The Harper's Quine (2 page)

Gil took advantage of the general movement to climb a
few steps up the nearest fore-stair, where several people
were already perched out of reach of the elbows and feet
of the mob.

‘More!’ shouted someone. ‘Anther tune!’

The band made its reluctance clear. A short argument
developed, until someone else shouted, The harper - fetch
the harper!’

‘Aye, the harper!’ agreed several voices at once. The cry
was taken up, and the band filed down the steps, carrying
its instruments, and headed purposefully for the nearest
ale-wife’s trestle.

‘This will be good,’ said someone beside Gil. He looked
round, and found the next step occupied by a tall, slender
girl with a direct brown gaze above a narrow hatchet of a
nose. ‘The harper,’ she added. ‘Have you heard him? He
has two women that sing.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ he admitted, gazing appreciatively.

‘They sang Greysteil at the Provost’s house at Yule.’

‘What, the whole of it? All four thousand lines?’

She nodded. ‘It took all afternoon. It was Candlemas
before the tune went out of my head.’

‘I have never heard it complete. There can’t be many
singers could perform it like that.’

‘They took turns,’ she explained, ‘so neither voice got
tired, and I suppose neither needed to learn the whole
thing. One of them had her baby with her, so she had to
stop to nurse it.’

‘What about the audience?’ said Gil.

The brown eyes danced. ‘We could come and go,’ she
pointed out. ‘I noticed the Provost found duties elsewhere
in his house.’

‘And his lady?’ said Gil, half at random, fascinated by
her manner. She was dressed like a merchant’s daughter, in
well-cut brown linen faced with velvet, and she was
clearly under twenty, but she spoke to him as directly as
she looked, with none of the archness or giggling he had
encountered in other girls of her class. Moreover, she was
tall enough to look nearly level at him from the next step
up. What was that poem some King of Scots wrote in
captivity? The fairest or the freschest yong flower That ever
I saw, me thocht, before that hour. It seemed to fit.

‘Lady Stewart had to stay,’ she acknowledged. ‘I thought
she was wearying by the end of the afternoon.’

She spoke good Scots with a slight accent which Gil was
still trying to place when there was a disturbance beyond
the Tolbooth, and the crowd parted to make way for three
extraordinary figures. First to emerge was a sweet-faced
woman in a fashionably cut dull red gown and a newfangled French hood, who carried a harper’s chair. After
her came another woman, tall and gaunt, her black hair
curling over her shoulders, pacing like a queen across the
paved market-place in the loose checked dress of a Highlander. In one arm she clasped a harp, and on the other she
led a man nearly as tall as Gil. He wore a rich gown of blue
cloth, in which he must have been uncomfortably warm, a
gold chain, and a black velvet hat with a sapphire in it.
Over chest and shoulders flowed long white hair and a
magnificent beard. At the sight a child on its father’s shoulders wailed, ‘Set me down, Da, it’s God the Faither!
He’ll see me!’

The harper was guided up the Tolbooth steps, seated
himself with great dignity, accepted harp and tuning-key,
and as if there was not a great crowd of people watching,
launched into a formal tuning prelude.

‘How the sound carries,’ Gil said.

‘Wire strings,’ said the girl. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t
heard him before. Did he not play when the King stayed
with the Bishop last winter? Archbishop,’ she corrected
herself.

‘My uncle mentioned a harper,’ Gil recalled.

‘I thought you would have attended him,’ she said. ‘The
Official of Glasgow is important, no? He is the senior judge
of the diocese? His nephew should be present to give him
consequence.’

‘You know me?’ said Gil in French, suddenly placing her
accent.

‘My nurse - Catherine - knows everyone,’ she answered
enigmatically. ‘Hush and listen.’

The Highland woman on the Tolbooth steps was arguing
with some of the crowd, apparently about what they were
to sing. The other was watching the harper, who, face
turned unseeing towards the Waulkergait, continued to
raise ripples of sound from the shining strings. Suddenly
he silenced the instrument with the flat of his hand, and
with a brief word to the women began to play the introduction to a May ballad. They took up the tune without
hesitation, the two voices echoing and answering like
birds.

Gil, listening raptly, thought how strong was the rapport
between the three musicians, in particular the link between
the blind man and the woman in the red dress. When the
song ended he turned to his companion.

