Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [107]
The glove, flicked from his surprised grasp, arrested his attention. “Have you seen this before?” demanded Culter in a controlled shout.
Patey was astonished, but ready to oblige. “No, no. I havena seen the work before, of course not; it isn’t mine. But I supplied the bullion and the gems. I’m maybe not an Admiral on the side like Chandler of London, or so handy with a knife as yon Italian fellow, but I’ve got jewels like peevers and I ken them like weans.…”
His client was talking again. Patey listened hard. “Who ordered it? Now, hold you there and I’ll tell you.” The great ledger came out, and Patey after a methodical search for his spectacles, pored over it. The index finger trailed down page after page and then stopped. “There you are!” He reversed the book for Lord Culter to see. “Ordered by Waugh, the St. Johnstone glover, on October the second.”
“Where do I find this Waugh?”
Patey’s crusty eyes opened. “Are ye for going there? Well …” He tipped a packet of sand on the counter, drew a map with a sable and furnished its landmarks with jewels. “There.”
Richard thanked him and left. As he remounted, Patey climbed the stairs back to bed, tittering under his breath. “And a right merry Christmas to ye,” said Patey to the air.
* * *
The city of Perth, or St. Johnstone’s, is only thirty-three miles to the northeast of Stirling; but not a pleasant ride when the moors are humped with new snow and your adored and incalculable wife is looking to you to attend her at her first Christmas at Court.
Lord Culter, riding alone and fast, reached Perth before midday. Once through the heavily guarded main gate, he dropped his pace to a walk, and steered the mare through a bustling and nervously armed High Street, past Cross and pillory, chapels and churches, Kirkgate and tenements and expensive houses with neglected gardens dating from the years when capital and Parliament were both in the city. But when he reached Glovers’ Yard, the booth was quite obviously closed and the windows shuttered above it.
Richard Crawford had not stopped for a meal on his way north; he was disturbed, cold and hungry. He hitched his mare to an iron hook and, taking his riding whip, began on the left side of the yard and beat methodically on every door until he finished on the right.
At the end of this operation, several bonneted, capped, tufted and indignant heads stuck in echelon, like heads from a dovecote from the three sides, and voided venomous complaints on his head. He stepped back and addressed the most responsible-looking, a blotched and stubbled gnome who listened, spat accurately on the cobbles and grinned, displaying horrid yellow teeth. “Jamie Waugh’s no in. You’ll not catch Jamie Waugh wasting his time inside on a holiday.”
“Where is he then?” asked Richard, to the interest of a swelling audience.
The yellow teeth displayed their stalwart abundance again. “I wouldna just trust myself to say,” said the aged one eggily. “Forbye, it wouldna be the least bit use to ye. Jamie Waugh never works on a holiday.”
“I don’t want him to work!” shouted Richard, trying to throw his voice two storeys up and no farther. “I only want to talk to the man.”
“D’you tell me? Well, I’m glad for ye that you’ve saved your time,” said Yellow-teeth serenely. “For you’d have just wasted your temper looking for him. Ye canna expect to speak to Jamie Waugh on a feast-day: he’s aye deid drunk on a feast-day, is Jamie.”
“I can sober him,” said Richard grimly. “Just tell me where I can reach him.”
“Sober him!” As if the words had touched off a hydraulic, Alexandrine weight the projecting heads gave a unified jerk and set themselves nodding. The ancient one looked sadly at his lordship. “Sober! You’ll not see him sober till Twelfth Night, nearabouts. Jamie’s the sturdy boy for the drink.”
There was a short silence. Richard was thinking, and the aged one was weighing him up with a rheumatic eye, setting the obvious urgency of his quest