The Harper's Quine

Chapter Nine

‘Oh, aye, she had a new sweetheart,’ said Kat Paton. She looked speculatively from Alys to Gil, and giggled.

Agnes Hamilton, when asked for the name of the girl closest to the dead Bridie, had become flustered, counted off her entire household one by one, and finally selected this one. She was a small, lively, chattering creature, who had eyed Alys warily at first but seeing no signs of pepper had accompanied her willingly. She was not at all overwhelmed by sitting with her in the best bedchamber talking to a man of law, and Gil was having difficulty getting a word in.

‘She told us all about it when she quarrelled with the mason’s laddie,’ she assured them, ‘and she wept for him a day or two, so she did, and then she cheered up. So I asked her, and of course she said not, but I kept at her about it, and finally she said she’d a new leman, and not to tell anyone. So I didn’t. Well, not hardly, only Sibby and Jess next door.’

Alys, with fewer qualms than Gil, cut briskly across this.

‘Did she tell you anything about him, Kat?’

‘Oh, no. Well, she wouldn’t, would she? But I think maybe he had money. He gave her a great bunch of ribbons for May Day. Only he wasn’t in Glasgow on May Eve for the dancing, so she said she’d mind the kitchen if she could get away on May Day after dinner, and we all went off and left her happy enough.’

‘Did she go out on May Day?’ Alys broke in ruthlessly.

‘Indeed she did, with her new ribbons in her hair, and came back late. She wouldn’t tell me where she’d been, but it had been good, you could tell.’ Kat giggled merrily, then suddenly sobered and crossed herself. ‘She’s dead, poor soul, and no in her grave yet, I shouldn’t be talking about her this way.’

‘When did she first meet him, do you think?’ Gil asked, seizing his chance.

Kat looked up and made a face, shrugging her shoulders.

‘Last week sometime,’ she said vaguely.

‘Can you be more certain than that? Had she met him on Easter Monday?’

‘No,’ she said, and then more confidently, ‘no, for her brother that’s a ploughman out at Partick came to see her. And it wasn’t the next day, for that was the day we burned the dinner. Nor the next, because …’ Kat giggled again, but would explain no further. ‘I know!’ she said suddenly. ‘It was at the market last week. She came back looking happier than she had since Good Friday, and she slipped out again after her dinner and when she came back she had the ribbons. And she saw him again on the Friday,’ she went on fluently, ‘but after that he wasn’t in Glasgow. Not till May Day.’

‘What about yesterday morning?’ Gil asked. ‘Did you all go out to the market together?’

‘Oh, yes. Well, not together, exactly, the mistress called Bridie back to tell her where to ask for the beets she wanted, so she was behind me a bit.’

‘And did you see her in the market?’

‘No,’ she said regretfully. ‘I was looking, for I wanted a sight of her new man. I thought I saw her a couple of times, but I was wrong.’

‘So you haven’t seen the new sweetheart?’ said Alys.

‘No. Well, just the once.’

‘And can you tell us what he looks like?’ asked Gil.

‘Just ordinary, really,’ she said dismissively. ‘Not as goodlooking as my Geordie,’ she added, and giggled again.

‘How tall is he? What colour is his hair?’ Gil persisted.

‘I never got a right look at him,’ said Kat evasively. ‘Just a quick glance. I never saw his hair, for he’d a hat on.’

‘A hat? Not a blue bonnet?’

‘A big sort of green velvet hat with a feather in it,’ she said, ‘all falling over his eyes. Daft-looking, I thought it was.’

‘What else did he have on?’ Alys asked.

Kat looked shifty. ‘I never saw him very well,’ she admitted.

Alys studied her for a moment, and then said shrewdly, ‘Were you somewhere you shouldn’t have been?’

The bright eyes rolled sideways at her.

‘I won’t tell, and nor will Maister Cunningham.’

‘Unless it becomes necessary in the course of justice,’ said Gil scrupulously.

Kat rubbed the toe of her shoe along the line of the floorboards.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I just happened to be looking out of the window of the maister’s closet, see, when she came back on May Day. There was no harm, really, seeing that the maister was out at supper at the Walkinshaws and no in his closet. And if the marchpane suckets got dislodged when I was there, that the mistress put to dry and never told us, well, it wasn’t — ‘

‘I’m sure it was completely accidental,’ said Alys. ‘And certainly nothing to do with Maister Cunningham.’

‘Oh, quite!’ Gil agreed hastily.

‘And the closet overlooks the street?’ said Alys. ‘So you got a sight of them from above.’

