The Fourth Crow (26 page)

‘A moment, lass,’ he said. She shrank slightly away from him, and he let go of her, aware of faint dismay. Other men might prey on the women of their households, but it was not his way; he had thought they all recognised that. Or was it simply that all the women were upset this evening? ‘Jennet, what ails your mistress?’ he asked quietly. ‘Was it something Mistress McIan said? Were you there wi her?’

‘I’ve no right knowledge,’ she said after a little pause. ‘I was the other end o the hall, you understand, Maister Gil. Maister,’ she corrected herself. He grunted agreement. ‘I never heard what – what
she
said, only what my mistress answered. She was wishing her well, if you understand me.’ Her face tilted in the shadows as if she gave him a significant look.

‘Wishing her well,’ he repeated flatly. Comprehension dawned. ‘Sweet St Giles, you mean—?’

‘That was all I heard,’ said Jennet, equally flatly.

‘Pierre has said nothing!’ he said, almost to himself.

‘She’ll no have let him know yet, it’s ower soon, when you think when they were wed. Likely my mistress surprised it out o her, you ken what she’s like for people saying things to her they never meant to say.’ She put out a hand as if to touch his wrist, and withdrew it. ‘Whatever it was madam told her, it turned her right kinna wavelly, she wasny fit to walk home. I got her to Lady Kate’s house, and we made her rest, and she recovered a bit. But there was something else I did hear and it seems like my mistress didny catch it right, and she wouldny let me tell her it.’

‘Should you be telling me?’ he asked.

‘I ken fine madam has what these Ersche call the Sight,’ Jennet persisted, ‘and she told my mistress she’d seen her, more than once she said, wi two bairns about her. One bairn, it might just be wee John, but two bairns is what she said.’

No wonder she would not hear it, Gil thought. She dare not get her hopes up.

‘Away up to your bed,’ he said. ‘I’ll unlace your mistress when we go up. Goodnight, lass. Christ guard your sleep.’

‘Good night, Maister Gil,’ she said gently. ‘God rest you.’

She bobbed a curtsy and slipped away up the stair, and he bent to set the bar in its socket, considering this news. It sat in the midst of his thoughts like a boulder; he could hardly work out how he felt about it himself, but it was certainly what had distressed Alys, and with her the whole household of women.

He turned to go back into the solar, where light under the door suggested that Alys had lit candles. The dog suddenly growled, and left him to rush away across the hall, his claws rattling on the floorboards, to stand with his muzzle against the front door, still growling.

‘What is it?’ Gil asked him, and was answered by a rattle of the tirling-pin and then a loud knocking. Light grew as the door of the solar was flung wide behind him, and he strode to his dog’s side. Another customer for the bawdy-house, he thought, who has not heard that the business has closed. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded. ‘Who’s knocking?’

‘Maister Cunningham? Maister Cunningham?’ came the answer, muffled only slightly by the broad planks. ‘Can ye come out, maister? It’s another death!’

It was the manservant from St Catherine’s, out of breath and wild with distress. Standing in the hall while Lowrie lit more candles and Gil pulled his boots back on, he gave a partially articulate account of the matter.

‘It was my wife found her,’ he said, pulling a hand across his face, ‘poor lass, she’s right owerset, after the other one, and we canny think how it happened. We’re all that distracted, and the lassies weeping and all, you need to come and see, maister. Sir Simon sent me,’ he added with a sudden access of coherence, ‘bade me ask you to come right away.’

‘But who’s dead?’ Lowrie asked. He kicked off his slipslops and reached for his own boots. Alys appeared from the stair, her plaid over her arm.

‘She’s in the chapel,’ said the man.

‘In the
chapel
?’ Gil repeated in dismay.

‘Aye, which isny good, I can tell you, maister, it’s going to take some cleaning, there’s blood on all the tiles, never mind the— And the glaze wore off them a’ready, we’ll maybe need to get the floor— And Sir Simon reckoning how long till we can reconsecrate, and Christ assoil me, sic a beating as she’s had, it’s like the other one—’

‘Who is dead?’ Alys asked. She had more success: the man stopped, drew a breath, crossed himself, and said more rationally,

‘It’s the auld wife. The dame that’s wi the party.’

‘Dame Ellen?’ said Gil, looking up from his buckles.

‘Aye, her. God rest her.’

‘But what has happened? She is in the chapel, you said?’ Alys came forward, drawing her plaid about her. ‘Is it certain she is dead?’

