St Mungo's Robin (25 page)

‘When did I get home, Maggie?’

‘How would I know? Long after the curfew it was, Our Lady alone kens how you wereny taken up by the Watch, the way you came stotting up the road.’

Memory surfaced. There had been singing. He and Pierre had gone from one tavern to another looking for, what was the fellow’s name, Veitch, and the other one. Had they found him?

‘Was I on my own when I came in?’

‘Maister Mason saw you to the kitchen door.’ She lifted the cooling candle to follow him down the stairs. ‘I’ll have a word to say to him when I see him, and all,’
she added grimly.

That was something, anyway. More memories rose up. Some of the singing had been sea songs. Yes, they had found John Veitch, and the man Elder – that was his name. They had had a long
conversation somewhere, the four of them. He recalled writing something down in his tablets, and felt in his sleeve. No, not this gown. Purse? His purse was at his belt. He patted it to make sure
the tablets were in it, and crossed the solar to go down to the shouting in the hall.

His godfather, lightly built and balding, was standing in front of the hearth, arms akimbo so that his short furred gown spread round him like the wings of an angry hawk. The steel-blue of gown
and jerkin added to the effect, but his expression was more like a wild-cat’s than a hawk’s as he roared at his youngest son.

‘You’ll no preach
family
in my lug! What right have you to use the word in my hearing, you ill-faring halflins custril? A pick-thank attercap I’ve raised to be my
Benjamin!’

Socrates barked again, and pain stabbed through Gil’s temples. Seeking his dog, he discovered him at the other side of the room, head down and hackles up, standing protectively in front of
Tib who was seated white-faced in their uncle’s great chair. Sir James, seeing him enter the hall, jerked an arm in an imperious gesture.

‘Come here, godson, and tell me how much of this you’re responsible for.’

‘How much of what?’ Gil asked, crossing the room. The answer struck him just before Sir James spoke, so that he heard his own words through a rising, roaring anger. He stopped in the
middle of the floor to wait for it to ebb, staring at his godfather.

‘This pair of masterless blichans, these sliddery dyke-lowpers,’ said Sir James, not mincing words, ‘have beddit one another. As to whose notion it was, I’ve my own
ideas, but what are you going to do about it, Gilbert, tell me that?’

‘Tib,’ said Gil grimly, turning to look at his sister. She got to her feet, her eye sliding from his, swallowed hard and nodded. ‘And Michael,’ he went on. Michael looked
sideways at him round his own shoulder, with a faint grimace of apology. As well you might, thought Gil. No wonder you were afraid of me, that morning in the bedehouse chapel.

‘Well?’ demanded Sir James. ‘Is that all you’ve to say, sir?’

‘It’s all I can say, till I ken the facts, sir,’ responded Gil.

‘Oh, the facts! The facts are easy enough to be discernit. Our tottie litchour here, having the keys o the lodging in his hand, made use of them to slip his leman into the place, the which
I spied as soon as I was within the door yestreen.’ Gil recalled the sudden, early arrival of the Douglas outriders, and with it the rest of the events of his visit there. ‘And while I
mind o’t, what’s going on in the place? All this about the Deacon found dead, locked in the garden, and one of the brothers dead by his own hand and all? What’s ado? Did he slay
the Deacon and then himsel? Have ye found that out yet, or has that passed by your attention and all?’

‘I’m working on it, sir,’ responded Gil automatically.

‘Hah!’ said Sir James witheringly. ‘If it wasny him that’s slain himsel it’ll be some enemy of the man’s from Stirlingshire. I kent I should never have
appointed a Kilsyth man, whatever the Veitches said. That’s if it’s no Frankie Veitch, who I never trusted, no since he tried to tell me Michael’s cousin Gavin wrote verse. And
this ill-doer here has taken advantage of all the stramash, bringing a woman into the almshouse my grandsire built. But it wasny till I set eyes on him this morn,’ he snarled, ‘and
persuaded the truth from him wi a belt’s end, that I kent just how bad.’

Tib came forward past Gil, the dog pacing watchfully beside her, and stopped beside Michael. Gil could see how their hands touched and twisted together, hidden from Sir James by the folds of her
grey gown.

‘Aye, sir,’ she said clearly. ‘We’ve beddit. We’re promised, each to ither.’

‘By all the saints, you’re no!’ he roared at her. The hands tightened on one another. ‘You shameless racer, what makes you think you’ve a claim on my lad?
I’ve better things in mind for him than marriage wi a wee trollop that parts her legs as soon as her hair!’

