Pat McIntosh: The Nicholas Feast

Gil Cunningham said later that if he had known he would find a corpse in the coalhouse of Glasgow University, he would never have gone to the Arts Faculty feast.

‘But then,’ said Alys his betrothed, considering this seriously, ‘you would never have met Socrates.’

The day began well enough. In the bright sunshine after early rain Gil, his academic robes in a bundle under his arm, had strolled down the High Street past the University, where several people in gowns and furred hoods were already exchanging formal bows with a lanky red-haired student before the great wooden door. Further down the street, in the rambling stone-built house called the White Castle, he found Alys and her father the French master mason, just breaking their fast with the rest of their household after hearing the first Mass at Greyfriars.

‘Gil!’ said Alys in delight, and sprang up to kiss him in greeting.

‘ Bonjour , Gilbert,’ said Maistre Pierre cheerfully, his teeth white in his neat black beard. He rose broadshouldered and imposing from his great chair and waved at an empty stool. ‘Have you eaten? What do you this early on a Sunday morning?’

‘The Nicholas Feast,’ Gil reminded him. He smiled at Alys, still standing slender and elegant beside him in the brown linen dress that matched her eyes. Like most unmarried girls in Scotland she went bare-headed, and her honey-coloured hair fell over her shoulders. He savoured the sight for a moment, thinking again how fortunate he was, that this clever, competent, beautiful girl was to be his wife, then tipped her face up with a gentle finger and kissed the high narrow bridge of her nose. ‘I hoped Alys would help me robe,’ he continued. ‘The procession will start from the college, and if I must walk there alone in these ridiculous garments I had rather do it from here, four doors away, than from Rottenrow. At least when we ride up to St Thomas’s I’ll be in company with the whole of the Arts Faculty.’

‘They are not ridiculous garments!’ Alys said indignantly. ‘They are the insignia of your learning! Come and sit down, Gil.’

‘Why is it called the Nicholas Feast?’ asked Maistre Pierre, ladling more porridge into his wooden porringer. ‘St Nicholas’ day is in December. This is May.’

‘The Feast of the Translation of St Nicholas was last Tuesday,’ Gil said. He bowed to Alys’s aged, aristocratic nurse, and nodded to the rest of the household, who were ignoring the French talk at the head of the table. Setting the bundle of his robes on the floor he sat down and accepted a bannock from the platter Alys passed him. ‘When he was translated to Bari, I suppose, though where from I don’t recall. And this is the first Sunday after. The man who founded our feast left exact directions. We’re to ride in procession to hear Mass at eight of the clock in St Thomas Martyr’s, out beyond the Stablegreen Port, and come back down through the town with green branches, and then we have a meeting, and then we have the feast.’

‘He left money for the feast, too, I hope?’ said Maistre Pierre.

Gil nodded, spreading honey on his bannock.

‘There is some, but we are all expected to pay up as well. Eighteen pence it has cost me.’ The mason pulled a face. ‘It would be double that if I had a benefice.’

‘I had hoped,’ said Alys with diffidence, ‘we could write to your mother today. Her letter needs an answer, you must agree.’

‘Oh, aye, I agree,’ Gil said ruefully. ‘But not today. I am committed to the feast. Perhaps tomorrow.’

When grace had been said, the dishes had been carried out and the great board lifted from its trestles, Alys’s nurse Catherine rose stiffly and said to the mason, ‘I leave your daughter in your charge, maistre.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And the baby is with Nancy. Go and see to the boy, if you will, madame.’

She curtsied with arthritic elegance, said, ‘Bonjour, maistre le notaire,’ to Gil as she passed him, and stumped out of the hall among the hurrying maidservants. Alys unfolded Gil’s robes.

‘Your mother’s letter,’ she said again, shaking out the cassock. ‘Is it — is that really what she thinks?’

‘She’ll come round to it,’ Gil said. ‘Remember, my uncle is in favour.’

‘But if your nearest kin can’t agree about your marriage — ’

‘Perhaps when my uncle can spare me, I should go out to Carluke,’ he suggested.

‘Yes!’ She smiled up at him. ‘If you can discuss it with her, I’m sure you will coax her round.’

‘Tell her how Alys will be dowered,’ said Alys’s father robustly. ‘That will persuade her.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Gil, concealing his doubts. He pulled off his short gown and began to unlace his doublet. ‘Meantime I need help with these ridiculous garments.’

‘They are not ridiculous!’ she said again. ‘Which way round does this go?’

Maistre Pierre watched in mounting astonishment as Gil was arrayed in the black cassock and cope (‘At least this one has two slits for my hands. Some only have one.’), the furred shoulder-cape, the blue fur-lined hood, proper to a Master of Arts of the University of Glasgow.

‘All of these garments are wool,’ he observed. ‘You will be warm. And what is that scarf thing? At least that is silk, though it is furred as well.’

‘Oh, father,’ said Alys. ‘You remember the men of law wearing those in Paris, surely? It goes on his shoulder. It’s a pity it’s red when your hood is blue,’ she added. ‘Does it need a pin, perhaps?’

‘This is the first time I have worn it all complete,’ said Gil, craning over his shoulder at the hood. ‘I must look like a Yule papingo,’ he added in Scots.

‘A parrot?’ said Maistre Pierre, grinning.

‘No, no, it looks magnificent,’ Alys declared.

‘At least I won’t be alone. The entire procession will be in formal dress.’

‘And you are to ride in those long skirts?’ continued the mason, as Alys shook the moth-herbs out of the white rabbit-skin lining and stood on tiptoe to pin the red chaperon on to the layer of fur already on Gil’s shoulder. ‘Where is your horse?’

‘My uncle sent down to the college earlier with half a dozen beasts loaned from the Chanonry I’ll have the use of one of those.’ Gil settled his felt hat on his head, then took Alys’s hands in his and kissed them. ‘I must go. Tomorrow we’ll write to my mother, sweetheart,’ he promised her.

‘Which reminds me indirectly,’ said Maistre Pierre. He got to his feet. ‘I see you to the street. Our neighbour is expected in town.’

‘What, Hugh Montgomery?’ Gil turned to stare. ‘What brings him to Glasgow? The King’s at Stirling, by what my uncle says, and the rest of the Court with him.’

‘Catherine thought it might be to do with the college,’ said Alys.

‘How does Catherine learn these things?’ Gil wondered. ‘She speaks no Scots.’

‘Your pardon, maisters, mistress,’ said an anxious voice from the kitchen stairway.

They all three turned. In the door at the head of the stairs stood a stout, comely woman dressed in respectable homespun. As they looked she bobbed a nervous curtsy and came forward.

‘Your pardon for interrupting,’ she said again, ‘but they’re saying in the kitchen you’re for the college the day, maister? Is that right?’

‘This is Mistress Irvine, Gil,’ said Alys. ‘A kinswoman of Kittock’s — ’

‘Aye,’ agreed Mistress Irvine, nodding and beaming. ‘My good-sister’s good-sister, that’s who Kittock is, and a good friend to me and all.’