Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘Thanks, Maggie,’ said Gil.
‘Now get out my sight, the pair of you. And be sure and come back for your noon bite the day. Your sister’s to be here, for one thing, and she’s a busy woman.’
I am surrounded by busy women, Gil thought. Even Alys, who usually has time to talk, is too busy to help me. He found himself thinking of the brief embrace they had shared last night at the
door. She had leaned against him, a warm armful, smelling faintly of rosemary hairwash and lavender linen, but when he had tried to kiss her mouth she had tensed within his grasp. Is she too busy
to kiss me? he wondered, and laughed at himself. But the doubt remained.
When they reached the bedehouse Maister Kennedy was just leaving, and met them in the yard with his vestments in a bundle under his arm.
‘Aye, Gil,’ he said. ‘Where are you at wi this business?’
‘No a lot further,’ Gil admitted, and paused to introduce his sister. ‘Tib’s to help me question the household. How are they the day?’
‘Much as usual,’ said Maister Kennedy offhandedly, changing his bundle to the other arm in order to raise his round felt hat to Tib. ‘I wouldny say they’re grieved for
the Deacon. You’ll find them in the hall.’
Humphrey appeared in the doorway behind him, staring anxiously at the three figures in the yard. Beyond him, Mistress Mudie’s head popped watchfully out of the kitchen. Socrates retreated,
equally watchful, to the door of the chapel.
‘It’s a bonnie lassie,’ said Humphrey after a moment, and came out to join them. Tib bobbed another curtsy and gave Gil a doubtful look. ‘She’s here wi the hoodie,
but she’s no his make.’
‘Not my make,’ Gil agreed, ‘but my sister.’
‘I see that,’ said Humphrey. ‘But she’s no a hoodie like you. She’s a wood-pigeon, aren’t you no, lassie?’
‘If you say so, sir,’ said Tib politely.
Humphrey considered her carefully for a moment, and nodded. ‘Aye, a wood-pigeon, crying always for its sweetheart.’ Tib gave Gil another doubtful look, bright colour washing down
over her face. ‘Pray for me, lassie,’ Humphrey went on, ‘as I will for you, for we need one another’s prayers.’
‘I will, sir,’ said Tib, more at home with this reasonably conventional request.
‘Aye, and your sins shall be white as snow, though they were red as blood,’ said Humphrey earnestly.
Tib bent her head and crossed herself, still blushing, and Maister Kennedy said, ‘Humphrey get away in and stop worrying the lassie. She’s no worse than the rest of us, she’s
no need of your lectures.’
‘I was just going to my prayers,’ said Humphrey, ignoring this, ‘in my own lodging. So you’ll ken I’m asking forgiveness for you.’
He nodded to all three of them and turned to go back into the building. Maister Kennedy watched him going, clicking his tongue impatiently.
‘Poor soul,’ he said. ‘He should be locked away.’
‘
Cloudy hath bene the favour That shoon on him ful bright in times past.
He does no harm,’ said Gil. ‘Get away down the road, Nick. You’ve a lecture to deliver, if
I mind right.’
Mistress Mudie, having seen her favourite out of sight, hurried across the yard with an armful of linen and a basin, pausing to curtsy but not speaking directly, and vanished into the washhouse.
A fragment of her chatter floated past them.
‘– all to do in this place, the dinner to see to and the Deacon to be made decent –’
Leaving Tib to insinuate herself into the bedehouse kitchen in her own way, Gil stepped into the hall and paused, looking at the brothers where they sat, as he had seen them before, round the
brazier at the far end. Neither Millar nor Humphrey was present; of the others, Maister Veitch, Cubby and Barty had their heads together in loud and animated discussion, Duncan was listening and
nodding, and Anselm was sitting with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his breast. Gil went forward to bend over him and touch the hands.
‘Father Anselm? Might I have a word?’
‘I wasny asleep,’ said Anselm, blinking up at him past his crooked spectacles.
‘I never thought it, sir,’ said Gil, and pulled up a stool.
‘You had a dog wi you yesterday,’ said Anselm, peering around for Socrates.
‘I left him out in the yard the day,’ Gil said clearly.
‘Pity It’s a good hound,’ said the old man. ‘Was that no a terrible thing yesterday? And those laddies trying to search our lodgings and all. Terrible, terrible. The
world goes from bad to worse.’
‘It’s a sorry business,’ Gil agreed diplomatically. ‘Father Anselm, might I ask you a thing?’
‘You can ask me,’ said Anselm, blinking. ‘I might no ken. I forget, you understand.’
