The Harper's Quine (34 page)

‘The salt will draw out the excess humours; said the mason quickly over Gil’s shoulder, ‘which is what has
been causing the swelling.’

‘Should she no be bled?’

‘The tooth-drawer might want to bleed her,’ said Gil
diplomatically. He handed the coiled rope back to its owner
at the door, and turned back to the widow where she was
heaping blankets on the shivering girl. ‘Mistress, did you
tell me someone was asking for Annie yesterday?’

‘Aye, I did.’

‘Did you get his name? Or what he wanted to ask
her?’

‘I did not. He’d some story about a boy and a bang on
the head, but I’d more to worry about than a Campbell in
a green hat. There, then, my lassie, he there and get warm.
It’s over now, poor lass.’

‘He was a Campbell, was he?’

She paused in tucking the blankets at Annie’s feet.

‘Oh, he was a Campbell all right. You’d only to look at
him.’

Sitting in a nearby ale-house, they stared at one another.

‘Poor lassie,’ said Neil again.

‘Thank you, maisters,’ said Matt.

‘And we still have not questioned the girl,’ said Maistre
Pierre. ‘I would say it will be a day or two before she is fit
to talk. Do we wait here for that?’

‘No need, I think,’ said Gil. ‘I have learned enough from
her mother.’

‘What, that James Campbell was here asking for her?
How does that help?’

‘We know he has an interest in what she heard or saw,’
Gil pointed out.

‘But we knew that already.’

‘And now we know that he does not yet know what she
saw.’

‘Ye-es.’ The mason eyed Gil, scowling.

‘Are ye for ordering, maisters?’ demanded the girl at
Matt’s elbow.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Gil. ‘There is something I want to do
in Dumbarton, but if we get a bite here, we can be in
Glasgow for a late dinner. What can you offer us, lass?’

David Cunningham came down to the door to meet them,
spectacles in hand.

‘Well, well,’ he said as Gil dismounted. ‘Here’s a surprise. I’d not have looked for you before Vespers. Welcome
back, Gilbert. Welcome back, maister. You’ll eat with us?
Maggie has something ready, I dare say. Aye, Matt.’

Matt, gathering up reins, merely grunted. The gallowglass, silent, was keeping his horse between himself and
the gateway of the Sempill house.

‘I thank you, maister, but no,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I am
anxious to get home to my daughter. After all, she will
soon be leaving me,’ he added.

‘A drink of ale, to wash the dust from your throat, then?’
suggested the Official, his thin smile crossing his face in
answer to the mason’s significant grin. ‘Maggie! And shall
we see you later today, then? John Sempill has been sending twice a day to ask when you’ll be back. I think it would
suit him to get this matter sorted with the bairn. Tam can
go down to tell the harper, if we can arrange a tryst.’

Maggie was already bustling forward out of the kitchen
gate, a tray in her hands. Gil, taking a pull at his beaker,
realized with surprise that it contained the good ale, the
stuff she rarely brewed. Is this for me, he wondered, or for
the mason who will be visiting frequently this week, no
doubt.

‘For you, of course,’ said his uncle, when the mason had
clattered away and they went into the house. ‘I happened
to mention the mason’s approach, and she was greatly
moved. She is gey fond of you, Gilbert. I hope your bride
can brew as well.’

‘I’m told she can bake and brew with the best,’ said
Gil.

‘And had you good hunting in Rothesay?’

‘I did, but it’s good to be back. William Dalrymple sends
his salutations. Sir, if John Sempill is to be here before
Vespers I must talk to you, but before that I must shift my
clothes and wash off the dust. Will you excuse me?’

‘Come to my chamber once you are dean. You are
aware, I take it, that you have lost your hat?’

‘Have I? It must have fallen off. Likely when Matt drew
the lassie’s tooth.’

His uncle paused in the door to the stairs, raising his
eyebrows.

‘You have dearly a lot to tell me,’ he said.

Maggie looked up as Gil entered the kitchen.

‘You might have warned me you were bringing a
Campbell back with you,’ she said. The Campbell, seated
in a corner, ducked his head in embarrassment and took a
bite of barinock and cheese. ‘And so you’re to be wed, are
you, Maister Gil?’

‘So it seems,’ said Gil. ‘Are you pleased?’

‘Oh, aye. It’ll get you out from under my feet.’ She
thumped at the dough under her hands. ‘And you’ll no be
so far away, you’ll can visit your uncle, I’ve no doubt. Is
she bonnie? I’ve seen her at the market, but no close to.’

