Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘The Archbishop said you confessed, Austin,’ said Gil. ‘Have you repented o what you did? Can you tell me what you ken about Dame Ellen?’

‘Dame Ellen! She was a wicked woman,’ said Austin. ‘She’d promised us all sorts, and land and money forbye, if we did her bidding, and none of it cam about. She cheated us, and then she called Henry sic names as there was no standing for it.’

‘What were you to do for her?’ Gil asked. Austin shook his head.

‘I canny mind. All sorts. We’d to take letters for her all across Ayrshire, to men o law, and ride in her escort when she cam to Glasgow, and make up to Annie Gibb. I didny like doing that, she wasny nice in her ways.’

‘Was that all you had to do?’ Gil asked, ignoring Andro’s snort of amusement.

‘She had us call at the hostel every day while she was there.’ The prisoner began rocking back and forward. ‘And then she’d more for us to do. She wanted us to go and see Annie Gibb in the night when she was tied up at the Cross, I’m right glad we never did that, we’d ha found the man that strangled her, maybe he’d ha strangled me. Or Henry. I was feart to go near it. Henry tellt her what was what about that, but she threatened him we’d never get the land nor the money.’ The rocking intensified. ‘And now see what’s come o’t all, we’ve neither land nor money nor Annie Gibb and I’m to be curst like a jackdaw.’

‘Austin,’ said Gil. He hunkered down, to look into the man’s face. ‘Is that all you did for her? You killed nobody for her?’

‘Killed? No.’ Tears were dripping onto the ruined gown. ‘Who would we kill for her? Mind, she asked us to, she wanted Annie Gibb slain, seeing we wouldny wed her, so her lands would all go back to the family they cam from, but Henry tellt her no, we wereny getting caught up in sic a thing.’ Austin’s manacled hands came forward again in appeal, reaching for Gil’s arm. ‘Maister, will you tell him to lift the curse? I’m no wanting to be snuffed out like yon candle.’

‘Has he seen a priest the day?’ Gil asked Andro.

‘No yet. There’s been no word about what to do wi him.’

‘He might make better sense if he was confessed again.’ Gil disengaged himself and straightened up, looking down at the rocking prisoner. ‘Take him away. I’ll speak to my lord about a priest for him.’

Henry Muir was even less helpful. Rather more resilient than his brother, he was resentful rather than tearful, but it seemed to Gil he was frightened too. As well he might be; he faced death or imprisonment for his part in two killings, and a heavy penance from the church. He was disinclined to answer questions, nevertheless, even those relating to his signed confession.

‘I can see you were protecting your brother,’ Gil said at length, ‘and he was protecting you. But you could help me now, at no cost to yoursel, and maybe do yoursel some good as well.’

Henry gave him a sour look, and shrugged one shoulder so that his chains clattered.

‘Will I get the pilliwinks heated?’ suggested Andro hopefully. ‘Or the boot, maybe?’

‘What’s this about taking letters across Ayrshire for Dame Ellen?’ Gil asked, ignoring this. ‘D’you ken what she wrote in them?’

‘No.’

Well, that was an answer of sorts.

‘When did she ask you to kill Annie Gibb?’

Another sour look, but no answer.

‘Put him back,’ said Gil in resignation. ‘The Provost can deal wi him later.’

In the outer courtyard of the castle, matters were being set up for the quest on Dame Ellen Shaw and Barnabas the verger. A table had been carried out to the foot of the steps from the main hall, and Otterburn’s great chair set behind it, with a stool for Walter the clerk at one end. Walter himself was already standing by, clasping the worn red velvet Gospel book and directing matters crisply while the wind snatched at his long gown. The area for the members of the assize had been roped off. People were gathering, standing by in gossiping knots; Maistre Pierre was in discussion with Andrew Hamilton the joiner, other neighbours were present. The two central actors in the proceedings lay on trestles under a wildly flapping striped awning, and to Gil’s surprise he saw Alys there, with the boy Berthold at her side.

As he looked, Alys raised the linen cloth from the battered countenance of Dame Ellen. Washed clean of blood the woman’s face was, he knew, a less fearsome sight than it had been by candlelight in the chapel where she died, but both of them flinched from the sight. Alys gathered her resolve and looked again, and spoke coaxingly to the boy. After a moment, perhaps not to be outdone by a young woman, he also looked, visibly forcing himself to gaze steadily at the ravaged countenance. Then he glanced at Alys, apparently surprised, and said something, with complicated gestures.

Elbowing his way through the crowd, Gil reached them just as Alys laid the linen sheet down, pulling it straight, tucking the edges under so that the wind would not catch it. The boy ducked away from him, but she looked up with a troubled expression.

‘Berthold has just said he has seen Dame Ellen, arguing with someone,’ she said. ‘Tell Maister Gil, Berthold.’

Berthold swallowed, opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, and shook his head helplessly.

‘Meister Peter?’ he said, craning to look about him. ‘Lucas? Ich kann nicht -’

Alys patted his arm in reassurance.

‘Try, Berthold. Try to say it in Scots.’

‘Come over here.’ Gil drew them both away from the two bodies, into a relatively quiet corner.

With encouragement, Berthold succeeded in explaining that he had indeed seen the woman before. He was certain it was her; he tapped his own front teeth, and gestured at the corpse under its flapping shelter.

‘When did you see her?’ Gil asked, thinking hard. The boy had been kept at home since the same day that Peg had been found at the Cross; it must have been the day before, the day the Glenbuck party had arrived in Glasgow.

‘After,’ said Berthold, and mimed eating something in his hand. ‘After food.’ Gil nodded. ‘In, in kirkyard. She spoke. Verärget.’

‘Argued?’ guessed Gil. Berthold nodded in his turn.

‘Sie stritt mit ihn.’

‘Who did she argue with?’ Alys asked.

‘A man, a man of the kirk.’

‘A priest?’ Gil conjectured.

‘ Nein, nein. ’ Berthold patted his skinny chest, below his left collarbone, then drew an oval shape like a badge there.

‘One of the vergers.’ Alys looked up at Gil.

‘What did they quarrel about?’ Gil asked, but that was more than the boy could answer; he shrugged, grinned beseechingly, spread his hands. ‘Then what?’

The man had dropped something, and the woman had picked it up. ‘ Schnell, schnell ,’ said Berthold, miming someone pouncing on the item. They had argued more. Berthold wound an invisible cord about his hand; the woman had insisted on keeping it, and sent the man away.

‘Where did he go?’ Gil asked.

‘In kirk,’ said Berthold.

‘And the woman?’

She had seen Berthold watching, and threatened him, so he had run away, back to the masons’ lodge.

‘A cord,’ said Gil. ‘Berthold, come here.’

He led the reluctant boy back to the two corpses, and uncovered Barnabas’ face. It had smoothed out, and was by far more recognisable than it had been immediately after he had been dragged out of the well. Berthold considered it for a few moments, then looked at Gil and nodded.

‘ Es war dieser Mann . This man.’

‘I must say,’ said Otterburn, ‘I could ha done wi hearing this an hour or two sooner. You say the woman had words wi the man that’s dead. What about?’