The Fourth Crow

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Well, the next day then. We canny leave it longer, the King’s Grace is for the Isles again and all the Court wi him. Which calls me to mind, I’ll want you wi us, Gilbert.’

  Turning over this startling news, Gil made now for home and his dinner. His last trip to the Isles in May had been eventful, and had brought him once again to the attention of his King. Another trip could be interesting, though he would probably have to leave Alys at home again; it certainly meant that he had to find out who killed Barnabas, and Peg Simpson, and Dame Ellen Shaw, before he left.

  Lowrie was in the hall when he stepped into the house, pulling off his boots while the women set up the table and Euan gathered up plaids and saddlebags to carry upstairs. Catherine had emerged from her chamber in anticipation of the meal. Alys was just pouring ale; seeing Gil she smiled, and reached for another beaker. Socrates padded forward to greet them both, tail waving.

  ‘Success!’ the young man said. ‘I’ve news aplenty, Maister Gil. But what’s happening in the burgh? What’s the Bellman crying? Did I see the Archbishop’s standard at the Castle?’

  ‘You did,’ Gil agreed, taking a pull at his ale. ‘Ah, I needed that. There’s been all sorts happening here. I’ve collected a deal of news too, and Alys has found Annie Gibb safe.’

  ‘Found—?’ Lowrie stared in awe at Alys over his ale. ‘Mistress, I truly believe there is nothing you can’t do. Where was she?’

  Over the meal Catherine listened intently as they discussed the return of Annie Gibb, and what Gil had learned from the day, and finally turned to Lowrie’s errand over the second course, a dish of almond tartlets.

  ‘I found James Bowling easy enough,’ he said. ‘He dwells hard by the Cross, I’d to ask no more than two people afore I found him. He’s forty I suppose, stout burgess prospering well, it’s clear the town supports more than one man of law in good style. I gave him your letter, which he read, and sends greetings, very civilly.’ Gil bent his head in acknowledgement. ‘Then I tellt him the whole tale, as I had it last night a course, and asked could he shed any light on any of it. At which he hummed and hawed a while about confidentiality and the respect of his clients, till I mentioned the Archbishop, and reminded him how much we kent already, whereupon he agreed to answer questions but no to volunteer what wasny asked.’

  ‘I’d ha done the same, I suppose,’ said Gil.

  ‘Indeed, it shows a very proper attitude,’ said Catherine in French.

  ‘By which means I established,’ said Lowrie, nodding at this, ‘that William Craigie is altogether well kent in Ayrshire. It’s not spoken of but widely kent that he was one of a party that burned the kirk o Tarbolton, and a course as a priest he was hit wi a heavy penance for it. He’s to contribute stone for the rebuilding—’

  ‘The quarry!’ said Alys.

  ‘Exactly. He was fined coin and all, which he’s paying over a few merks at a time, and has been going the rounds of the men of law in Ayrshire, trying to get one of them to take on his case that he should ha been left the quarry you were asking Maister Mason o last night.’

  ‘Was it only last night?’ marvelled Gil. ‘Aye, before Attie summoned us to the hostel. Go on, Lowrie. This is extraordinarily useful.’

  ‘Why should he have been left it?’ Alys wondered. ‘Was there any reason?’

  ‘There was. Annie’s paternal grandmother was a Craigie. I think the land came to her father that way.’

  ‘And he claimed to be unrelated to Annie,’ said Gil. ‘Very good. Very useful indeed, Lowrie.’

  ‘Maistre le notaire, I believe you should go,’ said Catherine, glancing at the windows, ‘if you are to attend Vespers as the Archbishop ordered. I hope to hear an account of what passes.’

  ‘Did you ask about Annie? Or about the Muirs?’ Gil pushed back his chair, and the rest of the household took its cue to rise and begin clearing the table.

  ‘I did.’ Lowrie grimaced. ‘Annie’s vow is likewise well kent in the county, and the Muirs are just as notorious. It seems there’s nobody willing to entertain their suit for their daughters. Not either o them.’

  The nave of St Mungo’s was crowded, and the people of the burgh were still pouring in by the south door. Gil led his household in and succeeded, by the use of his elbows and Euan’s extra weight, in placing them all sufficiently close to the heavy stone choir screen. Vespers had already begun, and the psalms for the day were floating through the screen; Gil made out both Habbie Sim’s tenor and Will Craigie’s bass.

