The Nicholas Feast Read online

  She nodded. ‘Are you looking for one person, or two?’

  ‘One person at the moment,’ said Gil. ‘It is simpler. But I agree, it could almost be two, or even three. However I am reasonably confident,’ he added, ‘that we have not yet spoken to the person who searched William’s chamber and struck this fellow over the head.’

  ‘I must see to that.’ Alys drew the animal to her by its collar, and studied the injury. ‘It’s a clean cut – if we wash off the blood, it should heal well enough.’ She patted the pup, which was wagging its stringy tail at her, and lifted the tray of empty dishes. ‘It all hinges on the order in which things happened after the play,’ she continued thoughtfully, her gaze on Gil again.

  ‘You see that too?’

  ‘I do not,’ said the mason. ‘Surely it is enough to find out who searched the chamber?’

  ‘If the regent’s key opened both the coalhouse and the boy’s chamber, other keys may do likewise,’ Alys pointed out. ‘How many such keys are there? Who has them?’

  ‘We need to ask,’ said her father.

  Alys put the tray down again, and looked from one to the other. ‘Could the Dean be right? Could it be a passing malefactor, or a discontented servant?’

  ‘Easily,’ said Gil, a little grimly. ‘And two of the servants at least had a reason to dislike the boy.’

  ‘No, but wait. If I understand you, this limehouse is in a closed pend by itself, or at least with the coalhouse, so only people with business there would pass the door. If William was not killed by the boys who put him in the limehouse –’

  ‘I’m reasonably sure of that,’ Gil said. ‘They were shocked and frightened by news of his death, and greatly relieved when I told them how he had died. Having seen their acting,’ he added, ‘I am certain they were sincere in this.’

  ‘Then how did the person who killed him know he was there?’

  ‘A good question,’ said Gil.

  Her elusive smile flickered. ‘That always means there is either a very good answer, or no immediate one.’ She collected more scraps off the dishes on the tray and put them absently into the wolfhound’s plate, where they were immediately swept up by its long pink tongue. ‘Which is it?’ Gil shook his head in reply. ‘Who had the chance? When was he killed?’

  ‘Just after the play ended,’ said Gil, ‘there was a great clap of thunder and the rain began.’

  ‘I heard it,’ she said, nodding.

  ‘All of the cast and many of the other students scattered to shut windows or put books out of danger. Ninian Boyd found William poking round their chamber, and knocked him down. By the time they had tied him up and carried him downstairs most of the others had gone back to the hall where the feast was, to get at the sweetmeats, so they thought they were unseen, but one of the scholars helping at the feast overheard them and told the kitchen hands. I think this all happened before the Dean rose to retire from the place where we saw the play, so none of the masters knew at this point.’

  ‘What of the other students?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Theology, the Laws?’

  ‘We must ask, or get someone to do it for us.’

  ‘But suppose someone found out where William was,’ Alys persisted, ‘never mind how for the moment, would it have been possible for him to get to the limehouse, do away with the boy, and move him, unperceived by anyone else? In broad day? Who had the chance to do that?’

  ‘Conspiracy,’ said her father.

  ‘You must question all of the kitchen people,’ Alys said. She rose and lifted the tray. ‘Someone may know something, or have told someone else, or been overheard. Nobody pays attention to servants.’

  She backed out of the door with her tray, and they heard her feet on the stairs.

  ‘There is still no reason to throttle the boy,’ said Maistre Pierre, sitting back in his great chair. ‘Or none better than another.’

  ‘And there is this question of the smell of cumin on the belt he was throttled with.’ Gil poured more ale for them both. ‘None of the people who ate the spiced pork had the opportunity, and none of the others ate the spiced pork. I think,’ he added. ‘Perhaps I should also ask the kitchen if any of them tasted it.’

  ‘Very likely they did.’ The mason sighed. ‘I had misgivings when I saw the messenger from the college, and I was right. At least there are no Campbells this time, but only that supremely unpleasant Lord Montgomery.’

  ‘Who is son-in-law to the Great Campbell himself,’ said Gil. Maistre Pierre looked enquiringly. ‘His wife is a daughter of Chancellor Argyll,’ Gil confirmed. ‘He is uncle-by-marriage to John Sempill’s late mistress.’

