Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Lockhart.

‘It is,’ said the other in Scots, moving forward from the doorway. ‘Could you keep your voices down, or go elsewhere? Sir Edward’s sore afflicted.’

‘You could close the shutters,’ said Lockhart.

‘You must be the doctor,’ said Gil, rising. The newcomer bowed.

‘Chrysostomus Ianuarius, of Ghent and Salerno,’ he said, returning to Latin. ‘Do I address the Archbishop’s quaestor?’

‘If you’re to patter away in the Latin tongue,’ said Lockhart, finally getting to his feet, ‘I’m away. I’ll be about if you’re wanting any more from me, maister,’ he added to Gil, and strode off towards the gate which led out to the stables.

Gil let him go, and studied Chrysostom Januar with some interest as the man straightened up from his formal bow. He was a striking figure, robed in a bag-sleeved gown of crimson and yellow silk brocade which would surely draw Habbie Sim deep into the sin of covetousness if he set eyes on it; worn over this, in faintly academic fashion, was a black cloth hood with a deep, tight shoulder-cape, its lining of squirrel showing to advantage where it was folded down about his ears. A fat purse and an astrologer’s vademecum hung from a green leather belt shod with silver. The brim of the bright blue velvet bonnet which he had just clapped back onto a head of dark, luxuriant curls was pinned up with an enamel brooch, and under it, Gil realised with some embarrassment, the man’s equally bright blue eyes were studying him.

‘You’ll ken me again, maister,’ he said in faint amusement. His Scots was rapid and accented, with the harsh consonants of the Low Countries.

‘More than likely,’ agreed Gil in Latin. ‘I ask your pardon. I had not expected to find a doctor of Ghent and Salerno in Glasgow, much less in Avondale. How did you fetch up there?’

A faint grimace crossed the doctor’s face.

‘The wheel of fortune turns,’ he said sententiously ‘Magister, I do not think this death can be ascribed to one of the family.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘My patient is unable to leave his bed,’ replied the doctor carefully, ‘the man who has just left us was asleep at the other end of the hall within my sight throughout my vigil, and the women likewise shared a chamber in the other hall. I saw this when I was called to administer a calming draught to the two girls. None of the family left the place in the night.’

But what about the servants, Gil wondered. And what about these two kinsmen of Dame Ellen’s?

‘And Annie herself,’ he said. ‘She too was your patient? She was in a poor case. Sorewe and siche and drery mod Bindeth me so faste. The melancholy was of long standing, by what I’m told.’

‘In part.’ The doctor turned and strolled away across the courtyard after Lockhart, inviting Gil to accompany him with a jerk of the head. ‘I had hardly begun to treat her.’

‘What would your treatment have been?’

‘Not this, at any rate. I advised most strongly against it.’ Doctor Januar considered briefly. ‘Company, music, good wine — as good as one might obtain in Ayrshire, at any rate — a diet both dry and warming, all of these. Confession, in order to obtain release from her ridiculous vow as soon as she began to wish it, and someone to talk to about her dead husband.’

‘What good would that do?’ Gil asked, surprised. ‘I’d have thought it would make her the more melancholy.’

‘It would encourage weeping,’ pronounced the doctor, ‘and thus the release of the moist humours which promote the state, and besides it would affirm that she has cause to mourn. Certain of the family have not been-’ He cut off the sentence and fell silent.

‘And Sir Edward?’ Gil asked after a moment. ‘What can you tell me of his illness?’

Doctor Januar glanced at the guest hall, shook his head, and turned to pace across the further side of the courtyard, well out of his patient’s hearing.

‘A tumour of the bladder primarily,’ he said quietly, ‘with secondary afflictions in the bowel and lung. He is aware of it, otherwise I would not divulge so much. He is in great pain, which I am managing, from day to day at first and now from hour to hour. I expect to bury him here in Glasgow.’

‘Why did you move him, so near his end?’

‘He was determined. It would have hastened the end, I think, to gainsay him.’

‘So it was his idea to bring his good-daughter to St Mungo?’

The doctor contemplated this question for a moment, without interrupting his measured pace.

‘I think,’ he said eventually, ‘it may have been Dame Ellen who suggested it to him first. However, she is a clever woman, and led her brother to believe it was his idea.’

‘How did she do that?’ Gil asked, amused.

‘Oh, by crying it down at every turn. It is how she deals with him.’

‘Tell me about Annie’s life in his household. Was she well regarded?’

‘Why do you ask me?’ asked Doctor Januar, looking up at Gil. ‘Why not her sisters?’

‘You are the observant outsider. Are they truly sisters? Lockhart certainly seemed to think they were all very fond.’

‘Lockhart does not live with the family.’

‘And you do, I think.’ This was not answered. ‘Did she have her own apartment? Her own servants?’

‘Yes.’ The doctor looked disapproving. ‘She has dwelt for nearly three years in two chambers at the end of one wing of the house, with all her own furnishings and some few things which belonged to her dead husband. Her own maidservant oversees all for her, brings in her food, carries messages, she has two men who deal with her share of the outside work. Her good-sisters visit from time to time, the parish priest calls on her regularly — I will say, magister, he is a good man — Dame Ellen attends her daily to exhort her to repent of her vow and wed where Sir Edward might direct.’

‘And where would that have been?’

‘Probably not where Dame Ellen thinks. Sir Edward’s affection is real.’

‘No life for a girl of twenty. She never went out of doors?’

‘Rarely. As you say, no life for a girl of twenty.’

‘Nevertheless, the family’s intentions have been good,’ Gil suggested.

‘I would not say so,’ replied Doctor Januar after a little. ‘In fact I have seen no evidence of that.’ Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, they speak of how much they hold her in affection, but they do little to improve her situation.’

‘Are their intentions evil?’

‘I cannot say.’ Cannot, not would not, Gil noted.

‘Will you come and view the body?’ he asked. ‘My friend the mason has experience in dealing with the dead, but a medical man’s opinion would be-’ He stopped. Doctor Januar was shaking his head.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Perhaps later I will do so. I must go to my patient. Already I have been away too long.’

He bowed, with a sweep of the blue velvet hat, clapped it back on his head, and squaring his shoulders turned away and marched towards the guest-hall. As he reached its doorway, heavy footsteps sounded in the passage from the outer courtyard; he checked for a moment, then resolutely pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Gil stood staring after him for a moment, then turned as his father-in-law emerged into the sunlight, Lowrie on his heels. Socrates hurried past them to thrust his head under his master’s hand in greeting.

‘What is this young Lowrie tells me?’ demanded Maistre Pierre. ‘The woman at the Cross murdered where she stood? And under the saint’s protection, too! A bad business!’

Back in the chapel, the linen drawn aside, the mason scrutinised the dead woman with pity at first. He studied the fingernails, tested the stiffness of the jaw and neck, tweaked at the cord where it was lodged in the flesh of the neck.