The Harper's Quine (32 page)

More twigs crackled behind him.

‘What do you call it?’ said the mason. ‘A Bootie well?
Clootie pudding I know. How can you boil a well in a
cloth?’

‘The ribbons - cloths - are offerings,’ Gil explained.
‘I believe such wells are very old. St Tennoch’s well, out
the Thenawgait, is a clootie well.’

‘I have seen it.’ The mason gave the well a cursory
glance and turned to study the wall of the church. ‘This is
rough work, but they had talent, the old builders. If my
new work is still standing in five hundred years, I shall be
pleased.’ He prodded the mortar between two slabs of
ribbed grey rock. ‘Our guide is awake and wishes to
leave.’

Lachie Mor slipped out of the little chapel as they passed
the door. For a moment he wore a distant, bemused look
which chimed well with the way Gil felt; then his customary unreliable expression took over, and he leered at them,
gap-toothed.

‘Tobar Chattan,’ he said, jerking a thumb at the bum.
Then, pointing to their mounts, ‘Rothesay.’

‘We might be in time for dinner in the castle,’ said
Maistre Pierre hopefully, as they rode south around the
bay towards Rothesay. ‘You think Sir William will feed
us?’

Gil, still grappling with a strong sense of unreality, made
no answer, but found himself dragged back to the problems confronting them when the mason continued, as if
they had never halted, ‘But had Campbell the time? He
said himself he saw Bess Stewart with the gallowglass,
going into the trees, when he came to the kirkyard. She
was still alive then.’

‘He was not with the rest of the group throughout the
whole length of Compline,’ Gil pointed out. ‘He was one of
those that came and went, he said to say a word before St
James’s altar, which is nearer to the south door from where they were standing. He could have slipped out and spoken
to her, taken her into the building site for a word in private
- perhaps he claimed to have a message from her sister. He
carries a fine-bladed knife like the one we think was used.
It fits together.’

‘You think the money is the only motive?’

‘If I had cheated John Sempill out of the best part of a
hundred merks’ rent,’ said Gil frankly, ‘I’d go to considerable lengths to conceal it. I have known of men killed for
a couple of placks, maister.’

‘So have I. I think perhaps you are right. So what do we
do next?’

Gil hitched up his plaid against the rain. If it had rained
all afternoon, why had there been sunshine at St Chattan’s
Kirk?

‘I wish to talk to Neil Campbell, and- then I think we try
for a passage back to Dumbarton tomorrow. The wind has
changed, with this rain, so we may be lucky.’

‘Gil,’ said the mason. Gil turned his head to look at him.
‘You will stop calling me maister, no? We use names
between us?’

‘I should count it a privilege, Pierre.’

They grinned at one another.

‘Ah, mon Dieu,’ said the mason. ‘Does that mean another
night in that little chamber? On the straw mattress with
fleas in, and Sir William snoring?’

They went in by the Gallowgait Port, and clattered up to
the castle where they dismounted with some relief in the
courtyard. Gil thanked their guide in Scots, now quite
certain of his understanding; he certainly understood the
coin which made its way into his grubby fist. Whistling
cheerfully, he led the horses off towards the stables.

‘Now we find Sir William,’ said Maistre Pierre, turning
towards the chapel. ‘You think he is in his chamber?’

‘He will be in the buttery,’ said Neil Campbell, straightening up from the chapel doorway. ‘He is sending me here to wait for the gentlemen. There is things I should be
telling them.’

‘Can you tell us them over some food?’ asked the
mason.

Sir William was seated in a corner of the buttery, beyond
a noisy game of Tarocco. The gallowglass looked longingly
at the cards as he passed with his bowl of pease broth. Gil,
with a cursory glance at the play, recognized it as the kind
of game in which someone who won twice would be
accused of cheating. He abandoned interest, slid along the
bench beside Sir William, and said, ‘Now what is it you
should be telling us?’

The long dark face, intent on the bowl of broth, gave
nothing away.

‘Go on, Neil,’ prompted the priest. ‘Tell them what you
told me.’

‘Is it about Edward Stewart’s silver plate,’ asked Gil, ‘or
about how Bess Stewart left Bute, or is it about how
Maister Sempill sent you down here to ask about Bess’s
money again?’

