The Nicholas Feast Read online

  ‘I told you he was a bastard,’ said David Gray. Gil looked at him, and wondered if he was sober. Certainly his narrow face was flushed, the colour contrasting unbecomingly with the red hood still rolled down about his neck.

  ‘Where did the money come from?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

  ‘From his home, I suppose,’ said the Principal. ‘He had no benefice or prebend as yet. Where else would he get money?’

  ‘Was there money on him?’ asked Maister Crawford. ‘Maybe he was robbed.’

  ‘By a fellow student?’ said the Principal, shocked. ‘Surely not!’

  ‘Don’t be daft, John. One of the servants, maybe, or some passing –’

  ‘It was hardly a passing robber,’ said the Dean, ‘that left him locked in the coalhouse. And I hope our servants are more conscious of the good of the college than –’ He stopped, apparently unwilling to finish the sentence.

  ‘Do you wish to ask us anything else,’ demanded Maister Crawford, ‘or can we get on with our own business?’

  ‘I have two further questions,’ Gil admitted. ‘In the first place, when William rose at the Faculty meeting –’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said the Dean firmly. ‘I know neither what prompted him to speak nor what the matters were of which he spoke.’

  ‘Ask his friends,’ said Maister Crawford.

  ‘He hinted at heresy and peculation,’ Gil said. ‘These are both matters of some importance. Could he have misinterpreted something?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said the Dean again. ‘And the other question?’

  ‘I must ask this of everybody, you understand,’ Gil said. They watched him with varying expressions: Maister Gray wary, Maister Crawford still critical, the Principal with the intent look of a teacher with a good student, the Dean clearly formulating his answer already. ‘After the end of the play, where were you all before returning to the Fore Hall? And who was with you?’

  ‘Most of the senior members came here to the Principal’s house,’ said the Dean promptly. ‘The four of us now present, Maister Forsyth, Maister Coventry –’

  ‘Not Patrick Coventry,’ said the Principal. ‘He and Nicholas went over to the Arthurlie building. You were with them, Gilbert, were you not?’

  ‘We were here perhaps a quarter-hour,’ the Dean continued, ‘in this room or near it, standing or walking about, until Maister Shaw came to inform us that the procession was re-forming. Is that what you wish to know?’

  ‘Were you all within sight of one another for most of that time?’

  The four men exchanged glances, and nodded.

  ‘I should say we were,’ pronounced the Dean.

  ‘Would you swear to it if necessary?’

  There was another of those pauses.

  ‘I should swear to it,’ agreed the Dean.

  Chapter Four

  ‘They were lying,’ said Maistre Pierre positively. ‘Oh, not about where they were, I think we can accept that, but they know more about the dead than they would tell us.’

  ‘I agree.’ Gil stopped in the inner courtyard, looking about him. ‘Maybe if I speak to them separately I’ll learn more. But before that we need to look at William’s chamber, which seems to be locked from what one of the boys said, and I think I want a look at the limehouse. We must also talk to those three senior bachelors, and to the two boys named as William’s friends, even if one of them is a Montgomery.’

  ‘Did you say you had ordered the yett shut?’ asked the mason.

  ‘Aye, and we’ll need to let it open soon. Once Maister Coventry has finished that list I asked him for, we can let folk go.’

  ‘Then do you go and inspect the limehouse and I will find out the young man’s chamber.’ Maistre Pierre looked about, and caught the eye of one of the numerous students who somehow happened to be crossing the courtyard. ‘You, my friend, may guide me! Where did your lamented fellow pursue his studies?’

  ‘Eh?’ said the boy.

  ‘William’s chamber, you clown!’ said the next student. ‘It’s in the Outer Close, maister. I’ll show you, will I?’

  Gil, retrieving the lantern from the coalhouse, lit the candle in it with the flint in his purse and unbarred the next door. Behind it was a similar vaulted chamber, unwindowed and smelling sharply and cleanly of limewash. Neatly ordered sacks were ranged against the walls, several wooden buckets and paintbrushes sat on a board near the door, and a fine sifting of white powder lay on everything. In it were displayed a great confusion of footprints, particularly immediately in front of the door. As Gil peered into the shadows, the light from the courtyard was cut off behind him.

  ‘The chamber is locked indeed,’ said the mason.

