Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘I suppose it is,’ she admitted after a moment.

‘Then put your case to me, and then I will put mine, and we will both judge between them.’

‘But how can two judges agree? It takes three to sit on the bench in Edinburgh.’

‘One and one make three,’ he said fondly, ‘but I hope not until a year or so after we are wed.’ He heard the little intake of breath. ‘No, here are only two judges, so we must either agree, or agree to disagree. Come, Alys. You speak first. How was it your right to be present?’

He moved on as he spoke, leading her through the gate in the hedge, out of the formal flower garden to the kailyard on the slope below it. The burgh lay at their feet under its haze of smoke. The bell of Greyfriars began to ring for Compline before she spoke.

‘I also helped you to gather the facts of the story,’ she said at length.

‘So did a number of other people who weren’t there,’ Gil observed.

‘But most of those had duties elsewhere. You sent me from your side,’ she said, trying to suppress indignation.

‘I thought it would be dangerous,’ said Gil, annoyed to hear himself on the defensive, ‘and I was right. How could I take the risk, for you or the bairn?’

‘But you took it for yourself.’ She was looking up at him now. ‘Is that, after all, how you see marriage? That you have to be responsible for me as if I was a baby? I can run a house and bear children and do all the hard work, but outside the house I cannot look after myself or think for myself?’ She stopped by a bed of feathery turnip-sprouts and turned to face him properly. ‘That wasn’t what you said before. Do you remember? Women have immortal souls, you said, and were given the ability to seek their own salvation. How can they do that if someone else takes responsibility for their every deed and thought?’

He stared at her, his thoughts whirling, recognizing again that this girl had a mind like Occam’s Razor. And she remembered everything he said to her. She misread his silence, and looked away again, out over the burgh. Another bell was ringing, possibly the Blackfriars’.

‘I do not mean to be an unruly wife; she said earnestly. ‘Only, I thought you valued me for my mind, that you would allow me to think for myself, to make my own decisions, and now at the first moment there is a conflict you set me aside completely. That is different from Griselda’s marquis, but it is just as belittling. Women are not little mommets, to do things you admire and imagine for us and then be put back on the shelf. And you never thought, till the last moment, of it being Euphemia who had killed Bess Stewart,’ she went on. ‘We can be wicked as well as good.’

He was silent. After a moment she looked round at him.

‘That is the sum of my case. I think.’

‘In principle,’ he said slowly, ‘you are perfectly right. If you can think for yourself inside the house you can do so outside, and I must let you do so, or give you a good reason why I should overrule you. The scene in my uncle’s hall just now was rather more than exciting. James Campbell had his whinger out, there was nearly fighting, Euphemia had stabbed two women already. There was some danger. I thought that was a good reason to keep you back from it, but I can see that we should have discussed it first, however briefly. Will you forgive me?’

Her smile flickered and was gone.

‘But in practice, Alys, you must acknowledge, there may not always be time to discuss it. There may be occasions when I have to act for your safety without consulting you, simply because I am taller, or stronger, or more experienced in fighting.’

‘That I understand,’ she admitted. ‘Though I do not like it.’

‘I don’t expect you do, but I hope you will accept it and discuss it later, as we are doing now. As for making decisions,’ he went on, ‘I have a less exact memory for my own words, but I am very sure I said something about marriages where the wife is allowed to think for herself and decisions are made by both spouses together.’

‘You mean,’ she said slowly, ‘that we should have decided jointly whether I should stay to watch you expound the murder?’ He nodded. ‘Then may we also decide jointly whether you should go into danger without me?’

‘Going into danger is a man’s task in life,’ he pointed out. ‘As well expect to discuss with me whether you should open the bread-oven.’ Her smile flickered again. ‘Alys, I have told you how I see a marriage, and you have quoted my words back at me. How do you see it?’

‘As a partnership,’ she said promptly. ‘Different, but equal.’

‘I think we can agree on that.’ He looked down at her. ‘A debate, in which both spouses have a voice.’

‘An equal voice?’ She was looking at him directly again, her expression intent. The pinched look had gone, and her colour had improved. He smiled at her.

‘If each has an equal chance of being right,’ he said, ‘then the voices must be equal.’ He realized he was still holding the pewter goblet. ‘Now will you drink a toast, demoiselle?’

She looked in surprise at her own.

‘Where did this come from? Yes, a toast, maistre.’

They linked wrists. She gazed up at him across the rims of the two little cups.

‘To good fortune,’ she said.

‘To partnership,’ he said.

They drank the wine.

‘And the next time?’ said Alys.

‘The next time; he said, and it felt like an oath, ‘I will keep you by my side. If I can reasonably do so.’

‘Do you promise me?’

‘I will get my uncle to put it into the contract.’

He put his arms about her, feeling the warmth of her flesh between the bones of her bodice, but she held him off for a moment with a hand on his chest, gazing up at him with that direct brown stare. The scent of cedarwood rose from her brocade.

‘I have a lot to learn, haven’t IT she said at last.

‘We both have,’ he said. ‘We’ll learn together, Alys.’

She smiled blindingly at that.

‘We both have,’ she agreed, and put up her face for his kiss.

They went back through the hedge as the light faded, to find the legal discussion still raging, while over the herbbed by the house wall the mason and Ealasaidh were sniffing crushed leaves and exchanging remedies.

‘But creeping thyme is best for slow maladies,’ said Maistre Pierre earnestly as they approached, ‘because of its nature, clinging close to the ground.’ He turned to greet his daughter, but whatever he would have said was interrupted as the house-door was jerked open from within.

‘Here’s Maister Philip Sempill,’ said Maggie crossly, stumping out of the house. ‘Wanting to know how you knew. And if you’re wondering about the bairn, it’s asleep in my kitchen, with its nourice.’

‘I know I’m intruding,’ said Philip Sempill apologetically behind her, ‘ but I can’t rest till it’s clear to me.’

‘Come join us, Maister Sempill,’ said the Official resignedly. ‘Bring a light, Maggie, and bring more wine and a cup for yourself.’

Gil, somewhat reluctantly, drew Alys forward into the group as it gathered, settled her on a bench before anyone else could claim it, and poured out wine.

‘When were you sure?’ asked the mason, taking a handful of little cakes. ‘I was not certain until she ran away.’

‘To be honest,’ admitted Gil, ‘nor was I. It could have been James, all- along.’

‘But it wasn’t,’ said Philip Sempill, pleating the taffeta lining of one wide blue sleeve with the other hand. ‘I must admit, I thought it was.’

‘Make it clear to us,’ said the harper. He seemed to have shed a great burden of anxiety. ‘What happened?’

‘She must have known Sempill had sent for Bess, and why,’ Gil began obediently. ‘I thought at first that was the reason Bess died, to make it easier for Sempill to sell some of the property in Glasgow, but it wasn’t that, and it wasn’t the fact that Euphemia was pregnant and hoped it would be Sempill’s heir either. Sempill might not have known till I told him, but her brother certainly did, that her child could never have been legitimate.’