Kate Cunningham, sitting in the arbour in her uncle’s garden, stared out over the lower town and thought bleakly about her future.
It seemed to contain very little that was positive. St Mungo had been her last resort. Restricted though their income was, she had travelled widely in the past two or three years, following the pilgrim roads of Scotland with offerings and petitions for saints from Tain to Whithorn without success. She wondered if she had offended Mungo by turning to him the last, and found her mouth twisting in a bitter smile.
‘What has changed?’ said Alys in her accented Scots.
Kate looked round, and found her new relation sitting on the grass nearby. The smile softened; in the few days since they had met she had found a great liking for this slender, elegant, terrifyingly competent girl.
‘Changed?’ she said now.
‘Since yesterday, for example,’ said Alys.
Kate turned her head to look out over the burgh again, trying to decide whether she could answer that.
‘All my hopes are away,’ she said at last. ‘The rest of my life’s still the same, but now I’ve no hope of ever getting rid of – these.’ She nodded at the crutches propped beside the arbour.
‘All your hopes?’
‘You sound like my brother. No, I suppose, not all. I still have my hope of salvation, but what else is there? How can I lead a useful life? How can I lead a good life, even?’
‘You said,’ said Alys diffidently, ‘that the saint bade you Rise up, daughter.’ Kate nodded. ‘Dreams often go by image and metaphor. Do you think, perhaps, he meant you were to rise up above your difficulties? To ignore them?’
‘He could have said so,’ Kate said sourly. ‘It’s no that easy to ignore having to be carried downstairs every day.’
Alys was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘I came out to ask for your help.’
‘Mine? What help can I be? Did you not hear me, Alys?’
‘Your brother,’ said Alys, colouring slightly as she always did when she mentioned Gil, ‘left me a task. Someone must speak to Maister Morison’s men about the bringing home of that cart, with the barrel on it, and the sooner the better. I need a companion. Would you come with me?’
‘Why not take one of your lassies?’ said Kate, aware that she sounded pettish. ‘Or that Catherine?’
‘I’d rather have this Katherine,’ said Alys, her elusive smile flickering. ‘My lassies will be busy about the dinner just now, and Catherine will be asleep over her prayer-book, since she last saw me in my father’s care. Will you not help me? We can have your mule brought round, and you can ride down, and Babb and I can walk. Then you may dine with us, and come home after.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Kate after a moment. ‘I might as well, I suppose.’
The three women halted in the gateway to Morison’s Yard, staring at the disorder within.
‘Mon Dieu,’ said Alys after a moment, ‘quelle espèce de pagaille!’
‘You’ve not been here before?’ said Kate, as her mule pricked his long ears at a blowing wisp of straw.
‘No,’ admitted Alys, looking round. ‘How ever could he let his men work like this? I would be ashamed to – of course his wife is dead.’
‘Her is non hoom, her nis but wildernesse. Where should we start?’ asked Kate. ‘Is there anyone here to question, or is the place deserted?’
‘There’s somebody down yonder,’ said Babb suspiciously. ‘Ye can hear voices.’
As she spoke the door of the barn at the far end of the yard was flung open and a skinny boy scurried out, making for one of the sheds. Halfway there he caught sight of the visitors, skidded to a halt staring, then turned and scurried back into the barn. The words Three bonnie leddies floated out.
‘Hmf!’ said Babb. Andy Paterson appeared in the doorway, and hurried forward, the boy beside him.
‘Forgive the wait, leddies, we’re a wee thing owerset here,’ he said, raising his blue knitted bonnet, and stopped, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Lady Kate! John, you never said it was Lady Kate!’ he remonstrated, aiming a cuff at the boy, who ducked expertly.
‘No reason the boy should know me,’ Kate said. ‘How are you, Andy? And the family?’
‘All well, so far’s I’ve heard,’ said Andy. ‘Madam your mother’s well, then, leddy?’
‘She is,’ said Kate. ‘Andy, this is Mistress Mason, who’s to marry my brother.’
‘Wish ye well, mistress,’ said Andy. He raised the bonnet again to Alys, and nodded companionably to Babb. ‘And what’s your pleasure, Lady Kate? Mistress?’
The two girls exchanged a brief look, and Alys gave Kate one of her infinitesimal nods.
‘A word with the men who brought the cart from Linlithgow,’ Kate said.
Andy’s eyes narrowed. ‘What for?’
‘In case any of them remembers something that might be useful,’ said Alys. ‘You want your master out of the castle and back in the yard, don’t you?’
‘Aye, I do, mistress,’ said Andy. ‘And if it’s like that.’ He turned to the boy. ‘John, run and mak siccar Billy Walker’s no left the yard yet. I’ve just bidden him gie us his room,’ he expanded to Kate. ‘You’ll have heard from Maister Gil what passed at the quest, then?’