  ‘What’s to do, maister?’ Kittock asked behind him. ‘Are we to be kept late? For my knees isny up to a long stand.’

  Vespers wound to its close. Galston and the foolish Robert led the procession, in its full panoply of brocade vestments and gleaming metalwork, out through the choir screen and down the steps into the nave. The congregation in the knave knelt with a mighty susurration as the Archbishop passed, led by crucifer, lucifers, thurifer. The thurifer’s censer swung, spreading the ticklish smoke. The choir, following, divided left and right and took up position on the steps, while the two vergers led the procession of clergy away into the narrow north transept towards the vestry. On the steps the Sub-Chanter gave out a note, and the choir launched into one of the penitential psalms.

  Gil looked about him. The Provost was nearby, with a small detachment of his men; they had left their weapons in the porch, of course, but their buff jerkins were conspicuous. Midway down the nave he could see Sir Simon and the party from the pilgrim hostel, and Maistre Pierre was easy to pick out even in this crowd. (Does Pierre know yet? he wondered. No, I must not be distracted.) He went on searching, and made out the Muir brothers by one of the pillars, and a number of off-duty vergers by another. Distantly down the nave he could see Peg Simpson’s man, the porter Billy Baird.

  The choir embarked on another psalm, and the procession returned. Once again the processional cross, the two candles on their long bearing-poles, the smoking censer went past; they must have replenished the censer, Gil thought. A junior cleric bore a bell, another held a smaller candle, the Gospel returned on its cushion. But behind them came the clergy, stripped of their brocades and embroidered vestments, robed in black and purple as if it was Lent. A murmur ran through the crowd. Archbishop Blacader, the Dean, the Chanter, Canon Cunningham, Canon Muir – Gil counted twelve high-ranking priests following the archbishop up onto the platform before the choirscreen.

  Blacader turned and faced the crowd. The choir found the end of the psalm, and stopped. Without preamble, the Archbishop began to speak in Latin.

  ‘Quicunque vehementer percussit,’ he declaimed, in a voice which carried effortlessly to the far corners of the nave, ‘whomsoever violently slew the woman Ellen Shaw in the chapel dedicated to St Catherine, desecrating its stones with her blood: let him be separate, with his accomplices, from the precious body and blood of our Lord and from the society of all Christians. We declare him excommunicate and anathema, we judge him damned . . .’

  As the weighty sentences rolled on, the heavy delivery and emphatic tone leaving their intent unmistakable, Gil looked about the church again. Otterburn, solemn but alert; the group of vergers long faced. Townsfolk frowning intently, trying to recognise the Latin words, one or two translating for neighbours. Many were crossing themselves, alarmed by the portentous recital. The clergy flanking Blacader watched impassively, their mourning robes in heavy dark folds, the ends of all their purple stoles stirring in the draught. Covered all over in purple and pall, Gil thought.

  Blacader had switched to Scots.

  ‘Let him be damnit wi the condamnit, let him be scourgit wi the ingrate, let him perish wi the proud. Let him be accursit wi the heretics. Let him be accursit wi the blasphemer. Let him be—’

  On and on it went. Accursed in drinking, accursed in eating, accursed in sitting, accursed in standing. Gil could see his father-in-law frowning, Lockhart and his entourage of women crossing themselves. Some people were sobbing aloud.

  ‘— saving only if
he repent and mak amends,’ concluded the Archbishop. Gil counted silently, one, two, and all twelve of the black-robed priests stirred and said in deep unison,

  ‘Fiat!’ So be it.

  Blacader reached out and took the bell, and tolled it once. It made an incongruously sweet sound in the midst of the daunting ceremony. He closed the Gospel on its cushion before him, with a thump which made the book-bearer stagger slightly, then took the single candle from its bearer, snuffed it and threw it down. It rolled down the steps, watched by all the people around it. A child wailed, and was hushed. There was a huge silence.

  ‘No! No, no, you canny!’ howled a voice. Blacader looked out across the heads as Gil turned, hunting for the source. ‘I’ll no have it, I’ll no let you!’

  Austin Muir hurled himself towards the choirscreen, thrusting bystanders aside, his face contorted with fury. Behind him his brother snatched vainly at his gown and sleeves, calling for him to stop, to come back.

