The Counterfeit Madam

by Pat McIntosh

  The door was well secured, though he could probably have opened it without difficulty. Bethag dragged one leaf open and nodded at the shadowed interior; he peered in, identifying stall and manger for the donkey and the standing for the little cart it pulled. The woman spoke in Ersche, pointing at the far wall.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. She gave him that awkward smile again and crossed to open a shutter above the cart standing, and by its light showed him a place where the planking was splintered and gnawed. Something scurried over their heads in the low rafters, and she looked up apprehensively. ‘Aye, you get rats in a stable. You need a dog here. Can Danny Bell not bring his dog down to sort matters?’

  She nodded, and moved to the door, pointing at the feed sack with a sour, unintelligible comment. He looked about again, comparing the small building with the rent he knew Sproat paid and finding it reasonable, and turned to follow her out.

  Pain stabbed savagely at his head, and the world went dark.

  The next thing he was fully aware of was of lying facedown on grass, soaking wet and shivering, with an upheaval in his stomach which became a paroxysm of vomiting. As it passed off and he collapsed shuddering on one elbow again, a pair of booted feet came into his field of view, followed by a swirl of dark red broadcloth.

  ‘You see, madam, there he’s, just like I said! And he’s lost his hat!’

  He knew the voice. Who was it?

  ‘Aye, just like you said. Good laddie, Cato, you did very well here. Now gie me a hand to lift him.’ Strong hands seized him, dragged him upright. Pain knifed through his head, the world swung around, and a face came close to his, a bright mouth, painted eyes, gold-edged veil. ‘Well, he’s no been drinking. Come away, son, we’ll get you indoors. Can you walk?’

  ‘I seen them put him in the burn!’ Cato was at his other side, urging him on. One foot in front of the other, teeth chattering, an expert grip on his elbow holding him up, he moved forward. Grass, a muddy path, more grass. Steps, a gate. A gravel path with weeds. Cato still prattling about the burn. Who had been in the burn? Was that why he was so wet? They were in a house now. The bawdy-house. What was it called? Why did his head hurt? The bawd-mistress was talking too.

  ‘Cato, I said you’re a good laddie, but you can be quiet the now. Come away in, son, we’ll have you in here by the brazier. There, you can lie down a bit. Cato, send Agrippina to me wi the good cordial, and bid Strephon put some broth to heat, and then fetch me some towels, two o the big ones, I’d say, till we get him dried off.’

  Expert fingers were working at his clothes. He tried to push the hands away, mumbling an objection, and there was a firm grip on his chin.

  ‘Look at me. Look at me, Gil Cunningham.’ He opened his eyes, and found Madam Xanthe’s painted face close to his. ‘You’re wringing wet, we have to get you out those clothes and dry afore you take your death. I’m no threat to your wee wife, man.’ She moved back a little. ‘Ah, Agrippina. See me a glass o that stuff. Come up a wee bit, laddie.’

  The cordial was fiery and sweet, bit his throat on the way down but sent warmth through him and seemed to clear his head. He looked about him, as Madam Xanthe dragged his jerkin off and started on the points which fastened hose to doublet. He was half-lying on a padded bench, in a chamber he had not seen before, well lit and full of women’s gear, a basket of spinning and another of sewing on the windowsill. It seemed odd to find such a thing in a bawdy-house.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Did the boy say I was in the burn?’

  ‘I seen you!’ Cato arrived with an armful of linen towels. ‘It was some o them next door, they carried you out the back gate and threw you into the mill-burn.’

  He stared at the boy, trying to work out what this could mean.

  ‘And it was me got you out,’ Cato continued proudly, ‘for I saw you wereny right awake, and I thought maybe you’d not get out afore you got to the millwheels, so I ran down the bank and I got you out! I never got your hat, but,’ he added deprecatingly.

  ‘I was in the stable,’ Gil said after a moment. ‘Oh, my head!’

  ‘And then I came and fetched madam. Right lucky you was back, madam, so it was!’

  ‘Here,’ said Madam Xanthe, pausing in her activities, and felt round his skull with gentle hands. ‘Is your head broke?’ He flinched as she touched a tender spot. ‘No, the skin’s whole, but there’s a lump like a hen’s egg below the crown here. You’ve had a right dunt, I’d say. What were you at in the stable, that they took exception? No stealing a ride on the donkey, I hope, I’d hate to think o the sight.’

