‘You’re anxious about him, are you?’ Gil prompted, following the tanner into the counting-house, which proved to be merely a weather-tight chamber at one end of the drying-loft. It was evidently the heart of Cornton’s domain; there was a green reckoning-cloth spread on a desk in one corner, a rack of shelves in another, and papers and scraps of leather everywhere.
‘I am. He’s been a good landlord to me, the three years I’ve dwelt here by the port, and if there’s something come amiss to him I’d as soon hear o’t and make my preparations to deal wi whoever inherits his property. No to mention amassing the heriot fee.’ Cornton cleared a bundle of dockets off a stool and gestured to it, then sat down on his own polished seat by the desk. He was a short fair man with a quick manner, rather younger than his wife, Gil thought. Presumably she had brought good money to the match. And when had she come by it, he wondered, recalling that her daughter had lacked a dowry.
‘I’d a word with Mistress Cornton at the house just now,’ he said. ‘I think you saw Maister Stirling ten or twelve days since.’
‘July twenty-fifth,’ said Cornton promptly, and turned to the board which hung by his head, its tapes securing more bills and accounts, along with a brightly coloured woodcut of St Andrew and a child’s drawing of a woman in a striped gown. He picked out a slip with a brief note scrawled on it. ‘I’ve a note o’t here. And we reckoned up when would suit us both for him to uplift my rent, and between him being at the Bishop’s call and me having accounts to collect on we cam down on August third. But he’s never been back, though in general he’s prompt to the very hour of what we’ve agreed, and the word in Perth is that the Bishop’s seeking him, and no knowing where he’s got to.’
‘What time of day was it when he left you?’
‘Three-four hours after noon?’ said Cornton. ‘No later, I’d say.’
‘As early as that? Do you know where he went?’
Cornton shook his head. ‘I saw him to the gate, maister, but other than that he walked off along the Blackfriars path I couldny say.’
‘What, you mean he was here?’ Gil asked, startled. ‘I’d thought he called at the house.’
‘Oh, aye, but Effie sent him out here, since here’s where I was. We’d a load of goat fells to take out of the first soak that day, and the men hates the task, you have to keep them at it.’
‘The men the Bishop’s steward sent out,’ Gil said carefully, ‘asked at all the ports, but nobody had seen Maister Stirling pass.’
Cornton grunted. ‘That’s no surprise. If a party of wild Ersche cam in across the brig here Attie might notice them, but I wouldny warrant it.’
Now why did the Bishop’s men not know that? Gil wondered.
‘And did you speak of aught else?’ he asked. ‘Anything that might tell me what the man was thinking that day?’ The tanner looked hard at him ‘I’m charged wi finding him, as you obviously worked out for yourself, so anything you can tell me that would be a help, I’d be grateful for.’
‘Aye, I see that.’ Cornton paused a moment, arranging his thoughts. ‘Did Mistress Cornton say he’d met her in the street?’
‘Aye, and spoke to the children,’ Gil agreed.
Cornton’s face twisted. ‘Right. So what I got was one of his clever remarks about cuckoo chicks. Mind you, then he said it must be a comfort to herself to have the bairns wi her, and to tell her he’d pray for her lass. The man’s like that, maister,’ he said earnestly, ‘full of jokes at someone else’s expense, and then turns round and offers a kindness you’d not look for.’
‘How did he know the bairns?’ Gil asked.
‘Seems he kent their father, and you’ve only to look at the brats to see whose get they are. Asked me was Drummond still wi us. I was glad to tell him,’ said Cornton with restraint, ‘that the man was never under my roof save to leave his bastards. He lay at the Blackfriars the whole time he was at Perth.’
‘You don’t like Canon Drummond?’
‘I do not. Nor does he like me.’ The tanner grinned wryly. ‘And that’s exactly what Maister Stirling asked me, and I said to him. Whereupon he said, You’re one of a mighty company, Maister Cornton, and then asked me if I’d heard the tale of the laddie returned from Elfhame. Which I had, a course, as who in Perthshire hasny, but I’d no notion it was Drummond’s brother. Mind you, since I took care no to exchange a needless word wi the man, he could hardly ha tellt me hissel. So it seems Maister Stirling was a friend o this laddie at the sang-schule, and hoped to hear more of him.’ He eyed Gil warily. ‘I wonder if he went along to the Blackfriars when he left me? The path he took would lead him that way, for certain.’
‘I’ll ask there,’ said Gil. ‘You’ve been a lot of help, Maister Cornton.’ He rose to take his leave, and as the other man rose likewise said, ‘Tell me, was Drummond in his normal state when you saw him?’
Cornton shrugged.
‘Near enough. He’s never been more than civil to Nan — to Mistress Cornton, for all he made a hoor of her one daughter.’ He paused. ‘See, my wife’s first man, Jimmy Chalmers, had a few reverses to his business in his time. Dealt in fells and skins, he did, and lost a couple shiploads, oh, twelve year syne it would be, had to sell up. His two sons — Nan’s laddies — went to sea, and done well, but the lass took service with a kinswoman in Dunblane, and met Drummond.’ He scowled. ‘And then when Chalmers’ business recovered and he could dower his lass, Drummond wouldny release her from the agreement they’d made.’
Gil pulled a face.
‘He was within his rights, I suppose,’ he said. ‘And the lass herself? How did she feel about it?’
‘She’d the laddie, a bairn at the breast by then,’ said Cornton, ‘and I’d wager he threatened to keep the boy. Whatever the way o’t, she stayed.’ He grunted. ‘Any road, he was much as usual when we saw him, full of orders about how the boy was to be reared and schooled, never a word about the wee lass. I bade him be civil to my wife under her own roof, and he’d to swallow the rebuke, seeing he wanted a favour of us, but he was ill pleased.’ He looked about him. ‘I’d best put all secure in here and then get the men to start locking down. Nobody’s like to thieve a pit-full of half-cured skins,’ he said, grinning again, ‘but the finished hides needs to be stowed safe for the night.’
Leaving the man shuffling papers, Gil paused in the yard, where Peter was gossiping with the journeymen by the cart, and took the time to bargain for some of the white kidskins, which were indeed unusually soft and fine and would make excellent gloves for Alys. The apprentice Martin folded the leathers and tied them with a length of cord, and said with interest:
‘Is that right, what your man says, maister, that that priest has vanished away?’
‘I’m trying to find him,’ said Gil.
‘What priest is it?’ asked the youngest apprentice, a small lad in an out-at-elbows doublet and wrinkled hose, still prodding glumly at the stinking vat. They had put the fire out beneath it, but the smell seemed even more powerful.
‘How d’you mean, what priest?’ said the third one.
‘Well, there was two,’ said the smaller boy.
‘There was just the one, Malky,’ said Martin kindly. ‘Him wi the badges on his hat. He cam in here and spoke wi the maister, as he’s done before.’
‘There was two,’ said Malky. ‘I saw them on the bank when I went home to my supper.’
‘Did you?’ said Gil. ‘Who was the other one?’
‘Och, the other one,’ said Malky vaguely. ‘Him that brought the bairns to the maister’s house. Wi the hair, you ken.’ He gestured, describing fluffy hair below a hat.
‘When was that?’ Gil asked.
‘When I went home to my supper,’ the boy repeated. ‘After the badge one was here. So which one is it that’s vanished away, maister?’
‘The badge one,’ said Gil.
‘I thought so,’ said Malky. ‘See, he left his hat. My, he’s passed on a many pilgrimages to collect those badges. I wonder what he’s doing penance for, and him a priest too?’