The Harper's Quine (13 page)

The Franciscans were singing Prime, the chant drifting
clearly to meet them on the morning air. Ealasaidh disappeared into the gatehouse, and emerged after a moment
bearing a basin of water and a pile of linen. Gil took the
basin from her, and followed her as she stalked into the little chapel, where one of the friars still knelt. Ealasaidh
nodded briefly to him as he rose and paced quietly out,
then she twitched the sheet unceremoniously off the corpse
and said,

‘As you said, her purse is not here. See, it hung at her
belt beside the beads.’

‘And that was where she kept the harp key?’ Gil
prompted. ‘How was it taken from the belt?’

‘No sign,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘It was nothing by-ordinary,
just a leather purse hung on loops, easy enough to cut
them. Little enough in it, too. We never carry much.’ She
bent her head abruptly.

After a moment Gil said, ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I told that good soul in your kitchen
about it. Her one jewel. My brother gave her a gold cross
on a chain, quite simple. Sweet to hold and comforting,
like her, he said. That she always wore under her shift, and
that also I miss.’

‘So perhaps it was robbery,’ said Gil. ‘Or made to look
like it.’ He looked down at the still face. ‘After all, why
would she go into that place with someone like to rob
her?’

The door creaked, and they both looked round. Alys
stepped into the chapel, bent the knee in courtesy to the
dead, and said simply, ‘I was coming in to say my prayers
when I saw you. You will need help.’

Ealasaidh’s face softened.

‘It is not right you should be here now,’ she said to Gil.
‘She was aye honest and decent, she would not have
wished you to see her stripped.’

‘I represent justice,’ said Gil, and heard the words resonate in the vault. ‘I am here on her behalf.’

‘There are things we can learn from her,’ said Alys.
‘Maister Cunningham, have you looked all you wish at the
gown? May we remove itT

‘I think so,’ said Gil. ‘Then I can look at it more
closely.’

Ealasaidh nodded and knelt by the corpse. Alys shed her plaid and knelt opposite her, working with gentle fingers
at the side-laced bodice. After some unpleasant moments
the swathe of red cloth was flung aside, to be followed by
the brocade kirtle and its sleeves. Gil lifted these and
retreated across the chapel, to Ealasaidh’s obvious relief.

The clothing told him nothing new. There was blood
dried in the back of both garments, some soaked in the
brocade under-sleeve, but not as much as might be
expected from a death-wound. The left side of the red
gown, which had been uppermost, was slightly stiffened
from the dew, and there was a small patch of mud on the
elbow of the other sleeve. There were two careful mends in
the kirtle, and fresh tapes had been stitched into the undersleeves. Gil thought of the sweet-faced woman he had seen
at the Cross, and imagined her sitting, head bent, stitching
by the window of their inmost room in the Pelican Court.
It was suddenly unbearably poignant.

• Taking up the shift he inspected it gingerly. It was soft
and white with much laundering, trimmed with a little
needlework at neck and cuffs. There was a large bloodstain
on the back and sleeve, matching those on gown and kirtle,
and sour-milk stains across the breast; apart from that it
told him nothing. Wondering if he was simply looking for
the wrong answers, he folded all three garments and set
them in a neat pile.

At the other side of the chapel, Alys had removed the
French hood and was unpinning the cap which was under
it so that Bess’s hair fell loose in two long braids. Gil lifted
the headgear. The cap was of well-washed linen like the
shift, threads pulled here and there by the pins which had
secured it to the dark braids. The hood was a structure of
wire, velvet and buckram, which he studied with interest,
having wondered more than once how such things were
constructed. Two small starry shapes floated down from
the black velvet as he turned it; lifting one on a fingertip he
held it to the light and recognized a five-petalled flower of
hawthorn, turning brown now.

Ealasaidh was speaking.

‘Here is the wound that killed her, maister, and here is
what I wanted to show you.’

They had her half-shrouded, turned on to her face so
that the final offence showed, a narrow blue-lipped gash
between the ribs on the left side.

‘Such a little wound, to end a life,’ said Ealasaidh.

But it was not the only offence committed against this
woman. Red marks, some raised, some turning silver, patterned her back. Neat parallel lines decorated one buttock.
And fat and red on her right shoulder-blade, carved with
some care, were the letters I S.

