Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘I had a hat when I went out,’ he said, wondering at the ease with which the old man made him feel six years old. ‘It must have fallen off. Perhaps when I louped the handrail.’

‘Louped the handrail,’ his uncle repeated without expression.

‘There was a lass being molested.’ Gil decided against asking when dinner was, and instead nodded at his uncle’s papers. ‘Can I help with this, sir?’

‘You are six-and-twenty,’ said his uncle. ‘You are graduate of two universities. You are soon to be priested, and from Michaelmas next, Christ and His Saints preserve us, you will be entitled to call yourself a notary. I think you should strive for a little dignity, Gilbert. Yes, you can help me. I am to hear a matter tomorrow — Sempill of Muirend is selling land to his cousin, and we need the original disposition from his father. It should be in one of these.’ He waved a long thin hand at the two protocol books.

‘That would be why I saw him riding into the town just now. What was the transaction, sir?’ Gil asked, lifting one of the volumes on to the bench. His uncle pinched the bridge of his long nose and stared out of the window.

‘Andrew Sempill of Cathcart to John Sempill of Muirend and Elizabeth Stewart his wife, land in the burgh of Glasgow, being on the north side of Rottenrow near the Great Cross,’ he recited. ‘Just across the way yonder,’ he added, gesturing. ‘I wonder if he’s taken his wife back?’

‘His wife?’ said Gil, turning pages. ‘You know my mother’s sister Margaret was married on Sempill of Cathcart? Till he beat her and she died of it.’

‘Your mother’s sister Margaret never stopped talking in my hearing longer than it took to draw breath,’ said his uncle. ‘Your sister Tibby is her image.’

‘So my mother has often said; agreed Gil.

‘There is no proof that Andrew Sempill gave his wife the blow that killed her. She was his second wife, and there were no bairns. John Sempill of Muirend would be his son by the first wife. She was a Walkinshaw, which would be how they came by the land across the way. I think she died of her second bairn.’

‘And what about John Sempill’s wife?’ Gil persisted.

‘You must not give yourself to gossip, Gilbert; reproved his uncle. ‘Sempill of Muirend married a Bute girl. While you were in France, that would be. She and her sister were co-heirs to Stewart of Ettrick, if I remember. She left Sempill.’

‘There was a lady with him when he rode in just now.’ Gil turned another page, and marked a place with his finger. ‘Dainty creature with long gold hair. Child in the crowd thought she was the Queen of Elfland.’

‘That does not sound like his wife.’

‘It’s not his wife.’ Maggie Baxter, stout and red-faced, appeared in the doorway from the kitchen stair. Will ye dine now, maister? Only the May-bannock’s like to spoil if it stands.’

‘Very well.’ The Official gathered up his papers. ‘Is it not his wife, Maggie?’

‘The whole of Glasgow kens it’s not his wife,’ said Maggie, dragging one of the trestles into the centre of the hall, ‘seeing she’s taken up with the harper that stays in the Fishergait.’

‘What, the harper that played for the King last winter?’ said the Official. ‘When was this? Is that who she left Sempill for?’

Maggie counted thoughtfully on her fingers.

‘Before Yule a year since? I ken the bairn’s more than six month old.’

‘There is a bairn, is there? And has she gone back to Sempill? I had not heard this,’ said Canon Cunningham in disgruntled tones.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Maggie with grim significance. Gil rose and went to fetch in the other two trestles. ‘But what I saw an hour since was Sempill of Muirend ride in across the way there, and his cousin with him, and Lady Euphemia Campbell tricked out in green satin like the Queen of the May.’

‘Ah,’ said the Canon. He lifted his over-gown from the back of his chair and began searching among the intricacies of black brocade and worn fox-fur for the armholes.

‘Is that something else that happened while I was in France?’ Gil asked. ‘Maggie, will you take the other end?’

‘Aye, it would be,’ agreed Maggie as they set the great board up on the trestles. ‘Her first man fell at Stirling field — who was he now? I think he was on the old King’s side, like the Sempills and the Cunninghams. She never grieved ower lang for him, for she was already getting comfort with John Sempill when you came home, Maister Gil. Or so I hear,’ she added piously.

‘I think we conclude that Sempill’s wife has not returned to him; David Cunningham said. He and Maggie began an involved discussion of who Euphemia Campbell’s first husband might have been, while Gil quietly went on setting up the table for dinner with the long cloth of bleached linen from the smaller carved cupboard, and the wooden trenchers from the open base of the great cupboard. May Day or no, he knew better than to touch the silver dishes gleaming on top of the great cupboard; they were only used when the Archbishop or the other canons dined with them. He added horn spoons and wooden beakers from the small cupboard, lining them up carefully, dragged his uncle’s chair to the head of the board, set the two long benches on either side, and said across the genealogy,

‘Maggie, will I bring in anything else?’

‘Aye, well,’ said Maggie, ‘I’ve work to do, maister. Sit you in at the table and I’ll-call the household.’

She stumped off down the stairs to the kitchen. By the time she returned, Gil had finally assisted his uncle into the long furred gown, and both Cunninghams had washed their hands under the spout of the pottery cistern by the other door and were seated waiting for their food.

‘A May blessing on the house,’ she said, setting a pot of savoury-smelling stew at the top of the table. Behind her, Matt, the Official’s middle-aged, silent manservant, and the two stable-hands echoed her words as they bore in bread and ale, a dish of eggs, a bowl of last year’s apples. Last of all came the kitchen-boy, scarlet with concentration, carrying the May-bannock on a great wooden trencher. The custard of eggs and cream with which it was topped quivered as he set it in the centre of the table and stood back.

‘May Day luck to us all!’ he said breathlessly, and licked custard off his thumb.

Once grace was said and all were served, Maggie and the Official continued their discussion. The men were arguing about whether to graze the horses on the Cow- caddens Muir or to take them further afield, perhaps nearer Partick. Gil ate in silence, thinking about the day, and about the girl he had left at the house of the White Castle. He was surprised to find that he could not remember what she wore, except that it had velvet cuffs, or anything about her other than that direct gaze and the incisive, intelligent voice. What colour was her hair? Was she bareheaded? And yet he could not stop thinking about her.

‘Gilbert,’ said his uncle sharply. He looked up, and apologized. ‘I am to say Compline in the choir tonight. Will you invest me, so that Matt can go to his kin in the Fishergait?’

‘I can invest you, sir. I’m promised to Adam Goudie after Vespers. I’ll come down to St Mungo’s and attend you at Compline, and Matt can go as he pleases.’

Matt grunted a wordless acknowledgement, and David Cunningham said, ‘Playing at the cards, I suppose, with half the songmen of St Mungo’s.’

‘I’m in good company,’ Gil pointed out, and seized a wrinkled apple from the bowl as Maggie began to clear the table. ‘The Bishop himself plays at cards with the King. Archbishop,’ he corrected himself.

‘The King and Robert Blacader both can afford to lose money,’ said his uncle. ‘Neither you nor any of the Vicars Choral has money to lose. Remember the gate to Vicars Alley is locked at nine o’clock.’