The Counterfeit Madam

by Pat McIntosh

  Now, discovered in the Provost’s lodgings in the Castle, he scrutinized the handful of coins Maistre Pierre offered him as if they were personal bad tidings.

  ‘Aye,’ he said at length. ‘I’d say they were out of the same workshop. See, these are all the same plack wi James Third on it, and that’s the silver threepenny piece wi four mullets on the back. I’ve had two o these brought me from the bawdy-house. The madam wasny best pleased, I can tell you.’ He turned the coin to the light, then bit it reflectively and shook his head. ‘My lord’s right keen to learn the source of these, but I’ve not found yet where they come fro’, though it seems there are more entering through Dumbarton out of the Isles. How did you come by these, maister?’

  ‘The placks came back from the market yesterday,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘The maidservant who brought them thought they came from more than one trader. The silver piece I had from Daniel Hutchison, in a bag of coin.’

  ‘Hutchison,’ Otterburn repeated. ‘Oh, aye, he’s putting a new wing to his house, is that right? Over in the Gorbals. Outside the burgh, strictly,’ he added, spinning one of the placks. It twirled once or twice and fell over.

  ‘But the coin has come into the burgh,’ Gil pointed out.

  ‘Oh, I’m not arguing.’

  ‘You say they come from the Isles?’ Maistre Pierre said. ‘Who should make false coin in the Isles? Is there any source of metal?’

  ‘None that I ken,’ admitted Otterburn. ‘I’d not say the coin was being struck out yonder, just that it comes back in from there.’

  ‘So someone is taking it there,’ Gil said thoughtfully. ‘Where from, and why?’

  ‘Good questions.’ Otterburn spun the plack again. ‘As to where from, likely the same place as these came from, which my lord would like fine to ken as I say, but why’s another matter.’

  ‘To alter the balance of wealth out there?’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘Is there any suddenly rich?’

  ‘The Islesmen set less store by coin than we do,’ said Gil. ‘It’s a world of barter and payment in kind, wi little call for money within factions. I suppose if one kinship was buying the friendship of another, or buying in gallowglasses – hired fighting men, like the Campbell brothers, from Ireland or another part of the Isles – they might need coin. Is there any word of that kind of thing?’

  ‘When is there no?’ said Otterburn, making a long face. ‘The King didny settle matters out there, for all he took John of the Isles prisoner last year. Indeed, matters are worse, for they’re all at each other’s throats now to determine who has his place. Word is the King’s Grace is planning to go out again this spring.’ He stacked the coins neatly, considering them. ‘Would this come within your writ, Maister Cunningham? As Blacader’s quaestor? I’m thinking it’s about time we did something about it, other than wringing our hands and passing resolutions in the burgh council.’

  ‘It would,’ Gil said cautiously, ‘if my lord so instructed me. If you were to suggest to him that I look into it, I’d be glad to—’

  ‘It’s as good as done, man,’ said Otterburn. He hitched up the shoulders of his fur-lined gown, swept the coins off the table-carpet into his hand and moved to the cabinet beside the tall window. ‘Walter can scribe me a note of where these came from and I’ll put them wi the others, and then he can write to my lord. The day’s despatch has yet to go. And when that’s done and we’ve had my lord’s agreement,’ he added, ‘I’ll let you hear all I ken of the things. It’s no a lot, I confess.’

  ‘Pursuing false moneyers would make a change from pursuing murderers,’ observed Maistre Pierre as they made their way up Rottenrow.

  Gil nodded, thinking about the conversation. Otter-burn’s slow manner and gloomy speech had convinced most of the burgesses of Glasgow that he was a fool, but more than once he had shown a deeper knowledge of what was afoot in his burgh than one might expect after less than four months in post. Sir Thomas’s clerk Walter served him willingly and well, always a good sign. If Otterburn had not yet tracked down the source of the counterfeit money, it must be well hidden.

  ‘I do not understand what goes on in the Isles,’ Maistre Pierre went on. ‘I had thought all was settled last year, but by what the Provost says—’

  Gil eyed his father-in-law, a man in accurate touch with the politics of Scotland and most of Europe.

  ‘John MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, was forfeit this time last year,’ he said, ‘and did penance for all his crimes in January there, and resigned his lands into the King’s hands.’

