‘It is trivial,’ he said, pulling her down to sit beside him on the settle by the fire, ‘compared with being married. My darling, how can feasts and dresses matter when we are to share the rest of our lives together?’
‘But I want everything to be perfect!’ she almost wailed, and rubbed at her eyes again.
‘Alys, it will be perfect, because we’ll exchange promises. And then,’ he said ruefully, ‘my sister Margaret’s husband will drink too much at the feast, my godfather will tell jokes we’d rather not hear, the other burgesses will try to find out what was in the contract — ’ Her mouth twitched, and she slid a sideways, teary look at him. ‘I’ve been to other weddings,’ he said. ‘All those things will happen, and you can’t control them, so why worry about the rest?’
‘And what will you wear? Are your new clothes ready? You told me you ordered them, but you’ve never said they’ve come home. And Maister Kennedy’s?’
‘The gowns will come home in good time,’ he assured her. ‘Blue brocade for me, red velvet for Nick, and I’ve a new suit of clothes to go with it.’ He took her hands in his free one. ‘Tell me about the painters.’
Her face crumpled with anxiety. ‘Maister Sproat says they need another week to finish the inner chamber, let alone the closet. The paint dries so slowly in this weather, even with the brazier up there. What if we have to set the bed up in the outer room, in case people get paint on their clothes when they — when we — ’
‘When they take us to bed?’ he said, aware of the ache in his loins at the very words. ‘I’d hoped we could avoid that,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve never liked the custom. All the jokes and the shouting and banging pots and throwing of sweetmeats and favours. It would shrivel anyone’s pride.’
‘You joined in when Kate was wed,’ she said uncertainly.
‘I did not,’ he contradicted her, thinking of his sister, who went on two crutches because of a withered leg, and the shy merchant friend who was her new husband. ‘I contrived to be in the way, so Augie could slip in the door alone and bar it from the inside. Those two of all people wouldn’t want to be publicly put to bed. And nor do we.’
‘I thought you would wish it,’ she said. ‘It’s the custom, after all. You mean we might not have to?’
‘If we’re clever about it.’ He bent his head to kiss her. She tilted her face so that their lips met, but drew back, shivering slightly, when he would have deepened the embrace. She seemed to react like this every time he kissed her now. Concealing his anxiety, he dropped a peck on the high thin bridge of her nose, and said, ‘Sweetheart, shall we both go and talk to the painters?’
Up in the inner chamber of their apartment, under one of the eastward windows which looked on to the courtyard, they peered at the board of yellowish samples the laddie had prepared, while the laddie himself ground pigment on a slab of stone by the next window.
‘Ye see,’ said Maister Sproat, ‘it doesny come out gold-coloured whatever I do. I think it’s the ground we’ve used for the first coat, which is no a good white, owing to it no being Paris white, on account of Daidie could find none in Glasgow the now. And the linseed ile in the top coat wad take it more to a yellowy cast and all,’ he added.
‘It looks like earwax,’ said Gil frankly. The laddie looked up grinning from his grinding-stone and Daidie, a spare fellow in a much-spattered canvas smock, snorted, but Maister Sproat nodded solemn assent.
‘A good thought, maister,’ he agreed, ‘but no one that would appeal to my custom. No, no, “earwax-coloured” wouldny sell. What’s more,’ he added, ‘the longer we spend trying to match yir gold colour, the later it is drying and the less time we’ll have for the figures ye wanted by the hearth there. Saints, was it, or was it to be the Muses or the Virtues? I’ve a note o’t somewhere.’
‘The Virtues,’ said Gil, ‘since I’m getting a virtuous wife. The best and fairest may That ever I saw.’ He looked down at Alys, and her elusive smile flickered in response. ‘And maybe a saint on the other wall.’
‘Aah,’ said Daidie, ‘’at’s bonnie, in’t it no, maister?’
‘It is an all,’ agreed his master, ‘and I mind now, we’d agreed the Cardinal Virtues. That’s Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance,’ he recited, and looked sternly at the laddie. ‘Mind that, young Jos. But you’ll no get your Virtues afore the wedding unless we can decide on a tint for these walls. If yir carpenters had shifted theirsels a bit putting in the panelling, we’d ha been in here sooner, and all would ha been done by now.’
‘Does it have to be laid on in linseed?’ Gil asked, ignoring this. ‘Would some other sort of paint dry faster? And what would lay well on top of this ground colour? You’re the colourman, Maister Sproat. Advise us.’
‘Uncle Eck,’ said the laddie softly. ‘Maister,’ he corrected himself as the older man looked round. ‘There was that chamber we done for the Provost. You mind, we put milk-paint, two grounds and cover in that broken white, and then we glazed it red-coloured. It dried in no time, and it came out right well, you said it yersel.’
‘It sounds well,’ said Gil, turning to Alys again. ‘Red? Or another colour?’
‘Blue,’ she said decidedly. ‘Like the blue in the other chamber, but in milk-paint.’
‘Aye, we can do that,’ said Maister Sproat, with an approving nod at his nephew. ‘Be done in two days, even working by lamplight, if we can get enough sour milk. And if I put a bit ox-gall to the last coat it’ll wash down a treat every spring for years. And the same blue within in your closet, maister?’
‘We’ve all the sour-milk curds you’d want, laid in brine at the yard, you ken that, maister,’ said Daidie, and peered past Gil. ‘Is that someone at your door?’
They all looked out across the courtyard to where a lanky figure bundled in a plaid was conferring on the doorstep with one of the maidservants. As they watched, she pointed, and the visitor nodded, came down the fore-stair and headed for the tower in the corner.
‘It’s Lowrie Livingstone from the college,’ said Gil in some surprise, recognizing the young man. ‘What’s he doing here? In here, Lowrie,’ he called, drawing Alys into the outer room as the messenger’s feet sounded on the stair.
‘Maister Cunningham,’ said Lowrie. He stepped across the threshold on to the dustsheets, dragging his wet felt cap from his fair hair. ‘And Mistress Mason. Good day to you both, and I’m sorry to break in on you this early. I’ve a word for you, maister, from Maister Kennedy.’
‘From Nick Kennedy? Is there some trouble?’
‘Aye, but it’s no at the college,’ said Lowrie. ‘It’s at the almshouse. St Serf’s, up by the castle. Maister Kennedy sent me to fetch you,’ he said, grimacing. ‘They’ve found a dead man in the almshouse garden.’
The painters crowded into the doorway to listen, with exclamations.
‘A dead man?’ repeated Gil. ‘Who is it? One of the bedesmen?’
‘No the bedesmen, they’re all present. We think it’s the Deacon,’ Lowrie said cautiously. ‘It wasny full day when I left to find you, and so far as we could tell in the dark he’s been stabbed. So Auld — so Maister Kennedy said, since we’re within the Chanonry and you’re the Archbishop’s questioner, we’d do better to fetch you first than last, so here I am.’
‘What, the Deacon of St Serf’s? Robert Naismith?’ said Gil. ‘And he’s been stabbed?’
‘Naismith? Is that him,’ said Daidie with relish, ‘that keeps Marion Veitch as his mistress? The bairn’s three year old, and another on the way, poor soul. My cousin Bel works in her kitchen,’ he explained, finding everyone looking at him.
‘Can you come, maister?’ said Lowrie. He indicated his muddy feet. ‘It’s raining hard. The old men were all for moving him at once, and I don’t know how long Maister Kennedy can hold them off, though Mistress Mudie was offering them spiced ale for the shock to get them indoors.’
‘You must go, Gil,’ said Alys. ‘But — will you come back later? There’s still something.’ She hesitated, seemed about to go on, then said only, ‘You had better go.’