‘Well! That’s a thought, maister. I’d need to chew on it a bit, there’s been one or two folk hoping for her hand in the past year, by what my wife has heard.’
‘Sir Edward hinted as much,’ Gil agreed, ‘though he’s not fit to recall names.’
Lockhart grimaced, and nodded.
‘I’ll think on it, try if I can mind who it was. It was all Ayrshire names my wife mentioned, you understand, smaller lairds, no folk I’d ken well. As for who she might turn to, you’d do better to ask at Dame Ellen, or at Nicholas or Ursula. They’d likely mind if she mentioned sic a thing when she was first living in that house, for I think she was more inclined to speak o hersel then. Or her woman might have some knowledge. Aye, you should talk to them.’
Dame Ellen was not inclined to be helpful.
‘Oh, no, maister. None of the lassies left the hall in the night,’ she stated, in a tone that invited no discussion. ‘Neither Meggot nor my nieces. By Our Lady’s mantle, I’d ha known the reason why if any had tried it. Ask at Sir Simon, why don’t you,’ she added, with another dreadful simper, ‘maybe it was him on some errand. Priests ha calls on their time the rest o us areny troubled wi. No, I’ve never a notion o friends Annie might turn to round here. Her mother? Why are you asking me about her mother? She’s long deid, poor lass.’
‘I’d like to know where she was from.’
Dame Ellen gave a little thought to this, eyes cast piously upward.
‘I believe she was a Renfrew woman. Long deid, as I say. Was she a Wallace, maybe?’ She shook her head. ‘If she wasny a Wallace, I’ve no idea who she was. Sir, you’d surely be better out hunting for the lassie, instead o harassing me wi questions I’ve no answer to?’
‘I need a word wi Meggot,’ said Gil, ‘and maybe wi your own woman.’
‘Oh, no, maister, you’ll ha to go into Ayrshire for that, then,’ she divulged, ‘for I never brought her wi me, daft piece that she is, I reckoned to do better without her. I’ll fetch Meggot out to you.’
But interviewed across the courtyard from Dame Ellen’s watchful eye and tapping foot, Meggot could add little to this.
‘I think her mammy was a Wallace,’ she agreed, ‘though no from Elderslie. Somewhere else in Renfrewshire, I’m sure she said once. I’m sorry, maister, I canny mind clearer than that. As to friends around Glasgow, no, she never mentioned any. Her daddy was an Ayrshire man, had no kindred in these parts, nor her mammy neither that I recall.’
‘Meggot.’ Gil looked directly at her. She held his gaze for a moment, then blushed and looked away. ‘You’re fond of her, you said that.’ She nodded, tightening her lips. ‘She’s adrift in a strange place, wi no clothes to her back. I want to find her. Can you tell me nothing that would help her?’
She shook her head, whispering,
‘No, maister, I canny.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘If I knew aught I’d tell you it, so I would. I-’ Her glance slid sideways, to where Dame Ellen still glared attentively. ‘It seems to me, sir,’ she went on, still whispering, ‘she must ha had help, maybe she had plans made, but who it was helped her or where she’s gone I canny think, it was none o the household that Sawney or me can discover.’ She looked up earnestly at Gil. ‘Wherever she is, I hope she’s safe, the poor lass.’
Gil dismissed the woman, thanked Dame Ellen without real gratitude, and looked at the sky. The sunny morning had changed into a cloudy afternoon with a brisk, chilly wind; it would probably rain before dark, but meantime he could tell that it was getting towards dinnertime. If he could track down the cordmaker on the Drygate, he might just catch the man before his day’s work ended.
George Paterson’s ropewalk was easier to find than he expected; the second passer-by he asked directed him onto the back-lands behind a sagging wooden house not far down the hill from the House of the Mermaiden. Rounding the crooked gable he found himself looking down a long toft, with the trees lining the Girth Burn at its foot and — could that be the back of the Sub-Dean’s house opposite?
