The Fourth Crow

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘The Dean is very certain that did not happen, so Gil says. That he was killed outside the church and carried to where he was found.’

  ‘Hah!’ said her father sceptically.

  ‘What you say seems the most likely,’ she agreed, thinking how much she had missed this, the talking over of events, the companionable sharing of ideas. Since they came to Glasgow from Paris, after her mother’s death, it had been herself and her father, and then Gil who had fitted into the family quite seamlessly. Her stepmother thought in a different way, and would not hear other points of view, which made discussion difficult, and in any case she seemed to be jealous of Alys herself.

  Her thoughts paused as that idea presented itself. Jealous? Was that the problem? Why had she not seen it before?

  ‘I have no idea what Gilbert has learned today,’ her father was saying. ‘They were to search the man’s lodging, I do not know if they discovered anything there.’

  ‘You could send Luke or Berthold to find Gil and ask him,’ Alys suggested. ‘Or go yourself.’

  ‘I cannot leave these lazy fellows,’ said her father, nodding at Thomas, who was contriving to talk to Jennet without breaking off his work. ‘And I cannot spare Luke, because Berthold is at home today.’

  ‘At home?’

  Maistre Pierre shrugged.

  ‘He is not well, one can well see, he has some kind of ague and sits about shivering and complaining of his belly, though none of the other men has taken the same ill. We have dosed him with willow-bark tea and ginger, but it does not help. Élise wished me to leave him home today, to see if a day’s quiet would avail him.’

  ‘Poor boy,’ said Alys, noting this last point approvingly. ‘It is strange that none of the rest of you is affected.’

  Her father grunted agreement, then looked at her sideways.

  ‘Élise has said,’ he pronounced deliberately, ‘that she sees shadows about him. Shadows, and also crows.’

  ‘Shadows? What does she mean? And why crows? Crows such as these in the treetops, or metaphorical crows?’

  ‘I do not know,’ he said, though she did not believe this. ‘That is all she has told me. So I have no time to pursue your husband about the town, and no time to sit here longer talking to you, pleasant though it is, ma mie.’

  She rose obediently when he did, and looked about for Jennet, finding the woman at her elbow.

  ‘If I see Gil in the town, I will tell him you are kept here.’ She put up her face for his kiss. ‘Will you send Luke to bring the jug and cloths home at the day’s end? I should like a word with him.’

  ‘Where now, mem?’ asked Jennet as they crossed the stoneyard. ‘Are we to go into St Mungo’s? I’d like fine to see where that verger was put down the well. It’s pity, so it is,’ she went on, following her mistress towards the door of the Lower Kirk, ‘they none of them saw whoever did it go to and fro on the path, it would ha made our maister’s work a sight easier.’

  ‘Did Thomas say anything about the boy Berthold?’

  ‘Him? No, he never mentioned him. Save he said the laddie’s no weel,’ she amended, ‘complaining of his belly. Likely it’s the change from his foreign food that’s disagreed wi him, he’ll be right when he’s accustomed hissel to kale and oatmeal.’

  Alys, curtsying to Our Lady, small and ancient on her pillar inside the door, made no answer. She reached up to touch the little figure’s blackened foot, and went past into the Lady Chapel, drawing her beads from her belt. Jennet curtsied in her turn, but made her way purposefully down the steps to where St John’s chapel was firmly cordoned off with some of the blue ropes which were used to pen the multitude on feast days. Kneeling within the curtained Lady Chapel, Alys could hear her servant’s pattens clopping about the east end, and a quiet recitation as if someone was saying Mass in one of the other chapels on the cross-aisle. The Lower Kirk was not empty.

  One repetition of the rosary contented her for the moment. Leaving money for a second candle she moved on for a word with St Mungo himself, setting yet another candle on the bank of lights against the fence which surrounded the tomb. She murmured a section of one of the graduals concerning his miraculous life, drawing together her Latin, which was not, she suspected, as good as Gil thought it was, to petition him in a language he might understand. Though surely prayer should transcend language, she thought suddenly. The priest who had been saying Mass left by the stair towards the Vicars’ hall. Had it been William Craigie? No, surely not, he had crossed the kirkyard earlier. She shut her eyes to avoid distraction. Blessed Kentigern, she said to the saint, you concerned yourself with servants, you raised your teacher’s cook from the dead, whether your servant Barnabas was a thief or no he deserves justice. Help us to find his murderer. And the two women at the Cross, both the one who is vanished and the one who was found dead there, they deserve your care too. What should I do to help them? How can we find Annie and bring her to safety, how can we procure justice for Peg? Let me have a sign, blessed Kentigern.

