Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘The chamber is locked indeed,’ said the mason.

‘We ’ll find someone with a key.’ Gil stood aside so that the other man could see past him. ‘Look at this.’

‘But he was not here, was he?’

‘I don’t know about that. I thought one group of searchers expected to find him here.’ Gil stepped carefully in over the dusty floor. ‘These prints are theirs. No, look, Pierre, this is quite clear. Some large object has been put down here, in the centre of the floor, and then moved.’

‘I see,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, following him in. ‘But I can make no sense of the footprints. There are quite simply too many. This is a good dry store,’ he added approvingly. ‘The walls are excellent work. What have you seen?’

Gil bent, directing the light from the lantern at the floor near one pile of sacks.

‘I don’t know,’ he said after a moment. ‘Can you see something? It isn’t a footprint, I would say.’

‘A smudge,’ said the mason. ‘Someone put his hand or his knee to the floor.’

‘I wonder.’ Gil hunkered down, staring at the shapeless print in the dust. ‘William’s purse is missing. I know it was on his belt earlier, for I saw it — ’

‘The belt which was used to strangle him,’ said the mason intelligently.

‘Precisely. Was there anything valuable in the purse? Why should it be thrown on the floor?’

‘Whoever removed the belt in order to strangle the boy must have drawn it out of the purse-latches,’ offered the mason, with a gesture to demonstrate, ‘and discarded the purse.’

‘Why is it no longer here?’

‘All good questions,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘You think that is the mark of the purse?’

‘It could be.’ Gil stood up and looked around him. ‘I must speak to the Principal, or perhaps the Steward. This store must be searched. The purse may be here, behind one of these sacks.’

‘I can do that.’ The mason stepped carefully towards the door. ‘I have worked with John Shaw, we are good friends. He will send two or three of the college servants if I ask him. What will you do? Seek a key to the boy’s chamber, or — ?’

‘No, we should both see that.’ Gil was still studying their surroundings. ‘I think I will question those senior bachelors.’

Another of the many passing students directed Gil up the wheel stair just beyond the kitchen. It led past one of the doors of the Laigh Hall, where four tonsured Theology students were debating a fine point of exegesis over bread and stewed kale. As Gil climbed on up, someone said, ‘But Wycliff — ’ and was instantly hushed.

At the top of the stair he came to a narrow landing with two doors. Voices murmured behind one. He knocked, and after a moment footsteps approached. The door opened a crack, and one alarmed eye examined him.

‘I think you need to talk to me,’ he said. The eye vanished, as its owner turned his head to look at the other occupants of the room. ‘I’m alone,’ he added reassuringly.

‘Let him in,’ said a strained voice.

‘Ninian — ’ expostulated the boy at the door.

‘I better tell someone,’ said Ninian. ‘Come in, maister.’

The room was large, stretching the full width of the attic, but four small study-spaces had been partitioned off with lath-and-plaster panels, and the remnant was a very awkward shape and had only two windows. By one of them the mousy-haired boy sat on a stool hugging his knees; he did not rise as Gil entered. Lowrie the fair-haired tenor closed the door, saying, ‘We don’t have a chair for a visitor, maister, but this is the best stool.’

‘I’ll sit on the bench,’ said Gil, moving to the other window. Three pairs of eyes watched apprehensively as he settled himself. ‘Good day to you, Michael. And how is your father?’

‘He’s well,’ said Michael, startled back into civility. ‘Is madam your mother well, maister?’

‘She is, and like to be in Glasgow soon.’

‘Will you have some ale, maister? I think we’ve got some ale,’ offered Lowrie, apparently accepting the social nature of the visit.

‘It’s finished,’ said Ninian hoarsely.

Gil looked from Michael, now twirling the turn-button on the shutter, to Lowrie, still standing by the door, and then at Ninian huddled in blankets in the bed.

‘Three of the enemies of the Crown,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘It must be a conspiracy.’

They stared at him.

‘I think that was before we were born, maister,’ said Michael eventually. ‘In James Second’s time, maybe. This is just us.’

‘And our wee bittie problem,’ said Lowrie.

‘Tell me about it,’ Gil invited.

‘How much do you ken, maister?’ asked Lowrie.

‘Quite a bit,’ countered Gil. ‘Which of you hit him? Where was he then?’

‘It was me that hit him,’ said Ninian, shivering. ‘He was there.’ He nodded at one of the little study-spaces. ‘I was angry at him already, the way he clarted up the fight scene in the play, and then I came up to move my Aristotle when the rain started, and there he was, in Michael’s carrel, where he’d no right to be, speiring at things that don’t concern him. I shouted at him, and he did that trick of looking down his nose and strolling off, like a cat on a wall. So I hit him, and he fell down, and hit his head on the stool. Then the other two came in.’

‘That’s right,’ said Lowrie, and Michael nodded.

‘And then you put him in the limehouse,’ prompted Gil, as the conversation died. They looked at each other in what seemed like relief.

‘That was my idea,’ said Lowrie.

‘Didn’t he argue?’ Gil asked.

‘He wasn’t stirring,’ said Lowrie. ‘So we tied his wrists with Miggel’s belt and got him down the stairs, between the three of us, and round to the limehouse.’

‘With Michael’s belt? Why did you not use his own?’

‘We’d have had enough snash from him as it was,’ said Lowrie frankly. ‘If we’d damaged his property he’d certainly have complained to Dobbin. Much better to use one of ours.’

‘We’d never have got it back,’ said Michael, as if continuing an argument. ‘I suppose we canny have it back now, maister? No, I thought not.’

‘How did you carry him?’ Gil asked. ‘Did nobody else see you?’

‘They had a leg each and I had his shoulders,’ said Ninian, in surprised tones. ‘That’s why we tied his wrists. And everyone else in the Inner Close was all gone back to the feast, and the Elect were in the Law Schule waiting for Father Bernard, so there was none to see us. Maister, he wasny deid when we left him!’ he burst out. ‘He was stirring and gruntling like he was drunk, so we left him lying on his side. He wasny deid then!’

‘Which side was he lying on?’

They exchanged glances, and Michael mimed the position.

‘His right side,’ he said. ‘Aye, the right side. He wasny deid then,’ he echoed.

‘And where did you put him?’ Gil asked carefully.

‘Just lying in the middle of the limehouse,’ said Ninian.

‘No hidden or anything,’ elaborated Lowrie. ‘Anyone that opened the door would see him there. Likely they’d hear him too,’ he added.

‘And what did you do with his purse?’

‘His purse?’ repeated Ninian.

‘Damn,’ said Michael. ‘We should have checked that. He’d aye paper, or his bonny wee set of tablets to make notes on. Tod, did you — ?’

‘Not I,’ said Lowrie, and added politely to Gil, ‘I don’t think we touched his purse.’

‘So you left him in the limehouse.’ All three nodded. ‘And you’re sure nobody else saw you?’

‘We took good care nobody saw us,’ Michael pointed out.

‘I wondered,’ said Ninian, ‘how much Bendy Stewart saw, or maybe heard. You mind, he followed us across the close, and we were talking about it?’