Pat McIntosh: The Merchant's Mark

‘I can do that, I suppose,’ said Morison reluctantly.

‘Come, come, maister,’ said the mason. ‘The money does not smell. We can count it together, and my son-in-law can write down the jewels.’ He lifted the majolica dish on to the bench and sat down beside it.

‘I must away back up to St Mungo’s,’ said David Cunningham with some regret. ‘I believe I have a case waiting, and two sets of witnesses. What poor Fleming will have done wi them by now I canny think.’ He raised his hand, blessed Gil in particular and the company in general, stooped to pat Socrates and strode away under the archway which led to the kitchen-yard and the gate to the street. Just on the other side of the archway he checked, and they heard him say, ‘Aye, Kate. And Alys. Gilbert’s in the garden, with a wee pickle treasure.’

He strode on and out of sight, and Gil jumped to his feet, dislodging the dog, as the mason’s daughter came into the garden, a slender girl in a blue linen gown, her honey-coloured hair loose down her back. Her gaze found his immediately, and she smiled.

‘Treasure?’ She came to Gil’s outstretched arm, and curtsied to her father’s fellow burgess. ‘Good day, Maister Morison. What treasure is this?’

Morison, standing to greet her, opened his mouth to reply, and looked beyond her to the archway. He stopped, staring open-mouthed. Gil turned his head, and saw only his sister Kate coming through the archway on her two crutches, her gigantic waiting-woman Babb at her back.

‘Kate,’ he said. ‘You remember Augie Morison?’

‘I do,’ she said, swinging forward, the crutches crunching on the gravel. ‘Good day, maister.’

‘Lady Kate,’ said Morison, stammering slightly. He hurried forward, holding his hand out, and suddenly realized it was full of coins. Turning to put them back in the majolica dish, he came forward again but was too late to assist her to a seat in the arbour by the wall.

‘I’ll do here, Babb,’ she said, settling her tawny wool skirts about her. ‘You go and sit with Maggie in the kitchen, I’ll send when I need you.’

‘Aye,’ said Babb grimly. ‘And don’t be too long about sending, my doo.’

She propped the crutches against the wall, near to her mistress’s hand, and strode off, ducking under the archway. Morison cleared his throat and said, ‘I’m right sorry to see you like this, Lady Kate.’

‘Not as sorry as I am to be like it,’ said Kate.

‘I prayed for you yestreen.’

Kate’s chin went up. ‘You never thought there’d be a miracle, did you?’ she said challengingly.

‘ Une tête ?’ said Alys from beside her father. ‘A head? In a barrel?’

Gil grimaced. Kate looked from one to another of them, and then at the dish of coins on the bench, and raised her eyebrows.

‘It’s mine,’ said Morison awkwardly.

‘What, the head?’ said Kate, and he blushed.

‘Well, it’s not mine, it ought to ha been mine. The fill of the barrel, I mean.’ He took a deep breath and began again, with a more coherent explanation of the circumstances. The two girls heard him out, Alys sorting coins as she listened.

‘Why should you hand it to the Provost,’ asked Kate when he had finished, ‘and have him take the credit for finding it?’

‘He’s the Archbishop’s depute in the burgh,’ Gil pointed out. ‘It must all be done with due process.’

‘Hah!’ she said, but Alys looked up from a stack of coins and said seriously:

‘And who is the dead man? He cannot be a shore-porter from the Low Countries, can he, Gil? The serjeant must be wrong.’

‘Well, he might, but I don’t see how he can have died there,’ Gil agreed. ‘Unless the King’s treasure has been out of the country and back again. We need to find out where Balthasar of Liège has gone.’

‘Oh, is that why you wish to go to Kilmarnock?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘To trace the musician? It is now three months ago he went there. He has surely moved on by now.’

‘The McIans will know,’ said Alys. ‘But I think they are in Stirling.’

‘The McIans?’ said Morison. ‘Is that that harper you were telling me about? And you’re tutor to his son, you said.’ Gil nodded. ‘Is he not here in Glasgow?’

‘He and his sister came by the house last week,’ said Alys, ‘to see the bairn, and to say they were leaving the burgh for a time. They have invitations to play at one house and another, and I am sure he said they would be in Stirling by now. You could ask for them there, Gil, at least.’

‘These jewels are bonnie,’ said Kate. Gil looked round, and discovered that Morison had unrolled the wet velvet on the arbour bench beside her. ‘Look at the goldsmith work. And is that a sapphire? What a colour it is!’

Morison mumbled something. She looked sharply at him, and said as if recalling her manners, ‘I was sorry to hear of Agnes, maister. Two years past, isn’t it?’ He nodded, and opened his mouth, but she went on speaking. ‘And you’ve — two bairns, I heard. How old are they?’

‘Wynliane is near seven, and Ysonde is four,’ said their father.

She stared at him in disbelief. ‘What are their names? Wynliane — Ysonde! Augie Morison, only you could have named two bairns like that.’

‘They’re bonnie names,’ he protested, reddening. ‘Out of the romances.’

‘Oh, I ken that. Greysteil and Sir Tristram. Well, if they hope for either to come and carry them off, they’ll grow old hoping,’ said Kate acidly. ‘There are no heroes left in Scotland, maister. If you’ve a set of tablets on you we can make a list of these jewels, while my good-sister counts the coin.’

Sir Thomas Stewart of Minto, the Archbishop’s civil depute in Glasgow, Bailie of the Regality and Provost of the burgh, small, neat and balding in good murrey velvet furred with marten, stood on the fore-stair of his lodging in the castle, surveyed the gathering in the outer yard and scowled.

‘Serjeant, ye’ve rounded up the scaff and raff of the town again,’ he said. ‘I’ll likely need my own men to keep the peace before this is over. Walter,’ he said to his clerk, ‘gang to Andro and bid him bring five-six of the men, just to keep an eye on things.’

‘It’s none of my doing if the better sort never answers the bellman,’ said the serjeant in righteous indignation as the clerk slipped away, his pen-case and inkhorn rattling at his waist. ‘I’ve a burgh to watch and ward, sir, I’ve no time to go calling on each man by name for a case like this.’

‘Aye, well,’ said Sir Thomas irritably. ‘Silence them, then, man.’ He glanced at Gil and his companions, standing nearest him. ‘These gentlemen at least have better matters to attend to than all this giff-gaff. We’ll get done wi and get about our day.’

He glowered at the source of the loudest conversation and comment, the group around the head, which was exhibited on a trestle in the centre of the yard and guarded by the same reluctant constable and a colleague. The barrel stood on the ground beside the trestle, and had come in for some attention itself; one tavern-keeper from the Gallowgait had already offered to purchase it from Maister Morison when all was done. Gil recognized Morison’s carter, the stocky, sandy-haired Billy, in the thick of the group, his blue bonnet wagging as he talked to those interested. What was he telling them? wondered Gil.

The serjeant, shouldering the burgh mace, stepped up on to the mounting block and shouted for silence, his voice carrying without effort across the yard. The clerk returned, half a dozen armed men tramped after him, and the proceedings began. Gil, used to the Scottish legal process, was not surprised by the length of time it took to select fifteen respectable men to form an assize, but as the sixth name was agreed upon, he could feel Maistre Pierre becoming restive at his side.