Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘He will need someone to hold her down,’ said the mason in practical tones.

‘Aye.’ Matt nodded at Gil. ‘You can help,’ he said firmly. At the sound of the word, the crowd around them began to break up like a dandelion-clock, but Matt put out a hand and seized the sleeve of a bowlegged man in a carpenter’s apron. ‘Pinchers,’ he said, and held out his other hand.

The next half-hour or so was among the most unpleasant Gil had ever spent. Inside, the house was small and dark and smelled of peat smoke, rancid bacon and illness. Matt took one look, scuffed at the earth floor, shook his head and said, ‘Out in the street.’ He looked about, past the oblivious girl writhing and sobbing in the bed. ‘Chair?’

‘Maister MacMillan’s got a fine chair he’d maybe lend us,’ said the widow. She hurried off to see to this. Matt stepped into the street and looked at the crowd, which was gathering again.

‘Rope,’ he said. ‘Clean clouts.’

People ran to and fro, and these were produced. The chair was set on a level patch in front of the house door, and Annie was carried out, struggling and screaming, and tied down. It took four of them to restrain her, the mason and Neil Campbell as well as Gil and Matt himself, with a great deal of advice from the onlookers, and it was clear that even a new tarred rope was not going to keep her still. Her face was indeed badly swollen, and she was conscious enough of her surroundings to offer considerable resistance when Matt tried to look at the tooth.

‘It’s one of the big ones,’ said her mother anxiously. ‘One of the wee big ones, not the great big ones, if you take my meaning, maister. I was packing it with pigeons’ dung pounded with an onion, but it never did any good.’

‘Oh, no, no!’ said the mason, hanging on to a flailing wrist. ‘The pigeon being a bird of Venus, its dung generates heat, excellent to draw a gumboil but not in this instance — ‘

‘Ah!’ said Matt, peering into the swollen tissue. ‘There!’ He let the girl’s mouth close and succeeded, with a few gestures, in placing his helpers in the most useful manner, despite complaints from the crowd that the mason’s broad back was obstructing someone’s view. Pliers in one hand, he got behind the screaming, squirming girl, issued a word of command, and grabbed her head in an arm-lock, forcing her jaw open with his left thumb precisely as Gil had seen him do to a horse.

There were a few minutes of hectic action. There were screams, and scuffling and sobbing, and then some really unpleasant noises. Gil, intent on keeping Annie’s shoulders as still as possible, was aware of the feet of the onlookers closing in. Then suddenly, all the noise ceased and the girl stopped struggling. Gil, wondering if he had gone deaf, let go and straightened up.

Matt was holding up a bloody morsel in his pliers. The girl was lying alarmingly still and was quite white where she was not already bloodstained, but as her mother hurried forward with a cry of, ‘Annie! Oh, my lassie!’ her eyelashes fluttered. The crowd was commenting freely and loudly on the success of the operation.

‘Clouts,’ said Matt, handing the pliers to Gil, who took them reluctantly. With a little difficulty Annie was persuaded to open her mouth, and Matt mopped gently at the mess, pausing to point out the amount of pus on the cloth.

‘Oh, maister, how can I thank you!’ said the widow, patting her daughter’s hand. ‘What’s your fee?’

Matt shrugged.

‘I hope there’s no trouble with the burgh tooth-drawer,’ said Gil, beginning to untie the knots in the rope.

‘Well, if he’d been here when he was wanted,’ said someone behind him.

The carpenter reclaimed his pliers and went out into the High Street, and the rest of the crowd, the entertainment over, began to drift after him. Annie was helped back into her house, her mother still exclaiming about a fee, and Matt delivered some terse advice which Gil expanded for him.

‘Make well-water hot, mistress, and put salt in it, and have her hold it in her mouth and spit it out — don’t swallow it — for the space of three Aves, three times a day till it stops bleeding. And feed her on broth for a day or two.’

‘What will that do?’ the widow asked suspiciously.

‘The salt will draw out the excess humours; said the mason quickly over Gil’s shoulder, ‘which is what has been causing the swelling.’

‘Should she no be bled?’

‘The tooth-drawer might want to bleed her,’ said Gil diplomatically. He handed the coiled rope back to its owner at the door, and turned back to the widow where she was heaping blankets on the shivering girl. ‘Mistress, did you tell me someone was asking for Annie yesterday?’

‘Aye, I did.’

‘Did you get his name? Or what he wanted to ask her?’

‘I did not. He’d some story about a boy and a bang on the head, but I’d more to worry about than a Campbell in a green hat. There, then, my lassie, he there and get warm. It’s over now, poor lass.’

‘He was a Campbell, was he?’

She paused in tucking the blankets at Annie’s feet.

‘Oh, he was a Campbell all right. You’d only to look at him.’

Sitting in a nearby ale-house, they stared at one another.

‘Poor lassie,’ said Neil again.

‘Thank you, maisters,’ said Matt.

‘And we still have not questioned the girl,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I would say it will be a day or two before she is fit to talk. Do we wait here for that?’

‘No need, I think,’ said Gil. ‘I have learned enough from her mother.’

‘What, that James Campbell was here asking for her? How does that help?’

‘We know he has an interest in what she heard or saw,’ Gil pointed out.

‘But we knew that already.’

‘And now we know that he does not yet know what she saw.’

‘Ye-es.’ The mason eyed Gil, scowling.

‘Are ye for ordering, maisters?’ demanded the girl at Matt’s elbow.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Gil. ‘There is something I want to do in Dumbarton, but if we get a bite here, we can be in Glasgow for a late dinner. What can you offer us, lass?’

David Cunningham came down to the door to meet them, spectacles in hand.

‘Well, well,’ he said as Gil dismounted. ‘Here’s a surprise. I’d not have looked for you before Vespers. Welcome back, Gilbert. Welcome back, maister. You’ll eat with us? Maggie has something ready, I dare say. Aye, Matt.’

Matt, gathering up reins, merely grunted. The gallowglass, silent, was keeping his horse between himself and the gateway of the Sempill house.

‘I thank you, maister, but no,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I am anxious to get home to my daughter. After all, she will soon be leaving me,’ he added.

‘A drink of ale, to wash the dust from your throat, then?’ suggested the Official, his thin smile crossing his face in answer to the mason’s significant grin. ‘Maggie! And shall we see you later today, then? John Sempill has been sending twice a day to ask when you’ll be back. I think it would suit him to get this matter sorted with the bairn. Tam can go down to tell the harper, if we can arrange a tryst.’

Maggie was already bustling forward out of the kitchen gate, a tray in her hands. Gil, taking a pull at his beaker, realized with surprise that it contained the good ale, the stuff she rarely brewed. Is this for me, he wondered, or for the mason who will be visiting frequently this week, no doubt.

‘For you, of course,’ said his uncle, when the mason had clattered away and they went into the house. ‘I happened to mention the mason’s approach, and she was greatly moved. She is gey fond of you, Gilbert. I hope your bride can brew as well.’

‘I’m told she can bake and brew with the best,’ said Gil.