Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘Do.’

‘It could be any of the kists up yonder,’ the old woman reasoned, ‘yours or your da’s or — ’ She broke off, and the child finished for her:

‘Or my mammy’s. Wasn’t either my mammy’s, and not Wynliane’s and mine neither. It was my da’s in his chamber where he sleeps.’

‘We’ll find out,’ said Andy grimly. He moved to the house door as Mall came down the stairs, wrapped in her plaid and carrying a canvas satchel. The older child shrank silently towards Kate where she sat enthroned in the oak chair, and Andy went on, ‘Right, my lassie. Let’s see what’s in yon scrip before you take it out of here.’

‘What’s in my scrip’s none of your mind!’ retorted Mall, clutching at the bag. ‘You can just get your nose out of my business, you interfering old ruddoch, and let me by!’

‘Mall,’ said Alys, ‘what did you take out of the kist just now?’

‘I never touched any kist!’

‘We all heard the lid closing,’ said Kate.

The girl bridled. ‘Well, maybe I just bumped it a wee bit. I never touched a thing inside it,’ she averred.

‘So you won’t mind showing us what’s in your scrip?’ said Alys gently.

‘Aye, I do mind!’ Mall looked around, but the other door was blocked by Babb’s considerable bulk. ‘Let me pass, Andy Paterson, since you’re so eager to get me gone from here, and you’ll no bother speiring into my belongings either!’

‘Then may I look in your scrip? I am not of your household.’ Alys came forward with her hand out, and Mall ducked sideways, clutching the satchel to her again. Her plaid slipped, and at Kate’s side the older girl suddenly pointed and screamed shrilly. There was a flurry of movement, and Ysonde was beside her nurse, tugging at the plaid, shouting.

‘It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s no yours! Give it back!’

‘Get it off me, the wee deil!’ exclaimed Mall, swinging her free arm wildly, impeded by the need to keep hold of her satchel as well as the plaid. The other child was still screaming, and both Andy and Ursel added their voices to the mêlée, but Babb strode forward and with one large hand scooped Ysonde shouting into the air while with the other she tugged the plaid from Mall’s back. As the swathe of hodden grey wool came free, several more bundles of cloth fell to the floor from its folds.

‘Put me down! Put me down!’ shouted Ysonde, but Wynliane’s screams halted abruptly as she pounced on the bundle nearest her. Kate, leaning forward from where she sat, saw that it was a linen garment, finely embroidered. The child hugged it to her, and reached with her other hand for the next item, which seemed to be a length of tawny worsted cloth.

‘Could these be from Mistress Morison’s kist?’ Kate asked.

‘Come, Mall,’ said Alys. ‘Let us see what else you have there.’

Mall was inclined to go on arguing, but Babb settled the matter by putting Ysonde on the floor, removing the satchel from the nursemaid’s grasp, and upending it on to the settle beside Alys. Ursel hurried forward, exclaiming in annoyance.

‘That’s my St Ursula, and you know it, thieving hizzy that you are, Mall Anderson.’ She seized a small, brightly coloured picture from the bench, and Kate recognized the sort of cheap painted woodcut print commonly sold at fairs. ‘And that’s mine and all,’ added Ursel, snatching up a comb, ‘and I don’t know why you’d bother to steal it, you’ve no notion of how to use it. And is this no the box Jamesie was looking for last week, Andy?’

‘That’s my good belt buckle, I ken that,’ said Andy, coming forward from the door.

‘That’s my bitie,’ said Ysonde from the floor, where she was helping her sister to retrieve the scattered garments. She pointed to the coral teether with its dangling ribbon. ‘That’s mine. She can’t have that.’

‘Aye, Ursel, it’s Jamesie’s box right enough,’ said Andy. ‘And how did it get in your scrip, you wee — Stop her! Get her!’

He sprang forward as Mall reached the door, but as his outstretched hand touched her sleeve Babb collided with him on the same errand and the girl eluded them both. Disentangling themselves they set off down the steps after her, pursued by Alys.

Kate, left sitting by the cold hearth, looked from the children clutching their dead mother’s clothes to the old woman picking her property out of the magpie assortment on the bench, and then round the shadowy hall. With a sudden feeling of making a momentous decision, she said to Ursel, ‘And who will look after the bairns now?’

‘I wish she had not got away,’ said Alys.

‘Aye,’ growled Andy. ‘I’d ha had her charged wi theft, and a pleasure it’d been too.’

‘She was that quick,’ said Babb, handing ale to her mistress. ‘She must ha jinked down one vennel or another, and out of sight.’

‘Is it worth laying a complaint?’ asked Kate.

‘No wi John Anderson,’ said Andy. ‘He’s her uncle.’

‘We got her scrip,’ said Babb, ‘and what she had hid under her plaid forbye.’

‘Is anything else missing?’ Alys wondered. ‘Anything she could have hidden about her person?’

‘Down her busk, ye mean, mistress?’ said Andy. ‘Here, I never thought o that.’ He took the beaker of ale from Babb and sat down in obedience to Kate’s gesture. ‘Trouble is, the maister’s no here to tell us what’s missing. Those bairns might ken,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Where are they, anyway?’

‘With Ursel for now,’ said Kate. ‘She had to see to the men’s dinner.’

‘And I must go home to see about my father’s, and Kate with me,’ said Alys. ‘But I think we must return after it. There are things I must ask you, Andy. For one thing, do you know where the barrel has gone?’

‘What barrel? That barrel, ye mean, mistress?’ Andy gave the matter some thought. ‘I think Mattha Hog wanted to buy it for a show, to keep in the tavern. I could find out for ye.’

‘Would you send one of the men to ask before his dinner?’ Alys requested.

‘I could. What are ye at, mistress?’

‘Billy said the cart lay at a dyer’s yard on Tuesday night.’ Andy nodded agreement. ‘He was complaining about logwood stains on his hose. If there is logwood dust on the barrel, we can be certain it was on the cart on Tuesday night.’

‘How will you tell that?’ asked Andy, staring at her.

She smiled, but shook her head and drank some of her ale. ‘Find where the barrel is,’ she said.

‘And what about the bairns, my leddy?’ said Babb. ‘That Ursel’s right, she’s enough to do seeing to the men’s dinner without a pair of wee tykes like yon underfoot all day.’

‘I can gie her a hand getting them to bed, maybe,’ said Andy doubtfully.

‘They should be washed,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, well, that’s no happened for a while.’

‘Does any of your men have a sister or a sweetheart or the like?’ Kate asked. ‘A lassie who’d come in to help for a few days?’

Andy looked at her, chewing his lip.

‘I’ll ask,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t think they do, but. There’s only Jamesie that’s courting, and his leman’s well placed in Andrew Hamilton’s household.’

‘I could spare one of my household for a day or so,’ said Alys.

‘Besides,’ continued Andy, pursuing his own train of thought, ‘who’d direct a lassie? I’ve no notion what’s to do for a pair of bairns like that, and she’d maybe no mind Ursel.’

‘She’d mind me,’ said Kate confidently. ‘I’ll be back here after I’ve had my dinner. Babb and I can sleep here the night.’

‘I thought there would have been more argument,’ said Alys, avoiding a puddle.

‘I did too,’ said Kate from the back of her mule, ‘both about me staying at Morison’s and about this idea.’