The Harper's Quine (39 page)

‘I had never seen her wear such a headdress before those
two days,’ said Philip Sempill. ‘It surprised me, I can tell
you.’

Gil nodded.

‘She can’t have stopped to find out whether the poor lass
saw anything, she simply got rid of her as quickly as
possible. I suppose it is characteristic that she also took the
few pennies Bridie had on her, as she took Bess’s coin,
though it would scarcely pay for a finger of one of her
gloves. The scent on Bridie’s kerchief puzzled me, until
Mariota Stewart said something about Euphemia’s perfume smelling different when it was stale.’

‘Aye,’ said Maggie. ‘That was the other thing, Maister
Gil, only you were so quick to be rid of me. All the clothes
in her kist smelled like that, and it wasny the same as
when it was on her at all.’

‘I noticed that often,’ said Philip Sempill.

‘And I’ve noticed that, fresh or stale, it makes Maister
Mason sneeze, just as hawthorn flowers do. And then the
serjeant arrested Antonio. I also bear some guilt for what
happened then, because I know John Sempill, I should
have been quicker to realize what he would do.’

‘No, Gil. I know him even better,’ said John Sempill’s
cousin, ‘and I was taken by surprise too. Euphemia should
also have known what would happen.’

‘I think she did. She had known John well, and for a
long time, and think how economical to get one lover to
execute the other. What would the Italian have told if he
was put to the question? He didn’t look to me like a man
who could withstand the thumbscrews or the boot.’

That would have silenced his music,’ said the mason.
Ealasaidh flinched, but the harper did not stir.

‘I never asked her point blank, but I expect she would
have sworn that he was with her all the morning Bridie
was killed. If he was questioned, he would have told all he
knew about her movements, both when Bess died and
when Bridie died. I suspect he was also the father of her
child. John’s success has not been notable in that way. So
Antonio had to go, and as Maister Mason says, her reaction to the spilt blood was powerful. What sticks in my
craw is that the poor devil begged her to help him,
addressed her as Donna mia cara, dear my lady - and that
was his reward.’

‘Poor devil indeed,’ said Philip Sempill. ‘I will say,
I knew what was happening - that she had taken the
Italian to her bed - and I hoped John never found out, but
I never looked for it to end that way.’

‘Then we went to Rothesay and discovered this largescale pauchling of the rents. As I said, I had eliminated you
and John both by then, but I was still thinking in terms of
James Campbell, and every word I heard seemed to confirm it.,

‘To me, too,’ agreed Maistre Pierre in answer to Gil’s
raised eyebrow. ‘But I cannot understand yet how Maister
John Sempill never recognized the - what is your word? - pauchling. Embezzlement. He must have known what his
land was worth.’

‘John doesn’t read very well, Grammar School or no,
and he’s not a great thinker,’ said Philip, grinning. ‘I tried
to suggest the rent was a bit low, but he’s so taken with
James’s education, and yours, Gil, that he would never
entertain the idea that things might not add up.’

‘And so you knew it was the good-sister; said the
harper.

‘When she ran, I knew,’ said Gil. ‘Something I learned in
Dumbarton set me thinking things through again. James
Campbell had been there looking for Annie Thomson, and
gone away without speaking to her because she was
demented with a rotten tooth, poor lass. Her mother
described him, and identified him as a Campbell. Now, if
he was guilty, he knew what she might have seen, he had
no need to question the girl publicly, and every incentive
to make contact with her secretly and do away with her
like the other lassie. Since he had tried to contact her quite
openly, I could infer that he was not guilty, but had a
reason for wanting to know what she had seen or heard
the evening Bess died. So I began putting things together
- there was that, and a conversation I had with Euphemia
Campbell the day Bridie was killed when she knew far
more than she should have done, and Mariota’s remark
about the perfume - and began to think perhaps I knew
the answer. But until Euphemia saw the cross and ran, it
was simply the most likely explanation.’

