Matt Dickson the rope-drawer proved to be a sturdy man in his forties, in a sleeveless jerkin and patched hose, his shirtsleeves rolled well up. When Gil entered the long, low shed by one of its many doors he was measuring off a new rope in armspans, counting aloud as he worked, a raw-boned journeyman coiling it down beside him.
‘And twelve. I’ll be a moment longer, maister,’ he called. Gil nodded, and stood quietly, looking about him with interest. He had vaguely imagined something like a huge spinning-gallery, with hemp instead of flax or wool, but this was quite different. On a floor of beaten earth, a long groove showed the track of the rope-workers between a thing like a child’s windmill toy, mounted on a solid trestle, and a second smaller trestle on two wheels, with a large hook which could clearly turn by means of a handle. How did that work, he wondered. Other tools stood about or leaned against the walls — surely that was not a hay-rake? Hanks and balls and bales of the product of the craft were all about, hung from the rafters or stacked in neat heaps ready for baling, and over everything a cloud of dust, presumably hemp dust, danced thickly in the beams of sunlight which leaned in at the doors.
‘And twenty-one — and twenty-two — and three,’ said Maister Dickson finally. ‘And if four spans is seven ells, then that’s,’ his lips moved silently for a moment, ‘forty ells near enough. Aye, tie it off, Patey, and put it by. Maister Mason’s man was to come for it the morn.’
‘A rope for my good-faither?’ Gil said, surprised. ‘I suppose he must use rope, like most of the trades.’
‘Our Lady love you, a course he uses rope,’ said Dickson, laughing indulgently. ‘Cord by the bale for his scaffolding, rope for his hoist, twine to tie off his sacks o lime to keep the rain out. Just like near every craftsman in Glasgow. There’s other folk laying rope about the burgh,’ he conceded, ‘but it’s all small stuff. If Patey and Andy and me,’ he nodded at an equally scraggy apprentice who was sorting hanks of flax nearby, ‘wasny at our trade the whole town would come to a halt. That rope’s for a new hoist your good-faither’s about to put in where he’s working at the High Kirk, to lift the stone up to where it’s needed.’
I should have mentioned this to Pierre, Gil thought, and saved myself the walk. But would Luke, much less Berthold, ask the right questions?
‘I know what rope is, but what’s the difference between cord and twine?’ he asked.
‘Cord’s corded, maister, and twine’s no but twined. Andy!’ The apprentice jumped up from his work and went to his master’s high desk where the order-book lay almost submerged in small balls and hanks of cordage. He brought two of these, and Maister Dickson nodded approvingly. ‘Show it all to Maister Cunningham, then, laddie. Let us hear what you’ve learned.’
Listening to the boy’s hesitant exposition of the stages of ropemaking, Gil compared the samples he was showing him with the ell-and-a-half of cord still in his purse. It was cord rather than twine, he could say now, since rather than being a simple twist of many fibres of hemp it was made up of several such strands twisted together, but its use was still unclear. Young Andy was gesturing at the instruments in the middle of the floor, describing rather incoherently how they worked; Gil had already lost track of left-hand and right-hand twists. One probably had to know what the boy was talking about to understand him.
‘Aye, very good, laddie,’ said Dickson as the stumbling description ground to a halt. ‘Well said. So that’s the difference, Maister Cunningham. So was it cord or twine, then? Maybe a bale o twine for the garden o yir new house? Needs a bit work, so I’ve heard.’
‘Neither, in fact,’ said Gil, irritated by this. ‘I’ve no doubt my wife will order what she sees needful. No, I came out here to get an expert’s view on this.’ He opened his purse, slipped the boy Andy a penny in reward, and held out the coils of cord. ‘What can you tell me about it, maister?’
‘Tell you?’ Dickson glanced at him curiously, and took the hank. Shaking it out he measured its length, inspected the ends, separated the strands to test how tightly it was twisted, picked with a chewed fingernail at the fibres of each strand. The journeyman came to join him, doing much the same with the other end of the cord.
‘It’s no ours, is it, maister?’ he said at length.
‘I’d hope no, Patey,’ said Dickson sternly. ‘It’s no evenly twistit, the strands is no equal, it’s a mix o hemp and flax. Andy there could lay a better cord. Where did you come by this, maister? I hope you didny pay out good money for it?’
‘No,’ Gil admitted. ‘Did you hear about the lassie at St Mungo’s Cross?’
They had not. It was too far out of Glasgow for someone to come simply to bear gossip, and quite likely they carried their own noon bite with them, rather than walk home and back again. Gil gave as moderate an account as he might of how the length of cord had been found, but the facts themselves were enough to make Patey’s eyes pop out.
