Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘Not yet.’ Gil took a pull at the ale. ‘I’ve one or two things to see to in the Chanonry I’ll likely come across the man while I’m about them. You mind I’ll be out for supper tonight? I’m to take Dorothea down to meet Alys.’

‘Lady Dawtie let me know.’ Maggie sifted the fragments in the mortar through her fingers, and applied the pestle again. ‘I tellt her she’d relish her supper. Your lassie keeps a good kitchen.’ She looked sharply at him. ‘Is all well wi you, Maister Gil? Have you and her had a falling-out?’

‘No,’ he said hastily. ‘No such thing.’

‘She’s likely doing too much. She’ll be fine by the morning after you’re bedded,’ said Maggie cheerfully.

‘My maister?’ said Hob, standing in the doorway of the house in Vicars’ Alley. ‘Maister Agnew? What’s that to do wi you, might I ask, maister?’

‘He told me himself,’ improvised Gil, ‘but I never made a note of it, and now I’ve forgotten what hour he said he got home. Were you here that evening or had you gone away early?’

‘No to say early,’ retorted Hob, his scrubby beard twitching. ‘No to say early,’ he repeated, ‘but I still canny see what’s it to do wi you.’

‘I’m hunting whoever it was killed Deacon Naismith,’ Gil said soothingly, ‘and Maister Agnew was the last person we ken saw him.’

Hob snorted.

‘That daft pair o women Sissie Mudie’s got in her kitchen,’ he said. ‘They’re saying it’s the Deil cam for the Deacon. No, it wasny my maister. He was elsewhere that night.’

‘Was he, now?’ said Gil. ‘D’you mean he never came home? How d’you know that?’

‘When you’ve been wi the one maister as long’s I have,’ said Hob, ‘you can tell these things.’ He leaned against the doorpost, looking challengingly at Gil. ‘Was there anything else you were wanting, maister?’

‘So where was he?’ Gil began to play in a meaningful way with the strings of his purse. Hob glanced down and curled his lip. ‘Tell me what you know.’

‘No a lot,’ said Hob dismissively

Gil opened the purse and took a coin from it. ‘It would help if I knew where everyone was,’ he suggested, making the coin appear and disappear between his fingers.

‘Aye, I suppose,’ said Hob, and stood upright away from the doorpost. ‘You’d best come in for a bit. It’s cold standing here. But I’ve the supper to see to,’ he warned.

Following the man into the painted hall, Gil paused and added a second coin to the one in his hand.

‘You were away before Maister Agnew came back in the evening,’ he prompted. Hob nodded, his eye on Gil’s fingers. ‘What time would that be?’

‘Soon as I’d syned out the supper-dishes. He gaed out when he’d eaten, took his tablets and a bundle of papers wi him, so I took it he’d some business to attend to. I seen to the crocks and gaed out myself.’ He leered slightly. ‘I’d company to see.’

‘And you’re saying your maister was from home that night. Had he been back and gone out again, do you suppose?’

‘Oh, aye. He’d been at the Malvoisie, sticky glasses all ower the hall. It’ll no last, the way he’s going through it.’

‘Glasses? Brought someone home, had he?’

Hob shrugged, and hitched his jerkin back up one shoulder.

‘Maybe. Maybe no. There was one rolled away in a corner past where he’d spilled the stuff, it’s as like him no to bother lifting it, just fetch himsel a clean one off the cupboard.’

‘If it was dark, he might not see it,’ said Gil thoughtfully. Hob grunted, in a tone which clearly conveyed scepticism. ‘And then he went out again. Where would he be going, would you think?’

‘I’m no paid to watch him like a wet-nurse, ye ken,’ Hob retorted.

‘Just the same, I’ll lay money you’ve a good notion where he slept that night,’ Gil hazarded, making the two coins slide about in his fingers so that one appeared, then the other. ‘I take it he was from home the rest of the night?’

Hob wagged his head from side to side, the motheaten beard twitching as he pursed up his mouth.

‘Likely he’d trysted wi his — er — wi someone for midnight, or some such daft hour.’

‘Why would he do that?’ wondered Gil.

Hob shrugged again, watching the travelling coins. ‘How would I ken? But he came home afore it was light, and he’d no come far, for he wasny wet, and he was — ’ The man gave Gil another sideways leer. ‘He’d wrestled a match or two in the night, I’d say. He was about done. No best pleased to see me, either,’ he added. ‘It’s a poor thing, when a man gets cursed for coming out early to his work.’

‘It seems unfair,’ agreed Gil. ‘She lives near here, then?’

‘Aye.’ Gil raised his eyebrows and waited, but Hob gave him a disagreeable look. ‘The maister’ll tell you hissel if he wants you to ken.’

Gil tossed one coin up, then the other, and caught them in his other hand.

‘And his cloak was dry?’

‘He wasny wearing a cloak.’

‘No?’ Gil groped on the rush matting for the coin he had dropped, and straightened up. ‘No cloak? And his hat?’

‘No hat neither.’

The coins made their way into Hob’s palm, and Gil turned to leave.

‘It’s quite a chamber this,’ he commented. ‘What wi the paint and the matting. Is it easy to keep? We’ve a lodging to furnish out the now.’

‘Aye, so I’ve heard.’ Hob leered again. ‘Easy enough, when the maister doesny spill things on it. He’d a full glass of Malvoisie overturned on the strip yonder the other day, so he tellt me. So he turned it, to save getting our feet sticky. So he tellt me,’ he repeated, and opened the door for Gil. ‘But Tammas Hogg two doors up tellt me a good way to sort that, so we’ll try it the morn’s morn. And now I’ll say good day, maister, for I’ve his supper to get started.’

Leaving Vicars’ Alley in the dying light, Gil strode along with his head down, thinking hard. He passed the little chapel of St Andrew, aware of the sounds of the Office from within, and made his way round the western towers of St Mungo’s. Here the most senior of the men of law who inhabited the Consistory tower were already leaving, early lanterns lit, discreet murmurs of conversation dropping as he came past. He slowed his pace and raised his hat to one or two, but went on to the Wyndhead and turned left into the Drygate.

Marion Veitch’s house was lit and busy. His nose told him they were to have mutton stew with broad beans for supper; Eppie’s expression when she opened the door told him the moment was not convenient.

‘I’ll not keep your mistress long,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It’s another thing I want to ask her. Or you might know the answer,’ he added.

‘Well,’ she said with reluctance. ‘Come in out the cold and I’ll ask her. What was it you were wanting to ken?’

‘Something about the Upper Town.’

Her eyebrows went up, but she left him by the light of two candles and went up the narrow stair to report to her mistress. He heard the conversation as a series of hissing whispers, over the little girl’s quiet singing. Then feet moved on the boards, and Marion came down, the fur lining of her dark brown gown sweeping the stairs, the candles glinting on the gold chain on her bosom. She seemed more alive than she had yesterday, her movements brisker, but her face was not encouraging.

‘It’s ower late for calling, Gil,’ she said. ‘Unless you were able to stay for your supper? It’s mutton.’

‘And beans,’ he agreed. ‘No, Marion, I thank you, I’m bidden to the Masons’ the night with my sister. How are you the day?’

Over their heads the child laughed, and began her song again. It seemed to be nonsense: ‘ Vendy may vendy may, esty sack o kay-o. ’ Or was it French?