by Pat McIntosh
‘Can you describe him?’ Gil studied the apothecary across his workbench, aware of Lowrie at his side doing the same. Syme was a handsome young man with golden hair and an irritating way of speaking, as if he was confiding a secret. Married to his partner’s elder daughter, on the older man’s death he had found himself in charge of the flourishing business and was managing it well and methodically. Any observations he had made were likely to be accurate.
Now Syme set down the pestle with which he was reducing dandelion leaves to a green paste, and turned to lift a ledger from the shelf behind him. Across the shop his assistant looked up, and returned to a similar task.
‘Yesterday,’ he murmured. ‘Early. Aye, here it is, Maister Cunningham. Root ginger, cloves, flowers of sulphur, a bottle of the restorative for the hair, senna-pods, rhubarb, and a wee box of the anise laxative. Suffered badly wi her belly, the poor lady.’ Gil forbore to comment. ‘Fourpence, another fourpence, two pence for the ginger and again for the cloves, the bottle, the other matters, that came to three shillings and a penny, and the lad handed it to me in silver—’ He gazed briefly out of the window. ‘Aye, he was alone. Taller than me, near your height I’d say, well-set-up fellow wi brown hair, big ears, very civil.’
‘Alan,’ said Lowrie confidently. Gil nodded. It certainly did not sound like Attie.
‘And no sign of the other man, maybe waiting outside?’ he prompted.
‘Not that I saw.’
‘Have you checked the coin the lad gave you?’
‘Checked it?’ Syme stared at him, then looked at the pyne-pig on the shelf beside the ledger. ‘No – no, I – I never thought. We’ve no much trouble wi false coin here, Nanty has more down by the Tolbooth, one or two a day he gets or so he says.’
Only one of the handful of silver threepenny pieces in the tin box was false. Syme looked at it, biting his lip.
‘There was more,’ he said. ‘Like I said, maister, the lad gave me three shillings in silver. Three groats,’ he poked through the thin coins, which slid away from his finger, ‘and eight threepennies, and two ha’pennies. I hope we’ve no given out false coin in change. I’ve a reputation to consider.’ He caught up the counterfeit and held it out to Gil. ‘Maister, I’m assuming you’re looking into the business, since you’ve asked me about it, or at least that you can gie this to the Provost. I’d as soon it was out of my hands.’
‘I’ll pass it to the Provost,’ Gil said resignedly.
‘There was an odd thing, though,’ Syme went on, fastening the box down. ‘Yestreen, when we’d a gathering, the three apothecary houses in the burgh, as we do, we were speaking o this. Aye, I’d best let you hear what Nanty had to say.’
‘She wanted to tell you herself,’ Kate said, ‘and it’s a day or two since I saw you, I thought this was the best way.’ She peered across the window space at Gil. ‘Are you well? There’s all sorts o tales about the town.’
‘Oh, is that it?’ Gil grinned at his favourite sister.
They were in the hall of the house at Morison’s Yard, where Kate’s husband Augie Morison ran his business, a few doors down the High Street from Maistre Pierre’s dwelling. Kate herself spent a lot of time in this big, light window-bay, seated in her carved wooden chair with her crutches propped close at hand.
They had already discussed the health and amazing development of Kate’s baby son, godson to Gil and Alys, who it seemed was asleep upstairs. Now Gil set his beaker of ale down on the tray beside him and sat back, leaning against the pale oak panelling. ‘You want the tale from the horse’s mouth? You should ask at Lowrie here, he rescued me out of the place.’
‘The bawdy-house? I thought you were well in charge, maister,’ offered Lowrie, palming another of Ursel’s little cakes. ‘Sending out for your clothes and all.’
‘No, Alys came by this morning to see Edward and tellt me the gist of it,’ Kate said, ‘and since she was here when Nan and the girls came back she heard their tale too and went off saying she’d send to you to look in. So what like are these paintings?’
‘No as bad as they’re reputed. Naked goddesses and the like, all very tasteful.’
‘I never saw them,’ said Lowrie regretfully. ‘The back o the house is quite plain.’
‘Magdalen Boyd wants to cover them in limewash.’
‘She would,’ said Kate. There were light hasty feet on the stair leading down into the hall, and her stepdaughters burst into the room, followed by their nurse making chiding noises about their behaviour. Both girls checked at sight of a stranger, but Kate smiled, and held out a hand. ‘Here, my lassies, come and make your curtsies.’
