Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

Alys was still not to be seen, and nobody seemed to know where she had gone.

Leaving the two women to be escorted up to the Castle by Neil Campbell, Gil had made for home by the path along the mill-burn, pausing to look into the donkey-shed at the foot of Clerk’s Land. It was empty, and the cart was absent as well; presumably Sproat had some work somewhere.

At the house he was greeted with faint hostility by the women in the kitchen.

‘The dinner-hour’s long over, Maister Gil,’ said Kittock pointedly when he appeared in the doorway. ‘I might find you some bread and cold meat, but. No, I’ve no idea where the mistress is, but if that one up the stair thinks she can tell me how to run my kitchen,’ she went on, as much to the loaf she was hacking as to Gil, ‘she can go and bile her heid.’

‘John’s growing fine,’ said Nancy from her seat by the hearth, where she was mending one of the boy’s little shirts; John himself was rosily asleep on someone’s straw pallet in the corner. Kittock turned and gave the nursemaid a harried smile.

‘I ken that, and you’re a good lass, Nancy. But I’ll no have one wi no authority coming about my door wi orders like that.’

‘What’s to do?’ Gil asked, aware that this was unwise. Jennet, chopping leeks at the other side of the great wooden table, snorted grimly. Kittock shook her head, laid a generous slice of cold meat on the wedge of bread, and looked about her.

‘I’ll not tell tales,’ she said improbably, reaching for one of a neat row of bowls at her side. ‘But there’s Annis weeping her heart out over the crocks in the scullery, and Jennet here all put out and all, I’ll not have it, and so I’ll let the maister hear.’ She spooned thick dollops of amber-coloured onion sauce over the meat, clapped another wedge of bread on top, and swept the knife through the stack, once, twice. Arranging the four little towers on a wooden platter, she stuck a scrap of parsley in the bailey at their centre. ‘There you go, Maister Gil. That’ll no spoil your supper, but it should keep you on yir feet till then.’

‘But the mistress is not back?’ he persisted, accepting the food. She had turned away to draw him a beaker of ale from the barrel in the corner, and did not hear him. Nancy looked up from her mending and nodded.

‘Never been home,’ she admitted. This was probably as many words as she ever uttered at one time.

‘She’s got the dog wi her,’ Kittock observed, returning with the beaker. Gil took it from her and set it down on the table long enough to put the leaf of parsley in his mouth. ‘The wee one was fair missing his Ocketie.’ She added another generous pinch of parsley leaves to the platter, lifted the ale again and put it in his hand. ‘Now away out my kitchen, Maister Gil, till I get my feet clear for the supper.’

‘What was she wearing?’ he asked. Jennet looked up, narrowing her eyes.

‘I got her up in her blue linen,’ she said. ‘That was afore you was awake, maister.’

The everyday gown, for the market and for calling on close friends, he thought. She would have been home before now, and if not the dog would have become bored and come to find him.

‘She took Luke,’ offered Nancy.

Upstairs in the hall he found Luke’s master and Ealasaidh McIan, seated together on the great settle admiring the jug of flowers in the empty hearth. Questioned, Maistre Pierre agreed with Nancy.

‘I had work for the boy,’ he complained. ‘Did she tell you where she went, mistress?’

Ealasaidh shook her head.

‘She was never saying, that I heard,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Was it no some errand you had set her, Maister Gil?’

‘No.’ Gil scraped oozing onion sauce off the side of one of the little towers and licked his finger, trying to recall whether Alys had said anything yesterday. No, there was nothing. And better not to mention the state the kitchen was in.

He moved to sit in one of the window-seats and stared out over the garden, unseeing, trying to order what he knew about Dame Isabella’s death. He needed to locate the serving-men, but two of them were certainly in the clear and it was possible the other two could speak for one another likewise. One of the waiting-women was still suspect, the other was not. Who else could have approached the old woman at such a moment without causing her alarm? Some kin, perhaps. The two Livingstone men spoke for one another, though he had not asked them to investigate their own household. What about Sempill? he thought, chewing. The man was capable of killing the old woman, for certain, and was good enough with his hands to achieve the skilful way she had been killed, but his amazement at hearing of her death had seemed genuine. Could he dissemble that well?

‘Perhaps she is gone to a friend’s house?’ suggested Ealasaidh, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Or to your sister’s house, maybe?’

‘She would take John if she went there,’ objected Maistre Pierre. ‘And she would not need Luke. Even Catherine does not know where she is,’ he grumbled.

Gil nodded vague agreement, and put another sprig of parsley in his mouth. Lady Magdalen, now, was she capable of the deed? It hardly seemed like a woman’s method of killing, despite what it said in Holy Writ, and she was a slender creature, but all things were possible. It should be easy enough to check whether she had been out of the house that morning. I should have done all this yesterday, he realized irritably, what was I thinking?

What reason was there for killing the old woman? Was she killed because she was an objectionable old beldam, or for another reason? How was her death connected to the matter of the false coin? I ought to get a longer word with Sandy Boyd, he thought, frowning, and absently lifted the last of the onion sauce with the final crust of bread. And I should never have let Neil Campbell out of my grasp just now. I wonder where his brother is?

‘Perhaps she went to the tailor,’ Ealasaidh offered. ‘That might take the whole day.’

In fact, Gil thought, I have spent two days allowing others to direct me. I need to take charge of my own investigation. Confound this blow on the head, it has addled my wits more than I realized.

He set the platter down on the cushion beside him and swallowed the last of the ale.

‘I’m going out again,’ he said. ‘If Alys comes back, send to let me know, will you? I’ll be about the Drygate or Rottenrow.’

Canon Aiken’s house was quieter than when he was last there; the black hangings were still at the door and windows of the wing where Dame Isabella had died, and Maister Livingstone was seated glumly in the upper hall, reading in a small worn book. He rose when Gil was shown in, setting the book aside, and exclaimed,

‘In a good hour, maister! You had my message, then?’

‘No,’ said Gil blankly. ‘Message?’

‘Jock Russell’s back from Craigannet, man. You mind he was to ride out to ask Archie about some of these properties? Lucky it was we waited till the next day to send him, and he took word o the auld beldam’s death as well as the other questions we had, and now he’s back, wi word from my brother and a note of her will that they found in her kist. Fetch wine and cakes, Tammas,’ he added to the retreating servant. ‘Come and get a seat, and look at this, likely you could do wi a look at it, for it concerns your sister.’

‘Does it now?’ said Gil, raising his eyebrows.

‘Aye. Lady Tib will get the land in Lanarkshire after all, the other would go to Lady Magdalen if it wasny part o the Livingstone heriot right enough. The auld ettercap’s been stirring it.’

The note was in fact a full copy in a set of wax tablets. The document was clearly enough drawn up, and had been signed only a few days ago. Gil studied it carefully, not entirely sure what to expect, though after this disclosure he hoped there would be no unpleasant surprises; what startled him was the direct bequest to John Sempill, the size of another to Lowrie, and the final destination of the residue.