The Nicholas Feast (10 page)

‘He’s well,’ said Michael, startled back into civility. ‘Is madam your mother well, maister?’

‘She is, and like to be in Glasgow soon.’

‘Will you have some ale, maister? I think we’ve got some ale,’ offered Lowrie, apparently accepting the social nature of the visit.

‘It’s finished,’ said Ninian hoarsely.

Gil looked from Michael, now twirling the turn-button on the shutter, to Lowrie, still standing by the door, and then at Ninian huddled in blankets in the bed.

‘Three of the enemies of the Crown,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘It must be a conspiracy.’

They stared at him.

‘I think that was before we were born, maister,’ said Michael eventually. ‘In James Second’s time, maybe. This is just us.’

‘And our wee bittie problem,’ said Lowrie.

‘Tell me about it,’ Gil invited.

‘How much do you ken, maister?’ asked Lowrie.

‘Quite a bit,’ countered Gil. ‘Which of you hit him? Where was he then?’

‘It was me that hit him,’ said Ninian, shivering. ‘He was there.’ He nodded at one of the little study-spaces. ‘I was angry at him already, the way he clarted up the fight scene in the play, and then I came up to move my Aristotle when the rain started, and there he was, in Michael’s carrel, where he’d no right to be, speiring at things that don’t concern him. I shouted at him, and he did that trick of looking down his nose and strolling off, like a cat on a wall. So I hit him, and he fell down, and hit his head on the stool. Then the other two came in.’

‘That’s right,’ said Lowrie, and Michael nodded.

‘And then you put him in the limehouse,’ prompted Gil, as the conversation died. They looked at each other in what seemed like relief.

‘That was my idea,’ said Lowrie.

‘Didn’t he argue?’ Gil asked.

‘He wasn’t stirring,’ said Lowrie. ‘So we tied his wrists with Miggel’s belt and got him down the stairs, between the three of us, and round to the limehouse.’

‘With Michael’s belt? Why did you not use his own?’

‘We’d have had enough snash from him as it was,’ said Lowrie frankly. ‘If we’d damaged his property he’d certainly have complained to Dobbin. Much better to use one of ours.’

‘We’d never have got it back,’ said Michael, as if continuing an argument. ‘I suppose we canny have it back now, maister? No, I thought not.’

‘How did you carry him?’ Gil asked. ‘Did nobody else see you?’

‘They had a leg each and I had his shoulders,’ said Ninian, in surprised tones. ‘That’s why we tied his wrists. And everyone else in the Inner Close was all gone back to the feast, and the Elect were in the Law Schule waiting for Father Bernard, so there was none to see us. Maister, he wasny deid when we left him!’ he burst out. ‘He was stirring and gruntling like he was drunk, so we left him lying on his side. He wasny deid then!’

‘Which side was he lying on?’

They exchanged glances, and Michael mimed the position.

‘His right side,’ he said. ‘Aye, the right side. He wasny deid then,’ he echoed.

‘And where did you put him?’ Gil asked carefully.

‘Just lying in the middle of the limehouse,’ said Ninian.

‘No hidden or anything,’ elaborated Lowrie. ‘Anyone that opened the door would see him there. Likely they’d hear him too,’ he added.

‘And what did you do with his purse?’

‘His purse?’ repeated Ninian.

‘Damn,’ said Michael. ‘We should have checked that. He’d aye paper, or his bonny wee set of tablets to make notes on. Tod, did you –?’

‘Not I,’ said Lowrie, and added politely to Gil, ‘I don’t think we touched his purse.’

‘So you left him in the limehouse.’ All three nodded. ‘And you’re sure nobody else saw you?’

‘We took good care nobody saw us,’ Michael pointed out.

‘I wondered,’ said Ninian, ‘how much Bendy Stewart saw, or maybe heard. You mind, he followed us across the close, and we were talking about it?’

‘I never saw him,’ said Lowrie. ‘You told us to curb the bummle, I mind that.’

‘I saw him,’ said Michael. ‘But we were nearly at the pend before he came into the Inner Close from the kitchen-yard. He wouldny see where we’d been. How much he heard I don’t know either.’

‘And why did you shut William in the limehouse? Why there? Why not the coalhouse?’

‘The kitchen’s aye after more coal,’ said Michael. ‘He’d have been found in no time.’

