‘You see!’ said Babb’s prisoner. ‘The bairn kens! We’ve been here the whole time.’
‘So you were poking round here earlier, were you?’ demanded Andy, and the man swallowed again.
‘Which of you is John Carson?’ Gil asked. Alys looked round at him. The recumbent man opened his eyes, but the other one made no move. ‘So you must be Davie Wilkie,’ he went on. The man still did not move, but Gil saw the faint stirring of his cloak as his shoulders tensed. ‘You had a hat with a feather in it yesterday,’ he said conversationally. ‘I suppose it must have fallen off, somewhere between the Pentlands and here.’
‘It could be out in the yard,’ said Morison, still trying to follow the exchange.
Gil nodded. ‘It could. And Carson there gets called Baldy,’ he went on.
‘He’s no bald,’ said the man nearest the hurdle. ‘See, he’s got more hair than Andy there. It’s all sticking out the back o his coif.’
‘You stay out o this, Ecky Soutar,’ growled Andy.
‘It’s sticking out the brow of his coif too,’ said Gil. ‘Take it off for him, Ecky, will you.’
Ecky obliged, despite the injured man’s feeble attempts to push his hands away. The coif came away, revealing damp hair flattened to the man’s skull, dark in the candlelight except for the sharp-edged streak of white hair which grew forward over his forehead.
‘And that,’ said Gil, ‘is why he’s called Baldy, like a horse. Not because he’s called Archibald, and not because he’s bald, but because he’s got a white blaze.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Morison.
‘It means we’ve made the two ends of the circle join up,’ said Gil. ‘Would you send someone to call the Watch, Augie? These fellows should be put somewhere safe for the night, what’s left of it.’
Only a royal summons would have got Gil out of his own bed in the attic in Rottenrow before Nones. As it was, despite a cold wash, a shave and a meal of bannocks still warm from the girdle, he felt as if he would rather sleep for another week than plod down to the caichpele with the long spoon-shaped racket over his shoulder to play tennis with his monarch.
It had been more than an hour after the Watch were summoned, before he could leave the lower town and head for home. He had had to explain to the Watch why these dangerous miscreants should be held in the Tolbooth rather than the castle, without letting them suspect that in the castle he feared Wilkie, at least, would find himself free as the Axeman had. Then, once the reluctant procession had left, supplemented by two of Augie’s fellows to keep the Watch safe as far as the Tolbooth, he had attempted to persuade Alys and his sister to go home.
‘Catherine will long since have had the door barred,’ said Alys. ‘No, no, I can very well share a bed with Kate and Babb.’
‘But Kate will go back to Rottenrow, surely,’ he said.
‘Not me,’ said Kate firmly. ‘I’ll not leave without saying farewell to those bairns.’ Her eyes rose to the ceiling, where Morison’s voice could be heard quietly from the floor above. Alys gave Gil another of her significant glances, and shook her head.
‘Leave them,’ said Morison, when he had persuaded his daughters to sleep. ‘I’ll be glad of the company, Gil, to tell truth.’
‘Do you want someone else to watch?’ Gil asked quickly, but Morison shook his head.
‘No, no. That’s no the difficulty. I just — I just — it’s good to have friends round me,’ he achieved, ‘and you have to go back up the hill, if you’re to be at the caichpele betimes. And if Mistress Mason’s to stay and all,’ he added, ‘then all’s decent. The two of them and Babb will be down here in the chamber yonder,’ he nodded at the inner door from the hall, ‘where they can bar the door for privacy, and the men are out in the bothy, and I’m above-stairs within call.’ He glanced at the ceiling-boards, as Kate had done.
‘I’ve no doubt of that,’ said Gil, who had not thought about it. ‘I just thought it might be imposing on the household.’
‘Considering what she’s — they’ve done for me,’ said Morison, ‘I’d say the imposing goes all the other way. Leave them here. They’re more than welcome.’
Now, before Terce, the first beasts of the baggage-train were already making their way down the High Street to cross the river and head south for Kilmarnock. Behind them, arguments, bustle and French curses floated over the castle walls. Across the Wyndhead and into the Drygate, Gil turned up the pend which led to the high wooden walls of the caichpele. There was obviously a game in progress already: he could hear the irregular thud of the ball against the planks, and the occasional spatter of applause.
The door was guarded by two men in royal livery, who let him pass when he gave his name. Within, the near gallery was crowded. Another royal servant greeted him, ushered him into the other gallery, where only two men stood at the far end, their heads together: Angus and his brother-in-law, Boyd of Naristoun. They looked up and nodded to him as he entered, acknowledged his brief bow, went back to their conversation. Gil leaned on the window, watching the play. The young King was serving, his back to them, and Archie Boyd’s brother Sandy was at the hazard end.
‘Still don’t like it,’ said Sandy’s kinsman emphatically at the far end of the gallery.
‘Archie, it might no happen,’ soothed Angus. ‘They’ll maybe no take to one another. She’s got every chance to turn him down.’
‘What, turn down her — ’
‘Wheesht, Archie!’
‘And what does that do to us all,’ Boyd went on, soft but still indignant, ‘if he pursues her and she sends him off?’
‘We find another one,’ said Angus. ‘I’d fly my own Marion at him, but she’s handfasted wi Kilmaurs. Your lassie’s the only other in the close kin that’s the right age for him, but we can try one of the older lassies if we have to.’
Well, well, thought Gil. The players had changed ends, and Sandy Boyd served, putting a spin on the ball that dropped it off the other wall on to the smooth-packed floor before the King could get to it. The scorer called numbers.
‘It might no work.’
Angus made an impatient noise. ‘Christ save us, he’s a Stewart. Ye have to feed his appetites. He’d lose the Honours of Scotland at the cards, or any other game ye name, gin he were left to play unwatched, and as for the other, he’s quite old enough to slip out and pass himself off as second sackbut in the burgh band, only to get closer to some trollop he’s taken a notion to. We have to set him on to a lassie we can trust, for his first. And we have to distract him, Archie. He’s taking altogether too much interest in the business of running the country, and he doesny understand it all yet. You saw him last night.’
‘Mind you,’ said Naristoun thoughtfully, ‘that might pay off.’
‘Wheesht, Archie.’
Sandy Boyd served again, and this time the King was ready for him, or perhaps Sandy put the ball where the King would be ready. There was a chase, the ball bandied back and forth across the net, which ended in a point for the King, and applause from the other gallery under the pent as the two players shook hands. His grace had won the set and, it seemed, the match.
Acknowledging the applause, James stripped off his doublet and threw it to a ready servant, accepted a wet towel from another and a goblet from a third. A clerk approached him with some documents, another with a quiet message, and he looked about.
‘Maister Cunningham?’ he called. ‘What about that game you promised me? Aye, Sandy, a good match. You’re a strong player, sir. Give me five minutes, maister, to deal with these papers, and we’ll have a fresh ball and begin.’
Gil, stripping off gown and doublet in his turn, stepped out on to the court and bowed to his opponent.
It was an excellent game. The King, as he had seen while watching from the gallery, was a vigorous player with a sound grasp of the strategies. He was also in good practice. Gil, willing to play with tact, found he had no need to do so. He was faster, and had a longer reach; the King had a stronger stroke, and the ball they were chasing was from his own box. Set by set, the match went the full eleven, and by the time the King took the final point both men were stripped to the waist, shining with sweat, hair plastered to their faces.