The Fourth Crow

Chapter Nine

‘Kittock sent these,’ said Alys, setting the basket of pasties down on the bench in the masons’ lodge.

This was not strictly true. When asked for a bite to offer the men Kittock had cast her eye about the kitchen and said reluctantly, ‘Well, they’ve aye liked the cheese pasties, mem, and I could make some more for our own supper, you could take them those if you wanted.’ She had then added a handful of parsley in a cloth and a dozen of the little cakes from the day’s baking; Alys herself had drawn a large jug of ale from the barrel in the brewhouse. Jennet set this down now beside the basket and pushed her fair locks back over her shoulders, smiling at Maistre Pierre’s man Thomas who had paused in his work to watch them.

‘She had no need to do that,’ said Maistre Pierre disapprovingly. ‘We have gone home at noontide in the usual way.’

‘An extra bite is always welcome when the men are working hard,’ Alys suggested. She sat down on the bench, looking out at the busy scene beside the lodge. The men she knew, Wattie and Thomas and Luke, were working on what looked like the mouldings for a window tracery, while two more journeymen were blocking out the stones they would need next. The familiar music of chisel and mell competed with the birdsong in St Mungo’s kirkyard, with the crows which swirled about the tall trees adding their own harsh bass. ‘You make good progress. Is that the second window going forward now?’

‘It is. Blacader has found some funds, so I begin to hope his new work will be completed in my lifetime.’

‘So your marriage has brought you good fortune,’ Alys said brightly. He looked hard at her, and she maintained the smile with a little difficulty. After a moment he grunted, and sat down beside her.

‘Perhaps so, truly. Are you well, ma mie?’

‘I am, Father. How does my stepmother?’

‘She is well too. And your husband? How does he fare with this matter of the missing lady? I have not seen him today.’

‘I think he planned to speak to the Provost about it,’ she answered, ‘and then to pursue the death of the cathedral servant. That is a very strange thing. I suppose you saw nothing from here.’

He gestured beyond the fence which separated his industrious men and the building site which was Archbishop Blacader’s contribution to the fabric of his cathedral, from the path which ran between the kirkyard gate and the doorway of the Lower Kirk.

‘Ma mie, there are many people on that path, a dozen, two dozen in an afternoon.’ This could well be true, she recognised; there were three people visible just now, two women heading for the church, their beads in their hands, gossiping happily, and one of the canons pacing the other way. No, not a canon, it was William Craigie. ‘And in any case, I think the man was killed long after we had gone home to our dinner. We talked it over here in the lodge this morning, and none of us can recall even seeing the man Barnabas, much less someone waving a strangler’s cord. I think the man and his killer both went down from the Upper Kirk to where he was found.’

‘The Dean is very certain that did not happen, so Gil says. That he was killed outside the church and carried to where he was found.’

‘Hah!’ said her father sceptically.

‘What you say seems the most likely,’ she agreed, thinking how much she had missed this, the talking over of events, the companionable sharing of ideas. Since they came to Glasgow from Paris, after her mother’s death, it had been herself and her father, and then Gil who had fitted into the family quite seamlessly. Her stepmother thought in a different way, and would not hear other points of view, which made discussion difficult, and in any case she seemed to be jealous of Alys herself.

Her thoughts paused as that idea presented itself. Jealous? Was that the problem? Why had she not seen it before?

‘I have no idea what Gilbert has learned today,’ her father was saying. ‘They were to search the man’s lodging, I do not know if they discovered anything there.’

‘You could send Luke or Berthold to find Gil and ask him,’ Alys suggested. ‘Or go yourself.’

‘I cannot leave these lazy fellows,’ said her father, nodding at Thomas, who was contriving to talk to Jennet without breaking off his work. ‘And I cannot spare Luke, because Berthold is at home today.’

‘At home?’

Maistre Pierre shrugged.

‘He is not well, one can well see, he has some kind of ague and sits about shivering and complaining of his belly, though none of the other men has taken the same ill. We have dosed him with willow-bark tea and ginger, but it does not help. Élise wished me to leave him home today, to see if a day’s quiet would avail him.’

‘Poor boy,’ said Alys, noting this last point approvingly. ‘It is strange that none of the rest of you is affected.’

Her father grunted agreement, then looked at her sideways.

‘Élise has said,’ he pronounced deliberately, ‘that she sees shadows about him. Shadows, and also crows.’

‘Shadows? What does she mean? And why crows? Crows such as these in the treetops, or metaphorical crows?’

‘I do not know,’ he said, though she did not believe this. ‘That is all she has told me. So I have no time to pursue your husband about the town, and no time to sit here longer talking to you, pleasant though it is, ma mie.’

She rose obediently when he did, and looked about for Jennet, finding the woman at her elbow.

‘If I see Gil in the town, I will tell him you are kept here.’ She put up her face for his kiss. ‘Will you send Luke to bring the jug and cloths home at the day’s end? I should like a word with him.’