‘What like a man’s Billy Walker? Is that him at the back yett?’ asked Babb. Andy swung round, let out a roar, and set off at a run. Babb, grinning, dropped Kate’s crutches with a clatter, hitched up her skirts and pounded after him. She overtook him easily halfway down the yard, swept past him and seized Billy as he slipped through the gate.
‘Let me loose!’ he shouted as she dragged him triumphantly back to her mistress. ‘Let me away, you fairground show! I’ve been turned off, it’s none of my mind now, it’s nought to do wi me!’
‘Well, now,’ said Kate thoughtfully, studying him from her perch on the back of the mule. ‘Maybe if you can tell us anything useful . . .’ She paused, glancing at Andy’s scowling face, and changed what she had been about to say. ‘One of us might put in a word for you with another master. I take it you’d liefer work than starve?’
‘What if I would?’ he said sulkily. ‘That yin wasny for giving me the choice.’
He jerked his head at Andy, who expostulated, ‘I wasny? What about yersel, Billy Walker? Ye’ve tried to put us all out of our work! If the maister gets hangit for murder, what will the rest of us do?’
‘I tell ye, I never meant for that,’ said Billy. ‘And forbye, he’s got the money to get off. He never done it, he’ll no get –’ He squirmed in Babb’s grasp. ‘Will you let me go, you great lump?’
Kate exchanged another glance with Alys, who said, ‘Is there somewhere we can talk to Billy? And then to the rest of the men who went to Linlithgow?’
‘One at a time, you mean?’ said Andy, and chewed his lip briefly. ‘Aye, well, ye can sit in the house, if ye can get up the stair, my leddy Or there’s the sheds. No that one,’ he said in significant tones, nodding at the nearest, ‘ye’ll not want to sit in that one, but there’s others. Only thing is, the women are a’ to pieces in the kitchen, the both o them. We’ll no can offer you any refreshment, you’ll understand. It’s a good question whether me and the men’ll get any dinner.’
‘I can get up the stair,’ said Kate. ‘We’ll sit in the house.’
Established in the hall, the two girls confronted the resentful Billy still in Babb’s unloving grip. Alys had flung wide all the shutters, only partly lightening the gloom and in addition revealing the thick layer of dust which lay alike on dull furnishings and the clutter of musical instruments in a corner. Kate dragged her gaze resolutely from these and said, ‘Explain yourself, Billy.’
‘I’m no wanted here,’ he retorted, ‘the auld ruddoch made that clear enough, so I don’t see why I should help ye, and ye’ve no right to be holding me here neither. Mem,’ he added reluctantly as both stared pointedly at him.
‘Billy,’ said Kate, ‘do you know what a wilful false assize is?’
‘I do not. And I’ll no take lessons in the law from a lassie.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Kate calmly, ‘for if it was proved this day’s assize was wilfully false, and you had aught to do with it, you’d be up for a fine that would have you working for your keep the rest of your life.’ Maybe Gil was right, she thought, and I should study the law.
‘I had nothing to do wi it! It’s no my doing if my cousin . . .’
‘Yes?’ said Alys.
Billy muttered something inaudible. Babb shook him, and he said, ‘If my cousin repeated what I tellt him to the other assizers.’
‘And what did you tell him?’ demanded Babb in his ear. ‘Tell my leddy, now.’
Billy rolled his eyes at her so that the whites showed in the dim.
‘What I said at the assize,’ he said, with an attempt at nonchalance. ‘That it was my belief the maister kent by far mair nor he was saying about the barrel, and how he kept us out of the way while it was opened. As for him saying it was books inside it,’ he added sourly, ‘a likely tale that was, and so I thought from the start.’
‘And what did you know about the barrel yourself?’ asked Alys. ‘Did you see it hoisted out of the ship?’
‘Aye, I did,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘And it stood on the shore while we got the two big pipes on to the cart, and then we got it on the back of the cart and tied the tail up.’
‘Why load it on the back?’ Alys asked curiously. ‘Why not on the top, in the dip between the two great pipes?’ She held up her hands to illustrate the question, and Billy gave her a sharp look.
‘Because the maister was feart it might fall off the top,’ he said. ‘So I kenned it was worth something.’
‘And there was no other barrel the same size?’ Kate said.
‘I never saw one. There might ha been.’ He stopped, staring at Alys, who had drawn her wax tablets from her purse and opened them. ‘Here, are you to write down every word I say? For that’s no fair!’
‘And how not, if you’re speaking the truth?’ Babb demanded, towering over him. ‘What’s to fear from your own true words?’
‘And how do I ken she writes it down exact? You’re on my maister’s side, you’re going to twist all I say against me –’
‘So you admit you aren’t on your maister’s side?’ Kate said quickly.
‘I never said that,’ said Billy, hunching his shoulders.
‘Then answer my leddy,’ said Babb, giving him a shake. He glared at her, then at Alys.
‘Aye,’ he said sulkily, ‘but she better write it down right.’
