‘Ah, Pierre. Good day to you. And to you, Michael.’
‘I have a chantier to run,’ complained the master mason. He ducked under the lintel, a bulky shape wrapped in boiled wool, another shadowy figure at his back in a student’s gown like Lowrie’s. ‘You forgive the delay, I hope, I had to give the men their instructions. I can expect no work from them next week after we celebrate your marriage, we should get on with cutting those pillars while we may, but — Yes, good dog, Socrates. So why are we summoned, Gilbert?’ he demanded, switching to French. ‘Who is dead in this House of Learned Poverty?’
The further courtyard was laid out as a little garden, with gravel walks through grass, tiny flowerbeds standing empty at this season, and several evergreens, overlooked by a row of small houses to either hand. Following Millar’s stream of incoherent exclamations down the central path, Gil counted five chimneys each side in the grey daylight. Ten houses, he thought. There weren’t as many as ten old men in the hall.
‘I’ve seen Alys this morning,’ he said quietly. Alys’s father grimaced.
‘She was wound up like a crossbow when we broke our fast,’ he said. ‘Did she say that a cart came in from Carluke with a bed on it.’
‘A bed?’
‘In pieces, with the hangings. And a word from your mother, saying she spent her wedding night in the same bed. It arrived yesterday, after you left the house,’ Maistre Pierre said, with a sideways glance at Gil.
‘Ah,’ he said. That might explain things, he thought, if my mother is getting involved.
The garden ended in a high wall of rough-cut rubble, capped by a row of angular stones, a gate in its midst which must lead out on to the Stablegreen, with another green tree to either side of it. Millar stopped beside one of these and removed his hat, and beside him Maister Kennedy bent to draw back a length of sacking.
‘There you are,’ he said unnecessarily.
Chapter Two
‘A terrible thing,’ contributed Millar, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny neck. He had flung on a great black cloak like those worn by the bedesmen, with a badge over the heart which Gil could not make out within the heavy folds. Replacing his hat he drew the mantle closer about him, and added, ‘I canny think how it can have happened. He’s no enemies, surely, nobody that would do this to him a purpose.’
Gil made no comment, but hunkered down by the sprawling figure beneath the tree. Socrates came to his side to sniff at the wet clothing, and Maistre Pierre crossed himself, his lips moving.
They were looking at the body of a short, rather plump man, lying partly on his left side facing the foot of the wall, right arm flung backwards almost into the lowest branches of the yew. The eyes were closed, but the mouth was wide open, giving the appearance of someone in the grip of a dream. A dream from which you’ll not wake, Gil thought, looking the length of the corpse. It was wearing hose and long-sleeved jerkin of good tawny woollen with linen showing at the neck and wrists, darkened and reddened by a wide stain on the breast which Socrates was now inspecting closely, the coarse hair on his spine standing up. A long open gown of a darker brown was rucked up to waist level under the corpse’s torso, its fur lining spiky with the rain. A belt of stamped leather, with brass buckle and fittings, supported a well-filled purse, a dagger and matching whinger, and a large bunch of keys. The smell of blood and stale urine mingled with the resiny scent of the yew-trees.
‘What’s he doing out here?’ Gil wondered, pushing the dog’s muzzle away from the sodden codpiece.
‘Waiting for the Judgement,’ said Maister Kennedy obtusely.
‘Has he been moved at all since you found him?’ asked Maistre Pierre. Gil looked up at him.
‘I wondered that,’ he agreed.
‘No, no, Gil,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘This is where he was lying. I think Duncan tried to lift him, but he’s well set, and that was when they realized he was dead.’
‘He is indeed,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. He bent over the sprawled figure and tested the rigidity of the out-flung right arm. ‘Set, but not yet begun to soften. Dead sometime last night, I suppose. Well, it is Robert Naismith, Deacon of this place, on that we are agreed. And how has he died?’
‘Last night?’ said Lowrie. ‘Not this morning?’
‘Oh, certainly.’ The mason was feeling carefully at the chubby face, and round the neck and the back of the head. ‘He is like a stock. Gil, are his feet also hardened?’
‘They are,’ Gil agreed, attempting to flex one well-shod foot.
‘Late afternoon or evening of yesterday, then.’ Maistre Pierre turned his attention to the darkened breast of the jerkin. ‘And this looks like what gave him his quittance. A knife wound, likely. There is a slit,’ he poked cautiously, ‘no, more than one, in the jerkin.’
‘It’s certainly blood,’ said Maister Kennedy.
‘We learn more when he is stripped.’ One big hand explored under the corpse’s flexed calves, then turned back a fold of the rumpled gown. ‘No more than damp beneath him. Oui, certainement, it was dry last night, though it was raw cold. That fits.’
Gil stood up and looked about him. The grass was wet and trampled for some distance round the body.
‘There was quite a crowd when he was found, then,’ he said.
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Nick Kennedy sourly. ‘The whole house of them was here, and Sissie Mudie as well, all standing round arguing what to do next. And us and all,’ he added.
Gil nodded, still looking at the garden. ‘Pierre, how much can we learn if we examine him before he softens, do you think?’
‘Likely we can see the wound,’ the mason said, straightening his back carefully. ‘There will be no stripping him before tomorrow, I should say, unless we cut the clothes from him, but we can look at his hands and such matters.’
‘His — his hands?’ echoed Millar. ‘Why do you want to see his hands? They’re clean enough. What can you learn from that?’
‘Then I think we’d best get him in out of the rain. Maister Millar, is there a cart or something of the sort stowed away, that we could move him on, or should we try to lift him by his gown between us?’
‘I–I — ’ began Millar.
‘Sissie might have such a thing,’ prompted Maister Kennedy.
‘I’ll go ask her,’ volunteered Lowrie, and hurried off through the drizzle without waiting for a reply.
‘You could get a closer look at him under cover, Pierre,’ Gil prompted, ‘and I’ll cast about this place where he’s lying before it gets any wetter. And then we’d best start asking questions.’
Maistre Pierre nodded morosely, and pushed the hood of his heavy cloak back a little so he could see the sky.
‘Wetter it assuredly will be,’ he said. Gil looked from his friend to the body.
‘Where’s his hat?’ he said suddenly. ‘He’s bareheaded.’
‘I was wondering that,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘And how about a cloak and all?’
‘He aye wears — wore a cloak,’ said Millar. ‘His bedehouse cloak. Like — like mine, only with the Deacon’s braid on. And a velvet hat wi a brim.’
‘We need to find those,’ said Gil. ‘We’ll need to make a search. Michael, could you — Michael? Where is he?’
‘He came out behind me,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Has he slipped away?’
‘I’ll find him later,’ said Gil. ‘Maister Millar, I believe you should be present while the body is examined.’ Millar grimaced, and clutched his cloak tighter round him, but nodded agreement. ‘Nick, when must you and these fellows be back at the college? Have you time to spare?’
‘I need to get down the road,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘The joys of Peter of Spain are waiting for the bachelors at nine o’clock, though I dare say they’d not be sorry either if I missed their lecture. But Lowrie and Michael could stay and gie you a hand, Gil, if they’re any use, for I ken they’ve no lectures till eleven this day.’