‘Where now, mem?’ asked Jennet as they crossed the stoneyard. ‘Are we to go into St Mungo’s? I’d like fine to see where that verger was put down the well. It’s pity, so it is,’ she went on, following her mistress towards the door of the Lower Kirk, ‘they none of them saw whoever did it go to and fro on the path, it would ha made our maister’s work a sight easier.’

‘Did Thomas say anything about the boy Berthold?’

‘Him? No, he never mentioned him. Save he said the laddie’s no weel,’ she amended, ‘complaining of his belly. Likely it’s the change from his foreign food that’s disagreed wi him, he’ll be right when he’s accustomed hissel to kale and oatmeal.’

Alys, curtsying to Our Lady, small and ancient on her pillar inside the door, made no answer. She reached up to touch the little figure’s blackened foot, and went past into the Lady Chapel, drawing her beads from her belt. Jennet curtsied in her turn, but made her way purposefully down the steps to where St John’s chapel was firmly cordoned off with some of the blue ropes which were used to pen the multitude on feast days. Kneeling within the curtained Lady Chapel, Alys could hear her servant’s pattens clopping about the east end, and a quiet recitation as if someone was saying Mass in one of the other chapels on the cross-aisle. The Lower Kirk was not empty.

One repetition of the rosary contented her for the moment. Leaving money for a second candle she moved on for a word with St Mungo himself, setting yet another candle on the bank of lights against the fence which surrounded the tomb. She murmured a section of one of the graduals concerning his miraculous life, drawing together her Latin, which was not, she suspected, as good as Gil thought it was, to petition him in a language he might understand. Though surely prayer should transcend language, she thought suddenly. The priest who had been saying Mass left by the stair towards the Vicars’ hall. Had it been William Craigie? No, surely not, he had crossed the kirkyard earlier. She shut her eyes to avoid distraction. Blessed Kentigern, she said to the saint, you concerned yourself with servants, you raised your teacher’s cook from the dead, whether your servant Barnabas was a thief or no he deserves justice. Help us to find his murderer. And the two women at the Cross, both the one who is vanished and the one who was found dead there, they deserve your care too. What should I do to help them? How can we find Annie and bring her to safety, how can we procure justice for Peg? Let me have a sign, blessed Kentigern.

A little current of air passed her face, as if someone moved beside her. She opened her eyes, but nobody was nearby, not even the priest.

‘Jennet?’ she said.

‘I’m here, mistress.’ Her servant emerged from the Lady Chapel, beads in hand. ‘Where do we go now? Are you going to question all them at St Catherine’s? Has our maister no questioned them a’ready?’

‘That’s right kind in you to call, mistress,’ said Ursula Shaw. ‘And sending your own woman out to fetch in cakes and ale.’

‘A pleasure,’ said Alys conventionally, and glanced beyond the two girls at Jennet, who was now sharing a portion of both with the woman Meggot.

‘They feed us well enough here,’ said Nicholas, ‘but they’s no wee extras the way there is at home.’ She bit into one of the honey-cakes with evident pleasure. ‘No to mention we’re glad o the company. It’s a wee thing tedious, what wi my aunt spending all her time across at St Mungo’s.’

I wonder where, thought Alys. Perhaps she was in the Upper Kirk.

‘We were thinking, when we came to Glasgow we’d get to the market,’ confessed Ursula, ‘and there’s a velvet warehouse so I heard, the chapman said it was a right good choice you’d get there.’

‘Maister Walkinshaw’s warehouse,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, that was the name. I could just fancy a velvet gown.’ The other girl looked down at her own woad-dyed homespun, and then at Alys’s well-cut tawny linen. ‘Is that the sleeves they’re wearing this year? Big enough for a jeely-bag?’

‘Certainly in Glasgow,’ Alys agreed, smoothing the deep facing of yellow silk which turned back one wide sleeve. ‘I have spent all my life in towns,’ she went on. ‘The countryside is bonnie, especially when it is well farmed, and of course one’s food is fresher by far in the country, but I should not like to be so far from warehouses, and have to rely on what the chapman brings. Is yours reliable? Does he carry a good stock?’

‘What, Cadger Billy? Aye, he’s no bad. Comes by every three or four month, wi a pack o stale news-’

‘Cadger’s news!’ said Nicholas, and giggled. Her sister threw her an annoyed glance, and went on rather sourly,

‘We’re missing him the now, indeed, he must be out about Glenbuck wi his wee cairt, and here we’re shut in here instead o viewing the merchant-goods o Glasgow that he’s aye described us.’

‘We’ll both be wedded in homespun yet, for all Ellen cares,’ said Nicholas. ‘Did you say, mistress,’ she went on, ‘you’re wedded on that man that’s trying to find Annie? The one like a long drink-’ She broke off sharply as if she had been nudged. ‘He was here just a wee minute ago, talking wi Dame Ellen, afore she went back to St Mungo’s. Is he a good man to be wedded on?’

