‘No more than any successful merchant,’ said Gil. ‘He’s harmless enough, I’d have said. A gentle soul.’
‘Hmm,’ said the Archbishop. ‘And he has asked you to sort it out, has he?’ Gil nodded. ‘Aye. After you dealt with those other two matters, it would be an obvious choice,’ continued Blacader thoughtfully. He stared at Gil for a moment, the candlelight flickering on brow and padded cheeks. ‘I think you must. We’ll not waste the Justiciars’ time with this kind of thing. William,’ he said, and Maister Dunbar stirred at the door of the little room. ‘Something towards Maister Cunningham’s expenses, I think. Ten merks should do it. And you’ll report to me, Gilbert.’
‘Gladly, my lord. Thank you,’ said Gil fervently, going down on one knee again. This was more than he had hoped for: Blacader had just attached him to his own retinue, however informally.
‘And now,’ said the Archbishop, getting to his feet, ‘I must go back to the King. Come with me, Gilbert.’
The inmost chamber was crowded with bystanders and servants in the royal livery, but their gaze, direct or sidelong, showed where to look. Near the empty hearth a table was set up, covered in a silk carpet, the cards still lying on it in tricks as they had been gathered in among the heaps of coin. Three people were seated round it. On the far side King James, aged nineteen, chestnut hair and long-nosed Stewart good looks set off by green velvet and blue silk, was talking to a hulking man whose cropped hair and beard showed streaks of grey: Archibald Douglas, fifth earl of Angus. On this side was a well-found blue-jowled person in furred red silk embroidered with trees of life, a match for the Archbishop save for the lack of a tonsure; plump hands studded with rings were folded on his knee as he watched the conversation with the open smiling gaze of a statesman.
‘His grace will want the story of the finding of the treasure,’ said Blacader, placing himself expertly to catch Angus’s eye, and his counterpart turned his head sharply, his silk rustling.
‘Are ye sure of that, Robert?’ he asked. ‘This is gey public. And is this the man that found it?’ He looked closely at Gil with round pale eyes, and then cast a pointed glance at Maister Dunbar, who stared at the patterned ceiling.
‘Wheesht, William,’ Blacader said, intent on the King, and Gil appreciated that the other man was that chimera of his age, neither cleric nor layman, William Knollys the Treasurer of Scotland and Commendator of the Knights of St John.
The royal conversation paused, and Blacader inserted a practised word. Gil found himself kneeling again, and then somehow seated on a stool which manifested behind him, giving an account of the finding of first the head and then the bag of coin. The two men of state watched him as he talked, intent and impassive, and Angus leaned back to whisper to a servant, but the King listened closely, his mobile face expressing interest, concern, dismay as the narrative proceeded.
‘And what has the inquest found?’ he asked. ‘Did they get a name for the man?’
‘No, sir,’ said Gil. ‘Nobody in the burgh knew him.’
‘No surprise in that, I suppose,’ said the King. ‘He’s likely from wherever the hoard money’s been hid these four years, and not from Glasgow at all. And the barrel came from Linlithgow, you say?’
‘The barrel was exchanged for ours,’ said Gil with care, ‘somewhere between Linlithgow and Glasgow. Or so I believe, sir.’
‘Aye,’ said James thoughtfully. ‘No saying, is there? But why? And why put the head and the coin both into brine?’
‘I hope to find out,’ said Gil.
‘Tell me when you do. And I hope you find your books, maister,’ said the King, and Gil realized this was the first person to whom he had told the tale who had expressed the wish. ‘Meantime, there’s the matter of a reward for finding the treasure. That’s two thousand merks waiting for us in Glasgow, forbye the jewels — we’re certainly grateful, man. My lord Treasurer, you’ll see to that the now, will you?’
Thus dismissed, Gil retreated from the card-room, followed immediately by Knollys, who gestured to one of his own servants and bustled Gil back through the sequence of stuffy crowded rooms, asking affably after his uncle as they went, studying him with those round pale eyes. Gil, recalling Canon Cunningham’s strictures on this man as one of the most litigious in Scotland, answered as non-committally as he could.
‘And this barrel,’ said Knollys, pausing at a door which led out into a courtyard. The servant began striking light for the torch he carried. Knollys stepped into the yard, and Gil followed. Windows glowed above them, and overhead the sky was still greenish with the last of the light. ‘Naught else in it?’
‘No, sir,’ said Gil. ‘Just the saddlebag of coin and the head.’
‘Aye,’ said Knollys thoughtfully. He stopped in the centre of the courtyard, tapping his teeth with a fingernail. One of his rings glittered as his hand moved. ‘What made you so sure it was from the late King’s hoard, then?’ he asked, his tone soft.
‘The only thing that’s certain,’ said Gil with caution, ‘is that along with the coin we found a roll of jewels, including badges of the Queen’s household and the like. There’s no seal on the purses, but we assumed the coin went with the jewels. The saddlebag isn’t marked, the barrel and the head could have come from anywhere.’
‘Aye,’ said Knollys again, and the ring sparked. ‘What like man is it, the head I mean?’
Gil shrugged. ‘He looks like a Scot,’ he began.
‘I never suggested he wasny,’ said Knollys.
‘Maybe a fighting man, by the haircut. No more than thirty year old, maybe less.’
‘Aye,’ said Knollys a third time, tapping his teeth again. The man in the St Johns livery approached, holding the sputtering torch high. ‘I see what you mean. Could be anyone.’ Ignoring his servant, he set off towards the far corner of the courtyard. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll keep the Archbishop informed,’ he added as Gil followed him.
Up two more flights of stairs they reached a tower chamber where, even at this late hour, a clerk was working at a tall desk. The servant stationed himself outside the door, torch in one hand, the other on his sword.
‘Aye, Richie,’ said Knollys to the clerk. ‘Where are your keys? We’ll have the great kist opened, if you please.’ He produced a bunch of keys on a chain at his own belt, and he and the clerk went through the careful procedure of opening the great iron-bound box in the corner of the chamber, selecting and counting out twenty merks, placing them in a canvas purse, closing the box and locking it again.
‘The man who found the treasure will be grateful,’ Gil said, signing the receipt presented to him and thinking of Andy. ‘If it is from the late King’s hoard, is that the last, do you suppose?’
The clerk paused in turning to file the paper, but did not speak; the Treasurer said blandly, ‘Oh, I am certain Robert Lyle thinks there is more out there.’
‘Is there no record of who held the different portions?’ Gil asked.
‘None that I ever saw,’ said Knollys. ‘Or if any was kept, it was lost at the battle. I doubt if even his grace himself knew, by the end, where he’d planted this or that portion.’
‘Who do we know of, that has returned their kists?’
‘Atholl the late King’s uncle,’ said Knollys promptly. ‘My predecessor in this office. Robert Hog at Holyrood. Alan of Avery, or rather his sire.’ The clerk said something. ‘Aye, Richie, I’d forgot that. George Robinson the Edinburgh custumar was said to ha taken a thousand pound o’ the customs money,’ he explained to Gil, ‘and carried it to the north to raise a host, where folk were mostly for the late King. If he did, it’s never been recovered, and in any case I have my doubts. It’s a suspicious kind of sum, a thousand of anything. The sort of amount folk name when they just mean a lot of coin.’