by Pat McIntosh
‘Here, what’s this?’ said Mistress Bowen sharply behind him. He turned, to find her looking indignantly at her palm. ‘I’ll no be bought, maister—’
‘Indeed no!’ said Lowrie hastily, his neck reddening. ‘I hope you’ll tell the Sheriff what you found and no other, when the time comes. No, no, it’s in consideration of a dirty task, mistress, and there’s a shroud-penny to Kirstie as well.’
Mollified, the two departed and the bedeswomen from St Agnes’ were installed beside their client. Annot, clearly feeling more settled now that the ordeal of her questioning was over, knelt beside them. Gil moved carefully into the bedchamber, looking about him.
‘Tell me a bit more,’ he said as Lowrie joined him.
‘There’s a fair bit more to tell,’ the younger man agreed.
‘John Sempill, for a start. You’ve something to add to Annot’s tale? When was he here?’
‘Last night after dinner, as she said. The old woman kept him standing, and then refused to see him privately. A roaring row in the antechamber.’
‘Your uncle said the same,’ Gil recalled. ‘So not this morning?’
‘Not that I know,’ Lowrie said warily.
‘But he got a word wi her anyway.’ Gil frowned, trying to think of what Sempill had said earlier.
‘Aye. After he left us he stopped by this window,’ he nodded at the one opposite the bed-foot, which gave onto the courtyard, ‘and shouted through it at her, and they’d another roaring argument you could hear in Partick, till he flung off out the gate bawling threats—’ Lowrie stopped, suddenly aware of what he was saying. ‘He said,’ he continued more slowly, ‘he’d see her in Hell afore he did whatever it was she’d ordered him to do. She was looking out at the window, and asked what his wife would say if she kent what he’d been at, and he, he went closer and said something quiet, and she laughed at him. So he stormed off out the gate.’
‘Where were you?’ Gil asked. ‘Where were her servants, at that?’
‘I’ve no notion where her servants were,’ Lowrie admitted, ‘though I’d not believe Annot heard none of it, but I was hanging out the upstairs window listening for all I was worth. I’ve not had such entertainment all week. Is the man aye so birsie?’
‘He’s much improved since this marriage, if you’ll believe me,’ Gil said. And where had Sempill been this morning, he wondered, when he told his wife he was talking to Dame Isabella? ‘Now, do you see aught amiss here? Aught that’s out of place or missing?’
‘I’d not know.’ Lowrie looked about him. ‘She was right persnickety, I’d guess her kists are all packed just so, but you want Annot for that. I’ll fetch her in.’ He turned to go, then hesitated. ‘Maister, I’d say I was wi my uncle from the time the two o us came down for our porridge till Annot came running to say she was dead, for we were going back over all the documents and debating what to do about the Strathblane lands.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘So am I,’ Lowrie admitted. ‘But the thing is, we were at the back o the hall, looking onto the garden, so we neither of us saw nor heard anything from this side the house. And a course the kitchen’s out that way and all, so she was right unattended, nobody within call in any direction, if what Annot says is right.’
‘Except her murderer.’ Gil sighed. ‘It’s not an easy one to piece together. She was enthroned yonder, and to judge by the sign she was in no position to move. Unless her bowels were loosed as she died,’ he added thoughtfully. He stepped into the room and looked about him. ‘Someone entered the chamber, and lifted something to use as a hammer, or else brought one in, then went around the settle and behind her,’ he did so as he spoke, finding to his relief that the cover was down on the close-stool, ‘and drove the nail into her ear.’
‘Into the far side of her head.’ Lowrie put his hand up to his own skull. ‘She’d be facing the window, with the settle at her left side. Does that work? Nail in the left hand, mell in the right, reach across over the top of her head – why? Why no strike it in at the back or the crown?’
‘So that she didn’t see the blow coming,’ Gil guessed. ‘The left hand over her head, as you said, and the right striking from behind her. It’s odd, just the same, you’d think the wall would cramp your movement. Unless,’ he stooped, looking at the shutters in the lower portion of the window, ‘unless she was looking out of the window. This is just ajar, there’s a good view of the street.’
