‘I do,’ said Brown. ‘Wat, be still. Where are you off to, man?’
‘You’ll want a couple of the men — ’ Currie began.
‘Be still,’ said Brown again, quite mildly, and the stew-ard’s feet were rooted to the spot. ‘I also recall that the supper was late, and I can see by the way you hold it that you know every inch of that dreadful weapon. Wat, why did you kill Jaikie?’
‘No!’ Currie fell to his knees, his plump face suddenly glistening with sweat. ‘No, I never, I didny! It wasny me!’
‘I’m told you’re the best shot with a crossbow in Perth,’ Gil said, and then with sudden comprehension, ‘and Mitchel named you as he died, man.’
‘I never — I never did! I had to!’
‘Who was it then?’ asked the Bishop, looking very solemn, his voice gentle. ‘Who killed Jaikie Stirling, Wat, if it wasna you? Or why would you have to? A man never has to kill, Wat, you ken that.’
‘Maister Gregor knows why he killed him,’ said Gil.
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Maister Gregor. ‘Er — me? Ken why? Why?’
‘Tell me again,’ Gil invited, ‘the crack Jaikie made at Wat’s expense that day at the noon bite. Tell my lord.’
‘At the — oh! Aye, it was right comical.’ He recounted the tale of the new way to cook mutton yet again, clearly unaware of what he was saying. Gil met the Bishop’s eye.
‘Write it down,’ he repeated, ‘and sell it in the Low Countries. Maister Stirling had realized who was selling information. He had to be killed before he told you.’
‘Why did he no tell me first off?’
‘I was doing no sic a thing!’ protested Currie, scrambling to his feet. ‘I never — I would have — ’
‘The man Mitchel?’ said Brown to Gil. Gil shook his head.
‘Mitchel is dead,’ he said. ‘My men were attacked outside the town as they brought him to Perth today. But I’ve spoken to Doig, I’ve spoken to his wife, and — ’
‘Stop him!’ exclaimed the Bishop. Gil spun round, in time to see Currie dive out of the door, fling himself across the next room and on to the stair. He plunged after him, followed by an excited Jerome, as shouting and the sounds of a fight broke out below them.
‘Let me pass, you fools!’ howled Currie. ‘I’ve an errand won’t wait! Let me pass!’
‘Hold him, lads!’ Gil shouted, swung himself down the newel stair after the steward, and leapt on to the battle at its foot. The two Stronvar men he had posted there, Ned’s henchmen, were having trouble holding Currie. More of the Bishop’s servants were appearing in answer to his cries for help, but with Gil’s assistance they were held off and the man was overcome, his arms pinned at his sides, the point of Gil’s dagger under his chin, while his master came down the stair at a more dignified pace.
‘Take and bind him,’ the Bishop said, ‘and send to the constable to come for him. Treason is a plea of the Crown,’ he said to his servant, ‘and by Christ I’ll see you tried and hung by the Crown for this, clerk or no clerk, Wat Currie. And bid the constable release the man Cornton now.’
‘I still don’t see how Jaikie got into the tanpit,’ said Maister Gregor. ‘And the badges and all, what had the badges to do wi’t?’
‘Nor I,’ admitted Bishop Brown. ‘Can you tell us that, Maister Cunningham?’
After the steward had been removed, still struggling and protesting his innocence, the two churchmen had spent some considerable time at prayer. Gil had occupied himself in searching the man’s own chamber, with two of the Bishop’s men as witnesses. He had found documents sufficient to condemn Currie out of hand, notes of the content of the English treaty, a half-written letter to a Fleming whose name Brown recognized (‘Margaret of Burgundy uses him,’ he said cryptically) and other papers which the Bishop immediately confiscated and placed in his own locked kist.
‘The badges have nothing to do with it,’ Gil said, ‘excepting that they led us to find Stirling’s body. He’d given his badge of St Dymphna — ’
‘That was her!’ exclaimed Maister Gregor. ‘Diffna!’