A long drink of water, Alys thought, and repressed annoyance.

‘He’s very good to me,’ she said. ‘He tells me you’re both betrothed?’

‘Aye.’ Ursula pulled a face. ‘Though when we’ll get to be wedded, wi Da the way he is-’ She turned her face away briefly, blinking. ‘It was to be next month, ye ken, mistress, and now there’s no saying.’

‘And no velvet gowns neither,’ muttered Nicholas.

‘Will your men not wait? It should all be signed, surely?’

The sisters looked at one another, and Nicholas shrugged.

‘Likely. Hers certainly will.’

‘Och, Nick, so will yours.’

‘Who are they?’

Nicholas, it seemed, was to wed a neighbour of her sister Mariota over into Lanarkshire; Alys, only dimly familiar with the place-names they threw about, thought they might still be too far apart for the sisters to visit easily once both had babies to consider, but Ursula still sounded resentful when she named her future husband’s lands.

‘Away down through Ayrshire,’ she said, ‘next to Tarbolton, no that far from where Annie came from as a matter of fact. A whole day’s ride from her and Mariota.’

‘But are his lands extensive?’ Alys asked. ‘Can he keep you in style? Will you have a great household to run?’

‘So my aunt says,’ said Ursula, with a show of indifference.

‘Was the match hers, then?’

‘Aye, she promoted it. He’s some kind of acquaintance o her kin at St Mungo’s, so my da said.’

‘Have you met him? Is he a well-looking man?’

‘Better than Lockhart,’ said Nicholas. ‘They both are!’

‘That’s no hard!’

The two exchanged another look, and giggled. Alys was aware of Meggot, over by the other wall, glancing at the sisters and shaking her head disapprovingly. Taking care not to meet Jennet’s eye, she said,

‘I had not realised you had kin at St Mungo’s. Who is it?’

‘Och, none of our kin,’ said Ursula dismissively. ‘Some connection o my aunt’s by her first marriage, I think she said. He’s no ill looking, but he’s a priest, all shaven and shorn, though that didny stop him putting his hand about Nick’s waist when we met him.’

‘Aye, and Ellen never checked him,’ said Nicholas, wriggling in remembered displeasure.

‘But do you recall his name?’ asked Alys. He gropith so nyselye about my lape, she thought, reviewing a list of the St Mungo’s clergy in her mind. There were several whom she would not wish to consult without Jennet or preferably Gil at her elbow, but not all of these were no ill looking.

‘William?’ said Ursula.

‘William Craigie,’ her sister contributed. She nodded at sight of Alys’s expression, and went on, ‘To hear Ellen the sun shines out his bum.’

‘She wasny saying that the morn,’ observed Ursula. ‘Abusing him for a’things, she was, out there in the courtyard, for something he hadny done.’

‘What was it?’ the other girl asked avidly. Ursula shrugged.

‘Never heard. She stopped when she saw me, got at me for no finishing my seam instead.’

‘Just the same,’ said Nicholas doggedly, ‘she mostly thinks he’s a pattern o perfection, but what I heard was, he’d a major penance to perform, the way he’d done something right serious against Holy Kirk.’

‘Who tellt you that?’ demanded Ursula. Nicholas shrugged in her turn.

‘One of your man’s folk, when they all cam up to sign your betrothal papers. I forget the lad’s name. Meggot!’ she called over her shoulder.

‘Aye, lassie, what is it?’ Meggot responded, pausing with another little cake halfway to her mouth.

‘Do you mind that lad of Arthur Kennedy’s telling us about William Craigie and his penance?’

‘She does not,’ said another voice from the window. They all turned, startled, to find a grim-faced woman staring in at the wide-flung shutters. Beyond her a liveried manservant slipped off towards the stable block. ‘And what has it to do wi you, my girl, any road? I’ve brought you up better than to spend your time gossiping wi other folk’s servants, Nicholas Shaw, let alone passing on whatever slanders they’ve spoken, and I’ll thank you to keep it in mind.’

Alys, rising as good manners dictated to curtsy to the newcomer, observed the reactions in the room with interest. The sisters were annoyed by the interruption, only slightly embarrassed at being found gossiping; Meggot appeared to be frightened. Would this mean another beating, perhaps? Or did she fear something worse? What could be worse, Alys speculated, waiting for Dame Ellen to come round by the door of the guest-hall. Meggot might lose her place, or she might be sent back out to Glenbuck to wait alone for news of Annie, or her mistress might report badly of her to Sir Edward. No, she was Annie’s servant, not Dame Ellen’s, or so Gil had said; it could hardly be that.

‘Good afternoon, Aunt,’ said Ursula in a tone of faint malice as the older woman stalked into the hall. ‘I hope you had solace of your time at St Mungo’s. This is Mistress Alys Mason, that’s wedded on that man that’s seeking our Annie, come to offer us comfort in our troubles.’

