Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘If we are not back, you do not go to Compline. Understood?’

‘Luke and Thomas — ‘

‘Understood?’

‘Very well, father.’ She kissed him. ‘Will you both come in later?’

‘There is Mistress Stewart’s box to inspect,’ said Gil, speaking quietly, although they were using French. ‘I would like to do that before the day’s end.’

‘Then I shall see you later.’ She smiled at him, and slipped into the shadowy tunnel of the pend. The mason watched her fondly out of sight, and turned to go on down the hill.

‘Is the demoiselle truly only sixteen?’ Gil asked, falling into step beside him. ‘She seems much older.’

‘She will be seventeen on St John’s Eve,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Her mother was prettier, but I think Alys is a little the wiser.’ He sighed. ‘Who would be a father?’

They passed the Tolbooth and Gil said, ‘What do you think about this second killing?’

‘I think it is either connected or coincidence,’ said the mason, ‘and I do not believe in coincidence. Well, maybe I do,’ he conceded, ‘but not here. And you?’

‘I agree.’ Gil tucked his hands behind his back under his gown. ‘The means of killing looked very similar. To get close enough to kill in that way one must be trusted, or much stronger than one’s victim, I suppose, and there were no bruises on her wrists. I would have liked to look further. I wish we had seen her before she was washed.’

‘Before she was lifted from Blackfriars yard would have been better,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And why was she killed? She knew nothing.’

‘Either she knew more than she realized — ‘

‘Or we, indeed.’

‘Or we. Or as I said to James Campbell, her killer did not know it was the wrong lass. In which case we are respons ible for her death.’ They paused, looking at one another in dismay.

‘Who knew we were searching for her?’ asked the mason.

‘Your man Luke told Alys who she was,’ said Gil, pacing onward. ‘All her household knew it when Alys learned that she had quarrelled with the boy, although they may not have been paying attention,’ he added, recalling the scene in the Hamilton’ yard. ‘But she went on talking about it. Alys said she was at the market today, very full of her narrow escape.’

‘Poor lass,’ said the mason after a moment. ‘And little older than Alys, by what Agnes says. So who could have killed her? Do we look for the same person?’

‘Serjeant Hamilton is looking for a foreigner,’ Gil reminded him. We are hunting off our own land down here.’

‘Aye, true. So would we be looking for the same person? In hypothesis?’

‘In hypothesis, yes. The existence in the one small burgh of two killers, with two causes for killing, using the same means and method, is not a reasonable postulate.’

‘I saw John Sempill coming down the hill as I went up this morning.’

‘When was that?’

‘After Prime? Maybe later. He and his — cousin, is it? — the fair-haired man who came to the burial — they passed the cross at the Wyndhead to go down as I went up, talking loud about black velvet and leather for a girth. Did you say Sempill works leather? Does he use a knife?’

‘Aye. I saw the tools, and some harness he was working on. I would say the knife was the right shape, but too short in the blade.’

‘I suppose so, but we should bear it in mind.’ Maistre Pierre paused on the crown of the bridge to look down at the water forty feet below. ‘We have not simplified matters, have we? The more we look, the more complicated it gets.’

‘My mother embroiders bed curtains,’ said Gil, and got a startled look. He drew his companion into one of the boat-shaped niches in the parapet as a late cart ground its way up the long slope from the Gorbals side. ‘When the cat gets at her thread, it falls into knots and tangles, and I have to untangle it. The best method is to loosen this, and tease at that, and the tangle gets bigger and takes in more thread, and then suddenly you find the end and you can unravel the whole.’

‘I see,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘So we are not hunting, we are untangling things. Your mother is yet living, then?’

‘She and my two youngest sisters live on her dower lands by Lanark.’ Gil leaned on the parapet, looking at the green banks of the river in the evening light. ‘Let us consider this morning. The girl who has died was at the market,’ he said carefully, conscious of ready ears passing as people crossed the bridge to go home or to go out drinking. ‘We know that from several sources. Who else was there?’

‘Most of the women of the burgh,’ Maistre Pierre pointed out. Gil ignored him.

‘You saw two of — of the quarry at the Wyndhead. I saw two more in the market.’ He gestured quickly, sketching a man’s jack and helm, and Maistre Pierre nodded. ‘That was just before I met the lady and her escort. Oh, and her brother whom we saw just now. Assuming that her waiting-woman was not — ‘

‘Can we assume anything?’

‘True. Well, the waiting-woman was probably not in the town this morning, since they had a funeral feast to arrange, but seven others of the household were. The men I saw were likely gathering information.’

‘Are they capable of doing so?’

‘I think we should not underestimate the wild Ersche only because they do not speak Scots,’ Gil said. ‘They think differently because their language is different, but Ealasaidh for one is no fool.’

‘Because the language is different,’ Maistre Pierre repeated thoughtfully. ‘And any of these,’ he added, ‘could have stepped aside into Blackfriars yard with that poor girl and knifed her.’

‘Once again, we are faced with the same questions. Why knife her? And why would she go aside to a secluded spot like that with someone like to kill her?’

‘There is no telling what some girls will do,’ offered Maistre Pierre. ‘My friend, if we do not proceed across this bridge and find the ale-house, my tongue will cleave to the roof of my mouth, and it will be too dark to find the door of the place. Let us move on.’

‘Very true.’ Gil straightened up.

Maistre Pierre remained a moment longer looking down at the swirling water of the river. ‘You know, God is endlessly good. Look how he has arranged that the tide reaches to the bridge and no further.’

The Brigend was a sizeable community of mingled wattle-and-daub cottages and tall imposing houses, inhabited by those for whom it was not necessary to be indwellers in the burgh, whether because they were too poor to become burgesses or because they were wealthy enough to ignore the by-laws. Maggie Bell’s ale-house was perhaps a hundred yards beyond the ancient stone-built leper hospital, and was easy enough to find, with its ale-stake thrust into the thatch over the door. Someone had gone to the trouble of painting the likeness of St Mungo’s bell on a piece of wood to hang from the stake. Gil paused below the image and looked along the empty street to where a dog was attempting to round up a handful of hens.

‘It is said to be healthier living here,’ he remarked to the mason, ‘out of the smells of the burgh.’

‘I do not see how that can be true,’ objected Maistre Pierre. ‘There is St Ninian’s, after all.’

He ducked to go into the house, and Gil followed him.

A tavern was a tavern, whether on the banks of the Seine or the Clyde. Inside this one there was firelight, and the smell of many people, fried food and spilled ale. Several girls were hurrying about with armfuls of wooden beakers, jugs, plates of food. The long tables were crowded, people stood in groups near the door and the tiny windows, and from the great barrel of ale in the corner Maggie Bell herself kept an eye on the proceedings and removed the money from her girls as they collected it. She was nearly as tall as Gil, broad-shouldered and grey-haired, and put him strongly in mind of Ealasaidh.