‘Bit trouble, maister?’ he asked casually.
‘None of your mind, Billy Walker,’ growled Andy, passing him with a lantern and a bundle of rags. Billy thumbed his nose at the smaller man’s retreating back.
‘Just go back to your task, Billy,’ said Morison, ignoring this.
‘Oh, aye, I’m away.’ Billy hitched up his sagging hose and turned away. ‘Trouble wi this place,’ he muttered as he retreated into the shadows. ‘A’body knows everything, except the folk that does the work.’
‘I saw,’ said a small familiar voice. The two children emerged from beyond the rack of yellow pots, each carrying an armful of broken crocks. ‘I saw you spewing, Da.’
Seen by daylight, the younger girl had a pinched, sharp little face, and a penetrating grey scowl. The taller one, who seemed never to speak, had inherited her father’s blue eyes, but gazed timidly at the stranger from behind her fall of dust-coloured hair. In both girls Gil recognized a strong likeness to their father and uncle as children.
‘Not to stare!’ ordered the scowling child. ‘Wynliane doesny want you to stare!’
‘Ysonde, where are your manners?’ said her father sternly.
She shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
He tightened his lips and stared at her a moment, then said, ‘Go to Mall, as I bade you. Go now, Ysonde,’ he added, as she opened her mouth to argue, ‘before Da gets angry. Take your sister, and stay with Mall until dinnertime.’
Ysonde took a deep breath and snorted down her nose, tossed her head at her father, and clopped away across the yard towards the stone-built kitchen at the end of the domestic range, her sister drifting after her.
‘I don’t know. Maybe I should beat them,’ said Morison doubtfully as they went.
‘I’m no judge,’ said Gil, ‘but I think you need a better nurse for them.’
Maistre Pierre had put his beads away and was peering at the unpleasant relic in the light from the lantern, which Andy had set down beside the pool of water.
‘Did you tell the men, Andy?’ asked his master from behind Gil.
‘I did not. Time enough to let the word out when we canny keep it in. I fetched some rags and all, we can dry him off a bit, make him more lifelike.’
Morison threw one glance at the loose-mouthed leering face in the lantern-light and turned away, but Gil got down on one knee and looked closely as Andy performed his charitable task.
‘Can we tell how long he’s been in there?’ he asked.
‘When he died, you mean?’ said the mason. ‘No, I would say not. The brine, you see, would preserve all as it was at death. If he did stiffen, it has long since worn off, the jaw is quite slack — ’
‘I’ll wait for the serjeant,’ said Morison. ‘Out in the yard.’
‘You do that, Augie,’ said Gil. ‘You can keep the bairns away, if needs be.’
‘Was he heidit?’ Andy asked, smoothing the short wet hair.
‘Is that how he died, you mean? I cannot be sure, but I think not. There is very little blood present. I think by that he was already dead, maybe from a smaller wound to the body, before his head was cut off. There is a bruise below his eye, but that would not have killed him.’
‘It’s more than a bruise,’ said Andy, moving the lantern. ‘Someone’s blued his ee for him, and it’s had time to fade.’
‘Andy,’ said Gil sharply. ‘Hold the light closer.’
‘What is it?’ said the mason. ‘Do you know him, after all?’
‘I fear I do,’ said Gil. ‘What colour are his eyes, would you say?’
‘Blue,’ said Andy.
‘Brown,’ said the mason at the same moment.
‘One blue, one brown,’ said Gil from directly in front of the blank gaze. ‘Pierre, do you mind that musician that was in the burgh in May? He talked like a Leith man, but he called himself Balthasar of Liège, if I remember. He’d one blue eye and one brown like this.’
‘There cannot be many such in Scotland,’ said the mason doubtfully. ‘I thought that man wore his hair longer. And an earring.’
‘Hair can be cut.’
‘This one’s worn an earring at some time,’ said Andy, feeling at the earlobe nearest him. ‘Or is it two?’
‘This is a fighting man’s style of barbering,’ pursued the mason, ‘fit to go under a helm of some sort. I can think of reasons to kill a travelling lutenist, but why, having done so, should someone cut off his head and put it in a barrel? And that man was no fighter, I should have said.’
‘Besides, his music wasn’t that bad. What worries me,’ said Gil, ‘is when this was exchanged for our barrel of books. And where are the books?’
A small commotion at the yett proclaimed the arrival of Serjeant Anderson. His voice carried without effort across the yard.
‘Aye, Maister Morison. Jamesie here says you want me.’ Morison mumbled something. ‘What, in the shed? Show us, then, maister.’
He proceeded into the shed, large and red-faced, thumbs tucked in the expansive belt of his official blue gown, and came to an abrupt halt as his gaze fell on the head, so that his constable collided with his broad back.
‘Look where you’re going, Tammas,’ he said in annoyance. ‘Well, well. Good day to ye, Maister Cunningham, Maister Mason. And what have you been doing here? ’
The constable, catching sight of the relic over his shoulder, shut his eyes and grimaced. Behind him, the man Jamesie stood in the open doorway and stared, then suddenly turned and hurried off towards the barn.
‘This was in that barrel,’ said Gil.
‘Instead of some books,’ supplied Morison from the doorway, ‘which is what we were expecting.’
‘Books?’ said the serjeant. ‘So instead of one worthless shipment you got another, hey?’ He laughed at his own humour, and bent to peer into the leering face. ‘And where did the barrel come from, Maister Morison? Once we ken that we’ll ken who he is, I’ve no doubt.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Morison helplessly. ‘I fetched the whole shipment from Linlithgow myself. It came across from Middelburgh in Thomas Tod’s ship, and I saw it unloaded at Blackness shore and set on the carts. Then I convoyed it to Glasgow.’
‘Ah-hah,’ said the serjeant. ‘And does any of you gentles recognize him?’
‘I wondered if it might be Balthasar of Liège,’ said Gil. ‘The lutenist, you mind?’
‘Oh, him. No, he left the burgh in May. I wouldny say it was him.’ The serjeant considered the head. ‘Would you just call your men, maister? I’ll have a word with them too while I’m here.’
‘I don’t want — ’ began Morison, and got a sharp look. ‘I don’t want the bairns to see this.’
‘Two wee lassies, isn’t it no? No a sight for wee lassies,’ agreed the serjeant weightily. ‘So if you’ll call your men, then I can get this out of your way.’
‘I’ll get them,’ said Andy. He stepped to the door, but paused there, saying with disapproval, ‘Oh, you’re all here, are ye? Well, ye might as well come in. The law wants ye.’
He stood aside, and half a dozen men pushed into the shed, eyes agog for a sight of the horrors Jamesie had obviously described to them.
‘St Peter’s bones!’ said someone. ‘Did that come back on the cart, Billy?’
‘How would I ken?’ retorted Billy. ‘I never opened any barrels!’
Slightly to Gil’s surprise, the serjeant established quickly and without argument which of the men had not been near the cart or the puncheon since it came into the yard. These two he dismissed, and they went reluctantly, with sidelong glances at the head on its dais, and hovered out in the yard near the door.
‘Now you, William Soutar,’ the serjeant continued. ‘What do you know?’
William, it seemed, had helped Andy take the puncheon off the cart this morning.
‘Which we needed to do, maister,’ he continued, ‘since the other two big pipes needed to come off and all, and this wee one was just at the tail. But it wasny open, serjeant, for I’d have noticed that.’
‘And it was this barrel?’
‘Oh, aye, it was this barrel. I mind the marks on it.’
‘You’re certain, are you?’ the serjeant pressed.