  He shook his head, and immediately regretted it.

  ‘I don’t recall.’ He braced himself as she bent to haul one of his boots off. ‘I was. I was talking to.’ He paused, and the faces swam up in his memory. ‘Sempill and his wife. And then,’ he shivered again, and Agrippina came forward and began loosening the strings of his shirt. ‘Aye, she’s dead.’

  ‘Who’s dead?’ Madam Xanthe said sharply, staring up at him, the red paint on her lips suddenly stark against her white skin. He swallowed.

  ‘Dame – Dame Isabella. The man came to tell us. So I needny concern myself wi her lands.’

  ‘Dame Isabella,’ repeated Madam Xanthe, as Agrippina dragged his shirt over his head and began rubbing at his back and chest with one of the towels. ‘Aye, well, small loss her. Now we’ll ha your small-clothes off. Never fret, we’ve all seen one of those afore. Will you have me send to your wife for dry clothing, or will you borrow what we can find round the place?’ She tittered, with a brief return of her usual manner. ‘It all depends, I suppose, whether you want her to know you’re here.’

  That was easy. He must be late for dinner already. Let them know now, explain the situation later. And it would take some explaining, he felt.

  ‘Send home, if you would,’ he said, giving up one arm to Agrippina’s ministrations. ‘Does the laddie ken where—’

  ‘I ken where!’ said Cato. ‘It’s the big house right by the Blackfriars.’

  By the time the boy returned Gil felt much more human. A bowl of hot broth and a hunk of bread had warmed him and steadied his stomach, only his hair was still damp, and he was beginning to remember what had led up to the moment when someone must have struck him on the head.

  ‘I stepped out of the stable,’ he said. ‘The woman was ahead of me, it wasn’t her—’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ observed Madam Xanthe with irony from her seat by the window. He looked up, startled, and she met his gaze directly for a moment before the arch smile spread to her eyes. ‘I’d not like to think she’d felt the need to strike you down. You’ve a name in this town, Maister Cunningham.’

  That seemed too difficult to work out. He went back to his ruminations.

  ‘It must ha been someone behind the door. What did the boy see?’

  ‘All he said to me was that he’d seen them next door throw you into the burn. If he’d seen you struck down he’d ha let us all know.’

  ‘I suppose nobody else was looking out,’ he said without much hope.

  ‘Ah, now, there’s a thought. Bide here.’

  Draped like an antique statue and without his boots, he was hardly likely to go anywhere, but he said nothing, merely put his aching head back against the panelling behind him and considered what to do next. He had a good case against the tenants of Clerk’s Land, and it seemed he had at least one witness, though how good the boy Cato would be before the bailies was another matter. His immediate instinct was to accept the property on small John’s behalf and evict all the tenants, pausing only to double the rent, but the due process of the law might be a better weapon, and in any case there remained the question of why they had treated him like this. All he had done was look at the premises, make a few notes, and speak civilly to two of the women. Were they hiding something, he wondered, and if so what?

  Shortly Madam Xanthe reappeared, followed by a towheaded girl in a low-cut dress who trailed a strong scent of musk and
violets and paused inside the door, eyeing Gil speculatively.

  ‘Cleone was at her practice by the window,’ announced Madam Xanthe, ‘like a good lassie. Though it’s all good lassies in this house, a course,’ she added with another sly, sideways glance. ‘Tell Maister Cunningham what you saw, my dear.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ observed Cleone pertly, ‘I wouldny ha been at my practice if I could ha been sleeping, but what wi her snoring—’

  ‘What, again? She’ll have to go at the quarter if she canny stop that, it’s no attraction. Go on, what did you see? Was this the man?’

  Cleone eyed Gil again. Her eyes were blue, with dark rings round them.

  ‘The one I saw was wearing black.’

  ‘Aye, and his black is all wet and hung up in the kitchen. He doesn’t go about draped in sheets for every day. Get on wi’t, girl.’

  Cleone shrugged, causing an interesting change in the scenery of her low neckline.

