The Harper's Quine (38 page)

She looked at him uncertainly round the fall of her hood.
Her face was pale and pinched, the narrow blade of her
nose outlined sharply against the black velvet. He smiled
at her, and put the goblet into her hand.

‘If you won’t drink a toast, shall we walk?’ He indicated
the path beyond her. She set her other hand on his wrist
and turned to walk with him between the beds of primroses and cowslips. Gil found himself thinking, suddenly
and irrelevantly, of the primroses growing wild on the
steep banks of the burn at Thinacre, where the Cunningham young had scrambled to pick handfuls of the flat,
sweet-scented flowers for their mother’s still-room. These
were slips of the same growth, brought in on the cart when
the tower-house was cleared. And there had been primroses by the well at St Chattan’s, when he saw the hind, he
recalled, and recognized that the images were not irrelevant at all. This was part of the next thing that he had asked
for.

‘Tell me what troubles you, Alys,’ he prompted.

She paced on, carrying the goblet of wine, and at length
said, ‘You have offended Maggie.’

‘Maggie and I are old friends. She’ll come round.’ But
that was what the mason had said of Alys. Am I wrong
about Maggie too? he wondered.

‘Nevertheless,’ said Alys, with another shy glance round
the hood, ‘you have rewarded her ill. She had done an unpleasant task for you, and you repaid her by shutting
her in the kitchen away from the excitement.’

‘I gave her the care of the bairn and of you,’ said Gil. She
turned her head away. ‘Is that it, indeed? Your father said
you were mumping at not seeing the excitement -‘

‘I was not mumping,’ she said clearly.

‘It’s the kind of thing parents say,’ he agreed, ‘to reduce
us to their power. Did you really want to see Euphemia
torn to pieces by the dog?’

‘No,’ she said, with an involuntary shiver. ‘But I wished
to be present while you explained what happened. I know
you’ll tell me how you discovered it - won’t you?’ She
turned to look up at him. He nodded. ‘But Maggie and
I should have seen how they all heard your account.’

‘What - you think it was your right to be present?’ he
said, startled.

‘It was certainly Maggie’s.’

‘And yours?’ He found he was looking at the back of her
hood again. ‘This is the nub of it, isn’t it, Alys?’

‘I suppose it is,’ she admitted after a moment.

‘Then put your case to me, and then I will put mine, and
we will both judge between them.’

‘But how can two judges agree? It takes three to sit on
the bench in Edinburgh.’

‘One and one make three,’ he said fondly, ‘but I hope not
until a year or so after we are wed.’ He heard the little
intake of breath. ‘No, here are only two judges, so we must
either agree, or agree to disagree. Come, Alys. You speak
first. How was it your right to be present?’

He moved on as he spoke, leading her through the gate
in the hedge, out of the formal flower garden to the kailyard on the slope below it. The burgh lay at their feet
under its haze of smoke. The bell of Greyfriars began to
ring for Compline before she spoke.

‘I also helped you to gather the facts of the story,’ she
said at length.

‘So did a number of other people who weren’t there,’ Gil
observed.

‘But most of those had duties elsewhere. You sent me
from your side,’ she said, trying to suppress indignation.

‘I thought it would be dangerous,’ said Gil, annoyed to
hear himself on the defensive, ‘and I was right. How could
I take the risk, for you or the bairn?’

‘But you took it for yourself.’ She was looking up at him
now. ‘Is that, after all, how you see marriage? That you
have to be responsible for me as if I was a baby? I can run
a house and bear children and do all the hard work, but
outside the house I cannot look after myself or think for
myself?’ She stopped by a bed of feathery turnip-sprouts
and turned to face him properly. ‘That wasn’t what you
said before. Do you remember? Women have immortal souls,
you said, and were given the ability to seek their own salvation.
How can they do that if someone else takes responsibility for
their every deed and thought?’

He stared at her, his thoughts whirling, recognizing
again that this girl had a mind like Occam’s Razor. And
she remembered everything he said to her. She misread his
silence, and looked away again, out over the burgh.
Another bell was ringing, possibly the Blackfriars’.

