by Pat McIntosh
‘Fire! Fire, maister! The stables are afire!’
‘The beasts!’ said Doddie. He turned and fled towards the stairs, the other two men after him. Gil followed in some haste.
‘Six men to the stables,’ he ordered, ‘you three and the three that was wi Steenie. The rest o you, wi me. We need buckets, we need brooms. Where’s the well?’
‘I shouldny worry,’ said his cousin’s voice in his ear as the men pounded past him. ‘The other attic’s caught and all, and the thatch. We’ll no save the house.’
Gil turned to stare at him.
‘What, both wings at once? How did that happen?’ he asked.
Boyd shrugged. ‘Who can tell? Come on, we need to get out o here.’
‘Anything else we need to get out?’
‘The two corps are in the yard.’
‘What about Somerville’s kist, any valuables—’
‘Oh, the fire’s dealt wi all that.’
‘You’re a wonder o the age,’ Gil said, dragging the great door shut behind him.
‘Run!’ said his cousin. Gil put on an extra burst of speed, and a flake of flaming thatch narrowly missed his shoulder.
‘Sweet St Giles preserve us!’ he said, looking back at the house. ‘It’s thoroughly caught and all!’
‘That’s what I said.’ Boyd looked about him. ‘Where are the men? Are they all gone to the stables?’
‘Aye, they are.’ Doig appeared out of the darkness. ‘I think they’ve got the beasts out, I could hear them skreeling and they’ve stopped now. Will we just get away back to Lanark, Sandy?’
‘Aye, we’d best,’ said Boyd, glancing at where the Lothian hills showed up black against the paling northeastern sky. ‘We’re cutting it fine as it is.’
‘Can you find your way?’ Gil asked.
‘Over the river to Forth and then down the road to Lanark,’ said Boyd confidently. ‘Call on me the morn if you’re in the burgh. Or your bonnie wee wife,’ he added, clapped Gil on the shoulder and vanished into the night, Doig after him.
‘Is that them away?’ Steenie said at Gil’s elbow. ‘Is that the duarch that was in Perthshire yon time, and all?’
‘It is.’ Gil looked up at the burning roofline of The Cleuch, and then down at the two corpses, laid carefully at the far side of the yard. Had Sandy got them out of the building on his own? No, surely he had made the men help. Why had he done so? For the sake of justice? It hardly seemed necessary, given that both Somerville and his servant were dead already and their killer was known.
‘I came to tell you, maister,’ said Steenie, as a window burst out in a spray of shattering glass, and flames roared out and up the side of the building. ‘You’re needed in the stableyard.’
As Doig had said, the horses had been got out of the stable, which was blazing merrily at one end. Three, an elderly gelding and two stout ponies, were now galloping and snorting round the nearest fenced grazing, much alarmed by the situation. A fourth appeared to be tied at the far side of the patch of grazing, tossing its head and tugging at the rope, squealing with rage or fright. The Cleuch servants were running to and from the well with buckets, attempting to control the fire, though Gil suspected they had as little hope of saving this building as the main house, and smoke and sparks were drifting everywhere, rising with the roar of the flames and all falling across the yard.
‘Three was in the stable,’ said Steenie, ‘and they got them out, cleverly done it was, wi sacks ower their een, though one lad was kicked, and put them in the parrock here. But that fellow was tied there a’ready.’
Gil peered through the grey dawnlight at the distant animal, which whinnied and tossed its head, trampling with its forefeet again as he watched.
‘Is he saddled?’ he asked.
‘He is,’ said Steenie. ‘I could do wi a hand. Come and look.’
He led Gil round the outside of the fence and in at the gate, fastening it carefully behind them with the loop of rope over the gatepost. The gelding galloped up to them, snorting, and swerved away at the last moment, the ponies thundering after it.
‘It’s no just the fire,’ said Steenie. ‘They’ve company in here, and they’re no liking it.’ He whacked a speeding pony on the rump as it passed him, neatly dodged the flying heels, and set off along the fence, keeping close to the planks.
‘Company?’
Gil, sniffing cautiously as he followed, realised he could smell something other than the smoke and the sweating horses, something unpleasantly familiar. Not just blood, but the extra stink of death, of loosed bowels and bladder. The tethered horse was tied to an overhanging branch, and the dark patch beneath him was not simply the shadow of the branch and his muscular barrel in the leaping light. Nor were the dark markings on his forelegs the colouring of a bay horse, because the rest of the animal was chestnut.
