by Pat McIntosh
‘No love lost between them, then.’
‘Not atween any of them,’ she assured him. ‘I never knew sic a family. I’ll be glad to take Nicol away from them and back to Middelburgh.’
‘What, are you leaving Glasgow? Is Nicol not to stay and take a part in the business?’ Gil asked innocently, although Maister Renfrew had already expressed himself forcefully on this subject.
Grace shook her head. ‘It doesny seem like it. They’ll never agree, him and his father, and Frankie has sic an opinion of Nicol I’d not want him to stay in the same house.’ She studied Gil carefully with those light grey eyes. ‘You were boys wi him, maister, I’ve no doubt you’ll understand me when I say Nicol’s no daftheid, he’s a clever man and a good one, but he needs to be among folk who think well of him, if he’s to do well himself. If he’s abused and made a fool of, he gets – he gets foolish.’
Gil thought of Nicol Renfrew as a boy, and nodded.
‘He’s calmer by far than he was,’ he observed. ‘Is it something he’s taking, or is he just grown out of his trouble?’
She opened her mouth to answer, checked, and finally said, ‘Both, maybe. He has drops to take, that our maister in Middelburgh ordered for him, and Frankie makes up now. They help him greatly, but I think when I met him he was already better by far than he’d been, by what Eleanor and Agnes has told me.’
‘So he had taken a dose yesterday, had he?’
‘Yes,’ she said. Another check, and then she continued, ‘So he slept the entire day. He was newly wakened when I went up and told him his brother was deid.’
‘Could he have poisoned Robert, do you think? Or supplied Agnes with the poison?’
Her eyes sharpened on his. After a moment she said, ‘It would be not at all like the man I know. He and Robert got on well enough, at least,’ she corrected herself, ‘Nicol did no more than laugh at Robert’s ways. The craft is for healing, not for harm, maister, and Nicol holds that as strongly as any. As for Agnes asking him for it, she’d as soon ask the man in the moon, I’d have thought.’
‘Anyone else in the household?’ he asked, without much hope.
She considered the question, but shook her head. ‘None is more like than another, and some less.’ She smiled wryly. ‘The girl Jess, or Meg and her minnie, for instance. Unless you think Meg poisoned the laddie in the expectation he’d leave his goods to wee Marion.’ She closed her eyes, and her mouth twisted again. ‘Poor laddie, I can hear him saying it yet.’
‘Had he much to leave?’ Gil asked.
‘At that age? They spend it as soon as make it. We’ll likely sell his clothes on, and Meg can save the coin for the bairn along wi his prayer-book and his Sunday beads. If it comes to more than a few merks I’ll be much surprised. Did you not search his kist?’
‘Andro did that. He reports there was no pig of poison hidden among the laddie’s clean drawers.’ Only some grubby woodcuts, enough to make Andro’s eyes pop but nothing to what Gil had encountered in Paris. Those, he suspected, were now in Andro’s doublet, and unlikely to reach the Provost’s desk.
Grace seemed to relax faintly. He considered her position again, the hands folded on her lap, her shoulders back, her head in its Sunday wrappings of velvet and linen poised on her elegant neck. She had not moved her hands since she sat down. He had thought he saw simply her native stillness and calm, but now it seemed as if she was on the defensive. In defence of what, he wondered, or of whom? Was she relieved to hear there was nothing there, or to hear that Andro had missed something she knew was hidden? Or did she know about the woodcuts? Surely not, he thought, and briefly considered Alys’s probable reaction to such things. It was unlikely to be the most predictable one, but – He shook his head, and realized that he was becoming distracted from the point at issue, which was the questioning of Grace Gordon.
‘You’re tired, man,’ she said. ‘Have you eaten? Frankie refused to have you at the table, but I bade the kitchen –’
‘My thanks for that. They gave us bread and cheese and ale,’ he said. ‘Mistress Grace, it’s gey strange to me that Agnes – or anyone else –’ he added scrupulously, ‘could have contrived these poisoned sweetmeats without being seen at work.’
She considered this point.
