The Fourth Crow

Chapter Ten

Gil was not convinced by what Euan was saying.

‘So you’ve been to Dumbarton,’ he said, eyeing his henchman, ‘and found where someone is selling stolen goods from Glasgow.’

‘Indeed I have,’ agreed Euan proudly, ‘all labelled with the Cathedral’s stamp they are and everything.’

‘Mind out the road, maister,’ said Annis, ‘till we set up the board.’

‘Begin at the beginning,’ Gil said, stepping aside while the women shifted trestles and Lowrie went to help them. ‘I sent you — yesterday afternoon,’ he added pointedly, ‘down to the shore to see if the fisher-folk knew anything about a lady leaving the burgh by night.’

‘Indeed, so it was,’ agreed Euan with even more pride. ‘Och, are you thinking I should have been back sooner? I could not, for I was carried all the way to Dumbarton while I found out all you were wanting to know, and I walked home today.’

Gil sat down on the bench Annis had just dragged into position.

‘I sent you to the shore,’ he said patiently. ‘What did you do when you got there?’

‘Why, I asked as you bade me, maister,’ Euan avouched, ‘about a lady missing from the Cross in nothing but her shift, though I never told them that bit, for decency you understand, and first one said he knew nothing and then another, and then one was telling me that the man Stockfish Tam might have something to say.’

‘Maister Gil,’ said Jennet beside him, ‘will you raise your elbow till I put the cloth out. If you please,’ she added implausibly.

‘So you spoke to Stockfish Tam?’ Gil prompted.

‘No, no, for he was not there at that time. So I sat down and had a wee crack wi the fisher folk, seeing I ken the most o them from one time or another I’ve voyaged down the watter. They were right interested to hear o the goings on up at St Mungo’s,’ he added, ‘and I made sure to tell them you’d have the murderer by the heels in no time at all.’

‘And when Tam came back?’ Gil asked. Sweet St Giles, he thought, what tales has the man been telling? ‘What goings on at St Mungo’s?’ he added sharply.

‘Why, the lady that was dead, as well as the verger-’

‘How did you know about the verger?’

‘Och, all over the town it is,’ said Euan, waving one big hand.

‘It was well after dinner when I was summoned,’ said Gil. ‘How did you know about him? When did you hear he was dead?’

‘Och, it would be after dinner, likely,’ said Euan. ‘For Tam and me was taking a wee refreshment in Maggie Bell’s alehouse, see, and we heard them talking. Tam was saying that he had no knowledge of the missing lady, but I was not believing that, for when he was hearing that the man was dead, he said he would be taking a wee trip down the river in his boatie, and would I be,’ the confident voice faltered, ‘would I be giving him a wee hand.’

‘How much?’ Gil asked.

‘How much what, maister?’

‘How much did he pay you for crewing for him?’

‘Och, no, no, I was doing it entirely for friendship,’ averred Euan. Gil watched him. After a moment the man smiled hopefully. ‘Well, maybe he was giving me a penny or two. Good sailors is not so easy come by just at the drop of a rowlock.’

‘No,’ agreed Gil, ‘particularly not on the shore where the fisher folk dwell.’ Euan gave him a puzzled look. ‘Did you know which man it was that was dead?’

‘Och, yes, it was the verger Barnabas, the busy one. That was what Tam was saying, that he had an errand that he, that he could complete,’ Euan finished carefully.

‘And the errand was?’

‘Maister Gil, will you move your elbow again? Are you to sit here all the evening, maister,’ demanded Jennet, ‘or are we to get the board set?’

Gil looked about him. The dishes were, clearly, about to be brought in, Alys was watching him, Catherine had hobbled out of her chamber. He had already recognised that the women were upset about something, though when he had asked Alys she had professed ignorance. One did not off end the kitchen at the best of times; this was no moment to hold up the dinner. He rose and moved aside with Euan.

‘Tell me quickly,’ he said, ‘what was the errand?’

‘Why, he had a sack of grain, and two cheeses, and there was a barrel of apples and all sorts, stowed in his boat already,’ said Euan, with shining honesty, ‘that had come down on a handcart the night before, and all to be carried to Dumbarton and sold. So we was taking them, you see. But it was only when Tam got to haggling for the price there in Dumbarton that I saw the St Mungo’s seal on them, maister, else I would never have been doing such a thing!’