‘I think so,’ said Gil.

‘That’s what matters. And I’ve heard she’s a rare housewife, which is more to the point.’

‘She runs her father’s household, which is a large one,
and does it well, from all I’ve seen. Maggie, I must wash.
Can you spare William to fetch more water?’

‘I can,’ she said doubtfully, looking at the kitchen-boy,
who was hunkered down by the window staring vacantly
at the gallowglass. ‘Tam’s faster, but he’s still down at the
harper’s. It takes William a long time, and I’ll need him
soon, to turn the spit for tomorrow’s dinner.’

‘I can be turning the spit,’ offered Neil Campbell.

‘There’s water hot,’ said Maggie, accepting this. ‘Get you
in the scullery, Maister Gil, and shift that beard, in case the
lassie comes up the hill with her father before Vespers. A
three days growth is no way to commend yourself to a lass
before you’re handfasted. You can fling that sark out here
when you’re done and I’ll put it to soak. And then I’ll have
a dish of eggs ready for you.’

To be fed, washed, shaved, combed and clad in clean linen
simply accentuated the strange feeling of lightness Gil still
felt. Kissing Maggie, who told him sharply to save that for
his own lass, and clapping the startled gallowglass on the
shoulder where he sat turning the spit, he sprang up the
stairs to the hall and checked by his uncle’s oratory. On
impulse he slipped behind the curtain, remembering the
last time he had knelt here. Just as on that occasion, he
found the words would not come, but this time only a
boundless gratitude, which he offered up until he felt it
turn to gold as if in sunlight and float away from him.

He knelt for a while longer, feeling the unseeable sunlight almost tangible behind his closed eyelids. When it
faded he rose, signing himself, and went on up, crossing
the solar to his uncle’s chamber.

‘Ah, Gilbert,’ said his uncle. ‘What is this about a lassie
with toothache?’

‘The lass we were to find in Dumbarton,’ Gil answered.
‘The same lass we missed in the Gorbals. When we got to
her house today we found her screaming with a rotten
tooth, and Matt drew it for her. Did you know Matt could
draw teeth, sir?’

‘I did not. Likely it’s a thing he learned away at the wars
in Germany. He has already asked for a day off tomorrow
to go to Dumbarton.’

‘I suppose he wants to see how she does.’

‘No doubt. And you, Gilbert? How do you do? This
proposition of Maister Mason’s likes you, does it?’

‘I can think of nothing I would like better,’ said Gil, as he
had to the mason, ‘and almost nothing of which I am less
worthy.’

‘Well, well.’ His uncle looked down at his book, unseeing, for a moment. ‘I had hoped to deacon for your first
Mass, Gilbert, but do you know I find I would rather say
a wedding Mass for you and christen your first bairn.’ Gil
murmured something. ‘There are too few of your father’s
name left. Aye, I think you will do better out in the world,
providing we can find you something to live on.’

‘That is what worries me,’ said Gil. ‘However well Pierre
dowers the lass, I cannot live on her money. I’m a
Cunningham, after all.’

His uncle shot him a sharp glance, and nodded.

‘You are a Cunningham,’ he agreed. ‘The lands out by
Lanark are lost to us, I think, but there is property here in
the burgh that does near as well, I can let you have in
conjunct fee. The rents are all in coin, of course. As
for income, I have one or two ideas. Let me ask about,
Gilbert.’

‘May I know what they are?’ Gil asked politely. ‘You
could say they concern me, sir.’

He got another sharp glance, and the corner of David
Cunningham’s mouth quirked.

‘You could say so. Let me see. It is possible that Robert
Blacader will consent to your employment here in the
Consistory as we had planned, though you are in minor
Orders only. You could hang out a sign and practise as a
notary in the burgh, though I cannot see you growing rich
at that.’

‘Nor I,’ agreed Gil, thinking of Alexander Stewart’s
house with the tumbling children by the peat fire.

‘Since as Maister Mason’s son-in-law you will get your
burgess ticket almost as a wedding-gift, you might find a
post as one of the burgh procurators.’

‘What, and speak for poor devils taken up for theft?’

‘Or speak on the burgh’s behalf in the same case,’ his uncle concurred. ‘I have friends, and some influence,
Gilbert. Let me continue asking about.’