‘If it was on Friday,’ she said slowly, ‘or yesterday morn, the lassie kept her chamber the whole time. I spoke to her through the door a couple of times, but she’d have no company, nor be any help about the house. Whether Jess saw anything, you could ask her, but the thing is Agnes’s chamber is the inmost of that set so unless anyone entered to speak wi her she’d have privacy for whatever she wished to do.’
Gil nodded. He had now discovered that Agnes’s chamber was reached through Maister Renfrew’s own bedchamber, a very proper way to lodge a daughter.
‘And you’ve no idea where the stuff came from,’ he said, without much hope.
She shook her head. ‘I canny help you there, maister.’ She tilted her head, and a corner of her black velvet veil slid back across the shoulder of her gown. In its shadow there was a fresh love-bite, dark against the white skin of her neck. ‘Is that it? Are you done wi me?’
‘For now.’
She rose, shaking out her grey silk skirts, and paused to ask with concern, ‘How’s your wee laddie? Did he sleep it off?’
‘He’s well.’ Gil had risen likewise. ‘Chattering away and eating his porridge when I saw him. We’re grateful to you for ever.’ She shook her head, making light of the matter. ‘When will you leave?’
‘Not for a day or two yet. There’s still things to see to wi Frankie.’
‘As soon as that?’
‘Aye, or sooner,’ said Nicol. ‘If it was for me to say I’d be down the river on this tide, but Grace wants to take her gear back wi her, and she’s still in hopes we can get Frankie to agree …’ He paused, and giggled. ‘You’ve no need to hear all the business of the family.’
‘I need to hear enough of it to determine how Robert died,’ Gil said.
Nicol looked at him in faint surprise.
‘He died of taking poison in a marchpane cherry,’ he said. ‘You were there, man, you saw more than I did.’
‘I need to find out how the cherry came to be poisoned.’
‘Why? It’s done, and Agnes taken up for it.’ He giggled again. ‘She’ll not poison anyone else now, that’s certain.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ Gil asked. ‘Where did she get the poison?’
Nicol shrugged. ‘Out of an apple, for all I ken. Or the Deil himsel popped up in the shop and offered it to her. Maybe Frankie’s trying to rid himsel of all my minnie’s bairns, and I need to watch mysel.’
Gil stared at him. This was one interpretation he had not thought of. After a moment he set the idea aside to think on later, and said, ‘How will you live, if you go back to the Low Countries?’
‘Set up as potyngars,’ Nicol said promptly. ‘It’s what we do, both Grace and me, and we know all kind of ways to get supplies you never heard of. I might,’ he added, considering the matter, ‘come to an agreement wi Wat Forrest to send some of it on. I should think he’d be glad of it. A good source of materia medica’s worth a second income, so it is.’
‘So your father won’t have you back in the business?’ Gil said cautiously.
‘He’d sooner have wee Marion.’ Nicol considered this too. ‘Much sooner,’ he added, grinning. ‘And if you’re wondering, he says I’m to have no more share out of it either, I had my portion when I went overseas, and he’s had his will drawn up and signed and sealed declaring as much. So I’d be daft even to dream of poisoning Frankie, for all it’s a bonnie thought.’
‘You’re not daft, Nicol,’ said Gil firmly. ‘So what is it Grace is hoping to persuade your father to?’
Nicol shrugged again. ‘She’s got the notion he might let us have a bit more coin. I don’t see it mysel, unless as a payment to go away and no come back, but you never know.’
‘Stranger things
have happened,’ Gil said, though privately he agreed with Nicol. Maister Renfrew had presented a slightly different view of the situation when he interviewed him earlier.
‘That daftheid!’ he had said explosively. ‘He’s after me to let him into the partnership, he’s wanting an allowance off the business, he’s –’ He ended with a snarling sound.
‘You won’t consider it even now?’ Gil had asked. ‘I’d have thought you’d want one of your sons in the business.’
‘Hah!’ said Renfrew. ‘And my boy not buried yet!’
Chapter Twelve
Making his way up the High Street in the November dawn with the dog loping at his heels, Gil felt he was no closer to learning what had distressed his wife. Her long talk on All Souls’ Day with Catherine, her nurse, governess, duenna, had left her very tearful but still unable to explain why. Anxious questions had got him the assurance that it was nothing he had done or said, nothing he could help with. He would have been more able to believe her if she had not spent the past three nights lying rigid with her back to him, refusing any overtures he made.
