The Nicholas Feast (32 page)

‘A question for every trick,’ said Montgomery, ‘and the winner gets to ask another question. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ said Gil. And what he asks could tell me as much as what he answers me, he thought.

‘Your lead,’ prodded Montgomery.

Gil put a card down.

‘Five of Cups,’ he said. Montgomery, the firelight gleaming on his teeth, laid another on top.

‘Three,’ he said. ‘My trick.’

Maistre Pierre made a startled noise in his throat. Gil turned to nod agreement.

‘Cups and Coins are reversed,’ he explained. ‘The ace is high, the ten is low.’

‘My question,’ said Montgomery. He paused a moment, frowning, and one of the dogs snored. ‘What was in William’s purse?’ he asked, and laid a card out.

‘Coin,’ said Gil. ‘And a letter in code. Some notes, and a draft will on a set of tablets.’

‘So you did find the purse. No key?’

‘That is another question,’ Gil pointed out. ‘No, there was no key.’ He selected a card and set it down. Montgomery lifted both.

‘My trick,’ he said again. ‘What was in his chamber, besides what you already narrated?’

‘Little of interest,’ said Gil.

‘Very little paper,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘The dog,’ added Gil.

‘Aye, the dog.’ Montgomery scowled at Gil’s response to his next card. ‘The one you had with you at the college? That’s mine and all. Where is the beast now?’

‘In my house,’ said Maistre Pierre. Montgomery, thinking deeply, took another trick.

‘And the papers?’ he asked. ‘Where are they?’

‘In my house,’ said the mason again. He chalked the mark against Montgomery’s tally, and cast Gil an anxious look.

‘In safe keeping,’ said Gil, ignoring it. Montgomery’s scowl grew blacker.

‘And the boy’s clothes, that he died in?’ he said, gathering up the next two cards.

‘Also in my house,’ said the mason.

‘I’ll maybe just move in myself,’ said Montgomery sardonically. ‘When can I have them back?’

‘That’s another question,’ Gil observed. Montgomery played another card. Queen of Coins, Gil thought, setting the King on top. Has he no more Coins, or is he testing the play? ‘That’s mine, I think. Why were you at the college yett this day noon?’

‘I wanted a word with our Robert.’ Montgomery tipped his head back to look at Gil down his nose, then turned his attention to his cards.

‘And mine again. What about?’

‘Family matters.’

‘Such as?’

‘William’s funeral. Money. Show me the student that can live inside his allowance. Your play.’

Gil laid down the seven of Batons. Montgomery looked at it, then at his cards, and selected one.

‘My trick.’ He set out the King of Batons, its double-ended figure entwined in tendrils of leafy growth from its wand, the crowns barely visible among the arrow-head leaves. Three court cards and three numbers, Gil thought, and I have the Knave. What’s still in his hand?

As if for answer, his opponent played the two. Gil put the Knave down and swept the two slips of card to his end of the bench.

‘Who did you see at the college?’ he asked.

‘My nephew. That snivelling boy, what’s his name?’ Gil recognized Ralph. ‘Couple of other scholars were sent to find Robert when I wanted him. Who should I have seen?’

‘That’s a question?’ Gil played the seven of Coins, and Montgomery slapped the three on top of it.

‘Let’s stop playing here,’ he said, apparently not in reference to the card game. ‘What do you know about how William died?’

‘That’s quite a question.’ The Knight and Knave of Coins. ‘Your trick. We know,’ he said carefully, ‘that William was knocked down and put in the limehouse as a joke. His hands were bound, to make it harder for him to free himself. While he was still dazed, someone else whose hands smelled of cumin came into the limehouse and strangled him with his own belt. After he was dead, he was moved into the coalhouse, where he was found.’

‘By the same person? My trick.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gil, ‘but there are already too many people running in and out of the limehouse for the story to have any credibility. It seems ludicrous to postulate another.’

‘Credibility?’ exploded his opponent. ‘I never in all my days heard such a tale. What has the cumin to do with it? Why the devil move him into the coalhouse? What gain is that? Was he robbed? No, you said there was money on him. His chamber had been searched, but I canny tell whether they got anything of value. Why was he killed, Maister Cunningham? Tell me that? You haveny found that out, with your nonsense about cumin and coalhouses.’

