The Nicholas Feast Read online

  ‘What time? It was when I sent him for coals,’ Mistress Dickson interpolated.

  ‘And when would that be?’

  After some discussion, with help from the three women at the table, it was agreed that Tam had gone for coals after one shower but before another.

  ‘What were the coals for? Whose dinner were you cooking by then, Agnes?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Aye, now you’re asking.’ Mistress Dickson scowled at the pup for a moment, chewing her lip. ‘I think it was the college dinner. I think I got the feast cooked on one carry of coals, and Isa there put the water on for the kale for the college dinner, and then we needed more. And lucky we did, for if Tam’d been later he’d have found the coalhouse door locked, by what I hear, and the dinner still to cook.’

  ‘And was that about the time the thunder started?’ Gil asked.

  ‘By here, you’re right, maister!’ said Tam. ‘For I mind now, I heard thunder when I was in the coalhouse. I thought it was the coals falling down on me!’ He laughed hugely at his own joke.

  ‘It was after that he went in the limehouse,’ observed the student.

  ‘It was the coalhouse, Nicholas,’ said Mistress Dickson crossly, ‘as Adam there’ll tell you.’

  ‘They said they’d put him in the limehouse.’

  ‘Who said that?’ asked Gil, feeding the dog another morsel.

  The young man Nicholas, finding everyone looking at him, went red, but persisted. ‘When Maister Shaw sent me back to help with the crocks. I saw Lowrie Livingstone and the other two carry him into the passage that goes by the limehouse. They didny see me,’ he added.

  ‘They put him in the coalhouse, Nicholas,’ repeated Mistress Dickson. ‘I don’t know why you’re aye on about the limehouse.’

  ‘They said the limehouse,’ repeated Nicholas sulkily.

  ‘When did they say that?’ Gil asked.

  ‘When they came out of the passage. I was at the top of the kitchen stair,’ said Nicholas, pointing at the door, ‘and they came out just under my feet laughing about it. One of them said he’d be heard when he shouted, and Lowrie said In the limehouse? The walls are three feet thick. Then they went away across to the Outer Close.’

  ‘So was it them that killed him?’ asked one of the women at the table.

  ‘Why did they lie about him being in the limehouse?’ wondered Tam.

  ‘Well, it’s certain he was found in the coalhouse,’ said one of the men scouring crocks, ‘for I helped to bear him out of there.’

  ‘Aye, you did, Adam,’ agreed Mistress Dickson. ‘Just when I was needing you to fetch me another sack of meal.’

  ‘Did you see Father Bernard?’ Gil asked.

  Nicholas looked blank. ‘Him? No. Was he about?’

  ‘One or two people were about,’ said Gil vaguely ‘Who else was here in the kitchen?’

  ‘I was,’ admitted Adam, pausing again in his work, ‘and I mind now, Nicholas, you came in and said something about William in the limehouse. I wonder how he got into the coalhouse,’ he speculated, ‘for he couldny open the door, with his hands tied like that. Strange we never heard him shouting or anything.’

  ‘Was his hands tied?’ said another of the women at the table avidly.

  ‘You heard nothing?’ asked Gil. ‘Where were you all?’

  ‘We were all here,’ said Mistress Dickson, ‘for Adam and Aikie yonder had shifted the most of the crocks already, while they were all at their play, and there was no more for us to do in the Fore Hall.’

  ‘Everyone who’s here now?’ Gil persisted. They looked round at one another, and several people nodded.

  ‘And Robert,’ said Tam.

  ‘I’d sent Robert to make sure all the crocks was shifted,’ said Mistress Dickson. In the corner, the two scullery-lasses looked quickly at one another and away again. ‘Rightly that’s John Shaw’s business, but he’d enough to see to, he asked me to oversee the crocks.’

  ‘I saw that William before that,’ said the third woman at the table.

  ‘Did you so? Where was he?’ Gil asked.

  ‘He crossed the Inner Close, here, and went up the next stair. He seemed as if he was in a hurry.’

  ‘Maybe you were the last to see him alive, Eppie,’ said the woman beside her with a pleasurable shudder.

  ‘Except for who killed him,’ Eppie pointed out. ‘I wondered at the time,’ she added, ‘for they were all still at their daft play, and I ken fine his chamber’s in the Outer Close where the siller dwells, but we’ve been ower thrang here, maister, to worry about one ill-natured laddie getting somewhere he shouldny.’

  ‘You found him ill-natured?’ said Gil innocently. A courteous paw was placed on his arm, and he handed over the last piece of meat. ‘The Dean and the Principal spoke very highly of him.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Mistress Dickson. ‘They’d find him sweet-natured enough. He’d keep on their right sides, would William.’ She tilted her cup of wine to get the last mouthful, so that the steam-whitened underside of her tight red sleeve showed, and looked into its empty depths. There was a brooding silence. ‘He was aye on at me about the cost of food,’ she added. ‘If Maister Shaw was satisfied, what business was it of his, I said to him, but back he’d come with a note of who got a spare bite at the buttery door and who got wheaten breid when he should have had masloch. As if I’d turn away hungry laddies,’ she added.

  ‘If he could get a man into trouble, he would,’ said Tam. ‘I’m no sorry he’s away. Well, I’m no,’ he added on a defiant note.

  ‘He got your lass turned out,’ observed one of the other men. ‘What was it for?’

  ‘He said she took food home to her minnie,’ said Tam resentfully. ‘And what if she did?’

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Mistress Dickson, swinging her feet down off the stool. The pup, taken by surprise, backed against Gil’s knee and produced a rather squeaky growl. He hushed it, and it flattened its ears in apology. ‘This isny getting tomorrow’s breid kneddit. There’s water there, Maister Cunningham, if you wish to clean your hands before you leave my kitchen.’

  ‘Who do you think killed him, maister?’ asked the woman opposite Eppie, as the kitchen work began again. ‘Was it Lowrie Livingstone and them?’

  Gil, drying his hands on his doublet, shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know yet. Who do you think?’ he countered.

  ‘They had no useful suggestion,’ he said to Maistre Pierre. They were standing at the gate between the college orchard and the Blackfriars grounds, watching the dog, which was casting about in the grass.

  ‘I think nobody has one,’ said the mason. ‘What was the useless suggestion?’

  ‘That one of his friends had throttled him. I asked who his friends were, but they were not willing to answer. He seems to have had few enough friends.’

  ‘Perhaps we should speak to those few next.’

  ‘After we have looked at the body again. Did John Shaw tell you anything?’

  ‘I have a list,’ said Maistre Pierre, drawing his own tablets from his purse, ‘of those who were waiting at the feast, and of what dishes were served. He became quite eloquent about serving the pike.’

  ‘It’s not everyone can splat a pike,’ Gil agreed. ‘Did you ask him if William had tried his extortion on him?’

  ‘I did not. I have to work with this man, remember, and whether he answered me honestly or not, I do not think he would forget that I asked. Besides, I think you are better than I at such questions.’

  ‘I hope that is a compliment.’ Gil nodded at the tablets in his friend’s large hand. ‘Who was serving?’

  ‘These three are college servants – Aikie Soutar, Tam Millar, Adam Anderson. Then these four are students, hired for the occasion – Nicholas Gray, Robert Montgomery, William Muirhead, George Maxwell. I asked,’ said Maistre Pierre slowly, ‘who went to the play and who would be clearing the crocks from the hall where the feast was. It seems the students were permitted to watch the play, since their fellows were
acting in it.’

  ‘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 f
inal 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.’