Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘A dead man?’ repeated Gil. ‘Who is it? One of the bedesmen?’

‘No the bedesmen, they’re all present. We think it’s the Deacon,’ Lowrie said cautiously. ‘It wasny full day when I left to find you, and so far as we could tell in the dark he’s been stabbed. So Auld — so Maister Kennedy said, since we’re within the Chanonry and you’re the Archbishop’s questioner, we’d do better to fetch you first than last, so here I am.’

‘What, the Deacon of St Serf’s? Robert Naismith?’ said Gil. ‘And he’s been stabbed?’

‘Naismith? Is that him,’ said Daidie with relish, ‘that keeps Marion Veitch as his mistress? The bairn’s three year old, and another on the way, poor soul. My cousin Bel works in her kitchen,’ he explained, finding everyone looking at him.

‘Can you come, maister?’ said Lowrie. He indicated his muddy feet. ‘It’s raining hard. The old men were all for moving him at once, and I don’t know how long Maister Kennedy can hold them off, though Mistress Mudie was offering them spiced ale for the shock to get them indoors.’

‘You must go, Gil,’ said Alys. ‘But — will you come back later? There’s still something.’ She hesitated, seemed about to go on, then said only, ‘You had better go.’

He nodded with reluctance. ‘I suppose I must. As Lowrie says, it’s within the Chanonry and I’m Blacader’s man.’ He gathered up the plaid which hung over his arm. ‘I’ll take the dog with me, and come down again as soon as I can.’

‘Who was there?’ said Lowrie, hunching his shoulders against the rain. ‘Well. You ken Maister Kennedy’s got the St Serf’s chaplaincy? Seems it usually goes to someone from the college, and in the changes after Father Bernard was transferred, he was next in line. Worth quite a bit, I hear, so he takes the duties seriously. And as often as not he brings Miggle — er, Michael, and me to serve for him — ’

‘Michael Douglas? Your chamber-fellow?’

‘The same. We’d come up as usual after Prime to say Mass for the old men, at least Miggle was here already, so they were all there too, and Mistress Mudie, and Maister Millar — ’

‘That’s the sub-Deacon, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve met him.’

‘Aye. He’s studying Theology.’ Lowrie, nearly as tall as Gil, kept up with his long strides without effort, the skirts of his narrow blue gown flapping round his calves. ‘Sometimes there’s other folk to hear the Mass, but that’s just in the chapel, they don’t come within the almshouse itself.’

Gil whistled to Socrates and bore left-handed at the crossing called the Wyndhead, heading up the hill towards the Stablegreen Port.

‘And what happened? When was he found?’

‘After the Mass.’ Lowrie looked away to their right through the drizzle, beyond the castle walls to where the towers of St Mungo’s cathedral loomed grey against the sky. ‘Is that Miggle coming there? We were still laving the vessels and putting them past, see, when one of the old men came tottering back into the chapel to say they’d found a dead man, could we come and see to it. We were just in time to stop them lifting everything into the hall where the light was. Then Maister Kennedy found the blood on him and sent Miggle over to St Mungo’s, and I went to Rottenrow and they said you were likely down the town.’ He paused at a narrow arched gateway, pushing open the heavy wooden yett. ‘Here we are.’

Gil looked about him. He had never paid much attention to St Serf’s almshouse, nor had it obtruded on his professional life, unlike the larger house of St Nicholas or the two pilgrim hostels. Its aged inmates were law-abiding and eschewed litigation, so it had not come to his uncle’s attention as senior judge of the diocese, and its property and financial matters were handled by one of the other men of law about the Consistory Court.

The almshouse occupied one of the long narrow tofts which ran between Castle Street and the open land of the Stablegreen. Beside the gate the east end of the chapel faced the street; there was no other break in the frontage, apart from the chapel’s east windows which were now catching the grey light. By the same light, he made out lettering on the archway: YHE HOVS OF LEIRIT PVIRTITH. Yes, of course, he thought, appreciating the conceit. The House of Learned Poverty would be dedicated to St Mungo’s teacher.

Beyond the archway, Socrates was already exploring a constringent passageway which ran between the boundary wall and the south face of the chapel, and seemed to open out into a wider space.

‘Do they lock the yett?’ he asked. ‘Can anyone walk in?’

‘Only in the daytime, and only so far as the chapel and the Deacon’s house,’ said Lowrie, answering the second question. ‘There’s a door each end of the passageway between the two yards, you’ll see it in a moment, and there’s the iron gate in the back wall of the garden. I think they lock them all at night.’

Gil followed his dog along the flagstones past the eaves-drips, Lowrie behind him, their boots ringing loud in the narrow way. At the far end, they came out at one corner of the outer courtyard and Gil stopped again to look round.

The small space was bounded on their left by the wall. Immediately on their right the door of the chapel stood open, shedding light on to the wet paving-stones. In front of them, opposite the chapel, was a substantial two-storey range, in whose stone-built lower portion were more lights, and argumentative voices. On the fourth side of the yard, next to a row of storehouses, a wooden fore-stair led to the timber-framed upper floor whose row of unlit dormer windows in the thatch gave it a top-heavy, important appearance.

‘The Deacon’s lodging?’ Gil hazarded, nodding towards the stair.

‘The same,’ agreed Lowrie. ‘This way. They’re all in the hall.’

He strode confidently into the passage which led through the main range and in at the doorway of a long, low-ceilinged, sparsely furnished hall. At the far end a number of elderly men in black cloaks sat arguing round a table by a branch of candles.

‘It’s not right,’ one of them was saying tremulously as Gil entered. ‘He should be laid out like a Christian soul, no left lying under a tree wi his breast all bloody. Sissie could be doing that while we’re waiting. And has he had any sort of absolution? We should be seeing to that and all.’

‘What did he say?’ demanded another voice.

‘Far’s Frankie gaed?’ said a third, inexplicably.

‘The man is here,’ said another, in Latin. ‘It’s a great hoodie-crow,’ it continued, in Scots, ‘come to peck out our living een, for the robin willny rise up.’

‘What did he say?’

One of the black-cloaked figures rose and advanced towards them, but was forestalled. A familiar voice said, ‘Aye, Gil,’ and Maister Nicholas Kennedy of the University of Glasgow emerged from the shadows behind the door, another man with him. ‘We need a lymer here, no a sight-hound,’ he added, catching sight of Socrates at Gil’s heel.

‘Aye, Nick,’ Gil answered. ‘What have you found, then?’

‘Oh, it wasny me that found him,’ said Maister Kennedy.

‘It was Maister Duncan,’ said the other man. He was taller than Maister Kennedy, with a lean face, a prominent Adam’s apple, and a shock of light wiry hair which stuck out from under his floppy hat. He waved a bony hand to indicate the arguing, black-cloaked group, all seated again. ‘One of our — one of our brothers. I’m Andro Millar,’ he added, ‘I’m the sub-Deacon here, I suppose I’m in charge if — if — if Maister Naismith’s not able,’ he finished with a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘It’s good of you to come so prompt, Maister Cunningham.’