‘It’s none so easy,’ he said glumly, ‘for a course I didny realize then that he’d vanished, so I took no note of the evening, any more than I did the previous one.’
‘I can see that,’ Gil said. ‘It was that day you had the argument about the shoe, did you tell me?’
‘Aye, it was.’ Maister Gregor rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his old-fashioned buttoned gown. ‘To think it was near the last words we spoke, it fair makes me greet.’
‘But you were friends again by noon?’ Gil prompted.
‘Aye, we were, you’re right. Jaikie cam to sit by me here at the board, see, and we shared a mess of boiled mutton wi two Erschemen from Lorne and spoke Latin wi them. Their Latin wasny very good,’ the old man recalled, ‘they couldny understand the most o what I said to them. And Wat was on about a new way to cook mutton, wait till I tell you this.’ He recounted his friend’s witticism again, obviously forgetting that he had already told it to Gil.
‘What happened after that?’ Gil asked.
‘Why, Jaikie went out about my lord’s errands, about the rents, and I went to copying the diocesan returns for my lord. They go to Rome, you’ll understand, maister, so they’ve to be in a good clear hand, and my lord’s aye commended mine.’
‘A dull task,’ said Gil, pulling a sympathetic face. ‘How long did that last you?’
‘Aye, but a needful. I stayed at that till Vespers, and then seeing the supper was a wee thing late I walked in the garden for a bittie. My lord was there and all, wi his wee dog, and he asked me where was Jaikie,’ he rubbed at his eyes again, ‘and a course Jaikie never cam here again.’
‘I think my lord had a great trust in Maister Stirling,’ said Gil. Maister Gregor nodded. ‘Did he tell you anything about the English negotiations while he was caught up in them?’
‘Me? No, no, I kept away from that,’ said Maister Gregor virtuously. ‘I think my lord was feart I’d let something slip at the wrong time,’ he added. Surprised by this show of self-awareness, Gil nodded. ‘And a course Jaikie was maist discreet. Never a word till all was signed and sealed, and then it was only a bit gossip about the ambassadors,’ he said with regret, and sighed heavily. ‘Aye me, it’s hard to think I’ll not see him again in this life.’
St John’s Kirk was busy with folk making their morning observations. Several priests were saying Mass at different altars, their bright vestments catching the light, the incense rising up into the high roof past the gleam of the huge silver chandelier on its chain, and another two appeared to be showing some relics to a group of pilgrims. Enquiring for Kinnoull led Gil to the choir itself. It was empty and quiet just now, between Prime and Terce, except for the Precentor poring over the great choir-book on its stand while the clerks of the choir refreshed themselves with a jug of ale in the vestry.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said as Gil made his way through the curtained doorway in the choirscreen. ‘I sent you word, did I no?’
‘You did,’ agreed Gil.
‘I think we’ll use this one the day.’ Kinnoull spread the great pages flat, and drew the bar down on its hinge to keep the book open. ‘I’m still short o basses since the Moncrieff lads left us, maister, and it limits which settings of the Mass we can use, it limits them. You’ve no idea where they’ve gone, I suppose?’
‘The Low Countries, I suspect,’ said Gil.
‘Aye, I feared as much,’ said Kinnoull, nodding gloomily. ‘They’ve more wealth than us, maister, we’ll never get our singers back now. Where in the Low Countries?’
‘A place called Gheel.’
‘Never heard of it. Well, maister, I’ll ha to get on, we’ve Terce to sing, but just afore you go, was it you was looking for where Andrew Drummond o Dunblane ate his supper one night?’
‘It was,’ agreed Gil, without much hope.
‘I thought it was. Well, I canny help you there, maister, but I can tell you where he was after it. He was in here.’
‘In here?’ repeated Gil, startled. ‘You know him, do you?’
‘Oh, I know him well. I’m fro Dunblane mysel, maister. So when I saw him here in St Andrew’s chapel, I said to mysel, You’re not wanting disturbed, man, I’ll just leave you be.’
