The Harper's Quine (28 page)

‘It has a market on Tuesdays, and a wealthy church,’
said Gil, guiding his reluctant horse along the muddy
curve of the High Street. ‘You wouldn’t think it paid
customs about fifth in the kingdom, would you?’

‘Clearly, you have not seen Irvine,’ said the mason.
‘Where shall we go first? I am both hungry and thirsty.’

Finding an inn, arranging for Matt to stay with the
horses, consuming bannocks and cheese and a jug of thin
ale, took a little time, and it was past Sext when Gil and the
mason walked down to the strand.

There were several boats of varying size drawn up on
the shore, loading and unloading. At the far end of a
narrow stone wharf, several men were shouting round
a crane which they were using to hoist barrels out
of a sturdy cog. Larger ships lay in the river, and out in the
Clyde, beyond the confluence, two carvels swung at
anchor.

‘Where do we begin?’ said Gil in bewilderment.

‘You have been to sea, have you not?’

‘Aye, from Leith. From there everything’s bound for the
Netherlands. Some of these could be headed for Ireland, or
for France or even Spain. Or for the North Sea, indeed.
How do we tell which will be willing to leave us at
Rothesay?’

‘You are looking too high. I consulted a map,’ said the
mason grandly, ‘and I find that Bute is the island most near
to here. We want a fishing-boat.’

‘Does one go through this every time one travels to the
place?’ Gil wondered, following his companion along
the strand. ‘It would certainly put me off living on an
island.’

‘Oh, indeed. Why anyone would go there is beyond me,
if he did not have business there. Though at least,’ added
the mason thoughtfully, ‘the sea air is good. There is no
smell of hawthorn to make one sneeze. Ah - good day,
gentlemen.’

The last three vessels drawn up on the shore were
smaller than the others. Above them, on the grassy bank,
a group of men sat mending nets. They looked up briefly,
and one or two nodded in answer to the mason’s greeting,
then returned to their task.

Undaunted, Maistre Pierre began talking. Gil, watching
in some amusement, appreciated the way the fishermen,
tolerant at first, were gradually played in by questions about the weather, the tide, the best course for Rothesay,
the best man to sail it. At this point, recognizing that
success was in sight and money would shortly be discussed, he turned away to study the fishing-boats.

He was watching the gulls swooping across the sandy
causeway to the Castle rock when Maistre Pierre said
beside him, ‘Done. We sail in an hour. I have said we
return to the inn, tell Matt who we sail with, fetch our
scrips. There will be time also to look in at that handsome
church and say our prayers.’

‘Good work,’ said Gil. ‘You do realize, don’t you, that
you have just contracted to cross the sea in a basket?’

The mason’s jaw dropped, and he whirled to look at the
boats. The fishermen looked up at the sharp movement,
and Gil saw them grinning.

‘They are quite safe,’ he said. ‘Corachs. I have never set
foot in one, but I’ve heard of them. All the old saints used
to tramp up and down the sea-roads in these.’

‘Yes, but I am not a saint,’ said Maistre Pierre, staring at
the leather side of the nearest boat. It was tilted so that
they could see clearly how the hides were stretched outside the interlaced laths and finally stitched to the wooden
keel, or perhaps the other way about. ‘Ah, mon Dieu!’

From the stern of the Flower of Dumbarton as she slipped
creaking down the Leven on the current, out past Dumbarton Rock and into the main channel of the Clyde, there
was an excellent view of the scars of the bombardment
which had eventually ended the siege of ‘89. Gil commented on this.

‘And that was a waste of time,’ said Andy the helmsman.

‘How so?’ said Maistre Pierre beyond him.

‘They’d ha given up soon in any case. I heard they were
about out of meal. But Jamie Stewart,’ said Andy, by whom
Gil understood him to mean the young King, fourth of that
name, ‘wanted back to Edinburgh for Yule, and he had this fancy great gun, so they had to bring it down the water
and flatten poor folks’ houses with it.’

‘It meant money for some, surely,’ said Gil.

‘Aye,’ said Andy, and spat over the side. ‘And a lot of
inconvenience for the rest of us.’

‘And what speed will this excellent vessel make?’ asked
the mason, settling himself gingerly on the stem thwart.
The woven structure gave noisily under his feet.

