The Nicholas Feast (6 page)

‘In ’89, I think,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘It was a gift from a student’s family. We have to make use of it, of course. It barely fits William, as tall as he is. Have you noticed the weather?’

Gil looked up at the tall window. The dark clouds were much closer, and a shutter was banging on an upper floor of the house immediately opposite.

‘Any of the bejants admit to being afraid of thunder?’ he asked. The regent shook his head.

The dragon was now making a lengthy speech in which it identified itself as Idleness and threatened to consume the Scholar utterly. The Scholar made futile efforts to escape, clutching his script, while Gambling and Drunkenness refused to help, but nothing availed until a sturdy knight with a wooden sword and well-polished shield tramped on. Pausing only to announce himself as Diligence, the enemy of Idleness and the support and defence of scholars everywhere, he attacked the dragon, which fought back furiously. Dame Collegia and her daughters returned to cheer the knight on. From time to time one or the other combatant broke off to address the audience at length, until the noise from the side benches became too much and the dragon attacked them instead.

‘That was a mistake,’ said Maister Coventry. Leaning forward he laid firm hands on the two students nearest him, but those beyond had already leapt to their feet and begun baiting the dragon with enthusiasm. The boys from the other side bench rushed across the room and joined in, tugging at the dragon’s tail, and as the canvas tore Dean Elphinstone rose to his feet.

‘
Tacete!
’ he said, in a voice like the crack of a whip.

All movement was suspended. The Dean held the moment; that icy stare swept the room, and returned to Diligence, who swallowed hard and brought sword to shield in a salute. Finally the Dean bowed.

‘Pray continue, Sir Diligence,’ he said politely, and seated himself again.

The students slunk back to their seats; the dragon gathered up its damaged tail and regained the stage. Diligence, overcoming it with a perfunctory sweep of his sword, turned to raise the Scholar to his feet. As Dame Collegia and her daughters came forward to discuss the Scholar’s marriage, William removed the dragon’s head and stalked off behind the tapestries, and Gil heard the first rumble of thunder.

The Scholar’s marriage arrangements were much more quickly dealt with than Gil felt to be realistic. All present attempted a motet, praising diligence and condemning idleness, and as soon as it was finished the chaplain slipped out of the hall with an anxious expression, presumably to prepare for his lecture to the theologians. Nick reappeared to say that the play was over and the players hoped it had given pleasure. The place where he had cut the line hoping it had not given offence was barely noticeable. Gil, eyeing his friend, felt that this was a man who needed to be plied with strong drink.

As the side benches began drumming their feet by way of applause and the senior members of the audience clapped politely, a few drops of rain rattled on the little greenish panes of the upper window. The students sitting below jumped up to close the shuttered lower portions. They were just in time; as the first turnbutton twirled home, a colossal peal of thunder crashed, and the skies opened.

‘Michty me, it’s the Deluge!’ said someone.

‘My Aristotle!’ said someone else, and dived for the door. A number of students followed him, including most of the cast of the play. The Dean and Principal watched in disapproval.

‘The roofs are no sounder than they ever were?’ Gil said to his neighbour.

‘Well, no,’ said Maister Coventry frankly. ‘I’ve spent a bishop’s ransom on thatching the Arthurlie building next door, so it’s weathertight for now, but neither Law nor Theology can spare money for the roof of the main building, and Dean Elphinstone won’t lay out Arts Faculty money without at least the promise that they’ll match it. So the boys in the Inner Close run about with buckets when it rains, and their books and their bedding get spoiled, and then their parents complain to the Principal. It’s quite an inconvenience, Maister Cunningham.’

‘The building is old,’ Gil observed. ‘It was not new when Lord Hamilton gave it to the college, and that was before I was born. Maybe another rich benefactor will appear from the sky and solve all your problems.’

‘All that appears from the sky is water.’ Maister Coventry stared at the rain running down the window. ‘The end of the feast is in the Fore Hall, we only have to go outside and up the stair, save those of us who wish to find the privy, but I imagine the Dean will wish to stay seated until this stops. His bladder must be cast iron.’ He looked up. ‘Ah, Nick. Well done.’

