Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘So he never gave her another,’ said Sawney, ‘and here she was a widow at eighteen, poor lass, and by then she was over ears in love wi him, and fell into a great melancholy like I said. And given that Sir Edward’s got his death and all, he was hoping to see her cured so he could wed her safe afore he dees hissel, and not leave her a charge on his lassies or their husbands. There’s no other heir,’ he explained.

‘How old is she now?’ Gil asked.

‘Near one-and-twenty,’ said Sawney, ‘and her faither’s dead these two year and all,’ he repeated.

Gil looked at the corpse’s bent head and unkempt hair with pity. My deth I love, my life ich hate, he thought. Alys would be nineteen at midsummer; his youngest sister Tib, married a few months ago, had just turned twenty. This girl’s life had taken a very different turn from theirs, and now it was over, and violently. He could not imagine either his wife or his sister succumbing to such a melancholy, but he could see why it might happen.

‘Will we be cutting yon good rope?’ Euan had returned, some of his eager entourage behind him bearing a wattle hurdle. ‘It seems a shame, it does, though I would not be wishing to use it myself after this-’

Gil was not very familiar with the two pilgrim hostels of Glasgow, and had never been inside St Catherine’s, though he had encountered its Master once or twice in the course of his legal practice. The hostel, he discovered, was a series of timber-framed buildings off the Stablegreen, with its own small stone chapel in the outer courtyard and guest halls for male and female pilgrims flanking an inner one. In the Master’s modest dwelling Sir Simon Elder met Gil with concern.

‘They’re all in great distress,’ he said. ‘None o them making much sense, and small wonder. Did you ever hear the like, Maister Cunningham? I’ve broke it to Sir Edward, seeing his lassies were in a right state and Habbie and the other fellow had to get back to their duties.’

‘How did he take it? His man Sawney said he’s sick to death. I hope this won’t hasten his end.’

Sir Simon grimaced.

‘I’m not certain he took it in, to tell truth. Nodded and thanked me for bringing him word, but when I offered to pray wi him he said, No, he’d need time to it. Then his doctor put me out of the chamber, and then the lassies needed comforting.’

‘How big is the party?’

‘Oh, a good number. There’s Sir Edward himsel, poor soul, and his doctor, and his sister, and his own lassies and the husband of one of them, and this poor lass who’s in the chapel now, and all their servants. Fortunately, Sir Edward’s well able to make us a generous donation, or I’d have to be asking them to leave as soon as their three nights was up, no to mention all their beasts out-by in the stables, and I’d not like to do that in the circumstances. And we’re quiet the now, we’ll not get busy again till nearer the Assumption, we’ve a few days yet.’

‘What ails Sir Edward?’ Gil asked.

Sir Simon made another long face. He was a tall, angular, lantern-jawed individual with a thick ring of white woolly hair round his tonsure, a sharp and tolerant eye for human failings, and a sardonic smile which was notably absent just now.

‘Trouble in his water, or the like,’ he divulged. ‘Times it pains him right bad, poor soul. How he managed the journey I couldny say. Sawney’s got the truth o’t, you’ve only to look at the man to see he’s near his end.’ He considered Gil a moment longer across his cluttered chamber. ‘Were you wanting anything more?’

‘I’ll need a word wi Sir Edward, if I can,’ Gil confirmed. ‘And wi the good-sisters, and the servants as well, if I’m to find whoever did this and see him brought to justice. Or her,’ he added. ‘I’d say one woman could strangle another if she was bound fast the way Annie Gibb was, though the beating she had before that might be another matter.’

‘You wouldny think,’ said Sir Simon without much hope, ‘it was some passing ill-doer, someone wi a grudge at madwomen, or the like? Or the prentice-laddies? They had one o their games last night, could some o them- She hadny,’ he said in alarm, ‘she hadny been forced, had she?’

‘No sign of that. Her skirts were bound all about her knees. As for someone wi a grudge, I’d say whoever did it knew what he was doing. It was very deliberate.’

‘You mean,’ said the other man after a short pause, ‘I’ve maybe got a murderer under this roof?’

‘Aye,’ said Gil baldly.

‘Then I’d best get to my prayers,’ said Sir Simon, ‘for him and for the rest of us.’

‘I count it a merciful release,’ pronounced John Lockhart of Kypeside.

Do you, indeed, thought Gil. And I wonder if Annie Gibb would agree?

‘She’s prayed for her death these three year,’ continued Lockhart, as if he had heard Gil’s thoughts. ‘Or so my wife tells me.’

‘And your wife is?’ Gil prompted.

A request to speak to the family of the dead woman had brought this man out of the guest hall in a protective rush; he was a plump, self-important fellow about Gil’s age, with the fair, wind-reddened skin of a man who farmed his own land somewhere around the headwaters of the Avon.

‘Mistress Mariota Shaw,’ Lockhart announced. ‘The eldest daughter. We were wedded the same year her brother died, God rest him.’

‘Is your wife of the party?’

‘Oh, no, no.’ Lockhart smiled tolerantly. ‘She could hardly bring the bairn, after all.’

‘So who did come to Glasgow? Will you sit down and tell me about it?’

There was the sound of weeping in the women’s hall. They were in the inner courtyard of the hostel, a cobbled space lined with tubs of flowers, with several benches placed so that weary pilgrims could enjoy the sunshine when there was any. Today, early though it was, there was not only sunshine but plenty of warmth; Gil had no real need of his plaid. Alys had grown flowers in tubs like these in the courtyard of her father’s house, away down the High Street. He wondered suddenly whether Ealasaidh would keep them growing, and whether Alys would set more flowers round the House of the Mermaiden next spring.

Lockhart had settled himself on the bench, booted feet stretched out before him.

‘Well, there’s Sir Edward himself,’ he expounded, ‘and my wife’s sisters, that’s Nicholas and Ursula. Two very bonny lassies,’ he admitted, ‘and I believe they’re well taught to hold a household, but I had the better bargain. My wife’s a sensible lass. There was Annie, poor girl, and me myself, and a course there was the doctor. Doctor Januar. He’s attending my good-father, you understand.’

‘Doctor Januar,’ Gil repeated. ‘Aye, Sir Simon mentioned him. I never heard there was a doctor out in Avondale. Is he a Scot? Where did he study?’

‘You’d need to ask him that yoursel,’ said Lockhart, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘I’ve no understanding o such matters. Seems to me he’s a foreigner o some kind, but I’ve never heard either way.’

Gil nodded, setting this aside for later consideration.

‘That’s six of you so far,’ he prompted. ‘Any more?’

‘Poor Annie, a course, no I mentioned her, did I no,’ Lockhart sighed, and crossed himself. ‘Who’d ha thought we brought her to her death, maister! What a thing to happen, dreadful. I had my doubts about leaving her bound the whole night, but Sir Edward was set on it, and see, I was right, it was too much for her. And then there’s Dame Ellen, who’s Sir Edward’s sister and has an eye to the lassies. That would be the whole of us that’s lodged here, though a course there was Dame Ellen’s two young kinsmen and all, that left us here. A great procession it was, what wi Sir Edward in a horse-litter and the rest of us on horseback, and poor Annie raving.’