The Harper's Quine (31 page)

‘I do not know how that can be,’ she said, and took
refuge in the married woman’s defence. ‘My husband
deals with all the money.’

‘How does the coin go to John Sempill?’ asked the
mason. She flicked a glance at him, and considered.

‘If my husband is to go to Renfrewshire, it goes with
him. Otherwise we send a couple of men. We have trustworthy servants.’

‘That would be the Campbell brothers,’ Gil prompted,
and she nodded, taking his knowledge for granted. ‘So
they take the money to John Sempill?’

‘Wherever he chances to be.’

‘Which of them brought you word yesterday?’

‘Neil,’ she said indifferently.

‘And which of them helped your sister to get out of her
house, the night she left with the harper?’

What does that have to do with -‘ She stopped, looking
out of the window. ‘I suppose you need to know,’ she said
reluctantly. ‘It might all have a bearing on the matter.’

‘Exactly,’ said Gil in some relief. She sighed.

‘Her husband - John - was in Renfrewshire, and Bess
was here in Rothesay. Last time John was on Bute he had
been - displeased, because the rents were less than he
wanted. The factor had given the coin to James, and James
counted it and gave it straight into his hand,’ she added,
without seeming to hear what she was saying. ‘So John
took it out on Bess. And the harper and her - it was like in
the ballads, the old romances. One word together and it
was as if they were the two halves of an apple. I tried to
speak to her,’ she said, biting her lips, ‘but ‘she would not
listen. I knew no good would come of it.’

‘If it’s of any comfort,’ Gil said gently, ‘she seems to have
been happy while she was with the harper and his
sister.’

She smiled bitterly. ‘For a year and a half. Aye, well, it’s
longer than some folk get. So anyway he was leaving and
she would go with him. I made sure both the Campbell
brothers were in Rothesay for her, and lent her a horse, one
that would come back to me on its own from the ferry, and
I hugged her and wished her Godspeed, for all she was
going into sin, and went back to my own house that night,
and I never saw her again.’ She stopped speaking and
put the back of her hand across her mouth, apparently
unaware that tears were pouring down her face. Gil
reached out and touched her other hand.

‘Drink some usquebae, mistress,’_ he suggested.

‘Perhaps we should be going,’ said Maistre Pierre
uncomfortably.

‘There is still something I need to ask.’

Mistress Stewart poured herself another glass of spirits
and took a gulp.

‘Ask it,’ she said.

‘The plate and money -‘

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I know nothing. I do not believe
my sister took them with her, for the plate was not hers,
and she was angry at John Sempill for not returning it to
the Stewarts when she wedded him. She kept it, you
understand, to make a good showing at the wedding, and
then he insisted it was part of her tocher, though it was all
clear in her first man’s will. She would not have taken it
away. Nor any money that was not hers,’ she added.
‘Jewels, now, that was different, and our grandmother’s
prayer-book that we learned our letters out of, but never a
thing that was not hers.’

‘What do you suppose might have happened to it?’ Gil
asked.

She shook her head.

‘Ask Neil Campbell. It was him was there when James
went in the morning to call on her. I think James suspected
what we had done,’ she said, taking another mouthful of
usquebae.

‘When did the horse come home?’ asked the mason.

‘That was what sent James round to her house. It came
in as soon as the Gallowgait Port was opened in the
morning, and one of the stablemen must have told him I’d
lent it to Bess.’

‘What was the name of your sister’s waiting-woman?’
Gil asked.

‘Oh, it wasn’t likely her. She was another of the Provost’s
cousins, an auntie of Edward Stewart’s. She’d an interest in
making sure it went back to her kin.’

‘I had wondered if she might have been your good-sister
Euphemia.’

‘Her?’ Mariota Stewart looked genuinely startled by the
idea. ‘Euphemia go for a waiting-woman? Not till the sky
falls in! She’s got ideas beyond her means, that one. It was
a great pity her man fell at Stirling, particularly with him
being on the wrong side.’

‘I thought Chancellor Argyll was for the present King,’
said Maistre Pierre, ‘with all his kin.’