‘Be sure I will,’ said Alys sweetly, her stylus poised.
‘Was the cart covered?’ asked Kate. ‘A hood, a canvas apron?’
‘Naw. No this time o year.’
‘And then what happened?’ asked Alys. ‘That was on Monday afternoon, was it?’
Billy shrugged, as far as he might in Babb’s rigorous grip. ‘If you say so,’ he muttered.
‘Where did it go next?’ Alys prodded.
‘Linlithgow. To the cooper’s yard,’ said Billy sulkily.
Bit by bit they got the information out of him. At Linlithgow the cart had lain in a barn in Riddoch the cooper’s yard; at Kilsyth the next night it had been put in the dyer’s cart-shed.
‘And I got logwood dust on my hose,’ said Billy sourly, displaying the dark mark down one thigh.
‘You slept with the cart?’ said Alys. He nodded. ‘So you would have seen anyone who touched it?’
‘I never saw anyone near it,’ said Billy.
‘So it was a quiet night, both nights?’ said Kate.
‘Hah!’ said Billy, looking faintly smug. ‘That’s all you ken.’
Kate considered him briefly ‘What way was it not quiet?’ she asked. ‘What happened, then?’
Billy wagged his head. ‘No a lot.’
‘Go on,’ said Babb, shaking him again. ‘How was it no quiet? You’ve said this much, you’ll finish the tale or I’ll beat it out of you.’
‘You’ve no need o yir threats. It was – it was just a thief in Riddoch’s yard,’ revealed Billy. ‘But whoever it was I never saw him near the cart,’ he said again.
‘A thief? Why did you not come out with this at the inquest?’ Kate demanded. ‘There’s Maister Morison held in the castle, and –’
‘I tell you, I never saw him near the cart!’ Billy repeated.
‘What did you see?’ Alys asked.
He shrugged again. ‘No much. I heard more.’
Another prolonged session of questioning got a description of sorts. Billy had been woken by shouting, and possibly by the sound of a fight. He had looked out of the barn, but the yard was dark. The cooper had leaned out of a window bellowing threats, and then come down in his shirt, roused his household and searched the yard with lanterns.
‘But they never found anything,’ said Billy. ‘Nor anything missing,’ he added. ‘There was barrels overturned and that, and when I rose in the morning the shavings had all been kicked across the yard, so I sweepit them thegither for them, but they said there was nothing taken. But I did think one of them got away by the back yett.’
‘One of them,’ repeated Alys. ‘You said just now you never saw him near the cart. Was it one man, or several?’
‘I never counted them,’ said Billy. ‘It was all dark, see.’
Babb shook him angrily. ‘Keep a civil tongue, you,’ she growled.
‘If there was a fight, there must have been more than one man in the yard,’ said Kate.
‘Oh, very clever,’ said Billy. ‘There you go, the both of ye, turning a man’s words against him.’ Babb shook him again, and he glared over his shoulder at her.
‘If you are speaking the truth, you have nothing to fear,’ said Alys. Billy snorted.
‘You said it was dark,’ said Kate. ‘Would you have seen if anyone went near the cart?’
‘I’d ha heard him at the barn door, would I no,’ Billy pointed out. ‘Or when he shifted the barrels.’
‘So you still don’t know when the barrel with the books in it was changed for the barrel that was opened yesterday,’ said Alys.
‘Maybe it was witchcraft,’ suggested Billy, and crossed himself.
‘That was hard work,’ said Alys as Babb ejected the indignant journeyman.
‘It sounds easy when my brother talks about questioning witnesses,’ Kate admitted, sitting back in Morison’s great chair, ‘but it isn’t, is it?’
‘Will I ask at the kitchen, my leddy,’ said Babb, returning from the house door, ‘if they could manage a wee refreshment for ye, before you have in the other men?’
The two girls exchanged a glance.
‘The kitchen will be busy. Perhaps call Andy in first?’ Alys suggested.
Andy, turning his blue knitted cap in his hands, confirmed the initial details of Billy’s account. The barrel had been hoisted out first, laid on the shore, loaded on the tail of the cart. There had certainly been no other puncheon the same size in Thomas Tod’s vessel.
‘And what about this tale of a thief in the cooper’s yard?’ Alys asked.
‘A what?’ Andy’s open-mouthed stare and swelling indignation were answer in themselves. ‘He never – In the cooper’s yard? At Linlithgow? There was no a word of it in the morning, he just brought the cart round to the Blue Lion his lone when we was ready to get away. What thief’s this, mistress? What was taken? Did they catch anybody?’
‘So you weren’t in the yard yourself?’ Kate said.
He shook his head. ‘No in the morning, we just set straight off for the West Port to get out afore the traffic coming in blocked the gate. See, my maister’s got an agreement with Willie Riddoch,’ he expanded. ‘We don’t pay him by the night, they settle it up at the quarter-day atween them. But what’s this about a thief, my leddy?’
