The Nicholas Feast (Gil Cunningham Murder Mystery)

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Oh, aye, so it does,’ said Maister Kennedy without inflection.

  ‘It would be an extreme response nevertheless,’ said his colleague, ‘to kill in such a calculating way merely to avert a great inconvenience.’

  ‘We keep coming back to this,’ said Gil. ‘Those with a reason had no opportunity, those with opportunity had no reason that I can uncover. And yet the boy is dead.’

  ‘And his funeral is this morning,’ said Patrick Coventry.

  ‘Christ save us, it is,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘I’d best be away. I’ve to rehearse the order of the procession with John Shaw. What a day, what a day,’ he mimicked.

  ‘And I have a lecture to deliver.’ Maister Coventry began searching his desk. ‘More Euclid for the bachelors, though I do not think they will listen. Perhaps Michael will have conned his answer by now.’ He lifted a sheaf of notes. ‘Gilbert, will you attend the funeral?’

  ‘After Sext, isn’t it? Yes, I’ll try to be there. And after it I have to present some kind of case concerning who killed the boy.’

  ‘The Dean will speak for most of the morning,’ Maister Kennedy warned him. ‘I’ve seen the notes.’

  Gil left by the main door of the college, nodding to the Dominican lay-brother he found on duty there, and turned down the hill and in at the pend of the Masons’ house. Crossing the courtyard, he heard a succession of anguished barks from inside the main block. They continued until the door opened, and the wolfhound hurled itself out and down the steps, to rear up and paw at his jerkin, pushing urgently at his hand with its long muzzle.

  ‘I always thought wolfhounds were dignified creatures,’ said Alys in the doorway. She was wearing the blue linen gown again, its colour turning her honey-coloured hair to tawny and emphasizing the warm creamy tones of her skin. Impeded by the dog, he hurried up the steps to embrace her, and she returned his kiss, then held him off with a hand on his chest, looking up into his face. ‘What is it, Gil?’

  He made a wry face.

  ‘I had matters out with my mother last night. She would not be persuaded, and in the end I told her I would be married in spite of her views.’

  ‘And what did she say to that?’ asked Alys, looking troubled.

  ‘Nothing, at first. Then she compared me to my grandfather Muirhead.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘It wasn’t a compliment, if that’s what you mean. I assured her that she could be certain of our loving duty, and that I spoke for you as well.’

  ‘But of course.’ She looked up at him, then hugged him tightly. He clasped her close, relishing the warm slender armful she made. The pup, seated at his feet, pawed at his hose again. He looked down at it, and Alys drew away a little as her father crossed the hall.

  ‘Father, come and hear this.’

  ‘My mother will not be persuaded,’ Gil explained, ‘and I have told her I’ll bide by my uncle’s advice.’

  ‘Well, well, you must take one or the other,’ said the mason robustly. ‘There is no middle way in this case. Are you hungry, Gilbert? Come up and be seated.’

  ‘I’m not hungry. I called by the college, to speak to Maister Coventry, and he offered me bannocks and cheese too, but I’d not long broken my fast,’ said Gil, following Alys into the little panelled closet. ‘To be fair, my mother did say some very gratifying things about Alys. She dislikes my marrying at all, not the choice I have made.’

  ‘I call on her, perhaps,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We do the thing with all formality.’

  Gil sat down, and the pup clambered on to his knee.

  ‘That would likely be well received. I had a long word with my uncle this morning, and he asked me to say the contract is nearly ready.’ He looked at the dog, which was licking industriously at his right wrist. ‘What has this fellow done with his collar?’

  ‘Oh, he must have got it off!’ Alys exclaimed. ‘Jennet said he was kicking at it half the night. It seemed to be irritating him after you made it looser.’

  ‘It will be in the kitchen,’ said her father.

  ‘Yes, very likely. I will look for it shortly. What did you learn at the college?’ Alys asked.

  ‘That Father Bernard didn’t give the lecture he claimed to have at two o’clock.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said.

  ‘So where was he?’ wondered her father.

  ‘Searching William’s chamber, I should say,’ said Gil.

  ‘And for what?’

  ‘For whatever was in the package I gave William. The more I look at this,’ said Gil, ‘the more I think that package was the base from which the whole action sprang. As soon as the boy opened it, he began a course of actions which caused someone to kill him.’

