The Harper's Quine

Chapter Five

When Gil entered the kitchen, earlier than he would have liked, Ealasaidh was huddled by the kitchen fire with a bowl of porridge under her plaid, the kitchen-boy staring at her across the hearth. Maggie was mixing something in a great bowl at the table and talking at her, getting the occasional monosyllabic answer. Gil cut across this without ceremony.

‘Maggie, I have a task for you.’

She eyed him, her big hands never ceasing their kneading.

‘Have you, now, Maister Gil?’ she said.

‘Have you any kin across the way?’

‘In Sempill’s house, you mean? No what you’d call kin; she said thoughtfully. ‘My sister Bel’s good-sister has a laddie in the stable. I say laddie,’ she amended, ‘but he must be your age, by now. That’s as dose as it gets.’

‘Any friends?’

‘Aye, well, Marriott Kennedy in the kitchen’s good company from time to time. A rare talker, she is. Sooner gossip than see to the house.’

‘Would she need a hand, do you think,’ said Gil, ‘with the house being so full- of people?’

‘I’ve no doubt of it.’ Maggie finally paused in her work and straightened up, to look Gil in the eye. ‘What are ye at, Maister Gil? Do ye want me in their kitchen?’

‘I do, Maggie.’ Gil slipped an arm round her broad waist. ‘And in as much of the house as you can manage.’

‘And for what?’ She slapped affectionately at his hand, scattering flour. ‘To look for what’s lost, is that it? A green and black plaid, a cross, a purse?’

Ealasaidh looked up, but made no comment.

‘Maggie,’ said Gil, kissing her cheek, ‘that’s why my uncle brought you to Glasgow, because you’re a canny woman, and not because you make the best porridge in Lanarkshire.’

A dimple appeared in the cheek, but she pushed him away firmly, saying, ‘If I’ve to waste my time on your ploys I’ll need to set this to rise.’

‘Just keep your eyes open,’ Gil warned. ‘Don’t get yourself into any unpleasantness.’

‘I’m no dotit yet,’ said Maggie. ‘Get you away down the town with that poor soul, before the harper calls out the Watch.’

Picking his way along Rottenrow beside a sullen Ealasaidh with her plaid drawn round her head against the early light, Gil said diffidently, ‘It seems likely that Bess Stewart was killed by someone she knew.’

‘I was telling you already,’ said Ealasaidh without looking at him, ‘it will have been the husband. Sempill. She went out to meet him.’

‘It could have been,’ agreed Gil, in an attempt to mollify her, ‘but I had him under my eye all through Compline.’ She snorted. ‘Is it possible Bess could have met someone else in St Mungo’s yard, that she would trust at close quarters?’

‘Who could she have known that well?’ said Ealasaidh, striding past the Girth Cross. ‘Here in Glasgow or when she was on the road, she had ourselves and the baby. Before that she was in Rothesay. There is nobody she knew in Rothesay that is in Glasgow just now, except the Campbells and Sempill.’

‘She never went out alone, or stayed in the Pelican Court without the rest of the household?’

‘No, she — ‘ Ealasaidh stopped in her tracks. A hand shot out of the folds of the plaid and seized Gil’s arm in a brutal grip. ‘Are you suggesting,’ she hissed, ‘that Bess had another man?’

‘The suggestion was made to me,’ said Gil, realizing with dismay that her other hand had gone to the gullyknife at her belt. ‘I have to ask.’ He kept his voice level with an effort, trying not to envisage a knife-fight here in the street with this formidable woman. She stared at him from the shadows of the checked wool.

‘I can guess who suggested it,’ she said at length. ‘No, she never had the privacy, not while we lived in Glasgow. Besides, you only had to see her with Aenghus.’

‘I apologize for asking it,’ said Gil. She bowed her head with great stateliness, accepting this, then let go his arm and stalked on down the High Street.

The upper town was still quiet, but below the Bell o’ the Brae the street grew busy, with people hurrying to their day’s work, schoolboys dragging their feet uphill towards the Grammar School, and the occasional student in his belted gown of blue or red, making his way from lodgings to an early lecture.

At the end of the Franciscans’ wynd Ealasaidh halted, and put back her plaid to look at him.

It is a great courtesy in you to convoy a poor singingwoman,’ she said, without apparent irony. ‘Do you leave me here, or will you come in? I must wash the dead and shroud her for burial, and there is things I wish to show you. I came by here after Vespers, to say goodnight to her.’

‘There are things I wish to see,’ said Gil, letting her precede him into the wynd. The wound that gave her her death, for one.’

She nodded, and strode in under the stone gateway at the far end of the wynd.

The Franciscans were singing Prime, the chant drifting clearly to meet them on the morning air. Ealasaidh disappeared into the gatehouse, and emerged after a moment bearing a basin of water and a pile of linen. Gil took the basin from her, and followed her as she stalked into the little chapel, where one of the friars still knelt. Ealasaidh nodded briefly to him as he rose and paced quietly out, then she twitched the sheet unceremoniously off the corpse and said,

‘As you said, her purse is not here. See, it hung at her belt beside the beads.’

‘And that was where she kept the harp key?’ Gil prompted. ‘How was it taken from the belt?’