  ‘That part I know. Your uncle tells me he is now the King’s pensioner somewhere in Stirling. But who is in his shoes? Someone must hold his lands and command the wild Ersche.’

  ‘That’s the problem, as Otterburn said. More than one possible heir, all with influence, none with authority to command the whole of the region.’

  ‘Has he no direct heir?’

  ‘He had.’ Gil paused to enumerate. ‘His son Angus Og, which I think means Young Angus, was the obvious successor—’

  ‘Was,’ repeated the mason.

  ‘Aye. Angus Og was murdered by his harper in ’90. He was wedded to yet another of old Argyll’s daughters – a sister of the present earl—’

  ‘So there are Campbells in it. I might have known.’

  ‘Indeed. There’s a posthumous son, now in this earl’s care—’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘—and John’s two nephews are bickering with Argyll and with McIan of Ardnamurchan about who has de facto control of the Isles. It’s hardly simple at best, but it’s not easy to understand if you’re not from the Isles yourself.’

  ‘That I agree with.’

  The front door of Canon Cunningham’s house was standing open as they approached. There seemed to be a commotion on the stairs within, and a familiar voice reached them shouting abuse from the midst of a group of struggling servants. They strode on without hesitation, to enter the house by the kitchen door, and found Canon Cunningham’s housekeeper Maggie, stout and red-faced, setting the leather beakers on a tray while a jug of buttered ale warmed at the hearth. Clearly Sempill and his party were not the most esteemed clients; those got the glasses from the cupboard in the hall, with wine, white or red, or even the Dutch spirits.

  Maggie looked round as they stepped into the vaulted chamber, and nodded to the mason.

  ‘Good day to ye, maister, and how are ye? Maister Gil, he’s asking where you are. Oh, get off wi you,’ she added, as Gil came to kiss her broad cheek. ‘Are you well? How does Mistress Alys do?’

  ‘Well enough.’ Gil inspected the rack of little cakes left to cool on the broad scrubbed table. ‘She sends her greetings. These are good, Maggie. There’s nothing comes out of our kitchen quite like them. Try one, Pierre.’

  Maggie looked gratified, but smacked his hand away as he reached for a second cake. ‘Away up the stair wi you, Maister Gil, I tellt you he was asking for you and they’re all up there waiting. You can get another of these after.’

  ‘Who’s waiting? Who did Sempill bring for witnesses?’

  ‘Oh, a great crowd. Sempill himsel,’ she counted on her work-worn fingers, ‘and that cousin that’s aye wi him – Philip, is it? Him that swore to revenge Bess Stewart on him and hasny done it yet, that I ever heard. Sempill’s new wife, a couple more fellows, and that Dame Isabella wi a hantle of servants, still heaving her up the stair like a barrel in a sling by the sound of it. No, maister, the cakes is for after, one’s all you’re getting. I better put them by afore they all come down to my kitchen to wait while she gets her business seen to.’

  ‘Aye, this new wife,’ said Gil. ‘Had you heard of the marriage? Did anyone warn the lassie’s kin?’

  ‘That’s what I wondered,’ she agreed, with satisfaction. ‘No, I’d not heard, and nor had the old man. He’s right put out about that. I wonder your lady mother never mentioned it, seeing the lassie must be cousins wi her. Maybe she’s too taen up wi Lady Tib’s marriage.’

  ‘Wh
o was the first husband?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘I take it he was a wealthy man.’

  ‘That I’ve not heard,’ Maggie said regretfully, ‘but likely you’re right, maister, and he left her better off than he got her. That Sempill wouldny take her without something to sweeten the match. Or maybe this land that Dame Isabella’s to settle on them was the attraction.’

  Gil nodded. He had set eyes only once or twice on either Sempill cousin since the episode, almost two years since, when Sempill’s runaway wife Bess Stewart had been discovered dead in the half-built addition to the cathedral. Gil had been directed to find her killer, and in doing so had made the closer acquaintance of Pierre Mason and his daughter Alys; by the time the matter was solved he was betrothed to Alys, his intended career in the church abandoned, and Pierre had agreed to foster Bess’s baby son, with Gil as the boy’s guardian. John Sempill’s interest in the child was solely financial, which in Sempill’s case, he thought now, would be a more powerful attraction than parenthood, and if the man’s financial position had changed then his attitude to the boy had probably changed too.

