The Fourth Crow

Chapter Five

Jean Howie’s alehouse presented itself much as Gil expected. It stood with its sagging stone gable facing the street, at the top of one of the long narrow tofts north of the Castle walls and just within the Stablegreen port. Tumbledown thatch lowered over the doorway, a similar building stood just beyond it, and a straggling line of sheds and shacks further along the path must include the lodging Billy Baird had shared with Peg. Beyond the fence at the far end of the toft was a stretch of common ground, and then the foot of the gardens of Vicars’ Alley, where the songmen of St Mungo’s dwelt. There was a sound of women weeping, and two gloomy men standing outside the house.

‘Is this it?’ said Lowrie doubtfully.

‘The sign says it is,’ Gil answered. The younger man looked at the weather-worn board hanging crookedly over the door; just recognisably it depicted a trindle, one of the long candles matched to the donor’s height and coiled into a spiral which were pledged to one saint or another in return for favours granted.

‘They aye make me think of dog-turds,’ he remarked, following his superior along the path. ‘Trindles. The way they curl round about.’

‘Thank you for that,’ said Gil. He nodded to the two men at the door, and rapped smartly on the doorjamb. Socrates returned from a brief jaunt down the path and sat down grinning at his feet.

‘You’ll get no assistance, neighbour,’ said one of the bystanders. ‘A man could die o thirst in there the day, if he wasny drowned first wi them weeping.’

‘Aye, well, they’re a’ owerset,’ said his companion. ‘One o their hoors is deid,’ he explained to Gil, ‘strangled to death at Glasgow Cross in the night so they’re saying. It’s only natural they should be out o sorts.’

Inside, the alehouse was dark, the fire burning low. The room seemed to be full of sour-smelling bodies huddled together in sobbing groups, but as his vision improved Gil made out Mistress Howie moving about by the two barrels of ale on their trestles, and no more than four other women, three at the single window with their arms about one another and one on her own by the hearth, stirring something in a pot. This one rose and came forward, wiping her eyes.

‘You’ll ha to forgive us, friend. Maister,’ she corrected herself as she assessed Gil’s clothing in the dimness. ‘We’re no serving the now, for we’ve just had bad news-’

‘I ken that,’ he said, raising his hat to her. Lowrie had taken up position by the door, the dog at his feet. ‘I was hoping for a word wi all of you that worked beside Peg Simpson. It’s possible she said something yesterday that might help me track down the man that slew her.’

‘You found us, then,’ said Mistress Howie from the tap. ‘Aye, Sibby, answer his questions, and if you ken aught that would help, tell it him straight out.’

‘It was that man o hers, for certain,’ said one of the group by the window. ‘Question him, why don’t you, or just take him up afore the Provost-’

‘I still need to know why she died,’ said Gil. ‘Did she tell any of you why she went out last night? Or where she was going?’

‘I seen her,’ said another woman by the window. She disengaged herself from the group and came nearer, rubbing at her arms as if she was cold. The sleeves of her kirtle were decorated with braid like Peg’s. ‘She went off down the road wi her plaid about her. You seen her and all, Mysie.’

The one who had spoken before nodded, saying, ‘Aye, so I did.’

‘What time would that be?’

‘Just when we closed,’ said Mysie. ‘We’d put up the shutters, the mistress was barring the door ahint us.’

‘It wasny full dark,’ said the woman with the braided gown. ‘Maybe ten o’ the clock?’

‘Had she said where she was going?’ Gil asked.

There was general agreement that she had not.

‘Never said much all afternoon,’ contributed the fourth girl, and scratched at her belly through her gown.

‘I thought she was in a strunt,’ said Sibby, stirring her pot again. ‘She was civil enough wi us, but she seemed right annoyed about something.’

‘No just annoyed,’ said Mysie. ‘Spoiling for a fight, maybe.’

‘I asked her what was eating her,’ said the fourth girl, ‘and she said, Same thing as all of us. But I’ll get him for it, she said. That was all, Richie Allen wanted her out the back then and we said no more of it.’

‘And is something eating all of you?’ Gil said. What had she meant by that, he wondered. Surely not the lice which infested her gown, those were a hazard of everyday life against which respectable people waged continuous war. The women looked at one another, but Mistress Howie said briskly,

‘No, indeed. My house is a happy house, maister. Well, the most o the time. The lassies all gets on well enough, don’t you no?’