‘Oh, aye.’ The man swallowed. ‘Naeb’dy’s head’s that shape that isny dead.’

This was certainly the case, Gil reflected, studying the body of Dame Ellen by the light of two great racks of candles. He was glad Alys had remained in the courtyard, where the woman Bessie was still sobbing under her apron.

‘What has she been struck wi?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Our good candlestick,’ said Sir Simon glumly. ‘It’s all ower blood and brains, see.’ He indicated the object, its pewter gleam sullied and blackened by what stuck to it. ‘He’s likely all ower blood himsel, the way it’s spattered, whoever’s done it. What a task we have ahead o us, getting this back the way it should be, let alone what Robert Blacader will have to say about it. As for when he’s next in Glasgow, to reconsecrate—’ He sat down again, rather heavily, on the wall-bench where Gil had found him. ‘I keep thinking o other things to be done. The Blessed Sacrament to be destroyed by fire— Who’d do sic a deed in the presence o the Host, can you credit it? The vestments and hangings to be cleaned and reconsecrate. What will Blacader say?’

‘This is worse than what came to Peg Simpson,’ said Gil. ‘Let alone the sacrilege. And that’s far worse than what happened wi Barnabas.’ He looked round as Lowrie came pallidly back into the little building, keeping his eyes averted from the body. ‘Where are they all? The family, the servants?’

‘Lockhart has them penned up in the dining hall,’ said Lowrie, ‘since they could hardly use the men’s hall. The doctor says Sir Edward canny be told of this, he’s no more than hours from his end.’

‘I suppose we’re certain it’s Ellen Shaw,’ Gil said. ‘Most o her face is, well—’

‘Past knowing,’ agreed Sir Simon. ‘We had the woman Meggot to her, she agreed it was Dame Ellen, by the teeth and the clothes, and said she kent the hands.’

‘The teeth I’ll accept,’ said Gil, looking at the corpse. ‘Did she cry out? Is that how you came to find her?’

The dead woman lay sprawled, one arm flung up and back as if she had tried to protect herself. There were injuries to both hands, and her sleeves and one shoulder of her gown were torn. Blood, black in the candlelight, soaked the crumpled white linen of her headdress; there had clearly been a fight, which had ended in the shattering blow to her forehead that had split the skull, fragmented the eye socket, laid open the cheekbone. Broken teeth, or perhaps splinters of bone, gleamed palely within the wound in the flickering light, but the crossed front teeth by which Meggot had identified her were also visible, because her mouth was wide open, as if she had died in the moment of screaming at her attacker.
Ne is no quene so stark ne stour,
he found himself thinking,
that deth ne shal by glyde.
It had certainly not glided by this woman.

‘It was Bessie found her,’ Sir Simon said. ‘You’ll want to get a word wi her yourself, I couldny make sense o her, she was that owerset. I can tell you I never heard a thing mysel, nor had any notion there was anyone in here. I suppose she could ha crossed the yard while I was at my dinner, or – no, for I’d my dinner wi the whole o them in the dining hall, and she was there right enough.’

‘That was the last time you saw her?’

‘It was. They were all in the hall when I left, save for Sir Edward and his man, a course, and I went to deal wi some papers, sort the accounts,’ he grimaced, ‘which should ha been wi St Mungo’s at the quarter, and I canny get completed for lack of a docket from Alan Jamieson—’

‘So she could ha come across here while you were at that,’ Gil said. He hunkered down by the corpse and felt the outspread limbs, judging temperature, testing flexibility. ‘She’s no long gone, I’d say. What time was your dinner?’

‘After Vespers,’ said Sir Simon promptly. ‘Maybe seven o’ the clock. It would be eight when I cam away, likely.’

‘Two hours since.’ Gil touched the neck and jaw cautiously. ‘She’s been dead no more than an hour or so, I’d say, she’s barely beginning to set. I wonder where she was in between.’

‘Likely in here, arguing wi her murderer,’ suggested Lowrie, who was casting about the rest of the small space, his back resolutely to the corpse, a tilted candle in his hand dripping wax on the tiles. Gil suddenly thought of his father-in-law doing the same thing over Barnabas’ body the previous evening. He lifted a fold of the blood-soaked headdress, and said,

‘Has anyone sent to tell the Muirs? I think they’re kin, they should hear of this.’

‘And Canon Muir,’ said Sir Simon in dismay. ‘He should hear o’t, it’s his right as patron o the hostel, but he’ll want to owersee all—’

‘You have to let him know,’ said Gil, sharing the older man’s consternation. ‘And Will Craigie? He’s some kind of kin to her,’ he elucidated.