The older girl came obediently, smiling shyly at the guests, and curtsied as directed. The younger flung herself across the chamber, ended up at Gil’s knee, fixed him with a penetrating grey stare and said,
‘Uncle Gil, we found the man that’s making the bad pennies.’
‘I’ll tell him!’ said her sister indignantly. ‘It was me that found him!’
‘Now, lassies,’ said their nurse. ‘That’s no way to—’
‘It’s Uncle Gil,’ said the younger girl, ‘don’t have to be polite.’
‘Ysonde!’ said Kate. ‘Come here! Wynliane, go and tell your uncle what you saw.’
Wynliane, almost eight, with her father’s blue eyes and soft fair hair, came to Gil’s side, glancing doubtfully at Lowrie. Her new front teeth had come in, and she looked more like Augie than ever. Gil introduced them, and Lowrie doffed his hat, making the child blush. Her nurse said bracingly,
‘Tell Maister Gil about it, like your mammy bids you. Good day to you, maister,’ she added. ‘I hope you’re well? We went to the market this morning, me and the lassies,’ she explained, ‘for they’ve a penny or two for spending.’ She glanced significantly at Kate, now occupied in explaining to Ysonde just why a young lady should be polite to everyone, and Gil recalled that his sister’s birthday was approaching. He nodded his understanding, and stout Nan smiled and gestured to Wynliane.
‘Me and Nan and Ysonde,’ the child agreed, ‘and we went to all the stalls, and bought Ursel a col– colandrain—’
‘Colander,’ prompted Nan, her black brows rising in amusement.
‘Yes, for the kitchen, and we bought – I bought—’
‘Something,’ Gil supplied. ‘And did you get pennies back?’
Wynliane nodded gratefully. At Kate’s side, Ysonde drew herself up, fixed her stepmother with a direct grey stare and said dramatically,
‘Is this sothe, my moder dere?’
Gil suppressed a grin as he recognized the quotation, and concentrated on Wynliane. ‘And one of them was a false coin, was it?’
The older girl nodded again.
‘Do you still have it?’ Nod. ‘Will you show me it?’
She held out her hand. Sticking to her palm was another of the threepenny pieces, cross side uppermost.
‘I saw it was false first!’ proclaimed Ysonde. She crossed to them in a sort of travelling curtsy, bobbed another one at Lowrie, and gabbled, ‘I ask your pardons, Maister Gil, Maister Lowrie, for my discourtesy. I saw it was false first,’ she repeated, duty done. ‘For I asked Da how he knew when it was false coins and he showed me how to look.’ She grabbed at the coin, her sister snatched it out of reach, and Nan separated the two children expertly. ‘Look, it’s easy seen. Let me show them!’
‘Let me hold the coin,’ said Gil, ‘and then you can show me. Which stall was it this came from?’
‘I’ll show you first,’ said Ysonde. She bent her curly head over Gil’s hand, pointing out the distinctions and obscuring the coin, while Wynliane in her soft voice said,
‘The man was rude.’ She bit her lip, leaning her head against Nan’s broad waist. ‘He shouted at Nan. When we told him it was false coin.’
‘And then he was in the chapel,’ supplied Ysonde. ‘And he fighted with the other man, and they knocked each other down and rugged them down in inches.’
Recognizing a
line from the Hallowe’en play which had taken place here in this hall, Gil repressed a grimace. Kate said,
‘Now, Ysonde. Let Wynliane tell it to your uncle the way you both told it to me this morning.’
‘Ysonde, will you show me the coin?’ suggested Lowrie, holding his hand out. Gil passed him the slip of silver and Ysonde followed it importantly. Wynliane began to explain the tale, with help from Nan.
They had told the man on the stall that the coin was false, but he had been angry, and accused Nan of trying to pass false coin back to him out of her own purse. Ysonde had been certain the coin was one the man had given her sister, but Nan was less sure.
‘So we just left it,’ she said, ‘and I wish now I’d argued the matter.’
‘What stall was this?’ Gil asked. Kate, at the other side of the wide window space, looked elaborately out at the men stacking huge yellow-glazed crocks in the yard.
‘A sweetmeat seller,’ Nan mouthed. He nodded understanding.
‘And then we went to St Mungo’s,’ Wynliane continued.
