A Pig of Cold Poison

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Did you so?’

  ‘Aye, and here I am.’ Having found him, Nicol did not seem to be in a hurry to get the word. He fidgeted with his hands and feet for a space, while Gil sat silent. Eventually he observed, ‘We’re packing. Grace and me. It’s surprising how much you collect thegither in six month or so.’

  ‘Did you bring much with you when you came home?’

  Nicol turned his head to look direct at him. ‘Never say that, man. This is no my home. We’re going home now.’ He grinned again. ‘Eleanor’ll no have me under the same roof, and it has to be her and Jimmy dwelling in the house now, to keep Meg safe till she can wed Tammas Bowster.’ He paused. ‘Christ aid, I never tellt Tammas Frankie’s deid.’

  ‘He’ll know by now,’ Gil observed. ‘I think the word is all over the town.’

  ‘Aye, but better to hear it from a friend.’

  ‘Why should you and Grace not stay in the house?’

  ‘Because it has to be Eleanor and Jimmy.’ Nicol struck his hands together. ‘Strange to think Frankie sent me overseas to be rid of me, and here’s me done better than he ever imagined, and here’s him shrouded for burying.’

  ‘How well have you done?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Well, I’ve wedded Grace,’ Nicol pointed out, ‘that Frankie never valued as he ought, and we’ve a partner in the Low Countries is waiting for us to come home and get on wi the business.’

  ‘Have you now?’ Even less reason for Nicol to poison his father, Gil thought.

  ‘I have that. I’m a wealthy man, Gil Cunningham.’

  ‘My congratulations,’ Gil returned. There was another pause.

  ‘That Isa,’ said Nicol after a time. ‘She wanted a word wi me the now. Said she had to tell me something.’

  Gil made a questioning noise.

  ‘She said the old man had a woman wi him in his bed last night.’ Gil turned to stare at him. ‘Aye, you may well gawp. How would she ken that, I asked her, seeing she slept in the kitchen where it’s warm. His sheets, says she, my nose tellt me as soon as I surveyed the sheets. So what woman was it? I asked her. Neither Elspet nor me, she says, nor Jess for she joined us in the kitchen, and Babtie was wi the mistress all night. Fetched someone in off the streets, I’ll wager he did, she says. So I bid her be silent. I wouldny mind if word of that got round Glasgow, it’s no skin off my porridge, but if Eleanor heard her say sic a thing she’d be out on her arse and no waiting for the term of her hire. And Eleanor would take the hysterics again, which isny good for her bairn.’ He looked at Gil, eyebrows raised. ‘So what d’you make of that tale, eh?’

  ‘There was no other sign,’ said Gil slowly. ‘Maister Syme detected nothing.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ admitted Nicol, ‘but then I never passed the sheets under review. Frankie’s maidenhead was never my concern.’

  Gil thought about this.

  ‘You were first to leave the house, when you went to fetch Syme,’ he said. Nicol nodded. ‘Was everything locked as usual?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Just the way Frankie fastened all down at night.’

  ‘So if your father fetched a woman in, he must have risen to let her out again, and returned to his bed. It might account for his heart giving out,’ Gil added.

  ‘Aye, it might that,’ agreed Nicol with enthusiasm.

  ‘But Mistress Mathieson and her mother and Babtie,’ Gil said, thinking it out, ‘were all in the chamber off the hall, one stair up, and awake much of the night they told me.’ Nicol nodded again. ‘Your father was in his bedchamber, on the floor above. Surely they’d have heard – voices, movement, anything –’ Nicol grinned at that. ‘And what about you and Mistress Grace? Did you hear nothing?’

  ‘I’d hear nothing,’ Nicol said cheerfully, ‘seeing I slept like a log all night, and Grace beside me. And if the bairn was screaming, which I never heard neither, perhaps they’d not hear the houghmagandie over their heads.’

  Perhaps not. Gil considered this.

  ‘Had he done the like before?’ he asked.

  ‘How would I ken? Though I can tell you, if he did and Mistress Baillie learned of it,’ Nicol grinned again, ‘she’d have cut him into collops and served him for supper.’

  ‘I’d agree there.’

