Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘Would he have access to the Consistory tower?’ Gil said. ‘The vergers go all over the building, I ken that, but he’d have no duties there, I’d ha thought anyone that saw him could question why he was there.’
‘That’s true, maister, but we’ll check just the same,’ said Galston, reverting to his previous manner. ‘One o my men has stole fro Holy Kirk, there’s nobody will say I was remiss in finding how it was done or in putting it right.’
Carefully not looking at the row of fat beeswax candles which lit the chamber, Gil settled down to question the man about the vergers’ duties. He was surprised by how extensive they were. He was aware of the cathedral servants, always moving about the building in their blue belted gowns, the embroidered badge on the breast displaying St Mungo’s tree and bell, but he had never had cause to list how many things had to be done in such a big, important kirk.
‘Oh, aye, maister,’ said Galston. ‘And if it’s no done by the clergy, it’s done by my men.’ Gil raised an eyebrow, and Galston expanded: ‘So if it doesny mean going about in a procession, it’s a vergers’ matter, and if it does mean a procession, there’s one or maybe two o my men there wi the rod or the mace, put a bit dignity into it.’
‘And the watch and ward of the building?’ said Gil, keeping his own counsel about that. ‘How is it kept secure by night?’
‘Aye,’ said Galston, a little uncomfortably. ‘See, maister, we’ve aye jaloused if there was to be trouble, it would be someone after the treasure, which is kept well under lock and bars by the Thesaurer, or after the holy relics, or the altar-furnishings out there in the kirk, or maybe after the Body o Christ itself,’ he crossed himself, ‘where it’s kept in the tabernacle. So it’s the kirk itself we keep watch on, and we do that by me sleeping in here.’
‘In here?’ repeated Gil, startled. He looked about him, but could see no signs of permanent residence. Galston nodded at the nearest stack of lumber.
‘I’ve a straw plett and some blankets stowed ahint the Easter Sepulchre yonder, maister. I get them out when the place is barred for the night. It’s warm enough in here, wi the brazier going, and if I were to hear anything I’m right handy for the bell-ropes.’
‘You are that,’ Gil agreed, recognising the wisdom of this. One man could hardly hope to defend a building this size, but he could raise the alarm. ‘It’s a big building, mind, for a man to guard on his own.’
‘I’m no on my own, maister,’ said Galston with a simplicity which rebuked. Gil nodded in acknowledgement of this point, and went on,
‘So you’d say Barnabas has never shifted aught out of here by night?’
‘No out o the main building. The Consistory clerks sees to locking up their door,’ Galston nodded towards the south-west tower, ‘and I lock the outside door to this tower after the Almoner and them has gone.’
‘Which leaves us,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘the Vicars’ hall and its undercroft.’
‘It does,’ agreed Galston. He eyed Gil in the light of the candles, then lifted a snuffer and began extinguishing the nearest. ‘You reckon the goods have left here by night, then, maister?’
‘It seems likeliest.’ Gil found another snuffer and started at the other end of the row. ‘Given that Maister Jamieson’s been aware of a shortfall for a while now, he’d ha noticed if anything was being shifted by daylight, you’d think.’
‘Aye, Canon Jamieson would notice,’ agreed Galston, still intent on the lights. ‘So it might no ha been Barnabas, right enough.’
‘All things are possible under God,’ Gil observed. Galston changed hands to cross himself, and gave Gil a wry look by the remaining light.
‘That’s the kind o thing the clergy says,’ he remarked. ‘It’s well seen you’d a narrow escape fro that yoursel, Maister Cunningham.’
Locking the tower door behind them – ‘There’s as many holds keys to this, you might say there was little point,’ observed Galston, replacing the jangling bunch at his belt, ‘but there’s less point still in inviting Jockie Pick-Purse to make a profit on his confession’ – they made their way through the hum and bustle of a morning in St Mungo’s. Sext was just ended, so the Masses were beginning again at the many lesser altars in the nave, and the devout were making their way to hear their favoured saint commemorated. As the Hebdomader and choir, led by Robert with the verger’s silver-tipped wand of office raised high, emerged through the massive archway of Archbishop Blacader’s choirscreen, another three vergers appeared on its walled top, casting about the casing of the Cathedral’s smaller organ, their lanterns throwing dim, leaping shadows onto the smoke-darkened sandstone walls of the nave. Across the church, three more were engaged in a hissing argument with one of the clergy about who should have access first to St Moloc’s altar.