‘She was right nosy,’ Lowrie said. ‘That would be like her, to sit there looking up the Drygate, however she was occupied.’
‘Aye, I like that better. And then whoever it was left, and took the mell with them.’
‘And she tried to follow.’ Lowrie grimaced. ‘Maybe she was a cantankerous old attercap, but nobody deserves a death like that.’
Annot, summoned from her prayers, seemed likely to start weeping again, and was not reassured by Lowrie saying,
‘We’re still trying to find out what happened.’
‘It wasny me,’ she protested, ‘I wasny here, I’ve never a notion what can have come to her, save it was some wicked soul off the street!’
‘Look about you,’ Gil said, ‘and see if you can tell me what’s changed from,’ he paused, considering. ‘From the time the men were in to get their orders this morning.’
‘The men?’ She stared at him, then applied herself to this idea. ‘Oh, maister, all’s different.’
‘Where was your mistress seated?’
‘Here on the settle,’ she pointed, ‘and that bowl and towels wasny there on the bench, for we’d washed her hands and face afore she rose and set the bowl on the wee table by the bed-foot.’
‘How was she clad?’
‘Her good bedgown that’s lying on the bed now, wrapped all about her and tied decent.’
‘What about her feet?’
‘Her pantofles. She aye wears her pantofles in the mornings, blue velvet wi stitch-work on them, and her hose under them for warmth. Her head? Just her cap, to cover her hair decent.’
‘What else is different?’ Gil persisted. ‘Has anything been moved? Are her kists all as they should be?’
‘I, I think so. Save that someone’s opened up her jewel-kist,’ she said, with sudden indignation. ‘Who’s been prying?’
‘Is aught missing?’ Lowrie asked. She looked at him, then crossed the chamber to where the leather-clad box lay on the settle. Setting back the lid she inspected the multiplicity of little bags of velvet or brocade it contained.
‘Her silver cross,’ she murmured, lifting it, ‘the great chain, the two small chains, the jet from St Hilda’s, the pearl rope, the pearl chain—’
Sweet St Giles, thought Gil, what an inventory. The woman could have funded a Crusade.
‘There’s just the one thing missing,’ said Annot finally, looking up at them. ‘And Christ be my witness, Maister Lowrie, it was here when I last looked in this kist. It’s a purse of silver coin, maister, that she never touched or would let us touch. It should be at the bottom of the kist and it’s no there, look, you can see where it ought to be.’
‘And you’ve a witness,’ said Andrew Otterburn. ‘No a very reliable one, by all I hear, but he kens what he saw, I suppose.’
‘I’d say so,’ agreed Gil.
‘And they struck you down so that you lost your senses. Aye, I’ve got that. Pity it wasny to the effusion of your blood, maister, but we canny have everything.’
‘I’ll contrive to do without it,’ Gil said, touching the back of his head gingerly. Otterburn acknowledged this with a flick of his eyebrows. ‘And likely Madam Xanthe will swear to what she knows, taking me in near senseless and drying me off.’
‘Aye, so I hear,’ agreed Otterburn drily. ‘Well, well, we’ll get it writ up in due process and serve them wi’t as a summons, but will we do aught afore that? Would you wish any other action? We canny have the Archbishop’s man struck down all anyhow. Per exemplum, I’d be happy enough to send Andro and two-three men
to search the place, take the man Muir’s workshop apart, gie them a bit fright.’ Gil nodded. ‘Walter, man, see to that, would you? They’ve plenty time afore supper.’
The clerk left the chamber, and Otterburn sat back.
‘Now, this matter of murder and maybe robbery at Canon Aiken’s house,’ he went on. ‘You’re saying you’re no right convinced by John Anderson’s version?’
‘I’m saying,’ Gil replied carefully, ‘there are more questions to be asked. It might be that the Serjeant’s right, but it might not. I’m not clear about a few things.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to call some of them to mind. ‘For one, all her people said she wore her cap to give the men orders, but when she lay dead she was bareheaded and there was no cap to be seen. For another, it was a right sharp morning, but she had only her shift on her, nothing round her shoulders. And now this matter of the missing purse of coin.’
