Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

The same man in both cases. Even if I did not draw up the deeds, I know that. It will be the good-brother. Her sister’s man, out at Ettrick.’

‘And who is he?’

‘Alexander makes a good living,’ said Sir William as they made their way back down towards the castle. The street was much quieter now, with only a last few townspeople making their way home before curfew. ‘He is the only man of law in Rothesay at present, and for some distance round about, and-he-is a good lawyer.’

‘Where did he study, do you know?’ Gil asked. ‘I meant to ask him, but we were so busy writing these copies that it slipped my mind.’

‘St Andrews, I think. Yes, surely. If it had been Glasgow I would have remembered, because he would have met David — your uncle. Yes, indeed, I am sure it was St Andrews. He is Master of Arts as well as Bachelor of Laws. He told me so.’

‘He is certainly a good lawyer, and his Latin is excellent. Why does he stay here? Could he not do better in Stirling or Edinburgh?’

‘I believe he is happy here. There is plenty of business. Besides, he is one of the wealthiest men in the burgh,’ said Sir William with vicarious pride.

‘Wealthy?’ said Gil despite himself.

‘Oh, yes. Did you not see the court-cupboard at the door, and that desk? Those, cost him a penny or two. He gives very generously to the poor, and they always have food on the table. I have eaten there myself when the Provost has been invited, and I am sure you could not have dined better in Glasgow. And he goes daily in that saffron shirt.’

But his children played half-naked in the street, and they all slept under one roof with the cattle, like any poor peasant and his family. Could I live like that, Gil thought, if I remained a layman?

Entering by the postern gate as the curfew bell began to ring across the burgh, Gil and the stout priest found Maistre Pierre seated in the castle courtyard enjoying the evening light and watching the guard detail gathering by the main gateway.

‘And was that helpful?’ he asked as they reached him.

‘Oh, very useful,’ said Dalrymple immediately. ‘Maister Stewart was very helpful, very helpful. Maister Cunningham has seen and copied all the documents he needs, I think. Forgive me, maisters, I must say Compline. I believe it is late.’

‘How was your walk?’

‘Interesting.’ The mason rose to follow Sir William into the chapel. ‘That cog at the wharf had lately been to Nantes. I had a word with her skipper.’

Gil looked at him consideringly.

‘You have more news than that; he observed. ‘I can tell.’

‘I have indeed.’

‘And so have I. What is yours?’

‘Guess who I saw in the town?’

Gil paused in the chapel doorway. A seagull screamed from the wall-walk, and then broke into a long derisive cackling. As well it might, he thought. I have been slow.

‘Was it by any chance,’ he said, suddenly sure of the half-heard voice at the door of the lawyer’s cottage, ‘was it one of the gallowglasses? Neil or Euan?’

‘It was,’ said the mason, slightly disappointed, ‘though I do not know which. Did you see him too?’

‘No, but I heard him. Now it is your turn. Can you guess who is Bess Stewart’s good-brother, the man who is collecting her rents and who granted the two properties in conjunct fee?’

‘Now that,’ said the mason triumphantly, ‘is easy. It must be James Campbell.’

‘But should one of us not stay in Rothesay,’ said the mason, ‘in the hope of laying hands on that gallowglass?’

They were riding out of the burgh in the wake of one of the castle scullions, who had reluctantly volunteered, when cornered by Sir William after Sunday morning Mass, to guide them to Ettrick and the farm where Bess Stewart’s sister lived. Their mounts were the best the stout priest had been able to coax out of the stables, stocky, shaggy creatures with large unshod feet and no manners, and none was willing to go faster than a trot.

Grinning shiftily, their guide had led them over the headland and round a broad sandy bay where the gorse bushes grew down close to the shore, and then turned inland. He appeared to know where he was going. They were now bumping along a track which appeared to lead westward through a broad shallow valley. The occasional spire of sweet blue peat-smoke suggested that the place was inhabited, but they had encountered nobody.

‘Whichever brother it was you saw yesterday, if we do not find him in Rothesay we can surely find him in Glasgow,’ said Gil. ‘I feel happier meeting Mistress Mariota Stewart with some company at my elbow. She may not yet know her sister is dead, poor lady.’

‘Ah,’ said the mason. ‘And apart from that, what do you wish to say to her?’

‘I wish to ask her where the money is.’ Gil looked about him. ‘This is good land. These cattle are sturdy and the crops look healthy, and that was a handsome tower-house we passed a while back.’

‘It is when you make remarks like that,’ said Maistre Pierre in resentful tones, ‘that I recall that you are of baronial stock. Do not change the subject. Are we riding into the wilds, on these appalling beasts, with a guide who does not speak Scots, merely to ask the lady where the money is? And which money, anyway?’

‘Well,’ said Gil. ‘Yes. And no. The money and plate which vanished when Bess did, and the rent for her land and the joint land. John Sempill doesn’t appear to be receiving much for it, from what he said, and it must be going somewhere.’

‘If it is going into James Campbell’s coffers, why should she tell us?’

‘A good point.’

‘How much further are we going? Do we enter those mountains?’ Maistre Pierre nodded towards the blue sawtoothed mass in the distance to their left.

‘Sir William said it was two-three miles. I think those mountains must be the next island, for there is the sea.’

Their guide, whom Sir William had identified as Lachie Mor, turned and gave them a snaggle-toothed, shifty grin.

‘Arran,’ he said, pointing at the mountains. Then, pointing to the other side of their path, ‘Ettrick. Mistress Stewart. Agus Seumas Campbell,’ he added, with great feeling, and spat.

‘What is wrong with being a Campbell?’ asked Maistre Pierre curiously. ‘The Fury — the harper’s sister — felt the same way.’

‘If you’re a Campbell, nothing,’ said Gil. ‘But my understanding is that they all reserve their first allegiance for the Earl of Argyll, the head of the surname, and next to another Campbell. Local ties and feus, obligations to the lord they hold their land from, come a long way after. And since any Campbell worth the name can manipulate that position to his own benefit, many people distrust them. These two, of course — James and Euphemia — are the grandchildren of the present earl by one of his younger daughters, and so even closer.’

‘I suppose that accounts for the air one detects in both of them, of being accountable to no one else for their actions.’

‘You could be right,’ said Gil, much struck by this. Their guide, listening intently, nodded, spat again, and turned his pony off the track on to a narrower path, down towards a stony ford.

‘Ettrick,’ he said again, pointing to a thin column of blue smoke visible over the near skyline.

The house, though not a tower-house, was at least stonebuilt, with shuttered windows tucked under its thatch, and contained a long hall and a small chamber at its far end, well away from the byre. Two little boys practising their letters were dismissed to see Seonaidh in a separate kitchen out the back, quite as if they were in Rothesay. Gil, seated on a morocco-leather backstool in front of Flemish verdure tapestry, sipped the inevitable usquebae out of a tiny footed Italian glass, eyed the woman opposite him and said carefully,