The Harper's Quine

Chapter Ten

‘It was murder,’ said Gil. ‘And the devil of it is, he’ll get away with it.’

‘You think the Italian was innocent?’ said Maistre Pierre.

They were riding along the north bank of the Clyde, and Dumbarton’s rock and castle were just coming into view ahead of them down the river. Maistre Pierre, on a sturdy roan horse, his stout felt hat hanging down his back on its strings, was the image of a prosperous burgess on a journey. Behind them, Matt had not uttered a word since they left Glasgow. Gil himself, in well-worn riding-boots and a mended plaid, felt that he did not live up to the quality of his own mount or Matt’s. David Cunningham had always had a good eye for a horse.

‘Innocent of the two women’s deaths, certainly,’ he said. ‘I saw him in St Mungo’s all through Compline, at the time when Bess was killed, which in turn makes it less likely that he killed Bridie Miller.’

‘I think so also,’ said the mason, ‘because how could he persuade a girl like Bridie to go apart with him when he had no Scots?’

‘Some men have no trouble,’ said Gil fairly, ‘but this one seemed to have eyes for nobody but Euphemia Campbell. And what she thought would happen if she screamed at John Sempill like that, is more than I can guess. She has known him several years, she must know how he acts first and violently and thinks after if at all.’

‘He certainly acted this time.’

‘And it was murder,’ said Gil again.

‘And he had been her lover also — the Italian.’

‘Yes.’

‘She seemed greatly moved by his death. I thought of Salome.’

Gil rode on in silence for a time, digesting this remark. On the other bank, the tower of Erskine dropped behind them.

‘And where had the gallowglass been?’ he said at length. ‘Sempill said they were on an errand and would be back on Sunday or Monday. Yet there was one of them last night. Matt,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘do you know where the Campbell brothers had been sent? Does Tam?’

‘No,’ said Matt.

‘And do you know where the horses may he while we are on Bute?’

‘Aye.’

‘Perhaps Matt should stay with them,’ suggested the mason. ‘We should be back by Monday, God willing, and can shift without him for two days.’

‘Aye,’ said Matt. Gil twisted in the saddle to look at him, a small fair man perched expertly on one of David Cunningham’s tall horses.

‘You could ask about for Annie Thomson,’ he suggested, and was rewarded by a lowering glance. ‘If I leave you alemoney, you could keep your ears open.’

‘Hmf,’ said Matt.

They rode on, in the growing warmth of a May morning. Birds sang, the distinctive smell of hawthorn blossom drifted on the air, making Maistre Pierre sneeze. Lambs bleated on the heights above them, and the cattle of Kilpatrick lowed on the grazing-lands, where the herd laddie popped up from under a gorse-bush to watch them pass.

It is beautiful countryside,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘So much cultivated, so pastoral.’

‘It’s nothing compared to Lanarkshire,’ said Gil, and Matt grunted agreement.

‘And this is an excellent road.’

‘It’s well used. Argyll took half the guns down here to the siege at Dumbarton in ‘89. They’d need to level the way for those.’

‘I had forgotten. Alys told me of seeing them go through Glasgow, and the teams of oxen hauling the big carts. I missed the sight. I was out looking for building-stone in Lanarkshire.’

‘You haven’t travelled this way, then?’

‘I have not. Parts of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire I know also, and the quarries about Glasgow, but not this ground. What is the stone hereabouts, do you know?’

‘Just stone, I suppose,’ said Gil blankly. ‘Isn’t it all?’

‘Assuredly not.’ The mason leaned over the saddle-bow again, peering at the road-metal under his horse’s hooves. ‘No, it is still too dusty to distinguish. However these hills have the appearance of trap, which is not good to build with, but makes excellent cobbles. Perhaps on the way back I explore a little. A piece of land to quarry out here, with a good road to Glasgow, would be a valuable investment.’

‘Be sure to contract for the mineral rights, then; Gil said, and got a quizzical look in reply.

Dumbarton town, tucked in the crook of the Leven behind its rock, was not impressive, a huddle of wattle-and-daub roofed with furze or turf. Here and there a stone-built structure had an air of greater permanence, but most of the houses looked as if they had sprouted, possibly by night, since the end of the siege of three years since. There did not appear to be a cobble-stone in the burgh.

‘It has a market on Tuesdays, and a wealthy church,’ said Gil, guiding his reluctant horse along the muddy curve of the High Street. ‘You wouldn’t think it paid customs about fifth in the kingdom, would you?’

