‘No, I agree,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘She was already dead when the cord was used.’
‘What? She was throttled after — after she was dead?’ said Lowrie incredulously. ‘Why? Why would anybody do that?’
‘Not long after,’ conceded Maistre Pierre. ‘She had barely begun to stiffen. See, the cord has sunk into the flesh a little way, but there has been no swelling round it.’ He lifted one dangling end as he spoke, and began to ease the length of hemp away from the thin neck, working with difficulty round under the jaw. ‘I suppose she hung on those ropes? Her head is so far bent I am surprised this comes free, even without being sunk in the flesh.’
‘And when did she die, I wonder?’ said Gil. His father-in-law shook his head.
‘No certainty, though it was probably within an hour of midnight, a little earlier, a little later.’
‘I spoke to the men,’ said Lowrie after a moment. ‘Sawney and Rab. It was just as Sawney said while you were there, Maister Gil. Their task was to bind her to the cross, and keep an eye on her through the night. They thought she’d be safe enough, and St Nicholas’ chapel was handy and out of the night air.’
‘No way to go about their duty,’ said Maistre Pierre disapprovingly, ‘and see what has come of it. Why could they not stay with her, to keep her from harm?’ He coaxed the last length of cord from its seat and studied its length, then wound it round his hand and handed the tow-coloured loops to Gil.
‘It’s usual to leave them alone at the cross for the night,’ said Gil. ‘But it’s mostly men that are treated like that, and I do wonder at anyone leaving a lassie alone. She was tied there in the dark, her friends out of sight in St Nicholas’ chapel, and someone came along, beat her senseless or near it, slew her in some way we’ve not yet discerned, and only then throttled her. It makes no sense of any sort.’ He bent over the girl’s battered face again. ‘Pierre, can you see any ashes on her?’
‘Ashes?’ His father-in-law came closer. ‘What, on her brow? As for Ash Wednesday?’
‘Lockhart said they applied ashes when she heard Mass, before she was put in place at the Cross. I don’t see any about her now.’ He touched his own forehead involuntarily. ‘It’s fine stuff, it doesny come off readily, save you use soap and water. I wonder how she got rid of it?’
‘That is strange indeed. There is more,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘When I saw her in the evening she was bound so,’ he stood upright, his arms at his sides. ‘Her hands were not free.’
‘That’s how she was before we took her down,’ agreed Lowrie, ‘though she was hanging on the ropes by then, as you said, maister, just the way she’s set now.’
‘Then tell me how she has managed to scratch her attacker.’ The mason cradled one of the corpse’s stiffened hands in his big one, pointing at the fingertips. ‘There is blood under her nails, and two are broken. She has fought. How did she do that, bound as we saw her?’
There was a brief silence.
‘The ropes,’ said Lowrie cryptically. He turned and darted out of the chapel. Gil remained, studying the dead woman.
‘Something else I wonder at,’ he said, ‘is the family. So far I’ve spoken to the good-brother, and we’ve met two serving-men. Where are the rest of them? If they’re all as fond as the man Lockhart gave me to understand you’d think someone would be here to see her, to order her laying-out or the like, or to pray for her.’
‘Perhaps they wait until she is washed,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘For which I should not blame them.’
On the word, footsteps sounded in the courtyard outside, and the mason pulled the linen up over the hunched shoulders and hideous battered face, just before a woman entered the little chapel, tall against the light for a moment. She checked at sight of them, then came forward, saying,
‘Well, sirs. That must be you that’s put the fear of God into Lockhart, then?’ She stepped aside to let a sturdy maidservant past with a basin of water. ‘Aye, lass, set it all down there, we’ll get to work soon enough. I’ll have to ask you men to leave us, till I get my poor niece made decent.’
‘Dame Ellen, is it?’ said Gil.
‘And what if it is? Who’s asking?’
Gil bowed, and introduced himself and his father-in-law. She heard him out, nodding, and smiled thinly at them both by the light from the doorway. Her front teeth were large, and crossed, giving her mouth a kissable shape greatly at odds with the rest of her expression.
‘Aye, you have it right, I’m Ellen Shaw, that’s run my brother’s house and raised his lassies these twelve year.’ She considered Gil. ‘A Cunningham, are you? You’ll be Gelis Muirhead’s laddie, I suppose. I mind her when we were young. You’ve a look o her.’ She unbuttoned the tight sleeves of her kirtle and began to roll them up. ‘Now I’d ask you to leave, sirs, till Meggot and I get to work, and you can take that great dog wi you.’
‘I need to inspect-’ Gil began.
‘It can wait. She was aye a modest lassie, even in her melancholy, and we’ll just maintain her modesty now she’s dead. Away ye go.’ She made shooing motions with her large bony hands.
‘Have you been told what happened to her?’ Gil asked. She looked more intently at him and nodded, her face grimly set. ‘Beaten and then throttled, or so we think. We need to know if you find any more injuries, anything at all, and if anything seems out of place or not right about her clothes or her body.’
‘I’ll keep a look out, maister, you can be sure o that, and so will Meggot, but we must have your room afore we begin.’
Gil went, not very hopefully. Out in the yard Maistre Pierre was already kicking gloomily at a clump of grass growing between two cobbles.
‘The world is full of high-handed women,’ he complained.
‘Certainly Scotland is,’ agreed Gil.
‘And where did young Lowrie go? That is a useful fellow, you were wise to take him on, Gilbert.’
‘Alys suggested it.’
‘Hmm,’ said Alys’s father, but said no more, as Lowrie entered from the street with his arms full of a great tangle of rope.
‘Euan had it,’ he said. ‘Deil kens what he was planning to do with it. Look at this, Maister Gil.’
He dropped most of the tangle, in order to hold up one length. Euan, or one of his helpers, had cut the loops of rope to free the dead woman from the upright of the cross, and the knots were still present. But clearly to be seen were the kinks and curves of a previous knot, unpicked with care some time before the dead woman was bound in her place.
‘So was she freed, beaten, and tied up again?’ speculated Lowrie.
‘Mon Dieu!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Or was it not a new rope, perhaps?’
‘We need to check,’ said Gil. ‘It’s usually a new rope. This one has certainly been tied and untied once at least, I agree, Lowrie.’
‘Would the family tell us?’ Lowrie asked, colouring up at the commendation in Gil’s tone.
‘Lockhart, or the men-’ began Gil, and was interrupted. There was a sudden outbreak of shouting within the little chapel, the two women’s voices raised, one in anger, one protesting, the sound of a hearty slap. Gil, striding towards the discord, collided in the chapel doorway with the maidservant Meggot backing out.
‘I swear it, mistress!’ she was protesting, one hand nursing her ear, ‘it’s no her, it’s no our Annie! It’s some other woman, Our Lady kens who it is, but it’s never her!’
‘Fool of a lassie!’ Dame Ellen was in pursuit, hands reaching for her shoulders to shake her, ‘who else could it be? Barefoot in a sacking gown and bound to the Girth Cross, a course it’s Annie! No matter if her own mammy wouldny ken her face!’
‘What’s this?’ demanded Gil, and they both stopped to stare at him. ‘Is there some doubt about the corp?’
‘This gomeril-’ began Dame Ellen, and visibly controlled herself to assume her thin smile. ‘This foolish lassie tries to tell me-’
‘No, mistress, I swear it!’ said Meggot again. ‘It’s no her! It’s no Annie Gibb!’
Beside the bier, despite the indignant comments of Dame Ellen, she offered more reasoned argument, lifting a lock of the corpse’s elbow-length mud-coloured hair.