The Harper's Quine (6 page)

‘She was singing with me first,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘I was
playing the lute and singing, and she was joining in the
second part. That was in the Provost’s house one evening.
Then a day or so later we played at another house, Aenghus and me both, and she was there, and she was singing
with us.’

She paused, remembering.

‘French music it was,’ she said at length. ‘Binchois, and some other. And it seemed Aenghus must have had a word
with her by his lone, for when we came away from Bute
before St Martin’s tide she came with us. I was not happy
about this, the gentleman will be seeing, for it is one thing
a willing servant lass and another entirely a baron’s wife.
So we went to Edinburgh for Yule, and spent a while in
Fife, and when we were coming back into the west there
was the bother the Sempills had about Paisley Cross, and
she was already showing, so we thought the husband
would not be pursuing her.’

‘Showing?’ queried Gil. She gestured expressively.

The child had been born at Michaelmas, and by then
Bess had learned to sing a good few of the songs the
harper played, and also to play a little on a smaller harp.
As soon as she could leave the baby she had begun to help
to earn her keep.

‘I never had a singing partner I was liking so well,’ said
Ealasaidh, ‘nor never a sister like Bess. Sorrow is on me
now and for ever, ohon, ohon …’

‘Tell me something,’ said Maistre Pierre suddenly. She
had resumed her rocking, but paused to look at him. ‘Why
did the lady leave her husband so willingly? She had land,
I presume there was money, and your brother is -
well …’

‘No doubt,’ she said, ‘but I would not stay with a man
that used his knife on me, neither.’

‘His knife?’ repeated Gil.

‘Why d’you think they called her One-lug Bess?’ said
one of the other women suddenly.

Ealasaidh turned on her. ‘Never in my hearing was
anyone calling her that, Margaret Walker,’ she hissed, ‘and
you will not do it again.’

‘Who’s to stop me?’ said the woman. Ealasaidh nic lain
rose to her full height, gathering her checked skirts round
her away from the contamination of Mistress Walker’s
presence.

‘It is myself will stop you,’ she said wrathfully, ‘for you
will not be over my doorsill again. And if the gentleman,’ she said, rounding on Gil, who had scrambled to his feet,
‘wishes to speak with me more, he may find me. We are
staying at the sign of the Pelican, in the Fishergait. Anyone
will be telling where the harper and his women - his sister
are staying.’

She snatched her plaid from the woman beside her,
jerked the door open and strode out into the courtyard.
The two women got to their feet.

‘He cut her ear off,’ said one of them. ‘That’s where she
got the scar.’

‘That’s why she was aye in that French hood,’ said the
other. ‘Take a look under it.’

‘She told me once she’d more scars than that.’

‘I suppose that would be one advantage of the harper.’

Their eyes slid sideways at one another, and they
nodded, and slipped out of the chapel after Ealasaidh. Gil,
uncomfortably reminded of Euripides, turned back to the
body, which someone had covered with a linen sheet.
Father Francis had left, but two of the brothers were pattering prayers at the altar.

‘The chorus has gone,’ said Maistre Pierre at his side.
‘Maister Cunningham, I am wishing to ask at my home
how is the boy Davie, and it is a long time since I broke my
fast.’

‘I’m still fasting,’ said Gil frankly.

‘Then you will come with me and eat something and we
talk. Yes?’

‘That would be very welcome,’ said Gil. He drew back
the sheet and looked at Bess Stewart’s still face. She was
lying as he had found her, and the scarred jaw was hidden.
‘She’ll soften by tonight or tomorrow, in this weather, and
they can lay her out properly. We should look at her
then.’

The mason marched him firmly from the chapel and
down the High Street, nodding to acquaintances as he
went, and in at the pend below the sign of the White
Castle.

They came through the arched entry into a courtyard, bright with flowers in tubs. The house, like most of this
part of the High Street, must be some fifty years old, but
it was showing signs of modernization. The range to their
right had a row of large new windows set into the roof,
and a wooden penthouse ran round two sides of the yard.
Gil had no time to look further; Maistre Pierre dragged
him across the cobbles and up the fore-stair, in under the
carved lintel, shouting loudly in French, ‘Catherine! Alys!
I am here and I am hungry! Where are you?’