Maister Kennedy, without the grey wig, sat down at Gil’s other side, snarling.

‘I will strangle that little toad,’ he said emphatically. ‘You saw him, Patey He actually took Henry’s kurtch off him and went on as Frivolity, after what I said. And he deliberately did the second version of the fight, and he –’

‘Perhaps he was nervous,’ Gil suggested, ‘and simply forgot your directions.’

‘Nervous? That? Don’t make me laugh. I’ll strangle him, I will, as soon as I set eyes on him.’

‘Is he not backstage?’ asked Patrick Coventry.

‘No, he is not. You saw him go – he should have been onstage for the motet, they needed his top line, but no, William was offended, William left.’ His fingers worked. ‘By God, the little –’

‘Nick.’ Maister Coventry reached across to touch his arm. ‘This is not the place.’

‘In fact I’d better not strangle him yet,’ Maister Kennedy admitted. ‘The Dean has to grant favours to the cast, including William, I suppose. Oh, God, how I wish this day was over!’

‘Amen to that,’ agreed the Second Regent. ‘See, I think the rain has eased a little, and the Dean is signalling to the Beadle. Perhaps we can leave these hard benches and go back up to finish the feast and listen to the harper.’

‘They’ll all go and stand in line out the back,’ said Maister Kennedy sourly. ‘I vote we make for the Arthurlie garden. You too, Gil?’

By the time the Faculty reassembled in the Fore Hall the tables had been taken down and the benches disposed in less formal ranks, and the students who had been at the feast had seized the opportunity to absent themselves. One or two junior bachelors remained, their white towels of office by now somewhat spattered, to hand platters of sweetmeats and the two silver quaichs full of spiced wine. In a corner the cast of the play, restored to their belted gowns, greasepaint smudged round eyes and mouths, were gathering round one of the dishes of sweetmeats. Maister Kennedy annexed another, and sat down against the wall as the Faculty members continued to straggle into the hall.

‘Here comes the harper,’ he said in some satisfaction. ‘Mind you, he only has one of his singers with him.’

‘This one is his sister. The other one died,’ said Gil, watching the Steward conduct two tall Highlanders into the hall. The woman paced like a queen in her loose checked gown; her dark hair tumbled down her back, the threads of silver in it invisible in this light. In one arm she cradled a wire-strung harp. The man who held her other arm was nearly as tall as Gil. He wore a gown of blue velvet, with a gold chain disposed on his shoulders, beard and hair combed over it as white as new milk. ‘Less than a fortnight ago,’ he added. ‘This may be the first time they have performed in public since.’

Although the hall was full of conversation, the harper’s head tilted. He spoke to his sister, who looked round, and met Gil’s eye. She nodded briefly to him, unsmiling, and continued in the wake of the Steward to the place set for them near the senior members of the Faculty. The Dean began a formal welcome to Angus McIan, harper, and Elizabeth McIan, singer, and Gil reflected that he scarcely recognized Ealasaidh by the Scots form of her name.

‘Oh, was that the business I was hearing about?’ Nick passed the sweetmeats across Gil to Maister Coventry, ignoring the Dean’s stately comments. ‘Picked up dead in the Fergus Aisle, wasn’t she? And the mason’s boy did it? Who was she, anyway?’

‘The mason’s boy did not,’ said Gil. ‘She was John Sempill’s wife. You remember John at the Grammar School?’

‘Aye.’ Nick chewed on a wedge of candied apricot. ‘Ill-tempered brute. Did he do it, then?’

‘Hush and listen,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘How can I silence the students if you talk so much?’

Nick grinned, and leaned back against the wall. The harper had begun a tuning-prelude, the sweeping ripples of sound ringing round the hall while he listened critically to the pitch of the notes. He worked his way from the lowest notes to the highest and back, then stilled the strings with the flat of his hand, threw a remark in Gaelic to his sister, and began to play. To Gil’s surprise the singer remained silent, while the harp spun a skein of heavy, solemn melody and counter-melody, almost painful to listen to. Though the harper’s long hands moved smoothly over the shining wires, across the width of the hall Gil saw the tremor in arm and jaw. What ails McIan? he wondered.