‘No sign,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘It was nothing by-ordinary, just a leather purse hung on loops, easy enough to cut them. Little enough in it, too. We never carry much.’ She bent her head abruptly.

After a moment Gil said, ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I told that good soul in your kitchen about it. Her one jewel. My brother gave her a gold cross on a chain, quite simple. Sweet to hold and comforting, like her, he said. That she always wore under her shift, and that also I miss.’

‘So perhaps it was robbery,’ said Gil. ‘Or made to look like it.’ He looked down at the still face. ‘After all, why would she go into that place with someone like to rob her?’

The door creaked, and they both looked round. Alys stepped into the chapel, bent the knee in courtesy to the dead, and said simply, ‘I was coming in to say my prayers when I saw you. You will need help.’

Ealasaidh’s face softened.

‘It is not right you should be here now,’ she said to Gil. ‘She was aye honest and decent, she would not have wished you to see her stripped.’

‘I represent justice,’ said Gil, and heard the words resonate in the vault. ‘I am here on her behalf.’

‘There are things we can learn from her,’ said Alys. ‘Maister Cunningham, have you looked all you wish at the gown? May we remove itT

‘I think so,’ said Gil. ‘Then I can look at it more closely.’

Ealasaidh nodded and knelt by the corpse. Alys shed her plaid and knelt opposite her, working with gentle fingers at the side-laced bodice. After some unpleasant moments the swathe of red cloth was flung aside, to be followed by the brocade kirtle and its sleeves. Gil lifted these and retreated across the chapel, to Ealasaidh’s obvious relief.

The clothing told him nothing new. There was blood dried in the back of both garments, some soaked in the brocade under-sleeve, but not as much as might be expected from a death-wound. The left side of the red gown, which had been uppermost, was slightly stiffened from the dew, and there was a small patch of mud on the elbow of the other sleeve. There were two careful mends in the kirtle, and fresh tapes had been stitched into the undersleeves. Gil thought of the sweet-faced woman he had seen at the Cross, and imagined her sitting, head bent, stitching by the window of their inmost room in the Pelican Court. It was suddenly unbearably poignant.

• Taking up the shift he inspected it gingerly. It was soft and white with much laundering, trimmed with a little needlework at neck and cuffs. There was a large bloodstain on the back and sleeve, matching those on gown and kirtle, and sour-milk stains across the breast; apart from that it told him nothing. Wondering if he was simply looking for the wrong answers, he folded all three garments and set them in a neat pile.

At the other side of the chapel, Alys had removed the French hood and was unpinning the cap which was under it so that Bess’s hair fell loose in two long braids. Gil lifted the headgear. The cap was of well-washed linen like the shift, threads pulled here and there by the pins which had secured it to the dark braids. The hood was a structure of wire, velvet and buckram, which he studied with interest, having wondered more than once how such things were constructed. Two small starry shapes floated down from the black velvet as he turned it; lifting one on a fingertip he held it to the light and recognized a five-petalled flower of hawthorn, turning brown now.

Ealasaidh was speaking.

‘Here is the wound that killed her, maister, and here is what I wanted to show you.’

They had her half-shrouded, turned on to her face so that the final offence showed, a narrow blue-lipped gash between the ribs on the left side.

‘Such a little wound, to end a life,’ said Ealasaidh.

But it was not the only offence committed against this woman. Red marks, some raised, some turning silver, patterned her back. Neat parallel lines decorated one buttock. And fat and red on her right shoulder-blade, carved with some care, were the letters I S.

‘John Sempill’s initials,’ said Gil, as the bile rose in his throat. ‘And she could still sing. Lord send me courage like hers.’

‘Amen,’ said Alys.

Ealasaidh was silent, but the tears were dripping from her chin on to the linen shroud.

‘Forgive me,’ said Gil. ‘Are there other scars? The jaw I have seen, but — ‘

‘That and her ear,’ said Alys. ‘And these. No more.’

Ealasaidh muttered something in her own language. Alys touched her hand in sympathy, and without further comment they completed the task of arraying Bess Stewart for burial, turning her head to show Gil the sliced earlobe and scarred jaw before they combed out her hair to hide it.

‘Will your brother wish to say farewell?’ Alys asked at length.

Ealasaidh shook her head. ‘I do not know. He was strange, last night. He is saying he may never play again.’

‘Could he give it up like that?’

‘If he says he will, then he will. Thus far he has only said he may. Cover her face, but do not tie the cloth, I think.’ She helped Alys fold the linen over the still face, and got to her feet, lifting the basin and cloths. ‘These belong to Brother Porter. Lassie, I still do not know your name, but I thank you, as Bess would, for your charity to her.’

Alys, rising, embraced her, and turned to lift her plaid. Gil said suddenly, ‘Ealasaidh, what like was her plaid? Bess’s plaid that is lost? You said she was wearing it when she went out.’

‘Her plaid?’ Ealasaidh stared at him. ‘Aye, indeed, her plaid. It is like mine, only that I had more of the green thread when I wove it, so the sett is four threads green and eight of black, not two and ten. She said she never had a plaid like it. I wove it when I was a girl in my mother’s house.’

‘So where is it, then?’ Gil wondered.