‘Clearly, you have not seen Irvine,’ said the mason. ‘Where shall we go first? I am both hungry and thirsty.’

Finding an inn, arranging for Matt to stay with the horses, consuming bannocks and cheese and a jug of thin ale, took a little time, and it was past Sext when Gil and the mason walked down to the strand.

There were several boats of varying size drawn up on the shore, loading and unloading. At the far end of a narrow stone wharf, several men were shouting round a crane which they were using to hoist barrels out of a sturdy cog. Larger ships lay in the river, and out in the Clyde, beyond the confluence, two carvels swung at anchor.

‘Where do we begin?’ said Gil in bewilderment.

‘You have been to sea, have you not?’

‘Aye, from Leith. From there everything’s bound for the Netherlands. Some of these could be headed for Ireland, or for France or even Spain. Or for the North Sea, indeed. How do we tell which will be willing to leave us at Rothesay?’

‘You are looking too high. I consulted a map,’ said the mason grandly, ‘and I find that Bute is the island most near to here. We want a fishing-boat.’

‘Does one go through this every time one travels to the place?’ Gil wondered, following his companion along the strand. ‘It would certainly put me off living on an island.’

‘Oh, indeed. Why anyone would go there is beyond me, if he did not have business there. Though at least,’ added the mason thoughtfully, ‘the sea air is good. There is no smell of hawthorn to make one sneeze. Ah — good day, gentlemen.’

The last three vessels drawn up on the shore were smaller than the others. Above them, on the grassy bank, a group of men sat mending nets. They looked up briefly, and one or two nodded in answer to the mason’s greeting, then returned to their task.

Undaunted, Maistre Pierre began talking. Gil, watching in some amusement, appreciated the way the fishermen, tolerant at first, were gradually played in by questions about the weather, the tide, the best course for Rothesay, the best man to sail it. At this point, recognizing that success was in sight and money would shortly be discussed, he turned away to study the fishing-boats.

He was watching the gulls swooping across the sandy causeway to the Castle rock when Maistre Pierre said beside him, ‘Done. We sail in an hour. I have said we return to the inn, tell Matt who we sail with, fetch our scrips. There will be time also to look in at that handsome church and say our prayers.’

‘Good work,’ said Gil. ‘You do realize, don’t you, that you have just contracted to cross the sea in a basket?’

The mason’s jaw dropped, and he whirled to look at the boats. The fishermen looked up at the sharp movement, and Gil saw them grinning.

‘They are quite safe,’ he said. ‘Corachs. I have never set foot in one, but I’ve heard of them. All the old saints used to tramp up and down the sea-roads in these.’

‘Yes, but I am not a saint,’ said Maistre Pierre, staring at the leather side of the nearest boat. It was tilted so that they could see clearly how the hides were stretched outside the interlaced laths and finally stitched to the wooden keel, or perhaps the other way about. ‘Ah, mon Dieu!’

From the stern of the Flower of Dumbarton as she slipped creaking down the Leven on the current, out past Dumbarton Rock and into the main channel of the Clyde, there was an excellent view of the scars of the bombardment which had eventually ended the siege of ‘89. Gil commented on this.

‘And that was a waste of time,’ said Andy the helmsman.

‘How so?’ said Maistre Pierre beyond him.

‘They’d ha given up soon in any case. I heard they were about out of meal. But Jamie Stewart,’ said Andy, by whom Gil understood him to mean the young King, fourth of that name, ‘wanted back to Edinburgh for Yule, and he had this fancy great gun, so they had to bring it down the water and flatten poor folks’ houses with it.’

‘It meant money for some, surely,’ said Gil.

‘Aye,’ said Andy, and spat over the side. ‘And a lot of inconvenience for the rest of us.’

‘And what speed will this excellent vessel make?’ asked the mason, settling himself gingerly on the stem thwart. The woven structure gave noisily under his feet.

‘Three knots,’ said Andy. ‘Maybe four.’

‘A fast walk,’ the mason translated for Gil.

‘If you can walk on the water,’ said Andy, and laughed. ‘That’s a good one, eh, maisters? If you can walk on the water!’

‘Andy, shut your mouth,’ said the master from the bows. He and the ship’s boy were doing something complicated to a mound of ginger-coloured canvas.

‘She may not be so large or so fast as Andrew Wood’s Flower,’ said the mason, ‘but I dare say she knows these waters.’

