Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

Ealasaidh came forward with her hand out. Otterburn gave her the item, raising his eyebrows, and she sniffed at it, then bent to sniff at the kneeling woman, moving her linen veil aside despite Forveleth’s objections.

‘Hers,’ she said, in a tone which invited no discussion. Gil and Otterburn exchanged startled glances.

‘So where,’ Gil said, recovering first, ’is the cap your mistress was wearing when Annot last saw her? When she went to stool?’

‘I’d maybe no mind. And keep her off me!’ said the prisoner indignantly.

‘Forveleth,’ Gil said, hunkering down beside her. ‘Look at me.’ She turned the dark eyes on him, wary as a cornered animal. ‘You’re in trouble here, you must see that. You and Annot were the last to see your mistress alive, and Annot has witnesses for where she was till Dame Isabella was found dead. Then you ran off, and you were lifted yestreen fleeing from the Provost’s men, wi a great bag of false coin about you-’

‘I never!’ she said hotly. ‘I never did! I never had any such thing-’ She turned to Ealasaidh and burst into impassioned Ersche.

‘Be quiet, woman!’ ordered Otterburn. He gestured at his clerk, who moved to open the great kist by the wall. ‘What about this, then? Five hundred merk of false coin, found in your bundle.’ He put his hand on the leather sack as Walter deposited it on the table.

‘Is that the bag?’ said Lowrie. Otterburn flicked him a glance, and went on,

‘You touched that, I’d say, and to some purpose.’

She stared at the object, looked at Otterburn, back at the leather bag.

‘I never saw that in my life,’ she said firmly. ‘I have no knowledge of whose it might be, but it is never my mis-tress’s purse. That is blue velvet and gold braid. You may ask at Annot if you are not believing me.’

‘Is it, now, maister?’ Otterburn asked Livingstone, who shook his head.

‘I’m no her tirewoman. Ask at Annot, like she says, she’ll let you ken.’

Forveleth looked alarmed, and turned to Ealasaidh again, with more of the Ersche, shaking her head repeatedly. Ealasaidh answered, there was a longer exchange. Gil got to his feet, easing cramped muscles.

‘She is telling me a great story,’ said Ealasaidh eventually, and looked from Otterburn to Gil. ‘She says, she waited in the next chamber, the one where she was seeing a laid-out corp, and the old woman was calling her back in after a while, to comb her hair and listen while she abused her for a thieving Erschewoman. Then she says her mistress suddenly ordered that she bring her this purse of blue velvet and leave her, so she put the comb by and went out to the kitchen, and talked with the other women. She says they will be swearing to it if you ask them.’

‘Now that’s all foolery!’ exclaimed Otterburn, but Gil nodded, watching Forveleth’s face as Ealasaidh recounted her tale.

‘What did you do with the cap?’ he asked. The woman stared at him, then suddenly put a hand to the breast of her gown, delved briefly within its low square neckline, and drew out a crumpled handful of linen.

‘I mind now, I was putting it down my busk while I combed her hair,’ she said, ‘and then she was sending me away, so I forgot it.’

‘Like I said,’ exclaimed Livingstone, ‘thieving her mis-tress’s linen and all!’

Ealasaidh took the little bundle from her, sniffed it, inspected it briefly, handed it on.

‘This one is not hers,’ she said. Gil, shaking it out, had to agree. This cap was made in a different style, of much better linen, and though it smelled faintly of Forveleth there was a strong, sour undernote of unwashed hair about it. He stood looking down at it, watching the scene Ealasaidh had described play out in his head.

‘Why did she send you away the second time?’ he asked.

‘She’s making it up,’ said Livingstone. ‘I don’t believe a word o this.’

‘No, it makes sense, uncle,’ said Lowrie.

‘For modesty, maybe?’ said Ealasaidh. Forveleth snorted.

‘Her? She’d not know the word, for all she was flyting at Annot and me for immodest trollops. She never said why I was to leave,’ she added, ‘nor I would not be knowing what her reason was. She was looking out of the window while I stood beside her and combed at her hair, and then in the midst of that she bid me fetch her blue velvet purse and be gone.’ She paused, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘I think it was — it was-’ She groped for the Scots, then said something to Ealasaidh, who nodded slowly and translated:

‘She is thinking her mistress acted on a sudden, in haste maybe, for she would not take the time to miscall her the way she was doing in general, only she was bidding her leave her immediate.’ She looked earnestly at Gil. ‘I think that is a wise thing she says.’

‘You never looked out of the window yourself?’ Gil asked. The woman shrugged.

‘I was looking, but I was not seeing whatever it was caused her to send me away. Nor she was not giving me time to stand and stare,’ she added, her bruised mouth twisting.

‘I swear it’s no! Ask at Annot,’ protested Forveleth. ‘And no more it is not the purse she kept at her belt, that all her household has seen. I never saw this leather one in my life!’

‘Ask at the others of her household!’ protested Forveleth. ‘They’ve all seen it, they saw it just that morn when she gave money out to Alan for the potyngary she wanted!’

‘No, it’s no the purse the old dame usually had by her,’ agreed Lowrie.

‘There would never be room in the kist for a bag that size,’ said Gil.

Otterburn glanced at him, and grunted.

‘So where did it come from?’ he repeated. ‘It was tied in your plaid wi the rest, woman, no sense in denying it-’

‘I never put it there!’ The manacles clinked again as Forveleth spread her hands. ‘I was never seeing it afore, I wouldny ken who had it nor who put it in my things, I am not wanting anything to do with it.’

‘That’s fortunate,’ said Otterburn, ‘for you’ll no see it again, save when it’s produced as evidence.’ He hefted the thing in his hand, and nodded to Livingstone. ‘Walter, where’s the counting-cloth? If you’d take the lot over to the window, maister, I’d be glad of anything you can tell me about it.’

‘Whose house were you sheltering in on Clerk’s Land?’ Gil asked Forveleth. He trawled through his memory for the names, and listed them. ‘Is someone there kin to you? Saunders the pewterer wi the screaming weans, Danny Bell the lorimer, Campbell the ill-tempered whitesmith, Dod Muir, Danny Sproat.’ He watched her carefully, but her expression did not alter. ‘I’d guess it was Campbell’s house. A kinsman, is he?’

‘He is not!’ she said quickly. ‘And nor his wife neither. There is no Campbells kin to me!’

‘That makes a change,’ said Gil. ‘So is that where you were sheltering? What took you there?’

‘I was not sheltering, I was just passing through the toft,’ she retorted, ‘when all on a sudden it was full of soldiers. Any decent woman would run from men of that kind.’ She spat in Gaelic again and glared at the two men who had escorted her in, who still stood on either side of her. One of them kneed her shoulder.

‘Less of that, you,’ he said sharply.

‘Marion,’ said Lowrie. Recovering her balance, she glanced up at him. ‘Why did you run? And the three men? Why did you all go off? You never thought we’d blame you for the old dame’s death, did you?’

‘Three men?’ she said, and bent her head.

‘Where are the men?’ Gil asked. She shrugged her shoulders, not looking up.

‘I’ve not saw them. I’m no their keeper.’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Otterburn impatiently. ‘Maister Cunningham, she’s to be turned over to the Serjeant, so if you want to ask her any more, ask at him.’ Gil nodded. ‘He might get some more out of her wi the pilliwinks, but I’d say we’d enough to charge her wi a good few things already.’ He watched as the prisoner was hauled to her feet, protesting. ‘Theft, possession of false coin, fleeing a murder scene, and probably murder as well. Take her away, lads. Right, Maister Livingstone, have you anything to tell us off these coins?’