‘I’m surprised it’s business as usual,’ Gil commented, ‘considering what happened in St John’s chapel last night.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Galston. ‘Barnabas wasny slain inside St Mungo’s, Dean Henderson was very clear about that. He’s permitted me to put a rope across, keep folk out St John’s at the least till it’s cleansed and censed, but he’s no for shutting down the whole kirk. The faithful need to get in, he says.’ His gaze slid sideways to meet Gil’s. ‘Them and their pence,’ he added softly.
Reckoning a day’s probable revenue from the various collecting-boxes about the building, Gil saw how this position could appeal to the Dean. Himself, he was very uneasy about it; he had no way of telling where the verger had died, but the treatment of the body alone must surely amount to sacrilege within St Mungo’s. Perhaps the Archbishop would have a different view. He waited for the last brocade folds of the Hebdomader’s procession to vanish along the north choir aisle towards the vestry, and made for the doorway to the Vicars’ hall.
‘Robert’s maybe no the wisest man in the place,’ remarked Galston, following him, ‘but he’s well able to conduct a procession.’
Behind the heavy door the undercroft of the Vicars’ hall was not, as Gil had expected, busy with blue gowns and lanterns. There was a buzz of conversation away round to the left; picking his way among the pillars, the vaulting leaping over his head in the lantern light, he discovered a group of six or ten of the vergers arguing over something. He would have approached quietly, but Galston stepped past him and advanced on the assembly exclaiming,
‘Now, lads, what’s this about! Why are you no searching this place like I tellt you to?’
‘We have done, Maister Galston,’ said one of the nearest. Gil recognised Matthew, and Davie beyond him. ‘Only we’ve found this, see, and we was wondering if it’s what we was seeking.’
‘And what is it, then? Stand back and let me look.’ Galston put Matthew bodily aside and plunged into the gathering. Gil, following, saw him check in surprise. ‘The handcart? That’s nothing new, you daftheids!’
‘No, but this, see,’ said someone else.
In the pool of light from the lanterns, under a wing of the vaulting and surrounded by more stacked lumber, the St Mungo’s handcart stood slightly aslant in what was obviously its designated niche. A bundle of pale brocade had been opened up on the flat bed of the cart, revealing linen lining and a row of black metal hooks, and within the folds a fat leather purse and a small wooden box which was oddly familiar.
‘It was stood like that, the cairt,’ said the verger Davie, ‘and I came ower to set it straight, see, and found this laid on the top o’t. So we opened it up and this is what we found,’ he waved at the bundle, ‘and the worst thing is, look at the wheels!’
Galston stepped back, almost treading on Gil’s foot, to inspect the wheels, and Davie swung his lantern down so that the shadows sprang up the walls around them. The wheels were caked in mud, and even in the lantern-light the scratches on the paint of the spokes were clear to see.
‘Well!’ said Galston. ‘And who’s had this out wi’out permission?’
‘And that’s it, Maister Galston,’ said one of the men. ‘We were just trying to work that out, and there’s none o us has had the cairt out in weeks, no since the Pentecost benches was put by, and it was washed and stowed away proper then. You seen it yoursel, and approved all. So we were just goin’ to come and find you, seeing it was a thing out o place like you said, and then we thought to look at this bundle on the top o the cairt, and then you cam in that door.’
‘Aye,’ said Galston in a sceptical tone. ‘And what is the bundle, then?’
‘It’s a man’s short gown,’ said Gil. Galston looked over his shoulder and then back at the folds of cloth in the lantern-light. ‘I’m more interested in the purse and that box, but they’re all three strange things to find hidden in here.’
‘They might no ha been hid,’ argued the man Matt fairly. ‘They might just ha been forgot.’
‘Aye, but whose are they?’ said Galston, putting his finger on the nub of the matter. ‘Maister Cunningham, will you take charge o these?’
‘I will,’ said Gil after a moment, ‘if you’ll study them wi me before they leave St Mungo’s.’ Galston met his eye, and nodded. ‘Is there aught else?’
‘Nothing else,’ he said to Otterburn an hour or so later. ‘They’d searched the building thoroughly enough, I’d say.’
‘And these,’ said Otterburn, prodding the purse as it sat on his desk. ‘Did you learn whose they might be?’
‘The gown,’ said Gil, loathing the taste of the words in his mouth, ‘and the box, which has a set of Tarots in it, are Maister Sim’s.’
‘What, Habbie Sim the songman?’ Gil nodded, and the Provost stared at him inscrutably for a moment, then said, ‘Awkward for you. Will I question him on it?’
