by Pat McIntosh
‘None of us is blameless,’ pronounced the mason.
‘That is very true,’ agreed Father Bernard, attempting to regain control of the conversation, ‘but I hope my faults are not such that a boy of sixteen could frighten me with threats of exposure.’
‘What did he have to show you, father, yesterday in the Outer Close before the procession?’ Gil asked.
‘Yesterday? He showed me nothing,’ began Father Bernard.
‘I brought him a package from his foster-mother,’ Gil said. ‘I gave it to him before the college yett, and went into the close. William passed me, and spoke to you in the courtyard. I thought he said This might interest you, or some such thing. I wondered if it had anything to do with the package.’
‘Oh, now I recall.’ Father Bernard’s sunken eyes turned piously to the ceiling. ‘The poor boy. He wished to show me something, and I had not time to hear him, for I still had to arrange for the music to be carried to St Thomas’s. I promised to give him time later, perhaps after I had given the ordinary Theology lecture, but of course by then he was dead. The poor boy,’ he said again. ‘I suppose we may never know what troubled him.’
‘He is salved of all troubles now,’ Maistre Pierre pointed out. He and Father Bernard crossed themselves simultaneously.
‘And he had never threatened, for instance,’ said Gil almost at a venture, ‘to report you to the Vicar-General of your Order for heresy?’
‘For heresy?’ repeated Father Bernard harshly. ‘Why should he do that?’
‘For quoting Wycliff, perhaps,’ Gil suggested, ‘or discussing Lollardy in your ordinary lectures?’
‘One must encourage students to dispute these points, so that one may expose the fallacies on which they are grounded,’ retorted Father Bernard in Latin.
‘That alone might create trouble if one were in Paris,’ Gil observed.
The theologian snorted. ‘Paris! They’re still licking at Louis’ heels on the nominalist question. They can’t have it both ways.’
‘While Glasgow follows Albert, the subtil clerk and wys. The path of orthodoxy is narrow,’ said Gil, watching the friar carefully, ‘and William was industrious in detecting those who stepped from it in other segments of the University sphere. I speculated, merely, on whether he had approached you in the same way.’
‘No,’ said Father Bernard. Gil waited, while the mason looked from one to the other. ‘But I had wondered,’ said Father Bernard after a moment, reverting to French.
Gil, still waiting, was aware in the corner of his eye of movement in the courtyard. There was a knocking at the house door. Father Bernard’s expression grew troubled and portentous.
‘I thought the boy might have been gathering information,’ he admitted.
‘We know he was doing that,’ Gil agreed. Down in the courtyard Alys in her blue gown hurried out to the pend beside a groom in well-worn riding-gear. ‘Any sort of information in particular?’
‘Information to sell,’ pronounced Father Bernard. The musical voice took on a note of grief. ‘Information of value to one faction or another, the selling of which could only increase the discord with which this poor country is riven.’
‘Espionage?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It seems very possible. But who would he sell to, here in Glasgow?’
Gil turned his gaze away, in time to see Alys crossing the courtyard again, leading a guest in to the door in the most formal way. The hand laid on her arm belonged to a slender, graceful woman in muddy travelling-garments, her hair bound up in a coarse black cloth under a battered felt hat like a sugar-loaf with a brim.
Has she not given that hat to the poor yet? he thought in resignation, and looked back at the Dominican, who had closed his mouth over his yellow teeth with the air of one having summed up a situation.
‘Are you saying, father,’ he said, ‘that William was in truth selling information to someone? Which faction did you have in mind?’
‘I have no way of knowing,’ stated the chaplain. ‘He was kin to Lord Montgomery, which would give him an entry to Argyll and his followers.’ Gil nodded, and wished he had not. ‘And he messed with Michael Douglas, who is below in your kitchen, and his friends last year. He would have contact with the Hamiltons and Douglases through that boy.’
‘I think Michael dislikes him,’ Gil observed.
‘A false face, surely, designed to conceal the truth.’ Father Bernard looked over his shoulder as footsteps sounded in the other room. ‘You have another guest,’ he said, rising.
Alys entered the room first.
