The Counterfeit Madam

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘The colours certainly aren’t local,’ Gil said.

  ‘Well, now,’ said a husky voice behind them. ‘Three new guests, and I can see you all appreciate the arts. That’s a day to put a nock in the bedpost!’

  The woman who came forward from the stair was tall, nearly as tall as Gil, and lean. She was richly gowned and jewelled, and her face was painted in a way the women of Glasgow did not use, the pale blue eyes darkly outlined and the strong mouth tinted a deep red which showed up sharply against her white skin. An elaborate headdress concealed her hair completely, but Gil found himself wondering if her brows were really that dark. Behind her the maidservant slipped past and down to the lower floor.

  ‘Good day, maisters all,’ she went on, curtsying, and looked from one to the other. ‘I’ve met none of you, but I think I can place you all three. Je crois que vous êtes monsieur le maçon français,’ she said to Maistre Pierre. ‘Which means you must be his good-son, I think, Maister Cunningham, and you,’ she paused, considering, ‘you’re no Sempill of Muirend, but you’re gey like him. Sempill of Knockmade.’

  ‘You’re well informed, madam,’ said Gil. ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh!’ She touched her chin with a lean forefinger and tipped her head sideways in a parody of coyness. ‘You can call me Madam Xanthe,’ she said after a moment. ‘Seat yourselves, maisters. Agrippina will bring us a refreshment, and you can tell me what fetches you here, for I can see it’s no a matter of the usual business of the house.’

  Xanthe and Agrippina, forsooth, thought Gil. Maister Livingstone had heard right.

  ‘Does living in Glasgow agree with you?’ he asked in Latin. His father-in-law shot him a sharp glance; Madam Xanthe drew breath as if to answer, then tittered improbably and batted the question away with a long white hand.

  ‘Oh, you’ll ha to excuse me, maister! French I can manage, and I’ve a few words o High Dutch, but Latin’s beyond my skills.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I took it a lady like yoursel would read in the Classics. How do you like living in Glasgow, then?’

  ‘It makes a change.’ She turned as the same woman returned with a tray of glasses and a jug of wine. ‘Set it there, lass, and I’ll serve. Aye, a change,’ she continued as Agrippina withdrew quietly. ‘And yoursels, maisters? Does Glasgow agree wi you?’

  ‘Well enough, seeing I was born here,’ said Philip Sempill. ‘Where were you before you came here?’

  ‘Ah, where was any of us afore we came here?’ she responded, handing him a brimming glass. ‘That’s too deep for me and all.’ She handed wine to Maistre Pierre and to Gil, and sat back, raising her own glass. ‘Your good health, maisters. Now, what can a poor woman do for three burgesses of Glasgow? Is it about the counterfeit coin we had?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘I took it it was Long Mina who’d had that. Tell me about it.’

  She spread her free hand. ‘What’s to tell? Counting the takings the eve of Thomas Sunday, I recognized two false silver threepenny pieces, and took them to the Provost as my duty is.’

  ‘That’s more than most burgesses would do,’ observed Maistre Pierre. ‘It’s a loss of six silver pennies, after all, not to be accepted lightly.’

  She tipped her head back, and looked sideways at him beneath the pleated gold gauze of her undercap.

  ‘This is a house of honest dealing, maistre. I’ll no give out false coin even in taxes. So once it’s in my hands it’s a loss any way, the Provost might as well have it. Besides, I hadny his acquaintance yet, the chance was no to be missed.’

  ‘You recognized them?’ Gil said. ‘How? What showed you they were false?’

  ‘No balls,’ she said, and tittered. ‘Four wee mullets about the cross, instead of two mullets and two balls. Oh no, I mind Eckie Livingstone called them pellets,’ she added reflectively, ‘and he ought to ken, wi his experience.’

  ‘What, is he that Livingstone?’ asked Gil in surprise. ‘I hadn’t realized. Alexander Livingstone was moneyer to James Third,’ he explained to his father-in-law. ‘It must be twenty year since, but I mind my father talking of him. If this is the same man I must get a word wi him about the process, we need to know what to look for, whether it’s like to be hidden in Glasgow. I’ve no idea what size of a workshop we’d be seeking.’

  ‘No hope, I suppose,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘that you would tell us where the false coin came from, madame?’

