The Harper's Quine Read online

  He became aware of a disturbance in the crowd. Leaning out over the handrail he could see one man in a tall felt hat, one in a blue bonnet, both the worse for drink and arguing over a girl. There was a certain amount of pulling and pushing, and the girl exclaimed something in the alarmed tones which had caught his attention. This time he knew the voice.

  The stair was crowded. He vaulted over the handrail, startled a young couple by landing in front of them, and pushed through the people, using his height and his elbows ruthlessly. The man in the hat was dressed like a merchant’s son, in a red velvet doublet and a short gown with a furred collar caked in something sticky. The other appeared to be a journeyman in a dusty jerkin, out at the elbows. As Gil reached them, both men laid hold of his acquaintance from the stairway, one to each arm, pulling her in opposite directions, the merchant lad reaching suggestively for his short sword with his other hand.

  This could be dealt with without violence. Gil slid swiftly round behind the little group, and said clearly, ‘Gentlemen, this is common assault. I suggest you desist.’

  Both stared at him. The girl twisted to look at him over her shoulder, brown eyes frightened.

  ‘Let go,’ he repeated. ‘Or the lady will see you in court. She has several witnesses.’ He looked round, and although most of the onlookers suddenly found the dance much more interesting, one or two stalwarts nodded.

  ‘Oh, if I’d known she kept a lawyer,’ said the man in the hat, and let go. The other man kept his large red hand on the girl’s arm, but stopped pulling her.

  ‘It’s all right, Thomas,’ she said breathlessly. ‘This gentleman will see me home.’

  ‘You certain?’ said Thomas indistinctly. ‘Does he ken where ‘tis?’ She nodded, and he let go of her wrist and stepped back, looking baffled. ‘You take her straight home,’ he said waveringly to Gil. ‘Straight home, d’you hear me?’

  ‘Straight home,’ Gil assured him. ‘You go and join the dancing.’ If you can stay upright, he thought.

  Thomas turned away, frowning, at which the man in the hat also flounced off into the crowd. The girl closed her eyes and drew a rather shaky breath, and Gil caught hold of her elbow.

  ‘This time I will convoy you,’ he said firmly.

  She took another breath, opened her eyes and turned to him. He met her gaze, and found himself looking into peat-brown depths the colour of the rivers he had swum in as a boy. For an infinite moment they stared at one another; then someone jostled Gil and he blinked. Recovering his manners, he let go of her elbow and offered his arm to lead her.

  She nodded, achieved a small curtsy, and set a trembling hand on his wrist. He led her out of the crowd and up the High Street, followed by a flurry of predictable remarks. He was acutely aware of the hand, pale and well-shaped below its brown velvet cuff, and of her profile, dominated by that remarkable nose and turned slightly away from him. The top of her head came just above his shoulder. Suppressing a desire to put his arm round her as further support, or perhaps comfort, he began a light commentary on the music which they had heard, requiring no answer.

  ‘Thomas was trying to help,’ she said suddenly. ‘He saw Robert Walkinshaw accost me and came to see him off.’

  ‘Is he another of your father’s men?’ Gil asked. ‘He’s obviously concerned for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a moment, and came to a halt. Although she still trembled she was not leaning on his wrist at all. He looked down at her. ‘And this is my father’s house. I thank you, Maister Cunningham.’

  She dropped another quick curtsy, and slipped in at the pend below a swinging sign. At the far end of the tunnellike entry she turned, a dark figure against the sunlit court, raised one hand in salute, then stepped out of sight. Gil, troubled, watched for a moment, but she did not reappear. He stepped backwards, colliding with a pair of beribboned apprentices heading homeward.

  ‘Whose house is that?’ he asked them.

  ‘The White Castle?’ said one of them, glancing at the sign. ‘That’s where the French mason lives, is it no, Ecky?’

  Ecky, after some thought, agreed with this.

  ‘Aye,’ pursued his friend, who seemed to be the more wide awake, ‘for I’ve taken a pie there once it came out the, oven. There’s an auld French wife there that’s the devil to cross,’ he confided to Gil. ‘Aye, it’s the French mason’s house.’

  They continued on their way. Gil, glancing at the sun, decided that he should do likewise. Maggie Baxter had mentioned something good for dinner.