He drew Gil into a large hall, dim after the sunny
courtyard, where plate gleamed in the shadows and the
furniture smelled of beeswax.

‘Welcome to my house,’ he said, gesturing expansively,
and threw the furred gown on to a windowseat. ‘Where
are those women?’

‘I am here, father,’ said a remembered voice behind
them. ‘No need to make so much noise, we were only in
the store-rooms.’

Gil, turning, had just time to recognize the figure outlined in the doorway against the light, before the mason
seized the girl, kissing her as soundly as if he had been
away for days.

‘My daughter, maister! Alys, it is Maister Gilbert
Cunningham,’ he said, pronouncing the name quite creditably, ‘of the Consistory Court. He and I have found a dead
lady and a live boy this morning, and we need food.’

‘Yes, Luke has told me. I will bring food in a moment,
father.’ She moved forward, held out both hands to Gil and
leaned up to kiss him in greeting. A whisper reached his
ear: ‘Please don’t tell!’

‘Enchanted to serve you, demoiselle,’ said Gil in
ambiguous French, and returned the kiss with careful
courtesy. ‘How is the boy?’

‘We are still washing him. When he is comfortable you
may see him.’

‘Has he spoken? Where is his brother? Where is that
food?’

‘The food is in the kitchen, father, and Catherine is supervising the girls who are all helping with Davie. No,
he has not roused. His brother is with him. If you take our
guest up to your closet I will bring you something to
eat.’

Maistre Pierre’s closet, on the floor above, was panelled
and painted, with a pot of flowers on the windowsill and
cushions on the benches. A desk stood in one corner, with
a jumble of papers on it; a lute lay on a bench, and there
were four books on a shelf near the window.

‘Be seated,’ said the mason, indicating the big chair. Gil
shook his head, and sat politely on a bench. ‘Well!’ said the
mason explosively, dropping into the chair himself. ‘What
a day, and it not yet past Terce!’

He looked consideringly at Gil, and seemed to come to
some conclusion.

‘I am concerned in this,’ he said. ‘That is my boy who is
injured, and the lady has come to grief in my chantier. Do
you know who will pursue the matter?’

‘Not the burgh officers,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll speak to the serjeant out of courtesy, but he has no authority on St Mungo’s land. It will be someone from the Consistory Court,
likely.’

‘One of the apparitors? I have the term right? The men
who serve notice that one must be present on a certain day
or be excommunicated.’

‘You have the term right. It might be.’ Gil rose as Alys
entered with a tray of food. ‘I will report to the Official, as
soon as I may, and he will make a decision,’ he added,
setting a stool to act as table, irritated to find himself
clumsy.

Unruffled, Alys poured ale for both men and handed a
platter of oatmeal bannocks and another of barley bannocks with slices of meat in them. Her father took one of
these, jumped to his feet and began to stride this way and
that in the small room like a hunting-leopard Gil had once
seen in its cage.

Alys sat down, gathering her skirts neatly about her, and
watched him with an intent gaze. She was as taking as Gil remembered. She was clad today in a gown of faded blue
which set off her young figure to advantage, and her hair
was tied back with a ribbon, emphasizing the oval shape of
her face with its pointed chin and high-bridged nose.
Finer-boned and finer-featured than her father, she still
resembled him strongly, although she must have inherited
that remarkable nose from someone else.

As if aware of his scrutiny, she glanced up at him and
smiled briefly, then turned back to her still-pacing father.

‘What do we know?’ the mason said. ‘This woman who
sang with the harper was knifed, there in that confined
space, in the Fergus Aisle, Alys, with a narrow blade.’

‘Luke told me that too,’ said Alys. ‘I find it extraordinary.
Why was she there? A young man - someone Davie’s age
- might go in out of curiosity, but a woman in her good
clothes would need a sound reason to climb the scaffolding, even by the wheelbarrow ramp.’

‘A good point, ma mie,’ agreed her father. ‘It must have
been someone she knew, someone she trusted, to enter the
chantier with him.’

‘We know a little more,’ Gil said. There was not much
blood, so he will not necessarily be marked.’

‘A negative.’

‘But useful. And we know that one of Sempill’s men-atarms fetched her sometime after Vespers. Indeed, I think
I saw him come to Compline.’ He paused, thinking carefully. ‘I saw the whole party at Compline. One of the menat-arms was late, as I say, and one of Sempill’s friends
arrived after him, but the rest were under my eye for the
most part from the start of the service.’