  ‘You think it contained money? Some instruction, perhaps? Some vital piece of information he could sell to English Henry?’

  ‘What, a deed of purchase for the realm of Scotland, made out in Edward Longshanks’ name? No, I don’t think that. Consider – William’s first act was to attempt to speak to Father Bernard, though Bernard claims he didn’t have time for him. Then he spent the next two hours accosting various people in public. I watched him doing it. None of the people he spoke to seemed to be glad of the conversation.’ Gil paused, counting them off in his mind. ‘Aye. Father Bernard, David Gray, the Principal, the Steward. Some of his fellow students. I think I have got an account of all those.’

  ‘Extortion,’ said the mason. ‘We knew that.’

  ‘Yes, but several of the people who mentioned his extortion methods said in so many words that he would gather secrets and then come privately and ask for money. Not in front of the entire Faculty of Arts, not in a manner so obvious that it caught my eye. He asked awkward questions, very publicly, at the Faculty meeting. He nearly spoiled the play, and when his costume was damaged he went off without waiting for the end, as if it was all beneath his dignity.’

  ‘He was practising making a will,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘Yes. I thought he was pretending to be legitimate. What if I was wrong – what if he had just discovered he was entitled to the name he used in the will?’

  ‘An attested birth record, you mean? Or some sort of authenticated statement of his parentage?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And it went to his head,’ said the mason slowly, ‘so that he no longer behaved with secrecy. Ye-es.’

  ‘He does seem to have been naturally arrogant,’ Gil said. ‘He would certainly feel that a Montgomery had no need to act in secret.’

  ‘Then what was his parentage?’ asked Alys. ‘And why should it cause someone to kill him? I thought you thought Father Bernard might be his father.’

  ‘Only because he knew exactly how old the boy was,’ said Gil fairly. ‘That’s the problem. Two problems. There are a lot of Montgomery men old enough to be his father, and he didn’t mention his parentage in the will, so we don’t know his father’s forename. And even if he is a Montgomery, why that should provoke someone in the college to kill him I can’t see at all.’

  ‘Was not his mother a Montgomery?’ asked Alys. ‘He was entitled to the name anyway.’

  ‘He has never used it,’ said Gil.

  ‘Better one’s foster-mother’s name, I suppose,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘than use one’s mother’s name like any unacknowledged bastard.’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Gil. ‘But if he is doubly entitled to the name, he has double reason to use it now. And yet we come back to this: why should that get him killed?’

  ‘As you said, there are no Cunninghams in the college just now.’

  ‘Our Lady be praised, you had someone with you all the time we need to worry about,’ said Alys. ‘But isn’t the boy Ninian a Boyd? I thought the Boyds were also enemies of the Montgomery.’

  ‘He is,’ said Gil. ‘If Ninian did it, he and his friends are all three of them in it together, for their story hangs together. I don’t think it was Ninian, though I’m keeping an eye on him.’ He freed one hand, patted the breast of his double
t, causing the now somnolent dog to raise its head and look at him, and drew out the red notebook. ‘We must deal with this before Hugh Montgomery sends for William’s gear. If we can destroy the pages, by accident, and return the binding to the family, then honour is satisfied all round and nobody is in danger.’

  ‘The kitchen fire, I think,’ said Alys, taking it. ‘What did you learn from it?’

  He grimaced. ‘He was an unpleasant boy. Parts of it are a record of student misdemeanours, rules broken and goods expropriated, and the small sums and favours he extorted in return for silence. They add up well, but they are mostly in placks and pence. Other parts are lists of word or deed of his seniors. That list of chance remarks Maister Forsyth mentioned is in there. And finally there is a long section headed with a large D which I take to be material from Doig the dog-breeder, with some very rare and curious facts in it. A lot is in William’s private code,’ he admitted, ‘which I may not have read correctly, but I think I have the key to most of it.’

  ‘And you simply destroy that?’ said the mason.

  ‘My uncle agrees with me,’ said Gil airily. ‘The material is not for dissemination.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I shall go and burn it,’ said Alys.

  She slipped out, and her father said, ‘I am still at a loss about last night’s game of cards. What were you doing, losing all those tricks, giving away so much information? Information again,’ he added in disgust.

