Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘A hoodie,’ he said, ‘it’s that hoodie again.’

‘I’m no a hoodie,’ said Gil reassuringly. Mistress Mudie nodded approval. ‘I’m no here to attack anyone.’ Feeling Socrates pressing against his knee he looked down, and saw with surprise that the the dog’s head was lowered to glare at Maister Humphrey, the coarse grey hair standing up on his back and shoulders. Gil snapped his fingers and gestured, and the animal departed in something like relief.

‘- aye, that’s better, we’re a bit feart for the big doggie even if we areny saying so, a course the mannie’s no a hoodie, Humphrey my poppet, he’s a good friend to the bedehouse, he’s here to find out what’s come to the Deacon — ’

‘The Deacon was a shrike,’ said Maister Humphrey earnestly, staring at Gil. He was very like his brother, with a thin squarish face, round light-coloured eyes and light brown hair clipped very close, presumably by Mistress Mudie. The hands clasping the beaker were fine-boned and muscular, but the nails were bitten so short they had bled quite recently. ‘He was a shrike, but now he’s a robin. Because he died, you ken?’

‘Why a robin?’ Gil asked.

‘He was making changes,’ said Humphrey, ‘a new nest for the bonnie yeldrin, another for the chaffinch,’ he cast a quick, bright smile at Mistress Mudie, ‘and the shrike himself to take a make and hae the meat frae our mouths.’

‘That sounds bad,’ said Gil, preserving his countenance.

‘Oh, very bad,’ agreed Humphrey, shaking his head. ‘But he changed to a robin instead, and now he’s dead. So it willny happen, will it?’

‘No, it willny,’ Gil reassured him.

Mistress Mudie gave him an approving look but said persuasively, ‘- no need to be upsetting ourselves wi talk like that, nor it wasny very nice to be calling the Deacon names, was it now, and what were you wanting to ask us anyway, till I get on wi my tasks here — ’

‘Last night, Mistress Mudie,’ said Gil, dragging his mind back to the point at issue, ‘you heard Maister Naismith come in late.’

‘It was the birds woke me,’ declared Humphrey, ‘when they sang for joy at the shrike’s passing. But I looked out after that, late, late, in the middle of the night, and there was a light in his lodging, so I wept sair, for they had leed to me.’

‘- what I said already, I knew I’d tellt you all I could — ’

‘Was all quiet here by then?’

‘- oh, aye, all asleep in their own wee houses they were, no a cheep out o them, even Humphrey was away wi the angels, weren’t you no, my poppet?’

‘How long had it been quiet?’

The continuous babble checked for a moment, as she stared at him.

‘Half an hour,’ she said. ‘No as much as an hour, no I couldny say it was as much as an hour, we’d to warm the milk for you, didn’t we no, Humphrey, and it was longer than I thought it would be, what wi the fire being low, and I heard the Deacon over our heads here no that long afore Maister Millar came in and all. And I heard him from here,’ she added, ‘our Andro, for he locked the door out there and went through to the garden, and I heard his boots on the stone and then on the gravel, and he went up to his own lodging which it’s above the other end of the hall and the stair’s in the garden by Anselm’s door. And the Deacon was over my head all that time walking about in his boots too, never thought to put his house shoon on, and then sitting eating his piece for I heard the chair scrape at the table — ’

As if on cue, footsteps could be heard on the boards above them. Pierre must still be studying the accounts, thought Gil.

Maister Humphrey looked up nervously. ‘Is that him back?’

‘- a course not, my poppet, the Deacon’s dead, rest his soul, he’s no walking about — ’

Humphrey nodded, smiling. ‘Now I mind. That’s the other one,’ he said. ‘The other hoodie.’

‘- now, now, fancy saying that about him — ’

‘He’s searching for the deep secrets of Satan.’

‘- we’ll have none of that, my poppet — ’

‘Aye, and he gives glory and honour and thanks to the one who lives for ever ,’ said Gil quickly, switching to the scholarly tongue. The bedesman eyed him warily, then smiled again.

‘ Praise and honour to the Lamb for ever and ever ,’ he agreed, the Latin echoing off the creaking floorboards.

‘Amen,’ said Gil. Maister Humphrey relaxed, and drained off his cup and handed it to Sissie like a small child. The cuff of his grey gown was pulled and torn. Gil suddenly recalled his sister Margaret, whose clothes had always looked like that, because she chewed them. But she grew out of the habit before she was ten, he thought.

‘Have you some milk for the hoodie, Sissie?’ Humphrey asked, still smiling.

She set the cup aside and lifted a pipkin from the brazier, hand wrapped in a corner of her apron. ‘- saints be praised he’s taken to you for it’s no easy if he doesny take to a person, would you care for a drink of milk, maister, seeing it would make him happy? It’s almond milk,’ she qualified, ‘seeing there’s no milk to be had this time of year, but he likes it just as well and the herbs helps him.’

‘A wee drop, then,’ said Gil. ‘Mistress Mudie, I’ve another thing to ask you.’

‘- goodness me, as if I would have anything more to tell, I’m certain you’ve everything out of my head that’s in it the questions you’ve asked us all this day already — ’

‘At the Mass this morning,’ he continued. She was stirring a beaker, but stopped and paused again in her chatter to gaze at him, her plump face anxious in the light from the window. ‘One of the lads thought he saw a seventh bedesman, like as if the Deacon was sitting down at the end of the stalls. Did you see anything?’

‘Oh, I wouldny see him.’ She shook her head so that the ends of her linen headdress swung. ‘I never see him even when Anselm says he’s been there. And to say truth at this time of the year it’s that dark in the chapel there could be the choir of St Mungo’s at the Mass and I wouldny notice them, let alone someone who — ’ She caught herself up, glanced quickly at Humphrey who was watching her and went on, ‘someone who’s Anselm’s friend and no always in his own seat. No, I canny help you there, maister. Now here’s this milk, a wee bit warmed ower just to take the chill off it and a spoonful honey in it — ’

Round the small blaze on the hearth at the far end of the hall, three of the bedehouse brothers were listening to a fourth who spoke in the loud, barking voice of someone who has been deaf for years. Three heads turned as Gil made his way down the room, Socrates behind him, but the speaker paid no attention.

‘He’ll have made his escape by the back way,’ he was saying, ‘I canny tell why the man’s no looking at the back yett. That dog he brought would pick up the scent, quick as ye please, and take him to the ill-doer — ’

‘Barty,’ said another brother tremulously, leaning over to face the other man. ‘It’s a sight-hound.’

‘What did ye say? What did ye say, Cubby?’

‘It’s a sight-hound. Look at it. And here’s the man to speak to us. Tell him what ye were just saying.’

‘What’s that? Playing? I wasny playing, Cubby.’

‘He wasny slain here. It wasny on the bedehouse land,’ said the frailest of the brothers, a scrawny man with a shock of white hair, his spectacles slipping sideways off his nose. ‘He tellt me that.’

‘Aye, Anselm,’ said the one addressed as Cubby. ‘I’ve no doubt, but the fellow has to report to Robert Blacader, he’ll need more to give him than that.’

‘He taught Robert Blacader,’ said Anselm resentfully. ‘He ought to listen to what he tells me.’