The Harper's Quine (29 page)

‘Who washes clothes by twilight?’ said Gil. ‘I have heard
of such a thing, in my nurse’s tales. Did one of the old
heroes not meet her? Finn, or one of those?’

‘Aye, very possibly,’ said Sir William. ‘Anyway she was
heard at Ettrick, so they were all waiting for a death in the
parish, and when nobody seemed like to die and there
were no accidents, of course the entire parish began to
reckon up who was off the island that she might wash for.
They will certainly believe it was for Bess, if she is
dead.’

‘She is dead,’ Gil agreed, ‘under sad circumstances.
There is no doubt it was secret murder, forethought murder, and I am charged with finding the killer.’

‘Well,’ said Sir William. ‘And how can I help you? What
do you need to know?’

‘Tell me about Bess Stewart; Gil said. ‘Did you know
her, sir?’

‘I baptized them both. Bonny bairns they were, too, her
and her sister. Well-schooled, obedient lassies, able to read
and write their names, modest and well-behaved for all
their mother died when they were young.’ He sighed.
‘I wedded her to Edward Stewart, and I witnessed his will.
He was a good man, and a loving husband to her. Then her
good-brother handfasted her to the man Sempill, after
Edward died, and I think she was never happy again.’

‘You witnessed her first husband’s will,’ Gil repeated.
‘Do you remember the terms? How was the outright
bequest worded?’

‘Oh, I canny mind that. It was near ten years ago;
Dalrymple pointed out. ‘She’d lose the tierce when she
remarried, of course, but there was the house, and I suppose the use of the furnishings.’

‘That would be the house she left when she ran off with the harper,’ said the mason, cutting another slice off the
pie.

‘Aye, it was. That was a mystery.’

‘Tell us about it,’ Gil prompted. ‘It was November,
wasn’t it? Before Martinmas?’

‘It was,’ said Dalrymple, giving him a startled glance.
‘Janet McKirdy the Provost’s wife was full of guilt after it
happened, for they’d met in her house at Allhallows E’en
when she had the guizers’ play acted in the yard. Then not
ten days later the harper left in a night, and Bess Stewart
with him.’

‘And what was the mystery?’ asked the mason, chewing.
‘What was it that must be cleared up?’

‘Why, the money,’ said Sir William. ‘She took every
penny there was in the house away with her, and the plate,
and her jewels, but the next we heard she was in Edinburgh, and living on the harper’s earnings. Whether she’d
lost it, or spent it, or given it away, nobody knows.’

‘There was no money in her box,’ said Gil. ‘How much
plate would this be?’

‘Edward Stewart was cousin to Ninian Stewart the Provost,’ said Sir William. ‘He was a bien man, very comfortable. I remember a considerable amount of plate when
I was in the house. All silver, of course, gold’s not to be
found in Rothesay, except when the King’s in residence,
but nevertheless …’ He took the last roasted onion and bit
into it reflectively. ‘Twenty-five or thirty pounds weight,
maybe.’

The mason whistled.

‘Did his kin not reclaim it when she remarried?’ Gil
asked.

‘They tried to, but the man Sempill resisted. It was to
come to the head court in the February. They made an
inventory, and lodged it with Alexander Stewart, and got
Sempill to sign it as well. We’re honest folk on Bute,
maisters. Well, mostly.’

‘How would she carry that much?’ the mason wondered. ‘It is a great burden, even as far as the shore.’

‘Oh, she’d not go by the shore,’ said Sir William. ‘You
can wait days for the right wind, in November. They
would go round by Rhubodach, to the ferry.’

‘When was all this discovered?’ Gil asked.

‘Not till the morning. Her good-brother came calling,
and found the servants in disarray, and her chamber door
shut. It seems she’d barred it with a kist and climbed out
of the window. He raised a band to follow, but they’d
made good time and she was off the island, so he turned
back. Once they got in among the hills, there’d be little
hope of finding them.’

‘Burdened by a chest containing twenty-five or thirty
pounds of silver,’ said Gil, ‘as well as money and jewels,
they had made such good time that a mounted band could
not catch them?’

There was a short silence.

‘It is strange, when you look at it,’ admitted Sir
William.

‘Who else lived in the house with her?’