‘Indeed I am sorry for all your distress,’ said Alys, curtsying again and going forward with her hands outstretched. ‘Is there still no word of your niece?’

‘No niece of mine,’ said Dame Ellen curtly, ignoring the hands. ‘No, there’s no word, though it would ease my poor brother’s passing greatly if he kent where the lassie had got to, deid or living.’

‘It is very strange,’ Alys persisted, ‘that she should have vanished away so completely. Is there nobody that might have given her shelter, can you think?’

‘Do you no think we’ve racked our brains for a clue?’ retorted the older woman, bridling. ‘Now we’ll no keep you back, mistress, kind as it was in ye to entertain these silly lassies for a bit. And your woman and all.’ Her gimlet gaze went beyond Alys, and a rustle of cloth suggested that Jennet felt similarly impelled to curtsy. ‘Good day to ye, madam.’

Out in the courtyard she encountered someone who could only be the doctor, a small man with curly dark hair, in a stained cloth gown which looked as if he regularly wore it while pounding simples or concocting remedies. She curtsied to him, under Jennet’s suspicious glower, and when he acknowledged it she introduced herself and asked after his patient. He shook his head sadly, and she noted the dark shadows under the blue eyes.

‘I think he has a difficult passage,’ she said in French, aware of watching eyes, of listening ears in the hall behind her, ‘despite the prayers of his friends.’

The doctor nodded.

‘Difficult indeed,’ he replied in the same language. ‘I can keep the pain at bay, but it is terrible to combat. There will be no poppy left in Glasgow, I suspect.’

‘How long has he got? How long do we have to find the missing lady?’

‘I think he will wait until he knows she is safe.’

Alys stepped forward and placed a hand on his sleeve.

‘What if she is no longer living?’ she said. ‘The longer it takes to find her or some trace of her, the less certain my husband is that we will find her alive.’

There was a tiny pause, and Januar said smoothly,

‘Why, if she is no longer living, then she is assuredly safe under Our Lady’s mantle.’

Alys considered him for a moment, but let that pass.

‘She seems to have no connection or acquaintance in this part of Scotland,’ she said. ‘If there was a house of nuns in Glasgow one might seek her there, but we can learn of nowhere else she could have turned to.’

‘My concern is for my patient,’ said the doctor after a moment. ‘You will excuse me, madame.’

The hostel’s little chapel was dark and quiet, though there were candles on the stand at the feet of the patron saint on her pillar to the left of the chancel arch. Jennet, at first wishing to exclaim indignantly about Dame Ellen’s behaviour, fell silent when her mistress drew out her beads, and retreated to sit near the door on the narrow wall-bench. Alys stood before St Catherine, head bent, not praying but trying to order what she had learned just now. The Shaw sisters were remarkably silly girls, as their aunt said, she thought dispassionately, but they did not seem ill intentioned, and if they knew anything about what had happened to their sister-in-law, they would be hard pressed to conceal it. Dame Ellen was another matter; the woman was certainly concealing something, but what? Was she directly involved in Annie’s disappearance, or did she know or suspect who might be involved? Why did Meggot fear her?

‘She’s aye ready wi her hands, so Meggot said,’ said Jennet as they made their way down the hill, past the high sandstone walls of the castle. ‘Showed me her bruises, she did, that the old dame gied her only for saying it wasny her own mistress that lay dead in the chapel. Is that the chapel where we were the now, mem? Small wonder if they were mistook at first, it was that dark.’

‘Did she tell you anything else?’ Alys asked, untangling this statement. ‘Does she know where her own mistress is, do you think?’

‘I’d say no,’ Jennet pronounced after a moment. ‘She seems right concerned for her, saying she’s no notion whether she’s living or where she might be. What else did she say, now?’ She clopped across the flagstones round the Girth Cross behind Alys, considering the matter. ‘It’s been a good position till now, for she’s fond o the lassie that’s missing, for all her strange ways. But what wi the young leddies about to be wedded, and the maister on his deathbed, though she says he’s been that way for months now, she’s no notion o what’s to come to her, the soul.’ She thought further. ‘Tellt me a bit about the life. I was never in a country position, see, mem, and I wouldny fancy it, by what she says. That doctor turned up a few month ago, wi his man-’

‘His man?’ Alys queried, stopping to look at the other girl. ‘Your maister never mentioned a manservant. Is he still there?’

‘No by what Meggot says,’ Jennet agreed. ‘Seems he found it too quiet and all, for he vanished away one day along wi the doctor’s purse wi ten merks in siller in it. Then there was the young leddies’ two men cam for the betrothal, wi all their folk, and went away again, and that Dame Ellen comes and goes, and apart from the cadger they spoke o that’s all the company there’s been in the place since Yule. Away too quiet for me, that would be. Oh, no, I tell a lee, there was her two nephews came calling a few times, it seems, but Meggot wasny that keen to see them, by what she said. Kind o free wi their hands, or one o them is, any road.’

