Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘Searching the place?’ repeated Sempill. ‘What was there to find?’

‘Little enough,’ said Lowrie, ‘though he obviously thought there was more.’ He nodded to the group now carrying the prisoner in on the easier path by the gate. ‘One thing, though. Frank reckons his heels fit the tracks he found, and the rest of us are agreed.’

‘So what does that tell you?’ demanded Sempill. ‘Are you saying this is who slew the two fellows in there?’

‘He was certainly at the mine earlier today,’ Alys amended. Sempill threw her a surly look and said to his cousin, approaching over the rough grass,

‘Better tie him up, Philip, in case he gets away. The priest might have some rope. If you’re all agreed he’s guilty we could string him up here, there’s plenty trees. I’ve not had a good hanging in months.’

‘Oh, surely no, he must have a trial, maister,’ protested Sir Richie. ‘We should see if the boy recognizes him, maybe, or question him, aye, we should question him!’

‘Who is he?’ Alys asked. The prisoner was dropped on the ground, where he bounced slightly, groaning. She seized the dog’s collar before he could investigate the newcomer. ‘Did you question him?’

‘He drew his dagger on us,’ said Frank, twisting to look at a gash in the side of his leather doublet. ‘Near enough got me, and he’s nicked Harry there’s ear.’ Harry, standing beside him in John Sempill’s livery, grinned selfconsciously and mopped at the dripping blood. ‘So no, mem, we didny take the time to question him ower much.’

‘I can see you wouldny,’ she said, looking down at the man. He seemed to be of more than middling height, aged perhaps twenty or twenty-five, with well-barbered dark hair. His jerkin was dark red broadcloth, his boots were good but very dusty. ‘We must search him. Had he taken anything from the miners’ shelter?’

‘No that I saw, he was just poking about,’ Frank said, ‘looking amongst their graith and the like.’ He bent to turn the prisoner onto his back, and the limp figure convulsed like a mantrap Alys had once seen, came up snarling, a knife in his hand from nowhere in a sweeping gesture which had Frank flung sideways and crying out.

It all seemed to happen very slowly next. Lowrie dived forward, shouting, Harry grabbed at the man’s wrist, which slipped from his grasp, Alys leapt away from the action wishing she had not put Gil’s dagger back in her purse, and caught her heel in a tussock of grass and went down. The same dark lightning movement seemed to happen above her, and she was dragged to her feet, painfully by one arm, and hauled against a panting chest. A hoarse voice spoke over her shoulder.

‘Keep aff me. Keep aff me or the lassie gets it. And if that dog comes here I’ll knife it and all.’

‘ Down! ’ she ordered, almost on a reflex, and relief swept over her as the dog obeyed, reluctantly, quivering with eagerness to attack.

There was a knife sharp against her ribs. A small part of her mind recognized that it must have found one of the gaps in the whalebone bodice of her riding-dress. There were not many.

‘My son, consider what you are doing!’ protested Sir Richie. Behind him Philip Sempill emerged from the church carrying a hank of rope, and stopped, staring in horror. His cousin looked grim. Lowrie was standing poised, hands twitching, trying to work out what to do, staring at her with almost exactly the same expression as Socrates. The hoarse voice spoke again next to her ear.

‘Just stay nice and quiet where you are, and I’ll walk her down to the horses.’

Yes, and what then? Her mind raced, the whalebone forgotten. This man would never let her go alive, he used a knife too readily. This had happened to her before, perhaps there was a sign written on her brow, Take this lassie hostage at knifepoint , but since that time Gil had taught her one or two tricks to use against a man with a knife.

‘Right, lassie. You be quiet, the way you’re doing, and I’ll no hurt ye. We’re going to take a wee walk, see? Nice and gentle, to see the bonnie horses.’

She collected herself as the pressure of his arm tried to turn her slightly, to move backwards down to the gate. She caught Lowrie’s eye, indicated her dangling right hand as well as she could without moving. His gaze dropped, and she counted off ostentatiously with her fingers. One. Two. Three.

She went limp, so that her entire weight fell on the arm which restrained her, then as her captor braced himself against the sudden burden she dug in her heels and thrust backward. They both went over and down, hard, and she heard the wind go out of the man.

She rolled frantically aside, seized the fallen knife, scrambled up out of the way of the rushing feet and the snarling.

‘Mistress!’ It was Lowrie at her elbow. ‘That was well done! You’re no hurt, are you?’

‘I’m hale.’ She found she was grinning in relief. ‘Gil taught me it.’

‘He has a good pupil.’ He gave her an admiring look, and returned to the fray. Socrates was poised on the man’s chest, snarling into his face, white teeth snapping, and as earlier today was reluctant to give up his catch. Trying to persuade herself it had been perfectly safe, that the blade at her breast would never have got through the whalebones, she went forward to congratulate the dog and haul him off, ignoring John Sempill’s muttered comments about taking a stick to the ill-nurtured brute.

The prisoner was reclaimed, without gentleness. Of course, thought Alys, observing the way even Lowrie, even Luke, went out of their way to handle him roughly; eight men stood by, watched me taken at knifepoint, watched me save myself. The dog’s reaction was exactly the same.

Stripped to his linen, his arms tied, held kneeling at the point of several whingers on the cobbles before the door of St Machan’s Kirk, the man was rather less impressive, but he still managed a snarl the equal of Socrates’ when John Sempill demanded his name.

‘You’re asking me, are you?’ was all the answer he got.

‘Aye, I’m asking. And what were you doing up the glen?’ Sempill nudged him under the ribs with the toe of his boot. ‘Back to strip the place o siller, were ye? No content wi slaying unarmed men about their lawful work, were ye? Can ye tell me good reason why I canny hang you for murder fro yon tree?’ Each question was marked by another nudge.

‘Lawful!’ The prisoner spat.

‘And what d’you mean by that?’ Another nudge from the boot, powerful enough to wind the man. ‘Show him the two corps, lads. And that worthless laddie, see if he kens him.’

Alys rose from the table-tomb where she had seated herself in the hope that her knees would stop trembling, intending to follow the group into the church. She was distracted by Lowrie, who was making an inventory in his tablets of the prisoner’s possessions.

‘Mistress Mason, look at this.’

‘What is it?’ She crossed to where he sat on the grass, and he held out the man’s purse.

‘I’ve just the now opened it, I was writing down his clothes and boots. Look what was in his spoirean .’

The purse was in fact a sturdy leather bag, almost a scrip, as big as her two hands and made to be slung from a belt. She took it, finding it heavy, lifted the flap, peered in. Something gleamed in the shadow within. Coin? Not loose, surely, it would fall to the bottom. She tilted the thing to see better, and blue velvet and gold braid caught the light.

‘ Ah, mon Dieu! ’ she said in amazement, and drew out a fat purse. A purse of blue velvet, trimmed with gold braid. ‘Where did he have this?’

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, mistress?’

‘There can hardly be two of the things,’ she said, her mind working. ‘It must be Dame Isabella’s, the one that is missing. But how did he — Unless he was the stranger, that morning!’