Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘She never went out alone, or stayed in the Pelican Court without the rest of the household?’

‘No, she — ‘ Ealasaidh stopped in her tracks. A hand shot out of the folds of the plaid and seized Gil’s arm in a brutal grip. ‘Are you suggesting,’ she hissed, ‘that Bess had another man?’

‘The suggestion was made to me,’ said Gil, realizing with dismay that her other hand had gone to the gullyknife at her belt. ‘I have to ask.’ He kept his voice level with an effort, trying not to envisage a knife-fight here in the street with this formidable woman. She stared at him from the shadows of the checked wool.

‘I can guess who suggested it,’ she said at length. ‘No, she never had the privacy, not while we lived in Glasgow. Besides, you only had to see her with Aenghus.’

‘I apologize for asking it,’ said Gil. She bowed her head with great stateliness, accepting this, then let go his arm and stalked on down the High Street.

The upper town was still quiet, but below the Bell o’ the Brae the street grew busy, with people hurrying to their day’s work, schoolboys dragging their feet uphill towards the Grammar School, and the occasional student in his belted gown of blue or red, making his way from lodgings to an early lecture.

At the end of the Franciscans’ wynd Ealasaidh halted, and put back her plaid to look at him.

It is a great courtesy in you to convoy a poor singingwoman,’ she said, without apparent irony. ‘Do you leave me here, or will you come in? I must wash the dead and shroud her for burial, and there is things I wish to show you. I came by here after Vespers, to say goodnight to her.’

‘There are things I wish to see,’ said Gil, letting her precede him into the wynd. The wound that gave her her death, for one.’

She nodded, and strode in under the stone gateway at the far end of the wynd.

The Franciscans were singing Prime, the chant drifting clearly to meet them on the morning air. Ealasaidh disappeared into the gatehouse, and emerged after a moment bearing a basin of water and a pile of linen. Gil took the basin from her, and followed her as she stalked into the little chapel, where one of the friars still knelt. Ealasaidh nodded briefly to him as he rose and paced quietly out, then she twitched the sheet unceremoniously off the corpse and said,

‘As you said, her purse is not here. See, it hung at her belt beside the beads.’

‘And that was where she kept the harp key?’ Gil prompted. ‘How was it taken from the belt?’

‘No sign,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘It was nothing by-ordinary, just a leather purse hung on loops, easy enough to cut them. Little enough in it, too. We never carry much.’ She bent her head abruptly.

After a moment Gil said, ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I told that good soul in your kitchen about it. Her one jewel. My brother gave her a gold cross on a chain, quite simple. Sweet to hold and comforting, like her, he said. That she always wore under her shift, and that also I miss.’

‘So perhaps it was robbery,’ said Gil. ‘Or made to look like it.’ He looked down at the still face. ‘After all, why would she go into that place with someone like to rob her?’

The door creaked, and they both looked round. Alys stepped into the chapel, bent the knee in courtesy to the dead, and said simply, ‘I was coming in to say my prayers when I saw you. You will need help.’

Ealasaidh’s face softened.

‘It is not right you should be here now,’ she said to Gil. ‘She was aye honest and decent, she would not have wished you to see her stripped.’

‘I represent justice,’ said Gil, and heard the words resonate in the vault. ‘I am here on her behalf.’

‘There are things we can learn from her,’ said Alys. ‘Maister Cunningham, have you looked all you wish at the gown? May we remove itT

‘I think so,’ said Gil. ‘Then I can look at it more closely.’

Ealasaidh nodded and knelt by the corpse. Alys shed her plaid and knelt opposite her, working with gentle fingers at the side-laced bodice. After some unpleasant moments the swathe of red cloth was flung aside, to be followed by the brocade kirtle and its sleeves. Gil lifted these and retreated across the chapel, to Ealasaidh’s obvious relief.

The clothing told him nothing new. There was blood dried in the back of both garments, some soaked in the brocade under-sleeve, but not as much as might be expected from a death-wound. The left side of the red gown, which had been uppermost, was slightly stiffened from the dew, and there was a small patch of mud on the elbow of the other sleeve. There were two careful mends in the kirtle, and fresh tapes had been stitched into the undersleeves. Gil thought of the sweet-faced woman he had seen at the Cross, and imagined her sitting, head bent, stitching by the window of their inmost room in the Pelican Court. It was suddenly unbearably poignant.

• Taking up the shift he inspected it gingerly. It was soft and white with much laundering, trimmed with a little needlework at neck and cuffs. There was a large bloodstain on the back and sleeve, matching those on gown and kirtle, and sour-milk stains across the breast; apart from that it told him nothing. Wondering if he was simply looking for the wrong answers, he folded all three garments and set them in a neat pile.

At the other side of the chapel, Alys had removed the French hood and was unpinning the cap which was under it so that Bess’s hair fell loose in two long braids. Gil lifted the headgear. The cap was of well-washed linen like the shift, threads pulled here and there by the pins which had secured it to the dark braids. The hood was a structure of wire, velvet and buckram, which he studied with interest, having wondered more than once how such things were constructed. Two small starry shapes floated down from the black velvet as he turned it; lifting one on a fingertip he held it to the light and recognized a five-petalled flower of hawthorn, turning brown now.

Ealasaidh was speaking.

‘Here is the wound that killed her, maister, and here is what I wanted to show you.’

They had her half-shrouded, turned on to her face so that the final offence showed, a narrow blue-lipped gash between the ribs on the left side.

‘Such a little wound, to end a life,’ said Ealasaidh.

But it was not the only offence committed against this woman. Red marks, some raised, some turning silver, patterned her back. Neat parallel lines decorated one buttock. And fat and red on her right shoulder-blade, carved with some care, were the letters I S.

‘John Sempill’s initials,’ said Gil, as the bile rose in his throat. ‘And she could still sing. Lord send me courage like hers.’

‘Amen,’ said Alys.

Ealasaidh was silent, but the tears were dripping from her chin on to the linen shroud.

‘Forgive me,’ said Gil. ‘Are there other scars? The jaw I have seen, but — ‘

‘That and her ear,’ said Alys. ‘And these. No more.’

Ealasaidh muttered something in her own language. Alys touched her hand in sympathy, and without further comment they completed the task of arraying Bess Stewart for burial, turning her head to show Gil the sliced earlobe and scarred jaw before they combed out her hair to hide it.

‘Will your brother wish to say farewell?’ Alys asked at length.

Ealasaidh shook her head. ‘I do not know. He was strange, last night. He is saying he may never play again.’

‘Could he give it up like that?’

‘If he says he will, then he will. Thus far he has only said he may. Cover her face, but do not tie the cloth, I think.’ She helped Alys fold the linen over the still face, and got to her feet, lifting the basin and cloths. ‘These belong to Brother Porter. Lassie, I still do not know your name, but I thank you, as Bess would, for your charity to her.’