‘The same place as her cross, likely,’ Ealasaidh said fiercely. ‘And both in John Sempill’s hands, I have no doubt. Go you and ask him, since he would not answer me.’

She lifted the basin and the clothes and stalked out of the chapel, passing one of the brothers without apparently noticing him. He came forward, offered a blessing to Alys and to Gil when they bent the knee to him, and settled himself at the head of the shrouded corpse with his beads over his hands. Gil, after one glance at Alys’s face, put a hand under her elbow and steered her out into the courtyard.

‘I would give a great deal that you had not seen that,’ he said.

She shook her head, biting her lip, and gestured helplessly with her free hand. Gil clasped it too, and in a moment she said, ‘She had survived so much, and now she is taken from those who love her and the child who needs her.’ She looked up at him in distress. ‘What did she think of, when the knife went in?’

‘She may not have known it,’ Gil said. ‘It was a narrow blade, one could see that, and she may not have felt it., He fell silent. Then he added, ‘She had mended the kirtle.’

Her hand tightened in his, and suddenly they were embracing, a warm exchange of comfort from the closeness of another. After a moment she drew back gently, and Gil let her go, aware of the scent of rosemary from her hair.

‘Will you come back to the lodgings with me,’ said Ealasaidh beside them. ‘There were things you wished to ask himself.’

‘May I come too, to see the baby?’ Alys asked. ‘he maids will be a while at the market, I have time.’

They went back out on to the High Street and down the hill, past Alys’s house, to where the market was setting up in the open space around the Cross. Those traders lucky enough, or prosperous enough, to have shops which faced on to the market were laying out their wares on the front counter. The centre space was already in good order, with traders from other streets setting out bales of dyed cloth, hanks of tow for spinning, cheeses, leather goods. On the margins, others were arranging trestles or barrows, with much argument about position and encroachment. The serjeant, waiting with the drummer on the Tolbooth steps to declare the market open, favoured Gil with a stately bow as they passed.

They turned into the Thenawgait, encountering a pair of baker’s men hurrying to their master’s stall with a board of warm loaves, and followed the new-bread smell back down the Fishergait. Past the bakehouse, the painted pelican still hung crooked, and the children were playing on the midden as if they were never called in.

This time, as they stepped out of the stair-tower, a drowsy greeting came from the shut-bed in the outer room. Ealasaidh strode on, ignoring it, and into the room beyond.

For a moment, following her, Gil thought the place empty. A great clarsach was now visible at the far wall, two smaller ones in the corner beyond. The Flemish harp still hung by the cold chimney, and below it the harper sat erect and motionless in his great chair, the determined mouth slack, hands knotted together so that the knuckles showed white in the dim light.

‘Aenghus,’ said his sister. He did not answer. She closed the door, crossed the room to fling open the shutters, and turned to stare intently at him. Alys slipped to the further door.

‘You see,’ said Ealasaidh to Gil. ‘He has never moved since the mourners left last night.’

‘Nancy is not here,’ said Alys in the other doorway. ‘Nor the baby.’

Ealasaidh, with a sharp exclamation, strode past her. The room was clearly empty but for Alys, but Ealasaidh peered into the shut-bed and felt the blankets in the wicker cradle next to it. Then she turned on her heel, meeting Alys’s eye briefly, and came back into the outer room.

‘Aenghus!’ she said loudly. ‘Where is the bairn? Where are Nancy and the bairn?’

She began to repeat the question in her own language, but the harper turned his head to face her voice.

‘Gone,’ he said. She stiffened, but he went on harshly, ‘They are all gone. Bess, and Ealasaidh, and my son. The bairn wept sore for his mammy. The lassie took him to her own mother.’

‘When? When was this?’

‘All gone,’ he said again.

‘Aenghus.’ She spoke intensely in her own language. After a moment, one hand came up and grasped her wrist.

Gil, still watching, said, ‘When did he eat last?’

‘The dear knows. He would not eat yesterday, only the usquebae. Aenghus — ‘

‘I will get the fire going; said Alys in practical tones. ‘Maister Cunningham, can you fetch in some food? The market should be open by now.’

He did not need to go as far as the market. By the time he returned, with two fresh loaves from the baker across the Fishergait, a quarter of a cheese from the man’s back shop, and a jug of ale, the harper was combed and tidied and wearing a leather jerkin over his saffron shirt. Ealasaidh was clattering pots in the inner room, and as Gil set down his purchases she bore in a steaming dish of sowans.

‘Eat that, mac Iain,’ she said, putting dish and spoon in her brother’s hands. He began obediently to sup the porridge-like mess, and she carried off the loaves and cheese. ‘Here is the lawyer to learn about Bess.’

‘Where is the demoiselle Alys?’ Gil asked.

The white eyes turned to him. ‘She has gone too. They are all gone.’

‘Ealasaidh is come back,’ said Ealasaidh firmly. ‘Stop your wandering and speak sense to the man of law.’ She gestured helplessly with her gully-knife at Gil, and went on cutting wedges off a loaf. ‘The lassie went home, I think. She slipped away once the fire was hot.’

‘Tell me about Bess,’ said Gil gently. ‘How old was she? Who was her first husband? What happened to him?’

