Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘Well,’ said Gil.

‘Well, indeed,’ said the mason.

Maister Doby, clutching his beads to his nose as if they would ward off the smell, said, ‘Poor man. Poor man. He had his faults, but he hardly deserved this.’

‘Nobody deserves this,’ said Gil absently, gazing round the room. ‘Is this how he was found? Who found him?’

‘We did,’ said Lowrie from the pend.

‘Go on,’ said Gil. ‘Who is we?’

‘Us. Michael and Ninian and me,’ said Lowrie reluctantly. ‘We came down to ask who came into the college yesterday while we were all at Vespers, and there he was. So I stayed here and the others went to tell Maister Kennedy and he tellt Maister Doby and here we all are.’

‘Where are the others now?’

‘Out in the yard,’ said Lowrie. ‘It was a bit much for Ning.’

‘The boy Ninian was a little overcome,’ elaborated the mason, ‘so I sent him away.’

‘Very wise,’ muttered Maister Doby, still staring at the corpse. ‘Gilbert, can we do nothing about these flies? It is not seemly.’

‘Is this how you found him? You touched nothing?’

‘I’ll say we touched nothing,’ agreed Lowrie vehemently. ‘We could see — with the flies and that — and the blood. You could tell he was dead. He looks like a day-old fox kill.’

‘Not as much as a day.’ Gil was still looking about the room. ‘So you moved nothing.’

‘That’s what I’m saying. Except to take the papers out the brazier.’

‘Pierre?’

‘Nothing more has been touched,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘What do you miss?’

‘Last night he had a stone bottle of usquebae, and I’ll swear there were several empty ones in yon corner.’

‘The alehouses will give you money for the empties,’ said Lowrie. ‘So I’ve heard,’ he added hastily, one eye on Maister Doby. ‘There they are, yonder under the bed.’

‘Perhaps he knocked them over when he fell?’ suggested Maistre Pierre.

‘No, for they were right under the bed, I recall now.’ Gil stepped into the room, and bent to touch the corpse, waving the flies away without effect. ‘How long is it since you found him?’

‘An hour?’

‘Longer than that, surely, Lawrence,’ said Maister Doby. ‘It must be more than an hour since you sent to me.’

‘He’s beginning to stiffen.’ Gil was feeling the jaw and neck. He tested the arms, and straightened the bent leg. ‘It’s been a while since. Two-three hours, maybe.’

‘Less,’ said the mason decidedly. ‘He is lying by the brazier. It happens faster in heat.’

‘Who do you think has done this?’ asked Maister Doby again.

‘If he was drunk as he usually was, almost anybody,’ said Gil. ‘Someone about his own height, who can use a dagger, which must include half the grown men in Glasgow.’ He patted at the front of the porter’s unsavoury gown, avoiding the bloody rent, but could feel nothing under the cloth except flabby flesh. There was a purse hanging at the straining belt, which proved to hold only a few coppers and a worn lead pilgrim badge of St Mungo. He attempted to tie the purse’s strings again, then gave up and got to his feet. ‘There is no sign of a fight. Pierre, would you agree?’

‘The chair?’

‘More likely he knocked that over as he went down,’ Gil surmised, looking round the room again. ‘The table is untouched, see, and the brazier and the pricket-stand are undisturbed. I need to speak to Ninian and Michael, and anyone else who was past the yett today. Maister Doby, do you wish to get him moved? Then we can search the room properly, and get a look at these papers.’

‘Search the room?’ repeated Maister Doby.

‘The bottle of usquebae?’ said the mason.

But when the stiffening corpse had been removed by two of the college servants, there was no sign of any stone bottle still containing usquebae. The four jars rolling about under the shut-bed were empty and dry.

‘And a spider in this one,’ reported Maistre Pierre, shaking the creature on to the floor.

‘Strange,’ said Gil.

‘There are marks in the dust down here, see,’ continued the mason. ‘Someone has searched under this bed recently.’

‘Not Jaikie.’

‘Perhaps whoever stabbed him?’ suggested Lowrie Livingstone, watching with interest. ‘And he took the full one away with him? St Mungo’s bones, what a stink. Sonar slais ill air na suord.’

‘But why?’ wondered Gil. ‘Why take it away?’ He crossed to the window and opened its shutters wide, then bent to look in the press beneath it.

‘I never knew that was there,’ said Lowrie.

‘You have been in this room?’ asked the mason.

‘Well,’ said Lowrie diffidently. ‘Aye. It’s a blag, see? A dare,’ he elucidated. ‘The bejants has to get in here when Jaikie’s no here, and borrow something.’

‘Borrow?’ said Gil, his head still inside the press. Maistre Pierre got to his feet and began poking fastidiously at the blankets in the rancid bed.

‘Well. You ken what I mean.’

Gil, who had undertaken the same dare himself, emerged from the press and shut the door carefully.

‘Nothing in there except a dog-collar and leash,’ he reported, tucking the strips of leather into his doublet.

‘A dog-collar?’ repeated the mason. ‘There is no bottle of usquebae, but look at this. It was under the mattress, on this little shelf.’

‘Likely off William’s dog,’ said Lowrie offhandedly.

‘You knew about the dog?’ Gil said, crossing the room to join Maistre Pierre.

‘Most of us did. He got it a new collar a couple weeks ago. Too good for a beast that age, I thought, but it wasny worth saying so to him. It’d be like Jaikie to keep the old one.’

‘Where did William get the new one?’ Gil asked. The mason put a heavy purse into his hand, and he weighed it and whistled.

‘Anderson the saddler made it to him.’ Lowrie eyed the purse. ‘Is that where he kept it?’

‘Kept what?’ Gil took the purse to the window and peered into its mouth. ‘It’s mostly coppers, but there must be a fair sum here. Where did Jaikie get this much money?’

‘In drink-money,’ said Lowrie reasonably. ‘No off us, for certain, but all the folk that comes to the gate would give him something for sending to say they were here.’

Gil stared at him. It would never have occurred to him to tip a college porter. Which perhaps explains Jaikie’s attitude to the members of the college, he thought.

‘You ken that’s William’s writing on the papers?’ added Lowrie.

‘I wondered when we would get to that.’ The mason picked something off his sleeve and crushed it carefully. Gil, setting the purse down on the small table, bent to lift the singed bundle, making a clumsy task of it with his left hand. Lowrie came to help, and rose, shedding flakes of burnt paper as he shuffled the surviving fragments together.

‘Gently,’ said Gil. ‘We may want to read them.’

‘Oh, there’s nothing interesting here,’ reported Lowrie, already peering at the tiny writing. ‘This looks like his copy of Ning’s notes on Peter of Spain, and that’s Aristotle. It’s lecture notes, maisters.’

‘What, all of it?’

‘I think so.’ Lowrie tilted more sheets to the light. ‘Aye, I remember that point. Do you have to learn your lectures off by heart, maister, so you can give them the same every year?’

‘I know where these have come from,’ said the mason. ‘You recall I commented on how little paper there was in William’s chamber?’

‘I think you must be right,’ said Gil. ‘But how the devil did it get into the brazier? Jaikie sent word by Michael he wanted to speak to me — could it have been about this?’