The Fourth Crow

Chapter Eleven

In the dining hall, at one of the long fixed tables, Alys and Meggot were attempting to bring Dame Ellen’s nieces to a more balanced state of mind. One of the girls was hiccuping again, the other was simply weeping helplessly. Alys looked round as Gil entered the hall, caught his eye and shook her head. He had to agree; there was no point in speaking to either sister just now, and Meggot was as busy as Alys.

At the other table, Lockhart had a row of four shocked menservants lined up and had clearly been questioning them; he was now casting an eye over their livery, presumably looking for bloodstains.

‘There you are, Cunningham,’ he said as Gil sat down beside him. ‘These lads were all in the hall here thegither, and then went out-by to the stables. They each speak for all.’

‘You’d swear to that?’ Gil asked, and they nodded raggedly. ‘Did any of you see Dame Ellen go to the chapel after her dinner? Or anyone else?’

The consensus seemed to be that none of them had.

‘Was any of you sent out to fetch someone to meet her? Did she send any messages at all this evening?’

Again, there was agreement: Dame Ellen had summoned nobody that the men knew of.

‘What time did she leave the hall?’

The four servants looked blank. Lockhart offered,

‘An hour or so after we sat down to dine? Maybe a bit more? Sir Simon excused himself to his duties when the meal was done, and she warned the lassies to bide here in company along wi Meggot, to save candles, and went out hersel, I thought she said she would visit her brother, see how he was, though the women say she spoke of going to the chapel. ’ His voice tailed off. Gil nodded.

‘So none of you kens when she entered the chapel?’

The four looked at one another in the candlelight.

‘No, maister,’ said Sawney. ‘But there’s a thing.’

‘What’s that?’ Gil asked.

‘This afternoon, maister. Well, evening, it was, we was waiting out yonder in the yard, till they called us in to our dinner. This woman comes in off the street, saying she kent something about my mistress, about Annie Gibb that is. She wouldny tell it to us, said it was for our maister’s ears, so I set off to fetch Maister Lockhart here, and met Dame Ellen in the other yard, and she would know where I was off to, and said she’d speak wi the woman hersel. She took her into the chapel, to be privy, see, so we never heard what the woman had to say, and she never tellt us what it was neither. Did she tell you, maister?’

‘She did not. First I’ve heard of this,’ said Lockhart, reddening in annoyance. ‘Christ’s nails, she was a steering woman!’

‘You heard nothing from outside the chapel?’ Gil asked.

‘Is that no what I’m saying? Only,’ persisted Sawney, ‘the mistress, she cam away right annoyed and saying something about Never a penny you’ll get for sic lees as this, and the woman sweering at her all across the yard, so I wondered maybe if it was her cam back and slew her acos she never gied her her reward.’

‘Was there a reward promised?’ Gil asked, disentangling this.

‘Aye,’ said Lockhart. ‘No a great one, just for information concerning Annie.’

‘What like was the woman?’ Lowrie asked from Gil’s side. Sawney looked at him, and shrugged.

‘Just ordinar.’

‘She’d a red kirtle,’ said the man next to him.

‘It was green,’ said the one at his other side.

‘An apron?’ Lowrie asked. ‘How big was she? Was she carrying anything?’

Some argument established that the woman had been middling sized, heavily built, wearing an apron and a good headdress and a red, blue, or possibly green kirtle with short sleeves, and had worn no plaid.

‘So she hadny come far,’ Sawney explained. ‘I took it she was come in from the street hereabouts.’

Gil raised an eyebrow at Lowrie, who nodded.

‘It could be the woman I spoke to,’ he agreed. ‘Agnes Templand, the name is.’

‘Will I go round wi a couple of the lads to take her up?’ Lockhart suggested, pushing back his stool. ‘Fetch her to the Castle, see what the Provost makes of her?’

‘No,’ said Gil, ‘but Lowrie could take your lads if you will and speak to her, see if her apron has blood on it. I’d say whoever killed Dame Ellen would be foul wi blood, and brains and all.’

‘She could change it,’ objected Sawney.

‘If she’s changed it,’ said Lowrie, ‘then we’ll ask to see the other. Come on, man, you’ll do, and you — Rab, is it?’

‘A moment,’ said Gil. ‘Sawney, tell me something. The night your mistress Annie was at the Cross.’ The man ducked his head, grimacing as if the words had stabbed him. ‘When you spoke to her, after the prentices had finished their battle and gone home. Was that before or after midnight?’

‘After midnight?’ Sawney stared, visibly trying to recall. ‘Aye, I’d say so. I canny mind right, maister, but I’d say aye, it would ha been after midnight. By where the moon was,’ he reflected, ‘it must ha been. Aye, aye, maister, after midnight it was.’ He nodded, touched his knitted bonnet, and hurried after Lowrie.

