‘The rack fell,’ Alys said. ‘All these crocks landed on him. Gil, was that Maister Morison?’
‘Come on, man,’ said the one kneeling. ‘Get on your feet.’
‘I canny,’ said the recumbent man with difficulty. ‘I’m hurt. I’m hurt bad.’
‘Let’s get him in the house,’ Gil said, ‘and the other one, and see how bad it is. Andy, is there a hurdle we can put him on?’
‘Aye, do that,’ shouted Maister Hamilton, ‘and be quiet about it!’
‘What’s to do?’ demanded another voice, from somewhere across the street.
‘Thieves at Augie’s yard,’ responded Hamilton. A dog started barking, and another answered it. ‘They should call the Watch, and let the rest of the town get some sleep.’
‘I’m right sorry, Andro,’ began Morison, from the fore-stair.
‘Augie! Is that you let loose, man? Did they let you off, then?’
To an accompaniment of mixed congratulation and heckling from neighbours and dogs, the injured man was heaved groaning on to a wicker hurdle and carried indoors. Morison issued a general invitation for the morning and went in, Babb’s prisoner was dragged in after him, and for a precious moment, as windows slammed shut to one side and another, Gil was alone in the yard with his betrothed.
‘Alys, are you all right?’ he said in soft French, and reached out to her. She came willingly to his embrace, and he drew her close, relishing the feel under his hands of the warm curves he had glimpsed earlier.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Why should I not be? That was exciting.’
He stared down at the pale outline of her face in the moonlight, struck yet again by her power to astonish him.
‘Perhaps I should teach you to use a sword,’ he said, and kissed her.
‘I should like that,’ she said hopefully after a moment, leaning against him. ‘We ought to go in, Gil. These men must be questioned. And was that really Maister Morison? Is he free?’
‘Soon,’ he said, and kissed her again. ‘Oh, I have missed you. Nas never pyke wallowed in galantyne As I in love am wallowed and ywounde.’
‘And I have missed you, trewe Tristram the secounde,’ she said, capping the quotation, and kissed him back.
When they finally went into the brightly lit hall, Kate was seated rather stiffly in Morison’s great chair, Morison himself on his knees beside her with his arms full of two small girls. Gil looked at his sister’s expression and found his mind going back to an older poem than the Chaucer he had just quoted to Alys: Yern he biheld hir, and sche him eke, Ac noither to other a word no speke. The two captives were before them in the centre of the hall. Babb still had a punishing grasp of the man in the cloak, but it was evident that the other was unlikely to run far. Alys went forward and knelt beside him, and he opened his eyes.
‘A priest,’ he moaned. ‘I need a priest.’
‘You’ll tell us what you were after in this house first,’ said Andy fiercely.
‘I’m deein!’
‘Is he?’ asked Kate.
‘Probably not,’ said Alys judiciously, ‘but there are broken bones. Several ribs at the least.’ The prisoner yelped as she felt carefully at his chest. The hurdle creaked under him, and Gil caught his breath, transported for a moment to the moonlit pinnacles of Roslin. ‘And maybe some bruising to his insides also,’ Alys finished. She passed her hands cautiously round the man’s black felt coif, without eliciting a reaction, and rose to her feet.
Gil studied the man. He was wearing a sturdy leather jack, and there was a sheath at his belt for the whinger which Andy had brought in from the yard. His hair showed under the edges of the coif, dark round the collar of the jack, a white tuft sticking sweatily to his brow.
‘I’m deein, I tell ye,’ croaked the prisoner. ‘Fetch me a priest.’
‘But what was going on?’ asked Morison. ‘Why were these fellows in our yard?’ He looked down at his daughters. ‘My poppets, you must go back to your bed now. Da will still be here in the morning.’ Ysonde, her hands clamped on the facings of his gown, said something muffled into his shoulder. ‘What’s that, my honey?’
‘She said you’d get your head cut off.’
‘Well, I haveny See, it’s still fastened on.’
‘She said the man wi the axe would cut it off.’
‘The man with the axe is dead,’ said Gil firmly. The man Babb held looked round quickly, dismay in his expression, but the other prisoner closed his eyes again and the crease deepened between his brows.
‘Who said that to you, Ysonde?’ Morison asked in concern.
‘I’ll wager it was Mall,’ said Kate, breaking a long silence. ‘She said a few things I’d like to skelp her for, before she left. Wynliane, Ysonde, you must go back to bed now. Da will be here in the morning.’
‘No,’ said Wynliane. Morison looked quickly down at her, then at Kate, his eyes wide. She nodded, smiling slightly, and he swallowed and turned back to the children.
‘I have to talk, down here, poppets,’ he said. ‘I’ll come up to you once you’re in your bed.’
‘No,’ said Wynliane.
Ysonde’s grip tightened on her father’s gown. Gil thought Morison’s clasp on the girls tightened in response. His sister must have seen it too, for she said, ‘Oh, let them stay, Augie. Nan, their father will bring them up when he can.’ Nan, waiting quietly in the stair doorway, bobbed to the company and withdrew. Kate looked at Morison again. ‘Our Lady guard you, man, sit down properly, then Gil and Alys can sit down too. Andy, bring the settle forward for him — no, there.’
Andy obeyed, and Morison rose, slightly impeded by his satellites, and sat down opposite Kate. Settling the children on either side of him, he stared round the room and said, ‘Were you looking for these fellows, Andy? Were you expecting an inbreak?’
‘Aye, we were,’ said Babb happily. ‘We were looking for them to come for this treasure that’s never been here. And we were right.’
‘You set the watch as you intended, then?’ said Gil.
‘Not quite,’ admitted Kate.
‘Watch?’ said Morison. ‘I thought it was all over. What need of a watch?’
‘You can see what need. It’s not over yet,’ Kate pointed out.
Gil, seating Alys on a backstool, said, ‘Are you saying these are the two who were seen in the Hog earlier this week? Let that one go, Babb, so he can answer our questions.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ agreed the man who had helped Alys. ‘And I’d a word wi them the night and all. Tellt them all about how the maister keeps a locked kist at the foot o the great bed in the chaumer there.’ He grinned. ‘I never tellt them about the watch in the yard, did I, you gangrel thieves.’
‘That’s very interesting,’ said Gil, looking closely from one to the other. ‘I last saw these two on the Pentlands yesterday sometime after noon, pelting downhill with Socrates on their heels. And before that there was a matter of a dead pig above Linlithgow. The biter’s been bit,’ he said agreeably. Most of his hearers looked blank, but the man on the hurdle closed his eyes and groaned.
‘I never!’ said the standing prisoner. ‘It wasny me. I’ve been in Glasgow the whole time. So’s he.’ He jerked his head at the man on the hurdle.
‘A pity Socrates is not here,’ said Alys. ‘Where did you leave him? We could see if he knows them.’
‘Ye’ve no need to set a great hound on us,’ said the standing prisoner apprehensively. Gil raised an eyebrow, and the man swallowed, realizing what he had given away. ‘It wasny us,’ he repeated.
‘He cutted the pig’s head off wi his sword,’ said a small voice from within Morison’s gown. He lifted his arm and looked down; Ysonde blinked back at him.
‘You were dreaming, my poppet,’ he said indulgently. ‘Go back to sleep. The man hasn’t got a sword.’
‘Does too. He had a sword this morning.’ She pointed at the standing prisoner. ‘When he looked in our gate, but Nan and me told him to go away and he went.’