‘Yes.’ The cracked leather of the shoe went back and forth. ‘So I didn’t really see him very well. But I did see one thing,’ said Kat, sitting up straighter. ‘It wasn’t any of the laddies in the town. And he was gey fine dressed, to go with the hat. I thought he was a gentleman.’

Gil, leaving Alys at the White Castle to oversee the dinner, went on down the High Street, taking more care over where he was going this time. Round the Tolbooth, into the Thenawgait, he passed a baker’s shop where hot loaves steamed on the boards, the apothecary’s where the scent of spices tickled his nose, the burgh’s one armourer with two sullen apprentices rottenstoning a breastplate at the door. He reached the Fishergait without straying from the route, and there encountered Ealasaidh buying bread.

‘Good day to you,’ she said, unsurprised. ‘Himself is waiting on you.’

‘You were expecting me?’

‘Himself is, certain. He woke me to say you would be here, he had seen it. It is a thing he does now and then.’

‘He did not see what came to Bess, I suppose?’

‘If he did he has not told me.’ She took the change the baker’s man offered her and turned towards her lodging. ‘I am troubled about him, maister. His women come and go, though never none like Bess, and I have never seen him shaken like this, not even when the servant lassie at Banff drowned herself. He is still saying he may never play again.’

She strode through the pend, nodding to neighbours as she emerged into the yard.

‘And Eoghan Campbell was here again yesterday before Vespers,’ she said, ‘getting another crack with her in there, and then round our door asking where was Bess’s things. I sent him away,’ she said with some satisfaction.

The harper was seated in the great chair where Gil had seen him before. He was in formal dress again, as if for a great occasion, finished off with the gold chain and velvet cap which he had worn at the Cross on May Day. Gil, distracted, counted hastily and discovered this was still only the fourth of May. The harper had risen and was bowing to him.

‘A blessing on the house,’ he said.

‘And on the guest in the house,’ said the harper. ‘Good morning to you, maister. Woman, bring refreshment for our guest.’

To Gil’s relief, Ealasaidh brought him not usquebae but ale in a wooden beaker and a platter of fresh bannocks. He drank the health of his hosts, and hesitated, wondering where to broach the subject of Sempill’s offer.

The harper, after a moment, gave him help.

‘It is as a man of law you are here, not my son’s tutor,’ he stated. ‘Put your case, maister.’

‘It is hardly a case,’ said Gil. My son’s tutor? What does the old boy mean? he wondered.

‘It is a heavy thing,’ said the harper. ‘The burden of it woke me. Speak, and make the matter clear to us.’

‘It is a word from John Sempill of Muirend,’ said Gil.

Putting matters as fairly as he could, he explained Sempill’s offer. Ealasaidh listened with growing fury, and as soon as Gil stopped speaking she exploded with, ‘The ill-given kithan! The hempie! Does he think we would let a gallows-breid like him raise Bess’s bairn?’

‘Woman,’ said her brother, ‘be silent. He has not offered to raise the bairn.’

‘He has not,’ agreed Gil. ‘The offer is only to recognize the child as his heir. I think he is aware that that would give him some control over it, and hence the promise to see you right.’

‘Does he mean money?’ said Ealasaidh suspiciously.

‘Those were his words,’ said Gil. ‘I offer no interpretation.’

The harper sat silent for a little, his blank stare directed at the empty hearth.

‘What would your advice be?’ he asked at length.

‘Aenghus!’

‘Let Maister Cunningham answer, woman. We must do something for the bairn, for we can hardly be trailing him about Scotland with Nancy, and it is best to consider everything. Maister?’

‘I am acting for Sempill of Muirend in this,’ Gil pointed out, rather uncomfortable. The harper bowed his head with great stateliness. ‘However, if I was advising a friend in such a case, I would suggest at least talking to Sempill, to find out what more he intends. There might be some benefit in it — ‘

‘But at what cost!’ exclaimed Ealasaidh.

‘Further, if you were to pursue the matter, I would recommend that a written contract be entered into, and that it be made out with great care, to protect the bairn in the first instance. He is Bess Stewart’s heir, you realize that, with land in his own right so soon as the matter is settled — ‘

‘Is that what Sempill is after?’ asked the harper. The boy’s land?’

‘I do not know that,’ said Gil.

‘Aenghus, we cannot trust him! Bess did not trust him! He will smother the bairn as soon as he gets his hands on him, he only wants the property — ‘

‘Bess’s family could contest that if the bairn were to die in infancy,’ Gil observed.

‘And he will not love him!’

‘That I think may be true,’ said Gil.

The harper suddenly rose to his feet. ‘Woman, give me the small harp,’ he said. She stared at him, and slowly reached out and lifted the smallest clarsach. Clasping it, he paused for a moment, then pronounced, ‘This is my word to John Sempill of Muirend. I will meet him, upon conditions, to talk more of this, though I promise nothing.’

