‘- goodness me, as if I would have anything more to tell, I’m certain you’ve everything out of my head that’s in it the questions you’ve asked us all this day already — ’
‘At the Mass this morning,’ he continued. She was stirring a beaker, but stopped and paused again in her chatter to gaze at him, her plump face anxious in the light from the window. ‘One of the lads thought he saw a seventh bedesman, like as if the Deacon was sitting down at the end of the stalls. Did you see anything?’
‘Oh, I wouldny see him.’ She shook her head so that the ends of her linen headdress swung. ‘I never see him even when Anselm says he’s been there. And to say truth at this time of the year it’s that dark in the chapel there could be the choir of St Mungo’s at the Mass and I wouldny notice them, let alone someone who — ’ She caught herself up, glanced quickly at Humphrey who was watching her and went on, ‘someone who’s Anselm’s friend and no always in his own seat. No, I canny help you there, maister. Now here’s this milk, a wee bit warmed ower just to take the chill off it and a spoonful honey in it — ’
Chapter Four
Round the small blaze on the hearth at the far end of the hall, three of the bedehouse brothers were listening to a fourth who spoke in the loud, barking voice of someone who has been deaf for years. Three heads turned as Gil made his way down the room, Socrates behind him, but the speaker paid no attention.
‘He’ll have made his escape by the back way,’ he was saying, ‘I canny tell why the man’s no looking at the back yett. That dog he brought would pick up the scent, quick as ye please, and take him to the ill-doer — ’
‘Barty,’ said another brother tremulously, leaning over to face the other man. ‘It’s a sight-hound.’
‘What did ye say? What did ye say, Cubby?’
‘It’s a sight-hound. Look at it. And here’s the man to speak to us. Tell him what ye were just saying.’
‘What’s that? Playing? I wasny playing, Cubby.’
‘He wasny slain here. It wasny on the bedehouse land,’ said the frailest of the brothers, a scrawny man with a shock of white hair, his spectacles slipping sideways off his nose. ‘He tellt me that.’
‘Aye, Anselm,’ said the one addressed as Cubby. ‘I’ve no doubt, but the fellow has to report to Robert Blacader, he’ll need more to give him than that.’
‘He taught Robert Blacader,’ said Anselm resentfully. ‘He ought to listen to what he tells me.’
‘Fit deein, mon?’ demanded the brother opposite Anselm. He had removed his floppy velvet hat and hung it on the arm of his chair to dry; his head was completely bald and gleamed in the firelight. As if to compensate, in addition to the luxuriant grey moustache he had large bushy eyebrows, and flourishing tufts of hair emerged from his nostrils and ears. They gave him rather the look of a Green Man in a church, Gil thought, perhaps one who had been pruned slightly.
‘Forgive me, maisters,’ said Gil, bowing politely to the gathering. ‘I’m the Archbishop’s Quaestor, Gil Cunningham. Might I get a word with you all?’
‘It’s you that’s hunting for whoever slew the Deacon?’ said the one with the trembling-ill. Gil nodded. ‘Aye, well, we may no be much help, lad, but you can ask.’ He indicated the intent faces one by one. ‘Father Anselm, Maister Barty Lennox, Sir Duncan Fraser, and I’m Cubby Pringle.’
‘What’s he say?’ said the deaf brother. Barty Lennox, thought Gil. ‘Questions? Sit down and ask away, boy. What do you want of us?’
‘I’ve two questions, maisters,’ Gil said, drawing up a stool and collecting his wits. The dog sat down politely beside him, then lay down on his feet. ‘I want to hear about how you found Maister Naismith’s body, and I’d like to know when you all saw him last.’
The man with the trembling-ill, Cubby Pringle, spoke up first.
‘It was Duncan found him. He dwells down that end of the close, opposite the Douglas lodging, and the two houses next him are empty, so he’d be the only one to go that far down the path.’
‘Aye, aat’s the richt o’t,’ agreed Sir Duncan incomprehensibly from under his moustache. ‘The wee munsie wes juist liggin thaar pyntin intil the fir.’ He demonstrated, flinging out his arm in imitation of the corpse’s rigid gesture.
