‘Cut to pieces,’ said Kate carefully. ‘With an axe, or something of the sort.’
‘With an axe?’ Morison looked down at his hand, retrieved it hastily, and crossed himself. ‘Our Lord have mercy on him,’ he muttered, and both girls said Amen. After a moment he continued, ‘Did nobody hear anything? The other men? Ursel? No, Ursel wouldn’t hear the Last Trump once she gets to snoring. How did he get in the yard, Lady Kate?’
‘The same way Billy did, Andy reckons,’ said Kate, ‘up from the stable yett. Babb and I never heard a thing. One of the men said he thought he heard shouting, or maybe something fall, out in the yard not long before dawn, but there was nothing else so he jaloused it was maybe a cat. Andy had a word to say to him about that, but as he said, who’d have thought there would be two inbreaks in the one night?’
Morison nodded, took a deep breath, and passed a hand down across his face. ‘Have you taken it to the Provost?’
‘We told him first,’ said Alys. ‘He agreed you must be informed, maister.’
‘I’m grateful.’ He smiled wryly. ‘At least I think so. The poor fellow. God and Our Lady have mercy on him,’ he said again. ‘Lady Kate, you must see — this is not safe for you. Tell me you’ll go back to your uncle’s house.’
‘Babb’s with me,’ said Kate, looking across the yard at her waiting-woman, who was towering over the two men at the castle gate. ‘She’s an army in herself.’
‘Not against a man with an axe. I want you out of my house, my lady.’
‘That’s not very friendly,’ she reproached. ‘I am right glad when ye will go And sory when ye will come, is that it?’
He coloured up. ‘Once this is done wi you’ll be a welcome guest if you choose, but right now it’s not safe. Lady Kate, I beg you, will you go back to Rottenrow?’
‘Aye, when I know the bairns are safe.’
‘Send Andy to me when you get back down the brae,’ said Morison. ‘I’ll gie him his orders. If you’d just let him have a bit coin out the small kist in the counting-house — I’ll gie you the key. Ursel can show you where it is.’ He patted his doublet, and drew a key on a chain from inside it.
‘He’ll come up as soon as he’s free.’
‘Is there anything he should bring with him?’ Alys asked.
Morison shook his head. ‘I’m right well treated,’ he confessed. ‘I think Sir Thomas doesn’t believe ill of me. Unless,’ he added hopefully, ‘Andy brought one of my books.’
‘Where are they?’ asked Kate, turning the key over. It was warm in her hand.
‘They’re in my counting-house and all, on the shelf above the desk. Just send any of them, but you’ll make sure, Lady Kate, won’t you, if it’s one that’s bound in two-three volumes, that they’re all there?’
‘No,’ said Kate deliberately, ‘I’ll send you one volume of this and another of that.’ He stared at her and laughed uncertainly. ‘It adds variety,’ she told him, straight-faced, and opened her purse to stow the key safely.
‘What have you in mind?’ asked Alys as they made their way down the crowded High Street.
‘In mind?’
Alys turned to look up at Kate, her quick smile flickering. ‘You did not say you would leave Morison’s Yard,’ she observed.
Kate, perched on the back of her mule, answered the smile, but at her other side Babb said, ‘Leave? I should think not, my doo! Leave those bairns wi nobody to see them safe but a pack of daft laddies and that bauchle Andy?’
‘I’m glad you agree,’ said Kate, but Alys said:
‘Oh, the bairns! I meant to ask Maister Morison what ails the older one.’
‘I asked that Ursel this mornin,’ said Babb. ‘She said she’s been that way a year or more. Seems they’d both had a right dose o the rheum, they got it a year past at St Mungo’s tide when the lass that was minding them let them get chilled at the Fair, and the older lassie took a rotten ear wi it, and after that she seemed never to hear what was said to her, says Ursel, except it was her sister. What’s her daft-like name, now?’
‘They’re both daft-like names,’ said Kate. ‘Wynliane and Ysonde.’ And how, she wondered, had such a gentle soul managed to get away with naming his daughters out of the romances, instead of after their grandmothers in the proper way? There was a strong current of determination, she recognized, under the gentleness.
‘Aye,’ said Babb, striding onwards down the hill. ‘Wynliane.’
‘There are simples for a rotten ear,’ said Alys, clicking her tongue in annoyance. ‘And for the rheum, indeed. Poor poppet. So what do you have in mind?’ she asked again.
‘The house, for one,’ said Kate. Alys nodded. ‘The yard. Those men will sit about all day playing at dice if they’re not put to work.’ Alys nodded again. ‘The bairns. I asked Jennet this morning and she says there’s barely a stitch in their kist that fits them, and little more in the wash.’
‘And with the rest of the day?’ asked Alys, the smile flickering again.
Kate looked at her, then at Babb, occupied in coaxing the mule past an assertive cockerel on his midden. ‘I thought,’ she said airily, ‘we could ask about a bit, see if we can learn anything about Billy Walker and the man with the axe. Maybe even have a drink in the Hog.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Alys.
‘Oh, no, my doo!’ said Babb. ‘Back in that nasty place? Do you want the other pole cut down and all?’
‘I’ll go without you, then,’ said Kate.
‘You will not!’
‘Indeed aye!’ said Ursel, stirring a pot over the fire. ‘There’s store of linen in one of the presses up the stair, we can easy stitch them shifts.’ She paused for thought, her spoon suspended over the kale. ‘I’ve a notion there’s a bolt of woad-dyed and all, that would make wee kirtles to them. Better for them running about in than Wynliane’s good brocades.’
‘Excellent,’ said Alys. ‘We can cut them out after dinner.’
Kate was only half attending. She had two of Maister Morison’s books in her hands, a printed Bevis of Hampton and a handwritten collection of long poems, and was leafing through them. The printed book had occasional pencil marks in the margins, which somehow seemed very personal, but the choice of tales in the other book gave her a strange feeling of looking right into the man’s mind. She could visualize him, sitting over these books like the reader in Chaucer’s poem. How did it go? Here it was, indeed, and the page well-thumbed. In stede of reste and newe thynges, Thou goost hom to thy hous anoon; … thou sittest at another book Tyl fully daswed is thy look. What else had he copied? The whole of Sir Tristram and a portion of Greysteil were followed by an extraordinary poem which seemed to be English and involved babies stolen by wild animals, and then by Lancelot of the Laik. None of the humorous or bawdy tales which went around in such collections, no sign of Rauf Colyer or the Friars of Berwick. But alle is buxumnesse there and bokes, to rede and to lerne. Morison was clearly a romantic, through and through.
And yet a brief glance at the account book lying open on his tall desk had revealed still another side of the man. Details of load after load of goods from Irvine or Dumbarton or Linlithgow, with exotic ladings and amazing prices, showed a trim profit on every barrel.
‘Aye, well, mem,’ said Jennet from the kitchen doorway. She cast a glance out into the yard, where Babb and several reluctant men were weeding or shifting rubbish, and the two little girls were constructing an elaborate maze out of shards of pottery. ‘I washed them both as best I could last night, but they could do wi a bath.’ She grimaced. ‘And their hair needs a good seeing to, mem, if you tak my meaning. We’ll likely need to cut it and all, afore we’ll can get a comb through it.’