by Pat McIntosh
‘Gil asked her last night,’ said Alys. ‘She denied all. Her father was there,’ she added.
‘She’d never admit it afore him,’ said Nell, still thinking. ‘Alys, does your man think Na – Maister Bothwell’s innocent?’
‘He thinks it was an accident,’ said Alys carefully, ‘and so do I. He gave Danny the poison, we all saw that, but we both think he never knew it was there.’
‘And he’s never said how he came by the flask,’ said Nell. Alys waited, and the other girl smiled crookedly. ‘He’s protecting her, I suppose. He’ll risk hanging, rather than get her into trouble. Well, I’m no such a fool. If we can get Agnes to come forward, Maister Bothwell will be safe, is that right?’
‘It depends on the Provost,’ Alys pointed out, ‘but I think Sir Thomas will see that.’
Almost unconsciously, Nell reached for an oatcake and bit into it.
‘D’you think maybe I should call on her?’ she said.
Chapter Nine
Gil’s reaction to the news of the postponed quest had been mostly relief. He did not feel like dealing with Sir Thomas’s irritated questions. He had slept badly, aware of Alys lying rigid beside him, but when he had asked her again, softly, if she wished to talk she had pretended to be asleep. Later he thought she was weeping.
‘Sir Thomas’s rheum must be worse,’ he said as they sat down to their porridge.
‘It gives you two extra days to make a case for young Bothwell,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘What will you do, do you think?’
‘Pray,’ said Gil succinctly. ‘Call on my uncle, perhaps call on the Renfrew household. What about you?’
‘We go to hear Mass at Greyfriars,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘So should I,’ he said guiltily, recognizing the date. All Souls’ Day, the day when one recalled the faithful departed, a day for praying for those one had lost. ‘Maybe I should do that before I call on the Renfrews.’
‘They likely hear Mass as well,’ said Maistre Pierre.
The High Mass at Blackfriars, the university church, was soothingly familiar. The building itself, the processing canons and members of the university, the young voices of the students’ choir, the incense rising blue from the swinging censers, were all just as they had been when Gil was a student there himself. He found a pillar to lean against and let the chant wash over him, trying to call up the faces of his father and brothers, the sister who had died young, his grandparents, the other people to whom he owed a duty of prayer. The man whose death he had uncovered in Perth last August. Danny Gibson, still waiting for burial. Most of them remained stubbornly invisible, though oddly he had a clear image of Ealasaidh McIan, sister of the harper, aunt to young John. She was in good health the last he had heard of her, only a month or so ago, but now she seemed to be trying to tell him something. The boy, she said, over and over. Look to the boy. We keep him safe, he answered her, but she did not seem to hear him.
‘Gil?’
He opened his eyes. Standing beside him was his friend Nick Kennedy, Junior Regent in the faculty of Arts, expert on the writings of Peter of Spain and author of a book on the subject which, if he ever finished it, would make his name and that of his university known across Europe. There was a wide grin on his dark-browed face. Behind him the service seemed to be over, the Dominicans processing back into the enclosed part of the convent, singing as they went.
‘You were well away,’ said Nick. ‘Come and have some Malvoisie. John Shaw wants the barrel finished, there’s a new one due in a day or two and he needs the room.’
‘I need to pick up the dog – I left him at the west door.’
The Malvoisie was golden and tempting. Seated in Maister Kennedy’s chamber in the shabby university building, Socrates lying on his feet, Gil accepted the glass his friend handed him and said, ‘How’s Peter of Spain?’
‘Stuck fast,’ said Nick, grimacing. ‘I need a sight of one of Hermannus Petrus’ sermons. I’ve heard William Elphinstone has a copy at Aberdeen, but he’s no wrote back to me yet.’ He sat down, looking at Gil with some concern. ‘And how’s yourself? How’s Mistress Alys and the wee laddie?’
‘The boy’s fine. So is Alys.’
Nick’s scrutiny intensified.
‘Liar,’ he said after a moment. ‘Have you quarrelled?’
‘My business if we have, surely?’ said Gil a little stiffly.
‘No if your friends are concerned for you both. Is it a quarrel?’
‘No.’ The dog lifted his head to look at him. Nick waited, and he found himself saying, ‘I’m not sure what it is. Something has upset her, but she won’t talk to me about it.’