‘And the conditions?’ prompted Gil.

‘That yourself be present to see fairness, and that another man of law be present on the bairn’s account. Myself can speak for myself.’

‘Those are reasonable conditions; said Gil formally. ‘I will bear your word to john Sempill.’

‘And then he began tuning the harp.’

‘It would need it, by now,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘Have another bannock.’

Gil, turning in at the pend of the White Castle, had met Alys hurrying out to help at the Hamiltons’ house. Greeting him with pleasure, she had sent him in to share her father’s noon bite of bannocks and potted herring, and hastened on her way.

‘Oh, it did. The point was that Ealasaidh was fearing that he might not play again. So whatever else Sempill has done, he has got the harper’s hands on the harp again. I won’t tell him that.’

‘What will you tell him?’

‘Exactly what McIan told me. It was a formal statement of intent, given with the harp in his hands — it is binding.’

‘I had not known that.’ The mason chewed thoughtfully. ‘Who will act for the bairn?’

‘My uncle may. Failing him, there are other men of law in the Chanonry. I would be more comfortable acting for John Sempill if I knew his intention regarding the bairn, and particularly if I were not investigating the murder of his wife.’

‘And of that poor girl.’

‘Indeed. Did Alys tell you what we learned from her friend? A very poor witness, but it is reasonably clear what she saw.’

‘It is clear that Bridie had a rich lover, but how much can we rely on the other girl’s description? I thought all servant lassies sighed for a rich lover.’

‘Some are more practical than that. Kat herself is winching with one of Andrew Hamilton’s journeymen. Her description is not very detailed, but listen — there is more. Balthasar of Liege stopped me this morning.’

He summarized the musician’s observation.

‘Aha,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And you saw James Campbell in the market yesterday. What time would that be, think you?’

Gil cast his mind back.

‘It feels like last week,’ he complained. ‘It was before I met Euphemia Campbell and her Italian, and when Alys caught up with us at Greyfriars it was just Nones. Say about half-way between Sext and Nones, at the foot of the High Street near the Tolbooth. He was talking to a lassie with a basket.’

‘He was, was he?’

‘We don’t know which lassie it was,’ Gil pointed out. ‘As you said, every woman in the burgh was out at the market. No, I must go back to the Sempill house and speak to James Campbell, to Euan, and to Sempill himself.’

‘Shall you ask your uncle to, act for the harper’s bairn?’

‘Not to say ask. I will tell him the story, and he will likely offer.’

The mason drained his beaker and set it down.

‘I will come up the hill with you,’ he said. ‘To cut short the noontime football and see what Wattie has done. Will you ask your uncle if I may call on him after Vespers?’

The mastiff Doucette was barking. Gil heard her as he parted from the mason at the Wyndhead, baying angrily like a dog confronting a larger enemy. Several other dogs added their comments occasionally, but the deep regular note continued while he walked up Rottenrow past a group of children playing a singing-game. Entering the gateway of the Sempill house, he was surprised to see Euphemia, seated on the mounting-block and teasing the dog by throwing it a crust from time to time, watched by her silent Italian. He paused, studying her. She was pretty enough to attract any man, and that trick she had of clinging to Sempill’s arm and smiling up at him was certainly one which would have appealed to Hughie.

Euphemia tore off another crust and threw it to the dog with a graceful movement, the wide green velvet sleeves of her gown falling back from her hands.

The musician’s dark gaze fell on Gil, and he said something to his mistress. She looked round, slid off the mounting-block and came towards the gate, sidestepping quickly as the mastiff rushed at her snarling, and smiled brilliantly at him, pushing back the fall of her French hood with a graceful movement.

‘Maister Cunningham, how nice to see you. Have you found who killed Bridie Miller yet? Will the serjeant take someone up for it?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gil, crossing the yard to meet her, staying carefully outside the mastiff’s range. ‘Good day to you, madam. I have a — ‘

‘Oh, but he must! Have you never a word of advice for him? Was it the same ill-doer who killed Bess? Is Glasgow full of people killing young women?’ She shuddered, biting a knuckle. ‘None of us is safe. What if something came to that little poppet who summoned you yesterday? Such a well-mannered child, a pity she’s so plain.’ Gil recognized Alys with difficulty. ‘Or to Mally here, or those bairns out at the Cross?’

‘Calma, calma, donna mia,’ said the Italian beside her. She threw him a glance, and smiled again at Gil, a little tremulously.

‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘What brings you here, Maister Cunningham?’

‘I have a word for Maister Sempill,’ said Gil, ‘and I wanted to speak to your brother. Are they at home?’

