The Merchant's Mark (6 page)

‘Keeping the serjeant out of it’s no matter,’ declared Sir Thomas, ‘for I ken what that was for and it’s none of his mind. It’s already gone to the
Archbishop. And Maister Morison got the serjeant to see to the head afore the other matter came to light, as you’ve just told us, Billy Walker. But why did you no set up a hue and cry,
maister? The law’s quite clear on that.’

‘I was just horror-struck,’ Morison protested. ‘We all were. And my bairns were about the yard, I didny want them to see – that.’ He nodded at the trestle with its
burden.

‘I never saw the bairns about the yard,’ asserted Billy. Several of the assizers looked at one another and nodded significantly at this. The man Andy had identified as Billy’s
cousin was speaking in confidential tones to his neighbour.

‘This man is destroying his own employment,’ said Maistre Pierre in Gil’s ear. ‘What is he about?’

‘I wish I knew,’ said Gil. ‘But I don’t like the look of the assize.’

‘Serjeant,’ said Sir Thomas irritably, ‘can you add any sense to this?’

‘All I can say is, I never saw any bairns either,’ said Serjeant Anderson portentously. ‘What’s more, sir, when I asked the gentlemen to touch the corp they all did it
very willingly except –’ he paused dramatically – ‘for Maister Morison.’

‘And did the corp bleed?’ asked an assizer from behind the rope.

‘How could it bleed?’ asked Sir Thomas irritably. ‘He’s been heidit. He’s no blood left.’

‘No, it never bled,’ admitted the serjeant regretfully.

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ declared the Provost. ‘Has the assizers any questions they want answered? Or anything more to tell the inquest?’

‘Aye. I’d like to know how long Maister Morison had the puncheon in his keeping,’ said a grey-haired man in a tavern-keeper’s apron.

‘Not as much as a week,’ said Morison nervously. ‘The carts only came home yestreen. No, the day before now. I convoyed them straight from Linlithgow after the whole load was
put ashore at Blackness on Monday.’

‘And ye had it under your eye all that time, maister?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Morison. ‘Well,’ he amended, ‘save for when it was warded for the night, and then there was a guard on it.’

‘Was there aught else in the puncheon?’ asked a man with the stained hands of a working dyer. Morison looked at the Provost, who intervened.

‘Aye, there was, Archie Hamilton, but it’s a matter for a higher court than this one. It’s all in hand, so ye’ve no call to speir at that.’

‘And there was a deal of brine,’ added Morison.

‘Is he a Scot?’ asked another man with a strong likeness to the dyer. ‘Or is he some kind o foreigner? A Saracen, maybe? Or English, even?’

‘What would a Saracen be doing in Glasgow?’ demanded Sir Thomas in exasperated tones. ‘And if he’s English, he’s past telling us himself, I warrant you, Eckie. He
could be anyone. He’s been a grown man, wi one blue eye and one brown, and his hair’s dark, and that’s all we ken.’

‘And he’s no half an ell high,’ said someone from the back of the crowd, to general laughter.

‘It’s Allan,’ said someone else. ‘Like the sang.
Gude Allane lies intil a barell.’

This raised more laughter, but there seemed to be no further questions or information. Sir Thomas withdrew, and the assizers were ceremoniously released from their pen and escorted into
confinement in the hall of the Provost’s lodging to deliberate on what they had heard.

‘How long will this take?’ asked Maistre Pierre as the last man disappeared, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk.

‘There’s a refreshment to be served,’ Morison said. ‘They’ll be no quicker than it takes to get that by, and maybe a lot slower.’

‘A refreshment? I thought such a jury should be starved to hasten its decision.’

‘How would you get anyone to serve if you starved them?’ Gil asked. ‘What is Andy doing there, Augie?’

‘Giving Billy orders for the rest of the day, maybe.’ Morison watched the two men, who were conversing in a fierce undertone. ‘Tell your sister again how sorry I am, Gil, that
the saint never answered her prayer. What will she do now?’

‘I have wondered that,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘I’ve not asked her. Go back to Carluke, likely, and try to accept her lot. She and Tib have no tocher,’ Gil said directly, turning to look at Morison, ‘and who would
take her with that leg and no land to sweeten the bargain?’

‘Courage and a bonnie face might make a tocher,’ said Morison diffidently, ‘to the right man.’

‘They don’t bring in rents,’ said Gil. ‘And Kate isn’t one to take bread at a man’s hand either.’

