St Mungo's Robin (11 page)

‘Veitch?’ said Tib. ‘You mean Marion that used to live at Kittymuir? I suppose that’s why her brother was in Glasgow, if she lives here too. What’s she to do with
St Serf’s?’

‘Her brother?’ said Gil. She threw him a look. ‘Which brother? When did you meet him?’

‘It was John, the one that went to sea, but I never met him,’ she said lightly. ‘Just I saw him in the street. Yesterday.’

‘Sissie Mudie mentioned him today,’ Gil recalled. ‘I wonder what he’s doing in Glasgow.’

‘Visiting his sister,’ suggested Canon Cunningham. ‘Visiting their uncle. Did the uncle not teach you at the grammar school in Hamilton, Gilbert?’

‘Frankie Veitch!’ said Gil. ‘I never fitted it together. Aye, he did, sir.’

‘I must,’ said Maistre Pierre with reluctance, ‘go back to the
chantier
before dark.
Madame, j’suis enchanté de vous connaıtre.
’ He bowed
across the hearth to Dorothea, and she inclined her head in response. ‘Perhaps your brother would bring you to supper with us tomorrow?’

‘Indeed, aye, sir,’ said Dorothea. ‘Herbert and I are to spend the day with men of law, about the rents from our Glasgow properties. I’ll be glad of something to look
forward to at the end of it. Will I meet your daughter?’

‘For certain.’

Dorothea smiled, her face lighting up in the way Gil recalled. ‘I’m truly impatient to meet her, maister. A lassie who can wrench my brother from his destined career, and then
convince Mother it was right, must be worth knowing. I hope he values her as high as she does him.’

Tib’s face darkened. Gil was aware that his own expression changed, and also that Dorothea, as acute as their mother, had noticed both.

‘How long can you stay?’ he asked hastily. ‘Have they found you somewhere to lie at the castle?’

Tib’s expression soured still further, but she said nothing. Dorothea admitted to lodging at the castle, and began a lively account of a disastrous visit she had made to another Cistercian
house which she forbore to name, and the moment passed.

But later, when she was bundled up in her travelling cloak again and striding down Rottenrow beside Gil, she said, ‘What’s eating at Tib?’

Gil shrugged. ‘Who kens? She read me a fine rigma-role this morn when she arrived, about no being passed about like a parcel, and no wishing to stay wi Mother or Margaret or Kate. Likely
it’s to do wi first Kate marrying and now me, and she’s left at home wi no tocher.’

‘Kate was wedded wi no tocher,’ said Dorothea thoughtfully.

‘Augie Morison’s doing well enough no to look for either coin or land wi her,’ said Gil, smiling. ‘The man’s besotted on her, besides. Who we’d get to take a
wild wee termagant like Tib I wouldny ken.’

They reached the end of Rottenrow and crossed the Wyndhead before Dorothea went on, ‘Gil, did Mother no tell me this is a love match, you and Alys Mason?’

‘It is,’ said Gil.

She looked up at him through the drizzle. ‘On both sides?’

He opened his mouth to say,
Yes, of course
, and closed it, recalling again the tension in Alys’s slender body within his arms, the way she withdrew from his kiss. Dorothea fixed her
gaze on the towers of St Mungo’s, and after a moment remarked, ‘I mind Marion Veitch well. It seems she was left with nothing.’

‘I never heard,’ said Gil. ‘I knew John went to sea.’

It is a love match, he wanted to say. Alys feels as I do, I know she does.
I love my lady pure, And she loves me again.
But the words would not come to his mouth.

‘I’d a word wi our uncle just now,’ said Dorothea. ‘The oldest brother died in the rebellion and they couldny pay the fines. John was at sea already, and the middle
brother – William, was it? – had gone for a priest, and it seems as if Marion didny fancy keeping house for him and took this man Naismith’s offer when it came to her.’

‘William Veitch was a sleekit wee nyaff,’ said Gil intemperately ‘I mind once he got me into a fight wi John with his lies, and got us both a beating. I’d not blame
Marion if she didny want to share his rooftree.’

The directions Maggie had provided led them to a wynd off the Drygate. The houses along its muddy length were small, but seemed in good repair. Gossiping maidservants sheltered in the doorways,
and the high wooden walls of the Caichpele were visible beyond the rooftops, though it seemed unlikely that tennis was being played in the steady rain.

The furthest house along the wynd was a two-storey structure of wood and lime-washed plaster, with a well-built chimney issuing from the centre of the thatched roof, and a tiny stone kitchen at
the side of the house. They stopped before the door, and Gil rattled the wrought-iron ring up and down the twisted bar above the latch. Above them, a shutter opened, and a voice called,
‘Who’s that tirling at the pin?’

