A Pig of Cold Poison

by Pat McIntosh

‘The wind bites right through your plaid,’ she said. ‘It takes this boiled wool to keep it off. How is your head? How do you feel?’

  ‘Confused.’ Alys sat still, glad of the warmth but uncertain of the close contact. Through the headache she said, ‘I still don’t understand – what gain is it to bring me away like this? Surely it can only fetch Gil after me faster than ever?’

  ‘You’re our insurance,’ said Nicol again. ‘Even if he reaches Dumbarton before we sail, he’ll let us go rather than see harm come to you, I’d say.’

  She swallowed hard. What had Gil said about this man? What was the condition called? Akrasia, that was it, Impotens sui, the state of not having power over oneself, of being unpredictable, without moral judgement. What did he threaten?

  ‘Nicol, you won’t harm her,’ said Grace. Was that anxiety in her tone?

  ‘You don’t know that,’ said Nicol, giggling. ‘And nor does Gil Cunningham.’ He bent to his task again, and water splashed over the side. The river did seem to be sliding past very close to the topmost plank of the boat; there was a surprising amount of baggage piled in the midst of the little craft, and beyond it the boatman was now doing something mysterious with a rope. The sail flapped, their speed checked in the water, something swung. Water slopped and Nicol’s activities with the baler redoubled, the sail filled again and the chorus of creaks began a different tune. Child of a western seaport, she understood enough about small boats to know that the wind was not completely favourable, that the set of the sail must be altered to make the most of it. They must have negotiated one of the bends in the river. On the Renfrewshire shore an owl screeched, and another answered.

  ‘I wouldn’t have told Gil,’ she said quietly. ‘And I don’t think he knew about the apple-cheese or your workroom. It would take him a little time to come to the right answer. But now – your house is the second place he’ll look for me when he finds I’m not at home, and Isa knew I’d been there. He’ll pursue us to Dumbarton with all the speed he can make.’

  ‘Isa also saw you leave,’ said Grace, equally quietly. ‘I don’t know what my husband intends.’ She sighed. ‘Such a fright I had when he bore you in at the back gate. Then we had to fasten you on to the handcart, all among the luggage, and then we had the argument with this fisherman. I regret this. I really regret this.’

  ‘What does your husband fear Gil will do?’ she asked. Her hands seemed to be trembling again.

  ‘Prevent us leaving. Take either of us up for Frankie’s death.’

  ‘Either of you?’

  Grace’s face turned towards her, a pale blurred oval in the lantern-light. Incongruously, there was a laugh in her voice. ‘Either of us. And whichever he takes for it, he’d be wrong.’

  Alys digested this.

  ‘It was his heart, then?’ she said.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘You’re very sure.’

  ‘I witnessed it.’

  ‘You were there when he died. In his chamber, in the midnight.’

  ‘He’d summoned me there.’

  It was one thing, she discovered, to suspect something so dreadful, but quite another to have it confirmed. Appalled, Alys put a hand out, groped for Grace’s, gripped it. The clasp was returned. ‘How long?’ she asked. ‘How long had he been – been – imposing himself –’

  ‘Five month. Any time he saw the opportunity. Any time his son was out of it with the drops, which seemed to happen more often lately. Sometimes in our own bed, wi Nicol drugged at my side.’

  Please God and Christ and Our Lady and all the saints, she begged, send that Nicol could not hear their voices, above the increased creaking of the boat, the splash of the baling. And blessed Mary, forgive me that I complained of my own barrenness, when this was happening almost next door.

  ‘What a blessing you have not conceived while you were in Glasgow.’

  Another faint, bitter laugh. ‘I made sure of that. And he never suspected.’

  ‘He wished to – to replace the one you lost himself?’

  ‘My God, you’re fast. Yes, that was what he told me, time and time again. He’d make sure his heir was a Renfrew born. But that wasn’t the worst of it.’

  Alys made a small questioning noise, but the answer struck her almost at the same moment.

  ‘The tisane,’ she whispered. ‘The night you came home.’ Grace’s hand tightened on hers, and she felt the movement as the other girl nodded. ‘Ah, what wickedness! No wonder you –’

  ‘Planned to poison him.’ The words were almost inaudible.

