A Pig of Cold Poison Read online

  ‘We never did,’ said Bothwell, looking up indignantly.

  ‘I’ve heard different. You had speech with Agnes Renfrew out in the yard, and then hot words with Danny in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bothwell looked down again. ‘That. Aye, well, I saw Agnes in the yard and stepped out – just to pass the time of day,’ he said fluently, ‘no that she was able for much conversation for she’d to run home on some errand for her stepmother, seeing it’s just next door. And then, well, Danny was angry at me for getting a chance at speaking wi her when he hadny. We’d an agreement. We’d pledged,’ he said, with a sideways glance at Gil. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he suddenly put his hand over his mouth again. ‘Ah, the poor fellow,’ he said behind it.

  ‘And then you spoke to her again on the stairs. What did she have to say then?’

  ‘Nothing. She was on the stair, I met her there. By happenstance.’

  ‘Are you sure it was happenstance? You’d a lot to say to each other, for a chance encounter.’

  ‘Why are you questioning me? You know the whole tale, that’s clear,’ said Bothwell. ‘I tellt you to leave Agnes out of this, forbye.’

  ‘No, for I don’t know what she meant by saying she’d saved the play.’ There was no answer. ‘What had she to do with the play?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Bothwell firmly. ‘Ask her. Ask her faither. Do you think Frankie Bothwell would ever let his lassie near a company of mummers?’

  ‘Right,’ said Gil, rising. He kicked the door and shouted loudly for the Serjeant. ‘I’ll do just that, man, for if you’ll not help me to the truth I’ll get there another way.’

  * * *

  Below the painted sign depicting a marble mortar and pestle a crowd was gathered about the door of the Both-wells’ booth. Its demeanour seemed to be peaceful, but Gil hastened his stride along the side of the Tolbooth, past the other small booths and stalls with their array of enticing wares spread out in the chilly sunshine.

  ‘No need to hurry,’ said the capper from his doorway, knitting-wires unheeded in his hand. ‘They’ll be there a while yet.’ Gil checked to look at the man, who went on, ‘I canny interest you in a good new bonnet, maister? No, I thought not. Trade’s been as quiet the day so far, they’re all along by Christian’s door trying to hear what’s to do wi her brother.’

  ‘I’d like to know the same,’ said Gil, rather grimly. The capper threw him a jaded look and ducked back into his booth, taking up his thread of wool again.

  Christian Bothwell was behind the counter in the booth, dispensing packets of herbs and folded papers of pills, a snippet of news or thanks for a word of sympathy along with each. To his surprise Gil recognized his wife beside her, neat this morning in her everyday blue gown and plain black silk hood, taking the money and counting the change as if she had done it all her life. He managed to catch her eye over the heads of the crowd, and she smiled at him, spoke quietly to Mistress Bothwell, but made no effort to leave. With some trouble he elbowed his way to the front, and the two women finished the transaction they were occupied with and turned to him.

  ‘So did you get a word wi Nanty, sir?’ asked Mistress Bothwell.

  ‘I did. He’s not saying much.’

  ‘Pennyworth of treacle, lass, and I’ve my own pig here,’ said a stout woman, elbowing him aside and thumping a pottery jar down on the counter. ‘That’s a terrible thing about your brother, and all.’

  ‘Is it the shock, maybe?’ Mistress Bothwell said to Gil, smiling automatically at the woman and passing the pottery pig to Alys.

  ‘I’d say not.’ Gil looked round at the crowd, nodded to an acquaintance, and resisted the attempts of another woman with a basket of strong cheese to push past him to the counter. ‘I need to get a word wi you, mistress. There’s a few things you could tell me.’

  Alys was already lifting the money-box away into the booth, and Mistress Bothwell reached for the ropes that held the counter in place.

  ‘Get round to the door and I’ll let you in,’ she said. ‘Forgive me, neighbours, I need a word wi this man of law, you’ll agree Nanty needs all the help he can get the now. I’ll open the shutters again in half an hour,’ she promised. ‘Your pig’ll likely take that time to fill, the treacle runs that slow this weather, Maggie.’

  There were some groans, and a few disgruntled comments, but the woman with the cheese seemed to speak for most when she said, ‘Aye, Christian, take all the advice you can get. Is that no the man that got Maister Morison let off when he found a heid in a barrel?’