Andy was still haranguing his junior. As Gil watched over Morison’s shoulder the younger man turned away with a self-righteous air; at the same moment Andy swung round and marched back to
their master, every line of his small bow-legged frame expressing anger. Billy glanced after him to thumb his nose again, at which the men round him nudged one another and sniggered.

‘Arrogant wee scunner,’ said Andy, rejoining them. ‘By here, that was quick.’ He nodded towards the Provost’s lodging. ‘The assize is coming out.’

The fifteen men of the assize filed down the steps, preceded by the serjeant with the mace, followed by Sir Thomas’s clerk, and were herded into their roped enclosure again. The serjeant
went back to conduct Sir Thomas, and then climbing on the mounting-block shouted for silence and got it. Sir Thomas nodded to Gil and his friends, and in a short speech reminded the assize of the
penalties for a wilful false verdict and asked them if they had selected someone to speak for them.

‘Aye, maister, we have that,’ said the grey-haired tavern-keeper, ‘and it’s me. Mattha Hog, keeper of the Hog tavern, and we’ve a new barrel of ale
–’

‘That’s enough of that,’ said Sir Thomas sharply. ‘Well, Mattha, what has the assize found in this death? Do ye ken who he was?’

‘No, maister, we do not, except maybe he was a Saracen. Ye said so yerself, that we didny ken him,’ Mattha reminded the Provost.

‘And were you unanimous in that decision?’

Mattha looked alarmed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, indeed, it didny take long to decide at all. We were all agreed, you see.’

Sir Thomas exchanged a brief glance with his clerk, who bent his head over his notes again with a smile quirking his mouth.

‘Very well,’ said the Provost. ‘And do ye ken how he died?’

‘No, not that either,’ said Mattha. ‘We wereny agreed on that,’ he admitted, ‘for some of us thought he was heidit, and some of us not, but you tellt us yerself,
maister, there’s no knowing now. He’s too long deid, and in that brine and all.’

‘Very good,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘The clerk of the court will write that out, and read it to you, and you will affix the seal of the assize to the record –’

‘Aye, but sir,’ said Mattha, ‘we’re not finished.’

Sir Thomas stopped to stare at him.

‘You tellt us to decide on who saw to his death,’ continued the tavern-keeper with the air of a man about to set off a culverin. ‘So we did, and we were agreed on it. Well,
nearly all of us was agreed on it,’ he modified as someone growled from the back of the group. ‘We reckon there’s one man knows more about the whole matter than he lets on, and we
say he should be held and put to the horn for the killing, and that’s Maister Augustine Morison.’

‘What?’ Morison almost shrieked.

Uproar broke out. Several men from the crowd rushed eagerly forward to seize the merchant, who dived hurriedly towards the Provost for protection. Sir Thomas gestured angrily to his own men, who
were already advancing towards the fore-stair using their mailed arms and boots, and dragged Morison on to the stair and out of the grasp of those nearest him. Andy, knife drawn, scrambled up the
steps beside his master, and Maistre Pierre also stepped into the mêlée. Gil tried to address Sir Thomas, but could not make himself heard above the noise of the onlookers and the
serjeant bellowing from his mounting-block for silence and order. Anxiously he worked his way towards the stair.

‘Should we all withdraw, sir?’ he suggested when he was close enough. ‘Debate this in private?’

‘Aye, come up, come up!’ shouted Sir Thomas as his men formed a barrier at the foot of the stair. ‘Let him through, Andro! Serjeant!’ he bellowed.

The serjeant paused in his red-faced appeals for silence.

‘I’m away into the house. I’ll come back out when you’ve silenced them, man.’

One of the constables struggled through the throng, and appeared to be trying to tell Sir Thomas something. The Provost waved him away, waited until he saw that Gil was safely on to the steps,
and retreated through his own door. Following him, Gil was aware of the serjeant descended from his mounting-block, laying about him with the burgh mace.

Within, Morison was saying desperately, over the noise from the yard, ‘I didn’t kill him, I don’t even know who he is. I never saw him till we opened the barrel!’

‘Augie,’ said Gil.

Morison stopped to look at him, open-mouthed, and Sir Thomas said into the pause, ‘It’s all a muddle. I’ll have to hold ye, maister, since they’ve brought in that
verdict, and I don’t believe a word of it either.’

‘I think it is malice,’ declared the mason from beside the empty hearth.

‘And either I hold a man or I put him to the horn, one or the other, not the both at once. Where’s the point in sounding the horn at the Mercat Cross and calling a search for him if
he’s lying in a cell in my castle?’

‘But I never –’

‘Augie,’ said Gil again, ‘if you’re charged, will you deny it?’