‘Aye, Gil,’ said a voice in his ear. He looked up, startled, to find Nicol Renfrew beside him, Socrates nosing his hand in greeting. That aimless, heavy-eyed grin lit the round face. ‘You were thinking, I can see that. Not a good idea, thinking, man. It makes your head ache. If you think too much it rots your brain.’
‘Is that so?’ Gil fell into step with the other man. ‘Where did you learn that?’
‘Oh, in the Low Countries. They all say that there. I’ll prove it, too,’ added Nicol, waving his arm largely and just missing a woman with a bucket of water. She shouted at him, but he appeared not to hear her. ‘I’d a dream last night, all because I was thinking too much yesterday.’
‘Is that right?’ Gil asked, hoping he was not to be regaled with an account of the dream. The hope was false; Nicol launched into a complex, rambling narrative involving his father, someone called Lord Simon who might have been another painted flask, Grace, and an extra hand, though whose that might be was not clear. Gil strode on up the High Street in the grey daylight, nodding at intervals, while Nicol expounded the different forms these elements had taken in the course of the night.
‘You’re not listening, are you, Gil?’ he said suddenly. ‘No that I’d blame you,’ he added, giggling, ‘it’s a daft tale and I’m daft to heed it, but it’s no good manners no to listen when someone talks to you.’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Gil resignedly, ‘and I was listening. Your father had just given you a hand to compound something.’
‘Aye, but it was all of wood. And it’s no use now, anyway.’ Nicol waved happily at the man on duty at the Castle gate as they passed into the courtyard. ‘Are you here for these quests, on Danny Gibson and our Robert? Have they set Nanty free yet?’
‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I can’t get at the truth. I think your sister Agnes fetched Allan Leaf to Augie’s house for him, but she won’t admit it, nor anything else, and he claims she never said where she found it.’
‘No, she wouldny,’ agreed Nicol. ‘She might now, if the Provost uses his thumbscrews.’ He looked round vaguely, and flourished his arm again. ‘See, there’s Robert and poor Danny waiting for us, all under a cloth of state and attended by armed men. No, it’s no armed men, it’s just Tammas Sproull.’
Gil, who had already noticed the corpses, laid out under a striped awning in case of rain and guarded by one of the constables, gave him no answer but went to turn back the linen cloth and look at the young mummer. After four days the body was beginning to smell, but the expression had relaxed and was remote and peaceful, the face pitifully young. Socrates put a paw on the edge of the bier and stood up to sniff with interest.
‘Looks like he’s asleep, don’t he no?’ said Tammas gloomily. Gil nodded, muttered a brief prayer, then looked similarly at Robert Renfrew, who really might have been asleep, a surprisingly healthy colour in his face, his expression one of faint surprise. After a moment Gil snapped his fingers to the dog, crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps into the Castle hall. Here, early though it was, a good crowd had gathered for the entertainment.
‘There’s Wat and Adam,’ said Nicol, still behind him and pointing largely, ‘and Christian with them, the poor soul. And all the mummers over there, see them, and Andrew Hamilton and Dod Wilkie. And here’s Augie just come in the door. We’re all gathered for Danny, though there’s only me and yoursel for Robert.’
Gil made his way through the gathering towards the Forrest brothers. Nicol gangled after him, grinning at one or two people who spoke to him, but it was not till Morison caught up with them, nodded to Gil, clapped the other man’s shoulder and said solemnly, ‘Good day to you, Nicol. I’m right sorry about the news, man,’ that the tenor of the other remarks reached Gil. He turned to stare.
‘Your father?’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’
‘He’s deid,’ said Nicol cheerfully. ‘I’m rid of him at last, and none of my doing either. We found him cold in his bed,’ he elaborated, and giggled. ‘So I had wine instead of ale to my porridge, to toast my fortune.’
‘Dead in his – What from?’ Gil closed his mouth, swallowed, and said more carefully, ‘I’m right sorry to hear that, Nicol. Do you ken what killed him?’
Nicol shrugged. ‘Never a notion,’ he said offhandedly, ‘unless it was my prayers, man, and they never worked before this, so why now? Or maybe it was grief for Robert, since I’d say he was the only one of us that was grieved.’