‘Watch him, maister,’ warned Steenie. ‘He’s in a right passion, poor brute. What this fellow did to him, to make him hammer him like that, I canny tell.’ He moved slowly forward, a hand out, chirruping to the stallion, then switched to hissing between his teeth as one did while rubbing a horse down. The animal tossed his head, whinnied loudly, stamped with those dreadful stained forefeet, but swung his hindquarters away from Steenie, watching him warily. ‘If I can get his tether,’ Steenie said quietly, ‘can you get the corp, maister? Sisssiss-siss, clever lad, good lad.’
‘What’s left o’t,’ Gil said sombrely, looking at the pulped and hideous object under the stallion’s hooves.
‘Aye, poor brute,’ said Steenie again, ‘tethered next to that. Good lad, good lad. You’re tired, are you no? Come and we’ll find you a better place to stand. Siss-sisssiss . . .’ Still talking soothing nonsense, he reached out, lifted the knotted reins from the beast’s neck and looped them over his arm, then drew his knife. A quick slash, a calming word when the stallion threw his head up, and the tether was severed. ‘Come up, lad. Back up. Back up,’ Steenie coaxed, turning the handsome chestnut head so the thing on the ground was hidden. ‘Come and we’ll wash you clean, get the stink off you.’
The chestnut drew a deep shuddering breath, blew it out, and dropped his head against Steenie’s chest, his proud stance relaxing. Steenie caressed the muscular neck, and Gil bent and seized the corpse’s boots, admiring the man’s skill. He could have attempted the like with a dog, but he had not Steenie’s knack with horses.
The gelding and the two stout ponies had calmed now that the stallion was quieter. They stood at the far end of the little field, watching intently as Gil dragged the battered corpse towards the gate. The head and one arm had taken most of the damage; it was difficult even to see what colour the man’s hair had been let alone identify him, even in the growing light of the new morning.
Achieving the gate, he opened it and dragged the corpse through, then dealt with the rudimentary fastening. As soon as the gate was shut the gelding dropped its head and began grazing, and shortly the ponies followed its example. Steenie had retreated to the far end of the paddock, beside the other beasts, and appeared to be washing the stallion’s forelegs with handfuls of grass dipped into the water-trough which stood there. In the stableyard, smoke still poured from the stable building, though there were no flames visible; beyond that range the house was burning furiously, black and grey smoke towering into the brightening sky, flames leaping through it. There was the occasional crash and burst of sparks as a section collapsed.
Somerville’s remaining household were still wearily throwing bucketfuls of water on the stable building. Each still raised a hiss and gout of steam, and they seemed to have the sense to carry on meantime. Gil looked at the corpse at his feet, and hunkered down for a closer look. Who was this, and more to the point what was he doing dead in the Cleuch paddock? Was it the Irishman Sandy Boyd was so intent on killing, or another?
The man was shorter than Gil by a handspan, and much wider in the girth, almost stout. Was he a priest, Gil wondered. His clothing was sober enough, doublet and hose of g
ood plain stuff in a dark tawny, and a short gown which was now very muddy but had begun yesterday as a pale brown colour. His hat was not visible, likely pounded into the bloody mire where the stallion had been tethered. The neck and jaw, which would stiffen first, were badly mangled by the shod hooves, but seemed to be hardening; the man must be dead at least a couple of hours, maybe nearer four, he reckoned. If this was the Irishman’s doing, likely he had killed this man first, perhaps pursuing him when he set out from the house, and then returning to attend to Somerville.
The purse at the dead man’s belt yielded only a pair of beads, a few coins and a set of tablets in a velvet pouch. Gil loosened the cord and slid the tablets out; the covers were carved wood, with hunting scenes, deer on one, a smaller scene of hawking on the other. Not cheap, he considered. He opened the cover, and studied the leaves within by the dawnlight. Some scrawled numbers, apparently an attempt at working out an account; a note of today’s date, no, yesterday’s, xvi iunii cluch, and a list of places. Ayer, irving, dowglass, lanrik, it read.
