Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

There was a muffled exclamation, and Maistre Pierre swung round from his study of the little Annunciation scene. Gil stared at his sister in dismay, and after a moment she looked down, fidgeting with one foot.

‘I never thought, till the day,’ she admitted. ‘And how could I ha told you if I had?’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Gil fairly. ‘Go on.’

‘When I was — when I — ’ She swallowed, straightened up, and began again in the middle of the tale. ‘I went to the back gate of the bedehouse and waited for M-Michael to let me in.’ Gil nodded. ‘I had a light, but I held it low. There was somebody else moving about the Stablegreen, wi no light, or maybe a shut-lantern. I saw nothing, but I could hear movement.’

‘Could it have been an animal?’ Gil asked. ‘A goat, maybe? A pig?’

She shook her head.

‘It was bigger than that. It could ha been Finn mac Cool,’ she said, with a sort of inverted bravado. ‘I was that feart, and Michael took for ever to come to the gate, and someone had left a great cart by the wall that I walked into and bruised my hip. I tell you, Gil, by the time I got through the gate and into the light I was near screaming.’

‘A cart,’ he said. Alys nodded; beyond the hearth Dorothea turned and moved to the settle. ‘What kind of cart, Tib?’

‘One of those handcarts. Two wheels and two handles.’

‘And two legs at one end to hold it steady when it’s not being pushed along,’ he said, and met Maistre Pierre’s eyes across the room. ‘What like was it, Tib? Did you see what colour it was?’

‘Colour? By lantern-light? It was dark-coloured,’ she said rather sharply, ‘that’s all I can tell you, and there was a fancy pattern on the end bit between the handles, done in light paint.’

‘But no name or sign of who it belonged to?’ She shook her head. ‘Could you draw me the pattern?’

‘Likely.’

‘Tib, was the cart empty?’

She swallowed hard. ‘No, it wasny. There was a kind of big dark bundle tied on it wi a rope. Was — was that the dead man, Gil?’

‘You tell me,’ he said. ‘Was it big enough to be a body?’

‘It could have been,’ she said, and swallowed again. ‘If he was maybe curled up.’ She bent her head and whispered something he did not catch.

‘Oh, no, Our Lady be praised you did not look closer!’ said Alys, putting an arm round her. ‘Who knows what might have happened?’

‘Amen to that,’ said Gil.

There was a pause, and then Tib looked up in consternation. ‘Yo u’re saying it was whoever killed him that I heard moving about out on the Stablegreen? So I was right to be feart?’

‘Likely it was,’ agreed Gil. Across the room Maistre Pierre met his gaze again, and reached for his cloak. As his friend’s footsteps diminished down the stair to the front door, Gil continued, ‘Tib, thank you for telling me this. I’d ha thought of asking you sooner or later, I’ve no doubt, but you’ve saved us some time.’

‘Aye, well. You haveny gone into the speech about See what happens when a lassie misbehaves ,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful for that, Gil.’

‘Can you add anything else?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve thought and thought, but I don’t recall any more.’

‘The gate was locked, was it? And you left it locked again?’

‘Oh, the gate. Aye, it was locked fast, and M-Michael took the time to secure it again, though I was trying to pull him away to come into the light. And in the morning …’ She paused, thinking it through. ‘Aye, it was still locked in the morning.’

‘What about lights in the bedehouse? Movement?’

‘I wasny attending,’ she said, with one of her wry looks, and suddenly blushed scarlet. Then, just as suddenly and to her own obvious embarrassment, she began to cry. ‘Oh, Michael! Oh, Alys, when will I see him again?’

Alys exclaimed in sympathy and drew her to the settle, but Dorothea took her hand and said more astringently, ‘Come on, come on, Tib. Greeting’s no help. Far better to be at your prayers in your own chamber.’

‘What, for forgiveness?’ said Tib sharply through her tears.

‘Contrition has to come first,’ said Dorothea. ‘More use to ask Our Lady for a solution to your difficulties.’

‘That is true. You might get an answer,’ said Alys, patting her other hand.

‘Oh, she’ll get an answer. And it might not be No.’

‘Your sister is very wise,’ said Alys.

‘I hope you mean Dorothea?’

Her quick smile flickered. ‘Too many people forget,’ she persisted, ‘that the saints can say No as well as Yes.’

‘True.’ And is that what St Giles is saying? he wondered. That I won’t get help to deal with my marriage? Then something in her voice alerted him. ‘What have you petitioned for, sweetheart?’

She went scarlet, and turned her head away. He sat down beside her on the cushioned settle and put his arm round her.

‘Is it anything I can give you?’ She shook her head. ‘Would it help to tell me?’ Another shake of the head. ‘Alys, if there’s something you lack, something you need, in mind or body or spirit, you should bring your need to me. I may not be able to supply it,’ he admitted, ‘but if I’m to be your husband I should know of it.’

She shook her head again, with a wry little laugh.

‘Has St Giles helped you in all you’ve asked for?’ she countered. Her face was still turned away from him. ‘Because if you lack anything, your wife should supply it if she is able.’

‘Perhaps we should ask together,’ he said. ‘Alys, look at me.’ She did not turn her head. ‘What is it you lack, sweetheart? Tell me.’

He tightened his clasp of her shoulders, trying to draw her closer, and she stiffened. Socrates sat down at their feet, looking from one to the other, and whined anxiously.

‘Tell me what you lack, Gil,’ Alys whispered.

‘What a pair of fools you are,’ said Dorothea crisply from the door to the stairs. ‘I know love is blind itself, but Heaven preserve me from blind lovers.’

Gil gaped at her, and she came forward to sit in their uncle’s great chair, shaking her head at them. The dog went over, waving his tail.

‘Are folk no daft, Socrates,’ she said, patting him. ‘There’s Tib up there got herself into a right pickle, all for love, and here’s your maister and lady down here, neither able to see what’s worrying the other.’ She looked up at them, and Alys moved imperceptibly closer to Gil, staring back at her. ‘It isn’t for me to expound it,’ Dorothea pronounced, to Gil’s great relief, ‘but the sooner you each confess to the other what’s eating at you, the better it’ll be. Look at the symmetry in what you were both saying the now. Can you not see it?’

‘Symmetry?’ said Gil.

‘Think about it,’ she said.

‘Of course he sees,’ asserted Alys. ‘Dorothea, you need not worry. We’ll dispute it between us.’

Dorothea smiled, then rose and swooped on her, kissing her on both cheeks.

‘You will now,’ she agreed. ‘Welcome to the family, Alys. Gil,’ she went on, ‘Tib said to me the now, Did I think all these deaths were linked. She seems right troubled by it all, I suppose since she realizes she came near seeing whoever that was on the Stablegreen in the dark. Where have you got to with it?’

‘Little further than last night,’ admitted Gil.

‘Then why don’t you,’ she said, as if proposing a treat to a child, ‘take Alys out and show her where it all happened? A fresh eye to the ground might be a good thing.’

Gil looked at Alys, his heart leaping at the suggestion despite his sister’s tone of voice, and saw the same response in her eyes. She turned to Dorothea and said, ‘But what about you, Sister? Would you not wish to see it as well?’