  ‘We ’ll find someone with a key.’ Gil stood aside so that the other man could see past him. ‘Look at this.’

  ‘But he was not here, was he?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I thought one group of searchers expected to find him here.’ Gil stepped carefully in over the dusty floor. ‘These prints are theirs. No, look, Pierre, this is quite clear. Some large object has been put down here, in the centre of the floor, and then moved.’

  ‘I see,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, following him in. ‘But I can make no sense of the footprints. There are quite simply too many. This is a good dry store,’ he added approvingly. ‘The walls are excellent work. What have you seen?’

  Gil bent, directing the light from the lantern at the floor near one pile of sacks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said after a moment. ‘Can you see something? It isn’t a footprint, I would say.’

  ‘A smudge,’ said the mason. ‘Someone put his hand or his knee to the floor.’

  ‘I wonder.’ Gil hunkered down, staring at the shapeless print in the dust. ‘William’s purse is missing. I know it was on his belt earlier, for I saw it –’

  ‘The belt which was used to strangle him,’ said the mason intelligently.

  ‘Precisely. Was there anything valuable in the purse? Why should it be thrown on the floor?’

  ‘Whoever removed the belt in order to strangle the boy must have drawn it out of the purse-latches,’ offered the mason, with a gesture to demonstrate, ‘and discarded the purse.’

  ‘Why is it no longer here?’

  ‘All good questions,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘You think that is the mark of the purse?’

  ‘It could be.’ Gil stood up and looked around him. ‘I must speak to the Principal, or perhaps the Steward. This store must be searched. The purse may be here, behind one of these sacks.’

  ‘I can do that.’ The mason stepped carefully towards the door. ‘I have worked with John Shaw, we are good friends. He will send two or three of the college servants if I ask him. What will you do? Seek a key to the boy’s chamber, or –?’

  ‘No, we should both see that.’ Gil was still studying their surroundings. ‘I think I will question those senior bachelors.’

  Another of the many passing students directed Gil up the wheel stair just beyond the kitchen. It led past one of the doors of the Laigh Hall, where four tonsured Theology students were debating a fine point of exegesis over bread and stewed kale. As Gil climbed on up, someone said, ‘But Wycliff –’ and was instantly hushed.

  At the top of the stair he came to a narrow landing with two doors. Voices murmured behind one. He knocked, and after a moment footsteps approached. The door opened a crack, and one alarmed eye examined him.

  ‘I think you need to talk to me,’ he said. The eye vanished, as its owner turned his head to look at the other occupants of the room. ‘I’m alone,’ he added reassuringly.

  ‘Let him in,’ said a strained voice.

  ‘Ninian –’ expostulated the boy at the door.

  ‘I better tell someone,’ said Ninian. ‘Come in, maister.’

  The room was large, stretching the full width of the attic, but four small study-spaces had been partitioned off with lath-and-plaster panels, and the remnant was a very awkward shape and had only two windows. By one o
f them the mousy-haired boy sat on a stool hugging his knees; he did not rise as Gil entered. Lowrie the fair-haired tenor closed the door, saying, ‘We don’t have a chair for a visitor, maister, but this is the best stool.’

  ‘I’ll sit on the bench,’ said Gil, moving to the other window. Three pairs of eyes watched apprehensively as he settled himself. ‘Good day to you, Michael. And how is your father?’

  ‘He’s well,’ said Michael, startled back into civility. ‘Is madam your mother well, maister?’

  ‘She is, and like to be in Glasgow soon.’

  ‘Will you have some ale, maister? I think we’ve got some ale,’ offered Lowrie, apparently accepting the social nature of the visit.

  ‘It’s finished,’ said Ninian hoarsely.

  Gil looked from Michael, now twirling the turn-button on the shutter, to Lowrie, still standing by the door, and then at Ninian huddled in blankets in the bed.

  ‘Three of the enemies of the Crown,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘It must be a conspiracy.’

  They stared at him.

  ‘I think that was before we were born, maister,’ said Michael eventually. ‘In James Second’s time, maybe. This is just us.’

  ‘And our wee bittie problem,’ said Lowrie.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Gil invited.

  ‘How much do you ken, maister?’ asked Lowrie.

  ‘Quite a bit,’ countered Gil. ‘Which of you hit him? Where was he then?’