  They both looked out over the town for a space, Gil turning this new evidence over in his mind. If Isa was right, and the stains she had found were fresh, and resulted from –

  ‘I did ask her,’ said Nicol suddenly, ‘if she was sure he’d had a woman wi him, if he’d no just, seeing he was without Meg –’ He mimed crudely. ‘No, she said, she’s washed the family’s sheets for twenty year, she kens the difference, there was two in that bed. I never knew you could tell that much from the wash, did you, Gil?’

  ‘No,’ he said, wondering which of the maidservants in Pierre’s house knew the details of his own marriage.

  ‘I’ll not have you send the bellman round asking for her,’ Nicol pursued. ‘Same as I said to Isa, I’m no troubled myself but Eleanor wouldny care for it and Meg likewise, never mind it would sound right daft. The woman that was wi Frankie Renfrew the night he died, speak wi his family. The reward is, we’ll get the Serjeant to you. No, I think we’d get no applicants.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Gil shook his head. ‘I can ask about if you like, Nicol, see if I can find her, though to tell truth it’s not a trade where I’ve contacts –’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, man,’ said Nicol, grinning again. Socrates appeared, and flung himself down at Gil’s feet, his expression matching Nicol’s. ‘No, I think we leave it, for I canny see either how we learn more without discredit to the family.’

  But that isn’t justice, thought Gil.

  ‘Alys might know,’ he said. ‘Or Mally Bowen. She must know likely names.’

  ‘But would she keep the Serjeant out of it? Leave it, Gil. I tellt you for cause I’d not want you to think I left Glasgow without telling you all I knew, but I think there’s no more to be said on it.’ Nicol got to his feet, rubbing the seat of his hose, and produced that annoying giggle again. ‘I’m soaking wet. If Grace has packed all my hose I’ll need to borrow some of wee Marion’s tailclouts.’

  Alys, kneeling at the prie-dieu which had once been her mother’s, was having difficulty with her devotions.

  Gil and her father had gone out after supper, once again, to offer sympathy at the Renfrew house, and she had retired to the bedchamber, intending to take prayerful stock of the past few days. She had offered all her usual petitions, and those which were appropriate for the apothecary’s family, living or deceased. She had tried to put her own swirling fears and horrors into some sort of order, to offer them to Our Lady and St Catherine in the hope of lightening the burden or clearing her mind. Neither saint had helped. Instead she found herself thinking through her successive encounters with the Renfrew household, with the servants and Meg’s mother as well as the family, Gil’s latest piece of information tumbling among the words and images which succeeded one another in her head without order. Perhaps that was what she was supposed to think about?

  Sighing, she cleared her mind and began from the start, from her first encounter with Eleanor and then Grace in Kate’s new great chamber, the smell of paint and new wood about them. Carefully, as Mère Isabelle had taught her, she offered each person up, surrounding the image in her head with light, with the love of God even if not her own. It took time, and concentration. With her attention successively on each individual, she was faintly aware that the words and images, the odd facts were falling together in the background, that things glimpsed or half-spoken were beginning to shed light on one another or fit together to make another image. She persevered in her task, though the outline of that image began to frighten her. By the time she finished she was trembling. But she also knew what she must do, and that frightened her even more.

  She rose from the little prayer-desk, stretched stiffened limbs and hugged herself, trying to still the trembling, thinking about how to proceed, wonderi
ng how her kind, civilized, considerate husband would react to what she was about to do. It was one thing to act independently of him, another entirely to act against his duty to his master the Archbishop. She had never seen him really angry, though her father had. Socrates came to her, pushed his nose under her elbow, waved his tail. She uncurled her arms and patted him, wondering how he would react if Gil struck her.

  He would return soon. She moved into the outer chamber, where she lifted her plaid from its nail by the door and lit a lantern from the candle. The dog pricked his ears hopefully.

  ‘Stay, Socrates,’ she said, and extinguished the light.

  ‘It’s right kind in you,’ said Grace Gordon, folding a fine linen shift. The candle flickered in the draught as the fabric swayed in her grasp. ‘But you can see I’m a wee thing taigled here, Alys.’

  ‘Can I help?’ she offered.