‘You think these things matter?’
‘The coin matters, for certain, and I think the others might.’
Otterburn nodded, making small squares with the little stylus in the wax of his tablets. After a moment he said,
‘Well, no harm if Anderson pursues these servants he’s cried at the Cross, for we’ll need to speak to them whatever else we jalouse. And this bag o siller has to be found and all. You’ll make your own enquiries, I take it? Aye. Well, call on me if you need help, man. There’s a whole troop o armed men eating their heads off out there, we need to gie them occupation.’ He threw Gil another look. ‘But no the day, I hope. You look to me as if you’re about done.’
‘I’m for home,’ Gil agreed. ‘I’ve a few things to discuss wi my wife.’
‘I’ll wager you have,’ said Otterburn, grinning.
Chapter Five
Alys was not speaking to him.
He could see that she was distressed; her face was pinched and drawn back from the high narrow bridge of her nose, the delicate feature to which Dame Isabella had taken such exception. If he spoke she glanced at him, but did not react. He had seen her apply the same treatment to her father when he had displeased her. What did I say to Lowrie? he thought. I should have kept my mouth shut. Socrates, apparently feeling he was also in disgrace, leaned against his knee shivering.
It did not help that the hall of Maistre Pierre’s house was full of music and people. As well as the mason himself, the harper McIan and his sister Ealasaidh, a fiddler, a drummer, and Catherine improbably tapping a foot to The Battle of Harlaw were gathered round the hearth; in various corners of the big chamber the McIans’ two servants (Two? he thought, they must be doing well just now) and the company of musicians which somehow condensed about them wherever they went, not to mention small John and his nurse Nancy and all their own servants, seemed to be dancing to the infectious rhythms. The dinner would be burning. No, it was long past dinnertime, but the supper would definitely be afflicted, and all he wanted to do was sit down quietly and talk his day through with Alys, who could always help him to think more clearly.
The battle came to an end. Alys began shooing the women back to their work in the kitchen, and McIan set his harp aside, making certain it was standing firmly beside the arm of his host’s great chair.
‘God’s greeting to you, Maister Cunningham,’ he said, turning his white eyes towards Gil.
‘Ah, Gilbert.’ Maistre Pierre beckoned. ‘See who has blown in off the High Street. Come from Stirling the day, they tell me.’
‘How are you, sir?’ Gil came forward with Socrates at his heel. The harper rose to his majestic height and bowed, long silver hair falling over his brow, the white beard settling back on his chest as he straightened up again. ‘And Mistress Ealasaidh?’
‘We are both well, maister, by God’s grace. And so is that bonnie wee skellum yonder, that is growing like a weed.’ The blank gaze swung to small John, who was still dancing though the music had stopped, and the austere mouth softened. ‘You take good care of him in this house. I think he is well loved.’
‘Indeed yes!’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘He brightens the place,’ Gil said simply. The fiddler and drummer had retreated to the other end of the hall and now struck up a court dance, the sharp drumbeats striking pain in his head. Two recorders and a still shawm joined in on the second phrase, and one of the singers began showing John the steps. ‘Have you heard him sing?’
‘He sings like a lintie,’ offered Ealasaidh McIan, seated beside the mason on one of the two long settles. Not much past thirty, nearly as tall as her brother, she was clad for travel in the loose checked gown of an Erschewoman, her dark hair curling down her back. She looked hard at Gil, but went on, ‘His mammy was full of music, Our Lady call her from Purgatory, so small wonder if he has it too. Did I hear the man Sempill has taken another woman?’
‘He has,’ Gil agreed. ‘And she leads him as if she had a ring through his – his nose. I’d say the boy’s mammy is well avenged.’
Her eyes glittered, but her brother said,
‘Leave that the now, woman. Maister Cunningham, I have a word for you from the Archbishop.’
