by Pat McIntosh
Also by Pat McIntosh
The Harper’s Quine
The Nicholas Feast
The Merchant’s Mark
St Mungo’s Robin
The Rough Collier
The Stolen Voice
A Pig of Cold Poison
The Counterfeit Madam
The Fourth Crow
The King’s Corrodian
CONSTABLE
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Constable
Copyright © Pat McIntosh, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47211-862-2
Constable
is an imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
www.hachette.co.uk
www.littlebrown.co.uk
For Alys’s paternoster maker, Dame Christiane; and for Timothy, who wrote to me, and his mother Thea; and for Martin
SEMPER
et in saecula saeculorum.
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Author’s Note
I have taken some liberties with the geology of the Mouse Water Valley, endowing it with an extra cave where I needed one. Most of the other landscape details are at least known to history, though they may not be visible now.
The burgh of Lanark still celebrates Lanimer Day, which falls now on the Thursday between the sixth and twelfth of June each year. The boundaries are traced, and there is a Lanimer Fair with Victorian accretions such as the procession of the Lanimer Queen. Lanark expatriates try to get home for the event, which is widely reported in the Lanarkshire papers.
Ever since it became a kingdom, Scotland has had two native languages, Gaelic (which in the fifteenth century was called Ersche) and Scots, both of which you will find used in the Gil Cunningham books. I have translated the Gaelic where needful, and those who have trouble with the Scots could consult the online Dictionary of the Scots Language, to be found at www.dsl.ac.uk. In this book there is a smattering of the tinkers’ or travellers’ cant, which I have also translated where needful.
This book has had a longer gestation and a harder labour than usual, for a number of reasons. Many people have encouraged me, nagged me and helped me; they know who they are, but my sister and Gil’s godmother are certainly top of the list. I am deeply grateful to all of them.
Chapter One
When the news of Mistress Audrey Madur’s disappearance reached Gil Cunningham, he was walking with his young wife Alys in the orchard by his mother’s house of Belstane, enjoying the green shade of the high fruit trees.
The weather was unusually warm for a Scottish summer, and the airs of Glasgow had been close and muggy for days. Alys, discovering a week since that measles was abroad in the burgh, had packed up most of the household, including Gil’s small ward John McIan, and removed to the fresher air of Carluke. It had taken Gil a few days to deal with the outstanding work on his desk, and he had only just been able to follow her, leaving his young assistant to mind the legal practice and Alys’s aged companion to mind the house.
‘It’s much healthier up here,’ Alys observed, gazing up into the quince tree, the sunlight edging the high bridge of her nose. ‘The air is cleaner, and there are breezes. Look, there will be a good crop this year. Your mother has promised me some quince leather.’
‘True,’ said Gil to her first statement. ‘And there have been deaths in the lower town. Your father is very concerned for Ealasaidh and the boy. You were wise to leave Glasgow. Is John behaving?’
She turned to look at him, brown eyes dancing.
‘Do you think he can behave? He went after the cockerel’s tail feathers yesterday, such a squawking and shrieking in the henyard you never heard. Alan wished me to beat him, but your mother only laughed. I think Alan fears John will lead his boy into trouble.’
‘Very likely,’ said Gil, grinning. ‘I remember raiding the henyard for feathers too. They make rare plumes for a helmet.’
‘Maister Gil!’ a voice called under the trees. ‘Mistress?’
‘We’re here, Alan,’ Gil answered, and turned to stroll towards the orchard gate. ‘What’s he done now?’
Lady Cunningham’s steward appeared, hot and flustered in his gown of office, shaking his head.
‘It’s no the wee boy, maister, it’s Mistress Somerville from Kettlands, over by Lanark, wanting a word.’
‘Somerville,’ Gil repeated as he reached the man. ‘Come under the shade and catch your breath, it’s ower hot to be hurrying. Is that Yolande Somerville? James Madur’s widow? What’s she after?’
‘Aye, that’s the lady.’ Alan Forrest fanned himself with his straw hat, but drew gratefully into the shade. ‘Mistress.’ He bent the knee briefly to Alys. ‘She wedded her youngest lassie a year back, a plain quiet lass, no a great dower seeing her daddy’s gone, so Mistress Somerville took the lanimer man from Lanark for her.’
‘What, Brosie Vary? That’s no such a bad bargain,’ Gil said in surprise. ‘I’d ha thought he could do better than that in the burgh. He was a couple of years ahead of me at the college in Glasgow,’ he added to Alys. ‘He’ll be past thirty by now, and well established.’
‘Well, no,’ Alan said awkwardly, carefully not looking at Alys again. ‘He’s a younger son, after a’, and buried three wives a’ready, two in childbed, one fell sick while she was carrying. They’re a bit wary o him in Lanark now, or so I hear. Any road,’ he said, returning to the point, ‘his wife, Mistress Somerville’s lassie’s missing and she wants a word wi you.’
‘Missing?’ Alys repeated in astonishment. ‘What, has she run away?’
‘Mistress Somerville says no,’ said Alan.
‘What does Vary say?’ Gil asked, opening the orchard gate for Alys to pass through. ‘Is he here? What’s it all about, anyway?’