‘Aye, we do, mistress,’ agreed Sibby.

‘What put Peg in a strunt?’ Gil asked. ‘Was she in a mood when she rose in the morning, or was it something through the day?’

‘No, she was great in the morning,’ said the scratcher. She seemed to have infected the others; the girl next her was rubbing uncomfortably at her apron. ‘We’d a good laugh ower the last night’s crocks, her and me.’

‘No, I thought it was after the mistress gave her into trouble for being as long wi the day’s breid,’ said Mysie.

‘She said naught to me,’ said Mistress Howie, coming forward with a cup of ale in each hand, ‘but then likely she wouldny.’ She handed one of the cups to Gil, and drank to him from the other. ‘Your good health, maister, and here’s to a ready solution.’

‘And yours, mistress, and all within here.’ Gil raised the cup in turn.

‘’At’s kind, maister. No, she took what I said to her quiet enough, seeing as I’d the right o it, and set about her tasks as she should. Never gave me no back-answers or nothing.’ Gil preserved silence, and she sniffed, and wiped at her eyes with the tail of her headdress. ‘Poor lassie, nobody deserves that.’

‘I’m for the privy,’ said one of the two still by the window, moving suddenly towards the back of the room. ‘Canny wait any longer.’

‘Good luck,’ said somebody else under her breath. She grimaced, and slipped out into the daylight.

‘What else was Peg speaking of in the day?’ Gil asked

They looked at one another blankly. Heads were shaken in the dim light.

‘Just ordinary things,’ said Mysie. ‘Nothing special. What like the day’s broth was, what the baxter’s lad said when she fetched the breid, that kind o thing.’

‘She mentioned her bairn,’ said Sibby. ‘Said it would ha been its name day soon.’

‘Lowrence, was it called?’ said Lowrie, speaking for the first time.

‘Aye.’ She glanced at him. ‘Said it was in a better place, she did, and then went on scouring the crocks.’

Ah, yes, thought Gil. The feast of St Lawrence would fall in a few days, name day of all called for the saint, when every Lawrence, Lowrence, Lowrie in Glasgow would be at the saint’s altars; Peg Simpson would likely have found a penny for a candle in her baby’s name.

‘I suppose that might be why she was in a strunt, if that vexed her,’ he suggested. More shaking of heads.

‘She aye said Our Lady would look after it,’ said Mysie. ‘She wasny one to brood.’

And yet she went out to pick a fight with someone who had done her some sort of ill turn, Gil thought.

‘And what about the customers? Was she speaking to-’ He broke off, as a heartfelt, pain-filled wail reached his ears. It seemed to come from beyond the back door of the house. Lowrie, by the door, tensed and looked sharply at Gil. Mistress Howie ignored it; the other women looked at one another, one shrugged her shoulders, and another said,

‘Go on, maister. What were you saying?’

The sound had stopped. He swallowed, gestured to Lowrie to relax, and continued, ‘Was she speaking to any in particular? Who did she take out the back?’

‘Out the back?’ repeated Mistress Howie indignantly. ‘Now that’s atween me and them and poor Peg, maister, I canny tell you that, you must see!’

‘Given that anyone else in the place would ken who she took wi her,’ he retorted, ‘no, mistress, I canny see.’

‘He’s right, at that, mistress,’ said Sibby. ‘And she might ha said something to one o them.’

This was not entirely Gil’s meaning, but he let it pass.

‘Richie Allen. Daniel Shearer,’ said Mysie, ‘I seen her wi him. And then wi Tammas Syme. Was there another one, Dorrit?’

‘Never seen.’

The fourth girl slipped back into the house, moving uncomfortably, as if she was afraid she would break, and joined the group. Dorrit put an arm round her, and Mistress Howie said irritably,

‘Aye, well, it was Will Thomson if ye must ken.’ Gil looked over his shoulder to check that Lowrie was making a note of the names. ‘But I’ll no have my regulars harassed. If you go asking them in front o their wives what-’

‘I’d never dream of it,’ said Gil politely, ‘unless they refused to answer me.’

Mistress Howie snorted, and turned back towards her barrels.

‘Well, if you’re done asking questions,’ she said, ‘ye can either leave, or start paying for your ale. I’ve a house to run here.’