‘Better than Andrew Wood; said the master, and grinned. This Flower’ll no go aground on the Gantocks.’

Gil sat silent in the stem of the boat, letting the talk flow past him like the grey water, barely aware of the mason’s gradually improving confidence. He was feeling very unsettled. He had been more than five years in France, but since his return he had scarcely left Glasgow, except to spend Yule or his birthday in familiar territory in Carluke. Now here he was travelling again, exploring new places, crossing the water -

‘It is extraordinary,’ said the mason. ‘This river runs not into the open sea, but deeper into the hills, which grow higher everywhere one looks. Tell me, maister, how do you know which of these roadways to follow?’

He gestured at three identical arms of the river.

‘Lord love you,’ said the master, ‘what’s your trade? Mason, aren’t you,’ he added before Maistre Pierre could speak. ‘I can tell by your hands. How d’you know which stone will stay on another and which will fall down? Tell me that?’

‘I see,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It is a thing learned at one’s father’s knee.’

‘And that’s a true word,’ said the master. ‘Int it no, silly?’

‘Aye,’ said Billy.

‘And there’s the tide,’ said Andy.

‘True enough,’ agreed the master. ‘When the tide’s on the ebb, she’ll take you down the water and out to sea easy enough. But when the tide’s on the make, what then? You’ve got to know where you’re steering for, all right. Billy, have you done with that sheet? We’ve a sail to hoist here.’

And where am I steering? wondered Gil. Which of the arms of the river am I headed for, and will it bring me safe to port, or does it only strike deeper into the hills?

His uncle, bidding him farewell in the dawn, had taken his elbow and said with unaccustomed strength of feeling, ‘You’re a good lad, Gilbert, and I want to see you right.’

‘I know that, sir,’ he had answered, startled.

‘Aye.’ There was a pause, then the Official said abruptly, ‘There’s more roads than one leads to Edinburgh, or Rome for that matter. Are you content with the road we’ve planned for you? The law and Holy Kirk?’

‘How should I not be, sir? It’s a secure future.’

His uncle studied him carefully.

‘You’ve not answered my question,’ he said, then raised a hand as Gil opened his mouth to speak. ‘No. Dinna forswear, Gilbert. I want you to think about it while you’re away. When you come back, you can give me the answer, and I want the truth.’ He fixed his nephew with an eye as grey as St Columba’s. ‘You were aye a poor liar. Like your father.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Gil helplessly, and knelt for the blessing. So now, attempting to put in order the things he needed to ask about in Rothesay, he kept finding his thoughts sliding back to his uncle’s words. Was he happy with the road before him, whether it led to Edinburgh or Rome? If he turned back from that road, what other way through life was there? Bess Stewart had turned aside from the road before her, to snatch at happiness with the harper, and look where it got her. And why did the old man pick just now, of all times, to ask a question like that?

A wave slopped over the strake beside his elbow. Gil hitched his plaid up, and the master, having set the sail to his liking, made his way aft and took the helm from the mate. The Flower creaked happily in the wind.

‘Now you’ll see,’ said the master instructively, adjusting the rope at his other hand, ‘that when we get out yonder, off Kilcreggan, we’ll take a point or two to larboard, because that’s what the channel does. And I’ll tell you, maisters, that if the weather doesny shift southward from here, you’ll be kept in Rothesay a day or two.’

‘She’ll shift,’ said Andy, looking at the sky.

‘And where is this Kikreggan?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Yonder,’ said Andy, gesturing to starboard. Gil, peering, made out a scattering of thatched roofs under a haze of peat smoke. How strange, he thought. It is a village, where people live their lives, as important to them as the Chanonry and the High Street are to me, and yet I would not have known it was there. What other havens are out here, invisible until pointed out by someone who knows the coast?

Rothesay Bay was full of shipping. There seemed to be more ships here than at Dumbarton. Several large vessels were anchored in the bay with ferries plying to and fro, a number of ships lay alongside a wooden jetty, and two galleys were beached west of the castle. There were carts and wheelbarrows on the foreshore, and a bustle of people beyond. Over all the gulls swooped, screaming.

‘That is a strong fortress,’ Maistre Pierre observed. ‘Also very old, I should say.’

It stood on a mound, less than a hundred paces from the water, its red stone drum towers dwarfing the houses round it. The light caught the helmet of a man on the walkway, and Gil, looking closer, realized there was a competent guard of five or six on the battlements.

