‘Yes,’ said Alys, eyeing the girl opposite her. ‘Perhaps I should have said, not worried about you. He knew you were safe.’
Annie looked down, then up again, and suddenly smiled.
‘How is he? And how,’ her expression changed again, ‘how is my good-father? Is he yet living?’
‘The last I heard,’ Alys said gently, ‘he was still living, but very near the end, and Doctor Januar was attending him closely.’
Annie bent her head, dabbing at her eyes.
‘I forgot,’ she admitted. ‘It was so good to be out of that, to be clean again, to be free of- I forgot how near death he was. He’s been a good father to me, as loving as my own daddy. We said our farewells when we reached Glasgow, afore I went out to St Mungo’s, I knew I might no see him again, but it’s still-’
‘Tell me,’ said Alys. ‘Tell me from the beginning. Was it your idea entirely, or Sir Edward’s?’
‘Oh, no, it was Christie’s,’ said Annie proudly. ‘Chrysostom’s. He saw how I was imprisoned, when he cam to Glenbuck, and planned it all, wi my good-father’s aid, and sent his own man to Glasgow in secret to help. Our daddy was the only one could deal wi Dame Ellen, and he was right glad to see a way out for me. My sisters are betrothed already, they’ll be safe enough when he’s away, but neither him nor me could see how to get me out o her power, and he’d aye promised me he would see me safe.’ She paused, and looked sideways at Alys. ‘I’ve wondered often if he kent more about her than he’s ever said, he was that determined I should have some protection afore he went.’
‘You’ve no idea what?’ Alys asked, curious. Annie shook her head.
‘None. Any road, she’s had one man or another ready for me every month since Arthur dee’d, it was clear enough she’d have me carried off by the latest in her favour afore Sir Edward was buried, and I may tell you, Alys did you say your name was? I’d not wed a man she recommended if he was the last in Scotland.’
‘I can well imagine,’ said Alys.
‘Vicious, all of them,’ said Annie, her face twisting. ‘There are decent men in Ayrshire, there must be, but she-’ She broke off, and Mistress Forrest patted her hand.
‘There now, my lamb, you’re safe now. She’s gone where she’ll not hurt you.’
‘Aye, and how did that happen? What slew her?’ Annie asked, as if it had only now occurred to her. ‘Was it an apoplexy struck her down in one of her rages, or what?’
‘Not an apoplexy,’ said Alys. Somehow it was difficult to find the words, to form the sentence. ‘She was- She has been-’
‘She was murdered,’ supplied Jennet, with no such qualms. Mistress Forrest sat back, exclaiming and flinging up her hands. ‘Struck down wi a candlestock in the chapel at St Catherine’s. My mistress was out all last night comforting your good-sisters, mem, and the whole town’s in disarray wi the crime. Sacrilege on the Stablegreen!’ she pronounced with enthusiasm.
‘Murdered?’ repeated Annie in dismay. ‘And in the chapel? But who? Not Christie, surely! Tell me it wasny him!’
‘He has hardly left your good-father’s side,’ Alys pointed out, ‘and the servant bears this out, so my husband says.’
‘But what happened?’
Alys recounted what they knew of Dame Ellen’s last hours. Annie listened, frowning, and crossed herself at the end.
‘Our Lord hasten her days in Purgatory,’ she said. ‘It sounds as though it wasny any of the household that slew her, and that’s a blessing. To think of anyone I knew doing sic a thing, well, it would right scunner you.’
‘So who might it have been?’ Alys asked, over Jennet’s murmur of agreement. ‘Can you think who there might be in Glasgow who would deal with her so violently? I got no help from your sisters,’ she added, ‘and I think my husband learned little from the men.’
‘Small wonder that!’ said Annie, smiling wryly. ‘They’re dear lassies, but Mariota got the wisdom for all three o them. No, I couldny say,’ she added, ‘save she might ha summoned one or another o her freens to her, maybe started in to lecture him, and angered him beyond measure.’
