The Harper's Quine Read Online Free PDF Page A

Coming
out early to meet the mason, since he was awake anyway
and there was no chance of breaking his fast until Maggie
got the fire going, he had climbed up the wheelbarrow
ramp and into the chapel to have the closer look he had
passed over last night, and there she was, lying half under
the planks by the far wall. He had thought at first she was
asleep, or drunk, until he smelled the blood; and then he
had touched her shoulder and found it rigid under his
hand.
    The last paternoster bead reached his fingers. He rattled
through the prayer, added a quick word for the repose of
the lady’s soul, whoever she might be, and rose to have another look, the question of consecrated ground still niggling at his mind.

    She was lying on her right side, face hidden in the
trampled grass as if she was asleep, one hand tucked
under her cheek. The other sleeve of her red cloth gown
was hitched nearly to the shoulder, the tapes of the brocade under-sleeve half-torn, and the blood-soaked shift
stiffened in sagging folds round her arm. The free hand
was strong, white, quite clean, with surprisingly long nails
and calloused fingertips. She wore a good linen headdress,
with a neat dark French hood over it. Round her waist was
a belt of red-dyed leather shod with silver, with no purse
attached to it, and she had no jewellery beyond a set of
finely carved wooden beads. She looked like a decent
woman, not one of the inhabitants of Long Mina’s wellknown house in the Fishergait. Gil could not rid himself of
the feeling that he had seen her before.
    The sound of chanting was diminishing towards the
vestry on the other side of the nave. He realized Lauds
must be over, and there was still no sign of the mason, and
nobody to help him move the corpse, which could certainly not stay there.
    A door clanked open, east along the buttressed honeycoloured flank of St Mungo’s. Children’s voices soared,
then paused as an angry adult voice entered at full
volume.
    ‘Andrew Hamilton! William! Come here this instant!’
    That was the chanter himself, sounding surprisingly
alert after last night’s drinking session. Gil got to his feet,
intending to shout to him, and found himself looking out
over the roof of the masons’ lodge at Patrick Paniter,
broad-shouldered and angry in his robes, confronting two
blue-gowned trebles.
    What were you about, that you were three beats late in
the Gloria? What was so interesting?’ The chanter
pounced. One boy ducked away, but the other was slower.
‘Give me that!’
    Strong hands used to forcing music from the cathedral’s two organs had no difficulty with a twelve-year-old’s
grip.

    ‘Ow! Maister Paniter!’
    Maister Paniter’s dark tonsured head bent briefly over
the confiscated object. ‘A harp key? What in Our Lady’s
name did you want with a harp key? It’ll never tune your
voice, you timber-eared skellum!’
    ‘It’s mine - I found it!’ The boy tried to seize it back, but
the chanter held it easily beyond his reach.
    ‘Then you’ve lost it again.’ His other hand swung. ‘And
that’s for boys who don’t watch the beat. What have I told
you about that? And you, Will Anderson, hiding behind
that tree! What have I told you? It’s-. . Y
    ‘It’s wickedness, Maister Paniter,’ they repeated in reluctant chorus with him.
    ‘Because
…?’
    ‘Because it interrupts the Office,’ they completed.
    ‘Remember that. Now get along to school before you’re
any later, you little devils, and you may tell Sir Adam why
I kept you.’
    The fair boy, rubbing a boxed ear, ran off down the path
to the mill-burn. His friend emerged from behind the tree
and followed him, and they vanished down the slope,
presumably making for school by the longest way
around.
    Gil drew breath to call to the chanter. He was forestalled
by a creaking of wood behind him, and a voice which said
in accented Scots, ‘Well, what a morning of accidents!’
    He glanced over his