‘When I know why,’ said Gil calmly, watching Montgomery add five pairs of cards to his pile of discards, ‘I’ll know who.’

Montgomery glared at him, and put down the two of Coins. Gil stared at it, thinking, Is that all he has left, or is he bluffing? It hardly mattered; there were no more Coins in his own hand. He selected the picture-card with the image of a naked woman incongruously called
L’Estoile.
‘My trick, my lord. If you’re asking me why William was killed, I take it you don’t know, so I’ll ask you a different question. Why was Jaikie killed?’

‘Who the devil’s Jaikie? What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Jaikie was the college porter.’

‘Oh, him. Glumphy impertinent bugger. Tried to buy – tried to make out he knew all about William’s affairs. Gave him the back of my hand for it.’

‘Knocked him down, you mean?’ asked the mason.

Montgomery threw him a glance. ‘I did not. Last I saw him, after Robert went back into the college, he was snoring in that great chair of his, with half a jar of usquebae under his belt. I heard he was dead, but it wasny me that stabbed him,’ said his lordship, sounding very like his nephew. ‘Likely it was whoever I heard arguing with him.’

‘Arguing?’ Gil repeated. ‘When was this?’ Jaikie argued with everyone, he reflected.

‘Is that another question? When I got to the yett, looking for Robert, I heard someone arguing with the porter. Your play, Cunningham.’

‘A moment,’ said Gil. ‘Did you see this person?’

‘I did not. The surly chiel never rose to let me in, and when I stepped into his chamber to tell him off for that there was no other there. And I looked behind the door and all,’ he added. ‘Are you going to play this game or no?’

Gil, setting aside disbelief, surveyed the four pairs of cards aligned beside him, and the row of tricks now neatly herringboned on the bench by Montgomery’s knee. He had weeded out all the small stuff, and had only high-value cards left. Let’s see what’s in his hand, he thought.

The next trick went to his opponent. Gil, avoiding Maistre Pierre’s eye, watched Montgomery arrange his cards while he considered his questions.

‘Who d’ye suspect?’ he demanded bluntly at last.

‘I won’t answer that,’ said Gil with equal bluntness. ‘Never mind the law of slander, my position if I name someone in error and you act on what I say, my lord, would be very precarious.’

‘Lawyers,’ said Montgomery in disgust. ‘Tell me this, then. What else of William’s have ye found?’

‘There was the notebook,’ said Gil.

‘A notebook,’ repeated his opponent. ‘What like notebook?’

‘Just a notebook,’ said Gil. ‘Red leather cover, a lot of writing in it. Mostly notes, by the look of it, and accounts. It’s in Maister Mason’s house,’ he added. Montgomery snorted, but did not interrupt as Gil continued, with all the innocence he could muster, ‘And there was some kind of medallion, or pilgrim badge, or such like. Made of brass, with a figure in the middle and the alphabet round the outside like a criss-cross row. That was in the lining of his doublet, as if it was something he valued.’

‘It was, was it?’ said Montgomery with equal innocence, rearranging his cards again. ‘I’ll send Thomas for that. He can lift the lot off your hands. He’ll come by your door with ye when ye leave here.’

‘As you please,’ said Gil. He watched as Montgomery, tight-lipped, played the four of Coins, and after a moment set the trump called
La Lune
on top of it.

‘So who did search William’s chamber?’ he asked.

‘Not me,’ said Montgomery.

‘Who do you suspect it was?’

‘Now why should I answer that one, after what you just said?’

Gil half-bowed over the cards in acknowledgement of the point.

‘Today,’ he said, picking up the next trick wrong-handed, ‘there was a bundle of papers in Jaikie’s brazier –’

‘No idea. Your play.’

‘And what was Billy Doig doing up at the college?’

‘Doig?’ said Montgomery sharply. ‘When?’

‘About midday.’

‘Never saw him. Who is he, anyway? Your play.’