Gil exchanged glances with Morison, who seemed winded by amazement.
‘When was this?’ he asked. ‘When did you discover him? Should you be here, man? There must be all to see to at home.’
‘Och, there’s only Christ and His saints ken when it happened,’ said Nicol, taking these in order. ‘Last night, for certain, he was stiff by the time I saw him. One of the maidservants came to let Grace know it when he never came down at his usual time, and I went to his chamber, and there he was. And some one of us had to come out the now,’ he pointed out, ‘to see poor Danny done right, and Jimmy’s better than me for seeing to what’s needed. No to mention Eleanor came to the house and took the hysterics when she heard the news, so Jimmy would stay wi her.’
‘Word reached us just as I left to come up the brae,’ said Morison, finding his tongue. ‘It seems it was a natural enough death, by what they’re saying.’
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Nicol cheerfully. ‘He was fine last night. Well, no to say fine,’ he qualified, ‘but fit enough.’
Gil looked about him, wondering what best to do next, aware of Socrates staring anxiously up at his face. It was likely that the Provost would want his evidence at the quest; it was also possible that the Renfrew family would not let him into the dead man’s chamber, particularly since the body would not have been properly laid out yet.
‘Did you notice anything strange about him?’ he asked, without much hope. ‘Was his chamber just as usual? Did he seem – peaceful, or as if it was easy?’
Nicol shrugged again. ‘I couldny say,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never been in his chamber for ten year, no since he last beat me, afore I went to the Low Countries. It was all neat, just as it used to be, and nothing out of place. And he looked peaceful enough, just like poor Danny there or Robert.’
‘No sign that he’d eaten or drunk anything before he died?’
‘Oh, aye. He’d had his supper wi the rest of us,’ said Nicol helpfully, ‘and we all had cakes and buttered ale afore bed, and there would be oatcakes and cheese in the dole-cupboard like there aye is.’
‘Here is the Provost,’ put in Morison. ‘And young Bothwell. Ah, poor laddie, they have questioned him.’
Bothwell, hustled into the hall by two of the Castle men-at-arms, was manacled, and his hands were bloody. He almost fell at the step up on to the dais; his sister cried out in pity, and he turned a bruised face towards her. Thumbscrews, thought Gil, and a beating. Sir Thomas must have decided to
risk the chill of the torture chamber after all. Bothwell was placed against the wall under guard, the Provost made his way to his great chair, and his clerk hurried in behind him with an armful of parchments and took up position at the other end of the table. The Serjeant, brandishing the burgh mace, bawled the order for silence, and the quest began.
‘We’ve two to deal wi,’ announced Sir Thomas, ‘but the one assize can do for both. We’ll just take them in order as they happened, Danny Gibson first. Who’s here to identify the laddie?’
It was clear that the Provost’s rheum was no better, and he was inclined to be even more short-tempered than usual. He dealt ruthlessly with the business of identifying the corpse and choosing an assize, despatched its fifteen members outside to inspect Danny Gibson and agree that there was no visible sign of the cause of death, and summoned Morison to describe the event, all between loud trumpetings into another handkerchief. Gil caught his eye at one point, but received only an irritable shake of the head.
‘And then he fell down,’ ended Morison, ‘and we – all the potyngars went to see if they could help, and then he died.’
‘Aye, he would,’ said someone at the back of the hall, and one or two people laughed. Sir Thomas glared round, and the laughter subsided.
‘We’ll ha none of that. This is a serious matter,’ said the Provost. ‘Who attended him? Is any of the – aye, Maister Forrest, come and let us hear what he died of.’
‘But we ken what he dee’d from,’ objected one of the assize from within their roped-off enclosure. ‘He was pysont by Nanty Bothwell, in a conspiracy wi the lassie Renfrew, as it’s being said all round the town.’
‘You be quiet and listen, Rab Sim, and let me ask the questions,’ ordered Sir Thomas. ‘Right, Wat, tell us what you saw, man.’
Wat Forrest recounted the signs he had observed on the dying man, agreed that it seemed like poison but not one that he knew of, and reported that the stuff in the flask appeared to be poison, also unidentified.
