Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘Alys spoke to them. I am not certain what she learned. They are up-by, searching the top of the kirkyard, since most of Glasgow is now gone home to its noon piece. Maister lawyer, this gallowglass must be questioned, I think. Suppose you leave us here and go see to that?’

The Sempill property was a large sprawling townhouse, an uneasy mix of stone tower and timber additions set round a courtyard. Three hens and a pair of pigeons occupied the courtyard; voices floated from an open window, and someone was practising the lute. Gil paused under the arch of the gateway, then, on the grounds that he represented St Mungo’s, moved towards the stairs to the main door.

He had taken barely two steps into the courtyard when sound exploded behind him, an enormous barking and clanking and scrabble of claws. He whirled, drawing his sword, leaping backwards through a flurry of wings, as the mastiff hurtled to the end of its chain bellowing threats. Laughter from the house suggested that he had been seen. He took another prudent step backwards, assessing the huge animal with its rolls of brindled muscle. Ropes of saliva hung from the white fangs in the powerful jaws. He looked carefully at the chain, then sheathed his whinger, turned and strolled to the stairs, controlling his breathing with some difficulty. Behind him the dog continued to bay furiously until Sempill appeared in the doorway.

‘Doucette!’ he bawled. ‘Down! You were safe enough,’ he added, grinning as the noise dropped. He had discarded the cherry velvet, and wore a very old leather jerkin. ‘We only let her loose at night.’

‘I hope the chain is secure,’ Gil commented. Behind him metal rattled as the dog lay down with reluctance, still snarling. ‘You could find yourself with a serious action against you if she got loose and killed something.’

The grin vanished. Sempill grunted in answer, and said, ‘I suppose you’re here to ask more questions.’

‘I wish to speak to the man who took your message last night,’ Gil agreed. ‘And perhaps I might ask the rest of your household if they saw anything unusual in the kirkyard when we left Compline.’

‘Why? You were there. You know what there was to see.’

‘Someone else might have noticed something different.’

Sempill stared at him, then said ungraciously, ‘Wait in here, I’ll send Neil to you. I’ll see if the others will speak to you as well — but you’re not to upset Euphemia, mind.’

He showed Gil into a small closet off the hall. It contained a clutter of half-repaired harness, for man and horse, and some leather-working tools laid on the windowsill.

‘Fool of a groom in charge here,’ said Sempill, seeing Gil looking at these. ‘I swear by the Rood, half the leather in the place is rotted, I’m having to overhaul the lot, but if I beat him as he deserves, who’s to see to Doucette out there?’

He strolled off, ostentatiously casual, shouting, ‘Neil! Neil, come here, you blichan!’ Gil sat down by the window and studied the array of tools. There were some nasty triangular needles, a leather palm, a vicious little knife. He lifted the awl and turned it in his hand, feeling the point.

‘Fery sharp,’ said a voice. Gil turned, to see one of the two men-at-arms occupying most of the doorway. ‘The chentleman wished to see me?’

Gil studied the man briefly. Dark hair cut short to go under a helm, dark eyebrows in a long narrow face, blue eyes which slid sideways from his.

‘You are Neil Campbell?’

‘It iss myself.’ The accent was far stronger than Ealasaidh’s. Gil rephrased his next question.

‘You were sent with a message for Maister Sempill yesterday evening?’

‘I am taking many messages for himself.’

This one was to his wife.’

‘That iss so,’ agreed Campbell, the stern face softening momentarily. ‘To his wife. In the Fishergait, where she is liffing with the clarsair.’

‘What was the message?’

‘Oh, I could not be telling that.’ The man’s eyes slid sideways again.

Gil said patiently, ‘Maister Sempill gave me permission to ask you. I know what he bade you say, but I need to know what message reached her.’

‘Oh, I would not know about that.’

‘You know she is dead?’ Gil said.

The blue gaze sharpened. ‘Dhia! You say?’ said the man, crossing himself. ‘The poor lady!’

‘And you may have been the last to see her alive,’ Gil pointed out. ‘Did she come up the High Street with you, or did she follow you?’

‘Oh, I would not know,’ said the man again.

Gil drew a breath, and said with some care, ‘Tell me this, then. Did the message that John Sempill sent for his wife reach her, or not?’

‘Oh, it was reaching her,’ said the other man, nodding sadly. ‘And then she was coming up the hill, and now she is dead. How did she come to die, maister?’

‘Someone knifed her,’ said Gil. The narrow face opposite him froze; the blue eyes closed, and opened again.

‘What do you know about her death?’ Gil asked.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all, at all,’ said the gallowglass, through stiffened lips. ‘The last I saw her she was well and living.’

‘Did she come up the hill with you?’

‘Not with me, no, she did not.’ This seemed to be the truth, Gil thought. The man was too shaken to prevaricate.

‘And what was the message?’

‘That I cannot be telling you.’

‘Why can’t you tell me?’

‘Chust it is not possible. Is the chentleman finished asking at me?’

Gil gave up.

‘Will you tell Maister Sempill I have done with you for the moment,’ he said. ‘I will need to get another word with you later.’

The man turned and tramped out. Baffled, Gil stared after him, then bent his attention to the tools on the sill again. He was still studying them when John Sempill returned.

‘I could have told you you’d not get much out of Neil,’ he said. ‘Him and his brother, they’re both wild Ersche. You need the two tongues to deal with them.’

‘How do you manage?’ Gil asked, controlling his irritation.

‘Oh, they have enough Scots for my purposes. Do you still want to speak to the others?’

‘Yes, if it is possible.’ Gil rose, and followed Sempill across the hall, picking his way past hunting gear and half a set of plate armour, and up a wheel stair at the other side towards a continuous sound of voices. The room at the top of the stair was hung with much-mended verdure tapestry, and replete with cushions, among which Lady Euphemia Campbell was sewing and chattering away like a goldfinch to her middle-aged waiting-woman.

They made a pleasing sight. Lady Euphemia, wearing a wealth of pleated linen on her head, fathoms more rumpled round her, appeared daintier than ever. Her stout companion, stolidly threading needles, merely served to emphasize this further. Under her coarse black linen veil her face reminded Gil of the dough faces Maggie used to bake for him and his brothers and sisters, with small black currant eyes and a slit of a mouth.

‘Here’s Euphemia, making sheets to her bed,’ said Sempill. ‘I can make do with blankets myself, but she’s too delicate for that.’

‘Venus rising from the foam,’ said Gil, and added politely, ‘in duplicate.’

This won him a suspicious look from Sempill and two approving smiles. Someone laughed at the other end of the room.

‘And there’s my cousin Philip and Euphemia’s brother,’ added Sempill.

‘Have some claret, priest,’ suggested one of the two men by the blank fireplace, darkly handsome and much Sempill’s age. ‘Since my good-brother does not see fit to introduce us, let me tell you I am James Campbell of Glenstriven. Are you here to explain why we’ve to wait to finish this sale?’