Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘All I can say is, I never saw any bairns either,’ said Serjeant Anderson portentously. ‘What’s more, sir, when I asked the gentlemen to touch the corp they all did it very willingly except — ’ he paused dramatically — ‘for Maister Morison.’

‘And did the corp bleed?’ asked an assizer from behind the rope.

‘How could it bleed?’ asked Sir Thomas irritably. ‘He’s been heidit. He’s no blood left.’

‘No, it never bled,’ admitted the serjeant regretfully.

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ declared the Provost. ‘Has the assizers any questions they want answered? Or anything more to tell the inquest?’

‘Aye. I’d like to know how long Maister Morison had the puncheon in his keeping,’ said a grey-haired man in a tavern-keeper’s apron.

‘Not as much as a week,’ said Morison nervously. ‘The carts only came home yestreen. No, the day before now. I convoyed them straight from Linlithgow after the whole load was put ashore at Blackness on Monday.’

‘And ye had it under your eye all that time, maister?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Morison. ‘Well,’ he amended, ‘save for when it was warded for the night, and then there was a guard on it.’

‘Was there aught else in the puncheon?’ asked a man with the stained hands of a working dyer. Morison looked at the Provost, who intervened.

‘Aye, there was, Archie Hamilton, but it’s a matter for a higher court than this one. It’s all in hand, so ye’ve no call to speir at that.’

‘And there was a deal of brine,’ added Morison.

‘Is he a Scot?’ asked another man with a strong likeness to the dyer. ‘Or is he some kind o foreigner? A Saracen, maybe? Or English, even?’

‘What would a Saracen be doing in Glasgow?’ demanded Sir Thomas in exasperated tones. ‘And if he’s English, he’s past telling us himself, I warrant you, Eckie. He could be anyone. He’s been a grown man, wi one blue eye and one brown, and his hair’s dark, and that’s all we ken.’

‘And he’s no half an ell high,’ said someone from the back of the crowd, to general laughter.

‘It’s Allan,’ said someone else. ‘Like the sang. Gude Allane lies intil a barell.’

This raised more laughter, but there seemed to be no further questions or information. Sir Thomas withdrew, and the assizers were ceremoniously released from their pen and escorted into confinement in the hall of the Provost’s lodging to deliberate on what they had heard.

‘How long will this take?’ asked Maistre Pierre as the last man disappeared, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk.

‘There’s a refreshment to be served,’ Morison said. ‘They’ll be no quicker than it takes to get that by, and maybe a lot slower.’

‘A refreshment? I thought such a jury should be starved to hasten its decision.’

‘How would you get anyone to serve if you starved them?’ Gil asked. ‘What is Andy doing there, Augie?’

‘Giving Billy orders for the rest of the day, maybe.’ Morison watched the two men, who were conversing in a fierce undertone. ‘Tell your sister again how sorry I am, Gil, that the saint never answered her prayer. What will she do now?’

‘I have wondered that,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘I’ve not asked her. Go back to Carluke, likely, and try to accept her lot. She and Tib have no tocher,’ Gil said directly, turning to look at Morison, ‘and who would take her with that leg and no land to sweeten the bargain?’

‘Courage and a bonnie face might make a tocher,’ said Morison diffidently, ‘to the right man.’

‘They don’t bring in rents,’ said Gil. ‘And Kate isn’t one to take bread at a man’s hand either.’

Andy was still haranguing his junior. As Gil watched over Morison’s shoulder the younger man turned away with a self-righteous air; at the same moment Andy swung round and marched back to their master, every line of his small bow-legged frame expressing anger. Billy glanced after him to thumb his nose again, at which the men round him nudged one another and sniggered.

‘Arrogant wee scunner,’ said Andy, rejoining them. ‘By here, that was quick.’ He nodded towards the Provost’s lodging. ‘The assize is coming out.’

The fifteen men of the assize filed down the steps, preceded by the serjeant with the mace, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk, and were herded into their roped enclosure again. The serjeant went back to conduct Sir Thomas, and then climbing on the mounting-block shouted for silence and got it. Sir Thomas nodded to Gil and his friends, and in a short speech reminded the assize of the penalties for a wilful false verdict and asked them if they had selected someone to speak for them.

‘Aye, maister, we have that,’ said the grey-haired tavern-keeper, ‘and it’s me. Mattha Hog, keeper of the Hog tavern, and we’ve a new barrel of ale — ’

‘That’s enough of that,’ said Sir Thomas sharply. ‘Well, Mattha, what has the assize found in this death? Do ye ken who he was?’

‘No, maister, we do not, except maybe he was a Saracen. Ye said so yerself, that we didny ken him,’ Mattha reminded the Provost.

‘And were you unanimous in that decision?’

Mattha looked alarmed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, indeed, it didny take long to decide at all. We were all agreed, you see.’

Sir Thomas exchanged a brief glance with his clerk, who bent his head over his notes again with a smile quirking his mouth.

‘Very well,’ said the Provost. ‘And do ye ken how he died?’

‘No, not that either,’ said Mattha. ‘We wereny agreed on that,’ he admitted, ‘for some of us thought he was heidit, and some of us not, but you tellt us yerself, maister, there’s no knowing now. He’s too long deid, and in that brine and all.’

‘Very good,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘The clerk of the court will write that out, and read it to you, and you will affix the seal of the assize to the record — ’

‘Aye, but sir,’ said Mattha, ‘we’re not finished.’

Sir Thomas stopped to stare at him.

‘You tellt us to decide on who saw to his death,’ continued the tavern-keeper with the air of a man about to set off a culverin. ‘So we did, and we were agreed on it. Well, nearly all of us was agreed on it,’ he modified as someone growled from the back of the group. ‘We reckon there’s one man knows more about the whole matter than he lets on, and we say he should be held and put to the horn for the killing, and that’s Maister Augustine Morison.’

‘What?’ Morison almost shrieked.

Uproar broke out. Several men from the crowd rushed eagerly forward to seize the merchant, who dived hurriedly towards the Provost for protection. Sir Thomas gestured angrily to his own men, who were already advancing towards the fore-stair using their mailed arms and boots, and dragged Morison on to the stair and out of the grasp of those nearest him. Andy, knife drawn, scrambled up the steps beside his master, and Maistre Pierre also stepped into the mêlée. Gil tried to address Sir Thomas, but could not make himself heard above the noise of the onlookers and the serjeant bellowing from his mounting-block for silence and order. Anxiously he worked his way towards the stair.

‘Should we all withdraw, sir?’ he suggested when he was close enough. ‘Debate this in private?’

‘Aye, come up, come up!’ shouted Sir Thomas as his men formed a barrier at the foot of the stair. ‘Let him through, Andro! Serjeant!’ he bellowed.

The serjeant paused in his red-faced appeals for silence.

‘I’m away into the house. I’ll come back out when you’ve silenced them, man.’

One of the constables struggled through the throng, and appeared to be trying to tell Sir Thomas something. The Provost waved him away, waited until he saw that Gil was safely on to the steps, and retreated through his own door. Following him, Gil was aware of the serjeant descended from his mounting-block, laying about him with the burgh mace.