A Pig of Cold Poison Page 8

  ‘It’s a fine large kitchen. And the auld wife there – Ursel, is that her name? – was right friendly, though she was rare taigled with the company above in the hall, and sending up food. She gave us ale and gingerbread, and let us disguise oursels in her scullery, and then we waited in her kitchen till they were ready for us in the hall.’

  ‘And when did the two of them quarrel? Nanty and Danny Gibson?’

  Bowster thought about this.

  ‘A’most as soon as we stepped out into the kitchen,’ he said at length. ‘I was last out, for I was helping Bessie wi his headdress, and they were going at it by then. I think by what they were saying, Danny had come into the kitchen and saw Nanty out in the yard getting a word wi the lass, and then she went off somewhere, so Danny never got his turn to speak wi her.’

  ‘But Nanty didn’t leave the kitchen again till you came up the stair?’

  ‘I’d not say that,’ said Bowster cautiously. ‘He slipped away up the stair himsel afore long, and I found him getting another word wi the lass in private. At which I tellt him, if him and Danny quarrelled again, what would it do to the play, and the lass says that about I’ve saved your play, and goes away up to the hall.’

  ‘And you’ve still no notion what she meant by that?

  ‘Never a one.’ Bowster lifted the strips of leather on his bench and turned them in careful fingers. ‘Unless maybe Nanty was for leaving us and she’s persuaded him to stay, but that makes no sense, he was enjoying his part.’

  ‘He says they met on the stair by chance,’ Gil observed. Bowster shook his head sceptically. ‘Did the lass come through the kitchen, or had she come down the stair from the hall?’

  ‘I never noticed. But there was that much coming and going, and some of the men were in and out at the door, the fellows of that household I mean, she could easy ha come in that way and me never see her, for I was taken up wi seeing that the champions never took too much of the ale-jug when it came round.’ He pulled a face. ‘I once saw an Alexander hurt bad, for that the Jack was drunk when they fought, and missed his swing.’

  ‘I never thought of there being so much to see over, in taking charge of the play,’ Gil said. ‘The ale was in a common jug, was it?’

  ‘Oh, aye, which she, Ursel I mean, filled from the household barrel in the corner of the kitchen,’ the glover assured him. ‘We all had a pull at it, to wet our thrapples for the singing, and a bit of her gingerbread off the tray. It hadny any gilt on,’ he added reflectively, ‘but it was right good gingerbread.’

  ‘Ursel makes good gingerbread,’ Gil agreed. He sat thinking for a space, while Bowster fidgeted with the strips of leather. ‘So the first you knew of it being the wrong flask,’ he said at length, ‘was when it appeared out of Nanty Bothwell’s scrip, in front of everyone.’

  ‘Aye, like I told you,’ agreed Bowster.

  Gil got to his feet. ‘That’s a help,’ he said, with partial truth. ‘I’m getting things clearer in my mind, though I still don’t see how it happened. I’ll have more questions afore I’m done, I’ve no doubt.’

  Bowster rose likewise.

  ‘If I can answer them,’ he said, and then, casually, ‘Is there any word from the Renfrew household? Is Mistress Mathieson –?’

  ‘Still groaning,’ said Kate. ‘Poor lass, she’s having a hard time of it, they’re saying. I’ve sent Babb twice today, with my snakestone and then a cup of one of Mother’s remedies. The house is full of her gossips, settled in for a long wait.’

  They were seated where the sun streamed in at one of the great bay windows, while in the other the two little girls played some complicated game involving their dolls, a wooden horse and a handful of the red and yellow leaves which were now blowing about the yard. Kate checked that they were engrossed, adjusted the screen by the cradle to keep the light out of her baby’s face, and picked up her sewing again.

  ‘Tammas Bowster asked me if there was word,’ Gil said.

  ‘I’ve no doubt he did. Grace told me Meg’s father chose our neighbour for her, over the glover,’ Kate said circumspectly, ‘as being better able to provide for her. There’s no doubt that’s true, but I’d say she’d have preferred the other.’

