Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘Oh, aye,’ said Mistress Dickson. ‘They’d find him sweet-natured enough. He’d keep on their right sides, would William.’ She tilted her cup of wine to get the last mouthful, so that the steam-whitened underside of her tight red sleeve showed, and looked into its empty depths. There was a brooding silence. ‘He was aye on at me about the cost of food,’ she added. ‘If Maister Shaw was satisfied, what business was it of his, I said to him, but back he’d come with a note of who got a spare bite at the buttery door and who got wheaten breid when he should have had masloch. As if I’d turn away hungry laddies,’ she added.

‘If he could get a man into trouble, he would,’ said Tam. ‘I’m no sorry he’s away. Well, I’m no,’ he added on a defiant note.

‘He got your lass turned out,’ observed one of the other men. ‘What was it for?’

‘He said she took food home to her minnie,’ said Tam resentfully. ‘And what if she did?’

‘Aye, well,’ said Mistress Dickson, swinging her feet down off the stool. The pup, taken by surprise, backed against Gil’s knee and produced a rather squeaky growl. He hushed it, and it flattened its ears in apology. ‘This isny getting tomorrow’s breid kneddit. There’s water there, Maister Cunningham, if you wish to clean your hands before you leave my kitchen.’

‘Who do you think killed him, maister?’ asked the woman opposite Eppie, as the kitchen work began again. ‘Was it Lowrie Livingstone and them?’

Gil, drying his hands on his doublet, shook his head.

‘I don’t know yet. Who do you think?’ he countered.

‘They had no useful suggestion,’ he said to Maistre Pierre. They were standing at the gate between the college orchard and the Blackfriars grounds, watching the dog, which was casting about in the grass.

‘I think nobody has one,’ said the mason. ‘What was the useless suggestion?’

‘That one of his friends had throttled him. I asked who his friends were, but they were not willing to answer. He seems to have had few enough friends.’

‘Perhaps we should speak to those few next.’

‘After we have looked at the body again. Did John Shaw tell you anything?’

‘I have a list,’ said Maistre Pierre, drawing his own tablets from his purse, ‘of those who were waiting at the feast, and of what dishes were served. He became quite eloquent about serving the pike.’

‘It’s not everyone can splat a pike,’ Gil agreed. ‘Did you ask him if William had tried his extortion on him?’

‘I did not. I have to work with this man, remember, and whether he answered me honestly or not, I do not think he would forget that I asked. Besides, I think you are better than I at such questions.’

‘I hope that is a compliment.’ Gil nodded at the tablets in his friend’s large hand. ‘Who was serving?’

‘These three are college servants — Aikie Soutar, Tam Millar, Adam Anderson. Then these four are students, hired for the occasion — Nicholas Gray, Robert Montgomery, William Muirhead, George Maxwell. I asked,’ said Maistre Pierre slowly, ‘who went to the play and who would be clearing the crocks from the hall where the feast was. It seems the students were permitted to watch the play, since their fellows were acting in it.’

‘So the college servants were clearing the crocks,’ said Gil, ‘and crossing back and forth through the Inner Close and the Outer. Did all these four go back to their task after the play?’

‘It seems so. These two — the young men Muirhead and Maxwell — were handing sweetmeats and wine, and the other two were helping to shift the last of the crocks. That dog has done his duty. Should we go and pay our respects to the dead?’

In the bellhouse, which also served as mortuary chapel, there were candles and nose-tickling incense, and a rapid mutter of prayers. A pair of the Dominicans knelt, one on either side of the convent’s bier, where the corpse lay shrouded already. Their fingers flickered over their plain wooden rosaries.

‘I asked that he be left clothed till we could be there,’ said Gil, in some annoyance.

‘He was beginning to set,’ said Maister Forsyth, coming forward from the stone bench at the wall. ‘Aye, Maister Mason. Are ye well? His clothes are here, Gilbert, I kept them back, but the laddie himself is washed and made decent. And what have you deduced this far?’

‘Precious little,’ admitted Gil. ‘Can you tell me about William, maister?’

‘Not a lot, you know.’ The old man made his way back to the bench, and Gil and the mason settled on either side of him. ‘Let me see. He must be fifteen or so. A very able scholar, very good in the Latin, a few scraps of Greek, a little French. A good grasp of logic, a very clever disputant. A liking for secrets, and a powerful memory for oddments of knowledge. He had the occasional moment of generosity — I have seen him give coin to a beggar — but for the most part very close with his property or his learning.’

‘You did not like him,’ Gil suggested.

Maister Forsyth turned to look at him, the candlelight glittering in his eyes. ‘Have I said so?’

‘Was he likeable?’

‘No,’ said the old voice after a moment. ‘God has not given it to all of us to be lovable.’

‘God himself loves us all, even so,’ said the mason.

‘Amen,’ agreed Maister Forsyth. ‘William was admirable, but no lovable. One of the clever ones, for whom it is never enough.’

‘Erth upon erth wald fain be a king,’ Gil offered.

‘Indeed. And it goes on, does it not, And how that erth goes to erth thinks he no thing. Poor laddie. He made me think of a flawed diamond. Brilliant and glittering, ye ken, but if we tried to cut or polish him more he would fly in pieces. Now you, Gilbert, are like ivory or maybe jet.’

‘Jet?’ Gil repeated, startled.

‘Aye. Plain and serviceable, no show about ye, but taking a fine polish. A fine polish,’ he repeated approvingly.

‘Do diamonds have flaws?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Who knows? But the figure is instructive.’

Gil, recovering his poise, said after a moment, ‘What do you suppose William meant by his questions at this morning’s meeting?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Maister Forsyth promptly in Latin. ‘It was a quite regrettable display of malice, but whether it was founded in any fact I do not care to speculate.’

‘Malice,’ repeated Maistre Pierre in French. ‘Was it only that?’

‘Maister Doby thought the remark about money might be a misunderstanding of the problem the college had about John Smyth’s loan,’ Gil said.

His teacher stared at the candles, while the prayers drummed on like rain.

‘It might be,’ he said at length. ‘It might be. John would remember that tale better than me, he was Wardroper at the time.’

‘Or it might be a dig at the Steward,’ Gil continued. ‘I gather William was exercised about the cost of food going through the kitchen.’

‘You canny starve growing laddies.’ Maister Forsyth was still watching the candles. ‘No, Gilbert, I dinna ken. Nor have I the smallest idea of what prompted the hints about heresy,’ he added in Latin.

‘It is an unpleasant thing to suggest,’ said Maistre Pierre in French.

The old man shook his head. ‘Ask another question, Gilbert.’

‘It seems,’ said Gil with some delicacy, ‘that William was given to extortion. Do you have any knowledge of this, maister?’

‘It grieves me to say it,’ admitted Maister Forsyth, ‘but I do.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘The poor laddie. I feared as much.’ He looked round at Gil. ‘He came to me privately one day last autumn, with a list of things I had said, taken out of context, hinting that it might be worth his while repeating them to Robert our Archbishop.’ He shook his head again. ‘I showed him the error of what he was doing. I also assured him,’ he added, with a gleam of humour, ‘that I had made most of these remarks to Robert Blacader in the first place. He went away, and I have prayed for him since. I feared that if he approached me in such a way he might approach others, to the danger of himself or of his …’ He paused, considering the next word. ‘Victim,’ he finished.