  A little current of air passed her face, as if someone moved beside her. She opened her eyes, but nobody was nearby, not even the priest.

  ‘Jennet?’ she said.

  ‘I’m here, mistress.’ Her servant emerged from the Lady Chapel, beads in hand. ‘Where do we go now? Are you going to question all them at St Catherine’s? Has our maister no questioned them a’ready?’

  ‘That’s right kind in you to call, mistress,’ said Ursula Shaw. ‘And sending your own woman out to fetch in cakes and ale.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ said Alys conventionally, and glanced beyond the two girls at Jennet, who was now sharing a portion of both with the woman Meggot.

  ‘They feed us well enough here,’ said Nicholas, ‘but they’s no wee extras the way there is at home.’ She bit into one of the honey-cakes with evident pleasure. ‘No to mention we’re glad o the company. It’s a wee thing tedious, what wi my aunt spending all her time across at St Mungo’s.’

  I wonder where, thought Alys. Perhaps she was in the Upper Kirk.

  ‘We were thinking, when we came to Glasgow we’d get to the market,’ confessed Ursula, ‘and there’s a velvet warehouse so I heard, the chapman said it was a right good choice you’d get there.’

  ‘Maister Walkinshaw’s warehouse,’ said Alys.

  ‘Aye, that was the name. I could just fancy a velvet gown.’ The other girl looked down at her own woad-dyed homespun, and then at Alys’s well-cut tawny linen. ‘Is that the sleeves they’re wearing this year? Big enough for a jeely-bag?’

  ‘Certainly in Glasgow,’ Alys agreed, smoothing the deep facing of yellow silk which turned back one wide sleeve. ‘I have spent all my life in towns,’ she went on. ‘The countryside is bonnie, especially when it is well farmed, and of course one’s food is fresher by far in the country, but I should not like to be so far from warehouses, and have to rely on what the chapman brings. Is yours reliable? Does he carry a good stock?’

  ‘What, Cadger Billy? Aye, he’s no bad. Comes by every three or four month, wi a pack o stale news—’

  ‘Cadger’s news!’ said Nicholas, and giggled. Her sister threw her an annoyed glance, and went on rather sourly,

  ‘We’re missing him the now, indeed, he must be out about Glenbuck wi his wee cairt, and here we’re shut in here instead o viewing the merchant-goods o Glasgow that he’s aye described us.’

  ‘We’ll both be wedded in homespun yet, for all Ellen cares,’ said Nicholas. ‘Did you say, mistress,’ she went on, ‘you’re wedded on that man that’s trying to find Annie? The one like a long drink—’ She broke off sharply as if she had been nudged. ‘He was here just a wee minute ago, talking wi Dame Ellen, afore she went back to St Mungo’s. Is he a good man to be wedded on?’

  A long drink of water, Alys thought, and repressed annoyance.

  ‘He’s very good to me,’ she said. ‘He tells me you’re both betrothed?’

  ‘Aye.’ Ursula pulled a face. ‘Though when we’ll get to be wedded, wi Da the way
he is—’ She turned her face away briefly, blinking. ‘It was to be next month, ye ken, mistress, and now there’s no saying.’

  ‘And no velvet gowns neither,’ muttered Nicholas.

  ‘Will your men not wait? It should all be signed, surely?’

  The sisters looked at one another, and Nicholas shrugged.

  ‘Likely. Hers certainly will.’

  ‘Och, Nick, so will yours.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  Nicholas, it seemed, was to wed a neighbour of her sister Mariota over into Lanarkshire; Alys, only dimly familiar with the place-names they threw about, thought they might still be too far apart for the sisters to visit easily once both had babies to consider, but Ursula still sounded resentful when she named her future husband’s lands.