‘And your other two men,’ said Gil to Lockhart, wondering how reliable this might be, ‘if you’ll permit it, could go out and find the Muir brothers, let them hear Dame Ellen’s dead. Sir Simon has sent to their uncle, as patron, but the brothers are likely out in the town.’

‘I should ha thought o that,’ said Lockhart, reddening again. ‘Tell truth, Cunningham, I’m right owerset by this. Steering auld witch she might ha been, but I’d thought she’d go on for ever. Certainly never thought o her meeting her end like this, deserved or no.’ He jerked his head at the two remaining men, who nodded and slipped away after Lowrie and their fellows. Lockhart watched them go, then said gloomily, ‘So what’s happened, man? What did come to her? I saw her where she lay,’ he grimaced, ‘wi her brains all ower the tiles, they’ll ha to cleanse that chapel all ways, let alone the sacrilege, and it seemed to me like a madman’s work.’ His gaze slid sideways to Gil. ‘Is there any chance. Is it likely?’ He swallowed. ‘Could it ha been Annie?’ he finished in a rush. ‘Slipped back into the place and taen her revenge on the old-’ He stopped. Gil waited for a moment, then said,

‘Revenge?’

‘Aye, revenge. For years of-’ He stopped again, and shook his head. ‘Maybe no.’

‘Years of what?’

‘No. Forget it. I never meant-’

After another pause Gil said,

‘Did Dame Ellen spend much time in the chapel?’

Lockhart shrugged.

‘I’d not have said so, I thought she was more ower at St Mungo’s. She’d a right devotion to Our Lady in the Lower Kirk, but there’s St Catherine in the Upper Kirk and all. You could ask at the lassies, they might tell you.’ He glanced across the hall to where Alys was talking soothingly to Dame Ellen’s nieces, aided now by Sir Simon. Nicholas still had the hiccups. ‘If you can get a word o sense out them. My wife got the wits for all three o them, I can tell ye, maister. She’d not be owerset by a wee thing like this.’

‘They’re very young,’ said Gil, as he had said to Dame Ellen.

‘They’re old enough to be wed,’ retorted Lockhart, much as she had done.

‘So how did Dame Ellen deal wi Annie?’

‘Ach.’ The man hesitated. ‘Wi a firm hand. Aye you could say that, a firm hand.’

‘Too firm?’ Prompting the witness, thought Gil.

‘Away too firm, I’d ha thought. Ruled her like they two heedless lassies, wi commands and duties and Get to your needlework when I order it. She was a- She was a steering woman, Cunningham. You ken two o her husbands hanged theirsels?’

‘What? Two?’ repeated Gil incredulously.

‘Aye. The third one, her last, dee’d o his own accord, his heart they said, afore she could drive him to it. Small wonder she’s been left on Sir Edward’s hands these six or seven year. Annie’s a good lass, save for this daft vow she took, and I’ve aye wondered if that was as much to get her out from under the auld wife’s rule as to mourn her man.’

William Craigie, predictably, was the first of those summoned to arrive at the hostel. He came hurrying in, a great cloak over his plaid despite the mildness of the night, a lantern bobbing in his hand, staring nervously about the darkling courtyard as if he expected Dame Ellen’s corpse to appear before him.

‘What’s this, Gil?’ he demanded. ‘What’s afoot? A fellow came to tell me, there’s been another death. Is that right? Is it my- Is it Dame Ellen right enough? What’s come to her? Some accident, surely, she was well enough this morning!’

‘Aye, Dame Ellen,’ said Gil baldly. ‘D’you want to see her? She’s in the chapel.’

‘What, is she laid out and received already?’ Craigie turned to follow him.

‘No, she died there.’ Gil paused, hand on the chapel door, to study the other man’s reaction. ‘By violence,’ he added.

‘By violence? In the chapel?’ repeated Craigie. He raised his lantern to see Gil’s face; by its light his own expression was one of horror and deep dismay. A churchman’s reaction. Was it too deep, Gil wondered; was his response genuine, or assumed? ‘Who would do sic a thing? That’s terrible! Here, it wasny the same as at St Mungo’s? Has someone copied- Was she throttled like Barnabas?’

‘No. Her death has been very different,’ Gil said, pushing the chapel door open. Sir Simon, seated on the wall-bench again with his beads in his hand, looked up briefly and returned to his prayers. Craigie stepped in, halted as he took in the scene before him, and turned his face away, one hand over his mouth.

‘Christ aid the poor woman,’ he said, ‘what an end. Here, Gil, she wasny forced as well, was she?’

