Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘I should wish to see the house as well,’ said Maistre Pierre, rising.

‘Oh, no, maister, I couldny allow that,’ said Madam Xanthe. ‘That’s a privilege has to be earned, you might say.’

‘Nevertheless-’ began Philip.

‘An account of what offices it contains would be enough for now,’ Gil said. ‘How many chambers, madam? And closets?’

‘Seven chambers,’ she returned promptly. ‘Including this we’re standing in. One, two-’ She counted visibly. ‘Three closets. Four hearths. That’s under this roof, and then under their own roofs there’s the kitchen, the washhouse, the stores — Cato can show you those. I’d hope he’s able for that,’ she added, looking sourly down at the boy, who gave her a deprecating grin. ‘I’ll bid you good day, maisters. And if you’re to look into the matter of the false coin, Maister Cunningham,’ she digressed again, with another sideways glance from the painted eyes, ‘I’m right glad to hear it, for I’m sure we’ll all rest easier in our beds for knowing you’re on the hue and cry.’

Leading them down the stair and across a chamber where the woman Agrippina was mending linen, the boy called Cato led them out by the back door of the house and across a paved yard. Early flowers in tubs shivered in the wind on either side of the doorsill.

‘The flowers are bonnie. Do you tend them?’ Gil asked.

‘No me, maister, I’ve a black thumb,’ confessed Cato. ‘A’thing I tend to dies. No, that’s Kit- Cleone,’ he corrected himself, ‘that sees to the plants. She says it makes a nice change, raising up something that stays up.’

Gil looked sharply at the boy, aware of Philip Sempill on his other side reacting in the same way, but Cato, apparently oblivious to the double meaning in his words, went on,

‘This is the kitchen, maisters. Are you wanting to see in? Only that Ste- Strephon isny in a good mood the day, and if the supper spoils-’

‘It’s a good kitchen,’ Gil said, assessing the little building. ‘Two doors and plenty windows. You’d get out easy enough if it caught fire.’

‘That’s what Strephon says,’ agreed Cato. ‘And yonder’s the privy, and the coal house, and the lime house, and the feed store, and-’ He led them onwards, telling off all the buildings as they passed them.

‘When did Madam Xanthe move in here?’ asked Maistre Pierre, looking about him.

‘A month afore Martinmas last,’ said Cato promptly.

‘Early October, so more than six month since,’ observed the mason. ‘And I would say no maintenance done in that time and longer.’ He nodded at the row of storehouses. ‘Two broken hinges, peeling paint, the limewash not renewed this winter. The window-frames are dry, they need a coat of linseed. The bawdy-house may pay a good rent, but it is not a good tenant. These houses of timber must be groomed like a horse, daily.’

‘I hardly think maintenance was in the lease,’ said Philip Sempill.

‘I’ve never been tellt to do aught about that,’ said Cato, equally defensive. ‘Madam aye has other tasks for me. And Hercules,’ he mangled the name badly, ‘is aye waking nights, in case of trouble, so he has to sleep daytimes.’

Gil nodded. It had seemed likely there was some more impressive guardian about the place than this lad. He wondered what Hercules might own for his baptismal name.

They followed Cato past the storehouses, across a second small courtyard, and through a gap in a wicker fence into a garden which sloped down towards the Molendinar and a further sturdy outhouse by the distant gate. To left and right more wicker fencing marked the edges of the property. The hammering from the next toft was clearly audible.

‘That’s the pleasance,’ the boy said unnecessarily, waving at the low bristles of box hedging. ‘It was right bonnie when we came here, but I’ve no notion how to keep it, and nor’s Kit. And yonder’s the washhouse, where the lassies has a bath every month and washes all their hairs. They’ve a right merry time of it,’ he said wistfully, ‘I’d like fine to join them, for they take in cakes and ale and all sorts, and bar the door. But that’s when madam has me empty the privy and the garderobe, and stands over me to see I do it right.’

‘There is a garderobe?’ enquired Maistre Pierre with professional interest. ‘Where is it? Where does it drop?’

Cato turned, grinning, and pointed back at the house. It rose above the cluster of outhouses, much plainer on this side, with a row of small upper windows which engendered regular waves in the thatch, and a high stone chimney with four octagonal pots.

‘You see the upstairs windows, maister? That’s Cleone and Daphne’s chamber at this end, and then the next one’s Armerella’s and Calypso, and then Galatea and Clymene.’ He was stumbling over these names too; it took Gil a little while to recognize Amaryllis. ‘And at that end it’s the two windows of madam’s chamber and closet, see, and the garderobe’s atween them and it drops down the outside of the house next the privy.’

‘Typical,’ said Maistre Pierre, shaking his head. ‘It need not be so, there are ways to keep the soil from the house walls, but local wrights never make use of them.’

‘It’s no so bad,’ said Cato. ‘The rain washes the most o’t down. Stinks a bit when it’s a dry spell.’

‘So have you seen enough to make a decision?’ enquired Philip Sempill over the boy’s head.

‘We’d like a bit time to consider,’ said Gil promptly. ‘I told the old — dame it would be longer than two days, after all.’ He moved towards the house, saying to Cato, ‘Are the neighbours any trouble? There’s a good many folk working on the toft on this side that we passed. Who dwells on the other side?’

‘That’s Maister Fleming,’ said Cato. ‘He’s the weaver, ye ken, has his weaving-shed out the back there. He’s no bother, no since madam bought all the blankets for the house off him and cleared his warehouse. This side’s more trouble, they’s aye a din ower the fence. See, there’s Adkin Saunders the pewterer for a start, a short temper he has, him and his wife’s aye arguing and their weans screaming-’ This was patently true, the children could be heard screaming now. ‘And then there’s Noll Campbell the whitesmith, he’s a good craftsman, we’ve some o his tinwares in the hall, but he’s a right grumphy fellow. Madam says the two o them has a competition to see who can work longest, and then they has great arguments and shouting and their wives joining in and all.’

‘A pewterer, a whitesmith — who else is there?’ asked Philip Sempill.

‘Danny Bell the lorimer,’ supplied Cato, counting carefully on his fingers, ‘Dod Muir the image-maker, that took a stick to me when I went to fetch Ki- Cleone’s shift when it blew ower the fence. And thingmy wi his donkey-cart. That’s all five.’

‘So you have to disentangle the ownership,’ said Alys, ‘and then make certain Dame Isabella gives the right piece of land to Tib. How can you do that? Does your uncle expect you to cast a horoscope, or raise an incantation over a brazier of herbs, or something?’

‘The Canon has confidence in his nephew,’ said Catherine in faint reproof.

‘Rather too much confidence,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll go up in the morning and get a word with him.’

‘And with Sempill or his wife, I suppose,’ offered Maistre Pierre.

The supper was over and the table dismantled. They had given a brief account of their afternoon over the meal, but now Gil was describing in more detail what had been said and what they had seen.

‘And these two tofts on the Drygate,’ Alys went on. ‘You said one of them is the new brothel. What does a two-year-old want with a brothel? Do you mean to accept it?’