‘Yesterday morn,’ Gil prompted. ‘Can you tell me what you all did? You went to say Matins just as usual?’
Anselm nodded, and clutched at his spectacles as they slid on his nose.
‘Just as usual,’ he confirmed.
‘So how did that go? Did you meet here?’
‘Aye, here in the hall,’ Anselm concurred, ‘and Andro had the keys and unlocked the door to the Deacon’s yard. I don’t like it being locked,’ he confided,
‘what if there was a fire or a great flood or the like? I could never get ower that wall if there was a great flood.’
‘That’s a good thought,’ agreed Gil. ‘Maybe it should be considered. So Maister Millar unlocked the door. Then what?’
‘We went in a procession, just as we aye do. It was raining,’ he added. ‘So we went across the yard in a procession and Andro unlocked the chapel as he aye does, and we gaed in
and said Matins and Prime.’
‘Were you all six there?’
‘Seven,’ agreed Anselm.
‘Six,’ said Maister Veitch, turning his head.
‘What did ye say?’ demanded Barty
‘The lad that was thurifer at the Mass thought he saw seven,’ said Gil.
‘Seven,’ said Anselm flatly. ‘He wasny there yesterday morn. He spoke to me in the night, but he’d to be elsewhere in the morning.’
‘Where?’ asked Gil, wondering if he would regret the answer.
Anselm pointed a wavering hand at the murky windows on the garden side of the hall, and smiled toothlessly. ‘Out yonder, a course. He’d to say the Intercession for the
Deacon.’
‘Anselm, there was only the six of us,’ said Maister Veitch.
‘What are ye saying?’ demanded Barty.
‘There was seven, Frankie,’ said Anselm again. ‘Humphrey and you and me on the one side, Cubby, Barty and Duncan on the tither, and Andro as well. Makes seven.’ He
counted the names off. Gil nodded.
‘So who was sitting beside you?’ he asked.
‘Frankie here.’
‘I sit beside him,’said Maister Veitch at the same moment.
‘And on your other side?’
The old man thought, nodding slowly, and then gave him a look through the lopsided spectacles which Gil could only describe as crafty.
‘He came in late. It wasny him, you ken that, don’t you no?’
‘It wasny who, Anselm?’ asked Maister Veitch. ‘Your friend? Was it your friend? Or was it the Deacon?’
‘There was naebody on the end,’ asserted Barty
‘No on your side. He wasny your side,’ said Anselm. ‘He was my side.’
‘But who was it?’ asked Gil. ‘Father Anselm?’
‘It wasny him,’ said Anselm, and champed his jaws at them. ‘That’s all I’m telling you. It wasny him.’
No persuasion could extract any more lucid statement from the old priest. Gil gave up when he judged that Anselm was becoming distressed, and left quietly to find Millar. He met the sub-Deacon
in the narrow passageway, on his way to summon the brothers to Terce.
‘His keys?’ Millar said distractedly. ‘I can give you those after the Office, Maister Cunningham, if you wouldny mind waiting. Aye, Sissie’s laying him out the now, she
was wi him when I came across the close.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Gil, aware of animated discussion from the kitchen beside them. His sister’s voice was raised among the rest, apparently trying to correct someone.
‘I’ll not hold up the Office,’ he went on, ‘I’ll get a word wi you after, if you don’t mind.’
‘Aye, gladly,’ agreed Millar. ‘The sooner this is cleared up the better I’ll like it.’ The young man Gil had seen before popped out of the kitchen doorway like a
rabbit pursued by a ferret, looked at them in alarm and set off for the outer yard, head down, cooking-knife still in his hand. ‘The brethren are all overexcited, maister, and Humphrey was
neither to hold nor to bind yestreen at supper, what wi the rain and his brother and everything else, though Sissie got him calmed down after it –’
As if on cue, Mistress Mudie hurried back into the building from the yard, the young man behind her, and dived into the kitchen. Socrates followed them, but came to push his nose under his
master’s hand. As Mistress Mudie passed, Gil caught a wave of marjoram and a shred of her perpetual chatter: ‘– turn my back an instant, interfering wi my kitchen, I’ll sort
this –’ He felt the old, familiar sinking sensation in his stomach. Millar, with great presence of mind, nodded to him and moved in dignified haste into the hall to summon the community
to prayer. Gil, gathering his courage, stayed where he was.
His misgivings were justified. Mistress Mudie’s voice rose sharply over the argument, which had almost ceased at her entrance.