‘She was the bonniest thing that ever stepped through my life,’ said the harper, setting down his spoon in the half-eaten sowans. His fingers clenched and unclenched on the rim of the dish.

‘She was quiet,’ said Ealasaidh, ‘and kind, and sensible. A woman to take her turn at the cooking and do it well, for all she owned a house in Rothesay.’

‘She was a good woman,’ said the harper. ‘It was always a great wonder to me,’ he said distantly, suddenly becoming rational, ‘that she came away with me, for she was devout, and honest, and lawful. And as my sister says, she owned a house and land, and yet she crossed Scotland with us, laughing when she fell in the mud, and said she was happy with us, for that we loved her.’

‘And in especial after the bairn came,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘It was a great joy to her that she had given himself a son.’

She was, it seemed, five- or six-and-twenty. Her first husband had been a Bute man, and had died of plague leaving her a very young widow with a respectable tierce and a couple of properties outright. Neither the harper nor his sister knew his name.

‘He was kind to her,’ said the harper. ‘She told me that once. Not like the second one.’

‘She lost the tierce, of course, when she took Sempill,’ Ealasaidh observed, ‘but there was jewels and such, and two plots in Rothesay, and a bit of land at Ettrick that was her dower.’

‘What happened to them?’ Gil asked, more at home with this kind of enquiry.

‘She still had the land,’ Ealasaidh said. ‘She said time and again, if she could get to Rothesay to sign a paper, we would have money.’

‘I wonder where the deeds are,’ said Gil.

‘Maybe in her box,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘But we will not have the key. I have never seen it opened.’

The box itself, when dragged from under the shut-bed, was sturdy enough, but the lock was no challenge to Gil’s dagger. He said so.

‘Then if it will help you, open it,’ said the harper.

‘You are certain that you wish me to open it?’ said Gil formally. The harper, recognizing his intention, bowed his head regally.

‘I am certain; he agreed. Gil brought out his dagger, and was turning the box so that light fell on the lock when the harper put out a hand.

Wait,’ he said, head tilted, listening. Ealasaidh looked from him to the window, then rose to go and look down into the yard.

‘Campbell,’ she said. Her brother asked a question. ‘Eoghan Campbell, the same as brought the word to Bess the other night. There is Morag nic Lachlann getting a crack with him across the way, he will be here in a moment.’

Gil sheathed his dagger.

‘Let us put this out the way, then,’ he said. ‘Euan Campbell? You are certain it is Euan and not Neil? And that Euan brought the word to Bess?’

‘How would f not know him?’ said Ealasaidh, as she had before, stooping to help Gil drag the box into a corner. ‘My mother was wisewoman at their birth, for all they were Campbells.’ She stacked a folded plaid, two German flutes and a bundle of music rapidly on top of the box. ‘Not that she would have withheld aid if their father had been the devil himself,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Wisdom and a gift is both to be shared,’ said the harper. He rose as feet crossed the outer room. ‘Ah, Mhic Chaileann …’

The man in the doorway was, to Gil’s eye, the same man he had questioned yesterday. He watched the formal exchange of Gaelic, trying to gauge the mind of each contestant. The gallowglass was pleased with himself about something, and also dismayed by Gil’s presence, though he hid it well. The harper, his great grief overlaid by his greater dignity, was harder to read; beside him Ealasaidh had a tight rein on her anger. She said suddenly,

‘We will be speaking Scots, in courtesy to Maister Cunningham. What brings Eoghan Campbell to this door?’

Gil, startled to find she remembered his name, almost missed the man’s slight recoil.

‘It iss a word from Maister Sempill,’ he said cautiously. ‘It iss to say that he is in grief at the death of his wife, and iss wishing her things back for a remembrance. That is the word from Maister Sempill.’

Ealasaidh appeared to be silenced by rage. Mclan inclined his head.

‘I hear Maister Sempill’s word,’ he said formally. ‘I will consider of my answer.’

‘Euan Campbell,’ said Gil. The dark-browed face turned to him. ‘Did you bring a message to Bess Stewart from Maister Sempill on May Day evening?’

‘Of course he did!’ hissed Ealasaidh.

‘Let him answer for himself,’ said Gil. ‘There is not only a man of law here, there is a harper. He will speak the truth, will you not, Euan?’

‘Yes,’ said the gallowglass, in some discomfort.

‘Then answer me,’ said Gil.

The man took a deep breath. ‘I did so,’ he admitted.

‘What was the message?’

‘That she should be meeting him outside the south door of St Mungo’s after Compline, in a matter of money. Her money.’

Gil considered the man for a moment. Out in the yard a child wailed and was hushed, and the harper turned his head to listen.

‘Did you speak the message in Scots?’ Gil asked. ‘Or in Ersche?’

Something unreadable crossed the narrow face.

‘Of course he was speaking Gaelic at her!’ said Ealasaidh impatiently. ‘She had the two tongues as well as any in the land, what else would he be speaking?’

‘Is that right?’ Gil said. The man nodded. ‘Tell us what you said to her. Say it again in Ersche — in Gaelic.’

Euan’s eyes shifted, from Gil, to the harper standing isolated in darkness, to Ealasaidh’s vengeful countenance. After a pause, he spoke. Ealasaidh listened, snapped a question, listened to the answer. There was a short, acrimonious discussion, which ended when Ealasaidh turned to Gil.