‘My faith, I’ve heard worse in Paris,’ he said over the
crowd’s applause.

‘You know Paris? Were you there at the University?’ she said, turning to look at him with interest. ‘What were you
studying? When did you leave?’

‘I studied in the Faculty of Laws,’ he answered precisely,
‘but I had to come home a couple of years since - at the
end of ‘89.’

‘Of course,’ she said with ready understanding, ‘the
Cunninghams backed the old King in ‘88. Were all the lands
forfeit since the battle? Are you left quite penniless?’

‘Not quite,’ he said stiffly, rather startled by the breadth
of her knowledge. She gave him a quick apologetic
smile.

‘Catherine gossips. What are they playing now? Aren’t
they good? It is clear they are accustomed to play
together.’

The Highlander woman had coaxed the taborer’s drum
from him, and was tapping out a rhythm. The other
woman had begun to sing, nonsense syllables with a pronounced beat, her eyes sparkling as she clapped in time.
Some of the crowd were taking up the clapping, and the
space before the Tolbooth was clearing again.

‘Will you dance?’ Gil offered, to show that he had not
taken offence. The apologetic smile flashed again.

‘No, I thank you. Catherine will have a fit when she
finds me as it is. Oh, there is Davie-boy.’ She nodded at the
two youngsters Gil had been watching earlier. ‘I see he has
been at the May-games. He is one of my father’s men,’ she
explained.

The dancers had barely begun, stepping round and back
in a ring to the sound of harp, tabor and voice, when there
was shouting beyond the Tolbooth, and two men in helmets and quilted jacks rode round the flank of the Laigh
Kirk.

‘Way there! Gang way there!’

The onlookers gave way reluctantly, with a lot of argument. More horsemen followed, well-dressed men on
handsome horses, and several grooms. Satin and jewels
gleamed. The cavalcade, unable to proceed, trampled about in the mouth of the Thenawgait, with more confused
shouting.

‘Who is it?’ wondered Gil’s companion, standing on
tiptoe to see better.

‘You mean Catherine did not expect them?’ he asked
drily. ‘That one on the roan horse is some kind of kin
of mine by marriage, more’s the pity - John Sempill of
Muirend. He must have sorted out his little difficulty
about Paisley Cross. That must be his cousin Philip behind
him. Who the others might be I am uncertain, though they
look like Campbells, and so do the gallowglasses. Oh, for
shame!’

The men-at-arms had broken through the circle of
onlookers into the dancing-space, and were now urging
their beasts forward. The dancers scattered, shouting and
shaking fists, but the rest of the party surged through the
gap and clattered across the paving-stones to turn past the
Tolbooth and up the High Street.

Immediately behind the men-at-arms rode Sempill of
Muirend on his roan horse, sandy-haired in black velvet
and gold satin, a bunch of hawthorn pinned in his hat with
an emerald brooch, scowling furiously at the musicians.
After him, the pleasant-faced Philip Sempill seemed for a
moment as if he would have turned aside to apologize, but
the man next him caught his bridle and they rode on,
followed by the rest of the party: a little sallow man with
a lute-case slung across his back, several grooms, one with
a middle-aged woman behind him, and in their midst
another groom leading a white pony with a lady perched
sideways on its saddle. Small and dainty, she wore green
satin trimmed with velvet, and golden hair rippled down
her back beneath the fall of her French hood. Jewels glittered on her hands and bosom, and she smiled at the
people as she rode past.

‘Da!’ said the same piercing little voice in the crowd. ‘Is
that the Queen of Elfland?’

The lady turned to blow a kiss to the child. Her gaze met
Gil’s, and her expression sharpened; she smiled blindingly and blew him a kiss as well. Puzzled and embarrassed, he
glanced away, and found himself looking at the harper,
whose expressionless stare was aimed at the head of the
procession where it was engaged in another argument
about getting into the High Street. Beside him, the tall
woman in the checked gown was glaring malevolently in
the same direction, but the other one had turned her head
and was facing resolutely towards the Tolbooth. What has
Sempill done to them? he wondered, and glancing at the
cavalcade was in time to see Philip Sempill looking back at
the little group on the steps as if he would have liked to
stay and listen to the singing.