‘Does she need to?’ Nick wondered, and Gil suddenly recalled that his friend was priested. ‘Why should she talk to you about it?’
‘Because we usually do,’ he said. ‘No, Nick, I’m not one of your students, you’re not confessing me.’
‘I’m not offering to. Was it something you did?’
‘No, it wasn’t – at least, she says not. Nick, leave it.’
‘Do you know what it might be?’
‘She was at the Renfrews’ house. It seems as if she witnessed the birth. Kate thinks it might be that.’
‘Oh. Women’s business.’ Maister Kennedy subsided, and contemplated his glass of Malvoisie for a short time. ‘Did Lady Kate say aught else?’
‘She said,’ admitted Gil reluctantly, ‘that Alys might not let me help. That it might need another woman rather than a man.’
‘That’s a true word,’ said his friend. ‘She’s a wise woman, your sister. Take her advice, Gil. Leave it to the women and keep your distance. Would you talk to your wife if you’d trouble wi your engyne, after all?’ He jerked an expressive thumb. The blaes, the spaes and the burning pintle, thought Gil, and found his face burning.
‘She’d hardly miss noticing it if I did,’ he protested. Socrates looked up again, and beat his tail on the floor.
‘Aye, I’m glad to hear it, but would you discuss it?’ Maister Kennedy tossed off the remaining wine in his glass and reached for the jug. ‘Think on it, Gil. Now tell me what’s to do wi this mummer that died on Hallowe’en. What happened? Whose doing was it?’
* * *
Andrew Hamilton the younger was where Maister Kennedy had said he would be, some way up in the roof of the college dining hall, helping his father to assemble a tenon joint the size of his own head. Gil stood watching as the boy steadied the great oak beam, calling directions with aplomb to the two men on the ropes below him, and his father stood by with the maul ready to strike when the joint married.
‘North a bit,’ said Andrew. ‘South a wee bit. An inch lower – now!’
The maul struck, the joint slid home.
‘Is that her?’ said the older Hamilton. He bent to feel at the smoothed surfaces of the timbers, and nodded. ‘Aye, she’ll do at that. Good work. We’ll have the pegs in now, Drew.’
Father and son, working together, pinned the joint with the three great oak pegs, each thicker than a man’s thumb, two struck in from one side, one from the other. Socrates flinched at the banging and leaned hard against his mas-ter’s knee. The two journeymen had glanced at Gil, but they were obviously used to being watched while they worked and paid him no more attention until he went forward to call up into the rafters, ‘Maister Hamilton?’
‘Aye?’ The wright peered down at him. ‘Who is it? Oh, it’s you, Maister Cunningham. Good day to ye.’
‘And to you, sir. Might I have a word wi young Andrew?’
‘Wi him?’ Hamilton looked round and jerked his head at his son. ‘Aye, we’re done for the moment here. Away down, Drew, and see what Maister Cunningham wants.’
The boy set down his own maul and obeyed, descending the ladder with what seemed like reluctance. He must think it’s about that glass of Dutch spirits, thought Gil with sudden perception.
‘Aye, maister?’ said Andrew, reaching the ground. Then, possibly hoping to pre-empt a scolding, ‘That was a te
rrible thing to happen at the play. Is Lady Kate recovered from the fright?’
‘She’s well, thank you,’ said Gil, looking at the boy. He was just beginning to get his growth, and his feet and hands seemed much too big for him. ‘I was going to ask you about the play. I hope maybe you heard something when you were there that might help me.’
‘Me?’ said Andrew warily. ‘What kind of thing?’
‘Did you hear Nanty Bothwell talking on the stair to Agnes Renfrew?’
‘When would that be?’ prevaricated Andrew. ‘She never got a word wi him, he was all tied up and sitting wi two fellows guarding him. Agnes never went near him.’
‘Not then. Before the play,’ said Gil. Andrew looked at him under brows which were beginning to lower like his father’s. ‘On the kitchen stair.’
‘Oh.’ The boy looked down, and fidgeted one foot across the scuffed floorboards. ‘I don’t know about that. Was Agnes on the stair?’
‘You know fine she was,’ said Gil. ‘She came up the stair just behind you, and Nanty Bothwell followed her. So did you hear them?’
