Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘But have you not called for someone to banish him?’

‘Why? It’s one thing the brethren and I were all agreed on. Whoever he is, he’s another of our brothers, why would we do a thing like that to him? Besides, it would distress Anselm, who can see him, beyond bearing. We’ve prayed for his rest, maister, but it seems he still likes to hear the Mass, and there’s no wrong in it, after all. Even the blessed angels rejoice at the Elevation, we’re told.’

‘ Ah, mon Dieu! ’ said Maistre Pierre, staring at him.

‘So it’s possible Lowrie saw nobody,’ said Gil.

‘It’s most likely,’ said Millar earnestly. ‘Nobody in this world.’

‘And has anyone spoken to Agnew yet?’ asked David Cunningham. ‘Or indeed tellt the man’s mistress, poor soul? I mind her father well, a decent man, it’s a sore sicht to find the family brought down so far that she’s to keep house for a clerk in this way.’

‘Agnew was there this morning,’ Gil reported. ‘He was quite anxious for his brother. And I think one of the bedesmen had gone to tell Mistress Veitch, so we can likely assume she knows by now.’

‘Maister Millar also said he would call on her,’ said Maistre Pierre. He stretched his steaming legs closer to the hearth and took another swallow of spiced ale. Maggie approved of Alys, and by extension of her family, so the ale and the hearty plate of bannocks and cheese with it had appeared with only a passing reference to the time of the household meals.

‘So it seems,’ said the Official, clipping his spectacles on to his nose, ‘as if the man Naismith has been farming the income of the bedehouse to his own benefit?’

‘And considerable benefit at that,’ agreed Gil. ‘Enough to purchase several properties in the burgh. When would St Serf’s last suffer an Archbishop’s Visit, sir?’

‘Who knows?’ said his uncle, considering briefly. He rested his elbows on the arms of his great chair and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. ‘No in my time, that’s for certain. Robert Blacader has other matters on his mind than Visitations.’

‘So the accounts have never been audited, and nobody but the old men could say him nay,’ said Gil. ‘Of the five I have met, only two are clear in their heads, and one of those is stone-deaf.’

‘Do you think that was why he was killed?’ asked the Official.

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Gil.

‘What have you found, then?’

Gil looked at Maistre Pierre, who raised his eyebrows but said nothing and reached for another bannock.

‘Naismith left the almshouse last night, just before they said Vespers, which would be about half an hour after five by what Millar tells us. He went out wearing the same clothes he was found dead in, and the cloak and hat of his office over them. The almshouse people think he was going to see his mistress.’

‘Who lives by the Caichpele,’ supplied Maistre Pierre through a mouthful of bannock.

‘Thomas Agnew says he was wi him later in his chamber in the tower, but left after an hour or so. He was heard in his lodging, well after nine o’clock,’ Gil continued, nodding at the interruption. ‘His bed had been slept in and the dole Sissie Mudie left had been eaten. This morning he may or may not have been seen at Mass, though if he was there he wasn’t in his own seat. And then, not ten minutes after the Mass, he was found knifed in the bedehouse garden, between a locked gate and a locked door, stiff and cold as if he’d been dead near twelve hours.’

‘Well!’ said David Cunningham, but it was drowned by an urgent exclamation.

‘Who? Who are you talking about?’ Tib stood at the door to the kitchen stairs, white as the flour on the apron which covered her old grey gown. Socrates rose from his place at Gil’s feet and padded forward to greet her. ‘Is it someone dead at the bedehouse?’

‘Aye, indeed,’ said her uncle, turning his head. ‘Seems the Deacon has been stabbed.’

‘Stabbed?’ she repeated blankly. ‘The Deacon? Who’s that? Who by?’

‘That’s what your brother has to find out.’

‘But when did it happen?’ Tib demanded. Socrates thrust his nose against her apron, tail waving, and she pushed him away.

‘Last night sometime,’ said Gil. ‘Who do you know at the bedehouse?’

She gave a little gasp, and shook her head. Socrates sat down and grinned up at her face, then turned to look over his shoulder at Gil.

‘No one,’ Tib said earnestly, ignoring the dog. ‘But it’s so close. Just over the way and down the vennel.’

‘Never fear, Lady Tib,’ said Maistre Pierre in bracing tones. ‘Your brother and uncle will keep you safe.’

‘Yes,’ she said, with a contrived smile. Her eyes slid away from Gil’s, and she wound her fingers in the folds of her apron. He was about to speak when there was a knocking at the main door of the house.

‘Tell Maggie I’ll get that,’ he said, rising.

‘If it’s another death, say you’re from home,’ recommended the mason.

What’s worrying Tib? Gil wondered, making his way down the stair to the door, the dog at his heels. She seemed frightened for someone, rather than by something. It has certainly changed her tune from this morning, if she accepts that I might be of some use, he thought, lifting the latch and swinging the heavy door back.

‘Well, Gil,’ said the foremost of the three Cistercians on the doorstep. ‘Let us in out the rain, and then I’ll wish you happy.’

‘Dorothea!’ he said in delight.

By the time Sister Dorothea and her retinue of plump lay sister and small elderly confessor-cum-secretary had been drawn in, welcomed, and dried off, Maggie had appeared with more spiced ale and a large jug of wine, followed by Tib bearing a platter of new girdlecakes.

‘And I sent Tam to tell them at the court you’d be held up, maister,’ Maggie added to the Official, and set down the tray to seize hold of Dorothea. ‘Oh, my, Lady Dawtie, you’re looking well. You’ve no changed a bit. Cellarer, is it, now, and keeping the accounts? You that used to hide from your lady mother when it was time to learn your numbers?’

‘Sub-Cellarer,’ Dorothea corrected her, emerging from the embrace with aplomb.

‘We’ll pray for your promotion,’ said Maggie, and pushed her down on to a stool. ‘Sit there, Lady Dawtie, my dearie, and hae a glass of wine. It’s the good stuff.’

‘I’d rather a wee cake,’ said Dorothea. ‘Herbert, Agnes, I commend Maggie’s girdle-cakes. That’s what I’ve come to Glasgow for, Maggie, no my brother’s marriage.’

Tib, the apron discarded, helped to serve out the wine and cakes very properly, eyeing Dorothea under her lashes. Gil watched this with some amusement but could not blame her; he hardly recognized their sister himself. Had Dorothea really been this confident, this calm, at sixteen? It seemed unlikely, despite Maggie’s assertion. He remembered a thin, hungry girl, impatient of the distractions of the world, always at her prayers. As he should have been himself at the time, given the plans their parents had nurtured for him, but at fourteen there were more exciting things to be doing.

‘And I hear from Mother,’ said Dorothea, passing her confessor the platter of cakes, ‘that you’ve a benefice and a title now, Gil. Is that your doing, sir?’

‘No, it’s all your brother’s own doing,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘I reminded Robert Blacader of his existence, and so I believe did your mother, a number of times,’ he added remotely, ‘but it was Gil’s own work made Robert that pleased wi him.’

‘You put him to the blush,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘But what work is that? Not this business of hunting down murderers, surely. Does Blacader think that worth a benefice?’