‘I’m Dorothea Cunningham. Is the mistress home?’ said Dorothea, stepping back to look up past the eaves-drips. ‘We’d like a word.’

The maidservant looked back over her shoulder, then leaned out, nodding, and beckoned them in.

‘Aye, come up, madam, come up, maister.’ She withdrew and closed the shutter. By the time they had stepped inside and fastened the latch she was coming down the narrow stair at the
back of the house, a pretty girl with her hair loose, clad in a grubby kirtle with the sleeves rolled well up and carrying a small child of indeterminate gender on her hip.

‘Come away in, sir and madam,’ she said. ‘The mistress is up the stair. She’s packing.’

Chapter Five

Marion Veitch was certainly packing.

They could hear her tramping back and forward across the boards as they crossed the hall and followed the maidservant up the stair. Emerging into the warmth of the upper floor, Gil saw first a
partly dismantled tester-bed, its red woollen hangings in disarray. Then a woman appeared from the shadows behind the bedhead, carrying an armful of folded linen and heading for an open kist by the
window.

Gil had last seen Marion, he reckoned, at the dangerous age of twelve or thirteen when the parents of girls began to argue about how soon they should be married off. This girl’s parents
had waited too long, and she was now that awkward commodity, a pretty woman with no money of her own. Like Tib, he reflected, though a lot older. She had been a sweet, well-behaved child, and had
grown into a beauty of the conventional type, with a pale, fair skin, golden hair visible under her linen coif, large blank blue eyes and a pink mouth made for kissing which just now was stretched
in a doubtful smile as she stared at them. She had been weeping, he thought.

‘Marion,’ said Dorothea, and bent the knee in a curtsy, then went forward with her hands out. ‘How are you?’

‘Dorothea,’ said Marion. ‘Sister Dorothea Cunningham. A course, that’s what Eppie said.’ She put the linen down on the mattress, and took Dorothea’s hands,
then embraced her. ‘I’m well, I thank you. How are you? Dorothea, my dearie, how long is it? I’d never ha known you. And you, Gil, it must be years. Will you stay to
supper?’

‘No, no,’ said Dorothea reassuringly, ‘we’re expected back at my uncle’s, but I had to see you when I heard of your trouble.’

Relief crossed Marion’s face, but all she said was, ‘Come to the fire, come and be seated, the both of you. Eppie, get Danny to bring us a refreshment, will you, lass.’

Eppie, who had set the child down, picked it up again and made for the stairs.

‘He’ll likely no bring it himself,’ she warned, ‘the strunt he’s in the day, mistress.’

‘It must be twelve years,’ said Dorothea, sitting down on one of the pair of cushioned settles. ‘We’ve all changed. I’m right sorry to see you again at a moment
like this, Marion. I had to come by when I heard of it. But has none of your neighbours come in to sit with you?’

Marion shrugged. She was warmly but unbecomingly dressed in a dark brown high-necked gown, with a grey furred loose robe over it which hung open and lay in pools of marten-skin round her feet
when she sat opposite her guests across the small brazier. A gold chain of strange work lay about her neck under the robe. Without the armful of linen to mask it her pregnancy was visible but not,
Gil thought, very far advanced.

‘They’ve been at the door, the most of them, but I sent them away, I’m too taigled. But it’s no a bother to see you, after all this time,’ she said, ‘I was
just packing. Gil, you’re a man of law these days, are you no? Can you tell me how much of this I can lay claim to? I’d no like to go off wi something I’ve no right to
take.’

Gil closed his mouth, swallowed, and said carefully, ‘Your own clothes, your jewellery, items like your combs and spinning wheel and such like, are all paraphernal. That is,’ he
translated, seeing her anxious look, ‘they’re your own property and you can take them where you like. Also anything of the bairn’s,’ he added, ‘clothes and toys and so
forth.’

‘But do you have to leave immediately?’ asked Dorothea. ‘Surely whoever inherits the house, they’ll give you time to find somewhere else.’

‘Aye, likely,’ said Marion. There was a short silence.

‘I’m sorry about Maister Naismith’s death,’ said Dorothea, trying again. ‘He’ll be a sore miss to you, surely.’

‘No, I wouldny say that,’ pronounced Marion, gazing out of the open shutters at the lit windows of the house opposite. There was another silence. Gil slid a look at his sister, and
found her eyeing him round her veil. He cleared his throat, and their hostess turned the wide blue gaze on him.