Washing his hands in the pewter basin on the plate-cupboard, drying them on the good linen towel, Gil turned this information over in his mind. When he had said Grace for the meat and done his duty with the carving-knife Alys served out roast mutton with raisin sauce, turnips with ginger and more dark green stewed kale, and he contemplated the timing Euan had described. It was just possible, he supposed, that the gossip mills of the burgh had carried the news of Barnabas’ death as far as Maggie Bell’s tavern, across the bridge in the hamlet of Govan, before Mistress Bell evicted her customers for the night. It was certainly possible to take a boat down the river to Dumbarton before dawn if the tide was favourable, and a walk of fourteen miles on a fine day would present no obstacle to a healthy, long-legged Erscheman.

‘Have you found anything useful this afternoon?’ Alys asked him. Startled, he discovered that the first course was done and Kittock had just carried in a broad custard tart on its wooden board. ‘I went to the hostel to condole with the ladies, and met the doctor there as well,’ she said brightly, ‘and I must say those are two very silly girls, but they told me some interesting things.’

He looked at her, seated at his right hand, neat and elegant in her brown linen gown with its bright facings and her black Flemish hood. She had that pinched look which meant something had upset her, so that the high narrow bridge of her nose stood up like a razor-blade. He glanced at Catherine, seated opposite her, and received an infinitesimal shake of her head.

‘What have they told you, ma mie?’ the old woman asked in French, apparently feeling his silence had lasted too long.

‘A number of things.’ Alys was serving wedges of the custard tart onto the painted platters which had been Augie Morison’s wedding gift to them. She set Gil’s before him and went on, ‘Their marriages, for instance. One is betrothed into Lanarkshire, the other to an acquaintance of Dame Ellen’s kin at St Mungo’s, who has land by Tarbolton.’

‘She has kin at St Mungo’s?’ Gil repeated. ‘Did you learn who it is?’

‘William Craigie,’ she replied, sending two platters down the board. Her voice was even, but she glanced sideways at him round the black fall of her hood, acknowledging his surprise. ‘I know no more than that. What is his kinship?’

‘I’ve never asked.’ He frowned. ‘Habbie might- Oh.’ Lowrie looked up, spoon halfway to his mouth.

‘Later, perhaps,’ said Catherine elliptically. ‘How are they lodged at the hostel? It is a well-run establishment, one hopes. Does it compare with St Jacques at Nantes?’

Once the meal was cleared and the board lifted they repaired to the solar with the ale-jug and a platter of little cakes. Catherine joined them, contrary to her usual habit. Gil thought she was keeping an unobtrusive eye on Alys.

‘We need to see where we are wi both cases,’ he said, as Lowrie handed the beakers, watched intently by Socrates. ‘But what’s this about Craigie, sweetheart?’

‘As I said. He is kin to Dame Ellen through her first marriage, though in what degree the lassies did not say. And also he has some sort of great penance laid on him, it seems.’

‘A penance?’ Gil repeated. ‘Now that he has never mentioned. I wonder what and why?’

‘Some crime against Holy Kirk, so Nicholas thought. This was hearsay,’ she admitted, ‘but the lassie was quite clear about who she had it from, one of her sister’s future servants at Tarbolton.’

‘Where Craigie comes from,’ supplied Lowrie unexpectedly. ‘Maister Sim’s man mentioned it the now.’

‘Is he now? I kent he was an Ayrshire man,’ said Gil, ‘but I think I never knew just where he was from. You’d think he’d ha recognised Annie Gibb by name, at least, given that’s where the most of her land is situated.’

‘Perhaps, if his offence was known there, he did not wish to be connected to the place,’ suggested Alys. Catherine nodded sagely.

‘Did you learn anything else?’ Gil asked.

‘Not at the hostel. I spoke with the doctor, who seems,’ she paused, ‘not concerned for Annie. I think that’s all, except that the cadger called regularly in Glenbuck.’

‘Cadger?’ he queried.

‘A man called Cadger Billy.’

‘Oh, him. Is he still alive? Well, I suppose he must be little past forty,’ Gil reckoned, recalling the man’s regular visits from his childhood.

‘Still alive, and still trading. It seems he goes all about Lanarkshire, Kate knows him, and Andy Paterson is to find his direction for me, for I think he is a Glasgow man.’ Gil raised an eyebrow. ‘I wonder if he carried messages for Annie.’

‘Ah! That’s very possible.’

‘And I spoke to Berthold, but I can get no more from him than you. He is plainly very frightened, but he still insists he saw nothing. Oh, and Andy’s nephew John confirms Luke’s tale, and also saw the two men in fine clothes.’

‘If Berthold is fit to be at work he must have improved,’ Gil said, digesting this.

‘No, I called at the house.’

He looked at her sharply, but found Catherine, beyond her, giving him a significant shake of the head. Was that what had distressed her, he wondered. What reception had she had from her stepmother?

‘Lowrie?’ he prompted. ‘What did you get from Habbie’s man?’