  ‘Never dream o’t, maistre!’ she said. ‘Mind you, if you were to attend here on an evening, you’d be one of the society, and could learn all sorts o secrets and mysteries.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Gil, turning his glass in his hand. ‘Such as where you get this wine, madam? It’s uncommon good.’

  ‘Oh, some secrets are no for sharing!’

  ‘What do you mean by the society?’ asked Philip. ‘Are your customers all in a league, or something?’

  ‘That’s it exact,’ she agreed. ‘But we call them guests, maister. Once a man’s called here of an evening, taken part in our entertainment, which is music and singing and the like, whether he stays late or goes home to his own household, he’s a member of the society. You’d be surprised at some of the names I’ve got writ down,’ she added, then looked away, hand over her crimson mouth, in a play of realizing she had said too much.

  ‘And the false coin came from one or more of your – guests,’ said Gil, ‘rather than from the market.’

  ‘Two silver threepenny pieces? No from the market, sir, and I’ve had no dealings wi the merchant houses lately that would leave me wi coin to that value in my hand.’

  Gil nodded, recognizing the slight stress on houses. It was possible she could be persuaded to give him more precise information, but not in front of two other people. He did not relish the thought of a more intimate conversation; something about Madam Xanthe repelled him, and it was nothing to do with her striking appearance and arch manner, which reminded him of a bawd-mistress he had encountered in Paris.

  ‘In fact,’ said Philip Sempill, ‘we’re no here about the false coin, though I’ve no doubt Maister Cunningham welcomes what you’ve tellt him.’ She looked sharply, briefly, at Gil then turned to face Philip, opening her eyes very wide. ‘I’m here to represent Mistress Magdalen Boyd, who I believe is your landlord.’

  ‘Mistress Boyd?’ she repeated. ‘Aye, she is, maister. What’s she at? I do trust she’s well?’

  ‘She has offered this toft and the next one to my foster-son,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘as severance, I suppose you might say, in recognition of the boy no longer being John Sempill’s heir.’

  ‘John Sempill? The new husband?’ The arch manner had vanished.

  ‘The same,’ agreed Gil.

  ‘Maybe you should explain it from the start,’ she said. ‘Who is the heir, then? What’s it about? If I’ve to pay over a heriot fee to a new superior, I’d as soon know why.’

  Gil, with a glance at Philip, set out the history of the offer. Madam Xanthe listened without interrupting him, and finally nodded.

  ‘She’s within her rights, I suppose, if she wishes her own bairn to be the legitimate heir. And you’ll accept the offer?’

  ‘We have not yet decided,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We thought to inspect the property, to clarify the decision.’

  ‘Oh, I’d advise you to accept,’ she said, with a return to her former manner. ‘I pay a good rent, maistre, and it’s a handsome house; once we move on and it’s right fumigated you’ll find another tenant easy enough.’ That titter again. ‘You might even be able to leave the image on the door.’

  ‘Once you move on,’ Gil repeated. ‘So you don’t see staying in Glasgow, madam?’

  ‘Our Lady save us, no,’ she said. ‘We leave afore folks get bored.’

  ‘I do not think folk would so soon tire of you, mistress,’ said Maistre Pierre.

  ‘Oh, you’d be amazed,’ she responded, looking at him sideways. ‘You’d be amazed. So I suppose you’ll wish to view us, maisters? A wee t
our of the fixed assets?’ She turned her head, not waiting for an answer, and called, ‘Agrippina! Send Cato to me. The laddie will show you about,’ she went on. ‘I’ll leave you wi him, for there’s matters to see to above stair. My lassies need to keep abreast of the news, you might say, and we open for business in an hour or so.’

  Cato proved to be a gangling boy of sixteen or so, who emerged from the stair dragging on a velvet jerkin and grinning nervously. Madam Xanthe exclaimed in exasperation and rose, towering over the boy, her fur-lined brocade swinging, to cuff him briskly about the ear.

  ‘I’ve tellt you often enough, you fasten the jerkin out-by, you don’t come in here dressing yoursel!’ He rubbed the ear, looking sulky, and she went on, ‘Put yoursel straight, you’re trussed all awry, and then show these maisters about the outhouses and the kaleyard.’

  ‘All o them? And the wee pleasance and all?’ asked Cato. She sighed.

