Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘I’d ha heard him at the barn door, would I no,’ Billy pointed out. ‘Or when he shifted the barrels.’

‘So you still don’t know when the barrel with the books in it was changed for the barrel that was opened yesterday,’ said Alys.

‘Maybe it was witchcraft,’ suggested Billy, and crossed himself.

‘That was hard work,’ said Alys as Babb ejected the indignant journeyman.

‘It sounds easy when my brother talks about questioning witnesses,’ Kate admitted, sitting back in Morison’s great chair, ‘but it isn’t, is it?’

‘Will I ask at the kitchen, my leddy,’ said Babb, returning from the house door, ‘if they could manage a wee refreshment for ye, before you have in the other men?’

The two girls exchanged a glance.

‘The kitchen will be busy. Perhaps call Andy in first?’ Alys suggested.

Andy, turning his blue knitted cap in his hands, confirmed the initial details of Billy’s account. The barrel had been hoisted out first, laid on the shore, loaded on the tail of the cart. There had certainly been no other puncheon the same size in Thomas Tod’s vessel.

‘And what about this tale of a thief in the cooper’s yard?’ Alys asked.

‘A what?’ Andy’s open-mouthed stare and swelling indignation were answer in themselves. ‘He never — In the cooper’s yard? At Linlithgow? There was no a word of it in the morning, he just brought the cart round to the Blue Lion his lone when we was ready to get away. What thief’s this, mistress? What was taken? Did they catch anybody?’

‘So you weren’t in the yard yourself?’ Kate said.

He shook his head. ‘No in the morning, we just set straight off for the West Port to get out afore the traffic coming in blocked the gate. See, my maister’s got an agreement with Willie Riddoch,’ he expanded. ‘We don’t pay him by the night, they settle it up at the quarter-day atween them. But what’s this about a thief, my leddy?’

‘It wasn’t clear,’ said Kate. ‘I’d hoped you could give us a better story. It seems from what Billy says as if there was a fight in the yard, and someone got away by the back yett, but he claims nobody went near the cart.’

‘But did the cooper hear nothing? Has Billy invented it all, maybe?’

‘The cooper came down and roused his men,’ Alys said, ‘and they searched the yard, to no purpose. So Billy said.’

‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Andy. ‘Someone should get to Linlithgow, ask at Willie Riddoch what happened.’

‘My brother — ’ Kate began, and was interrupted by a shrill, furious voice from the next room.

‘If you think I’m staying another hour wi they unnatural brats, wi an ill-natured auld besom like you in the kitchen and your like in the yard — ’

‘It’s none of my part to raise those bairns,’ declared another, more distant voice, ‘I’ve enough to do cooking for a dozen, and no money in my hand beyond tomorrow — ’

‘Well, that’s no trouble o mine,’ said the first voice, and a plump young woman backed into the hall from the chamber beyond it. ‘If you choose to stay here, you can deal wi what comes.’

‘Aye, Mall,’ said Andy grimly. The maidservant swung round, plainly startled to find the hall occupied, and Babb appeared in the doorway behind her, carrying a tray.

‘What ever is the matter?’ said Alys, moving forward. ‘Why should you not stay? Surely the bairns need you?’

‘Them?’ said Mall, and tossed her head. ‘They never mind a word I say, why should they need me? I tell you, the wee one’s possessed and the other never heeds a word I say, and I’ve been here long enough — ’

Babb came quietly into the room to set the tray down on a convenient chest. Behind her another, older woman, spare and upright, hurried across the further chamber. Her apron was stained and scorched, though her linen coif appeared clean; the cook, Kate assumed.

‘You leave now,’ said Andy, ‘and you’ll not see a plack of what’s owing for the quarter, I can tell ye that, my girl.’

‘You have stayed this long,’ said Alys, ‘why not a little longer? Just till your maister comes back? Who will mind the bairns if you go now?’

‘Who’s to say he’ll come back?’ said the nursemaid pertly. ‘That’s no what I’ve heard at all. And what wi him locked up in the castle for murder, and this auld — ’ she jerked her head at Andy, apparently at a loss for a suitable term — ‘turning folks away without a by-your-leave, and now Ursel telling me what I can do and I canny do, I tell you I’ve had more than I can stomach o Morison’s Yard. I’m away up to fetch my gear, and you can mind the bairns yoursels if it worries you.’

‘And well rid o a bad-tempered hizzy,’ said the older woman from the door, her voice rising again, ‘no fit to have charge o decent folk’s bairns, trollop that ye are, and filthy with it! Where were you all this noontime, tell me that, Mall Anderson, while I’d to mind they lassies?’

‘And I praise all the saints that’s named, Ursel Campbell, I’ll not have to eat another mouthful you’ve burnt!’ retorted Mall. She flounced away towards another doorway at the far side of the hall, but recoiled with a shriek as she reached it. ‘St Anne protect us, what’s that? Oh, it’s the deil’s get. Come off the stair, you, and let me pass.’

‘No,’ said a small voice from the shadows beyond the doorway.

‘Come here, my wee pet,’ said Ursel in gentler tones. ‘Come on, the both of ye, we’ll see if I’ve a bit gingerbread for good lassies.’

‘Aren’t good lassies,’ said the little voice. ‘She said so.’

‘Get out of my way,’ said Mall between her teeth, ‘afore I come up to you.’

‘Why?’ asked the voice, with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.

Kate, who had watched the drama unfold in amazement, suddenly found her tongue.

‘Mall,’ she said with authority, ‘stand aside from the door. Wynliane, Ysonde, come down here to me.’ And thanks be to Our Lady, she thought, that I asked Augie their names.

After a moment the two children stepped into the room, moving silently, hand in hand. As soon as they were clear of the door Mall brushed past them and on to the stair, and the little girls came forward hesitantly into the lighter part of the hall. Across the room, Babb folded her arms, watching.

‘Come here,’ Kate said encouragingly.

‘Why are you in our house?’ asked the smaller one. ‘My da’s no here.’

‘Mind your manners, Ysonde,’ said Andy. ‘This is Lady Kate Cunningham and that’s Mistress Mason. Where’s your obedience, then?’

‘Don’t got one.’

Ursel clicked her tongue.

‘He means a curtsy, like I taught you,’ she said. The child shot her a glance and stuck her bottom lip out.

‘Maybe they’re too little to make a curtsy,’ said Alys.

‘I expect you’re right,’ agreed Kate. Andy opened his mouth to contradict, and was silenced by a glare from Ursel as the younger child, scowling, arranged her bare feet with care, spread her tattered brocade skirts and sank into a rather wobbly salute. Her sister looked at her from behind her elf-locks and rather hesitantly copied her, and Kate clapped her hands as they straightened up.

‘Very good,’ she said. ‘I can see you were well taught.’

The older girl stared timidly at her, but the younger was not listening. Chin up, she was glaring at the ceiling; Kate, following her gaze, realized that she too had been aware of Mall’s footsteps, which had now halted.

‘Now will you come and get a bit gingerbread?’ said Ursel. Kate hushed her, listening, and they heard the clunk of a kist lid closing.

‘That’s my da’s kist,’ observed Ysonde.

‘You don’t know that,’ said Ursel.