Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘Is it always like this?’ the mason asked as someone objected to the proposed seventh juror on the grounds of infamy, since his wife was well known to serve ale in short measure.

‘We’re getting on well,’ said Morison at Gil’s other side. ‘Gil, tell me more of last night. What did they do for your sister, over yonder? Was there a Mass?’

Gil nodded, and glanced at the towers of St Mungo’s where they loomed above the castle wall.

‘My uncle said Mass for her,’ he said, ‘before the shrine.’

The saint’s shrine stood in the centre of the lower church, a dim, pillared place like the undercroft of a tower-house. Last night, entering the Laigh Kirk by its south door, he had paused to look out over St Mungo’s kirkyard in the evening light. Near at hand the ground was shadowed by the building site where the Archbishop’s plans to add to his cathedral were going ahead in fits and starts as the funding permitted. The clumps of trees cast long fingers beyond that, and the gable-ends of the tall stone manses at the edge of the kirkyard glowed bright where the light caught them. Eastwards the sky was darkening as he watched.

‘Gil?’ said his sister behind him. ‘You going to sleep there?’

He stepped aside quickly. ‘Forgive me, Kate. I’m keeping you standing.’

‘I can stand forever,’ she said. ‘It’s getting up or down that’s the difficult part. Come on, they won’t wait all night for us.’

She turned on her crutches with clumsy expertise, and thumped towards the few steps down from the doorway. Gil followed watchfully as she worked her way down into the shadows. He knew better than to offer help.

Under the vaulting immediately opposite the doorway, within the wooden screens which defined the Lady chapel, candlelight flickered on the carved latticework. The Virgin herself, small and ancient with a blackened foot, presided from her pillar, her babe perched on her arm. Kate paused, leaning on her crutches, looked towards the figure briefly, crossed herself, and swung to her left, towards the ornate structure of St Mungo’s tomb.

The altar to the west of the tomb was lit and furnished, and before it their uncle knelt in his Mass vestments, while the remainder of the little group waited in silence. Gil caught Alys’s eye over his sister’s shoulder, and smiled quickly at her. Maistre Pierre had his head bent over his beads; the two servants of the Official’s household who had known Kate since childhood were present, Maggie sitting on the base of a pillar with a lantern at her feet, Matt standing beside her, and beyond them towered Babb. She was gazing at the brightly painted end of the tomb, her lips moving silently. Kate on her crutches thumped past the draped side of the altar, David Cunningham rose from his knees, Gil moved hastily into place and lifted the smoking censer, and the Mass began.

It was an experience he knew he would find it hard to forget. As the familiar, comforting phrases rolled into the vaulted roof, the light from the windows faded, and the candlelight flickered on his sister’s face. Taut, intense, she stared at their uncle’s back, apparently unaware that she was chewing the end of a lock of her long mouse-coloured hair. The invocation to St Kentigern, Mungo the dearly beloved founder, usually saved for his feast days, rose in the candlelight, and shadows jumped on the pillars and vaulting, on the arcading and miniature crocketed spires of the tomb on its four steps, until Gil began to think they were not in a church but in a forest.

Thump and shuffle as Kate moved forward and stood before her uncle to receive the Host, tears leaking from her closed eyes, sweat darkening the patches in the armpits of her woollen gown. Final encomium on Kentigern, praising his steadfastness in the faith and his generosity to his followers.

‘Ite, missa est.’

There was a long silence, in which Babb sniffled and Maggie fidgeted but Kate stared unmoving at the candles. Finally Canon Cunningham rose from his knees, crossed himself, and turned to look at them all.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Attend your mistress, then, Babb. We’ll wait you here.’

Babb moved forward, Maggie lifted the lantern and got stiffly to her feet. Kate wiped her eyes on her sleeve, looked from one to the other, then scowled over her shoulder and jerked her head at Alys. All four women moved off towards the chapter-house. Gil put the lid on the censer and exchanged a long look with Maistre Pierre.

‘We must hope,’ said his father-in-law in French, ‘and pray. We can do nothing else for the poor girl. And now you stand guard for her?’

‘I do.’ Gil smiled wryly. ‘When we were young, she liked to swim in the great pool in the burn near to where we were brought up. I used to stand guard, so nobody would catch sight of her in her shift. I’ll spend this night on my knees, but it’s the same thing.’

‘Likely St Mungo himself knew the Linn pool,’ said David Cunningham in Scots. ‘He was a great man for visiting his flock, we hear. I don’t doubt he knew Cadzow parish well. No harm in reminding him of the place in your petitions, Gilbert.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Gil turned as the door of the chapterhouse opened. Candlelight showed beyond the screens of the Lady chapel, and they could hear footsteps and the thump and scrape of Kate’s crutches. The little procession approached between the pillars, Kate at its head now barefoot, stripped to her shift. Behind her Babb carried a bundled plaid, Alys and Maggie a candle each. Kate worked her way down the three steps to the level of the altar, and came forward to stand before her uncle again.

‘Uncle David,’ she said, meeting his eye, ‘whatever comes of this, I’m grateful.’

‘Well, well,’ he said, and reached for the little flask of oil. ‘You’re a good lassie, Kate.’

Now, in the crowded castle yard, Maistre Pierre said, ‘She feels the saint has mocked her.’

‘Maister,’ said Andy behind them.

‘Indeed she must, poor lady!’ said Morison. ‘What a painful thing.’

Sir Thomas turned and scowled at them.

‘Maister,’ said Andy again. ‘Have ye looked at the assizers?’

‘Painful indeed,’ agreed Maistre Pierre.

‘For that’s Willie Anderson the cordiner from the Gallowgait, and John Robertson, and John Douglas, and Archie Hamilton the litster,’ Andy recounted, ‘and there’s Mattha Hog. And if ye’re thinking, maister, the same as I am, ye’re thinking they’re all friends of Serjeant Anderson’s.’

‘Maybe she asked too much,’ said Morison.

Gil was silent.

The waking in the dawn was inexpressibly painful to think about. Kate had sprung up out of her dream, out of the bundle of blankets, to stand upright in her shift with her face exalted in a beam of sunlight from the east window. Scrambling to his feet from knees stiffened by a night’s prayer, he had not been in time to catch her when she trod forward and fell her length, barely saving herself from rolling down the steps away from the elaborate painted tomb. Heart hammering, he had helped her to sit up, and she had elbowed him aside to snatch back the hem of her shift and stare at her shrivelled foot, pale and unchanged in the growing light from the nearer windows. He thought he had never seen such an expression of disbelief. He had spoken her name, but she ignored him, still staring, for a long moment, then threw back her head and howled like a gored hound. Babb had come running, and snatched her up in brawny arms, and she had clung to her and burst into a great storm of weeping.

‘None of us realized, I suppose, how certain she was that St Mungo would help,’ said Maistre Pierre. Sir Thomas turned and glared at them again. ‘Ah, we are near the number we require.’

‘And that’s Jemmy Walker,’ said Andy in ominous tones as the final assizer was named.