  That explains that, thought Gil, watching her hands as she stitched, and suddenly thought of young Mistress Mathieson’s expression as she looked at her husband. Kate was developing their mother’s tendency to be right about things.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Andy,’ she went on, ‘and to Ursel. The mummers had ale, out of one jug, and gingerbread from a common tray, while they were in the kitchen. There was all sorts coming and going, so it’s possible someone spoke to the – the man that died, and gave him something else to eat or drink, but nobody saw any such thing, though they all agreed he’d had a shouting match with young Bothwell. I think Gibson was mostly talking to the Judas after that.’

  ‘Kate, that’s excellent,’ he said. ‘It bears out what the mummers themselves have said. I’ve another question for you to ask your household now.’ She looked up, eyebrows raised. ‘I think Agnes Renfrew slipped out to fetch something for her stepmother. Which door did she use?’

  ‘The hall door,’ said Kate firmly. ‘At least – I saw her leave that way, Jamesie let her out. There he is in the yard, Gil, you could ask him if he let her back in. Is it important?’

  ‘It’s something that puzzles me.’

  Out in the yard, Jamesie was quite willing to leave his task of stacking tin-glazed pottery dishes on the rack opposite the gates, but when Gil explained his question he scratched his head in thought.

  ‘I’d say I never let her back in,’ he pronounced after a moment. ‘I mind letting her out to go back to her own house, for that her mammy needed some special cushion, as if our cushions wasny good enough for her, and she laid her plaid over her shoulders when she left. That’s how I mind it, I’d to fetch the plaid from the bed in the good chamber where we’d laid them all, and I’d to try twice to get the right one, but she’d ha need of it. That bonnie blue gown she’d on wouldny keep the wind off her.’

  ‘But she never came back by the hall door,’ Gil prompted.

  ‘No, I’d say she didny. You could ask Andy,’ the man suggested. ‘Maybe he let her in after I’d gone from the door. Which I did once all the guests was arrived.’

  A little searching located Andy, assisting his master in the counting-house in sorting through the bills for the coming quarter-day. Both men listened to his question, but shook their heads.

  ‘I mind seeing the lass as she returned,’ admitted Augie, ‘but I only caught sight of her in the midst of the hall, with the cushion in her arms. Kate did offer Mistress Mathieson her own herb cushion, but it seems she wanted this one.’

  ‘I never noticed,’ said Andy. ‘Here’s that docket from the Sankt Nikolaas, maister, wi the clarry wine on it. If Jamesie didny let her in, Maister Gil, she never came in by the hall door, for I’d have heard her rattling at the pin. You could ask if Ursel noticed her in the kitchen, or one of the lassies. They were quite taken wi all the fine clothes,’ he added, inspired, ‘maybe they’d ha taken note if she cam in that way.’

  ‘A good thought,’ Gil said. He returned to report this to Kate, and found Ysonde hanging over the cradle, cooing to its sleeping occupant. As he sat down she said in honeyed tones:

  ‘Wee Baby Floris, all s’eepy. You’re no to wake him,’ she added to Gil, and whisked off to the other window and the game with her sister.

  Gil raised his eyebrows at Kate, who said solemnly, face straight, eyes dancing, ‘That’s what Ysonde calls him, because she and Wynliane are in a book, but Edward isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, aye, and Augie said he’d read Floris and Blanchflour to him,’ Gil recalled. ‘I hope his life has less adventure in it than Floris’s.’

  ‘So do I, indeed. Did Jamesie have anything useful to say?’

  Gil recounted his information and Andy’s suggestion, at which she made a note in her tablets to speak to the two maidservant
s.

  ‘Is it a matter of the time she returned?’ she asked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I wish we’d never thought of entertaining,’ she said, sighing. ‘Bad enough Meg going off into labour that way, but this other – ah, well. What’s done’s done.’

  ‘When did Augie ask the mummers in?’

  ‘Two days afore. Tuesday, I suppose,’ she said in some surprise, ‘it’s still only Friday today. He told me about it on Wednesday, there was no time to do anything, other than warn Meg –’

  ‘So the household knew?’

  ‘The women did,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think they told our neighbour himself. They may not have wanted to. He’s a hard man to cross, in chamber, hall and counting-house, it seems, and considering how he looked when I did tell him, I’d have kept quiet if I was in Meg’s shoes too.’

  Gil thought about the events here in the hall. ‘Kate, when it happened – did you get a sight of any of the other faces? Did any of them seem …’ He paused, groping for words.

