Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘Let us have some music,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘to cleanse the thoughts and revive the spirits.’ He turned a bright eye on his daughter. ‘Alys, will you play for us, ma mie?’

‘Perhaps Maister Cunningham would play?’ said Alys, turning to a corner of the room. From under a pile of papers, two more books and a table-carpet of worn silk she extracted a long narrow box, which she set on the table.

‘Monocords!’ said Gil as she opened the lid. ‘I haven’t seen a set of those since I came home. No, no, I am far too rusty to play, but I will sing later. Play us something first.’

She was tapping the keys, listening to the tone of the small sweet sounds they produced. Her father handed her a little tuning-key from his desk and she made one or two adjustments, then settled herself at the keyboard and began to play the same May ballad that the harper and his two women had performed at the Cross on May Day. Gil, watching the movement of her slender hands on the dark keys, heard the point at which she recollected this; the music checked for a moment, and she bent her head further, her hair curtaining her face and hiding the delicate, prominent nose.

‘What about something French?’ he suggested as soon as she finished the verse. ‘Binchois? Dufay?’

‘Machaut,’ said Maistre Pierre firmly. Alys nodded, and took up a song Gil remembered well. He joined in with the words, and father and daughter followed, high voice and low voice, carolling unrequited love with abandon.

‘That was good,’ said Alys as the song ended. ‘You were adrift in the second verse, father. The third part makes a difference.’

‘Let us sing it again,’ said the mason.

They sang it again, and followed it with others: more by Machaut, an Italian song whose words Gil did not know, two Flemish ballads.

‘And this one,’ said Alys. ‘It’s very new. Have you heard it, Maister Cunningham? D’amour je suis desheritee …’

I am dispossessed by love, and do not know who to appeal to. Alas, I have lost my love, I am alone, he has left me …

‘The setting is beautiful,’ said Gil. Alys smiled quickly at him, and went on singing.

… to run after an affected woman who slanders me without ceasing. Alas, I am forgotten, wherefore I am delivered to death.

‘Always death!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘At least let us be cheerful about it.’ He raised his wine-cup in one large hand. ‘What do they sing in the ale-houses here? Drink up, drink up, you’re deid a long time.’

‘You’re deid a long time, without ale or wine.’ Gil joined in the round. Alys picked up the third entrance effortlessly, and they sang it several times round until the mason brought it to a close and drained his cup.

‘I think we finish there. Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘we must bury Bess Stewart, poor soul, and find out the girl Davie was really with. We must search the kirkyard again, though by now I have little hope of finding the weapon. If it was there, it has been found by some burgess and taken home as a trophy. Half the town came to see what was afoot this afternoon.’

‘I will set the maids to ask about the girl,’ Alys said, closing up the little keyboard. ‘hey can enquire at the well, and at the market. Some lass in the town must know.’

‘I wish to question that gallowglass further,’ said Gil. ‘The only Ersche speaker I know of is the harper’s sister, and I hesitate to ask her to interpret — ‘

‘I should think she would relish the task,’ observed Alys.

He smiled at that. ‘You may be right. And I must speak further with Ealasaidh herself and with the harper.’

‘Meanwhile,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘the day is over. Maister Cunningham, we go to hear Compline at Greyfriars. Will you come with us?’

The Franciscans’ church was full of a low muttering, as the people of the High Street said evening prayers before one saint’s altar or another. One of the friars was completing a Mass; Alys slipped away to leave money for candles to St Clare, and returned to stand quietly between Gil and. her father as the brothers processed in through the nave and into the choir.

Gil, used to St Mungo’s, found the small scale of the Office very moving. Kentigern’s foundation was a cathedral church, able to furnish a good choir and handsome vestments for the Opus Dei, the work of God which was praising Him seven times daily. The Franciscans were a small community, though someone had built them a large church, and the half-dozen voices chanting the psalms in unison beyond the brightly painted screen seemed much closer to his own prayers than the more elaborate settings favoured by Maister Paniter. I will lay me down in peace and take my rest; for it is thou, Lord, only that makest me dwell in safety.

Beside him Alys drew a sharp breath. He looked down at her. Light glinted on the delicate high bridge of her nose. Her eyes were shut and her lips moved rapidly as the friars worked their way through the second of the Compline psalms. For when thou art angry all our days are gone…So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts with wisdom. Tears leaked from Alys’s closed eyelids, catching the candlelight, and Gil thought with a shiver of Bess Stewart lying in the mortuary chapel by the gatehouse, still in the clothes in which she had died, with candles at her head and feet.

For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

The Office ended, the congregation drifted out into the rain. Alys had composed herself, but was still subdued. Gil found it very unsatisfactory to say a formal goodnight at the end of the wynd and watch her go home beside her father, followed down the darkening street by two of the men and several maids. He stood until the household was out of sight and then turned for home.

It had been a most extraordinary day. Almost nothing was as it had been when he got up this morning. He was free of his books, at least for a little while, until he had solved the challenge, the puzzle, with which he was faced. He had a new friend in the mason, whose company would be worth seeking out. His mind swooped away from the suspicion that the mason’s company was the more attractive because it promised the company of Alys as well.

Yesterday, the prospect of winning a few groats from the songmen had been something to look forward to.

Past the firmly shut door of the University, beyond the stone houses of the wealthier merchants, at the point called the Bell o’ the Brae where the High Street steepened sharply into a slope too great for a horse-drawn vehicle, the Watch was attempting to clear an ale-house. Gil, his thoughts interrupted by the shouting, crossed the muddy street to go by on the other side. Several customers were already sitting in the gutter abusing the officers of the law. As Gil passed, two more hurtled out to sprawl in the mud, and within the lighted doorway women’s voices were raised in fierce complaint. One was probably the ale-wife, husky and stentorian, but among the others Gil caught a familiar note.

He paused to listen, then strode on hurriedly. He did not feel equal to dealing with Ealasaidh Mclan, fighting drunk and expelled from a tavern.

His uncle was reading by the fire in the hall when he came in, his wire spectacles falling down his nose.

‘Ah, Gilbert,’ he said, setting down his book. ‘What news?’

‘We have made some progress,’ Gil said cautiously. His uncle indicated the stool opposite. Sitting down, Gil summarized the results of his day. Canon Cunningham listened carefully, tapping on his book with the spectacles, and asking the occasional question.

‘That’s a by-ordinary lassie of the mason’s,’ he said when the account was finished.

‘I never met a lass like her,’ Gil confessed.