‘Marion, how much did Andro Millar tell you?’ he asked.

She considered briefly ‘My uncle Frankie came by wi the word first, and then my brother John, and Andro came later, but they never told me a lot. Just that the Deacon was dead. They found
him in the bedehouse garden the morn. Is that right?’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Gil. ‘They never said how he had died?’ She shook her head. ‘He was stabbed, Marion.’

‘
Stabbed?
’ she repeated sharply.

Gil nodded. ‘It was murder. I’m Blacader’s Quaestor, and I’m pursuing the death to bring whoever did it to justice.’

‘No need for that,’ she said, the brief moment of animation over.

‘Everyone deserves justice,’ said Dorothea. Marion smiled kindly at her, but said nothing.

‘When did you see him last?’ Gil asked.

‘Who, the Deacon? Yestreen, it would be. He was here at supper-time. He ate his supper wi the household.’

‘What did you serve?’ Gil asked.

‘Stewed kale wi lentils, and a dish of roastit mutton,’ she said promptly, ‘and a plate of apple fritters to follow.’

‘And Malvoisie to drink?’

‘No,’ she said blankly. ‘Just ale. And my brother John was here. You’ll mind John, a course. He’s home from the sea, from Dumbarton, where his ship’s in the
now. Is that no good news?’ she said, a smile crossing the empty façade. ‘He fetched up at the door at noon yesterday, and I was that pleased to see him. Four year he’s
been away this time, him and – He brought me this chain,’ she touched it vaguely, ‘he says it’s Moorish make.’

‘It’s a bonnie thing,’ said Dorothea. ‘You must have been thankful to see him. Was he here at supper too?’

‘Aye.’

‘How long did Maister Naismith stay?’ asked Gil. ‘Did you sit talking after supper?’

‘No,’ she said, the blank look returning. ‘Naismith was to go out, so he said, about some business of his own, so he gaed off, and my brother was here a while longer talking
over – talking over old times.’ Was that a break in her voice? ‘Then John went off and all, to his lodging down the High Street, and I went to my bed.’

‘So you saw Naismith about six or seven o’clock?’ Gil said.

‘Aye, that would be it,’ she agreed.

‘What time would it be when he left?’

‘Maybe half an hour after seven.’ She sounded vague. ‘Would that be right, Eppie?’

‘Aye, I’d say so, mistress,’ said Eppie, returning with the child on her hip. ‘Can I leave the wean wi you a minute till I carry up this tray? Danny’s still in a
mood.’

The little one was passed over, smiling at its mother and, more shyly, at the visitors. It was an attractive child, dressed in a tunic of fine red wool protected by two layers of linen bib and
apron. A mop of dark curls overhung a little pale-skinned face with huge blue eyes like its mother’s. They could pose for an altarpiece, thought Gil.

‘And who’s this?’ asked Dorothea, smiling back at the child.

‘This is Frankie,’ said Marion unhelpfully. ‘We named her for my uncle,’ she added, finally providing the detail Gil wanted. ‘He’s been right good to me.
She’s being a bit clingy the day, aren’t you, my wee poppet? So Eppie’s been minding her till I get this packing done. Make your obedience to the lady and gentleman,
Frankie.’

After a little more coaxing Frankie slid off the settle, performed a wobbly curtsy, and hid her face in her mother’s lap when it was praised. Marion and Dorothea exchanged indulgent
glances.

‘Where was Maister Naismith going when he left here?’ Gil asked.

‘He never said,’ Marion declared. ‘He was – he wasny given to discussing his business wi me,’ she added firmly.

‘But did it seem like something he was looking forward to, maybe an evening with friends,’ persisted Gil, ‘or was it a matter of business? How was he when he left?’

‘Just ordinary,’ said Marion. Eppie, reappearing on the stair with the tray in her hands, cast a sharp glance at her mistress but said nothing. ‘Neither up nor down,’
Marion elaborated. ‘Will you have a cup of buttered ale?’

The refreshment was served out by Eppie, the ale steaming in the wooden beakers. It must, Gil reflected, have been already hot for the servants’ mid-afternoon break, to have appeared so
promptly. There was a plate of little cakes to hand round after it, at which Frankie emerged from her mother’s skirts looking hopeful.

‘You can have one cake,’ said Marion, ‘and then go down wi Eppie and have another one. You can come back to Mammy later.’

Gil watched as the two left, then began again.

‘Marion, did Maister Millar tell you anything else?’ She shook her head. ‘There was someone in the Deacon’s lodging by the time Millar got home last night, but we
don’t know where he was before that.’