Gil looked at the two cards in his hand, and laid down Judgement. The woodcut figure, in angular draperies with sceptre and scales, flickered in the light. One of the dogs raised its head, then sat up, staring across the hall.

‘Uncle?’ said a voice in the shadows.

Gil jumped convulsively, and looked beyond the circle of brightness. He felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, and Maistre Pierre drew breath sharply. Outlined against the half-lit door to the stair was a gangling figure in a student’s belted gown, a chance beam from the distant lantern glowing redly on its springing, curling hair.

‘Uncle?’ said the voice again. The figure moved, and stepped into the hall. ‘I’m just away back to the college,’ said Robert Montgomery, coming nearer the fire.

‘Aye, right,’ said his uncle, twisting round to look at him. They exchanged a significant look, before the older man added, ‘Can you get in without trouble?’

‘There are ways,’ Gil said. Robert’s glance flicked to him and back to his uncle, before he raised his cap in a general courtesy to all three adults.

‘Good night, sirs. I’ll see you the morn, uncle.’

Hugh Montgomery waved his free hand and muttered a perfunctory blessing, and Robert left. Gil sat staring after him for a long moment.

‘Your play,’ said Montgomery impatiently. Gil, looking down, found Judgement neatly obscured by the Knave of Swords.

‘How well do you know Bernard Stewart?’ he asked, setting that trick with the others he had gained. His opponent stared at him.

‘What in the Fiend’s name has he to say to the matter? He was chaplain in my house for a good few years, tutored my brother Alexander and – and others, but it was better than sixteen years since. I know that, for he went to the Blackfriars’ Paris house before Alexander was wedded. His mother married my grandsire’s youngest brother as his third wife, but I haveny set eyes on him since, not till he came to Glasgow and they made him chaplain here, just after Robert came to the college. Are ye playing that last card, Cunningham law man, or are ye turning to stone at my hearth?’

‘The card.’ Gil looked down, and set the Fool on the bench beside him.
‘Je m’excuse.
The last card out.’

‘Your trick,’ said Montgomery in disgust, throwing down the image of a woman improbably wrenching open the jaw of a complacent lion. ‘Ask your question, while your good-father tots up the scores.’

‘I’ve no more questions for now,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll save them for tomorrow, when I’ll have two, for I think I’ve won the game.’

‘You have,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, counting strokes of chalk on the wall by the hearth. ‘But it was close. You have taken eight tricks, his lordship has twelve, and with the other points from the cards you held I think you win by one point.’

‘Aye,’ said Montgomery sourly, and looked at the windows, where the last of the sunset was faintly red beyond the rooftops of the houses opposite. ‘Well. It’s been an interesting evening.’

‘It has,’ agreed Gil, stretching his long legs. ‘You’re a gratifying opponent, my lord.’

For a moment he thought he had overreached his mark. Hugh Montgomery’s face darkened in the candlelight, and his eyes glittered. Turning his head he roared, ‘Thomas!’ The dogs leapt up, barking, and he cursed at them. ‘Thom-
as
! Get up here wi’ your boots on, you lazy ablach.’

‘I’m in the lower hall, no’ in Irvine,’ said Thomas on the stair. ‘No need o’ the shouting.’

‘Then why so long to answer me? Be silent, Ajax, you stupid lump! I want ye to convoy these gentry home and bring back the things they’ll gie you. Not the dog, I canny take the dog while these brutes are here, but I’ll want a look at it. It’s a matter of our William’s graith, Thomas, it’s no likely to tax your strength.’

‘We may not be able to put hand on all of it at this hour,’ said Gil, realizing with resignation that Montgomery had not forgotten his threat.

‘Then Thomas can wait till ye do, can’t he no?’

‘No, he can not,’ said the mason unexpectedly. ‘It is after all my house, my lord, and I do not choose to entertain your man.’ He rose and came forward from where he sat. ‘I myself will undertake to return all your kinsman’s goods before noon tomorrow. Agreed?’

‘That’s a fair offer,’ commented Thomas.

‘You keep out of this,’ snarled his master. He glared at Maistre Pierre, showing his teeth, and finally said, ‘Aye. Agreed.’