The Nicholas Feast (Gil Cunningham Murder Mystery)

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘If both parents are close to Montgomery,’ said the Official, ‘they may have been too close to marry. Gowdie. Gowdie.’ He stared thoughtfully over Gil’s head at the thatched roof of the mason’s drawing-loft opposite.

  ‘Mistress Irvine said something of the sort,’ Gil agreed.

  ‘Legitimation procedures,’ prompted Maistre Pierre.

  ‘I wonder if his mother was Isobel Montgomery?’ said Canon Cunningham, lowering his gaze to meet Gil’s. ‘Her father would be a first cousin of Hugh Montgomery’s. There were three sons and the one daughter, and Montgomery had the disposal of the marriages.’ He paused again, considering. ‘He was provident in that, for all he was no more than eighteen or so himself. If I mind correctly, all in one winter, he married one of Argyll’s daughters, he got a Lennox lady for his brother Alexander and a Maxwell for one of the cousins, and betrothed this Isobel to a Maxwell adherent. Pretty good, for one season’s work. I heard she died recently,’ he added.

  ‘That would fit,’ Gil said.

  ‘I hadn’t heard of a bairn. I wonder who its father might have been?’

  ‘It was fostered secretly, perhaps,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘Mistress Irvine didn’t know who the father was,’ Gil said, ‘and she said Gowdie didn’t know of the boy’s existence.’

  ‘And you mentioned legitimation procedures.’ Canon Cunningham stretched his long legs and began to gather himself together. ‘Aye, well. I haven’t time for idle gossip. If you’ll call my groom, Maister Mason, I’ll away up the hill to my desk and see what I can find out.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Gil rose as his uncle did.

  ‘I wonder who the father might be,’ the Official said again, frowning. ‘Montgomery’s kin is not so wide.’

  ‘A groom?’ speculated the mason robustly. ‘The steward? The chaplain? What men does a girl of such a family get to meet?’

  ‘Who would the chaplain have been?’

  ‘From the Benedictine house at Irvine, maybe. Or a kinsman, indeed?’ The Official gazed absently at the flowers in the sunny courtyard, then shook his head. ‘Aye, well. What will I send to your mother, Gilbert?’

  ‘What should you send?’ said Gil uncomfortably. ‘I must see to this matter. Hugh Montgomery is waiting for us to fail, and we have less than two days to it. I will be home tonight.’

  ‘Aye, well. I think she might take exception to that idea and all.’ Canon Cunningham clapped his legal bonnet over the black felt coif, and shook out the skirts of his cassock. ‘See to your duty, Gilbert. I’ll send something.’

  He raised a hand in his customary blessing, and turned to go, then stopped so suddenly that the mason collided with him.

  ‘Christ and his saints preserve us, what’s that?’ he demanded, staring at the great best bed.

  Gil, following his gaze, began to laugh.

  ‘It’s the young man’s dog,’ he explained.

  The wolfhound did not move from its position, long nose poking between the tapestry bed-curtains, one bright eye just visible, but they heard its tail beat on the mattress. Gil moved forward, and the tail beat faster. ‘It’s taken a notion to me,’ Gil went on, drawing the curtain back, ‘and the harper’s bairn’s taken a notion to the dog.’ He urged the animal down on to the floor, where it inspected Canon Cunningham more closely and allowed him to scratch its jaw. ‘He should go outside, Pierre.’

  ‘He should,’ agreed the mason resignedly. ‘Come, dog. Outside and do your duty.’

  Alys slipped back into the room as soon as Maistre Pierre and his guest reached the courtyard.

  ‘I didn’t stay,’ she said, lifting the tray of little glasses, ‘because I wanted to tell you what I thought of you getting up, and I couldn’t very well do so in front of your uncle.’

  ‘Why? Do you think he might repudiate the contract when he finds how I’m going to be henpecked?’

  Gil stretched his good hand to her. She moved closer, but said earnestly, ‘You should have stayed in bed. Brother Andrew –’

  ‘When we are married I’ll stay in bed as long as you like,’ he promised, smiling. She looked away, and the colour rose in her face. ‘For now, sweetheart, I’ve a matter to investigate for the college, and too little time to do it in. We must write a word for Nick –’

  ‘I’ve done that,’ she interrupted. ‘I told him you were attacked, not much injured, and the papers stolen, and asked if he took a copy. Luke carried it there a while ago.’