‘I think not,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no sign of it, certainly. Just had her head beaten in wi Sir Simon’s candlestick.’

‘No mine,’ said Sir Simon without raising his head. ‘It’s St Catherine’s.’

‘Aye,’ said Craigie indistinctly, then hurried out of the chapel. Gil followed, and found him in the yard, heaving drily, his lantern swinging by his knee. ‘You’ll forgive me,’ he managed after a moment, ‘I canny stay in there. The smell-’

‘Rich,’ Gil agreed. Craigie breathed deeply a couple of times, then straightened up with a slight laugh of embarrassment.

‘Never could abide the smell o blood. I couldny ha made a flesher.’

‘Fortunate you went for Holy Kirk instead.’ Gil considered the other man. ‘What way was Dame Ellen kin to you? Are you also kin to her nieces? To the missing woman?’

‘No to the lassies,’ said Craigie, shaking his head, ‘and certainly I’m no kin o Annie Gibb’s. As for — for the depairtit, she’s no true kin o mine, but a connection by way o two or three marriages. It suited her to call me kin, but, well-’

‘Had you any benefit from the claim?’ Gil asked casually. ‘A busy, devout woman like Dame Ellen could be some assistance to a man in Holy Orders, I’d ha thought.’

‘If she was, she’ll no be again,’ said Craigie, and clapped his round felt hat back on his head. ‘You’ll ha to forgive me, Gil, I’m turned all tapsalteerie wi this. Sacrilege like that, and in Glasgow. Who’d ha thought it, even after what came to Barnabas.’ He took another deep breath, and let it out. ‘Assistance. Aye, she’d promised me she’d put a word in for me here and there about Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. She’d a wide acquaintance, and a few o them has fine benefices to hand out.’

‘Had she now?’ said Gil. ‘Yet I’d heard you had words wi her the day.’

‘I did,’ agreed Craigie, after the smallest check, deep regret in his tone. ‘It shames me to admit it, I used language unbecoming a son of Holy Kirk to her. Mind you, the provocation was great,’ he added. ‘The depairtit called me for everything while she was reproaching me.’

‘Wantoun of word, and wox wonder wraith? What was it about?’ Gil asked.

‘It’s no matter now,’ said Craigie, still with that deep regret. ‘The plans can come to nothing.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Gil, ‘I need to hear all she was involved in this last day or two, anything that might ha gone wrong, that might ha provoked sic a death.’

‘Gilbert!’ The other man took a step backwards, raising his hands as if to defend himself. ‘You never- You canny think I’d-’

‘Where were you these two or three hours? Since Vespers, say.’

‘At John Ross’s lodging, where the lad found me. Several of us had dinner sent in from one o the bakehouses after Vespers was done, and sat down to the cards. Ask at them. Ask at Habbie or John or Arthur.’

‘I will,’ said Gil. ‘So what was it Dame Ellen expected of you? What had you planned thegither? Was anyone else involved? I think you hadny completed some task or other.’

‘You’re gey well informed,’ said Craigie stiffly.

‘Aye, well, if you have your discussion here in the yard, you’ll expect to be heard. So what was your task?’

‘Oh, it’s at an end now, no purpose in pursuing it. Poor woman, she’ll do neither hersel nor any other any good now.’

‘William,’ said Gil, summoning patience, ‘I need to hear what it was. Would you rather discuss it somewhere private? We could go back in the chapel, if you like, or Sir Simon would maybe let us use his chamber. Did the matter concern Annie Gibb? I think,’ he said, with a sudden recollection of Canon Muir’s ramblings, ‘you’ve been promoting this match wi Henry or Austin Muir for her, am I right?’

‘Aye, that was it,’ said Craigie, in a kind of sulky relief.

‘So how does that stand the now, wi the lass still missing and no suspicion where she might be?’

‘Oh, it’s all in abeyance, o necessity, though my kinswoman would never accept that, kept urging me to carry the matter forward.’

Interesting, thought Gil, recalling his own interviews with Dame Ellen.

‘Where do you think she might be?’ he asked casually. ‘Annie Gibb, I mean. Where did Dame Ellen think she would return from, if she was still on the market to be wed?’

‘No telling. No telling.’ Craigie shook his head. ‘I’d not think she’s still in Glasgow, you’d ha found her by now, surely. Our Lady alone kens where she’s got to, let alone who set her free, how she got away.’

‘Who could ha done this, would you think?’ Gil nodded at the chapel door. ‘Who’d ha had reason to beat Dame Ellen down like that?’

‘Oh, how would I know? You’re Blacader’s quaestor, no me. She was,’ even by lantern-light it was visible that Craigie controlled his expression, ‘she was a steering woman, generous though she could be, it’s likely she ordered the wrong person to do her bidding.’

