St Mungo's Robin (15 page)

‘The Early Fathers?’ recalled Gil, and got an approving nod.

Seated in his own great chair, marking off his points on gnarled fingers with the same gestures he had used when expounding the mysteries of Latin declensions in the dusty schoolroom in
Hamilton, Maister Veitch set out his view of the situation in the almshouse.

‘He’d set each of us against him,’ he said in the scholarly tongue, ‘all six of the brothers, for different reasons, long before yesterday’s announcement. Sissie,
whatever she says, had no reason to love or respect him. Millar, a good man and a good scholar, had a very different vision for the bedehouse from the one Naismith followed. And I regret to say the
fellow’s dealings with my kinswoman Marion have been far from honest.’ He paused, one forefinger on the other, then moved on to the thumb. ‘Which I suppose,’ he added in
Scots, ‘wad gie me the mair cause to dislike him, though I know I didny kill him.’

‘But what had he done to them all?’ asked Gil.

Maister Veitch began his count on the other hand.

‘As to Duncan Fraser, I’ve no idea,’ he admitted. ‘He’s forgotten all his Latin beyond
Paternoster
and
Ave
, you’ve likely noticed, speaks only
the Scots tongue he spoke as a boy, somewhere beyond Aberdeen or Tain. The rest of us canny make out a word he says, poor fellow. But if you mention Naismith’s name, he turns purple, so
we’ll assume there’s ill feeling there.’ He paused, considering. ‘Cubby Pringle with the trembling-ill – he leaves down crumbs for the birds, which was always worth a
laugh from the Deacon, but there’s worse. Cubby was put out of his parish after he spilled the Blood of Christ over the Bishop’s Easter cope. He’s done more penance than he needs
for it already, but Naismith cast it up at him as a joke every time Cubby spoke to him.’

‘They’d never wash the wine out of a cope,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘I take it the thing had to be destroyed? And that was attached to Maister Pringle’s
name?’

‘Precisely.’ Maister Veitch paused again. ‘He made a mock of Anselm in the same way, about a matter Anselm takes seriously.’

‘The ghostly brother at the Mass?’

‘Oh, you’ve heard about it, have you? Aye, Anselm’s aye on about it. He claims to see him far more often than the rest of us, claims he actually talks to him – I’ve
no seen him at all, myself – and he lets us all know. He’s childish, poor fellow. And Barty and I both had a serious difference wi Naismith about the way he uses the bedehouse’s
income.’

‘Ah,’ said Gil.

‘It’s only since I was here,’ said Maister Veitch, ‘maybe a year, that we’ve tried to discuss it wi him. Till then I suppose he assumed none would notice.’ He
smiled a thin teacher’s smile in the half-light. ‘Anselm’s beyond matters like that, we’d no ken if Duncan did notice, and Cubby’s too good a man to be aware of it,
like Andro. Barty says he’d had his suspicions, and once I began asking about this and that we uncovered more and more.’

‘
Per exemplum?
’ Gil prompted, and got another approving glance.

‘There was a silver crucifix when I came here,’ his teacher said. ‘There was still plate in the hall two year since, Barty says. The meals we’re served are wholesome
enough, Sissie sees to that, the good soul,’ he grimaced, ‘but we get meat less often and it’s cheaper meat these days.’ He spat at the empty grate in the small hearth.
‘And that’s another of his penny-pinching decisions – we’ve no to get a fire in our own lodgings now. He said it was for safety, and I suppose in Anselm’s case or
Humphrey’s that might be true, but we all kenned what he was at.’

‘Where is the money going?’ Gil asked.

‘Into his pocket, we assumed,’ said Maister Veitch. ‘And only yesterday he called us all thegither and announced, among other things, that he would be taking back – those
were his words – all our books, since old men ha no need of books, in order to sell them for the bedehouse funds.’ The indignation quivered in his voice. ‘Those books by the desk
are mine, dear-bought over a lifetime, and Barty’s two are his. There’s a many missed meals behind each one of them.’

‘Your books? What did you say to him?’ asked Gil in dismay.

‘We tellt him they were ours,’ said Maister Veitch bitterly, ‘but he reminded us that the brothers hold their property in common. I kent that, but I wouldny ha accepted the
place if I’d no been assured that books was a different matter. I’ve had time, this past year, to make a start on the Early Fathers, I’ll no see it snatched away.’

Gil eyed his teacher with sympathy. After a moment he said, ‘And yet the man was a clerk – he could read, I think.’