‘You’ll no say that about my mother’s daughter, if you please, sir,’ said Gil politely.

‘I’ll say what I like if your mother canny control her daughter, godson,’ snarled Sir James.

‘That comes well from a Douglas,’ remarked Gil. ‘Do you suppose your kinsman William Elphinstone would have a post about him for Michael, sir? Something in Aberdeen,
maybe?’

There was a difficult silence. Then Sir James, nephew of that Douglas lady whose bastard son was now Bishop of Aberdeen, swore savagely at Gil, flung away across the room and sat down in the
great chair Tib had vacated. The two young people turned to face him, Michael putting his arm round Tib, at which his father glowered.

‘How often?’ he demanded. ‘How many times has this happened? How long –’

‘A month or more since we met,’ said Michael, his deep voice very shaky. ‘But that was the first time we –’

‘Our Lady be praised!’ said Douglas. ‘Wi any luck she’ll no howd from the one service, there’ll be nothing you’ll need to gie your name to.’

‘But we want to –’

‘Michael,’ said Gil quietly. All three looked at him. ‘You can’t be wedded. There is an impediment.’

‘What impediment?’ said Tib in alarm.

‘I’d have thought you’d be ware of it. Quite apart from the question of Michael’s future and your lack of a tocher, there’s the mutual spiritual relationship.
Michael is our mother’s godson, you’re my sister and I’m godson to Michael’s father. Holy Kirk won’t –’

‘But Gil, a dispensation, surely? It’s no as if it was real –’

‘At a cost of £10 of Flemish money,’ said Gil, ‘which is near £25 Scots the now. Four or five years’ excess rents for a wealthy household, Tib, and
we’re no wealthy.’

She stared at him, then turned her head to look at Michael.

‘No need of marriage, then,’ she said bravely. ‘I’ll be your mistress. There’s plenty clerks have a lady in keeping. Look at –’

‘You deserve better,’ said Michael, going scarlet.

‘Better! A trollop like her! And I’ll not help you to ruin by buying you a dispensation, either,’ declared Douglas. ‘You’re bound for the Kirk, my lad, and service
to the Crown. I’ll not have my plans set aside to satisfy a pair of radgie pillie-wantouns!’

‘Father,’ said Michael, his voice stronger, ‘I’ve no need to be a priest, surely, to serve the Crown? I’ve no notion to the priesthood, I canny –’

‘What’s that to do wi it? You’ll do as you’re bid, Michael, or I’ll beat the daylights out of you. I’ll see you established on the ladder to fortune afore I
dee, if it’s the last thing I do.’

Gil bit his lip, but neither of the young people noticed the infelicity.

‘Sir,’ said Tib from within her lover’s arm, ‘our families are old friends. I – I ken you were at school wi my own faither. Will you no be a faither to me, now
he’s gone?’

Good, but ill-timed, Gil thought, flinching from the noise as Sir James boiled over at her in a torrent of indistinct rebuttals. If only his head was clearer. He was aware of little more than
his own smouldering rage at the utter stupidity and self-indulgence of such behaviour.

‘I think we’re agreed, sir,’ he said firmly, cutting across his godfather’s tirade, ‘that this should never have happened and it should go no further.’

‘Gil!’

‘Aye, very likely,’ said Sir James, ‘but what do we do now, eh? That’s what I want to know of you, Gilbert. Or where’s your uncle? What’s David got to say
about it?’

‘But we love each other!’

‘Father, I –’

‘Be silent!’ roared Sir James, ‘or by the Deil’s bollocks I’ll have your tongue out!’

Gil suddenly recalled his father saying in exasperation,
Trouble wi James is he’s more talk than thumbscrews, till you put a blade in his hand.

‘What we do now –’ he began.

‘What we do now,’ broke in another voice, ‘is sit down quiet wi a drink and a bite.’

Dorothea came forward from the kitchen stair, Maggie behind her with a steaming jug and a platter of little cakes.

‘Good day to you, sir,’ she said, and bent her knee in a curtsy to the gaping Douglas. ‘It’s good to see you so little changed, after all these years. I’m right
glad Maggie sent to tell me you were here in my uncle’s house.’

‘Dorothea,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘Sister Dorothea. Aye, well, it’s good to see you and all, lass. Are you well? No need to ask if you’re happy.’

‘I am indeed, sir.’ Gil set a stool for her, and she smiled quickly at him. ‘Shall we all be seated, and these two miscreants may serve us?’