‘What’s ado here?’ demanded a sharp voice. Booted feet tramped on the flagstones of the courtyard, and two dark figures emerged from the shadows. Light from Craigie’s lantern glimmered on gold and silver braid, then showed Henry Muir’s face, irritated and impatient. Behind him his brother grinned vaguely, and a Shaw serving-man slipped away into the hall. ‘Oh, no you again! And you and all,’ Henry added to Craigie. ‘Yon fellow says the auld wife’s found dead, is that right? Wi her head beat in? She wasny forced as well, was she?’

‘No, Henry, she-’ began his brother.

‘What did I say?’ Henry turned on him, hand raised, and Austin took a step backwards.

‘Dame Ellen is dead,’ Gil confirmed, ‘and by violence. Will you see her?’

‘No need o that, surely,’ muttered Austin, and flinched at his brother’s sharp movement.

‘We’ll see her,’ said Henry grimly, and flung away towards the chapel door.

Inside the little building, he stared impassively at the grisly sight which Dame Ellen presented in the candlelight, signed himself and muttered a prayer, while his brother peered over his shoulder with a kind of prurient, timorous avidity which Gil found more distasteful than Henry’s reaction.

‘She’s crossed someone for the last time,’ said the older brother after a moment.

‘Did she cross many folk?’ Gil asked.

‘Oh, aye.’ Henry laughed shortly. ‘Easy as breathing. I’ll no speak ill o her afore her face,’ he added, and stepped past Gil to the door. ‘Come on, you.’

‘Will you touch her?’

‘I’ll no!’ said Austin before Henry could answer, ‘for she’ll get up and ca’ me for all things if I do, same as she did on life.’

‘Did she so?’ said Gil. ‘I thought she had a fondness for you both.’

‘Never stopped her miscalling me,’ said Austin, watching anxiously as his brother turned back and bent to touch one of the claw-like hands. ‘Mind her, Henry, she’ll up and fetch you a wallop-’

‘Haud your tongue, daftheid,’ said his brother. ‘She’s cold and stiffening. Why’s she no been washed and laid out, Cunningham? It’s no decent to keep her lying here in her blood. She’ll be past doing anything with afore long.’

‘She could be washed now,’ Gil agreed. ‘And the purification of the chapel can begin.’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Henry in a strange tone. ‘Aye, it’ll take a deal o purifying.’

They stepped out into the courtyard just as Canon Muir came hurrying in at the hostel door, exclaiming in agitation, wringing his hands, Attie and his own manservant behind him.

‘Sir Simon! Good Sir Simon, where is he? Tell me it’s no true? It canny be true!’

‘There’s our uncle,’ said Austin unnecessarily. ‘What’s brought him here, then?’

‘Ellen Shaw dead by violence, and in our chapel?’ Canon Muir was saying, and laid hold of Gil’s arm. ‘Gilbert, you here! Tell me it’s no true!’

‘It’s true, sir, though I’m sorry to say it.’ Gil detached the grip on his arm, aware that the Canon’s nephews had contrived to make their escape, as had Craigie. He hoped they had gone into the hall rather than leaving the place. ‘Bide here, I’ll fetch Sir Simon out to you.’

‘But how could it ha happened? Who would do sic a thing, in a chapel, sacred ground!’ The old man was right behind Gil as he opened the chapel door. ‘Is she still in here? Why is she no lifted, can we no start cleansing the place? Sir Simon, how could you let sic a thing happen?’

Sir Simon rose to greet his patron. Gil stood aside, and the Canon rocked back on his heels as he caught sight of the corpse in the blaze of candlelight, and crossed himself, gabbling a prayer.

‘Oh, what a thing to happen! Oh, Christ aid us all, it’s dreadful, dreadful!’ He clutched at Sir Simon’s arm, his other hand waving helplessly. ‘How did it happen? Who’s guilty o sic a crime? They must be excommunicate, whoever they are! Oh, is it no dreadful, dreadful!’

‘Come away out, Canon,’ said Sir Simon, edging him towards the door. ‘We’ll get the servants in to lift her, and see to laying her out. Aye, but where?’ he wondered, as the thought struck him. ‘We canny put her in here.’

‘The dining hall?’ Gil suggested. ‘I need a word wi the folk still in there, but once I’m done the place will be free.’

‘What a thing to happen.’ Canon Muir was wringing his hands again. ‘What will the Dean say? What will Robert Blacader say? Oh, what a thing! Simon, have we enough incense? We’ll need a quarter-stone anyway.’