‘The word he is bringing from Sempill is just as he is saying,’ she reported. ‘But she asked him how she could trust John Sempill, and he, fool and Campbell that he is, promised to protect her while she spoke with Sempill and see her back here.’

Gil, unable to assess this, said to give himself time, ‘Why did Maister Sempill think it was your brother who took the message?’

‘He is never telling us apart,’ said the gallowglass.

‘They were forever playing at being the one or the other,’ said Ealasaidh in disgust. “There is only me and Mairead their sister can tell them apart now, and she is married to a decent man and living in Inveraray.’

‘And I,’ said the harper. ‘It was this one came with the message on Monday. I know the voice.’

‘Sorrow is on me,’ said the gallowglass, ‘that ever I crossed your door on such an errand.’

They went off into Ersche again, a rapid exchange between Ealasaidh and Campbell. Gil, watching, felt the man was still hiding something. The harper suddenly spoke, a few quick words which silenced the other two, and turning to Gil he said, ‘Maister Cunningham, have you more-to ask?’

‘I have,’ said Gil.

‘Then ask it, so Eoghan Campbell can go about his lord’s business.’

Gil, thanking him as one would a colleague, found himself exchanging bows with a blind man.

‘Euan,’ he said, ‘tell me how Mistress Stewart went up the High Street on May Day evening.’

‘Chust like any other,’ said the man blankly.

‘Did she follow you, or walk beside you? Did you talk? Was she apprehensive? Was she worried about meeting her husband,’ he amended. ‘You may answer me in Gaelic.’

Ealasaidh said something sharp, and Euan spoke briefly, shrugging.

‘He says,’ she translated, ‘that Bess walked up the street beside him, talking in the Gaelic about the weather, and about where he was coming from, and she did not seem low in her courage at all in any way.’

The harper made a small sound in his throat. Ealasaidh flicked a glance at him, and added, ‘What else do you wish to ask, Maister Cunningham?’

‘When you got to St Mungo’s,’ said Gil, ‘what then?’

The gallowglass had left Bess Stewart in the clump of hawthorns and gone into the kirk to report to his lord. She had been standing, quite composed, with her plaid over her head. He had never seen her.again.

‘Was there anyone else in the kirkyard?’ Gil asked. The sly grin predicted the answer he got.

‘Therewass two youngsters, away to the burn from where she was, sitting in the grass, though I am thinking they would shortly be lying in it.’

‘What were they wearing?’ asked Gil hopefully.

‘Oh, I would not be knowing that. The light was going. Chust clothes like any others. The boy’s hose was stript.’

‘Just now,’ said Gil, ‘before you came up this stair, what did the neighbour across the way tell you?’

‘Oh, nothing at all,’ said the gallowglass airily, but Gil had not missed the flicker of self-satisfaction.

‘It took a long while to say nothing,’ he observed. Ealasaidh said something sharp. She got a sulky answer, then a defiant one; she glanced threateningly at the small harp, and there was an immediate reaction.

‘Mistress nic Lachlann and I were chust passing the time of day, and I was asking her would himself be at home chust now, and she was telling me who would be in the house.’

‘And who did she tell you would be in the house?’ Gil prompted.

`Himself, and herself,’ said the man, nodding, ‘and a visitor, which I am thinking would be Maister Cunningham.’

‘And what more did she tell you?’

‘Oh, nothing of any importance. Nothing at all, at all.’

Gil moved over to look out of the window.

‘So you promised to protect Mistress Stewart; he said, his back to the man, ‘and to see her safe home. Why, then, did you not search for her after the service?’

‘I thought she was gone home without speaking to the maister.’ There was what seemed like genuine feeling in the voice. ‘He was in the kirk, under my eye, from when I left her in the trees till he went out again and found she wass not there. I thought that was protection enough!’ he burst out. ‘I did not know — ‘ He broke off. Gil turned, to look into patches of green dazzle.

‘What did you not know?’ he asked. Ealasaidh had to repeat the question; she got a reluctant, muttered answer, which she translated baldly:

‘That he would use witchcraft.’

‘Do you think it witchcraft, Maister Cunningham?’ asked the harper.

‘I don’t believe in witchcraft,’ said Gil apologetically. ‘Do you?’

‘What do you call the power of a harper?’

‘Ah, that is different. Anyway, he had no evidence,’ Gil said, watching the gallowglass cross the yard. ‘Supposition is not sufficient. I do not think that John Sempill killed her, though I do not yet know who did. What worries me is how much he learned from your neighbour. Where is the bairn?’

‘If Nancy took him to her mother’s,’ said Ealasaidh, he is up the next stair.’

‘I thought as much.’ Gil turned away from the window. ‘Euan has just gone up that stair. Ealasaidh — ‘

The door was swinging behind her. When Gil caught up, she was just wading into a very promising argument three turns up the next stair, where Euan was holding his ground with difficulty against two kerchiefed women.

‘No, I will not tell you where she’s gone. I don’t know who you are, but my Nancy’s none of your business, and less of your master’s. Be off with you before I call the serjeant on you, pestering decent women — ‘

‘The bairn-‘s — ‘

‘The bairn’s none of hers, and everyone in this pend knows that.’