‘It wasn’t clear,’ said Kate. ‘I’d hoped you could give us a better story. It seems from what Billy says as if there was a fight in the yard, and someone got away by the back yett, but he claims nobody went near the cart.’
‘But did the cooper hear nothing? Has Billy invented it all, maybe?’
‘The cooper came down and roused his men,’ Alys said, ‘and they searched the yard, to no purpose. So Billy said.’
‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Andy. ‘Someone should get to Linlithgow, ask at Willie Riddoch what happened.’
‘My brother –’ Kate began, and was interrupted by a shrill, furious voice from the next room.
‘If you think I’m staying another hour wi they unnatural brats, wi an ill-natured auld besom like you in the kitchen and your like in the yard –’
‘It’s none of my part to raise those bairns,’ declared another, more distant voice, ‘I’ve enough to do cooking for a dozen, and no money in my hand beyond tomorrow –’
‘Well, that’s no trouble o mine,’ said the first voice, and a plump young woman backed into the hall from the chamber beyond it. ‘If you choose to stay here, you can deal wi what comes.’
‘Aye, Mall,’ said Andy grimly. The maidservant swung round, plainly startled to find the hall occupied, and Babb appeared in the doorway behind her, carrying a tray.
‘What ever is the matter?’ said Alys, moving forward. ‘Why should you not stay? Surely the bairns need you?’
‘Them?’ said Mall, and tossed her head. ‘They never mind a word I say, why should they need me? I tell you, the wee one’s possessed and the other never heeds a word I say, and I’ve been here long enough –’
Babb came quietly into the room to set the tray down on a convenient chest. Behind her another, older woman, spare and upright, hurried across the further chamber. Her apron was stained and scorched, though her linen coif appeared clean; the cook, Kate assumed.
‘You leave now,’ said Andy, ‘and you’ll not see a plack of what’s owing for the quarter, I can tell ye that, my girl.’
‘You have stayed this long,’ said Alys, ‘why not a little longer? Just till your maister comes back? Who will mind the bairns if you go now?’
‘Who’s to say he’ll come back?’ said the nursemaid pertly. ‘That’s no what I’ve heard at all. And what wi him locked up in the castle for murder, and this auld –’ she jerked her head at Andy, apparently at a loss for a suitable term – ‘turning folks away without a by-your-leave, and now Ursel telling me what I can do and I canny do, I tell you I’ve had more than I can stomach o Morison’s Yard. I’m away up to fetch my gear, and you can mind the bairns yoursels if it worries you.’
‘And well rid o a bad-tempered hizzy,’ said the older woman from the door, her voice rising again, ‘no fit to have charge o decent folk’s bairns, trollop that ye are, and filthy with it! Where were you all this noontime, tell me that, Mall Anderson, while I’d to mind they lassies?’
‘And I praise all the saints that’s named, Ursel Campbell, I’ll not have to eat another mouthful you’ve burnt!’ retorted Mall. She flounced away towards another doorway at the far side of the hall, but recoiled with a shriek as she reached it. ‘St Anne protect us, what’s that? Oh, it’s the deil’s get. Come off the stair, you, and let me pass.’
‘No,’ said a small voice from the shadows beyond the doorway.
‘Come here, my wee pet,’ said Ursel in gentler tones. ‘Come on, the both of ye, we’ll see if I’ve a bit gingerbread for good lassies.’
‘Aren’t good lassies,’ said the little voice. ‘She said so.’
‘Get out of my way,’ said Mall between her teeth, ‘afore I come up to you.’
‘Why?’ asked the voice, with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.
Kate, who had watched the drama unfold in amazement, suddenly found her tongue.
‘Mall,’ she said with authority, ‘stand aside from the door. Wynliane, Ysonde, come down here to me.’ And thanks be to Our Lady, she thought, that I asked Augie their names.
After a moment the two children stepped into the room, moving silently, hand in hand. As soon as they were clear of the door Mall brushed past them and on to the stair, and the little girls came forward hesitantly into the lighter part of the hall. Across the room, Babb folded her arms, watching.
‘Come here,’ Kate said encouragingly.
‘Why are you in our house?’ asked the smaller one. ‘My da’s no here.’
‘Mind your manners, Ysonde,’ said Andy. ‘This is Lady Kate Cunningham and that’s Mistress Mason. Where’s your obedience, then?’
‘Don’t got one.’
Ursel clicked her tongue.
‘He means a curtsy, like I taught you,’ she said. The child shot her a glance and stuck her bottom lip out.
‘Maybe they’re too little to make a curtsy,’ said Alys.
‘I expect you’re right,’ agreed Kate. Andy opened his mouth to contradict, and was silenced by a glare from Ursel as the younger child, scowling, arranged her bare feet with care, spread her tattered brocade skirts and sank into a rather wobbly salute. Her sister looked at her from behind her elf-locks and rather hesitantly copied her, and Kate clapped her hands as they straightened up.