‘– and what has it to do wi you, lassie, whoever you are, coming into my kitchen and working the three of them up about witchcraft or the Deil Hisself in the close, no need of saying
you was sent here, putting the blame on that man of law indeed, I never heard of such impudence and you gently-bred and all, you’ll get out of my kitchen afore I –’
‘I never mentioned witchcraft,’ said Tib indignantly. ‘It was them. I was trying to say it couldny be witchcraft, it was cold iron stabbed the man –’
Gil moved to the doorway. His sister was giving ground before Mistress Mudie, who was puffed up like an angry partridge and chattering on, red-faced,
‘– no excuses, encouraging them to talk when they should ha been getting the dinner on, asking questions about matters better left alone –’
‘Mistress Mudie,’ said Gil, and she stopped briefly, staring open-mouthed at him. In the background a girl and an older woman he had not seen before had become ostentatiously busy
over a basket of vegetables. ‘I’m sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you,’ he offered, ‘coming by at a bad moment. Maybe we can find another time when you’re less
busy in here.’
‘– don’t know why you’re asking more questions, Maister Cunningham, indeed I don’t, you must have heard all there is to know about what happened, and as for this
malapert lassie telling me sic nonsense, it’s no your own lassie, is it? I’ve heard better things o your bride –’
‘It was the truth!’ exploded Tib. Gil put a hand on her shoulder and she ducked away and fell silent, looking warily sideways at him. Socrates growled in warning. The younger of the
two maidservants shrieked dramatically, but Gil gestured with his other hand, and the dog retreated to the hallway.
‘My sister was here at my bidding,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m truly sorry, mistress, if we’ve inconvenienced you. I can see now this is no a good time to be in your
way.’
‘– you should ken better by your age, though I suppose men never ken when a house is at its most taigled, but a well-reared lassie ought to ha more sense and all, and as for you,
Nannie, I’ll no hear another word from you the day –’
The older maidservant scowled at her. Tib seemed about to speak, but Gil tightened his grip on her shoulder, drawing her towards the doorway.
‘We’ll get away out your road now,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later, Mistress Mudie, for I still have questions for you.’
‘Questions!’ She flung her hands above her head. ‘Aye questions! You’ll be lucky if I’ve an answer left. Aye, you can take that malapert lassie out o my sight, and
if I never set een on her again it’s too soon. And good riddance to the pair of ye!’
They retreated in some disorder. Socrates nudged at his master in relief, but Gil pushed him away and drew Tib out into the yard.
‘Are you going to let her talk to you like that?’ she demanded in a whisper, trying to free her wrist as he towed her up the stair to Naismith’s lodging. ‘I never said
any of those things, except that you’d sent me, and that was true –’
‘I know that,’ he said, closing the door behind the dog. ‘Keep your voice down, we’re above the kitchen here.’
‘I know
that
!’ she said pettishly. ‘It’s not my fault if she keeps a pair of stupid women like that to work under her. As soon as I mentioned last night they
started on about intruders, and worked each other up talking about it. The older one says it was witchcraft, the young one says it was the Deil in the garden made away wi the man. They’re
fixed in their minds about it. And the laddie was just feart for what that woman would say when she heard them.’ She giggled. ‘He kept saying to them,
What if the mistress hears you?
I’ll tell her on you!
And finally he did.’
‘It was a good try,’ said Gil. And how do I question them now? he wondered. Sissie will never let me near them after that. ‘My thanks, Tib,’ he added, exerting all his
charity.
‘Oh, well.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘I’m sorry I never got what you wanted to know. But what an old harridan, scolding at me like that and never believing a word I
said. And the way she spoke to you, and all!’
‘She’s anxious for her position here, since the Deacon’s death,’ Gil pointed out. ‘A new man will likely make changes.’
Tib snorted, but said only, ‘What will you do now?’
‘These accounts.’ He turned to the rack of little drawers and pulled out the topmost bundle of papers. ‘And when I get the keys from Millar I must go through the papers in the
man’s kist through there. Get another look at the body, look for the ladder –’
‘Ladder? Oh, at the back gate,’ she said, and shivered, but went on sharply, ‘What, hunting all round the outhouses in the rain? I fancied you’d ha been seated somewhere
in comfort, asking questions, and a clerk to write down the answers.’
‘No,’ Gil said, as the recollection of previous investigations rose in his mind, of pursuing and being pursued through moonlit scaffolding by a whispering killer, of playing cards
with his enemy in a cushionless hall. ‘You’re thinking of the old man,’ he added. ‘Time enough for that when I’m his age. But if you still want to help, and you want
to be seated in comfort, I can give you some of these documents to sort.’