‘I was never in a bawdy-house before,’ said Lowrie diffidently, making down the hill past the rose-pink walls of the Castle. ‘At least, I was in the Mermaiden when it was still-’ He paused. ‘That one was very different.’

‘It was,’ said Gil rather grimly. ‘And no the kind of place I’d hope you’d frequent, save in a matter of the law. Long Mina takes better care of her girls, though I believe her prices reflect it. We’ll go round by the Castle the now. I’d better warn Otterburn or his man Andro, for I’ll wager their men use that place, handy as it is.’ He looked round, and saw Lowrie’s surprise. ‘Those four all have the clap.’

‘Oh.’ Lowrie followed him a few paces further, then asked, ‘How can you tell?’

‘Later,’ Gil said, very aware of the busy street. Half of Glasgow was going home for its midday meal, and this was no moment to discuss the signs of the afflictions of Venus: the privy itching, the burning water. It occurred to him that he had not foreseen this aspect of educating a young man when he took on an assistant.

Andro, the captain of the castle guard, was crossing the outer yard when they emerged from the gatehouse. He received the news with resignation, and promised to put the Trindle out of bounds to his men.

‘No that it’ll make much difference,’ he said. ‘Once that’s abroad in a town there’s only one way to avoid it, and they’re never all going to take that road.’ He eyed Gil. ‘Where have you got to wi this missing woman, maister? Or the other one?’

‘That’s what took me to the Trindle. The dead girl is one of theirs, Peg Simpson, last seen last night when they closed up. I need to find who she went off to meet. As for the other, I was hoping you might have something for me.’

‘No a thing.’ Andro shook his head gloomily. ‘We tramped all down the Girth Burn to the mill-burn, we’ve looked in sheds and outhouses and cellars and all, we’ve had as many sweirings from kitchen-wives. They’re still out searching, but we’re far enough fro the Cross now that if she was carried there to be hidden, you’d wonder why they bothered going so far. If you ken what I mean.’

‘You think she’s alive, then?’

‘Or hid somewhere right cunning. Tell you truth, I think she’s run off wi her lover. She never got untied fro the Cross hersel, somebody helped her and took her off. Likely she’s at Edinburgh by now, though how she got out o Glasgow’s anyone’s guess, for she never passed the ports this morning, I’ve checked wi all my lads.’

‘And the other lass? The dead one?’

‘No, that’s your problem, maister, none o mine.’

‘Just the same, if any of your men was in the Trindle last night, I’d like a word.’

‘You’ll get it,’ said Andro. ‘And I’ll get a word wi him too, whoever he is.’

‘So you have one lassie vanished away without trace,’ said Alys in her accented Scots, ‘apparently in her shift, and another lassie who left her. her place of work to speak to someone unknown, and turns up beaten to death, tied to the Cross, and strangled. In that order?’

‘In that order,’ Gil confirmed.

‘But are these the same matter?’ She clasped her hands together, then spread them apart, looking from one to the other. ‘Or are they separate?

‘You tell me,’ said Gil.

They were in the little solar at the back of the house, where they had retired after the midday repast along with small John and his toy horse, the last of the ale and a dish of sweetmeats. Now Lowrie handed the pewter dish to Catherine, who took a lozenge of apricot leather and said in disapproving French,

‘The girl who has vanished must have been melancholy indeed, to make such a vow as you describe, maistre. I do not know why her priest permitted it.’

‘But why?’ said Alys. ‘I can understand if she wished to live without candles, though doing without coal in Scotland in winter seems to me a great folly, but why would she vow never to wash or comb her hair? She must have been crawling with-’ She made a fastidious movement as if crushing something.

Lowrie offered,

‘The Provost’s captain was certain it would make her easy to trace, but I’m not so sure. She only has to wash herself and find some clothes, after all, to alter all that.’

‘She must also be absolved of the vow,’ Alys observed, ‘or be guilty of perjury.’ She withdrew her feet as John’s little wooden horse galloped over them, and went on, ‘Where would she find a priest for that? And would he see it as a moment to break the seal of confession and inform her friends?’

