Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘Aye,’ said Montgomery. ‘Well. She never let on who was the father, though I’ve aye had my suspicions.’ He turned away from the fire to pour ale into the beakers, and thrust two out at arm’s length so sharply that liquid splashed into the hearth, making the dogs jump and glare at the fire. ‘Drink, maisters,’ he said abruptly over the hissing of the embers.

‘To a satisfactory conclusion,’ said Gil.

‘To the name of someone I can hunt down.’

They drank. The ale was cool and strong.

‘Do you know if William had enemies?’

‘He was one of ours. We have enemies. Maybe it was a Cunningham!’ said Montgomery with a mirthless laugh.

‘There are no Cunninghams in the college just now,’ said Gil. And the saints be praised for that, he thought. ‘Had he no enemies on his own account? How much do you know about what he was doing?’

‘He was studying,’ said William’s kinsman. ‘I intended him for the Church. Or maybe the Law,’ he added. ‘What do you mean, what he was doing? What should he have been doing?’

‘We think,’ said Maistre Pierre with caution, ‘he was gathering information.’

‘Aye?’ said Montgomery after a moment. ‘And what was he doing with it?’

‘Selling it,’ said Gil succinctly.

‘Or asking payment not to sell it,’ expanded Maistre Pierre.

‘Then he’d ha’ been a wealthy man,’ said Montgomery, ‘for anything William did, he did to extinction.’

‘Oh, he was,’ said Gil. ‘He was. We found both coin and jewels in his chamber, and new boots and good clothes.’ He met Montgomery’s eyes in the leaping firelight, and grinned at him. ‘A meld of twenty points, I should say, my lord.’

‘You play Tarocco? Both of you?’

‘I do,’ said Gil with confidence. ‘Pierre?’

‘Not I,’ said the mason, shaking his head.

‘Then we’ll play now, Maister Cunningham.’

‘For what stakes?’

‘Information.’ Montgomery was searching inside the cupboard at the end of the hall, patting the shelves with a hard hand. A pewter dish fell with a clang and he kicked it, cursing. One of the dogs raised its head to look, then went back to sleep. ‘Aye, here they are. Information, Maister Cunningham. The currency of this reign. Here, sit down. Where the devil has Thomas put the candles?’

The bench was hard, but it was against the wall. Gil leaned back gratefully while their host dragged a pricket-stand closer, lit the strong-smelling tallow candle, kicked two stools across the room and placed them where they would catch the light.

‘Ye might as well be seated,’ he flung at Maistre Pierre, seating himself. ‘Who deals?’

‘The cards are yours, my lord,’ said Gil, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘A short game, do you think? Twenty cards each, one point for a trick?’

Montgomery grinned. ‘You’ve no patience for a long game, is that it?’

‘I’ve no strength for a long game,’ said Gil frankly. This was more like Paris. Although two of his books had been the prizes of a game, he had never played for large sums in money or jewels, but he had once defended a friend’s mistress on a charge of theft, won her freedom, and learned some remarkable things about the city, all as the result of a casual stake. ‘As you know well, my lord,’ he added.

‘Nor has Thomas,’ said Montgomery with a feral grin. ‘I’ll shuffle if you’ll cut, and then I deal. Is that agreeable?’

He was already running the cards from hand to hand. Gil nodded, and he riffled the slips of pasteboard a couple of times and set the pack down to be cut.

The dark-eyed foreign faces were the same ones current in Paris. Propping his aching wrist on his knee, Gil found enough strength in his right thumb to hold the cards, and arranged them clumsily with his left hand. The Fool and two Kings, three of the great Trumps (a meld of twenty points, indeed, he thought) and a handful of small cards. Not a good hand.

‘I’ll change four,’ he said.

‘Oh, those rules. Aye, if I can change five.’

They made the exchange, a card each in turn, and Gil propped his new cards in his hand. His opponent held his own cards close to his chest, tilting them from time to time to let the candlelight fall on them.

‘Twenty points,’ he said, looking up at Gil.

‘And I have twenty-five.’ Twenty points, he thought, could be one or two of the big melds, or several smaller ones. Five points for a run of four cards, or fifteen for the other two Kings and the World or the Magician.

‘Your good-father can keep the score. You’ll find a bit chalk on the cupboard yonder, Maister Mason. Just mark the tally on the wall.’

There were advantages and disadvantages to the short game. One of Gil’s talents, that of knowing almost without thinking what cards were in hand and who held them, had no place in a situation where barely more than half the pack of seventy-eight had been dealt out. His other gift, for reading his opponent’s play, would be more help. He had already summed Hugh Montgomery up as a practised player rather than a good one.

‘A question for every trick,’ said Montgomery, ‘and the winner gets to ask another question. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ said Gil. And what he asks could tell me as much as what he answers me, he thought.

‘Your lead,’ prodded Montgomery.

Gil put a card down.

‘Five of Cups,’ he said. Montgomery, the firelight gleaming on his teeth, laid another on top.

‘Three,’ he said. ‘My trick.’

Maistre Pierre made a startled noise in his throat. Gil turned to nod agreement.

‘Cups and Coins are reversed,’ he explained. ‘The ace is high, the ten is low.’

‘My question,’ said Montgomery. He paused a moment, frowning, and one of the dogs snored. ‘What was in William’s purse?’ he asked, and laid a card out.

‘Coin,’ said Gil. ‘And a letter in code. Some notes, and a draft will on a set of tablets.’

‘So you did find the purse. No key?’

‘That is another question,’ Gil pointed out. ‘No, there was no key.’ He selected a card and set it down. Montgomery lifted both.

‘My trick,’ he said again. ‘What was in his chamber, besides what you already narrated?’

‘Little of interest,’ said Gil.

‘Very little paper,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘The dog,’ added Gil.

‘Aye, the dog.’ Montgomery scowled at Gil’s response to his next card. ‘The one you had with you at the college? That’s mine and all. Where is the beast now?’

‘In my house,’ said Maistre Pierre. Montgomery, thinking deeply, took another trick.

‘And the papers?’ he asked. ‘Where are they?’

‘In my house,’ said the mason again. He chalked the mark against Montgomery’s tally, and cast Gil an anxious look.

‘In safe keeping,’ said Gil, ignoring it. Montgomery’s scowl grew blacker.

‘And the boy’s clothes, that he died in?’ he said, gathering up the next two cards.

‘Also in my house,’ said the mason.

‘I’ll maybe just move in myself,’ said Montgomery sardonically. ‘When can I have them back?’

‘That’s another question,’ Gil observed. Montgomery played another card. Queen of Coins, Gil thought, setting the King on top. Has he no more Coins, or is he testing the play? ‘That’s mine, I think. Why were you at the college yett this day noon?’

‘I wanted a word with our Robert.’ Montgomery tipped his head back to look at Gil down his nose, then turned his attention to his cards.

‘And mine again. What about?’

‘Family matters.’

‘Such as?’

‘William’s funeral. Money. Show me the student that can live inside his allowance. Your play.’

Gil laid down the seven of Batons. Montgomery looked at it, then at his cards, and selected one.