‘Three knots,’ said Andy. ‘Maybe four.’

‘A fast walk,’ the mason translated for Gil.

‘If you can walk on the water,’ said Andy, and laughed.
‘That’s a good one, eh, maisters? If you can walk on the
water!’

‘Andy, shut your mouth,’ said the master from the bows.
He and the ship’s boy were doing something complicated
to a mound of ginger-coloured canvas.

‘She may not be so large or so fast as Andrew Wood’s
Flower,’ said the mason, ‘but I dare say she knows these
waters.’

‘Better than Andrew Wood; said the master, and
grinned. This Flower’ll no go aground on the Gantocks.’

Gil sat silent in the stem of the boat, letting the talk flow
past him like the grey water, barely aware of the mason’s
gradually improving confidence. He was feeling very
unsettled. He had been more than five years in France, but
since his return he had scarcely left Glasgow, except to
spend Yule or his birthday in familiar territory in Carluke.
Now here he was travelling again, exploring new places,
crossing the water -

‘It is extraordinary,’ said the mason. ‘This river runs not
into the open sea, but deeper into the hills, which grow
higher everywhere one looks. Tell me, maister, how do you
know which of these roadways to follow?’

He gestured at three identical arms of the river.

‘Lord love you,’ said the master, ‘what’s your trade?
Mason, aren’t you,’ he added before Maistre Pierre could
speak. ‘I can tell by your hands. How d’you know which stone will stay on another and which will fall down? Tell
me that?’

‘I see,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It is a thing learned at one’s
father’s knee.’

‘And that’s a true word,’ said the master. ‘Int it no,
silly?’

‘Aye,’ said Billy.

‘And there’s the tide,’ said Andy.

‘True enough,’ agreed the master. ‘When the tide’s on
the ebb, she’ll take you down the water and out to sea easy
enough. But when the tide’s on the make, what then?
You’ve got to know where you’re steering for, all right.
Billy, have you done with that sheet? We’ve a sail to hoist
here.’

And where am I steering? wondered Gil. Which of the
arms of the river am I headed for, and will it bring me safe
to port, or does it only strike deeper into the hills?

His uncle, bidding him farewell in the dawn, had taken
his elbow and said with unaccustomed strength of feeling,
‘You’re a good lad, Gilbert, and I want to see you right.’

‘I know that, sir,’ he had answered, startled.

‘Aye.’ There was a pause, then the Official said abruptly,
‘There’s more roads than one leads to Edinburgh, or Rome
for that matter. Are you content with the road we’ve
planned for you? The law and Holy Kirk?’

‘How should I not be, sir? It’s a secure future.’

His uncle studied him carefully.

‘You’ve not answered my question,’ he said, then raised
a hand as Gil opened his mouth to speak. ‘No. Dinna
forswear, Gilbert. I want you to think about it while you’re
away. When you come back, you can give me the answer,
and I want the truth.’ He fixed his nephew with an eye as
grey as St Columba’s. ‘You were aye a poor liar. Like your
father.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Gil helplessly, and knelt for the blessing.
So now, attempting to put in order the things he needed
to ask about in Rothesay, he kept finding his thoughts
sliding back to his uncle’s words. Was he happy with the road before him, whether it led to Edinburgh or Rome? If
he turned back from that road, what other way through
life was there? Bess Stewart had turned aside from the
road before her, to snatch at happiness with the harper,
and look where it got her. And why did the old man pick
just now, of all times, to ask a question like that?

A wave slopped over the strake beside his elbow. Gil
hitched his plaid up, and the master, having set the sail to
his liking, made his way aft and took the helm from the
mate. The Flower creaked happily in the wind.

‘Now you’ll see,’ said the master instructively, adjusting
the rope at his other hand, ‘that when we get out yonder,
off Kilcreggan, we’ll take a point or two to larboard,
because that’s what the channel does. And I’ll tell you,
maisters, that if the weather doesny shift southward from
here, you’ll be kept in Rothesay a day or two.’

‘She’ll shift,’ said Andy, looking at the sky.

‘And where is this Kikreggan?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Yonder,’ said Andy, gesturing to starboard. Gil, peering,
made out a scattering of thatched roofs under a haze of
peat smoke. How strange, he thought. It is a village, where
people live their lives, as important to them as the
Chanonry and the High Street are to me, and yet I would
not have known it was there. What other havens are out
here, invisible until pointed out by someone who knows
the coast?

