Authors: Pat McIntosh
They stepped out into the courtyard just as Canon Muir came hurrying in at the hostel door, exclaiming in agitation, wringing his hands, Attie and his own manservant behind him.
‘Sir Simon! Good Sir Simon, where is he? Tell me it’s no true? It canny be true!’
‘There’s our uncle,’ said Austin unnecessarily. ‘What’s brought him here, then?’
‘Ellen Shaw dead by violence, and in our chapel?’ Canon Muir was saying, and laid hold of Gil’s arm. ‘Gilbert, you here! Tell me it’s no true!’
‘It’s true, sir, though I’m sorry to say it.’ Gil detached the grip on his arm, aware that the Canon’s nephews had contrived to make their escape, as had Craigie. He hoped they had gone into the hall rather than leaving the place. ‘Bide here, I’ll fetch Sir Simon out to you.’
‘But how could it ha happened? Who would do sic a thing, in a chapel, sacred ground!’ The old man was right behind Gil as he opened the chapel door. ‘Is she still in here? Why is she no lifted, can we no start cleansing the place? Sir Simon, how could you let sic a thing happen?’
Sir Simon rose to greet his patron. Gil stood aside, and the Canon rocked back on his heels as he caught sight of the corpse in the blaze of candlelight, and crossed himself, gabbling a prayer.
‘Oh, what a thing to happen! Oh, Christ aid us all, it’s dreadful, dreadful!’ He clutched at Sir Simon’s arm, his other hand waving helplessly. ‘How did it happen? Who’s guilty o sic a crime? They must be excommunicate, whoever they are! Oh, is it no dreadful, dreadful!’
‘Come away out, Canon,’ said Sir Simon, edging him towards the door. ‘We’ll get the servants in to lift her, and see to laying her out. Aye, but where?’ he wondered, as the thought struck him. ‘We canny put her in here.’
‘The dining hall?’ Gil suggested. ‘I need a word wi the folk still in there, but once I’m done the place will be free.’
‘What a thing to happen.’ Canon Muir was wringing his hands again. ‘What will the Dean say? What will Robert Blacader say? Oh, what a thing! Simon, have we enough incense? We’ll need a quarter-stone anyway.’
‘They’ll be time enough to order it up,’ said Sir Simon grimly. ‘Come away, Canon, we’ll get a word in my chamber while I set Attie to deal wi this.’
The women had vanished from the dining hall, but William Craigie was there, speaking solemnly with Lockhart and the serving-men; as the door latched behind Gil, the whole group turned towards the crucifix on the end wall of the chamber, removing their hats, and Craigie began intoning one of the prayers for the dead in his rich voice. Behind them, Henry Muir snorted contemptuously, lifted one of the candles and made for the nearer end of the hall.
‘Well, Cunningham?’ he said, hooking a stool out from under one of the long tables with his booted foot. He sat down, set the wooden candle-stand on the table, drew another stool closer to put his feet on it, and stared challengingly at Gil. ‘We’ve been talking wi the old man all this evening, till the last hour or so.’
‘And then where were you?’ Gil asked, acknowledging this gambit. He tested the table for rigidity and sat on it, pushing the candle aside.
‘We were in an alehouse,’ said Austin, ‘that one at the Wyndheid that has a bishop ower the door. Wishart’s Tree, do they cry it? We kent the ale would be good, see.’
‘Where yon fellow found us,’ his brother supplied, jerking his head at the devout group below the crucifix. ‘And you can ask at the alewife. She’ll likely mind us.’ He looked complacently from his own red broadcloth with its silver braiding to his brother’s dark grey velvet trimmed with gilt braid and gold silk brocade.
‘A course she’ll mind us,’ said Austin, ‘for you made certain—’ He bit off the words as his brother raised a threatening hand.
‘Made certain?’ Gil queried.
‘I made certain,’ said Henry, ‘to gie the serving-lass a good tip, since we’d hope to go back there and good service is aye a good thing. So they’ll mind us. Right?’ He eased at the high neck of the red broadcloth.
‘So when did you see Dame Ellen last?’
‘That would be earlier the day,’ offered Austin. ‘When she was alive, see . . .’ His voice trailed off as his brother turned to glare at him. ‘Well, she was, Henry,’ he persisted, recovering. ‘She was.’
‘Afore noon,’ said Henry.
‘No, it was after—’ Austin fell silent at the lift of his brother’s hand.
‘I think she was wishing to promote a match wi Annie Gibb for one of you,’ Gil said. ‘Am I right?’
Henry’s expression grew darker.
‘Aye,’ he said shortly.