‘Is he now,’ said Sir Simon, distracted. ‘I’d begun to think it. He’s been here a time or two wi her, and her ordering him about like a lapdog. I heard them arguing out there in the yard this morning, you’d ha thought they were man and wife the way they were abusing one another.’

‘Is that right?’ Gil carefully did not look at the priest. ‘What was that about, then?’

‘Oh, I couldny say, my son.’ Gil waited, studying the injuries to the corpse’s hands. ‘Well, it seemed something had gone wrong, that he expected her to ha sorted for him and it hadny gone according to plan, or the like.’

‘What kind of plan? Money? Land, a position?’

‘I never caught that,’ said Sir Simon regretfully. ‘Just by what was said he hadny kept his side o the bargain either, whatever it was.
If you’d done what you promised,
she said to him, more than once.’

‘What did he answer to that?’

‘He kept saying,
It’s no that easy, it takes time.
Never said what, though. Oh, and,
What purpose it now, any road?
he said. To which she said,
Never concern yoursel, she’ll turn up, like bad money.’

‘Something concerning Annie Gibb, then?’ said Gil.

‘Doesn’t sound like a reason to kill her,’ said Lowrie doubtfully.

‘So has he been sent for?’ Gil asked. ‘Or at least let know his kinswoman’s dead.’

‘I’ll send Attie round.’ Sir Simon glanced at the small dark windows of the chapel. ‘Will it no do the morn’s morn? It’s ower late to disturb the man wi bad news. Though I suppose the Canon needs to hear, he can get the two o them wi the one lantern.’

‘No, I think he should go now. And the Muirs? They’re likely out drinking again, they’d never survive an evening of Canon Muir’s company, someone had best hunt them down and tell them. One of the Shaw servants can go once I’ve spoken to them. We should let the Provost hear and all.’ Gil stood up, hitching at the knees of his hose. ‘He’ll not be pleased, another quest.’

‘No after the day’s,’ Sir Simon agreed, grinning sourly. ‘I heard about that. Mind, he got his verdict in the end.’

‘He did.’ Gil looked round for Lowrie. ‘Is Alys still in the yard?’

‘She’s gone into the hall, to the lassies. She bade me tell you, she questioned Bessie.’

In the dining hall, at one of the long fixed tables, Alys and Meggot were attempting to bring Dame Ellen’s nieces to a more balanced state of mind. One of the girls was hiccuping again, the other was simply weeping helplessly. Alys looked round as Gil entered the hall, caught his eye and shook her head. He had to agree; there was no point in speaking to either sister just now, and Meggot was as busy as Alys.

At the other table, Lockhart had a row of four shocked menservants lined up and had clearly been questioning them; he was now casting an eye over their livery, presumably looking for bloodstains.

‘There you are, Cunningham,’ he said as Gil sat down beside him. ‘These lads were all in the hall here thegither, and then went out-by to the stables. They each speak for all.’

‘You’d swear to that?’ Gil asked, and they nodded raggedly. ‘Did any of you see Dame Ellen go to the chapel after her dinner? Or anyone else?’

The consensus seemed to be that none of them had.

‘Was any of you sent out to fetch someone to meet her? Did she send any messages at all this evening?’

Again, there was agreement: Dame Ellen had summoned nobody that the men knew of.

‘What time did she leave the hall?’

The four servants looked blank. Lockhart offered,

‘An hour or so after we sat down to dine? Maybe a bit more? Sir Simon excused himself to his duties when the meal was done, and she warned the lassies to bide here in company along wi Meggot, to save candles, and went out hersel, I thought she said she would visit her brother, see how he was, though the women say she spoke of going to the chapel . . .’ His voice tailed off. Gil nodded.

‘So none of you kens when she entered the chapel?’

The four looked at one another in the candlelight.

‘No, maister,’ said Sawney. ‘But there’s a thing.’

‘What’s that?’ Gil asked.

‘This afternoon, maister. Well, evening, it was, we was waiting out yonder in the yard, till they called us in to our dinner. This woman comes in off the street, saying she kent something about my mistress, about Annie Gibb that is. She wouldny tell it to us, said it was for our maister’s ears, so I set off to fetch Maister Lockhart here, and met Dame Ellen in the other yard, and she would know where I was off to, and said she’d speak wi the woman hersel. She took her into the chapel, to be privy, see, so we never heard what the woman had to say, and she never tellt us what it was neither. Did she tell you, maister?’