‘See who is here, father,’ she said. ‘It is Gil’s mother.’ She stepped aside to allow the woman in the sugar-loaf hat to follow her.
Most landholders, when they travelled, took time near their destination to find a sheltered spot, groom the horses and change their clothing, in order to make a good appearance by riding into burgh or castle in velvet and satin and jewels rather than stained travelling gear. This woman’s heavy woollen skirts were bedraggled and spattered, there was mud on her hat and her long-chinned, narrow face, and the gloves she drew from her hands as she stood in the doorway were dark with her horse’s sweat.
Getting to his feet, Gil was aware of a single quick, penetrating, maternal glance before her attention was turned to the mason stepping hastily forward to greet this guest. Watching her dealing expertly with Maistre Pierre’s words of welcome and of apology for not having been at the door to meet her, Gil recalled that Egidia Muirhead, Lady Cunningham, had for years occupied a senior place in the household of Margaret of Denmark, James Third’s devious and melancholy Queen, encountering the many foreign visitors who made their way through the court.
‘Et tecum, Bernard,’ she was saying now in response to Father Bernard’s blessing. ‘How long have you been back in Scotland? You’re not teaching at the college, are you?’
‘I am indeed,’ said Father Bernard in his deep musical voice.
‘And here is your son,’ said Maistre Pierre.
Gil went down on one knee to kiss the offered hand so like his own. Her long fingers gripped his, hard and briefly, and she said in Scots, ‘I’ll have David Cunningham’s hide for cushions. He sent Tam out to meet me, to bid me have no ill-ease for you, so of course I brattled on into Glasgow with all possible haste, and here I find you at the clack with half the burgh. Get up, son, and we can all sit down.’
‘Hardly the half of Glasgow,’ Gil protested, obeying.
Her grasp on his hand tightened again as he straightened up, but all she said was, ‘Don’t argue, my dear. It’s unseemly’ She seated herself on one of the tapestry chairs, and asked kindly, ‘So when did you return to Glasgow, Bernard?’
‘Some years since,’ admitted Father Bernard. ‘And you, madam? I believe you are alone now? Is all well with you?’
‘As well as a poor widow can expect,’ said the lady of Belstane. ‘I have my dower lands. We win a living. Is your mother still alive?’
‘She died two years since at the feast of St Remy, and is buried at Irvine, said Father Bernard with precision. Lady Egidia raised her eyebrows, and he added, ‘She died as the widow of Lord Montgomery’s kinsman Robert. His grandsire’s brother, I believe.’
‘God rest her soul,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘And what are you doing at the college, Bernard?’
‘I have the honour to be chaplain there, and to deliver a course of ordinary lectures. Which reminds me . . .’ He cast a glance at the sky through the glazed upper portion of the window. ‘I must not tarry longer. I have a disputation to prepare for this afternoon. My colleagues in the Faculty of Arts will rejoice to hear that you took little scathe, Maister Cunningham.’
In a flurry of mingled bows and benedictions he got himself out of the room, followed by Maistre Pierre. Gil’s mother, hardly waiting for their footsteps to disappear down the stair, sat down again saying with satisfaction, ‘He never could stand being questioned. Wretched man. And his mother was a good woman,’ she added. ‘Well, Gil, what is this
you’ve got yourself into?’
‘Mother,’ said Gil, ‘this is the demoiselle Alys Mason.’
‘We’ve met,’ said Lady Egidia, smiling at Alys, who still stood by the door. ‘I was met most graciously and hospitably at the yett, and welcomed into the house. It is truly kind of you, my dear, to take my abominable boy in when he was hurt.’
Alys, who had opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, and looked uncertainly at Gil. Suddenly she was wearing the pinched look of distress he had seen before, her high-bridged nose very prominent.
‘Mother, we are -’ he began.
‘You are embroiled in something at the college, Tam tells me,’ his mother persisted.
‘Mother, what are you –?’
‘Forgive me,’ said Alys. ‘There are things I must see to in the kitchen.’
She slipped out, and Gil began again.
‘Why don’t you –?’
‘A most accomplished lassie,’ said his mother, ‘and certainly not the kind to take as your mistress. This is a well-ordered house, and Maister Mason seems a cultured man. I can see they are people who –’
‘I had your letter.’
