The Harper's Quine (37 page)

‘I, too, wish to know,’ said the harper.

Gil, bowing to his uncle, surveyed his audience.

‘Bess Stewart came up the High Street,’ he began, ‘on the
evening of May Day, with Euan Campbell. Not Neil,’ he
added to John Sempill, who looked blankly at him. ‘She
was seen by more than one person, including James
Campbell of Glenstriven, who was tousling a lass in a
vennel near the Bell o’ the Brae and made some effort not
to be seen by her. I don’t know whether he was successful.’
Both Sempills turned and stared at James Campbell, who
was staring in turn at Gil, the colour rising in his face.
‘Euan left her in the clump of trees opposite the south door
of St Mungo’s and went into the kirk to tell John Sempill
she was waiting for him.’

‘We know all this,’ growled Sempill. ‘Get to the point,
man.’

‘Campbell of Glenstriven, leaving his limmer in the
High Street, followed Euan into the kirk.’

‘There’s a sight too many Campbells in this tale,’ muttered Sempill.

Gil, who had felt this from the start, nodded, and went
on. ‘I was near to your party in the kirk. I saw both these
two arrive. I saw Campbell of Glenstriven slip away briefly
and return. I saw other comings and goings.’

‘I went away to pray before St Catherine,’ said
Euphemia wanly, returning.

‘I saw you before her altar. The one I did not see go
away, the one I had my eye on every few verses, was the
lutenist. He cannot have killed Bess Stewart.’

‘Why did you not -‘began John Sempill, and stopped.

‘You gave me little chance, John. You were aye quick
with your hands.’

He looked at the faces again. The harper’s face turned
towards him, Ealasaidh staring sourly at the opposite
bench, the mason intent. His uncle watching without
expression, the way he did when a witness was about to
become entangled in the facts. Philip concerned, James
Campbell with a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip, John Sempill looking baffled. Euphemia, wilting elegantly
on a stool near the kitchen stair, her waiting-woman bending over her and glaring at Gil. Checking that Tam was
nearby, and Neil by the other stairs, Gil continued.

‘Bess was not in the trees when we all came out of
Compline. She was already dead, inside the building site
of the Bishop’s new work. Archbishop,’ he corrected himself. Ealasaidh made a small angry sound, and her brother
put one hand over hers. ‘Whoever killed her had probably
come out of the kirk, enticed her into the building site,
presumably to be private, knifed her, and then gone back
into the kirk. Unless it was a reasonless killing, and it
seemed too carefully done for that, it had to be someone
who knew her.’ Gil counted off. ‘You yourself John, James
Campbell, Philip, Lady Euphemia, all came and went.
I knew, at first, of no reason why any of the others should
wish to kill Bess Stewart, and I did you the credit of
believing that you would not have summoned her publicly
and then murdered her secretly.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Sempill ungraciously.

‘I found her the next morning, and was charged with
tracking down her killer. Maister Mason here, also concerned because it was his building site, has hunted with
me. It has not been easy.’

‘Get on with it, man!’

‘The kirkyard appeared to be empty, but there were
in fact two witnesses, a young couple still a-Maying.
What I think happened was that they found Bess’s plaid
where she had hung it on a tree so that her husband would
know she was not far away. They decided to make use of
it for greater comfort in the masons’ lodge, against the side
of the Fergus Aisle, and I think they overheard some of the
conversation and the killing. They may have looked, and
seen murder committed by a wealthy individual, one of
the baronial classes who could be assumed to have the
backing of powerful people, people who could be a threat
to a mason’s laddie and his sweetheart. The two of them certainly fled. The boy broke his skull running into a tree,
and has been able to tell us nothing. The girl got away.’

Gil exchanged a glance with Maistre Pierre, who pulled
a face and nodded.

‘I think the burden of guilt must be shared here. If we
had not hunted so openly for Bridie Miller, who was the
boy’s previous leman, she would be alive yet. She had
quarrelled with the boy on Good Friday, and spent May
Eve in the kitchen and part of May Day with her new
lover.’ He looked at James Campbell, who was now staring
fixedly at his boots, still sweating. ‘The boy had a new lass.
Her name is Annie Thomson, and we have traced her in
Dumbarton.’ Was it imagination, or did Campbell’s eyes
widen briefly?