  Canon David Cunningham, Prebendary of Cadzow, Official of Glasgow, senior judge of the Consistory Court of the archdiocese, was in the first-floor hall of his handsome stone house in Rottenrow. He was seated near the window, tall and lean like Gil in his narrow belted gown of black wool, with a sheaf of papers and two protocol books on a stool beside him. In deference to the warmth of the day, he had removed his hat, untied the strings of his black felt coif, and hung his furred brocade over-gown on the high carved back of his chair. Gil, bowing as he entered from the stair, discovered that his head was bare in the same moment as his uncle said,

  ‘Where is your hat, Gilbert? And when did you last comb your hair?’

  ‘I had a hat when I went out,’ he said, wondering at the ease with which the old man made him feel six years old. ‘It must have fallen off. Perhaps when I louped the handrail.’

  ‘Louped the handrail,’ his uncle repeated without expression.

  ‘There was a lass being molested.’ Gil decided against asking when dinner was, and instead nodded at his uncle’s papers. ‘Can I help with this, sir?’

  ‘You are six-and-twenty,’ said his uncle. ‘You are graduate of two universities. You are soon to be priested, and from Michaelmas next, Christ and His Saints preserve us, you will be entitled to call yourself a notary. I think you should strive for a little dignity, Gilbert. Yes, you can help me. I am to hear a matter tomorrow - Sempill of Muirend is selling land to his cousin, and we need the original disposition from his father. It should be in one of these.’ He waved a long thin hand at the two protocol books.

  ‘That would be why I saw him riding into the town just now. What was the transaction, sir?’ Gil asked, lifting one of the volumes on to the bench. His uncle pinched the bridge of his long nose and stared out of the window.

  ‘Andrew Sempill of Cathcart to John Sempill of Muirend and Elizabeth Stewart his wife, land in the burgh of Glasgow, being on the north side of Rottenrow near the Great Cross,’ he recited. ‘Just across the way yonder,’ he added, gesturing. ‘I wonder if he’s taken his wife back?’

  ‘His wife?’ said Gil, turning pages. ‘You know my mother’s sister Margaret was married on Sempill of Cathcart? Till he beat her and she died of it.’

  ‘Your mother’s sister Margaret never stopped talking in my hearing longer than it took to draw breath,’ said his uncle. ‘Your sister Tibby is her image.’

  ‘So my mother has often said; agreed Gil.

  ‘There is no proof that Andrew Sempill gave his wife the blow that killed her. She was his second wife, and there were no bairns. John Sempill of Muirend would be his son by the first wife. She was a Walkinshaw, which would be how they came by the land across the way. I think she died of her second bairn.’

  ‘And what about John Sempill’s wife?’ Gil persisted.

  ‘You must not give yourself to gossip, Gilbert; reproved his uncle. ‘Sempill of Muirend married a Bute girl. While you were in France, that would be. She and her sister were co-heirs to Stewart of Ettrick, if I remember. She left Sempill.’

  ‘There was a lady with him when he rode in just now.’ Gil turned another page, and marked a place with his finger. ‘Dainty creature with long gold hair. Child in the crowd thought she was the Queen of Elfland.’

  ‘That does not sound like his wife.’

  ‘It’s not his wife.’ Maggie Baxter, stout and red-faced, appeared in the doorway from the kitchen stair. Will ye dine now, maister? Only the May-bannock’s like
to spoil if it stands.’

  ‘Very well.’ The Official gathered up his papers. ‘Is it not his wife, Maggie?’

  ‘The whole of Glasgow kens it’s not his wife,’ said Maggie, dragging one of the trestles into the centre of the hall, ‘seeing she’s taken up with the harper that stays in the Fishergait.’

  ‘What, the harper that played for the King last winter?’ said the Official. ‘When was this? Is that who she left Sempill for?’

  Maggie counted thoughtfully on her fingers.

  ‘Before Yule a year since? I ken the bairn’s more than six month old.’