  Inside the booth, with the shutter closed and the door latched again, it was nearly dark. Alys materialized at his side in the shadows, tucked her hand in his, and said, ‘Will he not answer your questions?’

  ‘He’ll tell me nothing about the item he had,’ Gil said quietly, well aware that they were far from private. ‘Nor how it came to be in his scrip instead of the other. Can you shed any light, mistress?’

  ‘No,’ said Mistress Bothwell from across the little space. ‘I found the pewter one in here when I lifted the counter to close up, the way I said, long after he’d left to gather wi his friends. The wee filler was there wi it, I thought like as not he’d been mixing a fresh batch of the smoking potion and filling it into the flask and maybe been interrupted by a customer and put the whole thing under the counter out the way.’

  ‘That sounds reasonable,’ Gil agreed. ‘But the other. Where did he get that, and when did it come by its fill of poison? Is it one of your own?’

  ‘One of ours? It might be.’ By her voice she was thinking carefully. ‘Frankie Renfrew would have us take a half-dozen out of a shipment he had from Araby, and I’ve no recollection we’ve used any of them. We don’t trade wi the luxury end of the market, maister. They should all still be in their straw wrappings in the basket where I stowed them.’

  ‘And where would that be?’ he asked.

  She laughed abruptly. ‘A good question.’

  ‘They are not here, are they?’ said Alys. ‘Could they be in your house?’

  ‘Aye, very like. I’ll tak a look if it’s important, maister.’

  ‘I think it is important,’ said Gil patiently. ‘We need to find out where it came from and how it came to be in his scrip with poison in it, and if your brother won’t tell us we have to find out another way.’

  ‘But why won’t he say? That’s madness, if it’s sic an important matter. It wasn’t just us that had some,’ she said, still thinking it out. ‘Frankie ordered six dozen, I think he said, and five of them was broken or chipped past using for the business. We took a half-dozen, Wat and Adam had a dozen, so Frankie must ha had near fifty. Even Frankie Renfrew isn’t going to trade fifty flasks like that in a year.’

  ‘But why would either the Forrests or Maister Renfrew wish to do you such an ill turn?’ Alys asked.

  ‘It might not be Frankie himsel.’

  ‘Mistress Hislop is to check that all theirs are accounted for,’ Gil said.

  ‘Barbara’s a good lass. You’ll can trust what she says.’

  But can I? Gil wondered. Beside him, Alys said:

  ‘Might my husband go by your house just now and ask your servant to look for the basket? Would it be easy for her to find?’

  ‘No,’ Mistress Bothwell said bluntly. ‘I stowed it out of her way. She’s a capable woman, but she’s right clumsy. I’ll not have her crashing about in my workroom. I tell you what, maister, if you would wait while I go home the now, seeing you’re in a hurry, I could fetch out the basket and bring Leezie back wi me to gie me a hand here while I’m about it.’

  ‘I could come with you,’ said Alys hopefully. ‘Gil can guard the booth on his own, I am sure.’

  ‘If you’re doing that,’ said Gil, ‘leave me a light of some sort.’

  Chapter Four

  Maister Goudie’s shop along the Thenewgate was also beset by a number of lads and men old enough to know better, who were hanging about the door in the hope of setting eyes on the surv
iving journeyman. When Gil stepped into the shop an older man looked up from his work on a ball-ended dagger, perhaps thinking that here was a genuine customer. Through the window behind him the two apprentices were visible in the yard behind the shop, at their endless task of rottenstoning the plate mail. There was no sign of Davie Bowen, but Goudie appeared from the drawing-shop to one side, ducking past the leather curtain, slate and pencil in hand and spectacles on nose.

  ‘And how can we help you, Maister Cunningham?’ he asked. ‘A new dagger, is it, or a helm? Or I’ve a bonnie back-and-wame would just about suit you, all of new plate and just a wee bit chasing on the breast –’

  ‘I’m not buying today,’ Gil said regretfully. ‘Maybe at the quarter-day. I just stepped by to condole with you after yesterday.’

  Goudie crossed himself, and in the tail of his eye Gil saw the other man do the same.

  ‘That’s a kindness, sir. Aye. A shock that was, I can tell you. When they brought Davie home, weeping his heart out, the poor lad, and tellt me – aye, aye, a shock like no other.’ He paused, and peered hard at Gil. ‘Did Tammas Bowster tell me you were present when it happened, maister? I wonder, would you come up and let me know what came about, and maybe the mistress and all? Billy, you’ll mind the shop a while, man? I’d be right grateful, Maister Cunningham. Davie’s made very little sense, I’m sure we can all understand that, but I’d thought better o Tammas than the fool’s tale he gave me.’

