Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘What happened to them?’ Gil asked, more at home with this kind of enquiry.

‘She still had the land,’ Ealasaidh said. ‘She said time and again, if she could get to Rothesay to sign a paper, we would have money.’

‘I wonder where the deeds are,’ said Gil.

‘Maybe in her box,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘But we will not have the key. I have never seen it opened.’

The box itself, when dragged from under the shut-bed, was sturdy enough, but the lock was no challenge to Gil’s dagger. He said so.

‘Then if it will help you, open it,’ said the harper.

‘You are certain that you wish me to open it?’ said Gil formally. The harper, recognizing his intention, bowed his head regally.

‘I am certain; he agreed. Gil brought out his dagger, and was turning the box so that light fell on the lock when the harper put out a hand.

Wait,’ he said, head tilted, listening. Ealasaidh looked from him to the window, then rose to go and look down into the yard.

‘Campbell,’ she said. Her brother asked a question. ‘Eoghan Campbell, the same as brought the word to Bess the other night. There is Morag nic Lachlann getting a crack with him across the way, he will be here in a moment.’

Gil sheathed his dagger.

‘Let us put this out the way, then,’ he said. ‘Euan Campbell? You are certain it is Euan and not Neil? And that Euan brought the word to Bess?’

‘How would f not know him?’ said Ealasaidh, as she had before, stooping to help Gil drag the box into a corner. ‘My mother was wisewoman at their birth, for all they were Campbells.’ She stacked a folded plaid, two German flutes and a bundle of music rapidly on top of the box. ‘Not that she would have withheld aid if their father had been the devil himself,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Wisdom and a gift is both to be shared,’ said the harper. He rose as feet crossed the outer room. ‘Ah, Mhic Chaileann …’

The man in the doorway was, to Gil’s eye, the same man he had questioned yesterday. He watched the formal exchange of Gaelic, trying to gauge the mind of each contestant. The gallowglass was pleased with himself about something, and also dismayed by Gil’s presence, though he hid it well. The harper, his great grief overlaid by his greater dignity, was harder to read; beside him Ealasaidh had a tight rein on her anger. She said suddenly,

‘We will be speaking Scots, in courtesy to Maister Cunningham. What brings Eoghan Campbell to this door?’

Gil, startled to find she remembered his name, almost missed the man’s slight recoil.

‘It iss a word from Maister Sempill,’ he said cautiously. ‘It iss to say that he is in grief at the death of his wife, and iss wishing her things back for a remembrance. That is the word from Maister Sempill.’

Ealasaidh appeared to be silenced by rage. Mclan inclined his head.

‘I hear Maister Sempill’s word,’ he said formally. ‘I will consider of my answer.’

‘Euan Campbell,’ said Gil. The dark-browed face turned to him. ‘Did you bring a message to Bess Stewart from Maister Sempill on May Day evening?’

‘Of course he did!’ hissed Ealasaidh.

‘Let him answer for himself,’ said Gil. ‘There is not only a man of law here, there is a harper. He will speak the truth, will you not, Euan?’

‘Yes,’ said the gallowglass, in some discomfort.

‘Then answer me,’ said Gil.

The man took a deep breath. ‘I did so,’ he admitted.

‘What was the message?’

‘That she should be meeting him outside the south door of St Mungo’s after Compline, in a matter of money. Her money.’

Gil considered the man for a moment. Out in the yard a child wailed and was hushed, and the harper turned his head to listen.

‘Did you speak the message in Scots?’ Gil asked. ‘Or in Ersche?’

Something unreadable crossed the narrow face.

‘Of course he was speaking Gaelic at her!’ said Ealasaidh impatiently. ‘She had the two tongues as well as any in the land, what else would he be speaking?’

‘Is that right?’ Gil said. The man nodded. ‘Tell us what you said to her. Say it again in Ersche — in Gaelic.’

Euan’s eyes shifted, from Gil, to the harper standing isolated in darkness, to Ealasaidh’s vengeful countenance. After a pause, he spoke. Ealasaidh listened, snapped a question, listened to the answer. There was a short, acrimonious discussion, which ended when Ealasaidh turned to Gil.

‘The word he is bringing from Sempill is just as he is saying,’ she reported. ‘But she asked him how she could trust John Sempill, and he, fool and Campbell that he is, promised to protect her while she spoke with Sempill and see her back here.’

Gil, unable to assess this, said to give himself time, ‘Why did Maister Sempill think it was your brother who took the message?’

‘He is never telling us apart,’ said the gallowglass.

‘They were forever playing at being the one or the other,’ said Ealasaidh in disgust. “There is only me and Mairead their sister can tell them apart now, and she is married to a decent man and living in Inveraray.’

‘And I,’ said the harper. ‘It was this one came with the message on Monday. I know the voice.’

‘Sorrow is on me,’ said the gallowglass, ‘that ever I crossed your door on such an errand.’

They went off into Ersche again, a rapid exchange between Ealasaidh and Campbell. Gil, watching, felt the man was still hiding something. The harper suddenly spoke, a few quick words which silenced the other two, and turning to Gil he said, ‘Maister Cunningham, have you more-to ask?’

‘I have,’ said Gil.

‘Then ask it, so Eoghan Campbell can go about his lord’s business.’

Gil, thanking him as one would a colleague, found himself exchanging bows with a blind man.

‘Euan,’ he said, ‘tell me how Mistress Stewart went up the High Street on May Day evening.’

‘Chust like any other,’ said the man blankly.

‘Did she follow you, or walk beside you? Did you talk? Was she apprehensive? Was she worried about meeting her husband,’ he amended. ‘You may answer me in Gaelic.’

Ealasaidh said something sharp, and Euan spoke briefly, shrugging.

‘He says,’ she translated, ‘that Bess walked up the street beside him, talking in the Gaelic about the weather, and about where he was coming from, and she did not seem low in her courage at all in any way.’

The harper made a small sound in his throat. Ealasaidh flicked a glance at him, and added, ‘What else do you wish to ask, Maister Cunningham?’

‘When you got to St Mungo’s,’ said Gil, ‘what then?’

The gallowglass had left Bess Stewart in the clump of hawthorns and gone into the kirk to report to his lord. She had been standing, quite composed, with her plaid over her head. He had never seen her.again.

‘Was there anyone else in the kirkyard?’ Gil asked. The sly grin predicted the answer he got.

‘Therewass two youngsters, away to the burn from where she was, sitting in the grass, though I am thinking they would shortly be lying in it.’

‘What were they wearing?’ asked Gil hopefully.

‘Oh, I would not be knowing that. The light was going. Chust clothes like any others. The boy’s hose was stript.’

‘Just now,’ said Gil, ‘before you came up this stair, what did the neighbour across the way tell you?’

‘Oh, nothing at all,’ said the gallowglass airily, but Gil had not missed the flicker of self-satisfaction.

‘It took a long while to say nothing,’ he observed. Ealasaidh said something sharp. She got a sulky answer, then a defiant one; she glanced threateningly at the small harp, and there was an immediate reaction.

‘Mistress nic Lachlann and I were chust passing the time of day, and I was asking her would himself be at home chust now, and she was telling me who would be in the house.’