by Pat McIntosh
‘Useful,’ said Gil. ‘Now away with Mistress Mason and see what else you can learn.’
Following the directions the Provost had given him to Maister Ballantyne’s house, Gil found himself in front of a tall timber-framed edifice near the West Port. Three jutting storeys rose above the iron-bound front door, and beside it a foreshot nearly as high as the first upper floor caused anyone passing towards the port to take a significant detour round it. Thinking that it was a good thing foreshots were not used in Glasgow, Gil rattled at the pin by the door.
A harassed and hatless fellow answered it, his shirtsleeves rolled up, doublet half-unlaced, smudges of soot on his face and garments, though his bearing was that of an upper servant.
‘He’s in his chamber, maister,’ he said before Gil could speak, and pointed towards the extension. ‘In the fore-shot. The door’s at the other side. Why’s the whole o Lanark wanting him the day, and Steenie clerk away, and it no even Market Day? You’ll ha to forgive me, maister, we’ve the—’
A screech, a prolonged clatter of pewter dishes, interrupted him. He cast a glance over his shoulder into the house, then stepped hastily aside as something black and monstrous flapped towards him down the wide hall, uttering hideous honking sounds, pursued with shouting by an equally blackened man.
‘Haud her! Stop her! She’ll be away!’
Gil recognised what was happening just in time, and stepped aside like the manservant as goose and man leapt down the steps, shedding clouds of soot, and plunged into the busy street.
‘—sweep in,’ said the manservant, watching with resignation as the pair zigzagged towards the High Street, followed by shouts of fury as passers-by found themselves blackened. When the sweep had vanished behind the foreshot, he shook his head sadly and retreated into the house, where someone was scolding shrilly while the pewter rang and clattered.
‘She would have them swept,’ he said as he closed the door.
Gil, grinning, made his way round to the other side of the foreshot, and rattled at this door in turn. He could hear no sounds of movement, no footsteps of anyone coming to the door, though since the sweep and his assistant were still causing a commotion beyond St Nicholas’ church it was hard to be certain. He rattled the ring up and down the twisted pin again, and a voice called, ‘Come in, whoever that is! Come and gie’s a hand here!’
A woman’s voice.
Alarmed, puzzled, one hand on his whinger, he raised the latch and pushed at the door. It opened on a small waiting-room, with a bench and a locked press; beyond another door was hasty movement, a soft scuffling, someone gasping for breath.
‘Who’s there?’ he said sharply. ‘Maister Ballantyne?’ ‘Come away ben!’ said the woman urgently. ‘I need a hand here!’
Stepping round the inner door, he was confronted by a grim sight. A man lay flat on the floor, blood on his linen cuffs, his plain dark garments disarrayed. There was more blood around him on the broad planks, on the light oak of his handsome desk, and on the skirts of the woman who knelt over him. Her hands were crimson, as was the cloth she was pressing onto his chest; Gil saw the trailing ties and realised she had used her apron, just as she raised the crimson bundle to peer under it, and clamped it hastily down again.
‘Call for help!’ she ordered him. ‘Get linen if you—’
The man under her hands choked suddenly; his eyes flew open in what seemed like surprise, a great gout of blood ran from his mouth, and the outflung hands relaxed. Gil looked at the narrow face, the bloody, grizzled beard, then bent his head and crossed himself. This man would never play at Tarocco again.
‘Too late, I think,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of the hue and cry now. What happened?’
‘Aye.’ She sat back on her heels, crossing herself likewise and muttering a prayer, then grimaced down at the state of her skirts. ‘I wish I’d had a right look at them.’
‘It’s Agnes, isn’t it?’ said Gil, recognising her. ‘You’re serving—’
‘Madame Olympe, aye,’ she confirmed. ‘I think you’re to call on us later? Wi your bonnie wee wife?’
‘I am.’ Gil considered the dead man again. ‘I’d hoped for a word wi Maister Ballantyne first. I take it this is him?’
‘I take it,’ she agreed. ‘I was waiting out yonder, to appoint a time for Madam to see him, and there was shouting within here, and then two great men ran out sheathing their swords as they went, and I heard him groaning. So I came to look, and here he was.’
‘How long since?’ Gil asked.
She shrugged. ‘The quarter of an hour?’