  ‘Aye, the wee pleasance and all, and the kitchen if Strephon allows it. All but the house.’ She turned to her guests again with a coy crimson smile, and curtsied. ‘If you’ll forgive me then, maisters. And I hope to see you all again some evening.’

  ‘I should wish to see the house as well,’ said Maistre Pierre, rising.

  ‘Oh, no, maister, I couldny allow that,’ said Madam Xanthe. ‘That’s a privilege has to be earned, you might say.’

  ‘Nevertheless—’ began Philip.

  ‘An account of what offices it contains would be enough for now,’ Gil said. ‘How many chambers, madam? And closets?’

  ‘Seven chambers,’ she returned promptly. ‘Including this we’re standing in. One, two—’ She counted visibly. ‘Three closets. Four hearths. That’s under this roof, and then under their own roofs there’s the kitchen, the washhouse, the stores – Cato can show you those. I’d hope he’s able for that,’ she added, looking sourly down at the boy, who gave her a deprecating grin. ‘I’ll bid you good day, maisters. And if you’re to look into the matter of the false coin, Maister Cunningham,’ she digressed again, with another sideways glance from the painted eyes, ‘I’m right glad to hear it, for I’m sure we’ll all rest easier in our beds for knowing you’re on the hue and cry.’

  Leading them down the stair and across a chamber where the woman Agrippina was mending linen, the boy called Cato led them out by the back door of the house and across a paved yard. Early flowers in tubs shivered in the wind on either side of the doorsill.

  ‘The flowers are bonnie. Do you tend them?’ Gil asked.

  ‘No me, maister, I’ve a black thumb,’ confessed Cato. ‘A’thing I tend to dies. No, that’s Kit– Cleone,’ he corrected himself, ‘that sees to the plants. She says it makes a nice change, raising up something that stays up.’

  Gil looked sharply at the boy, aware of Philip Sempill on his other side reacting in the same way, but Cato, apparently oblivious to the double meaning in his words, went on,

  ‘This is the kitchen, maisters. Are you wanting to see in? Only that Ste– Strephon isny in a good mood the day, and if the supper spoils—’

  ‘It’s a good kitchen,’ Gil said, assessing the little building. ‘Two doors and plenty windows. You’d get out easy enough if it caught fire.’

  ‘That’s what Strephon says,’ agreed Cato. ‘And yonder’s the privy, and the coal house, and the lime house, and the feed store, and—’ He led them onwards, telling off all the buildings as they passed them.

  ‘When did Madam Xanthe move in here?’ asked Maistre Pierre, looking about him.

  ‘A month afore Martinmas last,’ said Cato promptly.

  ‘Early October, so more than six month since,’ observed the mason. ‘And I would say no maintenance done in that time and longer.’ He nodded at the row of storehouses. ‘Two broken hinges, peeling paint, the limewash not renewed this winter. The window-frames are dry, they need a coat of linseed. The bawdy-house may pay a good rent, but it is not a good tenant. These houses of timber must be groomed like a horse, daily.’

  ‘I hardly think maintenance was in the lease,’ said Philip Sempill.

  ‘I’ve never been tellt to do aught about that,’ said Cato, equally defensive. ‘Madam aye has other tasks for me. And Hercules,’ he mangled the name badly, ‘is aye waking nights, in case of trouble, so he has to sleep daytimes.’

  Gil nodded. It had seemed likely there was some more impressive guardian about the place than this lad. He wondered what Hercules might own for his baptismal name.

  They followed Cato past the storehouses, across a second small courtyard, and through a gap in a wicker fence into a garden which sloped down towards the Molendinar and a further sturdy outhouse by the distant gate. To left and right more wicker fencing marked the edges of the property. The hammering from the next toft was clearly audible.

  ‘That’s the pleasance,’ the boy said unnecessarily, waving at the low bristles of box hedging. ‘It was right bonnie when we came here, but I’ve no notion how to keep it, and nor’s Kit. And yonder’s the washhouse, where the lassies has a bath every month and washes all their hairs. They’ve a right merry time of it,’ he said wistfully, ‘I’d like fine to join them, for they take in cakes and ale and all sorts, and bar the door. But that’s when madam has me empty the privy and the garderobe, and stands over me to see I do it right.’

  ‘There is a garderobe?’ enquired Maistre Pierre with professional interest. ‘Where is it? Where does it drop?’

