The Harper's Quine (17 page)

‘What a waste, indeed,’ said Maistre Pierre, pushing open
the gate into St Mungo’s yard. ‘So the gallowglass knew
her already. Should we speak to him again, think you?’

‘We must,’ said Gil. ‘And I wonder about going down to
Bute.1

‘Is it far?’

‘You take a ship from Dumbarton, or maybe Irvine.’

‘I have contacts in Irvine,’ said the mason thoughtfully.
‘Alys can manage for a day or two without me.’

‘Alys can manage anything, I think,’ said Gil. ‘Did she
organize that by herself this afternoon? As well as fetching
the child and its nurse home.’

‘She did,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, completely failing to
conceal his pride. ‘When I suggested it to her it was
already in hand. And all without a cross word in the
kitchen, so Catherine tells me, although Bridie Miller never
came to help.’

‘Her mother is dead? Who was she?’

‘Yes, in ‘88, just before we came to Scotland, poor Marie.
Who was she? She was the niece - well, he said she was his
niece - of a parish priest, poor as a grasshopper in all but
his learning, in a God-forsaken place inland from Nantes.
Claimed to be of the same family as Peter Abelard, if you’ll
believe it. He dropped dead an hour after he handed me
the patron’s money for the new east window, so I married
the girl and took her back to Nantes with me, and never
regretted it in fifteen years.’

‘And just the one child?’

‘Just the one. She has run my household for four years
now. I suppose I should find her a husband, if only to be
rid of Robert Walkinshaw, whom she does not affect, but
what would I do without her, Maister Cunningham?’

‘I find it extraordinary,’ said Gil, ‘that you and the demoiselle should have been in Glasgow since before
I came home, and our paths never crossed. I’ve been
mewed up in the Chanonry, I suppose, learning to be a
notary, and seen little enough of the town.’

‘And before that you were in Paris, as we were. You
were recalled after Stirling field?’

‘There was no more money,’ said Gil frankly. ‘I had
studied long enough to determine - to graduate Bachelor
of Laws - in ‘89, but there was no chance of a doctorate.
And my father and both my brothers died on Sauchie
moor, most of the land was forfeit, my mother needed
things sorted out. I had to come home as soon as I was
granted my degree.’

He was silent, recalling the scene in the Scots College
when the news of the battle arrived, the strong young men
weeping in the courtyard, and the unlikely sympathy of
the English students who had experienced the same shock
three years earlier when Welsh Henry took Bosworth
field.

The Cunninghams were not the only family to have been
affected, when the young Prince of Scotland and his
advisers took up arms against his father, the third King
James, and met on a moor near Stirling in a tiresome affray
which ended in the mysterious death of the elder James.
There had been some strange alliances and enmities forged
in that battle and in the troubled weeks which followed
it.

‘Well,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘we grow melancholy again.
Come and look at this.’

He led Gil down the slope, past the thatch of the lodge,
across the path that led to the crypt door, into the dump of
trees where they had found Davie.

‘The boy was here, no?’ he said, gesturing. “The mark is
still to be seen where he lay. Now look at this.’

He indicated the branch of a sturdy beech which leaned
above the recovering grasses and green plants where the
boy had huddled. The branch was perhaps chest-high to either of them, and on its western side, about three feet
from the trunk, was a scraping bruise in the bark.

‘Interesting.’ Gil bent closer. The bark was damaged and
split, and the powdery green stuff which coated trunk and
branches had been rubbed away. ‘What has happened
here?’

‘Has whoever struck the boy hit the branch as well?’

‘Why should one do that?’

‘By accident, naturally. On the way down, or on the
back-swing. Or - what do golfers call it? - when the swing
continues after you have hit the ball?’

‘We never thought of a golf-club as a weapon.’

‘Whatever he used, it is not here,’ said Maistre Pierre
firmly, wiping his hands on his jerkin. ‘I will swear to that.
We have searched every ell of this kirkyard, from the gates
up yonder down to the Molendinar, and Luke spent this
morning guddling in the burn itself.’

‘Very strange,’ said Gil. ‘I wish the boy would waken.
Has Alys learned anything about the girl? If we could find
her -‘

‘Ah!’ The mason dug in his pouch. ‘Alys was much
concerned with our guests, she had not time to speak, with
having less help than she had depended on, but she gave
me this.’ He unfolded a slip of paper. ‘Annie Thomson, in
Maggie Bell’s ale-house at the Brigend,’ he read carefully,
and showed it to Gil.