‘And what is that yonder?’ asked the mason, nodding at a tall building some way to the left of the jetty.

‘Bishop’s house,’ said the master, easing the rope in his hand. ‘Let go, Andy.’

The sail clattered and flapped into a heap in the bows again, and the mate and the boy shipped the oars and hauled for the shore.

Gil studied the town. It lay snugly between two small hills, facing the bay. As well as the castle and the Bishop’s house, there were a number of stone buildings, certainly more and better than at Dumbarton. A handsome plastered barn stood between the castle and the shore, and there were some timber-framed houses further inland, but most of the dwellings were low structures covered in thatch or turf, each at the head of its toft. Pigs, children and small black cows roamed freely between them, and hens pecked about everywhere. The smell of the middens reached them on the breeze.

‘Where are ye for, maisters?’ asked the master. The Bishop or the castle? Just I need to know which side of the burn to set ye down.’

‘The castle,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve a letter for the chaplain.’

Sir William Dalrymple, stout and red-faced, his jerkin caked with food under a hastily assumed moth-eaten gown, peered anxiously at the letter Gil presented to him under the interested gaze of the two guards on the gate.

‘Lachie Beag stepped on my spectacles; he said apologetically, handing it back. ‘I can make out the salutation, but David’s wee writing’s beyond me. Mind, I’d know his signature anywhere.’ He added something in Gaelic to the guards, and one of them nodded and opened the barrier to let them pass. ‘Come into the yard and tell me what it’s about. Are ye hungry, maisters?’

‘We have not eaten since Sext,’ said Maistre Pierre, following the portly outline of the priest along the passageway into the bustling courtyard.

‘Come to the buttery, then, and see what we can find.’ Sir William led the way round the end of the chapel, past the smithy where several men were discussing crossbow bolts, and up a narrow stair. ‘And is your uncle well, Gilbert?’

Dinner was long past but the buttery men, obviously used to their priest, found half a raised pie and some roasted onions which nobody was using. Seated at the end of one of the long tables with these and a plate of bannocks and a jug of claret, Sir William rattled through a short grace and said as the mason grimaced over the wine, ‘Now. This letter. Why is David sending to me after all these years?’

‘It explains why we’re here,’ Gil said, and read the letter aloud. Sir William listened attentively, with muffled exclamations, and nodded emphatically at the end.

‘Very proper, very proper,’ he said. ‘It’s high time that was cleared up. And so Bess Stewart is dead, then? I’m sorry to hear it, indeed, for she was a bonny girl and a good Christian soul, until she did what she did. That would explain the word from Ettrick, certainly.’

‘From Ettrick?’ Gil prompted, when the stout priest did not continue.

Sir William nodded deprecatingly. ‘News came in this week that the beann nighe had been heard at Ettrick, washing linen at the ford, on May Day at twilight.’

‘Washing? What is this?’ asked the mason, perplexed.

Sir William sighed. ‘It is a pagan thing, an evil spirit I suppose, and I should stamp out the belief, but to be honest, maisters, I’ve heard it myself once or twice. If you are near a ford by night and you hear a sound like someone washing linen, slapping the wet cloth on the stones, go away quickly and do not disturb the washer-woman, or she will have the shirt off your back. And then who knows what will happen? But if she is heard, a death in the parish follows.’

‘But what does she wash?’ asked the mason. ‘How can you tell it is a spirit?’

‘Who washes clothes by twilight?’ said Gil. ‘I have heard of such a thing, in my nurse’s tales. Did one of the old heroes not meet her? Finn, or one of those?’

‘Aye, very possibly,’ said Sir William. ‘Anyway she was heard at Ettrick, so they were all waiting for a death in the parish, and when nobody seemed like to die and there were no accidents, of course the entire parish began to reckon up who was off the island that she might wash for. They will certainly believe it was for Bess, if she is dead.’

‘She is dead,’ Gil agreed, ‘under sad circumstances. There is no doubt it was secret murder, forethought murder, and I am charged with finding the killer.’

‘Well,’ said Sir William. ‘And how can I help you? What do you need to know?’

‘Tell me about Bess Stewart; Gil said. ‘Did you know her, sir?’

‘I baptized them both. Bonny bairns they were, too, her and her sister. Well-schooled, obedient lassies, able to read and write their names, modest and well-behaved for all their mother died when they were young.’ He sighed. ‘I wedded her to Edward Stewart, and I witnessed his will. He was a good man, and a loving husband to her. Then her good-brother handfasted her to the man Sempill, after Edward died, and I think she was never happy again.’