‘I think John’s in the stables.’ She lifted the bread from the mounting-block, looked down at it, and threw another lump, rewarded by further round of barking. ‘Ask them at the house.’

Gil left her breaking a new loaf, and climbed the forestair to the house door, aware of the lutenist’s dark gaze on his back. Hughie, he reflected, if confronted by that lovely smile, those taking ways, would not have troubled to resist Euphemia. And how did he feel, he wondered, when he realized what she had cost him? Not guilty, most like. Few things were ever Hughie’s fault.

The door stood open, but the hall within was deserted. After some calling, he raised Euphemia’s companion, who emerged from a door at the far end of the hall exclaiming, ‘Your pardon, maister! I never heard you, the dog’s that loud. Oh, it’s Maister Cunningham, is it, the man of law? And what are you after today?’

Gil explained his errand, and she sniffed.

‘Maister James is in the tower room with his books, I think Sempill’s out the back docking pups’ tails. Here, you go down this stair.’

She turned towards another doorway, picking up her dark wool skirts.

‘No need to trouble you,’ Gil said. ‘I can find my own way.’

‘Oh, it’s no trouble,’ she said a trifle grimly, as if she was protecting the house from unauthorized invasion. She stumped down the stair, the rosary and hussif at her belt clacking together at each step, and said over her shoulder, in unconscious echo of her mistress, ‘And have you found who’s running about knifing women? We’ll none of us be able to sleep till someone’s taken up for it. Euphemia’s quite ill with the worry, the wee sowl, and it’s not good for her.’

‘I’m still searching,’ said Gil, emerging after her into the reeking stable yard. John Sempill was just going into the cart-shed opposite, but seeing Gil he turned and waited for him to cross the yard.

‘Well, Gil?’

‘Well, John. Finished with the pups?’

‘Oh, that was an hour since. I’d ha been quicker with it, but Euphemia helped me.’

‘Oh, she never!’ exclaimed Mistress Murray. ‘In her green velvet, too! It’ll be all over blood.’ She turned and hastened back across the yard.

Gil, suppressing an image of Euphemia Campbell being stripped of the green velvet gown, said, ‘I’ve had a word with the harper, john.’

‘Aye?’

He recited the statement the harper had delivered. Sempill glared at him.

‘Better than nothing,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Aye, I’ll meet him, and his conditions. Do you want to name someone yourself to stand for the brat, or will I find a man?’

‘I thought to ask my uncle.’

Sempill shot him another look, scowling.

‘Aye,’ he said at length. ‘That makes it clear I’m dealing straight with him.’

‘It does that, John,’ agreed Gil.

Sempill opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and finally said in exasperation, ‘So when can we meet? I need to get this over with.’

‘I have still to speak to my uncle, but if he was free this evening-’

‘Not this evening. I’m promised to Clem Walkinshaw.’

‘Then it needs be a few days hence. I’ve an errand that takes me out of town.’

‘What errand? I thought you were hunting down Bess’s killer?’

‘I am. This is to that end. What can you tell me about Bess’s property in Bute?’

‘In Bute? There’s the two farms from her father, and the burgage plot from Edward Stewart, with the house on it. Then there’s the two joint feus, which will be mine now, I suppose, little use though they are. One’s a stretch of Kingarth covered in stones, and the other’s between the castle and the sea. Gets burned every time the burgh’s raided, it seems. God, I’ll get back at him for that. Little benefit she’ll have got from the rents, mind you,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘And the other property? Whose is that now?’

‘What the devil’s it to do with you?’

‘It may have some bearing on her death.’

Sempill stared at Gil. ‘Are you still harping on that one? It was some broken man, skulking in the kirkyard, that’s obvious.’

‘Not to me. Do you know whose the other property is now?’

‘I suppose,’ said Sempill, chewing his lip, ‘it depends on how it was left. Alexander Stewart would know, he likely drew up both wills. Is that where you’re going? To poke about Rothesay asking questions that don’t concern you?’

‘They concern your wife’s death, which I am investigating,’ Gil said. ‘Another thing, John. Did you know that that pair of gallowglasses knew your wife before?’

Sempill stared at him.

‘Of course I did, gomerel. Where do you think I got them from? She hired them, after Stirling field when the country was unsettled and I was away. John of the Isles was raging up and down the west coast, and who knew what he’d do next. So of course I sent Neil down with the message for her on May Day. I knew he’d deliver it to the right woman.’

‘Can I speak to them?’

‘You can not. They’re away an errand. Both of them.’

‘When will they return?’

‘When they’ve completed it, I hope. I’ll send them over to you when they get back, but it’ll likely be Sunday or Monday.’