  ‘Was anyone affected out of the ordinary?’ she supplied. He nodded. Of his four surviving sisters Kate was his favourite, and the closest to him in temperament and thought. Of course she knew what he meant. ‘I never noticed,’ she went on. ‘I wasny well placed to see the faces. Maybe Babb or Andy would be more help.’ She paused, needle in the air. ‘I’d think one or other of the women, Nancy or Barbara or Agnes Hamilton, might call by this afternoon before they go in to wait on Meg. I’ll ask them and all – circumspectly.’

  ‘I too have little to report,’ said Maistre Pierre, spreading potted herring liberally on his wedge of bread. Further down the long board young John McIan, perched on his nurse’s knee, shouted something unintelligible and waved a crust. Nancy hushed him, but the mason grinned at his foster-son, waved back, and continued, ‘Maister Renfrew was willing enough to talk to me, but all he would say was that the young man is guilty, and must hang for it.’

  ‘Is there any word of Meg?’ Alys asked.

  Her father shook his head, swallowed a mouthful and said, ‘No, it seems she still labours, poor woman. I did not stay long, the household is manifestly in turmoil, full of strange women, and only the two young men are in the shop. I got word with Frankie by enquiring how he did after yesterday.’

  ‘The two young men,’ Gil repeated, handing the last bite of his bread and herring to the dog sitting politely at his elbow. ‘Robert and Nicol, do you mean?’

  ‘Robert and young Syme, the son-in-law. I had forgotten about Nicol.’

  ‘Did you ask about the flasks?’ Alys prompted.

  ‘I did. He would not entertain the thought that it could be one of his.’

  ‘But it must be,’ said Alys. ‘Kittock tells me a lad came from the Forrests’ shop to say all theirs are accounted for, and the six that the Bothwells took were still in their packing, safe in Christian’s stillroom, with the docket of receipt as well.’ She looked at Gil across the table. ‘We spent a good time exploring the room. She was very willing to tell me about all her stores, and we must have opened every container in the house. There was nothing that answers to Adam Forrest’s description of what is in the flask.’

  ‘Nor in the booth,’ said Gil. ‘Like you, I looked in every pig and flagon in the place. None of them held poison – at least, not that variety,’ he qualified. ‘Unless it’s very thoroughly hidden, or there is no more than went in the flask, it isn’t in the booth.’

  ‘Nor in the house,’ she agreed.

  ‘I hope you have both washed your hands before you ate,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  Beside him Catherine, who had been masticating potted herring on white bread with the crusts removed, set down her beaker and said in her elegant toothless French, ‘It is very remarkable that so many of the young man’s friends have asked you to prove him innocent.’

  ‘Half of Glasgow,’ Gil agreed.

  ‘Except,’ she went on, nodding in acknowledgement of this, ‘the Renfrew girl. And yet he had spoken to her just before the play, I understand.’

  ‘I wondered about that too,’ said Alys. ‘Perhaps she can’t get away to speak to Gil. They must all be at sixes and sevens just now.’

  ‘The household of Maistre Renfrew is a large one, and I think not all its members are willing to be ruled by their master. Nevertheless,’ she raised one liver-spotted hand to prevent Maistre Pierre interrupting, ‘I do not see why that should lead them to poisoning and murder.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly, madame,’ Gil said, smiling at her. He had held the old lady in respect already, but since his marriage he had come to admire her perception and tact. As for how she acquired her information, it was clear that though she spoke no Scots she understood it well. Now she bent her head in reply to his comment, and said to Alys:

  ‘You should call on the household, ma mie, to pay the duty of a neighbour.’

  ‘So I thought,’ agreed Alys.

  John, squirming down from Nancy’s lap, pattered up the length of the table, ignoring attempts by other members of the household to distract him, paused to insert his soggy crust into Socrates’ willing mouth, and halted beside his foster-father’s tree-like knee.

  ‘Up!’ he commanded. Maistre Pierre hauled the boy on to his lap, pulling the child’s long tunic down over the little fat legs in their woollen stockings.

  ‘That daughter,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘the younger one, is particularly unruly. You would never have behaved like that, Alys.’

  Her quick smile flickered. ‘It was never necessary,’ she said with composure. ‘Gil, what will you do this afternoon? Who do you need to speak to?’

