Free The Merchant's Mark by Pat McIntosh Page B

stirred at the door of the little room. ‘Something towards Maister Cunningham’s expenses, I
think. Ten merks should do it. And you’ll report to me, Gilbert.’
    ‘Gladly, my lord. Thank you,’ said Gil fervently, going down on one knee again. This was more than he had hoped for: Blacader had just attached him to his own retinue, however
informally.
    ‘And now,’ said the Archbishop, getting to his feet, ‘I must go back to the King. Come with me, Gilbert.’
    The inmost chamber was crowded with bystanders and servants in the royal livery, but their gaze, direct or sidelong, showed where to look. Near the empty hearth a table was set up, covered in a
silk carpet, the cards still lying on it in tricks as they had been gathered in among the heaps of coin. Three people were seated round it. On the far side King James, aged nineteen, chestnut hair
and long-nosed Stewart good looks set off by green velvet and blue silk, was talking to a hulking man whose cropped hair and beard showed streaks of grey: Archibald Douglas, fifth earl of Angus. On
this side was a well-found blue-jowled person in furred red silk embroidered with trees of life, a match for the Archbishop save for the lack of a tonsure; plump hands studded with rings were
folded on his knee as he watched the conversation with the open smiling gaze of a statesman.
    ‘His grace will want the story of the finding of the treasure,’ said Blacader, placing himself expertly to catch Angus’s eye, and his counterpart turned his head sharply, his
silk rustling.
    ‘Are ye sure of that, Robert?’ he asked. ‘This is gey public. And is this the man that found it?’ He looked closely at Gil with round pale eyes, and then cast a pointed
glance at Maister Dunbar, who stared at the patterned ceiling.
    ‘Wheesht, William,’ Blacader said, intent on the King, and Gil appreciated that the other man was that chimera of his age, neither cleric nor layman, William Knollys the Treasurer of
Scotland and Commendator of the Knights of St John.
    The royal conversation paused, and Blacader inserted a practised word. Gil found himself kneeling again, and then somehow seated on a stool which manifested behind him, giving an account of the
finding of first the head and then the bag of coin. The two men of state watched him as he talked, intent and impassive, and Angus leaned back to whisper to a servant, but the King listened
closely, his mobile face expressing interest, concern, dismay as the narrative proceeded.
    ‘And what has the inquest found?’ he asked. ‘Did they get a name for the man?’
    ‘No, sir,’ said Gil. ‘Nobody in the burgh knew him.’
    ‘No surprise in that, I suppose,’ said the King. ‘He’s likely from wherever the hoard money’s been hid these four years, and not from Glasgow at all. And the barrel
came from Linlithgow, you say?’
    ‘The barrel was exchanged for ours,’ said Gil with care, ‘somewhere between Linlithgow and Glasgow. Or so I believe, sir.’
    ‘Aye,’ said James thoughtfully. ‘No saying, is there? But why? And why put the head and the coin both into brine?’
    ‘I hope to find out,’ said Gil.
    ‘Tell me when you do. And I hope you find your books, maister,’ said the King, and Gil realized this was the first person to whom he had told the tale who had expressed the wish.
‘Meantime, there’s the matter of a reward for finding the treasure. That’s two thousand merks waiting for us in Glasgow, forbye the jewels – we’re certainly grateful,
man. My lord Treasurer, you’ll see to that the now, will you?’
    Thus dismissed, Gil retreated from the card-room, followed immediately by Knollys, who gestured to one of his own servants and bustled Gil back through the sequence of stuffy crowded rooms,
asking affably after his uncle as they went, studying him with those round pale eyes. Gil, recalling Canon Cunningham’s strictures on this man as one of the most litigious in Scotland,
answered as