A Pig of Cold Poison

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘I’m no surprised,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘He keeps a tight hand on his household, does Frankie, he’d never accept sic a notion, and no more do I. Is that the best you can do, Gilbert?’

  ‘Bear in mind, sir, I’ve yet to hear from my lord Archbishop, I’m acting on my own account for now, so I can hardly insist on speaking to Agnes against her father’s wishes. I’ve no notion whether she’d tell a different tale if I did. I’d hoped my wife might get a word with her, but she’s –’ He broke off, unwilling to expand further on that. ‘She hasn’t succeeded yet,’ he finished. ‘There’s been no word from Stirling, I take it?’

  ‘No, no, I think there hasny. Walter clerk would ha brought it to me if there had.’ Sir Thomas hooted gloomily into the handkerchief again and wiped his eyes with his embroidered shirt cuffs. ‘Confound this rheum. No, Gilbert, I’m no willing to give you a direct order to question the lassie. It seems to me there’s little enough to connect her with the matter, other than that it’s one of her two admirers that’s slain the other. I’ll put young Bothwell to the question in the morning, and see what light he’ll cast on the matter, but –’

  ‘She was heard speaking to him,’ Gil pointed out.

  The Provost shook his head again. ‘So was the lad who died heard speaking to him, you tell me,’ he said, ‘and those two had high words. That’s a better argument for why he’s dead, though how Bothwell came by the poison so quick after the quarrel – did anyone think to search him or his scrip?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ admitted Gil in some embarrassment. ‘When I learned the flask he should have carried was left in the booth, I thought no further of it. That was unwise.’

  ‘Aye, well, maybe John Anderson searched it, though whether he’d write down all he found is another matter.’ Sir Thomas rubbed thoughtfully at his reddened nose. ‘No. Now, this flask that has the poison in it. We’ve got Bothwell and Frankie Renfrew both claiming it’s Both-well’s, your wife’s witness that it isny because all the ones he had are still in the packing and the docket wi them, and that daft Nicol Renfrew saying it’s one of his father’s that should have drops in it. If that’s right, and Nicol knows the flask, how come Frankie doesny? No, no, Gilbert,’ he added as Gil opened his mouth to interrupt, ‘I heard you the first time, but it’s how it will look to the assize that matters. Quiet, now, and let me think.’

  Gil sat hopefully, watching the older man. Sir Thomas must be in his forties, a small neat balding individual, usually dressed with quiet, rich good taste. Today, packaged in several layers of different furred garments, he resembled a disaster in a skinner’s workshop. He was tapping on the desk before him now, considering the quest on Danny Gibson.

  ‘Aye,’ he said finally, drawing the papers toward him. ‘I’ll tell you what, Gilbert. I’ll direct the assize to the cause of death, and order them not to consider who’s guilty here. They’ll no like it,’ he admitted, ‘for they aye relish getting someone took up for slaying or murder, but they’ll have to live wi the disappointment for once. Then if you’re right, and my lord agrees, we can follow it up, and if you’re wrong, well, we’ve got young Bothwell locked up anyway, though I’ve a notion John Anderson would like rid of him. It’s no very convenient having a lodger in the Tolbooth.’ He blew his nose again. ‘Confound this rheum. I’m away to my supper and my bed, and hope I feel more like the thing the morn’s morn. My lady’s got some remedy or other for me to take, but to be honest I’d as soon a good dram of usquebae.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Gil, concealing his reaction. ‘When will you question Bothwell?’

  ‘Oh, that’s for the morn and all,’ said Sir Thomas, rising and clutching his furs about him. ‘I’ll not risk standing about there in the tower just now, all in the damp and cold. Bid you goodnight, laddie, and I’ll see you in my court.’

  Gil left the Castle in some annoyance, but by the time he reached the Wyndhead he was more resigned to the situation. It seemed as if he had spent the entire day asking questions to no effect, and now Sir Thomas had put a stop to any further action this evening, except perhaps to find out what Wat Forrest had learned. However it was late in the day, darkness had fallen and the denizens of the upper town were making their way home for supper, and the evening was sufficiently cold that after speaking to Wat it was attractive to think of doing the same, and then of sitting by the fire, discussing what they had learned so far with Pierre and Alys.

  Yes, with Alys. And what was wrong there? he wondered, with a rush of anxiety.

