Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘And what’s this daft stuff about the Baptizer?’ said Andy. ‘What’s he mean by that?’

‘The Axeman’s maister, surely,’ said Kate. ‘Some kind of by-name, I suppose. Could it be a priest? Someone who baptizes people? Is he from Perth, maybe, or is there a church of St John hereabouts?’

‘Could it be the Knights of St John?’ suggested Alys.

‘You mean, the Axeman is from Torphichen?’ Kate frowned. ‘There was no cross on his cloak. And would the Knights kill, in secret like that?’

‘They would kill,’ said Alys, ‘but not like that. Either more secret, so that nobody knew how or who, or else quite openly.’

Kate eyed the younger girl speculatively, but said nothing. Andy said, ‘And was that Matt Hamilton in the yard, my leddy?’

‘It was, with a nurse for the bairns.’

‘A good woman, too,’ said Alys approvingly. ‘She held Wynliane for me to wash her ears and put drops in them — oh, they were bad, I’ve never seen such a crust on a bairn’s ears — and she paid no attention when the little one was rude. I left her just now singing to them.’

She turned her head as footsteps clopped on the stairs, and Ysonde appeared round the curve of the spiral and stepped into the kitchen with her sister and their new nurse behind her. Seeing Kate, Ysonde made her way directly towards her and announced gruffly, ‘This is Nan. She’s come from Dumbrattan — Dumbarton,’ she corrected herself, ‘to mind us for a bit. She kens stories.’

Nan Thomson bobbed a brief curtsy and smiled at Kate.

‘You’re Matt’s Lady Kate, mem, aren’t ye no?’ she said. ‘He’s tellt me about you.’

She was a bulky, black-browed woman in a widow’s headdress and a worn homespun gown, but she had a comfortable bosom and capable hands, one of which was curved round Wynliane’s shoulder at the moment.

‘I can see there’s plenty for me to be doing,’ she added.

‘Has Matt explained?’ asked Kate.

The linen headdress nodded. ‘We’ll see how we all get on, mem,’ Nan said firmly.

Introduced to Ursel and Andy, she gave them both a friendly smile, and then gathered up Ysonde’s hand and announced, ‘We’ll see you all later. These two good lassies are going to show me their chamber where they sleep, aren’t you, my poppets?’

Ysonde stuck out her lower lip and nodded; Wynliane peeped up at her and turned obediently back to the stair.

‘She looks a good worker,’ said Ursel once the footsteps had died away into the hall.

Alys’s eyes danced. ‘Matt got a very hearty buss when he left. I think they know one another well.’

‘Andy,’ said Kate, ‘tell me again how you found Billy.’

Nothing loth, he sat down on a stool and launched into what was clearly becoming a well-practised recital.

‘I went to the coalhouse, like you tellt me, my leddy, to fetch him in to see if he’d changed his story at all, afore we called the serjeant. And the first thing I noticed, the bar wasny on the door.’

‘Where was it?’ Kate asked.

He halted, clearly not having considered this before. ‘Laid on the ground at the side of the door,’ he said after a moment, gesturing with his left hand. ‘And I thocht to mysel, I thocht, Oh, our man’s away, he’s got out while we was all sleeping. The next I noticed was the marks on the door, like someone’s hand. So I opened the door, and what I saw — ’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I’ve been on a battlefield, my leddy. I’ve seen the kind o thing afore. But this was, this was — and a man doesny expect to meet it in his own yard.’

‘No,’ agreed Kate, since something was obviously expected of her.

‘It wasny — ’ He stopped again, and swallowed. ‘It wasny a clean kill. He’d tried to get away, poor loon. That’s why I wanted to stop the lassie going to see him. Thievin’ wretch she may be, but he was her leman. Hacked into pieces, he was, and blood all over the coalheap.’

‘We must wash that,’ said Alys immediately, ‘before it sets any further.’

‘Likely you could sell the whole load o coals to Mattha Hog just as they are,’ said Andy darkly. ‘If I ken my maister he’ll no want to burn them, that’s for sure, washed or no. Our Lady be praised, we’ve enough broken barrels and that on the woodheap to burn till we can order up more.’

‘Aye, we could sell it and be rid of it, if the serjeant has seen all he needs to,’ said Kate.

‘He’s seen it,’ said Andy. ‘He looked at the coal-house, and the blood everywhere, and he looked at me and the men, no what ye’d call clean since they’re good workers but none o us wi blood on his shoes or his clothes, except my boots from when I found him, and he said it wasny any of us, it must ha been another intruder, maybe Billy’s accomplice, and lucky we were no to have been cut up oursels. And for once in his life,’ he added drily, ‘I think John Anderson’s right.’

‘I want a look at these marks on the door,’ said Alys.

‘And I,’ said Kate, and reached for her crutches.

The coalhouse was part of the stone structure containing the kitchen, the laundry and several other storehouses. Each of these had a stout door of broad planks, the storehouse doors secured by a wooden bar lodged in slots in the stone jambs. The coalhouse was nearest to the kitchen; Kate, approaching it, looked back along the length of the house and saw that the kitchen building was not so deep as the timber-framed hall and chambers, so that its doors were set some way back compared to the house windows. Besides, the windows of the room where she and Babb had slept, with difficulty, after the excitements of the midnight had been firmly shuttered. Small wonder that she had heard nothing.

The men at their weeding and tidying glanced sideways at them, but carefully paid no more attention. Babb, restacking huge yellow pots on a rack near the gate, straightened up to see if her mistress required her, then went back to her task.

‘There ye are,’ said Andy, gesturing at the coalhouse. ‘That’s about how I found it, my leddy.’

The door was standing shut, the bar lying on the ground beside it. There was a single large handprint, slightly smudged and now quite dry, showing dark against the bleached wood, as if someone had set his hand against the door to push it to. Kate, balanced on her crutches, put her own hand up without touching the mark.

‘A bigger hand than mine,’ she said, ‘and someone taller than me.’ She remembered the big man she had seen in the Hog, the flat, ugly face with its wisp of beard, and shivered.

‘His left hand,’ observed Alys. ‘And the bar laid down this side. I wonder if the man is left-handed?’

‘He went by on my right,’ contributed Kate, ‘and hacked at this pole.’

Alys nodded. ‘May we open the door?’

‘You don’t need to open the door,’ said Andy roughly. ‘I’ve tellt you what’s inside.’

‘I want to see,’ said Alys. Kate moved aside, and Andy opened the door with reluctance. Kate peered inside, and swallowed. She had not been prepared for the way the heap of coal betrayed Billy’s last moments so clearly, the pits and hollows where he had trampled about trying to escape his executioner, and the blood smeared among the coal-dust halfway up the walls as well as caked among the loose coal. She thought of the man in the Hog, and the long reach and swing of a Lochaber axe. With that great bulk blocking the doorway, there would have been no escape.

Beside her Alys stared dispassionately, but her hand crept out and closed over Kate’s where it gripped the crutch.

‘We must certainly have this out of here,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘And the walls scrubbed down before you order a new load of coals.’