‘She’d a waiting-woman, a kinswoman of some sort, and
two-three kitchen girls, of course, and two outside men
and a pair of swordsmen.’

‘So her kinswoman did not share her chamber? Quite a
household.’ Gil pushed the crumbs of his bannock into a
heap. ‘That is strange, for the harper’s sister never mentioned that Bess had money. Indeed, she told me that as
soon as the bairn could be left, Bess was helping to earn
her keep.’

‘There was a bairn, was there? Poor Bess.’ Sir William
looked blankly at the empty dishes. ‘Is that all the food
there was? Come and leave your scrips in my chamber,
and I will lead you to Alexander Stewart.’

The lawyer, it seemed, lived away up the Kirkgait.
Having left their baggage in the priest’s stuffy chamber in
the loft above the chapel, they went out at the postern, into
the busy little town.

There were still a lot of people about, even this late in
the afternoon, men from the foreshore in tarry jerkin and hose, shipmasters and merchants in furred woollen gowns
and felt hats, Highlanders in shirt and belted plaid. The
women gossiping at one street corner wore checked gowns
like Ealasaidh’s, those at the next were in good wool.
Many of the passers-by greeted Sir William, who had a
name and a blessing for everyone.

They turned inland and walked round the castle walls,
passing the mercat cross where a man with a tabor and
pipe had an audience of children and time-wasters. Sir
William, ignoring this, pointed out one of the stone houses
as the Provost’s.

‘Same stone as the castle,’ said the mason. ‘I know that
soft stuff. You can shape it with axes.’ He stopped. ‘Maister
Cunningham, do you need me to help you talk to a
lawyer?’

‘I could likely manage without you.’

‘Then I will go and walk about this burgh a little way.
I can get back into the castle, no?’

Armed with the password for the day, he set off briskly
for the shore, and Gil and the stout priest went on inland,
Sir William still nodding to passers-by.

‘I wonder is the Provost here any kin of Stewart of Minto
who is Provost of Glasgow,’ Gil speculated. ‘I know they
say All Stewarts areny sib to the King, but are they all sib to
one another?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Sir William seriously.
‘Although I believe a cousin of Janet McKirdy’s wedded
one of the Stewarts of Minto a few years back. And that is
Bess Stewart’s own house,’ he continued, pausing casually
a few tofts along before a substantial timber-framed building, set back from the roadway. Before it, at some time,
someone had made a small pleasure-garden, which was
now struggling against the depredations of the roving
hens. ‘It seems she got out of that window there.’

Gil eyed the window. It was just under the thatch,
twenty feet above the ground, and the shuttered lower
portion was no more than eighteen inches deep.

‘Was there a rope?’ he asked. ‘Or marks of a ladder?
What time would this have been?’

‘You think she might not have climbed down? I thought
the same,’ confessed Sir William. ‘And another thing
I thought was, a woman’s kirtle is a lot of cloth. Would it
all fit through there?’

‘Did you mention this at the time?’

‘What would be the point? She’d run off, poor lass, and
her kin were pinning their mouths up about it. Who was
I to argue with her good-brother’s version?’

Gil nodded absently, studying the house. It was not
being well maintained. He could see several places where
the clay and plaster infill between the sturdy timbers of
the frame was crumbling under its limewash, exposing the
wattle.

That rose will be through the wall shortly,’ he
commented. ‘What is it, a white one? We have one in
Rottenrow which spreads like that. Who was covering up
for whom, I wonder?’

‘I wondered if her sister might have helped her,’ said
Dalrymple. ‘It would be a sin, of course, to help a woman
to leave her lawful husband, but they were very close. If
Bess asked for help Mariota would give it. I thought likely
Mariota’s man suspected that had happened, for he dosed
up his own house in Rothesay, just down yonder, and
moved all out to the farm at Ettrick. He would beat her for
it himself rather than have it known publicly that he
couldn’t control her.’

‘The waiting-woman knew nothing?’ Gil swung his foot
at a hen which was inspecting his boots. It flapped away,
squawking, and two more hurried over to see what it had
found.

‘She slept at the back of the house. The first she heard
was when the servants woke her.’ The priest’s breathing
had settled down. He moved on, walking slowly among
the homeward-bound workers. ‘It’s let now, of course.
Probably for a good rent, it’s a good family in it. Another cousin of Ninian Stewart’s. No, I have it wrong, a cousin of
his wife’s.’