‘They’ll be time enough to order it up,’ said Sir Simon grimly. ‘Come away, Canon, we’ll get a word in my chamber while I set Attie to deal wi this.’

The women had vanished from the dining hall, but William Craigie was there, speaking solemnly with Lockhart and the serving-men; as the door latched behind Gil, the whole group turned towards the crucifix on the end wall of the chamber, removing their hats, and Craigie began intoning one of the prayers for the dead in his rich voice. Behind them, Henry Muir snorted contemptuously, lifted one of the candles and made for the nearer end of the hall.

‘Well, Cunningham?’ he said, hooking a stool out from under one of the long tables with his booted foot. He sat down, set the wooden candle-stand on the table, drew another stool closer to put his feet on it, and stared challengingly at Gil. ‘We’ve been talking wi the old man all this evening, till the last hour or so.’

‘And then where were you?’ Gil asked, acknowledging this gambit. He tested the table for rigidity and sat on it, pushing the candle aside.

‘We were in an alehouse,’ said Austin, ‘that one at the Wyndheid that has a bishop ower the door. Wishart’s Tree, do they cry it? We kent the ale would be good, see.’

‘Where yon fellow found us,’ his brother supplied, jerking his head at the devout group below the crucifix. ‘And you can ask at the alewife. She’ll likely mind us.’ He looked complacently from his own red broadcloth with its silver braiding to his brother’s dark grey velvet trimmed with gilt braid and gold silk brocade.

‘A course she’ll mind us,’ said Austin, ‘for you made certain-’ He bit off the words as his brother raised a threatening hand.

‘Made certain?’ Gil queried.

‘I made certain,’ said Henry, ‘to gie the serving-lass a good tip, since we’d hope to go back there and good service is aye a good thing. So they’ll mind us. Right?’ He eased at the high neck of the red broadcloth.

‘So when did you see Dame Ellen last?’

‘That would be earlier the day,’ offered Austin. ‘When she was alive, see. ’ His voice trailed off as his brother turned to glare at him. ‘Well, she was, Henry,’ he persisted, recovering. ‘She was.’

‘Afore noon,’ said Henry.

‘No, it was after-’ Austin fell silent at the lift of his brother’s hand.

‘I think she was wishing to promote a match wi Annie Gibb for one of you,’ Gil said. ‘Am I right?’

Henry’s expression grew darker.

‘Aye,’ he said shortly.

‘You wereny in favour?’

‘We wereny,’ said Austin, laughing. ‘Take a mad wife that doesny wash? And no even all her dower to sweeten the match? We’re no daft, either o us.’

‘Why would you not have all her dower?’ Gil asked, as Henry turned to look at his brother again. ‘It’s considerable. I’d ha thought even the half of it would be worth having.’

‘But it wasny the right half, see,’ said Austin.

‘Dame Ellen planned an arrangement,’ said Henry irritably. ‘Who do you reckon killed her, Cunningham? When was it, any road?’

An arrangement, thought Gil. Presumably Dame Ellen herself, possibly Canon Muir, almost certainly Craigie, were to benefit from a share of Annie’s property if the match took place, as well as the fortunate groom.

‘It was after dinner, Henry,’ said Austin. ‘That she dee’d.’

‘How do you know that?’ Gil asked.

‘He’s right,’ said Henry off-handedly. ‘Must ha been. Else she’d ha been missed here at dinner, and found sooner. Is this all you wanted to ask, Cunningham? For I’ll need to get a word wi Lockhart there, about where we can plant the old dame, and how this lot’s to get home to Glenbuck, whether they’ll need our escort or can find their own.’

‘The Provost will want a quest on her,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no burying her afore that’s seen to, and the party will likely stay here while Sir Edward lives, anyway, so there’s no hurry, I’d ha thought.’

‘What, is he no deid yet? I took it he’d passed on by now, it’s days since he was despaired of.’

‘Maybe he’s waiting till Annie gets found,’ offered Austin. ‘He’s right fond o her. You said that, Henry.’

‘The girls were no help,’ said Alys, leaning wearily against Gil. ‘We calmed them eventually, but I learned nothing from them. Meggot knew only that Dame Ellen was at dinner in the hall with the rest of them and went out after, saying she would go to the chapel. And the St Catherine’s woman, what is her name?’

‘Bessie,’ supplied Lowrie from her other side, holding his lantern down so that its light glittered on the chattering Girth Burn.

‘Bessie.’ Alys gathered up her skirts in one hand, and set the other in Gil’s to accept his help across the stepping stones. ‘Was in the dining hall putting away the linen and the crocks, and thought none of the party left the hall otherwise, for they were telling stories and singing, pilgrim songs and the like, a family evening while the dame was out of the way. Bessie thought it was to lighten their hearts a little while they wait for the death.’ She shook out her skirts, and moved on towards home. ‘Meggot told me the same, when I asked her.’

