Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘And servants?’

‘Well, naturally.’ The other man paused to reckon on his fingers. ‘Five all told, one woman and four men. Oh, and the man that serves Dame Ellen’s kinsmen, a decent fellow, went off wi them a course. And then the grooms for the horses.’

‘No steward? Nobody to see all as it should be?’

‘I suppose you’d say the doctor was acting as steward,’ said Lockhart, a little reluctantly. ‘For certain it was him ordered all when we halted for the night.’

‘A useful fellow,’ said Gil.

‘Aye, you could say that.’

‘Whose idea was it to bring Annie here?’

‘You’d have to ask some of the household that. I wasny party to the decision, since it was haying-time, I was over at Kypeside. Likely Dame Ellen will tell you.’ Lockhart turned to look at Gil, frowning. ‘Why are you asking these questions? What’s the Archbishop’s questioner to say to the matter, any road? The lassie’s dead instead o cured, what need o a hantle o questions?’

‘Have you looked at her?’ Gil asked. Lockhart shook his head, and Gil rose. ‘Come and see her. Was she bonnie?’

‘No latterly,’ said Lockhart, following him through the passage into the outer courtyard, his voice echoing momentarily under the vault. ‘I mind when I first set eyes on her, when I first courted Mariota, she was right bonnie, wi blue eyes and hair like ripe corn. She still wore it bride-like, ye ken, wedded so young as she was. And then Arthur died, poor fellow, and she’d lost the bairn, and she made her vow, and after that, well!’

‘I can imagine it,’ said Gil, pulling off his hat as he stepped into the little chapel of the hostel. ‘She’s far from bonnie now, poor soul. Did the men not tell you? She never died of her own accord, or of being bound to the cross, she’s been beaten, and then she was throttled. By someone else.’

Lockhart, hat in hand, looked sharply from Gil to the linen-draped mound on the bier before the chancel arch. Of course, a pilgrim hostel would likely have regular need of a bier, Gil thought irrelevantly, as the other man moved forward and drew the cloth away. The candles at the corpse’s head flickered with the movement, and at the sight which met him Lockhart rocked back on his heels, almost winded by shock.

‘Deil’s bollocks, man! Sawney tellt us, but I took it for a serving-lad’s supersaltin. Her own mammy wouldny ken her.’ He drew a deep breath, steadied himself and contemplated the battered, swollen face, the red and purple bruising and the caked blood, then made the sign of the cross over it and pulled the linen up. Passing a hand across his own face, and surreptitiously wiping his eyes as he did so, he turned to Gil and said resolutely, ‘Maister, nobody deserves sic a death, least of all Annie Gibb. She never did anyone any harm, she was a dutiful daughter and a faithful wife afore she ran mad, she was a good Christian lassie.’ He gestured at the figure of the saint next to the altar. ‘St Catherine be my witness, if there’s aught I can do to help you track down whoever did this, I’ll do it.’

‘Well spoken, my son,’ said Sir Simon Elder, emerging from the shadows of the little chancel. ‘Where does he start, Maister Cunningham?’

Back out in the sunshine, Lockhart was less immediately helpful than Gil had hoped.

‘I suppose it was the doctor arranged it, like all else,’ he said. ‘We rode into Glasgow yesterday, two hours or so after noon, and after we’d dined here and I’d fetched the penitent’s gown and a new rope from St Mungo’s, the women had Annie into her sackcloth and the whole household save Sir Edward over to the High Kirk afore Vespers, to hear a Mass and be confessed-’

‘Annie was able to confess?’ Gil queried. ‘She knew what she was saying?’

‘Oh, aye, indeed. She was rational enough, save for wishing to dee, she spent the most of her time at her prayers. She’s- She was aye a good Christian. And then once she was confessed and the ashes put on her brow, and the rope was blessed, the doctor and her two men took her over to the cross and bound her there, and we left her.’

‘And none of you had an eye to her, apart from the servants,’ said Gil.

‘No,’ said Lockhart rather sharply. ‘Do you think we don’t regret it?’

Gil paused for a moment in acknowledgement of this, then said,

‘She must have had property of her own. Who inherits it? How would it be left?’

‘I’ve no knowledge of how her fortune lies,’ Lockhart admitted. ‘It never concerned Mariota, or so I thought, so I never asked. She was James Gibb’s heiress, his only surviving bairn, though I believe there were others that never made it out their cradles. She brought Arthur a good stretch o land in Ayrshire at their marriage, and more when her father died, but as to how it was left to her or what happens to it now, I never heard.’

‘What about her mother’s land?’ It seemed a reasonable guess that Gibb would have wedded land himself, which Annie would have inherited, but Lockhart shook his head.

‘I’ve no knowledge o that either. Her mother’s long dead. She wasny a Kyle lady I think, though I don’t recall her name.’

‘Why did your good-father not find a second marriage for her? I’d have thought an heiress like that would be easy enough to place.’

Another shake of the head.

‘Sir Edward’s- He’s aye been right fond of her, as if she was his own lassie. He’d not see her forced to marry against her will. Besides,’ Lockhart added realistically, ‘who’d wish to take a lassie that spends her days mourning her first husband, even with the land to sweeten the bargain?’

‘I think Sir Edward’s nearing his own end,’ Gil said delicately. ‘Have you any knowledge of how he’ll arrange his affairs? He has the three daughters, I think? Was Arthur the only son?’

‘Aye, the lassies are co-heirs.’ Lockhart looked embarrassed. ‘I’m no certain, you’ll understand,’ he went on after a moment, ‘and he’ll need to change it all now, a course, but at one time he was speaking as if he’d divide all equally among the four lassies, Annie and his own three. That is,’ he qualified, ‘my wife would get as much as to bring her portion equal wi what the other lassies would get.’

‘And how did his own daughters feel about that?’

‘They were pleased enough, I’d ha said. They’ve all been like sisters since ever Arthur was wedded to Annie, they seemed happy enough to share wi her.’

‘And the rest of his will? Has he much to leave beyond the heritable land? Bequests to his other kin or to Holy Kirk?’

‘You’d need to ask him that yoursel,’ said Lockhart, ‘or else his man of law. I’ve little knowledge of what he decided, and that at third hand.’

‘And he is?’

‘Maister William Dykes,’ said Lockhart promptly, ‘to be found next St Nicholas’ Kirk in Lanark.’

‘The arrangement would have left Annie a wealthy woman,’ Gil observed, making a note of that, ‘what with her own portion.’

‘Aye, and the conjunct land from her marriage.’ Lockhart turned to look at Gil in dismay. ‘What, you think that might be behind it? That someone slew her to prevent her inheriting her fourth part?’ He swallowed. ‘But there’s none of us- I was agreeable, and so I tellt Sir Edward at the time, and it was long afore the younger lassies was betrothed, it was written into their contracts that way. And to beat her like that and all! I took it it was some madman,’ he swallowed and grimaced at his own words, ‘some fellow wi a grudge at St Mungo, or the like. Surely never one of her family, maister!’

‘I concur with that predicate,’ said a serious voice in Latin. Gil twisted to look, and found a short, richly dressed man just emerging from the men’s hall.