  ‘You can do everything,’ he said admiringly, drawing her down to kiss her. ‘Even rescue me from robbers. What made you leave Compline early? It was well timed.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I was uneasy. The Office was no comfort to me, I felt I should be elsewhere. And then we came out of Greyfriars’ Wynd and saw the fighting, and realized it was you.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ he said again. ‘I really think you can do everything.’

  ‘Except make you stay in bed when you should,’ she complained. He would have answered, but her gaze sharpened, and she stared beyond him at the yard. ‘What is my father doing?’

  Gil turned to look out of the window. Down in the courtyard the mason was peering into one of the tubs of flowers, assisted by the wolfhound, which had stood up with its front paws on the rim of the tub. As they looked, Maistre Pierre drew something out of the earth under the marigolds. The pup offered to take it, but he held it up out of the animal’s reach, and seeing their watching faces waved the item at them.

  ‘Papers!’ he called.

  ‘It was the dog,’ he said, when he had brought papers and wolfhound up to the best chamber. ‘He examined all the tubs, as they do, but he paid extra attention to that one, and then sat down by it and looked at me.’

  ‘He is an exceptional dog,’ Gil said, patting the creature. ‘I wish I could keep him.’ He unfolded the bundle one-handed, shaking the earth from it. The wolfhound sniffed at the paper and lay down with its head on Gil’s feet. Alys eyed the scatter of soil on the waxed floorboards, but said nothing. ‘Our Lady be praised, they have numbered the pages. Four, five, six – and what’s this? This doesn’t belong –’

  ‘It’s different writing,’ said Alys.

  ‘It’s Nick’s writing. I looked at enough of it when Maister Coventry and I picked up the mess in his chamber. And this most discriminating Peter . . . Aye, it’s a page of his book.’

  ‘He has written a book?’ said Alys. ‘I should like to see that.’

  ‘How did this get here?’ asked her father. ‘How did the papers find their way into your flower-pot, ma mie, and how did a page of the book get into the list of names? Whose is the other writing? Who wrote down the names?’

  ‘I assume Maister Coventry wrote them down,’ said Gil, leafing clumsily through the pages, ‘and thank God for that. His writing is far clearer than Nick’s. As to how they got there – they were in the tub nearest the pend, weren’t they?’

  ‘They were,’ agreed the mason. ‘You are thinking that anyone could have come that far, in from the street, hidden them under the marigolds and run off, without being noticed.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Luke has been in and out,’ said Alys thoughtfully, ‘and Annis is sitting with Davie this morning, and Kittock has swept the front steps and the yard, but otherwise there has been nobody at the front of the house since Prime except for ourselves up here. Your uncle came through the courtyard. Oh, yes, and a messenger from Lord Montgomery.’

  ‘A what?’ exclaimed Gil.

  ‘A messenger from Lord Montgomery’ She coloured up again. ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner, but it was only a piece of impertinence. I was to ask you if you were ready to give up the search yet. It was while your uncle was here.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

  She glanced shyly at Gil. ‘I was annoyed by the way he spoke. And his expression was – anyway, I said, A Cunningham never gives up, and shut the door on him. I hope that was the right
thing to say.’

  ‘You couldn’t have bettered it,’ said Gil, looking at her in amazement. ‘Alys, you are a wonderful woman. How soon can we be married?’

  ‘You must be handfasted first,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘What puzzles me,’ she persisted, ‘is how Lord Montgomery should know you were here, and why he should think you would give up now.’

  ‘That’s true, you know,’ said her father. ‘How would he know you were here?’

  ‘Could he have seen you carrying me home?’ Gil asked. ‘How dark was it by then?’

  ‘Plenty of light.’ The mason scratched his jaw, his thumb rasping in his neat black beard. ‘I suppose he could, although we were close under the wall when we passed his yett.’

  ‘But father,’ objected Alys, ‘I was carrying the hat and cloak, and you had Gil head down over your shoulders. Even his mother would not have known him if she had looked out and caught sight of us.’

  ‘Unless,’ said Gil, ‘Montgomery knew already that I was injured. What was the messenger like, Alys? Had you seen him before? Would you know him again?’