‘And then what?’ Gil put his arm about his wife and drew her close. ‘When did she find the corp?’

‘After she finished her work in the hall, about the time the other household began to retire for the evening. She set out to her own lodging, by the main door, and as she crossed the courtyard she thought to go into the chapel and count the candles, having had no chance to do it before. She stepped in, and she says opened the candle-box, which dwells in the aumbry near the door, to count them by touch, and then smelled-’ She broke off.

‘Quite,’ said Gil.

‘And lighting a candle, she found — what she found, and began screaming. Poor woman, she is still much distressed. Was it very dreadful?’

‘Bad enough. But there was nobody in the chapel — nobody living,’ he corrected himself, ‘when she went in?’

‘I think she would have mentioned it.’

‘And there’s nowhere to hide,’ Lowrie offered. ‘It’s a wee bare chamber, and it wasn’t full dark by then. Do you think she was killed on her own account, or is it connected to one of the others?’

‘No saying, yet,’ said Gil. ‘Did you find the woman on the Stablegreen?’

‘Mistress Templand? Aye, she was there. Gown and apron clean, at least no worse than a day’s wear, and her other aprons and her shoes were all free of anything like you’d expect.’ He laughed. ‘She would know what we were looking for, a course, and when we told her she said, It deserves her right, and began praying for her in the same breath. She’d been wi her neighbour the past two or three hours, telling her the tale of the argument wi Dame Ellen, so one way and another she’s clear of the hunt.’

‘I’d agree.’ Gil halted before the front door of the House of the Mermaiden, extracting the heavy key from his purse. He could hear Socrates blowing hard at the gap under the door; about them the night was quiet, though away in the distance, outside the burgh, another dog barked. Wings swished above their heads, and a nightbird called a bubbling cry and was answered.

‘Time for bed, I think,’ he said. ‘We can fit this together in the morning.’

The view down the Clyde from Bishop Rae’s bridge was always entertaining. This morning, mild and almost windless with a steady fine drizzle, there were fewer bystanders and casual onlookers than was often the case, but there was still plenty to see. Several small boats were drawn up on the strand, their crews engaged in the mysterious occupations of mariners on land. Sails hung drying under a pent at the top of the bank, several more men were unloading barrels from a larger boat under the watchful eye of a well-upholstered merchant, and two further little vessels were slipping upriver on the tide. Standing on the crown of the Bishop’s stone bridge, Socrates beside him with his forepaws on the parapet, Gil studied these, and concluded that the nearer, well laden with canvas-wrapped bales and boxes, was Stockfish Tam’s Cuthbert. He snapped his fingers at the dog and strolled casually down the slope of the bridge, avoiding an oxcart full of timber and several handcarts, and fetched up on the shore just where Cuthbert nosed in against the sandy beach.

‘Good day to you, skipper,’ he said as the mariner splashed ashore bare legged, hauling on a rope. Tam checked, glanced at him over his shoulder, and went on to moor his boat, taking deft turns of the rope about a pair of timbers hammered into the sandy shore. Socrates ambled over to examine his method. ‘I need a word wi you.’

‘Nothin’ to stop you,’ said Tam. He was a chunky, fairish man of middling height, weather browned and competent with deep-set hazel eyes, not a man to mix with in a fight Gil reckoned. Now he caught a second rope flung to him by a youngster in the boat, elbowed the dog aside and cast it round another pair of timbers.

‘You mind me? Gil Cunningham, Blacader’s quaestor.’

‘Aye.’ Tam splashed back into the water and the boy assisted him to hoist one of the canvas packs onto his shoulders.

‘You took a cargo down the water night afore last.’

‘Did I now?’ said Tam unhelpfully. He tramped past Gil, to lower the pack to the grass well above the tideline. Socrates followed him, and began a thorough inspection of the stitched canvas coverings.

‘Wi my man Euan as crew,’ Gil added. This got him a sharp look, but no answer. ‘A sack of grain, two cheeses, a barrel of apples.’ Another sharp look as the mariner passed him on the way back to the boat. ‘All with the St Mungo’s seal on them, to be sold in Dumbarton. What I need to learn from you, man, is who charged you to sell the goods, and who brought them to you the night afore you sailed.’

Tam plodded up the shore again with a second well-stitched pack, and set it down by its fellow. Turning to face Gil he studied him for a moment.

‘Very likely,’ he said. ‘But why should I tell you sic a thing? Supposing I ken the answers.’

‘What, you’d take delivery o a boatload wi no idea who handed it to you, nor who your principal might be?’