  When they left the Renfrew house Maistre Pierre had set off to speak to his men at the other site by the cathedral, and Gil had gone straight home, to discover that though nobody in the main house knew she was there, his wife was in their dark lodging, curled up in the bed in her kirtle, dry-eyed and silent in a tight little ball. Socrates, who was not allowed on the bed, had been wedged in firmly at her side with his chin on her shoulder, and had made it politely clear to his master that he felt his mistress needed him. Alarmed and puzzled, Gil had lit candles, spoken to Alys, stroked her hair, tried to find out what was troubling her, but she would not speak except to tell him to go away. Obeying might not have been wise, he was aware, but he did not know what else to do.

  He paused at the top of the Drygate, standing under the torch on the corner of someone’s house, to consider matters. In the last couple of months she had been quite unwell when her courses began, but a brief reckoning of the calendar had already told him that that was probably not the answer, and the dog’s response suggested something different. Nicol’s remark that she had had a fright might be nearer it. Where had she been this afternoon? She was going to call at the Renfrews’ house, and Jennet had said something about Kate. Neither of those should have been alarming, the social events round a birth were women’s work after all and Kate would hardly – unless she and Kate had discovered something she disliked.

  He thought about that. Alys was inclined to make friends with the people involved in a case, and he was sure it did not help her to be impartial. Look at how she brought Christian Bothwell home, he reflected. If she had learned something this afternoon which reflected badly on Christian, or on Agnes Renfrew, would she have retreated from it in this way? No, probably not, he decided. Her ability to face unpalatable facts was one of the things he valued about her. So how unpalatable must something have been to reduce her to the state in which he had found her earlier? Perhaps Kate can tell me, he thought, I can go there after I speak to Wat. He set off down the Drygate, pulling his plaid up against the wind.

  The Forrest brothers were closing up the shop, Wat fastening the shutters while Adam swept the debris of the day’s trading out into the street. They both looked up when he halted beside the door.

  ‘Gil,’ said Adam hopefully. ‘Have you learned anything?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Gil. ‘Whatever I ask, it leads me no further. I’m more certain than ever it was an accident, but I canny prove it, and Nanty willny speak.’ He looked from one man to the other in the light spilling from their doorway. ‘Have you learned aught about the poison?’

  ‘No really,’ said Wat. He shook the shutters to check they were secure, and gestured to Gil to enter. ‘Come and I’ll show you what I’ve done so far.’

  ‘You’d hear Meg Renfrew had a wee lassie,’ said Adam, following them in. ‘The image of Frankie, so the howdies said.’

  ‘I did.’

  Gil waited while the brothers stowed the last oddments about the shop, closed the box with the money and lifted the candles. Leading the way into the workshop, Wat said, ‘He’ll be after me within the week to betroth the bairn to our Hughie, I’ll wager.’ He set the box down within his sight and nodded at the pottery flask where it sat bright and innocent on the bench in the candlelight. ‘Now, this. We’ve tried this, we’ve tried that, we’ve tested it for colour and for how quickly it boils, for how it mixes with oil and milk and butter.’

  ‘Butter?’ repeated Gil, startled.

  ‘There’s so
me poisons can be combined with goose-grease or butter, to smear on the skin or work into a glove or the like,’ said Wat. He caught sight of Gil’s expression, and grinned. ‘If you’re wishful to poison someone, man, there’s a way to it, whatever care your victim takes.’

  ‘So I see,’ said Gil. ‘And does this stuff work that way?’

  ‘No need,’ said Adam. ‘It slew Danny just from touching his skin, we think. The best we can do is that it’s some plant infusion or distillation.’

  ‘But there’s this.’ Wat drew on a scorched and stained glove and reached for a small dish. ‘We emptied it out into a glass, to get a better look at the colour, and when we poured it back, there was this left as residue. You’d be surprised what gets past the searce.’ He carried the dish to the light, and poked with a spill at one of the objects which lay on it. ‘You see?’

  ‘I see it.’ Gil moved his head this way and that to get a better look at the fragments. ‘What would you say it is? It looks to me like scraps of nutmeat. A broken almond, or the like.’

  ‘I’d say the same,’ agreed Wat happily, ‘and Adam’s agreed. It’s about the hardness of nutmeat, and by daylight it’s white, like cream rather than like milk.’

