Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

Within, Morison was saying desperately, over the noise from the yard, ‘I didn’t kill him, I don’t even know who he is. I never saw him till we opened the barrel!’

‘Augie,’ said Gil.

Morison stopped to look at him, open-mouthed, and Sir Thomas said into the pause, ‘It’s all a muddle. I’ll have to hold ye, maister, since they’ve brought in that verdict, and I don’t believe a word of it either.’

‘I think it is malice,’ declared the mason from beside the empty hearth.

‘And either I hold a man or I put him to the horn, one or the other, not the both at once. Where’s the point in sounding the horn at the Mercat Cross and calling a search for him if he’s lying in a cell in my castle?’

‘But I never — ’

‘Augie,’ said Gil again, ‘if you’re charged, will you deny it?’

‘Of course I will — ’

‘Then don’t say any more now,’ Gil advised. Walter the clerk gave him an approving look. ‘The plea is twertnay , and that’s all you need to say.’

‘Oh.’ Morison stopped, and repeated the word soundlessly a couple of times.

‘I still think it malice,’ said Maistre Pierre. The noise from the yard had dropped.

‘Aye, you could be right, maister,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘A wilful false verdict. I’m not happy about the assize, that’s certain. Walter, you have all their names writ down, have you?’

‘All writ down, Provost,’ agreed the clerk. ‘We can get them back any time we want, provided they’ve not run.’

‘Then I’ll go out and discharge them. Bide here, gentlemen. Walter, I’ll need you.’

He went out, and shortly could be heard haranguing the members of the assize. The four left in the hall looked at one another.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Morison, whose teeth were beginning to chatter. ‘Oh, Christ assoil me, what of my bairns?’

‘Must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘I’m more practised in the canon law than the civil,’ said Gil, ‘but I’d say he must be held. It’s a charge of murder, so he can’t be released on recognition.’

‘But — ’ began Morison, and stopped. ‘Twertnay,’ he said carefully. ‘Gil, will you help me? You found out who killed those other folk — the woman in St Mungo’s yard and the one at the college. Can you find out this for me?’

‘I can try,’ said Gil.

‘I’ll gie ye a hand, Maister Gil,’ said Andy.

‘I’ll need you to see to the yard,’ said his master, sinking on to a stool. ‘The business, the bairns, the household — what’s to come to any of them if I’m chained up here?’

‘I’ll have to hold ye,’ said Sir Thomas in the doorway, ‘since it’s a charge of murder, but I’m not putting ye in chains, maister. If you’ll give me your word not to run, you can bide here in the castle. I’ll find a chamber.’

‘I’ll see to the yard, maister, if that’s what’s wanted,’ said Andy. ‘And the first thing, I’ll give Billy Walker leave to go before I throttle him.’

‘No, Andy,’ said Morison, ‘he told the truth as he saw it.’

‘Aye, and as he hoped it would harm you, maister,’ said Andy bluntly.

‘For how long must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Sir Thomas shook his head. ‘I need to send to my lord Archbishop. I wish I’d waited to report the coin, the one man could ha carried both words. Robert Blacader will decide whether to set the matter aside or to pursue it, and in what court. After that, who knows? If Maister Morison’s being held at his expense,’ he added shrewdly, ‘he’ll want to resolve it sooner than later.’ Voices rose in the yard again, and he turned his head to listen. ‘Walter, sort that, would ye, man?’

As the clerk went out on to the fore-stair again, Gil said formally, ‘If you’re sending to my lord, may I ride with the messenger? Maister Morison has asked me to make enquiry into the death of the man whose head we found in the barrel, and my first road must be to Stirling.’

‘Aye, very wise.’ Sir Thomas scowled at Gil. ‘And let me know what ye find and all.’

‘Unless there is a conflict of interests,’ agreed Gil.

The Provost stared at him for a moment, then nodded grimly. ‘I suppose it might happen,’ he admitted. ‘Aye, you may ride. You can be the messenger, indeed. If you can be ready within the hour.’

‘I need to question Maister Morison.’

‘Aye, and the men must eat,’ admitted Sir Thomas, reconsidering. ‘Two hours, then. No longer.’

‘Maister,’ said Walter the clerk, reappearing at the door, ‘it’s a messenger from my lord Archbishop.’

‘What?’ Sir Thomas turned to the man in dusty riding-clothes who followed Walter into the hall. ‘I trust my lord’s well?’ he said, removing his murrey velvet hat.

‘He is well,’ said the messenger, bowing and holding out a letter with a dangling seal, ‘and he sends to let you to know, Provost, that he will lie here at Glasgow the morn’s night, together with his grace the King and my lord of Angus and others as numbered in his letter.’

‘We need all you can tell us,’ said Gil.

‘About what?’ said Morison blankly.

‘About this barrel,’ said Maistre Pierre.

They were in the chamber which Sir Thomas, muttering curses, had allotted as a prison cell before he hurried off to see to the preparations for the arrival of the Archbishop and more particularly of the King. It was a small, pleasant room two storeys up one of the towers, with a view of the west towers of St Mungo’s and a bed at least as good as Gil’s own on which Morison was seated, leaving Maistre Pierre the stool while Gil hunkered down against the wall.

‘You were there when we broached it,’ said the merchant, ‘you know as much as I do.’

‘Tell us from the beginning,’ Gil said patiently, ‘when you saw it hoisted from Tod’s ship at Blackness. You said it was the only one that size. Are you certain of that?’

‘Well, it’s what Tod said,’ said Morison. ‘I think. It’s all tapsalteerie in my head, Gil.’

‘You didn’t look in the hold yourself?’

‘I was never on Tod’s deck. I stayed on the shore and had an eye to the cransman,’ said Morison more confidently.

‘Certainly he’d no reason to say so if it wasn’t true,’ said Gil. ‘And then what happened? It was put on the cart?’

‘Aye. Well, it stood on the shore till we saw how much there was to go on the cart.’

‘And how much was that?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Morison dragged his gaze from the towers of St Mungo’s and looked apologetically from one to the other.

‘I canny mind,’ he said. ‘I canny think. It’s all tap-salteerie,’ he said again, demonstrating inversion with one hand. ‘There’s nothing left in my head but the thought of what’s to come to my bairns if … if …’

‘This is the best way to help your bairns,’ Gil said bracingly, though sympathy gnawed at his gut. ‘When you got the cart home, how much was there to be unloaded?’

‘Oh. Aye.’ Morison frowned at his feet. ‘There was the two great pipes that came out of Maikison’s vessel. One was mostly tin-glazed, with a couple steeks velvet for Clem Walkinshaw on the top, and the other was a mixed load. Aye, just the two,’ he nodded. ‘And the puncheon which,’ he went on more certainly, ‘went on at the tail of the cart, roped well in place.’

‘Who roped it on?’

‘One of the men, I suppose. Likely Billy, he’s my carter.’

‘And how many carts did you have with you?’

‘Just the one. Billy and Andy saw to the driving, and Jamesie and I rode alongside.’

‘And where did the cart go?’ prompted Maistre Pierre.