Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

As the side benches began drumming their feet by way of applause and the senior members of the audience clapped politely, a few drops of rain rattled on the little greenish panes of the upper window. The students sitting below jumped up to close the shuttered lower portions. They were just in time; as the first turnbutton twirled home, a colossal peal of thunder crashed, and the skies opened.

‘Michty me, it’s the Deluge!’ said someone.

‘My Aristotle!’ said someone else, and dived for the door. A number of students followed him, including most of the cast of the play. The Dean and Principal watched in disapproval.

‘The roofs are no sounder than they ever were?’ Gil said to his neighbour.

‘Well, no,’ said Maister Coventry frankly. ‘I’ve spent a bishop’s ransom on thatching the Arthurlie building next door, so it’s weathertight for now, but neither Law nor Theology can spare money for the roof of the main building, and Dean Elphinstone won’t lay out Arts Faculty money without at least the promise that they’ll match it. So the boys in the Inner Close run about with buckets when it rains, and their books and their bedding get spoiled, and then their parents complain to the Principal. It’s quite an inconvenience, Maister Cunningham.’

‘The building is old,’ Gil observed. ‘It was not new when Lord Hamilton gave it to the college, and that was before I was born. Maybe another rich benefactor will appear from the sky and solve all your problems.’

‘All that appears from the sky is water.’ Maister Coventry stared at the rain running down the window. ‘The end of the feast is in the Fore Hall, we only have to go outside and up the stair, save those of us who wish to find the privy, but I imagine the Dean will wish to stay seated until this stops. His bladder must be cast iron.’ He looked up. ‘Ah, Nick. Well done.’

Maister Kennedy, without the grey wig, sat down at Gil’s other side, snarling.

‘I will strangle that little toad,’ he said emphatically. ‘You saw him, Patey He actually took Henry’s kurtch off him and went on as Frivolity, after what I said. And he deliberately did the second version of the fight, and he — ’

‘Perhaps he was nervous,’ Gil suggested, ‘and simply forgot your directions.’

‘Nervous? That? Don’t make me laugh. I’ll strangle him, I will, as soon as I set eyes on him.’

‘Is he not backstage?’ asked Patrick Coventry.

‘No, he is not. You saw him go — he should have been onstage for the motet, they needed his top line, but no, William was offended, William left.’ His fingers worked. ‘By God, the little — ’

‘Nick.’ Maister Coventry reached across to touch his arm. ‘This is not the place.’

‘In fact I’d better not strangle him yet,’ Maister Kennedy admitted. ‘The Dean has to grant favours to the cast, including William, I suppose. Oh, God, how I wish this day was over!’

‘Amen to that,’ agreed the Second Regent. ‘See, I think the rain has eased a little, and the Dean is signalling to the Beadle. Perhaps we can leave these hard benches and go back up to finish the feast and listen to the harper.’

‘They’ll all go and stand in line out the back,’ said Maister Kennedy sourly. ‘I vote we make for the Arthurlie garden. You too, Gil?’

By the time the Faculty reassembled in the Fore Hall the tables had been taken down and the benches disposed in less formal ranks, and the students who had been at the feast had seized the opportunity to absent themselves. One or two junior bachelors remained, their white towels of office by now somewhat spattered, to hand platters of sweetmeats and the two silver quaichs full of spiced wine. In a corner the cast of the play, restored to their belted gowns, greasepaint smudged round eyes and mouths, were gathering round one of the dishes of sweetmeats. Maister Kennedy annexed another, and sat down against the wall as the Faculty members continued to straggle into the hall.

‘Here comes the harper,’ he said in some satisfaction. ‘Mind you, he only has one of his singers with him.’

‘This one is his sister. The other one died,’ said Gil, watching the Steward conduct two tall Highlanders into the hall. The woman paced like a queen in her loose checked gown; her dark hair tumbled down her back, the threads of silver in it invisible in this light. In one arm she cradled a wire-strung harp. The man who held her other arm was nearly as tall as Gil. He wore a gown of blue velvet, with a gold chain disposed on his shoulders, beard and hair combed over it as white as new milk. ‘Less than a fortnight ago,’ he added. ‘This may be the first time they have performed in public since.’

Although the hall was full of conversation, the harper’s head tilted. He spoke to his sister, who looked round, and met Gil’s eye. She nodded briefly to him, unsmiling, and continued in the wake of the Steward to the place set for them near the senior members of the Faculty. The Dean began a formal welcome to Angus McIan, harper, and Elizabeth McIan, singer, and Gil reflected that he scarcely recognized Ealasaidh by the Scots form of her name.

‘Oh, was that the business I was hearing about?’ Nick passed the sweetmeats across Gil to Maister Coventry, ignoring the Dean’s stately comments. ‘Picked up dead in the Fergus Aisle, wasn’t she? And the mason’s boy did it? Who was she, anyway?’

‘The mason’s boy did not,’ said Gil. ‘She was John Sempill’s wife. You remember John at the Grammar School?’

‘Aye.’ Nick chewed on a wedge of candied apricot. ‘Ill-tempered brute. Did he do it, then?’

‘Hush and listen,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘How can I silence the students if you talk so much?’

Nick grinned, and leaned back against the wall. The harper had begun a tuning-prelude, the sweeping ripples of sound ringing round the hall while he listened critically to the pitch of the notes. He worked his way from the lowest notes to the highest and back, then stilled the strings with the flat of his hand, threw a remark in Gaelic to his sister, and began to play. To Gil’s surprise the singer remained silent, while the harp spun a skein of heavy, solemn melody and counter-melody, almost painful to listen to. Though the harper’s long hands moved smoothly over the shining wires, across the width of the hall Gil saw the tremor in arm and jaw. What ails McIan? he wondered.

‘That’s not music for a feast,’ Nick muttered beside him. ‘What’s he playing?’

‘A lament,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘Did you catch what he said to the woman?’

‘I don’t speak Ersche,’ said Gil, and Nick shook his head.

‘He said, There is death in the hall.’

‘It’s the thunder,’ said Nick decidedly, but Gil felt a shiver run down his back. The slow, weighty tune wound to its end, and after urgent representations by the Steward the woman rose to her feet and began to recite one of the gloomier portions of the history of Wallace. The Steward, shaking his head, approached Nick.

‘Maister Kennedy,’ he said, bowing, ‘the Dean wishes to offer some reward to the players after the harper is finished. I am to direct you to assemble them at that time.’

Nick pulled a face, but replied politely enough. John Shaw went off to harass the students with the spiced wine, and Maister Coventry said, ‘Do you need a collie-dog? Are they all here?’

‘Mostly.’ Nick got to his feet. ‘Richie, Henry, Michael, there’s Walter — who’s missing?’

‘William,’ said Gil, who had been watching the cast drifting in.

‘You’re right,’ said Nick after a moment. ‘He’ll be sulking in the privy after his costume got torn. Well, I’m not going to look for him. He’ll turn up at the last moment like a clipped plack, he always does when there’s something in it for him.’