‘Not a lot,’ Lowrie admitted. ‘He claims Maister Sim came home without that gown after a right good evening four days since, and the cards the same. He’d never seen the purse afore either. Oh, no, maister, that’s never ours,’ he quoted. ‘Mind you, he noticed there was a lot of dust and dirt caught up in the folds of the gown, as if it had been lying about that undercroft for a day or two, maybe on the ground. He’d a bit to say about that.’

‘Did he mind where Habbie had been the night he lost it?’

‘No, though he thought it might ha been here. When I said, No, he had on the red one last time he was here, he began reckoning up all the other places it might ha been, but he could give me no sensible answer.’

‘I wonder who had it,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘It could have been Habbie himself, I suppose, but why hide the thing and then leave it out to incriminate himself?’

‘Oh, and the figs and apricots came out of the Vicars’ store, as we thought.’

‘So he was thieving from there as well.’

‘Would he have the key for the Vicars’ store?’ Alys asked.

‘A good question,’ Gil admitted. ‘Either he or his accomplice must have had.’

‘It seems to me,’ observed Catherine in her elegant French, ‘that there were many things happening on the night in question.’

‘As ever, madame,’ said Gil, ‘you are perfectly right. We should fit it all together,’ he added in Scots, ‘starting from the time Annie was bound to the Cross.’

Alys pulled up the skirt of her gown, to reach the purse hanging between it and her striped linen kirtle. She extracted her tablets in their little embroidered bag, found a clear leaf, and drew the stylus from its socket in the hinge.

‘What time was that?’ she asked.

‘About the time we came home,’ said Lowrie. He cocked his head as Socrates scrambled to his feet, tail wagging. ‘Is that someone coming to the door?’

‘It is I,’ said Maistre Pierre outside the window.

Drawn in, welcomed, handed a beaker of ale, he applied himself with enthusiasm to the task they had begun.

‘It was eight of the clock, not later, I should say, that she was bound there,’ he pronounced. Gil nodded. ‘And her man said he looked at her every hour or so, yes?’

‘If we can believe it,’ said Gil.

‘What happened next?’ said Alys. ‘The girl Peg?’

‘The prentices,’ said Lowrie. ‘Say about nine o’the clock.’

‘The brothers Muir,’ said Gil. They looked at each other. ‘I think the prentices began their battle next, indeed, though I’d ha said later than nine, more like ten, after the daylight had gone, and the Muirs walked through it, and then Peg.’

‘In which direction did they go?’ asked Catherine.

‘The Muirs came out of Rottenrow,’ said Gil, ‘and claim they went down the High Street. Peg came down the Stablegreen from the port.’

‘Luke saw the Muirs go up the Stablegreen,’ Lowrie observed.

‘And yet they did not see her,’ said Alys.

‘Did anyone see her at all?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘There’s a man who heard a lassie arguing with someone,’ said Lowrie. ‘I have to go back in the morning and get a word.’

The mason nodded.

‘But what time was all that?’ Alys asked. ‘It was about ten of the clock when Peg left the Trindle, I think you said.’

‘The battle went on for some time,’ said Gil. ‘More than an hour, by the sound of it, though it was over by midnight.’

‘Didn’t Euan,’ said Lowrie suddenly, and they all looked at him. He went red. ‘Didn’t Euan say the fisherman mentioned goods that went down on a handcart that night?’

‘You’re right,’ said Gil. ‘What’s more, I’ll wager I ken what way they went down to the shore. I saw the tracks of a handcart, out on the Pallioun Croft. And,’ he suddenly recalled, ‘Austin Muir heard or saw a handcart as they went back up Rottenrow. That’s why the vergers’ handcart was put away dirty!’

‘So that went through the Upper Town as well,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Mon Dieu! I have known it quieter at the Fair.’

‘I wonder who pushed it,’ said Alys. ‘The man who died, or his accomplice?’

‘And some time in all this,’ said her father, ‘the woman Peg was killed, and tied to the Cross instead of Annie Gibb.’

‘Did you say,’ said Alys, ‘that Annie’s man spoke to her after the prentices were finished and gone home? Was that after midnight?’

‘I think so,’ said Gil. ‘I need to check that wi him.’ He made a face. ‘And Canon Muir saw his nephews to bed before midnight, so if this is right it was none of their doing that Annie was freed from the Cross.’

‘A pity,’ said Alys seriously. She made another note on the tablets. ‘The handcart. It must have come back as well. I wonder if the Muirs saw it.’