  ‘There is a bairn, is there? And has she gone back to Sempill? I had not heard this,’ said Canon Cunningham in disgruntled tones.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Maggie with grim significance. Gil rose and went to fetch in the other two trestles. ‘But what I saw an hour since was Sempill of Muirend ride in across the way there, and his cousin with him, and Lady Euphemia Campbell tricked out in green satin like the Queen of the May.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Canon. He lifted his over-gown from the back of his chair and began searching among the intricacies of black brocade and worn fox-fur for the armholes.

  ‘Is that something else that happened while I was in France?’ Gil asked. ‘Maggie, will you take the other end?’

  ‘Aye, it would be,’ agreed Maggie as they set the great board up on the trestles. ‘Her first man fell at Stirling field - who was he now? I think he was on the old King’s side, like the Sempills and the Cunninghams. She never grieved ower lang for him, for she was already getting comfort with John Sempill when you came home, Maister Gil. Or so I hear,’ she added piously.

  ‘I think we conclude that Sempill’s wife has not returned to him; David Cunningham said. He and Maggie began an involved discussion of who Euphemia Campbell’s first husband might have been, while Gil quietly went on setting up the table for dinner with the long cloth of bleached linen from the smaller carved cupboard, and the wooden trenchers from the open base of the great cupboard. May Day or no, he knew better than to touch the silver dishes gleaming on top of the great cupboard; they were only used when the Archbishop or the other canons dined with them. He added horn spoons and wooden beakers from the small cupboard, lining them up carefully, dragged his uncle’s chair to the head of the board, set the two long benches on either side, and said across the genealogy,

  ‘Maggie, will I bring in anything else?’

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Maggie, ‘I’ve work to do, maister. Sit you in at the table and I’ll-call the household.’

  She stumped off down the stairs to the kitchen. By the time she returned, Gil had finally assisted his uncle into the long furred gown, and both Cunninghams had washed their hands under the spout of the pottery cistern by the other door and were seated waiting for their food.

  ‘A May blessing on the house,’ she said, setting a pot of savoury-smelling stew at the top of the table. Behind her, Matt, the Official’s middle-aged, silent manservant, and the two stable-hands echoed her words as they bore in bread and ale, a dish of eggs, a bowl of last year’s apples. Last of all came the kitchen-boy, scarlet with concentration, carrying the May-bannock on a great wooden trencher. The custard of eggs and cream with which it was topped quivered as he set it in the centre of the table and stood back.

  ‘May Day luck to us all!’ he said breathlessly, and licked custard off his thumb.

  Once grace was said and all were served, Maggie and the Official continued their discussion. The men were arguing about whether to graze the horses on the Cow- caddens Muir or to take them further afield, perhaps nearer Partick. Gil ate in silence, thinking about the day, and about the girl he had left at the house of the White Castle. He was surprised to find that he could not remember what she wore, except that it had velvet cuffs, or anything about her other than that direct gaze and the incisive, intelligent voice. What colour was her hair? Was she bareheaded? And yet he could not stop thinking about her.

  ‘Gilbert,’ said his uncle sharply. He looked up, and apologized. ‘I am to say Compline in the choir tonight. Will you invest me, so that Matt can go to his kin in the Fishergait?’

  ‘I can invest you, sir. I’m promised to Adam Goudie after Vespers. I’ll come down to St Mungo’s and attend you at Compline, and Matt can go as he pleases.’

  Matt grunted a wordless acknowledgement, and David Cunningham said, ‘Playing at the cards, I suppose, with half the songmen of St Mungo’s.’

  ‘I’m in good company,’ Gil pointed out, and seized a wrinkled apple from the bowl as Maggie began to clear the table. ‘The Bishop himself plays at cards with the King. Archbishop,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘The King and Robert Blacader both can afford to lose money,’ said his uncle. ‘Neither you nor any of the Vicars Choral has money to lose. Remember the gate to Vicars Alley is locked at nine o’clock.’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘And that reminds me. I have a task for you. You mind the Archbishop’s new work? Where he’s decided to complete the Fergus Aisle?’ Gil nodded, biting into his apple. ‘It seems St Mungo’s is not big enough now we’re an archdiocese. Christ save us, is it only four months since the Nuncio was here? Anyway, the mason wants a word with one of the Chapter, I suppose to talk about some detail or other. You might as well deal with it. Don’t promise the Chapter to any expenditure - or the Bishop either.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Before the mom’s work starts, he said, after Lauds.’ The Official took his hands from the board as the stable-lads lifted it off the trestles. ‘Have you found the Sempill disposition yet? I want to see it tonight.’