‘Very good,’ she said. ‘I can see you were well taught.’
The older girl stared timidly at her, but the younger was not listening. Chin up, she was glaring at the ceiling; Kate, following her gaze, realized that she too had been aware of Mall’s footsteps, which had now halted.
‘Now will you come and get a bit gingerbread?’ said Ursel. Kate hushed her, listening, and they heard the clunk of a kist lid closing.
‘That’s my da’s kist,’ observed Ysonde.
‘You don’t know that,’ said Ursel.
‘Do.’
‘It could be any of the kists up yonder,’ the old woman reasoned, ‘yours or your da’s or –’ She broke off, and the child finished for her:
‘Or my mammy’s. Wasn’t either my mammy’s, and not Wynliane’s and mine neither. It was my da’s in his chamber where he sleeps.’
‘We’ll find out,’ said Andy grimly. He moved to the house door as Mall came down the stairs, wrapped in her plaid and carrying a canvas satchel. The older child shrank silently towards Kate where she sat enthroned in the oak chair, and Andy went on, ‘Right, my lassie. Let’s see what’s in yon scrip before you take it out of here.’
‘What’s in my scrip’s none of your mind!’ retorted Mall, clutching at the bag. ‘You can just get your nose out of my business, you interfering old ruddoch, and let me by!’
‘Mall,’ said Alys, ‘what did you take out of the kist just now?’
‘I never touched any kist!’
‘We all heard the lid closing,’ said Kate.
The girl bridled. ‘Well, maybe I just bumped it a wee bit. I never touched a thing inside it,’ she averred.
‘So you won’t mind showing us what’s in your scrip?’ said Alys gently.
‘Aye, I do mind!’ Mall looked around, but the other door was blocked by Babb’s considerable bulk. ‘Let me pass, Andy Paterson, since you’re so eager to get me gone from here, and you’ll no bother speiring into my belongings either!’
‘Then may I look in your scrip? I am not of your household.’ Alys came forward with her hand out, and Mall ducked sideways, clutching the satchel to her again. Her plaid slipped, and at Kate’s side the older girl suddenly pointed and screamed shrilly. There was a flurry of movement, and Ysonde was beside her nurse, tugging at the plaid, shouting.
‘It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s no yours! Give it back!’
‘Get it off me, the wee deil!’ exclaimed Mall, swinging her free arm wildly, impeded by the need to keep hold of her satchel as well as the plaid. The other child was still screaming, and both Andy and Ursel added their voices to the mêlée, but Babb strode forward and with one large hand scooped Ysonde shouting into the air while with the other she tugged the plaid from Mall’s back. As the swathe of hodden grey wool came free, several more bundles of cloth fell to the floor from its folds.
‘Put me down! Put me down!’ shouted Ysonde, but Wynliane’s screams halted abruptly as she pounced on the bundle nearest her. Kate, leaning forward from where she sat, saw that it was a linen garment, finely embroidered. The child hugged it to her, and reached with her other hand for the next item, which seemed to be a length of tawny worsted cloth.
‘Could these be from Mistress Morison’s kist?’ Kate asked.
‘Come, Mall,’ said Alys. ‘Let us see what else you have there.’
Mall was inclined to go on arguing, but Babb settled the matter by putting Ysonde on the floor, removing the satchel from the nursemaid’s grasp, and upending it on to the settle beside Alys. Ursel hurried forward, exclaiming in annoyance.
‘That’s my St Ursula, and you know it, thieving hizzy that you are, Mall Anderson.’ She seized a small, brightly coloured picture from the bench, and Kate recognized the sort of cheap painted woodcut print commonly sold at fairs. ‘And that’s mine and all,’ added Ursel, snatching up a comb, ‘and I don’t know why you’d bother to steal it, you’ve no notion of how to use it. And is this no the box Jamesie was looking for last week, Andy?’
‘That’s my good belt buckle, I ken that,’ said Andy, coming forward from the door.
‘That’s my bitie,’ said Ysonde from the floor, where she was helping her sister to retrieve the scattered garments. She pointed to the coral teether with its dangling ribbon. ‘That’s mine. She can’t have that.’
‘Aye, Ursel, it’s Jamesie’s box right enough,’ said Andy. ‘And how did it get in your scrip, you wee – Stop her! Get her!’
He sprang forward as Mall reached the door, but as his outstretched hand touched her sleeve Babb collided with him on the same errand and the girl eluded them both. Disentangling themselves they set off down the steps after her, pursued by Alys.
Kate, left sitting by the cold hearth, looked from the children clutching their dead mother’s clothes to the old woman picking her property out of the magpie assortment on the bench, and then round the shadowy hall. With a sudden feeling of making a momentous decision, she said to Ursel, ‘And who will look after the bairns now?’
‘I wish she had not got away,’ said Alys.