‘That was well done. You learned more than I did,’ said Alys, moving on. ‘What did she tell you of her mistress’s life? Did any of these visitors call on her?’

‘Oh, aye. Aye pestering her, so Meggot says, to gie up her vow and come back into the world. That Dame Ellen telling her what a bonnie husband her nephews would make, even trying to persuade her wi ribbons and gewgaws off the cadger’s cairt. Meggot said,’ Jennet negotiated the stepping-stones of the Girth Burn behind Alys, her skirts caught up in either hand, ‘Meggot said, she’d as soon see the lassie live her life like any other, but she’d not see her forced to it. She said,’ she confided, ‘she’d ha thought those nephews had something to do wi Annie disappearing, maybe snatched her away and hid her, save that they looked as astonished as the rest o them when it turned out it was another lassie that was dead.’

‘So I thought too, by what your maister said.’

‘I hope she’s no to get a beating, only for talking to me.’ Jennet stopped, pushing back her hair, and stared about her. ‘Here, mem, where are we away to now? This is us on the High Street, no the Drygate. Are we no bound for home?’

‘We’re going to the old house. I want a word with Berthold,’ Alys said. The other girl gave her a sidelong look, but said nothing. ‘So maybe you should stay with me, rather than go off to the kitchen.’

‘Och, there’s nothing for me in that kitchen now,’ Jennet pointed out. ‘Talking away in Ersche, they are, and never a bite for a guest to eat neither. No neighbourly, I call it, no to mention the way the dust’s rising in the hall, you’d think they never knew what a besom was for. I’d just as soon attend you, mem.’

‘Ich sah nichts!’ said Berthold, his eyes rolling like a nervous horse’s. ‘Ich kann nicht — ich sah nichts!’

Alys reached along the bench and patted his hand. About them the garden of her father’s house lay in the sunshine, the scents of lavender and gillyflowers rising from the neat plots. At least her stepmother was tending that, she thought irrelevantly.

‘I know,’ she agreed, and paused, mustering the little Low Dutch she knew. It was rather different from Berthold’s High Dutch, but she had found it served to talk to him before now. She suspected the boy understood a lot more Scots than he would admit, but the answer she wanted was going to take some persuasion, and something approaching his own language would work better. ‘Ziet u de vrouw?’ she said cautiously. Berthold shrank slightly from her. ‘De dood vrouw? The dead woman?’

The boy shuddered, and dragged his hand from her clasp. Jennet, standing by the lavender hedge, narrowed her eyes.

‘That’s worried him, mem,’ she observed unnecessarily. ‘Here, Berthold, tell the mistress all about it, whatever it is. She’ll can sort it for you, so she will.’

‘Nein, nein! Ich weiss nichts!’ said Berthold, shaking his head emphatically. Alys smiled at him, and reclaimed his hand, which was sweating and trembling.

‘Waar?’ she asked him. ‘Waar zij is?’ Another shake of the head. ‘On the Drygate? Or on the Stablegreen?’

‘Ich sah nichts,’ Berthold almost wailed.

‘En u? Waar u was?’

‘What are you saying to him, mem?’ Jennet asked. ‘He’s in a right tirravee about it, whatever it is.’

‘I asked him where he was,’ Alys said, ‘the night he went out with Luke.’

‘What, the night afore last? The night the lassie was slain?’ Jennet looked intently at Berthold. ‘Did he see it, are you thinking? Is that why he’s feart, he thinks they’ll come and get him and all?’

Berthold, his pale blue gaze going from one face to the other, said nothing.

‘Waar u was?’ Alys repeated. He shook his head. ‘Luke says you were not with him. Were you on the Stablegreen? By St Nicholas’ perhaps?’

‘Sankt Nikolaus,’ said Berthold after a moment. Alys nodded, and patted the hand she still held.

‘See, that was easy,’ she said. ‘Where were all the others? The prentices? Where was the fighting?’ She mimed a punch with her free hand. ‘On the Drygate? By the Cross?’

Berthold eyed her doubtfully, and after another pause said,

‘Das Kreuz. Neben dem Kreuz.’

‘Is he saying they were by the Cross, mem?’ said Jennet. ‘For that’s right, that’s what Luke tellt us. Been a right good battle, by the sound o’t, and nobody hurt neither.’

Berthold’s gaze flicked to her at the words, and his expression changed, as if he did not agree. Alys considered him thoughtfully.

‘Berthold,’ she said. His eyes turned to her, and she let go his hand. ‘Hier ist das Kreuz.’ She drew an X on the wooden bench between them with her forefinger, and another a handspan away. ‘Hier ist Sankt Nikolaus. Hier is u.’ She looked up at him, and he nodded. She waved her hand over the little scene she had mapped. ‘Wat u zien? What do you see? De dood vrouw?’

‘Nein!’