  ‘Almonds. Who mentioned almonds?’ Gil recalled. ‘When the lad fell, someone – aye, it was Robert Renfrew – said he’d been eating almonds, for you could smell them on him.’

  ‘I mind that,’ agreed Adam. ‘You could smell them, the boy was right for once.’ Gil glanced at him, and he grimaced. ‘He’s not a natural apothecary, young Robert, for all Frankie says.’

  ‘I never heard that you could brew a poison out of almonds,’said Gil doubtfully.

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Wat. ‘Nor there’s nothing in the books we have. Mind, if you put the right things to it, you can brew poison wi anything, but this hasny the look of something that’s been brewed from a complex receipt. The more you put to a compound, the muddier it gets.’

  ‘Not if it’s distilled out,’ Adam reminded his brother.

  ‘Frankie was working with some sort of nuts this morning,’ Gil recalled. ‘The label said Nux pines. Could that be it?’

  ‘Pine nuts?’ Wat guffawed. ‘Frankie? I wonder who those were for?’ He grinned at his brother, and added to Gil, ‘They’re reputed excellent for –’ he gestured expressively – ‘propping up what willny stand. They’re no poisonous, save you take too many, and you’d need to eat a sackful at a sitting for that.’

  ‘I’ve heard they eat them in Italy and places like that,’ said Adam. ‘Gil, have you learned anything at all yet?’

  ‘A little.’ Gil leaned against the bench and summarized what he knew or suspected so far, while the two men listened with lengthening faces. When he finished, Wat shook his head.

  ‘I’ve aye kent it was a quarrelsome house,’ he admitted, ‘but I never thought it was that bad. I’m more than ever glad I turned Frankie down yesterday. I’d say your choice is a better one, Adam.’

  Gil, keeping his face blank, asked, ‘Would you have said any of the household had the skill to produce this?’

  ‘Frankie himself,’ said Wat, ‘for he’s good at his trade. Jimmy, a course, and likely young Robert would know how though whether he’d achieve it I couldny say. How much Frankie’s taught his daughters I’ve no notion. But it’s hard to assess another’s craft without seeing them at work.’

  The Morison household was preparing to sit down to supper. The great board had been set up in the hall, the two young maidservants were shaking out the linen cloths to go over it, and the little girls and their nurse were waiting to set out the spoons and wooden trenchers. As Gil followed Andy Paterson across the chamber, the older child, Wynliane, intercepted him, looking up earnestly at his face. Her eyes were blue, darker than Agnes Renfrew’s. He paused, and smiled at her.

  ‘Good evening, Maister Gil,’ she said in her soft voice, and bobbed a child’s curtsy. ‘Will you stay for supper?’

  ‘He better not,’ said Ysonde from her nurse’s side. ‘Isn’t enough pastries.’

  ‘Ysonde,’ chided Nan. ‘That’s no a polite lassie.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t,’ asserted Ysonde.

  Gil went on to find Kate, his mood lightened slightly as it always was by contact with Ysonde. His sister was inspecting some linen with Babb in the next chamber, supported on her crutches and holding up one end of a long cloth opposite a candle.

  ‘It looks well enough by this light,’ she said to Babb. ‘Set it aside and we’ll have another look by daylight. Will you stay to supper, Gil?’

  ‘Ysonde says there aren’t enough pastries,’ he reported. Kate rolled her eyes. ‘I’m expected at home. I only called by to ask if you had seen Alys this afternoon.’

  ‘I did,’ she agreed, accepting two corners of the cloth from Babb and waiting while the big woman lifted the folded end of the cloth. ‘I gave her a message for you.’

  ‘Was she well?’

  ‘Well enough. Sit down a moment,’ she said, glancing at him, and helped Babb put the final folds in the cloth. ‘There, put it on the plate-cupboard, Babb, and we can search for stains by daylight. Ask Ursel if the supper will wait a quarter-hour, would you?’

  ‘She’ll likely no be pleased,’ Babb warned, ‘she’s wanting to go next door to hear about the mistress’s groaning-time.’

  ‘Offer her my apology,’ Gil said guiltily, sitting down on a chair against the wall. ‘I didn’t mean to hold back your meal, Kate.’

  Kate, reared as strictly as he had been in the principle that one did not upset the kitchen, merely nodded, and turned to clump over to sit beside him, propping her crutches across her knee.