‘Aye,’ growled Andy. ‘I’d ha had her charged wi theft, and a pleasure it’d been too.’
‘She was that quick,’ said Babb, handing ale to her mistress. ‘She must ha jinked down one vennel or another, and out of sight.’
‘Is it worth laying a complaint?’ asked Kate.
‘No wi John Anderson,’ said Andy. ‘He’s her uncle.’
‘We got her scrip,’ said Babb, ‘and what she had hid under her plaid forbye.’
‘Is anything else missing?’ Alys wondered. ‘Anything she could have hidden about her person?’
‘Down her busk, ye mean, mistress?’ said Andy. ‘Here, I never thought o that.’ He took the beaker of ale from Babb and sat down in obedience to Kate’s gesture. ‘Trouble is, the maister’s no here to tell us what’s missing. Those bairns might ken,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Where are they, anyway?’
‘With Ursel for now,’ said Kate. ‘She had to see to the men’s dinner.’
‘And I must go home to see about my father’s, and Kate with me,’ said Alys. ‘But I think we must return after it. There are things I must ask you, Andy. For one thing, do you know where the barrel has gone?’
‘What barrel? That barrel, ye mean, mistress?’ Andy gave the matter some thought. ‘I think Mattha Hog wanted to buy it for a show, to keep in the tavern. I could find out for ye.’
‘Would you send one of the men to ask before his dinner?’ Alys requested.
‘I could. What are ye at, mistress?’
‘Billy said the cart lay at a dyer’s yard on Tuesday night.’ Andy nodded agreement. ‘He was complaining about logwood stains on his hose. If there is logwood dust on the barrel, we can be certain it was on the cart on Tuesday night.’
‘How will you tell that?’ asked Andy, staring at her.
She smiled, but shook her head and drank some of her ale. ‘Find where the barrel is,’ she said.
‘And what about the bairns, my leddy?’ said Babb. ‘That Ursel’s right, she’s enough to do seeing to the men’s dinner without a pair of wee tykes like yon underfoot all day.’
‘I can gie her a hand getting them to bed, maybe,’ said Andy doubtfully.
‘They should be washed,’ said Alys.
‘Aye, well, that’s no happened for a while.’
‘Does any of your men have a sister or a sweetheart or the like?’ Kate asked. ‘A lassie who’d come in to help for a few days?’
Andy looked at her, chewing his lip.
‘I’ll ask,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t think they do, but. There’s only Jamesie that’s courting, and his leman’s well placed in Andrew Hamilton’s household.’
‘I could spare one of my household for a day or so,’ said Alys.
‘Besides,’ continued Andy, pursuing his own train of thought, ‘who’d direct a lassie? I’ve no notion what’s to do for a pair of bairns like that, and she’d maybe no mind Ursel.’
‘She’d mind me,’ said Kate confidently. ‘I’ll be back here after I’ve had my dinner. Babb and I can sleep here the night.’
‘I thought there would have been more argument,’ said Alys, avoiding a puddle.
‘I did too,’ said Kate from the back of her mule, ‘both about me staying at Morison’s and about this idea.’
‘Where is this Hog tavern, anyway?’ Alys wondered. ‘He said the Gallowgait, but we are nearly at the port and I have not seen it.’
‘Andy seems to know where he’s going.’ Kate nodded at the small man making his way along the busy street just ahead of them. ‘Come up, Wallace,’ she said as her mule balked at the sight of a towering cartload of kindling. Babb stepped up from behind them and seized his reins in her free hand. ‘I can get him by, Babb, give him his head.’
‘Hmf,’ said Babb, getting between the mule and the cart.
‘No, let him see it go past, or he’ll think it’s still waiting for him.’ Babb let go the reins but took hold of the animal’s bridle. He turned his head into her grasp, attempting to bite. ‘Deil take you, Babb,’ Kate exploded, ‘will you let me ride my own mule?’
‘Oh, I will, my doo,’ said Babb innocently, ‘just as soon as he’s minding you.’
‘Andy has gone up that vennel,’ said Alys over her shoulder. Wallace flicked his ears towards her voice, then suddenly decided the cart was not a threat and moved on, tugging at Babb’s grasp on his bridle, to follow Alys into the vennel. Two doors down, Andy was waiting for them under a crudely painted sign: a boar with curling white tusks.
‘Will the mule be safe here?’ said Kate doubtfully, as she became aware of curious neighbours appearing in doorways.
‘Aye, if I stay wi him,’ said Babb, helping her down. She handed over the crutches, one by one, and took hold of the bridle again. ‘You go wi Andy, Lady Kate, and be sure and mind what he says. And the same for you, mistress,’ she added sternly to Alys, who smiled quickly and followed Andy into the tavern. Kate adjusted her grip on her crutches and swung after her.