  Compline, that folding-together of the hands at the day’s end, was always a satisfactory service. In the vaulted sacristy, where fingers of late gold sunlight poked through the northward windows, David Cunningham accepted his vestments one by one from Gil, and finally bent his head under the yoke of his own stole from the bundle Gil had carried over before Vespers. He paused for a moment, his lips moving, then said, ‘I’ll disrobe myself, Gilbert. You may hear the service or go, as you please.’

  ‘I’ll hear it, I think, sir,’ said Gil politely. He knelt for his uncle’s blessing, and slipped out into the nave.

  This late in the evening those present were principally servants or dependants of the cathedral community, more familiar to Gil than the habitants of the lower town. Maggie Baxter was there, with her friend Agnes Dow who kept house for the sub-chanter. Adam Goudie’s sister Ann, who ran the sub-Thesaurer’s household, the Canon himself and some said his share of the Treasury too, had a new gown of tawny wool in honour of the May. Beyond them a flash of black-and-gold caught Gil’s eye.

  Shifting position he saw John Sempill, with some of the party he had seen ride past the Tolbooth: Sempill’s handsome cousin, and also the small dark fellow and one of the men-at-arms, and furthest away, beyond her stout companion, Lady Euphemia Campbell, small and fragile in sapphire-blue with her golden hair rippling from under a velvet hat like a man’s. Another quotation popped into his head, from the bawdy tale of the Friars of Berwick: A fair blyth wyf … sumthing dynk and dengerous. Was such a dainty lady dangerous? he wondered.

  At his movement she glanced his way, and smiled at him, then returned to her prayers. Her actions as she stood or knelt, crossed herself, bent her head over her beads, were fluid and graceful, and Gil watched, fascinated, hoping she would look his way again. Beyond the massive stone screen the Vicars Choral launched into the evening psalms. Down here in the nave the other man-at-arms came in with a word for his master, and behind him another expensively dressed man joined the group, hiding Lady Euphemia from his view.

  For a while Gil paid attention to the singing; then, as if to a lodestone, he found his glance drawn in that direction again. One of the men was just slipping away to another altar, but it was almost with relief that he found Euphemia Campbell’s slight person was still invisible.

  When the Office ended and the c
hoir had filed through the narrow door in the screen and back into the vestry, the church slowly emptied. Gil paused by the altar of St Giles to leave money for candles. Earlier the image had glowed in red and gold light from the west windows, and the hind at the saint’s side had been resplendent in a coat of many colours, but now the sun had moved round St Giles and his pet stood in their workaday brown and white paint. The holiday was over. Tomorrow, Gil thought, I must go back to the Monteath petition. His heart sank at the notion. Sweet St Giles, he said silently to the remote image, give me strength to face what is set before me.

  After a moment he made for the south door. As he reached it Euphemia Campbell rose from her knees before the altar of St Catherine, crossed herself with that distracting grace, and moved towards the door herself. Gil held it open, bowing, and she favoured him with a luminous, speculative smile and went out before him.

  Following her, he paused on the door-sill to look around. To the right, the Sempill party was gathering itself together, Sempill himself emerging from a nearby clump of trees scowling and fiddling with his codpiece. Lady Euphemia strolled gracefully towards him and put her hand possessively on his arm. The whole party made for the gate, except for the small sallow man, who stood for a moment longer staring after Euphemia Campbell, one hand on his dagger. Then, as she turned to look over her shoulder, he shied like a startled horse and scurried after her.

  Gil stood where he was, admiring the evening. He had no wish to accompany John Sempill and his friends the quarter-mile or so back to the two houses which faced one another across Rottenrow. The kirkyard was in shade, only the high crowns of the trees still catching the light. Before Vespers there had been people about, talking or singing. Someone had been playing a lute, a group of children danced in a ring, their voices sweet on the warm air, and Gil had caught a glimpse of the two youngsters he had seen earlier at the Cross, the boy’s striped hose conspicuous under the trees. The children had been called home now, the lutenist had gone to find a more financially rewarding audience, and only a last few parishioners drifted up the path towards the gate.