Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘Che hai detto? Questione? Perche, messeri?’ He broke into a torrent of speech and gesture which appeared to deny all knowledge of anything.

Gil gestured at the fore-stair, and Agnes said robustly, ‘Away out and talk to them, man, and get out from underfoot.’ She pushed him forward and slammed the door behind him.

Antonio was coaxed down into the yard with some difficulty, and stood, apparently on the point of flight, looking from Gil to the mason and back. Feeling like a man baiting a suckling calf, Gil looked down at him and said, ‘You know that a woman was killed in the churchyard on May Day?’

The mason translated this, and the musician looked even more alarmed.

‘Non so niente! Niente, niente.’

‘He says he knows nothing,’ the mason translated.

Gil nodded. ‘I surmised that. Ask if he saw anything unusual when he came out of St Mungo’s.’

The dark gaze flicked from his face to the mason’s, a hint of — surprise? relief? — in the man’s expression.

‘San Mungo?’ It sounded like relief. ‘La cattedrale? No — vedevo niente insolito.’ He shook his head emphatically. Gil studied him, considering his next question.

‘You didn’t see the woman standing in the trees?’

Maistre Pierre translated this, and got a blank look and a surprised answer.

‘He says the lady was by the church, not in the trees,’ he reported.

‘By the church?’ repeated Gil. ‘What lady does he mean? Lady Euphemia was by the church, but — ‘

‘Si, si, Donna Eufemia, accanto a la cattedrale,’ agreed Antonio enthusiastically.

‘Did he see another lady in the trees?’

The answer was emphatic, and scarcely needed to be translated. There was no lady in the trees.

‘And he saw nothing suspicious? I thought he had his hand on his dagger.’ Gil demonstrated, and the small man tensed warily. Maistre Pierre translated, and there was a longer exchange.

“This is not satisfactory,’ the mason complained at length. ‘I cannot make sense of what he says. I ask about his knife. He says he drew because he thought he saw something — an uomo cattivo, a ladro — in the kirkyard. I say you have not mentioned such to me.’ He raised his eye brows, and Gil nodded in confirmation. They turned to study the lutenist, who was now holding the knife across his palm, looking at them with an ingratiating expression. The knife was a little one, with a narrow springy blade, much like the one James Campbell carried.

‘I don’t think he can tell us anything,’ said Gil. ‘It seems clear he saw nothing, like everyone else in the household.’

‘He seems afraid of something,’ the mason said.

‘He does, doesn’t he? Ask him what it is he’s afraid of.,

The small man ruffled like a fighting-cock, in the same way as the Italians Gil had known in Paris. Slamming the dagger back in its sheath he conveyed in indignant tones that Antonio Bragato feared nothing and no one. The mastiff, roused, barked again, and he flinched and glanced over his shoulder, then squared up to Gil again.

The door above them opened, and James Campbell said, ‘Antonio, vieni suonare. Dai! Oh, your pardon, maisters. Are you still questioning him?’

‘No, we’ve done,’ said Gil, and nodded to the lutenist, who hurried up the steps and past James Campbell without a backward glance. ‘Good of John to spare him for a quarter-hour.’

‘I think you were wasting your time. If a broken man knifed Bess under his nose,’ said James, ‘Antonio would see nothing. He’s a rare good lutenist, but that’s all I can say for him.’

He withdrew, slamming the door with finality. Gil and the mason looked at one another.

‘Let us go and enquire of your uncle,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I feel sure he will provide us something to drink.’

‘The man is certainly afraid,’ said Gil thoughtfully, moving towards the gate.

‘Did we ask the right questions?’ wondered the mason.

‘I keep asking myself that,’ Gil admitted, ‘but I think in this case we would have got no different answers. Niente, niente,’ he quoted, crossing Rottenrow.

‘But is he afraid,’ said Maistre Pierre, avoiding a pig which was chasing two hens, ‘because he is guilty, or because he knows who else is guilty?’

‘Or is he afraid of being suspected, or of casting suspicion?’ Gil countered, and opened his uncle’s front door.

Canon Cunningham was seated by the fire in the hall, reading as usual, but set his book aside and rose when he saw the guest. Gil, bowing, began to introduce the mason, but his uncle cut across that.

‘We have met more than once. Good evening, Maister Mason. I hope I see you well?’

‘Except for these confounded flowers,’ said the mason, sneezing again. ‘Good evening, sir.’

‘Gilbert, Maggie’s in the kitchen. Bid her fetch ale for our guest.’

‘No need, maister.’ Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen stairs, a tray in her hands. ‘I brought mine as well, seeing it was poured.’ She set the tray on a stool and began to draw others forward to the fire. ‘Maister Gil will be wanting to hear about Sempill’s idea of a funeral feast, I’ve no doubt.’

‘You listen too much, Maggie,’ said the Official.

‘That was a remarkable funeral; said Maistre Pierre, accepting a beaker of ale. ‘I had not witnessed that wailing over the dead before. A local custom, I hear.’

‘Aye,’ said David Cunningham grimly. ‘And they’d have been better to keep quiet. Someone in Sempill’s household understood fine what was said, and I was questioned about the bairn. Fortunately I could say I knew nothing.’

The gallowglass brothers are Erschemen,’ Gil pointed out.

‘And that Euphemia Campbell speaks their tongue,’ Maggie said. ‘I heard her, rattling away with one of them. Seems she speaks Italian and all, for I heard her with the wee dark lutenist. And Campbell of Glenstriven too.’ She nudged the mason with a plate of girdle-cakes. ‘Take a pancake, maister. My granny’s receipt.’

‘But did you learn anything, sir?’ Gil asked hopefully.

‘Not to say learn,’ the Canon said, pushing his spectacles back up his nose. ‘Elizabeth Stewart or Sempill’s tocher I think was in coin or kind, which simplifies that.’

‘ocher?’ queried the mason. ‘I would say her dot, her dowry. Is it equivalent in law?’

‘Her bride-portion, aye.’ Canon Cunningham nodded approvingly, as at a bright student, and continued, ‘It is clear that there is also property in Bute. Some of it was Mistress Stewart’s own outright, some of it was left her by her first husband — ‘

‘I never knew she was married before,’ said Maggie.

The Official glared at her and continued, ‘And some of it was the conjunct fee from her kin.’

‘Land given them jointly in respect of their marriage,’ Gil translated for Maistre Pierre, who nodded, absently taking another girdle-cake.

‘However,’ continued the Official, ‘it is not clear who now has control over these properties. Even if Mistress Stewart made a will, and disposed of nothing which it was not her right to dispose of, we have still to consider the questions of the bairn’s inheritance, the conjunct fee property, and the precise terms of her first man’s will.’

Gil, recognizing the tone of voice, settled back. Not for nothing did his uncle lecture at the College from time to time. Maggie was less patient.

‘So will that be written down somewhere?’ she demanded. ‘And will it tell us who put a knife into the poor woman?’

‘Not immediately,’ said Canon Cunningham, put off his stride. ‘But it may tell us who benefits from her death.’

‘The information may be in her box,’ said Gil. ‘I was on the point of opening it this morning when something else happened. It is at the harper’s lodging.’