‘That’s Little St Mungo’s out the Gallowgate,’ Nan amended. ‘I’ve a fondness for the wee place, seeing I grew up next it.’ Gil knew the little chapel, a crumbling structure outside the eastward yett of the burgh in which his uncle took an interest; small as it was it contained three or four altars to different saints, screened off with hangings of mouse-nibbled brocade. ‘We went to say our prayers, did we no, my lass?’
Wynliane nodded.
‘And the man was there,’ said Ysonde from where she stood beside Lowrie. ‘Him and the other man was fighting.’
‘They were arguing,’ Nan corrected. ‘We were saying our prayers to Our Lady, all quiet in her wee chapel, and these two came in, and that busy arguing they never heard us.’
‘They were shouting,’ agreed Wynliane, burrowing against Nan’s apron.
‘The sweetie man said it was a cheat,’ said Ysonde, ‘and trying to get him in trouble, and then they fighted, and fell down battling each other. And then the priest came and stopped them,’ she said regretfully.
‘There was all blood,’ said Wynliane.
‘You never told me that, lass,’ said Kate.
‘Naught but a bloody nose, mem,’ said Nan reassuringly.
‘So one of them blamed the other for passing him false coin,’ Gil interpreted, ‘and there was a fight. Did you learn any more? Who were they?’
Nan shook her head.
‘I’d say they were maybe neighbours,’ she said. ‘They wereny kin, they wereny alike at all, but they seemed to ken one another right well. The one we’d spoke to, I never heard his name, but the other one,’ she paused, frowning. ‘Sir Tammas cried him, was it Miller?’
‘Miller?’ Gil repeated. ‘You’re sure of that?’
‘No.’ She shook her head again. ‘I was a wee bit taigled, you’ll understand,’ she glanced significantly at Wynliane, ‘and no paying that much mind. Miller or a name like it, Wright or Carter or the like.’
‘And I said,’ said Ysonde importantly, ‘we had to tell you, cos Mammy Kate said you was asking all about the false coins in Glasgow.’
‘Very right,’ said Lowrie. She gave him one of her rare smiles, accepting the praise as her due.
‘Then what?’ asked Gil. ‘Did they hear you? Did they go on talking?’
‘The dusty man said,’ Ysonde recalled with a sudden attack of accuracy, ‘the priest was an interfering auld ruddoch, and the sweetie man was a greetin-faced wantwit, and then he stamped out—’
‘Ysonde!’ said Kate.
‘You swored,’ said Wynliane, equally shocked.
‘Did not!’ retorted her sister, going red.
‘Did so!’
‘You’d never use words like that yoursel, would you?’ said Lowrie encouragingly. ‘You were just telling us what the man said.’
‘Well, it was what he said,’ she iterated, lower lip stuck out ‘And the sweetie man told the priest the dusty man was getting him in trouble, and then he went away too.’
‘That’s about it, Maister Gil,’ agreed Nan. ‘I’m hoping it was worth dragging you down here for, but it doesny seem like much to me.’
‘What did they look like?’ Gil asked. ‘What were they wearing?’
‘The sweetie man had a belt,’ said Wynliane. ‘With a namel buckle.’
‘Aye, that’s right, lassie,’ agreed Nan. ‘A pretty thing, it was, save the enamel was chipped. Otherwise,’ she thought briefly, and shrugged. ‘He was clad like any working man in Glasgow, I’d say, a leather doublet, a blue jerkin under it. I never noticed his hose, they were maybe hodden grey or the like, but he’d a blue bonnet on his head. He was a young fellow, maybe five-and-twenty, no so much as thirty. I never took much of a look at the other, but,’ she paused to think again. ‘I’d ha thought him a wee bittie younger by the way he spoke.’
‘Why did you call one of them the dusty man?’ Lowrie asked Ysonde. She looked up at him, scowling, from where she stood within his arm. ‘Was he dusty?’
‘Don’t know. That’s what the sweetie man called him.’
‘I think I’ll take a walk down to St Mungo’s,’ Gil said. ‘Can you come wi me, Lowrie?’
The young man nodded, and removed his arm from about Ysonde, saying,
‘I have to go now.’
There was a brief argument, but Ysonde was eventually persuaded that the two men could find the chapel by themselves. Wynliane put up her face to be kissed, saying,
‘Will you come back and tell us?’
‘Maister Gil will tell you, I expect,’ said Lowrie.