  ‘And that Dame Isabella,’ Maggie pursued, ‘I opened the door to her manservant, and the maister cam down the stair to greet her himsel. So she asks him a gey intrusive question and tells him he’s looking his age. As for the names she calls her folk! I’ll keep out her road while I can. And then,’ she went on, setting her hand on the jug of ale to test its temperature, ‘there’s her two nephews, and you’ll never guess who one of them is.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ he invited as she paused.

  ‘That lad Lowrie Livingstone,’ she said triumphantly, and lifted the jug. ‘Here, you might as well make yoursel useful.’

  The company Maggie had detailed was seated in a half-circle on the new carved backstools, Dame Isabella just taking her seat at the centre beside another lady. To one side were Sempill and his cousin, on the other was the lanky fair-haired Lowrie Livingstone with a man who must be his kinsman. Facing them Canon David Cunningham, senior judge of the diocese, was ensconced in one of the window spaces, surrounded by stools, a succession of documents spread on top of each. His balding head was covered by a black felt coif and round legal bonnet, and his furred gown was drawn up about his ears against the chill of the spring afternoon.

  Dame Isabella’s men retired to the door of the other stair, and one of her waiting-women began fanning her with a painted leather fan. As Gil stepped in off the kitchen stair with the tray of buttered ale in his hands, John Sempill, stocky and sandy-haired in a suit of cherry velvet clothes Gil had seen before, leaned round the back of his chair and glowered at him.

  ‘So there you are, Gil Cunningham. Took your time, did you no?’

  ‘And God’s greeting to you too, John,’ said Gil with extreme politeness.

  ‘Gilbert,’ said Canon Cunningham, removing his spectacles. ‘And Peter. Dame Isabella, you mind Gelis’s third son. Mistress Boyd, my nephew. And his good-father, Maister Peter Mason. Gilbert, I think you know all here but Maister Alexander Livingstone.’ He indicated the stranger, who had risen. Beside him Lowrie also leapt to his feet and came to take the tray from Gil, freeing him to raise his hat in a general greeting. ‘And you’ve brought a refreshment. A wee cup of hot ale, friends. Peter, come and be seated.’

  ‘Get away from me wi that thing, Annot, it’s more harm than good,’ pronounced Dame Isabella in her gruff bark. ‘You two trollops get over by the wall out my road. So you’re Gelis Muirhead’s laddie, are you? And have you had your bowels open at stool the day?’

  So that’s how we play this hand, Gil thought. He bowed without answering and turned to help Lowrie who had set the tray on the cupboard.

  ‘Maister Gil.’ The young man’s ears were flying scarlet. ‘I’m right glad to see you again.’

  ‘Lowrie.’ Gil nodded to him and began pouring the steaming ale. ‘What brings you back to Glasgow? I thought you had won your degree.’

  ‘Aye, I determined last autumn.’ Lowrie gave him an embarrassed grin. ‘I’m attending my aunt. Dame Isabella. She was wedded to my great-uncle Thomas the year afore he died,’ he divulged quietly, lifting the first two beakers. ‘And my uncle Eckie’s here to represent the family interest.’

  Gil took in all that was not said in this brief speech, noting with approval that there was no attempt to apologize for the old woman, as his uncle said,

  ‘We’ll drink to a successful settlement, friends, and then we can get to work.’

  ‘It’s simple enough,’ began Sempill, but was overridden by Dame Isabella.

  ‘Have you nothing stronger than this, David Cunningham?’ she demanded in that deep bark. ‘Ale doesny suit me, it disagrees wi the bowel and rots the teeth. A wee tait spirits would be more acceptable, it’s my hour for a bit cordial.’

  ‘Madam, we’ll not expect Canon Cunningham to offer us spirits when it’s hardly past noon,’ objected Maister Livingstone. He was a thin-faced man with the typical nondescript hair and mid-coloured eyes of the Lowland Scot, and a strong family resemblance to the taller, fairer, handsomer Lowrie; he was dressed with ostentation in yellow velvet trimmed with squirrel, neither colour flattering to him. Dame Isabella glared at him and thumped the floor with her stick.

  ‘You can expect what you like, Eckie, I’m an old woman—’ she began.

