Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

Attie shook his head.

‘We’re no certain,’ he said again. ‘Annot left her in her chamber, like I said, and when she gaed back in, there she was on the floor, and stone dead.’

‘Did you fetch a priest to her?’demanded Sempill.

‘Maister Livingstone has sent for one, Attie says,’ Lady Magdalen reminded him.

‘Has anyone else seen her?’ Gil asked. ‘You’re certain she’s dead, no just fallen in a stupor? An apoplexy can be-’

‘I’m no sure,’ admitted Attie, ‘for I never saw her, but Annot’s in the hysterics and Maister Livingstone tellt the household she was dead, bade me bring word here and then go for the layer-out. Will you wish to see her afore she’s washed and made decent, mem?’

‘N-no,’ said Lady Magdalen doubtfully. ‘No, I’d sooner wait till she’s in her dignity. Send my condolences to Maister Livingstone on the death of his kinswoman, Attie, and say I’ll come down afore suppertime.’ She seemed even paler than usual; Gil, suddenly recalling her condition, and certain her husband would never think of doing so, reached for the ale-jug and filled her beaker.

‘You should drink a little,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel steadier.’

‘Aye.’ She took the beaker from him. ‘My thanks, maister. Attie, will you go down to the kitchen, tell them the news, bid them see you right. I–I-’ She put her other hand to her head, and smiled weakly. ‘I canny believe it. She’s aye been so robust, I’d ha thought she’d go on for ever.’

‘Do you need to lie down?’ said Sempill, belatedly recognizing her distress. ‘Attie, send her woman up to her! And you’ll have to leave,’ he added to Gil. ‘We canny be looking at all this stuff the now.’

‘I’ve questions yet,’ Gil said mildly, reaching for the nearer rent-roll as the man Attie bowed and retreated to the kitchen door. ‘See your wife right, man, and then we’ll talk.’

The craftsmen of Clerk’s Land were hard at work, to judge by the hammering sounds from the several houses. Armed with the details from the rent-roll and Sempill’s sour comments on each tenant, Gil made his way along the muddy path, identifying the buildings and their occupants, making a note of necessary repairs and at the same time turning over in his mind the likely effects of Dame Isabella’s death on her various schemes. It seemed hard to believe, given the old woman’s forceful presence in Maistre Pierre’s house and then in Canon Cunningham’s only the day before, but sudden death could take anybody. He knew Canon Aiken’s house where the Livingstones were lodged, further down the Drygate; he could call on them later to condole, if that was the right word in the circumstances.

The children he had heard yesterday were wailing again inside the house nearest the road, though a man’s voice shouted at them from time to time. ‘That’s Adkin Saunders, pewterer,’ Sempill had said, ‘an ill-mannered dyvour, and his wife’s a great Ersche bairdie wi no respect for her betters. They pay their rent, but,’ he had added with reluctance. The pewterer was seated by the window, intent on shaping some vessel over a mould, his hammer tapping busily, though he cast a sideways glance at the intruder. Further down the toft two women were talking shrilly in Ersche; presumably one of them was the man’s wife. What had she said to Sempill, Gil wondered.

‘There’s Danny Bell, that’s a lorimer, he doesny dwell on the toft but come in to his workshop by the day. Has a dog as ill favoured as himsel, but at least he’s taught it to do his bidding.’ That was complimentary, by Sempill’s low standards; the man was a stringent judge of dogs. ‘And Dod Muir, that’s an image-maker, works in wood and metal and all sorts, wee hurb of a niffnaff. Both of them pays their rent right enough and all.’

At least, he reflected, peering into a low ramshackle shed and finding an assortment of barrels and a stock of small pieces of wood, at least Dame Isabella did not seem to have died by violence. This must be the image-maker’s woodstore, and yonder was certainly the lorimer’s workshop, with the scraps of leather round the door and pieces of horse-harness hung in the window; the lorimer himself, a young man with startling red hair, was visible at his bench working with leather-punch and hammer. His dog, a small shaggy creature with sharp ears, lay in the doorway and watched Gil suspiciously.

Two of the children from the pewterer’s house ran past him as he moved on, heads down as if fearing pursuit. He hoped they had got out to play for a while. The image-maker was not at home, his house shuttered and silent; the man sounded inoffensive, to judge by Sempill’s contemptuous description.

He moved on down the path, past another long low house with an open barn at its further end.

‘Then there’s Noll Campbell,’ Sempill had said, tapping the rent-roll. ‘I’ve had more trouble wi him than the whole — It’s another hallirakit Erscheman, a right sliddery scruff, wi a mouthful o abuse for any that speaks wi him, one that would sell his granny for dog’s meat. Makes enough to keep a prentice, but will he ever ha the rent together for the quarter-day? No him! I wish you well o him.’ There was a vindictive tone in his voice; clearly this Campbell and Sempill had crossed more than once.

In the barn, the whitesmith straightened up and stared at him under black scowling brows, tongs in hand; behind him in the shadows another man turned to look. That must be the apprentice. Gil nodded at them, and the smith bent to his work again, tap-tapping at what seemed likely to become a lantern.

Beyond the building was a kaleyard with a drying-green, where the women were still arguing in Ersche over a piece of linen. The children ran back up the path, and the two women paused as he came into sight, gazing open-mouthed at him, two Highland women with brows as dark as the smith’s, one young and slender, the other older and heavier. Both were clad in brown linen aprons tied on over loose checked gowns, whiter linen folded and pinned on their heads.

‘Good day to you,’ he said, raising his hat to them. ‘Is that Danny Sproat’s stable down yonder?’

One of them nodded. The older one said civilly enough, in accented Scots,

‘Aye. Aye, it is. But you will not be finding Danny the now. He iss out with the cart and the donkey, just, and not back before tomorrow so he was saying.’

‘I’m only wanting a look inside the stable,’ he said reassuringly. They looked at each other, and the one who had spoken gathered up the disputed washing.

‘Bethag will show you,’ she said, turning towards the houses. ‘There is a way of opening the door, to be keeping the donkey in, you ken.’ She added something in Ersche; the other woman gave her a sharp look, then smiled awkwardly at Gil and gestured towards the small building at the foot of the toft. He followed her, looking about. The kaleyard seemed to be divided up; none of the households would get a living from it, but it would provide all with some green vegetables for most of the year, assuming the donkey did not get through the woven hazel fence.

The door was well secured, though he could probably have opened it without difficulty. Bethag dragged one leaf open and nodded at the shadowed interior; he peered in, identifying stall and manger for the donkey and the standing for the little cart it pulled. The woman spoke in Ersche, pointing at the far wall.

‘What is it?’ he asked. She gave him that awkward smile again and crossed to open a shutter above the cart standing, and by its light showed him a place where the planking was splintered and gnawed. Something scurried over their heads in the low rafters, and she looked up apprehensively. ‘Aye, you get rats in a stable. You need a dog here. Can Danny Bell not bring his dog down to sort matters?’