Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [108]
“Mind you, I’m not saying he couldna be sobered. I’m just saying it’s never been tried. And while I doot there’s a soul in the Yard could tell you rightly where to find Jamie—Jamie being incapacitated to clients at Christmas, ye understand—I would be willing to stretch a point for a gentleman. You look,” said Yellow-teeth, with a certain facility, “like a sporting gentleman to me, and that’s a grand wee dirk at your belt. Forbye you claim you can sober Jamie. Aweel, I’ll gie you his location at the price of a wager. I’ll lay you a pair of gloves against your dirk that you canna bring him back to this Yard by St. Stephen’s Day normal—or as near normal as God made him. Now. There’s a fair proposition before witnesses, and a wee frolic to tell the wife about, and anyway,” he ended practically, “there isn’t a soul else can direct you to Jamie.”
Richard folded his arms and stared at the artless one. A glance at the Yard had shown him he could expect little help from there. The proposition was ludicrous: at any other time he would have dealt with it promptly and sharply. But time was against him. He swore under his breath, and then said curtly, “All right. I accept your wager. Where is he?”
He had to wait until the aged one, disappearing and re-emerging at a lower door, took fond and personal custody of his knife (“just a formality”) before he received his answer. Horny hands picking and stroking at the jewelled hilt, the old man said, “Aye, aye. I kent ye were a gentleman. You bring Jamie Waugh back sober, and I’ll have dirk and gloves set out for you. He’s at his sister’s house in the Skinnergate,” said Yellow-teeth, retreating strategically within his doorway. “The fifth on the right going down. Merton’s the name. Merton.”
Richard, unwilling amusement in the grey eyes, put a foot in the stirrup and swung himself on the mare again. “Merton of the Skinnergate. Thank you. And your own name, sir?”
“Me?” The teeth yawed. “You’re easy named a stranger: every St. Johnstone’s man kens Malcolm—Chuckie-moued Malcolm, that’s what they cry me. Malcolm Waugh at your service, sir; farther o’ Jamie of that ilk, and an honest, sober man to be cursed with yon loose black glover. Good luck to ye, sir! I’ll keep the dirk safe! Trust me, sir!”
Richard turned his horse out and suddenly laughed aloud, as windows popped shut and the peace of Christmas Eve descended again on Glovers’ Yard.
Snow had fresh-laundered the Skinnergate; had put new bonnets on its thatched roofs and dressed the stakes in the yards. But the hands and feet of the Skinnergate children had returned the narrow lane to its pristine state of mud and offal, and cold weather or no, the ripe animal smell of the trade hung resonantly about the doors.
The fifth house was easy to find: the Mertons were holding festival, and the rest of adult Skinnergate and most of its children were choked into the single room above the yard, with the overflow jamming the stairs. Jamie Waugh was easy to find also: he was sitting in the fireplace with smoke slowly rising from his skin breeches, singing acceptably through a large earthenware jug upside down on his shoulders. The corners of the room were piled with undressed sheep and calfskins of bold personality, and a young heifer couched in the middle was giving warm seating to four or five men. Beer was in free circulation, and a fat cheerful woman in an apron, whom Richard took to be Mistress Merton, was dispensing winkles from a pot of boiling water and pins from a wooden box.
She had offered Lord Culter a spoonful before the implications of his dress struck her: she blushed, put down the ladle and wiped her hands. “Were you wanting Jock, sir? He’s not in the Yard today, but if you’d call tomorrow or the next day …”
She seemed a bright, honest person. He told her what he wanted, but not of the bargain perpetrated by Waugh, senior. Her reaction was much the same as that of Glovers’ Yard. “Jamie! Oh, Jamie’ll not be sober till Candlemas, nearly.”