‘You witnessed her first husband’s will,’ Gil repeated. ‘Do you remember the terms? How was the outright bequest worded?’

‘Oh, I canny mind that. It was near ten years ago; Dalrymple pointed out. ‘She’d lose the tierce when she remarried, of course, but there was the house, and I suppose the use of the furnishings.’

‘That would be the house she left when she ran off with the harper,’ said the mason, cutting another slice off the pie.

‘Aye, it was. That was a mystery.’

‘Tell us about it,’ Gil prompted. ‘It was November, wasn’t it? Before Martinmas?’

‘It was,’ said Dalrymple, giving him a startled glance. ‘Janet McKirdy the Provost’s wife was full of guilt after it happened, for they’d met in her house at Allhallows E’en when she had the guizers’ play acted in the yard. Then not ten days later the harper left in a night, and Bess Stewart with him.’

‘And what was the mystery?’ asked the mason, chewing. ‘What was it that must be cleared up?’

‘Why, the money,’ said Sir William. ‘She took every penny there was in the house away with her, and the plate, and her jewels, but the next we heard she was in Edinburgh, and living on the harper’s earnings. Whether she’d lost it, or spent it, or given it away, nobody knows.’

‘There was no money in her box,’ said Gil. ‘How much plate would this be?’

‘Edward Stewart was cousin to Ninian Stewart the Provost,’ said Sir William. ‘He was a bien man, very comfortable. I remember a considerable amount of plate when I was in the house. All silver, of course, gold’s not to be found in Rothesay, except when the King’s in residence, but nevertheless …’ He took the last roasted onion and bit into it reflectively. ‘Twenty-five or thirty pounds weight, maybe.’

The mason whistled.

‘Did his kin not reclaim it when she remarried?’ Gil asked.

‘They tried to, but the man Sempill resisted. It was to come to the head court in the February. They made an inventory, and lodged it with Alexander Stewart, and got Sempill to sign it as well. We’re honest folk on Bute, maisters. Well, mostly.’

‘How would she carry that much?’ the mason wondered. ‘It is a great burden, even as far as the shore.’

‘Oh, she’d not go by the shore,’ said Sir William. ‘You can wait days for the right wind, in November. They would go round by Rhubodach, to the ferry.’

‘When was all this discovered?’ Gil asked.

‘Not till the morning. Her good-brother came calling, and found the servants in disarray, and her chamber door shut. It seems she’d barred it with a kist and climbed out of the window. He raised a band to follow, but they’d made good time and she was off the island, so he turned back. Once they got in among the hills, there’d be little hope of finding them.’

‘Burdened by a chest containing twenty-five or thirty pounds of silver,’ said Gil, ‘as well as money and jewels, they had made such good time that a mounted band could not catch them?’

There was a short silence.

‘It is strange, when you look at it,’ admitted Sir William.

‘Who else lived in the house with her?’

‘She’d a waiting-woman, a kinswoman of some sort, and two-three kitchen girls, of course, and two outside men and a pair of swordsmen.’

‘So her kinswoman did not share her chamber? Quite a household.’ Gil pushed the crumbs of his bannock into a heap. ‘That is strange, for the harper’s sister never mentioned that Bess had money. Indeed, she told me that as soon as the bairn could be left, Bess was helping to earn her keep.’

‘There was a bairn, was there? Poor Bess.’ Sir William looked blankly at the empty dishes. ‘Is that all the food there was? Come and leave your scrips in my chamber, and I will lead you to Alexander Stewart.’

The lawyer, it seemed, lived away up the Kirkgait. Having left their baggage in the priest’s stuffy chamber in the loft above the chapel, they went out at the postern, into the busy little town.

There were still a lot of people about, even this late in the afternoon, men from the foreshore in tarry jerkin and hose, shipmasters and merchants in furred woollen gowns and felt hats, Highlanders in shirt and belted plaid. The women gossiping at one street corner wore checked gowns like Ealasaidh’s, those at the next were in good wool. Many of the passers-by greeted Sir William, who had a name and a blessing for everyone.

They turned inland and walked round the castle walls, passing the mercat cross where a man with a tabor and pipe had an audience of children and time-wasters. Sir William, ignoring this, pointed out one of the stone houses as the Provost’s.