‘John Sempill’s initials,’ said Gil, as the bile rose in his
throat. ‘And she could still sing. Lord send me courage like
hers.’

‘Amen,’ said Alys.

Ealasaidh was silent, but the tears were dripping from
her chin on to the linen shroud.

‘Forgive me,’ said Gil. ‘Are there other scars? The jaw
I have seen, but -‘

‘That and her ear,’ said Alys. ‘And these. No more.’

Ealasaidh muttered something in her own language.
Alys touched her hand in sympathy, and without further
comment they completed the task of arraying Bess Stewart
for burial, turning her head to show Gil the sliced earlobe and scarred jaw before they combed out her hair to
hide it.

‘Will your brother wish to say farewell?’ Alys asked at
length.

Ealasaidh shook her head. ‘I do not know. He was
strange, last night. He is saying he may never play
again.’

‘Could he give it up like that?’

‘If he says he will, then he will. Thus far he has only said
he may. Cover her face, but do not tie the cloth, I think.’
She helped Alys fold the linen over the still face, and got
to her feet, lifting the basin and cloths. ‘These belong to
Brother Porter. Lassie, I still do not know your name, but
I thank you, as Bess would, for your charity to her.’

Alys, rising, embraced her, and turned to lift her plaid.
Gil said suddenly, ‘Ealasaidh, what like was her plaid?
Bess’s plaid that is lost? You said she was wearing it when
she went out.’

‘Her plaid?’ Ealasaidh stared at him. ‘Aye, indeed, her
plaid. It is like mine, only that I had more of the green
thread when I wove it, so the sett is four threads green and
eight of black, not two and ten. She said she never had a
plaid like it. I wove it when I was a girl in my mother’s
house.’

‘So where is it, then?’ Gil wondered.

‘The same place as her cross, likely,’ Ealasaidh said
fiercely. ‘And both in John Sempill’s hands, I have no
doubt. Go you and ask him, since he would not answer
me.’

She lifted the basin and the clothes and stalked out of
the chapel, passing one of the brothers without apparently
noticing him. He came forward, offered a blessing to Alys
and to Gil when they bent the knee to him, and settled
himself at the head of the shrouded corpse with his beads
over his hands. Gil, after one glance at Alys’s face, put a
hand under her elbow and steered her out into the
courtyard.

‘I would give a great deal that you had not seen that,’ he
said.

She shook her head, biting her lip, and gestured helplessly with her free hand. Gil clasped it too, and in a
moment she said, ‘She had survived so much, and now she
is taken from those who love her and the child who needs
her.’ She looked up at him in distress. ‘What did she think
of, when the knife went in?’

‘She may not have known it,’ Gil said. ‘It was a narrow
blade, one could see that, and she may not have felt it., He
fell silent. Then he added, ‘She had mended the kirtle.’

Her hand tightened in his, and suddenly they were
embracing, a warm exchange of comfort from the closeness
of another. After a moment she drew back gently, and Gil
let her go, aware of the scent of rosemary from her hair.

‘Will you come back to the lodgings with me,’ said
Ealasaidh beside them. ‘There were things you wished to
ask himself.’

‘May I come too, to see the baby?’ Alys asked. ‘he
maids will be a while at the market, I have time.’

They went back out on to the High Street and down the
hill, past Alys’s house, to where the market was setting up
in the open space around the Cross. Those traders lucky
enough, or prosperous enough, to have shops which faced
on to the market were laying out their wares on the front
counter. The centre space was already in good order, with
traders from other streets setting out bales of dyed cloth,
hanks of tow for spinning, cheeses, leather goods. On the
margins, others were arranging trestles or barrows, with
much argument about position and encroachment. The
serjeant, waiting with the drummer on the Tolbooth steps
to declare the market open, favoured Gil with a stately
bow as they passed.

They turned into the Thenawgait, encountering a pair of
baker’s men hurrying to their master’s stall with a board
of warm loaves, and followed the new-bread smell back
down the Fishergait. Past the bakehouse, the painted pelican still hung crooked, and the children were playing on
the midden as if they were never called in.

This time, as they stepped out of the stair-tower, a
drowsy greeting came from the shut-bed in the outer
room. Ealasaidh strode on, ignoring it, and into the room
beyond.

