Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘All of it?’ Gil stared at the Provost, then looked down at the inventory of Forveleth’s bundle. Walter’s neat clerk-hand listed a few personal items, and beneath them quantities of coin, line upon line, the totals adding up to a magnificent amount.

‘All false coin,’ repeated Otterburn, ‘the most o’t these James Third placks and the threepenny piece wi the four mullets, same as we’ve been finding all about Glasgow. Now what do you make of that, maister? I,’ he said in faint triumph, ‘think you’re in the matter now whatever my lord says. And I’d like it if you’d cast an eye over the coins themselves, Maister Livingstone,’ he added, ‘now we’ve as many of them gathered in the one place, and see what you can tell us.’

‘Aye, gladly,’ agreed Livingstone.

‘Was she maybe collecting it?’ offered Ealasaidh from beside Gil. ‘Maybe she would take it out of use.’

‘Hardly,’ said Gil. ‘It’s near five hundred merks’ worth. Even Blacader couldny spare that easily out of a year’s income.’ He looked at Otterburn, and back at the notes. ‘Have you questioned the woman about it at all?’

‘No a word. I wanted my supper, and I reckoned she’d keep. Will we have her up here, or go down to her? It’s warmer here.’

The woman Marion or Forveleth was somewhat battered by her experiences, but her spirit was not affected. Dragged struggling into the little panelled chamber by two of Otterburn’s men she halted before his desk, glared at him, and spat something in Ersche which made Ealasaidh’s mouth tighten.

‘You speak civil to the Provost!’ ordered one of her escort, with a blow to her shoulder. She turned on him, manacled hands aiming for his crotch in a rising hammer-blow which he avoided expertly. His companion seized and flung her to the floor, where she knelt hissing more virulent Ersche.

‘Compose yoursel, woman!’ said Livingstone. Otterburn looked down at her, then over to where Gil and Ealasaidh sat near the window.

‘Do we want to ken what she’s saying, mistress?’ he asked.

‘No, I would say not,’ agreed Ealasaidh disapprovingly. ‘You should think shame, a decent woman, using language the like,’ she added to the prisoner. Forveleth turned her head to see who spoke, and froze, her mouth open, staring.

‘You!’ she said after a moment. The men in the chamber looked at one another.

‘Do you know her?’ asked Otterburn. Ealasaidh shook her head.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I was never seeing her in my life. She speaks the Gaelic of the Lennox, we have not travelled there much.’

‘She seems to know you,’ said Gil warily. Forveleth glanced at him, then addressed Ealasaidh in Ersche. There was a brisk exchange of what seemed to be repeated assertion and denial, before Otterburn broke in with,

‘Enough of this. Speak Scots, woman, or we’ll ha what you say put into the Scots, one or the other. What’s it about, mistress?’

Ealasaidh shook her head again, reddening.

‘She claims she was seeing me, here in Glasgow two days since, when I was still at Stirling and witnesses to say so. Nonsense, it is. What do you wish to ask her, maister?’

‘How could she do that?’ Otterburn asked. ‘If you’ve witnesses, why did she persist? When was this, anyway?’

‘I never saw you in Glasgow before, mistress,’ said Livingstone, ‘and I’d say this woman’s been nowhere I haveny been mysel in the last two days.’

Not quite true, thought Gil.

‘It is nothing, nothing at all,’ said Ealasaidh, the scarlet sweeping down her neck under the black woollen veil of her formal hood. ‘She is babbling.’

‘I am not, and you know it,’ said the prisoner in her accented Scots. ‘If it isny true now, it will be, I tell you that. You were always at the man’s shoulder, him that is man of the house where this one,’ she nodded at Gil, ‘is good-son. A better gown, you were wearing. Red brocade and velvet sleeves,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Never mind this now,’ said Otterburn, losing patience. ‘There’s as much to go over afore she gets handed to the Serjeant. You, woman, what’s your name?’

Her name was Forveleth nic Iain nic Muirteach, which caused Walter some trouble, and she was born in Balloch in the Lennox. She had served Dame Isabella five years now, before and after her marriage to Thomas Livingstone, and the old carline’s temper was getting worse, she’d have left anyway at the quarter-day -

‘That’s enough o that,’ said Otterburn. ‘Why did you run off when you found her dead?’

‘Did she find her dead?’ Gil asked. ‘I’d as soon go over yesterday from the start, maister, if you’ll allow it.’

Otterburn glanced at him, and sat back. Gil came forward from his seat by the window and stood looking down at the prisoner. She looked back at him hardily, despite the split lip and the bruises on her face. Her decent worsted gown was stained and filthy from her night in the cells, and scraps of damp straw clung to sleeve and hem.

‘Your mistress is dead,’ he said after a moment. She nodded, and waited for him to continue. ‘Do you know how she died?’

‘No.’ She paused to consider. ‘I was thinking maybe it was — it was-’ She threw a few words of Ersche at Ealasaidh, who said sulkily,

‘She was thinking it was an apoplexy, the same as you were saying, Maister Cunningham.’

‘So you did see her after she was dead,’ Gil said. ‘Tell me about the morning. You and Annot got her up, I think, and then called the men in so she could give them orders.’ Forveleth nodded at that. ‘What happened next?’

She closed her dark eyes to think.

‘We washed her,’ she said. ‘Och, no, she would be saying her prayers first. A good hour, that took her. Then she would, she would,’ she hesitated, ‘attend to something private, you understand.’

‘I understand,’ said Gil. ‘I also understand that the two of you, Annot and yoursel, were in and out for a space while she was occupied.’

Forveleth tightened her swollen mouth, winced, but nodded agreement. ‘Until she ordered us away,’ she said. ‘ Out of my sight , she said, and called us a pair of worthless trollops. Forever bad-wording us, she was. So we left.’

‘What did you do then?’ Gil asked.

For the first time, Forveleth looked uneasy.

‘I’d maybe no mind,’ she said.

‘You’ve been clear enough up to now,’ Otterburn said.

‘You went to the kitchen eventually, we ken that,’ Gil said. ‘Where were you between the time you were dismissed and the time you reached the kitchen?’

‘About. It’s a fair walk out to the kitchen.’

‘Annot got there long before you did.’ Gil studied her, thinking about Alys’s comments last night. ‘Did you go back in to your mistress? You were combing her, I think. What did you do with her cap?’

‘Her cap ?’ the woman repeated.

‘A cap?’ said Otterburn, interested. ‘Now there’s one in your bundle, lassie. How did that get there?’

‘Is that you stolen your mistress’s linen as well as the rest?’ demanded Livingstone.

‘I never!’ she said sharply, as Walter rose and quietly fetched the bundle. ‘Here, that’s mine, those are my things-’

‘What, all of it?’ Otterburn untied the heavy woollen stuff and spread it out. ‘Two shifts, a kirtle,’ he glanced at the prisoner still kneeling before him, ‘aye, yours rather than hers to judge by the quality, a comb, some good linen,’ he patted the folded wad, checking that nothing nestled among the layers, ‘two holy pictures and your Sunday beads. This cap,’ he turned it, put both hands inside it to mould it out, and looked at the prisoner again. ‘Yours or hers, woman?’