‘Bridie Miller was killed at the market on Thursday. She
had been persuaded to step aside to a place where many
of the girls go to ease themselves. She was killed in the
same way as Bess Stewart, by a fine-bladed knife, with no
sign of a struggle. It could have been a separate killing, but
two killers abroad in Glasgow at the one time, with the
same method of killing, seemed unlikely. Most of your
household, John, was down the town that morning, but
you and Philip can swear for each other, Lady Euphemia
was with her lutenist, and I saw James Campbell myself
near the Tolbooth about the time Bridie was killed.’

Campbell’s eyes did flicker this time.

‘We know all this,’ said Sempill again. ‘Get to the point,
in Christ’s name!’

‘Then the serjeant came to arrest Antonio.’

‘I feel sick,’ said Euphemia again, raising her head from
her companion’s bosom. They all paused to watch her
sway towards the garde-robe. Maistre Pierre sneezed.

‘Antonio was killed,’ said Gil elisively, ‘and therefore
could not be questioned. Nor could he swear to anything
he did or did not do or see.’

Sempill frowned, staring at him.

‘By this time I had eliminated yourself and Philip, John.’
Philip Sempill looked up with a crooked grin. ‘I went down to Bute to discover who benefited, and dislodged a
fine mess. I had the wrong philosopher. Not Aristotle but
Socrates: there is always a previous crime.’

‘Thank you for nothing,’ grunted Sempill. ‘I’d have
caught up with it eventually.’

Gil, suppressing comment, counted off points again.

‘I found there was evidence of misdirected rents, more
than one version of what happened the night Bess Stewart
left Bute, the curious story of the plate-chest, and one
name that kept coming up in all these inconsistencies. It is
clear to me that you and James Campbell of Glenstriven
have a lot to settle between you, John.’

James Campbell leapt to his feet, his whinger hissing
from its sheath. The narrow Italian blade appeared as if by
magic in his other hand, and he backed wide round the
Official’s table as if he had eyes in his heels.

‘I’ll take at least one of you with me,’ he said. ‘Who will
it be? It wasny me that killed Bess, or Bridie, the poor wee
trollop, and I’ll prove it on any of you that cares to try.
Come on, then.’

There was a tense silence, into which the harper said
something calmly in Gaelic. Then Ealasaidh sprang up
with a cry of fury and hurled herself, not at Argyll’s
grandson but the other way, towards the door which Neil
guarded. Gil whirled, to see her grappling with the gallowglass and shrieking vengefully in Gaelic. He ran to intervene, and she fell back, ranting incoherently.

‘She is gone, she is escaped, this hallirakit kempie, this
Campbell has let her go! Let me by, you ill-done loon!’

‘She bade me,’ stammered Neil. ‘I thought it was Maister
James we was after, I thought -‘

At the foot of the stairs the house-door slammed. Gil
stared round, and saw the curtain of the garde-robe still
swinging, and met the triumphant gaze of Euphemia’s
waiting-woman. He stepped hastily to the window, flinging the shutters wide.

‘Leave her,’ said John Sempill. ‘Get on with it. Are we to take my good-brother or no, and are you going to be at the
front of the assault?’

‘No,’ said Gil, ‘for it was not Campbell of Glenstriven
that killed your wife.’

‘Well, if it’s Euphemia we’re after, she’ll not get far. Is
that her down at the gate now?’ Keeping one wary eye
on his brother-in-law, Sempill came to join Gil at the
window.

Across the street Euphemia had just succeeded in opening the gate of the Sempill yard. Hitching up her tawny
satin skirts, she slipped through the gap and made straight
for the house-door. She was half-way across the yard when
the second tawny shape emerged from the kennel.

‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ exclaimed the mason behind Gil as the
mastiff bounded across the cobbles, silent but for its dragging clanking chain.

‘Saints keep us, the dog!’ wailed Mistress Murray. ‘Oh,
my poor pet!’

Euphemia turned her head just before the jaws closed on
her arm. Gil got a glimpse of her horrified face before she
went down, screaming, under the weight of the huge
beast. Bright blood sprang on the tawny satin of her sleeve
as Doucette, pinning her prey with one massive paw, let go
Euphemia’s arm to go snarling for the throat.

‘Help her, maister!’ shouted her waiting-woman. She
turned, darted at James Campbell, her black veil flying,
and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Call the brute off! Save her!’

‘She’s past helping,’ said Campbell, shaking her off.