‘Oh, you did? I assumed it had gone astray.’ She tipped her head back to look at him. ‘I see you can still blush, dear. Then you know my feelings.’
‘My uncle thinks differently,’ said Gil. ‘He favours the marriage.’
‘Your uncle! He’s a sentimental old man,’ said Lady Cunningham crisply. ‘We educated you for the Church, Gilbert, and –’
‘I ken that, mother, and I value my learning next to my hope of salvation, but –’
‘– and I don’t want to see you throw it all away for the sake of a pretty face,’ she continued as if he had not spoken.
‘I have no intention of throwing it away. My uncle is certain I will still get a living in the Law.’
‘What does he know about it?’ demanded his mother, dismissing the senior judge of the Archdiocese with a snap of her fingers. ‘We were determined one of our sons was for the Church, Gil. Your share of the money went to pay for your learning, and I’ve no more to give you. You must have a benefice to live on, so you must be a priest, it’s that simple. Besides, who will say Masses for your father and Hugh and Edward?’
‘Masses?’ repeated Gil. His head was beginning to throb again. ‘What’s wrong with the Masses being said for them already in Carluke? I thought you paid Robert Meikle for that!’
‘Aye, but it’s better if it’s said by blood kin.’
‘Mother, if I had died at Stirling instead of Edward, who would say the Masses then?’
‘Yes, but you didn’t,’ she said unanswerably.
Footsteps, and a rattle of claws, sounded in the room nearest the stairs. Alys appeared in the doorway as the wolfhound scurried in past her, slithered on the waxed boards, and flung itself, yammering ecstatically, into Gil’s arms.
‘Your pardon, madame,’ she said, ‘but Michael wishes to speak to Maister Cunningham, and he must be back at the college soon.’
Michael, following her, made a brief general bow in the doorway. Gil, fending off the pup one-handed, acknowledged the boy’s presence with a sort of relief, but his mother said, ‘Come in, godson. Should you not be at a lecture?’
‘I’ve missed that,’ admitted Michael. ‘We’re supposed to be gated till after St John’s day, but Lowrie said we should tell you, Maister Cunningham, and I drew the straw and Maister Doby said I could get out for this because we’re sort of kin. Just. If you’ll forgive it, madam.’
‘What should you tell me?’
‘Our chamber’s been searched.’
Chapter Eight
The wolfhound, having made certain that its idol was safe, thrust its long muzzle under Gil’s arm and rolled its eyes at him.
‘Was anything taken?’ Gil asked. ‘Or anything damaged?’
‘Not that we can see.’ Michael grinned. ‘You would hardly tell it’s been done, except for Lowrie’s idea.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Lady Egidia.
‘Hairs,’ said Michael. ‘We knotted one of each of our hairs together in threes, Tod – er, Lowrie and Ninian and me, and put them among our papers where they would fall out if someone else meddled, but they wouldny blow away by accident. That was after William’s chamber was searched,’ he explained. ‘And they were still there after Vespers but no after dinner.’
‘What might they have been looking for?’ asked Alys. She was still wearing the pinched look of distress, but she sounded perfectly composed. Michael glanced at her and went red, to his own obvious embarrassment.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’ve no secrets. None like that, any wise.’
‘Surely this is some kind of student joke,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘I can mind a tale or two from your time at the college, Gil.’
‘Well, but this was serious,’ said Michael. ‘I mean, there wasn’t any foolery with it. They’d not left any humorous drawings, or stuffed a shirt to look like a lassie at the window, or – or anything.’ He threw another glance at Alys, and went red again.
‘Hm,’ said Lady Egidia.
‘Has anyone else been searched?’ Gil asked.
Michael shook his head. ‘We asked, but nobody’s saying. Oh, and I was to give you this. It’s from Auld – from Maister Kennedy. He said it was in his cassock in Maister Coventry’s chamber and could that be what they sought when his room was wrecked.’
He held out a small red book. Gil took it and turned the pages clumsily, one-handed.
‘It’s William’s writing,’ added Michael helpfully, ‘but it doesny make sense.’