‘Same stone as the castle,’ said the mason. ‘I know that soft stuff. You can shape it with axes.’ He stopped. ‘Maister Cunningham, do you need me to help you talk to a lawyer?’

‘I could likely manage without you.’

‘Then I will go and walk about this burgh a little way. I can get back into the castle, no?’

Armed with the password for the day, he set off briskly for the shore, and Gil and the stout priest went on inland, Sir William still nodding to passers-by.

‘I wonder is the Provost here any kin of Stewart of Minto who is Provost of Glasgow,’ Gil speculated. ‘I know they say All Stewarts areny sib to the King, but are they all sib to one another?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Sir William seriously. ‘Although I believe a cousin of Janet McKirdy’s wedded one of the Stewarts of Minto a few years back. And that is Bess Stewart’s own house,’ he continued, pausing casually a few tofts along before a substantial timber-framed building, set back from the roadway. Before it, at some time, someone had made a small pleasure-garden, which was now struggling against the depredations of the roving hens. ‘It seems she got out of that window there.’

Gil eyed the window. It was just under the thatch, twenty feet above the ground, and the shuttered lower portion was no more than eighteen inches deep.

‘Was there a rope?’ he asked. ‘Or marks of a ladder? What time would this have been?’

‘You think she might not have climbed down? I thought the same,’ confessed Sir William. ‘And another thing I thought was, a woman’s kirtle is a lot of cloth. Would it all fit through there?’

‘Did you mention this at the time?’

‘What would be the point? She’d run off, poor lass, and her kin were pinning their mouths up about it. Who was I to argue with her good-brother’s version?’

Gil nodded absently, studying the house. It was not being well maintained. He could see several places where the clay and plaster infill between the sturdy timbers of the frame was crumbling under its limewash, exposing the wattle.

That rose will be through the wall shortly,’ he commented. ‘What is it, a white one? We have one in Rottenrow which spreads like that. Who was covering up for whom, I wonder?’

‘I wondered if her sister might have helped her,’ said Dalrymple. ‘It would be a sin, of course, to help a woman to leave her lawful husband, but they were very close. If Bess asked for help Mariota would give it. I thought likely Mariota’s man suspected that had happened, for he dosed up his own house in Rothesay, just down yonder, and moved all out to the farm at Ettrick. He would beat her for it himself rather than have it known publicly that he couldn’t control her.’

‘The waiting-woman knew nothing?’ Gil swung his foot at a hen which was inspecting his boots. It flapped away, squawking, and two more hurried over to see what it had found.

‘She slept at the back of the house. The first she heard was when the servants woke her.’ The priest’s breathing had settled down. He moved on, walking slowly among the homeward-bound workers. ‘It’s let now, of course. Probably for a good rent, it’s a good family in it. Another cousin of Ninian Stewart’s. No, I have it wrong, a cousin of his wife’s.’

There were a few more timber-framed houses, none quite as grand as Bess Stewart’s house, interspersed with long low cottages of field stones. Beyond these were even lower structures which, to Gil’s astonishment, proved to be composed of alternating layers of turf and stone, their roofs turfed over and sprouting happily. Women in loose chequered gowns called in Gaelic from house to house as they passed, until they came to one with two goats tethered above the door, and four or five half-naked children in successive sizes tumbling in the street next to its rounded end.

‘This is Alexander’s house,’ said Sir William, turning off the main track towards the door. The children halted their playing to stare as he shouted something in Gaelic.

There was a reply from within, and the leather curtain across the doorway swung back. A woman in a plaid and a checked gown stared at them, then made a gesture of invitation with a dignity quite unimpaired by the fact that she was barefoot and had a sucking child in the crook of her other arm.

Inside the house the smell was almost solid. To the right, clearly, the goats, the hens and at least one cow spent their nights.To the left a peat fire glowed on a square hearth, and by its light a man rose from a stool and bowed to them. He was clad, like the harper, in a saffron shirt and buskins. Several of the children squeezed in past Gil to crowd into a corner, watching the guests with big dark eyes. The priest offered a blessing, to which they all said fervently ‘Amen!’ with a strange turn to the vowels. Then he made a speech, apparently introducing Gil and explaining his errand.

I can speak Latin,’ said the man of the house at length. ‘It is a sight of the title deeds to Bess Stewart’s property you are after, yes?’

