The Harper's Quine

PAT McINTOSH, like Gil Cunningham, is a graduate of
Glasgow University. Born and brought up in Lanarkshire,
for many years the author lived and worked in Glasgow
and is now settled on the West Coast with a husband, three
cats and a daughter.

Titles in this series
(listed in order)

The Harper’s Quine
The Nicholas Feast
The Merchant’s Mark
St Mungo’s Robin

Pat McIntosh

Magno amore caris meis,
memoriaeque parentum dilectae.

Glasgow, 1492

At the May Day dancing at Glasgow Cross, Gilbert
Cunningham saw not only the woman who was going to
be murdered, but her murderer as well.

Strictly speaking, he should not have been there. Instead
he should have been with his colleagues in the cathedral
library, formulating a petition for annulment on grounds
which were quite possibly spurious, but shortly after noon
he had abandoned that, tidied his books into a neat stack
in his carrel, with Hay on Marriage on the top, and walked
out. A few heads turned as he went, but nobody spoke.

Descending the wheel stair, past the silent chambers of
the diocesan court, he stepped out into the warm day
enjoying the feeling of playing truant and closed the heavy
door without stopping to read the notices nailed to it. The
kirkyard was busy with people playing May-games, running, catching, shrieking with laughter. Gil went out, past
the wall of the Archbishop’s castle, and jumped the Girth
Burn ignoring the stepping stones. From here, already, he
could hear the thud, thud of the big drum, like the muffled
beat for a hanging.

There was plenty of movement in the steep curving
High Street too. Weary couples, some still smelling of
smoke from the bonfires, were returning home in the sunshine with their wilting branches. Others, an honest day’s
work at least attempted, were hurrying from the little thatched cottages to join the fun. Hens and dogs ran
among the feet of the revellers, and a tethered pig outside
one door had a wide empty space round it.

Further down, where the slope eased and the houses
were bigger, a group of students were playing football
under the windows of the shabby University building,
shouting at each other in mixed Latin and Scots. Gil
nodded to the solemn Dominican who was guarding the
pile of red and blue gowns, and skirted the game carefully
with the other passers-by. Beyond the noise of the players
and onlookers he could hear the drum again, together with
the patter of the tabor and a confused sound of loud
instruments which came to a halt as he drew near to the
Tolbooth.

At the Mercat Cross there was dapping and laughter.
The dancers were still in the centre of the crossing, surrounded by a great crowd. More people lined the timber
galleries of the houses, shouting encouragement, and several ale-wives who had brought barrels of ale down on
handcarts were-doing a brisk trade.

The burgh minstrels on the Tolbooth steps, resplendent
in their blue coats under an arch of hawthorn branches,
had added a man with a pipe and tabor and a bagpiper to
the usual three shawms and a bombard. As Gil reached the
mouth of the High Street they struck up a cheerful noise
just recognizable as ‘The Battle of Harlaw’.

‘A strange choice for the May dancing,’ he remarked to
the man next to him, a stout burgess in a good cloth gown
with his wife on his arm. ‘Oh, it’s yourself, Serjeant,’ he
added, recognizing the burgh’s chief lawkeeper. ‘Good day
to you, Mistress Anderson.’

Mistress Anderson, more widely known as Mally Bowen
the burgh layer-out, bobbed him a neat curtsy, the long
ends of her linen kerchief swinging, and smiled.

‘The piper only has the two tunes,’ explained Serjeant
Anderson, ‘that and “The Gowans are Gay”, and they’ve
just played the other.’

‘I see,’ said Gil, looking over the heads at the top dancers advancing to salute their partners, while more couples
pushed and dragged one another into position further
down the dance. By the time all were in place the top few
were already linking arms and whirling round with wild
war-cries. A far cry from Aristotle’s ideal, he thought.

‘It’s a cheery sound, yon,’ said Gil’s neighbour in his
stately way. Gil nodded, still watching the dancers. Most
were in holiday clothes, some in fantastic costume from the
pageant, or with bright bunches of ribbon or scraps of satin
attached to their sleeves. Many of the girls, their hair loose
down their backs, were garlanded with green leaves and
flowers, and their married sisters had added ribbons to
their linen headdresses. Students from the College, sons of
burgesses in woollen, prentice lads in homespun, swung
and stamped to the raucous music.

Watching a pair of students in their narrow belted
gowns, crossing hands with two girls who must be sisters,
Gil tried to reckon when he had last danced at the Cross
himself. It must be eight years, he decided, because when
he first returned to Scotland his grief and shock had kept
him away, and last year he had been hard at work for his
uncle on some case or other. He found his foot tapping.

‘See her,’ said the serjeant, indicating a bouncing, blackbrowed girl just arming with a lad in brown doublet and
striped hose. ‘Back of her gown’s all green. Would ye take
a wager she’s doing penance for last night’s work next
Candlemas, eh, Maister Cunningham?’

‘Oh, John!’ said his wife reproachfully.

‘She’ll not be the only one, if so,’ Gil observed, grinning.
‘There’s a few green gowns here this morning.’

‘And I’ll wager, this time o’ year, Maister Cunningham,
you wish you were no a priest,’ added the serjeant, winking slyly up at Gil.

‘Now, John!’

‘I’m not a priest,’ said Gil. Not yet, said something at
the back of his mind, as he felt the familiar sinking chill in
his stomach. When the man looked sceptically at his black jerkin and hose, he added reluctantly, ‘I’m a man of
law.’

‘Oh, so I’ve heard said. You’ll excuse me, maister,’ said
Serjeant Anderson. ‘I’ll leave ye, afore ye charge me for the
time of day. Come on, hen.’

‘I’m at leisure today,’ Gil said, but the serjeant had
drawn his wife away. Gil shrugged, and turned his attention back to the dancing. The couple he had been watching
had completed their turn of the dance and were laughing
together, the boy reaching a large rough hand to tug at the
girl’s garland of flowers. She squealed, and ducked away,
and just then the tune reached an identifiable end and the
musicians paused for breath. The man banging the big
drum kept on going until the tenor shawm kicked him. He
stopped, blinking, and the dancers milled to a halt.