‘Or is it about how you and your brother killed Mistress
Stewart and then the girl Miller?’ said the mason. Neil
exclaimed something in Gaelic and leapt up and away
from the table, knocking over the bench as he went. The
players at the next table paused, watching with interest.

‘I never -! She was our lady, she was good to us! We
never did nothing to harm her!’

‘Sit down,’ said Gil. ‘Sit down and tell us the truth,
man.’

After a moment the gallowglass bent, set the bench up,
and sat down slowly. The Tarocco game resumed, with an
air of disappointment hanging over the table.

,it is about all those other things. I do not know where
to be starting.’

‘At the beginning,’ said Gil, taking a spoonful of his own
broth. ‘When Bess Stewart ran off with the harper. What
was your part in it? When did she go?’

‘She left the house before the curfew.’

‘So early?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I am sorry - go on.’

‘She went out to the place the mac lains were staying,
near the Bishop’s house with kin of theirs from
Ardnamurchan. A while later my brother went after her
with her box and a bundle with all the clothes she was
bringing with her. I stayed back, and the old dame sent the
maids to bed and went herself, for I said I’d wait up for
Mistress Stewart.’

‘Why this secrecy?’ Gil asked. ‘Why could she not just
walk out of her own house?’

‘She knew fine her good-brother would be after her as
soon as he knew. Nor she did not want the old dame to be
blamed, for she was fond of her.’

‘And then what? Did you bar her chamber door with the
kist and climb out by the window?’

‘No.’ The gallowglass crumbled pieces of his bannock
into the broth. ‘No, I - my brother went with them as far
as the ferry at Ardbeg.’

‘Not Rhubodach?’ said Sir William.

‘Why would they be going so far? It was not a bad
evening, it was raining hard but not windy, they went by
Ardbeg to Ardyne. They left the burgh quietly after the
gates was shut. One man can open the Gallowgait Port,
and that was my brother’s task, and then to close it again
when he came back, after he had seen them on the boat.
Then he came back to the house.’

‘To Bess Stewart’s house?’ Gil asked, wishing to be certain. The man nodded. ‘It was dark by this time, of course,
in November. What about the curfew? The Watch?’

‘The curfew was a good thing,’ said Neil earnestly. ‘It
meant there was nobody out and nobody looking out. Not
when someone goes quiet past the house in the dark,
nobody is looking out, not in Rothesay. As for the Watch,
well, there is ways to avoid being seen. Particularly in the
rain, when the man on the walkway has his plaid well up
and his chin down.’

‘I wonder if John of the Isles knows he could take
Rothesay in the rain,’ said Gil speculatively. ‘Well, go on. What happened in the morning? Which of you let the
horse loose?’

‘I do not know how Maister Cunningham would be
knowing about that,’ said the gallowglass, ‘but that was an
accident, indeed. I was grooming it, and it got free, and
took itself home. It was only five doors away, after all. I did
not want to run after it in the street, for fear of attracting
attention, but Maister James Campbell was in his stableyard, and when the beast came in he had to know where
it had been, and then he came round to Mistress Bess’s
house demanding to know where she was.’

‘Who did he speak to?’ asked the mason.

‘Me,’ said the man reluctantly, ‘and my brother. We was
in the hall, and he came in furious, and demanded to know
where was Mistress Bess. So we said, In her chamber. Then
he said, No she is not, and shouted, and called us liars, and
said he would see her chamber.’

‘Where were the maids?’ Gil asked, fascinated.

‘In the kitchen screaming, for he frightened them. They
were just lassies. So we took him up to her chamber, and
he looked in, and dragged a kist to look as if it had been
behind the door, and opened the window, and then he
took the plate-chest and put some more money in it out of
the kist and bade us hide it in the hayloft. Then he called
the old dame and shouted at her too. Mind, she shouted
back,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘And what happened to the platechest?’

‘I have never again set eyes on it,’ said Neil with
finality.

‘Never?’

‘He sent the old dame to her kin, and turned the maids
away, and got all Mistress Bess’s own possessions packed
up and out of the house by Terce, before he took the armed
band looking for her. I doubt the plate-chest must have
gone with them. Me and my brother looked for it, but we
never found it.’

‘Well!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘What a history!’