‘This very cord, maister?’ he said with relish, his grasp on the loops tightening. ‘And put about her neck to throttle her?’
‘After she was dead,’ Gil confirmed. ‘So I’d like fine to ken where it came from, what sort of use it might be sold for, since I doubt whether it was sold for strangling lassies.’
‘Oh, very good!’ said Dickson, laughing. ‘The idea!’ He studied the loops of cord again, picked at the neatly lashed end he held, and peered at the other end still clutched in Patey’s bony hand, while the apprentice stared longingly from a few feet away. ‘It’s been cut out o a greater length, see, and bound off both ends. It’s the exact length it needs to be and it’s to be put to use a good few times, whatever use that is, and that’s as much as I can say.’ He considered a little longer, and added, ‘Aye, well, it’s no unlike the cord George Paterson lays, off the Drygate. He’s about the longest walk in the burgh, maister, can put up thirty ells, works alone wi his oldest boy. You could ask at him if he kens this quality.’
Prising the evidence with difficulty from Patey’s grasp, Gil took his leave, whistled up his reluctant dog and set off back into Glasgow. He had no idea of a cordage-spinner on the Drygate, but no doubt Alys would know where he lived.
Sir Simon was in the outer yard of the pilgrim hostel, deep in Latin discussion with the doctor, their gowns contrasting vividly in the sunlight. As Gil entered at the gate, Doctor Januar looked up in some relief and said,
‘Perhaps Maister Cunningham can tell me. Is there to be a quest on the dead woman, magister? When will it be?’
‘Not before tomorrow,’ Gil said in the same language, ‘or even the day after. Is it a problem?’
‘No,’ said Januar unconvincingly.
‘And how’s your patient?’ Gil asked in Scots. The doctor bent his head.
‘Sinking,’ he said gravely. ‘I would estimate he has two days at most.’
‘Our Lady send him a quiet end,’ Gil said. ‘I suspected as much, when I saw him earlier.’ He looked hard at Januar. ‘I’d like to be able to bring him news o Mistress Gibb afore his end, if that’s possible-’
‘Surely nothing could ease his last hours better,’ offered Sir Simon. ‘Supposing it’s good news, a course.’
‘-so I need to ask more questions of the rest of the party here.’
‘I have told you all I can,’ said the doctor after a moment.
‘Na’the less, I’ve questions for you and all.’ Gil looked about. ‘Sir Simon, might I use your chamber? The other courtyard has too many windows and doors onto it.’
Seated in the paper-strewn chamber, a jug of ale from the kitchen at hand, Gil studied Chrysostom Januar and said in Scots,
‘You’re gey reluctant to be questioned, magister. It makes a man wonder what you might be hiding.’
‘We doctors dislike answering questions.’ The Latin was professionally inscrutable. ‘The patient never asks the ones to which we have an answer.’
‘I know how that feels,’ Gil said ambiguously. ‘Now, I’ve heard that the outer yett to the hostel, which is through the wall from the bed the two St Catherine’s servants sleep in, went three times in the night.’
‘Three times?’ The doctor’s bright blue gaze flicked up to his face, and away again. ‘How strange. One might expect twice, or four times, but three times suggests that someone left and did not return, or entered and did not leave.’
‘Or, I suppose, two people went out together and came back at different times,’ Gil said. ‘Would you maybe like to reconsider what you said, about nobody being out o the hostel in the night?’
‘None o those that slept in the men’s hostel left their beds,’ said the doctor in Scots after a moment. ‘I suppose Sir Edward’s daughters might ha slipped past Dame Ellen, though who they would go out to meet I canny imagine.’
‘Were you out of the hostel yourself?’
‘I had a patient to care for,’ said Januar, the blue gaze very direct this time.
‘Has any of the family ever mentioned a connection in Glasgow? Anyone Annie might turn to?’
‘No that I recall. But mind, magister, I have little conversation with the most part of the household. My patient, obviously, and his manservant, some of the outside servants when I have need of herbs from the garden, but otherwise the rest of them come little in my way.’
That isn’t what you said earlier, Gil reflected.
‘Mistress Gibb is abroad in Glasgow,’ he said, ‘barefoot in her shift. Are you not concerned for her?’
‘Aye,’ said the doctor, ‘concerned indeed, but I’m also concerned for my patient, and I’m a stranger here. You and the Provost’s men can seek Annie Gibb more effectively than I can.’
‘Not noticeably, this far,’ said Gil wryly. ‘Very well, maister, I’ll let you back to your patient. Have you any idea where John Lockhart might be?’