‘Maister Vary’s no present,’ said Alan in neutral tones. He turned to close and bolt the gate, and added with no more expression, ‘Best if Mistress Somerville lets you have the tale hersel. She’s wi the mistress the now.’
Gil looked at Alys, raising his eyebrows. Presumably his mother was taking this seriously, if she had sent Alan to fetch him in.
Egidia Muirhead, Lady Cunningham, was seated in the hall of her tower-house, very upright on the oak settle by the cavernous empty fireplace, her stout maidservant Nan watchful by the wall. The chatelaine of Belstane was wearing an elderly but still respectable wrapped gown of fine dark red wool, suitable for the warm weather, with her second-best girdle about her waist, the one shod with
silver and garnets, and an old-fashioned flowerpot headdress from which wisps of iron-grey hair escaped under her fine linen veil. The gown was clasped on the breast with the jewelled badge of her service in the late Queen’s household. Gil recognised that his mother had had warning of this guest and dressed to make a statement. She could command respect wearing muddy boots and one of her dead husband’s old gowns; like this she was magnificent.
Opposite her was a rather different lady. Short and plump, she was clad in fashionable black silk brocade, with extravagant cuffs on her tight sleeves. A braid-trimmed French hood and black velvet veil were clamped down over a snowy cap; a finely pleated barbe probably concealed more than one extra chin, and a thick layer of dust powdered all above her waist. She was accompanied by a scrawny maid and a groom in velvet livery.
As Gil and Alys entered the hall she was almost bouncing up and down on her padded backstool, saying in agitated tones, ‘But where can she be? Vary’s no concerned, but I ken my lass, madam, I ken what she’d be like to do, and where would she go in her state anyway?’ She gestured down her own ample front, describing a swollen belly. By the empty hearth Socrates the wolfhound, sleeping off the twenty-mile journey of the morning, did not stir at Gil’s footstep.
‘When’s the groaning-ale to be brewed for?’ Lady Egidia asked delicately. ‘Has she long to go?’
‘Four weeks, no more, that’s why I’m—’ Mistress Somerville shook her head so that the barbe swept to and fro across her bosom. ‘She wouldny— and any road, what, where would, who would—’
‘Gil,’ said Lady Egidia in some relief, catching sight of her son. ‘And Alys. Mistress Somerville, have you met my good-daughter?’
In the little flurry of presentation, bowing and curtsying, one of the servants entered with a tray. Alys sat down beside her mother-in-law, and while Gil poured well-water with fruit vinegar and handed the platter of little cakes, she said, ‘What has happened, madam? It sounds very serious.’
‘Oh, aye, it’s serious, lassie.’ Mistress Somerville dabbed at her eyes with her free hand, then took two cakes as the platter passed her again. ‘My lassie’s vanished away, and no knowing what’s come to her, and her man’s no like to seek her.’
Gil looked round at this, and met Alys’s puzzled glance. He nodded agreement; something did not make sense.
‘Tell us from the beginning,’ he suggested. ‘What’s your daughter’s name, for a start?’
‘Audrey.’ Mistress Somerville took a draught of her beaker, grimaced at the acid taste, and began again. ‘Audrey Madur. My youngest. It’s no a common name, Audrey,’ she admitted. ‘It’s my grandam’s name, that was an Englishwoman from Ely or Norwich or somewhere o the sort. My lassie’s wedded on Maister Ambrose Vary, that’s notary and liner in Lanark, and her first bairn’s due in a month or so. She rid out to see me ten days since, wi her groom, young Adam, that’s been her groom since she was twelve, and she stayed a few days, but she would ride back in for the Lanimer Fair, for that it was the first anniversary o their marriage the day after it and they were to hear Mass thegither in St Nicholas’ kirk.’
‘Lanimer?’ said Alys. ‘What saint is that?’
‘Not a saint. It means a land boundary,’ said Gil. ‘They hold the fair at the same time as they ride the bounds of the burgh. It’s a great celebration, wi races and drinking and dancing. It aye falls around Pentecost. It must ha been last week, mistress?’
Mistress Somerville nodded, and dabbed at her eyes again.
‘Last Thursday,’ she confirmed, ‘that was June tenth. So she set off on that very day, to ride back to Lanark, thinking the fair wouldny be over when she got there. I waved her off, her on the wee jennet Vary bought her and Adam on the powny, and I thought no more o’t.’
‘She was riding?’ Alys said.
‘Aye, on a proper lady’s saddle, wi her feet on a foot-board and a good stout safeguard to keep the dust fro her skirts. I know what’s due to my lassie.’
Since both his mother and his wife habitually rode astride, Gil refrained from catching anyone’s eye. Instead he said, ‘And when did you learn she was missing? I take it she never reached Lanark?’
Mistress Somerville nodded again, biting her lip.
‘’Twas only yestreen. I rode in to visit wi Mistress Limpie Archibeck, that’s a French lady residing in Lanark the now, and called in at Vary’s house on my way home, seeing I was close, and I thought to see her. And the look on Vary’s face when I fetched up at his door asking for her!’
