‘And this morning?’ said Gil, ignoring this. ‘When did you open the yett?’
‘As soon as they all went away through to the chapel for Prime. It was still full dark, and we never took the lantern out wi us, we never noticed a thing, if that’s what you’re asking. For all he must have been lying there by that time,’ he added tightly.
‘And you locked the yett again after she left?’
‘Aye.’
‘Was either of you out at the yett at all between those two times?’
‘No.’ Michael licked his lips. ‘We wereny across the threshold again till the morn. Nor looked out, even,’ he added.
Gil considered the younger man, who looked back at him uncomfortably and then dropped his eyes.
‘You’d best go to your lecture,’ he said. ‘No, wait! Gie me the key to the back yett. I’ll leave it here for you, and I ken where to find you if I need you.’
‘Aye,’ said Michael unhappily. He opened his purse and drew out a pair of keys on a ring. ‘I’ll not separate them. Leave them on a nail in the lodging, if you will, sir.’ He handed them over with reluctance, ducked one knee in a bow and left to join his friend.
Gil crossed the courtyard as the students’ footsteps receded along the narrow passage to the outside world, and on an impulse tapped at the open kitchen door opposite the hall.
‘Mistress Mudie?’ he asked.
‘Mistress,’ called a muffled voice within. ‘You’re asked for, mistress.’
A door at the far side of the kitchen opened, and Mistress Mudie looked out.
‘- never a moment in this place, who is it that wants me, oh it’s yersel, maister, I canny think what you’d want to ask me that I haveny tellt you already, come away in but, just so long’s ye don’t disturb Humphrey here, he’s feeling a bit better the now, aren’t you my poppet?’
Gil crossed the kitchen, nodding to the young man laboriously hacking vegetables at the bench behind the door. Mistress Mudie drew him into a small snug apartment, furnished with a cushioned settle and a folding table, one or two stools, and a little prayer desk with a worn hassock by the door to an inner chamber. There was an overpowering herbal smell, whose source was not clear, and a definite note of almonds. Betere is hire medycyn, he thought, Then eny mede or eny wyn; Hir erbes smulleth suete. His eye took in a brazier burning on the hearth with a metal trivet over it where several small pots were heating.
The youngest brother was sitting in a chair beside this, clasping a cup in both hands and staring anxiously at the wall. His heavy black cloak was folded over the back of his chair, and he wore a long belted gown of grey wool. Hearing Gil’s step he turned, and shrank back slightly.
‘A hoodie,’ he said, ‘it’s that hoodie again.’
‘I’m no a hoodie,’ said Gil reassuringly. Mistress Mudie nodded approval. ‘I’m no here to attack anyone.’ Feeling Socrates pressing against his knee he looked down, and saw with surprise that the the dog’s head was lowered to glare at Maister Humphrey, the coarse grey hair standing up on his back and shoulders. Gil snapped his fingers and gestured, and the animal departed in something like relief.
‘- aye, that’s better, we’re a bit feart for the big doggie even if we areny saying so, a course the mannie’s no a hoodie, Humphrey my poppet, he’s a good friend to the bedehouse, he’s here to find out what’s come to the Deacon — ’
‘The Deacon was a shrike,’ said Maister Humphrey earnestly, staring at Gil. He was very like his brother, with a thin squarish face, round light-coloured eyes and light brown hair clipped very close, presumably by Mistress Mudie. The hands clasping the beaker were fine-boned and muscular, but the nails were bitten so short they had bled quite recently. ‘He was a shrike, but now he’s a robin. Because he died, you ken?’
‘Why a robin?’ Gil asked.
‘He was making changes,’ said Humphrey, ‘a new nest for the bonnie yeldrin, another for the chaffinch,’ he cast a quick, bright smile at Mistress Mudie, ‘and the shrike himself to take a make and hae the meat frae our mouths.’
‘That sounds bad,’ said Gil, preserving his countenance.
‘Oh, very bad,’ agreed Humphrey, shaking his head. ‘But he changed to a robin instead, and now he’s dead. So it willny happen, will it?’
‘No, it willny,’ Gil reassured him.
Mistress Mudie gave him an approving look but said persuasively, ‘- no need to be upsetting ourselves wi talk like that, nor it wasny very nice to be calling the Deacon names, was it now, and what were you wanting to ask us anyway, till I get on wi my tasks here — ’
‘Last night, Mistress Mudie,’ said Gil, dragging his mind back to the point at issue, ‘you heard Maister Naismith come in late.’
‘It was the birds woke me,’ declared Humphrey, ‘when they sang for joy at the shrike’s passing. But I looked out after that, late, late, in the middle of the night, and there was a light in his lodging, so I wept sair, for they had leed to me.’
‘- what I said already, I knew I’d tellt you all I could — ’
‘Was all quiet here by then?’
‘- oh, aye, all asleep in their own wee houses they were, no a cheep out o them, even Humphrey was away wi the angels, weren’t you no, my poppet?’
‘How long had it been quiet?’
The continuous babble checked for a moment, as she stared at him.
‘Half an hour,’ she said. ‘No as much as an hour, no I couldny say it was as much as an hour, we’d to warm the milk for you, didn’t we no, Humphrey, and it was longer than I thought it would be, what wi the fire being low, and I heard the Deacon over our heads here no that long afore Maister Millar came in and all. And I heard him from here,’ she added, ‘our Andro, for he locked the door out there and went through to the garden, and I heard his boots on the stone and then on the gravel, and he went up to his own lodging which it’s above the other end of the hall and the stair’s in the garden by Anselm’s door. And the Deacon was over my head all that time walking about in his boots too, never thought to put his house shoon on, and then sitting eating his piece for I heard the chair scrape at the table — ’
As if on cue, footsteps could be heard on the boards above them. Pierre must still be studying the accounts, thought Gil.
Maister Humphrey looked up nervously. ‘Is that him back?’
‘- a course not, my poppet, the Deacon’s dead, rest his soul, he’s no walking about — ’
Humphrey nodded, smiling. ‘Now I mind. That’s the other one,’ he said. ‘The other hoodie.’
‘- now, now, fancy saying that about him — ’
‘He’s searching for the deep secrets of Satan.’
‘- we’ll have none of that, my poppet — ’
‘Aye, and he gives glory and honour and thanks to the one who lives for ever,’ said Gil quickly, switching to the scholarly tongue. The bedesman eyed him warily, then smiled again.
‘Praise and honour to the Lamb for ever and ever,’ he agreed, the Latin echoing off the creaking floorboards.
‘Amen,’ said Gil. Maister Humphrey relaxed, and drained off his cup and handed it to Sissie like a small child. The cuff of his grey gown was pulled and torn. Gil suddenly recalled his sister Margaret, whose clothes had always looked like that, because she chewed them. But she grew out of the habit before she was ten, he thought.
‘Have you some milk for the hoodie, Sissie?’ Humphrey asked, still smiling.
She set the cup aside and lifted a pipkin from the brazier, hand wrapped in a corner of her apron. ‘- saints be praised he’s taken to you for it’s no easy if he doesny take to a person, would you care for a drink of milk, maister, seeing it would make him happy? It’s almond milk,’ she qualified, ‘seeing there’s no milk to be had this time of year, but he likes it just as well and the herbs helps him.’
‘A wee drop, then,’ said Gil. ‘Mistress Mudie, I’ve another thing to ask you.’