  Grace shook her head. ‘I’m about done. I’ve been packing for most of a week,’ she admitted.

  ‘When did you book the passage?’

  ‘As soon as Gerrit sent word he’d reached Dumbarton. Then he’d to loose his cargo and find another, but it seems that’s mostly on board now. He’ll wait till Wednesday for us, no longer.’ Grace considered the box she was filling, lifted a pair of shoes and crammed them into a corner. ‘I’m sorry to leave, in some ways. Meg is a dear soul, and I could learn to love Eleanor, I think, but she and me would never come to terms wi Nicol in the way, and my duty’s to him.’

  ‘Where are they both?’ Alys asked.

  ‘Meg and her mammy are below, with the bairn.’ Grace gestured in the direction of the birthing-chamber. ‘Eleanor went to lie down awhile. I hope she’ll bear up, for her own bairn’s sake.’

  ‘But you lost yours,’ said Alys. Grace looked up sharply at the words, her light gaze focusing on Alys’s face. ‘That must be a grief.’

  ‘It is.’ The other girl looked down at her packing, and pushed a bundle of stockings in at random.

  ‘A great pity you’ve not taken again.’

  ‘D’ye ken, if that’s all you came for, Alys, I’d as soon you left, and let me get on.’

  ‘No,’ said Alys. ‘I came to make sure you get away. I think you should leave Glasgow as soon as you can. Before the funeral, if it’s possible.’

  The stare was needle-sharp this time. ‘Why? Why me?’

  ‘You and Nicol both.’

  ‘How so? Why would it be so important? What’s it to you, anyway?’

  ‘I think you need to know,’ said Alys gently, ‘that the Provost has learned what poison it was killed Danny Gibson and Robert.’

  There was a small pause. ‘Has he now? And what would it be?’

  ‘Some kin of the Bothwells, an apothecary in Edinburgh,’ Alys said, watching her carefully, ‘has said it sounds to him like something brewed up from apple pips. The appearance and the action, he says, are very close.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘And Gil will put everything together sooner or later.’

  A wry smile. ‘So how come you’re so much faster than your man to come to conclusions?’

  Alys shook her head. ‘I had all the facts, I just needed to put them in the right order. He may have to guess some of it.’

  ‘But suppose your conclusions are wrong, you’ve no got the facts in the right order?’

  ‘Grace, when I mentioned apples, you looked at your workroom door.’

  Grace was silent, while she folded a woollen kirtle and smoothed it into the box.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Alys?’ she asked at length.

  ‘You saved John’s life.’

  That got her a hard look.

  ‘The craft’s for healing, no for killing,’ the other girl repeated firmly. ‘I did nothing more than my duty to them that taught me.’

  Alys bit back the reply that rose to her lips, and said, ‘You acted quickly, you knew what must be done, you reassured us. John’s family and Kate’s as well owe you a debt for ever. This is part of it, Grace.’

  Another wry smile.

  ‘I value it,’ said Grace. ‘Well, my quine, you’ve paid your debt. You should get home, afore your man leaves here and finds out what you’re at.’

  ‘He’s just left,’ said Nicol in the doorway. ‘What’s his wee wife here for?’

  Grace looked round, her face suddenly vulnerable, and went to her husband. He took her hands in his, but stared blankly at Alys over her shoulder.

  ‘What’s she want?’ he asked again, and then switched to something Alys thought must be Low Dutch, a strange hard language full of gutturals and half-familiar words. Grace answered him, he asked a question, she spoke at more length, urgently. His expression remained blank but his lanky body seemed to tense as he listened to her. Finally he mustered one of his happy grins.

  ‘Aye, thanks indeed, mistress,’ he said. ‘But Grace is right, she’s aye right, you need to get away now. Put up your plaid and I’ll see you to your door.’

  ‘I’d be grateful,’ she admitted, rising. She was unused to being out in the burgh alone quite this late, and it had surprised her how the shadows had seemed to threaten her footsteps. ‘I had a lantern.’

  Grace put out her arms. ‘Our dance is done, sister adew. My thanks, lassie,’ she said. ‘I’ll pray for you.’

  ‘And I for you,’ said Alys. ‘God speed the journey.’