‘Is hier,’ she drew a line away from St Nicholas’, ‘Rottenrow.’ Another nod. ‘Hier kom twee mensen.’ She held up two fingers, then walked them along the line of Rottenrow. ‘Ja? Twee mensen.’ She mimed fine clothes, patted rich sleeves, adjusted a hat. Berthold nodded hesitantly.

‘My, you’re as good as a play, mem,’ said Jennet, laughing.

‘Twee mensen,’ Alys said, and walked them down Rottenrow again. By the spot which represented St Nicholas’ she paused. Berthold was watching her fingers; after a moment he stole a glance at her, then looked back at her hand. ‘Wat u zien?’ she asked again. The boy shook his head and looked away again, staring intently at the flagstones under the bench. ‘Berthold,’ she persisted. ‘Wat u zien?’

His chest heaved.

‘Nichts!’ he burst out. ‘Ich sah nichts!’ He sprang to his feet, bobbed a perfunctory bow, the civility heartbreaking in the circumstances, and fled towards the house.

‘Well!’ said Jennet. ‘Did he tell you anything, mem? I canny make out his babble. It’s right clever the way you can understand him, and Luke can tell what he’s saying and all.’

‘He saw the two brothers,’ Alys said, gazing after the boy. ‘The same two that Meggot was telling you about. I know Luke saw them so that must be right. But he insists that he saw nothing else.’

‘He’s feart for something,’ said Jennet. ‘Or someone, maybe.’

‘So I thought,’ agreed Alys. She drew a deep breath, and got to her feet. ‘Come, I must be civil to my good-mother.’

Ealasaidh nic Iain, very upright on the settle in the hall, her red worsted skirts spreading round her and her dark curling hair hidden by a very new French hood which did not entirely suit her, studied Alys with faint hostility.

‘Was that all you were wanting?’ she asked. Then, perhaps recognising that she sounded ungracious, ‘No that you are not welcome in your faither’s house, lassie. Will you take another cake?’

‘Thank you.’ Alys took another oatcake, then offered the platter to her stepmother, who shook her head curtly. ‘No, I wished a word with you as well, Ealasaidh.’

‘Oh?’

They had dealt with the health and progress of small John, Ealasaidh’s nephew, along with two clever things he had said, and agreed on the management of whatever ailed young Berthold with a harmonious exchange of receipts for afflictions of the spirits. Now Alys bit into the oatcake, which was smeared with some of the apricot preserve she had left in the stillroom. Across the hall, Jennet was seated primly in the window, looking with disapproval at the floor, which was certainly dusty. Trying not to follow her gaze, Alys said,

‘When you were travelling about Scotland,’ she met her stepmother’s eye and quailed at the expression in it, ‘did you ever know, did you ever hear of,’ she corrected herself, ‘a chapman called Cadger Billy? He trades in Lanarkshire, that I know of.’

‘I have heard o him,’ admitted Ealasaidh remotely. ‘We never played for the great houses out in Lanarkshire, you understand, they have no appreciation of the clarsadh there, but I have heard of Cadger Billy.’

‘Do you know where he comes from?’

The other woman shrugged.

‘They know him out by Dumbarton, and by Kirkintilloch. I never met the man.’

‘That is helpful,’ Alys said thoughtfully. ‘His circuit centres on Glasgow, perhaps.’

‘Why do you ask? Is there no enough goods in Glasgow for you?’

‘He called more than once at the home of the lassie that is missing,’ she explained. ‘I wonder if he might have carried some word for her.’

‘Very likely. Who better, indeed? Is that you helping your man again? Have you learned aught to avail him?’

Recognising the real meaning of the question, Alys recounted all that was known of the two deaths and the disappearance. As was her habit, Ealasaidh listened with many exclamations of shock and surprise, even to the portions she must have heard already, laughed heartily at the tale of the quest and the two verdicts, and finally said,

‘And you are thinking our laddie might be involved?’

‘I think he may have seen something. My father has told me you see shadows around the boy.’ Ealasaidh’s mouth tightened, but she nodded. ‘Do you know what they mean?’

‘No.’ She waited, and after a moment the other woman went on, ‘I am seeing a darkness about him, like death. It is not a death close to him, or danger of death, I am thinking, but I do not know what it betokens. And also I am seeing crows.’

‘Crows,’ Alys repeated. ‘That is very strange.’

‘Three of them,’ Ealasaidh said. Her strong mouth twisted wryly. ‘As in the song, you ken it? Three crows on a wall. I am not understanding it.’

‘On a cold and a frosty morning. Has he mentioned crows?’

‘He has said nothing. He is frightened, that is very clear. Maybe I will make himself question him again.’

‘I think that might not work,’ Alys protested, ‘for he has already lied to my father. No, leave him, we might get something from him once he has thought for longer. If Gil learns more about what he might have seen, we may be able to question him more closely.’