‘I knew,’ said the harper calmly, ‘when I reminded the
company that I am a harper and can determine the truth.
All who understood me were in decent awe, but Euphemia
Campbell was frightened. I smelled it.’

‘I knew at Bess-‘s funeral,’ said Ealasaidh.

‘What?’ said Gil.

‘She was waiting, out in the church,’ she said remotely.
‘My sight is good. I saw her in the shadows, waiting until
we were done with touching the body. Why would she do
that if her conscience was clear?’

‘It would have helped if you had told me,’ Gil said.

She turned a considering gaze on him. ‘Would it?’

Perhaps not, he acknowledged.

‘Do you think, sir,’ he said, touching the harper’s wrist,
‘that we did uncover the truth?’

‘I do,’ said Mclan harshly. ‘Justice has been served
here.’

‘But what an end she met,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Tom to
pieces unshriven.’

‘She would have been held in the Bishop’s jail,’ the
Official pointed out, ‘and tried, and if found guilty executed by drowning.’

‘And is that right, maister,’ said Maggie with interest,
‘that they haveny found her arm yet?’ Philip Sempill grimaced, and shook his head. ‘Likely it’ll be in the dog
kennel.’

‘Has the dog been disposed of?’ asked the mason.
Sempill, getting to his feet, laughed sourly. ‘ou do not
know my cousin John, maister. Fortunately for them, the
servants do, and the stableman had enticed her away with
some meat with aniseed and tied her up. No, John sees no
need to dispose of a good guard dog simply because it did
what he requires it to do. He’s more put out because James
Campbell will not bear the cost of his sister’s burial. It’ll
need a sizeable donation to get her buried in holy ground,
considering, and James says she was John’s problem in life,
she may stay his problem in death. And for all John’s
already sent to Dunblane last week, to let John Murray
know he’s got an heir, he won’t see a plack of the old
man’s money till he’s gone. He’ll have to sell that gaud she
was wearing to coffin her.’

‘And it’ll need to be a coffined burial, by what I’m told,’
said Maggie.

Philip Sempill grinned wryly, and turned to bow to the
Official. ‘I have taken up enough of your time, sir. I will
take my leave of you, now that I understand what happened. I agree with Maister Mclan. We have seen justice
here.’

Gil saw him through the house and down to the door.
He paused there, a hand on the doorpost.

‘I wanted her, Gil,’ he said abruptly. ‘I would have
married her, but Campbell of Glenstriven, as her goodbrother, preferred to take John’s offer. My Marion’s a good
lass, but …’ Another crooked grin. ‘She’s not Bess.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gil inadequately.

‘Bess Stewart was a bonnie woman, and a bonnie singer,
and I saw her dwindle into a silent thing, feared to move
when he was in the room. I would never have treated her
like that.’

‘She can maybe rest easy now,’ Gil offered.

‘Not yet,’ said Philip Sempill, narrowing his blue eyes,
‘but I tell you, I will take care to exact the next part of the
revenge out of your territory.’

Gil considered him.

‘Do that,’ he said, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘and
good luck to it.’

When he returned to the hall he found the rest of the
company had come in from the garden and were taking
leave in various ways. The harper, with one hand on his
son’s head, was reciting a sonorous blessing in Ersche
while the baby regarded him with huge solemn eyes from
his nurse’s arms and Nancy herself yawned and blinked
sideways at all the people.

‘We must arrange a fresh tryst with John Sempill,’ said
Canon Cunningham. ‘I have just agreed a time with
Maister Mclan. And you and your lassie must be properly
handfasted, with witnesses. We must agree a time for that
too.’

‘I look forward to it,’ said the mason.

‘The sooner the better,’ said Gil, drawing Alys aside. She
looked up and smiled at him, so he kissed her, and quoted,
‘Her fair fresh face, as white as any snaw, She turnit has, and
forth her wayis went. Sweetheart, you must go now. I think
I will sleep on my feet soon.’