‘What did he say?’ Alys asked.
‘Oh, he denied she was there, and the servants said likewise, and then he said, Did she no stay on wi you? And I said, No, she would come in to the fair. And he said, I bade her stay till after it, I didny wish her at the fair in her state. I took it she’d minded me for once, he says.’
‘Was that all he said?’ Gil prompted, when she paused again. One part of his mind was grappling with Mistress Archibeck’s name (Archibecque? Archévecque? But what could Limpie be?) while another was trying to recall Ambrose Vary from ten years since. The image conjured up by the name was of an awkward young man with few social skills and an astounding grasp of Euclid. Attempts to get him to expound the art of mathematics to his fellows had been unsuccessful, since he had stammered and stuttered, forgotten people’s names, reacted badly to misbehaviour, and generally failed as a teacher, but it seemed to Gil that the ability would serve him well in determining boundaries and building lines.
‘Hah!’ said Mistress Somerville bitterly, and paused to take a draught of her beaker. ‘No another word did he have for me, that’s her mammy and beside mysel wi anxiety. Went into his closet wi his instruments o surveying and shut the door. When I bade them open it till I asked him what he’d do, he was just standing by his desk polishing some brass thing and never looked round.’
Gil looked at Alys, and found her round-eyed with amazement. He was considering his own possible reaction in a like situation, and found himself wondering if Vary thought his young wife had left him.
‘Do they get on well enough?’ he asked. ‘Are they fond? It wasny a love-match, I take it, he’s a deal older than she is.’
‘No, no a love-match,’ said Mistress Somerville, bridling slightly, ‘but they get on well enow for all that. She’s an obedient lassie, I raised her to be a good wife, and to ken how to manage a house to please a husband. What are you asking that for?’
A woman is a worthy wight, she serveth a man both day and night, Gil thought, and did not glance at Alys. How did it go on? And yet she hath but care and wo, that was it. Perhaps some women were content with that fate; he was sure Alys would not be.
‘No chance,’ said Lady Egidia, breaking a long silence, ‘that the groom’s run off wi her? Adam, did you say his name was? If he’s served her a long time, maybe he’s a notion to her.’
‘Nothing of the kind!’ said the other lady in rising indignation. ‘He’s a good lad, aye been a faithful servant, and besides, his leman’s saving up to their marriage. I gied her a couple of groats mysel just the other day. No, there’s some ill befallen the both o them, though what it might be I darena think, and I need you to seek for her, maister, seeing her man’s doing nothing about it.’
‘Have you sent out a search?’ Gil asked. ‘Could she have gone to any of her sisters?’
‘Oh, aye, as soon’s I reached home yestreen I sent out all the men, beating under bushes all across the muir, hunting the river banks, till it was too dark to see, and then had them out again the day morn, and one to ride to her sisters, and her brother up at Harelaw, no to mention sending to Sir John here at the kirk in Carluke, asking his prayers for us to St Malessock, as well as my own. We’ve found nothing, maister, never a trace, nor her kin’s never seen her.’
‘It’s four days,’ said Gil, ‘and it’s been dry. There’d be little to find by way of tracks, even if you ken what road they took from your house to Lanark.’
‘Never a trace,’ she reiterate
d. ‘Will you help me, maister? Your mammy here’s tellt me a few tales, how you’ve tracked folk down, the collier fellow, that lassie at Glasgow Cross last year and the like.’ The barbe swept across the wide black brocade bosom again as Mistress Somerville turned a pleading gaze on Gil. ‘Will you find my lassie?’
Gil raised one eyebrow at his mother, who stared back at him without comment. He was aware of Alys rising, excusing herself, slipping from the chamber, while he turned Mistress Somerville’s account over in his mind. There were several possible explanations for young Mistress Madur’s disappearance, none of them particularly good. Accident, mishap, a panicky young woman running away from something (but what?), abduction.
‘Was there anyone else had a notion to her, afore she wedded Vary?’ he asked. ‘Any that might have stolen her away? Any she might have turned to if she was alarmed or frightened?’
‘What, heavy wi another man’s bairn? Surely no!’ Mistress Somerville paused to consider, but shook her head again. ‘Her and my brother’s youngest had a liking for one another when they were younger, and made plans the way young ones do, but Somerville had other intentions for Jockie. He’s away at the College at St Andrews now, studying to be a priest. There’s been none other I can think on.’
‘Any other friends she might ha gone to?’
‘Oh, she’s friends round about,’ conceded Mistress Somerville, ‘but why would she want to do that? She was happy enough at going back to her own house, talking about the sewing she’s doing for the bairn, telling me of the cradle Vary’s ordered. I was right pleased,’ she divulged, ‘to hear he’s no looking for her to accept any of the other cradles he’s had in the house. I’d no want to see my grandchild in a dead bairn’s cradle, knowing its mammy had dee’d and all.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘That’s kind in him. I think he’s a good provider, mistress. It’s a good match.’
‘Mind you,’ said Mistress Somerville, ‘I hardly like to say it, but your good-brother had a notion to her at one time, maister.’
