‘No, no,’ said Sir John through the laughter, ‘no need for a tall man, for they were stowed above where we keep the handcart. He’d but to climb onto it and stretch up, to put his hand on the roof-beams. That was how Mattha here got them down.’
‘Aye, this handcart,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘We’ve heard a deal about it. When are we going to see it, then?’
‘When you like, sir.’ Gil nodded to Maistre Pierre, who nodded in turn to his man Thomas waiting by the nearest door. With some thumping and cursing, the little cart was handled through the door, into the hall and up on to the dais, through a growing murmur of exclamations.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ demanded the Sheriff as the cart and its burden emerged from the crowd in front of him. ‘What have you brought here, maister? This should be on a garden fire somewhere, no cluttering up my court session. What is it anyway?’
‘It’s the mats from my hall, stained wi my servant’s blood,’ said Thomas Agnew angrily. ‘I gied them to a man to take and burn, yestreen! How did you no do as I bade you, fellow?’ he demanded of Luke. ‘Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity!’
‘My maister bade me itherwise,’ said Luke simply.
‘It’s the mats that Hob Taylor was lying on when he bled to death,’ Gil agreed, and gave Luke a hand to lift the bundle down onto the dais.
‘Get them out of here!’ exclaimed Agnew. ‘This has nothing to do wi the matter! We’re dealing wi the Deacon’s end now, no Hob’s, we don’t want all this lying about. Take it away, clear it away out o here! Pluck it up from the land!’
‘The Psalter again,’ muttered Maistre Pierre. ‘Gil, be wary of this man.’
‘No, no,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘If that’s what they are, maister, we’ll let them alone the now and just get on wi the Deacon. So this is the handcart, is it, Maister Cunningham?’
‘Yon’s the St Andrew’s cairtie,’ said the man Willie, still watching with Maister Sim at the corner of the dais, and his friend nodded agreement. ‘I ken it by the pattern atwixt the shafts. It’s no like any other in the Chanonry wi they curlicues.’
Sir John, appealed to, confirmed this.
‘It’s been recognized by those same curlicues, as the cart that was by the bedehouse gate,’ Gil said.
‘So does that mean the man was stabbed in St Andrew’s?’ said one of the assize dubiously.
‘Surely no!’ exclaimed Sir John, crossing himself in dismay.
‘No, no,’ said Gil. ‘I think he was stabbed elsewhere. Maister Agnew,’ he said, turning to the other man of law. ‘You’ve told us you saw Deacon Naismith in your chamber in the Consistory tower.’ Agnew nodded. ‘What were you discussing, maister?’
‘Why — as I said afore,’ said Agnew, a little impatiently, ‘his new will.’
‘Why did he need a new will?’ demanded Sir Thomas. ‘He wasny sick to death, was he? Nor like to be wed?’
‘Well, as it happens, he was like to be wed,’ said Agnew, ‘to a kinswoman of mine.’
‘Ah,’ said the Sheriff, nodding, ‘so he wanted to arrange his affairs. Very proper.’
‘And then he left you,’ said Gil. ‘What time would that be?’
‘Maybe an hour after he joined me,’ suggested Agnew.
‘And you went out after him?’
‘I did.’
‘Was St Andrew’s dark as you passed?’
Agnew looked sharply at him. ‘You don’t pass St Andrew’s leaving the Consistory tower,’ he said. ‘I went down the Drygate to a friend’s house,’ his smile to the assize conveyed what sort of friend he meant, ‘so I was nowhere near St Andrew’s till I went home in the morning.’
‘What’s it to do wi the man’s death,’ asked the shoemaker, ‘where Maister Agnew was the rest of the nicht?’
‘No a lot that I can see,’ said Sir Thomas irritably. ‘The light’s going, Maister Cunningham. Let’s get this over afore we have to bring in torches.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said Gil, bowing. ‘We’ll take a closer look at this matting, then.’
Under the Sheriff’s scowl, he and Maistre Pierre arranged the rustling bundle as near as they could in the same stiffened folds he had displayed to Tib earlier. The assize were released from their pen and stood round it, with members of the audience complaining loudly that they could not see, while Gil pointed out the way Hob had lain, the way the blood had soaked into the folds of braided rushes, and where the pile of kale leaves had lain. He called Maister Sim up to confirm what he said, but Sir Thomas cut across his agreement.
‘Here’s these kale leaves again. What have they to do wi the matter, maister?’
‘Hob had cut them earlier,’ Gil said. ‘He cut them to use in cleaning this matting, which was stained. He and his maister separately told me Maister Agnew had turned it because it was marked.’
‘Aye, wi a spilled drink,’ agreed Agnew loudly. ‘I spilled a glass of Malvoisie — ’
‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I think there was no spilled drink, though Hob had found a glass in a corner of your hall. What Hob found,’ he bent to twitch a corner of the matting into a better position, ‘when he turned back the piece you had already reversed, was this.’ He pointed. Several members of the assize craned closer.
‘That’s blood and all,’ said the shoemaker.
‘It’s more of Hob’s blood, surely,’ said his neighbour.
‘No,’ said another man. ‘It’s older. That’s a different stain.’
Sir Thomas rose and shouldered his way between the assizers, to bend over the marks Gil pointed out to him. He studied them carefully, and stepped back, eyeing Gil.
‘Go on, man,’ he said. ‘Where are ye taking this?’
Gil waited while the assizers were led back to their roped enclosure, then looked round the faces at the edge of the dais. Alys, his sister, Marion Veitch at one corner; Andrew Millar, Habbie Sim, the plump priest of St Andrew’s, all looked back him. Alys smiled as his eye met hers, and he turned back to the Sheriff, spirits rising.
‘It’s blood,’ he agreed, ‘a day or two older than the stains from Hob’s blood. How did it get there?’
‘A good question,’ agreed Sir Thomas. ‘How did it get there, Maister Agnew?’
‘Nonsense,’ said Agnew, with icy calm. ‘We’ve all heard enough of these dunderheidit blethers. I’ve a friend who’ll swear to where I was that whole night, and it wasny wandering the Upper Town wi a corp on a handcart.’
Aha! thought Gil.
‘Aye, Ellen Dodd,’ said a voice from the hall. There was some laughter, and a few comments, until another voice rose over the rest.
‘Is that Ellen Dodd that dwells off the Drygate?’ it said. Gil turned to look, and found attention centred on a plump woman in a crisp white headdress, a grey plaid round her shoulders. She coloured up as people stared at her. So Maggie found you, mistress, thought Gil gratefully. ‘Well, is it?’ she persisted.
‘That’s who I spoke to,’ Gil agreed. ‘She said Maister Agnew had been with her from the middle of the evening.’
‘Is that right, maister?’ Sir Thomas asked Agnew.
‘Aye,’ he said reluctantly.
‘She’s leein,’ said the woman bluntly. Some can flater and some can lie, thought Gil. So I was right. Agnew reddened, and made his gobbling gamecock noise again. ‘I’m Jennet Clark, sir,’ Mistress Clark curtsied to the Sheriff, ‘and Ellen Dodd was in my house the whole of that evening till near midnight, we were telling tales and casting futures and she was at the crack wi the best of us. There’s four or five o my freens will swear to it, sir, and see if I ever let her across my door again, I’ll be coffined first.’
‘You’ve mistaken the day, woman,’ said Agnew fiercely. ‘She — my friend will support me — ’
‘Aye, maybe,’ said the Sheriff. ‘Maister Cunningham, I see where this is going now, but you canny get past one thing. There was two weapons slew Deacon Naismith, we’ve heard that already. Who was the other man?’