Ealasaidh grunted, but said after a moment, ‘A shocking thing it is, all this that has happened, and all around St Mungo’s too. You would be thinking the saint would be protecting his own better than that. No doubt he is revenged on the man Barnabas now. Himself was telling me of that last night.’

‘He likes to talk over the day,’ said Alys cautiously. Her stepmother gave her a suspicious look. She smiled, the same smile as she had shown her father, maintaining it with the same slight effort. ‘He has missed my mother sorely these seven years. I am glad he has you to talk to.’

Ealasaidh’s expression softened slightly.

‘It is good of you to be saying that, lassie,’ she said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Alys assured her. ‘My duty is with Gil’s household, after all, now he has his own roof-tree, and my father would be alone, since he has no other child.’

There was a silence, which extended beyond comfort and into an appalled chill. She felt her face solidify, and the shadows in the hall darkened and danced before her eyes. Christ aid me, she thought, surely not? Not already? Out of the darkness Ealasaidh’s voice said,

‘I would not have told you yet, lassie. Himself does not know, I have only now begun to sicken.’

‘I wish you,’ she said from a dry mouth, ‘I wish you well. I wish you very well.’

A hard hand closed over hers, just as she had clasped Johan’s.

‘Alys.’ Was that the first time the woman had used her name? ‘I take that very kindly, lassie. Are you,’ the strong-featured face emerged from the dancing shadows close to hers, ‘are you well? Will I call for a cordial?’

‘No, I,’ she rose unsteadily, ‘I must go. I must call on, call on,’ she swallowed, ‘I must make other calls.’

Jennet was exclaiming at her elbow, concern in her tone, and her stepmother spoke again, low and intense, though she could not catch the words. Jennet said,

‘What are you telling her, mistress? Get away from her, leave her alone!’

‘She needs to know this.’

‘Leave her, mistress, can you no see she’s no well? She can hear it later. Come away, mem, can you manage the stair?’

By the time they had traversed the courtyard and the pend which led out into the street she was shivering so her teeth chattered, and clinging to Jennet’s hand.

‘What is it, my dearie?’ her maid demanded, pulling her plaid about her shoulders for her. ‘What’s come to you? What will I do for you, lassie?’ The girl looked about her, as if for help. ‘Are you ill right enough? Oh, how will I get you home from here? Can you walk?’

‘Kate,’ she managed. What shall I do, what shall I do? went the thoughts in her head.

‘Leddy Kate! A course, that’s the answer. Come on, my lassie, just a few steps. Our Lady send she’s home, or some of them at least.’

One foot in front of the other. Her legs like hanks of yarn, Jennet’s arm strong about her waist. Voices round her, familiar and friendly.

‘Mercy on us, girl, what’s come to your mistress? Babb, fetch me the angelica cordial and a glass.’

‘I dinna ken, mem, we called on her good-mother, then she went like this when we cam to leave. I canny get her home this way.’

‘Alys? Alys, what ails you?’

‘It was something the auld wife said to her.’ Jennet’s voice was dark with suspicion. ‘My mistress wished her well, but it turned her right dwaibly, it did, for all that.’

‘What did she say? Bring her here.’ The familiar thumping of her sister-in-law’s crutches. She was led forward, pushed onto something soft, made to lie back. ‘Cover her wi this, she’s cold as charity. Alys? Can you hear me?’

She nodded, and a warm hand gripped hers.

‘I’ve no a notion what she said, mem, but my mistress was wishing her well,’ Jennet repeated. There was a pause, as if the two exchanged a glance, and Kate’s voice said,

‘I see. Aye, Babb, bring that here. Alys? A wee drop cordial?’

‘I feel a right fool,’ she said.

‘Rubbish,’ said Kate briskly. Seated in the window-space, the cradle at her feet and her son at her breast, she peered at Alys across the hall chamber. ‘I’ll not ask what your good-mother told you, but if it’s what I think it is, it would owerset anybody. Are you feeling better after that wee sleep?’

‘I should get up the road and see to the dinner.’

‘Kittock can make the dinner by herself, she’s done it a few times,’ Kate retorted. ‘You’ll leave here when I say you’re fit to go. What took you to that house, anyway? I thought you wereny on calling terms?’

‘That was part of it.’ Alys lay back against the pillows of her sister-in-law’s best bed, still feeling disorientated. ‘I-We should be better friends. I thought it falls to me to make- And then she-’ She swallowed, and started again. ‘My father said something about Berthold, I wished to ask her more about it. And to speak to Berthold.’

‘You’re making little sense.’ Kate objected. ‘What about Berthold? He’s coming on, or so John Paterson says, his Scots is no bad at all and he was out at the prentice battle the other night, it seems. A numnum!’ she said to the noisily suckling baby, who ignored her.

Alys tried to gather her thoughts.

‘My father said,’ she recounted slowly, ‘that my good-mother had seen shadows round the boy. He has been unwell for a day or two, ever since the prentice battle. We suspect he saw something that night which has frightened him, and what my father said confirms it to me. I wished to speak to him myself, but it was no good, he would not tell me either.’