‘I never said — ‘

‘Bel!’ said Ealasaidh. ‘This one iss from Bess’s man!’

‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ said Bel. ‘See me the besom, sister. I’ll Where’s Nancy you, you great — ‘

Gil flattened himself against the wall as the gallowglass broke and ran, followed by shrieks of laughter, and loud and personal comments. As the sound of his feet diminished down the stairs the three women nodded in satisfaction.

‘So where is Nancy?’ he asked. The satisfaction vanished, and two hostile stares were turned on him. He was aware of sudden sympathy with Euan.

‘It iss the man of law from St Mungo’s,’ Ealasaidh explained. ‘Looking for proof it was Sempill killed her.’

‘Looking for proof of who killed her,’ Gil amended. She shrugged, and turned to the two women.

‘So where is Nancy? And the bairn?’

‘She went off this morning. Less than an hour since, it would be, wouldn’t it, sister?’

‘Who with?’ Gil said patiently. ‘Did she go alone?’

‘Oh, I never saw. We were no here, were we, Kate?’

‘We were out at the market,’ amplified Kate. ‘After Prime.’

‘We came back, and she was gone, and the bairn’s gear with her. Tail-clouts, horn spoon, coral — ‘

‘And her plaid.’

‘Has she left no word?’ asked Gil. The two women turned kerchiefed heads to one another, then to him, wearing identical expressions of surprise.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘She’s likely at her married sister’s. Isa has a bairn ages with your wee one.’

‘And where does her sister live?’ Gil persisted.

‘On the High Street. Isn’t it no, sister?’

‘In Watson’s Pend,’ agreed the other one. ‘Second stair. You’ll not miss it.’

Ealasaidh turned on her heel and hurried down the stairs, her deerskin shoes making little sound on the stone. Gil, with a hasty word of thanks, followed her. In the yard she hesitated, glancing up at her own windows.

‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I must know the bairn is safe. But to leave him yet again — ‘

‘I will go,’ Gil offered, ‘and send you word when I have found the bairn.’

She looked from his face to the windows and back. ‘What word? I cannot read Scots.’

‘I will send that I have found the harpstring,’ he said quietly.

Her face lit up in that savage smile. ‘Mac Iain and I will wait your messenger,’ she said, and strode into the mouth of her own stair.

The market was past its climax when Gil reached the corner of the Fishergait. Many stallholders were beginning to pack up by now, and the wives and maidservants of the burgh were beginning to turn for home with their purchases, but the bustle, the hopeful whine of the beggars, the cries of fishwives and pedlars, still spread out from the Mercat Cross.

Gil made his way through the noisy scene with difficulty. Here and there a little group of giggling girls whispered and huddled. Beyond the Tolbooth he saw, quite clearly, both the gallowglass brothers, in deep and separate conversation with more young women. A little further on, James Campbell of Glenstriven, in a green velvet hat of identical cut to John Sempill’s cherry one, was laughing with another girl. Gil hurried on, avoiding all these as well as raucous attempts to sell him eggs, cheeses, ham, a clutch of goose eggs warranted to hatch, and a toebone of the infant St Catherine.

‘The infant St Catherine?’ he repeated, pausing despite himself. ‘What did she walk on when she was grown?’

‘Ah, your worship,’ said the pedlar, leering at him. ‘Who am I to say what the holy woman walked on? Sure, and if her feet touched the earth at all it was only to bless it.’

‘I should report you,’ said Gil. ‘Put that one away and find something more probable to cry, before the Consistory finds you.’

‘Yes, your honour,’ said the pedlar hastily. ‘Forgive me, father, I didn’t see you was a priest, father..

Gil moved on, his jaw tightening. Not yet, he thought, not yet.

‘Why, Maister Cunningham!’ said a voice at his elbow. He turned in sudden hope, and found himself looking into the sparkling, elfin countenance of Euphemia Campbell. ‘Good day to you, sir.’

‘Good day, madam,’ he returned, bowing. She curtsied in reply, her cramoisie velvet pooling on the damp flagstones. It was already marked at the hem. Her neck bent elegantly under the mass of folded linen, and a heavy waft of perfume reached him. ‘Exploring the market?’

This close, he could see that she was older than one thought at first. The fine skin round her eyes was beginning to sag, and there were lines coming between the insignificant nose and the mouth which was now pouting prettily.

‘There’s not much to explore, is there? The apothecary can’t supply enough ambergris for my perfume — I have my own receipt, you know — so I came to look at the rest of the town. Where do Glasgow wives go for linen and velvets?’

‘I have no idea,’ he admitted.

‘Perhaps Antonio knows. Tonino?’ She smiled along her shoulder at the small dark man who stood watchfully at her side, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and spoke briefly in Italian. He shook his head, and she laughed. ‘No? Men never know. Mally can find out for me. Are you for the Upper Town, Maister Cunningham? Can you convoy me?’

‘As far as Greyfriars, gladly,’ he said perforce, offering his arm. Lady Euphemia laid her hand on it, the elegantly embroidered glove in contrast with the dusty black of his sleeve, and turned with him, the small man always at her other elbow.