  ‘It was me that hit him,’ said Ninian, shivering. ‘He was there.’ He nodded at one of the little study-spaces. ‘I was angry at him already, the way he clarted up the fight scene in the play, and then I came up to move my Aristotle when the rain started, and there he was, in Michael’s carrel, where he’d no right to be, speiring at things that don’t concern him. I shouted at him, and he did that trick of looking down his nose and strolling off, like a cat on a wall. So I hit him, and he fell down, and hit his head on the stool. Then the other two came in.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lowrie, and Michael nodded.

  ‘And then you put him in the limehouse,’ prompted Gil, as the conversation died. They looked at each other in what seemed like relief.

  ‘That was my idea,’ said Lowrie.

  ‘Didn’t he argue?’ Gil asked.

  ‘He wasn’t stirring,’ said Lowrie. ‘So we tied his wrists with Miggel’s belt and got him down the stairs, between the three of us, and round to the limehouse.’

  ‘With Michael’s belt? Why did you not use his own?’

  ‘We’d have had enough snash from him as it was,’ said Lowrie frankly. ‘If we’d damaged his property he’d certainly have complained to Dobbin. Much better to use one of ours.’

  ‘We’d never have got it back,’ said Michael, as if continuing an argument. ‘I suppose we canny have it back now, maister? No, I thought not.’

  ‘How did you carry him?’ Gil asked. ‘Did nobody else see you?’

  ‘They had a leg each and I had his shoulders,’ said Ninian, in surprised tones. ‘That’s why we tied his wrists. And everyone else in the Inner Close was all gone back to the feast, and the Elect were in the Law Schule waiting for Father Bernard, so there was none to see us. Maister, he wasny deid when we left him!’ he burst out. ‘He was stirring and gruntling like he was drunk, so we left him lying on his side. He wasny deid then!’

  ‘Which side was he lying on?’

  They exchanged glances, and Michael mimed the position.

  ‘His right side,’ he said. ‘Aye, the right side. He wasny deid then,’ he echoed.

  ‘And where did you put him?’ Gil asked carefully.

  ‘Just lying in the middle of the limehouse,’ said Ninian.

  ‘No hidden or anything,’ elaborated Lowrie. ‘Anyone that opened the door would see him there. Likely they’d hear him too,’ he added.

  ‘And what did you do with his purse?’

  ‘His purse?’ repeated Ninian.

  ‘Damn,’ said Michael. ‘We should have checked that. He’d aye paper, or his bonny wee set of tablets to make notes on. Tod, did you –?’

  ‘Not I,’ said Lowrie, and added politely to Gil, ‘I don’t think we touched his purse.’

  ‘So you left him in the limehouse.’ All three nodded. ‘And you’re sure nobody else saw you?’

  ‘We took good care nobody saw us,’ Michael pointed out.

  ‘I wondered,’ said Ninian, ‘how much Bendy Stewart saw, or maybe heard. You mind, he followed us across the close, and we were talking about it?’

  ‘I never saw him,’ said Lowrie. ‘You told us to curb the bummle, I mind that.’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Michael. ‘But we were nearly at the pend before he came into the Inner Close from the kitchen-yard. He wouldny see where we’d been. How much he heard I don’t know either.’

  ‘And why did you shut William in the limehouse? Why there? Why not the coalhouse?’

  ‘The kitchen’s aye after more coal,’ said Michael. ‘He’d have been found in no time.’

  ‘But why shut him in at all?’

  ‘So we could bar him in,’ said Lowrie after a moment. ‘I don’t know why the limehouse has that bar on the door, but I thought we could –’ He stopped, reddening. ‘It seems a daft idea now. I thought we’d get at the sweetmeats in the Fore Hall before he did, and I thought and all that we’d get him into trouble for once. If he never turned up to get his reward for the play the Dean would be displeased, and he wasn’t best pleased wi him already after the meeting. I never meant –’

  ‘But surely,’ said Gil, ‘he had only to tell the Dean why he was not present?’

  ‘But then we would tell the Dean why we locked him up,’ Lowrie explained.

  ‘It would never have worked,’ said Michael suddenly. He had a surprisingly deep voice. ‘He could wammle out of anything, kale-wirm that he was.’

  ‘He was not popular?’ Gil asked innocently.

