And then there was the matter of the badges missing from the hat. Did it have any bearing on Stirling’s disappearance, or not? I need to speak to Andrew Drummond, and that soon, he told himself. How early can we be off in the morning?
He got to his feet, tucking his tablets back into their pouch. As he stepped on to the path a small figure twenty or thirty yards off waved wildly and shouted his name. He paused, and Maister Cornton’s boy Malky ran up, saying in excited tones:
‘I kent I’d seen you gang this way, maister. My maister’s begging a word wi you. He’s found a strange thing at the back o the yard, he’d like you to take a look at.’
‘What kind of a strange thing?’ Gil asked. The boy shook his head.
‘I never seen it,’ he said regretfully. ‘Just my maister and Rob and Simon, that’s the journeymen,’ he explained, ‘was up that end the yard and came down and sent me and Martin and Ally out to find you. And they’ve both went into the town, but I thought I’d seen you gang along here by the Ditch.’ He turned hopefully, obviously expecting Gil to follow him, and looking exactly like a puppy waiting for a stick to be thrown. Gil grinned, gave him a penny, and obligingly set off towards the tanyard.
Maister Cornton was in his counting-house, seated by his desk and gazing thoughtfully at a small bright object on the green baize. He looked up as Gil tapped at the open door, and nodded.
‘They found you,’ he said. ‘What d’you make of this?’
Gil stepped over beside him and discovered the object of his contemplation to be a pilgrim badge, probably of silver, in the shape of a horse. On its saddle were an anvil and hammer big enough to have brought the creature to its knees. Tiny letters incised on the anvil read S ELIGIVS.
‘St Eloi’s horse from Noyon,’ he said.
‘So it would seem,’ agreed Cornton, ‘though it’s far better quality than other Eloi badges I’ve seen. Is it familiar to you, maister?’
‘It could be one of the two we’re looking for,’ he admitted. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Put it safe, and I’ll show you.’ Cornton set off out through the drying-loft and into the yard, saying over his shoulder, ‘The bellman was crying two missing pilgrim badges, as well as the question of where my landlord ate his supper the day I saw him last, and who saw some fellow of Dunblane, so when my man Rob found this I reckoned I’d best send for you.’
He picked his way into the further reaches of his domain, past open sheds containing trestles and racks of skins, vats of strong-smelling liquors, reeking stacks of raw skins, the two small carts Gil had seen earlier. Beyond the sheds were a series of pits like the one near the gate, but these were covered by weighted planks. It was easier to breathe out here, Gil found.
‘That’s the tanpits,’ said Cornton, waving at them. ‘See, we do the first soaking and bating down the front of the yard, where it’s under my eye, because the skins needs turned or shifted daily. Right?’ Gil nodded. ‘But once they’re in the tanpits they lie for months — up to a year for your stoutest leathers — and we shift the bark maybe every couple of months, no oftener. So the tanpits is all up here out the road and though I take a look round afore I lock up in the evening, we’re not working in this bit that often. Which means the Deil alone kens how long that badge has been lying here, though I suppose it canny be more than two weeks. Right?’ Gil nodded again, and Cornton led him to the far end of the yard, where one of his journeymen stood by a pit morosely watching the bubbles rise and burst in the scum between the wet planks. ‘Show him where you found it, Robin.’
At the sound of his voice, several dogs broke out in a fanfare of barking, quite near. Gil looked round, startled to realize how close they were to the Doigs’ yard.
‘Is there a reward?’ asked the man, ignoring this. Cornton raised his arm to him, but he said hardily, ‘The bellman said there was a reward. I found it, I should get the reward for it.’
‘We’ll ask at the Bishop’s steward,’ Gil said. ‘Now show me where it was lying.’
‘Just by that stick there.’ Rob nodded at a stick driven into the earth nearby. ‘I marked it, like the maister tellt me.’
They were near the boundary with the dye yard next door; it was marked by a fence perhaps four feet high, of tightly woven wattle hurdles rather than planks like that at the front of the yard. The ground was well trampled here, with small likelihood of picking out any footprints. The marker stake was midway between the fence and the tanpit where the bubbles were rising.
‘It might have been thrown over the fence from the dye yard,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But if so, why not cast further, and aim for the pit itself? It would never be found if it went in there.’
‘Maybe no,’ agreed Rob, ‘but maybe aye. I’m thinking one o these oxhides is on the turn, maister, there’s ower many bubbles and they stink something rotten. We’ll ha to fetch them up, and yir badge might ha come up along wi them. Maybe the ither’s in there yet,’ he added, brightening slightly.
‘They do stink,’ agreed Cornton, sniffing. ‘I don’t like the smell of that. We ought to fetch them up afore the whole lot turns.’
‘No reason why you shouldn’t get on and deal with it,’ said Gil, pacing along the fence. ‘I’ll keep out of your way.’ He bent to peer behind some stained planks which were propped against the fence, but found nothing significant. ‘Is there a gate this end of the yard, maister?’
‘Fetch Simon and the laddies,’ said Cornton to his man, ‘bid them bring the long poles and all. A gate, Maister Cunningham?’ He turned to fix Gil with a sharp stare. ‘No, there’s only the one way in unless you sclim the fence. Which I’m aware bad laddies do from time to time,’ he added, ‘though I’d say we’ve had no damage or mischief in the yard since Hunt-the-Gowk time. Are you thinking someone’s been in here? I took it, like you, the badge had been thrown from over the fence.’
‘It could have been,’ agreed Gil cautiously. ‘Does your neighbour lock up at night too?’
‘He does.’
Gil looked about them. The yard was perhaps twenty good paces across, although much longer, and from where he stood the fencing appeared sound all round; the structure of woven hurdles lashed to hazelwood stakes beside him turned the corner to extend across the narrow end of the property, then changed to sturdy planks at the opposite side. The path to the Blackfriars must be on the other side of the planks, but his view of it was cut off by a small open shed containing another tall rack of skins. Just over the fence beside him a complex system of cords and poles in the dyer’s yard supported bright webs of cloth and hanks of thread. The dyer’s plot was shorter than the tan-yard, and in the angle of the two — yes, that was Doig’s yard, just next to him though it was near ten minutes’ walk by the track. As he stood frowning, working out the twists and turns, Mistress Doig emerged from the house and shouted at the dogs. Silence fell, she glared over the fence at them, and Cornton said:
‘They’re neighbours I could do without, you’ll see.’ Gil grunted, and leaned over the stakes nearest him to look into the dyer’s property. The ground there was as well trampled as that in the tanyard, and the grass and dandelions at the base of the fence showed nothing untoward.
‘If it was two weeks since,’ said Cornton, echoing his thoughts, ‘there’ll be little trace left by now.’
‘How would bad laddies get in here without someone seeing and hunting them out?’
‘Same as I said, over the fence. There’s plenty hideyholes once you’re in the yard. I’m aye feart one will get hissel drowned,’ Cornton confessed, ‘that’s why we’ve as many planks on the tanpits, it doesny need that many to hold it all down.’
Looking along the fence, scanning the woven withies and the vegetation at their feet, Gil was half aware of the men returning, carrying the poles Cornton had ordered and rolling two rumbling half-barrels. The apprentices set to work with buckets, baling out the liquid in the pit and slopping it into the tubs with much splashing, despite the remonstrations of their seniors, who meanwhile dragged the netted stones off the planks and began to raise them. More bubbles rose and broke at this, and the other journeyman, downwind, fell back with an exclamation of disgust.