  ‘I should have guessed,’ said the mason in disgust.

  ‘What is more, he seems determined to cleanse Ayrshire of Cunninghams.’

  ‘I know he has killed more than one –’

  ‘With his own blade he has killed my kinsman Alexander Lord Kilmaurs, the head of the house, on Sauchie Muir in ’88,’ said Gil with restraint, ‘and Alexander’s son Robert in ’89, in an armed encounter outside the court at Irvine. He has burned and harried and confiscated Cunningham property the length and breadth of north Ayrshire, the district called Cunningham, and in Lanarkshire as well.’ The baby wailed, elsewhere in the house. ‘And it is this man’s kinsman for whom we are charged to win justice. I would feel better about that if I knew what degree of kinship there was.’

  ‘A very unpleasant man.’ The baby wailed again, closer, and Maistre Pierre sat up. ‘That infant has still not eaten, I would judge. Why is Alys bringing him upstairs?’

  ‘Because Nancy wishes to hear Vespers at Grey-friars.’ Alys, returning with the tray, was followed into the little room by the silent girl who was the baby’s nurse. ‘There, Nancy, give him to me now and go with the others.’

  ‘Poor little one,’ said the mason as the swaddled bundle changed hands. ‘He is still hungry?’

  ‘Mistress Irvine’s remedy, that we tried this morning, came straight back up.’ Alys bounced the baby hopefully. ‘The cattie rade to Paisley, to Paisley, to Paisley. No, the milk with honey and a little usquebae is still the best, and he won’t grow big and strong like his daddy on that, will he? The cattie rade to Paisley, upon a harrow tine.’

  The baby grizzled at her.

  ‘Which daddy?’ said Gil.

  ‘Well, the harper calls daily,’ Maistre Pierre pointed out, ‘whereas Maister Sempill has not been here once since we fostered the bairn. Let me hold him, Alys, and you may see to the dog.’

  ‘The difference lies between knowing it is your bairn, as McIan does,’ suggested Gil, ‘and simply needing it as a legal heir, like Sempill. No,’ he said firmly to the pup, which was goggling at the baby.

  ‘Let John see the dog,’ said Alys, sitting down. She lifted the rag and the bowl from the tray, and captured the pup between her ankles. ‘See, baby. What’s this?’

  Child and dog stared at one another, and the baby stopped wailing. Alys, taking advantage of the pup’s distraction, washed the dried blood out of the rough hair and inspected the injury. Gil watched the deft movements of her slender hands, and suddenly found himself imagining her tending to him like that. Would she wear the same look of intent concern? he wondered, and then thought, This is foolish. But the image lingered.

  By the time Alys was finished the baby was reaching out towards the dog.

  ‘As I thought,’ she said, smearing the wound with something green from a small pot. ‘A clean cut. It should heal well. There, little one,’ she said to the pup, releasing it. ‘Is that a doggie, John?’

  John made a remark, waving his arms. The doggie moved closer. The mason took a firmer grasp of the baby, ready to move quickly if necessary, but Gil shook his head.

  ‘He is not hunting,’ he said, ‘he’s curious. Look – his hackles are still down.’

  The wolfhound reared up with one paw on Maistre Pierre’s knee, bringing its muzzle within reach of the baby, who reached out with both arms. One small hand grasped a soft gr
ey ear, the other reached for the shiny black nose. The pup’s tail swung, and there was an unfamiliar sound.

  John McIan or Sempill was laughing.

  ‘Well!’ said Alys.

  ‘Well!’ said the mason, and freed one hand to wipe his eyes. All three adults exchanged idiotic smiles, while the pup scrambled awkwardly on to the mason’s knee beside the baby.

  ‘The question is,’ said Gil, watching critically as it tried to hitch up a dangling back leg, ‘whether the dog will stay with John or follow me when I leave the room.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Alys, looking up quickly.

  ‘To speak to Mistress Irvine. What can you tell me about her?’

  ‘That she is a Paisley body, married to one of Montgomery’s tenants, not lacking for money in any way,’ said Alys, on an apologetic note, ‘and that she has gone to hear Vespers with the rest of the household. They will be back in good time. What else do you need to see to this evening?’

  ‘The boy’s clothes,’ said the mason. ‘Where did you leave them, Gil?’