  ‘I believe you’re of an age with Canon Cunningham, madam,’ observed Philip Sempill quietly.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Sempill irritably, ‘let’s get on wi the matter at hand. It’s simple enough, like I said. See, we want to disinherit the harper’s brat, and Maidie here will gie it a property in Glasgow in exchange, and then Dame Isabella yonder wants to gie Maidie and me some land somewhere in joint feu—’

  ‘John.’ His new wife spoke gently, but he was instantly silent, turning to her. She put a hand on his wrist. ‘Will I explain it, John?’

  ‘I’ll explain it, Maidie,’ Dame Isabella announced, handing her empty beaker to Lowrie.

  ‘Christ aid, woman, you ken nothing about it!’ objected Sempill.

  ‘You be quiet!’ she ordered. ‘It’s all as I had Eckie here write it down, David. The harper’s brat would have nothing to complain of, Maidie’s offering it land that brings in a good rent, and we’ve all the papers here wi us,’ she gestured at the men at the door and one of them looked alert, a hand going to his satchel of documents, ‘so we can get it all agreed now. Then when that’s done we’ll see about which of these two properties goes to Maidie and which to this laddie’s sister Isabel.’

  ‘It would surely be more convenient,’ said Canon Cunningham reasonably, as Maistre Pierre had done, ‘for the Lanarkshire property to go to the Lanarkshire lassie, and the one in Strathblane to go to the lady wi a house in Glasgow, which is that much closer.’

  ‘We’ll get the other business sorted first,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll see. If you’ve no aquavit’ you can gie me some more o that buttered ale, though I’ve no doubt I’ll regret it. Here’s my beaker, Lowrence.’

  ‘I’d ha welcomed a chance to think about this ahead of the time, John,’ Gil said, as civilly as he might. ‘As the boy’s tutor I should take it all in advisement.’

  ‘It would have been more usual,’ commented Philip Sempill from beyond his cousin. Always the voice of reason, thought Gil, but Sempill snarled at him.

  ‘You keep out of this. Aye, give you warning, Gil Cunningham and let you think up a list of reasons to turn it down! That’s why we—’

  ‘John.’ Again that quiet voice. Sempill stopped speaking, and Magdalen Boyd smiled at him, then at Canon Cunningham. ‘Sir, my husband has told me the whole tale.’

  I’ll wager he hasn’t, thought Gil, studying her. She was a pale creature in her early thirties, a year or two older than Sempill, neither pretty nor plain, dressed decently but without display in a well-cut gown of the natural grey of the wool. Her eyes were a very light blue, even lighter than her husband’s, with pale brows and lashes; her whole face seemed like
a faint sketch, silverpoint on white paper, framed by the bands of her linen undercap. The plain black woollen veil pinned over all emphasized her pallor. Her smile, on the other hand, was gentle and without dissimulation, and her voice was low and slightly husky, very attractive to hear.

  ‘I ken fine the bairn’s none of his get,’ she went on. ‘It seems to me the boy and his well-wishers can hardly complain if we offer him a property wi a good income now as an exchange for a dubious heirship.’ She turned to face Gil. ‘I think we are kin in some degree, Maister Gilbert,’ she went on. ‘I hope we can come to an agreement.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Gil returned the smile, comparing her in some amazement to the showy, expensive mistress he had encountered in Sempill’s company two years since.

  ‘We’ll drink to a successful outcome, maisters,’ said Canon Cunningham again, asserting control over the gathering, ‘and then we’ll see whose interests can be served by all these transactions. I’ll say this, John,’ he added reprovingly, ‘it’s away less simple than you let me understand.’

  ‘He hadny seen half the argument,’ pronounced Dame Isabella, emerging from her beaker. ‘And I’ve another thing to settle wi you, Gilbert,’ she added ominously, ‘but we’ll get the disponement agreed first.’

  Drawing up a backstool beside his father-in-law, Gil was aware of Lowrie flinching at this statement. What was the old carline planning, he wondered.

  ‘Saint Peter’s balls! It’s perfectly simple,’ objected Sempill. ‘He,’ he jerked his thumb at Gil, ‘signs the papers as the bairn’s tutor and accepts the two tofts on the Drygate, we tear up all the copies of the agreement about it being my heir, and all’s done. Then you can sort out what comes to us and what goes to his sister.’

  ‘Two tofts on the Drygate?’ Gil repeated.

  ‘Are you deaf, man? That’s what I said.’