There were a few more timber-framed houses, none
quite as grand as Bess Stewart’s house, interspersed with
long low cottages of field stones. Beyond these were even
lower structures which, to Gil’s astonishment, proved to be
composed of alternating layers of turf and stone, their
roofs turfed over and sprouting happily. Women in loose
chequered gowns called in Gaelic from house to house as
they passed, until they came to one with two goats tethered above the door, and four or five half-naked children
in successive sizes tumbling in the street next to its
rounded end.

‘This is Alexander’s house,’ said Sir William, turning off
the main track towards the door. The children halted their
playing to stare as he shouted something in Gaelic.

There was a reply from within, and the leather curtain
across the doorway swung back. A woman in a plaid and
a checked gown stared at them, then made a gesture of
invitation with a dignity quite unimpaired by the fact that
she was barefoot and had a sucking child in the crook of
her other arm.

.Inside the house the smell was almost solid. To the right,
clearly, the goats, the hens and at least one cow spent their
nights.To the left a peat fire glowed on a square hearth,
and by its light a man rose from a stool and bowed to
them. He was clad, like the harper, in a saffron shirt and
buskins. Several of the children squeezed in past Gil to
crowd into a corner, watching the guests with big dark
eyes. The priest offered a blessing, to which they all said
fervently ‘Amen!’ with a strange turn to the vowels. Then
he made a speech, apparently introducing Gil and explaining his errand.

I can speak Latin,’ said the man of the house at length.
‘It is a sight of the title deeds to Bess Stewart’s property
you are after, yes?’

‘I need to know who benefits,’ Gil said. At the sound of
his voice the children giggled, and their father turned and spoke sharply in Gaelic. They sobered immediately. ‘The
title deeds, the terms of Edward Stewart’s will, Bess’s
father’s will, the conjunct fee or whatever it was, Bess’s
own will if she made one. I need to know what happens to
all that property now, because I suspect that is how I will
learn who killed Bess Stewart.’

‘You don’t ask much,’ said the other man drily. ‘I have
the title deeds and the two wills here in one of the protocol
books, I can be finding them for you in a little while, but
the other, the conjunct fee, I never drew up. I can tell you
it was conjunct fee, it will certainly be going to the husband now, but I have not the details. And if she was
making a will, it was not when she was in Rothesay. I have
no knowledge of such a thing.’ He looked about him, and
spoke to the children. Two of them dragged a long bench
near the fire. ‘Be seated, guests in my house, and the
woman of the house will bring you something. I will be
looking for the papers.’

He threw a brief word to the woman, who was settling
the baby in a strong-smelling nest of sheepskins at the foot
of what must be their bed. She straightened up, fastening
her gown, and moved to a carved court-cupboard opposite
the door. Her man made for the shadows in the corner, and
began to search in a kist full of books and papers.

The refreshment proved to be oatcakes with green
cheese, and usquebae in a pewter cup. Gil drank his share
of the spirit off quickly, to get it over with, and to his
dismay was handed another cupful. The oatcakes were
light and crisp, and the cheese was excellent. He said as
much to the woman, and got a blank smile, until Sir
William translated. The smile broadened, and she offered
him more, but he refused in dumbshow, fearing he might
be eating the children’s supper.

‘There is plenty,’ Sir William assured him. ‘Mairead
makes excellent oatcakes.’

Gil was about to answer when two more of the children
tumbled in from the street shouting in Gaelic. A man’s
voice spoke indistinctly outside and Gil turned to listen, sure he knew the accents. The woman, pulling her plaid
over her head, slipped out past the tall desk which stood
at the light, and. Gil heard her speaking softly beyond the
leather curtain.

‘Here it is, maister,’ said Alexander Stewart. He brought
an armful of books forward into the firelight. ‘If we take it
to the door there will be light for reading.’

He moved to the door, and pulled back the curtain. Gil,
following him, was aware of swift movement and the
certainty that someone had ducked round the end of the
house. The woman went past them into the shadows, to
offer Sir William another oatcake, and the lawyer opened
one of the books on the desk to show Gil his own copy of
the first of the documents.