‘But why shut him in at all?’

‘So we could bar him in,’ said Lowrie after a moment. ‘I don’t know why the limehouse has that bar on the door, but I thought we could –’ He stopped, reddening. ‘It seems a daft idea now. I thought we’d get at the sweetmeats in the Fore Hall before he did, and I thought and all that we’d get him into trouble for once. If he never turned up to get his reward for the play the Dean would be displeased, and he wasn’t best pleased wi him already after the meeting. I never meant –’

‘But surely,’ said Gil, ‘he had only to tell the Dean why he was not present?’

‘But then we would tell the Dean why we locked him up,’ Lowrie explained.

‘It would never have worked,’ said Michael suddenly. He had a surprisingly deep voice. ‘He could wammle out of anything, kale-wirm that he was.’

‘He was not popular?’ Gil asked innocently.

‘He had friends,’ Lowrie said. ‘Robert Montgomery, Ralph Gibson.’

‘Not friends I would choose,’ said Ninian, sucking his knuckles.

‘But you didn’t like him,’ Gil prompted. They eyed him carefully, and said nothing. ‘Did he often look at things that did not concern him?’

‘No,’ said Ninian.

‘Yes,’ said Lowrie at the same moment.

‘He was aye poking at my books,’ said Michael. ‘Him and Robert and that Ralph were on the same landing as us, see, last year when they were bejants. We were mentoring them,’ he added, pulling a face. ‘Ralph and Robert was all right, but William thought he should have free run of everything we owned. I’ve not seen my Aristotle since last summer.’

‘What was he looking for?’

‘He looked,’ said Lowrie, ‘for secrets. Things you would rather weren’t known. Everyone has things he’d rather weren’t known.’

‘I haveny,’ said Michael, raising his pointed chin.

‘Except for Michael, everyone has things they’d rather weren’t known,’ amended Lowrie. ‘And the dear departed went round ferreting them out. He wrote them down.
With pen and ink to report all readie.’

‘He did, too,’ said Michael rather sharply.

‘And then he’d come privately and ask you what it was worth not to tell Dobbin.’

‘I see,’ said Gil evenly. ‘And did he make any profit from this scaffery?’

‘That’s the word!’ said Ninian.

‘No from me, he never,’ said Lowrie firmly.

‘Was that why Dobbin wanted you last week?’ said Michael.

Lowrie grinned. ‘Aye. Dear William found my uncle’s notes and when I wouldny pay up he went and told Dobbin my ideas weren’t my own. He hadn’t read the notes properly. They were from old Tommy’s lectures on Aristotle, in about 1472, and I’ll swear Tommy gave the identical lectures last winter. I showed them to Dobbin, and he agreed with me. Not that he said so, but you could tell. And of course Dobbin taught my uncles at the grammar school at Peebles before he came here. Before they all came here,’ he amended. ‘Separately.’

‘We get the idea,’ said Michael.

‘Do you know if William made a habit of this?’ Gil asked.

‘He made a good living from it,’ said Lowrie roundly, ‘for I saw him.’

‘Of wikkit and evil lyf of tyranny and crimynous lyfing.
Good enough to pay for a chamber to himself in the Outer Close?’ suggested Gil. ‘Or do you suppose he had some kind of hold over Maister Shaw?’

‘I’ve no idea how much he won,’ said Lowrie, ‘though I’d guess it was silver rather than copper, but if you want to know who else he was putting the black on, you’ll have to ask around yourself. Maister,’ he added with belated civility, and straightened his shoulders so that his faded blue gown creaked.

‘Fair enough,’ said Gil. ‘Ninian?’

‘He saw me in the town,’ said Ninian, reddening. ‘One night I hadn’t leave to be out.’

‘Ning!’ said Lowrie sharply. ‘You never gied him money?’

‘No, I never!’ returned Ninian. ‘I gied him my notes on Auld Nick’s Peter of Spain lectures.’

‘Was that all?’ Gil asked.

Ninian looked uncomfortable. ‘He was wanting more,’ he admitted. ‘He’d asked me for a sack of meal.’

‘Ambitious,’ said Gil. ‘Would you have given it to him?’