‘No – no really,’ protested Andrew. ‘I mean, I wasny listening. I wasny trying to hear.’
‘I’m sure you weren’t, Andrew. But it’s a choice between getting Agnes into trouble with her father, or letting Nanty Bothwell hang. Because he will hang, if we don’t find out where that other flask came from. So if you did hear anything at all, quite by accident, we need to know what they said.’
‘I don’t see that,’ said Andrew. ‘Besides –’ He broke off.
‘She gave him the flask, didn’t she?’ said Gil.
‘Well, if you’re as sure, why are you asking me?’ Gil made no answer. Andrew slid a glance at him, and looked down at his feet again. Socrates stepped forward, his claws tapping on the planks, and Andrew scratched behind the dog’s soft ears. ‘Maybe she did,’ he said after a moment. ‘I never saw, for they were further down, round the turn of the stair. I only heard them. I couldny tell what they had.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘Well, he said – Nanty Bothwell said – Did you get it? and then he said, Here, what’s this? As if it was something unexpected, you ken?’ Gil nodded. ‘And then she said, He’d locked his workroom, I had to take what I could find. And then I heard someone else coming up the stair, so I went on up, for I didny want to be found eavesdropping.’
‘He’d locked his workroom,’ Gil repeated. ‘I suppose that means her father.’
Andrew shrugged. ‘She never said.’
Outside the college Gil paused to consider matters, reflecting gratefully on the value of scholarly discussion. It was mid-morning, the street still busy with people going out to hear Mass or fetch in the day’s marketing. He was guiltily aware that his uncle would take mild offence if he did not report the news of the last two days in person, and aware also of the paperwork still waiting for him at home, which he had not touched for several days, and after weighing up the relative merits of dealing with either of these and tackling an interview with Agnes Renfrew, with or without her father, he decided that nothing untoward would happen if he let Agnes wait.
A further hour’s discussion with his uncle, in his chamber in the Consistory Tower, proved very soothing. Much refreshed, he went home for dinner, where he and Catherine dined in splendour at the top of the table, exchanging stately French compliments, and the rest of the household discussed Nanty Bothwell’s chances. Over a dish of applemoy Catherine directed the conversation to a point where she could remark, with her usual formality:
‘Madame your wife seems discomposed just now.’
‘She is,’ Gil agreed, and explained briefly, though he suspected she knew the reason.
She nodded, spooning the soft sweet concoction, and finally said, ‘One must accept one’s lot, however difficult it seems, and conduct oneself in accordance with one’s duty, with the help of God and Our Lady. I will speak to her.’
‘I wouldn’t ask her to do anything she found –’ Gil began, and checked, groping for a word.
She waited until she saw he would not finish the sentence, and said firmly, ‘The duty of a married woman is quite clear, whatever her husband’s nature. The fact that he is a considerate man does not free his wife from her obligations.’
Gil, torn between amazement at the implicit compliment, dislike of the word obligation in this context and embarrassment at discussing such a subject with Catherine, simply swallowed and gaped at her. She smiled slightly, and put a hand on his sleeve.
‘Return to your duties, maistre, and let the women deal with women’s matters.’
When the dinner was cleared he repaired obediently to his closet. It was a little panelled chamber at the far end of their lodging, beyond the bedchamber, a small comfortable space fitted with a desk and shelves, with his gowns hung on a row of pegs behind the door and his books arranged where he could reach them easily. The report for Robert Blacader was the most pressing item; he applied himself to that, vaguely aware at one point of a disturbance in the main part of the house, women exclaiming and someone weeping. He paused to listen, decided that if he was needed they would send for him, and addressed himself to the report again. Within another couple of hours it was complete. He made a fair copy, with the usual formal salutations at beginning and end, folded the letter, addressed it, sealed it, and put it on his writing-desk to take up to the Castle later for despatch. After that he tidied up the papers he had used for reference, and looked briefly at the ceiling. The painted vines wriggling along the beams overhead did not offer inspiration, and he had to accept the fact: nothing stood between him and a further interview with Agnes Renfrew.
This turned out to be not quite the case.
In Maister Renfrew’s shop there was only young Robert, who looked up when the little bells rang on the door, and looked sourly at Gil.
