Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘What’s amiss, maister?’ she asked, shaking out the apron. ‘Is it the English at the gates? Will you be wanting your jack and helm? For I’m not right sure where we put them when we flitted you.’

‘I don’t know yet,’ he confessed. ‘Habbie? Who’s dead?’

‘It’s the woman that was at St Mungo’s Cross,’ began Habbie Sim.

Within the small chamber, Annis shrieked in alarm.

‘Christ amend us, is she got loose? Is she dangerous? Are we all to be murdered in our beds?’

‘No, no, you’re safe enough, lass,’ said Maister Sim, pausing to rub at his arms as if he was cold. ‘It’s the woman hersel- She’s dead. Someone’s slain her where she was bound.’

‘Our Lady save us all. Murdered, you mean, maister?’ said Kittock intelligently, over another shriek from Annis. She crossed herself, and muttered a prayer. ‘Right, Maister Gil, I’ll get a piece and cheese put up for you, and you be sure and eat it, now. Annis, you can stop that noise, hen. The poor soul will be led straight to Paradise by St Mungo himsel and Our Lady, I’ve no doubt.’ She set off towards the back door, followed by a reluctant Annis, just as loud footsteps on the main stair proclaimed the arrival of Euan, now decently clad and waving Gil’s boots.

‘Here’s your boots, maister, you’ll likely be wanting them,’ he said unnecessarily, ‘and Maister Lowrie’s on his way down, and Jennet’s getting the mistress up, and the wee fellow’s still sleeping, praise be to Our Lady, we’d not want him running about hearing all what Maister Sim has to tell us, would we now?’

‘Away out with Kittock,’ Gil ordered, accepting the boots, ‘and gie her a hand to get the fire going.’ He sat down on the nearest bench and kicked off his house shoes. ‘Go on, Habbie, tell me what’s amiss. Who found the woman? Is it certain it’s a violent death?’

‘Oh, aye, certain. It was two of her friends found her,’ said Maister Sim, as Lowrie slipped quietly into the room, fully dressed and booted. ‘Her servants, I suppose. They came out to get her afore the dawn, and here she was dead, which distressed them greatly a course, and they cam up to St Mungo’s to fetch someone. It was only when we found the cord about her neck they realised she hadny just up and died of her own accord. And when the light grew they recognised she’d been beaten and all, a dreadful sight, Gil. You need to see her.’

‘A cord?’ Gil repeated. ‘I see why you’ve come for me.’ He stood, tramping his heels down into the boots, and bent to fasten the straps which held the soft leather in place about his calves.

‘Aye. So will you come now, afore they shift her? I’ve heard you often enough about what’s to be learned from a corp afore it’s shifted.’

The light in the chamber was increasing, and the full glory of Maister Sim’s garb was visible. Always a showy dresser, he had risen this morning in a short gown of tawny velvet faced with gold-coloured silk, which contrasted nicely with a red cloth doublet and bright blue hose. Boots of a different red and a round green felt hat completed the outfit. Beside it, Gil’s habitual, well-worn black appeared quite drab. Used to this effect, Gil ignored it, lifted his plaid from the peg by the back door, nodded to Lowrie and snapped his fingers for the dog.

‘The hunt’s up,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Tell me more as we go, Habbie. What did her friends do when they found her?’

‘Set up a hue and cry,’ said Maister Sim, following him out of the house. ‘One ran to St Nicholas’, another to St Mungo’s and found us just assembling for Prime. So Will Craigie and I went to see, since we could be spared, our parts are both doubled in this morning’s setting, and when we found the cord I came down to fetch you and he stayed to offer up the first prayers, which was only right in the circumstance.’

Gil nodded, pausing at the kitchen door to take the scrip Kittock had ready for him, and glad his friend could not see his expression. Most of the songmen were in minor orders at least, though possession of a good singing voice was the more important criterion. Maister Craigie was one of the few who were fully ordained, but his private life was not what one might hope for. He cheated at cards to Gil’s certain knowledge, there were other tales to the man’s discredit, and Gil’s uncle Canon Cunningham had admitted that the Chapter of St Mungo’s was occasionally exercised about his behaviour. Not who I would wish to offer prayers at my death, Gil thought, striding out onto the Drygate.

‘And who are her friends? Who’s she, indeed? I heard she was from Ayrshire.’

‘Well, you ken more than me, if that’s so,’ admitted his friend. ‘These were two of her servants, I think. They called her Annie, and said her sisters were in the guest-hall at St Catherine’s. Likely they’ve been tellt by now.’

There was a small crowd in the kirkyard near the tall stone cross, exclaiming in shock and amazement above a rich bass drone which became recognisable as the prayers for the dead. Gil made out William Craigie close by the Cross as its source, with two bareheaded men standing white faced and stricken next to him. One of the St Mungo’s vergers in his blue gown of office stood by radiating indignation; the rest of the dozen or so spectators seemed to be servants of the Upper Town and other early workers, attracted to the scene on their way past. He recognised the livery of St Nicholas’ hostel, but nobody from St Catherine’s seemed to be here yet.

‘Get all these names if you will,’ he said to Lowrie as they approached. ‘Likely the most of them have nothing to do with the matter, but you never ken.’

‘Will I be sending them all away, Maister Gil?’ offered Euan helpfully behind him.

‘No, you will not. Stand back and keep out of it,’ Gil ordered, and shouldered his way in next to the tall cross.

‘Maister Cunningham!’ said the verger as he reached it. ‘What are you going to do about this? She canny stay here, we canny have this! I told the woman we couldny take an eye to her, and now see what’s come o’t!’

Gil considered him for a moment.

‘A drop of compassion would be becoming to a servant of Holy Kirk, Barnabas,’ he observed. The man coloured up, but said defensively,

‘It willny do for St Mungo’s, and any road Canon Henderson’s no going to be pleased. We’re no wanting this kind o thing on our ground!’

Abandoning the matter, Gil moved round him to touch the body where it hung slumped and stiffened in its bonds.

‘She’s long gone, maister,’ said one of the men beside her. ‘But sic a way to go! Who’d ha done that to a poor mad lassie?’

The woman was quite certainly dead, there was no doubt about it. She had been bound to the Cross with a stout new hemp rope, no cheap item, which in happier circumstances would have been gifted to St Mungo’s altar by now, to be sold on later to pay for lights. It had been tied with care, though not particularly tightly, perhaps leaving her enough room to flex arms and legs to prevent cramp, and as a result she now leaned forward and sideways, her head bent. Unkempt mud-coloured hair was trapped under the cord which Maister Sim had mentioned where it crossed the nape of her neck, but more locks fell free, hanging below her waist, and obscured her face. She was clad in a penitential sacking gown, a surprisingly threadbare woollen plaid bundled over it, her bare feet visible below its bedraggled hem. There was a strong smell, not merely of stale urine as one might expect, but of a ripely unwashed body. He felt her hand and then her neck; the dead flesh was quite rigid. The dog nosed at the body, and turned to look up at his master’s face.

‘She’s deid, maister,’ said the man who had spoken before, while Maister Craigie switched from Requiem aeternam to Pater noster. ‘She’s cold and set, and I thought she was sleeping.’ He spoke quite calmly, but his hands shook.