Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘A ghost is the spirit of a dead man,’ said Walter nervously, clearly quoting something.

‘It has no body, has it?’ Walter shook his head. ‘So how can it make a noise? Whatever is making a noise, it must be something in possession of a body.’

‘Aye, the deil,’ said a voice on the stairs.

‘All of you,’ said Gil. ‘Go and ask Maister Coventry and Maister Kennedy, if they have finished the list I asked them for, to meet me in a quarter-hour at William’s chamber door. Can you mind that?’

Walter repeated the message in a rush, nodded, and thudded off down the stairs. The boy behind him reiterated, ‘There’s something in William’s chamber, maister, for we heard it!’

‘All of you,’ said Gil again. ‘In a quarter-hour, by William’s chamber.’

He shut the door on the departing crowd and turned to the three senior bachelors.

‘Ninian, are you wearing your belt?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ said Ninian, pushing back the blankets to display the item.

‘May I see it?’

The belt was old, and had clearly been worn by Ninian as he filled out, for a succession of holes had been stretched by the buckle. The most recent was easy to identify, but the older ones were beginning to close up as the leather itself stretched. Gil, concluding that the belt was Ninian’s and nobody else’s, handed it back.

‘Have you any other belt?’ he asked.

‘We have a spare,’ Lowrie said. ‘Where is it, Miggel?’

‘In your carrel,’ said Michael. A brief search uncovered the spare belt in Ninian’s kist. Gil inspected it for the sake of the thing, though his aim had been only to locate the object, and handed it to Michael, who put it on.

‘Two more questions,’ he said.

‘Don’t you want to see my belt?’ asked Lowrie.

‘I can see it from here. What did you eat at the feast?’

‘I never ate,’ said Michael. ‘I wasn’t hungry. Besides, I had to get painted up for the play.’

‘I had a mouthful of flan,’ said Lowrie indignantly, ‘and then Bendy Stewart came along fussing about me spoiling my voice. I got some wine, though,’ he added.

‘Snoddy Tod,’ said Ninian tolerantly. ‘I had rabbit stew, and foul it was, too. She’d put ground almonds to it.’

‘And the other question?’ prompted Lowrie.

‘You mentioned the meeting. When William rose — ’

‘God, that was funny,’ said Ninian, whose spirits were improving by the moment. ‘Did you see all their faces? And old Tod Lowrie here waiting to speak.’

‘It was not funny,’ said Lowrie. ‘I spent hours getting that speech by heart. It might have gone right out of my head, with William interrupting me like that.’

‘What did he say again?’ said Gil, who remembered perfectly well.

‘What if another of the college’s sons has misused her money,’ quoted Michael, in excellent imitation of William’s clearly enunciated Latin, ‘or has inculcated heretical beliefs in her students?’

‘What did he mean?’ wondered Ninian.

‘Exactly,’ said Gil. ‘Who was it intended for?’

‘Hanged if I know,’ said Lowrie. ‘I thought by his expression it was a shot at someone, not just random unpleasantness, if you see what I mean, but I don’t know who.’

‘One of the Elect?’ said Michael.

‘I doubt it,’ said Lowrie. ‘Bendy Stewart would root out heresy in his students if they even sniffed it, I’d have thought.’

‘I don’t think we know, maister,’ Ninian said to Gil.

‘Are you going to see after this ghost?’ Lowrie asked.

‘I am,’ Gil agreed. ‘But you three are not coming with me.’

‘How not?’ said Ninian.

‘We have to go and confess,’ said Lowrie heavily. ‘Who should we tell, maister?’

‘Either Maister Doby or Maister Coventry,’ advised Gil. ‘And if I were you I should offer it as sacramental confession. They are both priested, either of them can hear you.’

‘Yes,’ said Lowrie, scuffing thoughtfully at the floorboards with his toe. ‘Yes, it’s perjury, isn’t it? We’ve broken the oath about brotherhood and amity.’

‘He started it,’ said Ninian.

‘No defence,’ said Michael. He got to his feet, and braced himself. ‘Come out of your burrow, Ning. Better get it over with.’

‘I offer my sympathy in advance,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll speak to you again.’

As Gil reached the courtyard, the bulky form of the mason emerged round the kitchen stair, followed by three of the college servants dusting at their clothes. Sighting Gil, he made his way to meet him, grinning.

‘Success!’ he proclaimed. ‘Thank you, all of you, that is all!’ Coins changed hands and the men went off, looking less gloomy. ‘Here it is. It was hidden behind the sacks, as you thought.’

He held out a plain leather purse, somewhat greasy. Gil took it, and weighed it.

‘It is not empty,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘I have not looked, I kept it to show to you.’

‘It doesn’t feel like a key,’ said Gil, loosening the strings. He tipped the contents jingling into his palm.

‘Well, well,’ said Maistre Pierre. Gil sorted the coins.

‘Two, two and a half — three merks in silver, and several groats. A total of two pounds and eighteen pence Scots,’ he said, ‘simply carried about in his purse. And this.’ He pushed the little set of tablets along his fingers.

‘I use tablets when I am working,’ observed the mason, ‘but I should have thought these too small to be much use for taking notes.’

‘He had a small hand,’ said Gil, ‘and there are several leaves.’ He shook the purse. ‘Is there anything — ah!’

White flakes fell to the flagstones. The mason pounced, and came up with two pieces of paper, one folded into a long curling spill, one wadded square.

‘What have we here?’ he said, and unfolded the long piece.

Tiny writing, in ink, covered one side and half of the other.

‘It is notes of some sort,’ said the mason after a moment. ‘What does it say?’

‘ M will be in G ,’ Gil read, taking the much-creased sheet. ‘He believed in making full use of the paper, didn’t he? H passed through for Irvine. I wonder who H and M might be?’

‘Friends of the boy’s? And why ever fold it like this?’

‘Who knows? What of the other piece?’

Maistre Pierre unfolded the thick square.

‘It makes no sense,’ he complained.

Gil peered over his shoulder, tucking the coins back in the purse.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s in some kind of code.’

‘Certainly no language that I know.’

‘A game of some sort?’

‘He has sustained it well,’ said the mason thoughtfully. ‘It is a long passage to put into code, merely for a game.’

‘Well, we can try to decode it, though I suspect it will take time. And the tablets.’ Gil slipped the leather case off and turned the little block to admire it. ‘Very pretty, with this chip-carving on the outside. What has he written down? M will be in G — it seems to be the original notes for the long piece of paper.’

‘Why did he simply transcribe them?’ Maistre Pierre wondered. ‘More usual, surely, to expand — to say who he meant by M.’

Gil grunted absently, turning the little wooden leaves.

‘What’s this?’ he said, tilting the last opening to read the tiny writing incised on the green wax. ‘It looks like a will.’

‘I thought you said he was a bastard,’ said the mason.

‘I did,’ said Gil in puzzlement. ‘He couldn’t make a will. What does it say? I, William Montgomery, sometime called William Irvine, being in my right mind and now able to make a will, commend my soul to Almighty God and direct that. . Whatever is he about?’