‘Someone married Euphemia to the wrong man. He was
a Murray, and hot-headed like all of them, so Euphemia
trying to argue with him only brought him out the more
strongly for the late King. So her ladyship had to see all the
property she’d married him for handed over to the Crown
in fines. What she lives on now I don’t know. To be honest,’
she confided, taking another sip of usquebae, ‘I don’t care
either. She’s not a nice woman, with her airs and her
graces, and her fancy clothes, and her scent to her own
receipt, that smells of something else when it gets stale.
She’s not a nice woman at all, and I don’t like her round
my bairns.’

She sighed, and hiccuped.

‘Where is my sister laid?’

‘In Greyfriars kirkyard,’ said Gil gently. ‘Maister Mason
and I were at the burial. It was well attended, by Sempill’s
kin and the harper’s friends, and she was properly keened.
There area number of Ersche speakers in Glasgow.’

She nodded, and went on nodding for some time before
she collected herself and said formally, ‘Will you eat,
maisters?’

‘No, no, I thank you,’ said Gil, getting to his feet. The
mason did likewise, and she sat looking from one to the
other. ‘We must get back to Rothesay and find Neil
Campbell. Mistress …’ He hesitated, looking down at her.
‘Did Neil tell you that there was a bairn?’

‘Why are we being sidetracked by this money and plate?’
asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Is it relevant? Will it tell us who
stabbed Bess Stewart in my building site?’

‘I feel it is involved,’ said Gil, hitching his plaid up
against the fine smirr of rain. ‘I don’t know about you, but
I am beginning to see a pattern. One name keeps coming
to our attention.’

‘How does he benefit?’

‘If Campbell of Glenstriven has been diverting the rents
to his own use rather than give them to Sempill, it was in
his interest to prevent Sempill speaking to Bess.’

‘Killing her is rather final.’

‘Nevertheless, it is effective. Since he did not know
about the bairn, he could assume the Ettrick lands would
go back to his wife as Bess’s surviving kin. The house in
Rothesay might go to Sempill of Muirend, which could not
be helped, and so would the conjunct fee lands, but since
in law Sempill could not dispose of those without first
offering them to Bess’s kin, Campbell’s next step, I should
think, would be to buy them in at a bargain price, so his
lies might not be detected.’

‘And the plate?’

‘It is at least curious that he was the first on the scene
after Bess left her house to run off with the harper.’

‘But what of the other girl? Surely if he was with Bridie
on the High Street before Compline, he must know she
was not in the kirkyard during the Office. He had no need
to kill her. And I thought he was distressed to learn of her
death.’

‘I thought about that.’ Gil counted off the points.
‘Imprimis, he might not be certain of where she went after
he left her. She could have been in the kirkyard, half the
town heard us say she was there, he might have killed her
to be certain.’

‘A poor reason.’

‘Someone killed her. Secundus, perhaps she did know
something. What if she followed him and saw what
happened -‘

‘Whatever that was.’

‘Whatever that was, and when they met, yesterday at the
market - no, the day before, now - she tried to threaten
him, or get money from him.’

‘Give me some ribbons or I’ll tell what I saw, you
mean?’

‘Precisely. Let’s step aside here and discuss this, my doo. And
in goes the knife.’

‘Are there more possibilities?’

‘Perhaps he was simply tired of her, and thought her
death could be blamed on the same broken man as killed
Bess.’

‘Not so probable, surely. Do we know him to have
behaved like this in the past?’

‘No, but we don’t know him to have knifed his sister-inlaw before this either. He was concealing some strong
emotion when he heard of Bridie’s death,’ Gil pointed out.
‘It is hard to be sure whether it was grief, or alarm that we
knew of it already, or something else. Even if he killed her,
he might have felt grief for her death.’

‘Hmm.’ The mason rode in silence for a few minutes,
considering this. Then, looking about him at the woodland
through which they rode, he said in some alarm, ‘This is
not the path we took! Where are we?’

‘The track’s about a half-mile that way.’ Gil nodded to
their left. ‘I don’t think this fellow means us any harm. I’ve
been keeping an eye on him, and Sir William knows where
we are.’

Lachie Mor, obviously understanding this, grinned his
unreliable grin and pointed ahead.

‘Eagleis,’ he enunciated. ‘Eagleis Chattan.’

‘A church?’ said the mason.

Gil nodded. The church of the cat?’ he hazarded.