‘I’ve spoken to him, in Galston’s presence,’ Gil said. Otterburn’s expression flickered with – was it surprise? Respect? ‘He agrees the gown’s his, a good one o yellow brocade faced wi green taffeta, says he’s not seen it for four days or so, likewise the cards. I can confirm,’ Gil went on carefully, ‘and will swear to it, that the last time we met for cards Habbie wore a green checked wool gown, and said he had mislaid his cards. He was asking if any of the fellows had picked them up by mistake. We’d to use someone else’s set that evening.’
‘And this?’ Otterburn prodded the purse again. It chinked faintly. ‘Have you counted it?’
‘Five merks and fourpence ha’penny. Habbie says he has never seen it. I thought he was telling the truth,’ said Gil, still speaking with great care, ‘but I’d be glad if you’d question the Head Verger as to what he thought.’
‘Ah.’ Otterburn nodded approvingly. ‘It’s a useful thing, is a legal training.’ He glanced at the open window, where the noise from the courtyard entered increasingly loudly. ‘And now, I’ve a quest to direct out there. Is that lad o yours back yet from talking to the Stablegreen folks?’
‘He is,’ said Gil. ‘I met him in the yard. I think he has news for you, though it maybe takes us no further forward. One or two of those he spoke to mentioned a man who had heard a scuffle outside his window, the night we are concerned wi, and looked out to see a woman arguing wi two men. But it seems the fellow walked to Kirkintilloch the day, about a dog he wished to purchase. He might be back the night, he might no. Lowrie needs to go back when he’s at home.’
‘Wi two men?’ repeated Otterburn. ‘And you thought it was two men cut her out o her gown and bound her to the Cross?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Ah-hah! That would fit, that would fit, maister!’
‘It might,’ agreed Gil cautiously.
‘Aye. Well, come and we’ll see about this quest. I bade the Serjeant be sure and pick me a biddable assize this time, the last two he’s found me have been packed wi fools.’
* * *
‘They did what?’ said Alys incredulously, and set the ladle back in the kale-pot. ‘They brought it in—?’
‘Against Annie herself,’ agreed Lowrie, his eyes dancing. ‘The Provost was quite displeased.’
‘It is a thing most extraordinary,’ said Catherine. Further down the long board, small John shouted as his little plate was set in front of him.
‘And what of Annie’s kin? What did they say?’
‘They were none of them present.’ Gil spooned kale, and frowned at it. ‘I’m surprised Otterburn never cited any of them as witnesses, at the very least to swear to the time Annie was last known to be at the Cross.’
‘That does seem strange,’ Alys agreed.
‘I think he sees the two matters as entirely separate,’ Lowrie observed.
‘But what did he do? He could not let it stand, surely?’
‘He directed them again,’ Gil said, grinning at the recollection. ‘It was as much his own doing as the assize’s. He should never have tried to get the cuts in the cloth past them.’
‘What cuts are these?’
‘Lowrie discovered them.’ Gil gestured at the younger man to explain, and addressed himself to his meal.
The scene in the courtyard had been one to relish; the assize, duly sworn and cautioned, had listened to the evidence placed before it, inspected the cuts on the blue kirtle, asked some questions about Annie Gibb which had alarmed Gil, and retired to consider its verdict. Less than an hour later, it had filed out into the courtyard again, and the spokesman, asked if he had a verdict to pronounce, had squared his shoulders and said importantly,
‘Aye, Provost, that we do.’
‘And what is it, man?’ demanded Otterburn. ‘How do you find this woman met her death?’
‘We find,’ said the spokesman, a well-built man whom Gil recognised as the keeper of an alehouse on the Briggait, ‘that Peg Simpson met her death by being unlawfully killed by this woman Annie Gibb—’
‘What?’ said Otterburn sharply, his colour rising.
‘And then bound to St Mungo’s Cross after she was dead, and then throttled wi a sack-tie stole from the almoner, which was a most sacrilegious thing to ha done,’ continued the spokesman. ‘And we find Annie Gibb guilty o murder, and she should be put to the—’
‘You’ll find no such thing in my court, Dandy Greenhill!’ said Otterburn. ‘The lot o ye, get back in that chamber and stay in it till ye’ve decided what I tellt ye to decide! It’s clear as day, persons unknown, two o them!’
‘See, I tellt ye,’ hissed Greenhill at one of his fellow-assizers. ‘Provost, we’ve talked it through—’
‘Well, ye’ll just ha to talk it through again,’ said Otterburn. ‘Walter, you’ve never wrote that down, have you? I’m no having that stand as a verdict.’