  ‘As Montgomery said, it’s the currency of this reign. I suppose,’ said Gil slowly, ‘I was using him. He’s no fool, and he may be more subtle than I allow, but I have given him such facts and suspicions as I pleased to give him, and I hope he will make good use of them even if he suspects he was fed them for that purpose.’

  ‘What, the list of the boy’s possessions?’

  ‘And the possession of them,’ Gil reminded him. ‘Has he sent for them yet?’

  ‘Not yet. What else?’

  ‘Well, I hope I’ve convinced him that we don’t understand the cipher disc, though I don’t rely on that. And I’ve drawn his attention to Jaikie’s death, and flown him at Billy Doig, and Bernard Stewart. Whether he’ll stoop on either we’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘More metaphor,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And what –’

  He was interrupted by a voice on the stairs, exclaiming in gruff French, ‘Where is that dog? Where is the bad dog?’

  ‘Catherine? He is here,’ the mason called, raising his eyebrows at Gil. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘This wicked dog!’ Catherine stumped into the little room, brandishing the missing collar. ‘Look what he has done to his handsome collar. We found it in his corner just now. It is quite destroyed!’ She thrust the object at Gil, who took it. The pup, wakened by the commotion, raised its head to seize one end of the leather and tried to start a game with it.

  ‘No,’ said Gil firmly, pinching the animal’s jaw to make it let go. He pushed the pup off his knee and fended it off with one foot while he inspected the damage to the collar. The padded centre-section had been well gnawed. The leather was torn and wet and the straw packing was escaping, but something white also showed in the gap. Gil drew it out carefully.

  ‘The lining is coming out. He has chewed up the stitching. You must beat him for such destructive behaviour, maistre!’ declaimed Catherine.

  ‘He’s only a baby,’ said Gil absently, unfolding a curving spill of paper. ‘All young animals chew things. I dare say he is cutting teeth, they always are at this age. Would you beat John, madame, for chewing –’ He stopped speaking to stare.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Catherine. ‘Is it something important, maistre? The dog man was here again this morning asking for the collar. Is that why he sets such value on it?’

  ‘I don’t know if this is what Billy Doig wants,’ said Gil, ‘but it is certainly something I want.’ He passed it to the mason, and continued, ‘You know the dog man, madame?’

  ‘Not to say know him.’ She sniffed. ‘I know his wife by sight, for I see her every day exercising the dogs out there.’ She gestured to the window, with its view down the long garden and across the Mill-burn.

  ‘On the Dow Hill? Did you see her yesterday?’

  ‘I did. My sight is good at a distance, maistre, and I saw her clearly from the demoiselle’s chamber where I was attending your lady mother as she washed the dirt of the roads from her person.’ She stared across the burn. ‘As clearly as I see her now, indeed.’

  ‘What?’ Gil twisted round to look. ‘Sweet St Giles! Pierre, see this.’

  The mason rose to join them at the window and watch the cart jolting up across the Dow Hill. On it were piled a precarious heap of household goods, and what seemed, from this distance, to be the kind of basket in which puppies were transported if necessary. Beside it and leading the fat pony trudged the small chess-piece figure of Maister Doig, and behind it his wife was attempting to control the largest mixed leash of dogs Gil had ever seen.

  ‘Pray God they do not start a rabbit,’ said Maistre Pierre after a moment. ‘What do we do about that?’

  ‘Little we can do,’ said Gil, still watching.

  ‘But he is escaping.’

  ‘We have no proof he killed Jaikie,’ said Gil slowly, ‘only a strong supposition. Short of a witness in the street yesterday or a signed confession, there is no case worth bringing against him. Even if we did bring a case, he could always claim it was a fair fight, or an accident. There might be blood-money for the man’s kin, but I hardly think Doig would hang.’

  ‘A fair fight? A man that height, against one like Jaikie?’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Gil.

  ‘So it does not matter,’ said Catherine, ‘that the dog has destroyed his collar? Is he not to be scolded for his misdeed?’

  ‘I’ll scold him,’ Gil promised her. She grunted at him, and stumped out muttering darkly, passing Alys in the doorway.

  ‘So is this paper what I think it is?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Alys, look at this. It was in the dog’s collar.’