‘I wonder if Berthold saw it,’ said Gil. He considered the cart and its movements for a little, while Lowrie and Maistre Pierre debated how easy it would be to push the thing down to the shore in the dark. It must indeed have been returned that night, and stowed in the undercroft. Maister Sim’s gown and cards and the incriminating purse must have been put there later, but how much later? Before Barnabas was killed? After it? And why?

‘And by whom?’ said Alys, when he voiced the question.

‘I suppose by the person who killed the verger the next day,’ said Catherine in French.

‘We’ve no proof,’ said Gil, considering this, ‘but it’s possible.’

‘And the other property left where it would cast suspicion on your friend,’ the old woman continued. She gathered her skirts together and rose stiffly; the rest of them rose with her, Socrates looking hopefully at Gil. ‘It is very possible, maistre, that if you find out who had your friend’s gown you will find the killer of the Cathedral servant.’ She bent her head in acknowledgement of his answer, raised her hand in her customary blessing, and headed for the door. Alys followed, to make certain she had all she needed for the night, and the men looked at one another.

‘Could she be right?’ asked Lowrie, when Gil had translated her comment.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Maistre Pierre gloomily. ‘The problem is finding it out. I suppose you ask all of the songmen when they last saw the yellow gown, and decide on which is lying.’

‘Something like that, I suspect.’ Gil sat down again, lifting Alys’s tablets, and studied the list in her neat writing. Socrates lay down on his feet with a resigned sigh. ‘I must talk to Stockfish Tam. Lowrie, could you go out to the kitchen and ask Euan when Tam will be back in Glasgow?’

‘So what do we have this far?’ asked Maistre Pierre as the young man left.

‘At midnight? We have the prentice battle lost and won and the combatants gone home, we have Annie still known to be at the Cross, the Muir brothers and all the people in the hostel blamelessly in their beds, and Peg,’ he scanned the list, ‘no, we have no trace of Peg save this elusive man who is said to have heard an argument.’

‘And we do not know what time that was,’ said Alys, coming back into the room. She sat down on the padded settle beside Gil, and tucked her hand through his arm. ‘Then there is the handcart and whoever was pushing it.’

‘Vraiment,’ agreed her father. ‘And after midnight?’

‘Some time after midnight,’ said Gil, ‘Annie was freed from the Cross and Peg’s body was tied there in her place. Annie and whoever was with her vanished into the night, leaving Sawney to assume that it was his mistress he saw the next time he looked. The handcart was returned, and put in its proper place in the undercroft-’

‘That suggests to me,’ said Alys, ‘that it was the verger who put it away, not his accomplice. And perhaps,’ she looked round at Gil, ‘it was he who placed Maister Sim’s gown on the cart.’

‘Why did he leave the coin there, if so?’ Maistre Pierre objected.

‘It was in effect hidden, inside the gown,’ she said slowly. ‘Barnabas knew it was there, but nobody else did. It was not seen until someone looked closely at the garment.’

‘Hmm,’ said her father. ‘And if any found it, they would take it to be Maister Sim’s. You could be right, I suppose.’

‘There is no way to prove it,’ she said, ‘but it would work.’

Gil grimaced.

‘I’m no judge of the matter,’ he said. ‘I’m too close to it. But it seems to me very odd. If it was left there by the man who pushed the handcart through the night, we could assume it was his takings from the last shipment down the river. In which case why not take it home with him?’

‘Perhaps he left it for his accomplice,’ said Alys. ‘No, that doesn’t work.’

‘It could have been there for two nights and a day,’ Gil said. ‘Why did the accomplice not come for it?’

‘Exactly,’ said Alys. ‘And yet. ’ Her voice trailed off as she thought about it. ‘Gil, suppose it was the other man’s share of the takings? If the man who pushed the handcart, whether it was Barnabas or the other, took the whole payment home with him to count and divide it, then perhaps he brought that purse back the next day-’

‘Yesterday, in effect,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Yesterday,’ she agreed. ‘And hid it when he got the chance.’

‘It makes the gap in the time shorter,’ said her father.

‘It does,’ said Gil, ‘though it doesn’t explain the way it was hidden, unless someone deliberately wished to incriminate Habbie.’

‘Sim is well regarded among the songmen,’ observed Maistre Pierre.

‘Quite. We need to consider that further. But returning to the night Annie disappeared,’ pursued Gil, ‘some time after midnight, some time after the handcart was stowed, someone came by and throttled Peg with a sack-tie, apparently unaware that she was dead already.’

‘There are gaps,’ said Maistre Pierre after a pause.

‘There are huge gaps. And none of it makes sense. Was it the verger, or his accomplice, who killed Peg? Why was she killed? When?’

‘You think it was not Annie’s rescuer who killed her?’