  ‘He had friends,’ Lowrie said. ‘Robert Montgomery, Ralph Gibson.’

  ‘Not friends I would choose,’ said Ninian, sucking his knuckles.

  ‘But you didn’t like him,’ Gil prompted. They eyed him carefully, and said nothing. ‘Did he often look at things that did not concern him?’

  ‘No,’ said Ninian.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lowrie at the same moment.

  ‘He was aye poking at my books,’ said Michael. ‘Him and Robert and that Ralph were on the same landing as us, see, last year when they were bejants. We were mentoring them,’ he added, pulling a face. ‘Ralph and Robert was all right, but William thought he should have free run of everything we owned. I’ve not seen my Aristotle since last summer.’

  ‘What was he looking for?’

  ‘He looked,’ said Lowrie, ‘for secrets. Things you would rather weren’t known. Everyone has things he’d rather weren’t known.’

  ‘I haveny,’ said Michael, raising his pointed chin.

  ‘Except for Michael, everyone has things they’d rather weren’t known,’ amended Lowrie. ‘And the dear departed went round ferreting them out. He wrote them down. With pen and ink to report all readie.’

  ‘He did, too,’ said Michael rather sharply.

  ‘And then he’d come privately and ask you what it was worth not to tell Dobbin.’

  ‘I see,’ said Gil evenly. ‘And did he make any profit from this scaffery?’

  ‘That’s the word!’ said Ninian.

  ‘No from me, he never,’ said Lowrie firmly.

  ‘Was that why Dobbin wanted you last week?’ said Michael.

  Lowrie grinned. ‘Aye. Dear William found my uncle’s notes and when I wouldny pay up he went and told Dobbin my ideas weren’t my own. He hadn’t read the notes properly. They were from old Tommy’s lectures on Aristotle, in about 1472, and I’ll swear Tommy gave the identical lectures last winter. I showed them to Dobbin, and he agreed with me. Not that he said so, but you could tell. And of course Dobbin taught my uncles at the grammar school at Peebles before he came he
re. Before they all came here,’ he amended. ‘Separately.’

  ‘We get the idea,’ said Michael.

  ‘Do you know if William made a habit of this?’ Gil asked.

  ‘He made a good living from it,’ said Lowrie roundly, ‘for I saw him.’

  ‘Of wikkit and evil lyf of tyranny and crimynous lyfing. Good enough to pay for a chamber to himself in the Outer Close?’ suggested Gil. ‘Or do you suppose he had some kind of hold over Maister Shaw?’

  ‘I’ve no idea how much he won,’ said Lowrie, ‘though I’d guess it was silver rather than copper, but if you want to know who else he was putting the black on, you’ll have to ask around yourself. Maister,’ he added with belated civility, and straightened his shoulders so that his faded blue gown creaked.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Gil. ‘Ninian?’

  ‘He saw me in the town,’ said Ninian, reddening. ‘One night I hadn’t leave to be out.’

  ‘Ning!’ said Lowrie sharply. ‘You never gied him money?’

  ‘No, I never!’ returned Ninian. ‘I gied him my notes on Auld Nick’s Peter of Spain lectures.’

  ‘Was that all?’ Gil asked.

  Ninian looked uncomfortable. ‘He was wanting more,’ he admitted. ‘He’d asked me for a sack of meal.’

  ‘Ambitious,’ said Gil. ‘Would you have given it to him?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ninian. ‘But maybe I’d just take my chance. Dobbin’s fair, if you plead guilty. It would have been a beating, maybe, or a week’s loss of privilege. A sack of meal was too much. I hadn’t answered him yet.’

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘I’ve no secrets,’ said Michael flatly.

  Gil waited, but Ninian burst out again with, ‘Maister, what came to him? Was it the bang on the heid? Why was he in the coalhouse?’

  ‘It was not the bang on the head,’ Gil said firmly, ‘or the blow to the jaw. That was not what killed him, Ninian.’

  Ninian stared at him, sucking his knuckles again. Then he relaxed, sighing.

  ‘So it wasn’t me that killed him,’ he said, and scrubbed at his eyes. ‘But how did he get in the coalhouse?’

  ‘That is what I would like to know,’ Gil said. ‘Show me your feet,’ he said suddenly to Lowrie, who gaped at him, then closed his mouth and turned up the soles of his boots one at a time to the light.