  ‘Most of Glasgow,’ he said. ‘John, would you like a piece of apple? I’ll have to speak to Renfrew myself, I suppose, and the men of the household. I can hardly disturb the women just now. I called on Maister Hamilton and Maister Wilkie before I spoke to Kate, but neither of them had much more to offer, and of course their wives were from home.’

  ‘Morple,’ ordered John, extending a hand, fingers wriggling. Gil handed him another slice of the apple, and Socrates’ nose quivered in indignation.

  ‘He must say If you please,’ Alys prompted.

  ‘Pease,’ said John obligingly, and beamed, displaying some well-chewed fragments. He was a handsome child, with a strong look of his father the harper, and seemed to be intelligent as well as musical. Gil, who was his legal guardian, was beginning to think in terms of the universities of Europe, and set aside each quarter as much as he could of the income the boy had from his dead mother’s property towards that end.

  ‘Ed ockies,’ announced John, holding up one foot so that his red stocking showed.

  ‘Red stockings,’ Gil agreed. ‘Mammy Alys knitted them.’

  He caught sight of Alys’s expression as she watched the child, but before he could say anything Catherine announced, ‘Then we must all go about our various tasks. You may tell Mistress Mathieson I have prayed for her, and also for her infant, ma mie.’

  ‘Well, if it’s one o mine,’ said Maister Renfrew sharply, ‘he must ha stole it. I’ve no wish to go through my books to prove it, for such a one as him, and I see no point in adding the charge of theft to a charge of murder forbye, but that’s the beginning and end of it, Maister Cunningham.’

  ‘Do you think?’ said Gil mildly.

  ‘Aye. Or else the sister’s lying.’

  ‘My wife said she saw the six still in their straw,’ said Gil, ‘and the docket itemizing six flasks of Araby ware in your own writing, lying beside them. That seems clear enough to me.’

  ‘Aye.’ Renfrew tapped irritably on his tall desk. In his workaday clothes of brown wool he was a less flamboyant sight than yesterday, but the two grouse feathers pinned in his felt hat by a brooch with a huge chunk of amber suited well with his bearing. Elbows out, shoulders squared, neck stretched, he had met Gil’s question about the painted flasks with lively indignation. ‘So he must ha stole it, whether from my shop or from one of
my customers.’

  ‘The curious thing is, he says it’s one of his,’ said Gil.

  ‘The man’s a pysoner. Small wonder if he’s a leear as well.’

  ‘You’ve made good use of the shipment, I think. They’re bonnie things. I saw you had one about you, yourself.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Renfrew. ‘There’s two sizes, see, though I kept all the bigger ones for my own business, and the wee one holds a good quantity for the kind of draught that’s taen in a minimissimal dose. I’ve gave out a few in the last year.’

  ‘Have you any thoughts about what the poison itself might be?’

  Renfrew blinked slightly at the change of subject, and his high colour lessened as he applied his mind to this question. He stared distantly at the shelves of his workroom for a space, while Gil looked round him. This business, as the other apothecaries had made clear, was aimed at the higher end of the market, with an emphasis on such luxury goods as cosmetics and perfumes, dyestuffs and sealing-wax and the more expensive foodstuffs. The outer room, which was the shop, was lined with sacks of raisins and rice, almonds and figs, pigs of honey and treacle, glass jars of lavender water. The workroom was laid out differently from Wat Forrest’s, but held a similar assortment of alarming equipment. Some of the jars on the crowded shelves were marked with a black cross, some had parchment or paper covers with writing on them. The nearest mortar held a quantity of large pale seeds which Renfrew had been pounding at when Gil came in; the box beside it was labelled with a flourish Nux pines. Do pines have nuts on them? he wondered. Not in Scotland, for certain.

  His attention was recalled as Renfrew shook his head portentously.

  ‘I don’t deal in pyson as such,’ the older man admitted, ‘save maybe for killing rats, so it’s no a matter where I’ve great practical experience, but I’ve read as wide in the subject as any man in Glasgow. It’s not arsenical salts, that’s for certain, nor any of those that acts first on the belly, which cuts out a great number. It worked instanter, which lets us set aside all the slower ones, you’ll appreciate.’ Gil nodded at this, but Renfrew went on without looking at him, ‘I’d say it might be one of those that can be got by infusion or maybe distillation from plants, seeing it was in that cloudy liquid form, but I’d need time wi my books to get any closer. Has Wat never come back to you wi an answer?’