The writing was neat and accomplished, the spelling no
wilder than Gil’s own. Admiring the economy of ‘elhus’,
Gil commented, `That’s in the Gorbals - the Brigend. By
the leper-house. I’ve heard of it.’

‘Well, even on the other side of the river they must
drink,’ said the mason, putting the paper back in his
pouch. ‘Come, let us leave this place, I have seen enough
of it for now.’

‘I want to look at something else.’ Gil set off up the
slope. ‘You know, if you found yourself a son-in-law who
could move in with you, Alys would not have to go
away.’

‘I thought of that. The trouble is, I would have to live
with him too, and she and I would look for different
qualities. It isn’t easy. You’ll find that yourself when
you -‘

‘If I am to be a priest,’ said Gil, the familiar chill knotting
in his stomach, ‘I will never have to seek a son-in-law.’

‘The two are not necessarily separate. Many of those in
the Church have children and acknowledge them. Look at
Bishop Elphinstone in Aberdeen. His father did well by
him, from all one hears.’

‘A vow is a vow,’ said Gil, ‘and a promise is a promise.
Robert Elphinstone’s father was not yet priested when he
was born - and by what my uncle says he would never
have been allowed to marry the lady anyway. No, some
are able to break their vows daily and still sleep at night,
but I am not among them.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I want to look in the haw-bushes opposite the south
door where the gallowglass left Bess Stewart waiting for
her husband. These bushes.’

‘What do you hope to find?’

‘After two days, not a lot.’ Gil stepped into the ring
of trees, looking round in the dappled, scented light.
‘Now if I was a woman waiting for someone I barely
trusted …’

‘he weapon is not here,’ said Maistre Pierre doggedly,
and sneezed.

‘No, I agree. Whoever struck the boy, wherever he has
gone, he kept hold of the weapon. How tall was she?’

‘About so? A little more than.Alys?’

Gil measured off the level which Alys’s head had
reached as she tied the fringed black silk on his arm before
the funeral. Holding out his hand at that height, he turned
from tree to tree, parting the young leaves and peering
under them. Maistre Pierre did likewise at the other side of
the circle, sneezing from time to time. Birds chirruped
above their heads.

‘What are we looking for?’ the mason asked.

‘Any sign that she was here. There were hawthorn
flowers in her headdress, but there are other haw-bushes.
If we find nothing, it does not disprove Euan’s story, but
…’ Gil paused, looking closer at the spray of may-blossom
he was holding back. ‘Ah. Come and look at this.’

Maistre Pierre obeyed, with another explosive sneeze.

‘The smell of these flowers!’ he complained. ‘What have
you here?’

‘There.’ Gil pointed. ‘A scrap of thread, look, on that
thorn.’ Carefully he dislodged it. ‘The shade of green is
certainly very like Ealasaidh’s plaid.’

The mason, covering his nose with one big hand, peered
at the little twist of colour.

‘And this atomy,’ he said, wondering, ‘tells us she was
here.’

Gil looked round.

‘She stood under this tree,’ he agreed, ‘waiting while
Euan went into the kirk and her killer came out to meet
her. May I have that paper? It would do to keep it safe.’ He
folded the wisp of yarn close in Alys’s writing and stowed
both carefully in his purse.

‘You know, it’s a strange thing,’ he added, looking round
at the encircling trees. ‘We had evidence, and now we have
more, that Bess was here. We have repeated sightings of
Davie and whatever girl it was - they were here, they were
there, they were yonder down the slope. But after all the
people went in to Compline we have no sign of anyone
else in the kirkyard. It’s as if whoever struck Davie was as
invisible as his weapon.’

‘Perhaps it was the same person that stabbed Bess.’

‘No,’ said Gil regretfully. ‘We abandoned that hypothesis
early, remember. The knife is not here - if it was the same
person, then he still had the knife, so why use an invisible
stick? We are missing something, Maistre Pierre.’

The mason, turning away, sneezed explosively,

‘Let us go away,’ he said plaintively. ‘I will not miss
these confounded flowers. What do we do now? Go down
to cross the river and question Annie Thomson?’

