Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Was it you found her?’ Gil asked, moving a hank of hair aside to look at the dangling ends of the cord. They seemed as new as the rope. Who would use a cord like that, he wondered, and for what?

‘Aye, it was. Rab and me.’ The man indicated his silent companion. ‘We was watching in St Nicholas’, over yonder, seeing St Mungo’s was locked for the night, and I keeked out every hour or so, cam across to the kirkyard wall wi a lantern to see that all was well, she spoke to me a couple o times and asked me to set her free, and I wish I had, maister, I wish I had. And then I cam down and it was, it seemed, it was all quiet, she’d ceased her raving and fell asleep, and there was the moonlight, and the laddies that were about had all went hame by midnight and- When we cam down to loose her afore dawn I still thought she’d fell asleep, I–I thought she was sleeping,’ he repeated, ‘till I spoke her name and she never stirred, and then I seen- I seen-’ He crossed himself, tears springing to his eyes. ‘It’s no just that she’s deid. Look at her face, maister, look what’s come to her! Who could ha done that?’

Gil lifted away the rest of the dangling hair, and flinched. Maister Craigie’s steady murmur checked at what was revealed, and flowed on with extra fervour. The woman had been beaten, and savagely. Blackened eyes, pulped nose, a swollen and purple cheek, torn mouth, were all caked in blood, which had run across her chin before it dried.

‘Sweet St Giles!’ he said. ‘I take it she never looked like that when you left her.’

‘We left her hale and healthy, maister, save she was mad,’ the man assured him. ‘Who could ha done this to her, bound as she was, the poor lassie?’

‘Nobody from St Mungo’s!’ said Barnabas indignantly.

‘And you heard nothing from where you were?’

‘Nothing, maister! And we were awake the whole night, so we were, the both of us. Surely she’d ha screamed if she was- Could she no ha cried out? We’d ha heard her, maister, we would that!’ The man swallowed hard. ‘Poor lass, she never wished- She bade us take her away as many times, she never felt it would do her good. I wish I’d listened. I wish I’d watched at her side.’

‘Have you been with her long?’ Lowrie asked, fetching up at Gil’s elbow, tucking his tablets back into his purse. Much of the crowd had evaporated rather than have its names written down, as Gil had hoped, and the remaining handful had retreated to a safe distance, Euan among them. He caught the words Blacader’s quaestor passing around.

‘I followed her fro her faither’s house,’ said the man. ‘And Rab here’s been wi her near as long. Maister, who could ha done this? She was under the saint’s protection, she’d never ha been a harm to anyone, we bound her only to prevent her running off. Why throttle a lassie that canny- And to treat her like that and all-’ He turned away, his hand going to his eyes. Lowrie patted him on the shoulder, and looked at Gil.

‘What do you see?’ Gil prompted, as Maister Craigie embarked on another round of the prayers for the dead. ‘Anything useful?’

‘Ground’s too dry, even this close to the burn,’ said Lowrie, ‘and there’s been too many feet around here in any case. No tracks to recognise. No marks on the gown or plaid, I’d think she hasny been stabbed at all, just beaten and strangled.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s like what they tell of the Inquisition, isn’t it, maister?’ He prowled around the high carved cross, tugged at the rope which bound the woman, peered at the hemp strands as Gil had already done. Socrates followed him, sniffing carefully where he looked. ‘These knots haveny been untied, have they?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gil. Socrates sat down at the feet of the more talkative servant, nudging his hand. The man stroked the soft ears, smiling crookedly at the dog, and Gil said to him, ‘Do you mind how she was bound last night? Would you say all was as you left her?’

The man looked at him, startled, then at the restraints which held the corpse upright. He appeared to count the loops which circled the skirts and torso, then stepped behind the cross to check the knots.

‘It looks like it,’ he agreed. ‘You can see, we put plenty good knots in it, Rab and me. She’d never ha got them undone, maister, we- We took good care o that.’

‘Well it was nobody from St Mungo’s,’ declared Barnabas officiously. ‘I tellt the woman, I tellt her plain, it’s naught to do wi us what happens down here at the Cross, there’s nobody to spare to have an eye to her. It was nobody from St Mungo’s untied they knots.’

‘Sawney,’ said Rab suddenly. He glanced beyond his colleague, beyond the cross, just as Gil became aware of a commotion approaching the kirkyard gates, of raised voices and women weeping.

‘Oh, Christ aid us all, it’s the lassies,’ said Sawney. ‘Maister, it’s her good-sisters, we’d best head them off, she isny a sight for young lassies, no till she’s laid out, if then.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Maister Sim, who had stood by silently until now. ‘Will, come wi me, I think the living need you.’

Maister Craigie, finishing the prayer he was reciting, crossed himself, looked round and nodded. Maister Sim was already hurrying towards the group of women. As the priest followed Gil said,

‘Barnabas, if you would fetch Euan a board or the like we can cut her down, afore it gets any busier here.’

‘A board?’ repeated Barnabas, as if he had never heard the word before. ‘Oh, no. The boards we’ve got are all accounted for, it’s more than my position’s worth to let them out my hands.’

‘There will be something there that would not be missed for an hour or two,’ said Euan. ‘Come and show me what you have.’

‘But where’ll we take her to, maister?’ asked Sawney helplessly. ‘I’ve no- I canny- Our maister’s no fit to direct me, and it’s no a matter to take to Dame Ellen.’

This was the first Gil had heard of a head of the household. He set the point aside for later and said, ‘If you’re lodged at St Catherine’s, we should take her there. They’ll put her in the chapel for now. I want to see her afore she’s laid out.’

‘Better to wait till she’s washed, maister,’ said Sawney, watching Euan making for the Cathedral, the protesting Barnabas beside him. Several of the spectators were following, possibly in the hope of learning more. ‘She’s pretty ripe. See, it’s been since her man dee’d,’ Sawney expanded. ‘What wi that and she’d lost the bairn he gave her, she fell into a great melancholy, poor lassie, and she vowed she’d live single all her days, and never wash, nor be combed, nor anything of the sort. Nothing her sisters said would budge her from it.’

‘Sweet St Giles!’ said Gil, but Lowrie was nodding.

‘I’ve heard of that. There was a woman away beyond Stirling did the same, so my mother once told me. It’s in a song, too. Sall neither coif come on my head, nor kaim come in my hair, Nor neither coal nor candlelight come in my bower mair,’ he quoted, and added thoughtfully, ‘doesn’t say anything about never washing.’

The group of women had been persuaded to retrace their steps, though one of them kept looking over her shoulder. The two songmen were going with them, gesturing past the rose-coloured sandstone walls of the castle in the direction of the pilgrim hostel.

‘Tell me about her,’ said Gil. ‘Who is she?’

She was, as Maistre Pierre had said, Annie Gibb, daughter and heiress of a gentleman of Kyle, one James Gibb of Tarbolton. Wedded at fourteen to Arthur, son of Sir Edward Shaw of Glenbuck, a bonnie lad a year younger than herself, she had lost a bairn at seventeen, by which time her husband was already racked by the coughing sickness which killed him a year later, shortly after her own father died.