‘This is the upper town,’ Gil said ruefully. He seized John as the boy came within reach, and hauled him onto his knee. The harper’s son, Ealasaidh’s nephew and Gil’s ward, was a handsome child nearing three years old, tall for his age with sparkling blue eyes and a mop of dark curls. ‘Sit quiet a moment, John. She needny trouble the Cathedral or St Nicholas’, she just has to rattle at the nearest door to find a priest behind it.’

‘C’est vrai, maistre,’ said Catherine. ‘And his servant would not be bound by the seal of confession.’

‘John down! No cuddle!’

‘A good point, madame.’ Gil let the child go, and looked at Lowrie. ‘A task for you, then. Work your way out from the Cross, talking to servants, asking a different lot of questions. Not, Are they hiding Annie Gibb, but, Have they seen a woman in her shift at all?’

Lowrie pulled a face.

‘Andro and his men will have crossed that trail,’ he pointed out.

‘I’ve every confidence in you.’

‘But,’ persisted Lowrie, reddening at the comment, ‘you mind we thought they put the other lassie at the Cross to gain time. Is it worth hunting for her close by, or do we look further afield? Could she have left the burgh?’

‘How would one get out of Glasgow in the night?’ Alys wondered. ‘The ports would all be barred, but I suppose some of the vennels lead out where one could get onto the Dow Hill or the Stablegreen.’

‘In the dark,’ said Lowrie. ‘Here, John, horsie could run along the windowsill.’

‘Someone that knows Glasgow, and well, could do it,’ Gil said as the horse’s wooden legs clattered on the sill. ‘I don’t think that applies to any of the party at St Catherine’s, but I need to check. The brothers Muir might be more familiar wi the place, I’d say, given their kinsman’s office at St Mungo’s. I’d best get a word wi them and find out where they spent the night.’

‘She might also have left by boat, or on a horse,’ Alys said. ‘But surely, if she has spent the last year or two dwelling in one chamber, not taking even her share of the work about the house, she has no strength to walk any distance.’

‘That’s a good point. Aye, I think we make sure of whether she’s still within the burgh,’ Gil said, ‘afore we start looking outside.’

‘Much depends,’ said Catherine, ‘on just how much help the lady had, as well as where it came from.’

Gil nodded, and downed the last of his cup of ale.

‘I’ll get a word wi Otterburn,’ he said, ‘and call on Canon Muir. Then I’ll go and trouble St Catherine’s some more. I’m not convinced the whole answer’s there, but some of the questions lead back there, at least. Oh, and I need to find this ropewinder out towards Partick, and ask him about the cord.’

Alys rose, holding her hand out to the child. ‘Come, John, shall we see if Nancy has finished helping Kittock with the crocks? You could take Euan out with you,’ she added hopefully. ‘Kittock finds him no use about the kitchen.’

‘There’s a coincidence,’ said Gil.

‘Och, indeed I was working hard on Maister Cunningham’s behalf all the morning,’ protested Euan. He nodded towards the honey-coloured bulk of St Mungo’s where it loomed above the houses on the north side of the Drygate. ‘We was making certain, me and the vergers, that the lady was not hid about the High Kirk anywhere. I was never searching so big a building afore,’ he added earnestly. ‘You would be having no idea how many corners and stairs and chambers there are about the place, it is nothing like St Comghan’s wee kirk at home.’

‘Did you search the towers and all?’ Gil asked, irritation giving way to amusement.

‘Indeed we did. That Barnabas was saying there was no need, so naturally I would be making certain,’ said Euan virtuously. ‘Maister Cunningham has no need to concern himself wi St Mungo’s now, the lady is never hidden there.’

‘Thank you,’ said Gil. He took a wide course round a tethered pig, with the dog adhering to his heels, and looked up and down the Drygate. Chickens and another pig or two foraged in the street, children were playing, a few stragglers were returning to work after their midday meal. Little knots of women made their way to call on one house or another for the afternoon, many with spindle or sewing or other handwork bundled in an apron. The conversation Gil caught was mostly about Annie Gibb, though the dead girl was mentioned.

‘Away down to the Clyde,’ he said to Euan, with sudden inspiration, ‘and get a word wi the fisher-folk. See if any of them took a passenger anywhere out of Glasgow in the night.’