  The pup looked anxious, but did not attempt to follow Gil, and wagged its tail in relief when he returned with the unsavoury bundle.

  ‘Of all vanegloir the lamp and the mirour. William certainly had his vanities. His hair was newly barbered, and these are excellent boots,’ he said, unrolling them from the folds of worn blue-grey stuff. ‘They do not match with the gown at all.’

  ‘Nor with the remainder of the garments,’ agreed Alys, prodding fastidiously at the hose. ‘These are past washing, they must be burnt. Have they nobody to mend their heels and toes? I will put the linen to soak and it can be washed tomorrow.’

  ‘Are there not statutes concerning dress?’ asked the mason.

  ‘There are,’ said Gil. He set down the boots and lifted the gown. ‘Most folk ignore them if they can afford better. This was not new when William got it, I would say. It has seen much use.’ He turned the garment, looking at the frayed lining. ‘No – I hoped there might be somewhere to conceal secrets, but it appears not.’

  ‘Perhaps the doublet?’ suggested the mason, easing the sleeping baby into a more convenient position. ‘What sort of secrets do we search for?’

  ‘Just secrets.’ Gil put the gown aside, and Alys picked it up and began to fold it neatly. ‘William was a magpie for stray facts, as far as I can make out, and there is this red book the boy Gibson mentioned, which was certainly not concealed in his room.’

  ‘Or if it was,’ observed Maistre Pierre, ‘the searcher found it before us, with the other papers. There were no papers in the chamber at all.’

  Gil looked up from William’s doublet. ‘Yes, I suppose so. He – the searcher – would be at pains to destroy any evidence against himself.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Alys, lifting the other side of the doublet where it trailed on the floor, ‘the best evidence is what you deduce from sign, like a huntsman? The book can only suggest names to us.’

  ‘I think I will teach you philosophy,’ said Gil. ‘You think more logically than most men I know already.’

  She coloured, and looked down at the doublet. Gil put out a hand to caress the side of her face, and found his fingers caught in her hair as she bent her head, suddenly intent.

  ‘What’s this? There’s something in the lining. It feels too big to be a coin.’

  ‘A medallion?’ suggested the mason. Alys turned the inside of the garment to the light.

  ‘He has slit the lining and made a pocket for this,’ she reported, easing at the cloth. ‘I think he did it himself, because it’s a very tight fit. Ah, here it comes!’

  Something with the dull gleam of bronze slid on to her lap.

  ‘Mon Dieu! Look at that!’ she said. She lifted the object, and handed it to Gil. Their fingers caught and clung for a moment as he took it.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ he wondered, and turned the object over. It was a disc about as large as the palm of his hand, with a flat outer ring which could turn about the inner portion. The centre was engraved with the portrait of a saint whose attributes Gil could not make out, and around the saint and on the outer ring were two sequences of letters in order. ‘Some kind of bronze hornbook?’

  ‘Have you never seen one of these?’ Alys took it back, and turned the outer ring carefully. ‘It’s a cipher disc. See – if I set the A on the outer ring against the D on the inner one, then all the other letters are set against the letter four along, and all I have to do to cipher a message is to read off the letters I want to make the word, instead of having to count on my fingers. This will be very useful. Which reminds me, father,’ she added, ‘I deciphered the letter from John of Castile. He writes that the mad Italian has got money for his voyage. He may have sailed by now, who knows?’

  ‘What, that man who wants to find the western passage to the Indies?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Sooner him than me,’ said the mason. ‘Can you imagine? How long will it take him, do you suppose? And shut up on a boat with a crew of madmen, for he will certainly not find sane men to sail with him.’

  ‘The inner ring is rearranged,’ said Alys, still studying the cipher disc. ‘It doesn’t generate a simple substitution. It must be one of a pair, then. I wonder who has the other disc? It means, you realize,’ she went on, looking up at Gil, ‘that I can decipher that paper from the boy’s purse as soon as I get the time.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the paper,’ said the mason. ‘What of the other, the one which is not in code?’

  ‘This one?’ Alys turned and reached on to her father’s tall writing-desk. From under a green-glazed pottery frog she drew a sheet of paper. ‘Yes, this is the one. It refers to many people, but only by an initial.’

