Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘And madam your wife’s in good health? Your good-father? Right, now that’s seen to,’ she went on without waiting for a reply, ‘will you tell me what you ken o these false coins, or will I go first?’

‘What was the reference to Strathblane about?’ he countered, watching the painted face, which was now partly shadowed. The paint and the turban combined to remind him suddenly of one of the players in a student play two years since, a repellent boy playing Dame Fortuna in fluent Latin, who met his death within the hour. With an effort he brought his mind back to the present. What was the purpose of this summons? How much information did this pretentious individual hold, and where had it come from?

‘Och, that was just to fetch you out.’ There was a burst of loud laughter from the hall above them; Socrates growled quietly, and Gil snapped his fingers to bring the dog to his side. ‘Mind you Danny Sproat and his donkey seems to have been out that way, which is likely what put it into my mind, for as I recall Isabella Torrance had some land there. Or claimed she had.’

‘ Claimed is nearer it,’ Gil agreed. ‘So now you’ve fetched me, what can you tell me? I was warned off the false coin by Robert Blacader,’ he said, keeping his voice neutral, ‘but it seems to be involved in the matter of the old woman’s death, or at least there are more false coins floating about her than seems reasonable, so if you ken aught of any use, I’d be glad to hear it.’

‘I’ve no doubt of it.’ Madam Xanthe paused as Cato entered with two glasses, followed by Luke with a jug in one hand and a platter of little cakes in the other. Socrates cocked one hopeful ear, but did not move. ‘Good laddie, leave them there and we’ll serve ourselves. Away out to the kitchen now, do you hear me? Aye, that’s what I hear,’ she went on as the two young men left. ‘A great sack o the stuff found on the lassie that went missing, for a start, and did I hear there was another purse gone as well?’

‘You’re well informed.’

There was another burst of laughter from the hall, and a scattering of notes from a lute. Two voices rose entwined in sweet and inappropriate harmony; Gil identified the song about the hurcheon.

‘I have my sources,’ said Madam Xanthe, pouring wine. The light from the candles struck matching dark red glints from the brocade under-sleeve within the wide folds of taffeta. She handed him a glass. ‘So what else have you got?’

‘Very little,’ Gil admitted. ‘We’ve had coin from the market, one or two from the Gorbals, none from anyone that kent who he’d got it from. Or was willing to say,’ he qualified scrupulously, thinking of Ysonde’s tale. ‘I’ve spoken to the Provost about it, and I’d a talk wi Eckie Livingstone about coining and how it’s done. That’s it.’

‘And you’d nothing useful fro this afternoon on Clerk’s Land.’ Madam Xanthe was watching him under the long painted eyelids. ‘It didny seem like a peaceable gathering.’

‘It wasny.’ He shut his mouth firmly on that. The pale eyes did not move from his face. He sat still, thinking about the long argument on the drying-green, with Maister Hamilton exerting all his authority and his considerable voice to keep order while he questioned the three hammermen about the assault on Gil, questioned Gil and Pierre about their presence on the toft, refused to listen to complaints about the fine for a fire which nobody would admit to having set too close to the thatch, and finally directed his fellow-guildsmen to be civil to the Archbishop’s man.

‘And you’ll tell Dod I want a word wi him,’ he said ominously. ‘This is all a storm in a chopin, I hope I willny have to come out to it again, or there’ll be more than the one fine to pay.’

‘But he’ll no need to be searching our houses,’ said Campbell the whitesmith.

‘No, I wouldny say he’d any need to search your houses,’ agreed Maister Hamilton. ‘Right, Maister Cunningham?’

‘What are they hiding, then?’ speculated Madam Xanthe now. ‘Something the Provost’s men missed.’

‘Or wereny looking for,’ he said, and tasted the wine. It was more of the stuff she had offered them the other morning, smooth and heavy with a dark taste of apricots. ‘They were hiding the woman Forveleth, until Campbell put her out to fend for herself, I’m reasonably sure of that. It’s Campbell’s wife is her kin, by what she says, no doubt he feels less responsible for her. They had the big sack of false coin, and exchanged it for a parcel of potyngary she had on her, I assume in the hope of getting it off the place and at least off their hands, and I’d dearly like to ken why they had that much in their possession, but of course they denied all knowledge of it.’

‘Of course.’

‘They mentioned two of Dame Isabella’s men, two of the ones that are missing-’

‘Missing?’

‘Alan and Nicol, brothers I think.’ He shook his head, and took another sip of the wine. ‘The Serjeant was to cry them abroad, but there’s been no word of them. I think they’re not on the toft, there’s little enough room to hide two men, so where they can have gone-’

‘Plenty places to hide in Glasgow,’ remarked Madam Xanthe. ‘They’re not here, at least, maister.’

‘You disappoint me. Then there’s the matter of the fire that nobody admits having set, and the prentice that Campbell claims he doesny have, though two others have mentioned him.’

‘Prentice?’ Madam Xanthe looked at him, eyes narrowed. ‘Who told you that? I’ve never seen any sign o one.’

‘John Sempill told me he kept a prentice,’ Gil recalled, ‘and I think — aye, the Provost’s men arrested him on suspicion of theft, and had to release him when his master swore it was something he’d given him.’

‘Theft of what?’

‘No idea. This was yestreen, I wasny at my best.’ He eyed her across the heavy glow of his wine. ‘And what do you know? Have you other information?’

‘Some.’ She offered him the platter of cakes. He took one and nibbled it. ‘Have you had aught from the Gallowgate? Any coin I mean?’

‘The Gallowgate?’ He shook his head. ‘We’ve no trade down there that I’m aware of. I’d say,’ he added, thinking of the children again, ‘there are more false coins found at the foot of the town than up here, but that’s all I ken.’

‘Aye.’ She drank some of the wine, then suddenly set her glass down on the table and sat up straight. ‘The deil fly away wi this, I’m sick o playing Tarocco. Come away up, maister.’

‘Up?’ he repeated, startled.

‘Aye. Up to my chamber.’ The arch expression surfaced, for the first time this evening; she put a long white finger to her painted lips and looked at him sideways. ‘I’ve that to show you, will make you right astonished.’

‘Will it, now?’ he said, raising his eyebrows.

She lifted her glass again. ‘Bring the wine.’

Warily, he followed her from the chamber, through another where shadows jumped from her candle, to a narrow stair at its far corner. The dog was at his heels, claws clicking on the waxed boards.

‘This was what I liked about this house,’ she said, setting foot on the lowest step. ‘The second stair, completely separate from the hall. Come away up,’ she said again, holding the candle high. ‘I’ll tell you, once we’ve left, you should move in here wi your wee wife, set up your own household. A man should be maister under his own roof.’

‘You think?’

‘I know.’

She stepped off the stair into another darkened chamber, opened a door which was barely noticeable in the candlelight, set off upwards again. This time they emerged in a bedchamber, sparsely furnished, the box bed curtained with plain linen. Socrates set off to explore the room.