Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘Who did he speak to?’ asked the mason.

‘Me,’ said the man reluctantly, ‘and my brother. We was in the hall, and he came in furious, and demanded to know where was Mistress Bess. So we said, In her chamber. Then he said, No she is not, and shouted, and called us liars, and said he would see her chamber.’

‘Where were the maids?’ Gil asked, fascinated.

‘In the kitchen screaming, for he frightened them. They were just lassies. So we took him up to her chamber, and he looked in, and dragged a kist to look as if it had been behind the door, and opened the window, and then he took the plate-chest and put some more money in it out of the kist and bade us hide it in the hayloft. Then he called the old dame and shouted at her too. Mind, she shouted back,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘And what happened to the platechest?’

‘I have never again set eyes on it,’ said Neil with finality.

‘Never?’

‘He sent the old dame to her kin, and turned the maids away, and got all Mistress Bess’s own possessions packed up and out of the house by Terce, before he took the armed band looking for her. I doubt the plate-chest must have gone with them. Me and my brother looked for it, but we never found it.’

‘Well!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘What a history!’

‘It’s the truth,’ said the gallowglass desperately. ‘Maisters, it’s the truth, and now I am not knowing what to do, for Maister Sempill has sent me down here to hunt for Mistress Bess’s money and everything. If I am not finding it Lady Euphemia will not be pleased, and if I am telling him where I saw it last Maister James will not be pleased, and either way Maister Sempill will be very angry,

‘Why not go and take service somewhere else?’ the mason suggested. ‘Somewhere safer, like England, or Germany.’

‘They would be finding me when I came back to Ardnamurchan.’

‘You see why I said he must tell you; said Sir William.

‘Indeed,’ said Gil. The Tarocco game, which had been getting steadily noisier, suddenly erupted in loud disagreement. Whingers were drawn. Sir William got hastily to his feet and moved in on the altercation with a courage Gil would not have expected.

‘Peace, peace, my sons!’ he exclaimed, and switched to Gaelic.

‘He’ll be lucky,’ said the mason.

‘No, I think he will succeed.’ Gil was watching the bearing of the two principal antagonists, who were now shouting at their priest as much as each other. ‘Meanwhile, what can we do with Neil here?’

‘What should we do?’

‘I think he deserves some return for telling us all this. Will you come back with us to Glasgow?’ he asked the gallowglass, who looked alarmed.

‘I have no word yet to tell Maister Sempill. He will be angry when I am coming back without the money.’

‘No, but I must go home, for I have learned a lot. Not from you alone,’ he said reassuringly. ‘We are going down to the shore now to bargain for a boat to Dumbarton in the morning. Once we get back to Glasgow we will see about taking the person who stabbed Mistress Stewart — ‘

‘And Bridie Miller,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘And Bridie Miller.’ Gil paused to think about that. Deciding that it could be made to fit, he went on, ‘If you come with us, we can shield you from Maister Sempill until all is made clear.’

‘But can you tell who has the plate-chest?’ persisted Neil, staring in awe.

‘It may tell us who had it last,’ said Gil.

Outside, the rain had ended, though a brisk southwester was herding white clouds across the sky. Down on the strand, they arranged a passage for three without difficulty, and agreed a time for departure unpleasantly early in the morning. Then they turned inland and strolled up the Kirkgait past the lawyer’s house, where Neil Campbell slipped away with a murmured excuse, and inspected the church of St Mary and St Bruoc, half a mile from the castle.

‘Not bad,’ said the mason critically. ‘These tombs are good. Old-fashioned work, but well done. And that arch is well shaped. Sir William tells me he is also chaplain of St Bride’s, on the hill yonder. Shall we go and hear Vespers there?’

Gil, having no strong feelings on the question, agreed to this, and they made their way unhurriedly back down into the town and up to St Bride’s. This was a diminutive structure, scarcely bigger than St Chattan’s, with a box-like nave and smaller chancel, and even the mason felt no pressing need for a longer look after Vespers. Leaving Sir William preparing to say Compline before a probable congregation of two old women, they went out to sit in the wooden porch and look out over the water, watching the cloud-shadows climbing up and over the round hills of the mainland.

‘We look north here,’ said the mason. ‘There is yet another arm of this river. It must have more arms than an octopus. Well, I suppose we have finished our enquiries.’

‘I wonder,’ said Gil.

The mason turned to look at him. ‘You are not sure?’

‘I am not sure. I can’t put my finger on it but something doesn’t fit.’

‘Will you confront James Campbell tomorrow?’

‘We have uncovered so much that we must.’

‘I have wondered how we can make an arrest. We have no authority in the burgh and so cannot employ the serjeant, but we are only two and can hardly overpower a determined man — particularly if his friends also resist.’

‘This occurred to me too.’ Gil closed the chapel door as Sir William’s voice rose in the opening words of the Office. ‘Some of the apparitors might act in the matter. I must consult my uncle.’

And he had to find an answer to give his uncle as well, he thought. He had hoped the answer might make itself dear overnight, but this had not happened. Certainly he had not slept well. The straw mattress, as the mason said, had more than straw in it, and Sir William had snored the whole night and Maistre Pierre for a large part of it. And what-was-the message the hind brought?

‘Gil,’ said the mason. ‘Gilbert.’

Gil looked up.

‘I have a proposal to make. I have a marriageable daughter and you are a single man. How would you wish to marry my daughter?’

Gil stared, and felt the wooden bench of the porch shift under him with the whole of St Bride’s Hill.

‘I …’ he began, and his voice dried up. He swallowed. Had he really heard that?

‘Not, of course, if you do not wish to be married,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘But it seems to me it would be a good match.’

‘I …’ began Gil again, and recognized, with glorious clarity, the hind’s message, the next step he had asked for. ‘I can — I can think of nothing I would like more, and almost nothing of which I am less worthy.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Maistre Pierre. That is well, then.’ He put out his hand. ‘We are agreed in principle, yes?’

‘Well,’ said Gil blankly. ‘Yes. But Alys? How does she feel about marriage? About me? I am six-and-twenty, she is not yet seventeen, she scarcely knows me.’

‘Alys,’ said her father, ‘came home on May Day and told me she had seen the man she wanted to her husband. When I said, Well, cherie, but he might be married, she said, No, father, for he is to be a priest. But I think he doesn’t want to be a priest, says she, so he might as well marry me.’

‘How did she know that?’ Gil wondered.

‘She knows everything,’ said the mason. ‘She is not, perhaps, as pretty as her mother, but I think she is wiser. But there you are. Clearly she affects you. And you? Do you affect her? Is there some feeling there?’

‘Je desire de voir la douce desiree … I wish to see the sweet desirable woman: she has everything, beauty and science,’ Gil quoted. ‘I have thought of her day and night since I first saw her. But I am not — Pierre, I have no land, no means. How should I keep a wife? What would I bring to a marriage?’