‘You aren’t much like your brother, are you?’ What does she mean by that? Gil wondered, but she chattered on. ‘Greyfriars? Oh, of course, that poor woman’s to be buried this afternoon, isn’t she? John will be there. It’s only proper.’

‘I’m sure Sempill of Muirend will do what is right,’ said Gil, and was aware of sounding fatuous.

‘And have you come any nearer finding who killed her? Or who struck down the mason’s boy? What about his lass? It must be very difficult for you, with so little evidence.’

‘We are searching for evidence,’ he assured her.

‘I suppose if you find all her missing possessions it will help,’ she chattered. ‘The plaid, the purse, the harp key and — what was it? A cross? That the poor mad woman was screaming at the gates about last night. I thought at first it was the devil himself come to get us all!’

As well you might, thought Gil, trying to suppress the image of her bare back by candlelight.

‘And John was furious.’ She giggled throatily. ‘Such a rage he was in. It took me the rest of the night to soothe him.’

Gil, grasping her meaning, wondered if his ears were going red. He risked a glance at her and found her suddenly very like her brother, smirking at him sideways like a well-fed cat, the dimple very much in evidence. Beyond the piled-up linen of her headdress he met a burning stare from the small man.

‘How is the mad woman?’ she went on. ‘I heard you took her away — is she locked up? She certainly ought to be out of harm’s way. She needs to be tied to St Mungo’s Cross for the night, like one of Colqhoun’s servants at Luss. They brought him all the way in and tied him to the Cross. It cured him, too, at least he died, but he was sane when he died.’

‘She is safe enough,’ Gil began.

‘And the dogs barking like that. I thought I would die laughing when all the neighbours woke and started shouting too. I’m surprised the Watch didn’t come to see what the trouble was. I’m sure they could hear the noise in Inveraray.’

‘Nobody shouted for the Watch.’

‘I saw a lovely piece of black velvet when I was last in Rothesay. It was very dear, so I just left it, but I wish now I’d bought it, for there’s not a scrap fit to wear in Glasgow and I’ve nothing suitable to go to a burying in. If I can borrow a black mantle I’ll be there, but I don’t know. Antonio can bring me, or Euan. He ought to be there, dear knows — after all,’ Euphemia said, giggling again, ‘he promised to see her home.’

‘Maister Cunningham! Maister Cunningham!’

Feet hurried in the muddy street. Gil halted, and looked back over his shoulder, to see Alys pattering towards them past a group of maidservants, her brown skirts hitched up out of the mud, neat ankles flashing.

‘Oh, Maister Cunningham, well met!’ she exclaimed as she reached his side, taking his outstretched hand, answering his smile. She looked beyond him and curtsied to Euphemia. ‘Forgive me, madame. I hope I don’t intrude. I am sent with a word from my father to Maister Cunningham.’

‘Not at all, my dear,’ said Euphemia in execrable French. ‘We were merely discussing the markets of the burgh.’ Her eyes flicked over Alys’s linen gown. ‘I don’t imagine you can tell me where to buy cloth in Glasgow.’

‘Then you haven’t seen Maister Walkinshaw’s warehouse, madame?’ responded Alys politely. Two apprentices passed them, leather aprons covered in mud, rolling a barrel up the street.

‘Oh, that,’ said Euphemia. ‘But we are forgetting your errand. What did your father send you to say? Tell Maister Cunningham, and then you may go home safely.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Alys, ‘for my father sends to bid you to the house, sir.’

‘Is that right?’ said Lady Euphemia, raising her finely plucked brows. ‘I am sure Maister Cunningham will have time for your father when he has convoyed me home.’

‘No, madam,’ said Gil in Scots, aware of a level of this conversation which he did not fully understand. ‘I undertook to see you as far as Greyfriars, and here we are.’ He nodded at the end of the wynd beside them.

‘What, are we here already?’ She looked round, startled. ‘And I was wanting to ask you — She glanced sideways at the group of maidservants, who were just passing them, and lowered her voice. Gil bent his head to hear her, uneasily conscious of how intimate it must look to the passers-by. ‘Have you found that girl? The one that was with the boy?’

‘We have,’ Gil said, ‘but — ‘

‘And did she tell you anything?’ Glittering green eyes stared up at him, holding his gaze. ‘Surely she was able to help?’

‘We haven’t questioned her,’ said Gil, ‘because — ‘

‘Oh, but you should have! You must see that! Didn’t you want to find out what she knew?’

‘We do,’ said Alys at Gil’s other side, ‘but she is the wrong lass. Forgive us, Lady Euphemia. I am sure Signor Antonio can see you safe home.’

Euphemia stared from Gil’s face to Alys’s, apparently startled into silence. Gil seized the opportunity to disengage his wrist from her grasp. Stepping away, he bowed and strode off down the High Street with Alys hurrying at his side.

‘All is well,’ she said quietly. ‘You may come to the White Castle and eat with us.’

‘Shortly,’ he said. ‘I have an errand up the town once they are out of sight.’

‘They are still watching us,’ she said, with a covert glance over her shoulder, ‘but you have no errand. All is well. I have found the harpstring.’

He checked, staring down at her, and she tugged him on by the hand which still clasped hers.

‘How? How did you know?’