‘Aye, Tam,’ called the man in the next boat along the shore. ‘You right, man?’

‘I’m right, Dod,’ said Tam. He looked at Gil again, snorted, and set off to fetch another bale. The boy in the boat, enough like him to be a close relation, watched anxiously.

‘Or did he never tell you who the principal was?’ Gil prodded. ‘It was Barnabas the verger, wasn’t it, who brought the cart down in the night?’

‘If you’re that certain,’ Tam paused beside him, a box balanced on his sturdy shoulders, ‘why are you troubling to ask me?’

‘Was it Barnabas?’

‘Him that’s deid? Aye,’ said Tam reluctantly. ‘It was. He never tellt me his name, mind, but I asked a bit. I’ll no do business wi folk wi’out a name.’

‘And his principal?’

The mariner snorted again, and trudged up the slope with his burden. Lowering it to the grass where Socrates waited, he straightened up and eyed Gil directly.

‘I’d got his name, I made shift to do wi’out his superior’s.’

‘So there was a superior? Did he never name him?’

‘He tried to tell me he was alone in it,’ said Tam, ‘but I kent better. It was someone at St Mungo’s, that was clear enough, he’d never ha got all that stuff away on his own.’

‘What stuff?’

‘All that I took down the water and sellt for him.’

‘There was a lot, was there? How often did you take a boatload down?’

Tam shrugged.

‘Every two-three nights? Aince or twice a week, mebbe.’

‘And what did you do with the proceeds?’

‘Och, I gied it back to him,’ said Tam with the air of a scrupulous man. ‘It was St Mungo’s goods, after a’, I’d never rob Holy Kirk.’

Gil paused a moment at this utterance, but contrived to keep his face straight.

‘You never thought that Barnabas might be robbing Holy Kirk?’ he suggested.

‘What, and him one of the vergers?’ Tam stepped down the grassy slope and made for the boat again. ‘Is that all you were wanting fro me?’

‘What will you do,’ Gil asked deliberately, ‘with the coin you took in Dumbarton yesterday for the last lading? Barnabas is dead, as you said. When was he to come back with another cart-load? Is that when you should ha handed over the coin?’

The mariner made a great play of getting another pack onto his shoulder, of plodding up the slope with it through the drizzle, of setting it down with care and lining it up beside the other bales. Socrates, growing bored, paced off along the shore to investigate another boat. Gil waited. Eventually the man straightened up and looked at him.

‘He’d ha brought me some more the night, most like.’

‘Where would you meet him?’

Tam bent his head, scratching at the back of his neck, looking from side to side as he did so.

‘If you’ll bide,’ he said at last, very quietly, ‘till I shift this load, and the boy goes to advise Mistress Veitch her goods is come home, we can take a stroll on the Green.’

Gil glanced at the sky. It was not much past Terce, he reckoned; Otterburn would be expecting him to report on the death in the pilgrim hostel, but this was more immediately useful. He nodded, whistled to Socrates, and sat down on the damp canvas-covered box.

Once the boat was unloaded and the boy had returned, panting, from notifying Mistress Marion Veitch that a stack of goods had been brought upriver out of her husband’s Rose of Irvine and waited for her on the shore, Tam ordered the boy to watch them, jerked his head at Gil, and set off up the bank of the river, under the near arch of the bridge, towards the wide expanse of Glasgow Green.

‘If our luck’s in,’ he said conversationally, ‘the washer-women’ll be abroad. Aye good entertainment, they are.’

‘So where did you meet the fellow and his handcart?’ Gil asked. The mariner halted, looking about him.

‘Aye, you see,’ he said, pointing. ‘There’s the washerwomen, by the mill-burn. They’re a great draw.’

He strolled in the other direction, away from the gathering of men round the three or four huge washtubs, in which the burgh’s professional washerwomen, skirts kilted high above bare muscular calves, tramped the wet linen clean and exchanged edged pleasantries with their audience. Gil followed him without comment, and eventually the man halted on the bank of the river, looking morosely down at the rippling water.

‘You canny sell goods in Dumbarton market,’ he said. ‘No if you’re no an indweller or pay yir fee at the gates.’ Gil, who was well aware of this, kept silence, and after a little Tam went on, ‘Course they’s nothing to prevent a couple o freens striking a bargain, and if the one o them’s an indweller and can sell the goods on, it’s nothin’ to do wi the other fellow.’ Gil continued to preserve silence, and the mariner prodded at the grass of the riverbank with his bare foot. ‘I’ve aye done it,’ he said. ‘Goods that willny shift in Glasgow, items they’re short in Dumbarton. Me and a couple o the lads has a good trade going. Ye ken?’

