‘Come in, maister, come in,’ she said, bobbing to Gil. ‘Hae a seat, whiles I find my mistress, or was it the maister ye wanted?’
‘Either of them, lass,’ Gil assured her. She bobbed again, and whisked off, her wooden-soled shoes clattering on the flagged floor. After a moment she could be heard outside, calling to her mistress. Gil moved to the far window, and found himself looking at the yard with its stacked skins, heaped oak-bark chips, two handcarts. Movement in one of the sheds drew his attention, and proved to be two small children playing on another little cart, which they had overturned; they seemed to be competing for which could spin one of the wheels faster. The nearer was a boy, of perhaps eight, and the other child was in petticoats. What had caught his eye was their light hair, standing out in a halo of fine curls on the two little heads.
A stout woman hurried up the yard behind the maidservant, pulling off a sacking apron as she went. This must be Mistress Cornton. She paused to wave to the children, then hurried on into the house. After a moment she appeared in the hall, puffing slightly, exclaiming.
‘Effie, did you never offer the gentleman a refreshment? Away and fetch something, lass, and take his man ben wi you and gie him some of the new ale. Hae a seat, maister, and we’ll get this sorted. It’s about the rent, no? Maister Stirling’s never come back for it, though he was to be here two days after Lammas, so my man said.’
She paused, staring anxiously at Gil. She was a handsome woman in her forties, he estimated, wearing a grey everyday gown of good wool, its sleeves and hem turned back over a striped kirtle whose margins showed a sprinkling of oak-bark flakes.
‘Not so much about the rent,’ he said, taking the seat she indicated, ‘as about Maister Stirling himself. He called here to arrange about uplifting the rent, then?’
‘Aye, that’s what I’m saying,’ she agreed, nodding vigorously. The little brass pins which secured her kerchief caught the light from the windows. ‘He was here on the,’ she shut her eyes and counted on her fingers, ‘six days afore Lammas, so that would be the twenty-fifth day of July, and got a word wi my man, and they arranged what suited both for him to come back and fetch it away. Only he’s never came.’
‘He seems to have left Perth,’ said Gil. ‘I’m trying to find out where he might have gone.’ Or been taken, he thought.
‘Oh.’ Mistress Cornton stared at him blankly. ‘He tellt my man he’d be here.’
‘Had you a word wi him yourself, mistress?’
‘No what you’d call a word.’ She shook her head and the pins glinted again. ‘I’d gone away into the town, maister, wi the bairns.’ Her glance went involuntarily to the window, and Gil said:
‘Those are Canon Drummond’s bairns, am I right? Their mother must have been your daughter.’
Her mouth twisted. She nodded, and bent her head, dabbing at her eyes with the end of her kerchief.
‘My poor lassie,’ she whispered. ‘Christ and his blessed mother bring her to rest. Aye, he brought them here to their grandam. Cornton’s no best pleased at the imposition, but they’re my kin, I’ll not turn them from me, and their father will pay for their keep.’
‘I’m right sorry for your loss,’ said Gil gently. ‘It must be hard for you. When did he bring the bairns here?’
‘Two weeks since, or thereabout,’ she said, still wiping her eyes. ‘They’d been here no more than a day or two when Maister Stirling was here, I’d gone out to buy them shoes and a bat and ball, for their father never thought to bring their toys. So I never spoke wi Maister Stirling, only I saw him in the street coming from Frankie the horner’s house as I passed by, and gave him the time o day, and the bairns made their obedience and had his blessing. He tellt them he was at the sang-schule wi their father,’ she added. ‘I’d never kent that.’
Effie came clattering through from the room beyond the hall with a tray, saying in some excitement, ‘The man Peter says your landlord’s vanished into the air, mistress! Carried off by the Good Folk, most like, he says, never seen again after he was here about the rent! Our Lady save us, were we the last to see him in Perth?’
‘Don’t be daft, lassie!’ responded Mistress Cornton automatically. ‘Pour the ale for our guest and be off wi your nonsense. Carried off by the Good Folk, indeed!’
Gil, wishing the Good Folk would fly off with Peter, accepted the refreshment Effie offered him. The girl withdrew, presumably to hear more of Peter’s speculations, and Gil drank politely to Mistress Cornton’s good health. She raised her beaker in reply, but said:
‘Is that right, he’s vanished? Has he not just left on a journey?’
‘I don’t think he’s travelled,’ said Gil. ‘But it does seem your man or the horner next door likely were the last to see him in Perth, as the girl says. Did Maister Cornton say where Stirling went after he left here?’
She stared at him, and he could see her mind working. After a moment she said, ‘No, he never. He tellt me when he was to get the rent together, and he’s seen to that, maister, it’s lying ready in his strongbox. Maybe you should ask him yoursel about that. He’s out at the yard, just over the Ditch.’
‘Maybe I should,’ agreed Gil. ‘So you saw Maister Stirling in the street that day, and not since then. Tell me, has he been a good landlord? Is he friendly? Does he see to the repairs?’
‘Oh, aye, the best,’ she said with enthusiasm. ‘We took this place three year since, when Cornton and me was wed, and it was him and Cornton thegither saw to putting in new windows, and built me a good charcoal range in the kitchen, and the like. He’s aye been friendly, and been easy about the rent within a day or two, none of your Twelve noon on quarter-day demands.’
Gil, with his own experience of collecting rents, nodded at that. It could be difficult for a tradesman to collect the coin needed for the exact date the rent was due; a relaxed landlord could make life much easier for his tenant, but not all were relaxed.
‘Was Mistress Nan your only bairn?’ he asked, as the name of the children’s mother finally surfaced in his head. Mistress Cornton dabbed at her eyes again.
‘I’ve two sons,’ she said, ‘both at sea. Nan was the only lass I raised.’
Chapter Six
When Gil stepped through the tanyard gate, Maister Cornton was supervising two sturdy journeymen at the task of topping up a pit full of thick brown liquid and seething skins with bucketfuls of something equally brown which stank richly. He had cast off his gown, which hung over a trestle near him, but was readily identified by his decisive gestures and competent directions.
‘Yon’s the maister,’ said Peter unnecessarily. Gil nodded, and stood waiting, on the other side of the gate from a row of reeking buckets, looking about him and trying not to breathe deeply. The yard was busy; two more journeymen were unloading a cart full of goat-hides, unwinding the stiffened, hairy bundles and tossing them into a pit of water, an older man was scraping with a two-handled blade at a skin draped over another trestle, and three apprentices were discussing a game of football and stirring a steaming vat which smelled nearly as strong as the stuff the journeymen were using. One of them noticed Gil, abandoned his long paddle with obvious relief and came forward.
‘And how can I help you, maister?’ He grinned hopefully. ‘If it’s hides you’re after, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve some good red-dyed the now, make a bonnie doublet for yoursel, and some white-tawed kidskin to make gloves for a lady, fine as silk it is, fit for the Queen herself.’
‘I need a word with Maister Cornton,’ said Gil. ‘I might look at skins after it.’
‘Right, then, Martin,’ said his master, leaving the journeymen to their task. ‘A word, was it, maister?’ He assessed Gil with quick sharp eyes, taking in Peter’s livery and Gil’s own dress and bearing. ‘Is it about Maister Stirling, then? Come away in the counting-house and get a seat, if you will.’