She let goof him and gathered up her skirts again.

‘Come and eat, and I will explain.’

‘There are others must be told.’

‘No, I have seen to all of it. Come and eat — there is just time before the burial. I asked the harper and his sister too, when I went back there, but they wished to be early at the kirk. He has his farewells to make.’

‘I am right glad you found me,’ he said, following her. ‘I can still smell that woman’s scent. It must have been on her glove.’ He sniffed at the wrist of his doublet. ‘Ugh — yes.’

Alys turned in at the pend.

‘Where?’ she asked, pausing in the shadows. ‘Let me …?’ She bent her head to his offered wrist. ‘No, your nose must be keener than mine. I will give you some powdered herbs to rub on the cloth, if you like, to take the scent away. Mint and feverfew should mask it for you.’

‘That sounds like what Maggie uses against fleas,’ he observed, following her into-the-yard.

‘It is,’ she agreed, her smile flickering, ‘but it has other uses. Maister Cunningham, the child is here. He and his nurse both. The harper knows.’

‘So you didn’t come straight home.’

‘I went to speak to Nancy,’ she agreed, ‘and persuade her to bring the child here. She knew me by repute, at least — her sister is Wattle’s wife, and Luke is winching their cousin — so she was willing enough to accompany me.’ Her eyes danced. ‘It was exciting,’ she admitted. ‘We spied out of the window till the gallowglass was gone up the harper’s stair, and hurried across the yard with the bairn hidden in Nancy’s plaid. Then we cut round by the back lands, and across Greyfriars yard, and so down the High Street.’

‘And the harper?’

‘I went back after they were settled. You were not long left, it seems.’

‘This is a great relief,’ he said. ‘How did you — what made you — ‘

‘I thought about it last night,’ she said, moving towards the house stair, ‘and it seemed to me a baby with two fathers and a murdered mother should be in a safe place until the thing is untangled.’

‘Alys, you have the wisdom of an heap of learned men,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Come and eat, Maister Cunningham.’

On the long board set up in the mason’s well-polished hall, there was cold cooked salmon, for which Alys apologized, and a sharp sauce, and an arranged sallet with marigold petals scattered over it. Further down the table the men had bannocks and cheese as well, but the maids had eaten earlier and were hard at work in the kitchen again. The mason, greeting Gil with enthusiasm, drew him to the seat at his right. He was in funeral black, a great black gown flung over the back of his chair, and wearing a selfsatisfied expression which he accounted for, as soon as he had said grace and seen everyone served, by saying,

‘Maister lawyer, I have something to show you in St Mungo’s yard. We go up there after the Mass.’

Gil raised his eyebrows.

‘Not the weapon, no,’ Maistre Pierre continued with some regret. ‘I think we search no longer. It cannot be there. But something strange, which I think you must look at.’ He pushed salmon into his bannock with the point of his knife. ‘Alys, how does Davie?’

‘Still sleeping, father. Brother Andrew says the longer he sleeps the better. We cannot know until he wakes what sort of recovery he will make, but the good brother is optimistic.’

‘Hm,’ said the mason, chewing.

‘Nancy will help to watch him.’

‘Ah, yes. This baby. Why are we harbouring a baby?’

‘Because,’ said Alys patiently, ‘although the harper is its father, it was born less than a year after its mother left John Sempill. He could claim it as his own in law, and he says he needs an heir, you heard Maister Cunningham tell us last night.’

‘Can the law not count?’ asked Maistre Pierre curiously.

‘Stranger things have happened,’ said Gil.

‘And are we any closer to finding what girl it was with Davie, since it was not Bridie Miller?’

‘No word yet,’ said Alys, ‘but I sent the maids into the market this morning to learn what they could. It is too soon, I think, for word to have got back to us.’ She poured ale for Gil and for her father. ‘They tell me Bridie herself was there, making great play of how she has had a narrow escape. She should be here soon — Agnes promised to send two girls round to help. And they saw you, Maister Cunningham, and Lady Euphemia and her man. Who I think would do anything at all for his lady,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘The musician?’ said Gil, startled.

‘Oh, yes. That was how I managed to find you. Kittock said when she came in that Lady Euphemia had gone up the street with that wee Italian lutenist on one arm and you on the other, and looked like two weans being led to the school,’ she quoted, in excellent mimicry of Kittock’s broader Scots.

‘Alys,’ said her father reprovingly. She blushed, and apologized. Gil, contemplating the remark, found it more comforting than offensive. He said so, earning a grateful smile from Alys.

‘And what did the Campbell woman say?’ asked the mason. ‘Anything to the purpose?’

‘God, what was she not saying? Her tongue’s hung in the middle, I swear it,’ said Gil intemperately. ‘Questions, questions, about how far we have got. John Sempill will be at the burial, and she may come if she can find anything to wear.’ Father and daughter made identical long faces, and he nodded. ‘Asking about Bridie Miller — you heard her, Alys — had we questioned her.’

He frowned, trying to recall the flood of words.

‘I’m sure she said something I should note, but I can’t pick it out among all the nonsense.’

‘If you leave it, it will come to mind,’ said Alys sagely.

‘Speaking of the burial …’ said Maistre Pierre, and pushed his chair back.