There was one crowded room. By the door, near the barrel of ale on its trestle, groups of people stood about or sat on stools or benches, discussing the day’s work in loud voices. Beyond them some were eating at a long table, and at the far end of the room a peat fire glowed in a brazier and a woman was stirring something in a big cooking-pot hung from an iron crane. The flagstone floor had not been swept that day. As the smells and voices hit her, Kate realized with some relief that there were other women in the place apart from the cook. One of them was saying, across the noise, ‘Yir tavern’s fairly coming on, Mattha. There’s the gentry come calling now.’
A grey-haired man in a tavern-keeper’s apron bustled forward from beside the big barrel, peering intently at their faces.
‘And how can I help ye, leddies?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘What’s your will of the house, then? We’ve a barrel of good ale, broached just yesterday, and a wee tait o the twice-brewed from last week, and a pot of mutton broth on the cran, wi barley and onions in’t,’ he recited, still watching them carefully. Kate, testing the manifold odours of the place, identified all these, and wondered if there were turnips in the broth as well.
‘Aye, Mattha,’ said Andy. ‘I sent the boy down no an hour ago to ask about the puncheon.’
‘Oh, aye, Andy Paterson, so ye did,’ said the other man, his suspicions obviously borne out. ‘What was it ye wanted about it?’
‘I’d like to look at it,’ said Alys, smiling at him. He looked at her blankly. ‘Was that not why you bought it? So that people would come into your tavern to see it?’
‘There you are, Mattha,’ said a bystander in jocular tones. ‘It’s fetching folk in already.’
‘It’s no much to see, mistress,’ said a man seated near Kate. ‘It’s just an ordinary barrel. No even any bloodstains.’
‘It’s my belief it’s the wrong barrel,’ said the stout woman with him. ‘It’d no be the first time Mattha Hog cried up wares he never had.’
‘It is the right barrel an all, Eppie!’ said Hog indignantly. ‘I bought it off the serjeant afore ever I left the castle this morning, and fetched it home myself on Willie Sproat’s donkey-cart. You tell her it’s the right barrel, Andy Paterson!’
‘I canny tell her that,’ said Andy reasonably, ‘till I set my own een on it. So where is it, Mattha?’
‘Aye, bring it out, Mattha,’ said the man with Eppie. ‘Let’s all hear what he has to say.’
Kate, standing back on her crutches, watched as the barrel was handled out from behind the trestle. The bystanders fell silent, though the noise in the room was not much diminished. Andy bent to look at the marks on the staves, muttering names to himself, and then took the barrel-head from Hog and tilted it to the light from the door.
‘Well?’ demanded its owner.
‘Oh, aye,’ said Andy sourly. ‘It’s the same puncheon I opened yesterday morn. Ye can see where I set the hook to the withies.’
‘It was you that opened it?’ said a younger woman hopefully. ‘And what all was in it? Was it a Saracen’s head? And is that right there was treasure?’
The last word fell into a break in the noise, and heads turned. Kate, watching, had a glimpse of a face on the edge of her vision which seemed to be familiar, but when she looked round the room she could not see it.
‘What was in here,’ said Andy, ‘all went up to the castle. The Sheriff kens all.’
‘Aye, right,’ said someone else, with irony.
There was general laughter, and Hog said, ‘Is that it, then? You’ve seen it, lassie. Can I put it by now?’
‘In a moment,’ said Alys. She opened her purse, at which Hog looked hopeful, but all she drew out was a white cloth, which she unwrapped to disclose a small flask.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Hog, all his suspicion returned. ‘It’s no holy water, is it?’
‘No, no,’ said Alys soothingly, and drew the stopper. ‘Only well-water.’ She tilted the flask so that water ran on to the cloth, then bent over the puncheon as Andy had done.
‘What are you doing now?’ said Hog, alarmed, ‘I’m no wanting it washed!’ He tried to pull the barrel away, but Andy prevented him with a firm grip of the rim.
‘What are you after, mistress?’ asked the man with Eppie. ‘Is it bloodstains you’re looking for?’
Alys, intent on her work, did not answer him.
‘Gold dust, likely,’ offered the girl who had asked about treasure.
‘What, on the outside?’ said someone else.
Kate, looking about the room again, found the bystanders had shifted. The familiar face was still hidden, but this time she could see the back of its owner’s shaggy, sandy head, the shoulders hunched uncomfortably away from her where he sat at the long table. Who, she wondered, was Billy Walker talking to in this tavern? She turned carefully, so that she could keep an unobtrusive watch in that direction, but a squat man in a patched red doublet kept getting in her way and all she could establish was that it was someone large, wrapped in a dark cloak despite being seated close to the fire.
‘And may I see the head?’ said Alys. Andy lifted it for her, and balanced it on the rim of the puncheon; she folded her damp cloth again and began dabbing at the planks, paying careful attention to the joints and the edges.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded Hog again. Alys finished, and unfolded the cloth and held it up. It was a piece of old table linen, much-mended and bleached white, and even this far from the door the dark smudges were clearly visible on the diaper weave.