‘Thank you. Then can I speak to Maister Campbell of Glenstriven?’

James Campbell was in the chamber at the top of the wheel stair, where Gil had first spoken to the household. He was seated by the window, one expensively booted leg crossed over the other, with a book of Latin poetry in his hands, but he closed this politely enough, keeping a finger in his place, and allowed Gil to take him back over the events of May Day without revealing anything new.

‘Where is this leading?’ he asked at length. ‘I have answered these questions before.’

‘Some new detail might emerge,’ said Gil inventively. ‘Now — do you have a green velvet hat? What shape is it?’

‘This one, you mean?’ Campbell nodded at the gown on the floor beside him, and lifted it to untangle a hat from the folds of material. ‘See for yourself.’

Gil turned the hat in his hand. It was a floppy bag-like object, with a couple of seagull feathers secured to one side by a brooch with a green stone. It smelled of musk and unwashed hair.

‘And were you wearing this,’ he said carefully, ‘when you were in Glasgow last market day? Not yesterday, but a week ago?’

‘I likely was,’ said Campbell easily. ‘I stayed here, and left that here with my other gear.’

‘How long were you in Glasgow?’

‘A few days — from the Wednesday to the Saturday. Then I went out to Muirend where Sempill was, to persuade my sister home. I’m still trying, without much success.’

‘And that was when you met Bridie Miller?’

There was a silence.

‘It was,’ said Campbell finally.

‘When did you last see her?’

The green eyes flickered. Gil could almost hear the other man recognizing that it was useless to deny it. With a barely perceptible hesitation, Campbell admitted, ‘On May Day. Before Compline.’

‘That was why you were late to the service?’

‘It was. But Neil came in just ahead of me, and Bess was live when he left her. That’s certain enough. And before you ask, yes, I did see the two of them in the kirkyard. They were just going into the trees as I came through the gate, and Neil crossed to the south door and went into the church before me.’

‘I am looking at what happened to Bridie,’ Gil said. ‘It is likely but not necessary that the two deaths are connected.’

‘Is that what it seems to you?’ said Campbell, his tone challenging. ‘An exercise in logic?’

‘No,’ said Gil a little defensively, ‘but it helps. Now, I saw you in the market yesterday,’ he continued, going on the attack, ‘talking to another servant lass. What was in her basket?’

‘Her basket?’ repeated Campbell. Gil waited. ‘Green stuff. Let me think. A pair of smoked fish, a package of laces and a great bundle of something green. Long narrow leaves.’ His fingers described them. ‘I know — leeks.’

‘You seem very sure of that,’ Gil commented. Campbell grinned without humour, showing his teeth in the same way his sister did.

‘I offer you the advice for nothing, brother: there’s always a good line to be spun from a lassie’s marketing. Believe me, they love it if you take an interest in what they have bought.’

‘Thank you,’ said Gil politely. Try spinning that line with a girl who reads Chaucer and Thomas a Kempis, he thought. ‘What were you talking about this time, apart from leeks and smoked fish?’

‘Where was Bridie.’ The handsome face with its lopsided mouth twisted. ‘And she, poor lass, was probably getting stabbed about then, by what you said. I had trysted to meet her after Sext by St Mary’s down the Thenawgait and she never showed. It was another lassie from the same household I was speaking to, Maister Cunningham. She said they had all left the house before Bridie, but she’d seen her at first up and down the market. I looked further, but I never saw her, and then you told me last evening she was dead, poor wee limmer.’

‘So you never saw her yesterday?’

‘That’s what I have just said.’

‘Do you know the name of the girl you were speaking to?’

‘No, but she was certainly one of Agnes Hamilton’s household, for I asked that.’

Gil set the hat aside and said, getting to his feet, ‘Thank you, Maister Campbell. That is all I wish to ask you just now.’

Something like surprise crossed James Campbell’s face, but he rose likewise and bowed. When Gil left he was still standing, holding his closed Horace, looking thoughtful.

Gil made his way down the stairs and out to the yard, which he crossed in a wide curve to avoid the furious mastiff, with a nagging feeling of questions unasked. There was something he had missed, or not uncovered, or not noticed, about the whole business. Perhaps in Rothesay, he thought, crossing Rottenrow to his uncle’s house. All may be clearer from a distance.

Maggie Baxter was disinclined to talk.

‘Aye, I did speak to Mally Bowen,’ she said, ‘but she had little enough to tell me. Dead between Sext and Nones, she estimated, no struggle, not forced. There was blood on the front of her kirtle, quite a lot, and a kind of odd smell on her hair. That’s all, Maister Gil, and I’ll thank you to get out of my way till I get the dinner ready. Go on!’ She made shooing motions with her floury hands.

