The Merchant's Mark Page 9

  ‘If you think I’m staying another hour wi they unnatural brats, wi an ill-natured auld besom like you in the kitchen and your like in the yard –’

  ‘It’s none of my part to raise those bairns,’ declared another, more distant voice, ‘I’ve enough to do cooking for a dozen, and no money in my hand beyond tomorrow –’

  ‘Well, that’s no trouble o mine,’ said the first voice, and a plump young woman backed into the hall from the chamber beyond it. ‘If you choose to stay here, you can deal wi what comes.’

  ‘Aye, Mall,’ said Andy grimly. The maidservant swung round, plainly startled to find the hall occupied, and Babb appeared in the doorway behind her, carrying a tray.

  ‘What ever is the matter?’ said Alys, moving forward. ‘Why should you not stay? Surely the bairns need you?’

  ‘Them?’ said Mall, and tossed her head. ‘They never mind a word I say, why should they need me? I tell you, the wee one’s possessed and the other never heeds a word I say, and I’ve been here long enough –’

  Babb came quietly into the room to set the tray down on a convenient chest. Behind her another, older woman, spare and upright, hurried across the further chamber. Her apron was stained and scorched, though her linen coif appeared clean; the cook, Kate assumed.

  ‘You leave now,’ said Andy, ‘and you’ll not see a plack of what’s owing for the quarter, I can tell ye that, my girl.’

  ‘You have stayed this long,’ said Alys, ‘why not a little longer? Just till your maister comes back? Who will mind the bairns if you go now?’

  ‘Who’s to say he’ll come back?’ said the nursemaid pertly. ‘That’s no what I’ve heard at all. And what wi him locked up in the castle for murder, and this auld –’ she jerked her head at Andy, apparently at a loss for a suitable term – ‘turning folks away without a by-your-leave, and now Ursel telling me what I can do and I canny do, I tell you I’ve had more than I can stomach o Morison’s Yard. I’m away up to fetch my gear, and you can mind the bairns yoursels if it worries you.’

  ‘And well rid o a bad-tempered hizzy,’ said the older woman from the door, her voice rising again, ‘no fit to have charge o decent folk’s bairns, trollop that ye are, and filthy with it! Where were you all this noontime, tell me that, Mall Anderson, while I’d to mind they lassies?’

  ‘And I praise all the saints that’s named, Ursel Campbell, I’ll not have to eat another mouthful you’ve burnt!’ retorted Mall. She flounced away towards another doorway at the far side of the hall, but recoiled with a shriek as she reached it. ‘St Anne protect us, what’s that? Oh, it’s the deil’s get. Come off the stair, you, and let me pass.’

  ‘No,’ said a small voice from the shadows beyond the doorway.

  ‘Come here, my wee pet,’ said Ursel in gentler tones. ‘Come on, the both of ye, we’ll see if I’ve a bit gingerbread for good lassies.’

  ‘Aren’t good lassies,’ said the little voice. ‘She said so.’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ said Mall between her teeth, ‘afore I come up to you.’

  ‘Why?’ asked the voice, with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.

  Kate, who had watched the drama unfold in amazement, suddenly found her tongue.

  ‘Mall,’ she said with authority, ‘stand aside from the door. Wynliane, Ysonde, come down here to me.’ And thanks be to Our Lady, she thought, that I asked Augie their names.

  After a moment the two children stepped into the room, moving silently, hand in hand. As soon as they were clear of the door Mall brushed past them and on to the stair, and the little girls came forward hesitantly into the lighter part of the hall. Across the room, Babb folded her arms, watching.

  ‘Come here,’ Kate said encouragingly.

  ‘Why are you in our house?’ asked the smaller one. ‘My da’s no here.’

  ‘Mind your manners, Ysonde,’ said Andy. ‘This is Lady Kate Cunningham and that’s Mistress Mason. Where’s your obedience, then?’

  ‘Don’t got one.’

  Ursel clicked her tongue.

  ‘He means a curtsy, like I taught you,’ she said. The child shot her a glance and stuck her bottom lip out.

  ‘Maybe they’re too little to make a curtsy,’ said Alys.

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ agreed Kate. Andy opened his mouth to contradict, and was silenced by a glare from Ursel as the younger child, scowling, arranged her bare feet with care, spread her tattered brocade skirts and sank into a rather wobbly salute. Her sister looked at her from behind her elf-locks and rather hesitantly copied her, and Kate clapped her hands as they straightened up.