‘You think she might ha sailed away out of Glasgow?’ said Euan intelligently. ‘Och, the cunning! Never you worry, maister, if that’s what she did I’ll be tracking her down.’ He touched his blue felted bonnet and loped off towards the Wyndhead. Gil watched him go, suppressing relief. Euan had made himself moderately useful a few weeks since, when Gil had been summoned on the King’s hunting trip to the Western Isles, but now he seemed to have attached himself to the household where he was a great deal less help.

Wondering what to do with the man, Gil followed him more slowly, to turn up along Rottenrow towards Canon Muir’s manse.

He knew all the resident members of Chapter, having encountered them often enough in his uncle’s house. As the Official of Glasgow, the senior judge of the diocese, David Cunningham had a certain level of state to keep up, and entertained his fellow-clerics regularly. While Gil had been his pupil, learning those secrets of the notary’s craft which he was about to transmit to Lowrie, he had assisted at many such occasions, and recalled Canon Muir as elderly, slightly foolish, and a little too fond of his wine.

This was still the case.

‘My cousin Dandy’s boys,’ the Canon agreed, smiling indulgently. ‘Are they no the dearest laddies, Gilbert? And so handsome as they both are.’ He sighed. ‘They used to tell me I was bonnie-looking, but I’m sure I was never the equal o those two. They ought to be wed by now,’ he went on, ‘indeed Will Craigie’s been quite urgent wi me on that head, to promote a marriage wi some kin o his for one or other, but as I said to him, you canny force a young man, it takes time to these things. I think they’re ower fond o their freedom yet.’

Gil, seated on an uncomfortable carved wooden back-stool with the dog at his feet, preserved silence, and after a moment Canon Muir went on,

‘And what was it you wished me to tell you? You think they’re connected wi all this at St Mungo’s Cross? No, no, I hardly think it. Two sic sweet-tempered laddies, they’d never be mixed up in the likes o that.’

‘They’re connected wi it already,’ Gil pointed out, ‘seeing they escorted the missing lady into Glasgow, and they claim kinship wi her aunt.’

‘That’s very true. There’s much in what you’re saying.’ The Canon took refuge in his glass of claret. Emerging after a moment he said triumphantly, ‘But they’re no true kin o Ellen Shaw’s, only by marriage. I think Will Craigie’s closer kin to her. No that she hasny been a good friend to the laddies, looking about her for aught she can do for them, a good friend. Any road, Gilbert, they lay here last night, and I saw them to their bed mysel. Will you have more o this wine? It’s right good, I had it from John Shaw at the College. And a wee cake, maybe?’

‘They’ve a servant wi them, I think,’ Gil said. ‘Your kinsmen, I mean.’ He accepted more of the claret, admiring the colour in the little glass.

‘Aye, that’s so. A good fellow, keeps those bonnie clothes right well, though I think, to tell truth, he might be a wee bit fond o his ale. No that I like to criticise a good worker, but my man William said he’d the deil’s own task to rouse the fellow this morning.’

‘He didny share the brothers’ chamber, then?’

‘Oh, aye, but William went in to waken him, that he might fetch the laddies their hot water to wash in, and a bite o bread and ale to break their fast. We ken well how to keep guests in this house, Gilbert. And they were all asleep, their man on his straw plett and Henry and Austin like mice in a nest in the shut-bed, so William said, so you needny suspicion they were out in the night snatching a lady off the Cross in the kirkyard. Beside,’ concluded Canon Muir triumphantly, ‘where would they put her? There’s no lady hidden about this house, I assure you, son, and nowhere to put one if they tried.’

Gil had to admit to the truth of this. The manse was commodious, but the upper floor contained only one large hall and two small chambers. One of these was clearly Canon Muir’s bedchamber, since his prayer-desk with two books propped on it and the corner of his box bed were visible round the open door. The other was the guest chamber in which the brothers were lodged, to judge by the way the Canon had gestured towards it. Here in the hall was one of those great beds which in Gil’s experience were rarely used and never comfortable, its hangings of green dornick elaborate and rather dusty, and also the set of carved back-stools and the benches and trestles for the long table where the household ate. The plate-cupboard at the far end of the hall bore a decent array of silver, including a large and very ugly salt, and a tall press in the corner suggested stored linen for the table. On the ground floor, the servant who admitted him had said, there was one huge storeroom and the kitchen from which the rather stale little cakes had emerged. Canon Muir’s benefice was a rewarding one, Gil concluded.

