Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Bad,’ he said again, working his way down the corpse to check the rigidity of the feet. ‘And she was still tied where we saw her last night.’

‘Yes,’ said Gil, snapping his fingers at Socrates, who obediently left off sniffing at the hem of the sacking gown and came to sit at his side. ‘And her men say she was not beaten like that when they left her.’

‘No, no, I agree,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I had a good sight of her face last evening, and she looked nothing like this.’ He returned to the head of the bier, touching the bruised face. ‘Her death is not as it seems, is it?’

‘Exactly my thoughts,’ said Gil.

‘The ground was too hard and too much trampled to pick up any sign,’ said Lowrie, ‘and the dog found nothing to interest him.’

Maistre Pierre nodded, unfolding the checked plaid which still lay round the dead woman’s shoulders. Gil stared at her, considering what he saw.

Hunched over as she was, her build and stature were not easy to make out, but she seemed to be about Alys’s height, perhaps five and a half feet high. The neck and wrists exposed by the sacking gown were thin, the shoulders bony. Not a well-nourished girl, he thought, despite the family’s wealth. Perhaps, in her melancholy, she picked at her food.

‘There is no mark on this gown,’ Maistre Pierre observed. ‘We cannot be certain what killed her until she is stripped.’

‘I took it it was the cord,’ said Lowrie in surprise. ‘Though it’s clumsy work, both ends at the front of the throat like that. Surely you’d work from behind-’ His voice trailed off as Gil shook his head.

‘Not while she stood tied to the cross like that. You would cross your arms, with the ends of the cord in your hands, and cast it over the victim’s head,’ he mimed the action, ‘and pull hard, whether from before or behind. It’s a professional’s trick. But that wasn’t what killed her.’

‘No, I agree,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘She was already dead when the cord was used.’

‘What? She was throttled after — after she was dead?’ said Lowrie incredulously. ‘Why? Why would anybody do that?’

‘Not long after,’ conceded Maistre Pierre. ‘She had barely begun to stiffen. See, the cord has sunk into the flesh a little way, but there has been no swelling round it.’ He lifted one dangling end as he spoke, and began to ease the length of hemp away from the thin neck, working with difficulty round under the jaw. ‘I suppose she hung on those ropes? Her head is so far bent I am surprised this comes free, even without being sunk in the flesh.’

‘And when did she die, I wonder?’ said Gil. His father-in-law shook his head.

‘No certainty, though it was probably within an hour of midnight, a little earlier, a little later.’

‘I spoke to the men,’ said Lowrie after a moment. ‘Sawney and Rab. It was just as Sawney said while you were there, Maister Gil. Their task was to bind her to the cross, and keep an eye on her through the night. They thought she’d be safe enough, and St Nicholas’ chapel was handy and out of the night air.’

‘No way to go about their duty,’ said Maistre Pierre disapprovingly, ‘and see what has come of it. Why could they not stay with her, to keep her from harm?’ He coaxed the last length of cord from its seat and studied its length, then wound it round his hand and handed the tow-coloured loops to Gil.

‘It’s usual to leave them alone at the cross for the night,’ said Gil. ‘But it’s mostly men that are treated like that, and I do wonder at anyone leaving a lassie alone. She was tied there in the dark, her friends out of sight in St Nicholas’ chapel, and someone came along, beat her senseless or near it, slew her in some way we’ve not yet discerned, and only then throttled her. It makes no sense of any sort.’ He bent over the girl’s battered face again. ‘Pierre, can you see any ashes on her?’

‘Ashes?’ His father-in-law came closer. ‘What, on her brow? As for Ash Wednesday?’

‘Lockhart said they applied ashes when she heard Mass, before she was put in place at the Cross. I don’t see any about her now.’ He touched his own forehead involuntarily. ‘It’s fine stuff, it doesny come off readily, save you use soap and water. I wonder how she got rid of it?’

‘That is strange indeed. There is more,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘When I saw her in the evening she was bound so,’ he stood upright, his arms at his sides. ‘Her hands were not free.’

‘That’s how she was before we took her down,’ agreed Lowrie, ‘though she was hanging on the ropes by then, as you said, maister, just the way she’s set now.’

‘Then tell me how she has managed to scratch her attacker.’ The mason cradled one of the corpse’s stiffened hands in his big one, pointing at the fingertips. ‘There is blood under her nails, and two are broken. She has fought. How did she do that, bound as we saw her?’

There was a brief silence.

‘The ropes,’ said Lowrie cryptically. He turned and darted out of the chapel. Gil remained, studying the dead woman.

‘Something else I wonder at,’ he said, ‘is the family. So far I’ve spoken to the good-brother, and we’ve met two serving-men. Where are the rest of them? If they’re all as fond as the man Lockhart gave me to understand you’d think someone would be here to see her, to order her laying-out or the like, or to pray for her.’

‘Perhaps they wait until she is washed,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘For which I should not blame them.’

On the word, footsteps sounded in the courtyard outside, and the mason pulled the linen up over the hunched shoulders and hideous battered face, just before a woman entered the little chapel, tall against the light for a moment. She checked at sight of them, then came forward, saying,

‘Well, sirs. That must be you that’s put the fear of God into Lockhart, then?’ She stepped aside to let a sturdy maidservant past with a basin of water. ‘Aye, lass, set it all down there, we’ll get to work soon enough. I’ll have to ask you men to leave us, till I get my poor niece made decent.’

‘Dame Ellen, is it?’ said Gil.

‘And what if it is? Who’s asking?’

Gil bowed, and introduced himself and his father-in-law. She heard him out, nodding, and smiled thinly at them both by the light from the doorway. Her front teeth were large, and crossed, giving her mouth a kissable shape greatly at odds with the rest of her expression.

‘Aye, you have it right, I’m Ellen Shaw, that’s run my brother’s house and raised his lassies these twelve year.’ She considered Gil. ‘A Cunningham, are you? You’ll be Gelis Muirhead’s laddie, I suppose. I mind her when we were young. You’ve a look o her.’ She unbuttoned the tight sleeves of her kirtle and began to roll them up. ‘Now I’d ask you to leave, sirs, till Meggot and I get to work, and you can take that great dog wi you.’

‘I need to inspect-’ Gil began.

‘It can wait. She was aye a modest lassie, even in her melancholy, and we’ll just maintain her modesty now she’s dead. Away ye go.’ She made shooing motions with her large bony hands.

‘Have you been told what happened to her?’ Gil asked. She looked more intently at him and nodded, her face grimly set. ‘Beaten and then throttled, or so we think. We need to know if you find any more injuries, anything at all, and if anything seems out of place or not right about her clothes or her body.’

‘I’ll keep a look out, maister, you can be sure o that, and so will Meggot, but we must have your room afore we begin.’

Gil went, not very hopefully. Out in the yard Maistre Pierre was already kicking gloomily at a clump of grass growing between two cobbles.

‘The world is full of high-handed women,’ he complained.