Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

The child had been born at Michaelmas, and by then Bess had learned to sing a good few of the songs the harper played, and also to play a little on a smaller harp. As soon as she could leave the baby she had begun to help to earn her keep.

‘I never had a singing partner I was liking so well,’ said Ealasaidh, ‘nor never a sister like Bess. Sorrow is on me now and for ever, ohon, ohon …’

‘Tell me something,’ said Maistre Pierre suddenly. She had resumed her rocking, but paused to look at him. ‘Why did the lady leave her husband so willingly? She had land, I presume there was money, and your brother is — well …’

‘No doubt,’ she said, ‘but I would not stay with a man that used his knife on me, neither.’

‘His knife?’ repeated Gil.

‘Why d’you think they called her One-lug Bess?’ said one of the other women suddenly.

Ealasaidh turned on her. ‘Never in my hearing was anyone calling her that, Margaret Walker,’ she hissed, ‘and you will not do it again.’

‘Who’s to stop me?’ said the woman. Ealasaidh nic lain rose to her full height, gathering her checked skirts round her away from the contamination of Mistress Walker’s presence.

‘It is myself will stop you,’ she said wrathfully, ‘for you will not be over my doorsill again. And if the gentleman,’ she said, rounding on Gil, who had scrambled to his feet, ‘wishes to speak with me more, he may find me. We are staying at the sign of the Pelican, in the Fishergait. Anyone will be telling where the harper and his women — his sister are staying.’

She snatched her plaid from the woman beside her, jerked the door open and strode out into the courtyard. The two women got to their feet.

‘He cut her ear off,’ said one of them. ‘That’s where she got the scar.’

‘That’s why she was aye in that French hood,’ said the other. ‘Take a look under it.’

‘She told me once she’d more scars than that.’

‘I suppose that would be one advantage of the harper.’

Their eyes slid sideways at one another, and they nodded, and slipped out of the chapel after Ealasaidh. Gil, uncomfortably reminded of Euripides, turned back to the body, which someone had covered with a linen sheet. Father Francis had left, but two of the brothers were pattering prayers at the altar.

‘The chorus has gone,’ said Maistre Pierre at his side. ‘Maister Cunningham, I am wishing to ask at my home how is the boy Davie, and it is a long time since I broke my fast.’

‘I’m still fasting,’ said Gil frankly.

‘Then you will come with me and eat something and we talk. Yes?’

‘That would be very welcome,’ said Gil. He drew back the sheet and looked at Bess Stewart’s still face. She was lying as he had found her, and the scarred jaw was hidden. ‘She’ll soften by tonight or tomorrow, in this weather, and they can lay her out properly. We should look at her then.’

The mason marched him firmly from the chapel and down the High Street, nodding to acquaintances as he went, and in at the pend below the sign of the White Castle.

They came through the arched entry into a courtyard, bright with flowers in tubs. The house, like most of this part of the High Street, must be some fifty years old, but it was showing signs of modernization. The range to their right had a row of large new windows set into the roof, and a wooden penthouse ran round two sides of the yard. Gil had no time to look further; Maistre Pierre dragged him across the cobbles and up the fore-stair, in under the carved lintel, shouting loudly in French, ‘Catherine! Alys! I am here and I am hungry! Where are you?’

He drew Gil into a large hall, dim after the sunny courtyard, where plate gleamed in the shadows and the furniture smelled of beeswax.

‘Welcome to my house,’ he said, gesturing expansively, and threw the furred gown on to a windowseat. ‘Where are those women?’

‘I am here, father,’ said a remembered voice behind them. ‘No need to make so much noise, we were only in the store-rooms.’

Gil, turning, had just time to recognize the figure outlined in the doorway against the light, before the mason seized the girl, kissing her as soundly as if he had been away for days.

‘My daughter, maister! Alys, it is Maister Gilbert Cunningham,’ he said, pronouncing the name quite creditably, ‘of the Consistory Court. He and I have found a dead lady and a live boy this morning, and we need food.’

‘Yes, Luke has told me. I will bring food in a moment, father.’ She moved forward, held out both hands to Gil and leaned up to kiss him in greeting. A whisper reached his ear: ‘Please don’t tell!’

‘Enchanted to serve you, demoiselle,’ said Gil in ambiguous French, and returned the kiss with careful courtesy. ‘How is the boy?’

‘We are still washing him. When he is comfortable you may see him.’

‘Has he spoken? Where is his brother? Where is that food?’

‘The food is in the kitchen, father, and Catherine is supervising the girls who are all helping with Davie. No, he has not roused. His brother is with him. If you take our guest up to your closet I will bring you something to eat.’

Maistre Pierre’s closet, on the floor above, was panelled and painted, with a pot of flowers on the windowsill and cushions on the benches. A desk stood in one corner, with a jumble of papers on it; a lute lay on a bench, and there were four books on a shelf near the window.

‘Be seated,’ said the mason, indicating the big chair. Gil shook his head, and sat politely on a bench. ‘Well!’ said the mason explosively, dropping into the chair himself. ‘What a day, and it not yet past Terce!’

He looked consideringly at Gil, and seemed to come to some conclusion.

‘I am concerned in this,’ he said. ‘That is my boy who is injured, and the lady has come to grief in my chantier. Do you know who will pursue the matter?’

‘Not the burgh officers,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll speak to the serjeant out of courtesy, but he has no authority on St Mungo’s land. It will be someone from the Consistory Court, likely.’

‘One of the apparitors? I have the term right? The men who serve notice that one must be present on a certain day or be excommunicated.’

‘You have the term right. It might be.’ Gil rose as Alys entered with a tray of food. ‘I will report to the Official, as soon as I may, and he will make a decision,’ he added, setting a stool to act as table, irritated to find himself clumsy.

Unruffled, Alys poured ale for both men and handed a platter of oatmeal bannocks and another of barley bannocks with slices of meat in them. Her father took one of these, jumped to his feet and began to stride this way and that in the small room like a hunting-leopard Gil had once seen in its cage.

Alys sat down, gathering her skirts neatly about her, and watched him with an intent gaze. She was as taking as Gil remembered. She was clad today in a gown of faded blue which set off her young figure to advantage, and her hair was tied back with a ribbon, emphasizing the oval shape of her face with its pointed chin and high-bridged nose. Finer-boned and finer-featured than her father, she still resembled him strongly, although she must have inherited that remarkable nose from someone else.

As if aware of his scrutiny, she glanced up at him and smiled briefly, then turned back to her still-pacing father.

‘What do we know?’ the mason said. ‘This woman who sang with the harper was knifed, there in that confined space, in the Fergus Aisle, Alys, with a narrow blade.’

‘Luke told me that too,’ said Alys. ‘I find it extraordinary. Why was she there? A young man — someone Davie’s age — might go in out of curiosity, but a woman in her good clothes would need a sound reason to climb the scaffolding, even by the wheelbarrow ramp.’