‘A stickit clerk,’ said Maister Veitch in contemptuous Scots, then, reverting to Latin, ‘He was parish clerk to my nephew William in Irvine at one time. It seems he wished to
be a priest himself, but there was neither money nor patronage to support him to his ordination. This gave him a dislike of priests and learning, and even William found him difficult and snatched
the opportunity to get him another post, first in Irvine and then in Glasgow out of his way. Had I known him better, I would have waited for a place in Hamilton, rather than come here
myself.’

‘An unpleasant character,’ Gil said thoughtfully. ‘And had he given the bedehouse folk any other cause to dislike him?’

‘Oh, he had. As well as bullying Sissie about the accounts –’

‘Bullying her?’

‘Oh, it was all done very civilly but I’ve heard him. He aye forgot,’ said Maister Veitch with another thin smile, ‘that my ears are near as sharp as they ever were. He
went over the household outgoings wi Sissie every day after the noon bite, and he’d aye a suggestion about how it could ha been less. She was near weeping the last time I heard them,’
he said thoughtfully, ‘for he’d said we wereny to have wine any more, even on feast days, but only ale. But then he went on to press her about some receipt he’d promised Andrew
Slack the ’pothecary She was reluctant to give it over, since it was her granny’s and no to be handed on to just anybody, but he pressed her to it, and if she was to expect any reward
for it, my name’s no Frankie Veitch. Much more like that Naismith and Slack would split the profits to be made.’

‘We found two or three receipts in his purse,’ said Gil. ‘And what about these changes he was to make? His marriage, and the use of the hall, and so on.’

‘Aye,’ said Maister Veitch. ‘Aye, he called us all into the hall, after he’d done bullying Sissie, and told us he was planning changes. Andro was to give up his lodging
and take one of the empty houses. Sissie was to have another, I think, and she was to leave off the housekeeping, be our nurse only, and be paid less for it. But none of the empty houses is fit to
live in. The thatch leaks, the shutters willny fasten. One of the hearths is fallen in.’

‘Was this the first you’d heard of these changes?’

‘It was. Sissie asked who would oversee the housekeeping and the kitchen, and Naismith said she had no need to worry about that, for he was to be married, and his wife would take all into
her own hands. And afore he left the hall,’ said Maister Veitch slowly, ‘I said, to him alone, did my niece know of this, and he answered that it was nothing to do wi her. Which I took
to mean that he was proposing to marry some other woman.’

‘You don’t know who?’

‘I do not.’

Gil was silent for a space. At length he said, ‘And the sixth brother?’

‘Eh? What did ye say?’

‘You’ve told me about five of the bedesmen,’ Gil prompted. ‘The sixth is Maister Humphrey that quotes the Apocalypse. What quarrel did he have wi Naismith?’

‘Ah.’ Maister Veitch turned to stare into the empty grate. Gil waited. After a pause, the old man said, ‘Do you ken the tale, Gibbie?’

‘No, sir,’ said Gil blankly.

‘Ah. Maybe it was before you left me and came to the school here in Glasgow. Aye, it would be fifteen year or more since. Humphrey Agnew was studying Theology at the college here, wi an
altar to mind out at St Thomas beyond the Stablegreen Port.’ Gil nodded. He was acquainted with the crumbling little chapel of St Thomas Becket, which like most churches of its dedication in
Scotland was the best part of three hundred years old and looked it. ‘He and a fellow student went fishing one day, no in the Clyde but further afield, up to the Kelvin.’

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘Fishing. They used the irresistible bait?’

‘A consecrated Host.’ Maister Veitch pursed his lips, nodding. ‘Which Humphrey stole. Bad enough, though there’s aye a few does it. But the other fellow put his foot in a
pothole in the riverbed, and lost his footing and was swept away and drowned. A judgement, I suppose you might say.’

‘A severe judgement,’ said Gil, ‘for a crime which could be said to injure only himself. And Humphrey? What happened to him? Did he escape the judgement?’

‘He went mad,’ said Maister Veitch baldly.

‘Mad? He’s known to be mad, then? I wondered, from something his brother said. So what’s he doing here? Surely there’s some better place for him – one of the big
hospitals, Soutra, St Leonard’s?’

‘He didny run mad immediately,’ qualified his teacher. ‘He was ill wi grief for a while, and then it seemed he was back to himself, and he finished his studies. Then he began
to see people as birds – I’ve heard him call Naismith a cuckoo and a shrike, which didny best please the man. And then it seems, bit by bit he began to abhor water. First it was rivers,
as ye’d understand, and then wells and buckets, and got so he couldny lave the vessels after the Mass, and then couldny witness others at the same task.’

