Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

After a while he pulled himself together. There was no sign of the man with the lantern. Moving carefully, he made his way back to the eastward ladder, which was now moonlit, and groped his way along the topmost level to his own lantern and the sacks of coin. He lit the lantern with the flint and tinder in his purse, and laboriously but with more confidence contrived to shift the sacks one at a time, along the scaffolding, down the ladders. He became aware of movements below him, of urgent voices, but ignored them until, as he reached the foot of the second ladder, helpful hands took the sack he was carrying.

‘Are you hurt?’ asked Balthasar of Liège. ‘Come this way, man. That was well done — I’d not go higher than this for a great fortune.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m no hurt. You ken that.’ He took in what the musician had said. ‘What do you mean? You were up there — ’

‘No me.’ Balthasar set the sack down at the top of the lowest ladder. ‘Can you get down alone?’

He could. The flagstones felt hard under his feet, and he stood for a moment, wondering why he felt so surprised to be there.

‘Pierre,’ he said.

‘Out here. It was touch-and-go for a bit, but he’s safe now.’

‘You must go back to Glasgow,’ said Maistre Pierre, enthroned against the pillows of Maister Robison’s best bed.

‘I don’t like to leave you.’ Gil eyed his friend. There was a bandage on his head, and a thicker one on his arm, which reposed on another pillow.

‘He’ll be looked after,’ said Sir Oliver robustly from Robison’s great chair. ‘No need to worry about him, Cunningham.’

‘Mistress Robison will tend me. I agree, I am not fit to ride until maybe tomorrow, but we must take home what we have learned, and also Alys will be concerned.’

Gil nodded, preserving his own counsel about when Maistre Pierre would be fit to travel. He was very much aware that it was two days since he had seen Alys, the longest period they had spent apart since their betrothal, but he also had to admit to himself that he did not look forward to telling her that her father was injured.

He eased his right foot from under the dog. After being reunited with his master in the midnight, and checking him carefully to make sure no harm had come to him, Socrates had gone off with the St Matthew’s terrier, who had apparently spent the rest of the night teaching him to rat. The innkeeper had taken a groat off the bill in his gratitude for the pile of corpses left neatly in the yard, and Socrates had slept all morning.

‘So Johan got you outside,’ he said. ‘Did you fall off the scaffolding?’

‘No, I praise God and Our Lady.’ Maistre Pierre crossed himself left-handed. ‘I must, I suppose, have fallen near the edge of the hurdle, and Johan climbed up and dragged me to the ladder. It was an act of great courage,’ he said. The Hospitaller, silent in the corner of the room, shrugged. ‘It was, my friend. Then I managed the ladder somehow, and we went outside, and …’ His voice trailed away.

‘They came staggering out the kirk,’ said Sinclair, ‘knee to knee and hand over back, either holding the other up, and him trailing blood. A sight to fright the weans.’

‘I thought him spent,’ said Johan. ‘It was a close thing. If the lutenist had not those spare strings with him, he had bled to death by the cut of the axe.’ He rubbed his own upper arm, and grimaced.

‘And the lutenist was out in the kirkyard that whole time,’ said Gil.

Johan nodded. ‘Indeed. He held the strings, and tightened them while the bleeding stopped. It was only when we heard a fall, and Maister Robison went to look and came out to say the man with the axe was lying there dead, that he left us and went to find you. We have tried to call you before that,’ Johan said earnestly, ‘but I suppose you could not answer.’

‘The axeman must have been on the scaffolding when we went up,’ said Gil, and shivered. ‘Waiting in the dark, till we found the treasure for him.’ And who else was up there? he wondered. Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede. Who helped me escape, who pushed the axeman out into the shadows, if it wasn’t the lutenist?

‘A merry thought,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘And what now?’ said Gil.

‘You go back to Glasgow, as you’re bid,’ said Sinclair. ‘From what you tell me, you’ve business there. You know who killed Nelkin Fletcher, you can report that to Robert Blacader’s man, and we’ll get the rest of your books repacked and loaded on a mule for you.’

‘And the coin?’

‘I take that,’ said Johan. ‘It goes back to the Preceptory, since it is St Johns money.’

‘Does it?’ said Gil. Johan and Maistre Pierre exchanged glances.

‘I think it does,’ said Maistre Pierre. Johan nodded. ‘Now it is known to be in the hands of the Preceptory, it becomes an internal matter.’

‘Not entirely,’ said Gil. They both looked at him, and Sinclair leaned back in the chair as if awaiting entertainment. I must be careful here, he thought. ‘I assume,’ he said delicately, ‘the money was a loan from the Preceptory to the late King.’ He looked at Johan, who gave him back that enigmatic stare. ‘Clearly, since it is still packed and sealed as it left the Preceptory, the King never had the chance to spend it. Indeed, I wonder if he ever got his hands on it, if it didn’t rather stay with — someone, who stood between the King and the Preceptory.’ Still that enigmatic stare. He looked at Sinclair: still waiting to be entertained. ‘That person I think gave it to you, sir, to keep safe. He’s been a good man up to now to have owing you a favour, which I suppose is reason enough to oblige him.’ Sinclair’s eyebrows went up at this, but he gave no other sign. ‘And since he gave you a portion of the late King’s hoard along with it, I suppose it was around the time of the troubles of ’88. Perhaps he had that direct from the King, perhaps he came by it otherwise. That hardly matters.’

Sinclair still gave no sign, but Johan nodded. Assenting to what?

‘The Preceptory wants its loan back,’ Gil said baldly. ‘It’s now over four years since it was lent out, so this is no wonder. I suppose, sir, the person who gave it you for safe keeping must have asked you for the Preceptory money he had lodged with you, and you decided to move the King’s hoard as well, all at once. That makes sense — if the hiding place was compromised, it would be better cleared.’ Sinclair raised his eyebrows again. ‘Maybe in two instalments,’ Gil speculated, ‘since we saw more up there than Nelkin Fletcher brought away with him. Did you shift the other load, sir?’

‘Did I?’

Gil waited a moment, but the handsome face was still studiously blank. He went on.

‘The second instalment, which we’re dealing with, got as far as Riddoch’s yard, and should have gone onward hidden in a barrel as part of Riddoch’s rent, but the two carrying it were attacked. Some of the load was already in the barrel, the attackers threw Nelkin’s head in after it to hide his death, filled it with brine, put it on a cart — though why for Glasgow?’ he wondered. ‘These same people, I take it, have been pursuing us all across this side of Scotland, hoping we had either found the rest of the load of coin or would lead them to it. They evidently had some idea of how much there should be. Do you agree, sir?’

‘How should I agree or no?’ Sinclair had relaxed slightly, and his tone was slightly friendlier than the words. ‘Are you going to spread these ideas about Scotland?’

‘Not widely, sir. And you can be sure,’ said Gil, meeting his eye again, ‘that we took nothing else from the place we found.’

‘Oh, I ken that,’ said Sinclair. ‘You got down safe, after all.’