‘You wereny in favour?’
‘We wereny,’ said Austin, laughing. ‘Take a mad wife that doesny wash? And no even all her dower to sweeten the match? We’re no daft, either o us.’
‘Why would you not have all her dower?’ Gil asked, as Henry turned to look at his brother again. ‘It’s considerable. I’d ha thought even the half of it would be worth having.’
‘But it wasny the right half, see,’ said Austin.
‘Dame Ellen planned an arrangement,’ said Henry irritably. ‘Who do you reckon killed her, Cunningham? When was it, any road?’
An arrangement, thought Gil. Presumably Dame Ellen herself, possibly Canon Muir, almost certainly Craigie, were to benefit from a share of Annie’s property if the match took place, as well as the fortunate groom.
‘It was after dinner, Henry,’ said Austin. ‘That she dee’d.’
‘How do you know that?’ Gil asked.
‘He’s right,’ said Henry off-handedly. ‘Must ha been. Else she’d ha been missed here at dinner, and found sooner. Is this all you wanted to ask, Cunningham? For I’ll need to get a word wi Lockhart there, about where we can plant the old dame, and how this lot’s to get home to Glenbuck, whether they’ll need our escort or can find their own.’
‘The Provost will want a quest on her,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no burying her afore that’s seen to, and the party will likely stay here while Sir Edward lives, anyway, so there’s no hurry, I’d ha thought.’
‘What, is he no deid yet? I took it he’d passed on by now, it’s days since he was despaired of.’
‘Maybe he’s waiting till Annie gets found,’ offered Austin. ‘He’s right fond o her. You said that, Henry.’
‘The girls were no help,’ said Alys, leaning wearily against Gil. ‘We calmed them eventually, but I learned nothing from them. Meggot knew only that Dame Ellen was at dinner in the hall with the rest of them and went out after, saying she would go to the chapel. And the St Catherine’s woman, what is her name?’
‘Bessie,’ supplied Lowrie from her other side, holding his lantern down so that its light glittered on the chattering Girth Burn.
‘Bessie.’ Alys gathered up her skirts in one hand, and set the other in Gil’s to accept his help across the stepping stones. ‘Was in the dining hall putting away the linen and the crocks, and thought none of the party left the hall otherwise, for they were telling stories and singing, pilgrim songs and the like, a family evening while the dame was out of the way. Bessie thought it was to lighten their hearts a little while they wait for the death.’ She shook out her skirts, and moved on towards home. ‘Meggot told me the same, when I asked her.’
‘And then what?’ Gil put his arm about his wife and drew her close. ‘When did she find the corp?’
‘After she finished her work in the hall, about the time the other household began to retire for the evening. She set out to her own lodging, by the main door, and as she crossed the courtyard she thought to go into the chapel and count the candles, having had no chance to do it before. She stepped in, and she says opened the candle-box, which dwells in the aumbry near the door, to count them by touch, and then smelled—’ She broke off.
‘Quite,’ said Gil.
‘And lighting a candle, she found – what she found, and began screaming. Poor woman, she is still much distressed. Was it very dreadful?’
‘Bad enough. But there was nobody in the chapel – nobody living,’ he corrected himself, ‘when she went in?’
‘I think she would have mentioned it.’
‘And there’s nowhere to hide,’ Lowrie offered. ‘It’s a wee bare chamber, and it wasn’t full dark by then. Do you think she was killed on her own account, or is it connected to one of the others?’
‘No saying, yet,’ said Gil. ‘Did you find the woman on the Stablegreen?’
‘Mistress Templand? Aye, she was there. Gown and apron clean, at least no worse than a day’s wear, and her other aprons and her shoes were all free of anything like you’d expect.’ He laughed. ‘She would know what we were looking for, a course, and when we told her she said,
It deserves her right,
and began praying for her in the same breath. She’d been wi her neighbour the past two or three hours, telling her the tale of the argument wi Dame Ellen, so one way and another she’s clear of the hunt.’
‘I’d agree.’ Gil halted before the front door of the House of the Mermaiden, extracting the heavy key from his purse. He could hear Socrates blowing hard at the gap under the door; about them the night was quiet, though away in the distance, outside the burgh, another dog barked. Wings swished above their heads, and a nightbird called a bubbling cry and was answered.
‘Time for bed, I think,’ he said. ‘We can fit this together in the morning.’
