Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘Can’t what?’ he coaxed.

She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘What do you lack, Alys?’

She shook her head again, and muttered something he did not catch. Before he could ask her to repeat it, there was a shout from the vennel behind them. They both turned, to see Maistre Pierre making his way towards them in the fading light, waving.

‘We have found a handcart!’ he announced as he came closer. ‘Well, we have found more than one,’ he added, ‘but this one is dark and has a pattern on the spar between the handles. I am certain it is the right one.’

‘Already?’ said Gil. ‘That’s good news. Where is it? Where did you find it?’

‘Ah. That is the strange thing,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It was in the chapel in Vicars’ Alley. What is it, St Andrew’s?’

‘In the chapel? Does it belong there?’

‘So it seems. Luke tells me that the man who informed him that it was there also told him they use it to collect for the leper-house.’

‘Of course they do,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve seen someone at the kitchen door from time to time, begging bread or meal or the like. I never thought of that — though of course we were looking for a ladder earlier.’

‘Exactly I have left Luke negotiating with the priest to borrow the cart, since I suppose we shall have need of it.’

‘If Tib sees it,’ suggested Alys, ‘she can tell us if she remembers the pattern.’

‘Very likely,’ agreed her father, with a note of disapproval. ‘What are you two finding out here? I thought we had gone over this ground to extinction. And what is this about the bedehouse? They seem to be talking of little else at the Wyndhead.’

‘Father, a miracle,’ said Alys, her eyes shining. ‘The brother who was dead, Humphrey, is risen and cured of his madness. The boy came for Gil, and we’ve been in and seen it all and spoken to him.’

‘Risen?’ her father repeated, staring at her. ‘But he was certainly dead. I found no heartbeat.’

‘There have been one or two half-hangit men in legal history,’ said Gil, using the Scots phrase. ‘And I suppose the shock might cure him of his madness,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘though it seems to me more than a simple cure.’

‘The man was dead,’ reiterated Maistre Pierre with emphasis.

‘The more of a miracle, Father,’ said Alys, her hand on his arm.

‘Hmph,’ said her father. ‘Does he recall anything that might help us?’

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘Nothing, he said.’

‘He was hanging for half an hour at least,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘There was no heartbeat, no pulse.’

Alys eyed him, and gave Gil a significant look. ‘We have found where the cart came on to the green,’ she said, pointing. ‘We found the mark of one wheel, yonder in the vennel.’

‘From Rottenrow,’ said Maistre Pierre, turning to look. ‘Does that tell us anything?’

‘It suggests,’ said Gil slowly, ‘it suggests the Deacon was not killed anywhere close to the bedehouse, because then the approach from Castle Street would have been nearer.’

‘More likely he was killed nearer to St Andrew’s,’ said Alys, ‘and someone knew of the cart, whether the murderer or his accomplice.’

‘So do we come back to the idea that the man was waylaid in the street?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘And by more than one individual, as we thought at first?’

‘Yes, I’d let that slip my mind,’ confessed Gil. ‘There were the two blades that stabbed him. I suppose we do come back to that, yes.’

‘I don’t know the chapel,’ said Alys. ‘May we go there now?’

They made their way back out on to Rottenrow, with Maistre Pierre still muttering at intervals, ‘I would have sworn the man was dead. No heartbeat, no breath.’

‘He had not begun to stiffen,’ Gil observed.

‘Hmph,’ said Maistre Pierre again. He halted as they reached the Wyndhead, and with a visible effort pointed out the wooden walls of the Caichpele above the rooftops of the Drygate.

‘There is where the man’s mistress lives,’ he said. Alys nodded, surveying the layout of the streets. They turned towards the cathedral, and made their way round the western towers, where the first of the senior men of law were just leaving. Here a rumbling of wheels on the cobbled way proclaimed Luke, with the handcart. Socrates pressed against Gil’s knee, head down and hackles up, until Gil reassured him.

‘Ah, good laddie,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘He has persuaded the priest. But what has he got on the cart?’ He peered into the dim light. ‘Not another corpse, I hope.’

It was certainly a large, bulky bundle, loosely tied on to the cart. Luke saw them and halted, lifting his knitted bonnet and ducking in a general bow.

‘Maister, mem, Maister Gil. I got the cart,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘The priest was wanting to go and say Vespers, so he just let me in the end.’

‘But what is this?’ His master prodded the bundle, which Socrates was now inspecting cautiously, his long nose raised to sniff at one overhanging portion. ‘Matting? Rush matting?’

‘I hope it’s no hairm, maister,’ said the young man anxiously. The dog growled quietly, and Gil snapped his fingers to call him away. ‘The fellow that dwells by the chapel came out his house as I came away, and asked me to lift this for him out his hall. It’s all wasted wi blood, I suppose it’s where the man was killed the day morn, and he wanted me to take it and burn it on our fire at the yard. It’ll no wash out, that’s for certain.’

‘Oh, for certain,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. He turned to look at Gil. ‘Well, what think you? Do we burn it?’

‘No,’ said Alys.

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘Can Luke take it round to Rottenrow? Maggie can find an outhouse to stow it dry till daylight.’

Maistre Pierre nodded. ‘Wise, I suppose. We will see more by daylight. Aye, take it to Canon Cunningham’s house in Rottenrow, Luke. And perhaps the cart may lie there too.’

Luke laid hold of the handles of the cart again.

‘It’s no that bad on the level,’ he said, ‘like on the dirt roadway, but it’s the deil to manage on these cobbles. So I’ve to say to Maggie in your kitchen, maister, that it’s all to lie dry in an outhouse till you get a look at it?’

Gil concurred with this, and he trundled away. Alys pulled her plaid up further round her head.

‘Where is the chapel?’ she said.

They continued round on to the north flank of St Mungo’s, into the little street, where lights were springing in many of the houses. Cooking smells floated in the damp chill twilight as servants made the supper ready before Vespers and Compline were sung at the cathedral. The chapel at the mouth of the street was lit, its door open, and a small gathering was listening to the same Office within, early and convenient for folk who had a hearth and a meal to see to.

‘This time yesterday,’ said Gil, ‘I spoke with Hob, poor devil. They were singing the Office like this when I came away.’

‘Shall we go in?’ said Alys, and slipped in at the open door without waiting for an answer. Gil and her father followed, to stand among the congregation and their lanterns at the back of the box-like nave, while beyond a cast-iron grille in the narrow chancel arch, a priest and two acolytes dealt efficiently with the Vespers psalms.

Gil looked round, studying the little building. It seemed to be well supported, for all it stood in the shadow of St Mungo’s. The floor was paved with slabs of stone, the narrow windows were glazed with what looked like coloured glass, and the walls were painted with scenes from the life of St Andrew. There was a particularly lively depiction of a fishing scene, lit by the lantern in the hand of the elderly woman nearest it. Marks on the west wall suggested the place where the handcart stood when it was at home. Overhead the painted beams were hung with votive gifts and funeral wreaths, and the thatch rustled faintly above them.