Thus appealed to, Gil made an agreeing sound in his throat. Tam picked a dandelion out of the tussocky grass with his toes, and stared down at it.

‘I’m no saying I’ve done a thing that’s agin the law,’ he said defensively. ‘This chiel fetches up in Maggie Bell’s tavern, oh,’ he paused, reckoning, ‘after Candlemas, it would be. Wi a tale o a poke o meal he wants to shift, and having no licence to sell in the burgh he’d as soon it went elsewhere. So we came to an accommodation, and I dealt wi it for him, and when I gied him his share o the coin he said, how about another couple o pokes? And so it went on for a week or two or more, him bringing me the goods by night and then he’d be back a night or two later for the takings. And then,’ he paused, scowling at the small stook of dandelion leaves he had gathered, ‘and then around Lady Day he’d a barrel o apricocks. I thought it a strange thing for one o the vergers to get his hands on, but I took it into the boatie, and it was only the next morn when me and my freen in Dumbarton was prigging over the price that I seen the St Mungo’s seal on it.’

‘Did you challenge him on that?’ Gil asked.

‘Did I no! But it was no use, he’d a long tale about it was gien him by the Almoner hissel, I could ask him if I wanted.’

‘And did you?’ Gil prompted, wondering if Barnabas had thought of that by himself.

‘What do you think? Anyway, these last few weeks, it’s come to be more and more at a time. In fact my freen was saying last week, he’s no certain he can take any more, the merchants o Dumbarton are looking sideyways at him a’ready.’

‘Had you told Barnabas that?’

‘I did.’ Gil waited, not looking at the man. Socrates came whirling back at the gallop from wherever he had been, thrust his nose briefly under his master’s hand, and loped off again. Tam drew a deep breath, and let it out again. ‘Daft, I was,’ he admitted. ‘All I got then was a sweering, language like you’d never expect fro a servant o Holy Kirk, and tellt that I was in ower my ears already, and my freen in Dumbarton and all, and I could haud my wheesht and keep the trade going. Which is all very well for him to say,’ he added, ‘he’d no notion o trade, that was clear, when the market’s gone it’s gone and no point saying Keep it going.’

Gil, who had heard rather differently from his successful merchant brother-in-law, said,

‘Convenient for you the fellow’s deid, I’d think.’

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Tam, ‘but you’ll no lay it at my door, freen, I was never near St Mungo’s the day he was slain, I was here about the shore all day or drinking at Maggie Bell’s place. Along wi your man,’ he finished pointedly.

‘So Euan has already told me,’ Gil accepted.

‘Pit doon the well, was he, that Barnabas? No a good way to go. Oh, throttled first, do you tell me? No that that’s any better.’

‘So how was Barnabas to collect the coin for the last load? What will you do now?’

‘That’s just it,’ said Tam, showing signs of discomfort. ‘I’m no right sure how best to proceed. I’ve been turning it ower in my head, see, all the way up fro Dumbarton. He’d ha come down the night, likely wi another two-three barrels, and I canny think whether to sit out and watch, and see if his principal comes instead or maybe sends another, or whether to go to my bed and hope he doesny, or go up St Mungo’s and hand this bit coin to the Almoner, or what.’

‘Where did you meet Barnabas? Did he bring his cart right down to the shore?’

‘No him.’ Tam waved a hand downriver, then retracted it. ‘No, you canny see fro here, the bridge is in the way. The far end o the shore where we haul up, there’s a great stand o trees and bushes and that. It’s the foot o St Thenew’s land.’ Gil nodded. ‘He’d hurl his cairtie down the track by St Thenew’s itsel, and pull it into the shadows there, so me and the laddie, or whoever I got to gie us a hand, had to carry what goods he brought down to the shore on our backs.’

‘So nobody else got a look at him,’ said Gil.

‘Aye. So what I’m thinking, I might sit about the brazier by the sail-shed, see if anybody cam down looking for me the night. But I’m wondering, this fellow that might be waiting in the shadows, how much does he maybe ken? How much does he think I ken?’

Gil turned his head to look at the mariner. The hazel eyes met his, their expression troubled.

‘I’ve no wife, maister,’ he said, ‘but I’ve the laddie. My nevvy. I’d no want to leave him on his lone.’

‘The other fishermen?’ Gil suggested.

‘Maybe. I’m owed a few favours.’

Gil considered the sky again. The drizzle had stopped, and the grey clouds were lightening; it was probably nearly Sext.

‘I ought to get away up to the Castle,’ he said. ‘Will you be about the shore the day?’ Tam nodded. ‘I’ll come and find you, or send by one of the Provost’s men. I think we could give this fellow more than he bargains for.’