‘Thank you, Maggie,’ said Gil, making for the door. ‘I noticed the smell on her hair too.’ He remembered the kerchief in his purse, and pulled it out. ‘It’s on this. I don’t know what it is, but it’s familiar. You try.’

‘I haven’t the time to be bothered,’ said Maggie, sniffing at the kerchief. ‘Aye, I know it, but I can’t name it the now. It’ll come to me. Now get out my way, you bad laddie, or the dinner will be late!’

Gil left obediently, and went to look for his uncle. Finding him at prayer in his little oratory, he crossed the hall quietly and went up to his garret to find what he needed for the journey.

Over dinner, the Official gave out a. stream of instructions and advice about travel. Gil nodded politely from time to time, and forbore to point out that he had gone to France at eighteen and returned alone five years later.

‘I promised you a docket for the Treasurer,’ his uncle recalled, ‘for funds for the journey, and I’ll give you a letter for William Dalrymple in Rothesay. We were at the College together, and I believe he is still chaplain of St Michael’s. In the castle,’ he added helpfully. ‘And James Henderson has given me a letter for you to take to the steward at the Bishop’s palace. One of them should be able to offer you a bed.’

‘And a bed for Maister Mason,’ Gil pointed out.

‘Indeed.’

‘He bade me ask if he might call on you after Vespers.’

‘Did he so? Well, I’ll be here. And what have you learned today, Gilbert?’

‘Little enough.’

Canon Cunningham listened to Gil’s account of his day while Maggie cleared the table round him, and at length said thoughtfully, ‘James Campbell knew Mistress Sempill was out in the trees. Could he have gone out of the kirk during the service?’

‘He could,’ Gil agreed. ‘He uses a wee thin knife, and he admitted to having slipped away, he said to say a prayer to St James.’

‘Reasonably enough.’

‘But though he might have stabbed the servant lassie, I do not know why he should have killed Bess Stewart. What could he gain from her death?’

‘Some benefit to his sister, perhaps? Many are unaware,’ said the Canon, settling into his lecturer’s manner, ‘of the restrictions which canon law places on the remarriage of adulterers. He may have thought — ‘

‘He has studied at St Andrews and Bologna,’ Gil interrupted.

‘Ah. Well, Gilbert, you must follow the scent where it leads you, and hope you have not gone astray. Meanwhile there is this matter of the harper’s bairn. Do you know, I might act for the laddie. He needs someone to see him right, poor bairn.’

‘That would be a great relief to me,’ Gil said.

His uncle shot him a look, and a crease appeared at the side of his mouth. All he said, however, was, ‘You are enjoying this hunt, aren’t you, Gilbert?’

‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘It seems wrong, when two women have died, but I feel as if I have woken up after months asleep, like the lassie in the old tale.’

‘I hope not,’ said his uncle drily, ‘considering what came to the lassie. Well, well, you must make the most of what God sends you. I will write you out that docket for the Treasury, and then I am for the Consistory, to look over the papers for a matter tomorrow morning. I will be back after Vespers.’

Gil, having exchanged the docket for a satisfactory sum of money, returned to the house and finding his uncle still out retreated to his garret again, to go over the evidence he had collected and to consider what he hoped to find out in Rothesay. Seated cross-legged on his bed, he worked through what he knew, dogged by that same feeling of something missed, or not noticed, or not asked. The man with the best reason for killing Bess Stewart had witnesses to show he had not, including Gil himself. The men with the best opportunities had no reason that he had yet uncovered for doing so. The death of Bridie Miller must be connected, since as he had said to the mason it was not logical to assume two killers with the same method of working, loose at the same time in a town of five thousand souls, but John Sempill had a witness to show he was on his way up the High Street when she died, and if James Campbell was telling the truth he had been down the Thenawgait at Sext waiting for a girl who never showed. Gil himself had seen him only a little later, just beyond the Tolbooth.

‘If he killed Bess,’ he said aloud, ‘then he might have a reason for killing Bridie. But if not the one, then not the other.’

Glancing at the window, he was surprised to realize that it must be well after Vespers. He unlocked his legs, and rubbed the circulation back into them, reflecting that Aristotle had less application to real life than he had hoped.

By one of the hall windows, David Cunningham and the mason were discussing a fine point of contract law over a plate of Maggie’s girdle-cakes. They greeted him with pleasure, but returned immediately to the question of what constituted attendance on site, dark red head and black coif nodding in time to one another’s words. Gil looked in the small cupboard for a wine-cup, and failing to find one made for the kitchen. The mason’s voice floated after him as he went down the stairs.

