Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘You don’t bring clients here,’ Gil recognized, looking about him. Madam Xanthe did not answer; setting down glass and candle on a stool she delved under her dark blue taffeta to produce a key, crossed the chamber, and unlocked another half-hidden door.

‘My closet. Come in, maister. Bring the candle, and come and unlace me.’

Gil paused in the doorway of the small place. It held even less furniture than the outer room: a desk, a couple of kists, two stools. A shelf with books, a lute in an open case. Its owner, staring challengingly in the candlelight.

‘Can you not unlace yourself?’ he suggested.

‘Oh, now!’ The pale eyes glinted, the husky voice was mocking. ‘You don’t want to disrobe me, reveal my white flesh and soft-’

‘I think,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘you’re about as soft as tempered steel. Sandy.’

Sandy Boyd gave a crack of laughter.

‘I wondered!’ he said. ‘I wondered if you’d jaloused me.’ He dragged off the gold turban, and ran his fingers through pale hair. ‘Christ aid, how can women wear these tight things all day? What gave me away?’

Gil shook his head.

‘Nothing particular, I think. You’re gey like your sister, and Madam Xanthe’s too good to be true.’

‘Oh, never!’ Boyd put a hand to his cheek, with Madam Xanthe’s simper. ‘How can you say so? Maybe true, but good , maister?’

Gil grinned. ‘What’s it in aid of?’

‘Aye, well.’ Boyd flung off the blue taffeta. ‘I wasny joking when I asked if you’d unlace me, Agnes has a strong arm and I’ll never reach the knot she’s used.’ He turned his back and Gil obediently began work on the knot in the lacing of the dark brocade kirtle. ‘As for what it’s in aid of, what but this false coin? I’m put in here by Robert Blacader to get at the source. See, it’s good stuff. Good silver. The Treasury wants to ken where it’s coming from.’

‘Oh, you are, are you?’ He took in the rest of the utterance. ‘What, you mean it’s purer silver than the coin of the realm?’

‘That’s just what I mean. Thanks.’ Boyd wriggled the kirtle loose, and began to work one arm out of the tight sleeve. Socrates clicked into the room and over to thrust his nose against the brocade skirt. Boyd pushed him away with his free hand. ‘Blacader said,’ another short laugh, ‘they could buy it all up at face value, coin it new and still make a good profit at the Mint, save that we’d not want word to get round.’

‘I can see that.’ Gil turned to the jug of wine where he had set it on one of the kists, and refilled his glass. ‘Does the old woman’s death fit in here, do you suppose? That’s my prime concern the now, particularly if you’re after the coin.’

‘You’d do better to look in other directions. Though as you say, there’s a lot of the stuff floating about her. It’s taken me the six month I’ve been here to get this far, Gil. Pour me some more o that wine and all, will you?’ He extracted his hand from the second sleeve and began easing the kirtle down over narrow hips. Beneath it he wore a woman’s shift, the neck elaborately worked and pleated. Stepping free of the heap of brocade he caught it up, threw it on top of the blue taffeta gown, and delved in the other kist.

‘Boots,’ he muttered, ‘hose, drawers, what the deil has Agnes done wi my — aye, there they are.’ He closed the lid, kicked off Madam Xanthe’s large but dainty Morocco leather shoes, and began dressing. ‘How is Maidie, anyhow?’ he asked. ‘You’ve seen her lately? And the charming John, a course.’

‘Just the day. Your sister looks well, and seems happy,’ Gil said. ‘I’d say she’s dealing uncommon well wi the charming John.’ He sat down beside the wine-jug, and went on, ‘So how far is that, you’ve got? Where does the stuff come from?’

‘If I’d jaloused that, I wouldny be here.’ Boyd tucked the shift into his hose. ‘It comes into Glasgow from somewhere, I’m assuming as bars o silver rather than lumps o rock, and gets struck into coin and then carried out to the Isles. We’re sure enough o the other end, it’s this end we want to track down, the workshop in Glasgow and the mine the stuff comes from.’

‘We?’

‘Those I work for.’ He was tying the points of his hose to a dark jerkin now and did not look up.

‘So that’s more than Blacader.’

‘I’m surprised they’ve no recruited you,’ said Boyd obliquely. ‘Mind you, a married man.’

‘And that’s how far you’ve got in six month?’

‘That and some other matters unrelated.’ He fastened a dark doublet and reached for his replenished glass. ‘Ah, that’s good. The barrel’s near finished, be time to move on soon, I canny contemplate Glasgow without a decent drink.’

‘So why am I here?’ Gil asked bluntly. ‘What do you want of me?’

‘I need a look at Dod Muir’s place, and I thought you’d like to come along.’

‘What?’

‘Wheesht! Are you wanting half Glasgow to ken you’re in my chamber? No that I’d mind, you understand, but-’

‘Why Dod Muir’s house, and why now?’ Gil asked, lowering his voice obediently. ‘There’s plenty folk about that toft, do you reckon they’ll all be asleep? Where’s Muir himsel sleep anyway?’

‘He dwells in the house, but he’s no been back there the day, at least no by the time it was dark.’

‘And how about the dog?’ Gil added, as Socrates nudged his elbow. ‘There was one there this afternoon.’

‘It’s Bell the lorimer’s. He takes the brute home wi him at night along wi the takings. The rest’ll be asleep. No, I think Dod Muir might ha been the source o the dies they’re using, and seeing it was him put you in the mill-burn …’ He let the sentence die away. Gil sipped wine and looked at the other man. The dark clothes he now wore receded into the shadows, leaving Madam Xanthe’s painted face floating in the candlelight surrounded by wild pale hair.

‘And if we’re heard,’ he said. ‘What will you do if we’re taken up for theft and rookery?’

Boyd gave him Madam Xanthe’s arch painted smile.

‘How fast can you run?’

This was madness.

Moving quietly after Boyd, the dog at his knee, Gil wondered how he had agreed to what was, in effect, housebreaking. The moon, he recalled, was a day or two past the full; it could not be seen, but the clouds gleamed faintly silver here and there. Clerk’s Land was asleep in the rainy night, snores sounding from behind the shutters of the pewterer’s house as they slipped past. Boyd’s shut-lantern gave them just enough light to see the path before them and threw a wet sparkle on the flagstones and on the doorway of the lorimer’s workshop. Beyond it, the image-maker’s house was black against the sky.

Boyd paused, held out the lantern. He was wrapped in a huge black cloak, his head covered by a felt coif, and his face and hands floated eerily, isolated in the night, as Gil directed the light at the fastening of Muir’s door. The handle for the latch had been drawn into the house, as if the man was at home; Gil said softly,

‘Are you sure he’s no here?’

‘Nothing’s sure,’ returned Boyd, equally softly. He produced a latch-lifter, inserted it into the hole in the door and turned it cautiously, seeking the point where the hook on the end would raise the bar of the latch, while Gil held the lantern steady and wondered whether the door had been barred from the inside as well. Socrates, perhaps catching his mood, leaned hard against his leg.

There was a click as the latch rose. Boyd exhaled, pushed gently, and the door moved under his hand. Not barred then, thought Gil, as the hinges creaked. They stood frozen on the threshold, listening for any movement within. Nothing stirred, and at length Boyd took the lantern from Gil and stepped inside the house. Gil followed, and pushed the door to behind the dog.