Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Certainly Scotland is,’ agreed Gil.

‘And where did young Lowrie go? That is a useful fellow, you were wise to take him on, Gilbert.’

‘Alys suggested it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Alys’s father, but said no more, as Lowrie entered from the street with his arms full of a great tangle of rope.

‘Euan had it,’ he said. ‘Deil kens what he was planning to do with it. Look at this, Maister Gil.’

He dropped most of the tangle, in order to hold up one length. Euan, or one of his helpers, had cut the loops of rope to free the dead woman from the upright of the cross, and the knots were still present. But clearly to be seen were the kinks and curves of a previous knot, unpicked with care some time before the dead woman was bound in her place.

‘So was she freed, beaten, and tied up again?’ speculated Lowrie.

‘Mon Dieu!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Or was it not a new rope, perhaps?’

‘We need to check,’ said Gil. ‘It’s usually a new rope. This one has certainly been tied and untied once at least, I agree, Lowrie.’

‘Would the family tell us?’ Lowrie asked, colouring up at the commendation in Gil’s tone.

‘Lockhart, or the men-’ began Gil, and was interrupted. There was a sudden outbreak of shouting within the little chapel, the two women’s voices raised, one in anger, one protesting, the sound of a hearty slap. Gil, striding towards the discord, collided in the chapel doorway with the maidservant Meggot backing out.

‘I swear it, mistress!’ she was protesting, one hand nursing her ear, ‘it’s no her, it’s no our Annie! It’s some other woman, Our Lady kens who it is, but it’s never her!’

‘Fool of a lassie!’ Dame Ellen was in pursuit, hands reaching for her shoulders to shake her, ‘who else could it be? Barefoot in a sacking gown and bound to the Girth Cross, a course it’s Annie! No matter if her own mammy wouldny ken her face!’

‘What’s this?’ demanded Gil, and they both stopped to stare at him. ‘Is there some doubt about the corp?’

‘This gomeril-’ began Dame Ellen, and visibly controlled herself to assume her thin smile. ‘This foolish lassie tries to tell me-’

‘No, mistress, I swear it!’ said Meggot again. ‘It’s no her! It’s no Annie Gibb!’

Beside the bier, despite the indignant comments of Dame Ellen, she offered more reasoned argument, lifting a lock of the corpse’s elbow-length mud-coloured hair.

‘Our Lady kens who she is,’ she said again, ‘but her hair’s away too long, maister, my mistress’s hair never came ablow her shoulder-blades, and see here,’ she pulled the hem of the penitential gown aside to expose the small bare feet, twisted sideways by the way the body had sagged in its bonds and somehow very pitiful, Gil thought. Meggot seemed to feel the same way, for she curved a gentle hand round one instep as she said, ‘See, this lassie’s gone barefoot the most o her days. Her feet’s hard as neat’s leather. Annie wears hose and shoon, I took them off her yestreen afore she- Afore she- What’s come to her, maister? Where is she? Is she deid, or hurt, or-?’

‘The lassie’s run mad like her mistress,’ declared Dame Ellen. ‘Who else could it be but Annie? Maister Cunningham, I think we need hardly trouble you wi this nonsense. We’ll get on wi our duty to the dead, if you’ll just leave us.’

Gil considered the two women. Dame Ellen stood by the head of the bier, tall and indignant in the light of the candles. She was probably past fifty, dressed like any country lady in a plain gown of good woad-dyed homespun over a kirtle of a lighter blue, her head covered by a black Flemish hood. Wisps of grey hair escaped at her temples, and her face was lined and bony. Under his gaze she crossed her arms, hitching up a substantial bosom, and said, with an attempt at a complicit smile,

‘I’ve raised the lassie since she came into my brother’s house, how would I not know her when she’s come to be laid out?’

‘And I’ve served her and dressed her and put her stockings on these six year,’ retorted Meggot. She was shorter than Dame Ellen, a round-faced comfortable young woman in a side-laced kirtle, her shift rolled up over its short sleeves to expose capable hands and forearms, her hair hidden under a kerchief of good linen. She had not partaken of her mistress’s vow, Gil concluded. ‘I ken her feet from a stranger’s,’ she was saying, ‘I ken what length her hair was. These are no her hands, this lassie worked, and just look at these nails! I tell you, maister, it’s some other poor lassie, and what can have happened to my mistress?’

She paused to wipe tears from her eyes. Socrates padded forward, his claws rasping on the tiled floor, to sniff at the corpse’s feet, and Maistre Pierre said,

‘Did you both see her bound to the cross?’

‘I did indeed!’ said Dame Ellen, as Meggot nodded. ‘I stood by and watched while the two lads led her over there and bound her secure. And our good doctor oversaw all.’

‘Oh, he did?’ said Gil.

‘It suited my poor brother to gie him that duty, sir. Now are you to leave us about our business? It’s a sad day enough, without unseemly arguments like this.’

Meggot drew a breath, found Gil’s eye on her and remained silent.

‘Someone must stay and watch,’ pronounced Maistre Pierre. ‘We are both married men, madame, we will not demean the dead. What has happened must be determined.’

Gil turned away for a moment, to find Lowrie still standing watching the discussion in fascination, the lengths of rope dangling from his hands.

‘Go and find those two lads, if you will, and the other servants too,’ he said. ‘Talk them through what happened to Annie after the party arrived in Glasgow, see if you can find how often they looked at her and how close they went to the Cross. Don’t mention this,’ he cautioned. ‘And here, ask them if they’d ever seen this before.’ He held out the coil of cord Maistre Pierre had removed from about the dead woman’s neck.

‘Of course,’ agreed Lowrie. Gathering up the rope he set it in a bundle on the stone bench which ran round the wall, took the cord from Gil and made for the inner courtyard. Gil turned back into the chapel, to find Meggot already working at the ties of the sacking gown, her mouth set in a determined line, while Dame Ellen was still trying to argue the point with Maistre Pierre. Joining the maidservant by the bier, he said quietly,

‘This lassie has no ash on her brow.’

‘No,’ she said shortly.

‘Is all this as you last saw it?’

She paused to look at him, her eyes glittering in the candlelight.

‘I canny mind how I left it. All I can think on’s how Annie begged us no to leave her there, to take her home and let her dee. What’s come to her, maister?’

‘You were fond of her,’ he said. She nodded, and went back to her task.

The garment she was working on was cut loosely, designed to fit almost any size of supplicant and to be easily put on by his or her attendants; it was secured down the back by linen tapes, which were now in tight knots.

‘Take a knife to them,’ Gil suggested.

‘Aye, you’re right, maister,’ she said, and paused to loosen the strings of the purse at her belt. ‘This isny how I left these, you’re right there and all. I fastened it all neat and secure, but so’s I-’ She clapped the back of her hand across her mouth, tears starting to her eyes again. ‘So as I could easy take it off her this morning,’ she finished.

Gil drew his own dagger and sawed through the first of the tapes. By the time he had dealt with all five of the knots Meggot had recovered a little and Dame Ellen had abandoned her argument.

‘What are you doing there?’ she demanded, hurrying over. ‘Have you any idea what the hire of that gown cost my brother? We’ll ha to return it to St Mungo’s in good order! That will come out your wages, my girl. Maister, I beg you no to encourage her!’