  ‘I spoke to my lassies,’ she said as Babb left the room. ‘They noticed Agnes come in by the kitchen door, right enough, and they were both certain that she looked at young Bothwell as she came in, not at the lad who died.’

  ‘And yet she had spoken to Bothwell earlier, so it should have been Danny’s turn. It’s proof of nothing, but it is suggestive. Did she speak to anyone?’

  ‘No, they said she went straight to the stair.’

  ‘Thanks for this, Kate. I’ve another question for your kitchen.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Ask Ursel, if you would, if anything she served the mummers had almonds in it.’

  ‘Almonds? Like marchpane, or the like?’

  ‘Anything of that sort,’ he agreed.

  ‘I’ll ask her.’ She looked at him sideways. ‘Now why are you asking me if Alys was well? I’d my doubts about her myself, Gil. She seemed right shaken. She ate all the cakes on the tray, which is not like her, she usually takes one or two for manners, no more. She – it seems she witnessed the birth next door, and by what I hear Meg’s time was none of the easiest. I had to ask her direct before she’d admit it. I think she’s had a bad fright.’

  ‘Oh.’ He swallowed, dismayed. ‘What – I mean, how – how alarming would that be?’

  Kate gave him another sideways look, amusement in her face.

  ‘I’d not have wanted Augie present,’ she said.

  He digested this, and after a moment braced himself, saying, ‘Thanks, Kate. That must be it. I’d best be up the road and see what I can do.’

  ‘She may not want your help,’ Kate observed. He looked sharply at her. ‘Gil, how do you get a bairn in the first place? It might take another woman to comfort her.’ He stared, working out her meaning in growing embarrassment, and she bit her lip. ‘I’d come back with you, but there’s the men’s supper here –’

  ‘No.’ He rose. ‘See to your own household, Kit-cat. I need to sort this myself, whether she’ll let me or not.’

  She looked up at him rather anxiously.

  ‘Bid her come down here the morn’s morn,’ she suggested. ‘I’d take it as a favour – the – the quest on Danny Gibson’s called for nine of the clock. I could do wi the company.’

  He nodded. ‘Thanks, Kate,’ he said, and gripped her shoulder briefly.

  ‘Ursel’s saying,’
announced Babb in the doorway, ‘that the supper’ll spoil if she keeps it back any longer, so if Maister Gil’s no staying he’d best be off out the road, my leddy.’

  ‘You see where Ysonde gets her manners,’ said Kate resignedly. ‘Goodnight, Gil.’

  To his astonishment, and initial relief, Alys was in the hall of her father’s house, overseeing the same tasks as had been in hand at Morison’s Yard. Socrates was lying on the hearth watching her carefully, though he scrambled up when Gil entered and came to explain his earlier dereliction of manners, tail wagging, ears deprecatingly flattened. There was no sign of Christian Bothwell; she must have decided to stay in her own house this night.

  ‘Am I late?’ he asked, acknowledging his dog’s apology.

  ‘No,’ said Alys lightly, with a tense note in her voice which he recognized. ‘We waited supper. I thought you were working.’

  ‘I was.’ He turned to wash his hands in the pewter bowl set by the door, peering into the sparkles of candlelight on the water as if they might tell him how to handle this. ‘I called by Morison’s Yard,’ he added, lifting the linen towel. ‘Kate asked me to bid you down there tomorrow, while the quest is held. I’d assume the men will all go up to the Castle.’

  ‘Likely.’ She finished setting out the spoons, added the small salt from the plate-cupboard, inspected the table, and nodded. ‘Bid them serve as soon as they like, Kittock. I’ll call the maister.’

  Over supper she maintained the same light manner, discussing something Socrates had done during the day, to the dog’s evident embarrassment, and reporting what Nancy had said about John. Gil and her father, after an exchange of glances, supported her in this; Catherine silently absorbed stockfish-and-almond mould, and further down the table the mason’s men exchanged the day’s gossip with the maidservants. Gil caught two different versions of what Meg Renfrew’s mother had said to her son-in-law, and some speculation about why Danny Gibson had been poisoned.

  ‘Shall we have music?’ said Maistre Pierre as the board was lifted. ‘It’s a good time since you played the mono-cords for us, ma mie.’