‘I hope not,’ said Alys. ‘To have her freedom at the cost of another woman’s life!’

‘Euan thinks the man will be back in Glasgow wi the tide tomorrow,’ said Lowrie, returning. ‘It wasny easy to get a clear answer from him, but that was about the sum of it.’

‘It never is,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll try to get down there the morn’s morn, then.’ He drew out his own tablets, and paused as they fell open at his list of Annie Gibb’s properties. ‘Ah, there is something I must ask you about before you leave, Pierre. Now, what are these gaps? What do we still need to find out?’

‘Near everything,’ said his father-in-law gloomily. Ignoring this, Gil drew three columns and headed them.

‘For Peg, we still need to find out who she wanted to pick a fight with, and who killed her if it was not the same person, and where.’

‘And when,’ said Alys.

‘You make it sound so simple,’ said Lowrie.

‘Perhaps an hour or so before she was put where we saw her,’ said Maistre Pierre, ignoring this. ‘No, indeed, it must be longer, for she had just begun to stiffen before she was in place, I think, from the position of her head when we found her.’

‘So she might have been killed while the battle was still going on,’ said Alys.

‘Who had the opportunity?’ Gil smoothed and re-incised a line on the wax leaf. ‘All the prentices, I suppose. The man with the handcart. Peg’s own man, though I think Otterburn is right, it was not him.’

‘The Muirs,’ supplied Lowrie. ‘Anyone from the hostel that was out. The men from the Trindle.’

‘Anyone, in effect,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘We’ve found remarkably little about her, poor girl,’ agreed Gil. ‘Oh, and I’d like to find who throttled her after she was dead.’

‘Could that be why Berthold is so frightened?’ said Alys suddenly. They looked at one another. ‘I wondered if it was something he had seen, but if he has encountered Peg in the shadows and-’

‘Oh!’ said Gil. ‘He’s such a wee rabbit of a boy, but Peg was hardly a sonsy wench either. It’s possible, I suppose.’

‘Just the same,’ said Lowrie slowly, ‘he keeps saying he saw nothing. Not did nothing, but saw nothing.’

Maistre Pierre nodded.

‘I agree. It hardly seems likely. I suppose we must keep it in mind, nevertheless.’

‘I need to start questioning folk again,’ said Gil in annoyance. ‘I’ve asked more questions about Annie’s disappearance than about Peg’s death, which isny right.’ He made some more notes under Peg’s name, and went on to the next column. ‘Now, what do we need to learn about Annie?’

‘Where is she?’ said Lowrie.

‘Who has stolen her away,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘And we’ve heard nothing so far that might tell us either of those.’

‘If I can find the cadger’s lodging I may learn something,’ said Alys. Gil looked round at her. ‘I told you, I do wonder if he has carried messages for Annie.’

‘But if he’s out in Lanarkshire the now,’ he objected, ‘that’s little help.’

‘He has a wife, so Kate tells me.’

‘So we still need to learn near everything about Annie too.’ Gil made another note. ‘And for Barnabas — you know, we’ve uncovered a lot about what the man was up to, but we’re still no nearer finding who killed him either. We’re no doing that well, are we?’

‘No, but what do we know about the verger?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘That he may or may not have pushed the handcart down to the shore and back again.’

‘And that the sight of a sack-tie prompted him to go to find someone, who then killed him,’ said Alys.

‘Peg went out to find someone and pick a fight wi them too,’ observed Lowrie. ‘I suppose it wasny the same person.’

‘Peg was also throttled with a sack-tie,’ said Alys.

‘No saying if it was all the same person,’ said Gil, ‘though I suspect not. It would be too simple. I think in Peg’s case at least we’re dealing wi two different people, one who killed her, one who throttled her. Whether either o these dealt wi Barnabas is something we need to find out.’ He closed his tablets with a snap, then flicked them open them again as he recalled something. ‘Pierre, you’ve been down into Ayrshire, I think. Would you ken aught about any of these properties?’

His father-in-law took the list and held it up at arm’s length in the fading light from the window.

‘You write too small these days,’ he complained. ‘What are these? Redwrae, Fail, no, I know nothing of these, though they are close by Tarbolton I think. Carngillan neither. Ah! Now Hallrig I have visited. That is the place where the quarry is, that I have mentioned. The tenant was very civil, though his ale was thin, and the quarry is a good one, but I thought the carriage too dear to bring the stone into Glasgow.’

‘Quarry,’ repeated Gil.

‘Yes, yes, and a good one as I said, that blond freestone you get all over Ayrshire. It belongs to the Gibb family. Is it this Annie’s property indeed, then?’

‘Hallrig is hers, so likely the quarry is too, unless the feu superior retained the mineral rights. How did you come to be there?’