  ‘You’ll no snuff me out!’ declared Austin, as he reached the foot of the steps. He swooped on the candle and snatched it up. ‘Here, light it! Light me again!’

  ‘Austin!’ panted his brother behind him. ‘Leave it, man! Leave it be! He’s run mad,’ he said to the nearest man, who was pushing his wife out of danger. ‘Help me wi him!’

  ‘Light me again!’ demanded Austin, and sprang up the steps. The two tall candles were out of his reach, and their bearers hidden behind the ranks of the choir; he snatched the censer from the thurifer and knocked its cover off, prodding with the candle at the smoking grains of incense inside it. Behind Gil, Euan and the maidservants were attempting to drag Alys away to safety, some bystanders were pushing closer, other people were backing away, but Otterburn and his men were thrusting their way through the crowd. Gil followed Austin up the steps, elbowing bemused clergy aside, and tried to lay hands on the man.

  ‘Austin Muir,’ he said, ‘leave that be and come wi me.’

  ‘I’ll no!’ Austin straightened up, the chains of the censer in his hand, and backed away. ‘Get away! I have to light this!’

  ‘He’s run mad,’ said his brother again. ‘Austin, come away, man!’

  ‘I’ll no!’ Austin swung the censer now like a morningstar, scattering hot coals and smoking incense. A songman made a grab for it and was knocked aside in a smell of singed woollen vestment. Robert Blacader and his circle of clergy seemed frozen, staring appalled. Gil caught Austin’s eye and said,

  ‘Give me the candle, then and I’ll light it for you.’

  ‘Take me for a fool, do you?’ retorted Austin.

  ‘You’ll never light it if you throw incense all about,’ Gil said. Behind the man, Lowrie was moving carefully, quietly; the people around them were shouting, though the sound was miles away, and Otterburn and his men were at the foot of the steps now.

  ‘You’ll no get me that way!’ Austin said wildly, swinging the censer again. Another of the songmen tried to grapple with him and was struck by the weapon, falling sideways against his neighbour, who fell in his turn. Incense wafted everywhere, and people began to cough.

  ‘Put it down and give me the candle,’ Gil prompted. ‘Come on, man, be reasonable.’

  ‘Never!’ said Austin, shortened the chain round his hand and swung his smoking morningstar again. A huge waft of smoke billowed from it, and he choked, coughed, briefly withdrew his attention from his surroundings. Gil pounced, and Lowrie reached the man in the same moment. Gil seized the censer, Lowrie grasped his wrist and twisted it up behind his back. Gil handed the censer to the nearest pair of hands, and his uncle’s voice said, ‘Well done, Gilbert.’ Two of Otterburn’s men arrived to take a fierce hold of Austin, two more laid hands on Henry, and as Gil stepped back he finally heard the uproar in the building.

  Canon Muir surged out of the black-gowned row of clergy, his purple stole awry, exclaiming in distress.

  ‘No! Och, no, there’s some mistake! Austin, Henry, you canny ha done sic a thing? Oh, my dear laddies!’ He attempted to pull one of Otterburn’s men away from Austin, and was firmly but politely put aside by another.

  ‘Take them away, lads,’ said Otterburn at Gil’s side. ‘That was well done.’

  Blacader stepped forward and raised a hand for silence. To Gil’s amazement, he got it, in a spreading pool of stillness which flooded out from the foot of the steps. When the church was quiet, apart from the scuffling of Austin Muir being manhandled out of the building, his brother silent beside him and Canon Muir still lamenting behind the procession, the Archbishop scanned his flock with a minatory glare and said resonantly,

  ‘Sic a fate lies waiting for all who commit sacrilege, ye may be sure o that. Ye ha seen God’s justice done afore your een. Pray for that man’s repentance and forgiveness. Confess yir ain sins, find forgiveness yoursels. And now go in peace.’

  He raised his hand again, and recited a lengthy blessing, then turned and to the obvious surprise of his remaining cohort vanished through the choirscreen arch into the chancel, towards the high altar. With some milling about they collected themselves and followed him, in silence and in due order, and after a few moments, as the buzz of conversation rose in the nave, the first words of Compline floated out.

  ‘Well!’ said Alys at Gil’s elbow. ‘Were you expecting that?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Not entirely, I’ll admit,’ Gil said.

  They were briefly gathered in the little solar, after an extended session with Otterburn and the Archbishop. Otterburn’s satisfaction with the outcome of the anathema was as great as his master’s, though with a slightly different slant.