‘Ah, that’s what Nick meant.’

‘Very likely. It’s a problem every morn at the end of the Mass,’ confirmed Maister Veitch. ‘Now he gets difficult if he’s out in the rain, as well as if he’s
angered at something. He starts by quoting the Revelation, and then he gets violent. I’ve seen him try to throttle his brother Thomas.’ He sighed. ‘Sissie can control him for now,
but he should really be a place he can be shut away, poor fellow, for if he gets any worse we’ll have the whole of Glasgow coming in to bait him like a bear.’

‘I’d a word wi his brother before I came round here, but not about this. I never knew before that he’d such a problem in his life,’ said Gil. ‘Poor
devil.’

‘So I’d no recommend you question Maister Humphrey direct,’ said Maister Veitch drily, ‘without a guard. Your father-in-law would be a good candidate.’

‘I’ll maybe no disturb Maister Humphrey at all, then,’ said Gil, ‘but I could do with a word with Anselm if I may.’

‘I wish you luck,’ said Maister Veitch in the same dry tone. He leaned forward to see out of the low window. ‘No, your luck’s out, Gibbie. There’s a light in his
lodging. Sissie’ll be helping him to his bed. Try the morn.’

Out in the street, Gil considered the sky. It was too cloudy to be helpful, but he thought the time could not be much past eight o’clock. The taste of Maister
Agnew’s Malvoisie was still in his mouth. Nick Kennedy won’t be teaching, he thought, and set out towards the college.

The taverns of the Upper Town were brightly lit and noisy, but the streets were quiet. At the Wyndhead he became aware of another lantern bobbing towards him from the Drygate on hurrying feet,
its patch of light catching a drab skirt, an apron, the ends of a checked plaid. He paused politely to let the woman go past him, and raised his own light to show his face. The other lantern
checked, and then came forward hesitantly.

‘Is that you, sir?’ The voice was young. ‘You that was at my mistress’s house the day,’ she qualified. ‘Talking to Eppie and Danny and all.’

‘Aye, that was me. You must be Bel,’ Gil hazarded. Reassured, she came forward into the light of his lantern, smiling shyly. ‘Is that you away home now? It’s a long day
for you.’

‘It’s no so bad,’ she said. ‘It’s no a bad place at all. Danny’s a cross thing, but Eppie and me has a good laugh, whiles, and the mistress is easy
enough.’

‘Are you bound down the High Street? Can I see you to your door, lass?’

Bel giggled, and bobbed a curtsy by way of assent. Gil turned, offering his arm as if she was a lady, which extracted another giggle and a nervous clutch at his sleeve, and they made their way
on down the hill by the light of the two lanterns.

‘That must have given you all a turn, Maister Naismith’s death,’ Gil suggested. ‘How’s your mistress now? She seemed in a great shock this afternoon.’

‘She was awfy quiet over supper, even wi her brother there,’ admitted Bel. ‘My, he’s the bonnie man,’ she digressed, like Eppie. ‘The big handsome fellow he
is, it’s no surprise wee Frankie’s that taken wi him. She was at him again the night,
Sing to Frankie, Unca John, sing.
Same as last night. He’d even to sing the same song.
Some foreign song he learned while he was away at sea.’

‘Was Frankie upset by the shouting last night?’ Gil asked.

‘I missed the worst o’t,’ confessed Bel with regret, ‘for I was early away, but Eppie said she was. She said it was as good as a play, save that the wee one was
screaming, for my mistress was weeping, and the maister was shouting that he’d leave his property where he wished and she’d no claim on him whatever she said, and her brother was
roaring like the devil on a cart, raging up and down wi his gown swinging, trying to say the maister owed her for her maidenhead, and he said –’ She stopped. Gil made an interrogative
noise. ‘Forget what I was saying,’ she said unconvincingly

‘He said?’ Gil prompted.

‘I forget!’ she said again.

‘And at supper,’ said Gil after a moment, steering them both past a sagging midden. ‘What was it he said at supper? You were there, were you no?’

‘Oh, that was about altering his will,’ she said in some relief, ‘like Eppie tellt you, sir. And he’d other plans. He never said what they were,’ she added
regretfully, ‘but I suppose they’ll all come to naught now.’

‘Aye, likely,’ agreed Gil.

She came to a halt under a lantern at the mouth of a vennel and let go his arm. ‘This is me here, maister. And thank you kindly for your company, sir.’ She bobbed to him.
‘I’ve been right glad of it, sir, for there was someone watching the house when I came out.’