  ‘Very good,’ she said. ‘I can see you were well taught.’

  The older girl stared timidly at her, but the younger was not listening. Chin up, she was glaring at the ceiling; Kate, following her gaze, realized that she too had been aware of Mall’s footsteps, which had now halted.

  ‘Now will you come and get a bit gingerbread?’ said Ursel. Kate hushed her, listening, and they heard the clunk of a kist lid closing.

  ‘That’s my da’s kist,’ observed Ysonde.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ said Ursel.

  ‘Do.’

  ‘It could be any of the kists up yonder,’ the old woman reasoned, ‘yours or your da’s or –’ She broke off, and the child finished for her:

  ‘Or my mammy’s. Wasn’t either my mammy’s, and not Wynliane’s and mine neither. It was my da’s in his chamber where he sleeps.’

  ‘We’ll find out,’ said Andy grimly. He moved to the house door as Mall came down the stairs, wrapped in her plaid and carrying a canvas satchel. The older child shrank silently towards Kate where she sat enthroned in the oak chair, and Andy went on, ‘Right, my lassie. Let’s see what’s in yon scrip before you take it out of here.’

  ‘What’s in my scrip’s none of your mind!’ retorted Mall, clutching at the bag. ‘You can just get your nose out of my business, you interfering old ruddoch, and let me by!’

  ‘Mall,’ said Alys, ‘what did you take out of the kist just now?’

  ‘I never touched any kist!’

  ‘We all heard the lid closing,’ said Kate.

  The girl bridled. ‘Well, maybe I just bumped it a wee bit. I never touched a thing inside it,’ she averred.

  ‘So you won’t mind showing us what’s in your scrip?’ said Alys gently.

  ‘Aye, I do mind!’ Mall looked around, but the other door was blocked by Babb’s considerable bulk. ‘Let me pass, Andy Paterson, since you’re so eager to get me gone from here, and you’ll no bother speiring into my belongings either!’

  ‘Then may I look in your scrip? I am not of your household.’ Alys came forward with her hand out, and Mall ducked sideways, clutching the satchel to her again. Her plaid slipped, and at Kate’s side the older girl suddenly pointed and screamed shrilly. There was a flurry of movement, and Ysonde was beside her nurse, tugging at the plaid, shouting.

  ‘It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s no yours! Give it back!’

  ‘Get it off me, the wee deil!’ exclaimed Mall, swinging her free arm wildly, impeded by the need to keep hold of her satchel as well as the plaid. The other child was still screaming, and both Andy and Ursel added their voices to the mêlée, but Babb strode forward and with one large hand scooped Ysonde shouting into the air while with the other she tugged the plaid from Mall’s back. As the swathe of hodden grey wool came free, several more bundles of cloth fell to the floor from its folds.

  ‘Put me down! Put me down!’ shouted Ysonde, but Wynliane’s screams halted abruptly as she pounced on the bundle nearest her. Kate, leaning forward from where she sat, saw that it was a linen garment, finely embroidered. The child hugged it to her, and reached with her other hand for the next item, which seemed to be a length of tawny worsted cloth.

  ‘Could these be from Mistress Morison’s kist?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Come, Mall,’ said Alys. ‘Let us see what else you have there.’

  Mall was inclined to go on arguing, but Ba
bb settled the matter by putting Ysonde on the floor, removing the satchel from the nursemaid’s grasp, and upending it on to the settle beside Alys. Ursel hurried forward, exclaiming in annoyance.

  ‘That’s my St Ursula, and you know it, thieving hizzy that you are, Mall Anderson.’ She seized a small, brightly coloured picture from the bench, and Kate recognized the sort of cheap painted woodcut print commonly sold at fairs. ‘And that’s mine and all,’ added Ursel, snatching up a comb, ‘and I don’t know why you’d bother to steal it, you’ve no notion of how to use it. And is this no the box Jamesie was looking for last week, Andy?’

  ‘That’s my good belt buckle, I ken that,’ said Andy, coming forward from the door.

  ‘That’s my bitie,’ said Ysonde from the floor, where she was helping her sister to retrieve the scattered garments. She pointed to the coral teether with its dangling ribbon. ‘That’s mine. She can’t have that.’

  ‘Aye, Ursel, it’s Jamesie’s box right enough,’ said Andy. ‘And how did it get in your scrip, you wee – Stop her! Get her!’

