Brother Dickon’s expression was wonderfully ambiguous. After another, longer, pause, the same man as before spoke up.
‘I was on the Skinnergate after our supper,’ he admitted. ‘I’d to fetch a harness to the white-faced mare, that Will Lorimer was mending for us.’
‘And did you see the Canon, Brother Archie?’ demanded his superior sharply. Brother Archie nodded.
‘I did and all,’ he said. ‘He was just going into the Northgate as I cam out of Lorimer’s shop. He never saw me, but. He’d the duarch wi him, the mimmerkin that dwells at the dog-breeder’s yard.’
‘And what time would that be?’ Gil asked.
Archie shrugged. ‘After supper. I’d gone into the town, I’d spoke wi Lorimer, I’d shown him why he should do the work as a gift. Eight o’ the clock, maybe?’
‘You’d swear to that?’ Gil said. Archie looked at Brother Dickon.
‘Aye, lad, brother, you can swear to it,’ Brother Dickon informed him.
‘I’ll swear to it, maister,’ said Brother Archie.
‘That’s excellent,’ said Gil. ‘My thanks, brother.’
‘Is that all you’re wanting?’ demanded Brother Dickon. ‘For they’ve to get on wi stacking the great barn afore the tithes come in.’ When Gil nodded, he jerked his head at the row of men. ‘Right, lads, get on wi’t.’
They bowed, in unison, the black hoods falling forward over their brows. Then they turned and clattered towards the gate, rather self-consciously not walking in step.
‘What did you do before you took the habit, brother?’ Gil asked curiously, watching them go.
‘Serjeant-at-arms to the old King,’ said Brother Dickon.
Mistress Doig was not at home. Several of the dogs he had seen on his first visit were absent as well, so it seemed likely she was exercising them out on the common land to the north of the suburb, as she had described. Most of the remaining dogs barked at him when he entered the yard, but he stood quietly, and after a while they settled down again, though one liver-and-white bitch pressed her muzzle into the corner of her pen and snarled steadily. He ignored her, and took the opportunity to examine the premises with more attention than before.
Out here beyond the burgh walls — no, the Ditch, he corrected himself — the ground was not laid out in the long narrow even-sized tofts which were usual inside a town. The Doigs’ premises consisted of the house set at the further end of the ground with the yard in front of it and a long shed to one side. The yard was perhaps twenty-five or thirty paces long, and the same width as the dyer’s yard, fenced all round with woven hurdles lashed securely to solid posts. Within this space the pens had been constructed of solid timber, the lowest planks half-buried to prevent enthusiastic inmates tunnelling out, the higher ones separated enough for the occupant to see something of the world. None of them was against the boundary, so that a lean person such as Mistress Doig or Gil himself could walk right round the fence.
The liver-and-white bitch, getting no reaction, had given up her harangue to lie down within her kennel, but when he moved to explore the layout of the yard, she leapt out with a savage snarl, provoking the other dogs as well. He recognized why Mistress Doig had no hesitation in leaving the premises unattended; two of her neighbours had already looked out to see what was going on, alerted by the noise. Waving politely to them, he picked his way round the double row of pens, peered into and then behind the shed, studied the hurdles which composed the fence, leaned over to see into the tanyard.
‘She’s out wi the dogs,’ said a voice over the barking. He looked up, and saw one of the neighbours still watching suspiciously from the property that lay between him and the Blackfriars’ track. ‘She’ll no be long.’
‘I can see that,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll wait for her. Likely she knows I’m here by now, wi the dogs barking like this.’
‘Aye, likely.’ The man stood watching him. He was clad in a worn leather jerkin and blue workman’s bonnet, and held a knife in one hand and a slat of wood in the other; probably he was one of the many manufacturers of small-wares, little boxes and wooden combs, needle-cases and tablet covers, who could be found scraping a living in the suburbs of any burgh. That would explain the litter of timber and shavings lying all about the yard, Gil realized.
‘Is trade good?’ he asked casually, picking his way over to the fence.
‘It keeps us.’
‘There’s a lot of buying and selling in Perth, I think, what wi the overseas merchants and the like.’
‘They’re no wanting Ally Paterson’s wares,’ said the man resentfully. ‘It’s all sheep fells and salt salmon they take out o Perth, and they bring in stuff to compete wi decent craftsmen and take the bread out our mouths.’
Recognizing his duty, Gil enquired further, and found himself bargaining over the fence for a handful of wooden combs and several tiny boxes which might hold a needle. The things were well made; he was sure Alys would not want them, but they might make gifts for someone.
‘You keep an eye out for one another in these yards,’ he commented, counting out the sum agreed.
‘I’m sorry if I was a bit sharp,’ said Paterson obliquely, and handed the goods over bundled in an oddment of striped woollen cloth. ‘You’ll ha heard, maybe, Andy Cornton the tanner’s in trouble the now wi a dead man in his tanpit, and there was a wee bother in Mistress Doig’s place the other week and all.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Was there any harm to her? Or the dogs?’
‘No, I’d say not,’ said Paterson drily, ‘for I heard her complaining to her man about it after. No, just something set the dogs barking and her man was shouting, right angry he was, about folk coming into his yard and misbehaving theirsels, and right enough there was a couple men there earlier though I never learned what they’d done, for I was at my supper at the time,’ he admitted with regret. ‘So when I seen a stranger, and I ken she’s out — ’
‘Very wise,’ said Gil, ‘and I’m sure Mistress Doig would do the same for you.’ A fresh outbreak of barking made him look over his shoulder, in time to see the dog-breeder herself approaching her gate, towed by a mixed leash of half a dozen excited animals. ‘Good day, mistress,’ he offered, and raised his hat to her.
‘You again,’ she said.
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Paterson. ‘And you’ll mind Ally Paterson next time you’re needing a comb, maister.’
By the time Gil extricated himself from the conversation, Mistress Doig had returned the dogs to their various pens, screamed at the others for silence and obtained it, glowered at her neighbour and at Gil, and was waiting in the midst of the yard, arms folded, to learn his business.
‘I’d a good word wi himself in Balquhidder,’ he began, making his way past the liver-and-white bitch again.
‘Is that where he is?’ she retorted, in unwelcoming tones.
‘He was saying he misses the dogs.’
She snorted at that. ‘Aye, well, he kens what he can do about it.’
‘You were to show me the fence.’
Her eyes widened, but she said without moving, ‘What about the fence, then?’
‘The new mended spot,’ he prompted.
She studied him, glanced briefly at Paterson still standing in his doorway watching them, and said sourly, ‘Come in the house.’
The house was a single room, though it had a fireplace with a chimney in one gable. Mistress Doig stalked in ahead of him, tossed her plaid on to the bed, pointed to a stool and said, ‘You can as well be seated. Now what’s this about? I’ll not discuss my business or Doig’s afore the neighbours.’
‘The new mended spot on the fence,’ he repeated. She hooked a second stool away from the wall with one foot and sat down, giving him another hostile stare.
‘I’ve no notion how that came about. I heard him shouting when I was out wi the dogs, maybe it was about that. He’d mended it by the time I cam back, he was just putting the tools past in the shed. Same evening you were asking me about afore,’ she added, ‘after I’d had the two priests in the yard. I’d enough to do wi the dogs when I came in, the ones I’d left here were in a right tirravee wi him shouting and all, I never heard what came to the fence. Maybe Doig and our Mitchel had a fight,’ she speculated, without much conviction.