‘I can hardly ha missed them by much,’ he said. ‘I was at least the half of that time at the door asking for the man. You’ve no idea what way they took, I suppose.’
‘They ran past this window,’ she nodded at the aperture, ‘for I saw them as I cam through the door. They’d be making for the port.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I came by the other way, down the hill, so I’d not ha seen them.’ He looked about the chamber. There were papers on the desk, tumbled about as if someone had searched them hastily, and a town map. West Port and Castle Gate were marked; it might be a plan of Lanark, though most burghs had a west port. Another piece of paper lay near the door, as if dropped; casually he bent to lift it, and tucked it into his doublet along with the map. The woman Agnes was still kneeling, attempting to wipe her hands on the cleaner portions of her skirt.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘best we get this over wi. You’ve no knife on you, have you?’
‘None that would cause this much damage.’ She lifted the blood-soaked cloth cautiously, to reveal the gaping rent in the dead man’s clothing and flesh. ‘That’s a sword cut, and no a whinger either, it’s a good hand’s-breadth across.’
‘You’re right there,’ Gil acknowledged, and went to the outer door. He thought briefly of the owner of the scolding voice, who must now be a widow and who would likely never be able to look at a chimney sweep again. Then, drawing a breath, he shouted, ‘Murder! Raise the hue and cry! Bloody murder here!’
‘Och, it’s the speak of the town,’ said Madame Olympe. ‘What were they quarrelling about, Agnes? Maister Lightbody’s servants told me it was something Ballantyne cheated them in, that they’d had that from you.’
‘They never,’ said Agnes stoutly, standing in the midst of the chamber, trying not to touch anything. ‘Like I said to Maister Cunningham here, I heard shouting, and then after they ran out I heard the man groaning. I never caught what they were shouting about, save that one said, You’ll do as you promised or it’s the waur for you!’
‘You’re certain of that?’ her mistress pressed her. She nodded. ‘Agnes, away and shift those dreadful clothes. They’re for the flea-market as soon as they’re washed.’
‘If they wash,’ muttered Agnes. ‘This cheap woollen, it’ll turn to felt.’ With great caution she lifted a bundle from a corner of the chamber and removed herself to another, inner room.
Madame Olympe turned to Gil, her former manner dropping back into place like a veil. She was garbed today in a wrapped gown of red and green brocade, its vast sleeves turned back with rose-coloured silk; her headdress was an elaborate structure of folded linen such as Gil had seen in the Low Countries.
‘And such good fortune for my servant, Maister Cunningham,’ she said in French, one long white hand at her throat, ‘that you were there and could prevent the mob taking her up for murder.’
‘Equally fortunate for me,’ Gil responded. ‘I’ve more to do than sit in the Tolbooth lockups until the Provost sent to free me, trying to reckon why the man was killed.’
‘Indeed, a mystery!’ pronounced Madame Olympe. She turned to the tray set on a stool beside her, and poured something into wooden beakers. ‘You will forgive the rustic service, I know. Our lodging is comfortable, but not fashionably appointed.’ She handed him a drink, then sat back and lifted her own. ‘A toast, maister. To the goddess Mystery, who provides a living for some.’ Gil drank obediently, so
me kind of fruit vinegar; she emptied her own beaker and set it down on the tray with a click. ‘Now, maister, what happened when the hue and cry began?’
‘The usual.’ Gil grimaced. ‘A crowd of onlookers, before you could blink, all eager to see how much blood there was. I had some ado to keep them out in the waiting-room. Then the constables arrived, and were for arresting everyone within twenty yards of the body.’
‘Oh!’ said Madame Olympe, and tittered. ‘The Lanark lockup must be vast indeed!’
‘Quite. But as you say, Agnes and I could speak for one another, and the man’s whole household had been caught up in the chimney-sweeping and could vouch for all. If they could have laid hands on the sweep and his goose they’d have arrested them, I believe, but in the end they let us away and saw Ballantyne borne off to be laid out for a quest, and then set about questioning folk in the street about the armed men.’
‘And what did they learn?’ The pale eyes were intent. Gil grimaced again.
‘Nothing. Strangely, though many had seen the men running, nobody had recognised them, and their numbers were anything from two to five.’