  He sprang forward as Mall reached the door, but as his outstretched hand touched her sleeve Babb collided with him on the same errand and the girl eluded them both. Disentangling themselves they set off down the steps after her, pursued by Alys.

  Kate, left sitting by the cold hearth, looked from the children clutching their dead mother’s clothes to the old woman picking her property out of the magpie assortment on the bench, and then round the shadowy hall. With a sudden feeling of making a momentous decision, she said to Ursel, ‘And who will look after the bairns now?’

  ‘I wish she had not got away,’ said Alys.

  ‘Aye,’ growled Andy. ‘I’d ha had her charged wi theft, and a pleasure it’d been too.’

  ‘She was that quick,’ said Babb, handing ale to her mistress. ‘She must ha jinked down one vennel or another, and out of sight.’

  ‘Is it worth laying a complaint?’ asked Kate.

  ‘No wi John Anderson,’ said Andy. ‘He’s her uncle.’

  ‘We got her scrip,’ said Babb, ‘and what she had hid under her plaid forbye.’

  ‘Is anything else missing?’ Alys wondered. ‘Anything she could have hidden about her person?’

  ‘Down her busk, ye mean, mistress?’ said Andy. ‘Here, I never thought o that.’ He took the beaker of ale from Babb and sat down in obedience to Kate’s gesture. ‘Trouble is, the maister’s no here to tell us what’s missing. Those bairns might ken,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Where are they, anyway?’

  ‘With Ursel for now,’ said Kate. ‘She had to see to the men’s dinner.’

  ‘And I must go home to see about my father’s, and Kate with me,’ said Alys. ‘But I think we must return after it. There are things I must ask you, Andy. For one thing, do you know where the barrel has gone?’

  ‘What barrel? That barrel, ye mean, mistress?’ Andy gave the matter some thought. ‘I think Mattha Hog wanted to buy it for a show, to keep in the tavern. I could find out for ye.’

  ‘Would you send one of the men to ask before his dinner?’ Alys requested.

  ‘I could. What are ye at, mistress?’

  ‘Billy said the cart lay at a dyer’s yard on Tuesday night.’ Andy nodded agreement. ‘He was complaining about logwood stains on his hose. If there is logwood dust on the barrel, we can be certain it was on the cart on Tuesday night.’

  ‘How will you tell that?’ asked Andy, staring at her.

  She smiled, but shook her head and drank some of her ale. ‘Find where the barrel is,’ she said.

  ‘And what about the bairns, my leddy?’ said Babb. ‘That Ursel’s right, she’s enough to do seeing to the men’s dinner without a pair of wee tykes like yon underfoot all day.’

  ‘I can gie her a hand getting them to bed, maybe,’ said Andy doubtfully.

  ‘They should be washed,’ said Alys.

  ‘Aye, well, that’s no happened for a while.’

  ‘Does any of your men have a sister or a sweetheart or the like?’ Kate asked. ‘A lassie who’d come in to help for a few days?’

  Andy looked at her, chewing his lip.

  ‘I’ll ask,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t think they do, but. There’s only Jamesie that’s courting, and his leman’s well placed in Andrew Hamilton’s household.’

  ‘I could spare one of my household for a day or so,’ said Alys.

  ‘Besides,’ continued Andy, pursuing his own train of thought, ‘who’d direct a lassie? I’ve no notion what’s to do for a pair of bairns like that, and she’d maybe no mind Ursel.’

  ‘She’d mind me,’ said Kate confidently. ‘I’ll be back here after I’ve had my dinner. Babb and I can sleep here the night.’

  ‘I thought there would have been more argument,’ said Alys, avoiding a puddle.

  ‘I did too,’ said Kate from the back of her mule, ‘both about me staying at Morison’s and about this idea.’

  ‘Where is this Hog tavern, anyway?’ Alys wondered. ‘He said the Gallowgait, but we are nearly at the port and I have not seen it.’

  ‘Andy seems to know where he’s going.’ Kate nodded at the small man making his way along the busy street just ahead of them. ‘Come up, Wallace,’ she said as her mule balked at the sight of a towering cartload of kindling. Babb stepped up from behind them and seized his reins in her free hand. ‘I can get him by, Babb, give him his head.’

  ‘Hmf,’ said Babb, getting between the mule and the cart.