‘I do not mean to be an unruly wife; she said earnestly.
‘Only, I thought you valued me for my mind, that you
would allow me to think for myself, to make my own
decisions, and now at the first moment there is a conflict
you set me aside completely. That is different from
Griselda’s marquis, but it is just as belittling. Women are
not little mommets, to do things you admire and imagine
for us and then be put back on the shelf. And you never
thought, till the last moment, of it being Euphemia who
had killed Bess Stewart,’ she went on. ‘We can be wicked
as well as good.’

He was silent. After a moment she looked round at
him.

‘That is the sum of my case. I think.’

‘In principle,’ he said slowly, ‘you are perfectly right. If
you can think for yourself inside the house you can do so
outside, and I must let you do so, or give you a good reason why I should overrule you. The scene in my uncle’s
hall just now was rather more than exciting. James
Campbell had his whinger out, there was nearly fighting,
Euphemia had stabbed two women already. There was
some danger. I thought that was a good reason to keep you
back from it, but I can see that we should have discussed
it first, however briefly. Will you forgive me?’

Her smile flickered and was gone.

‘But in practice, Alys, you must acknowledge, there may
not always be time to discuss it. There may be occasions
when I have to act for your safety without consulting you,
simply because I am taller, or stronger, or more experienced in fighting.’

‘That I understand,’ she admitted. ‘Though I do not
like it.’

‘I don’t expect you do, but I hope you will accept it and
discuss it later, as we are doing now. As for making decisions,’ he went on, ‘I have a less exact memory for my own
words, but I am very sure I said something about marriages where the wife is allowed to think for herself and decisions are made by both spouses together.’

‘You mean,’ she said slowly, ‘that we should have
decided jointly whether I should stay to watch you
expound the murder?’ He nodded. ‘Then may we also
decide jointly whether you should go into danger without
me?’

‘Going into danger is a man’s task in life,’ he pointed
out. ‘As well expect to discuss with me whether you
should open the bread-oven.’ Her smile flickered again.
‘Alys, I have told you how I see a marriage, and you have
quoted my words back at me. How do you see it?’

‘As a partnership,’ she said promptly. ‘Different, but
equal.’

‘I think we can agree on that.’ He looked down at her. ‘A
debate, in which both spouses have a voice.’

‘An equal voice?’ She was looking at him directly again,
her expression intent. The pinched look had gone, and her
colour had improved. He smiled at her.

‘If each has an equal chance of being right,’ he said,
‘then the voices must be equal.’ He realized he was still
holding the pewter goblet. ‘Now will you drink a toast,
demoiselle?’

She looked in surprise at her own.

‘Where did this come from? Yes, a toast, maistre.’

They linked wrists. She gazed up at him across the rims
of the two little cups.

‘To good fortune,’ she said.

‘To partnership,’ he said.

They drank the wine.

‘And the next time?’ said Alys.

‘The next time; he said, and it felt like an oath, ‘I will
keep you by my side. If I can reasonably do so.’

‘Do you promise me?’

‘I will get my uncle to put it into the contract.’

He put his arms about her, feeling the warmth of her
flesh between the bones of her bodice, but she held him off
for a moment with a hand on his chest, gazing up at him
with that direct brown stare. The scent of cedarwood rose
from her brocade.

‘I have a lot to learn, haven’t IT she said at last.

‘We both have,’ he said. ‘We’ll learn together, Alys.’

She smiled blindingly at that.

‘We both have,’ she agreed, and put up her face for his
kiss.

They went back through the hedge as the light faded, to
find the legal discussion still raging, while over the herbbed by the house wall the mason and Ealasaidh were
sniffing crushed leaves and exchanging remedies.

‘But creeping thyme is best for slow maladies,’ said
Maistre Pierre earnestly as they approached, ‘because of its
nature, clinging close to the ground.’ He turned to greet his
daughter, but whatever he would have said was interrupted as the house-door was jerked open from within.

‘Here’s Maister Philip Sempill,’ said Maggie crossly,
stumping out of the house. ‘Wanting to know how you knew. And if you’re wondering about the bairn, it’s asleep
in my kitchen, with its nourice.’

‘I know I’m intruding,’ said Philip Sempill apologetically behind her, ‘ but I can’t rest till it’s clear to me.’

‘Come join us, Maister Sempill,’ said the Official resignedly. ‘Bring a light, Maggie, and bring more wine and a
cup for yourself.’

Gil, somewhat reluctantly, drew Alys forward into the
group as it gathered, settled her on a bench before anyone
else could claim it, and poured out wine.