‘So Henry and Austin were here, were they,’ he said, ‘from when they arrived in Glasgow to the time they came out this morning, to ask after Annie Gibb’s health? The lady that was tied to the Cross,’ he elucidated, seeing the old man’s blank expression.

‘Oh! Oh, I see what you’re asking me. Aye, a course they were, for they’d all the news o Ayrshire to let me hear, and word o our kin, and so forth, so they sat and talked wi me after dinner a long time afore they went out to see their friends. But the lady wasny there to ask after, was she? She’d been snatched away. Is that no a strange thing? Who’d want to carry off a mad lady? Is she very wealthy?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘Likely that’s it, then. Someone will wed her out of hand and shut her away while he gets the benefit of her lands. Well, so long’s he takes good enough care o her, I suppose it’s an act o Christian charity to keep the poor soul safe. But is her kin no all out hunting for her? Surely,’ said Canon Muir, putting his finger accurately on what troubled Gil, ‘surely they’d want to keep hold o her lands for theirsels, they must want to fetch her back.’

‘You’d think so,’ Gil agreed. ‘What friends are those that the two of them went out to meet? Henry and Austin, I mean.’

Canon Muir paused for a moment’s thought, then shook his head. ‘They never said. Likely some of the young fellows about the town.’

‘And did you hear them come in?’

‘Oh, aye, I was still about the place. I saw them to their bed myself, I told you, Gilbert. I never sleep much nowadays,’ the old man confided improbably, ‘it’s hardly worth my while lying down afore midnight, so a course I was still up when they came in.’

Dissatisfied, Gil refused another glass of claret and took his leave, following Rottenrow out along its length, past the port at the end of the street where the guard dozed in his shelter, and onto the land called the Pallioun Croft. The roadway ran along the brow of a steep slope here, and quickly deteriorated into a muddy track, which shortly angled down towards the river and joined the Thenewgate to head for Partick and then out towards Dumbarton. It was not much frequented; he paused on the crest of the slope to survey the scene, but saw nobody about, and there were few footprints and only the marks of one light cart in the mud. Birds sang in the bushes, some of the burgh cattle grazed on the grassy slopes. Otterburn’s clerk had described the ropewalk as being almost at Partick. It was a pleasant day for a walk, he decided, and set off.

Socrates launched himself from his side with delight, running in great loops through the grass and bushes, appearing over the roadside dyke from time to time to grin at his master, then vanishing again. Gil found himself grinning in return at his dog’s pleasure, but the grin did not stay in place. The problems which confronted him were bewildering indeed. He knew better than to expect to identify Peg Simpson’s killer this soon, but Annie Gibb’s disappearance perplexed him. She could hardly be hiding out here, he thought. My bed schal be under the grenwod tre, a tufft of brakes under my hed. Hardly likely for a gently bred, reclusive girl. Canon Muir, like Lowrie, had hit on the likeliest explanation for it: someone had carried her off hoping to lay hands on her wealth. But in that case, who? Why had he, or they, not contacted the girl’s kin already to ask for her title deeds? Why had Sir Edward, or even Lockhart, no idea who might be responsible? No, that’s unfair, he thought, when I spoke to Lockhart we still reckoned it was Annie who was dead. I need to speak to him again. But if she went willingly, why did she do it this way? Why not simply agree to someone’s proposal of marriage, get absolution from the ridiculous vow, and wash? Perhaps her pride would suffer too much if she did that. And why did she not tell her friends, the servants who knew her since she was a child? I need to talk this through with Alys, he thought, as he forded one of the many small burns which ran down through the grazing-lands to the Clyde. Socrates splashed through the stony shallows behind him and paused to shake himself, the drops flying from his rough coat glittering in the sunlight.

Matt Dickson the rope-drawer proved to be a sturdy man in his forties, in a sleeveless jerkin and patched hose, his shirtsleeves rolled well up. When Gil entered the long, low shed by one of its many doors he was measuring off a new rope in armspans, counting aloud as he worked, a raw-boned journeyman coiling it down beside him.