‘In Christ’s name!’ Gil exclaimed, making for the door.
Before he reached it a hand seized each of his wrists.

‘Leave it,’ said Ealasaidh at his left through the
screaming.

‘If she killed Bess,’ said Philip Sempill at his right, ‘this
is her due.’

The screaming turned to a dreadful gurgling which sank
beneath the mastiff’s snarls. The dog was now shaking her
prey as easily as some monstrous terrier.

‘Ah, well,’ said John Sempill, staring out of the window.
‘It wouldny have been legitimate anyway.’ As Mistress
Murray fell at his feet in a moaning heap and across the
road the yard was filled by horrified shouting, he added,
‘She should never have teased that dog the way she
did.’

‘We will have to reconvene,’ said David Cunningham,
‘to determine the questions of the bairn’s future still
unsettled.’

‘Another day, I beg of you, maister,’ said the harper, as
his sister put the little goblet in his hand. ‘I at least have
had enough of great deeds for one day.’

‘I, too,’ muttered Ealasaidh. She accepted wine herself
from the Official, and sat down.

They were all in the garden in the evening sun, with the
replenished jug of wine and a plate of cakes. John Sempill
and his household had gone home. Gil had felt it was
typical of the man that he had asked no further questions.
Euphemia’s guilt was clear enough to him in her flight.
Euphemia’s brother also seemed to accept the fact,
although he had been more intent on defending himself
and casting blame on her in the matter of the missing rents.
It seemed, indeed, as if Mistress Murray was the only
person to feel any grief for her fate, and that appeared to
be mixed with dismay at the loss of her own living.

Canon Cunningham was initiating a discussion with the
harper on the differences in the law of inheritance on either
side of the Highland line. Gil paid little heed to the polite
exchange; his attention was being drawn to the other side
of the garden where the mason and his daughter were
in intense conversation. Alys’s head was bent, and he
could not see her face, but Maistre Pierre’s expression was
stem. Overcome by a sudden feeling that it was now his
responsibility to chastise Alys if anyone was going to, Gil set down his pewter goblet and made his way between
the box-hedges, his footsteps light on the gravel. As he
approached, Alys turned and walked away, rapidly, aimlessly. The mason looked at her retreating back and moved
towards Gil.

‘Who would be a father?’ he complained. ‘She has been
a rational intelligent mortal since she could talk, but suddenly now she is betrothed -‘ He bit off the next words.

‘Is something wrong?’ Gil asked, with a return of the
familiar sinking in his stomach. Has she changed her
mind? he wondered. Perhaps Euphemia’s fate -

‘No. She’ll come round,’ said Maistre Pierre. That was
an impressive performance just now, Gilbert. You made all
very clear - and with your uncle watching, too.’

‘He trained me,’ Gil pointed out. ‘But Alys -‘

‘I should let her be.’

‘But what’s troubling her?’

‘She is mumping,’ said the mason in exasperated tones,
‘because she was excluded from that singularly unpleasant
scene a little while ago. She feels she had a right to be
present.’

Gil looked from his friend, bulky and indignant in the
big fur-lined gown, to Alys, slender and indignant in
almost identical pose at the other end of the path.

‘I have to deal with this,’ he said, half to himself.

‘She’ll come round,’ said the mason again. ‘Leave her.’

‘You have sixteen years’ advantage over me,’ Gil pointed
out. ‘You came to terms with her long since. Alys and
I have all our terms to settle, and this is certainly a clause
which demands negotiation.’

‘Well, your diplomacy is clearly more polished than
mine.’ Maistre Pierre looked beyond Gil at the wine and
cakes. ‘Negotiating with your uncle is taxing enough for
me. You go and make terms with Alys, if you feel you
must.’

Filling two goblets with watered wine, Gil avoided the
stately legal discussion and made his way to where Alys
was pacing slowly along another of the walks, her brocade skirts brushing over the gravel. Stopping in front of her, he
held out a goblet.

‘A toast with you, demoiselle,’ he said formally. She
turned her head away. He held the goblet forward so that
the backs of their hands touched. ‘Alys,’ he said, more
gently. ‘What ails you, my sweet?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, with an attempt at lightness.

‘It is the duty of a good wife,’ he pointed out, ‘to speak
the truth to her lord at all times. I assumed I was getting
a good wife, and if it’s going to be otherwise I think I need
to know it now.’