Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘She’s marked him, whoever he was,’ she had said darkly. ‘And I’d say,’ she twitched her nose fastidiously, ‘she’s lain wi him or wi some man at least, no long afore she was slain. But there’s no sign she was forced, maister, that I can see from here, even wi all these bruises.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Dame Ellen, ‘though we’ll maybe make certain o’t when she softens and I can get a wee look at her-’ She bit off the next words. Curiously, the term which Gil’s unruly mind supplied was French, and not one which Alys used.

Examining the nail-scrapings, he had concluded that there was nothing more to learn there; he had hoped for some clue to the woman’s identity, or at least her trade or profession, but the dirt appeared to be grease from cooking, something nearly all women came into daily contact with.

Now, contemplating her battered body, he reflected that the violence it revealed was also something many women met daily. Who was it? he asked her silently. Who bloodied your mouth and blacked your eyes? Was he your husband, your father, a client? Does he know where his last beating has put you?

‘So what happened, maister?’

Sir Simon had left his prayers again. Gil blinked at him, collecting his thoughts.

‘It’s none so easy to read,’ he admitted.

‘Poor lass,’ said the Master, bending to peer into the corpse’s downturned face, ‘she’s had her troubles, but she’s free o them now. Who must you speak wi next? Your laddie’s away to ask round about if anyone heard anything, and the good-brother, Lockhart, he’s away over to St Mungo’s to complain of their lack of care, but if you’re wanting any of the women I’ll fetch them out.’

‘Aye, if they’re fit to talk to.’

‘I’ll get the lassies out to you, they’re a wee thing calmer now.’

If Annie Gibb’s sisters-in-law were calmer now, Gil was glad he had not attempted to speak to them earlier. Led out into the sunshine they proved to be rather younger than Annie or the dead woman, perhaps fifteen and seventeen, two sturdy girls neither pretty nor plain but something between, with curling brown hair and eyes swollen with weeping. The older one had the hiccups, which provoked increasingly hysterical giggles in the other girl. Their names, it seemed, were Nicholas and Ursula, and like Dame Ellen they had watched from a distance while Annie was bound to the Cross and then had left her.

‘She protested, I think,’ said Gil, sitting down on the opposite bench. The sisters looked at one another, and one nodded.

‘She never wanted it,’ said the other. ‘She wanted just to be left alone.’

‘But it wasny right, living the way she did,’ said her sister, and hiccuped. Blushing, she covered her mouth, and said behind her hand, ‘No company, and never meeting anybody, and we couldny be with her that often, we’d duties about the house.’

‘Had she none?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, but she renounced them,’ said the hiccuping girl, Nicholas he thought. ‘We’d to see to them all atween us. Feed her hens, take her share o the sweeping and cooking.’

‘Fetch her food,’ said the other, who must therefore be Ursula.

‘Did her maid or her waiting-men not do that?’ It hardly made sense, he thought; he had seen several servants already, and the householder was described as a gentleman and his daughters as heiresses. His own sisters had had their duties certainly, but they hardly amounted to cleaning and kitchen-work.

‘Meggot had enough to do trying to keep her chamber clean.’

‘Tell me about the household,’ he suggested. ‘How many are you?’

They looked at each other. Beyond the outer courtyard, beyond the walls of the hostel, Gil heard the burgh bellman ring his great brass bell and begin the description of Annie Gibb.

‘Well, there’s us,’ said Ursula, counting on her fingers, ‘and Faither, and our aunt, and Annie. And there was Mariota till she wedded Lockhart, and times there’s Henry and Austin-’

‘Who are they?’ Gil asked.

‘Cousins?’ said Nicholas.

‘No, they areny cousins,’ said Ursula. ‘Only by courtesy. They’re no blood kin o ours, Nick, they’re Ellen’s nephews by her first man’s sister Margaret Boyd, they’re Muirs, the both o them.’

Outside, the bellman had dealt with Annie Gibb and was now describing the unknown corpse, inviting any who might know her to visit the chapel of St Catherine’s hostel. A mistake, thought Gil. We’ll be overrun. Reckoning his mother’s Boyd kindred in his head, he located Margaret Boyd and her sons. They were perched on a very distant branch of the pedigree, but the connection with Dame Ellen could be useful.

‘They might as well be cousins, the way Ellen carries on,’ said Nicholas. ‘Making them ride into Glasgow wi us, keeping on at Annie how handsome they are,’ she added darkly, and hiccuped. Ursula bit back more giggles, and continued,

‘And there’s that doctor the now, and then there’s Meggot, and Gillian that waits on my aunt.’ She proceeded to list a good half-dozen indoor servants before she lost count, looking helplessly from her hands to Gil.

‘Most of those have stayed at home, I think,’ Gil said. Nicholas nodded. ‘Why did you come to Glasgow?’

‘Well, for the miracle,’ said Ursula reasonably. ‘It wouldny work tying her to the farm gatepost, after all.’

‘No, I meant you two in particular.’

They looked at each other again. Nicholas hiccuped, Ursula giggled.

‘To see the High Kirk?’ suggested Nicholas, trying to ignore her sister. ‘And all the vessels on the Clyde, and the market, and that. All the things the chapman tellt us, that was through Glenbuck last month.’

‘We’ve only seen St Mungo’s so far,’ said Ursula. ‘Might as well ha stayed at home.’

‘Ellen wouldny ha left us at home,’ said Nicholas sagely. ‘Where we go, she goes, and where she goes, we go, till we’re wedded. And Ellen had to come wi Annie,’ a shadow flickered across her face, ‘and Faither.’

‘Tell me about Annie,’ he suggested. ‘What like was she before she fell into her melancholy? Was she a good sister?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Nicholas, and hiccuped. Ursula ducked her head, suppressing more giggles, and her sister went on, ‘She was a good laugh, she was aye fun to be company wi, she’d lend all her gowns and her jewels and borrow yours.’

Gil nodded; his sister Margaret had summed up this sharing as First up, best dressed.

‘Then she lost the bairn,’ said Ursula, sobering. ‘She was right melancholy after that.’

‘And then Arthur died,’ both sisters crossed themselves, ‘and she vowed she’d never cease mourning him, and all the rest of it.’

‘Sitting in the dark, aye at her prayers, no singing or joking or bonny clothes.’

‘She’d locked her jewels all in her kist,’ said Nicholas resentfully.

‘She must have loved him very deeply,’ said Gil.

‘Aye,’ said Ursula, ‘and the deil knows why, it was just Arthur.’ Her sister hiccuped explosively, and she gasped and turned her head away, biting back the giggles.

‘Has she any friends in Glasgow?’ Gil asked.

‘Just us,’ said Nicholas blankly. ‘Who would she have? She’s never been in Glasgow in her life afore this.’

‘So she’s adrift in a strange burgh,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘barefoot in her shift. What d’you suppose has come to her?’

‘She’ll be safe enough,’ said Ursula, on a sudden uncontrollable burst of giggles. ‘The way she stinks now, nobody’d go next or nigh her!’

Her sister drew breath looking shocked, hiccuped resoundingly, and collapsed in equal laughter. The door to the women’s lodging was flung wide, and Dame Ellen stalked out.