Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘Oh,’ she said again, and then, ‘How? Accounts are just accounts, surely?’

‘They tell where the money is,’ said Gil, ‘and where it came from.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said, scraping her own bowl. ‘Who have you to ask questions of?’

‘The kitchen hands, for a start.’

‘Can I come too? I could do that for you.’

He looked at her, startled. ‘Can Maggie not do with your help here?’

She opened her mouth on a sharp answer and visibly thought better of it.

‘I’d like to help you,’ she offered winningly. ‘You’ll want to get this out the way before your wedding.’

His objection crystallized, and he realized it was unworthy. It should be Alys who helped him, as she had done before, not this vixen of a sister.

‘What do you want to ask the kitchen folk? Who is there? Any good-looking laddies?’ she asked, with irony.

‘Just the one, and he reminds me of wee William here.’ She pulled a face. ‘Tib, if you’re serious, it would be a help. Just be sure Maggie doesn’t need you.’

‘I can make shift without her,’ said Maggie, stumping into the hall as he spoke. ‘Are ye done with they bowls yet? Aye, I see you,’ she added to Socrates, who had come to wag his tail at her.

‘Maggie, have you a moment?’ said Gil quickly, as something leapt into his mind. ‘You ken all there is about the doings of the Chanonry, you’re the likeliest to tell me. Does Maister Thomas Agnew have a mistress anywhere?’

‘Agnew?’ She paused, a wooden porringer in each hand, to consider this. ‘No that I’ve heard. His man would be more like to tell you, that’s Hob Watson that dwells on the Drygate.’ She frowned, and set one dish inside the other to carry them out. ‘I’ll ask the men. Tam might ken something.’

‘Thanks, Maggie,’ said Gil.

‘Now get out my sight, the pair of you. And be sure and come back for your noon bite the day. Your sister’s to be here, for one thing, and she’s a busy woman.’

I am surrounded by busy women, Gil thought. Even Alys, who usually has time to talk, is too busy to help me. He found himself thinking of the brief embrace they had shared last night at the door. She had leaned against him, a warm armful, smelling faintly of rosemary hairwash and lavender linen, but when he had tried to kiss her mouth she had tensed within his grasp. Is she too busy to kiss me? he wondered, and laughed at himself. But the doubt remained.

When they reached the bedehouse Maister Kennedy was just leaving, and met them in the yard with his vestments in a bundle under his arm.

‘Aye, Gil,’ he said. ‘Where are you at wi this business?’

‘No a lot further,’ Gil admitted, and paused to introduce his sister. ‘Tib’s to help me question the household. How are they the day?’

‘Much as usual,’ said Maister Kennedy offhandedly, changing his bundle to the other arm in order to raise his round felt hat to Tib. ‘I wouldny say they’re grieved for the Deacon. You’ll find them in the hall.’

Humphrey appeared in the doorway behind him, staring anxiously at the three figures in the yard. Beyond him, Mistress Mudie’s head popped watchfully out of the kitchen. Socrates retreated, equally watchful, to the door of the chapel.

‘It’s a bonnie lassie,’ said Humphrey after a moment, and came out to join them. Tib bobbed another curtsy and gave Gil a doubtful look. ‘She’s here wi the hoodie, but she’s no his make.’

‘Not my make,’ Gil agreed, ‘but my sister.’

‘I see that,’ said Humphrey. ‘But she’s no a hoodie like you. She’s a wood-pigeon, aren’t you no, lassie?’

‘If you say so, sir,’ said Tib politely.

Humphrey considered her carefully for a moment, and nodded. ‘Aye, a wood-pigeon, crying always for its sweetheart.’ Tib gave Gil another doubtful look, bright colour washing down over her face. ‘Pray for me, lassie,’ Humphrey went on, ‘as I will for you, for we need one another’s prayers.’

‘I will, sir,’ said Tib, more at home with this reasonably conventional request.

‘Aye, and your sins shall be white as snow, though they were red as blood,’ said Humphrey earnestly.

Tib bent her head and crossed herself, still blushing, and Maister Kennedy said, ‘Humphrey get away in and stop worrying the lassie. She’s no worse than the rest of us, she’s no need of your lectures.’

‘I was just going to my prayers,’ said Humphrey, ignoring this, ‘in my own lodging. So you’ll ken I’m asking forgiveness for you.’

He nodded to all three of them and turned to go back into the building. Maister Kennedy watched him going, clicking his tongue impatiently.

‘Poor soul,’ he said. ‘He should be locked away.’

‘ Cloudy hath bene the favour That shoon on him ful bright in times past. He does no harm,’ said Gil. ‘Get away down the road, Nick. You’ve a lecture to deliver, if I mind right.’

Mistress Mudie, having seen her favourite out of sight, hurried across the yard with an armful of linen and a basin, pausing to curtsy but not speaking directly, and vanished into the washhouse. A fragment of her chatter floated past them.

‘- all to do in this place, the dinner to see to and the Deacon to be made decent — ’

Leaving Tib to insinuate herself into the bedehouse kitchen in her own way, Gil stepped into the hall and paused, looking at the brothers where they sat, as he had seen them before, round the brazier at the far end. Neither Millar nor Humphrey was present; of the others, Maister Veitch, Cubby and Barty had their heads together in loud and animated discussion, Duncan was listening and nodding, and Anselm was sitting with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his breast. Gil went forward to bend over him and touch the hands.

‘Father Anselm? Might I have a word?’

‘I wasny asleep,’ said Anselm, blinking up at him past his crooked spectacles.

‘I never thought it, sir,’ said Gil, and pulled up a stool.

‘You had a dog wi you yesterday,’ said Anselm, peering around for Socrates.

‘I left him out in the yard the day,’ Gil said clearly.

‘Pity It’s a good hound,’ said the old man. ‘Was that no a terrible thing yesterday? And those laddies trying to search our lodgings and all. Terrible, terrible. The world goes from bad to worse.’

‘It’s a sorry business,’ Gil agreed diplomatically. ‘Father Anselm, might I ask you a thing?’

‘You can ask me,’ said Anselm, blinking. ‘I might no ken. I forget, you understand.’

‘Yesterday morn,’ Gil prompted. ‘Can you tell me what you all did? You went to say Matins just as usual?’

Anselm nodded, and clutched at his spectacles as they slid on his nose.

‘Just as usual,’ he confirmed.

‘So how did that go? Did you meet here?’

‘Aye, here in the hall,’ Anselm concurred, ‘and Andro had the keys and unlocked the door to the Deacon’s yard. I don’t like it being locked,’ he confided, ‘what if there was a fire or a great flood or the like? I could never get ower that wall if there was a great flood.’

‘That’s a good thought,’ agreed Gil. ‘Maybe it should be considered. So Maister Millar unlocked the door. Then what?’

‘We went in a procession, just as we aye do. It was raining,’ he added. ‘So we went across the yard in a procession and Andro unlocked the chapel as he aye does, and we gaed in and said Matins and Prime.’

‘Were you all six there?’

‘Seven,’ agreed Anselm.

‘Six,’ said Maister Veitch, turning his head.

‘What did ye say?’ demanded Barty

‘The lad that was thurifer at the Mass thought he saw seven,’ said Gil.

‘Seven,’ said Anselm flatly. ‘He wasny there yesterday morn. He spoke to me in the night, but he’d to be elsewhere in the morning.’