Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘The Dean said you wished to question me, maisters.’

‘That is true,’ said Gil. ‘Please be seated.’

The boy sat down, staring intently at Gil.

‘Well? What d’you wish to ask me? We’re singing solemn vespers for him, I have to go and robe,’ he said. ‘And I need time to con the line, since I’ll be singing his part and no my own.’

‘William was your friend?’ said Gil.

‘I suppose you could say that.’ A shrug of one shoulder. ‘He’s — he was one of ours, even if he was a bastard. We spent time together.’

‘Did you like him?’

‘I don’t have to like all my kin, thank God.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Gil ambiguously ‘Tell me about William. Do you know who his parents were?’

Again that intent stare.

‘If I did I wouldny say so,’ the boy declared roundly. ‘If you want the dirty linen, you can ask at my uncle Hugh. And good luck to it.’

‘Then what can you tell me about him?’

Another shrug. ‘Clever bastard. Liked to know things. Kept himself separate.’

‘Would you say, nosy?’ asked the mason. Robert turned to stare at him.

‘You could say that,’ he said after a moment. ‘Some folk collects money, or relics, or plate armour. William collected information.’

‘What kind of information?’

‘All kinds. Who wedded who, what estates the King’s giving away, how the harvest was in Avon-dale — he’d write it all down.’

‘And sell it?’ said the mason. Robert froze for a moment, then turned to face Gil again.

‘I dinna ken,’ he said, with another shrug. ‘He wouldny tell me if he did, would he?’

‘Was his question at the Faculty Meeting about that kind of thing, do you think?’ Gil asked.

‘I tell you I dinna ken. I’ve no idea what he was on about.’

‘Ralph thought it might be about something the chaplain had said,’ said Gil, in deliberate misrepresentation.

‘Ralph’s a fool,’ said Robert dismissively.

‘Do you recognize this creature?’ Gil stirred the pup gently with one foot. It produced a muffled yip and its paws paddled briefly.

Robert’s angry gaze softened. ‘That’s a good wolfhound. Looks like one of Billy Dog’s.’

‘Billy Dog?’

‘His right name’s William Doig. He stays out the Gallowgait, beyond the East Port. Breeds dogs.’

‘I have heard of him,’ said the mason.

‘You’ve never seen this one before? This is the dog we found in William’s chamber.’

‘In his chamber? I didny — ’ began Robert, and checked. ‘I didny ken he had a dog in his chamber. I thought it was against the statutes.’

‘It is,’ said Gil.

‘It wasny in his chamber last time I was there.’ Robert considered the pup, which was now sitting up yawning, and snapped his fingers at it. ‘It’s a bonnie beast, right enough. Maybe he was keeping it down at Billy Dog’s,’ he suggested. The pup went forward, stretching out its long nose to sniff at his hand. He patted it, feeling gently at the shape of the skull.

‘Good bone on him,’ he said, and then, indignantly, ‘Who’s cut his skull for him, then?’

‘We found him like that.’

‘That should ha been seen to before now,’ said Robert, turning the pup’s head to the light.

‘I’ll get him physicked when I go home.’

‘Billy Dog would gie you something for it. They say he’ll cure anything on four legs.’

They all watched as the pup turned and wobbled drowsily back to its makeshift bed, circled once and lay down with a sigh.

‘You were serving at table, I think,’ said Gil after a moment.

Robert blinked slightly. ‘Aye, I was.’

‘When did you eat? What did you have?’

‘Anything I could get a mouthful of,’ he said frankly, ‘every time I went back to the servery. They never tellt us we’d have to eat after the rest, and handing out all that food on an empty wame was more than I could do.’

‘What did you think of the Almayne pottage?’ Gil asked, and smiled slightly at the grimace the boy pulled. ‘Agnes is famous for it.’

‘I’ve no doubt.’

‘Did you get a taste of the spiced pork?’

‘I did not. I canny take fennygreek. Gives me hives. We never get it at home. I’d some of the onion tart, and a lump of the pike after John Shaw had mangled it. Never saw anyone make such a mess of splatting a pike.’

Gil glanced at the mason, and went on, ‘And after the play, what did you do?’

‘Went to close my window and move some of my notes out of the rain.’

‘Your notes. Not William’s?’

‘Mine.’ The square chin went up. ‘Then I went back to the kitchen, to see if there was any food, and found myself shifting crocks from the Fore Hall.’

‘Who else did you see when you went to your chamber?’

Robert paused, considering this question.

‘Ralph cam with me. He’s my chamber-fellow, poor fool. I heard Walter and Henry. I heard Andrew, and Nick Gray cam into the kitchen just after me. I think I heard Lowrie Livingston and that, arguing on their stair. They’re aye arguing, those three, though if you look sideways at one of them the whole three of them gets on to you.’

‘Any more?’

‘If I think of any more I’ll tell you.’ Robert looked past the mason at the sky. ‘I need to go, maisters. Is that all your questions?’

‘Just the one more,’ said Gil. ‘Who would have a reason to kill William?’

There was a pause, in which the anger built up behind Robert’s intent stare again.

‘How the deil would I know who he’d done an ill turn to?’ he said softly, and rose. ‘Good e’en to ye, maisters.’

The door closed behind him with a gentle firmness which was somehow more offensive than if it had slammed. The mason whistled.

‘Veuillez votr’ universite,’ quoted Gil ironically, ‘prier pour l’âme.’

‘Even his friends do not regret him,’ Maistre Pierre agreed. ‘Except for that poor Ralph. Now what must we do? I confess, every time you ask about the feast I am more aware of being hungry.’

‘We should clearly speak to this Nicholas Gray, but he will shortly go to Vespers like the rest of the college.’ Gil bent to lift the pup and reclaim his short gown. ‘I want one word with Nick Kennedy, and then I think we can go home to supper, provided Alys has not fed it to the pig.’

‘I think you may be too late for Maister Kennedy also.’ The mason closed the shutters as the sound of the Te Deum floated in from the courtyard. ‘The procession is leaving already.’

‘Let me see, what do we know?’ said Gil.

They were seated in the mason’s panelled closet, with a jug of ale circulating. The household had long since eaten its supper, but Alys had greeted them with pleasure and produced a substantial meal for all three of them. The wolfhound was still licking hopefully at its empty plate, holding it down with a large hairy paw.

‘We have been told, and we may believe, I think,’ said the mason, picking crumbs off a platter which had earlier held half a raised pie, ‘that the young man was knocked unconscious and put in the limehouse as a joke of sorts.’ He pulled a disapproving face. ‘Prentice stuff. One expects better of scholars, surely.’

‘No,’ said Gil, recalling his own student days.

‘No, father,’ said Alys.

Maistre Pierre grunted. ‘And we have deduced that quite shortly after he was put there he was throttled, still in the limehouse, and transferred to the coalhouse after he was dead.’

‘How can you know that?’ asked Alys, her brown eyes intent on his face.

‘No sign of a struggle, in either place,’ Gil said. ‘He was killed before he recovered his senses, and it seems he was already beginning to stir when he was shut in the limehouse.’