  ‘I’d be glad to,’ Gil said. And thank you, St Giles, he thought. What a piece of good fortune.

  He found himself bustled through the drawing-shop, past rows of hanging parchment measuring-strips and wooden patterns, past a well-thumbed book of designs on the wide bench, and up the stairs to the living quarters. Here a lean, motherly woman in striped homespun exclaimed at Goudie’s introduction, and pressed him to sit down by the brazier and accept oatcakes and a cup of buttered ale while he explained all to them. He went over the tale of Danny Gibson’s death, and they heard him out with more exclamations and sighs.

  ‘So Tammas had the right of it,’ said Goudie. ‘I couldny credit it myself, that he just fell down and died. And at Nanty’s hand, forbye. Is that no dreadful, mistress?’

  His wife nodded, wiping at her eyes with the tail of her headdress.

  ‘The poor lad,’ she said. ‘But it wasny Davie’s fault, that’s clear enough. I’m grateful for you telling us that, maister.’

  ‘I wish I’d never let them practise in my yard,’ said Goudie glumly.

  ‘How is Davie?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Laid down on his bed wi a draught,’ said Mistress Goudie. ‘I’m no one to coddle the lads, you’ll ken, maister, but he’s in no state to work. He said he never slept. Poor laddie, he sat here at the fire weeping and telling me he wanted to dee hissel, I think he’s feart it was something he’d done that caused Danny’s death.’

  ‘He’s aye been soft, that lad. Billy’s fit to work the day, why not Davie?’

  ‘William Goudie, you shed a tear or two yoursel last night,’ challenged his lady.

  ‘Tell me about Danny,’ Gil requested. ‘What kind of a lad was he? Was he well liked? Had he any enemies?’

  ‘Not that I ken,’ said Mistress Goudie firmly. ‘He was a bonnie lad, not out of the ordinar in any way, civil enough round the house and in the work place,’ Goudie nodded agreement to this, ‘got on well wi his fellows. Behaved hissel as well as a lad that age will do, went to Mass wi the rest of us. A bit fussy to feed, he would never touch anything wi nuts in, couldny stand nuts. It made fast days a wee bit difficult, but no more than that.’

  ‘Did he make jokes, play tricks, anything that might have annoyed someone?’

  ‘No that I ever heard,’ she said doubtfully. ‘He was – he was aye sic a kind laddie,’ she finished, and sighed and dabbed at her eyes again.

  ‘What did he do for his leisure?’

  ‘Went drinking,’ supplied Goudie, ‘went out to the butts on a Sunday, played at the football on a holiday. Much like his fellows, as Mistress Goudie says.’

  ‘Did he belong to any league or band?’ Gil asked. ‘Any of the altar companies, or a football side, anything of the sort?’

  ‘No that he ever mentioned,’ said Mistress Goudie, thinking. ‘He supported St Eloi’s altar along at St Mary’s, like all the hammermen, but I never heard him speak of any other league he had to do wi. And the lads do talk, the three of them,’ she bit her lip, ‘times they’d forget I was present, as if I was their mother.’ The end of her headdress came into use again, and she turned her face away.

  ‘Did he have anything of any value?’ Gil asked. ‘I’m still trying to find a reason why he would be killed.’

  ‘But surely they’re saying it was Nanty Bothwell’s doing?’ questioned the armourer.

  ‘I’m casting all round about,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll look at all the possibilities. Did the lad have anything worth stealing, mistress?’

  ‘No that I ever saw.’ She looked across the chamber. ‘I packed his gear all up into his scrip, for his faither to collect when he – aye. So it’s there, maister, if you wish a look at it. He hadny that much.’

  This was true. Two spare shirts, one badly worn, two pairs of hose, two doublets and a leather jerkin; comb and shaving gear, a woodcut of St Eloi brandishing the newly shod leg of the horse which stood docilely beside him on the remaining three. Drawers and other linen, a pair of shoes, a pair of boots, made a separate bundle. On one of the doublets was pinned a pewter badge of St Mirren.

  ‘Did he have a bow?’ Gil asked.