‘Of course I will –’

‘Then don’t say any more now,’ Gil advised. Walter the clerk gave him an approving look. ‘The plea is
twertnay
, and that’s all you need to say.’

‘Oh.’ Morison stopped, and repeated the word soundlessly a couple of times.

‘I still think it malice,’ said Maistre Pierre. The noise from the yard had dropped.

‘Aye, you could be right, maister,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘A wilful false verdict. I’m not happy about the assize, that’s certain. Walter, you have all their names
writ down, have you?’

‘All writ down, Provost,’ agreed the clerk. ‘We can get them back any time we want, provided they’ve not run.’

‘Then I’ll go out and discharge them. Bide here, gentlemen. Walter, I’ll need you.’

He went out, and shortly could be heard haranguing the members of the assize. The four left in the hall looked at one another.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Morison, whose teeth were beginning to chatter. ‘Oh, Christ assoil me, what of my bairns?’

‘Must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘I’m more practised in the canon law than the civil,’ said Gil, ‘but I’d say he must be held. It’s a charge of murder, so he can’t be released on
recognition.’

‘But –’ began Morison, and stopped. ‘Twertnay,’ he said carefully. ‘Gil, will you help me? You found out who killed those other folk – the woman in St
Mungo’s yard and the one at the college. Can you find out this for me?’

‘I can try,’ said Gil.

‘I’ll gie ye a hand, Maister Gil,’ said Andy.

‘I’ll need you to see to the yard,’ said his master, sinking on to a stool. ‘The business, the bairns, the household – what’s to come to any of them if
I’m chained up here?’

‘I’ll have to hold ye,’ said Sir Thomas in the doorway, ‘since it’s a charge of murder, but I’m not putting ye in chains, maister. If you’ll give me
your word not to run, you can bide here in the castle. I’ll find a chamber.’

‘I’ll see to the yard, maister, if that’s what’s wanted,’ said Andy. ‘And the first thing, I’ll give Billy Walker leave to go before I throttle
him.’

‘No, Andy,’ said Morison, ‘he told the truth as he saw it.’

‘Aye, and as he hoped it would harm you, maister,’ said Andy bluntly.

‘For how long must he be held?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Sir Thomas shook his head. ‘I need to send to my lord Archbishop. I wish I’d waited to report the coin, the one man could ha carried both words. Robert Blacader will decide whether
to set the matter aside or to pursue it, and in what court. After that, who knows? If Maister Morison’s being held at his expense,’ he added shrewdly, ‘he’ll want to resolve
it sooner than later.’ Voices rose in the yard again, and he turned his head to listen. ‘Walter, sort that, would ye, man?’

As the clerk went out on to the fore-stair again, Gil said formally, ‘If you’re sending to my lord, may I ride with the messenger? Maister Morison has asked me to make enquiry into
the death of the man whose head we found in the barrel, and my first road must be to Stirling.’

‘Aye, very wise.’ Sir Thomas scowled at Gil. ‘And let me know what ye find and all.’

‘Unless there is a conflict of interests,’ agreed Gil.

The Provost stared at him for a moment, then nodded grimly. ‘I suppose it might happen,’ he admitted. ‘Aye, you may ride. You can be the messenger, indeed. If you can be ready
within the hour.’

‘I need to question Maister Morison.’

‘Aye, and the men must eat,’ admitted Sir Thomas, reconsidering. ‘Two hours, then. No longer.’

‘Maister,’ said Walter the clerk, reappearing at the door, ‘it’s a messenger from my lord Archbishop.’

‘What?’ Sir Thomas turned to the man in dusty riding-clothes who followed Walter into the hall. ‘I trust my lord’s well?’ he said, removing his murrey velvet
hat.

‘He is well,’ said the messenger, bowing and holding out a letter with a dangling seal, ‘and he sends to let you to know, Provost, that he will lie here at Glasgow the
morn’s night, together with his grace the King and my lord of Angus and others as numbered in his letter.’

‘We need all you can tell us,’ said Gil.

‘About what?’ said Morison blankly.

‘About this barrel,’ said Maistre Pierre.

They were in the chamber which Sir Thomas, muttering curses, had allotted as a prison cell before he hurried off to see to the preparations for the arrival of the Archbishop and more
particularly of the King. It was a small, pleasant room two storeys up one of the towers, with a view of the west towers of St Mungo’s and a bed at least as good as Gil’s own on which
Morison was seated, leaving Maistre Pierre the stool while Gil hunkered down against the wall.