  ‘He had the Montgomery badge on his shoulder,’ Alys said. ‘Otherwise he was quite ordinary, like anybody’s groom. Middling height, brownish hair, not past forty. Oh, and a limp.’

  The mason looked at Gil.

  ‘As if he had been kicked recently?’ he suggested. Alys burst out laughing.

  ‘Yes, of course! If I’d realized I’d have offered him a poultice!’ She saw Gil’s expression, and sobered, adding, ‘I’m sure he could have applied it himself.’

  ‘And he could have tucked these papers under the marigolds as he came into the yard,’ said the mason.

  It was, Gil reminded himself, the effect of running a large household; but he knew he had shown yet again how startled he was by Alys’s particular combination of genuine maidenly modesty and breadth of worldly knowledge.

  ‘What do we know from this?’ he asked rhetorically, recovering his countenance. ‘We know the papers were taken from me by violence last night and returned by stealth this morning.’

  ‘They were taken by someone looking for something in writing,’ said Alys.

  ‘But not this writing,’ agreed Gil.

  ‘And it could have been Montgomery who took them, who returned them, who is searching,’ contributed the mason.

  ‘And has still not found what he seeks,’ said Alys.

  ‘And it is likely that the same person –’

  ‘Or persons,’ put in Alys.

  ‘Or persons,’ Gil agreed, ‘searched Maister Kennedy’s chamber and carried off at least one sheet of his writing. But most likely it was someone else who searched William’s chamber.’

  ‘But what are they all looking for? Not the young man’s red book, I take it, since they snatched a heap of loose papers.’ Maistre Pierre gestured at the list of names. ‘Gil, there is the ciphered writing we found in the purse. Remember?’

  ‘I remember.’ Gil looked at Alys. ‘It could be important. Have you had time to look at it?’

  ‘I have not,’ she said firmly, sounding very like her father. ‘What with nursing the sick and injured, the grieving and the fasting, and keeping my hand on this household, my time has been full. I hope to sit down with it this morning,’ she added. ‘Then we may know if it’s important enough to be a prime mover in the matter.’

  ‘And I must get up the hill to St Mungo’s,’ said her father, ‘to make sure Wattie has not decided to put in a chimney where I have marked a window.’

  ‘What, for when they elect the next Archbishop?’ said Gil. The mason grinned, then looked beyond Gil into the courtyard. The grin faded.

  ‘Who is it now?’ he said resignedly. ‘One of the friars, and a student. Who can it be?’

  ‘It’s Father Bernard from the college,’ said Gil, twisting to look. ‘The chaplain.’

  Sighing, Maistre Pierre rose and went away down the stairs. Alys knelt to whisk the scattered earth on the floor into her apron, lifted the tray with the little wineglasses and followed him, eluding Gil’s attempt to make her sit down beside him.

  Below, in the hall, the mason could be heard clearly, greeting his guests. The chaplain answered him with the friars’ customary Latin blessing, spoken in his deep musical voice. At Gil’s feet the wolfhound stirred, and raised its head.

  ‘But certainly,’ said Maister Mason. ‘He is above stairs. Come up, come up. Some refreshment, surely? My daughter will –’

  ‘Not for me, I thank you.’ Father Bernard’s Scots was accented like the mason’s. ‘But I’m sure Michael here would be glad of something.’

  Michael’s voice, muffled, assented to this. The wolfhound rose slowly to its feet. Gil stroked it and was startled to find its rangy frame rigid and trembling, with the coarse grey fur standing erect. Feet sounded on the stair, and a faint growl began deep in the dog’s throat, becoming gradually louder as the feet approached.

  ‘Quiet,’ said Gil firmly. The animal’s tail swung against his knees, but the growl continued. Gil grasped the long muzzle, then flung his injured arm round the dog’s chest just in time, as Maistre Pierre led Father Bernard into the room, the friar paused in the doorway to pronounce his blessing and the wolfhound, with a scrabble of claws on the floorboards, tried to launch itself snarling at the intruder.

  ‘What ails the beast?’ asked the mason, startled into French.

  ‘I don’t know. Quiet!’ said Gil again. ‘Down! I’m sorry about this.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ said Father Bernard, eyeing the pup’s display of white teeth warily. ‘Dogs often dislike me. Possibly they find the robes alarming.’