‘It’s the truth,’ said the gallowglass desperately.
‘Maisters, it’s the truth, and now I am not knowing what
to do, for Maister Sempill has sent me down here to hunt
for Mistress Bess’s money and everything. If I am not
finding it Lady Euphemia will not be pleased, and if I am
telling him where I saw it last Maister James will not be
pleased, and either way Maister Sempill will be very
angry,

‘Why not go and take service somewhere else?’ the
mason suggested. ‘Somewhere safer, like England, or
Germany.’

‘They would be finding me when I came back to
Ardnamurchan.’

‘You see why I said he must tell you; said Sir William.

‘Indeed,’ said Gil. The Tarocco game, which had been
getting steadily noisier, suddenly erupted in loud disagreement. Whingers were drawn. Sir William got hastily to his
feet and moved in on the altercation with a courage Gil
would not have expected.

‘Peace, peace, my sons!’ he exclaimed, and switched to
Gaelic.

‘He’ll be lucky,’ said the mason.

‘No, I think he will succeed.’ Gil was watching the
bearing of the two principal antagonists, who were now
shouting at their priest as much as each other. ‘Meanwhile,
what can we do with Neil here?’

‘What should we do?’

‘I think he deserves some return for telling us all this.
Will you come back with us to Glasgow?’ he asked the
gallowglass, who looked alarmed.

‘I have no word yet to tell Maister Sempill. He will be
angry when I am coming back without the money.’

‘No, but I must go home, for I have learned a lot. Not
from you alone,’ he said reassuringly. ‘We are going down
to the shore now to bargain for a boat to Dumbarton in the
morning. Once we get back to Glasgow we will see about
taking the person who stabbed Mistress Stewart
-‘

‘And Bridie Miller,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘And Bridie Miller.’ Gil paused to think about that.
Deciding that it could be made to fit, he went on, ‘If you
come with us, we can shield you from Maister Sempill
until all is made clear.’

‘But can you tell who has the plate-chest?’ persisted
Neil, staring in awe.

‘It may tell us who had it last,’ said Gil.

Outside, the rain had ended, though a brisk southwester
was herding white clouds across the sky. Down on the
strand, they arranged a passage for three without difficulty, and agreed a time for departure unpleasantly early
in the morning. Then they turned inland and strolled up
the Kirkgait past the lawyer’s house, where Neil Campbell
slipped away with a murmured excuse, and inspected the
church of St Mary and St Bruoc, half a mile from the
castle.

‘Not bad,’ said the mason critically. ‘These tombs are
good. Old-fashioned work, but well done. And that arch is
well shaped. Sir William tells me he is also chaplain of St
Bride’s, on the hill yonder. Shall we go and hear Vespers
there?’

Gil, having no strong feelings on the question, agreed to
this, and they made their way unhurriedly back down into
the town and up to St Bride’s. This was a diminutive
structure, scarcely bigger than St Chattan’s, with a box-like
nave and smaller chancel, and even the mason felt no
pressing need for a longer look after Vespers. Leaving Sir
William preparing to say Compline before a probable congregation of two old women, they went out to sit in the
wooden porch and look out over the water, watching
the cloud-shadows climbing up and over the round hills
of the mainland.

‘We look north here,’ said the mason. ‘There is yet
another arm of this river. It must have more arms than an
octopus. Well, I suppose we have finished our enquiries.’

‘I wonder,’ said Gil.

The mason turned to look at him. ‘You are not sure?’

‘I am not sure. I can’t put my finger on it but something
doesn’t fit.’

‘Will you confront James Campbell tomorrow?’

‘We have uncovered so much that we must.’

‘I have wondered how we can make an arrest. We have
no authority in the burgh and so cannot employ the serjeant, but we are only two and can hardly overpower a
determined man - particularly if his friends also resist.’

‘This occurred to me too.’ Gil closed the chapel door as
Sir William’s voice rose in the opening words of the Office.
‘Some of the apparitors might act in the matter. I must
consult my uncle.’

And he had to find an answer to give his uncle as well,
he thought. He had hoped the answer might make itself
dear overnight, but this had not happened. Certainly he
had not slept well. The straw mattress, as the mason said,
had more than straw in it, and Sir William had snored the
whole night and Maistre Pierre for a large part of it. And
what-was-the message the hind brought?