‘I need to know who benefits,’ Gil said. At the sound of his voice the children giggled, and their father turned and spoke sharply in Gaelic. They sobered immediately. ‘The title deeds, the terms of Edward Stewart’s will, Bess’s father’s will, the conjunct fee or whatever it was, Bess’s own will if she made one. I need to know what happens to all that property now, because I suspect that is how I will learn who killed Bess Stewart.’

‘You don’t ask much,’ said the other man drily. ‘I have the title deeds and the two wills here in one of the protocol books, I can be finding them for you in a little while, but the other, the conjunct fee, I never drew up. I can tell you it was conjunct fee, it will certainly be going to the husband now, but I have not the details. And if she was making a will, it was not when she was in Rothesay. I have no knowledge of such a thing.’ He looked about him, and spoke to the children. Two of them dragged a long bench near the fire. ‘Be seated, guests in my house, and the woman of the house will bring you something. I will be looking for the papers.’

He threw a brief word to the woman, who was settling the baby in a strong-smelling nest of sheepskins at the foot of what must be their bed. She straightened up, fastening her gown, and moved to a carved court-cupboard opposite the door. Her man made for the shadows in the corner, and began to search in a kist full of books and papers.

The refreshment proved to be oatcakes with green cheese, and usquebae in a pewter cup. Gil drank his share of the spirit off quickly, to get it over with, and to his dismay was handed another cupful. The oatcakes were light and crisp, and the cheese was excellent. He said as much to the woman, and got a blank smile, until Sir William translated. The smile broadened, and she offered him more, but he refused in dumbshow, fearing he might be eating the children’s supper.

‘There is plenty,’ Sir William assured him. ‘Mairead makes excellent oatcakes.’

Gil was about to answer when two more of the children tumbled in from the street shouting in Gaelic. A man’s voice spoke indistinctly outside and Gil turned to listen, sure he knew the accents. The woman, pulling her plaid over her head, slipped out past the tall desk which stood at the light, and. Gil heard her speaking softly beyond the leather curtain.

‘Here it is, maister,’ said Alexander Stewart. He brought an armful of books forward into the firelight. ‘If we take it to the door there will be light for reading.’

He moved to the door, and pulled back the curtain. Gil, following him, was aware of swift movement and the certainty that someone had ducked round the end of the house. The woman went past them into the shadows, to offer Sir William another oatcake, and the lawyer opened one of the books on the desk to show Gil his own copy of the first of the documents.

‘Torquil Stewart of Ettrick,’ he said. ‘His will. You see, he left his property divided between the two daughters, held in their own right, to leave as they see fit.’

‘This is very clear,’ said Gil. ‘A nice piece of work.’

‘He was very clear about his wishes himself,’ said Maister Stewart modestly. Seen by daylight, he was dark of hair and eye like his children, the neatly combed elf-locks hanging round a pale, intent face. He seemed, Gil thought, to be not much past thirty. ‘He had raised his daughters to know how to run a property, he trusted them to go on as he had taught them. And this is Edward Stewart’s will,’ he continued, setting open another book. ‘More complicated, because more clauses, but in essence the same in respect of the property itself. The house outright to his wife Elizabeth, in her own right, to dispose of as she sees fit. The use of the contents of the house entire, with provision for it to be inventoried at his death, for the rest of her life. Requirement that she does not sell any item, and replaces items worn out or broken. All the liferent goods to revert to his kin after her death. In fact when the house was let the remainder of the contents went to Ninian Stewart like the residue of the estate.’

‘This matter of the plate and money is very strange,’ Gil said. He skimmed down the careful Latin sentences of Edward Stewart’s will, aware out of the tail of his eye of a steady sauntering of passers-by out in the street, as Maister Stewart’s neighbours came to admire his Latin conversation with the colleague from Glasgow. ‘There is no sign that she came to the harper with a fortune in her kist. If it were to surface, whose would it be?’

‘Interesting,’ said Alexander Stewart thoughtfully. ‘The plate would certainly be the Provost’s, like the furniture. The money I suspect was hers, or perhaps her husband’s. It would have been rent for the land at Kingarth and the two farms at Ettrick, all good land. Some of the rent would be in kind, you understand, and some in coin. As to jewellery, some of that would be paraphernal, and should return to her kin, or I suppose it now belongs to the bairn, but any the husband gave her would revert to him. All subject to discussion, I suspect. An interesting question, Maister Cunningham.’

‘Had she made a will herself?’ Gil asked.

‘Not one that I knew of, since her second marriage.’

‘I wish we had a copy of the conjunct settlement. What was the value of the two properties? You say the land at Kingarth is good? I had heard otherwise.’