‘And twelve. I’ll be a moment longer, maister,’ he called. Gil nodded, and stood quietly, looking about him with interest. He had vaguely imagined something like a huge spinning-gallery, with hemp instead of flax or wool, but this was quite different. On a floor of beaten earth, a long groove showed the track of the rope-workers between a thing like a child’s windmill toy, mounted on a solid trestle, and a second smaller trestle on two wheels, with a large hook which could clearly turn by means of a handle. How did that work, he wondered. Other tools stood about or leaned against the walls — surely that was not a hay-rake? Hanks and balls and bales of the product of the craft were all about, hung from the rafters or stacked in neat heaps ready for baling, and over everything a cloud of dust, presumably hemp dust, danced thickly in the beams of sunlight which leaned in at the doors.

‘And twenty-one — and twenty-two — and three,’ said Maister Dickson finally. ‘And if four spans is seven ells, then that’s,’ his lips moved silently for a moment, ‘forty ells near enough. Aye, tie it off, Patey, and put it by. Maister Mason’s man was to come for it the morn.’

‘A rope for my good-faither?’ Gil said, surprised. ‘I suppose he must use rope, like most of the trades.’

‘Our Lady love you, a course he uses rope,’ said Dickson, laughing indulgently. ‘Cord by the bale for his scaffolding, rope for his hoist, twine to tie off his sacks o lime to keep the rain out. Just like near every craftsman in Glasgow. There’s other folk laying rope about the burgh,’ he conceded, ‘but it’s all small stuff. If Patey and Andy and me,’ he nodded at an equally scraggy apprentice who was sorting hanks of flax nearby, ‘wasny at our trade the whole town would come to a halt. That rope’s for a new hoist your good-faither’s about to put in where he’s working at the High Kirk, to lift the stone up to where it’s needed.’

I should have mentioned this to Pierre, Gil thought, and saved myself the walk. But would Luke, much less Berthold, ask the right questions?

‘I know what rope is, but what’s the difference between cord and twine?’ he asked.

‘Cord’s corded, maister, and twine’s no but twined. Andy!’ The apprentice jumped up from his work and went to his master’s high desk where the order-book lay almost submerged in small balls and hanks of cordage. He brought two of these, and Maister Dickson nodded approvingly. ‘Show it all to Maister Cunningham, then, laddie. Let us hear what you’ve learned.’

Listening to the boy’s hesitant exposition of the stages of ropemaking, Gil compared the samples he was showing him with the ell-and-a-half of cord still in his purse. It was cord rather than twine, he could say now, since rather than being a simple twist of many fibres of hemp it was made up of several such strands twisted together, but its use was still unclear. Young Andy was gesturing at the instruments in the middle of the floor, describing rather incoherently how they worked; Gil had already lost track of left-hand and right-hand twists. One probably had to know what the boy was talking about to understand him.

‘Aye, very good, laddie,’ said Dickson as the stumbling description ground to a halt. ‘Well said. So that’s the difference, Maister Cunningham. So was it cord or twine, then? Maybe a bale o twine for the garden o yir new house? Needs a bit work, so I’ve heard.’

‘Neither, in fact,’ said Gil, irritated by this. ‘I’ve no doubt my wife will order what she sees needful. No, I came out here to get an expert’s view on this.’ He opened his purse, slipped the boy Andy a penny in reward, and held out the coils of cord. ‘What can you tell me about it, maister?’

‘Tell you?’ Dickson glanced at him curiously, and took the hank. Shaking it out he measured its length, inspected the ends, separated the strands to test how tightly it was twisted, picked with a chewed fingernail at the fibres of each strand. The journeyman came to join him, doing much the same with the other end of the cord.

‘It’s no ours, is it, maister?’ he said at length.

‘I’d hope no, Patey,’ said Dickson sternly. ‘It’s no evenly twistit, the strands is no equal, it’s a mix o hemp and flax. Andy there could lay a better cord. Where did you come by this, maister? I hope you didny pay out good money for it?’

‘No,’ Gil admitted. ‘Did you hear about the lassie at St Mungo’s Cross?’

They had not. It was too far out of Glasgow for someone to come simply to bear gossip, and quite likely they carried their own noon bite with them, rather than walk home and back again. Gil gave as moderate an account as he might of how the length of cord had been found, but the facts themselves were enough to make Patey’s eyes pop out.

‘This very cord, maister?’ he said with relish, his grasp on the loops tightening. ‘And put about her neck to throttle her?’

‘After she was dead,’ Gil confirmed. ‘So I’d like fine to ken where it came from, what sort of use it might be sold for, since I doubt whether it was sold for strangling lassies.’