‘Ayr, Irvine, Douglas, Lanark,’ he said aloud. ‘Progress towards Edinburgh?’
He looked down at the tablets again. The next line said Nott glassgowe. I’m glad to hear it, he thought, and wondered what was wrong with what he was looking at. The writing was clumsy, but many people sufficiently well-to-do to possess a set of tablets like this were still unaccustomed to using them. He flipped the covers shut, to admire the carving, which must have been custom-made, and then open again.
That was it. They opened on the wrong side. His own set, Alys’s, every set he was familiar with, even the cheap ones which were used to send word to Maister Vary, opened at the right-hand edge like a book. This set opened at the left edge, with the silk cord hinge at the right side of the principal carving, the deerhunt which covered the whole surface.
‘Corrie-fisted,’ he said aloud. ‘We’ve found our left-handed man.’
He put the tablets back in their pouch, stowed that in the man’s purse, and began to check the rest of his clothing. There was nothing in the sleeves of the short gown, nor in its collar or wide lapels, but something which crackled, and something with sharp corners, lay within the blood-stiffened breast of the tawny doublet. He was unlacing the doublet to find the items when a sword-blade inserted itself between him and the corpse.
‘Back away,’ said a voice calmly. ‘Back away now, you villain. Robbing a corp, are you— Gil Cunningham!’
He sat back on his heels, looking up at the wielder of the sword from under the wide brim of his father’s helm.
‘Robert Hamilton,’ he said. ‘Good day to you.’
Robert Hamilton of Lockharthill, youngest son of Hamilton of Avondale and the Sheriff’s depute in this part of Lanarkshire, put up the sword, and gestured to the devastation about him.
‘What’s ado here?’ he asked. ‘I can get nothing from that bunch o daft laddies, but Somerville’s lying deid and mutilat’ at his own front door, and now I find you despoiling another— St Peter’s balls, what’s come to him?’ he demanded, getting a clearer look at the state of the corpse.
‘I suspect,’ said Gil, going back to his task, ‘that we were meant to think yon chestnut trampled him to death.’
‘But?’ prompted Hamilton intelligently. Gil pushed aside the fronts of the doublet, revealing a great bloodstain on the shirt beneath, with a slit at the centre.
‘If he was slain,’ he speculated, ‘or at least knifed like this, and then thrown under the beast’s feet where it was tethered, it would be rearing and trampling, trying to get away from the smell of blood. And a course the more it trampled, the worse the smell of blood would get. My man’s soothing the beast now,’ he added. ‘He kens a good horse tonic wi hemp in it, will calm him down.’
‘St Peter’s balls,’ said Hamilton again. ‘The poor brute!’ He took a step back. ‘Get on and examine him, Gil. Did I no hear you’re Blacader’s quaestor now? Is that what’s brought you here? I came to see what the smoke was about, for you can see it from here to Edinburgh I’d wager. We saw the flames afore the sun rose.’
‘In a way,’ said Gil carefully. ‘I’d come up here wanting a word wi Robert Somerville, and encountered the household at a loss, for they’d newly found him deid. It was while I was viewing the corp that the house took fire, in more than one place at once, and the stables at the same time.’
‘Arson,’ said Hamilton.
‘It seems like.’
‘Hmph,’ said Hamilton. ‘Right. Get on and examine him,’ he said again, ‘and come up to the house and tell me what’s what. I need to question these fellows. Is this all Somerville had about him, a cartload of daft laddies?’
‘I think he’d sent the best of the household out an errand,’ said Gil drily. ‘It’s cost him his life, and his house, and a deal of pain aforehand. I’m glad I’m no his heir.’
‘Et moi aussi,’ said Hamilton, and strode off out of the stableyard. Gil grinned, recalling that the phrase had been about all the French Hamilton had acquired in their time in Paris, that and the more useful, ‘Une grande carafe de vin, ma belle.’
As soon as the other man was out of sight, he fished inside the breast of the corpse’s doublet, and extracted a folded bundle of papers and another set of tablets. Without surprise, he saw that these were a match for the two sets already delivered to Maister Vary, this one decorated with a bright woodcut of the Last Trump. Opening them, he found the stark message: CEIS TO SEIK HIR. Cease to seek her; abandon the search. This must be M, as he had feared.