‘He was at prayer?’
‘That’s what I’m telling you. He spent the most of an hour or maybe more on his knees afore St Andrew. I was in here, looking through the choir-book just as you find me now, maister, and when I’d finished I should ha gone out and locked the place, but I didny want to chase Andrew Drummond away. Times you can tell when a man needs a quiet word.’
‘So you weren’t close enough to tell whether he’d been drinking.’
‘Drinking? No, I smelled no drink. Frying, maybe, I’d say he’d had fried bread to his supper, but no drink. Anyway I just sat here till he left.’
‘And what time would that be?’ Gil asked hopefully.
‘Near curfew,’ said Kinnoull confidently, ‘for I’d to hurry mysel to get a jug of ale afore they rang the bell. And now I’ll have to hurry mysel to lead the choir in for Terce.’ He gave the great book one last glance, and moved away from the stand. ‘But when I heard the bellman asking where Andrew ate his supper, I thought to mysel, that might be what the man needs to hear.’
‘It is,’ said Gil. ‘My thanks, maister. It’s something I needed, right enough.’
‘I can ask,’ said Brother Dickon. ‘But it was two weeks afore we sought him, maister, and I’d ha thought if any o my lads — my brethren,’ he corrected himself, ‘had found aught like that, they’d ha said so at the time.’
‘I agree,’ said Gil, ‘it’s a long shot, but I have to check.’
‘So you want to know,’ said the senior lay brother, a wiry grizzled fellow with a scar across one eye, ‘if there was any sign o a struggle, or a patch of blood.’
‘Any sign of where the man died,’ Gil agreed, wishing he had brought Socrates. But even the dog might have difficulty after two weeks, he thought, supposing the man did die out on the Ditchlands.
Brother Dickon jerked his head at the open doorway.
‘We’re just come from Terce,’ he said, ‘so you’ve catched us all thegither. Come and wait while I ask them.’
Gil rose and followed him out of the snug porter’s lodge into the first courtyard of the convent, where half a dozen lay brothers, bearded men in the black Dominican habit with the black scapular instead of white, were clattering across the outer courtyard in their sturdy boots, making for the gate. Brother Dickon summoned them with a piercing whistle and a wave of his arm, and all six came to stand obediently before him, hands tucked into their wide sleeves, heads bent, faces half hidden by their hoods. Dickon glared at them, and they looked sideways and shuffled into a straighter line.
‘Aye,’ he said at length. ‘You’ll do. Listen, lads. Er, brethren. You mind the other day when we had to hunt for that clerk that got hissel missing?’
He propounded Gil’s question accurately, and glared along the line of black hoods. There was silence for the space of an Ave, then one of the hoods rose and its wearer said diffidently, ‘Permission to speak, sa — er — Brother Dickon?’
‘Speak up, Brother Archie.’
‘I don’t think any of us seen anything like that.’
Heads were shaken all along the row.
‘Damage to any of the bushes?’ Gil said hopefully. ‘Signs of a struggle?’
‘Christ love you, maister,’ said Brother Dickon tolerantly, ‘there’s struggles to damage the bushes any evening a lad walks his lass across the meadow.’
‘Aye, and it’s never — ’ began a mutter from under one of the hoods.
‘That’ll do, Brother Dod,’ said Brother Dickon.
‘Does that happen most evenings?’ Gil asked. ‘Would there have been youngsters there the night Maister Stirling vanished?’
‘Likely enough,’ said Brother Dickon, and heads nodded along the row. ‘But as for minding whether or no, two weeks after it, it’s more than I can do. Any of you lads?’
Clearly, none of his troop remembered either. Gil looked from them to the spare, upright figure of their superior, and said, ‘I’ve another question, if I may. Was any of you along the Skinnergate that evening? I realize,’ he said mendaciously, ‘you’d not be in the alehouses, but I wonder if anyone saw Andrew Drummond there in the street.’