Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘She seemed to know you. Whoever she is,’ said the girl briskly, ‘she’s badly overdressed. This is Glasgow, not Edinburgh or Stirling.’

‘What difference does that make?’ Gil asked, but she gave him a pitying glance and did not reply. The procession clattered and jingled away up the High Street, followed by resentful comments and blessings on a bonny face in roughly equal quantities. The dance re-formed.

‘What is a gallowglass?’ said the girl suddenly. Gil looked round at her. ‘It is a word I have not encountered. Is it Scots?’

‘I think it may be Ersche,’ Gil explained. ‘It means a hired sword.’

‘A mercenary?’

‘Nearly that. Your Scots is very good.’

‘Thank you. And now if you will-let me past,’ she added with a glance at the sun, ‘I will see if I can find Catherine. She was to have come back for me.’

‘May I not convoy you?’ suggested Gil, aware of a powerful wish to continue the conversation. ‘You shouldn’t be out unattended, today of all days.’

‘I can walk a few steps up the High Street without coming to grief. Thank you,’ she said, and the smile flick ered again. She slipped past him and down the steps before he could argue further, and disappeared into the crowd.

The harper was playing again, and the tall Highlander woman was beating the tabor. The other woman was singing, but her head was bent and all the sparkle had gone out of her. The fat wife who was now standing next to Gil nudged him painfully in the ribs.

‘That’s a bonny lass to meet on a May morning,’ she said, winking. ‘What did you let her go for? She’s a good age for you, son, priest or no.’

‘Thank you for the advice,’ he said politely, at which she laughed riotously, nudged him again, and began to tell him about a May morning in her own youth. Since she had lost most of her teeth and paused to explain every name she mentioned Gil did not attempt to follow her, but nodded at intervals and watched the dance, his pleasant mood fading.

That was twice this morning he had been taken for a priest. It must be the sober clothes, he thought, and glanced down. Worn boots, mended black hose, black jerkin, plain linen shirt, short gown of black wool faced with black linen. Maybe he should wear something brighter — some of the Vicars Choral were gaudy enough. It occurred to him for the first time that the girl had not addressed him as a priest, either by word or manner.

He became aware of a disturbance in the crowd. Leaning out over the handrail he could see one man in a tall felt hat, one in a blue bonnet, both the worse for drink and arguing over a girl. There was a certain amount of pulling and pushing, and the girl exclaimed something in the alarmed tones which had caught his attention. This time he knew the voice.

The stair was crowded. He vaulted over the handrail, startled a young couple by landing in front of them, and pushed through the people, using his height and his elbows ruthlessly. The man in the hat was dressed like a merchant’s son, in a red velvet doublet and a short gown with a furred collar caked in something sticky. The other appeared to be a journeyman in a dusty jerkin, out at the elbows. As Gil reached them, both men laid hold of his acquaintance from the stairway, one to each arm, pulling her in opposite directions, the merchant lad reaching suggestively for his short sword with his other hand.

This could be dealt with without violence. Gil slid swiftly round behind the little group, and said clearly, ‘Gentlemen, this is common assault. I suggest you desist.’

Both stared at him. The girl twisted to look at him over her shoulder, brown eyes frightened.

‘Let go,’ he repeated. ‘Or the lady will see you in court. She has several witnesses.’ He looked round, and although most of the onlookers suddenly found the dance much more interesting, one or two stalwarts nodded.

‘Oh, if I’d known she kept a lawyer,’ said the man in the hat, and let go. The other man kept his large red hand on the girl’s arm, but stopped pulling her.

‘It’s all right, Thomas,’ she said breathlessly. ‘This gentleman will see me home.’

‘You certain?’ said Thomas indistinctly. ‘Does he ken where ‘tis?’ She nodded, and he let go of her wrist and stepped back, looking baffled. ‘You take her straight home,’ he said waveringly to Gil. ‘Straight home, d’you hear me?’

‘Straight home,’ Gil assured him. ‘You go and join the dancing.’ If you can stay upright, he thought.

Thomas turned away, frowning, at which the man in the hat also flounced off into the crowd. The girl closed her eyes and drew a rather shaky breath, and Gil caught hold of her elbow.

‘This time I will convoy you,’ he said firmly.

She took another breath, opened her eyes and turned to him. He met her gaze, and found himself looking into peat-brown depths the colour of the rivers he had swum in as a boy. For an infinite moment they stared at one another; then someone jostled Gil and he blinked. Recovering his manners, he let go of her elbow and offered his arm to lead her.

She nodded, achieved a small curtsy, and set a trembling hand on his wrist. He led her out of the crowd and up the High Street, followed by a flurry of predictable remarks. He was acutely aware of the hand, pale and well-shaped below its brown velvet cuff, and of her profile, dominated by that remarkable nose and turned slightly away from him. The top of her head came just above his shoulder. Suppressing a desire to put his arm round her as further support, or perhaps comfort, he began a light commentary on the music which they had heard, requiring no answer.

‘Thomas was trying to help,’ she said suddenly. ‘He saw Robert Walkinshaw accost me and came to see him off.’

‘Is he another of your father’s men?’ Gil asked. ‘He’s obviously concerned for you.’

‘Yes,’ she said after a moment, and came to a halt. Although she still trembled she was not leaning on his wrist at all. He looked down at her. ‘And this is my father’s house. I thank you, Maister Cunningham.’

She dropped another quick curtsy, and slipped in at the pend below a swinging sign. At the far end of the tunnellike entry she turned, a dark figure against the sunlit court, raised one hand in salute, then stepped out of sight. Gil, troubled, watched for a moment, but she did not reappear. He stepped backwards, colliding with a pair of beribboned apprentices heading homeward.

‘Whose house is that?’ he asked them.

‘The White Castle?’ said one of them, glancing at the sign. ‘That’s where the French mason lives, is it no, Ecky?’

Ecky, after some thought, agreed with this.

‘Aye,’ pursued his friend, who seemed to be the more wide awake, ‘for I’ve taken a pie there once it came out the, oven. There’s an auld French wife there that’s the devil to cross,’ he confided to Gil. ‘Aye, it’s the French mason’s house.’

They continued on their way. Gil, glancing at the sun, decided that he should do likewise. Maggie Baxter had mentioned something good for dinner.

Canon David Cunningham, Prebendary of Cadzow, Official of Glasgow, senior judge of the Consistory Court of the archdiocese, was in the first-floor hall of his handsome stone house in Rottenrow. He was seated near the window, tall and lean like Gil in his narrow belted gown of black wool, with a sheaf of papers and two protocol books on a stool beside him. In deference to the warmth of the day, he had removed his hat, untied the strings of his black felt coif, and hung his furred brocade over-gown on the high carved back of his chair. Gil, bowing as he entered from the stair, discovered that his head was bare in the same moment as his uncle said,

‘Where is your hat, Gilbert? And when did you last comb your hair?’