‘And at Cologne, a friend of mine …’

Maggie and the men were round the kitchen fire, gossiping. Gil found a cup and was returning to the stair when one of the stable-hands said, ‘Maister Gil, did ye know the serjeant’s planning to make an arrest?’

‘I did not,’ said Gil. ‘Who is it?’

‘He never said,’ admitted the man regretfully. ‘But it’s someone for the lassie Miller, that had her throat cut in Blackfriars yard.’

‘It was not her throat,’ said Maggie quickly, with a glance at William the kitchen-boy. ‘I spoke to Mally Bowen that washed her.’

‘And I saw the body,’ said Gil. ‘She was knifed in the ribs, poor lass. When is the serjeant planning this, Tam?’

‘He never said that neither,’ said Tam. ‘Just that he knew who it was. I got this off his man Jaikie when we went to fetch the horses in.’

‘Ah, hearsay,’ said Gil.

‘It’s just as good,’ said Tam. ‘Jaikie knows all the serjeant’s business, he tells me all kind of things.’

‘I hope not,’ said Gil.

‘Never worry, Maister Gil; said Maggie cheerfully. ‘The half of it’s likely made up.’

Up in the hall, the Official and Maistre Pierre had moved on to the question of whether the stoneyard at the quarry qualified as the site. Gil sat down and poured himself wine, quite content to listen to the argument, but they left it unresolved and turned to him.

‘Well, Gilbert,’ said his uncle. ‘I have had a profitable discussion with your friend here. He has a very generous suggestion to make concerning the harper’s bairn which we can put to John Sempill when we can meet him.’

‘John’s out this evening. What would that be?’ Gil asked.

‘Provided the harper agrees,’ stipulated the mason.

‘Oh, understood. But I would be greatly in favour of it, as the boy’s legal adviser. Maister Mason is offering to foster the child into his own household and raise him.’

‘Alys would like that,’ Gil said.

Alys’s father nodded, smiling fondly at the sound of her name. ‘So long as she stays under my roof,’ he added.

‘And we must hope that will continue to be possible.’ The Official glanced at the mason, and a portentous look passed between them. ‘A very profitable evening, Maister Mason.’

‘More than I have had,’ began Gil, and was interrupted by a furious barking.

‘What is going on across the way?’ His uncle craned to look out of the window. ‘Why, there is the serjeant at Sempill’s door.’

The gate to the Sempill yard was open, and through the gateway they could see Serjeant Anderson making his stately way to the house door, taking the long way round past Doucette, who was out at the end of her chain hurling abuse. The burgh’s two constables trailed cautiously after him.

‘Has he decided to arrest John Sempill?’ Gil speculated. Maggie arrived, with another hastily poured jug of wine, and stood staring across the street.

‘I tried to get a word with Tammas Sproull,’ she said with regret, ‘but he was past the kitchen gate before I could speak to him.’

The serjeant vanished into the house, his men after him. Someone emerged briefly to shout at the dog, who went sullenly back to her kennel. Maggie inspected the plate of girdle-cakes and lifted it to be replenished.

‘They’re taking a while,’ she said hopefully. ‘He’s maybe putting up a fight.’

‘He’s not there, whoever it is,’ said Gil, looking along the street. ‘Here they all come-back- from Compline.’

Philip Sempill, James Campbell, resplendent in their expensive clothes, picked their way along the muddy street. Euphemia Campbell and her stout companion followed, the Italian just behind them, and to Gil’s great annoyance one of the two gallowglasses came into sight bringing up the rear.

‘Sempill said those two had gone on an errand. I want to talk to them.’

‘Could that be why he denied them?’ said his uncle, still watching the Sempill house. The returning party crossed the yard, the dog emerged to bark and was cursed back to her kennel, and all six vanished into the house as the serjeant had done. ‘You might as well fetch more girdlecakes, Maggie. They’ll be a while longer.’

On the cue, the door of the Sempill house opened. The mastiff rushed across the yard bellowing threats, and the constables and the gallowglass emerged dragging a struggling figure. The swaying group got itself down the stairs with difficulty, followed by the serjeant. Behind him came a gesticulating James Campbell, seriously impeded by his sister, who was clinging to him and screaming. They could hear her quite clearly above the dog’s clamour.

‘My!’ said Maggie with delight.

‘Who is it?’ said David Cunningham. ‘Who have they arrested?’

‘The Italian,’ said Gil. ‘He’s found his foreigner.’

The serjeant, ignoring the Campbells, sailed across the street to hammer on the Cunningham house door. Maggie, muttering, was already on her way to answer it. They heard her questioning the caller through the spy-hole, then the rattle of the latch, and her feet on the stairs again.