It has been a long week,’ she said.

‘It has been an even longer day. I have sailed across the water, helped Matt draw a rotten tooth, procured
the death of a murderer, been handfasted to the wisest
girl in Scotland, and mended our first disagreement.
At least I think we have mended it.’ He looked down at
her anxiously. She nodded. ‘Good. And that has set a
precedent.’

‘Precedent?’

‘That when we disagree, we can settle it by debate
between us.’

Her smile flickered again, elusive as a wren in a
hedge.

‘If there is time,’ she said, and put up her face to be
kissed.

When all the company had gone he gathered up the
wine-cups and took them down to the kitchen. Maggie
was entertaining Matt with a lively account of the evening’s action which appeared not to suffer by the fact that
she had not seen the centrepiece.

‘And they’ll keep the dog,’ she added. ‘Savage creature,
I don’t know how they could live with it.’

‘Poor brute,’ said Matt.

‘And is that right, Maister Gil, that the bairn’s to be
fostered with Maister Mason?’

‘So it appears,’ said Gil, deducing from this that he was
forgiven. ‘And I’m to be its tutor.’

‘So you’ll start married life with a family.’

‘I’ll not be the first man that’s happened to,’ he said,
setting the wine-cups down on the table. ‘They don’t
usually come dowered with a lachter of properties in Bute,
but if the rent from that pays to wash the tail-clouts,
Maister Mason may be thankful.’

‘That’s a good lassie you’ve chosen,’ she said, her face
softening. ‘And bonnie manners with it. Mind you,’ she
added, ‘she’s a sharp one. I think she’ll tame you as readily
as you’ll tame her.’

‘I still can’t believe my good fortune,’ he admitted.

‘When?’ said Matt.

‘When will the wedding be? When I can afford to keep
a wife.’

‘She’ll wait for you,’ said Maggie. ‘She’ll do, Maister Gil.
Your minnie will be pleased.’

Avoiding a conversation with his uncle, who seemed
willing to go over the entire argument of his accusation
again, Gil climbed to his attic and opened the shutters
without lighting his candle. It was dark by this time,
though greenish light in the sky still outlined the hills
away to his left. Some of the shapes looked familiar now.
Nearer at hand, the Bishop’s castle (Archbishop, he corrected himself) and the towers of St Mungo’s loomed dark.
Nearer still, candlelight in the windows of the Sempill
house showed three pairs of hands and another game of
Tarocco.

He stood looking out for a little while, as the cards went
round, thinking of the events of the day, and the long game
of Tarocco that had been the evening. Not to Alys, not even
to his uncle had he admitted how undecided he was. He
had not known whether it was James Campbell he was
looking for, or Euphemia, or even one or other of the
gallowglasses, right up to the point where Maggie had
handed him the cross.

Well, he thought, I have jousted for Truth, and won. And
not only for Truth, it occurred to him, watching the play at
the lit window. For Hugh, and for his Sybilla, poor girl,
who was now avenged. No wonder his brother had
saluted him in his dream. And also for Bess Stewart, who
escaped a grim future and found love, however briefly, in
her broken vows. (As I have done, he thought, and St Giles
send it lasts longer than Bess’s happiness.)

Down in the dark between the Sempill house and the
gate, the mastiff Doucette grumbled to herself about something. The curfew bell had rung long since. Windows were
darkening along the street, fires were smoored for the
night. The shutters were fastened tight at the window on
the floor above the card game, where he had watched
Euphemia wrestle with her lover, when he had still thought he was bound for the priesthood. But now I have
a girl, he thought, who wrestles with her mind. We will
debate the state of our marriage between us. And after the
marriage-debate, there would still be the marriage-debt to
settle, an extraordinarily satisfying thought. He thought of
the warmth of Alys’s slender waist between his hands, and
the sweet innocence of her kisses.

He closed the shutters and began to undress. Tomorrow
they would settle matters with the mason.

Tomorrow he would see Alys.