‘I should be grateful, sir. I am grateful,’ said Gil, still
aware of the unseen sunlight, ‘for everything you have
done for me-these-past years.’

‘Well, well,’ said his uncle again. ‘You’re a good boy,
Gilbert. Your father would have been proud of you.’ He
closed his book, and opened it again at random. ‘Now, tell
me about your hunting in Rothesay. What did you raise?
Sit down, for mercy’s sake, and tell me about it.’

Gil, hooking a stool towards him with his foot, sat down
and gave a concise account of the interviews with the
lawyer, Mariota Stewart and the gallowglass. His uncle
heard him attentively, asking the occasional question.

‘And the lassie in Dumbarton,’ he said at the end. ‘What
did you learn from her?’

‘I had no speech of her,’ Gil said, ‘but her mother reports
that James Campbell of Glenstriven came looking for a
word with her yesterday, with no success.’

‘Did he so?’

Uncle and nephew looked at one another consideringly.

‘John Sempill will be here shortly,’ said Canon
Cunningham after a moment. ‘No way of knowing, of
course, how many of his household will come with
him.’

‘No,’ agreed Gil. ‘I wonder, sir, might we borrow a
couple of the apparitors from the Consistory?’

‘They will have gone home by now,’ said his uncle,
glancing at the window. ‘No, we must make do with Tam,
I think. And perhaps Maister Mason will bring one of his
fellows with him. I wonder will he bring the lassie, hm?’

‘I hope he may,’ said Gil, feeling his face stretch into a
fatuous grin. The image of Alys rose before him, in her
plain blue gown with her hair down her back. He dragged
his mind back to the point at issue. ‘There will be. the
harper’s sister, of course. I’d back her against an army.’

‘Ah, yes, the harper and his sister. What are we to agree
for the bairn, who is the main point on the agenda?’

‘I have no idea what my principal will ask for.’

‘You must get a word with him as soon as he arrives.’
The Official rose, and Gil stood politely. ‘I wish to be sure
the bairn will be reared fittingly, and his property decently
overseen. If that is in jeopardy I will say so.’

‘Understood, sir.’ Gil followed his uncle from the room
and down the stairs. ‘Do we meet here in the hall?’

‘Considering the numbers, I think we must.’

Shouting down the kitchen stair for Tam, Gil began to
move benches. Shortly, despite his uncle’s directions and
Tam’s inclination to ask about Alys rather than lift furniture, he had an impromptu court-room arranged, with the
great chair behind a carpeted table, and the two benches
set on either side. He was hunting through the house for
more stools when he heard a knocking at the door, and
Maggie’s heavy feet descending to answer it.

Gil contrived to reach the hall with his latest find just as
the mason stepped in from the stair, followed by a complete stranger in a French hood and a black brocade gown,
wearing a string of pearls which gleamed in the light from
the windows.

Gil’s jaw dropped, and the mason advanced on the
Official and spoke.

‘Good evening to you, Maister Cunningham. May I present to you my daughter Alys?’

When she moved forward, of course it was Alys.
Straight-backed and elegant, she curtsied to Uncle David.
If his feet were rooted to the floor just inside the hall door,
how was it that by the time she straightened her knee and
raised her head, he was at her elbow?

‘Well , well,’ said his uncle. ‘Here’s as bonnie a lass as
there’s been in this house since it was built, I think.’

The old man took Alys’s hands, embraced her, kissed
her, as was an older relative’s right. Could this be jealousy,
Gil wondered, barely aware of the nursemaid jiggling the
baby at the mason’s back.

‘And here’s my nephew,’ said Uncle David.

She turned, and their eyes met. Her hand was in his.

‘Take her in the garden,’ said his uncle. ‘You have a
quarter-hour.’

In the centre of the garden, in full view of the hall windows, the green mound was dry enough to sit on, but Gil
took off his gown and spread it anyway, then handed Alys
to the seat. Her silk brocade rustled as she sat down, and
gave off a scent of cedarwood. He kept hold of her hand,
and stood looking down at her. She looked up, a little shy,
her face framed by the black velvet folds of the French
hood.

‘You truly wish to marry me?’ Gil said at length. She
looked down, blushing slightly, then up again to meet his
eyes.

‘Truly,’ she said with that directness he admired so
much. ‘And you? You truly wish to be married? Not to be
a priest?’

‘You know the answer.’

The apologetic smile flashed.

‘I would still like to hear it.’