Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘Alys must decipher those papers for us. Is that all?’

‘We need to look for William’s notebook.’

‘Indeed. None of this seems likely to lead us to the killer,’ complained the mason.

‘It could have been nearly anybody,’ Gil agreed, ‘or almost nobody.’

‘If you sleep on it,’ said Alys, emerging from the stair that led to the upper floors, ‘it may become clearer. I am taking this bairn to Nancy. Gil, I set milk to warm for the dog. If you bring him down to the kitchen we can feed him.’

In the kitchen, the household was beginning to settle itself for the night. Two of the maidservants were clearing crocks, cooking pots which had been scoured earlier and set to dry by the fire were waiting to be carried out to the scullery, straw mattresses spilled out of an opened press. Kittock and her guest had their heads together in a corner, drinking something pun-gently herbal out of wooden beakers. A pottery jar with a face on it, of the sort that contained usquebae, stood on the floor at their feet.

Alys led the way to the fire, handed the infant John to Nancy and drew the little crock of milk from the ashes.

‘Bread and milk,’ she said, pouring the warm milk over the crumbs in another bowl. ‘That will fill his belly. Ah, I have heated too much milk.’

She prodded the soaking crumbs with a carved spoon, while the pup’s nose twitched.

‘I think he is used to bread and milk,’ said Gil. He set the animal down, and John immediately exclaimed something and waved his hands. Alys put the dish of bread and milk on the floor, and the pup plunged into it, tail swinging.

‘Oh, mem!’ said Nancy. ‘Oh, mem, look!’

She held the baby up. He was gazing intently at the pup, and smacking his lips.

‘He’s hungry!’ said Nancy.

Leaving Alys spooning bread and milk into the willing baby while the wolfhound watched with interest, and her father exclaimed his intention of walking up to Greyfriars later to hear Compline, Gil went out into the High Street and strolled the short distance to the college gate. It was shut, and he had to bang on it with the hilt of his dagger before Jaikie came to open the postern.

‘Oh, it’s you, Maister Cunningham,’ he said, standing aside grudgingly as Gil stepped over the wooden sill. ‘What are you after at this hour? I’d a thocht you’d be in a warm bed by this,’ he added, descending into an unpleasant camaraderie. ‘And better than a hot stone to warm it, eh?’

He nudged Gil, and grinned at him, releasing fumes of usquebae and spiced pork.

‘My day’s darg isny done,’ said Gil with intense politeness, ‘unlike yours. We haven’t found who killed William yet.’

‘Oh, him. Small loss, he is. I dinna ken why you bother.’

‘What did you know of the boy, Jaikie? What like was he?’

Jaikie looked cautiously up the tunnel towards the courtyard, and beckoned Gil into his little room, where a rushlight competed with the small illumination from the narrow window. Closing the door behind them both he leaned close to Gil and hissed, ‘He was a nasty, boldin wee bystart.’

‘He’d a good opinion of himself, had he?’

‘Oh aye. He had that. Well, you seen him yourself, Maister Cunningham, out in the street to greet the company as if he’d been the Dean his self. And he wouldny be tellt. None o’ the rules was to touch him, but he’d run about looking to see who broke the bylaws and report them to Maister Doby Even those that did him favours,’ he added bitterly.

‘I’m sure he found nothing to report about you,’ lied Gil.

‘Oh, no,’ agreed Jaikie. He turned to poke at the brazier, and belched, adding his own contribution to the smells which already choked the room. ‘Though I did him favours enough,’ he added, leering sideways above the reluctant flame, ‘and small return for them.’

‘What kind of favours?’

‘Oh, just things.’

‘He collected information,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘Someone like you, here at the yett where everyone comes and goes, must have plenty information.’

‘Oh, you’d be dumfounert, maister. They come through here, down the pend, past my door, aye talking, and no always in the Latin tongue. I hear a thing or two, I can tell you.’

‘And William paid you for it?’

‘Paid! That lang-nebbit rimpin pay for a thing? No, it was Jaikie, I seen such-and-such of your doing that the Dean would like to ken. Tell me what you’ve got, or I’ll pass him the word. And then he’d leave papers for me to give to this or that man chapping at the yett, and aye sealed.’

‘Small gain if they hadn’t been sealed,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘for they were in code. We’ve found a page all in code, that was in his purse.’

‘His purse? I thought that was stolen.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Oh, one of them.’ Jaikie jerked his head towards the courtyard. He left the brazier finally alone and flung himself down in his great chair, reaching for the stone bottle beside it. ‘Usquebae, maister? No? Ye’ll no mind if I take a wee drop. Ye’d be surprised at the secrets I get out of a jar of usquebae.’ Removing the rag which did duty as a stopper, he tipped the bottle, swallowed and wiped his mouth. ‘Aye, well, code, was it? Doesny surprise me.’

‘Who collected these papers?’ Gil asked.

‘Just folks. They’d ask for them. No anybody I’d seen before.’

‘You were just telling me how much you learn, here by the street door,’ Gil observed. ‘Is there anybody in Glasgow you don’t know by sight?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Jaikie sourly. ‘The reason being, I’m tied here by this door, so if they don’t come up the High Street, I canny see them. Anyway, it wasny Glasgow folk. You could tell by the way they spoke. Ayrshire, maybe, or over that way somewhere. I got a sight of a badge one time, same as on that house along the way. Montgomery’s place.’

‘What, the men had Montgomery’s badge?’ said Gil, startled. ‘You mean he was simply writing letters to his kinsman?’

‘Aye, maybe,’ said Jaikie after a moment. He took another pull at the usquebae, and grunted irritably. ‘That’s another one finished. Well, it can join the others.’ He rose, to add the bottle to a row standing under the shut-bed which occupied one end of the room, and took another from the press under the narrow window. ‘Will ye have some of this one, maister?’

Gil shook his head, and the man sat down again and took out his eating-knife to break the seal on the new bottle. ‘Aye, maybe he was just writing home. But he made a rare parade of it. And near every week. None of them writes letters every week, even the ones that misses their mammies.’

‘And the dog?’ Gil asked, recalling something. ‘Was that another of the favours he asked you?’

‘Oh, aye. He’d leave it here for Billy Dog to fetch away, or Billy ’ud bring it to wait here for him. He was training it, it seems. So he said. Billy’s been here looking for it three times the day, starting when they were all at that feast.’

‘You mean it wasn’t William’s dog?’

‘Ask at Billy Dog. I wouldny ken. It answered to him well enough.’

‘Thank you, I will.’ Gil turned to open the door, and turned back. ‘These letters. Was it only Montgomery’s men that collected them? Were there any for anybody else?’

Jaikie, taking another draw at the usquebae, lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth before shaking his head.

‘They wereny all from Ayrshire, if that’s what ye mean, maister, but as to where they were from — I could make a guess, maybe. If it was worth my while.’

‘You saw no other badges?’

‘No on the messengers.’ Jaikie eyed the stone bottle broodingly ‘No on the messengers. But I’ll tell you one I did see,’ he added.