‘I do not know who could have told you that,’ said Maister Stewart disapprovingly. ‘It is very good land. Further, it is beside the St Blane’s Fair gathering-place, so it is used for grazing and pound-land at the Fair, and the rents for that every year would ransom a galley. As for the other, it lies between the castle and the harbour, and is rented to two merchants for a good figure. One of them has built a barn on his portion.’

‘I saw it as we came into the bay. Trade through the burgh is rewarding, then?’

‘Rothesay is the only burgh in the Western Isles licensed to trade overseas,’ said Maister Stewart with some pride. This is why I moved here last year, to be closer to the centre of trade. There was no man of law here anyway, I came here often or folk came to me in Inveraray to draw up documents, and after I lost two or three clients in bad weather I thought, well, well, better to move the inkstand than the mounting-block.’

‘Very wise. I hope it has been good for business.’ Gil, only half attending, looked from one will to the other. ‘These properties,’ he said slowly, ‘I think are now the bairn’s. There is no indication that either husband had a claim on them. Do you have paper to spare? Would you object to my having a true copy? I need to show them to John Sempill, and to my uncle, who acts for the bairn. And can you tell me who was the grantor of the conjunct fee? Who gave them these two valuable properties? And who is collecting the rents while Bess has been away from Bute?’

The same man in both cases. Even if I did not draw up the deeds, I know that. It will be the good-brother. Her sister’s man, out at Ettrick.’

‘And who is he?’

‘Alexander makes a good living,’ said Sir William as they made their way back down towards the castle. The street was much quieter now, with only a last few townspeople making their way home before curfew. ‘He is the only man of law in Rothesay at present, and for some distance round about, and-he-is a good lawyer.’

‘Where did he study, do you know?’ Gil asked. ‘I meant to ask him, but we were so busy writing these copies that it slipped my mind.’

‘St Andrews, I think. Yes, surely. If it had been Glasgow I would have remembered, because he would have met David — your uncle. Yes, indeed, I am sure it was St Andrews. He is Master of Arts as well as Bachelor of Laws. He told me so.’

‘He is certainly a good lawyer, and his Latin is excellent. Why does he stay here? Could he not do better in Stirling or Edinburgh?’

‘I believe he is happy here. There is plenty of business. Besides, he is one of the wealthiest men in the burgh,’ said Sir William with vicarious pride.

‘Wealthy?’ said Gil despite himself.

‘Oh, yes. Did you not see the court-cupboard at the door, and that desk? Those, cost him a penny or two. He gives very generously to the poor, and they always have food on the table. I have eaten there myself when the Provost has been invited, and I am sure you could not have dined better in Glasgow. And he goes daily in that saffron shirt.’

But his children played half-naked in the street, and they all slept under one roof with the cattle, like any poor peasant and his family. Could I live like that, Gil thought, if I remained a layman?

Entering by the postern gate as the curfew bell began to ring across the burgh, Gil and the stout priest found Maistre Pierre seated in the castle courtyard enjoying the evening light and watching the guard detail gathering by the main gateway.

‘And was that helpful?’ he asked as they reached him.

‘Oh, very useful,’ said Dalrymple immediately. ‘Maister Stewart was very helpful, very helpful. Maister Cunningham has seen and copied all the documents he needs, I think. Forgive me, maisters, I must say Compline. I believe it is late.’

‘How was your walk?’

‘Interesting.’ The mason rose to follow Sir William into the chapel. ‘That cog at the wharf had lately been to Nantes. I had a word with her skipper.’

Gil looked at him consideringly.

‘You have more news than that; he observed. ‘I can tell.’

‘I have indeed.’

‘And so have I. What is yours?’

‘Guess who I saw in the town?’

Gil paused in the chapel doorway. A seagull screamed from the wall-walk, and then broke into a long derisive cackling. As well it might, he thought. I have been slow.

‘Was it by any chance,’ he said, suddenly sure of the half-heard voice at the door of the lawyer’s cottage, ‘was it one of the gallowglasses? Neil or Euan?’

‘It was,’ said the mason, slightly disappointed, ‘though I do not know which. Did you see him too?’

‘No, but I heard him. Now it is your turn. Can you guess who is Bess Stewart’s good-brother, the man who is collecting her rents and who granted the two properties in conjunct fee?’

‘Now that,’ said the mason triumphantly, ‘is easy. It must be James Campbell.’