  ‘I arm my laddies myself,’ said Maister Goudie. ‘So I keep a half-dozen bows for their use. He’d his choice of any one of them, and the same for blade and buckler, to take out to the butts.’

  Gil shook his head. ‘There’s nothing here to kill for, that I can see,’ he said.

  ‘Bothwell must ha done it,’ said Goudie. ‘But it’s a strange way to go about getting rid of your rival, to use poison on him wi half the burgh looking on.’

  ‘I can’t make sense of that,’ Gil said. ‘Were they rivals right enough? Did Danny ever talk to you about it, mistress?’

  ‘Oh, they were rivals,’ agreed Mistress Goudie. ‘At least so far as they both had a notion to the lass, and she had a notion to the both of them. I saw her a time or two at the market, wi a maidservant at her heels,’ she divulged, with a rueful smile. ‘She’d stop by the potyngar booth at the Tolbooth, and pass the time of the morning, and then she’d be along here not a quarter hour later and keeking in at our shop door, though what business a young lass would have in an armourer’s shop – well, it did no harm, or so I thought, though it’s led the lass into grief after all. But the two lads was friendly enough about it, and as good friends as ever when the lass wasny about.’

  ‘Perhaps she was even-handed then,’ Gil said. ‘Bothwell told me she was. He said they had an agreement, too – he and Danny Gibson, I mean.’

  ‘Young fools,’ said Goudie, without heat. ‘Danny naught but a journeyman, Nanty Bothwell still to make his way in his trade – her father thinks by far too well of himself to wed her to either, and so I told them both a time or two.’

  ‘Aye, you did that, Goudie,’ agreed his wife, ‘but did you expect them to listen?’ She sighed again. ‘Och, poor laddies. The both of them. What a business.’

  ‘Where did he go drinking?’ Gil asked as he rose to leave.

  ‘Now that I can say,’ pronounced Mistress Goudie. ‘He and Billy would argue over the best alehouse, and Danny aye swore by Maggie Bell’s house, just across Glasgow Brig.’

  Tammas Bowster the glover was seated at the window of his shop, stitching intently at the many scraps of fine leather which went into a glove. Gil recalled the white kidskin he had bought in Perth in the summer. Perhaps this man could make it into something suitable for Alys, he thought.

  When he stepped into the shop Bowster raised his head with a sour look, but his expression lightened as he saw Gil a
nd he got to his feet, saying hopefully, ‘Is there any word, maister?’

  ‘The Serjeant hadny heard from the Castle when I was there,’ Gil said. ‘I came by to see if you’d recalled anything new that might help me.’

  ‘You’ll take it on, maister? You’ll see into how poor Danny came to be pysont?’

  ‘I seem to be doing that,’ Gil admitted. The glover set aside his work and put a stool nearer the brazier.

  ‘Hae a seat, maister, and I’ll answer your questions. I’ve not recalled anything,’ he admitted, ‘but if you prompt me who knows what might come to mind. Was that you at Goudie’s door the now? What’s the word o Davie Bowen?’

  ‘Overcome by grief. Mistress Goudie was quite anxious about him.’

  Bowster nodded. ‘He’s aye a soft laddie, a gentle soul. I think his daddy put him to the armourer in the hope it would harden him. And yet he’s that good with a sword and buckler.’

  The two were hardly exclusive, thought Gil.

  ‘Tell me about yesterday,’ he said. ‘Where did your company gather? Here, or at Goudie’s?’

  ‘Aye, at Goudie’s. Nanty was a bit after the tryst, last to arrive, he said he’d had a run of custom and his sister not back yet from the house. Then when we were all assembled, and certain we’d our guises all complete, we went up to Morison’s Yard in a body wi the piper playing.’

  ‘Your piper,’ said Gil. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Geordie Barton, dwells in the Fishergate. No a bad piper, kens more tunes than some of them, but he can put away the ale like it was the last brewing in the country.’

  ‘And Nanty never said he had the wrong flask?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Bowster. ‘He never said aught about it at all, and you ken, I think that would be a cause Davie and Danny were getting right anxious about the play. It was Davie’s first time afore other folk, you’ll understand, and he was a wee thing on edge. Nanty likely said nothing about changing anything for fear of –’

  ‘Of course.’ That made sense, though it cast no light on when the change had occurred. ‘So from Goudie’s you all walked up to Morison’s house, and went to the kitchen door.’