  Gil took the paper, tilting it as the mason craned to see without disturbing his sleeping burden of child and dog.

  ‘M will be in G,’ he read again. ‘H passed through for Irvine. I wonder–’

  ‘Montgomery is in Glasgow,’ Alys said. ‘I think that must be right. And Catherine tells me Lord Hepburn went to Irvine last week to take ship for France.’

  ‘Oh, yes, about the King’s French marriage.’ Gil looked down at the paper again. ‘It’s a list of small facts like that.’

  ‘Did he collect them for his own interest, do you suppose,’ speculated Maistre Pierre, ‘or for someone else’s?’

  ‘He bought these boots recently,’ said Alys. She turned one up and showed them the sole, still flat and even.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘And he had that device for writing in cipher in his possession.’ His eye ran down the creased paper, and he grinned. ‘Alys, we are observed. See this line? C marriage to dau of burgess. And yet I had to tell him my name. He’s had this by hearsay.’

  ‘He has collected all the gossip of Glasgow,’ said Alys. ‘I wonder who he was selling it to?’

  ‘Espionage, in effect,’ said the mason.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘And the question, as Alys says, is who he was spying for.’

  ‘But I know where he was getting the gossip,’ said Alys. Gil looked up and met her eye.

  ‘The barber’s,’ they said together.

  When the household returned from Vespers Gil and Alys were in the courtyard, seated on the stone bench at the foot of the stairs while the wolfhound ranged about inspecting the flower-pots.

  ‘When will your mother reach Glasgow?’ she asked, drawing away from his arm as the voices echoed in the pend.

  ‘God knows.’ Gil rose reluctantly to his feet, checking the pup, which was growling at the approaching group. ‘If she lies tonight at Bothwell with my sister Margaret she’ll be here before Nones, but if she makes the entire journey in one day tomorrow, it might be this hour. The men may have brought my uncle word of her plans. No doubt I’ll find out when I go up the hill.’ He took her hand, to draw her into the house. ‘I must speak to Mistress Irvine. Will you find out if she is able to talk to me now? And that reminds me, Alys. I have a task for you.’

  She looked up at
him, brown eyes smiling, her mouth most deliciously curved with kissing. He dropped a final kiss on her forehead and went on, ‘The two lassies in the kitchen at the college know something, I’m certain of it. Could you get a word with them, maybe, or get one of this household to speak to them?’

  ‘The college kitchen,’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘One of our girls will know who they are. It may take a little time.’

  ‘Time we do not have,’ said Gil. ‘Hugh Montgomery is waiting for us to fail.’

  Mistress Irvine, although supported across the courtyard by two of the maidservants and still very puffy in the face, professed herself willing to speak to Gil.

  ‘Vespers was bonny,’ she said, ‘the singin an that. And Faither Francis is that kind, he was a great comfort to me the day. I must send an offering. And for prayers for William. Oh, my poor laddie!’ she exclaimed, turning her face away.

  ‘Come and sit down and tell me about him,’ suggested Gil. ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Just sixteen. He was born on May Day. Oh, he was the bonniest bairn,’ she exclaimed, following him into the hall. ‘Never sick, never greetin, and he walked and spoke sooner than any I’ve nursed. Exceptin his sainted mother, maybe.’

  ‘You knew his mother?’ Gil asked.

  ‘I nursed her and all. So who should she turn to but me to foster her bairn? Though she never tellt me whose it was,’ she added, in some dissatisfaction.

  ‘Who was she?’ Gil asked innocently.

  ‘Oh, maister, I canny tell ye that. Lord Montgomery would ha my hide for it.’

  ‘But if she’s deid,’ Gil suggested, ‘no harm in it, surely?’

  ‘No, maister. Dinna ask it, for I canny tell ye.’

  ‘Tell me about William, then.’

  She sat down on the stool he indicated, and launched into an extensive eulogy which bore little resemblance to the portrait of William painted by his friends at the college. Gil let her talk, picking the occasional nugget out of the torrent. William was cleverer than any, his manners were more polished than all the Montgomerys, his voice was sweeter than the lady Isobel’s had been. When he was eight he had defeated a juvenile Douglas in scholarly dispute. Hugh Montgomery had intended to make a churchman of him, and legitimation proceedings had begun.