Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘From my doublet?’ repeated Gil. A memory surfaced, and he went on in dismay, ‘Maister Coventry had just given me the list of names. I think I put it in the breast of my doublet.’

‘I found nothing like that. It would have crackled when we stripped you.’ Still avoiding his eye, she put the tray on a stool and turned to reach for the muddy bundle of his clothes. ‘These must be brushed,’ she said critically. ‘I should have seen to it last night. And I know of a furrier who can rescue the cope, but the gown will take several days’ work. There are no papers here, Gil. Do you suppose your friends made a copy?’

‘But why steal a package of papers?’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Presumably because the right paper was not to be found in William’s chamber or in Nick’s,’ Gil said slowly. ‘Ah, no, you haven’t heard about that. When I got to the college last night I found that Maister Kennedy’s room had been searched while they were all at Vespers. It looked as if a whirlwind had been through it. That was when my gown and cope were damaged.’

‘But they didn’t find whatever they were looking for,’ said Alys, ‘and thought it might be in the papers in your doublet.’

‘There was no loose paper in the boy’s chamber,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I still think that curious, in a student’s lodging.’

‘But though William’s property was in disorder, nothing was damaged,’ said Gil. ‘I think someone different searched Nick’s chamber, someone unlettered perhaps. Alys is right. It might have been one of the three who attacked me.’

‘One of them won’t be walking straight this morning,’ the mason observed with satisfaction. ‘That was a handy kick you fetched him, Gil. Almost one would have thought you were in Paris.’

‘That’s where I learned the trick.’ Gil tried to move his fingers, and winced. ‘I wonder if Nick still has the notes.’

‘Send word to ask.’

‘It’s too long a word for Luke to remember, and I canny write. We’ll have to postpone the betrothal,’ he added, ‘if I canny sign my name.’

‘You must just make your mark left-handed, and we will witness it,’ suggested the mason.

‘What, like a tinker in the heather? I think not.’

‘I shall write to the college for you,’ said Alys firmly, ‘and we can send Luke, as soon as he is back from taking word to your uncle.’

‘And then he may go and do a little work, if it is not too much trouble.’

Gil looked up at his prospective father-in-law. ‘Do you intend to work too?’

‘What do you want done?’

‘Someone should speak to the dog-breeder, and I thought of another thing that should be done, but it’s left my head.’

‘I must go up to the chantier. Wattie knows what must be done this week, but best if I let him tell me first it is impossible. If Robert Blacader is ever to see his new chapel finished, let us hope I am right and not Wattie.’ The mason looked about him. ‘Then I will come back, and we will think about this matter. Alys, where is my scrip?’

‘It is down in the hall, father.’ She smiled at Gil at last, and he felt the sun had come into the room. ‘I will fetch pen and ink, and see the baby fed, and return to you.’

She lifted the tray and left, slender in her blue dress. The wolfhound raised its head to watch her go, then curled up again. Gil threw back blankets and verdure tapestry counterpane, and swung his legs out from under the sheet.

‘Pierre, help me with my points before Alys comes back,’ he requested, peeling the compress off his wrist.

‘No, no, keep that on!’ exclaimed the mason. ‘Oil of violets to draw out the black humour in the bruising, and sage leaves for the numbness and loss of movement in the fingers — ’

‘I am not going about Glasgow smelling of oil of violets,’ said Gil decidedly, trying to pull on his hose one-handed. ‘Give me a hand here, or Alys will get a sight of my drawers.’

‘She has seen them. She and I stripped you last night,’ said Maistre Pierre, obliging. ‘How tight do you wish to be trussed? I do not think you are fit to go about Glasgow anyway. That was an unpleasant crack on the head.’

‘Fit or not,’ Gil began, and was interrupted by a knocking at the great door of the house.

‘Que diable?’ The mason went to the window and leaned out in the sunshine. ‘Ah, good day, Maister Cunningham! Enter, pray enter! I will descend to you.’

‘My uncle?’ said Gil, battling with his doublet. ‘Sweet St Giles, what did Luke say to him? He hasn’t been down the town since Yule.’

‘I bade him say you had a blow to the head and we had kept you here.’ Maistre Pierre was hastily lacing the doublet. ‘No saying what he told them in the kitchen, of course, and Maggie would relay it with embellishments. Stand still or this will be crooked. There — now you are fit to serve the King. Wait here, I bring your uncle.’

He drew the bed-curtains shut and bustled down the stair to greet his guest. His voice floated up, loud, affable and reassuring, through the floorboards. Gil set out two of the mason’s tapestry backstools and sat down on the window-seat with the sun on his back, wishing his head did not ache so much.

Canon David Cunningham, senior judge of the diocesan court, Official of Glasgow, who rarely left the cathedral precinct at the top of the High Street, ducked under the lintel behind Maistre Pierre and surveyed his nephew with a chilly grey eye. After a moment he relaxed, and nodded.

‘Your mother will be in Glasgow by Nones,’ he said, ‘and I’ve no wish to greet her with the news that you’re at death’s door.’

‘She would likely take exception to the idea,’ Gil agreed.

His uncle’s mouth twitched, but all he said was, ‘Well, well, I can see you are not much damaged. What have you been about? What is this about the college coalhouse? No, let us sit down, Gilbert, Peter Mason here tells me you’d quite a bang on the head.’

Alys brought elderflower wine and small biscuits and slipped away again while Gil and Maistre Pierre between them recounted the events of the feast and what followed. The Official sipped the wine from his little glass, holding it up to the light appreciatively, and said at length, ‘Patrick Elphinstone’s no fool.’

‘He never was,’ Gil said, and got a sharp look.

‘What he’ll want is first to find a culprit he can show Hugh Montgomery, and then to deal with a trial and sentence himself, behind the college yett. He’ll realize soon enough that Montgomery won’t be satisfied with that.’

‘I think Maister Doby has seen it already,’ Gil said.

‘Aye, very likely.’ David Cunningham set his wineglass down. ‘John has had experience of men like Hugh Montgomery.’

‘When was that?’ asked the mason. ‘Maister Doby seems a quiet man.’

‘He wasn’t at fault. When he was maister at the grammar school at Peebles …’ Canon Cunningham paused to count on his long fingers, but shook his head. ‘I canny mind when. A good few years ago now. There was a boy killed when the lads were playing at football. A broken neck, I think. The family were very threatening.’

‘Football is a dangerous game,’ agreed the mason.

‘That’s interesting,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘Is it widely known, sir?’

‘Anyone that’s in the diocese would know. The kirk at Peebles is a prebend of St Mungo’s,’ the Official explained to Maistre Pierre. ‘The grammar school there’s in our gift as well.’

‘William was given to extortion,’ said Gil. ‘I saw him speak to Maister Doby before the Mass.’

‘Aye, this William.’ David Cunningham sat back. ‘Who did you say his parents were again?’

‘The Dean described him as the son of an Ayrshire lady now married to another,’ Gil quoted, ‘and a kinsman of Lord Montgomery. His foster-mother, who was nurse to his mother, called her Isobel and said she was close kin to Montgomery and married a Gowdie.’