Alys considered this, frowning. It seemed to link to something Gil had said, something- Mistress Forrest leaned forward with an exclamation, and drew a yellow-glazed pot away from the fire.
‘I’m that caught up in what you’re saying, lassie, I’m no watching this buttered ale. I’d say it was about ready. Will you take a mouthful?’
By the time Jennet had assisted in serving out beakers of the foaming, spicy stuff, the connection had vanished into the recesses of Alys’ thoughts. Abandoning it for the moment, she raised her beaker and said,
‘Good fortune to you, Annie, and good health.’
‘Good fortune to you, Alys,’ the other girl returned conventionally, ‘and your heart’s desire along wi it.’
Alys caught her breath a moment. Even in the midst of pursuing Gil’s duties, there it was, taunting her. Her heart’s desire-
‘Tell me,’ she said resolutely, ‘tell me what happened that night. They bound you to the Cross, and left your men to keep an eye on you from St Thomas’s chapel. What happened then?’
‘Were you no feart?’ asked Jennet curiously. ‘I’d ha been mad wi fright, all on my lone like that, and tied up and all.’
‘I was,’ Annie said. ‘It was no so bad while the laddies were at their play, out beyond the kirkyard gates, but once they went home it was awful quiet. And then there was noises in the trees, and an owl.’ She shivered. ‘I near dee’d of the fright when the owl screeched. But I said a prayer to St Mungo,’ she went on resolutely, ‘and then Christie came out from the almshouse, like we’d planned, and came to the Cross. Only, when he came to me, he had,’ she swallowed, ‘he had a dead woman wi him.’
‘A dead woman?’ repeated Mistress Forrest. ‘You never tellt me that, my lammie!’ She looked from her nurseling to Alys, and back. ‘Is that how that poor soul came to be there? And the Provost calling a quest on her and everything!’
‘Poor soul indeed,’ said Annie. ‘He’d found her lying in the roadway, stark dead. I asked him why he’d carried her there, and he, he, he suggested that we bind her to the Cross in my stead, so my men would think it was me.’
‘Could you no ha trusted them, mistress?’ asked Jennet. ‘Seemed to me they was all gey fond of you, Meggot and the fellows too by what she said.’
‘Ellen. That was why. If they knew nothing,’ Annie said, ‘Dame Ellen could get nothing out of them. She’d ha beaten the lights out of them if she suspected they knew where I’d gone.’
‘So you cut the dead woman’s gown off,’ said Alys, ‘and threw it in the burn, and bound her to the Cross.’
Annie nodded.
‘Christie had his wee shears on him, and his knife, and the two o us-’ She grimaced. ‘Poor lassie. I canny forget the way she rolled about as we worked.’
‘What about the cord round her neck?’
‘Cord? What cord? No, her neck was broke, Christie said, that was what killed her. He’d no notion who she was.’ She crossed herself. ‘I thought, well, whoever did that to her flung her down in the road like rubbish on a midden, maybe if we left her at the Cross St Mungo would take her under his protection.’
‘You tied no cord about her neck?’
‘No, have I no just said that? What are you talking about?’
‘Some time before dawn,’ Alys said deliberately, ‘someone came by and throttled the dead woman with a cord. Someone who thought they were killing her.’
Annie stared. The beaker fell from her hand, rolling across the beaten-earth floor and spilling foam. The blue eyes rolled upwards into her head, and she collapsed bonelessly sideways, onto Mistress Forrest’s broad bosom.
‘Oh, my lamb! Annie!’ the older woman exclaimed. Jennet scrambled to help her. Alys rose to snatch the plaid hanging on a nail at the back of the door and spread it out, and they lowered Annie to the ground. She was already beginning to stir, her hands twitching as if she was fighting something off. Mistress Forrest, still exclaiming, began patting her cheeks and chafing at her arms.