Their guide shook his head emphatically. ‘Chattan,’ he
repeated, and gestured: a halo, a benediction.

‘St Chattan?’ Gil offered, and got another grin and a nod.
‘How far?’

‘Not far,’ said the mason. ‘We are here.’

They emerged into the open, and the ponies stopped
and all three raised their heads, ears pricked, as if they had
seen someone they knew approaching. Gil stared round
him in the sunshine. They were in a circular clearing in the
trees, perhaps fifty paces across. A small burn trickled at
their feet, and a grassy bank beyond it sloped gently up to
the remains of a small stone building. It was now roofless,
but the walls and the two gables with their slit windows still stood, silent witness to the craft of the old builders
who had fitted silver-grey slabs and red field-stones
together, course after ragged course, apparently without
benefit of chisel.

‘Eagleis Chattan,’ said their guide again. He dismounted, and from his scrip produced a cloth bundle. He
mimed eating this, with an inclusive gesture, then led his
pony across the burn and tethered it within reach of the
water.

‘A good idea,’ said the mason, dismounting likewise,
‘and a pleasant spot for a meal.’

It was indeed pleasant enough to make stale oatmeal
bannocks and hard cheese palatable. They shared out the
food and ate, seated on the grass bank while the bum
chattered at their feet and birds darted among the
branches. The ponies drowsed in the shade. Then Lachie
Mor lay back on the grass and drew his plaid over his face
in a way that brooked no argument.

‘A valuable example,’ said the mason, brushing crumbs
from his hose. ‘I think I also rest a little. I have not slept
well.’ He lay back and tipped his round hat forward,
hiding all but the neat black beard.

Gil, though he forbore from contradicting this statement,
did not feel like joining the soporific scene. Instead he rose,
checked the ponies’ tethers, and strolled up to investigate
St Chattan’s Kirk.

A grassy path led round the little building to a narrow
doorway in one side. Gil stepped in, and found that the
place was in use.

It had the same impact on him as stepping into one of
Glasgow’s little chapels. The walls blazed with colour, and
a dark figure bent over the lit and furnished altar. He could
hear the rhythmic mutter of the Office.

Astonished, he dropped to his knees on the packed bare
earth, groping for words of prayer as his beads almost fell
into his hands. Gradually, as the familiar phrases slipped
past, he realized that he had seen something other than
what was there. The red-and-silver walls were not painted, but dappled with the sunlight which came through the
overhanging trees; the crucifix on the clean-swept altar
was not of silver, but worked from a gleaming slab of rock,
and the bright-coloured candle flame beside it was in fact
a bunch of wildflowers in a horn cup. And the sound of
the Office was the bum, bubbling away somewhere.

He completed the last paternoster, and turned to his
own prayers. But in this extraordinary place his habitual
request for freedom from doubt seemed inappropriate. He
emptied his mind, and after a while words floated up.
Thank you for showing me this. Please show me the next step.

He had no idea how long he knelt. After a while the light
changed, and he saw without surprise that what bent over
the altar was not a priest but a briar-bush, the only thing
growing inside the walls. There were no other furnishings.
Crossing himself, he rose, bent the knee to the silver stone
image, and went out of the narrow door.

Lachie Mor and the mason still lay on the grass. One of
them was snoring. Gil grinned to himself and turned to
pick his way round the church right-handed.

Clearly, others did the same. The grassy path which led
to the door continued round the west gable and into the
trees. The sound of water grew louder as he rounded the
corner, and he found himself looking at the spring from
which the bum rose. The well had been built up with red
and silver stones, now mossy, and the water spilled out
and chattered away round the other gable of the little
building. A thorn tree bent over the pool, shedding mayblossom into the water, its branches decked with rags and
ribbons. Clumps of primroses studded the grass.

‘A clootie well,’ he said aloud, and bent to drink. As he
raised a dripping palm to his mouth a twig cracked
sharply in the trees. He froze, staring, and the shadows
congealed into the form of a red deer hind, her head up,
staring back at him unafraid. She stood for five or six
heartbeats, then wheeled and trotted off between two
beech-trees, her little feet brushing among the pale primroses. Gil stared after her, open-mouthed. Almost he could believe he had seen St Giles’s own pet. And something else
- a message…