‘Oh, very good!’ said Dickson, laughing. ‘The idea!’ He studied the loops of cord again, picked at the neatly lashed end he held, and peered at the other end still clutched in Patey’s bony hand, while the apprentice stared longingly from a few feet away. ‘It’s been cut out o a greater length, see, and bound off both ends. It’s the exact length it needs to be and it’s to be put to use a good few times, whatever use that is, and that’s as much as I can say.’ He considered a little longer, and added, ‘Aye, well, it’s no unlike the cord George Paterson lays, off the Drygate. He’s about the longest walk in the burgh, maister, can put up thirty ells, works alone wi his oldest boy. You could ask at him if he kens this quality.’

Prising the evidence with difficulty from Patey’s grasp, Gil took his leave, whistled up his reluctant dog and set off back into Glasgow. He had no idea of a cordage-spinner on the Drygate, but no doubt Alys would know where he lived.

Sir Simon was in the outer yard of the pilgrim hostel, deep in Latin discussion with the doctor, their gowns contrasting vividly in the sunlight. As Gil entered at the gate, Doctor Januar looked up in some relief and said,

‘Perhaps Maister Cunningham can tell me. Is there to be a quest on the dead woman, magister? When will it be?’

‘Not before tomorrow,’ Gil said in the same language, ‘or even the day after. Is it a problem?’

‘No,’ said Januar unconvincingly.

‘And how’s your patient?’ Gil asked in Scots. The doctor bent his head.

‘Sinking,’ he said gravely. ‘I would estimate he has two days at most.’

‘Our Lady send him a quiet end,’ Gil said. ‘I suspected as much, when I saw him earlier.’ He looked hard at Januar. ‘I’d like to be able to bring him news o Mistress Gibb afore his end, if that’s possible-’

‘Surely nothing could ease his last hours better,’ offered Sir Simon. ‘Supposing it’s good news, a course.’

‘-so I need to ask more questions of the rest of the party here.’

‘I have told you all I can,’ said the doctor after a moment.

‘Na’the less, I’ve questions for you and all.’ Gil looked about. ‘Sir Simon, might I use your chamber? The other courtyard has too many windows and doors onto it.’

Seated in the paper-strewn chamber, a jug of ale from the kitchen at hand, Gil studied Chrysostom Januar and said in Scots,

‘You’re gey reluctant to be questioned, magister. It makes a man wonder what you might be hiding.’

‘We doctors dislike answering questions.’ The Latin was professionally inscrutable. ‘The patient never asks the ones to which we have an answer.’

‘I know how that feels,’ Gil said ambiguously. ‘Now, I’ve heard that the outer yett to the hostel, which is through the wall from the bed the two St Catherine’s servants sleep in, went three times in the night.’

‘Three times?’ The doctor’s bright blue gaze flicked up to his face, and away again. ‘How strange. One might expect twice, or four times, but three times suggests that someone left and did not return, or entered and did not leave.’

‘Or, I suppose, two people went out together and came back at different times,’ Gil said. ‘Would you maybe like to reconsider what you said, about nobody being out o the hostel in the night?’

‘None o those that slept in the men’s hostel left their beds,’ said the doctor in Scots after a moment. ‘I suppose Sir Edward’s daughters might ha slipped past Dame Ellen, though who they would go out to meet I canny imagine.’

‘Were you out of the hostel yourself?’

‘I had a patient to care for,’ said Januar, the blue gaze very direct this time.

‘Has any of the family ever mentioned a connection in Glasgow? Anyone Annie might turn to?’

‘No that I recall. But mind, magister, I have little conversation with the most part of the household. My patient, obviously, and his manservant, some of the outside servants when I have need of herbs from the garden, but otherwise the rest of them come little in my way.’

That isn’t what you said earlier, Gil reflected.

‘Mistress Gibb is abroad in Glasgow,’ he said, ‘barefoot in her shift. Are you not concerned for her?’

‘Aye,’ said the doctor, ‘concerned indeed, but I’m also concerned for my patient, and I’m a stranger here. You and the Provost’s men can seek Annie Gibb more effectively than I can.’

‘Not noticeably, this far,’ said Gil wryly. ‘Very well, maister, I’ll let you back to your patient. Have you any idea where John Lockhart might be?’