‘To Andrew Drummond, for reasons connected with whatever they confessed to each other that afternoon on the Ditchlands. It was sewn on to the hat, he’d have had to cut it off, and I suppose loosened the Eloi badge at the same time, and that fell off when Doig and the man Mitchel were getting his body into the tanyard.’
‘I see,’ said the Bishop. ‘So it’s St Eloi’s doing, or perhaps St Dymphna’s, that he was found and can be given Christian burial.’
‘It is,’ agreed Gil, taken with this. ‘If — I’ll not speculate what they discussed — ’
‘No, of course not,’ the Bishop said quickly.
‘- but if it’s what I suspect, then it would be agreeable to St Dymphna to have it cleared up and all forgiven. I can see that she might protect him so far.’
It would have been more to the point if she had prevented his death, he thought, but did not say so in this company.
‘If either confessed the other,’ said Maister Gregor, ‘then Jaikie died shriven. Had you thought of that, my lord?’
‘That’s a true word, Rob,’ said the Bishop, much struck. ‘And a comforting thought, at that. But the man Mitchel — ’
‘He was shriven by the Infirmarers,’ said Gil quickly.
‘Aye, and sore need of it. He was far from blameless,’ said the Bishop with disapproval. ‘He was Currie’s own servant, I suppose he obeyed him without question, but — ’
‘And Mistress Doig is his kinswoman,’ Gil said. ‘I suppose that led Currie to Doig, or the other way about.’
‘I’ll have the woman out of that yard,’ said the Bishop. ‘She’ll not remain on my doorstep. As for her husband, I want him found.’
‘He’s a slippery character,’ Gil said. ‘You may find all he’s done is carry letters, with no certain knowledge of their content.’
If you can find either one, he thought, recalling the sight of Doig and his wife leaving Glasgow a year since, an hour ahead of the pursuit, with the largest mixed leash of hounds he had ever seen.
‘And who is St Dymphna, anyway?’ asked George Brown, Bishop of Dunkeld.
Chapter Fourteen
Alys, standing with the Drummond girls on the rough grass of the preaching-field, gazed round her at the people of Sir Duncan’s parish. They were still gathering, the stragglers from the far end of the glen, the last few people from Glenbuckie still hurrying over the causeway. They carried crosses, scraps of linen inscribed with ill-spelled prayers, rosaries, anything to protect the sanctity of the occasion. The old man was drowsing now, lying on his bed of sheepskins at the centre of the bowl of ground, but Robert was still tolling that strange sweet bell, and the people watched in a silence broken by the occasional sob, a child’s question, a hushed adult answer.
‘Sir Duncan is much loved,’ Alys said quietly to Ailidh Drummond.
‘There is not many can recall the man that was before him,’ said Ailidh, equally quietly.
As the last parishioners reached the field, Robert silenced the bell. Sir Duncan opened his eyes. A murmur ran through the gathering, and he raised one hand and delivered a blessing in Latin. Daughter of a master-builder, Alys recognized how it was some trick of the shape of the ground that made his thread of a voice audible to all. People bent their heads, crossed themselves, said Amen with that strange Ersche twist to the word. The old priest surveyed them, and began to speak, very slowly, in Ersche.
He spoke for near a quarter of an hour, Alys estimated. After a while, as his voice failed, the aged clerk began to repeat each sentence aloud for him. She had long since lost the thread by then, though the words she recognized told her it was a sermon about love, about duty, about redemption. Instead she watched the people, who were listening to every syllable, many with tears on their cheeks. Most were in the dress of the Highlands, the men in their belted shirts and huge plaids, the women in loose checked gowns, their smaller plaids drawn over their heads; the upper servants from Stronvar and Gartnafueran were conspicuous in their Lowland livery. Next to Alys, Ailidh Drummond gazed intently, chewing a forefinger; Murdo Dubh had appeared beyond her and the younger girls were gathered close. She looked the other way, and found a man in a long homespun gown and faded plaid standing beside her, right at the edge of the crowd, leaning on a long crook and watching the faces in the same way that she was. He was oddly made, tall and broad-shouldered with a small head and greying red hair.