‘Maybe,’ said Ninian. ‘But maybe I’d just take my chance. Dobbin’s fair, if you plead guilty. It would have been a beating, maybe, or a week’s loss of privilege. A sack of meal was too much. I hadn’t answered him yet.’

‘Michael?’

‘I’ve no secrets,’ said Michael flatly.

Gil waited, but Ninian burst out again with, ‘Maister, what came to him? Was it the bang on the heid? Why was he in the coalhouse?’

‘It was not the bang on the head,’ Gil said firmly, ‘or the blow to the jaw. That was not what killed him, Ninian.’

Ninian stared at him, sucking his knuckles again. Then he relaxed, sighing.

‘So it wasn’t me that killed him,’ he said, and scrubbed at his eyes. ‘But how did he get in the coalhouse?’

‘That is what I would like to know,’ Gil said. ‘Show me your feet,’ he said suddenly to Lowrie, who gaped at him, then closed his mouth and turned up the soles of his boots one at a time to the light.

‘No coal, I hope,’ he said lightly.

‘No coal,’ Gil agreed. ‘There’s lime on the hem of your gown –’ He stopped, recalling the hem of William’s gown. Quicklime and damp wool – that would account for the scorch marks.

‘Mine too,’ said Michael gruffly.

‘Mine are on the kist yonder, maister.’ Ninian nodded across the room. Gil stooped to inspect Michael’s boots, then made his way round the great box of the bed. As he lifted Ninian’s downtrodden footwear heavy steps pounded on the stair, and there was a hammering at the door.

‘Lowrie! Lowrie Livingstone! Is Maister Cunningham there? He’s wanted!’

Lowrie opened the door. Two students were on the landing, and eager footsteps suggested more on the stair. The nearest, the irrepressible Walter, said urgently, ‘Maister, can you come quick?’

‘There’s something in William’s chamber,’ said the boy behind Walter.

‘It’s a ghaist,’ said Walter. ‘We heard it!’

‘If it’s no the deil himself,’ said someone on the stairs.

‘That’s nonsense,’ said Gil firmly.

‘We heard it!’ said Walter again. ‘It’s wailing and girning like the Green Lady. Come and hear for yirsel, maister!’

‘I do not believe William’s ghost can be in his chamber,’ said Gil, ‘much less the deil himself. Why should the devil be in William’s chamber?’

‘I could tell you that,’ muttered Michael.

‘But we heard it, maister! Please will you come and listen?’

‘Why were you at his chamber door anyway?’ asked Lowrie. ‘You lodge here in the Inner Close, no out-by.’

‘Billy Ross went with a message from Maister Doby,’ said Walter virtuously, ‘and heard the noise on the way past, so he cam and tellt us and we all went and we heard it an’ all. Will you come, maister? There’s certainly something there, for I heard it.’

‘We all did,’ said someone on the stairs. ‘It goes Ooo-oo.’

‘That’s foolishness!’ said Gil. ‘How can a ghost make a noise like a screech-owl? Walter, what is a ghost, tell me that?’

‘A ghost is the spirit of a dead man,’ said Walter nervously, clearly quoting something.

‘It has no body, has it?’ Walter shook his head. ‘So how can it make a noise? Whatever is making a noise, it must be something in possession of a body.’

‘Aye, the deil,’ said a voice on the stairs.

‘All of you,’ said Gil. ‘Go and ask Maister Coventry and Maister Kennedy, if they have finished the list I asked them for, to meet me in a quarter-hour at William’s chamber door. Can you mind that?’

Walter repeated the message in a rush, nodded, and thudded off down the stairs. The boy behind him reiterated, ‘There’s something in William’s chamber, maister, for we heard it!’

‘All of you,’ said Gil again. ‘In a quarter-hour, by William’s chamber.’

He shut the door on the departing crowd and turned to the three senior bachelors.

‘Ninian, are you wearing your belt?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ said Ninian, pushing back the blankets to display the item.

‘May I see it?’

The belt was old, and had clearly been worn by Ninian as he filled out, for a succession of holes had been stretched by the buckle. The most recent was easy to identify, but the older ones were beginning to close up as the leather itself stretched. Gil, concluding that the belt was Ninian’s and nobody else’s, handed it back.

‘Have you any other belt?’ he asked.

‘We have a spare,’ Lowrie said. ‘Where is it, Miggel?’