Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘Alys, you have the wisdom of an heap of learned men,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Come and eat, Maister Cunningham.’

On the long board set up in the mason’s well-polished hall, there was cold cooked salmon, for which Alys apologized, and a sharp sauce, and an arranged sallet with marigold petals scattered over it. Further down the table the men had bannocks and cheese as well, but the maids had eaten earlier and were hard at work in the kitchen again. The mason, greeting Gil with enthusiasm, drew him to the seat at his right. He was in funeral black, a great black gown flung over the back of his chair, and wearing a selfsatisfied expression which he accounted for, as soon as he had said grace and seen everyone served, by saying,

‘Maister lawyer, I have something to show you in St Mungo’s yard. We go up there after the Mass.’

Gil raised his eyebrows.

‘Not the weapon, no,’ Maistre Pierre continued with some regret. ‘I think we search no longer. It cannot be there. But something strange, which I think you must look at.’ He pushed salmon into his bannock with the point of his knife. ‘Alys, how does Davie?’

‘Still sleeping, father. Brother Andrew says the longer he sleeps the better. We cannot know until he wakes what sort of recovery he will make, but the good brother is optimistic.’

‘Hm,’ said the mason, chewing.

‘Nancy will help to watch him.’

‘Ah, yes. This baby. Why are we harbouring a baby?’

‘Because,’ said Alys patiently, ‘although the harper is its father, it was born less than a year after its mother left John Sempill. He could claim it as his own in law, and he says he needs an heir, you heard Maister Cunningham tell us last night.’

‘Can the law not count?’ asked Maistre Pierre curiously.

‘Stranger things have happened,’ said Gil.

‘And are we any closer to finding what girl it was with Davie, since it was not Bridie Miller?’

‘No word yet,’ said Alys, ‘but I sent the maids into the market this morning to learn what they could. It is too soon, I think, for word to have got back to us.’ She poured ale for Gil and for her father. ‘They tell me Bridie herself was there, making great play of how she has had a narrow escape. She should be here soon — Agnes promised to send two girls round to help. And they saw you, Maister Cunningham, and Lady Euphemia and her man. Who I think would do anything at all for his lady,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘The musician?’ said Gil, startled.

‘Oh, yes. That was how I managed to find you. Kittock said when she came in that Lady Euphemia had gone up the street with that wee Italian lutenist on one arm and you on the other, and looked like two weans being led to the school,’ she quoted, in excellent mimicry of Kittock’s broader Scots.

‘Alys,’ said her father reprovingly. She blushed, and apologized. Gil, contemplating the remark, found it more comforting than offensive. He said so, earning a grateful smile from Alys.

‘And what did the Campbell woman say?’ asked the mason. ‘Anything to the purpose?’

‘God, what was she not saying? Her tongue’s hung in the middle, I swear it,’ said Gil intemperately. ‘Questions, questions, about how far we have got. John Sempill will be at the burial, and she may come if she can find anything to wear.’ Father and daughter made identical long faces, and he nodded. ‘Asking about Bridie Miller — you heard her, Alys — had we questioned her.’

He frowned, trying to recall the flood of words.

‘I’m sure she said something I should note, but I can’t pick it out among all the nonsense.’

‘If you leave it, it will come to mind,’ said Alys sagely.

‘Speaking of the burial …’ said Maistre Pierre, and pushed his chair back.

It was cool and dim in the Greyfriars’ church.

In the side-chapel, candles flickered on the altar, their light leaping on the painted patterns on the walls, outlining cowl and rough woollen habit where the half-dozen friars stood waiting, catching the knots in Father Francis Govan’s girdle as the Superior stood bowing gravely to the mourners as they entered from the transept. It gleamed on the harper’s white hair combed down over his shoulders, on Ealasaidh beside him at the head of the bier, swordstraight, mouth clamped shut, and on the white tapes which bound the shroud about Bess Stewart’s knees and shoulders, so that she was reduced within her wrappings to the essence, neither male nor female, neither young nor old, but simply human.

Gil, pacing solemnly in behind Maistre Pierre in an atmosphere of mint and feverfew, was taken aback by the number of people already present. Still more were making their way through the church.

‘Are all present?’ asked Father Francis at length. ‘May we begin?’

‘Yes,’ said Ealasaidh.

‘No,’ said Gil in the same moment. ‘John Sempill. -‘

Ealasaidh drew a sharp breath, and was checked by a small movement of her brother’s hand. Feet sounded in the transept, and Sempill of Muirend entered the chapel swathed in black velvet, a felt hat with a jet-encrusted brim perched on his head. He dragged this off, glared round, then tramped forward to genuflect, glanced once at the bier, and stood aside. As he stared grimly at the harper from under his dishevelled thatch of sandy hair, his cousin and James Campbell of Glenstriven, also draped in black, followed him in and took up position beside him. The two gallowglasses tramped in, crossed themselves, and took up position either side of the entry like a guard of honour. Sempill nodded and gestured to the Superior, who, waiting a few heartbeats longer, opened his book and began.

‘De profundis clamavi ad to … Out of the deep have I called unto thee, 0 Lord …’

Gil looked round, counting heads. Aside from the mason and his men and the Sempill party, there was another man who looked like a harper, led by a shabby boy; a flamboyant fellow with a lute across his back; and more than a dozen townsfolk, among whom he recognized Nancy’s mother and aunt, and a man from the Provost’s household, presumably sent as a nicely judged courtesy. The Provost, as a Stewart, was related to the Earl of Lennox, and therefore at odds with the Sempills, and although Sempill of Muirend was a fellow landowner he had lost only an adulterous wife and was in no favour with anyone who mattered in the burgh, such as the Archbishop. Sending one’s steward in a black mantle was quite enough.

The brothers were chanting the Miserere. Beside him the mason hitched at his velvet gown, crushing the great bow of the black silk funeral favour tied on his arm. Gil glanced down at his own. Alys had tied it for him after she had seen to her father’s, standing in the paved yard with the sunshine bright on her bent head. Her hair, it occurred to him now, was the warm tawny colour of honey just run from the comb.

Movement by the entrance to the chapel made him look round, in time to see David Cunningham enter quietly, followed by his taciturn servant, genuflect, and move into a corner. Catching Gil’s eye he nodded briefly, and turned his attention to the service.

‘Requiem aeternam … Grant them rest eternal, 0 Lord …

The words unfolded, with their promises of eternal life, their reminders of judgement and the end times. Father Francis delivered a brief address in which he managed to suggest rather than state his hope that the deceased, having agreed to meet her husband, had repented of her adultery. Ealasaidh stirred restively, and was checked again.

The Mass drew to its end, and Father Francis stepped down from the altar to stand by the bier. Bowing to the shrouded corpse, he drew breath to address it, but Ealasaidh spoke first, her accent very strong.