‘Then he shouted, and we all cam running.’
‘No running,’ said Anselm, shaking his head. ‘There’s none of us can run.’
‘What’s he saying?’
‘Hirpling, then. Andro came and all, and we agreed he was dead, and Frankie went for the laddie. What’s his name?’
‘Kennedy,’ supplied Sir Duncan.
‘Aye, young Kennedy. I wish Frankie was here, he’d tell you better. And Kennedy said he was stabbed, and we must send for you.’
‘What?’
‘He tellt me he was dead afore that,’ said Anselm in argumentative tones. ‘I kent it a’ready when we found him.’
‘There was no sign of a weapon?’ asked Gil.
‘I tell you, he says it wasny on the bedehouse land,’ reiterated Anselm. ‘The weapon’s no here either.’
‘We’ll need to find the weapon,’ explained Gil, ‘as well as his cloak.’
‘What’s he say?’ demanded Maister Lennox. They explained to him, loud and slow, and he shook his head. ‘No, there wasny a weapon. Was there, Duncan?’
‘Na, na. A saa nae dirk, sauf the capernicious buckie’s ain gully at’s bellyban.’
‘No,’ translated Maister Pringle.
‘Could he have been lying there already when you went to say Prime?’ Gil asked. This time he faced Maister Lennox and spoke slowly.
‘What d’ye say, time? Oh, Prime?’ barked the old man, and shook his head. ‘I wasny that end of the close afore Prime. Duncan, was he there afore Prime? Did ye see him?’
‘It wis pick-mark, Barty. A’d no ha saa a cast-up whaul.’ Sir Duncan mimed groping his way down the path in darkness. Gil nodded his understanding of this, smiling at him, and got a huge smile back, visible even under the sloping pent of the grey moustache.
‘No way to tell, afore bird-peep,’ agreed Maister Pringle.
‘None of you heard anything in the night?’ Gil asked, facing Maister Lennox again. The old man shook his head with a sharp yip of laughter.
‘No me, laddie!’ he said.
‘Nobody else?’ Gil looked round the circle.
‘A haard naither eechie nor ochie,’ said Sir Duncan regretfully. ‘Gin A had, A’d a gien him a han at the fellin, faae’er he wis.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Maister Pringle. ‘I did wonder if I heard voices. Murmuring like a doocot it was. But it wasny Naismith I heard, for all I’m near the gate. Next the Douglas lodging, ye ken,’ he explained to Gil.
‘Likely it was youngsters on the Stablegreen, Cubby,’ said Maister Lennox.
‘In this weather?’ retorted Maister Pringle.
‘If they canny get the privacy at home, a tree’ll do them,’ said Maister Lennox with relish, apparently following this thread quite clearly. ‘It wasny raining yestreen.’
‘I heard,’ said Anselm, clasping his hands on his stick. ‘I heard him in the night, for he woke me to tell me the man was dead.’
‘When was that?’ Gil asked.
‘Late, late. I was sleeping, and he woke me, so I rose and looked out, but it was a’ dark, save for a star low in the west.’
On a cloudy night? thought Gil. Michael or his lassie? Michael did mention a lantern.
‘And when did you last see Deacon Naismith?’ he asked.
They looked at one another, and Cubby Pringle said in his trembling voice, ‘Yestreen at Vespers, son. We’ve talked about that. He had a word for the whole house, and a strange word it was, and then we went to say Vespers and after it he gaed out.’
‘When he went out, was he wearing his bedehouse cloak and hat, or another?’
‘Aye,’s muckle bleck hap an’s wellat bunnet wi the fedder intil’t,’ supplied Sir Duncan. His gestures depicted a cloak with a badge like his own and a plumed bonnet. Gil nodded his understanding.
‘You didny see him return?’ he asked.
‘Na, na, we’d all gone to our rest,’ said Barty
‘And what was the word he had for all of you?’ he asked.