‘Code again?’ said Alys, moving to look over Gil’s shoulder.
‘Not code,’ said Gil. ‘Initials, parts of words, a kind of private shorthand. It’s the boy’s red book with all his notes in it. Some of this will be harder to decipher. I mind now, it was on top of the pulpit in the Bachelors’ Schule where you were all dressing for the play. I asked Maister Kennedy if he knew about it and he took it for safe keeping. Michael, tell him I don’t know if it’s what they sought, but it will certainly be useful. Anything of William’s is likely to tell us something.’
‘Oh, and Jaikie at the yett bade me say he had a word for you,’ added Michael. ‘He said it was about something you spoke about yesternight.’
Feet sounded again in the outer room, the softer scuffle of one of the maidservants in her worn shoes. Jennet bobbed in the doorway.
‘If you please, mem,’ she said to Alys, ‘there’s water hot and set in your own chamber, and a comb and towels and all.’
‘Thank you, Jennet,’ said Alys, and turned to Gil’s mother, the pinched look submerged in the procedures of a civil welcome. ‘Would it please you to wash, madame?’
‘That sounds good,’ said Egidia Muirhead, rising. ‘You will come and see me while I’m in Glasgow, godson. I have messages from your home for you, and a great cake with plums in it.’
Michael agreed with enthusiasm that he would certainly wait on her, and bowed as she followed Alys to the stair.
‘Tell me what had been searched,’ said Gil. The boy’s expression changed.
‘Everything we’d marked, maister,’ he said warily. ‘Ninian’s carrel, my carrel, Lowrie’s. All our kists. My books had been moved about, for they wereny in the order I keep them, but the other two wereny sure.’
‘Papers?’ Gil asked.
‘I think so. They’d been careful,’ he said, ‘you couldny have tellt, except for Lowrie’s idea, and we got tired of knotting hairs after a bit, so if they went through all our papers one by one we’d no way of knowing.’
‘And what could they have been looking for?’ Gil asked. ‘We think William was involved in more than simply some scaffery round the college.’ Michael eyed him from under the thatch of mousy hair. ‘He may have been selling information to one faction or another. Could one of you have had something he might find valuable? A letter from home, perhaps, or a paper of so
me sort?’
‘William’s dead, maister,’ Michael pointed out. ‘He canny be searching the college. He’s in the bell-tower next door with two friars praying for him. They’d notice if he got up to go and search our chamber.’
‘I know,’ agreed Gil, ‘but someone is looking for something, possibly for more than one thing,’ he added, recalling a comment the mason had made, ‘which must be connected with William’s murder. A book like this, or some papers. Can you think of nothing one of you might have had that would fit that description?’
‘We’ve seven books between us,’ Michael said, ‘and papers in plenty. But nothing’s been taken, that we can see, maister.’
‘Could William have hidden something in your room,’ asked Gil desperately, ‘for someone else to collect later?’
‘That’s just –’ began Michael, before civility stopped him. ‘No, for we were all through our papers before Vespers, and we’d have seen his writing then. You couldny mistake it.’
Gil eased the wolfhound’s head on his knee. It hardly stirred.
‘In this notebook,’ he said, ‘which I suspect is a list of secrets which William was using as a basis for his extortion, there is a page headed with a heart, which might be held to stand for the Douglases, and the letter M beside it.’ Michael, descendant of the Douglas who carried the heart of Robert Bruce to the Holy Land, said nothing, staring at him. ‘Here it says A scripsit Eng. Could the Great Douglas – the Earl of Angus – be writing letters to England? And this line has an M and another heart, and the little sign they use in pedigrees to signify marriage, and L Kilmaurs. I assume you aren’t marrying into the Cunninghams,’ he said lightly, but Michael’s expression did not change. ‘So this probably refers to the rumour which is going round my family too, that Angus is hoping to marry his daughter Marion to my kinsman Lord Kilmaurs.’
‘It’s old news now,’ Michael said.
‘William has drawn a line through it,’ Gil agreed, ‘which probably means he has either sold the information, or found it unsaleable.’
‘Is there more?’ asked Michael after a moment.