Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘Should we send after the serjeant?’ said Morison. ‘It may tell us who the man is.’

‘Is that all?’ asked the mason.

Andy set the bag down on the platform with a thump and swirled the dregs of brine again. ‘See for yourself, maisters.’

‘It isn’t a scrip,’ said Gil, dragging it closer. ‘It’s a saddlebag, and a well-made one. This has been good leather before it went in the brine. What is in it?’

He turned the bag over to wrestle with the buckle, and frowned as he heard a faint chink and scrape of metal from inside it.

‘Coin?’ he said. Finally unfastening the buckle, he lifted back the flap and drew out a dripping canvas purse the size of the mason’s fist, and then another. Below them was a roll of sodden velvet. Maistre Pierre whistled.

‘Coin,’ he agreed. ‘How much?’

‘A lot.’

‘Near a thousand merks in each of those, I would guess,’ said Morison authoritatively, ‘depending what coin it’s in, of course. Forbye what’s in the roll of cloth.’

Gil weighed the first purse in his hand. ‘As you said, Andy, this is heavy. If I had this weight in my saddlebag, I’d make sure there was the same again in the other, though I suppose it needn’t all be coin. Are you sure there’s no more in the barrel?’

‘We can take it out into the day,’ Andy said. ‘I’m certain.’

‘There are a few shavings of wood,’ said Maistre Pierre, exhibiting the pale soggy curls in the palm of his hand. Gil looked at him, then drew the lantern closer to the saddlebag and looked at the long strap which was intended to fasten it to the saddle.

‘This has been unbuckled, rather than cut,’ he said. ‘You can see where the leather has stretched with the weight of the coin in the bag.’

‘Does that tell us anything?’ said Morison blankly.

Gil shrugged. ‘No urgency about the deed, I suppose.’

‘I still think it should go to the serjeant,’ protested Morison.

‘Yes,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘but did our friend here steal this bag, or was the other stolen from him, and whose is the treasure?’

‘I can hazard a guess at that,’ said Gil. He unfolded the wet velvet with care. ‘Aye, as I thought. Look at these.’

Pinned to the cloth, an array of elaborate goldsmith work gleamed in the lantern-light.

‘Mon Dieu!’ said the mason. ‘What are these? Look at those rubies!’

‘The sapphires are better,’ said Morison, ‘at least by this light. St Peter’s bones, Gil, what have we got into here?’

‘My mother had a unicorn jewel like that,’ said Gil, touching one of them, ‘save that hers was enamel. It was her badge of service when she was in the Queen’s household. I reckon these are from the royal treasury.’

‘D’ye mean he’d robbed Edinburgh or Stirling Castle?’ said Andy.

‘No. It’s part of James Third’s missing treasure,’ said Morison with sudden confidence.

‘I think you’re right, Augie,’ said Gil. ‘And if it is, I think we should leave the serjeant out of it. This should go straight to the Provost.’

‘Mind you, I thought James Third’s treasure had all been found,’ said Maister Morison.

‘Not all,’ said Canon Cunningham.

They were in the garden of the stone house in Rottenrow, where Gil and his companions had called on their way to the Archbishop’s castle. They had found the Official admiring a bed of brightly coloured pinks before he returned to his chamber above the Consistory Court, in the south-west tower of St Mungo’s. He had listened attentively to Gil’s account of the morning, ignoring the interruptions from Maistre Pierre and Augie Morison, and inspected the contents of the still-wet saddlebag with interest.

‘Robert Lyle spent most of two weeks carping on about it,’ he continued, ‘when the Lords of the Articles met in February there to approve the Treasurer’s accounts.’

‘Lord Lyle?’ said Maistre Pierre quickly. ‘He is one of the Auditors, no? And a friend to the old King, if I recall. One might suppose he had some idea of how much should still remain.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Canon Cunningham. ‘I think we all assumed he was simply attacking Treasurer Knollys, and that what was recoverable was now recovered, and any still at large was spent long since. In the end we issued orders to the Sheriffs to hold secret enquiries about it, only to silence him so he would audit the accounts. In the face of a sum of this size together with these jewels, which are certainly from the King’s own treasury, there can be no doubt that we were wrong and Robert was right.’

‘Knollys,’ said Maistre Pierre thoughtfully. ‘This is the man who is also Preceptor of the Knights of St John at Torphichen — ’ he pronounced the name with some care — ‘although he has never been either cleric or knight, or been at Rhodes to be confirmed in the post.’

‘The same,’ agreed Canon Cunningham without expression. ‘He sits in Parliament as Lord St Johns. He is a most successful merchant.’

Morison looked from one to the other, baffled by this exchange.

‘But why was all the money in a barrel with the head of an unknown man?’ he asked. ‘Where has it been these four years?’

‘Agreed,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I do not think that poor soul had been in salt for so long, I would say no more than a few days, and nor has the coin, so the treasure must have been elsewhere in the meantime.’

‘Good questions,’ said David Cunningham. He clasped his hands behind his back under his rusty black gown, and paced away from them along the gravel path. Maister Morison, crushing a sprig of lavender between his fingers, watched him anxiously. Gil bent to rub the ears of the young hound Socrates, who had recovered from his initial paroxysms of welcome and was now sitting with his head firmly thrust against Gil’s knee.

‘Aye, good questions,’ repeated the Official, turning at the far end of his traverse. ‘However, since the head and the treasure both were found in the burgh, it becomes a burgh matter and it is out of my jurisdiction.’

‘No harm in speculating,’ Gil commented.

His uncle threw him a sharp look, and continued, pacing back towards them, ‘If ye’d been a couple of hours sooner, the Provost could have sent it to Stirling with an armed escort. My lord of Angus was in Glasgow, with the Chancellor and Andrew Forman, lying at the castle overnight. They left before Terce. Something about reporting a gathering in Ayrshire.’

‘What, is Hugh Montgomery causing trouble?’ said Gil.

‘So it seems. Armed encounter at Irvine betwixt Cunninghams and Montgomerys.’

‘If the Montgomery will not listen to the Earl of Angus,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘he will surely listen to the King.’

‘I think that was Angus’s idea.’

‘But until it’s settled,’ said Gil uneasily, ‘I had better not go alone into Ayrshire. That’s awkward — I want to go to Kilmarnock.’

‘I would agree,’ said his uncle severely. ‘Forbye you will be required when the Provost takes an inquest into the matter. You may have an income now, Gilbert, but no need use it to pay the fines for non-compearance before the Archbishop’s justice.’

‘The inquest on the head is for this afternoon,’ said the mason. ‘The bellman was crying it as we came up the town just now.’

The Official looked down at the bright majolica dish lying on the grass, in which the saddlebag still wept salt tears, and nudged it with one well-shod foot.

‘As for this,’ he said, ‘there may well be a reward for the finding. Maister Morison deserves some compensation.’

‘Aye, for our books,’ said Morison, reminded of his loss.

‘You could take an inventory,’ Canon Cunningham remarked, ‘and count the coin. No doubt Sir Thomas would find it helpful.’