‘Maister Cunningham! Maister Cunningham, can you waken!’
‘Likely no. He was ower late home last night, and a skinfu’ wi it.’ That was Maggie. Not a dream, then. ‘Out the way, son. I’ll sort him.’
Light, and footsteps. He was aware of a distant shouting, and the dog’s paws scrabbled as he left. Then cold water stung his face and neck. He surfaced, spluttering and wincing, to find Maggie staring down at him by the light of a candle. Someone stood behind her in the shadows.
‘Are ye awake, Maister Gil, or do ye want the rest of the jug?’ demanded Maggie. Gil struggled on to one elbow and shielded his eyes from the candle. There was more distant shouting, and the dog barked, equally distant now.
‘Awake,’ he managed. ‘What’you do that for?’
‘Aye, well, there’s trouble below stairs,’ she informed him grimly. ‘Here’s Sir James Douglas round from the bedehouse and raging like Herod in the hall, and your uncle from home, as he might ha kent at this hour. Will you get up, man, and deal wi him?’
‘Bedehouse.’ Gil sat up shivering and wringing water from his hair and his shirt. This did not seem to make sense. What bedehouse?
‘St Serf’s,’ persisted Maggie. ‘Aye, I thought you were well away when you got home last night. Get you away down to my kitchen, young Lowrie,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘and if you’d be so good as to put another stoup of ale next the fire in the blue-glazed pint pot, it would speed matters. As for you, Maister Gil,’ she turned back to Gil as footsteps clattered away through the attic, let’s have you out of there.’
Bemused, he allowed himself to be dragged out of bed, his shirt pulled over his head, a cold wet cloth scrubbed across his shrinking flesh. When she began to rub him dry with energetic strokes of the discarded shirt, he stuttered a protest.
‘Maggie, what’s this about? No, I’m awake, I’m awake!’
‘Then you can drink this, and wash the rest yoursel.’ She thrust a beaker at him. The contents fizzed darkly, and a familiar mysterious, pungent smell hit his nose: Maggie’s poison, his brothers had called it. Her cure for a night’s drinking. He swallowed it like medicine, and she turned her back to let him strip, pronouncing, ‘I’ve no idea what’s ado, Maister Gil. All I ken is, your godfather’s down there calling for you or your uncle, abusing his Michael that’s your mother’s godson, and like to take an apoplexy with fury. And two of his men cluttering up my kitchen, I could do without.’
This hardly made sense either. He groped his way into clean linen, hose and doublet, tied his points with difficulty, found a jerkin and a budge gown in the kist at the bed-foot, took a moment to salute St Giles and his white doe and promise them a more formal obeisance later. As soon as he was covered Maggie dragged the window-hangings back, the rings rattling on the pole, and the room was flooded with unpleasantly bright light.
‘When did I get home, Maggie?’
‘How would I know? Long after the curfew it was, Our Lady alone kens how you wereny taken up by the Watch, the way you came stotting up the road.’
Memory surfaced. There had been singing. He and Pierre had gone from one tavern to another looking for, what was the fellow’s name, Veitch, and the other one. Had they found him?
‘Was I on my own when I came in?’
‘Maister Mason saw you to the kitchen door.’ She lifted the cooling candle to follow him down the stairs. ‘I’ll have a word to say to him when I see him, and all,’ she added grimly.
That was something, anyway. More memories rose up. Some of the singing had been sea songs. Yes, they had found John Veitch, and the man Elder — that was his name. They had had a long conversation somewhere, the four of them. He recalled writing something down in his tablets, and felt in his sleeve. No, not this gown. Purse? His purse was at his belt. He patted it to make sure the tablets were in it, and crossed the solar to go down to the shouting in the hall.
His godfather, lightly built and balding, was standing in front of the hearth, arms akimbo so that his short furred gown spread round him like the wings of an angry hawk. The steel-blue of gown and jerkin added to the effect, but his expression was more like a wild-cat’s than a hawk’s as he roared at his youngest son.
‘You’ll no preach family in my lug! What right have you to use the word in my hearing, you ill-faring halflins custril? A pick-thank attercap I’ve raised to be my Benjamin!’
Socrates barked again, and pain stabbed through Gil’s temples. Seeking his dog, he discovered him at the other side of the room, head down and hackles up, standing protectively in front of Tib who was seated white-faced in their uncle’s great chair. Sir James, seeing him enter the hall, jerked an arm in an imperious gesture.
‘Come here, godson, and tell me how much of this you’re responsible for.’
‘How much of what?’ Gil asked, crossing the room. The answer struck him just before Sir James spoke, so that he heard his own words through a rising, roaring anger. He stopped in the middle of the floor to wait for it to ebb, staring at his godfather.
‘This pair of masterless blichans, these sliddery dyke-lowpers,’ said Sir James, not mincing words, ‘have beddit one another. As to whose notion it was, I’ve my own ideas, but what are you going to do about it, Gilbert, tell me that?’
‘Tib,’ said Gil grimly, turning to look at his sister. She got to her feet, her eye sliding from his, swallowed hard and nodded. ‘And Michael,’ he went on. Michael looked sideways at him round his own shoulder, with a faint grimace of apology. As well you might, thought Gil. No wonder you were afraid of me, that morning in the bedehouse chapel.
‘Well?’ demanded Sir James. ‘Is that all you’ve to say, sir?’
‘It’s all I can say, till I ken the facts, sir,’ responded Gil.
‘Oh, the facts! The facts are easy enough to be discernit. Our tottie litchour here, having the keys o the lodging in his hand, made use of them to slip his leman into the place, the which I spied as soon as I was within the door yestreen.’ Gil recalled the sudden, early arrival of the Douglas outriders, and with it the rest of the events of his visit there. ‘And while I mind o’t, what’s going on in the place? All this about the Deacon found dead, locked in the garden, and one of the brothers dead by his own hand and all? What’s ado? Did he slay the Deacon and then himsel? Have ye found that out yet, or has that passed by your attention and all?’
‘I’m working on it, sir,’ responded Gil automatically.
‘Hah!’ said Sir James witheringly. ‘If it wasny him that’s slain himsel it’ll be some enemy of the man’s from Stirlingshire. I kent I should never have appointed a Kilsyth man, whatever the Veitches said. That’s if it’s no Frankie Veitch, who I never trusted, no since he tried to tell me Michael’s cousin Gavin wrote verse. And this ill-doer here has taken advantage of all the stramash, bringing a woman into the almshouse my grandsire built. But it wasny till I set eyes on him this morn,’ he snarled, ‘and persuaded the truth from him wi a belt’s end, that I kent just how bad.’
Tib came forward past Gil, the dog pacing watchfully beside her, and stopped beside Michael. Gil could see how their hands touched and twisted together, hidden from Sir James by the folds of her grey gown.
‘Aye, sir,’ she said clearly. ‘We’ve beddit. We’re promised, each to ither.’
‘By all the saints, you’re no!’ he roared at her. The hands tightened on one another. ‘You shameless racer, what makes you think you’ve a claim on my lad? I’ve better things in mind for him than marriage wi a wee trollop that parts her legs as soon as her hair!’
‘You’ll no say that about my mother’s daughter, if you please, sir,’ said Gil politely.
‘I’ll say what I like if your mother canny control her daughter, godson,’ snarled Sir James.
‘That comes well from a Douglas,’ remarked Gil. ‘Do you suppose your kinsman William Elphinstone would have a post about him for Michael, sir? Something in Aberdeen, maybe?’