‘Is that blood?’ said the treasure-seeker eagerly.
‘No, not blood,’ said Alys. ‘Logwood. The cart lay one night in a dyer’s barn on the way home, we are told, and the carter complained he had logwood stains on his hose.’
‘So what’s that tell us?’
‘Tells them the barrel was on the cart,’ said Eppie.
‘We knew that,’ said Andy.
‘Billy Walker was right,’ said Alys. Kate, glancing down the room again, found that the squat man had moved. Billy’s sandy head turned sharply as he picked his own name out of the conversation, and the cloaked man opposite him looked up. Kate had a glimpse of a broad, flat, big-featured face with a tuft of beard on the lower lip; then the man’s eyes met hers, and he smiled. She looked away quickly, a sudden trickle of fear running down her spine.
‘Have ye seen enough, mistress?’ demanded Hog.
‘I have, indeed,’ said Alys. ‘Thank you, Maister Hog.’
She opened her purse again, and this time a coin changed hands. Hog, looking less surly, twirled his property away behind the tapped barrel, and returning went so far as to say, ‘And thank you, mistress. Ye’ll aye be welcome in Mattha Hog’s tavern, and I hope you’ll tell all your gossips what’s here.’
‘Oh, be sure of that, Maister Hog,’ said Alys with a sweet smile. Kate bit her lip appreciatively, and turned towards the door as Andy began the task of shepherding his two charges out of the tavern.
There was some disturbance behind them, movement in the press of people, and exclamations of annoyance, but intent on making her way out without setting her crutches down on any of the feet Kate did not look round. She was unprepared, therefore, for the man who pushed roughly past her, putting her off balance. Recovering herself, she was aware of Eppie’s indignant shouting, and of a shaggy head against the light in the doorway; then something struck her right crutch a heavy blow. It gave way under her, and she went sideways on to an acrid lap, and then as its owner, too, overbalanced they both went sprawling. There was more shouting, an exclamation from Alys, a furious bellow from Andy.
‘Are ye hurt, lassie?’ said a voice nearer her ear. ‘Only if my wife was to hear o this, I’ll get her rock about my ears when I get home the night.’
She pushed herself up, embarrassed, then moved her hand hastily and apologized.
‘Oh, never apologize for that,’ said the man, grinning, and heaved himself back up on to his stool. ‘Can ye rise?’
‘Are ye hurt?’ said someone else. ‘What did he do to ye? Was that an axe he had?’
‘I can’t get up my lone,’ she admitted furiously. ‘My leg –’
‘An axe?’ said Andy, hauling ineffectively at Kate’s shoulders. ‘Did somebody say an axe? What did he do wi it? Was that Billy Walker I seen? Surely he never had an axe!’
‘Has he cut her leg off?’ said the treasure-seeker.
‘Fetch Babb,’ said Kate urgently, knocking Andy’s hands away, and scrambled round into a sitting position. ‘Andy, get Babb here to me.’
But Babb was already there, elbowing people aside, ranting angrily about Andy’s lack of care.
‘As for you, my leddy,’ she said furiously, getting a capable grip as Kate reached up to link her arms round her neck, ‘you’ve no the sense you was born wi, coming into a dirty place like this where folks has no more courtesy than knock down a lassie off her oxter-poles.’
She hoisted, with practised ease, and set her mistress upright.
‘It was Billy Walker,’ said Andy, dusting at Kate’s sleeve. Alys appeared anxiously at the doorway, with Wallace’s soft enquiring nose beside her. ‘Did he hurt you, my leddy?’
‘It couldny ha been one of my customers,’ claimed Hog in haste. ‘I never seen him afore he was in here this day.’
‘It was a great big man wi an axe,’ said Eppie, ‘for I seen it catch the light all blue. An axe on a long haft. What did he do wi it, lassie?’
‘He knocked my pole from under me,’ said Kate shakily, accepting one of her crutches from Andy.
‘She’s complaining o her leg,’ said the man she had fallen on, dusting himself down.
‘And why should she no,’ said Babb, still angry, ‘when it’s never worked since she was six years of age? And St Mungo himself refusing to do anything for her –’
‘Babb!’ said Kate.
‘Oh, are ye that lassie?’ said Eppie. ‘We was all hoping the saint would listen to ye, with them letting ye in for the night. I was heart sorry to hear it never worked, hen.’
‘You’re kind,’ said Kate. Someone handed her the other crutch, and she set it to the floor. ‘Oh!’
‘What now?’ said Babb, and stared in astonishment with her.
The padded top of the crutch, which should lodge neatly under Kate’s arm, barely reached above her waist. Kate upended the thing to look at the other end, and several people exclaimed around her. Instead of the metal-shod tip which still graced its pair, the shaft ended in raw wood, half cut, half splintered.
‘Would ye look at that!’ said the man she had fallen on.
‘I tellt ye he had an axe,’ said Eppie triumphantly.