about that, or about the clump of bigger bushes in the far corner where a girl had been stabbed ten days since, Gil wandered along the cloister wall. One of Montgomery’s men emerged from the church and strode to the gate, where he leaned against the pillar watching Gil and stropping his dagger on his leather sleeve.

There was an elder-tree by the gatehouse, covered in creamy platters of blossom. Gil stopped beside it, breathing the mixture of the rank odour of the leaves and the sweet, heavy scent of the flowers, and the porter put his head out of his lodge, hand raised to deliver the customary blessing.

‘The funeral’s in the kirk, my son,’ he said. ‘Oh, it’s yourself, Maister Cunningham. Not seeking any more bodies in the kirkyard, are you? We’ve enough for the moment.’

‘I think Dean Elphinstone feels the same way,’ Gil said. ‘No, I was admiring the bour-tree.’

‘We’ll have a good crop of berries off that in the autumn,’ said the wiry Dominican. ‘The cellarer makes a good wine with them.’ He smacked his lips appreciatively. ‘Good for coughs and colds, that is.’

‘Better a linctus with cherries,’ said a familiar voice behind Gil. He turned, to see both the harper and his sister approaching. The watcher at the gate glowered after them.

‘And upon you, brother,’ said McIan in reply to the porter’s blessing. ‘Good day, Maister Cunningham. We came for the burial, but I think we are late.’

‘The boy’s no yirdit yet,’ said the porter. ‘They’ll come out in procession shortly. Wait up yonder by the college wall if you want to be nearer.’ He surveyed them with a bright eye, assessing the need for his professional services. ‘It gars any man look over his shoulder for his own fate, to see so young a laddie put in the ground.’

‘I have much to be thankful for,’ said McIan, and his sister nodded. ‘With God’s help, my own son is brought back from the brink of death. I came to offer prayers for the kin of this boy, since they have lost what I have regained.’

‘We were by the house the now,’ said Ealasaidh to Gil. Her severe expression cracked into a fond smile. ‘It seems the bairn will feed himself, so Nancy says, and shouts with wrath because his sops go everywhere but into his mouth.’

‘I mind that stage,’ said Brother Porter unexpectedly. ‘My sister’s eldest ate porridge with his fingers till he was two. Mind you, he canny count beyond ten with his boots on,’ he added. ‘How old is your boy?’

‘Not eight months,’ said Ealasaidh proudly. Brother Porter looked properly impressed. Behind them the west door of the church was opened wide, and the processional cross was borne out, followed by the singers. Gil ignored them. He found himself thinking of his nephew, who as an infant had borne a strong resemblance to Maister Forsyth. But then, he reflected, most babies looked like Maister Forsyth.

The last fragment of the picture fell into place.

The scholars, filing past, each stooped to lift a handful of earth from the mound and throw it into William’s grave. As the clayey lumps thudded on to the elm coffin-lid, Gil found Maister Kennedy at his elbow.

‘They’re comporting themselves well, Nick, but is this wise?’ he commented. ‘It sounds like the drums for the Dance of Death. You’ll have nightmares again tonight, surely.’

‘A touch of the
Ut sum, cras tibi
? No, I think it means they can be the more certain William’s dead,’ said his friend, and then with more formality, ‘Maister Gilbert, the Dean commands me to say that he and the Faculty will hear your findings on this matter in the Principal’s chamber after this. Lord Montgomery will also be present.’

‘I am ready to make a report,’ replied Gil with equal state. He looked across the scene of the burial, and encountered three stares: the Dean’s blue and acute, Maister Doby’s anxious, and off to one side Hugh Montgomery’s hotly alert. He raised his hat and flourished it in a general bow, and the two academics nodded and turned away to take their places in the procession as it formed.

‘I’ll see you there,’ said Maister Kennedy, and slipped away to round up the last few scholars before Gil could comment.

‘An interesting ceremony,’ said Maistre Pierre behind Gil, as the Steward began to circulate among the mourners, issuing select invitations to the cold meats and ale waiting in the dining-hall of the University.

‘The college looks after its sons,’ Gil returned. ‘There wasn’t much smoke, because incense costs money, but we have a ready-made choir which doesn’t have to be paid, and plenty of breath for speech and singing. Ceremony comes naturally.’

‘Now what happens?’

‘I’ll tell ye what happens,’ said Hugh, Lord Montgomery. The tail of the procession vanished singing into the church, and as the remainder of the congregation drifted towards the gates he left the church wall and came closer. ‘You, Cunningham lawyer, are about to tell me whose work that is –’ He jerked a thumb at the open grave behind him. ‘I warned you, and I warned the clerks in the college. I’m quite prepared to put them to the question one by one, starting with the youngest.’

‘I’ve no doubt of that,’ said Gil politely. ‘Shall we go? Maister Doby and the Dean are expecting us.’ He saw the slight widening of the eyes, and pressed the advantage. ‘Oh, aye, you mind I was asking you about William Doig the dog-breeder, my lord? Here’s a strange thing. Maister Mason and I saw the same man this morning, leading a cart over the Dow Hill, and his wife and all the dogs with him.’

‘The Dow Hill?’ repeated Montgomery in amazement. ‘Why should – why should the man’s deeds be any concern of mine? I told you before, I’ve no knowledge of him.’

‘So you did,’ said Gil, pausing at the foot of the grave. Montgomery bent and angrily threw in a yellow clod.

‘So it’s your problem, no mine, if the wee mimmerkin’s run,’ he added, wiping his hand on his jerkin. ‘Get a move on, man, I want to get a hold of Bernard Stewart before he takes refuge the wrong side of that wall. And we’ll have my nephew Robert present, since none of my sons is here at the college. He’s full old enough to be involved.’