‘We could say Nones a bit early,’ suggested the younger acolyte, looking interested.
‘But what about the charity for the lepers?’ asked the priest anxiously.
Maistre Pierre reached for his purse. ‘This will warm the lepers,’ he said, extending a generous handful of coins. ‘Now will you bring the garments to the quest?’
‘We’ve a fair bit to determine,’ pronounced Sir Thomas, stepping on to the dais and sweeping the castle hall with his scowl, ‘so we’ll get on wi it. Who’s for the assize? They’ll need a strong stomach for it. We’re deciding on Deacon Naismith as well as Hob Taylor, and he’s been lying about a good wee while.’
The place was full. Genuine witnesses, others who thought they might be witnesses, and anyone who wanted to hear more about the deaths of Hob and the Deacon of St Serf’s, were all crowded into the large space. John Veitch had been led in between two men-at-arms, his hands bound before him, to a volley of hissing and pointing. The corpses had been firmly excluded, and lay in state, sheltered from the rain under a striped awning in the castle courtyard, with two more men posted well upwind of the Deacon in his coffin.
Gil had found himself a place behind the table where the Sheriff’s clerk sat with his pen-case and inkwell, several pieces of clean parchment before him. Beside him Maistre Pierre stood studying the people assembling in the body of the hall, and fidgeted through the long procedure of selecting fifteen householders of good repute. Gil, well used to it, thought that it went faster than usual today. Most of those present wanted to get to the interesting part.
Once the assize was selected, the names written down, the men sworn in by Walter the clerk holding a worn copy of the Gospels, they were led outside to inspect the two bodies, and returned looking a little green in places.
‘Well, they were warned,’ said Maistre Pierre. Gil nodded.
‘Now,’ said Sir Thomas with relish, ‘we’ll take Hob Taylor first. Who identifies him?’
‘I do,’ pronounced Maister Agnew, standing forward out of the crowd. ‘That’s my servant Hob Taylor right enough, lying dead out there in his shroud, crying out for vengeance. And I accuse the man John Veitch yonder of his murder.’ He raised his arm and pointed at John Veitch, who looked back at him without expression.
‘He doesny look mad,’ observed a woman near Gil. ‘He’s a good-looking chiel.’
‘Och, you, Jennet Clark,’ said her neighbour.
‘Let’s hear your reasons,’ said Sir Thomas. Agnew launched into an account of returning to his house to find Veitch standing red-handed over Hob’s bloody corpse, a scene which caused him to wipe his eyes when he described it.
‘And what did you do then, maister?’ asked Sir Thomas.
‘I ran out into the street and shouted Murder,’ declared Agnew. ‘And all the neighbours came running and took the man captive, and we bound him wi stout ropes and brought him here to the castle.’
‘That’s no just how I heard it,’ said Sir Thomas, looking round. ‘Maister Cunningham, where are you? Step up here and tell the assize what you found.’
Gil came forward, bowed to Sir Thomas and to the assize, and then on a whim to the audience. They seemed to like it.
‘I got there just as John Veitch was taken captive,’ he said clearly, ‘along wi my friend Maister Peter Mason, master mason in this burgh and kent to many of you. We had a look at the corp, and so did one or two others that were standing by.’ He looked about him, and identified Maister Sim, standing near the dais with the other members of yesterday’s impromptu assize. He described the scene in Agnew’s hall, the blood-soaked matting, the pile of kale leaves, the way Hob lay face down in his blood, and Sim and the other three nodded as he spoke and gave their agreement at the end.
‘What’s these kale leaves to do wi it?’demanded Sir Thomas.
‘I’ll come to that, sir,’ said Gil.
‘The man was standing red-handed over my poor servant,’ said Agnew loudly. ‘Hae an end to this waste of your time, Sheriff, and take him out and hang him now, take a rope to him! Repay him for his iniquity, wipe him out for his wickedness,’ he declaimed.
‘No, no,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘No use of your Latin in my court, and this is a good tale. Go on, Maister Cunningham.’
‘Maister Mason had a look at the corp,’ said Gil.
Maistre Pierre stepped forward, to recount his conclusions about the length of time it would have taken for Hob to die.
‘You’re still saying this madman stood over him and watched while he bled to death!’ expostulated Agnew.
‘No,’ said Maistre Pierre simply, ‘for he had been dead some time when I saw him.’
‘How d’you ken that?’ asked a man in the assize, a blocky fellow in a shoemaker’s apron. ‘Had he set, maybe?’
‘Aye, he had,’ agreed the man called Willie, who was standing beside Habbie Sim. ‘I noticed that mysel. Just his head and his neck, see, so it wasny that long, but longer than the madman had been in the house.’
‘No telling how long he’d been there — ’ began Agnew.
‘Oh, that’s easy enough,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve questioned the sister of the accused man, and a working man who spoke to him on his way, and a witness who was in the next garden when he reached your house, maister, and they’re all agreed on that.’
‘Aye, where’s this laddie that was in the next garden?’ demanded Sir Thomas irritably. Eck Paton was dragged forward to the edge of the dais by several of his neighbours eager to see him make his contribution to the day’s entertainment, and stood reluctantly to be questioned by the Sheriff. His story seemed to disappoint many of the audience, and some of the assize tried to suggest he was mistaken.
‘No, no,’ he assured them, ‘for I wasny out that long, and I saw it all.’
‘Eck Paton’s story agrees wi the time the other witnesses gave us,’ Gil said.
‘Then the madman must have been there earlier,’ objected Agnew, ‘and slew Hob and went away.’
‘I never left my sister’s house till Sext,’ declared John Veitch from where he stood by the wall. One of his guards elbowed him sharply in the ribs, and he flinched.
‘You be quiet the now,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘You’ll get your chance if it’s needful.’
‘All these witnesses is all very well,’ said another of the assize from within their roped-off enclosure, ‘but you canny get past one thing, Sheriff, and that’s the way the corp himself sat up and accused the man that slew him. The whole town kens about it, and it canny be denied.’
‘He never sat up!’ declared Maister Sim. ‘I was there and saw it all!’
‘You willny deny he groaned,’ said Agnew sharply, ‘and we all saw the blood run from his mouth, enough for the villain to bathe his feet in!’ He wiped at his eye again, and Maister Sim nodded reluctantly.
‘Aye, that’s true,’ he admitted.
‘That is wrong,’ Maistre Pierre muttered. ‘It is the righteous who will wash their feet in blood. We are in the Psalms, I fancy.’
Gil glanced briefly at his friend, and stepped forward again.
‘Maister Agnew,’ he said. Agnew looked at him, slightly suspicious. ‘I mind you took John Veitch’s hand, to make certain he touched the corp.’
‘Aye, I did.’
‘Would you show the assize how you took hold of him?’ Gil held his hand out. With some reluctance Agnew reached out and took hold of his wrist.
‘No, that wasny it,’ said Maister Sim from below the dais. ‘I could see that much from where I was standing. Your grip was lower down. Aye, more like that,’ he added as Gil shifted his hand within Agnew’s grasp. ‘You’d a good hold across the back o his hand, Tammas, and your fingers — ’ He stopped, and looked at the Sheriff. ‘His fingers went right round under his hand,’ he finished.
‘That’s what I recall,’ said Gil mildly. He turned to look at the members of the assize, and held his hand up, Agnew’s still clasping it. The other man snatched his away as he realized Gil’s intention, but at least some of the assize had seen how two sets of fingers were turned towards them. ‘Who touched Hob?’ Gil said to the crowded faces. ‘It looks to me as if they both did, so who did he accuse? Was it John Veitch, or was it his master?’