Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘His madness? The knowledge of what he could do in the wild fits? He never said.’ He turned to Millar. ‘Where is he? Can I see him?’

‘Oh — aye!’ said Millar. ‘Though I’d maybe best get Sissie away first if I can, she’ll no want to face you — ’

‘St Peter’s bones, why no?’

‘She’s took it into her head you’ve something to do wi his death,’ said Maister Veitch, approaching from the door to the main range. ‘Andro, will I draw her away for you?’

‘If you would, Frankie,’ said Millar gratefully. ‘And we’ll ne — need to talk of his burial, Maister Agnew. It’ll be a difficulty. He’ll go in our own place, never fear that, but I canny tell when. He’s still not stiffened, but Sissie willny let us wash him yet, for all that.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Agnew. ‘I can see it’ll be an inconvenience.’

Gil watched them go off along the passage through the main building, and in a moment Maister Veitch returned, supporting Mistress Mudie. She clung to his arm, her head bowed, her linen headdress unpinned and its folds pulled across her face, and the two figures reminded Gil of the supporters at the foot of a Crucifixion. They vanished into the kitchen; he waited, obedient to the significant look his teacher had given him, and after a while the old man emerged into the passage again and jerked his head.

‘Anselm has a word for you,’ he said. ‘Did you catch all the man said?’

Gil nodded.

‘He never left straight away,’ said Maister Veitch, ‘whatever he lets on.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ll let Anselm tell you.’

The remaining brethren were by the brazier in the hall as usual. Gil, looking round the group, saw that this second death had shaken most of them far more than the first. Cubby’s tremor was preventing him from speech, Duncan and Barty sat staring distantly into the charcoal glow mouthing at nothing, Maister Veitch himself looked more like a death’s-head than ever. Anselm, on the other hand, was livelier than Gil had yet seen him.

‘There you are, laddie. I’ve to tell you this,’ he said without preamble. ‘He says so. He says you’ll ken what to make of it.’

‘What have you to tell me?’

‘I’m telling you, am I no?’ The old man reached out to pat Socrates’ head, and the dog licked his wrist. ‘See last night, laddie. That man was here, aye? Puir Humphrey’s brither. I kent he was here, though nobody else did, for I saw him.’

‘Where did you see him, sir?’ asked Gil, since this seemed to be the expected question.

‘In the chapel,’ said Anselm, nodding triumphantly. ‘I was in there mysel, having a wee word. Times my own prayer-desk’s the right place, you see, and times the chapel’s right.’ He grinned toothlessly as Gil showed his understanding of this. ‘Agnew came in, and knelt at the altar steps. He seemed gey ower-wrought, muttering away, asking forgiveness for something. He never noticed me,’ he asserted, ‘for I wasny in my stall, I was outside the choir in a wee corner of my own I like to sit in. Then at the last he rose and went out.’

‘How long was he there?’ Gil asked. ‘When was this?’

‘It was just afore you came in,’ said Anselm firmly, ‘for I rose after him and went to see if the supper was ready, and I’d just sat down when you and your friend came in. And he’d been there a good time. Maybe the quarter of an hour, maybe as much as half an hour. And I’ll tell ye, I saw his face as he went, and I canny think he got what he asked.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Gil. ‘It’s good of you to take the trouble.’

‘Oh, I wouldny ha bothered,’ declared Anselm, ‘but he said it was a thing you should hear of.’

Gil withdrew, and cast a glance in at the door of the kitchen where Mistress Mudie sat lost in her terrifying silence while the three servants stood watching her; then he climbed up to the Deacon’s lodging, where at last there was the peace he craved.

He arranged the bundles of tape-bound accounts on the polished wood of the table, but he sat for some time with his hands folded on top of the nearest, staring unseeing at the bare trees of the Stablegreen visible in the thin sunshine beyond the end of the garden, with the dog lying on his feet.

He knew he should be considering how best to amerce his sister’s appalling misdemeanour, and how to break the news to his uncle, or else dealing with the almshouse and its problems — and what should he make of Anselm’s tale? Instead he found himself still resonant with that anger which had struck him in the hall in Rottenrow when he realized what his godfather was implying, combined with — yes, it was envy, he admitted. It had been Tib who trysted with Michael, Tib who waited in the dark outside the gate which he could just see, for her lover to bring the key and let her in. He shied away from imagining the embraces in privacy, the sweet surrender — but he saw again, clearly, the way she had swayed into Michael’s arms in the hall. The way Alys used to lean on me, he thought. St Giles assist me, I must deal justly with Tib, though I don’t know what justice might mean in the case. And there’s the bedehouse to consider too, though my head feels like a rotten turnip.

He rose and began pacing about, trying to marshal his thoughts about the bedehouse. The Deacon had almost certainly been killed elsewhere and put over the back wall an hour or two later, and left to stiffen under the trees. Meanwhile his killer, or another, had spent the night in this lodging, slept in the Deacon’s bed however briefly, attended Mass in his cloak and hat and then left the premises.

Why? he asked himself. The accounts, yes, but why the accounts? Why not the other papers? They were locked in the kist and the key was on the Deacon’s belt in the garden, of course. He paused a moment to think of the killer’s reaction at that point, and looked at the bundled accounts ranged across the table. We probably have all we’re going to get from these, he thought. The documents I took back to Rottenrow are the next step.

And Humphrey’s death last night, how did that fit? How much of Anselm’s story, which his invisible friend thought so important, should he take into account? Had Agnew talked his brother into a state where he would hang himself, and if so was it done deliberately? Had he done more than that? Or had John Veitch called for more reason than to see his uncle? Why would John need to dispose of Humphrey? Why would anyone, indeed, he wondered.

There were familiar footsteps on the stair up from the courtyard. Socrates raised his head and beat his tail on the floor as the door opened, then rose to greet the newcomer.

‘I went round by the house. Sister Dorothea thought I should find you here,’ said Maistre Pierre, patting the dog. He pulled another of the leather backstools up to the table and sat down. ‘She bade me tell you she would speak to Lady Kate. A bad business, Gil.’

‘Yes,’ said Gil baldly.

‘What will you do?’

Gil shrugged. ‘Wait. Think it over.’ He pulled himself together. ‘Did you manage to avoid Maggie? She was threatening a word with you.’

‘She got it, but she seemed subdued.’

‘St Giles be thanked. She should be grateful to you for seeing me home. As I am.’

‘How do you feel this morning?’

‘Evil,’ he admitted.

‘I am not surprised. I tell you, it’s the last time I suggest an evening’s drinking. I had no idea men of law could hold so much and still stay upright.’

‘Cunninghams are hard-headed.’

‘Like sailors.’ His friend eyed him carefully for a moment, then drew a bundle of papers towards him. ‘These are the tithes from Elsrickle,’ he said, mangling the name. ‘Where is that?’

‘The Upper Ward,’ said Gil, turning his head cautiously to read the superscription. ‘Beyond Biggar. It’s wool country, the takings should be good. Aye, maybe we need to go over these again. I’m certain there’s something in the papers I need to know.’