For a moment, following her, Gil thought the place
empty. A great clarsach was now visible at the far wall,
two smaller ones in the corner beyond. The Flemish harp
still hung by the cold chimney, and below it the harper sat
erect and motionless in his great chair, the determined
mouth slack, hands knotted together so that the knuckles
showed white in the dim light.

‘Aenghus,’ said his sister. He did not answer. She closed
the door, crossed the room to fling open the shutters, and turned to stare intently at him. Alys slipped to the further
door.

‘You see,’ said Ealasaidh to Gil. ‘He has never moved
since the mourners left last night.’

‘Nancy is not here,’ said Alys in the other doorway. ‘Nor
the baby.’

Ealasaidh, with a sharp exclamation, strode past her. The
room was clearly empty but for Alys, but Ealasaidh peered
into the shut-bed and felt the blankets in the wicker cradle
next to it. Then she turned on her heel, meeting Alys’s eye
briefly, and came back into the outer room.

‘Aenghus!’ she said loudly. ‘Where is the bairn? Where
are Nancy and the bairn?’

She began to repeat the question in her own language,
but the harper turned his head to face her voice.

‘Gone,’ he said. She stiffened, but he went on harshly,
‘They are all gone. Bess, and Ealasaidh, and my son. The
bairn wept sore for his mammy. The lassie took him to her
own mother.’

‘When? When was this?’

‘All gone,’ he said again.

‘Aenghus.’ She spoke intensely in her own language.
After a moment, one hand came up and grasped her
wrist.

Gil, still watching, said, ‘When did he eat last?’

‘The dear knows. He would not eat yesterday, only the
usquebae. Aenghus -‘

‘I will get the fire going; said Alys in practical tones.
‘Maister Cunningham, can you fetch in some food? The
market should be open by now.’

He did not need to go as far as the market. By the time
he returned, with two fresh loaves from the baker across
the Fishergait, a quarter of a cheese from the man’s back
shop, and a jug of ale, the harper was combed and tidied
and wearing a leather jerkin over his saffron shirt.
Ealasaidh was clattering pots in the inner room, and as Gil
set down his purchases she bore in a steaming dish of
sowans.

‘Eat that, mac Iain,’ she said, putting dish and spoon in
her brother’s hands. He began obediently to sup the
porridge-like mess, and she carried off the loaves and
cheese. ‘Here is the lawyer to learn about Bess.’

‘Where is the demoiselle Alys?’ Gil asked.

The white eyes turned to him. ‘She has gone too. They
are all gone.’

‘Ealasaidh is come back,’ said Ealasaidh firmly. ‘Stop
your wandering and speak sense to the man of law.’ She
gestured helplessly with her gully-knife at Gil, and went
on cutting wedges off a loaf. ‘The lassie went home,
I think. She slipped away once the fire was hot.’

‘Tell me about Bess,’ said Gil gently. ‘How old was she?
Who was her first husband? What happened to him?’

‘She was the bonniest thing that ever stepped through
my life,’ said the harper, setting down his spoon in the
half-eaten sowans. His fingers clenched and unclenched on
the rim of the dish.

‘She was quiet,’ said Ealasaidh, ‘and kind, and sensible.
A woman to take her turn at the cooking and do it well, for
all she owned a house in Rothesay.’

‘She was a good woman,’ said the harper. ‘It was always
a great wonder to me,’ he said distantly, suddenly becoming rational, ‘that she came away with me, for she was
devout, and honest, and lawful. And as my sister says, she
owned a house and land, and yet she crossed Scotland
with us, laughing when she fell in the mud, and said she
was happy with us, for that we loved her.’

‘And in especial after the bairn came,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘It
was a great joy to her that she had given himself a son.’

She was, it seemed, five- or six-and-twenty. Her first
husband had been a Bute man, and had died of plague
leaving her a very young widow with a respectable tierce
and a couple of properties outright. Neither the harper nor
his sister knew his name.

‘He was kind to her,’ said the harper. ‘She told me that
once. Not like the second one.’

‘She lost the tierce, of course, when she took Sempill,’ Ealasaidh observed, ‘but there was jewels and such, and
two plots in Rothesay, and a bit of land at Ettrick that was
her dower.’

‘What happened to them?’ Gil asked, more at home with
this kind of enquiry.