Setting this aside, he opened out the bundle of papers. After a brief scrutiny he folded them down again and stowed them, as the corpse had, in the breast of his doublet. The sheet on the top was a letter introducing a man called Felim O Flaherty, and begging the recipient to hear his words. It seemed likely to Gil that his cousin Sandy was the best person to deal with this.
He got to his feet, stretching the cramp out of his legs, and called to Steenie, who had finished washing the stallion and was now petting the creature while it grazed warily, making much of it with sympathetic tone and words. Steenie led the beast over to the fence, and Gil said quietly, ‘Is he up to the journey home to Belstane?’
‘If we take it slow,’ said Steenie. ‘He could do wi a feed, but he’s had a bite o grass while we been stretching his legs. He’ll manage for a bit.’
‘Get away the now,’ Gil said, ‘you should find another gate in the wall out ayont the tower-house, and wait for me where we left the horses. We’ll take him to my mother. I’ve no notion who he belongs to, but one of her mares must be ready the now. She’ll kill me if I pass up the chance o his get, and it’ll take his mind off this.’ He gestured at the corpse, and the horse startled away from him.
Steenie grinned broadly, touched his blue bonnet and began to coax the stallion towards the gate. Gil watched them go, as did the gelding and the two ponies, and then turned away to go up to the house.
It was a dismal sight. The two end wings had fallen in, the timbers of its frame black against the early-morning sky, smoke still drifting up from the interior. The hall, its limestone walls blackened, had survived for the most part and stood roofless and elegant, some of the glass still in the windows catching the sun. The bonfire smell clung to everything, and in the courtyard before the smouldering ruins, Robert Hamilton of Lockharthill was attempting to question the remaining household.
He was not having a lot of success, at least partly because the young men were exhausted, hungry and half-asleep. He was further distracted by most of the men of Forth who had arrived to lend a hand now it was daylight, wishing to question their various sons or nephews among the group and bear them home to be fed, washed and put to bed. When Gil arrived, Hamilton was engrossed with Doddie Allen’s account of the night.
‘And Maister Cunningham seen it was on fire,’ the lad was saying, ‘and his man seen the stables was on fire, and we all ran to get the beasts out the stables, so we couldny put out the fire in
the house, and any road the house was on fire both sides and the hall and all, we’d never ha got enough water out the well, it was running dry afore we put the stables out.’ He paused to yawn enormously. ‘Maister, can I get gaun hame? I’m that weary.’
‘D’you ken what happened to Somerville?’ demanded Hamilton. Doddie shook his head.
‘No me, maister. I never seen him till he was lying here in the yard, I’d ha boaked at the sight o him, I’d surely mind. It’s no right what was done to him, nor to Davie.’
‘Away hame, lad,’ said Hamilton, not unkindly. ‘Aye, Gil. Come and tell me what you ken.’
Gil, trying not to yawn as Doddie had done, delivered an elisive summary of the events of the night, feeling that his cousin and Doig were distractions better omitted. Hamilton heard him out, frowning.
‘You found Somerville like this,’ he said, nodding at the man’s ruined countenance. ‘Did you no attempt to find the man responsible?’
‘I did,’ Gil responded. ‘That’s who I was seeking when I realised the house was alight. It’s my belief he got away.’
‘Is it?’ Hamilton eyed him, frowning again. ‘How d’ye make that out?’
‘We found a window open, and I’d say it was the same man that thought o knifing another fellow and throwing him under the stallion’s feet, though that’s likely been an hour or two earlier.’
‘Aye.’ Hamilton turned this over. ‘Aye, you could be right. The way he’s hacked wee bits off Somerville, it fair turns yir belly. Do we ken who he is?’
‘I’ve never a notion. I wish I did,’ said Gil, with partial truth. ‘Maybe these fellows could gie you a description. Him or his horse,’ he added on an inspiration.
‘And the same fellow slit this lad’s throat,’ said Hamilton, looking at the second body. One of the older men who had arrived knelt by it, blue bonnet in hand, head bent. ‘How’d that come about? Oh, aye, you said, he wouldny stay wi you, he gaed off on his own and the fellow took him in the dark. Somerville should ha stayed in his tower-house,’ he added. ‘He’d ha been a sight better defended. I’ll wager the heir will move back in there.’