  ‘Away down through Ayrshire,’ she said, ‘next to Tarbolton, no that far from where Annie came from as a matter of fact. A whole day’s ride from her and Mariota.’

  ‘But are his lands extensive?’ Alys asked. ‘Can he keep you in style? Will you have a great household to run?’

  ‘So my aunt says,’ said Ursula, with a show of indifference.

  ‘Was the match hers, then?’

  ‘Aye, she promoted it. He’s some kind of acquaintance o her kin at St Mungo’s, so my da said.’

  ‘Have you met him? Is he a well-looking man?’

  ‘Better than Lockhart,’ said Nicholas. ‘They both are!’

  ‘That’s no hard!’

  The two exchanged another look, and giggled. Alys was aware of Meggot, over by the other wall, glancing at the sisters and shaking her head disapprovingly. Taking care not to meet Jennet’s eye, she said,

  ‘I had not realised you had kin at St Mungo’s. Who is it?’

  ‘Och, none of our kin,’ said Ursula dismissively. ‘Some connection o my aunt’s by her first marriage, I think she said. He’s no ill looking, but he’s a priest, all shaven and shorn, though that didny stop him putting his hand about Nick’s waist when we met him.’

  ‘Aye, and Ellen never checked him,’ said Nicholas, wriggling in remembered displeasure.

  ‘But do you recall his name?’ asked Alys. He gropith so nyselye about my lape, she thought, reviewing a list of the St Mungo’s clergy in her mind. There were several whom she would not wish to consult without Jennet or preferably Gil at her elbow, but not all of these were no ill looking.

  ‘William?’ said Ursula.

  ‘William Craigie,’ her sister contributed. She nodded at sight of Alys’s expression, and went on, ‘To hear Ellen the sun shines out his bum.’

  ‘She wasny saying that the morn,’ observed Ursula. ‘Abusing him for a’things, she was, out there in the courtyard, for something he hadny done.’

  ‘What was it?’ the other girl asked avidly. Ursula shrugged.

  ‘Never heard. She stopped when she saw me, got at me for no finishing my seam instead.’

  ‘Just the same,’ said Nicholas doggedly, ‘she mostly thinks he’s a pattern o perfection, but what I heard was, he’d a major penance to perform, the way he’d done something right serious against Holy Kirk.’

  ‘Who tellt you that?’ demanded Ursula. Nicholas shrugged in her turn.

  ‘One of your man’s folk, when they all cam up to sign your betrothal papers. I forget the lad’s name. Meggot!’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘Aye, lassie, what is it?’ Meggot responded, pausing with another little cake halfway to her mouth.

  ‘Do you mind that lad of Arthur Kennedy’s telling us about William Craigie and his penance?’

  ‘She does not,’ said another voice from the window. They all turned, startled, to find a grim-faced woman staring in at the wide-flung shutters. Beyond her a liveried manservant slipped off towards the stable block. ‘And what has it to do wi you, my girl, any road? I’ve brought you up better than to spend your time gossiping wi other folk’s servants, Nicholas Shaw, let alone passing on whatever slanders they’ve spoken, and I’ll thank you to keep it in mind.’

  Alys, rising as good manners dictated to curtsy to the newcomer, observed the reactions in the room with interest. The sisters were annoyed by the interruption, only slightly embarrassed at being found gossiping; Meggot appeared to be frightened. Would this mean another beating, perhaps? Or did she fear something worse? What could be worse, Alys speculated, waiting for Dame Ellen to come round by the door of the guest-hall. Meggot might lose her place, or she might be sent back out to Glenbuck to wait alone for news of Annie, or her mistress might report badly of her to Sir Edward. No, she was Annie’s servant, not Dame Ellen’s, or so Gil had said; it could hardly be that.

  ‘Good afternoon, Aunt,’ said Ursula in a tone of faint malice as the older woman stalked into the hall. ‘I hope you had solace of your time at St Mungo’s. This is Mistress Alys Mason, that’s wedded on that man that’s seeking our Annie, come to offer us comfort in our troubles.’

  ‘Indeed I am sorry for all your distress,’ said Alys, curtsying again and going forward with her hands outstretched. ‘Is there still no word of your niece?’