  ‘There was those two next door, squabbling away in Ersche, and this man or one like him, clad all in black, came down the path and spoke to them. Then one of them, I think it was the Barabal one, went off up among the houses and the other one took him down to look at the donkey’s stable.’

  Gil nodded in spite of himself, and winced as pain stabbed in his head.

  ‘And then what?’ he asked. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I was studying the tablature a wee while,’ Cleone admitted, ‘but when I looked up there was a man ahint the door of the stable, and when you stepped out he struck you on the head wi his mell. And then they took and carried you out the gate, and dropped you in the water, and then I saw Cato running down our path. So I went back to my practice.’

  ‘Could you identify him?’ Gil asked. ‘Could you say who he was?’

  She looked at him with those blue eyes, smiling earnestly.

  ‘It was Dod Muir,’ she said. ‘I’m right certain.’

  ‘The image-maker,’ Gil said, and she nodded.

  ‘Why did you not go out to help Cato?’ demanded her mistress.

  ‘Because I wasny dressed. You’re aye telling us no to show off our—’

  ‘Aye, that’ll do. You’re certain o what you saw?’

  Cleone shrugged again.

  ‘It wasny Campbell nor Saunders. It wasny Danny Bell, he’s easy enough to make out, wi his hair. It wasny Sproat the donkey man, for he’s no in Glasgow. Who else would it be?’

  ‘You tell me, girl,’ said Madam Xanthe in exasperation. ‘Was it Dod Muir or no?’

  ‘Aye, it was,’ said Cleone.

  ‘Aye, well. So there you are, Maister Cunningham. Dod Muir the image-maker it was, if this lassie’s to be trusted, and if I was you I’d take him to law and double his rent as well.’

  ‘You could be right.’ He managed a smile for Cleone, who said with sympathy,

  ‘Is your head right sore? Ag– Agrippina’s got a rare bottle for a sore head.’

  ‘Aye, that’s a good thought, lass. You get back to your practice,’ said her mistress briskly, ‘see if you can master I long for thy virginitie for the night, and I’ll—’ Her head turned, and she peered out of the window. ‘Is that the laddie back? Who’s he brought wi him?’

  With him? Not Alys or Pierre, surely, Gil thought in alarm. Though Alys, he acknowledged to himself, would probably find the visit both interesting and entertaining.

  It was neither Alys nor Pierre; it was Lowrie Livingstone, even more embarrassed than Gil to discover him in such a situation.

  ‘I’m right sorry to trouble you,’ he said, backing into a corner of the chamber and knocking over the basket of spinning, ‘just we really needed to find you, but if you’re no feeling up to it we can maybe—’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ said Gil, emerging from the neck of his shirt. ‘Tell me again. Mally Bowen said—’

  ‘She says she’s no willing to lay the old – dame out until you’ve looked at her. It was you she named, no her husband the Serjeant. So I’m sent out to find you, and I’d just come to your house when this fellow,’ he nodded towards Cato, who was now grinning speechlessly at Cleone, ‘fetched up at the door saying you were here at the bawdy-house and needed your clothes.’

  Gil covered his eyes.

  ‘Is that what he said?’

  ‘He did explain,’ Lowrie assured him. ‘Though I don’t think he mentioned you’d been struck on the head.’

  ‘That’s no worry. I’d sooner my wife was annoyed than anxious,’ Gil said, cautiously resuming the process of dressing. Alys had sent the old doublet and the summer gown; it did seem likely she was annoyed. But she had remembered boots, a hat, and his old purse. ‘So Dame Isabella’s still waiting to be laid out. She’ll have to wait a bit longer now, she must have begun to set. Did Mally Bowen say what was troubling her?’

  ‘No.’

  Madam Xanthe swept back into the chamber, shooed Cato and Cleone out and handed Gil a glass of something dark.

  ‘Drink that,’ she ordered him, ‘it should help your head. Your clothes are nowhere near dry, Strephon tells me. I’ll send them back the morn, if you can manage without till then.’

  ‘I’ll find something to put on my back, I’ve no doubt,’ said Gil. He swallowed the mixture cautiously, recognizing the familiar tang of willow-bark, and returned to the task of fastening his points. ‘We’ll send to fetch them. One of the men would be glad of the errand, no need to take Cato from his work.’

