Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘Christ a blessed mother.’ Ysonde held up her hand. Kate, keeping her face straight, delivered the blessing, and the child vanished back up the stair. A bump and a distant murmur suggested that she had returned to bed.

Above Kate, now, Ursel’s distant snores stopped for a moment then started again on a different note. The bars of moonlight beyond the great bed moved slowly across the wall, and timbers creaked round her as the house settled into the night. Used to a stone tower-house, Kate found the noises unsettling, but Babb’s sleeping presence was a comfort.

What did the two children need? Ysonde should be sharp enough to learn her letters and some music, young as she was. It might be possible to teach Wynliane to read, even if she never spoke. Did she hear? Kate wondered. If the child was deaf, it would explain a lot.

The house creaked again. Kate turned on her back and lay with her ears stretched, and Ursel snorted upstairs.

As for Maister Morison’s most immediate problem, this charge of murder from the inquest on the head in the barrel — was there anything more she and Alys could do about that? So far, she had to admit, their meddling had only achieved the loss of two of his servants and the partial confirmation of Billy Walker’s account of the bringing home of the barrel. Chaucer came to her mind: many a servaunt have ye put out of grace. Perhaps Gil is doing better, she thought, staring at the bars of moonlight. How did it go on? I take my leve of your unstedfastnesse. Would Maister Morison see it that way?

Something moved across the moonlight.

Tucked in the darkness beyond the blue dornick hangings, Kate froze, concentrating on the movement she had seen, desperately praying that she was invisible in the shadows and that Babb would make no sound in her sleep beyond her steady breathing.

For a long moment there was no further sign. Then a chink of metal sounded, followed by a small scuffle. Someone was by the kist which stood at the foot of the great bed.

Kate lay still, hardly breathing. The sounds were repeated, stealthily. There was an indrawn breath, and a muttered word too soft to make out. Another chink of metal, and then a clatter as if something had been dropped on the floor, and a muffled curse. A man’s voice.

Beside her, Kate became aware that Babb was awake. The woman did not stir, but the change in her breathing and the tension in her big frame were unmistakable. As the dropped item was picked up, scraping on the boards, Kate reached out under the sheet and grasped her servant’s hand. She squeezed once, twice, and Babb returned the pressure.

Ursel snorted again above-stairs, and the stealthy movements at the foot of the carved bed checked, then continued. In the truckle bed, Babb gathered herself, and slowly turned back the bedclothes, ready to swing her legs out and stand up as quietly as she might. Kate reached down on her side of the truckle bed and grasped one of the crutches laid ready as they always were.

There was a rattle and click at the bed-foot, a soft exclamation of satisfaction, and a long creak. Babb seized her chance and rose to her feet in her shift. Kate, gripping the crutch, swung it up and on to the bed to meet Babb’s groping hand. Armed with a four-foot stave of stout timber, Babb stepped forward into the moonlight, and with a sweep of her free hand slammed the lid of the kist down.

The intruder cried out in pain and alarm, and there was a scuffling as he tried to rise, to escape, but Babb pounced.

‘What are ye about?’ she demanded, dragging him away from the kist. ‘Who is it, anyway, creeping into decent folk’s houses in the night? Who are ye? What are ye after?’

‘Let me go, you fairground show!’ said her captive breathlessly, writhing in her grasp in the barred light. ‘Let me go! Ah, you’ve broke my wrists!’

Kate, trying to make out the two struggling figures, saw Babb shake the intruder by the back of his shirt. Then it appeared as if he flung up his arms and ducked, almost seeming to vanish. Babb exclaimed in annoyance and plunged towards the door, but before she reached it there was a flurry of movement and a sharp agonized scream. Something large scurried across the floor towards Kate, but the yelling continued.

‘I’m stabbed, I’m bit! I’m dying! What is it, get it off me!’

‘What on earth — ?’ demanded Kate, reaching for the tinderbox under her pillow. Her hands were shaking so much it was difficult to light the tinder, but finally she set a flame to the candle on the stool by the bedhead. In its sputtering glow she saw Billy Walker, bare to the waist, one arm clutched in Babb’s renewed grasp. With his free hand he was rubbing at his hindquarters, gibbering in fear and what seemed to be genuine pain. The shirt he had ducked out of lay where Babb had dropped it.

‘What ails ye, fool?’ demanded Babb, shaking him energetically.

He howled, and twisted to look at the seat of his hose. ‘I’m bleeding! What was it? What did ye set on to me, witch? I’m bitten! Look at the blood there!’

‘There’s no blood,’ said Babb, turning him so that the light fell on the afflicted portion. ‘Well, maybe a wee drop. Nothing’s bitten you, man, unless it was one o yir ain fleas. More likely ye’ve stabbed yersel with whatever ye were using to get into Maister Morison’s big kist, you nasty wee rugger.’

‘I never! It was something wi teeth, for I felt them.’

‘What’s wrong?’ called an anxious voice on the stair. ‘What’s to do down there? Are ye hurt, mem? Is it a thief in the house?’

‘Jennet!’ answered Kate. ‘Put your shoes on and come down, lassie. I need you to go out to the bothy and waken Andy.’

‘What’s bit this thievin’ creature? Was it a ratton, maybe?’ asked Babb nervously.

‘A ratton?’ exclaimed Billy. ‘It was bigger than that. It was like to take my leg off!’

Kate shook her head, smiling. ‘No ratton,’ she said. ‘A wildcat, more like.’

She turned back the bedclothes to reveal Ysonde in her clean shift, curled in a ball at her side. The child looked up, and the candlelight showed her wicked grin.

‘I bited him on the bum,’ she said triumphantly.

‘Should we send for the Watch, Lady Kate? There’s nowhere we can shut him away,’ said Andy anxiously, ‘except the cart-shed, and I doubt me he’d get out o that no bother.’

‘Is there nowhere in the house?’ Kate asked. She was seated once again in Maister Morison’s great chair, uncomfortably aware of how hastily Babb had laced her gown for her. ‘A larder, maybe? The coalhouse?’

‘Aye, the coalhouse,’ said Andy, brightening. ‘And did ye say he was at the maister’s big iron kist, my leddy? What did he get from it?’

‘A bruising,’ said Babb with satisfaction, indicating Billy’s swollen wrists. Pinned between two former workmates, he glowered sullenly at her across the lit hall, but did not speak. ‘I slammed the lid on him,’ she added. ‘It’s an auld trick, but it works fine. No, he got nothing out the kist, for I stopped him.’

‘But how did he open it?’ wondered Andy.

‘He had a key,’ said Kate, holding it up. ‘He woke Babb when he dropped it.’

‘Well, how was I to ken a pair of meddlesome witches was sleepin’ there?’demanded Billy. One of the men holding him shook his arm, and he winced visibly.

‘You just keep a civil tongue in your heid, Billy Walker,’ his colleague admonished. ‘And where did you get the maister’s key, that’s what I’d like to ken.’

‘None o your mind, Jamesie Aitken,’ said Billy.

‘Oh, but it is,’ said Kate. ‘How did you get a key like this one? And what were you after, anyway?’

‘Money,’ he said insolently, ‘what do you think?’