Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

He had forgotten what it felt like to hold a child this age, small and solid and totally dependent on the adult arms. By the time he remembered, his left elbow was crooked to support back and swaddled legs, and his right thumb was offering itself as a grasp for the small hands. The baby, perhaps hoping this new person might be the one he was looking for, stopped wailing long enough to inspect him.

‘There’s a bonnie fellow,’ said Gil, and was suddenly assailed by longing. He bounced the baby gently, and turned the little face to the light. Dark wispy eyebrows and deep-set blue eyes scowled at him; the lip quivered above a jaw alarmingly like Ealasaidh’s. ‘What a bonnie boy,’ he said hastily, and tried one of the tossing-up tricks other babies had enjoyed. Although this baby did not laugh as his nephews did, he showed no immediate signs of disapproval, but waved his arms as he was caught. Gil tried it again, and the bells on the coral pinned to the infant’s chest rang merrily.

‘He’s not long been fed,’ Alys pointed out. ‘Shall I take him?’

‘That’s what my sister always said.’ Gil handed the baby over reluctantly. As Alys left, the small face peered round her shoulder, looking for Gil. He waved, feeling rather foolish, and sat back as the door closed behind them both, wondering why there seemed to be less light in the room.

‘It is late,’ said the mason. ‘We only got over the bridge because Sandy the tanner had not yet returned to shut the Brig Port. If you are to go back up the brae before the moon sets — ‘

‘True.’ Gil turned his attention to the box in front of him. ‘Have we something on which to make an inventory?’

‘I have,’ said Alys, returning. ‘And pen and ink.’ She stood at her father’s tall desk, dearly well accustomed to the position, and lit another candle, which gleamed on the honey-coloured fall of her hair.

‘Then let us commence,’ said Gil, drawing his gaze with reluctance from the sight.

The box was not a large one, but sturdy, the kind of thing a country joiner might make for a woman to keep jewellery in. The lock gave way after a little persuasion, and they raised the lid.

‘Documents!’ said Maistre Pierre eagerly.

‘A bundle of five documents,’ Gil agreed, dictating slowly to Alys. ‘Tied with a piece of red ribbon. We’ll look at them in a moment.’

‘They were at the top,’ Alys said. ‘Had she looked at them recently, do you suppose?’

‘Before she went out to meet Sempill,’ speculated Gil, ‘to refresh her memory or to be sure of the wording.’ He had a sudden vision of Bess Stewart, the fall of her French hood swinging forward past her scarred jaw, fingering through the handful of parchments, and then going up the hill to her death, trusting that Euan her familiar servant would see her home.

‘What else is there?’

‘Not a great deal. She did not bring much away from Bute with her.’ Gil peered into the box. ‘A gold chain for a jewel, in a little bag. A remarkably good Book of Hours.’ He turned the pages respectfully. ‘This is old. See the strange clothes the saints are wearing. Two more letters. A round stone. And a roll of cloth containing …’ He untied the tapes. ‘Ah, here is her jewellery. I wonder which of her husbands gave her these?’

‘Now you have unwrapped it, it must be inventoried,’ said Alys practically. ‘Item, one pin, set with a sapphire.’ She wrote carefully. ‘Item, one pair of beads with enamelled gauds. Item, a necklace of pearls. Mon Dieu, father, look at those pearls! I think they are better than mine.’

‘And she was carrying these about Scotland in a wooden box,’ said Gil, letting the string glimmer over his fingers in the candlelight. ‘Ealasaidh described the cross that is missing as her one jewel. She cannot have worn these since she left Bute. If Sempill ever got his hands on them he could settle his debt to the Crown at a single stroke.’

They completed the list of Bess Stewart’s jewellery, and turned to the packet of documents. Gil untied the red ribbon and spread the five slips of parchment out on his knee.

‘In fact,’ he said after a moment, ‘these are not all full documents. This and this,’ he lifted the two longer missives, ‘are attested copies of the title deeds to land on the Island of Bute. It seems as if she held that in her own right.’ He set those aside. ‘This is a memorandum of an item in the will of one, Edward Stewart of Kilchattan, whom I take to be her first husband, leaving her a property in the burgh of Rothesay outright, and the interest in two more until her remarriage. And these two are memoranda of grants of land in respect of her marriage to John Sempill.’ He tilted them to the light. The wording is not at all clear. They might be her tocher, though my uncle thought that was in coin, or they might be conjunct fee — ‘

‘Land given jointly in respect of their marriage,’ Maistre Pierre translated for his daughter.

‘I know that,’ she said absently, her pen scraping on the paper.

‘What these do,’ said Gil, ‘is confirm what we already knew by hearsay in respect of her own property, and if you like confirm how little we know in respect of the conjunct property. Even the names of the grantors are omitted.’

‘I do not like,’ said the mason gloomily, ‘but I take your meaning.’

Alys bit the end of her pen, frowning.

‘What difference does it make whether it was her tocher or a conjunct fee?’ she asked.

‘Quite a lot, now,’ said Gil. ‘Sempill keeps the conjunct property, the tocher may well go back to her family.’

‘So if we are still pursuing cui Bono we need to know,’ said Maistre Pierre. He scratched at his beard, the sound loud in the quiet room. ‘Do you suppose Sempill will tell us?’

‘I had rather speak to the man who drew these up,’ said Gil. ‘We need to go to Rothesay.’

‘Ah. When do we go?’

‘And we need to find Annie Thomson, if she really has gone to Dumbarton.’

‘If we go by Dumbarton and not by Irvine, we may look for her on the road. That is if the boy can still tell us nothing.’

‘Davie is still asleep,’ said Alys. ‘He is no worse, but he is no better either. Brother Andrew says we must continue to pray and keep him warm and still.’

‘So we must rely on finding Annie. We also need to think about Bridie Miller. I would like to look at Blackfriars yard where she was found. There may be some sign for us there.’

‘The beets,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘I take it they had not come home with her?’

‘Agnes did not mention them,’ said Alys, ‘and I had a rather detailed account of the event from her.’ She smiled quickly. ‘Poor soul, she has had a trying two days.’

‘So have I,’ said her father. ‘So we go to Rothesay after we look at Blackfriars yard, yes?’

‘I must speak to my uncle,’ said Gil. ‘But, yes.’

The great door of the house in Rottenrow was barred. Gil, untroubled, went along the house wall and in at the little gate to the kitchen yard. To his surprise, there was a light showing in the window there.

Within, the kitchen smelled of tomorrow’s bread, which was rising in the trough near the fire. Beyond the hearth, William the kitchen-boy was already asleep, curled up on his straw mattress in a bundle of blanketing. Beside it, Maggie was on the settle, spinning wool by firelight. She looked up when he came in.

‘My, you’re early home, Maister Gil.’

‘It’s all this loose living,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘Did you wait up for me, Maggie?’

‘Someone had to. The maister wanted the door barred. Do you want a bite?’

‘I’m well fed, thank you.’

‘So what’s come to Bridie Miller?’