‘I saw two,’ said Agnes firmly, emerging from the inner chamber in a handsome striped kirtle which must be her Sunday best, her fouled garments held at arm’s length. ‘Two ran past me, both with their swords out, and then they were two that passed the window.’ Her French was clumsy, ill-pronounced, but adequate.
‘Description?’ said her mistress. Agnes shrugged, her pudding face screwed up in thought.
‘One in a dark blue worsted short gown,’ she said in Scots, ‘blue velvet bonnet, couple of feathers in it. About your height, madam, thin face, his hair clipped short so I never saw the colour. One in tawny worsted, a red felt hat, longer hair of a brown colour, maybe a handspan shorter than the other and heavier built.’
‘Adequate,’ pronounced Madame Olympe. ‘It’s a start.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Agnes. ‘I’ll away and get these put to soak.’ She crossed the chamber and opened the door, falling back to let someone in: Alys, her gaze going immediately to Gil, her expression changing to one of relief. Socrates pushed past her and came to sniff at his master’s boots.
‘In a good hour!’ proclaimed Madame Olympe. ‘Come in, my dear, and bring your wee lapdog. Will you take some refreshment? You have been hurrying in this heat! I hope you feared no impropriety between your husband and me while Agnes is out of the chamber.’ She rose to return Alys’s formal curtsy, and gestured her to a backstool. ‘There, you may see all respectable.’
‘Those were not my anxieties, madame,’ said Alys, as Gil seated her. ‘My husband’s tastes run to other endowments than yours, I believe.’ Madame Olympe checked in lifting a filled beaker, then handed it over with another curtsy, her eyes dancing. Before she could embark on a reply, Alys continued, ‘But what has been happening? They’re saying the burgh clerk is dead, and Gil and your servant witnessed it, or even killed him.’
‘My faith, I hope not!’ declared Madame. ‘Have you been lying to me, maister?’
Gil recounted the tale again; Alys listened attentively, sipping at her cup of fruit vinegar, and said at the end, ‘And no sign of the swordsmen now, I suppose?’
‘I’d guess they had horses waiting at one of the inns,’ Gil said, ‘and were across the Clyde by the time the constables began looking for them.’
‘It seems only prudent,’ agreed Madame Olympe.
‘What, you think they planned to kill the man?’ Gil asked.
‘How should I know?’ she parried. ‘They came to threaten him, certainly, by what Agnes says.’
‘But why was Maister Ballantyne killed?’ Alys speculated. ‘And why now? Did his household mention enemies? Has he more family?’ She set down her empty beaker and took Gil’s hand, rather firmly.
‘There are two sons,’ he said, ‘one of them a priest in Edinburgh, the other a notary in Moffat. Three daughters, two wedded about Lanark, one in Edinburgh. He gets on well enough with the sons-in-law. His clerk had a holiday, and had leave to go visit his family at Crossford. That’s easy enough to check, but will take time.’
‘That seems odd,’ said Alys. ‘Why would the clerk have the day free? Surely the Lanimer Fair would be a holiday, only last week. He could hardly expect another so soon after.’
‘A good point,’ concurred Madame Olympe. Socrates crossed to her, and she scratched his ears absently; he laid his head on her lap and blew as he would at a rathole.
‘There’s more,’ said Gil. ‘According to his steward, Ballantyne had given out that he planned to spend the day in his closet, dealing with papers and matters of business, and expected no clients. This was unusual, but the steward took it that he was avoiding the upset surrounding the chimney-sweeping. Yet two or three asked for him afore noon, not including the two that Agnes saw. Those two never went near the house door, must have gone straight to the foreshot.’
‘And the enquirers were?’ Madame Olympe’s painted eyebrows rose.
‘Aside from Agnes and myself, who were the latest, there was someone from the Provost’s house, one of the Franciscans and a man from Maister Vary.’
Alys’s hand tightened in Gil’s, briefly, though she said nothing. Madame Olympe looked interested.
‘He whose wife is missing?’ she said. ‘That is also a speak for the town, you understand.’
‘Aye,’ said Gil. The pale blue eyes sharpened under the elaborately folded linen headdress. ‘I need to speak to all three of those, and Vary first of all.’
‘And did the sweep’s boy see nothing?’ Alys asked. They both looked blankly at her. ‘There would have been a laddie on the roof, to put the fowl down the chimney. He must surely have seen the men running.’
