Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘So he would,’ she agreed solemnly. ‘I’m not eating these ones. We kept ours back in the kitchen. Now you have to go and talk to people, Mammy Kate said.’

‘Is that right?’ Gil looked around him. ‘Who will I talk to?’

‘I don’t care.’ Ysonde tossed her head. ‘They’re all growed up and boring.’

She turned away and marched past Wat Forrest just as he said rather firmly, ‘Frankie, you ken fine my brother has another in mind. I see no purpose in arguing the matter.’

‘If he goes that road, you’ll rue it, Wat,’ responded Maister Renfrew, ‘and so will he.’ He rose and stalked off into the window bay, the set of his tawny velvet shoulders suggesting annoyance and indignation. Was that a threat? Gil wondered, and turned away, not wishing to catch Wat Forrest’s eye at such a moment.

As usual at events like this, the men and women were conversing separately. Alys, easy to find in her apricot-coloured taffeta, had settled beside her sister-in-law and was bending over the cradle with a sour-faced young woman in a huge Flemish hood whose black silk cap must surely be wired to make it stand up like that. The three women nearby were still intent on someone else’s reputation, but Agnes Hamilton, wife of Andrew Hamilton the master-carpenter, looked up briefly and smiled at Gil from among her chins.

In the nearer window the men had broken into smaller clumps. Renfrew had joined Maistre Pierre, who was already deep in conversation with Wat Forrest’s brother Adam and a small sturdy man in bright green broadcloth faced with sunshine yellow, Wilkie the dyer, who had probably not produced those difficult shades in his own workshop. Morison had moved on to speak to his neighbour Andrew Hamilton, and nearest to Gil two younger men he knew slightly were discussing apothecary business while the target of Ysonde’s displeasure, seated sideways on a backstool, swung one leg and stared at the painted beams above him, humming tunelessly.

Gil looked closer at this man. He had taken him at first for a stranger, but he was startled to find he recognized him. It was Nicol Renfrew, eldest son of the apothecary, who had been in the same year as Gil at the grammar school and who had been a strange, scrawny, twitching boy with restless hands and feet and a tendency to blurt out whatever remarks came into his mind, generally trimmed with foul language, which had got him beaten on a twice-daily basis despite his undoubted ability in Latin and geometry. Here he was, filled out, even slightly plump, calm and sleepy-eyed, smiling up at the painted vines. Hooking a stool closer with his foot, Gil sat down next him.

‘Aye, Nicol,’ he said. ‘I heard you were back in Glasgow.’

‘Gil Cunningham,’ said the other man after a moment, and produced a high-pitched chuckle. ‘So what you doing here? Did you ever see such a parcel of stuffed sarks, and the auld man the worst of them? I’d never ha come, but he insisted.’

Perhaps the man was less changed than he had thought. Gil ignored this remark, and went on, ‘Where is it you’ve been? The Low Countries? Did I hear it was Middelburgh?’

‘So they said,’ agreed Nicol vaguely, and waved a hand. ‘Could a been anywhere. They spoke Latin,’ he added. ‘And the Saracen tongue.’

‘What are you doing now you’re back?’ This was harder work than it should be. ‘Do you work with your father?’

Nicol shrugged one shoulder, and swung the foot again. ‘He’s no need of me. He’s got Jimmy Syme and my dear little brother, he’s not needing another to fetch and carry. So Agnes and Grace does that, when they’re not fetching for my new mammy.’

High Street gossip swirled in Gil’s head. Syme was Nicol’s brother-in-law, four or five years younger than him, wedded to the elder daughter perhaps two years since and now standing over yonder conversing stiffly with the same dear little brother, and Agnes was the younger girl. Whatever the older was called, it was not …

‘Grace?’ he queried.

‘My blessed wife.’

‘Your wife? Good wishes on the marriage. When was that?’

‘Last Yule, or thereabout.’ Nicol’s heavy-lidded gaze lifted above Gil’s head, and his vague expression warmed. ‘Speak of the devil.’

The woman moved forward from behind Gil as he rose to greet her. He had a swift impression of height and slenderness, a modest gown of dark silk brocade and foreign cut, then light grey eyes met his and he found himself read, assessed, evaluated, in the time it took her to curtsy and smile at him. She must be nearly his height, and fully as intelligent as Alys.

‘Introduce me, Nicol,’ she prompted, an odd lilt to her voice.

‘Grace,’ said Nicol offhandedly. ‘Gil Cunningham. We were at the grammar school,’ he enlarged.

‘Grace Gordon,’ she supplied resignedly, and leaned forward to kiss Gil in greeting. ‘I’m aye glad to meet a friend from Nicol’s boyhood.’

‘The surname explains the accent,’ Gil said, seating her and reaching for another stool.

‘Aye, I’m a Buchan lass,’ she agreed, ‘though I met Nicol in Middelburgh.’ A movement by the door to the kitchen stair caught her eye; she turned to look at the girl just crossing the chamber, and apologized. ‘I wonder what Agnes has been up to now?’

‘She likely stepped out to ease hersel,’ said her husband. ‘Leave the lass alone, why can’t you? She’s seventeen.’

‘That’s exactly why I can’t leave her alone,’ she said patiently, ‘and neither Meg nor Eleanor is fit to have an eye to her the now.’ Ah, that was the older daughter’s name, thought Gil, pleased to get that called back to mind. ‘Och, she’s brought Meg the lavender cushion, that’s all. She must have run round to the house. Forgive me, Maister Cunningham, I should leave family business at home. Aye, Nicol and I met in Middelburgh.’

‘You’ll find it damp here,’ Gil offered, as a harmless gambit.

‘I do, but at least I don’t miss the east wind.’

‘What’s to talk o but the weather?’ said Nicol irritably. ‘East wind, west wind, damp or cold, so? Even my faither canny sort that, whatever else he can order.’

‘Then tell me about this play we’re to see,’ said his wife. ‘Who might Galossian be? We’ve no tales o him in the nor’east, though we’ve plays enow. Is it comical, or are we like to weep at it, Maister Cunningham?’

‘Both, I suspect, depending on the acting,’ he offered, and she laughed, a sound as attractive as he had thought it might be. ‘It’s an old tale of battle and the hero’s death, with a doctor who comes in to cure him.’

‘And who plays the doctor? I hope it’s someone well qualified!’

‘I’ve no notion,’ Gil admitted. ‘Augie said it’s the company that young Bothwell from the Tolbooth runs with, so maybe he’ll take that part.’

‘Bothwell,’ said Nicol, and produced that high-pitched chuckle. ‘Tammas Bowster’s company, wi Bothwell playing the doctor?’

‘So Augie said.’

‘Tammas Bowster, and Nanty Bothwell from the Tolbooth. Galyngale ne lycorys Is not so swete as her love is . Does my faither ken yet, Grace, d’you think?’

‘I’ve no notion,’ she said quietly. Gil glanced from her to Maister Renfrew the elder, who was now deep in discussion with Maister Wilkie, opened his mouth to ask what the exchange meant, and found himself forestalled as Ysonde popped up in front of him.

‘Mammy Kate wants you,’ she said abruptly. ‘But you’re no to make Baby Floris cry.’

She disappeared back into the crowd as swiftly as she had appeared, leaving him wondering if he had heard right. Nicol had just quoted Floris and Blanchflour , and then …

‘Oh, you heard right,’ said Kate when he reached her. Alys, still hanging over the sleeping infant, looked up, her eyes full of laughter. ‘Never mind that now, Gil, have you heard yet what Augie’s done? It’s young Bothwell’s company he’s asked to play Galossian for us. I thought Renfrew would have an apoplexy when I told him myself just now.’