Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘Aye, well,’ observed Cleone pertly, ‘I wouldny ha been at my practice if I could ha been sleeping, but what wi her snoring-’

‘What, again? She’ll have to go at the quarter if she canny stop that, it’s no attraction. Go on, what did you see? Was this the man?’

Cleone eyed Gil again. Her eyes were blue, with dark rings round them.

‘The one I saw was wearing black.’

‘Aye, and his black is all wet and hung up in the kitchen. He doesn’t go about draped in sheets for every day. Get on wi’t, girl.’

Cleone shrugged, causing an interesting change in the scenery of her low neckline.

‘There was those two next door, squabbling away in Ersche, and this man or one like him, clad all in black, came down the path and spoke to them. Then one of them, I think it was the Barabal one, went off up among the houses and the other one took him down to look at the donkey’s stable.’

Gil nodded in spite of himself, and winced as pain stabbed in his head.

‘And then what?’ he asked. ‘What did you see?’

‘I was studying the tablature a wee while,’ Cleone admitted, ‘but when I looked up there was a man ahint the door of the stable, and when you stepped out he struck you on the head wi his mell. And then they took and carried you out the gate, and dropped you in the water, and then I saw Cato running down our path. So I went back to my practice.’

‘Could you identify him?’ Gil asked. ‘Could you say who he was?’

She looked at him with those blue eyes, smiling earnestly.

‘It was Dod Muir,’ she said. ‘I’m right certain.’

‘The image-maker,’ Gil said, and she nodded.

‘Why did you not go out to help Cato?’ demanded her mistress.

‘Because I wasny dressed. You’re aye telling us no to show off our-’

‘Aye, that’ll do. You’re certain o what you saw?’

Cleone shrugged again.

‘It wasny Campbell nor Saunders. It wasny Danny Bell, he’s easy enough to make out, wi his hair. It wasny Sproat the donkey man, for he’s no in Glasgow. Who else would it be?’

‘You tell me, girl,’ said Madam Xanthe in exasperation. ‘Was it Dod Muir or no?’

‘Aye, it was,’ said Cleone.

‘Aye, well. So there you are, Maister Cunningham. Dod Muir the image-maker it was, if this lassie’s to be trusted, and if I was you I’d take him to law and double his rent as well.’

‘You could be right.’ He managed a smile for Cleone, who said with sympathy,

‘Is your head right sore? Ag- Agrippina’s got a rare bottle for a sore head.’

‘Aye, that’s a good thought, lass. You get back to your practice,’ said her mistress briskly, ‘see if you can master I long for thy virginitie for the night, and I’ll-’ Her head turned, and she peered out of the window. ‘Is that the laddie back? Who’s he brought wi him?’

With him? Not Alys or Pierre, surely, Gil thought in alarm. Though Alys, he acknowledged to himself, would probably find the visit both interesting and entertaining.

It was neither Alys nor Pierre; it was Lowrie Livingstone, even more embarrassed than Gil to discover him in such a situation.

‘I’m right sorry to trouble you,’ he said, backing into a corner of the chamber and knocking over the basket of spinning, ‘just we really needed to find you, but if you’re no feeling up to it we can maybe-’

‘No, we can’t,’ said Gil, emerging from the neck of his shirt. ‘Tell me again. Mally Bowen said-’

‘She says she’s no willing to lay the old — dame out until you’ve looked at her. It was you she named, no her husband the Serjeant. So I’m sent out to find you, and I’d just come to your house when this fellow,’ he nodded towards Cato, who was now grinning speechlessly at Cleone, ‘fetched up at the door saying you were here at the bawdy-house and needed your clothes.’

Gil covered his eyes.

‘Is that what he said?’

‘He did explain,’ Lowrie assured him. ‘Though I don’t think he mentioned you’d been struck on the head.’

‘That’s no worry. I’d sooner my wife was annoyed than anxious,’ Gil said, cautiously resuming the process of dressing. Alys had sent the old doublet and the summer gown; it did seem likely she was annoyed. But she had remembered boots, a hat, and his old purse. ‘So Dame Isabella’s still waiting to be laid out. She’ll have to wait a bit longer now, she must have begun to set. Did Mally Bowen say what was troubling her?’

‘No.’

Madam Xanthe swept back into the chamber, shooed Cato and Cleone out and handed Gil a glass of something dark.

‘Drink that,’ she ordered him, ‘it should help your head. Your clothes are nowhere near dry, Strephon tells me. I’ll send them back the morn, if you can manage without till then.’

‘I’ll find something to put on my back, I’ve no doubt,’ said Gil. He swallowed the mixture cautiously, recognizing the familiar tang of willow-bark, and returned to the task of fastening his points. ‘We’ll send to fetch them. One of the men would be glad of the errand, no need to take Cato from his work.’

Lowrie gave a crack of laughter at this, and went red as Madam Xanthe looked more closely at him.

‘Well, here’s a likely young gentleman,’ she said, approaching him. He backed into his corner again, looking alarmed, and she put out a long finger and tipped his chin up. ‘Oh, aye, you’d get a free entry any evening you care, young sir,’ she pronounced, relishing the ambiguity. Gil, deliberately looking away to find his way into the summer gown, said in French,

‘Are you sure he’s up to your weight?’

‘Oh!’ Madam Xanthe tittered, but released Lowrie and said in the same language, ‘He’s your steed, is he? I’d not thought that of you, maistre .’

Gil turned to meet her eyes directly.

‘I’m in your debt and Cato’s,’ he said, ‘for this morning’s support, but that doesn’t give you the right to affront me or my friends. Nor does it come well from you to do so,’ he went on, with a slight emphasis on the vous .

The arch gaze sharpened slightly, then she looked away, with that annoying titter.

‘Oh, get on wi you,’ she said in Scots. ‘Away and get about your business, and then go and comfort your wee wife. Or deal wi Isabella Torrance, if that’s what’s needed.’

‘She’s still in her chamber,’ said Maister Livingstone.

They had found him in the first-floor hall of Canon Aiken’s substantial house, pacing anxiously before the hearth, though scattered documents on a nearby bench suggested he had been trying to deal with legal matters. ‘We’ll no get her laid out now till she softens,’ he went on. ‘I’ve sent for Mistress Bowen to come back, she can let you know what troubles her about the corp. She wouldny tell me, and she’d said naught to Annot.’

‘And you’ve no idea?’ Gil prompted. The other man shook his head.

‘She shut the door,’ Lowrie said, ‘shut herself and Annot in, and then, oh, barely a Te Deum later she’s back out with her basin and towel, hustles Annot out by the arm, saying she had to talk to you first.’

‘But is there some doubt about how Dame Isabella died?’

Livingstone shrugged.

‘I’d not have said so. Her woman came wailing to me first thing, Oh, she’s deid, my lady’s deid , and I went wi her to see, and there’s the old carline on the floor of the chamber like she’d just fallen there, lying there in her shift, eyes open, mouth open, you’d think she’s seen a ghost. No doubt that she was dead, but I saw no sign of any injury or the like, no signs that suggested poison to me, save a wee bit blood at her nose, which I take to mean an apoplexy.’

‘It sounds like it,’ Gil agreed. ‘Has the corp been touched since Mistress Bowen left? Has anyone been into the chamber?’