‘Aye, maister?’ he said. ‘And how can I help you?’
‘I don’t expect you can,’ said Gil, disliking the tone of the question, ‘seeing it’s your sister I want to speak to. Is she home?’
‘Why would she not be?’ Robert reached under the counter and produced a marchpane cherry, which he popped into his mouth. ‘Still sulking in her chamber.’
‘Might I get a word with her, then?’
Robert shrugged, chewing with evident pleasure. ‘Hardly for me to say, maister. You’ll need to wait for the old man. He’s gone to hear Mass at Blackfriars, he’ll be a wee while. And Jimmy’s taken Eleanor down to St Mary’s Kirk, though why you’d take such a sour creature anywhere I don’t see.’
‘Is none of the other women home?’
‘Well, Meg’s no likely to be anywhere else, and I’ve no notion where Grace might be. Pursuing this invisible Erschewoman round Glasgow, maybe.’
What Erschewoman? Gil wondered fleetingly, but his chief reaction was irritation.
‘Robert, I need a word with your sister,’ he persisted. ‘Will you send for her, please?’
‘What’s it about, anyway? She’s in enough trouble wi the men she’s spoken to already, what wi one of them slaying the other, I don’t know that I want her talking to any more fellows.’
Slightly winded by this impertinence, Gil paused to assemble a reply of any sort, and Robert smiled at him, peered under the counter, and produced another marchpane cherry.
‘So you’d best wait and speak to my faither,’ he suggested, and bit into the sweetmeat.
The smile vanished. With an expression of horror he spat the morsel into his hand, stared at it, stared at Gil.
‘Pyson!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m pysont!’
Appalled, Gil sprang to the door that led into the house, flung it open and shouted into the hall beyond it, ‘Help here! Help in the shop, and quickly!’ He turned back, glancing about the shop for water to rinse out Robert’s mouth, and found the young man grinning triumphantly.
‘Hunt the gowk!’ he said, beginning to laugh, slapping his thigh with his other hand. ‘Your face, man!
Your face when I said pyson!’ He put the broken sweetmeat into his mouth, still laughing, wiped at his eyes, chewed, and assumed the same horrified expression. Gil stood watching impassively as he spat the chewed mess out again, while hurrying feet approached through the house.
‘What’s amiss?’ demanded Grace Gordon, appearing in the doorway, looking from Gil to her brother-in-law. ‘Who called for help?’
‘I did,’ said Gil, ‘but it was a false alarm. Robert was playing the fool.’
‘No, I’m pysont,’ said Robert faintly. He was still standing, looking horrified, staring at the pulped stuff on his palm. The smell of almonds reached Gil. ‘I’m pysont, Grace. It was in the cherry.’
‘The cherry?’ she repeated, looking back and forth between the two men.
‘The marchpane cherry he ate a moment since,’ said Gil.
‘What’s ado here? Is this a joke or no, Robert?’
‘He claimed he’d been poisoned,’ Gil said, ‘and then fell about laughing.’
‘Robert, you’re a fool! It’s no a subject for joking on.’
‘I’m no joking now,’ he said, and sat down shakily on the stool beside him. ‘I’m done for, Grace. Who’s pysont me, in Christ’s name? Call a priest, quickly.’
‘Are you serious?’ She stared at him.
‘Aye, I’m serious. I’m a deid man, Grace, like Danny Gibson, and the same way.’
‘I think maybe he is serious,’ said Gil, in chill realization.
‘But what –?’ She stepped round the counter to Robert, touched his face and hands, sniffed at his mouth. ‘Oh, Body of Christ, he is serious. How did it happen?’
‘It’s truth, right enough.’ Robert grasped her wrist. ‘It was in the cherry, I tellt you. I can taste it, burning my tongue. It’s –’
‘Rinse it out with this,’ said Gil, handing him a beaker of water from the bucket behind the inner door. ‘Quickly, now.’
Robert took the beaker, rinsed his mouth and spat, but said, ‘Too late, away too late. If it slew Danny with just a drop, that he never swallowed –’ He was breathing heavily now, his face reddening. ‘Grace, Meg’s bairn can have all I have to leave. Will you see to it? And – and my soul to Almighty God, is that what I should say?’
