Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘None. Now I must go, my sons, you’re holding back the Office.’ Sir Tammas raised his hand, muttered a perfunctory blessing, and strode to the door, the ends of his scarf flying. As soon as he stepped outside the mockery stopped, and after a moment priest and clerk returned and crossed to the chancel without looking at Gil. They were barely within the dark archway, and the priest’s cracked elderly voice had just risen in the first words of the Office, when there was another thump on the wall. Sir Tammas checked, then continued. The Office should not be interrupted.

Gil, grinning at Lowrie, went quietly to the door and stepped out. He was just in time to surprise the next boy swinging on the knotted rope hung from the eaves. Distracted, the youngster misjudged his timing, and instead of kicking off from the gable he thumped into the stonework, let go the rope, and fell in a winded heap at the foot of the wall.

‘Ah, ye bausy juffler, Dod Armstrang!’ said the lad next in line, without sympathy, and leapt for the swinging rope. Clinging with both hands he kicked expertly at the stonework and twirled away in a circle, grinning widely and back-heeling the recumbent boy’s shoulder as he spun past. ‘See, that’s how ye dae’t. No, it’s no auld Dubbsie, it’s a pair o fine daft chiels fro the town.’

Seeing the truth of this, three or four more boys came back to their game, staring at the strangers. Gil raised his hat to them, at which they giggled, and nudged one another. They were a ragged crew, barefoot and clad in handed-down hose and jerkins, one or two lacking a shirt, all very dirty.

‘I’m looking for two men that were here earlier,’ he said. ‘Maybe you saw them?’

The boys looked sideways at one another, and the fallen one pulled himself to his feet. The lad in possession of the rope jumped down, staggering slightly, and said,

‘Maybe. Maybe no. What’s it to you?’

‘It might be worth something,’ Gil said, reaching for his purse. All their eyes followed the movement.

‘Who was it you were looking for?’ demanded the spokesman.

‘A man that sells sweetmeats from a stall, and has an enamel buckle to his belt,’ Gil said hopefully.

‘That’s-’ began one of the smaller boys, and was elbowed by his neighbour.

‘And who else?’

‘Aye, but that’s-’

‘The other one might be called Miller.’

‘Miller? Naw,’ said the spokesman quickly, ‘we never seen neither o them.’

‘Aye, but Jamsie,’ protested the smaller boy who had spoken. Jamsie turned and seized him by the ear.

‘Shut yer gub! Come on, the lot o yez, we’re away out o here. We never seen them, maister,’ he added to Gil, ‘and if you’re wise, you never seen him neither.’

‘Well!’ said Lowrie behind Gil, as the boys scattered. ‘That’s interesting.’

‘It is,’ agreed Gil. He looked about him. St Mungo’s stood a short way from the East Port, beside the road which led out to Bothwell and Cadzow, surrounded by the undisciplined huddle of small houses which lurked at the gates of any sizeable burgh. Those who could not afford to live in the burgh lived outside it, as did a few tradesmen wealthy enough to ignore the rules about indwelling of burgesses, their bigger properties set back from the road and the middens. Off to their left a track ran past the west end of the chapel, down to cross the Poldrait Burn. ‘If we cut through here, we come out at the back of-’

‘At the back of the College,’ Lowrie agreed, ‘or we could go on up the mill-burn to the Drygate.’

There was a great deal of coming and going at Canon Aiken’s house, but Maister Livingstone came down to the door himself as they crossed the yard.

‘How far have ye got?’ he asked without preamble. ‘Lowrie, where ha ye been all the morning? They’re saying now we canny put her in the ground till there’s been a quest on her, and her murderer named.’

‘Till there’s been a quest, at least,’ Gil agreed. ‘Has Otterburn told you when it might be?’

‘The morn’s morn, he said, and he’d his men here asking all kind o questions. What like was this purse that’s missing, and where was her comb, and the like. I’m no her tirewoman, I said, ask at her women. If Marion canny tell them, Annot will.’

‘And did she?’

‘Did she what? Oh, tell them? I’ve no idea, they spoke wi her in yonder,’ Livingstone nodded towards the black-draped range where Dame Isabella was clearly still lodged, ‘but they went away satisfied, I suppose she had something to say. I was dealing wi Andrew Hamilton for a coffin.’

‘Greyfriars will take her, sir,’ Lowrie put in.

‘First time in her life she’s been welcome, I’d say,’ said the older man. ‘Come up and have a glass of Malvoisie, maister, if you’ve the time.’

‘Gladly,’ said Gil, with a feeling that the day might improve slightly now, ‘but I want a word wi your man Attie. Is he about? And maybe Annot and all.’

‘Oh, he’s about,’ said Livingstone, ‘for all the use he is, and the house going like St Mungo’s Fair, what wi folk coming to pay their respects and see what she died o. Come away up and I’ll see if they can find him.’

One of Livingstone’s green-liveried servants bore a tray with a jug of Malvoisie and three glasses into the hall. Attie followed him, looking like one going to his execution, and while Livingstone served out the wine and waved Gil to a seat by the hearth the man stood against the wall, mangling his velvet bonnet and trying to be invisible. He came forward reluctantly when ordered.

‘Attie, I’ve spoken to Maister Syme,’ Gil said bluntly. ‘How long were you and Alan together yesterday morning, in truth?’

‘Well,’ Attie licked his lips. ‘Well. Aye, well, no very long, to say right, maister. We went — we gaed — see, there’s this lassie serves Fleming the weaver, and, and, and her and me had got talking the day we cam into Glasgow, and I seen her again the other nicht, and here she was at their back gate in the morning, so, well, Alan went on by the path to the High Street, see, and I stayed daffing wi the lassie, and it wasny but a moment afore Alan came back,’ he assured them earnestly, ‘for we’d no more than tellt each other where we came from and who we served, and then I had to go back along wi Alan.’ He ground to a halt and looked in apprehension from Gil to Livingstone, who was inflating slowly with anger.

From the door Lowrie said, ‘What’s the lassie’s name, Attie?’

The man turned towards the calm voice with relief.

‘Bess Wilkie, Maister Lowrie, and she’s eighteen year old and comes fro Partick, and she likes serving Maister Fleming in cause of she’s learning all sorts of weaving and how to work wi wool and all sorts, and he’s a good maister,’ the words tumbled out. ‘She’d tell you hersel, maister, I’m sure, or Maister Cunningham, you’ve only to ask the lassie!’

Further questioning gained little more information. Attie had stood at the gate talking to the girl Bess for what had seemed to him a short time, while Alan went to the High Street along the path by the mill-burn and returned with the apothecary’s package tucked in the folds of his plaid.

‘I’m right sure it was the package,’ he said earnestly, ‘you ken the way a potyngar wraps things, that way they have o folding the paper.’

Returning to Canon Aiken’s house they had taken up their position in the outer chamber of their mistress’s apartment, to wait until she should call for them. But the next to enter her chamber had been Annot, and she had found the old woman dead.

‘I’d swear to that,’ he assured them, wringing his bonnet in sweating hands, ‘I’d swear on any bones you set afore me, and the True Cross, and you could take me into St Mungo’s and I’d swear it afore the saint hissel. It’s the truth, maisters.’