‘You must be Mistress Mudie,’ said Alys. ‘I’m Alys Mason. I’m told you are herb-wise, and I wished for your advice, madame.’
Mistress Mudie’s expression altered. ‘- depends what you were wanting, there’s matters I’ll no deal wi — ’
‘Of course there are,’ agreed Alys. She stepped into the kitchen and bobbed a neat curtsy. The two women exchanged formal kisses, and though Mistress Mudie’s conversation did not seem to halt as she bustled in and out of her own chamber, by the time Gil had rinsed the uncompromising smell of stale urine off his hands at the stone sink in the corner she and Alys were seated at the long table discussing a small pot of ointment, while Socrates watched alertly from the doorway and the young man hacking vegetables worked on at the other end of the board. A coin was exchanged, Alys murmuring something about a donation, and Mistress Mudie’s dimple appeared as she smiled.
‘- oh, that’s kind, I canny take payment in course but this’ll buy a wee treat for my old men, this should sort your lassie’s hands in a day or so, dearie, Mallie there has the same trouble and I aye give her some of this to put on when it’s bad — ’ The two kitchenmaids looked round at this, then returned hastily to their work as Mistress Mudie glared at them and chattered on, now apparently to Gil, ‘- that good of you to come out to help us when you’re as taigled, but the idea that someone made away wi the Deacon I canny get used to, it’s surely a mistake of some sort, it’s made Humphrey sore distressed, the poor soul, you saw him the now, he’d like a wee word, if you’d be so good, he’s still here in my chamber where his brother canny find him if he comes by again wi no warning — ’
‘Maister Humphrey?’ said Gil, picking this thread out of the tangle. ‘How is he now?’
‘- oh, he’s as jumpy as a flea, and no wonder, wi his own kin making such accusations against him, so if the two of you could indulge him, lassie, Maister Cunningham, I’d take it as a real deed of charity — ’
‘I’ll speak to him, of course,’ said Gil, wondering how it was that he was still Maister Cunningham but Alys was lassie as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. ‘Alys?’
‘And I,’ she said, a little reluctantly.
Humphrey was sitting by the brazier in Mistress Mudie’s chamber, biting at his cuffs and staring anxiously at the wall. Hoccleve again, Noon abood, noon areest, but al brain-seke, thought Gil. When they entered he looked round sharply, shrinking back, but recovered when he recognized a familiar face.
‘It’s you that’s asking the questions,’ he said through Mistress Mudie’s tumbling speech. ‘I saw you this morn. And this one’s your bonnie make.’ Alys, tense beside Gil, nodded in acknowledgement. ‘And I see it now, maister, you’re no a hoodie. I took you for a hoodie, but I can tell now you’re a heron.’
‘A heron?’ said Gil involuntarily. ‘Why ever a heron?’
Humphrey gave him his blank smile.
‘Oh, it’s quite clear to me. A heron that goes stepping about in all the mud,’ he demonstrated the deliberate gait with his hands, ‘watching his feet, and then stabs! wi his beak.’ Gil felt Alys flinch beside him as Humphrey stabbed with his beakless head. ‘And this is your make, maister. A heron like yoursel, she is.’
‘This is Mistress Mason,’ said Gil formally. A heron? he thought. In her blue woollen gown, the grey plaid over her shoulders, her plumage was the right colour, but that was all.
‘- no a very nice thing to call a bonnie lassie — ’ agreed Mistress Mudie.
‘Maister Humphrey,’ said Gil, on a venture. Humphrey turned his blank smile on him again. ‘You mind you told me that Deacon Naismith is a robin, now that he’s dead?’
‘Aye, that’s right, he’s a robin,’ agreed Humphrey.
‘So who’s the sparrow?’ Gil asked hopefully.
Humphrey shook his head. ‘No, no. There’s no sparrow here. Frankie’s a kestrel, see, and Anselm’s a coal-tit, and Cubby’s a yaffle,’ he counted on his fingers, ‘and Barty’s a barn-owl, and Duncan’s a jay, you can tell, but there’s no sparrow in the place.’
‘And Maister Millar?’
‘Andro’s another owl,’ Humphrey said confidently.
‘Now that’s enough, my poppet, you and your games, calling folk all sorts — ’ said Mistress Mudie reprovingly.
Humphrey ignored her, and looked from Gil to Alys again. ‘And you’re to be wed soon, wi kirk and Mass, Sissie tells us.’
‘That’s right.’
With unnerving suddenness, Humphrey’s eyes focused, and his expression changed to one of professional pastoral concern. He raised his right hand with its bleeding nails, and pronounced a blessing on their coming marriage in rolling Latin phrases. Gil found his throat stopped, but Alys’s tongue was loosed. Bending her head she crossed herself and said gently, ‘Thank you indeed, Maister Humphrey. I hope you’ll pray for us.’
‘And you for me, my lassie, if you will, for Our Lord kens I need it,’ said Humphrey. Then, abandoning sense, ‘Sissie, have you a bit fish for these two herons?’
‘They’ll eat in their own place, my poppet,’ said Mistress Mudie, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘And maybe you’d best go now, for he’s no been good the day, it was all too much for us yesterday what wi one thing and then another — ’
‘The poor man,’ said Alys as they stepped into the yard.
‘Much sorwe I walke with For beste of boon and blood,’ Gil quoted. ‘It seems he is mad for grief and guilt.’
She nodded, then looked around, and drew Gil to the chapel. The little building was full of shadows leaping from the two candles on the altar; nothing else moved, although it felt almost as if someone had left as they entered. Through the roof? Gil wondered, amused at himself. There’s only the one door.
‘The two women sleep out,’ Alys was saying quietly, ‘as I suspected when you said they were talking about witchcraft. No wonder the laddie was frightened. And he sleeps under the table or on the hearth, and saw and heard nothing moving, not even the Devil.’
‘Alys, that’s marvellous,’ he said, drawing her into his arms.
‘I do wonder,’ she went on, ‘now I have seen the boy, whether he would think to mention it if Mistress Mudie had left her chamber later. He must be used to her going in and out at all hours if she’s needed.’
‘Difficult to find out.’ Gil tightened his clasp. ‘What did you learn from the painter’s man?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She paused, ordering her thoughts. ‘He spoke to his cousin last night, indeed she must have told the half of Glasgow about it all. The only new thing I learned is that Naismith may have known the little girl was not his. You said the dates didn’t add up, didn’t you?’
‘Mm,’ he said, and kissed the top of her ear.
‘I wondered if her brother thought it was Naismith’s.’
‘What would that do?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. It gives him the more reason to dislike the man, if Naismith was repudiating his mistress and his child as well.’
‘Did Daidie know who is the child’s father?’
‘He said not.’
‘If this was a verse romance, it would turn out to be the mysterious watcher.’
‘Oh, Daidie mentioned him too. By today he’d become a giant with a black beard and a bloody sword.’ She looked up at him, her quick smile flickering. ‘The Watch won’t venture along the Drygate this night, I imagine.’
‘I wonder what Bel really saw? I’m not inclined to believe in her watcher, giant or not.’
She nodded, and laid her head briefly on his shoulder, then drew away slightly. Reluctantly, he let her go, and she bent the knee to the altar and crossed herself.
‘What is my father doing with the accounts?’ she speculated. Heart heavy, he followed her out across the yard and up the sounding stair.
Maistre Pierre had all the bundles of paper arranged on the polished surface of the table, and was peering at one sheet held at a distance, his tablets in his other hand.
‘The man wrote appalling small,’ he complained as they entered. ‘This is that very profitable estate, you recall, Gil, out by Kilsyth. The total is considerable.’