Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Put it down and give me the candle,’ Gil prompted. ‘Come on, man, be reasonable.’

‘Never!’ said Austin, shortened the chain round his hand and swung his smoking morningstar again. A huge waft of smoke billowed from it, and he choked, coughed, briefly withdrew his attention from his surroundings. Gil pounced, and Lowrie reached the man in the same moment. Gil seized the censer, Lowrie grasped his wrist and twisted it up behind his back. Gil handed the censer to the nearest pair of hands, and his uncle’s voice said, ‘Well done, Gilbert.’ Two of Otterburn’s men arrived to take a fierce hold of Austin, two more laid hands on Henry, and as Gil stepped back he finally heard the uproar in the building.

Canon Muir surged out of the black-gowned row of clergy, his purple stole awry, exclaiming in distress.

‘No! Och, no, there’s some mistake! Austin, Henry, you canny ha done sic a thing? Oh, my dear laddies!’ He attempted to pull one of Otterburn’s men away from Austin, and was firmly but politely put aside by another.

‘Take them away, lads,’ said Otterburn at Gil’s side. ‘That was well done.’

Blacader stepped forward and raised a hand for silence. To Gil’s amazement, he got it, in a spreading pool of stillness which flooded out from the foot of the steps. When the church was quiet, apart from the scuffling of Austin Muir being manhandled out of the building, his brother silent beside him and Canon Muir still lamenting behind the procession, the Archbishop scanned his flock with a minatory glare and said resonantly,

‘Sic a fate lies waiting for all who commit sacrilege, ye may be sure o that. Ye ha seen God’s justice done afore your een. Pray for that man’s repentance and forgiveness. Confess yir ain sins, find forgiveness yoursels. And now go in peace.’

He raised his hand again, and recited a lengthy blessing, then turned and to the obvious surprise of his remaining cohort vanished through the choirscreen arch into the chancel, towards the high altar. With some milling about they collected themselves and followed him, in silence and in due order, and after a few moments, as the buzz of conversation rose in the nave, the first words of Compline floated out.

‘Well!’ said Alys at Gil’s elbow. ‘Were you expecting that?’

‘Not entirely, I’ll admit,’ Gil said.

They were briefly gathered in the little solar, after an extended session with Otterburn and the Archbishop. Otterburn’s satisfaction with the outcome of the anathema was as great as his master’s, though with a slightly different slant.

‘Two o these deaths tidied up,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘They’ve confessed, the both o them, though to hear them Austin thought he was protecting Henry when he broke the one lassie’s neck, and again when he took a candlestock to the other dame, and Henry reckoned he was protecting Austin when he got him away and tried to conceal it.’

‘Austin has repented very completely,’ said the Archbishop in Latin. ‘His brother will also repent of his part in the whole affair once we have discussed it with him. A very good outcome, Gilbert, and I commend your part in it, as well as that of your servant Lawrence.’

‘Aye,’ said Otterburn rather drily.

‘I was certain it was one of those two,’ said Gil now in answer to Alys, ‘but I’ll admit I still thought it was Henry did the actual killing. Austin never showed any sign of a quick temper, though I suppose his brother kept him on so short a leash he never had the chance.’

‘Little surprise he broke,’ said Lowrie. ‘I hope I never hear another anathema. The way the clauses mount up, threat upon threat,’ he demonstrated a growing stack with both hands, ‘must be designed to generate fear, and by Christ’s nails it does.’

‘It is indeed designed to be terrifying,’ commented Catherine, ‘and it would be a foolish person who was not struck by fear.’

‘But what did happen?’ Alys asked. ‘Did the Provost learn why the women died?’

‘They were both finding fault wi Henry, and that roused Austin,’ Gil said. ‘Peg was convinced it was one of them had infected her wi the clap.’

‘Surely not!’ said Alys. ‘It would have been as likely the other way around, I should have said.’

‘It could have been either,’ Gil said, considering this. ‘I’d ha thought both parties were equally advanced in the complaint, though Januar said the rages were a sign in the later stages of the disease, and Peg showed no such sign as yet.’

‘So perhaps she was right,’ said Alys thoughtfully. Lowrie was scarlet, looking increasingly awkward, and she smiled kindly at him and said, ‘In any case, she was convinced of it.’

‘She was,’ agreed Gil, ‘and demanded some reparation for it, out in the street where all could hear, said Austin.’

‘Including the man Johnson, I assume,’ said Lowrie, relief in his tone.

‘Exactly. Then she went for Henry when he refused her. He marked her face the way we all saw it, but she managed to scratch his throat, and then when Austin flung her off, she struck the wall and broke her neck. That’s probably no hanging matter, but at least we ken the truth now. As for Dame Ellen, it seems she’d already summoned the brothers to meet her in the chapel after the hostel dinner hour, and by the time they came she’d heard Johnson’s wife and guessed who it must ha been that he heard arguing. According to Henry she was abusing him for a’ things, for spoiling her plans by losing his temper, and his brother seized the candlestick and struck her down. Austin should certainly hang for that, and maybe Henry as well.’

‘He did more than strike her down,’ said Lowrie, grimacing.

‘She was an unpleasant woman,’ said Alys, ‘but nobody deserves to die like that.’ She shivered slightly. ‘That night when Annie was at the Cross has been a busy one. My- My good-mother,’ she went on resolutely, ‘spoke of crows, of shadows, about young Berthold. Indeed it seems as if the night was full of shadows, of people like crows on a wall watching and waiting for one death or another. There was the doctor moving about, and making use of Peg’s death,’ she counted, ‘and then there was whoever it was tried to strangle her, and the Muirs swaggering through all of it after they killed her, though I suppose they are not like crows. Three crows, like the song.’

‘Not entirely like the song,’ said Gil. ‘And those are all linked to Peg, not to Berthold. We don’t know of any connection between them.’

‘And has anyone spoken to Berthold lately?’ she wondered. ‘Now that we know more about what was happening, perhaps we can reassure him enough for him to tell us what he saw.’

‘A good point,’ said Gil. ‘But best dealt wi tomorrow.’

Alys lifted the wine jug. ‘Will you have some more, Gil? Lowrie?’

‘No if I’m to go out again,’ Gil said. ‘There’s the matter o Stockfish Tam and his customer to see to. No, I’ll no take you, Lowrie, we’ve been over that.’

‘I’ll admit, I’m about ready for my bed,’ said Lowrie, ducking his head in acknowledgement of this. ‘Forty mile, a long discussion, and a day of Euan’s conversation. I’m about done.’

‘So we still don’t know,’ said Alys, pouring wine for the rest of them, ‘who killed Barnabas and who tried to strangle a dead woman at the Cross. Do you suspect someone?’ she asked Gil.

‘I do,’ he said, ‘but I’ve already been wrong once. We’ll see what happens in a few hours.’

‘There’s no a lot o cover,’ said Tam dubiously to the captain of the Castle guard. ‘No place to hide. Yir men’s going to show up like a deid sheep on the shore.’