  They embraced, and Nicol said impatiently, ‘Come away, come away now, for we’ve other things to see to and all.’

  Her head hurt. For what felt like years that was all she was aware of; then gradually she recognized that the world seemed to be rocking, and water slopped coldly quite close to her. There was a smell of fish, and it was dark, but the principal thing was still the headache.

  Somebody groaned. After more years somebody else spoke, a voice she did not know. It seemed to be angry. Not Gil, but Gil was going to be angry –

  Her head was really painful. She had not had a headache like this for a long time. She tried to put her hand up to her brow, but it would not move, because her wrists seemed to be fastened together. She tugged at the fastening, and groaned again.

  Fresh air reached her face as her plaid was turned back. A gentle hand touched her cheek.

  ‘Que passe?’ she asked.

  ‘Lie still,’ said someone in horrible French.

  ‘My head hurts,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. He hit you hard.’

  ‘Hit me …?’

  She opened her eyes. It was still nearly as dark as it was behind her eyelids, but after a moment she recognized a sky of black clouds, stars sailing between them. Water splashed again. A dark shape came closer to her, and she flinched.

  ‘And forbye,’ said the angry voice in Scots, more distantly, ‘that’s another groat ye’re owing me, for we never contracted for more than the two o ye and yir goods, let alone if all yir baggage sinks the Cuthbert afore we reach Dumbarton– keep baling, mannie!’

  ‘You’ll get your extra,’ said another voice. She knew it. It had promised to see her to her door, and then – and then –

  ‘He hit me,’ she said.

  ‘He did,’ agreed Grace in that badly accented French. ‘He should never have done it. I’m truly sorry, my dear, after what you did for us.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Beyond Erskine, I think.’

  ‘Erskine?’ she repeated. ‘What – where – are you taking me to –’ She tried to rise, to sit up, to raise her head enough to see what was happening. A boat. They must be in a boat. That had been the boatman demanding money. Where were they taking her? Why was she here?

  ‘Haud still!’ ordered the Scots voice. ‘We’ve no more than a handspan o freeboard, we’ll ship half the Clyde if ye stot about like that!’

  ‘Rest easy,’ said Grace.

  ‘Let me sit up!’

  Grace bent to assist her, heaved her to a sitting position. Her head stabbed pain and the world swam round her, but when it steadied she was aware of th
e banks of the river sliding past her, bushes and reeds briefly lit by the lantern at the mast while the water chuckled and sparkled inches from her shoulder. Little birds stirred, fluttered, called alarm as the light passed their roosting-places. Somewhere a fox barked.

  She seemed to be sitting on tarred canvas, and her feet were in water in the bottom of the boat. Before her the lantern-light glowed dark rust on the sail and outlined shapes below it, the baggage, the boatman at the tiller, a moving form which must be Nicol scooping water back into the river. She raised her bound hands to her brow, pressing the cords against her face.

  ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

  ‘You’re our insurance,’ said Nicol. His accent was as bad as Grace’s; she suddenly recognized Burgundian French.

  ‘Hein?’

  ‘He thinks he can bargain with your man,’ Grace said. ‘Use you as a token to pay for our safe passage.’

  ‘But he –’ She swallowed. ‘He need not have known until after you had left Glasgow. I’d have said nothing.’

  ‘Keep baling, maister,’ ordered the boatman. ‘Cuthbert’s no accustomed to carrying boxes, she’s better wi fish, and it makes her uneasy. Keep baling.’

  Grace bent forward so her head was close to Alys’s.

  ‘Can you swim?’ she ask quietly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I free you, you’ll not try to get away? You could sit here on the bench at my side and be more comfortable.’

  Bench? she wondered, and groped for the right word. Thwart, was it? Grace’s French was like her own Scots, a second language, much used but not completely familiar. Concentrate on the situation, she told herself wearily.

  ‘Where could I go?’ she returned. Grace laughed faintly, produced her penknife and sawed through the cords at Alys’s wrists. She flexed her fingers painfully, and accepted help to move on to the thwart with Grace, her head stabbing pain as she moved. The other girl opened huge wings which turned out to be a heavy cloak, and drew Alys to her side under it.