‘He’d lie at a smaller place than this,’ volunteered Luke, ‘like the one across the way. The Green Lion, or something. This is maybe ower dear.’
‘Will I go and ask?’
‘No, leave it, Rob. I don’t want to make too much of it. We can ask in the town.’
‘Lute strings,’ said Maistre Pierre, emerging from his beaker. They looked at him. ‘There is a butcher’s yard,’ he pointed out, ‘and the court spends much time here. Someone must make and sell strings out of all that gut. Perhaps our quarry has been sighted there.’
‘And there’s another thing, Maister Gil,’ said Rob, helping himself to the last of the jug of ale. ‘Drouthy work it is, talking to a man like that. When I mentioned the name, maister, he asked me was I looking for work, for it seems this cooper’s a man short. His laddie hasny been seen for near two weeks.’
‘Is that so?’ said Gil thoughtfully.
‘Our man was nobody’s prentice laddie,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘He was nearer thirty than twenty, I should have said.’
‘Just the same,’ said Gil, offering Socrates his beaker to lick, ‘we should keep it in mind.’
‘He was warning me off,’ added Rob, ‘for there was a thief in the same yard just the other night. I’d say the cooper’s luck’s away the now.’
The luthier’s workshop was halfway along towards the Mercat Cross, well up a steep narrow vennel which seemed to lead to the hillside south of the town. Inside, at a bench by a wide-open window, Maister Cochrane himself was working on the delicate rose of a lute, an array of small sharp carving tools by his elbow. Beyond him a journeyman was shaping the neck of another instrument with a drawknife; an apprentice in the corner was rubbing what smelled like boiled linseed oil into a finished lute. More instruments hung on pegs, lutes and vièles, a psaltery and something which might be a cittern. Neat stacks of wood were tucked into a rack at the far end.
As Gil and Maistre Pierre entered with the dog at their heels, the two younger men looked up, and the journeyman set down his knife and came forward, brushing curls of wood off his jerkin.
‘What’s your pleasure, my maisters?’ he asked. ‘A new instrument? Music, strings, a ribbon fairing for your sweetheart’s lute? We’ve all of those.’
‘Music?’ said Maistre Pierre, pricking up his ears. ‘You sell music?’
‘We do, maister.’ The journeyman turned to lift a wooden tray from a shelf. ‘We’re a bit low at the moment,’ he admitted. ‘The court cleaned us out before they left for Stirling, and the package we’re looking for from Edinbro’s no come in yet.’
‘No matter.’ The mason bent over the pages in the tray. ‘There will be something I do not have. These are good copies.’
‘You sell much music?’ Gil asked, watching his friend leaf through the loose sheets.
The journeyman shrugged. ‘When the court’s here, and the musicians, aye. Other times it’s a slow trade.’ He grinned. ‘There’s many of the gentry likes to have an instrument and strum it a bit, but playing a tune ye can put a name to’s another matter.’
‘So you sell to the King’s musicians?’ Gil said. ‘And how about the travelling sort, as well? Do they come here for new tunes?’
‘No that often. They’ll get the maist o their music in Edinbro,’ said the man regretfully, ‘what they don’t just learn each frae the ither by ear.’
‘Edinburgh,’ said Gil. ‘I don’t want to go that far. I was hoping you might have seen Barty Fletcher lately.’
‘Barty?’ said the journeyman. ‘Oh, we’ve seen him, aye. No for a week or two, right enough.’
‘A week or two?’ repeated Gil. ‘That’s a pity. I wanted a word with him.’
‘I seen him,’ said the apprentice, looking up. ‘I seen him in the town the other day.’
‘What day was that?’ asked the journeyman. Their master paused in his careful work, and turned to look at them. The apprentice thought briefly, and grinned, showing a chipped tooth.
‘The day we got that new barrel o lights and put them to soak. For I said to him, my maister’s just started a new load, there’ll be fresh strings in six weeks or so.’
‘Monday, that would be,’ said the journeyman. Socrates, who had been checking the smells of the place, reached his ankles, and he bent to offer the dog his hand to sniff.
‘I’ll just need to keep looking,’ said Gil.
‘Did he say aught?’ asked Maister Cochrane from his bench. Gil was reminded of McIan’s portentous question.
‘Aye, he did,’ nodded the boy. ‘He said that was good to hear and he’d be sure and call by before Michaelmas.’
‘Hmph,’ said Maister Cochrane, and turned back to his carving.
‘I take this,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘See, Gil, it is a piece by that Flemish fellow, and printed too. Alys was speaking of him recently. Myself, I prefer Machaut, but she seemed to find his music worthwhile.’
‘Ockeghem,’ agreed the journeyman, mangling the name badly. ‘A good choice, maister. The lady’ll ha pleasure out of that.’
Down on the High Street the men were still gathered round a well with a stone lion perched above the basin, deep in conversation with two maidservants. Gil and Maistre Pierre left them there and set off towards the East Port, and the imposing stone tower-house and its surrounding buildings which the mason had commented on earlier. The two taverns were next to it, one clearly more of a hostel for the knights of the eight-pointed cross and their guests, the other a sprawling structure very like the Black Bitch at the western end of the town. A group of men emerged from it as they approached, to stand in the sunshine with their ale. Light glinted on helmets, and on the chewed crosses stitched to sleeve or breast of their leather jacks.
‘The tonnellerie is up this vennel, I believe,’ said the mason, gesturing up the side of the tavern. ‘Do all these alleys lead on to the hillside?’
The cooper’s yard, as well as being up a vennel, was full of pieces of wood, but there the resemblance to the luthier’s shop ended. Looking out through the open window of the cooper’s best chamber, Gil could see a sloping cobbled yard nearly as big as Maister Morison’s. It held two large open sheds and a barn, and a neat kailyard climbed up the hillside beyond them. Quartered tree trunks lay drying in racks in one corner of the cobbled area, split planks were stacked in another. Finished barrels crowded along the fence opposite the gate, a scrawny journeyman with prominent ears was sweeping up shavings to add to the brazier which was putting up a thin column of blue smoke, and five or six men were working with hammer or knife.
To one side the big gates were open, and a cart laden with puncheons was being handled out to the waiting horses by several men in leather jacks. Another man was just vanishing into the barn. Clearly Maister Riddoch’s business was prospering well.
‘Near as noisy as a stoneyard,’ commented the mason.
‘What’s that you say?’ asked Maister Riddoch, bustling into the chamber. He was small, bald and neat-featured, his expression both anxious and wary. Over leggings and a worn leather jerkin he had put on his good stuff gown to entertain visitors. He flourished the matching hat of tawny wool in a jerky bow and went on, ‘Forgive me keeping you waiting, maisters, a wee bit business wi my landlord. A boneyard? Aye, it’s like a boneyard, now you say, wi the staves there and the puncheons here instead of the legbones and skulls. A good thought, maister!’ He laughed nervously. ‘A good thought. Now, Mistress Riddoch’s to bring a refreshment and you can tell me what’s the trouble. Something wrong with Augie Morison’s last load, you say? I’m sorry to hear that, for he’s a good customer. What is it, was aught damaged? Aught missing?’
‘No so much missing,’ said Gil, ‘as changed.’
‘Strange, you say?’ Riddoch had put the hat on, and it slipped sideways as he tilted his bald head sharply to catch Gil’s words. He pushed it straight, staring hard at Gil. ‘What way, strange?’