Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘I knew,’ said the harper calmly, ‘when I reminded the company that I am a harper and can determine the truth. All who understood me were in decent awe, but Euphemia Campbell was frightened. I smelled it.’

‘I knew at Bess-‘s funeral,’ said Ealasaidh.

‘What?’ said Gil.

‘She was waiting, out in the church,’ she said remotely. ‘My sight is good. I saw her in the shadows, waiting until we were done with touching the body. Why would she do that if her conscience was clear?’

‘It would have helped if you had told me,’ Gil said.

She turned a considering gaze on him. ‘Would it?’

Perhaps not, he acknowledged.

‘Do you think, sir,’ he said, touching the harper’s wrist, ‘that we did uncover the truth?’

‘I do,’ said Mclan harshly. ‘Justice has been served here.’

‘But what an end she met,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Tom to pieces unshriven.’

‘She would have been held in the Bishop’s jail,’ the Official pointed out, ‘and tried, and if found guilty executed by drowning.’

‘And is that right, maister,’ said Maggie with interest, ‘that they haveny found her arm yet?’ Philip Sempill grimaced, and shook his head. ‘Likely it’ll be in the dog kennel.’

‘Has the dog been disposed of?’ asked the mason. Sempill, getting to his feet, laughed sourly. ‘ou do not know my cousin John, maister. Fortunately for them, the servants do, and the stableman had enticed her away with some meat with aniseed and tied her up. No, John sees no need to dispose of a good guard dog simply because it did what he requires it to do. He’s more put out because James Campbell will not bear the cost of his sister’s burial. It’ll need a sizeable donation to get her buried in holy ground, considering, and James says she was John’s problem in life, she may stay his problem in death. And for all John’s already sent to Dunblane last week, to let John Murray know he’s got an heir, he won’t see a plack of the old man’s money till he’s gone. He’ll have to sell that gaud she was wearing to coffin her.’

‘And it’ll need to be a coffined burial, by what I’m told,’ said Maggie.

Philip Sempill grinned wryly, and turned to bow to the Official. ‘I have taken up enough of your time, sir. I will take my leave of you, now that I understand what happened. I agree with Maister Mclan. We have seen justice here.’

Gil saw him through the house and down to the door. He paused there, a hand on the doorpost.

‘I wanted her, Gil,’ he said abruptly. ‘I would have married her, but Campbell of Glenstriven, as her goodbrother, preferred to take John’s offer. My Marion’s a good lass, but …’ Another crooked grin. ‘She’s not Bess.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gil inadequately.

‘Bess Stewart was a bonnie woman, and a bonnie singer, and I saw her dwindle into a silent thing, feared to move when he was in the room. I would never have treated her like that.’

‘She can maybe rest easy now,’ Gil offered.

‘Not yet,’ said Philip Sempill, narrowing his blue eyes, ‘but I tell you, I will take care to exact the next part of the revenge out of your territory.’

Gil considered him.

‘Do that,’ he said, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘and good luck to it.’

When he returned to the hall he found the rest of the company had come in from the garden and were taking leave in various ways. The harper, with one hand on his son’s head, was reciting a sonorous blessing in Ersche while the baby regarded him with huge solemn eyes from his nurse’s arms and Nancy herself yawned and blinked sideways at all the people.

‘We must arrange a fresh tryst with John Sempill,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘I have just agreed a time with Maister Mclan. And you and your lassie must be properly handfasted, with witnesses. We must agree a time for that too.’

‘I look forward to it,’ said the mason.

‘The sooner the better,’ said Gil, drawing Alys aside. She looked up and smiled at him, so he kissed her, and quoted, ‘Her fair fresh face, as white as any snaw, She turnit has, and forth her wayis went. Sweetheart, you must go now. I think I will sleep on my feet soon.’

It has been a long week,’ she said.

‘It has been an even longer day. I have sailed across the water, helped Matt draw a rotten tooth, procured the death of a murderer, been handfasted to the wisest girl in Scotland, and mended our first disagreement. At least I think we have mended it.’ He looked down at her anxiously. She nodded. ‘Good. And that has set a precedent.’

‘Precedent?’

‘That when we disagree, we can settle it by debate between us.’

Her smile flickered again, elusive as a wren in a hedge.

‘If there is time,’ she said, and put up her face to be kissed.

When all the company had gone he gathered up the wine-cups and took them down to the kitchen. Maggie was entertaining Matt with a lively account of the evening’s action which appeared not to suffer by the fact that she had not seen the centrepiece.

‘And they’ll keep the dog,’ she added. ‘Savage creature, I don’t know how they could live with it.’

‘Poor brute,’ said Matt.

‘And is that right, Maister Gil, that the bairn’s to be fostered with Maister Mason?’

‘So it appears,’ said Gil, deducing from this that he was forgiven. ‘And I’m to be its tutor.’

‘So you’ll start married life with a family.’

‘I’ll not be the first man that’s happened to,’ he said, setting the wine-cups down on the table. ‘They don’t usually come dowered with a lachter of properties in Bute, but if the rent from that pays to wash the tail-clouts, Maister Mason may be thankful.’

‘That’s a good lassie you’ve chosen,’ she said, her face softening. ‘And bonnie manners with it. Mind you,’ she added, ‘she’s a sharp one. I think she’ll tame you as readily as you’ll tame her.’

‘I still can’t believe my good fortune,’ he admitted.

‘When?’ said Matt.

‘When will the wedding be? When I can afford to keep a wife.’

‘She’ll wait for you,’ said Maggie. ‘She’ll do, Maister Gil. Your minnie will be pleased.’

Avoiding a conversation with his uncle, who seemed willing to go over the entire argument of his accusation again, Gil climbed to his attic and opened the shutters without lighting his candle. It was dark by this time, though greenish light in the sky still outlined the hills away to his left. Some of the shapes looked familiar now. Nearer at hand, the Bishop’s castle (Archbishop, he corrected himself) and the towers of St Mungo’s loomed dark. Nearer still, candlelight in the windows of the Sempill house showed three pairs of hands and another game of Tarocco.

He stood looking out for a little while, as the cards went round, thinking of the events of the day, and the long game of Tarocco that had been the evening. Not to Alys, not even to his uncle had he admitted how undecided he was. He had not known whether it was James Campbell he was looking for, or Euphemia, or even one or other of the gallowglasses, right up to the point where Maggie had handed him the cross.

Well, he thought, I have jousted for Truth, and won. And not only for Truth, it occurred to him, watching the play at the lit window. For Hugh, and for his Sybilla, poor girl, who was now avenged. No wonder his brother had saluted him in his dream. And also for Bess Stewart, who escaped a grim future and found love, however briefly, in her broken vows. (As I have done, he thought, and St Giles send it lasts longer than Bess’s happiness.)

Down in the dark between the Sempill house and the gate, the mastiff Doucette grumbled to herself about something. The curfew bell had rung long since. Windows were darkening along the street, fires were smoored for the night. The shutters were fastened tight at the window on the floor above the card game, where he had watched Euphemia wrestle with her lover, when he had still thought he was bound for the priesthood. But now I have a girl, he thought, who wrestles with her mind. We will debate the state of our marriage between us. And after the marriage-debate, there would still be the marriage-debt to settle, an extraordinarily satisfying thought. He thought of the warmth of Alys’s slender waist between his hands, and the sweet innocence of her kisses.