‘When were you sure?’ asked the mason, taking a handful of little cakes. ‘I was not certain until she ran away.’

‘To be honest,’ admitted Gil, ‘nor was I. It could have
been James, all- along.’

‘But it wasn’t,’ said Philip Sempill, pleating the taffeta
lining of one wide blue sleeve with the other hand. ‘I must
admit, I thought it was.’

‘Make it clear to us,’ said the harper. He seemed to have
shed a great burden of anxiety. ‘What happened?’

‘She must have known Sempill had sent for Bess, and
why,’ Gil began obediently. ‘I thought at first that was the
reason Bess died, to make it easier for Sempill to sell some
of the property in Glasgow, but it wasn’t that, and it wasn’t
the fact that Euphemia was pregnant and hoped it would
be Sempill’s heir either. Sempill might not have known till
I told him, but her brother certainly did, that her child
could never have been legitimate.’

‘So it was the money,’ said the Official.

‘Yes. And possibly the plate, though I think her brother
had that,’ Gil added. ‘We may never know its fate. I dare
say there are silversmiths all over Scotland who would
melt it down and never ask about the crest. She simply
feared that if Sempill spoke to his wife he would discover
that she had never had any of the rents from Rothesay.
And you only had to look at Lady Euphemia to tell she
was an expensive woman.’

‘I’ve always wondered how John could afford her,’ said
Philip Sempill.

‘So she borrowed Antonio’s dagger, went out of St
Mungo’s during Compline, and called Bess over. They
were kin by marriage, Bess had no reason to be suspicious.
Euphemia coaxed her into the Fergus Aisle so they could
sit on the scaffolding, or maybe so she could throw up in
privacy, for the traces were there.’ By his side Alys stirred,
but said nothing. ‘Then she knifed her, seized her purse
and the gold cross to make it seem like robbery, skelped
back over the scaffolding and into the kirk for a quick
word with St Catherine -‘

‘I wonder what the holy woman was making of that?’
said Ealasaidh heavily.

‘Quite so. And after the service, when they all went out,
she gave Antonio back his knife. I saw him sheathing it.
I was just on their heels going into the kirkyard.’

‘How did she know how to strike so deadly?’ asked the
mason. ‘Or do you suppose it was luck? And why the
musician’s dagger and not her own?’

‘Not simply luck, for she killed Bridie the same way.
I think one of her lovers may have taught her how to use
a knife. It is the kind of thing she would have relished
knowing.’ Not Hughie, he thought. Surely not Hughie?

‘Her own knife is - was a small one,’ Philip Sempill
observed. ‘I saw it often at mealtimes. I suppose the
Italian’s was better suited to the task.’

‘Would a woman think of such a thing?’ asked Maistre
Pierre.

‘Euphemia would,’ said Sempill firmly. ‘She was drawn
to knives, and blood. When one of the men cut his hand on
a broken crock, Mally could scarce bind it up for Euphemia
getting in the way staring.’

‘I remember, her reaction to the Italian’s blood was yet
stronger,’ said the mason.

‘She must at some point have checked the purse,’ Gil
continued, ‘probably on her way back into St Mungo’s,
and found only a few coins, a key which must be the key
to Bess’s box, and the harp key, which she dropped or
threw away. The purse went on the midden. Maggie found the cross and the other key, hidden in a secret place in her
jewel-box until it should be safe to bring them out. I expect
if Sempill had ever got his hands on Bess’s effects she
would have coaxed the box from him and made use of
the key.’

‘She cannot have seen Davie and his girl, I suppose,
though you told me she claimed to have done so,’ said
Maistre Pierre. ‘No doubt she was alarmed when we began
to search for Bridie Miller.’

‘She must have enticed Bridie into Blackfriars yard in the
same way,’ Gil continued. ‘The girl was easy enough to
identify, she was telling the whole market what a narrow
escape she had had, and she would be flattered by a lady
who asked her advice about where she could be private.
Euphemia had taken care to dress differently. On May Day
evening she was wearing a hat, and the next day and also
when I met her in the market on Thursday she was wearing a linen kerchief, a monstrous thing which changed her
appearance completely. Like the Widow in Dunbar’s
appalling poem - schene in her schrowd and schewed her
innocent.’