  ‘Shall I remove him?’ offered the mason.

  ‘He won’t go with you in this state,’ Gil pointed out, hanging on to the sturdy collar. ‘Down! Oh, Alys! Will he go with you?’

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ Alys, grasping the collar in both hands, dragged the snarling animal across the floor. ‘What has angered him?’

  ‘Take care,’ said Father Bernard anxiously. ‘He may bite you.’

  ‘I’ll feed him,’ said Alys. ‘Come, dog! Come with me! Gil, you must name him. How can we give him orders if he has no name?’ She hauled the dog bodily out on to the stairs, and the mason shut the door quickly behind her.

  ‘No name? Is it not your animal, then?’ asked Father Bernard.

  ‘It seems to have belonged to William Irvine,’ said Gil precisely. ‘Good morning to you, sir.’

  ‘Oh, that dog! Aye, good morning, Maister Cunningham,’ said Father Bernard in his melodious voice. He sat down on one of the tapestry backstools indicated by the mason, and put back the hood of his habit. The dark hair round his tonsure was cut short, and curled crisply; the sunken eyes in the cadaverous face regarded Gil intently. ‘I bring you greetings from Dean Elphinstone and the Principal,’ he continued. ‘Your man brought word that you were attacked in the open street. What a dreadful thing to happen in this peaceful place. But I find you on your feet and clothed. Did you take any scathe?’

  ‘Very little, thanks to Maister Mason.’ Gil eased his position on the window-seat. He was finding other aches and pains, and his head was throbbing.

  ‘God in his mercy be praised,’ said the friar, and raised his hand to make the cross.

  ‘Amen to that. This is very kind of you, father, to visit like this.’

  ‘The college was most distressed to hear of your misadventure,’ said Father Bernard largely. ‘And was it robbery? Did they make off with anything valuable?’

  ‘Some papers only,’ said Gil.

  ‘Nothing important, I hope?’

  ‘Nothing that cannot be replaced.’

  ‘Did you know them? Were they common blackguards of the burgh, or someone’s dagger-men? What could their motive have been?’

  ‘I never got a sight of their faces,’ said Gil.

  ‘They seemed expert fighters,’ remarked Maistre Pierre. ‘And used to working together, I thought, G
ilbert.’

  ‘Aha!’ said the chaplain. ‘Maister Doby will hear that with relief, and I admit to the same.’

  Maistre Pierre looked startled, but Gil said, ‘No, it was none of your flock, father. These were all older than I am, by their movements, and seasoned fighters as Maister Mason says. As to motive, I have no clear idea, but since the papers they took were connected to the matter I am investigating for the college, I assume it was related to that.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Poor William. Requiescat in pace.’ Father Bernard made the sign of the cross, and Gil and the mason both murmured Amen. After a moment he continued, ‘His burial will be tomorrow, after Sext, and we have arranged a quodlibet disputation in Theology after dinner, to give the boys’ minds a better direction and prevent them falling into melancholy.’

  So we have until noon tomorrow, Gil thought, to bring this to a conclusion.

  ‘Did you know the dead boy well, father?’

  ‘Why, no, hardly more than his fellows.’

  ‘There are only forty students just now,’ Gil pursued, ‘few enough to spend the whole year with. Did nothing distinguish William Irvine from the others?’

  ‘I could not say so. I had little contact with him, except for the music. I know the students of Theology well, of course,’ expanded Father Bernard, ‘mature individuals with well-formed minds, but the young men of the Faculty of Arts come less in my way, other than those who confess to me.’

  Gil thought of some Theology students he had known, but did not comment. Instead he said, ‘Who was William’s confessor?’

  ‘I think perhaps Dean Elphinstone.’

  ‘Do you know who his parents were?’ asked the mason.

  The dark eyes turned to him. ‘I can tell you nothing about his parentage.’

  ‘Or about his habits of extortion?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Extortion? Did he – It seems hard that he should be dead in such a way, poor boy, and slandered as well. I am sure he did not practise extortion. Have you discovered nothing that might tell us who killed him?’

  ‘So he never approached you with threats of any kind?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Certainly not! What could he threaten me with?’