‘Seeking stone, as ever. Why are you interested?’

‘Sawney mentioned a cousin of Annie’s father who felt the property should be his. I wondered if that might be a lead.’

Maistre Pierre pulled a long face.

‘I have no knowledge of such a thing. I dealt chiefly with a man of law in Kilmarnock, one Maister James Bowling, and then with the tenant.’

‘The man Bowling never mentioned a dispute?’

‘No, never. He would hardly wish to do so,’ Maistre Pierre pointed out, ‘if he hoped to sell me the stone.’

Gil retrieved his tablets and considered the list for a space.

‘We need to learn more about this,’ he decided. ‘I’m reluctant to go into Ayrshire myself the now, Hugh Montgomery is active and a single Cunningham would be a rare temptation for him, but once you’ve spoken to the man on the Stablegreen, Lowrie, you could go out to Kilmarnock, take Euan wi you, talk to this James Bowling. It’s no more than twenty mile, you should do it in the day and back again. I’ll let you have a letter of introduction and we’ll talk over what you should ask him.’ Lowrie nodded. ‘And I’ll chase Stockfish Tam.’ He looked at Alys. ‘I think you have plans of your own, sweetheart.’

‘I do,’ she said composedly. ‘Though perhaps I could speak to the man on the Stablegreen, to let Lowrie leave earlier.’

‘A good notion. I hope your plans don’t involve being seized and held at knifepoint.’

‘So do I.’

‘Et moi aussi, par ma foi,’ said her father with emphasis, and got to his feet. They all rose with him. ‘I must be gone. But I wished to say to you, ma mie.’ He looked seriously at Alys. ‘Élise told me you had been to the house, and I am glad of it. Do you think you will be better friends now?’

She curtsied to him, bending her head so that Gil could not see her expression.

‘My good-mother made me most welcome,’ she said. Maistre Pierre frowned, but did not press his question; instead he delivered a brief blessing and allowed Gil to accompany him to the back door of the house. Socrates passed them in the doorway and padded out into the evening, sniffing at corners.

‘I do not know what they discussed,’ Maistre Pierre said, a slight unease audible in his voice.

‘Some women’s matter, perhaps,’ Gil suggested. Out across the yard the kitchen door opened, and the servants emerged, still chattering, heading for the main house and their beds. Seeing their master and their former master in the doorway they fell silent and waited politely while Gil bade his father-in-law goodnight and saw him walk off into the twilight, then all filed in, offering their own goodnights in turn. The dog, his patrol completed, returned with them, and Euan followed, raising his blue bonnet and ducking his head with a sheepish grin. Gil closed the door behind Jennet, who was last, and grasped her wrist before she could reach the stairs.

‘A moment, lass,’ he said. She shrank slightly away from him, and he let go of her, aware of faint dismay. Other men might prey on the women of their households, but it was not his way; he had thought they all recognised that. Or was it simply that all the women were upset this evening? ‘Jennet, what ails your mistress?’ he asked quietly. ‘Was it something Mistress McIan said? Were you there wi her?’

‘I’ve no right knowledge,’ she said after a little pause. ‘I was the other end o the hall, you understand, Maister Gil. Maister,’ she corrected herself. He grunted agreement. ‘I never heard what — what she said, only what my mistress answered. She was wishing her well, if you understand me.’ Her face tilted in the shadows as if she gave him a significant look.

‘Wishing her well,’ he repeated flatly. Comprehension dawned. ‘Sweet St Giles, you mean-?’

‘That was all I heard,’ said Jennet, equally flatly.

‘Pierre has said nothing!’ he said, almost to himself.

‘She’ll no have let him know yet, it’s ower soon, when you think when they were wed. Likely my mistress surprised it out o her, you ken what she’s like for people saying things to her they never meant to say.’ She put out a hand as if to touch his wrist, and withdrew it. ‘Whatever it was madam told her, it turned her right kinna wavelly, she wasny fit to walk home. I got her to Lady Kate’s house, and we made her rest, and she recovered a bit. But there was something else I did hear and it seems like my mistress didny catch it right, and she wouldny let me tell her it.’

‘Should you be telling me?’ he asked.

‘I ken fine madam has what these Ersche call the Sight,’ Jennet persisted, ‘and she told my mistress she’d seen her, more than once she said, wi two bairns about her. One bairn, it might just be wee John, but two bairns is what she said.’

No wonder she would not hear it, Gil thought. She dare not get her hopes up.

‘Away up to your bed,’ he said. ‘I’ll unlace your mistress when we go up. Goodnight, lass. Christ guard your sleep.’