  The sail flapped. Cuthbert checked, lurched, rushed onward. Water gurgled very near her waist. Away to her left, on the Dunbartonshire shore, there were hoofbeats, several horses. A sliver of moon had risen, and slid out of the clouds occasionally.

  ‘He’d sweetened it with sugar,’ Grace said suddenly, softly, ‘and put galangal and cloves and all sorts to it, to disguise the taste. If it hadny been for that I’d have recognized what he was about. I’ll never be able to face cloves again.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Alys put her other arm about Grace under the cloak. They leaned together, sharing warmth. ‘And then Agnes found the stuff you had prepared.’

  ‘I thought I’d hidden it. She’s always been one for prying and spying, though not as bad as her brother.’ She checked. ‘I always forget that my husband is her brother too. Not as bad as her brother Robert. She took the first batch I made, not knowing it for what it was I suppose, and gave it to the man Bothwell. I replaced it the next day.’

  ‘The apple-cheese –’

  ‘Yes. She must have borrowed what she needed, just the day after. I thought the flask had been moved, I thought I’d made more than there was left in it, but the past few days have been such a turmoil I wasn’t certain. Then the boy – Robert – died, and I knew I was right.’

  ‘Where was the flask when Gil searched the house?’

  ‘In my purse, while I hoped the stopper was fast.’

  ‘Where are we the now?’ demanded Nicol suddenly from beyond the piled-up baggage.

  ‘Kilpatrick’s yonder,’ said the boatman. ‘And Bowling ayont it. We’ll be at Dumbarton in a hauf an hour or so, and you’ll can gie me the extra two groats afore I set you ashore.’

  ‘One groat,’ said Nicol.

  ‘Aye, well, that was afore you mentioned insurance,’ said the boatman. ‘Did you never think to ask if I spoke the French tongue? There’s most mariners can manage a few words. I canny afford to insure my boatie, but I can get extra off you if you’re taking me into danger, my lad. Two groats it is, or I’ll not set you ashore.’

  ‘We’re no wanting to go ashore anyway,’ said Nicol cheerfully. ‘We’re bound aboard the Dutchman that’s lying off Dumbarton, Sankt Nikolaas.’

  ‘Wherever I set you,’ repeated the boatman doggedly, ‘that’s another two groats.’

  ‘D’you reckon?’ said Nicol.

  There was a sudden movement aft of the pile of luggage. The boat rocked, Alys exclaimed in fright, the boatman cried out. There was a huge splash, and the boat lurched and sped on, lighter in the water. Someone shouted.

  ‘Nicol!’ exclaimed Grace, leaning forward as if she would rise. She recollected herself in time, and Nicol said lazily:

  ‘Never fear, lass, I’m here.’

  ‘Hi! Come about there!’ floated after them, and more splashing. Nicol laughed.

  ‘I’m no sailor,’ he said, but hardly loud enough for the man to hear. ‘I canny turn your wee boat.’

  ‘Nicol!’ said Grace on a note of panic. ‘Fit deein, loon? What – what have you done?’ she corrected herself in Scots.

  ‘He’ll no drown,’ said Nicol. ‘It’s chest deep, no more. He can walk to Bowling.’

  ‘But how do we – Nicol, we canny sail this boatie! How do we steer it? We’ll run aground, we’ll sink –’

  The splashing and shouting was diminishing beyond him. Alys, rigid with fright, stared as Nicol, faintly outlined by the lantern, settled himsel
f at the stern of the boat.

  ‘It’s the tiller steers it,’ he remarked. The boat lurched, the sail flapped, and was corrected. ‘Aye, like that. And what wi the tide still running downriver, we’ll likely no go aground afore we can see the Sankt Nikolaas. And how’s our wee token doing,’ he asked suddenly, ‘our safe pass out o Scotland?’

  ‘She’s well enough,’ said Grace. Alys could feel the effort it took for her to sound so calm. ‘Nicol, how do we go aboard? We’ll never – we canny –’

  ‘Ach, Gerrit will send a boat to bring us in,’ said Nicol easily. Akrasia, thought Alys, still staring at him, and began to recognize a real chance that she might not see Gil again.

