Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘Not long.’ Gil recounted, as briefly as he might, how the wrong barrel had come home and what had happened to its contents, and how they were still searching for the books and the missing musician.

‘A head and one saddlebag,’ said the Hospitaller when he had finished. ‘Is there any reason why I should believe you, sir?’

‘Not in the immediate term,’ Gil admitted, wondering if he had imagined the slight emphasis on the one. ‘I have the papers for the barrel we’re searching for, giving the contents as books, but as to the rest, you would have to send to Glasgow to catch up with my lord St Johns, assuming he travels with the King, and to get word from the Provost.’

Sir Raoul smiled, showing white teeth with one missing.

‘It is an advantage of dealing with a lawyer,’ he proclaimed. ‘They always have a clear idea of what is proof. I think I may not trouble our noble Preceptor in this matter. Is there any more, sir? Did nothing appear along with the empty barrel?’

‘One thing more,’ said Maistre Pierre, who had been silent for some time. ‘One told me, as to a fellow craftsman, you understand, that someone else enquired for the carts which had lain in Linlithgow on Monday night.’

‘Did he give a name?’

‘No name. He called him the Axeman.’

‘Was ist?’ said Johan. ‘Was heisst das?’

‘The Axeman,’ said Sir Raoul in Scots.

The standing prisoner let out an exclamation. ‘What did ye say? The Axeman? Is he in this? Oh, man! Oh, man!’ he moaned, and dropped to his knees. ‘Just kill me now, maisters, for I canny bear to wait till he catches up wi me! Oh, man!’

‘Ma foi,’ said the Hospitaller, gazing down at the man. ‘What is the matter? What is he saying?’

‘It seems he fears this axeman,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘And so would you, if you’d heard the half o what I’ve heard,’ groaned the prisoner. ‘He never tellt us the Axeman was in this.’

‘We must hear more,’ said Sir Raoul, and looked at the sky. ‘Messieurs , it is late in the day to be setting out for Glasgow, and one man injured at that. Will you come with me to the Preceptory, where we may question these two in more comfort?’

‘We are still travelling,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We have come from the west, as I told you, and now I think we must go south, till we find what we seek.’

‘We weren’t making for Glasgow,’ said Gil with reluctance. ‘But I admit I would like to hear them questioned. After all,’ he grinned suddenly, and switched to Scots, ‘this one was taken in fang — caught by the dog in the very act of robbery.’

Sir Raoul grinned back at him, sharing his enjoyment of the legal play on words. ‘Ah. Then we may at least be seated while we talk to them.’ He looked about. ‘And if we are to dispense justice, simple tact suggests we should do it off the Carmelites’ land. Let us repair to the track, which is ours.’

Tam was heaved back on to his horse, and the groaning thief slung over someone’s saddlebow, and they moved off the grazing-land. The conscious prisoner complained bitterly as he was herded along, on the theme of the ill-treatment of a condemned man.

‘Nobody’s condemned you yet,’ said Gil in some amusement.

‘Oh, I’m doomed. He’ll get me,’ sniffed the man. ‘He’ll catch up wi me. I need a priest, I have to make my confession. Ave Mary grassy plena,’ he mumbled. ‘And I canny sign myself wi my hands bound like this.’

Questioned, he admitted that his name was Andrew Gray, their other captive was Jemmie Forrest, and they were both from Linlithgow. Sir Raoul seated himself on a convenient earthen dyke, inspected him sternly and asked, ‘Who else was in your band?’

‘I never kenned all their names, maister,’ said Gray, and sniffed again. ‘It was a man I met in the Green Lion, he was looking for help to get back something of his maister’s so he said, and he hired four or five of us there in the tavern.’ He glowered at Tam, who was being anointed and bandaged by Johan and Maistre Pierre in committee. ‘He showed us him yonder, walking along the street, said he’d laid him information so you’d be sure to come up here, so we came out to wait for you, and never had any dinner, and he never tellt us the Spital was in it neither, and if the Axeman wants the same thing he’ll get me, he will.’

‘What was he wanting back?’ Gil asked. Socrates, lying at his feet, raised his head and looked from one face to another.

‘He never said.’ Gray flinched away from the dog’s intent gaze. ‘We had to get a pack o some sort,’ he added, apparently trying to be helpful.

‘He ordered someone to get the packs,’ Gil recalled, and the man nodded.

‘And who was his master?’ asked Sir Raoul.

‘He never let on, maister. Never said nothing about him, nor what his own name was, nor his friend’s.’

‘What did his friend call him? Did he have a name for him?’

Gray looked warily at Gil while this idea penetrated his skull.

‘Baldy,’ he said at length. ‘He cried him Baldy He wasny bald, just the same,’ he elaborated kindly, ‘for ye could see his hair sticking out at the back of his coif. Likely it was short for Archibald, ye ken.’

‘I ken,’ said Gil. He looked at Sir Raoul. ‘Does that mean anything to you, sir?’

‘How should it?’ parried the Hospitaller.

‘Did either of them say anything else?’ Gil asked Gray hopefully. ‘Where they had come from, maybe, or who had sent them? Who told them we had this thing of their master’s?’

Gray stared at him, and shook his head. Too many questions, thought Gil, annoyed with himself. He tried again.

‘Were they from hereabouts?’

‘No.’ The man shook his head again. ‘They wereny anybody we ever saw afore. Willie said,’ he added, ‘he thocht they were from Stirling, or there. Just by the way they talked, ye ken.’

‘Can you describe them?’ asked Sir Raoul. Gray looked blankly at him. ‘What did they look like?’

‘Just ordinary,’ said Gray. ‘One of them had a hat on,’ he recalled. ‘No Baldy, the other one.’

‘A hat?’ repeated Sir Raoul.

‘Instead of a blue bonnet,’ explained Gil, gesturing at the decrepit knitted object on Gray’s head. ‘What kind of a hat? A felt one? Did it have a brim?’

‘Just ordinary,’ said Gray again. ‘It had a feather in it,’ he added.

Further questioning produced no more details. At length the Hospitaller said, ‘I ought to fine you for attempted robbery, Andrew Gray.’

‘I’ve nothing to pay a fine wi,’ muttered Gray. ‘Nor I’ll have no time to earn it afore he gets me.’

‘Then leave Linlithgow,’ said Sir Raoul impatiently. ‘Go now, without returning to your home, and this man you fear will never find you.’

‘Go? Where would I go, maister? Set out on a journey unshriven?’

‘How would I know? Stirling, maybe, or Leith.’

‘No Leith,’ said Gray, shivering. ‘One o them said he’d been to Leith and no found it, whatever it was they socht. Or maybe someone else had been to Leith. Any road, I canny go there.’

‘Then go to Edinburgh,’ Gil said. ‘It’s big enough to get lost in.’

By the time the augmented party stopped, an hour or so later on the other side of the hills, to get a bite of food and rest the horses a little at a tavern in Bathgate, Gil was no clearer in his mind about the afternoon’s events.

‘What’s going on, anyway, Maister Gil?’ asked Rob, pushing Tam down on to the bench between them. ‘Are the Spitallers on our side or no? We drove off the thieves, and then the Spital held us and searched us. I was feart that fellow Johan would be away wi my St Peter medal out my blanket. And now he’s to ride along wi us, whether you will or no.’