‘It’s Serjeant Anderson,’ she announced unnecessarily, stumping into the hall. ‘Wanting a word with the maister.’

‘And with Maister Gilbert Cunningham and all,’ said the serjeant, proceeding into the room in her wake. ‘Good evening, maisters.’

‘Well, well, Serjeant,’ said the Official, pushing his spectacles up and down his nose. ‘What is this about, then?’

‘Just to inform you, sir,’ said the serjeant, with some relish, ‘that we’ve just lifted the man that knifed Bridie Miller. Seeing Maister Gilbert Cunningham was seeking her the length and breadth of the town these two days, I thought you’d want to know we’ve got the man, since he’s likely the man you want as well.’

‘But what proof have you — ?’ Gil began.

‘Well, I looked at the body,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘and I saw she’d been stabbed with a wee little knife with a long blade. And I thought, Who carries a knife like that? An Italian, that’s who. And where is there an Italian in Glasgow? In Maister Sempill’s house. So we’re just lifting the Italian and his wee knife now, and if you’ll come down to the Tolbooth in the morning, when I’ve got him to confess to my killing, we’ll see if we can get him to confess to your killing.’

‘But that’s not proof!’

‘Proof? We’ll get a confession in no time, and who needs proof then? I’ve a burgh to watch, Maister Cunningham. I’ve more to do than go about asking questions,’ said the serjeant kindly. ‘It’s far quicker my way.’

‘Serjeant, I thank you for your offer, but I saw the Italian inside St Mungo’s at the time Bess Stewart was killed. He’s not my man, and I’m not certain he’s the man you’re after either. Why should he kill Bridie Miller?’

‘Why should anyone kill a bonnie lass?’ said the serjeant. ‘One reason or another, no doubt. Now I’d best get back to my men, so if you’ll excuse me, sirs — ‘

‘I’ll come out with you,’ said Gil, as shouting floated up the stairs from the front door.

He and the mason followed Serjeant Anderson down and across the street, where a small crowd had gathered and was watching through the gates with interest as the Italian was dragged across the yard of the Sempill house. The mastiff was adding her contribution, but over the thunderous barking Gil heard a number of comments.

‘What’s he done?’

‘If he’s no guilty now, he will be by the morning.’

‘How will they get a confession? He doesny speak Scots.’

‘That’s no bother. Write something down and make him put his mark to it.’

The lutenist saw Gil and attempted to fling out a beseeching hand.

‘Signore avvocato! Aiutarmi, aiutarmi!’

The man holding his left arm buffeted him casually round the head, and he went limp.

‘What did you do that for?’ said the other man in disgust. ‘Now we’ll have to carry him.’

‘What did he say?’ Gil asked Maistre Pierre.

“‘Maister lawyer, help me.”’

‘What the devil is going on here?’ demanded John Sempill in his own gateway, his voice carrying without effort over the dog’s noise.

Euphemia Campbell uttered a shriek which hurt the ears, let go of her brother and sped across the yard to her protector, pursued vengefully by the dog until it was brought up short and choking at the end of its chain. A great waft of her perfume reached them on the evening air, making the mason sneeze, as she exclaimed shrilly, ‘Oh, John! John! He says Antonio killed Bridie Miller and maybe Bess as well!’

The Italian, hearing her voice, roused himself with an effort and broke free of the loosened grasp of his captors to fling himself at her feet, clinging to the hem of her dress.

‘Donna Eufemia! Donna mia, cara mia bella! Aiutarmi! Non so niente!’

‘Oh, God, the poor devil,’ said Gil, and moved forward.

Euphemia Campbell, staring down at her servant, said, ‘John, do something! He says he killed them!’

‘Oh, he did, did he,’ said John Sempill, and swung an arm. Everyone else stood frozen for a moment. There was a choking gurgle which was not the dog, and one of the constables stepped forward and tipped the lutenist over with his foot. The small man turned a dulling, incredulous gaze on his mistress. Then blood burst from his mouth and he was still.

‘Oh, God,’ said Gil again. The mason, beside him, was muttering what sounded like prayers. Euphemia Campbell stared open-mouthed at the dead man, and down at the blood on her gown. A groan escaped her, and she shivered.

‘Euphemia!’ said John Sempill. She turned to him, still shuddering, and he held her with one arm, staring hungrily down at her as the final drops of the lutenist’s blood dripped off his whinger into the dust of the courtyard.

‘Take me in, John. I must lie down!’

‘Now, I wish you’d not done that, maister,’ said Serjeant Anderson majestically, ‘but there’s no denying it’s saved me a bit of bother. Come on, lads,’ he said, beckoning his constables away. ‘We’ll away down the town. Don’t fret, you’ll get your groat, you’d made the arrest.’