‘Good night, Maister Gil,’ she said gently. ‘God rest you.’

She bobbed a curtsy and slipped away up the stair, and he bent to set the bar in its socket, considering this news. It sat in the midst of his thoughts like a boulder; he could hardly work out how he felt about it himself, but it was certainly what had distressed Alys, and with her the whole household of women.

He turned to go back into the solar, where light under the door suggested that Alys had lit candles. The dog suddenly growled, and left him to rush away across the hall, his claws rattling on the floorboards, to stand with his muzzle against the front door, still growling.

‘What is it?’ Gil asked him, and was answered by a rattle of the tirling-pin and then a loud knocking. Light grew as the door of the solar was flung wide behind him, and he strode to his dog’s side. Another customer for the bawdy-house, he thought, who has not heard that the business has closed. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded. ‘Who’s knocking?’

‘Maister Cunningham? Maister Cunningham?’ came the answer, muffled only slightly by the broad planks. ‘Can ye come out, maister? It’s another death!’

It was the manservant from St Catherine’s, out of breath and wild with distress. Standing in the hall while Lowrie lit more candles and Gil pulled his boots back on, he gave a partially articulate account of the matter.

‘It was my wife found her,’ he said, pulling a hand across his face, ‘poor lass, she’s right owerset, after the other one, and we canny think how it happened. We’re all that distracted, and the lassies weeping and all, you need to come and see, maister. Sir Simon sent me,’ he added with a sudden access of coherence, ‘bade me ask you to come right away.’

‘But who’s dead?’ Lowrie asked. He kicked off his slipslops and reached for his own boots. Alys appeared from the stair, her plaid over her arm.

‘She’s in the chapel,’ said the man.

‘In the chapel?’ Gil repeated in dismay.

‘Aye, which isny good, I can tell you, maister, it’s going to take some cleaning, there’s blood on all the tiles, never mind the- And the glaze wore off them a’ready, we’ll maybe need to get the floor- And Sir Simon reckoning how long till we can reconsecrate, and Christ assoil me, sic a beating as she’s had, it’s like the other one-’

‘Who is dead?’ Alys asked. She had more success: the man stopped, drew a breath, crossed himself, and said more rationally,

‘It’s the auld wife. The dame that’s wi the party.’

‘Dame Ellen?’ said Gil, looking up from his buckles.

‘Aye, her. God rest her.’

‘But what has happened? She is in the chapel, you said?’ Alys came forward, drawing her plaid about her. ‘Is it certain she is dead?’

‘Oh, aye.’ The man swallowed. ‘Naeb’dy’s head’s that shape that isny dead.’

This was certainly the case, Gil reflected, studying the body of Dame Ellen by the light of two great racks of candles. He was glad Alys had remained in the courtyard, where the woman Bessie was still sobbing under her apron.

‘What has she been struck wi?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Our good candlestick,’ said Sir Simon glumly. ‘It’s all ower blood and brains, see.’ He indicated the object, its pewter gleam sullied and blackened by what stuck to it. ‘He’s likely all ower blood himsel, the way it’s spattered, whoever’s done it. What a task we have ahead o us, getting this back the way it should be, let alone what Robert Blacader will have to say about it. As for when he’s next in Glasgow, to reconsecrate-’ He sat down again, rather heavily, on the wall-bench where Gil had found him. ‘I keep thinking o other things to be done. The Blessed Sacrament to be destroyed by fire- Who’d do sic a deed in the presence o the Host, can you credit it? The vestments and hangings to be cleaned and reconsecrate. What will Blacader say?’

‘This is worse than what came to Peg Simpson,’ said Gil. ‘Let alone the sacrilege. And that’s far worse than what happened wi Barnabas.’ He looked round as Lowrie came pallidly back into the little building, keeping his eyes averted from the body. ‘Where are they all? The family, the servants?’

‘Lockhart has them penned up in the dining hall,’ said Lowrie, ‘since they could hardly use the men’s hall. The doctor says Sir Edward canny be told of this, he’s no more than hours from his end.’

‘I suppose we’re certain it’s Ellen Shaw,’ Gil said. ‘Most o her face is, well-’

‘Past knowing,’ agreed Sir Simon. ‘We had the woman Meggot to her, she agreed it was Dame Ellen, by the teeth and the clothes, and said she kent the hands.’

‘The teeth I’ll accept,’ said Gil, looking at the corpse. ‘Did she cry out? Is that how you came to find her?’