  The boatman had said it was half an hour to Dumbarton. It might have been a year, by the number of prayers Alys contrived to cram into the time. She sat tensely in the bow, not daring to draw out her beads, dredging her mind for all the travellers’ supplications she could recall. Grace had scrambled over the baggage and was baling as Nicol had been, though there seemed to be less water coming aboard now. The lantern at the masthead flickered, but the river had widened, there were no banks or bushes to show up in the tiny light, only an endless running of water and the occasional ripple of a sandbank. Nicol failed to run them aground; the sliver of moon slid in and out of the clouds.

  Blessed St Christopher, pray for us, she thought, send that we may not drown. Was that a voice across the water? She tilted her head to listen, and a seabird called, was answered, set up a whole flight of high anxious peep-peep-peepings which soared above their heads in the darkness. What had disturbed them?

  That was certainly a voice. It seemed to be behind them. Who else could be out on the river in the midnight like this? Long after midnight, her rational mind answered. Sunrise was after seven o’clock just now, there was no sign of the dawn, but surely it must be getting on for Prime. Please God let the dawn come soon, I don’t wish to drown in the dark – like the boatman, maybe. Did he find his way ashore?

  ‘There’s a light yonder,’ said Grace. She twisted to look, and saw one, two, a handful of lights, some higher than others. Some of them rocked gently, and one low down was fixed and seemed bigger, as if it was a lit window rather than a lantern like the one at their mast. Beside it, behind it, a huge black bulk loomed against the stars: Dumbarton’s great cloven rock, which guarded the Clyde.

  ‘It’s all the vessels in the roads off Dumbarton,’ said Nicol happily, ‘each one wi a star at its top. And yonder, I’d say, the baker getting the oven hot for the day’s bread. The folk o Dumbarton’ll no go hungry.’ He shifted the tiller experimentally, and the boat rocked. ‘I’m no wanting the sail now, I think.’

  ‘He said low tide was about four of the clock,’ said Grace doubtfully. ‘Will we not run aground at low tide? We’ll need the sail to take us to where the vessels are. We canny – we canny just go ashore and ask for aid. What if the boatman’s reached the town ahead of us?’

  What if he never came ashore? thought Alys.

  ‘We’re no going ashore,’ Nicol said sweepingly. ‘We’ll find Gerrit, never fret, lass, and catch the day’s tide. At morn, when it is daylight, we’ll do us into the wild flood.’ Floris and Blanchflour again, Alys recognized. Nicol laid a hand on one of the ropes beside him, and tugged at it. The sail shifted, spilled wind, the boat danced a little sideways.

  ‘You’ll have us aground,’ said Grace on a high note. Alys realized the other girl was as frightened as she was. And beyond Nicol, was that a movement in the darkness? A flicker of light, something catching the starlight or the exiguous moon, a splash of oars? She stared into the night, heart hammering, half-certain she had imagined it. Could it be Gil?

  Nicol suddenly tipped his head back and let out a great halloo which rebounded off the Rock and echoed across the river. There was a huge flapping and screaming, and Alys cried out in fear, cowering down in the boat, until she saw that it was a flock of seabirds startled by the noise, lifting up off the water. As the birds vanished into the night a spark flared under the nearest of the riding-lights, and a surly voice demanded who called, in almost unintelligible Scots.

  ‘Cherche le Sankt Nikolaas,’ Nicol shouted.

  ‘Pas ici!’ retorted the surly voice. The light was extinguished.

  ‘That’s no very friendly,’ said Nicol reproachfully. He must have tugged at the rope again, for the sail cracked, spilled wind, and the boat slipped sideways once more. There was a rasping from under the bottom, then a shuddering jolt and they stopped moving.

  ‘We’re aground!’ said Grace.

  ‘It wasny meant to do that,’ said Nicol, and giggled. He put his head back and hallooed again, the sound echoing round them from the Rock.

  ‘Tais-toi!’ roared the near vessel. ‘Faut dormir!’

  ‘Gerrit!’ yelled Nicol.

  Behind him, two boats appeared in the circle of their lantern. Alys stared as they slid closer, the men in them reaching for Cuthbert’s strakes. Grace turned her head and screamed, pointing, but one of the boats bumped alongside where there was still water under the stern, and two men scrambled over into a sudden fierce tangle with Nicol, and when Grace would have struck one over the head with the baler a third man seized her wrist.