‘No, you’re to come,’ ordered Ysonde. ‘Say you’ll come.’
‘If I’m permitted,’ Lowrie said. Gil exchanged startled glances with Kate, but Ysonde accepted this reluctantly, and they took their leave.
Out in the street, glancing at the sky, Gil said, ‘We’ve likely time to go by Little St Mungo’s now. Then I could do wi a word wi your man Attie.’
‘So could I,’ said Lowrie absently. ‘That’s a lively wee lassie of your sister’s. How old is she? The two o them are her stepdaughters, you said?’
‘Ysonde? She’s five or six, I think. She’s a wildcat,’ Gil said, ‘and about as ready to gentle.’
‘But sharp as a,’ Lowrie paused, swallowed, and visibly changed what came next, ‘sharp as a new pin. Quoting from Floris and Blanchflour at six!’
‘It’s one of their father’s favourites. He’s likely read it to them a few times.’
‘Oh, is that it?’ Lowrie stepped aside to avoid a marauding pig. ‘If she grows up aught like madam your sister she’ll be a rare gem.’
Sir Tammas Dubbs, priest of Little St Mungo’s, was a worn elderly man in worn elderly garments, with a long knitted scarf wound round his neck. He was about to say Nones with the clerk who was shuffling about in the chancel waiting for him, and was unwilling at first to listen to Gil’s questions.
‘There’s a many fights atween folk in this parish,’ he said brusquely. ‘I pay no mind, other than try to stop them killing one another.’
‘These two wereny killing one another,’ Gil said. ‘They were arguing because one said the other had got him into some trouble over some coin.’
There was a resonant thump on the end wall of the little building. The clerk, to Gil’s astonishment, erupted from the chancel and hurried to the door, trailing a muttering stream of curses. Sir Tammas turned to watch him go, and said over his shoulder,
‘Aye, well. And half my parish wi him, I’ve no doubt.’
‘One of them might be called Miller.’ Sir Tammas turned abruptly and stared at Gil, then looked away again. ‘And the other sells sweetmeats along the Gallowgate, and has an enamel buckle to his belt.’
Outside the clerk was shouting indignantly. Impudent young voices answered him, and a taunting chant began. The priest clicked his tongue in annoyance, and shook his head.
‘I’ve no idea who it might ha been,’ he said. ‘Like I
tell ye, there’s fights all the time.’
‘What, in here and all?’ Lowrie asked. Sir Tammas glanced at him, but did not answer.
‘Have you had any trouble wi false coin?’ Gil moved casually so that light fell on the priest’s face.
‘None. Now I must go, my sons, you’re holding back the Office.’ Sir Tammas raised his hand, muttered a perfunctory blessing, and strode to the door, the ends of his scarf flying. As soon as he stepped outside the mockery stopped, and after a moment priest and clerk returned and crossed to the chancel without looking at Gil. They were barely within the dark archway, and the priest’s cracked elderly voice had just risen in the first words of the Office, when there was another thump on the wall. Sir Tammas checked, then continued. The Office should not be interrupted.
Gil, grinning at Lowrie, went quietly to the door and stepped out. He was just in time to surprise the next boy swinging on the knotted rope hung from the eaves. Distracted, the youngster misjudged his timing, and instead of kicking off from the gable he thumped into the stonework, let go the rope, and fell in a winded heap at the foot of the wall.
‘Ah, ye bausy juffler, Dod Armstrang!’ said the lad next in line, without sympathy, and leapt for the swinging rope. Clinging with both hands he kicked expertly at the stonework and twirled away in a circle, grinning widely and back-heeling the recumbent boy’s shoulder as he spun past. ‘See, that’s how ye dae’t. No, it’s no auld Dubbsie, it’s a pair o fine daft chiels fro the town.’
Seeing the truth of this, three or four more boys came back to their game, staring at the strangers. Gil raised his hat to them, at which they giggled, and nudged one another. They were a ragged crew, barefoot and clad in handed-down hose and jerkins, one or two lacking a shirt, all very dirty.
‘I’m looking for two men that were here earlier,’ he said. ‘Maybe you saw them?’
The boys looked sideways at one another, and the fallen one pulled himself to his feet. The lad in possession of the rope jumped down, staggering slightly, and said,
‘Maybe. Maybe no. What’s it to you?’
‘It might be worth something,’ Gil said, reaching for his purse. All their eyes followed the movement.