The dead woman lay sprawled, one arm flung up and back as if she had tried to protect herself. There were injuries to both hands, and her sleeves and one shoulder of her gown were torn. Blood, black in the candlelight, soaked the crumpled white linen of her headdress; there had clearly been a fight, which had ended in the shattering blow to her forehead that had split the skull, fragmented the eye socket, laid open the cheekbone. Broken teeth, or perhaps splinters of bone, gleamed palely within the wound in the flickering light, but the crossed front teeth by which Meggot had identified her were also visible, because her mouth was wide open, as if she had died in the moment of screaming at her attacker. Ne is no quene so stark ne stour, he found himself thinking, that deth ne shal by glyde. It had certainly not glided by this woman.

‘It was Bessie found her,’ Sir Simon said. ‘You’ll want to get a word wi her yourself, I couldny make sense o her, she was that owerset. I can tell you I never heard a thing mysel, nor had any notion there was anyone in here. I suppose she could ha crossed the yard while I was at my dinner, or — no, for I’d my dinner wi the whole o them in the dining hall, and she was there right enough.’

‘That was the last time you saw her?’

‘It was. They were all in the hall when I left, save for Sir Edward and his man, a course, and I went to deal wi some papers, sort the accounts,’ he grimaced, ‘which should ha been wi St Mungo’s at the quarter, and I canny get completed for lack of a docket from Alan Jamieson-’

‘So she could ha come across here while you were at that,’ Gil said. He hunkered down by the corpse and felt the outspread limbs, judging temperature, testing flexibility. ‘She’s no long gone, I’d say. What time was your dinner?’

‘After Vespers,’ said Sir Simon promptly. ‘Maybe seven o’ the clock. It would be eight when I cam away, likely.’

‘Two hours since.’ Gil touched the neck and jaw cautiously. ‘She’s been dead no more than an hour or so, I’d say, she’s barely beginning to set. I wonder where she was in between.’

‘Likely in here, arguing wi her murderer,’ suggested Lowrie, who was casting about the rest of the small space, his back resolutely to the corpse, a tilted candle in his hand dripping wax on the tiles. Gil suddenly thought of his father-in-law doing the same thing over Barnabas’ body the previous evening. He lifted a fold of the blood-soaked headdress, and said,

‘Has anyone sent to tell the Muirs? I think they’re kin, they should hear of this.’

‘And Canon Muir,’ said Sir Simon in dismay. ‘He should hear o’t, it’s his right as patron o the hostel, but he’ll want to owersee all-’

‘You have to let him know,’ said Gil, sharing the older man’s consternation. ‘And Will Craigie? He’s some kind of kin to her,’ he elucidated.

‘Is he now,’ said Sir Simon, distracted. ‘I’d begun to think it. He’s been here a time or two wi her, and her ordering him about like a lapdog. I heard them arguing out there in the yard this morning, you’d ha thought they were man and wife the way they were abusing one another.’

‘Is that right?’ Gil carefully did not look at the priest. ‘What was that about, then?’

‘Oh, I couldny say, my son.’ Gil waited, studying the injuries to the corpse’s hands. ‘Well, it seemed something had gone wrong, that he expected her to ha sorted for him and it hadny gone according to plan, or the like.’

‘What kind of plan? Money? Land, a position?’

‘I never caught that,’ said Sir Simon regretfully. ‘Just by what was said he hadny kept his side o the bargain either, whatever it was. If you’d done what you promised, she said to him, more than once.’

‘What did he answer to that?’

‘He kept saying, It’s no that easy, it takes time. Never said what, though. Oh, and, What purpose it now, any road? he said. To which she said, Never concern yoursel, she’ll turn up, like bad money.’

‘Something concerning Annie Gibb, then?’ said Gil.

‘Doesn’t sound like a reason to kill her,’ said Lowrie doubtfully.

‘So has he been sent for?’ Gil asked. ‘Or at least let know his kinswoman’s dead.’

‘I’ll send Attie round.’ Sir Simon glanced at the small dark windows of the chapel. ‘Will it no do the morn’s morn? It’s ower late to disturb the man wi bad news. Though I suppose the Canon needs to hear, he can get the two o them wi the one lantern.’

‘No, I think he should go now. And the Muirs? They’re likely out drinking again, they’d never survive an evening of Canon Muir’s company, someone had best hunt them down and tell them. One of the Shaw servants can go once I’ve spoken to them. We should let the Provost hear and all.’ Gil stood up, hitching at the knees of his hose. ‘He’ll not be pleased, another quest.’

‘No after the day’s,’ Sir Simon agreed, grinning sourly. ‘I heard about that. Mind, he got his verdict in the end.’

‘He did.’ Gil looked round for Lowrie. ‘Is Alys still in the yard?’

‘She’s gone into the hall, to the lassies. She bade me tell you, she questioned Bessie.’