Maggie set jug and platter down on the low cupboard at the end of the hall, and assisted Tib in finding the pewter beakers and pouring spiced ale for Michael to distribute. Then she stationed
herself by the cupboard, obviously hoping to be unobserved. There was quiet movement on the kitchen stair, which Gil took to be Lowrie waiting to learn his friend’s fate. So that really was
him with Maggie, he thought, when she came to wake me.

‘What’s done,’ said Dorothea, cutting across Sir James’s continued complaints, ‘is no to be undone, though I dare say many lassies wish it might be.’

‘I don’t!’ said Tib defiantly from where she stood with the platter of little cakes. ‘I don’t regret a thing.’

Michael slid her a glance under his eyebrows, and they exchanged a complicit smile. Gil found himself grappling with another surge of combined anger and envy.

‘Aye, but what do we do next?’ demanded Sir James. ‘Michael, come over here to my side, away from that wee trollop.’

‘Wait,’ said Dorothea. ‘We wait, sir.’

‘Oh, we do?’ he said. ‘And what use of waiting? Michael’s future is determined, madam, he’ll no step aside from it whatever comes to one ill-schooled
lassie.’

‘You forget, sir,’ said Dorothea, rigidly sweet as a sugar-plate saint on a banquet table, ‘that Michael is my mother’s godson.’

‘Aye, and what Gelis Muirhead will say about this I canny think!’

‘I can,’ said Gil quietly.

Michael shivered, and Tib put her chin up, but Dorothea cast him a repressive glance and pursued, ‘Aye, sir. My mother is a Muirhead. Kin to Dean Muirhead of this chapter, kin to the Boyds
whose daughter Marion goes with child to the King, kin to your cousin Angus’s lady.’

‘No need to involve Mother!’ said Tib sharply. ‘Or any of you! We’ll sort our own future. We love each other, we don’t need more than that.’

‘Aye, and how will you do that?’ Gil demanded over Douglas’s indignant spluttering. ‘What will you live on? Where? You can’t be married, what will you do? You need
your kin to find Michael a place and some sort of income.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll determine in September next, we’ve got till then.’

‘Determine?’ repeated his father. ‘Determine? What makes you think I’ll pay for you to finish your studies, let alone take your degree? Do you ken what I laid out for
your brother Robert at the end of his four years, in fees and graces to one regent or another? Why should I put out the same for a thankless loun such as you’ve proved to be? I’d sooner
take you home wi me this day and put you down the bottle-hole.’

Gil, watching, thought this was perhaps the first time either Michael or Tib had realized that matters really might not fall out as they wanted. Horrified, they drew closer together; Michael
transferred the jug to his other hand and put his arm about Tib again, and she shrank in against him. Dorothea said gently, ‘If you do that you’ll prevent him following the path
you’ve set out for him, as well as any other path, sir.’

‘Aye, I will that,’ said Douglas fiercely.

‘Our mother might have a word to say about that, too,’ Gil commented.

‘It seems to me, Sir James,’ said Dorothea. Everyone looked at her. ‘It seems to me that there are several problems.’

‘Just the two,’ said Douglas.

‘There is Michael’s future,’ said Dorothea, ignoring this, ‘there is Tib’s future whatever it is, and if in some way these should be together there is the question
of what Holy Kirk will say about it.’ Gil nodded. ‘None of them is simple, and all of them involve waiting a longer or shorter time.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Sir James. ‘Michael will do as I’ve planned for him. There’s a post for him wi the Treasury at Stirling next autumn, and he –’

‘No!’ said Michael urgently. ‘Father, no! I’d sooner teach in the grammar school!’

‘Mother could do better for him than that,’ said Dorothea dispassionately.

‘And Tib –’ Gil began.

‘I’ve said my last word on it,’ said Sir James. He got to his feet. ‘Michael, let go your wee trollop and say fareweel. And if I find you’ve set your een on her
again I’ll burn them out.’

Jug and platter fell unheeded. The jug shattered, the pewter dish spun briefly then grounded on one of its cakes. Michael, his arms wrapped tightly round Tib, said over her head, ‘Sir,
I’ve committed no crime –’

‘You have, in fact,’ said Gil, ‘against me.’ Everyone turned towards him. If only his head would stop aching, he thought. ‘There’s the question of filial
disobedience,’ he acknowledged to his godfather, ‘but Tib’s been robbed of her maidenhead, that was a part of her marriage portion, and as her lawful tutor I will require some
recompense to her.’

‘
You
will?’ shrieked Tib, wrenching herself from her lover’s arms. ‘It’s nothing to do wi you! It’s
my
life, it’s
my
–’

‘Tib!’ said Dorothea warningly