  Lowrie gave a crack of laughter at this, and went red as Madam Xanthe looked more closely at him.

  ‘Well, here’s a likely young gentleman,’ she said, approaching him. He backed into his corner again, looking alarmed, and she put out a long finger and tipped his chin up. ‘Oh, aye, you’d get a free entry any evening you care, young sir,’ she pronounced, relishing the ambiguity. Gil, deliberately looking away to find his way into the summer gown, said in French,

  ‘Are you sure he’s up to your weight?’

  ‘Oh!’ Madam Xanthe tittered, but released Lowrie and said in the same language, ‘He’s your steed, is he? I’d not thought that of you, maistre.’

  Gil turned to meet her eyes directly.

  ‘I’m in your debt and Cato’s,’ he said, ‘for this morning’s support, but that doesn’t give you the right to affront me or my friends. Nor does it come well from you to do so,’ he went on, with a slight emphasis on the vous.

  The arch gaze sharpened slightly, then she looked away, with that annoying titter.

  ‘Oh, get on wi you,’ she said in Scots. ‘Away and get about your business, and then go and comfort your wee wife. Or deal wi Isabella Torrance, if that’s what’s needed.’

  * * *

  ‘She’s still in her chamber,’ said Maister Livingstone.

  They had found him in the first-floor hall of Canon Aiken’s substantial house, pacing anxiously before the hearth, though scattered documents on a nearby bench suggested he had been trying to deal with legal matters. ‘We’ll no get her laid out now till she softens,’ he went on. ‘I’ve sent for Mistress Bowen to come back, she can let you know what troubles her about the corp. She wouldny tell me, and she’d said naught to Annot.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea?’ Gil prompted. The other man shook his head.

  ‘She shut the door,’ Lowrie said, ‘shut herself and Annot in, and then, oh, barely a Te Deum later she’s back out with her basin and towel, hustles Annot out by the arm, saying she had to talk to you first.’

  ‘But is there some doubt about how Dame Isabella died?’

  Livingstone shrugged.

  ‘I’d not have said so. Her woman came wailing to me first thing, Oh, she’s deid, my lady’s deid, and I went wi her to see, and there’s the old carline on the floor of the chamber like she’d just fallen there, lying there in her shift, eyes open, mouth open, you’d think she’s seen a ghost. No doubt that she was dead, but I saw no sign of any injury or the like, no signs that suggested poison to me, save a wee bit blood at her nose, which I take to mean an
apoplexy.’

  ‘It sounds like it,’ Gil agreed. ‘Has the corp been touched since Mistress Bowen left? Has anyone been into the chamber?’

  ‘I wouldny cross a layer-out. I ordered it left alone. Annot made some outcry about prayers for her mistress, but I bade her stand at the door wi her beads, and set two of our men on to keep the rest away. The priest said he’d send a couple of bidders up from St Agnes, but he took little persuasion himself to go away meantime.’ Gil looked startled, and both Livingstone men grimaced. ‘She’d loosed her bowels,’ the elder explained, and put a hand to his nose. ‘It’s a bit—’

  ‘There’s Mistress Bowen now,’ said Lowrie as a hinge creaked outside. ‘Will we go down to meet her?’

  The house stood round three sides of a courtyard, so that the hall windows looked out over the knot-garden and the little fountain at its centre, as well as the gate opposite. To judge by the ladders and stacked timber there were carpenters working on one of the shorter wings, though they did not appear to be active today. Dame Isabella and her entourage were lodged in the other wing, where a set of three linked chambers at ground level had been made comfortable with hangings and padded furniture. The first of these seemed full of people, though this resolved into the man Attie and two grooms in green livery talking about crossbows, several elderly women in the dark habit of St Agnes’ almshouse praying industriously for the departed, and Mistress Bowen, a spare body in middle age bundled in a blue striped plaid, the long ends of her white linen headdress tied up on the top of her head for a day’s work, her towel and basin in her arms.

  ‘Good day to ye, maister,’ she said, and bobbed a curtsy to all three men impartially. ‘I’ll be glad to get this sorted and get the poor soul her rights.’