Rothesay Bay was full of shipping. There seemed to be
more ships here than at Dumbarton. Several large vessels
were anchored in the bay with ferries plying to and fro, a
number of ships lay alongside a wooden jetty, and two
galleys were beached west of the castle. There were carts
and wheelbarrows on the foreshore, and a bustle of people
beyond. Over all the gulls swooped, screaming.

‘That is a strong fortress,’ Maistre Pierre observed. ‘Also
very old, I should say.’

It stood on a mound, less than a hundred paces from the water, its red stone drum towers dwarfing the houses
round it. The light caught the helmet of a man on the
walkway, and Gil, looking closer, realized there was a
competent guard of five or six on the battlements.

‘And what is that yonder?’ asked the mason, nodding at
a tall building some way to the left of the jetty.

‘Bishop’s house,’ said the master, easing the rope in his
hand. ‘Let go, Andy.’

The sail clattered and flapped into a heap in the bows
again, and the mate and the boy shipped the oars and
hauled for the shore.

Gil studied the town. It lay snugly between two small
hills, facing the bay. As well as the castle and the Bishop’s
house, there were a number of stone buildings, certainly
more and better than at Dumbarton. A handsome plastered barn stood between the castle and the shore, and
there were some timber-framed houses further inland, but
most of the dwellings were low structures covered in
thatch or turf, each at the head of its toft. Pigs, children and
small black cows roamed freely between them, and hens
pecked about everywhere. The smell of the middens
reached them on the breeze.

‘Where are ye for, maisters?’ asked the master. The
Bishop or the castle? Just I need to know which side of
the burn to set ye down.’

‘The castle,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve a letter for the chaplain.’

Sir William Dalrymple, stout and red-faced, his jerkin
caked with food under a hastily assumed moth-eaten
gown, peered anxiously at the letter Gil presented to him
under the interested gaze of the two guards on the gate.

‘Lachie Beag stepped on my spectacles; he said apologetically, handing it back. ‘I can make out the salutation,
but David’s wee writing’s beyond me. Mind, I’d know his
signature anywhere.’ He added something in Gaelic to the
guards, and one of them nodded and opened the barrier to let them pass. ‘Come into the yard and tell me what it’s
about. Are ye hungry, maisters?’

‘We have not eaten since Sext,’ said Maistre Pierre, following the portly outline of the priest along the passageway into the bustling courtyard.

‘Come to the buttery, then, and see what we can find.’
Sir William led the way round the end of the chapel, past
the smithy where several men were discussing crossbow
bolts, and up a narrow stair. ‘And is your uncle well,
Gilbert?’

Dinner was long past but the buttery men, obviously
used to their priest, found half a raised pie and some
roasted onions which nobody was using. Seated at the end
of one of the long tables with these and a plate of bannocks
and a jug of claret, Sir William rattled through a short
grace and said as the mason grimaced over the wine,
‘Now. This letter. Why is David sending to me after all
these years?’

‘It explains why we’re here,’ Gil said, and read the letter
aloud. Sir William listened attentively, with muffled exclamations, and nodded emphatically at the end.

‘Very proper, very proper,’ he said. ‘It’s high time that
was cleared up. And so Bess Stewart is dead, then? I’m
sorry to hear it, indeed, for she was a bonny girl and a
good Christian soul, until she did what she did. That
would explain the word from Ettrick, certainly.’

‘From Ettrick?’ Gil prompted, when the stout priest did
not continue.

Sir William nodded deprecatingly. ‘News came in this
week that the beann nighe had been heard at Ettrick, washing linen at the ford, on May Day at twilight.’

‘Washing? What is this?’ asked the mason, perplexed.

Sir William sighed. ‘It is a pagan thing, an evil spirit
I suppose, and I should stamp out the belief, but to be
honest, maisters, I’ve heard it myself once or twice. If you
are near a ford by night and you hear a sound like someone washing linen, slapping the wet cloth on the stones, go
away quickly and do not disturb the washer-woman, or she will have the shirt off your back. And then who knows
what will happen? But if she is heard, a death in the parish
follows.’

‘But what does she wash?’ asked the mason. ‘How can
you tell it is a spirit?’