‘Another good point,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll mention it to Lockhart. He’ll likely know where to find the boy. He must be questioned.’
‘But I am curious, madame,’ said Alys brightly, ‘to know what a lady such as yourself finds to draw her to Lanark.’
‘It is a town of the most interesting,’ protested madame. ‘One may hear the news from all directions. Only yesterday one was telling me how the Commendator of St Johns, what is his name? Noel, Noll? How he is searching for ways to make money. And here you are today, able to bring me all the news of Glasgow.’
‘Knollys,’ said Gil. ‘Commendator Knollys.’
‘Nevertheless, it hardly seems a likely setting for such a devotee of fashion,’ Alys offered.
‘I know, my dear,’ agreed Madame Olympe. ‘But I have sufficient reason, though I appear as a jewel on a midden, a rose upon a dungheap.’
So it’s Treasury business, is it, thought Gil. And why does Will Knollys need money?
‘A white rose, or a red?’Alys asked.
‘Oh, my dear! Virgin white, of course! How could I be other? And yourselves? You visit family in the neighbourhood, I suppose?’
‘My mother,’ said Gil. ‘Who has expressed a desire to meet you. Your fame has spread to Carluke.’
‘But of course!’ responded madame, alarm flickering briefly in her expression. ‘I am overwhelmed with delight at the prospect. And what brings you down into Lanark?’ she pursued, as Agnes came quietly back into the chamber. ‘Is there not enough in Carluke to entertain you?’
‘We are searching for the missing lady, Maister Vary’s wife,’ said Alys, before Gil could indulge in any more verbal fencing. ‘Have you heard anything which might be helpful? I’m told you have become friendly with her mother.’
‘No,’ said Madame Olympe, becoming serious. ‘Mistress Somerville was with me an hour or more, the very day her daughter was found to be missing, but all she spoke of was the coming event.’ She leaned back, spread her elbows out, became briefly the image of someone in great pain. Gil saw Alys frown, but madame continued, ‘Rather more than I wished to hear, indeed. The lady had no notion at the time, clearly, that her daughter was not safe at home. Have you learned anything?’
‘Very litt
le,’ said Alys. She recounted their discovery of the day before, and the Provost’s tale of the caves in the river bank.
Madame Olympe listened, and preserved a thoughtful silence afterwards, saying at length, ‘No hint of who the message was from, I suppose.’
‘Someone lettered,’ said Gil. ‘Which would tend to argue against the tinkers and the like gathered for the fair last week. I’d ha said the writing was disguised, myself, to seem clumsier than the scribe’s usual hand.’
Madame nodded, one long white finger laid alongside her muscular jaw.
‘So someone educated,’ she said, ‘who reckons Maister Vary can do him a favour, but needs forced into it.’
‘We’d got that far ourselves,’ said Gil politely.
Madame Olympe flashed him a brief, improbable grin from under the linen headdress, and continued, ‘Therefore, someone with plans for the burgh lands, whether within or without the ports.’
‘Of course!’ said Gil. ‘The burgh is the local feu superior,’ he explained to Alys. ‘In Glasgow, the Council oversees all in the Bishop’s name within the ports, but outside them it’s a matter for his own men of law to agree to an exchange of sasines or a building work or the like. Lanark is a Royal Burgh and has control over its own lands, which are pretty extensive.’
‘Ah,’ said Alys. ‘I asked the Provost the wrong question.’ Gil raised an eyebrow. ‘I should have asked about business without the ports as well.’
‘Furth of the burgh?’ he said in Scots. ‘It’s possible.’
She shook her head.
‘Audrey’s friends had heard nothing about works within the burgh,’ she said. ‘We must look outside. It is inconvenient that the burgh clerk is now slain—’
‘Certainly it’s inconvenient for him,’ observed Madame Olympe, and tittered.
Alys gave her a reproving look and went on, ‘But I wonder if we are foolish to assume the death is connected to Audrey’s disappearance?’
‘Occam’s razor,’ said Gil. Alys nodded; she knew his views on coincidence.
‘Aye, very like,’ said Madame Olympe, ‘but I’ve kent stranger things happen myself. As well say the man was slain because I wished a word wi him.’
