‘She did not. First I’ve heard of this,’ said Lockhart, reddening in annoyance. ‘Christ’s nails, she was a steering woman!’
‘You heard nothing from outside the chapel?’ Gil asked.
‘Is that no what I’m saying? Only,’ persisted Sawney, ‘the mistress, she cam away right annoyed and saying something about Never a penny you’ll get for sic lees as this, and the woman sweering at her all across the yard, so I wondered maybe if it was her cam back and slew her acos she never gied her her reward.’
‘Was there a reward promised?’ Gil asked, disentangling this.
‘Aye,’ said Lockhart. ‘No a great one, just for information concerning Annie.’
‘What like was the woman?’ Lowrie asked from Gil’s side. Sawney looked at him, and shrugged.
‘Just ordinar.’
‘She’d a red kirtle,’ said the man next to him.
‘It was green,’ said the one at his other side.
‘An apron?’ Lowrie asked. ‘How big was she? Was she carrying anything?’
Some argument established that the woman had been middling sized, heavily built, wearing an apron and a good headdress and a red, blue, or possibly green kirtle with short sleeves, and had worn no plaid.
‘So she hadny come far,’ Sawney explained. ‘I took it she was come in from the street hereabouts.’
Gil raised an eyebrow at Lowrie, who nodded.
‘It could be the woman I spoke to,’ he agreed. ‘Agnes Templand, the name is.’
‘Will I go round wi a couple of the lads to take her up?’ Lockhart suggested, pushing back his stool. ‘Fetch her to the Castle, see what the Provost makes of her?’
‘No,’ said Gil, ‘but Lowrie could take your lads if you will and speak to her, see if her apron has blood on it. I’d say whoever killed Dame Ellen would be foul wi blood, and brains and all.’
‘She could change it,’ objected Sawney.
‘If she’s changed it,’ said Lowrie, ‘then we’ll ask to see the other. Come on, man, you’ll do, and you — Rab, is it?’
‘A moment,’ said Gil. ‘Sawney, tell me something. The night your mistress Annie was at the Cross.’ The man ducked his head, grimacing as if the words had stabbed him. ‘When you spoke to her, after the prentices had finished their battle and gone home. Was that before or after midnight?’
‘After midnight?’ Sawney stared, visibly trying to recall. ‘Aye, I’d say so. I canny mind right, maister, but I’d say aye, it would ha been after midnight. By where the moon was,’ he reflected, ‘it must ha been. Aye, aye, maister, after midnight it was.’ He nodded, touched his knitted bonnet, and hurried after Lowrie.
‘And your other two men,’ said Gil to Lockhart, wondering how reliable this might be, ‘if you’ll permit it, could go out and find the Muir brothers, let them hear Dame Ellen’s dead. Sir Simon has sent to their uncle, as patron, but the brothers are likely out in the town.’
‘I should ha thought o that,’ said Lockhart, reddening again. ‘Tell truth, Cunningham, I’m right owerset by this. Steering auld witch she might ha been, but I’d thought she’d go on for ever. Certainly never thought o her meeting her end like this, deserved or no.’ He jerked his head at the two remaining men, who nodded and slipped away after Lowrie and their fellows. Lockhart watched them go, then said gloomily, ‘So what’s happened, man? What did come to her? I saw her where she lay,’ he grimaced, ‘wi her brains all ower the tiles, they’ll ha to cleanse that chapel all ways, let alone the sacrilege, and it seemed to me like a madman’s work.’ His gaze slid sideways to Gil. ‘Is there any chance. Is it likely?’ He swallowed. ‘Could it ha been Annie?’ he finished in a rush. ‘Slipped back into the place and taen her revenge on the old-’ He stopped. Gil waited for a moment, then said,
‘Revenge?’
‘Aye, revenge. For years of-’ He stopped again, and shook his head. ‘Maybe no.’
‘Years of what?’
‘No. Forget it. I never meant-’
After another pause Gil said,
‘Did Dame Ellen spend much time in the chapel?’
Lockhart shrugged.
‘I’d not have said so, I thought she was more ower at St Mungo’s. She’d a right devotion to Our Lady in the Lower Kirk, but there’s St Catherine in the Upper Kirk and all. You could ask at the lassies, they might tell you.’ He glanced across the hall to where Alys was talking soothingly to Dame Ellen’s nieces, aided now by Sir Simon. Nicholas still had the hiccups. ‘If you can get a word o sense out them. My wife got the wits for all three o them, I can tell ye, maister. She’d not be owerset by a wee thing like this.’
‘They’re very young,’ said Gil, as he had said to Dame Ellen.
‘They’re old enough to be wed,’ retorted Lockhart, much as she had done.
‘So how did Dame Ellen deal wi Annie?’
‘Ach.’ The man hesitated. ‘Wi a firm hand. Aye you could say that, a firm hand.’
‘Too firm?’ Prompting the witness, thought Gil.
‘Away too firm, I’d ha thought. Ruled her like they two heedless lassies, wi commands and duties and Get to your needlework when I order it. She was a- She was a steering woman, Cunningham. You ken two o her husbands hanged theirsels?’
‘What? Two?’ repeated Gil incredulously.
‘Aye. The third one, her last, dee’d o his own accord, his heart they said, afore she could drive him to it. Small wonder she’s been left on Sir Edward’s hands these six or seven year. Annie’s a good lass, save for this daft vow she took, and I’ve aye wondered if that was as much to get her out from under the auld wife’s rule as to mourn her man.’
William Craigie, predictably, was the first of those summoned to arrive at the hostel. He came hurrying in, a great cloak over his plaid despite the mildness of the night, a lantern bobbing in his hand, staring nervously about the darkling courtyard as if he expected Dame Ellen’s corpse to appear before him.
‘What’s this, Gil?’ he demanded. ‘What’s afoot? A fellow came to tell me, there’s been another death. Is that right? Is it my- Is it Dame Ellen right enough? What’s come to her? Some accident, surely, she was well enough this morning!’
‘Aye, Dame Ellen,’ said Gil baldly. ‘D’you want to see her? She’s in the chapel.’
‘What, is she laid out and received already?’ Craigie turned to follow him.
‘No, she died there.’ Gil paused, hand on the chapel door, to study the other man’s reaction. ‘By violence,’ he added.
‘By violence? In the chapel?’ repeated Craigie. He raised his lantern to see Gil’s face; by its light his own expression was one of horror and deep dismay. A churchman’s reaction. Was it too deep, Gil wondered; was his response genuine, or assumed? ‘Who would do sic a thing? That’s terrible! Here, it wasny the same as at St Mungo’s? Has someone copied- Was she throttled like Barnabas?’
‘No. Her death has been very different,’ Gil said, pushing the chapel door open. Sir Simon, seated on the wall-bench again with his beads in his hand, looked up briefly and returned to his prayers. Craigie stepped in, halted as he took in the scene before him, and turned his face away, one hand over his mouth.
‘Christ aid the poor woman,’ he said, ‘what an end. Here, Gil, she wasny forced as well, was she?’
‘I think not,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no sign of it, certainly. Just had her head beaten in wi Sir Simon’s candlestick.’
‘No mine,’ said Sir Simon without raising his head. ‘It’s St Catherine’s.’
‘Aye,’ said Craigie indistinctly, then hurried out of the chapel. Gil followed, and found him in the yard, heaving drily, his lantern swinging by his knee. ‘You’ll forgive me,’ he managed after a moment, ‘I canny stay in there. The smell-’