‘Shadows.’

‘And also crows. She thought, not his death, but something around him.’

Kate eyed her doubtfully, but did not comment. After a moment she said,

‘Where is Gil at with this matter, anyway? We heard about the man dead at St Mungo’s. Is it connected to the other death? Is someone going about the High Kirk killing folk? That’ll do the pilgrim trade no good.’

‘I don’t know what Gil might have learned today,’ she said. ‘There is no trace of the missing lassie, which is strange, you would think if she has been taken to be wed by force, or for her money, her kin would have heard of it by now. I wanted to ask my good-mother something about that, too,’ she added, ‘but she has never met Cadger Billy, though she has heard of him.’

‘Cadger Billy?’ Kate repeated. ‘The chapman wi the cart?’

‘You know him?’ Of course, she realised, Kate had grown up out in Lanarkshire. Likely Gil knew the man too, and she had had no need to ask, to get into conversation with-

‘Known him all my life. He’d come by every two or three months, first at Darngaber, then after we went to Carluke, he’d turn up wi his wee cart and a great load of knick-knacks and useful things, on his way out into Lanarkshire. Pins and needles, braids and threads, belt buckles, laces, you name it, he carries it all round the West, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire as well as north of the river.’

‘Where does he come from, do you know? Where is his home?’

‘Oh, he’s a Glasgow man.’ Alys sat up with an exclamation, and Kate looked surprised. ‘Why are you asking? What’s he to do wi’t?’

‘The Shaw girls, the missing lady’s good-sisters, mentioned him. I think he may have carried messages for Annie.’

‘He’s out on his round the now,’ Kate said. ‘I had a word from Tib just yesterday, and she mentioned him, said he’d been by Carluke and went on towards Lesmahagow the day she wrote. So even if he carried word, it’s none so likely he carried Annie herself off.’

‘Does he have kin here in Glasgow, do you know?’

‘Never a notion.’ Kate disengaged the drowsy baby from her breast, leaned forward to put him in his cradle, and began to fasten her gown. ‘No, wait, I think he once mentioned having taken a wife out of Renfrewshire, which disappointed my sister Margaret at the time, she’d a fancy for him. Tib and I used to tease her about it. Good-looking fellow, wi fair hair, though he doesny have as many teeth as he used to have.’ She reached for her crutches, and levered herself to her feet to clump across to the bed. ‘How are you feeling now? Aye, I think you’re more like yourself. Were you wanting to track down Cadger Billy? Will we ask the men if they ken where he might dwell?’

Making her way home an hour or so later with Jennet watchful at her elbow, Alys picked her way along the path by the mill-burn, past the gardens of the houses on the High Street, past the tumbledown wall at the foot of the College lands, turning over what she had learned in the afternoon, though her thoughts flinched away from the one fact, the unthinkable thing, which she must not share yet with anyone, not even with Gil. Andy Paterson, steward to Kate’s husband Augie Morison, had promised to ask about for Cadger Billy’s lodging, though he could not see what Alys wanted with such a man, and said so.

‘He’s honest enough,’ he admitted grudgingly, ‘but you’ve all the warehouses o Glasgow about you, mistress, what business would you have wi him?’

Andy’s nephew John had been more helpful. Aye, he minded Berthold fine at the prentice boys’ battle; he had been near the Cross, and then he had slipped away, maybe no liking the tussle. John had seen him by St Nicholas’ chapel, hiding in the shadows. Seeing Luke was in the thick of things, John had kept half an eye on the German laddie, and saw the two fine fellows come down Rottenrow, past Berthold, and turn up the Stablegreen, and then again later coming by the Cross, making for the High Street. They had called encouragement to the defenders of the Cross.

‘Likely they was going drinking,’ he said. ‘And Berthold was still by the chapel then, mistress, but I lost sight o him after that, we was sore pressed by the Drygate lot, and he never cam home wi Luke and me, we took it he’d gone ahead.’

‘And will you lie down on your bed when we get in?’ Jennet was saying now. ‘Or at the least put your feet up on the settle for a wee while-’

‘It’s near dinner time,’ said Alys.

‘I don’t know,’ the other girl said, ‘you’d be better if you’d take a wee rest now and then, stead o running about Glasgow till you’re all owerset by a wee word wi your good-mother, even if she did say what I thought she said,’ she added darkly. ‘And did you hear what it was she was telling you afore we cam away? No that you can set great store by what these Ersche say, great leears they are, though maybe no your good-mother, mem,’ she added hastily, ‘but just the same. Did you hear it, mem?’

‘No,’ said Alys curtly.

‘Why, she was saying-’

‘Mistress! I thought that was you!’ said a voice. They both swung round, to confront Euan Campbell, weary and travel stained on the path behind them. ‘I am back, mistress,’ he said triumphantly, ‘and though I never found the missing lady, I have found where she is selling all her stolen goods!’