Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Élise,’ said his father-in-law now, ‘wished me to ask you where is the linen for the great bed?’

‘I left it where it has always been kept,’ said Alys without expression, ‘in the kist at the bed-foot. I touched nothing in your chamber.’

‘Ah,’ said Maistre Pierre uncomfortably. ‘The kist with the brass lock, you mean?’

‘Yes, that kist. Is it not there? Has madame mère moved it? Or mislaid the key? Perhaps one of your new servants has taken it.’

Lowrie, the ready colour sweeping up over his neck, turned away and began to riffle through a stack of music on the windowsill beside him. Following his cue, Gil opened the lid of the monocords and tapped at the first few keys of the little instrument. Maistre Pierre ignored the spidery notes.

‘Ma mie , she is mistress of my house now,’ he said sternly in French. A mistake, thought Gil.

‘Then she may run it herself,’ said Alys, still without expression, ‘without referring to me.’

‘What, after you removed all the maidservants who know where everything is?’

‘I took only Jennet and Nancy, Father,’ Alys said. ‘The other women left of their own accord.’

This was unanswerably true, Gil knew. Kittock was still complaining about what ‘the new mistress’ had ordered done in her kitchen.

‘Shall we have some music?’ he suggested. Alys set aside her handwork and rose.

‘You may have as much as you please,’ she said. ‘I have matters to see to. Good night, Father.’

She bent her head for his blessing, which he delivered reluctantly. As the door closed behind her Gil said,

‘Have you managed to find servants yet?’

‘Élise has hired a crowd of women. They all speak Ersche,’ said Maistre Pierre glumly. ‘I thought Alys would have been more generous. She should be obedient to her new mother.’

Gil kept silent. He liked and admired the harper’s sister, a handsome strong-minded woman who had not had an easy life, but his perception had been that it was Ealasaidh who was ungenerous; she could never have run a household before, let alone one as large as that his father-in-law kept, and Alys had offered advice. It had been refused, without gratitude.

‘Well, no doubt she will come round,’ said Maistre Pierre after a pause, though it was not clear which contender he referred to. ‘Do you tell me this woman at the Girth Cross is from Kyle? From the middle part of Ayrshire?’

‘It’s where the surname comes from,’ Gil agreed in relief. Lowrie turned back towards them, holding several sheets of music.

‘Ockeghem?’ he said hopefully.

‘There is a family named Gibb who own a quarry,’ said the mason, ‘beyond a place called Cumnock. Good blond freestone, a valuable resource. I wonder are they her kin? Yes, why not Ockeghem,’ he went on, before Gil could answer, ‘though I must not stay too late.’

Having seen his father-in-law off the premises an hour later into the quiet August evening, Gil locked the front door and paused to admire the incised and painted mermaiden now on the inside of the heavy planks. Even with the door reversed so that this well-known symbol of sexual licence was not shown to the street, they still had the occasional caller who had not heard that the bawdy-house was closed. He grinned, put the sturdy bar in place and set off through the house, checking shutters and hearths as he went. The dog paced after him, his claws clicking on the wide boards. Here on the ground floor, as well as the little solar beside the back door there was the lower hall where they had eaten their supper, with another three smaller chambers opening from it. In one, a narrow stair led up, eventually, to the great bedchamber, a resource which Gil had not so far made use of. In the next, Catherine was probably still at her devotions, which he knew were extended; in the third, Annis and Kittock were already snoring. Kittock had wished to sleep in the kitchen as she had always done, but the kitchen here was a separate building, and Alys had preferred that all the household were under the one roof at night. He had supported her in that.

Climbing the principal newel stair he checked the shutters in his own spacious closet, then paused again to survey the wide upper hall. Its painted walls were lively, the allegorical figures in their flowery alcoves bright even in the fading light. Despite the previous tenant’s occupation, only one of the images required to be concealed by the plate-cupboard, which was fortunate, he reflected, given that they did not have many other large pieces of furniture yet.

He went on up the main stair. At the top, the dog nudged one door open and clicked away into the shadows. Behind the other door, along the short enfilade of chambers above the painted hall, Lowrie spoke sharply and Euan answered. Following the dog, Gil stepped quietly past the sleeping child in his cradle and the shut-bed where Jennet and Nancy still murmured together, and went into his own bedchamber. The house was settled for the night.

Alys was also at her prayers, the candlelight gleaming on her hair where it fell in sheets across the shoulders of her bedgown, her head bent intently over the prayer-book which had been a marriage-gift from her father. She did not look up, even when Socrates nudged her hands with his long nose.

Sighing inwardly, Gil said his own prayers and readied himself for bed, reckoning up the tasks of the morrow. Two contracts to draw up for different tradesmen of the upper town, one set of sasine papers to compose for Lowrie to write, a report to compile for his master the Archbishop of Glasgow. A quiet day, he thought with some relief.

He woke from a dream of thunder and falling rocks, to realise that the noise was a knocking at the house door. The dog was barking, away below stairs.

‘The back door!’ said Alys, as he tugged open the curtain at the side of their box bed. ‘Who- Is it light yet? The servants are not stirring.’

‘Barely.’ He had scrambled into his shirt, and now flung open the shutters on the window which overlooked the yard and the approach to the back door. To his left, the dawn was turning rosy over the Dow Hill. To his right, at the other end of the house, Euan was already leaning out into the chilly morning, bare chested, black hair tousled. Socrates was still barking.

‘Who’s knocking?’ Gil called.

‘It iss one of the clerks from St Mungo’s,’ offered Euan, drowning the first answer from the ground. ‘I think it iss Maister Sim.’

‘Who is it?’ he repeated. ‘Quiet!’ he shouted at the dog.

‘Gil, is that you? You’re wanted up at the Cross!’ A figure stepped away from the door far enough to see and be seen from up here. One of the songmen from the Cathedral, as Euan had said, one of his occasional partners at Tarocco or at tennis.

‘Habbie!’ he said in some surprise. ‘What’s amiss? Bide there, man. I’ll come down.’

‘Never you worry, Maister Gil,’ said Euan cheerily. ‘I’ll be letting him in, just let me be finding my shirt.’

‘Maister Sim?’ said Alys as Gil drew his head in. ‘Is someone dead?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ he answered, knotting the cord of his drawers. ‘But at this hour it must be something urgent.’

Maister Sim agreed with this assessment.

‘Oh, aye, she’s dead,’ he said, pacing up and down the lower hall, Socrates watching him suspiciously from the cold hearth. ‘A dreadful sight, and all. We’ve managed to keep them from moving her, but you’ll need to come now, Gil, afore it gets any busier at the Cross.’

‘Let me get my boots,’ said Gil, stepping aside as Kittock emerged from the end chamber blinking and hooking up her gown across her broad bosom, her apron over one arm. ‘Would you cut me a bite of bread and cheese?’ he asked her. ‘I doubt I’ll be home afore the porridge is eaten up.’