‘Who is she?’ asked Gil’s companion. ‘Do you know
her?’

‘I never saw her before.’

‘She seemed to know you. Whoever she is,’ said the girl
briskly, ‘she’s badly overdressed. This is Glasgow, not
Edinburgh or Stirling.’

‘What difference does that make?’ Gil asked, but she
gave him a pitying glance and did not reply. The procession clattered and jingled away up the High Street, followed by resentful comments and blessings on a bonny
face in roughly equal quantities. The dance re-formed.

‘What is a gallowglass?’ said the girl suddenly. Gil
looked round at her. ‘It is a word I have not encountered.
Is it Scots?’

‘I think it may be Ersche,’ Gil explained. ‘It means a
hired sword.’

‘A mercenary?’

‘Nearly that. Your Scots is very good.’

‘Thank you. And now if you will-let me past,’ she added
with a glance at the sun, ‘I will see if I can find Catherine.
She was to have come back for me.’

‘May I not convoy you?’ suggested Gil, aware of a
powerful wish to continue the conversation. ‘You
shouldn’t be out unattended, today of all days.’

‘I can walk a few steps up the High Street without
coming to grief. Thank you,’ she said, and the smile flick ered again. She slipped past him and down the steps
before he could argue further, and disappeared into the
crowd.

The harper was playing again, and the tall Highlander
woman was beating the tabor. The other woman was
singing, but her head was bent and all the sparkle had
gone out of her. The fat wife who was now standing next
to Gil nudged him painfully in the ribs.

‘That’s a bonny lass to meet on a May morning,’ she
said, winking. ‘What did you let her go for? She’s a good
age for you, son, priest or no.’

‘Thank you for the advice,’ he said politely, at which she
laughed riotously, nudged him again, and began to tell
him about a May morning in her own youth. Since she had
lost most of her teeth and paused to explain every name
she mentioned Gil did not attempt to follow her, but
nodded at intervals and watched the dance, his pleasant
mood fading.

That was twice this morning he had been taken for a
priest. It must be the sober clothes, he thought, and
glanced down. Worn boots, mended black hose, black
jerkin, plain linen shirt, short gown of black wool faced
with black linen. Maybe he should wear something
brighter - some of the Vicars Choral were gaudy enough.
It occurred to him for the first time that the girl had not
addressed him as a priest, either by word or manner.

He became aware of a disturbance in the crowd. Leaning
out over the handrail he could see one man in a tall felt
hat, one in a blue bonnet, both the worse for drink and
arguing over a girl. There was a certain amount of pulling
and pushing, and the girl exclaimed something in the
alarmed tones which had caught his attention. This time he
knew the voice.

The stair was crowded. He vaulted over the handrail,
startled a young couple by landing in front of them, and
pushed through the people, using his height and his
elbows ruthlessly. The man in the hat was dressed like a
merchant’s son, in a red velvet doublet and a short gown with a furred collar caked in something sticky. The other
appeared to be a journeyman in a dusty jerkin, out at the
elbows. As Gil reached them, both men laid hold of his
acquaintance from the stairway, one to each arm, pulling
her in opposite directions, the merchant lad reaching suggestively for his short sword with his other hand.

This could be dealt with without violence. Gil slid
swiftly round behind the little group, and said clearly,
‘Gentlemen, this is common assault. I suggest you
desist.’

Both stared at him. The girl twisted to look at him over
her shoulder, brown eyes frightened.

‘Let go,’ he repeated. ‘Or the lady will see you in court.
She has several witnesses.’ He looked round, and although
most of the onlookers suddenly found the dance much
more interesting, one or two stalwarts nodded.

‘Oh, if I’d known she kept a lawyer,’ said the man in the
hat, and let go. The other man kept his large red hand on
the girl’s arm, but stopped pulling her.

‘It’s all right, Thomas,’ she said breathlessly. ‘This gentleman will see me home.’

‘You certain?’ said Thomas indistinctly. ‘Does he ken
where ‘tis?’ She nodded, and he let go of her wrist and
stepped back, looking baffled. ‘You take her straight
home,’ he said waveringly to Gil. ‘Straight home, d’you
hear me?’

‘Straight home,’ Gil assured him. ‘You go and join the
dancing.’ If you can stay upright, he thought.