  ‘Two o these deaths tidied up,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘They’ve confessed, the both o them, though to hear them Austin thought he was protecting Henry when he broke the one lassie’s neck, and again when he took a candlestock to the other dame, and Henry reckoned he was protecting Austin when he got him away and tried to conceal it.’

  ‘Austin has repented very completely,’ said the Archbishop in Latin. ‘His brother will also repent of his part in the whole affair once we have discussed it with him. A very good outcome, Gilbert, and I commend your part in it, as well as that of your servant Lawrence.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Otterburn rather drily.

  ‘I was certain it was one of those two,’ said Gil now in answer to Alys, ‘but I’ll admit I still thought it was Henry did the actual killing. Austin never showed any sign of a quick temper, though I suppose his brother kept him on so short a leash he never had the chance.’

  ‘Little surprise he broke,’ said Lowrie. ‘I hope I never hear another anathema. The way the clauses mount up, threat upon threat,’ he demonstrated a growing stack with both hands, ‘must be designed to generate fear, and by Christ’s nails it does.’

  ‘It is indeed designed to be terrifying,’ commented Catherine, ‘and it would be a foolish person who was not struck by fear.’

  ‘But what did happen?’ Alys asked. ‘Did the Provost learn why the women died?’

  ‘They were both finding fault wi Henry, and that roused Austin,’ Gil said. ‘Peg was convinced it was one of them had infected her wi the clap.’

  ‘Surely not!’ said Alys. ‘It would have been as likely the other way around, I should have said.’

  ‘It could have been either,’ Gil said, considering this. ‘I’d ha thought both parties were equally advanced in the complaint, though Januar said the rages were a sign in the later stages of the disease, and Peg showed no such sign as yet.’

  ‘So perhaps she was right,’ said Alys thoughtfully. Lowrie was scarlet, looking increasingly awkward, and she smiled kindly at him and said, ‘In any case, she was convinced of it.’

  ‘She was,’ agreed Gil, ‘and demanded some reparation for it, out in the street where all could hear, said Austin.’

  ‘Including the man Johnson, I assume,’ said Lowrie, relief in his tone.

  ‘Exactly. Then she went for Henry when he refused her. He marked
her face the way we all saw it, but she managed to scratch his throat, and then when Austin flung her off, she struck the wall and broke her neck. That’s probably no hanging matter, but at least we ken the truth now. As for Dame Ellen, it seems she’d already summoned the brothers to meet her in the chapel after the hostel dinner hour, and by the time they came she’d heard Johnson’s wife and guessed who it must ha been that he heard arguing. According to Henry she was abusing him for a’ things, for spoiling her plans by losing his temper, and his brother seized the candlestick and struck her down. Austin should certainly hang for that, and maybe Henry as well.’

  ‘He did more than strike her down,’ said Lowrie, grimacing.

  ‘She was an unpleasant woman,’ said Alys, ‘but nobody deserves to die like that.’ She shivered slightly. ‘That night when Annie was at the Cross has been a busy one. My— My good-mother,’ she went on resolutely, ‘spoke of crows, of shadows, about young Berthold. Indeed it seems as if the night was full of shadows, of people like crows on a wall watching and waiting for one death or another. There was the doctor moving about, and making use of Peg’s death,’ she counted, ‘and then there was whoever it was tried to strangle her, and the Muirs swaggering through all of it after they killed her, though I suppose they are not like crows. Three crows, like the song.’

  ‘Not entirely like the song,’ said Gil. ‘And those are all linked to Peg, not to Berthold. We don’t know of any connection between them.’

  ‘And has anyone spoken to Berthold lately?’ she wondered. ‘Now that we know more about what was happening, perhaps we can reassure him enough for him to tell us what he saw.’

  ‘A good point,’ said Gil. ‘But best dealt wi tomorrow.’

  Alys lifted the wine jug. ‘Will you have some more, Gil? Lowrie?’

  ‘No if I’m to go out again,’ Gil said. ‘There’s the matter o Stockfish Tam and his customer to see to. No, I’ll no take you, Lowrie, we’ve been over that.’

  ‘I’ll admit, I’m about ready for my bed,’ said Lowrie, ducking his head in acknowledgement of this. ‘Forty mile, a long discussion, and a day of Euan’s conversation. I’m about done.’