  ‘I’m sorry I was so long,’ she said, handing Gil the singed covers of the notebook. ‘Nancy was feeding John by the fireside, and he spilled his sops on my gown.’ She looked over her father’s arm at the paper he was holding, and read, ‘Hodie in matrimonies – This day, the morrow of the feast of All Souls, 1475, were joined by me in holy matrimony Isobel Montgomery and – and who? The paper is torn. Oh, how tantalizing! What can the missing name be? Is there nothing to tell us?’

  ‘Say rather, it’s chewed.’ Gil took the page, piecing together the damp flaps of the ragged lower margin. ‘That’s an A.’

  ‘A-L,’ said Alys, pointing with a slender finger.

  ‘E,’ contributed her father.

  ‘Then there is a piece missing completely. But that is definitely an N, and a D.’

  ‘Alexander?’ wondered Alys.

  ‘I think it must be. And we know the surname. We have the name of William’s father.’

  ‘Alexander Montgomery,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘But is this a reason to kill the boy?’

  ‘There is another name missing,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘The officiating priest usually signs this kind of document. It says This day were joined by me– I think he did put his name to it.’

  ‘You think that was why William wanted to speak to Father Bernard?’ said Alys.

  ‘You mean it was his name? He married them?’ The mason craned his neck to see the ragged edge of the paper. ‘No, there is no more writing. The dog must have eaten it. May I assure you now, I shall not follow him round the yard waiting for the facts to emerge.’

  ‘Nor I.’ Gil sat down again, looking at the fragile document. ‘If Bernard Stewart did marry these two, he would be in some trouble, even sixteen years later, both from the Montgomery for going against his wishes, and from his Order for marrying two people who were within the forbidden degrees of relationship.’

  ‘Surely he could brazen it out?’ suggested
the mason.

  ‘One of the pages in the notebook was headed B.S. and contained a number of reformist quotations which I would not like to have imputed to me,’ said Gil. ‘What if William did have speech with Father Bernard on Sunday morning? He – Father Bernard told me he had to arrange for the music to be carried to St Thomas’s, and therefore had no time for the boy, but John Shaw itemized the music in the list of things he had had to see to.’

  ‘So he did,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I remember.’

  ‘If William showed Father Bernard this document,’ said Gil, ‘or at least told him he now had possession of it, and threatened to report him for heresy if he would not support a claim of legitimacy –’

  ‘I should think Father Bernard would be desperate,’ said Alys.

  ‘He would lose either way,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘But is it sufficient reason?’ Gil looked up as the Blackfriars bell began to ring. ‘Plague take it, that must be for the boy’s funeral! I meant to borrow a Master’s gown and hood and join the procession, but it’s too late now. I must go as I am and slip in at the back. Pierre, are you coming? Does Mistress Irvine go?’ He folded the paper with care and tucked it into his purse.

  ‘Brother Andrew forbade it,’ said Alys. ‘She is still sore stricken with grief. Gil, I know you have no gown, your own won’t come back for several days. That kind of mending is specialized work. But at least let me find the funeral favours, so Lord Montgomery won’t be offended.’

  ‘It was Montgomery’s men who ruined my gown,’ Gil pointed out, but she had hurried off up the stairs.

  Blackfriars kirk was half-full. Gil made his way in by the west door just as the first singers of the University procession reached the north porch, and was surprised by the numbers already present, and the buzz of conversation in the nave.

  ‘I suppose half the town is here out of interest,’ said his friend behind him.

  ‘You could be right,’ Gil answered him, staring over the heads. Seats had been placed nearest the nave altar for the Dean and Principal and other senior members of the college, and the small stout Dominican who had laid Jaikie out was keeping space behind these for the ranks of scholars, not without some difficulty. On trestles before the altar, with candles at head and foot, lay a solid elm coffin. Hugh Montgomery had evidently decided to do the thing properly. He and his henchmen were standing on the south side of the church, their predatory stares directed at Father Bernard who was fidgeting about on the altar steps. The procession sang its way into the nave and filed into its places. Dean Elphinstone, in his silk gown and hood with the red chaperon pinned to his shoulder, glared along the length of the coffin at Lord Montgomery while the scholars, behind him, worked their way through an elaborate setting of the funerary sentences. Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live . . . But some of the singers were younger than the dead boy, Gil reflected. It seemed unkind to put these words into their mouths. And what Patrick Paniter, chanter at St Mungo’s, would make of their rendering of his setting did not bear thinking about.