  Cato turned, grinning, and pointed back at the house. It rose above the cluster of outhouses, much plainer on this side, with a row of small upper windows which engendered regular waves in the thatch, and a high stone chimney with four octagonal pots.

  ‘You see the upstairs windows, maister? That’s Cleone and Daphne’s chamber at this end, and then the next one’s Armerella’s and Calypso, and then Galatea and Clymene.’ He was stumbling over these names too; it took Gil a little while to recognize Amaryllis. ‘And at that end it’s the two windows of madam’s chamber and closet, see, and the garderobe’s atween them and it drops down the outside of the house next the privy.’

  ‘Typical,’ said Maistre Pierre, shaking his head. ‘It need not be so, there are ways to keep the soil from the house walls, but local wrights never make use of them.’

  ‘It’s no so bad,’ said Cato. ‘The rain washes the most o’t down. Stinks a bit when it’s a dry spell.’

  ‘So have you seen enough to make a decision?’ enquired Philip Sempill over the boy’s head.

  ‘We’d like a bit time to consider,’ said Gil promptly. ‘I told the old – dame it would be longer than two days, after all.’ He moved towards the house, saying to Cato, ‘Are the neighbours any trouble? There’s a good many folk working on the toft on this side that we passed. Who dwells on the other side?’

  ‘That’s Maister Fleming,’ said Cato. ‘He’s the weaver, ye ken, has his weaving-shed out the back there. He’s no bother, no since madam bought all the blankets for the house off him and cleared his warehouse. This side’s more trouble, they’s aye a din ower the fence. See, there’s Adkin Saunders the pewterer for a start, a short temper he has, him and his wife’s aye arguing and their weans screaming—’ This was patently true, the children could be heard screaming now. ‘And then there’s Noll Campbell the whitesmith, he’s a good craftsman, we’ve some o his tinwares in the hall, but he’s a right grumphy fellow. Madam says the two o them has a competition to see who can work longest, and then they has great arguments and shouting and their wives joining in and all.’

  ‘A pewterer, a whitesmith – who else is there?’ asked Philip Sempill.

  ‘Danny Bell the lorimer,’ supplied Cato, counting carefully on his fingers, ‘Dod Muir the image-maker, that took a stick to me when I went to fetch Ki– Cleone’s shift when it blew ower the fence. And thingmy wi his donkey-cart. That’s all five.’

  ‘So you have to disentangle the ownership,’ said Alys, ‘and then make certain Dame Isabella gives the right piece of land to Tib. How can you d
o that? Does your uncle expect you to cast a horoscope, or raise an incantation over a brazier of herbs, or something?’

  ‘The Canon has confidence in his nephew,’ said Catherine in faint reproof.

  ‘Rather too much confidence,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll go up in the morning and get a word with him.’

  ‘And with Sempill or his wife, I suppose,’ offered Maistre Pierre.

  The supper was over and the table dismantled. They had given a brief account of their afternoon over the meal, but now Gil was describing in more detail what had been said and what they had seen.

  ‘And these two tofts on the Drygate,’ Alys went on. ‘You said one of them is the new brothel. What does a two-year-old want with a brothel? Do you mean to accept it?’

  ‘It’s a valuable property,’ Gil said, ‘and the madam says she plans to move on soon. I’d be in favour, so long as we had that in writing.’

  ‘Mm.’ Alys shook out the bundle of linen in her lap and hunted for the needle in the seam. ‘And the other property?’

  ‘Busy. Four craftsmen and Danny Sproat with his don-key-cart. Again, a good rent-roll, probably we’d get as much as Sempill sends us each quarter from that one alone.’

  ‘A wise investment, then. How will you proceed?’

  ‘Maister Livingstone is to come here,’ Gil said, glancing at the fading light from the windows, ‘about now, indeed, and tomorrow I’ll wait on Dame Isabella, and as Pierre says I must get a word with Magdalen Boyd, though I suppose Sempill will be present. Likely the rest of the day’s my own.’

  ‘And this question of the false money,’ Alys said, and bit off her thread. She selected a second needle from the row stuck ready-threaded into the cushion of the bench beside her, drew the candles closer and began another row of neat stitches. ‘When will you have time to look into that?’

  ‘When I’ve sorted the other thing.’ Gil grimaced. ‘Though if my lord orders me to see to it, it ought to take precedence.’