‘Perhaps the man-at-arms - the gallowglass,’ said Alys,
bringing the word out triumphantly, ‘was the one who
killed her. Or could the husband have stabbed her after he
left the church?’ She rose to replenish their beakers.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Gil with regret. ‘He left just before
me, and when I reached the door he was already returning
from the clump of trees opposite.’

Alys set the jug down and stood considering him,
absently twirling a lock of hair round one finger.

‘He came from the trees,’ she repeated. ‘Not from the
Fergus-Aisle?’-

‘No,’ agreed Gil. ‘Besides, I think even Sempill of
Muirend is not so rash as to summon a woman openly in
order to kill her. No, and I do not know who had time to
get into the Fergus Aisle and out of it again before I saw
them all together. It’s an easy enough climb over the
scaffolding, or up the ramp for the barrow and down
again, but it takes a moment, and the scaffolding would
creak. On a quiet evening like yesterday you would hear it
in Rottenrow.’

‘Perhaps the person had not left,’ said Alys. ‘And what
about Davie? Did the same person strike him down?’

‘I saw Davie,’ Gil said, reaching for another bannock.
‘He was in the kirkyard before Vespers, with a lass. I took
her to be the same one I saw him with earlier at the
dancing.’

‘I do not know who she is,’ said Alys, ‘but the men
might. It is urgent that you find her, you realize, whoever
is to track down the killer.’

‘It is,’ agreed Gil.

‘I must see the boy,’ said the mason impatiently, setting
down his beaker. ‘Where have you put him?’

Across the courtyard, sacks and barrels had been hastily
stacked in the shelter of the new penthouse. In the vaulted
store-room thus cleared, worn tapestries hung round the
walls for warmth, and a charcoal brazier gave off a choking scent of burning spices. Next to it the boy Davie lay on
a cot, curled on his side with bandages across the crown of
his head and supporting his slack jaw. A small woman
veiled in black knelt at the bed’s foot, her rosary slipping
through her intent fingers, her lips moving steadily. A
stout maidservant sat at the head with her spindle, and a
gangling youth with a strong resemblance to the injured
boy rose to his feet as Alys put aside the hanging at the
door.

‘He’s no stirred, mem,’ he said anxiously. ‘But his
breathing’s maybe a mite easier.’

‘I think you are right,’ Alys agreed, feeling Davie’s
rough red hand. ‘He seems warmer, too.’ She turned to her
father. ‘We washed the wound, and bandaged it, after we
clipped his hair. Brother Andrew came, and said he
thought the skull was broken, but to keep him warm and
still and nurse him carefully and pray. So Annis is watching and Catherine is praying, and so is Will while he can
stay.’

‘A broken skull,’ the mason said in some dismay. ‘It
needs a compress of vinegar with lavender and rose petals,
hot to his feet, Alys, to restore the spirits and draw excess
humours from the brain.’

‘So I thought,’ she agreed, ‘but we are short of rose
petals. Jennet is gone out to the apothecary for more.’

‘What came to you, boy?’ said Maistre Pierre, staring
down at the waxy yellow face. ‘I wish you could tell
me.’

The sandy lashes stirred and flickered. Annis leaned
forward with an exclamation, and Catherine paused in her
muttering. Alys dropped to her knees, her head near the
boy’s as the bloodless lips twitched, formed soundless
words. Then the eyes flew open and suddenly, clearly,
Davie spoke.

It wisny me. It wisny me, maister.’

His eyes closed again. Alys felt his hand, then his cheek,
with gentle fingers, but he did not respond. She rose, and
turned to her father and Gil.

‘You must find his sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Before the
killer does.’

Canon Cunningham was in his chamber in the Consistory
tower, working at the high desk in an atmosphere of
parchment and old paper. When Gil brushed past the
indignant clerk in the antechamber and stepped round the
door, his uncle was ferreting through more documents in a
tray from the tall narrow cabinet behind him. At his elbow
were the protocol books and rolled parchments for the
Sempill conveyancing, with his legal bonnet, shaped like a
battered acorn-cup, perched on top of the stack.

‘I’ll ring when I am ready,’ he said, without looking
up.