‘Sir?’ Gil removed his hat carefully, as if his master was present. The harper bent his head a moment, then said in a startling imitation of Robert Blacader’s ponderous speech,
‘My greetings and blessing to Maister Cunningham, and let him ken this. The matter of the false coin is in hand, it’s my will he shouldny involve himself. If I need his help I’ll send to him.’ Across the hall Alys looked up sharply, but said nothing. Gil felt himself reddening.
‘Mon Dieu!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘But who else should deal with it in Glasgow? You or Otterburn should take it on, I would think, and he has asked you, so it cannot be him.’
The harper, reverting to his own manner, said, ‘Best to let it lie the now. You will be caught up in it soon enough, maister. There is much unknown, and more hidden.’
Used to this kind of gnomic utterance, Gil did not question the man, but replaced his hat with care, sat down beside Catherine on the other settle, and applied himself to repressing anger. His master the Archbishop had just snubbed him before his ward’s father and the entire household, and he could do nothing about it.
‘The Isles are full of the stuff,’ observed Ealasaidh.
‘We will not speak of that,’ said her brother, sitting down again. She slid him a dark look, but said no more. ‘And you, maister. What have you been at the day? There is death about you, and it links to the boy.’
‘Indirectly,’ Gil agreed, wishing he could leave the conversation, leave the hall, go and sit peacefully in their own apartment. The dog nudged his knee with his long nose, and he stroked the soft ears.
‘Indeed it does,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘What are all these tales I hear, Gilbert? Is that dreadful old woman dead in truth?’
‘It is news of the most distressing,’ observed Catherine in French.
‘Tell it,’ prompted McIan. His sister put a cup of ale into his hand. ‘Who is slain?’
The musicians had all gathered about the plate-cupboard at the far end of the hall, where someone had propped a new piece of music against the larger of the two salts. This one did not involve the drum. Over an argument about where the repeats should fall Gil identified Dame Isabella, with interpolations from Maistre Pierre, explained her connection with small John, described her death. Alys listened, quietly pouring more ale or handing little cakes; he was aware of her attention, though she did not look at him. Ealasaidh sat by her brother and exclaimed at each turn of the tale, but the harper was as silent as Alys.
‘To be rid of the man Sempill!’ Ealasaidh burst out as he finished. ‘Angus, we accept the offer, surely!’
‘If it still stands,’ Gil cautioned her. ‘Lady Magdalen may change her mind, now her godmother is dead.’
‘If it still stands,’ agreed her brother, ‘I am in favour.’
‘The rents would keep the boy easily,’ supplied Maistre Pierre, ‘and we may put some aside fo
r his education as well.’
‘But this woman who is dead.’ McIan shook his head. ‘There is darkness and betrayal there.’
‘If it was her servant slew her, that is betrayal enough,’ observed Ealasaidh.
‘And the violence to yourself, Maister Cunningham.’ Gil, who had slid over that part, did not look at Alys. ‘Have you taken hurt?’
‘A headache, a wetting, no more than that.’
‘Hmm.’ Maistre Pierre rose, removed Gil’s hat, felt carefully at his skull with large gentle hands. ‘No, I think your skull is hard enough,’ he said at length, as Gil flinched. ‘A lump like a goose-egg, but nothing worse. Continue your tale. What were they concealing, do you suppose?’
‘If I knew, it wouldny be concealed,’ he said wearily. ‘All I did was look into Danny Sproat’s stable and frighten the rats. I saw nothing untoward there.’
‘No, you need to look elsewhere,’ agreed the harper.
‘I should like to search the toft, nevertheless,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘Otterburn’s men are doing that,’ Gil said.
‘Drink this.’ Alys was at his elbow – when had she left the hall? – handing him a small beaker of something. He swallowed it obediently, tasting willow-bark tea, honey, something else familiar. He looked up warily and smiled his thanks, and she met his eye, though she did not return the smile. Was he forgiven or not? he wondered.
The band by the plate-cupboard embarked on another piece of music, passing this one by ear, laughing as the sweet-sharp phrases modulated in different hands. Ealasaidh, with a glance at her brother, rose and drew Alys away to talk to John, who was inclined to be a little shy of his tall aunt. The harper sat back and said,