‘That, or go to my uncle’s house,’ said Gil, following him
out of the kirkyard. ‘I set Maggie that keeps house for us
to find out what she could, and my uncle accepted Sempill’s invitation this afternoon. There may be information.
Or - wait. Do you speak Italian? I’ve only a little.’

‘Italian? I do. Oh, you think of the musician? Why not,
indeed? We question him, and then we are next to your
uncle’s house.’

‘My thought also. The lassie Thomson will keep,
I hope.’

The mastiff had clearly been shut up for the afternoon,
and was still raging fruitlessly in the darkness of her
kennel as Gil and the mason crossed the courtyard of the
Sempill house. When she stopped baying to draw breath
they heard her claws scraping on the stout planks which
contained her.

‘I hope that creature is securely chained,’ observed
Maistre Pierre.

‘Sempill claims she is,’ Gil answered.

The house door was open, and within was a noisy
disorganized bustle of servants shouting and hurrying
about with plate and crocks from the hall. Euphemia’s
stout companion backed out of a door with an armful of
ill-folded linen, shouting, ‘And the same for your mother’s
brat, Agnes Yuill!’

‘My mother!’ Another woman erupted after her into the
screens passage, brandishing a bundle of wooden servingspoons. ‘I’ll tell ye, Mally Murray, what my mother says of
yon yellow-headed strumpet! It’s no my place to dean
blood off her fancy satin -‘

Catching sight of their audience, she turned to bob a
curtsy. ‘Your pardon, maisters,’ she said in more civil,
tones, tucking the spoons out of sight behind her skirts.
‘What’s your pleasure? Are you here for the burial, for if so
I’m feared you’re too late.’

‘It’s that lawyer,’ said Mistress Murray, her plump face
suspicious. ‘If ye’re wanting a word with Euphemia, maister, it’s no possible, for she’s away to lie down. She’s
had a busy day of it, what with one thing and another.’

‘No, I thank you,’ said Gil. ‘No need to disturb her if
she’s in her bed. Would you ask Maister Sempill if we
might get a word with the Italian musician?’

‘What, Anthony?’ said Mistress Murray. ‘You’ll no get
much out of him. If he’s got ten words of Scots he’s no
more.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Gil politely, ‘we would like a word
with him.’

She stared at them, then sniffed and said, ‘Aye, Agnes.
Away and tell the maister what they’re asking.’

‘Where is he?’

‘How should I know? I wish that friend of Marriott
Kennedy’s had stayed longer. We could ha done with her.’
Mistress Murray hitched her armful of linen higher and set
off purposefully for the door at the far end of the passage.
Agnes shrugged, and ducked back into the hall, past two
men carrying a bench.

After some time, during which the visitors had ample
opportunity to study the temperament of the household,
she returned, dragging the alarmed lutenist.

‘The maister says, what’s your will wi him, maisters?’
she reported. ‘You can talk in the yaird, he says, and no to
be long, for he’s wanted to play for them up the stair.’

‘Agnes!’ said the Italian, twisting in her grasp. ‘Cosa
succede?’

‘May we speak to you?’ said Gil. ‘I wish to ask you some
questions.’

The mason translated, and the musician stopped
squirming and gaped at him.

‘Che hai detto? Questione? Perche, messeri?’ He broke into
a torrent of speech and gesture which appeared to deny all
knowledge of anything.

Gil gestured at the fore-stair, and Agnes said robustly,
‘Away out and talk to them, man, and get out from underfoot.’ She pushed him forward and slammed the door
behind him.

Antonio was coaxed down into the yard with some
difficulty, and stood, apparently on the point of flight,
looking from Gil to the mason and back. Feeling like a man
baiting a suckling calf, Gil looked down at him and said,
‘You know that a woman was killed in the churchyard on
May Day?’

The mason translated this, and the musician looked even
more alarmed.

‘Non so niente! Niente, niente.’

‘He says he knows nothing,’ the mason translated.

Gil nodded. ‘I surmised that. Ask if he saw anything
unusual when he came out of St Mungo’s.’

The dark gaze flicked from his face to the mason’s, a hint
of - surprise? relief? - in the man’s expression.

‘San Mungo?’ It sounded like relief. ‘La cattedrale? No -
vedevo niente insolito.’ He shook his head emphatically. Gil
studied him, considering his next question.

‘You didn’t see the woman standing in the trees?’

Maistre Pierre translated this, and got a blank look and
a surprised answer.