  ‘No, let him see it go past, or he’ll think it’s still waiting for him.’ Babb let go the reins but took hold of the animal’s bridle. He turned his head into her grasp, attempting to bite. ‘Deil take you, Babb,’ Kate exploded, ‘will you let me ride my own mule?’

  ‘Oh, I will, my doo,’ said Babb innocently, ‘just as soon as he’s minding you.’

  ‘Andy has gone up that vennel,’ said Alys over her shoulder. Wallace flicked his ears towards her voice, then suddenly decided the cart was not a threat and moved on, tugging at Babb’s grasp on his bridle, to follow Alys into the vennel. Two doors down, Andy was waiting for them under a crudely painted sign: a boar with curling white tusks.

  ‘Will the mule be safe here?’ said Kate doubtfully, as she became aware of curious neighbours appearing in doorways.

  ‘Aye, if I stay wi him,’ said Babb, helping her down. She handed over the crutches, one by one, and took hold of the bridle again. ‘You go wi Andy, Lady Kate, and be sure and mind what he says. And the same for you, mistress,’ she added sternly to Alys, who smiled quickly and followed Andy into the tavern. Kate adjusted her grip on her crutches and swung after her.

  There was one crowded room. By the door, near the barrel of ale on its trestle, groups of people stood about or sat on stools or benches, discussing the day’s work in loud voices. Beyond them some were eating at a long table, and at the far end of the room a peat fire glowed in a brazier and a woman was stirring something in a big cooking-pot hung from an iron crane. The flagstone floor had not been swept that day. As the smells and voices hit her, Kate realized with some relief that there were other women in the place apart from the cook. One of them was saying, across the noise, ‘Yir tavern’s fairly coming on, Mattha. There’s the gentry come calling now.’

  A grey-haired man in a tavern-keeper’s apron bustled forward from beside the big barrel, peering intently at their faces.

  ‘And how can I help ye, leddies?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘What’s your will of the house, then? We’ve a barrel of good ale, broached just yesterday, and a wee tait o the twice-brewed from last week, and a pot of mutton broth on the cran, wi barley and onions in’t,’ he recited, still watching them carefully. Kate, testing the manifold odours of the place, identified all these, and wondered if there were turnips in the broth as well.

  ‘Aye, Mattha,’ said Andy. ‘I sent the boy down no an hour ago to ask about the puncheon.’

  ‘Oh, aye, Andy Paterson, so ye did,’ said the other man, his suspicions obvious
ly borne out. ‘What was it ye wanted about it?’

  ‘I’d like to look at it,’ said Alys, smiling at him. He looked at her blankly. ‘Was that not why you bought it? So that people would come into your tavern to see it?’

  ‘There you are, Mattha,’ said a bystander in jocular tones. ‘It’s fetching folk in already.’

  ‘It’s no much to see, mistress,’ said a man seated near Kate. ‘It’s just an ordinary barrel. No even any bloodstains.’

  ‘It’s my belief it’s the wrong barrel,’ said the stout woman with him. ‘It’d no be the first time Mattha Hog cried up wares he never had.’

  ‘It is the right barrel an all, Eppie!’ said Hog indignantly. ‘I bought it off the serjeant afore ever I left the castle this morning, and fetched it home myself on Willie Sproat’s donkey-cart. You tell her it’s the right barrel, Andy Paterson!’

  ‘I canny tell her that,’ said Andy reasonably, ‘till I set my own een on it. So where is it, Mattha?’

  ‘Aye, bring it out, Mattha,’ said the man with Eppie. ‘Let’s all hear what he has to say.’

  Kate, standing back on her crutches, watched as the barrel was handled out from behind the trestle. The bystanders fell silent, though the noise in the room was not much diminished. Andy bent to look at the marks on the staves, muttering names to himself, and then took the barrel-head from Hog and tilted it to the light from the door.

  ‘Well?’ demanded its owner.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Andy sourly. ‘It’s the same puncheon I opened yesterday morn. Ye can see where I set the hook to the withies.’

  ‘It was you that opened it?’ said a younger woman hopefully. ‘And what all was in it? Was it a Saracen’s head? And is that right there was treasure?’

  The last word fell into a break in the noise, and heads turned. Kate, watching, had a glimpse of a face on the edge of her vision which seemed to be familiar, but when she looked round the room she could not see it.

  ‘What was in here,’ said Andy, ‘all went up to the castle. The Sheriff kens all.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ said someone else, with irony.