The view down the Clyde from Bishop Rae’s bridge was always entertaining. This morning, mild and almost windless with a steady fine drizzle, there were fewer bystanders and casual onlookers than was often the case, but there was still plenty to see. Several small boats were drawn up on the strand, their crews engaged in the mysterious occupations of mariners on land. Sails hung drying under a pent at the top of the bank, several more men were unloading barrels from a larger boat under the watchful eye of a well-upholstered merchant, and two further little vessels were slipping upriver on the tide. Standing on the crown of the Bishop’s stone bridge, Socrates beside him with his forepaws on the parapet, Gil studied these, and concluded that the nearer, well laden with canvas-wrapped bales and boxes, was Stockfish Tam’s
Cuthbert.
He snapped his fingers at the dog and strolled casually down the slope of the bridge, avoiding an oxcart full of timber and several handcarts, and fetched up on the shore just where
Cuthbert
nosed in against the sandy beach.
‘Good day to you, skipper,’ he said as the mariner splashed ashore bare legged, hauling on a rope. Tam checked, glanced at him over his shoulder, and went on to moor his boat, taking deft turns of the rope about a pair of timbers hammered into the sandy shore. Socrates ambled over to examine his method. ‘I need a word wi you.’
‘Nothin’ to stop you,’ said Tam. He was a chunky, fairish man of middling height, weather browned and competent with deep-set hazel eyes, not a man to mix with in a fight Gil reckoned. Now he caught a second rope flung to him by a youngster in the boat, elbowed the dog aside and cast it round another pair of timbers.
‘You mind me? Gil Cunningham, Blacader’s quaestor.’
‘Aye.’ Tam splashed back into the water and the boy assisted him to hoist one of the canvas packs onto his shoulders.
‘You took a cargo down the water night afore last.’
‘Did I now?’ said Tam unhelpfully. He tramped past Gil, to lower the pack to the grass well above the tideline. Socrates followed him, and began a thorough inspection of the stitched canvas coverings.
‘Wi my man Euan as crew,’ Gil added. This got him a sharp look, but no answer. ‘A sack of grain, two cheeses, a barrel of apples.’ Another sharp look as the mariner passed him on the way back to the boat. ‘All with the St Mungo’s seal on them, to be sold in Dumbarton. What I need to learn from you, man, is who charged you to sell the goods, and who brought them to you the night afore you sailed.’
Tam plodded up the shore again with a second well-stitched pack, and set it down by its fellow. Turning to face Gil he studied him for a moment.
‘Very likely,’ he said. ‘But why should I tell you sic a thing? Supposing I ken the answers.’
‘What, you’d take delivery o a boatload wi no idea who handed it to you, nor who your principal might be?’
‘Aye, Tam,’ called the man in the next boat along the shore. ‘You right, man?’
‘I’m right, Dod,’ said Tam. He looked at Gil again, snorted, and set off to fetch another bale. The boy in the boat, enough like him to be a close relation, watched anxiously.
‘Or did he never tell you who the principal was?’ Gil prodded. ‘It was Barnabas the verger, wasn’t it, who brought the cart down in the night?’
‘If you’re that certain,’ Tam paused beside him, a box balanced on his sturdy shoulders, ‘why are you troubling to ask me?’
‘Was it Barnabas?’
‘Him that’s deid? Aye,’ said Tam reluctantly. ‘It was. He never tellt me his name, mind, but I asked a bit. I’ll no do business wi folk wi’out a name.’
‘And his principal?’
The mariner snorted again, and trudged up the slope with his burden. Lowering it to the grass where Socrates waited, he straightened up and eyed Gil directly.
‘I’d got his name, I made shift to do wi’out his superior’s.’
‘So there was a superior? Did he never name him?’
‘He tried to tell me he was alone in it,’ said Tam, ‘but I kent better. It was someone at St Mungo’s, that was clear enough, he’d never ha got all that stuff away on his own.’
‘What stuff?’
‘All that I took down the water and sellt for him.’
‘There was a lot, was there? How often did you take a boatload down?’
Tam shrugged.
‘Every two-three nights? Aince or twice a week, mebbe.’
‘And what did you do with the proceeds?’
‘Och, I gied it back to him,’ said Tam with the air of a scrupulous man. ‘It was St Mungo’s goods, after a’, I’d never rob Holy Kirk.’
Gil paused a moment at this utterance, but contrived to keep his face straight.
‘You never thought that Barnabas might be robbing Holy Kirk?’ he suggested.
‘What, and him one of the vergers?’ Tam stepped down the grassy slope and made for the boat again. ‘Is that all you were wanting fro me?’
‘What will you do,’ Gil asked deliberately, ‘with the coin you took in Dumbarton yesterday for the last lading? Barnabas is dead, as you said. When was he to come back with another cart-load? Is that when you should ha handed over the coin?’