  ‘No niece of mine,’ said Dame Ellen curtly, ignoring the hands. ‘No, there’s no word, though it would ease my poor brother’s passing greatly if he kent where the lassie had got to, deid or living.’

  ‘It is very strange,’ Alys persisted, ‘that she should have vanished away so completely. Is there nobody that might have given her shelter, can you think?’

  ‘Do you no think we’ve racked our brains for a clue?’ retorted the older woman, bridling. ‘Now we’ll no keep you back, mistress, kind as it was in ye to entertain these silly lassies for a bit. And your woman and all.’ Her gimlet gaze went beyond Alys, and a rustle of cloth suggested that Jennet felt similarly impelled to curtsy. ‘Good day to ye, madam.’

  Out in the courtyard she encountered someone who could only be the doctor, a small man with curly dark hair, in a stained cloth gown which looked as if he regularly wore it while pounding simples or concocting remedies. She curtsied to him, under Jennet’s suspicious glower, and when he acknowledged it she introduced herself and asked after his patient. He shook his head sadly, and she noted the dark shadows under the blue eyes.

  ‘I think he has a difficult passage,’ she said in French, aware of watching eyes, of listening ears in the hall behind her, ‘despite the prayers of his friends.’

  The doctor nodded.

  ‘Difficult indeed,’ he replied in the same language. ‘I can keep the pain at bay, but it is terrible to combat. There will be no poppy left in Glasgow, I suspect.’

  ‘How long has he got? How long do we have to find the missing lady?’

  ‘I think he will wait until he knows she is safe.’

  Alys stepped forward and placed a hand on his sleeve.

  ‘What if she is no longer living?’ she said. ‘The longer it takes to find her or some trace of her, the less certain my husband is that we will find her alive.’

  There was a tiny pause, and Januar said smoothly,

  ‘Why, if she is no longer living, then she is assuredly safe under Our Lady’s mantle.’

  Alys considered him for a moment, but let that pass.

  ‘She seems to have no connection or acquaintance in this part of Scotland,’ she said. ‘If there was a house of nuns in Glasgow one might seek her there, but we can learn of nowhere else she could have turned to.’

  ‘My concern is for my patient,’ said the doctor after a moment. ‘You will excuse me, madame.’

  The hostel’s little chapel was dark and quiet, though there were candles on the stand at the feet of the patron saint on her pillar to the left of the chancel arch. Jennet, at first wishing to exclaim indignantly about Dame Ellen’s behaviour, fell silent when her mistress drew out her beads, and retreated to sit near the door on the narrow wall-bench. Alys stood before St Catherine, head bent, not praying but trying to order what she had learned just now. The Shaw sisters were remarkably silly girls, as their aunt said, she thought dispassiona
tely, but they did not seem ill intentioned, and if they knew anything about what had happened to their sister-in-law, they would be hard pressed to conceal it. Dame Ellen was another matter; the woman was certainly concealing something, but what? Was she directly involved in Annie’s disappearance, or did she know or suspect who might be involved? Why did Meggot fear her?

  ‘She’s aye ready wi her hands, so Meggot said,’ said Jennet as they made their way down the hill, past the high sandstone walls of the castle. ‘Showed me her bruises, she did, that the old dame gied her only for saying it wasny her own mistress that lay dead in the chapel. Is that the chapel where we were the now, mem? Small wonder if they were mistook at first, it was that dark.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything else?’ Alys asked, untangling this statement. ‘Does she know where her own mistress is, do you think?’

  ‘I’d say no,’ Jennet pronounced after a moment. ‘She seems right concerned for her, saying she’s no notion whether she’s living or where she might be. What else did she say, now?’ She clopped across the flagstones round the Girth Cross behind Alys, considering the matter. ‘It’s been a good position till now, for she’s fond o the lassie that’s missing, for all her strange ways. But what wi the young leddies about to be wedded, and the maister on his deathbed, though she says he’s been that way for months now, she’s no notion o what’s to come to her, the soul.’ She thought further. ‘Tellt me a bit about the life. I was never in a country position, see, mem, and I wouldny fancy it, by what she says. That doctor turned up a few month ago, wi his man—’

  ‘His man?’ Alys queried, stopping to look at the other girl. ‘Your maister never mentioned a manservant. Is he still there?’