Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘Oh, I had,’ said Billy Doig rather hastily, ‘but the money’s all used up, maister. If I was to get the dog back, I’d need more coin for it.’

‘That’s understood,’ said Gil. ‘What was the arrangement you had?’

Maister Doig looked at them, his eyes wary under thick greying brows.

‘Come in the house,’ he said. ‘No need to discuss it afore half the Gallowgait.’

‘May we not rather go round to the dog-pens?’ asked the mason.

‘Aye,’ said Maister Doig after a moment, and set off with a rolling gait like a cog in a cross-wind, round the end of the house.

The barking redoubled in volume as they followed him into the yard at the back. It was lined with rows of pens, from which big dogs, little dogs, wolfhounds, deerhounds, otterhounds, spaniels, two sorts of terrier, barked and howled and leapt up and down, tails going madly, demanding attention.

‘Mon Dieu!’ said the mason.

‘What a lot of dogs,’ agreed Maister Doig, with irony. ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted, and most of the dogs fell silent, watching him intently. A pair of terriers in the nearest pen yipped impatiently. ‘Quiet, youse!’ he said again, and they scurried to the back of their cage, where they could be heard squabbling over something.

‘All the dogs from Dunbar to Dunblane,’ said Gil. Maister Doig had clearly heard the quotation before. ‘Are these all your breeding?’ Gil continued, peering into a pen of spaniels. A black-and-white speckled bitch stood up against the palings to speak to him, and he offered her the back of his hand to sniff.

‘That’s Bluebell. Soft as butter she is. Had five good litters off her,’ confided Maister Doig, ‘but she’s resting the now. Aye, they’re mostly mine. That one there I got off Jimmy Meikle out past Hamilton.’ He pointed to another pen. ‘He throws good deerhounds, but his tail’s a wee thing short. The gentry likes a dog wi’ a good long tail.’

‘That never bothered us,’ said Gil, scratching the spaniel’s ears. ‘How is Jimmy Meikle? He was our dog man,’ he added to Maistre Pierre.

‘Jimmy Meikle’s deid,’ said the dog-breeder curtly, ‘as you’d surely ken if he was your dog man.’

‘We lost the land in ’88,’ Gil reminded him. ‘He went to the Hamiltons, like all else. I’m sorry to hear that, for he knew dogs like no other. That’s another of his breeding, isn’t it?’

‘No, she’s mine,’ said Maister Doig, ‘but you’re right, her sire was one of Jimmy’s.’ There was a pause, in which the terriers could be heard snarling. ‘So what did you want to discuss, maisters?’

‘How did you come to meet William Irvine?’

‘How did he die, maisters?’ countered Doig, looking from one to the other. ‘It was sudden, I take it, for he was well enough on Saturday.’

‘You could say that. It was murder,’ said Gil.

Maister Doig’s big-featured face tightened briefly.

‘How?’ he said after a moment. ‘Where did it happen? Jaikie never — ’

‘Strangled,’ said Gil, ‘within the college.’

‘No by Jaikie?’ speculated the dog-breeder. ‘He threatened it often enough.’

‘Probably not by Jaikie,’ said Gil. ‘Do you know of any other enemies William had?’

‘Me,’ said Maister Doig frankly, ‘but I wasny by the college till after he was found. I came up to ask for the dog as arranged and Jaikie told me William was dead and he didny ken where the pup was.’

‘Why would you have killed him?’ asked the mason curiously. ‘What did you have against him?’

‘I never said I would have killed him,’ retorted Doig. ‘I said I was one of his enemies.’

‘You would have killed him if you had the chance?’

The light eyes under the grey brows turned to Maistre Pierre.

‘Look at me, maister. How could I kill something the height of that laddie?’

‘I look at you,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I see a very strong man.’

‘Aye, well.’ Maister Doig turned away. ‘I didny. As for why I might have, maister, he was a boldin wee bystart, and no near as clever as he thought he was.’

‘Was he no?’ asked Gil with interest. ‘His teachers were pleased with him.’

Doig grunted.

‘But he was a customer,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Did he pay well?’

‘Him?’ said Doig witheringly ‘Aye after what he could get, and never opened his purse if he could avoid it.’

‘So what arrangement did you have with him?’ Gil asked.

‘Arrangement?’ said Doig, visibly startled. ‘About the dog, you mean? I kept him here. Is he well, maister?’

‘He’s well. Someone broke his head for him, but it’s a skin wound only, and Maister Mason’s daughter physicked it — ’

‘What wi’? What did she put on it?’

‘Comfrey,’ said the mason confidently. Maister Doig pursed his wide mouth and nodded.

‘He’s like to eat the kitchen bare. If I can settle it with William’s kin, I’d like to keep him,’ said Gil casually, ‘so I’ll want to know about his feeding and rule. What did William name him?’

‘Mauger,’ said Doig.

‘Despite,’ Gil translated into French for the mason. ‘Not a bad name for a wolfhound. So he lived here, did he? And you took him up to the college now and then?’

‘Aye, to get to know his master.’

‘More usual, surely,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘for the boy to visit the dog?’

A seismic movement of the massive shoulders appeared to be a shrug.

‘It suited. It would ha’ suited better if Jaikie had been less of a glumphy scunner.’

‘So the dog passed back and forth between you,’ said Gil, ‘with Jaikie as middle-man.’

The spaniel he was still petting dropped on to four paws and rushed to the corner of her pen where she stood whimpering and peering through the slats, her tail going.

‘No always,’ said Doig. ‘Times William brought him back himself.’

‘Times I took him up for ye,’ said a harsh female voice at the house-corner. Gil turned, and saw an angular woman being towed across the yard by a leash of spaniels.

‘My wife, maisters,’ said Doig informally. Mistress Doig inspected her husband sharply, while the dogs pawed at their friends through the fence as if they had been parted for weeks. ‘Maister Cunningham’s asking about the wolfhound, mistress.’

‘I hear that, Doig,’ she said, turning the acute gaze on them. ‘And why would they be doing that?’

‘I’m trying to find out who killed William,’ said Gil, ‘so I’m asking questions of everyone that knew him.’

‘Well, you needny bother asking us,’ she said in her harsh voice, ‘for we didny kill him. Doig never saw him all day, did ye? For all he was up the town three times asking at the college yett. Did ye say about the collar?’ she added to her lord. He tipped his head back and gave her a hard look, and she turned to unleash the spaniels and let them into their pen, expertly using the bedraggled hem of her heavy homespun skirts to stop the other dogs getting out of the opened gate.

‘Collar?’ said the mason.

‘There’s a dog-collar of mine,’ said Doig, ‘outstanding as movable property. Cost me a penny or two at the cordiner’s, it did, and I’d be glad to see it back and the leash with it. What was on the pup when you had him?’

Gil opened his mouth to reply, but was forestalled by a fearsome outbreak of snarling, worrying noises from the terrier pen. Doig rolled across to bang on the gate and shout, without effect. The snarling grew more savage, and one of the dogs yelped in what sounded like pain.

‘Fiend take it, stop that!’ yelled Doig, fumbling at the catch to the gate. His wife hurried over to join him, and they hauled the gate open and pounced on the rolling mass of brindled fur which tumbled out. The dogs were dragged off one another, still snapping and snarling defiance, long white teeth bared. Mistress Doig bundled one into her brown woollen skirt, revealing a patched grey kirtle, and Doig thrust the other back through the gate with his foot and fell back, cursing a bitten thumb.