The Nicholas Feast by Pat McIntosh Page A

brandished the ladle again, and the three senior bachelors slid past Gil and thudded down the stairs. Gil took off his bonnet and bowed, but Mistress Dickson was already retreating into her kitchen where someone demanded to know if he had pounded these roots enough. Gil descended to the courtyard, where the tenor and the mousy-haired boy were making exaggerated gestures of relief.
    ‘Thank you, maister,’ said the third student, a stocky fellow with a round red face. ‘Agnes can be a bit –’
    ‘She can indeed,’ Gil said. Beyond Maister Coventry, Richie the Scholar and the Montgomery boy appeared from one stair and disappeared into another, like rabbits in a warren.
    ‘Did the harper no say William was behind a lock?’ asked Lowrie the tenor. ‘Why don’t we check the cellars while we’re here?’
    Gil met Patrick Coventry’s blue glance.
    ‘But have we a key?’
    ‘I have one,’ said Maister Coventry. The three students had already plunged into the vaulted passage behind the kitchen stair, and were trying doors.
    ‘Not in the wellhouse. Look in the feed store, Michael.’
    ‘William? You there? No, not a sign.’
    ‘Not in the feed store. What about the limehouse?’
    ‘The door’s open. Didn’t we – shouldn’t it be barred?’
    ‘St Eloi’s hammer, it’s dark in here. He’s no here.’
    ‘He’s no here?’ repeated the tenor, on a rising note of incredulity.
    ‘Don’t think so. Fiend hae these sacks –’
    ‘Don’t lick your fingers, you fool! Try that corner.’
    ‘No, he’s no here.’
    ‘Should we look in the coalhouse?’
    ‘Aye, try the coalhouse.’
    ‘But we left him –’
    ‘Wheesht, you gormless –’
    ‘The coalhouse is locked.’
    ‘Isn’t it always locked?’
    ‘No in the daytime. The kitchen needs in to get coals for the dinner.’
    ‘It’s locked now. William? You there?’
    ‘Stand back, please.’
    Maister Coventry, after some ferreting under his brocade cope, had produced a large key. As two more students came running across the courtyard he fitted it into the coalhouse lock and turned it. The door swung outwards, boxing the three senior bachelors into the dark passage beyond it.
    ‘He’s no in the library,’ said someone behind Gil, ‘and John Hucheson says he’s no been there, and Walter says his chamber door’s locked.’
    ‘Speak Latin, Ralph,’ said Maister Coventry, ‘and stand back out of the light. William?’ He peered into the coalhouse. ‘William?’
    ‘What is it? Have we found him?’ said someone else from the courtyard.
    Gil, looking over Maister Coventry’s head, shaded his eyes against the light from the courtyard, and suddenly turned to the students at the mouth of the passage.
    ‘Go and tell Maister Kennedy to come here,’ he ordered, ‘and bring a good lantern.’
    ‘You gentlemen too,’ said Maister Coventry, closing the door over so that the group beyond it could emerge. ‘Go and send Maister Kennedy, and then wait in the Outer Close.’
    ‘Why?’ said Lowrie. ‘Is William there? But how did he get in there?’
    ‘Is he – is he hurt?’ asked the mousy-haired one. The stocky boy said nothing, but stared at the door as he edged past it into the courtyard, then suddenly broke into a run. His friends galloped after him, and they went into the tunnel to the outer courtyard in a tight knot. Gil watched them out of sight, then reached over Patrick Coventry’s head and opened the door again.
    ‘Is it William?’ asked the Second Regent.
    ‘I think it must be.’ Gil stepped forward, cautious in the dim light. ‘Ah, there is a window.’ He unbarred the shutters and turned to look at what lay at the foot of the heap of coal, nearest the window, furthest from the door.
    ‘Lord have mercy on us,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘Are you certain? It doesn’t look like –’
    Gil swallowed hard, suddenly regretting the Almayne pottage.
    ‘The clothes are William’s,’ he said, ‘and the build and the hair are