Candace Robb: The Fire In The Flint

It was true that the refilled bowls had prevented a fight and most folk present had resumed their conversations, but Margaret could not bear the thought of anyone lying down in the rotting straw. The English had confiscated all the new straw she had collected to refresh the floor and what was left had not been changed in months.

‘Murdoch doesn’t bother to shift him,’ James said. ‘Why should you?’

‘Because if he stays I cannot lock the doors.’

‘He won’t wake before you in the morning,’ James argued.

‘He’s sure to wake in the night with his bladder full,’ Margaret said. ‘This place already smells like a midden.’

‘Then what’s the worry?’ Mary Brewster asked, chuckling at her own wit.

‘It’s no matter now,’ Angus said. ‘Will’s gone.’

James shook his head at Margaret’s sigh. ‘I’ll go after him.’

Angus laughed as his friend walked out into the night. ‘Now you’ll have two men cursing you, lass. Och but you’re a match for your uncle. Blood shows.’

Mary, grunting as she slid along the bench, rose a little unsteadily. ‘I’ll see to Will.’

Margaret looked at Angus, who grinned but said nothing until Mary had departed.

‘She fancies him, so they say.’ He nodded as James stepped back inside. ‘I see the Comyn has left the old boller to Mary’s care.’

James shook his head. ‘I did not find him.’

In the morning Margaret and her maid Celia climbed High Street for Mass at St Giles. The fog that lay over the town was chilly on Margaret’s face, but she knew it to be a sign of a warm, sunny afternoon and looked forward to taking her mending out into the sunlight. She wrapped herself with the promise of warmth as she entered the drafty nave.

A priest stepped into her path. ‘Father Francis,’ she said with a little bow. He should have been in the sacristy preparing for the service. ‘Is there no Mass today?’

‘I would speak to you first.’ He drew her aside into a corner well away from the arriving parishioners. ‘You should hear this before the gossips spread the word. Mary Brewster sent for me early this morning after finding Old Will lying in his rooms in a faint, beaten about the head. He reeked of ale and vomit. I thought you might know something of his last evening.’

Margaret hugged her stomach, recalling the state the old man had been in when he left the tavern. ‘I sent James Comyn after Will when he left the tavern, but he’d disappeared,’ she whispered. ‘What was Mary doing in Old Will’s chamber?’ She had not believed Angus MacLaren’s claim that Mary fancied the old man.

‘She says it had been her habit to take him bread and ale after such an evening.’ The nave was filling. ‘I must be quick,’ said the priest. ‘He said something to Mary about an open door and crawling inside for warmth, that he’d lusted after other men’s women and other men’s wealth, particularly Murdoch Kerr’s wealth, and swore that he’d meant no harm.’

‘Had he stolen something?’ Margaret asked.

‘I don’t know. He said much the same thing to me. Part of it seemed a vague confession of his chief sins. But the open door … And he said, “I emptied my belly without and crawled in for the warmth. I saw naught.” Murdoch might wish to check his undercroft.’

Margaret nodded. ‘I’ll tell him. And when Old Will recovers-’

Father Francis shook his head. ‘He passed as I was blessing him. At least he died shriven, may he rest in peace.’ The priest crossed himself, as did Margaret. ‘Now I must leave you.’

Expectations of a sunlit afternoon’s work no longer cheered Margaret and in a solemn mood she turned to Celia, who had stood by near enough to overhear.

Tiny Celia shook her head and drew her dark brows even more closely together than usual in a worried frown. ‘He named only your uncle?’

‘Yes. I pray Mary does not spread that about.’

‘But it can’t be Master Murdoch who killed him. I won’t believe it.’

‘I don’t think it was my uncle. In faith, I can’t think who would commit such an act against Old Will.’

They moved forward to join the others.

‘Poor old man,’ Margaret said under her breath. ‘He harmed only himself with his drink, no others.’

‘Sim said Will had angered some at the tavern last night.’ Celia did not look up from her paternoster beads as she spoke.

‘He upset a bench. They were happy with fresh drinks.’

‘Was your uncle there last night?’

‘No. God help us, Uncle was always kind to Old Will. He never sent him home until he had slept off some of the ale.’

‘I only wondered whether your uncle was there.’

‘I’m sure he was with Janet Webster.’

‘Master Murdoch’s so attentive to Dame Janet of late, do you think they might wed?’ Janet Webster had been widowed in the spring.

‘Her children would have much to say about that, and none of it good,’ Margaret whispered, then bowed her head and said no more, though she could not still her thoughts.

After Mass she went straight to Murdoch’s undercroft. There was little light in the alleyway, so she could not make out whether it was her imagination or whether it smelled fouler than usual, as if someone had retched near the door. She found the lock hanging from the latch as it should and almost turned away in frustration, but something made her give it a tug. It opened. She lifted it off and carefully opened the door. She knew at once that this was not as Murdoch had left it, for he was a tidy man and would not leave a barrel lying on its side in the aisle with staves littering the floor, or a casket half closed, the lid crushing a rolled document.

The casket reminded her of her brother Fergus’s letter, received a few days earlier.

All summer the English had worked on walling Perth, which irritated merchants because the wall cut off access to their warehouses along the canals. Fergus was not so inconvenienced because the Kerr and Sinclair warehouses were right on the Tay, and in fact he had been the guest of honour at many merchants’ tables earlier in the summer in case they needed to make use of his accessible spaces. But the garrison was now away and the merchants grew complacent, neglecting Fergus. With so many his age having disappeared into the countryside to fight or hide, he had little occupation beyond seeing to what little business he had and checking that Jonet, the serving woman who looked after Margaret’s and his father’s houses, was keeping both in order. He resented his sister Maggie and his brother Andrew for being in the thick of things. Growing lazy, in the heat of the day he took to napping in the shade of the fruit trees behind the family house.

One afternoon he’d awakened, puzzled that his dog was not lying beside him. Thinking he heard Mungo’s wheezing whine, he searched the outbuildings. At last he found the poor creature shut into a feed box in the stable. Once free, the dog ran straight for a puddle and lapped up the muddy water. Fergus puzzled over the dog’s entrapment because he was certain that Mungo had settled down next to him to nap. He could not have wandered off afterwards and trapped himself in the box, for the lid was too heavy. Someone must have put Mungo in the box. But why? To keep him from waking Fergus? He broke out in a cold sweat thinking how close to him someone had come in order to coax away the dog. It must have been someone from the town for, although Mungo was friendly, he barked at strangers. Had the dog made an enemy of one of his friends, or had he been the victim of a jest that might have gone very wrong if Fergus had not found him quickly?

Fergus checked the kitchen first, thinking of the reported thefts throughout the spring and summer, as the troops on both sides wanted feeding. But he found the kitchen undisturbed. With Mungo padding along beside him, Fergus crossed the yard to the house, entering by the back door. Once inside the dog ran ahead, nose low, following a scent. He was still crossing and recrossing the middle of the hall when Fergus noticed documents littering the floor in front of a cabinet, some of the rolled parchments crumpled so that they lay open, some undisturbed. A cracked leather-backed wax tablet lay against the wall. The dog was content with sniffing the floor round the littered area, so Fergus guessed whoever had searched his father’s papers was gone.