  Terrified, despising herself, Alys slid down into the bottom of the boat again, and was taken by surprise when a man climbed in over the prow, standing heavily on her wrist as he went. She managed not to cry out, and he trampled aft over the luggage to join in the fight. Waiting for the sea to come in and swamp everything, waiting to drown, Alys realized that Cuthbert no longer rocked on the water, must be well aground, that there must be sand or –

  With the thought itself she had uncurled and was over the side, hauling wet skirts up out of her way, her feet in inches of lapping water, the sand under them firm enough to walk on. She looked about, located the light of the baker’s window, crossed herself, seized her skirts again and set off away from the struggle.

  There were other voices, other boats out on the water. Oars splashed rhythmically, lights showed and were concealed. She waded on, hoping that the water was not really deeper, hoping the sandbank ran to the shore or at least that no deep channel cut her off, hoping they had not noticed she was gone –

  ‘Gerrit! Par là! Attrape-elle!’

  She stumbled in a hollow in the sand, righted herself, waded further. The water was certainly deeper, and oars – no, feet, a bigger body than hers splashing through the shallows, came after her. She threw a glance over her shoulders, but could make out only bobbing lights in the dark. The baker’s window seemed to be no nearer, and the sounds behind her were approaching fast –

  She screamed as a hand fell on her shoulder, and another grabbed her arm in a punishing grip. A huge shape loomed over her, smelling of ships and stale spirits.

  ‘Waar komms du, ma fille?’ asked a deep cheerful voice. ‘Dies ist niet goed. Par-là ist Tod. Live is dis way. Votr’ mari ist hier.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Riding through the dark, as fast as one might with the lanterns held low, with two good men beside him and the horses shying at shadows and owls, Gil found his thoughts churning round and round in the events of the night.

  He had been surprised, returning to the house with his father-in-law, not to find Alys waiting to hear what they had observed. (Though that was little enough, commented a small part of his mind now.) Seeing their lodging in darkness, he had assumed she must be abed already. He and Pierre had sat down to discuss the evening over a jug of ale without reaching any new conclusions, and he had made his way through the drawing-loft to join his wife, only to find the bed cold and empty, and an apologetic dog trying to explain that his mistress had gone out without him, and he needed to go down to the courtyard urgently.

  Pierre and the maidservants had been as astonished as Gil. They had searched anxiously for Alys through the sprawling house, half-certain she had fallen on one of the stairs or fainted in a deserted storeroom; they had checked the garden,
the bathhouse, the privy. Catherine, finally disturbed at her prayers, had not seen Alys since shortly after he and Pierre had left the house, but suggested that she might have gone to see Kate.

  ‘She gains great comfort from talking to your sister, maistre,’ she said formally to Gil. ‘She may not have noticed how late it is. Or perhaps,’ she added, ‘she had more questions for the women at the apothecary’s house.’

  ‘But to go out alone!’ worried Maistre Pierre. ‘She never does so, not this late!’

  ‘I’ll step round to Kate’s house now,’ said Gil, ‘and then try the Renfrew house. Though I’d have thought their woman would have said if she was there before we left.’

  The dog at his heels, he made his way down the dark street. The torches on the house corners were burning low, but there was enough light to see by; at Morison’s Yard he found the double gates barred, and scrambled up long enough to crane over them and check that the house was in darkness. It must be past eleven o’clock, small wonder they were all abed. Alys could not be here.

  There were still lights in the Renfrew house. He banged on the shop door with the hilt of his dagger, and after a while a shutter opened overhead and Syme’s voice said warily, ‘Who’s that at the door?’

  ‘It’s me, Gil Cunningham,’ he said, stepping back to see the man as a dark shape leaning from the window. ‘Has my wife been here?’

  ‘Your wife?’ Syme repeated. ‘No that I ever – bide there and I’ll ask.’

  Gil stood on the doorstep, fidgeting, wondering where to seek next if there was no trace here. After a surprising length of time he heard the house door unbarred, and a streak of light fell out. He took one long step into the pend and found himself face to tearstained face with Eleanor Renfrew, fully clothed and holding a candle.

  ‘She’s not here,’ she said. ‘But nor is my fool of a brother nor his wife.’

  ‘It’s true,’ agreed Syme behind her. ‘Nicol and Mistress Grace are gone, and taken all their gear wi them. And afore the funeral, too! I can see no sign that Mistress Mason was here the day.’