‘That’s not music for a feast,’ Nick muttered beside him. ‘What’s he playing?’

‘A lament,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘Did you catch what he said to the woman?’

‘I don’t speak Ersche,’ said Gil, and Nick shook his head.

‘He said,
There is death in the hall.’

‘It’s the thunder,’ said Nick decidedly, but Gil felt a shiver run down his back. The slow, weighty tune wound to its end, and after urgent representations by the Steward the woman rose to her feet and began to recite one of the gloomier portions of the history of Wallace. The Steward, shaking his head, approached Nick.

‘Maister Kennedy,’ he said, bowing, ‘the Dean wishes to offer some reward to the players after the harper is finished. I am to direct you to assemble them at that time.’

Nick pulled a face, but replied politely enough. John Shaw went off to harass the students with the spiced wine, and Maister Coventry said, ‘Do you need a collie-dog? Are they all here?’

‘Mostly.’ Nick got to his feet. ‘Richie, Henry, Michael, there’s Walter – who’s missing?’

‘William,’ said Gil, who had been watching the cast drifting in.

‘You’re right,’ said Nick after a moment. ‘He’ll be sulking in the privy after his costume got torn. Well, I’m not going to look for him. He’ll turn up at the last moment like a clipped plack, he always does when there’s something in it for him.’

‘I’ll send John Hucheson,’ offered Maister Coventry.

‘I wouldn’t offend John by asking him.’ Nick looked around, catching the eye of several of the cast. ‘William can look out for himself.’

Wallace eventually reached the end of a chapter, and the harper’s sister sat down, to some applause. The Dean raised his hand, and the Steward, standing to one side, summoned the players in ringing tones. As Maister Kennedy and his group progressed formally up the length of the hall, Gil found Ealasaidh McIan at his side.

‘Himself wishes me to warn you,’ she said without preamble. ‘There is death in this place, and more than death. He felt it as soon as we came here.’

‘More than death?’ Gil questioned involuntarily.

‘Strangling and secrecy,’ she said. ‘Many secrets.’

‘Is it someone in this hall?’ asked Patrick Coventry at her other side.

She turned to look down at him, shaking her head. ‘I am not the one with the sight. You must be asking himself that.’

‘Where is William?’ said the Dean loudly. ‘He must be sought for.’

With the words the harper rose, blank eyes wide, his instrument clasped in one arm, and flung the other hand high with an exclamation in Gaelic that set the brass strings ringing. The Steward and the Dean, arrested in movement, stared at him, as did nearly everyone else in the hall, but his sister hurried to his side. Maister Coventry stepped forward and together they shepherded the tall figure to the side of the hall, answering him in Gaelic as they went. Gil dragged a bench forward and the harper was thrust on to it, his sister scolding him in a hissing whisper.

‘Where is Maister Cunningham?’ he asked, putting out his free hand in its furred velvet sleeve.

‘I am here,’ said Gil, alarmed, and grasped the hand. This man was a professional musician and habitually more dignified than the Archbishop. What had shaken him to this extent? He was speaking in Gaelic again, urgent jerky sentences.

‘The one the Dean asks for,’ Patrick Coventry translated softly, ‘is in the dark, behind an iron lock, and he is no longer living.’

‘What does he say?’ demanded Dean Elphinstone from the dais. There was a sudden buzz of sound as those nearest, who had heard, informed those who had not.

‘Haivers!’ said the boy who had played Knowledge. ‘Not our William!’

‘Speak Latin, Walter,’ said the Principal automatically.

‘Quid est Latinus pro
haivers?’ muttered Walter.

‘How can he ken that?’ the Dean pursued in Scots. ‘Maister Harper, what gars ye –’

‘I am a harper,’ said Angus McIan. ‘It is given to me.’

‘Aye, well, so was old Rory MacDuff a harper when I was a bairn,’ said the Dean, ‘and he didny take these strunts.’

‘Best you look for the one who is missing,’ said Ealasaidh urgently to Gil. ‘Himself will not be right till the daylight reaches the dead man.’