‘So that barrel was at the dyer’s yard,’ said Andy.
‘It was at a dyer’s yard,’ corrected Kate.
Alys nodded. ‘Yes, unfortunately, we can’t be sure it was the same one.’
‘It’s a coincidence, if it’s no the same barrel,’ said Andy.
‘And my father always says he does not believe in coincidence.’ Alys looked thoughtfully at the stained cloth. ‘But even if it’s the same barrel, we are very little forward.’
‘How?’ said Andy.
‘That barrel must have been at the dye-yard on Tuesday night,’ said Alys, ‘but it could have been put on the cart at any time before that.’
‘Or after it reached the yard,’ Kate supplied.
‘We could have guessed that already,’ said Andy. Alys nodded, and folded the cloth again.
‘You mean all that was for nothing?’ said Babb. ‘And my leddy cast on the floor and her stick chopped in two, just for something we kent before?’
‘There’s one thing more,’ said Kate. They looked at her where she sat enthroned on the kitchen settle, even Ursel turning from the cooking-pots she was scouring. ‘Billy Walker was in the tavern — ’
‘I was that sure I saw him!’ said Andy.
‘Aye, and I did and all,’ said Babb, ‘when he pushed out of the door, just afore you came out, mistress, to tell me my leddy needed me.’
‘The cheek of him!’ said Ursel.
‘Talking,’ Kate continued over them. ‘Talking to a big man in a dark cloak. Billy was trying to hide his face, but I knew him. The other one was a stranger, but I got a look at him.’ She stopped, thinking of the leering smile, and bit her lip. ‘I think I’d know him again,’ she added. ‘I never saw a weapon. I suppose he had it hidden under his cloak.’
‘It was him had the axe,’ said Babb, ‘for he followed Billy out the tavern. A big man in a dark cloak, as my leddy says. I never paid any mind to him, since he was a stranger, but I seen the axe, for it was in his hand, and he raised it up and kissed the flat o the blade. It wasn’t under his cloak then,’ she added darkly.
‘Kissed it?’ repeated Alys. Babb nodded, and Kate felt a shiver down her spine again.
‘But why did they knock her down?’ asked Ursel. ‘Was it that crowded?’
‘There was room and to spare,’ said Andy witheringly ‘He aye was a clumsy — ’
‘It was no accident,’ said Alys, ‘for I saw. There was room to get by, as Andy says, though maybe not to spare. Billy pushed her quite deliberately. The other man went by just after him, and I suppose struck at her crutch as he went past.’
‘Out of spite,’ said Babb, ‘the nasty creature.’
‘Not only spite,’ said Kate thoughtfully, ‘for if I did anything, falling on that poor man, I provided a diversion.’
‘A what?’
‘So they could get away unchallenged,’ said Alys. Kate nodded. ‘So it was important they get away!’
‘But who was it Billy Walker was talking to?’ asked Ursel.
‘Some broken man, likely,’ said Andy. ‘Who else would have a weapon like that in a Gallowgait tavern?’
‘Would the serjeant know him?’ Kate asked.
‘Him?’ said Andy witheringly ‘Forbye he’s a friend of Mattha Hog’s.’ Kate understood this to be a dismissal of her suggestion. ‘No, I don’t see that we can find the man, and I don’t see that it’s any of our worry. We can give thanks Lady Kate’s taken no hurt, and put the matter by. I’ve enough to look to, my leddy, mistress, wi keeping this place orderly for my maister.’ He tossed back the last of his ale and rose. ‘And I better go and see what the men are at.’
As the door closed behind him, the four women looked at each other.
‘Now,’ said Alys, with an air of rolling up her sleeves, ‘we have work to do. Lady Kate will stay here tonight, Ursel, and Babb and Jennet will have an eye to the bairns until Andy can find a nursemaid for them.’
‘Andy find them a nourice?’ repeated Ursel doubtfully. ‘He found the last two, mistress. They couldny deal with the bairns. They’re orra bairns,’ she said lovingly. ‘The wee one’s so sharp she’ll cut herself, and Wynliane’s a poor wee thing, but I’ve never found them any trouble. It’s my belief they want a grown woman to mind them, no some bit lassie wi no sense.’
‘That’s a good word,’ said Babb.
‘Could you no help us yoursel, mistress? Does maybe someone in your household ken a woman looking for a place?’
‘I will ask,’ Alys promised. ‘But for now, Babb and I need to make up a bed for Kate.’
Ursel bit her lip and turned away from the pots, drying her hands on her apron.
‘You’ll no want to get up the stair to the sleeping chambers, my leddy,’ she said, considering the matter. ‘There’s a truckle bed under my maister’s great best bed, in the chamber next the hall, but I’ve no notion what the strapping’s like, it’s that long since either was slept in.’
‘We can sort the strapping,’ pronounced Babb confidently.
Ursel nodded, and turned to Alys. ‘I’ll show ye where the linen’s kept, mistress, but it’s no in very good order either. I’ve done my best, but I’ve as much to do keeping the kitchen, and none of the other women would stay, with no mistress about the place.’
‘Indeed, you keep a good kitchen,’ said Alys, looking about the well-ordered room. ‘Come and we will see what can be done.’
Kate, left alone by the fireside, leaned back on the settle and closed her eyes.
She remembered Augie Morison as a friend of her brothers, an awkward fair boy who would wait for a struggling small girl on two sticks while the others, even Gil her favourite brother, ran ahead. He seldom spoke to her, but hovered nearby, making certain she could manage rough ground without help, or finding an easier path to take. At the time, she recalled, this had made her very angry, but curiously she had been just as angry when she heard he had married Agnes Cowan and settled in Glasgow. It was very strange now to be sitting stranded in his house in his absence.
Gil had passed on his message of sympathy before he left. That was like the boy she remembered, to think of her problems in the midst of his own. And surely he had problems enough, she thought, before ever they opened that accursed barrel. This bleak, ill-kept house, the ungoverned children, the thieving servant — he needs a housekeeper, she thought.
‘The lady’s sleepin’,’ said a little voice. She opened her eyes, and found the little girls standing in front of her hand in hand, completely naked and dripping wet. The older one peeped at her with one eye from behind the elf-locks, but the younger was surveying her with that direct scowl. A trail of wet footprints led across the flagstones to the stair.
‘Jennet will be looking for you to dry you. Why are you two poppets not in bed?’ she asked them.
Ysonde shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Why are you sitting in Ursel’s kitchen?’
‘Because I canny walk about.’
‘How not? Did the man with the axe cut off your leg?’ enquired Ysonde with interest.
Kate bit back her first response. These children, like their father, had problems enough. No need to leave them with the seeds of bad dreams.
‘No,’ she said. ‘He broke my crutch, but he never touched my leg.’
‘Why can you no walk about, then?’
‘My leg doesn’t work.’
‘How not?’
‘When I was Wynliane’s age,’ she said patiently, ‘I was sick with a fever, and after I got better my leg never worked any more.’
They both stared at her, Ysonde with a sceptical air. After a moment Kate drew up her tawny woollen skirts and displayed both legs, the left one sound and muscular in a striped stocking and stout leather shoe, the right one shrivelled and shortened below the knee, the curled foot encased in its soft slipper.
‘You’ve got odd stockings,’ said Ysonde. But Wynliane, letting go her sister’s hand, leaned forward to stroke the white knitted stocking on Kate’s right leg, with gentle, wet fingers. Her lips moved soundlessly. Ysonde looked at her, and then at Kate.
‘Wynliane wants it to get better,’ she said.