Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘Hae a seat, maister, and I’ll answer your questions. I’ve not recalled anything,’ he admitted, ‘but if you prompt me who knows what might come to mind. Was that you at Goudie’s door the now? What’s the word o Davie Bowen?’

‘Overcome by grief. Mistress Goudie was quite anxious about him.’

Bowster nodded. ‘He’s aye a soft laddie, a gentle soul. I think his daddy put him to the armourer in the hope it would harden him. And yet he’s that good with a sword and buckler.’

The two were hardly exclusive, thought Gil.

‘Tell me about yesterday,’ he said. ‘Where did your company gather? Here, or at Goudie’s?’

‘Aye, at Goudie’s. Nanty was a bit after the tryst, last to arrive, he said he’d had a run of custom and his sister not back yet from the house. Then when we were all assembled, and certain we’d our guises all complete, we went up to Morison’s Yard in a body wi the piper playing.’

‘Your piper,’ said Gil. ‘Who is he?’

‘Geordie Barton, dwells in the Fishergate. No a bad piper, kens more tunes than some of them, but he can put away the ale like it was the last brewing in the country.’

‘And Nanty never said he had the wrong flask?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Bowster. ‘He never said aught about it at all, and you ken, I think that would be a cause Davie and Danny were getting right anxious about the play. It was Davie’s first time afore other folk, you’ll understand, and he was a wee thing on edge. Nanty likely said nothing about changing anything for fear of — ’

‘Of course.’ That made sense, though it cast no light on when the change had occurred. ‘So from Goudie’s you all walked up to Morison’s house, and went to the kitchen door.’

‘It’s a fine large kitchen. And the auld wife there — Ursel, is that her name? — was right friendly, though she was rare taigled with the company above in the hall, and sending up food. She gave us ale and gingerbread, and let us disguise oursels in her scullery, and then we waited in her kitchen till they were ready for us in the hall.’

‘And when did the two of them quarrel? Nanty and Danny Gibson?’

Bowster thought about this.

‘A’most as soon as we stepped out into the kitchen,’ he said at length. ‘I was last out, for I was helping Bessie wi his headdress, and they were going at it by then. I think by what they were saying, Danny had come into the kitchen and saw Nanty out in the yard getting a word wi the lass, and then she went off somewhere, so Danny never got his turn to speak wi her.’

‘But Nanty didn’t leave the kitchen again till you came up the stair?’

‘I’d not say that,’ said Bowster cautiously. ‘He slipped away up the stair himsel afore long, and I found him getting another word wi the lass in private. At which I tellt him, if him and Danny quarrelled again, what would it do to the play, and the lass says that about I’ve saved your play , and goes away up to the hall.’

‘And you’ve still no notion what she meant by that?

‘Never a one.’ Bowster lifted the strips of leather on his bench and turned them in careful fingers. ‘Unless maybe Nanty was for leaving us and she’s persuaded him to stay, but that makes no sense, he was enjoying his part.’

‘He says they met on the stair by chance,’ Gil observed. Bowster shook his head sceptically. ‘Did the lass come through the kitchen, or had she come down the stair from the hall?’

‘I never noticed. But there was that much coming and going, and some of the men were in and out at the door, the fellows of that household I mean, she could easy ha come in that way and me never see her, for I was taken up wi seeing that the champions never took too much of the ale-jug when it came round.’ He pulled a face. ‘I once saw an Alexander hurt bad, for that the Jack was drunk when they fought, and missed his swing.’

‘I never thought of there being so much to see over, in taking charge of the play,’ Gil said. ‘The ale was in a common jug, was it?’

‘Oh, aye, which she, Ursel I mean, filled from the household barrel in the corner of the kitchen,’ the glover assured him. ‘We all had a pull at it, to wet our thrapples for the singing, and a bit of her gingerbread off the tray. It hadny any gilt on,’ he added reflectively, ‘but it was right good gingerbread.’

‘Ursel makes good gingerbread,’ Gil agreed. He sat thinking for a space, while Bowster fidgeted with the strips of leather. ‘So the first you knew of it being the wrong flask,’ he said at length, ‘was when it appeared out of Nanty Bothwell’s scrip, in front of everyone.’

‘Aye, like I told you,’ agreed Bowster.

Gil got to his feet. ‘That’s a help,’ he said, with partial truth. ‘I’m getting things clearer in my mind, though I still don’t see how it happened. I’ll have more questions afore I’m done, I’ve no doubt.’

Bowster rose likewise.

‘If I can answer them,’ he said, and then, casually, ‘Is there any word from the Renfrew household? Is Mistress Mathieson —?’

‘Still groaning,’ said Kate. ‘Poor lass, she’s having a hard time of it, they’re saying. I’ve sent Babb twice today, with my snakestone and then a cup of one of Mother’s remedies. The house is full of her gossips, settled in for a long wait.’

They were seated where the sun streamed in at one of the great bay windows, while in the other the two little girls played some complicated game involving their dolls, a wooden horse and a handful of the red and yellow leaves which were now blowing about the yard. Kate checked that they were engrossed, adjusted the screen by the cradle to keep the light out of her baby’s face, and picked up her sewing again.

‘Tammas Bowster asked me if there was word,’ Gil said.

‘I’ve no doubt he did. Grace told me Meg’s father chose our neighbour for her, over the glover,’ Kate said circumspectly, ‘as being better able to provide for her. There’s no doubt that’s true, but I’d say she’d have preferred the other.’

That explains that, thought Gil, watching her hands as she stitched, and suddenly thought of young Mistress Mathieson’s expression as she looked at her husband. Kate was developing their mother’s tendency to be right about things.

‘I’ve spoken to Andy,’ she went on, ‘and to Ursel. The mummers had ale, out of one jug, and gingerbread from a common tray, while they were in the kitchen. There was all sorts coming and going, so it’s possible someone spoke to the — the man that died, and gave him something else to eat or drink, but nobody saw any such thing, though they all agreed he’d had a shouting match with young Bothwell. I think Gibson was mostly talking to the Judas after that.’

‘Kate, that’s excellent,’ he said. ‘It bears out what the mummers themselves have said. I’ve another question for you to ask your household now.’ She looked up, eyebrows raised. ‘I think Agnes Renfrew slipped out to fetch something for her stepmother. Which door did she use?’

‘The hall door,’ said Kate firmly. ‘At least — I saw her leave that way, Jamesie let her out. There he is in the yard, Gil, you could ask him if he let her back in. Is it important?’

‘It’s something that puzzles me.’

Out in the yard, Jamesie was quite willing to leave his task of stacking tin-glazed pottery dishes on the rack opposite the gates, but when Gil explained his question he scratched his head in thought.

‘I’d say I never let her back in,’ he pronounced after a moment. ‘I mind letting her out to go back to her own house, for that her mammy needed some special cushion, as if our cushions wasny good enough for her, and she laid her plaid over her shoulders when she left. That’s how I mind it, I’d to fetch the plaid from the bed in the good chamber where we’d laid them all, and I’d to try twice to get the right one, but she’d ha need of it. That bonnie blue gown she’d on wouldny keep the wind off her.’