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Paterson himself when he located him. ‘Tell truth, that’s how I got the St Mungo’s trade. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, see, and I just took a couple hanks a good cord ower the burn and showed it to Dean Henderson, and he tellt me to take it to the Almoner, and Almoner Jamieson was pleased wi’t as a donation, and said he’d take more as a purchase. Three year syne, that was, three year at Michaelmas next. No, lad, leave that bale sep’rate, I haveny proved it yet.’ He scowled at his son, and said aside to Gil, ‘Him and his friends were up to some mischief last night, he’s no use to me the day. Laddies, eh?’
They were in the ropewalk itself, a long shed like the one out towards Partick, though narrower and less cluttered. The machinery was less ponderous as well; presumably this reflected the fact that Paterson made cord rather than rope. His son obediently put down the bale of raw hemp, and pulled the canvas wrapping over the fibre. He was a gangling, slow-moving boy of fifteen or so, all hands and feet and elbows, but would be very like his father when he stopped growing; both were tall for Glasgow men, though shorter than Gil, with ragged mouse-coloured hair and well-worn working clothes.
‘You deal wi St Mungo’s?’ Gil said.
‘Oh, aye. They take all the twelve-ply and most o the six-ply we can make. I ask a fair price, maister, and the Almoner gets fair value, we’re all satisfied wi the outcome.’ Gil nodded at this, and produced the length of cord from his purse. Paterson looked sharply at it. ‘That looks like some o my six-ply.’
Gil handed the coils over, and the man studied it much as Matt Dickson had done, untwisting the tight spirals, picking at the fibres, inspecting the lashed ends.
‘Aye, I’d say it’s mine,’ he pronounced at last. ‘The colour’s gey like the last batch o hemp we had, that I’d to put some flax to a cause it was that coarse. Here, is this what they used to throttle that lassie at the Cross? Some o my cord?’ His son looked round, then hastily back to his work when his father glared at him.
‘It was,’ Gil admitted. ‘So I’d like to ken where it came from. Did you send all that batch to St Mungo’s, or did some of it go elsewhere?’
‘Well, this has been to St Mungo’s, for certain,’ observed Paterson, ‘for that’s how they finish it when they’ve to cut a length, bound off wi some o my single twine so it willny ravel. See, most folks just ties a knot, but if you’re wanting your length to last a while and do you duty you need to finish it off right. Jamieson understands that, and so does his vergers, those that help him in his office.’
‘So I should have shown it to Alan Jamieson when I saw him,’ Gil said. ‘How d’you deliver it?’ Paterson looked puzzled. ‘In hanks, of course, but do you take it to Maister Jamieson himself, or to the Vicars’ hall, or just leave it at the tower door?’
‘Oh, I see! No, the lad takes it round to the hall, time when we ken the Almoner’s going to be there, so he can mark the tally for him. Given into Alan Jamieson’s hands, it is, maister. George!’ The boy looked up from the cord he was winding. ‘Mind this lot? You gave it to the Almoner hissel, did you no?’
The youngster came closer and touched his blue bonnet to Gil, peering at the loops of cord in his father’s hand.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Likely.’
‘Did you or no?’ Paterson demanded. His heir shrugged.
‘Likely,’ he said. ‘I canny mind, Da!’ he protested as his father drew breath to remonstrate.
‘Do you ken Maister Mason’s boy Luke?’ Gil asked. Young George considered the question, and shrugged again.
‘Likely,’ he admitted. This time he was not fast enough to avoid his father’s hand.
‘You be civil to Maister Cunningham, that’s our neighbour and a freen o the Almoner!’ commanded the elder George.
‘Aye,’ said the boy, sulkily rubbing his ear. ‘I ken him,’ he expanded. ‘He’s wi the High Street band, in’t he no?’
‘Ah.’ Gil considered this aspect of burgh life, recollections of his student days rising in his memory. The apprentices of the burgh banded together by street, High Street against Gallowgate or Thenewgate, Drygate against the small Upper Town group; the younger students of the College formed another, larger band. In general the rivalry confined itself to chanting, thrown stones and the occasional scuffle or game of football, but from time to time it exploded into violence. Several apprentices seemed to have been abroad yesterday evening. ‘Was it a battle?’ he asked. ‘Last night, I mean. The moon was, what, well past the quarter, there would be plenty light.’