Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘I wish you luck,’ said Maister Veitch in the same dry tone. He leaned forward to see out of the low window. ‘No, your luck’s out, Gibbie. There’s a light in his lodging. Sissie’ll be helping him to his bed. Try the morn.’

Out in the street, Gil considered the sky. It was too cloudy to be helpful, but he thought the time could not be much past eight o’clock. The taste of Maister Agnew’s Malvoisie was still in his mouth. Nick Kennedy won’t be teaching, he thought, and set out towards the college.

The taverns of the Upper Town were brightly lit and noisy, but the streets were quiet. At the Wyndhead he became aware of another lantern bobbing towards him from the Drygate on hurrying feet, its patch of light catching a drab skirt, an apron, the ends of a checked plaid. He paused politely to let the woman go past him, and raised his own light to show his face. The other lantern checked, and then came forward hesitantly.

‘Is that you, sir?’ The voice was young. ‘You that was at my mistress’s house the day,’ she qualified. ‘Talking to Eppie and Danny and all.’

‘Aye, that was me. You must be Bel,’ Gil hazarded. Reassured, she came forward into the light of his lantern, smiling shyly. ‘Is that you away home now? It’s a long day for you.’

‘It’s no so bad,’ she said. ‘It’s no a bad place at all. Danny’s a cross thing, but Eppie and me has a good laugh, whiles, and the mistress is easy enough.’

‘Are you bound down the High Street? Can I see you to your door, lass?’

Bel giggled, and bobbed a curtsy by way of assent. Gil turned, offering his arm as if she was a lady, which extracted another giggle and a nervous clutch at his sleeve, and they made their way on down the hill by the light of the two lanterns.

‘That must have given you all a turn, Maister Naismith’s death,’ Gil suggested. ‘How’s your mistress now? She seemed in a great shock this afternoon.’

‘She was awfy quiet over supper, even wi her brother there,’ admitted Bel. ‘My, he’s the bonnie man,’ she digressed, like Eppie. ‘The big handsome fellow he is, it’s no surprise wee Frankie’s that taken wi him. She was at him again the night, Sing to Frankie, Unca John, sing. Same as last night. He’d even to sing the same song. Some foreign song he learned while he was away at sea.’

‘Was Frankie upset by the shouting last night?’ Gil asked.

‘I missed the worst o’t,’ confessed Bel with regret, ‘for I was early away, but Eppie said she was. She said it was as good as a play, save that the wee one was screaming, for my mistress was weeping, and the maister was shouting that he’d leave his property where he wished and she’d no claim on him whatever she said, and her brother was roaring like the devil on a cart, raging up and down wi his gown swinging, trying to say the maister owed her for her maidenhead, and he said — ’ She stopped. Gil made an interrogative noise. ‘Forget what I was saying,’ she said unconvincingly

‘He said?’ Gil prompted.

‘I forget!’ she said again.

‘And at supper,’ said Gil after a moment, steering them both past a sagging midden. ‘What was it he said at supper? You were there, were you no?’

‘Oh, that was about altering his will,’ she said in some relief, ‘like Eppie tellt you, sir. And he’d other plans. He never said what they were,’ she added regretfully, ‘but I suppose they’ll all come to naught now.’

‘Aye, likely,’ agreed Gil.

She came to a halt under a lantern at the mouth of a vennel and let go his arm. ‘This is me here, maister. And thank you kindly for your company, sir.’ She bobbed to him. ‘I’ve been right glad of it, sir, for there was someone watching the house when I came out.’

‘Watching the house?’ Gil repeated. ‘Mistress Veitch’s house? How do you know?’

‘I seen him when I came out,’ she assured him. ‘He was standing in the corner atween the two houses across the vennel, but I got just a glimp when I put my own light up to be sure I’d shut the kitchen door right.’

‘What, just standing there?’

She nodded, her plaid falling back from her face in the light from the lantern overhead.

‘Standing watching the house, looking up at the lighted windows above. A big wicked-looking man wi a great black beard. I’ll be keeping an eye out when I go to work the morn, you can believe it, sir.’

‘Nobody you knew? Had he a weapon?’

She shook her head.

‘Never seen him afore in my life,’ she asserted. ‘I never saw a sword or nothing, but likely it was hid under his cloak. So I was right glad of your company the now, sir. My thanks on it.’ She bobbed again, and turned away into the narrow space between the houses. Gil waited until her lantern vanished into the shadows, and went on down the street, frowning.

‘Your sister’s to lie at the castle?’ said Nick Kennedy, pouring wine. ‘Oh, aye, the guest-hall they keep for visiting religious. Well, it saves your uncle having to fit her and her folk in at Rottenrow. And what like is Agnew’s lodging?’

‘Very comfortable,’ said Gil. He accepted a glass of sweet golden Malvoisie and said thoughtfully, ‘What can you tell me about the man Naismith, Nick?’

Maister Kennedy fitted his feet beside Gil’s on the box of smouldering charcoal on the hearth.

‘No a lot, you know,’ he said, and paused to consider the wine in his own glass. ‘Patey was right, this is no bad. I must tell John Shaw that. The last barrel he got for us wasny fit to drink. Sharp as verjuice, and I’d swear there’d been a cat at it.’

‘I think I had some of the same shipment from Agnew the now,’ said Gil.

His friend grinned, and went on, ‘No, I’ve no much information about Naismith. He’d been in Irvine, so he said once, but he came from, let me see, somewhere out into Stirlingshire, away up the Kelvin. Lenzie or somewhere like that,’ said Maister Kennedy, an Ayrshire man.

‘Did you see him wi the old men? The brothers? How was he wi them?’

‘Ah.’ Nick peered into his glass of Malvoisie again, but found no inspiration in it. After a moment he said, ‘I’ll tell you this, Gil. For all Sissie Mudie talks like a cut throat, she’s a good nurse to those old men, and she kens herbs like no other, and to see her wi poor Humphrey Agnew would lesson anyone in charity. But even wi her in the place, I’d not have cared to put any kin of mine there under Naismith’s governance.’

‘Is that right?’ said Gil.

Nick shot him a glance, and said, ‘What do you know, then? I’ve seen that expression afore.’

‘I’d a word wi old Frankie Veitch. He taught me my letters in Hamilton, before I came here to the grammar school.’

‘You know everyone.’

‘No quite. I didny know this man Naismith,’ Gil said, ‘and I don’t much like what I hear of him. An orgulous knight , as Malory says.’ He related Maister Veitch’s assessment of the inhabitants of the bedehouse, and Nick nodded.

‘I’ve heard the Deacon, making a game of one or another of them. None of that surprises me. But I wouldny say …’ he paused, ‘I wouldny say any of the old men had the strength to stab a man three times, nor to drag him out where we found him, even old Veitch. Sissie might,’ he added dispassionately, ‘and Andro’s a different matter, but you’ve seen what a nervish, loup-at-shadows creature he is.’

‘Aye.’ Gil held out his glass. ‘Is there any more of that Malvoisie? We wouldny want it to spoil. Tell me, was Naismith a man of habit? Was he at Mass every morning?’

Maister Kennedy paused with the jug in his hand. ‘Most mornings, I’d say, but not every morning.’

‘And in his own stall?’