The Fire in the Flint Read Free Page A

whether your uncle was there.’
    ‘I’m sure he was with Janet Webster.’
    ‘Master Murdoch’s so attentive to Dame Janet of late, do you think they might wed?’ Janet Webster had been widowed in the spring.
    ‘Her children would have much to say about that, and none of it good,’ Margaret whispered, then bowed her head and said no more, though she could not still her thoughts.
    After Mass she went straight to Murdoch’s undercroft. There was little light in the alleyway, so she could not make out whether it was herimagination or whether it smelled fouler than usual, as if someone had retched near the door. She found the lock hanging from the latch as it should and almost turned away in frustration, but something made her give it a tug. It opened. She lifted it off and carefully opened the door. She knew at once that this was not as Murdoch had left it, for he was a tidy man and would not leave a barrel lying on its side in the aisle with staves littering the floor, or a casket half closed, the lid crushing a rolled document.
    The casket reminded her of her brother Fergus’s letter, received a few days earlier.
    All summer the English had worked on walling Perth, which irritated merchants because the wall cut off access to their warehouses along the canals. Fergus was not so inconvenienced because the Kerr and Sinclair warehouses were right on the Tay, and in fact he had been the guest of honour at many merchants’ tables earlier in the summer in case they needed to make use of his accessible spaces. But the garrison was now away and the merchants grew complacent, neglecting Fergus. With so many his age having disappeared into the countryside to fight or hide, he had little occupation beyond seeing to what little business he had and checking that Jonet, the serving woman who looked after Margaret’s and his father’s houses, was keeping both in order. Heresented his sister Maggie and his brother Andrew for being in the thick of things. Growing lazy, in the heat of the day he took to napping in the shade of the fruit trees behind the family house.
    One afternoon he’d awakened, puzzled that his dog was not lying beside him. Thinking he heard Mungo’s wheezing whine, he searched the outbuildings. At last he found the poor creature shut into a feed box in the stable. Once free, the dog ran straight for a puddle and lapped up the muddy water. Fergus puzzled over the dog’s entrapment because he was certain that Mungo had settled down next to him to nap. He could not have wandered off afterwards and trapped himself in the box, for the lid was too heavy. Someone must have put Mungo in the box. But why? To keep him from waking Fergus? He broke out in a cold sweat thinking how close to him someone had come in order to coax away the dog. It must have been someone from the town for, although Mungo was friendly, he barked at strangers. Had the dog made an enemy of one of his friends, or had he been the victim of a jest that might have gone very wrong if Fergus had not found him quickly?
    Fergus checked the kitchen first, thinking of the reported thefts throughout the spring and summer, as the troops on both sides wanted feeding. But he found the kitchen undisturbed. With Mungo padding along beside him, Fergus crossed the yard to the house, entering by the backdoor. Once inside the dog ran ahead, nose low, following a scent. He was still crossing and recrossing the middle of the hall when Fergus noticed documents littering the floor in front of a cabinet, some of the rolled parchments crumpled so that they lay open, some undisturbed. A cracked leather-backed wax tablet lay against the wall. The dog was content with sniffing the floor round the littered area, so Fergus guessed whoever had searched his father’s papers was gone.
    While he put the documents back in the cabinet and searched for the lock, he grew concerned about the servant – Jonet should have been seeing to supper by now. It was not market day, such as