Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘And Jimmy was talking about how he’d sold a package of goods, yesterday morn,’ Christian went on, ‘to one of the servants of the woman that’s slain, away along the Drygate here.’

‘That is so,’ agreed Alys. ‘Our lad Luke told me he had spoken to Maister Syme of it, too.’

‘Aye, and the laddie thought there were two men about the errand,’ Christian said. They obviously discussed it thoroughly, thought Alys. ‘And being Jimmy, he gave us a list of all what was in the package,’ She looked away and enumerated on her fingers, ‘Root ginger, cloves, flowers of sulphur, senna-pods, rhubarb, and anise laxative. Aye, that’s right. And a wee bottle of Jimmy’s restorative for the hair, she’d a done better wi ours, it works far quicker and doesny smell as bad.’

‘Yes, but what-’ Alys began. Further into the house a child laughed: Wat, the older brother, and his wife had one child, who had survived the measles last winter. What was it like, she wondered fleetingly, to share a household, two women in a kitchen, two men overseeing the accounts?

‘Wait and I’ll tell you. My brother, when he heard that, he said, Was it wrapped in the ordinary white paper, or another sort? And Jimmy said, Aye, a new sort, we’ve just taen a delivery of paper and it’s more a kind o yellowy colour.’ This did not sound like Syme’s phrasing, but Alys made no comment. ‘And my brother, he said, So that’s where she had it. It seems there was some Ersche lassie trying to return just sic a package at his booth, wrapped in this kind o yellowy paper, wanting the money back.’

‘When? What did she look like?’ Alys asked. Christian shrugged.

‘Nanty wasny very plain about it. Nor he never said what she was like, other than being Ersche. Sometime the afternoon, I’d say. He turned her away,’ she added.

‘That is interesting,’ said Alys. ‘And useful. My thanks, Christian, and I will tell my husband when he-’

‘Aye, but there’s more,’ said Christian bluntly. ‘We talked o that, and wondered a bit, but what sent me out when I saw you passing,’ she nodded at the window, ‘was, we had another one in here the day wi the selfsame package, or else one gey like it.’

‘In here?’

‘Aye. Yellowish paper, folded the way Jimmy does, no the way my brother does, the contents being ginger, cloves, flower o sulphur, rhubarb, anise lax, senna, and a bottle o Jimmy’s hair restorative.’

‘Did you know her?’ Alys asked. ‘Was it the same lassie?’

‘It was no lassie, it was Barabal Campbell fro Clerk’s Land down the road here,’ Christian jerked a disparaging thumb eastward, ‘forty if she’s a day, borne six weans, and a digestion like a washhouse boiler, never a day’s trouble wi her belly says Adam though she’s been here afore wi women’s troubles. So we neither o us believed her tale about it being something she’d bought earlier and needed none of. We turned her away and all.’

‘From Clerk’s Land,’ said Alys thoughtfully. ‘That would fit well. My thanks, Christian, and I know Gil will be grateful for this.’

‘Is that the lassie that’s taken up for murder?’ asked Jennet with interest. ‘I wonder she never took it all back to Maister Syme, if she wanted rid o’t. Or threw it in the mill-burn.’

‘Aye, we wondered the same,’ agreed Christian, ‘but it was the man that purchased the goods, and the lassie trying to return it yesterday, so maybe he’d not told her which apothecary it was or that it was all on the slate and no paid for.’

‘Or not told her right,’ agreed Jennet.

‘And now the people at Clerk’s Land have it,’ said Alys. ‘Or did, this morning.’ And where was Gil, she wondered. He should know of this. Had he reached Clerk’s Land himself yet?

There was no sign of him as they passed the head of the toft. Alys paused in the drizzle, considering the muddy path past the pewterer’s house, and two children at the door ceased their squabbling to watch her. No other adults were visible, though loud angry male voices were audible from beyond the buildings, including Maister Hamilton in full cry. So that was where he was bound, she thought, and moved on.

Averting her eyes modestly from the mermaid on the door of the next house and wishing she could study it, she stepped up the fore-stair of the house beyond it and rattled at the pin. Behind her Jennet drew an apprehensive breath, and she said quietly,

‘Never fear, lass, it’s just to get talking wi the girl. Good day to you,’ she went on as the door opened, to reveal a maidservant as neat as any of her own. ‘Is Maister Fleming within? Or your mistress? I’d like to talk about some blankets.’

An hour later, striking the bargain with Maister Fleming for a dozen blankets of new wool, with a further half-dozen of half size for John’s planned trundle-bed, she felt that the afternoon was not wasted whatever Jennet had learned.

‘And a pleasure to do business wi a lady that kens her own mind,’ said Maister Fleming. ‘I aye say to my wife, if the customer kens what she wants, we can weave it to her. If she canny tell me, I canny tell my weavers. You’ve a note o all that, Jaik?’ he added to his apprentice, solemn at the tall desk with a pair of tablets in his hand.

‘Very true, maister,’ agreed Alys. ‘And I wanted the best, so I came to you.’ They smiled at one another, pleased with this exchange of compliments. ‘I’m sure you must supply the whole of the Upper Town,’ she went on, ‘though I think that was no customer of yours that died so strangely the other day.’

‘Oh! A dreadful business,’ declared Maister Fleming. He was a brisk, middling-sized, competent man, stripped to his doublet for the task of showing the samples to a customer; now he cracked the last one, folded it neatly with the apprentice who hurried to help, stowed it back on the rack, and lifted his short gown. ‘And comes closer to home than I’d care for,’ he admitted. ‘There’s one of my lassies, a good worker and a right promising weaver, has hardly thrown a pick these two days, for she’s taken it into her head it was some laddie she’s a notion to that slew the old woman. And I don’t have to tell you, mistress, if one lassie’s dowy, the rest’s sure to be infected. I hardly dare step into the weaving-shed the now.’

‘Oh!’ said Alys, unable to believe her good fortune. ‘Maister Fleming, is that by any chance a girl called Bess Wilkie?’

‘Aye, it is, that’s her name,’ he said, holding the door open for her.

‘If I might have a word wi her,’ she said hopefully, ‘I may be able to cheer her, and I think she might be able to tell me something useful as well.’ She saw his blank look. ‘My husband is investigating the death,’ she pointed out, ‘as the Archbishop’s quaestor.’

‘Oh, aye, I’d forgot that,’ he said, preceding her to the stairs. ‘Come away up to the hall, mistress, and we’ll send for the lass. No, I was thinking you’re ordering all this for your father’s household, I wasny thinking o your man at all.’

Alys forbore to comment, but followed the weaver up to the comfortable hall where Fleming’s wife Barbara Graham, whom she knew slightly, was instructing her two older daughters in needlework. Alys admired the wobbly seams and settled down to chat about the weather and the wool crop while Bess was sent for. When the girl appeared, Jennet arrived with her.

‘I thought maybe you’d want me soon, mem,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy from the door.

‘Aye, very like,’ said Mistress Graham, ‘and if you’ll can counsel this silly lassie to dry her eyes and get back to her work, I’ll want you too. Here, Bess, go over by the other window, speak to Mistress Mason and answer what she asks you like a good girl.’