‘Better than Lockhart,’ said Nicholas. ‘They both are!’
‘That’s no hard!’
The two exchanged another look, and giggled. Alys was aware of Meggot, over by the other wall, glancing at the sisters and shaking her head disapprovingly. Taking care not to meet Jennet’s eye, she said,
‘I had not realised you had kin at St Mungo’s. Who is it?’
‘Och, none of our kin,’ said Ursula dismissively. ‘Some connection o my aunt’s by her first marriage, I think she said. He’s no ill looking, but he’s a priest, all shaven and shorn, though that didny stop him putting his hand about Nick’s waist when we met him.’
‘Aye, and Ellen never checked him,’ said Nicholas, wriggling in remembered displeasure.
‘But do you recall his name?’ asked Alys. He gropith so nyselye about my lape, she thought, reviewing a list of the St Mungo’s clergy in her mind. There were several whom she would not wish to consult without Jennet or preferably Gil at her elbow, but not all of these were no ill looking.
‘William?’ said Ursula.
‘William Craigie,’ her sister contributed. She nodded at sight of Alys’s expression, and went on, ‘To hear Ellen the sun shines out his bum.’
‘She wasny saying that the morn,’ observed Ursula. ‘Abusing him for a’things, she was, out there in the courtyard, for something he hadny done.’
‘What was it?’ the other girl asked avidly. Ursula shrugged.
‘Never heard. She stopped when she saw me, got at me for no finishing my seam instead.’
‘Just the same,’ said Nicholas doggedly, ‘she mostly thinks he’s a pattern o perfection, but what I heard was, he’d a major penance to perform, the way he’d done something right serious against Holy Kirk.’
‘Who tellt you that?’ demanded Ursula. Nicholas shrugged in her turn.
‘One of your man’s folk, when they all cam up to sign your betrothal papers. I forget the lad’s name. Meggot!’ she called over her shoulder.
‘Aye, lassie, what is it?’ Meggot responded, pausing with another little cake halfway to her mouth.
‘Do you mind that lad of Arthur Kennedy’s telling us about William Craigie and his penance?’
‘She does not,’ said another voice from the window. They all turned, startled, to find a grim-faced woman staring in at the wide-flung shutters. Beyond her a liveried manservant slipped off towards the stable block. ‘And what has it to do wi you, my girl, any road? I’ve brought you up better than to spend your time gossiping wi other folk’s servants, Nicholas Shaw, let alone passing on whatever slanders they’ve spoken, and I’ll thank you to keep it in mind.’
Alys, rising as good manners dictated to curtsy to the newcomer, observed the reactions in the room with interest. The sisters were annoyed by the interruption, only slightly embarrassed at being found gossiping; Meggot appeared to be frightened. Would this mean another beating, perhaps? Or did she fear something worse? What could be worse, Alys speculated, waiting for Dame Ellen to come round by the door of the guest-hall. Meggot might lose her place, or she might be sent back out to Glenbuck to wait alone for news of Annie, or her mistress might report badly of her to Sir Edward. No, she was Annie’s servant, not Dame Ellen’s, or so Gil had said; it could hardly be that.
‘Good afternoon, Aunt,’ said Ursula in a tone of faint malice as the older woman stalked into the hall. ‘I hope you had solace of your time at St Mungo’s. This is Mistress Alys Mason, that’s wedded on that man that’s seeking our Annie, come to offer us comfort in our troubles.’
‘Indeed I am sorry for all your distress,’ said Alys, curtsying again and going forward with her hands outstretched. ‘Is there still no word of your niece?’
‘No niece of mine,’ said Dame Ellen curtly, ignoring the hands. ‘No, there’s no word, though it would ease my poor brother’s passing greatly if he kent where the lassie had got to, deid or living.’
‘It is very strange,’ Alys persisted, ‘that she should have vanished away so completely. Is there nobody that might have given her shelter, can you think?’
‘Do you no think we’ve racked our brains for a clue?’ retorted the older woman, bridling. ‘Now we’ll no keep you back, mistress, kind as it was in ye to entertain these silly lassies for a bit. And your woman and all.’ Her gimlet gaze went beyond Alys, and a rustle of cloth suggested that Jennet felt similarly impelled to curtsy. ‘Good day to ye, madam.’
Out in the courtyard she encountered someone who could only be the doctor, a small man with curly dark hair, in a stained cloth gown which looked as if he regularly wore it while pounding simples or concocting remedies. She curtsied to him, under Jennet’s suspicious glower, and when he acknowledged it she introduced herself and asked after his patient. He shook his head sadly, and she noted the dark shadows under the blue eyes.
‘I think he has a difficult passage,’ she said in French, aware of watching eyes, of listening ears in the hall behind her, ‘despite the prayers of his friends.’
The doctor nodded.
‘Difficult indeed,’ he replied in the same language. ‘I can keep the pain at bay, but it is terrible to combat. There will be no poppy left in Glasgow, I suspect.’
‘How long has he got? How long do we have to find the missing lady?’
‘I think he will wait until he knows she is safe.’
Alys stepped forward and placed a hand on his sleeve.
‘What if she is no longer living?’ she said. ‘The longer it takes to find her or some trace of her, the less certain my husband is that we will find her alive.’
There was a tiny pause, and Januar said smoothly,
‘Why, if she is no longer living, then she is assuredly safe under Our Lady’s mantle.’
Alys considered him for a moment, but let that pass.
‘She seems to have no connection or acquaintance in this part of Scotland,’ she said. ‘If there was a house of nuns in Glasgow one might seek her there, but we can learn of nowhere else she could have turned to.’
‘My concern is for my patient,’ said the doctor after a moment. ‘You will excuse me, madame.’
The hostel’s little chapel was dark and quiet, though there were candles on the stand at the feet of the patron saint on her pillar to the left of the chancel arch. Jennet, at first wishing to exclaim indignantly about Dame Ellen’s behaviour, fell silent when her mistress drew out her beads, and retreated to sit near the door on the narrow wall-bench. Alys stood before St Catherine, head bent, not praying but trying to order what she had learned just now. The Shaw sisters were remarkably silly girls, as their aunt said, she thought dispassionately, but they did not seem ill intentioned, and if they knew anything about what had happened to their sister-in-law, they would be hard pressed to conceal it. Dame Ellen was another matter; the woman was certainly concealing something, but what? Was she directly involved in Annie’s disappearance, or did she know or suspect who might be involved? Why did Meggot fear her?
‘She’s aye ready wi her hands, so Meggot said,’ said Jennet as they made their way down the hill, past the high sandstone walls of the castle. ‘Showed me her bruises, she did, that the old dame gied her only for saying it wasny her own mistress that lay dead in the chapel. Is that the chapel where we were the now, mem? Small wonder if they were mistook at first, it was that dark.’
‘Did she tell you anything else?’ Alys asked, untangling this statement. ‘Does she know where her own mistress is, do you think?’
‘I’d say no,’ Jennet pronounced after a moment. ‘She seems right concerned for her, saying she’s no notion whether she’s living or where she might be. What else did she say, now?’ She clopped across the flagstones round the Girth Cross behind Alys, considering the matter. ‘It’s been a good position till now, for she’s fond o the lassie that’s missing, for all her strange ways. But what wi the young leddies about to be wedded, and the maister on his deathbed, though she says he’s been that way for months now, she’s no notion o what’s to come to her, the soul.’ She thought further. ‘Tellt me a bit about the life. I was never in a country position, see, mem, and I wouldny fancy it, by what she says. That doctor turned up a few month ago, wi his man-’