Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

Out in the hall Robert Renfrew was still standing about, but left ostentatiously when he saw them. Ignoring him, Mistress Baillie towed Alys to one of the window spaces and said with quiet urgency, ‘Were you present at these mummers? Can you tell me what happened? Grace told me a bit, but she’ll never say aught that reflects on Renfrew and I can make no sense of Eleanor’s version, and that Agnes has barely left her chamber since they came back here. And Agnes Hamilton’s a good soul, but — ’

‘Yes, I was there — is it worrying her?’ But surely, thought Alys, the — the pressures of bringing a baby to birth should overcome all else. Maybe not.

‘I think that’s what’s eating at her,’ agreed Mistress Baillie, and rubbed at her eyes again. ‘She canny give her whole mind to the task, she canny let go and let the bairn come. She’s fighting everything we do.’ She was a plump, attractive woman, not much past forty and still with most of her teeth, but her face was haggard with worry and lack of sleep, and her mouth worked as Alys looked at her. ‘Tell me what happened, lassie, will you?’

Obediently, Alys recounted the tale of the afternoon, of the substitute flask and how the first any of them had realized that something was wrong was when the champion fell the second time. The other woman listened closely, and shook her head.

‘I see it,’ she said. ‘My lassie was feart it was — ’ She stopped and looked at Alys. ‘She never did a thing wrong,’ she said fiercely. Alys nodded. ‘But she favoured Tammas Bowster, and her faither would take Renfrew for her, no matter that he’s older than I am, and her heart’s no been in the match.’

‘That is hard,’ said Alys. ‘But surely now she has the baby —?’ At least she has the baby, said a little voice in her mind. My father liked my choice, but I have no baby yet.

‘Aye, and it’s Renfrew’s bairn, no doubt of that, whatever he said to her when she was first howding. But Tammas was there yesterday, I take it, with the other mummers?’

‘He was,’ agreed Alys.

‘I think my Meg’s feart it was Renfrew tried to pyson Tammas Bowster and slew this Gibson by mischance.’

Alys stared at her, aware that her mouth was dropping open. Recovering it, she said, ‘No, indeed, it could not have been, for nobody told Maister Renfrew about the mummers until he arrived at the house. He was not best pleased, my good-sister said, but there was little he could do about it by then.’

‘Was it not the flask Renfrew aye carries on him that pysont the man?’ asked Mistress Baillie doubtfully.

‘No,’ said Alys firmly, ‘for my husband saw him drink from that himself, while the mummers were acting the play. It was another flask.’

‘Would you tell her?’ Mistress Baillie seized Alys’s hands in a painful grip. ‘Lassie, would you tell her that? It might — she might let go if she hears it, she can stop fretting and think of the bairn instead.’

‘Yes, if you think it proper for me to be in the same chamber,’ Alys said diffidently. ‘I’m not — I’ve no — ’

‘Oh, never mind that! Anything that will help my lassie,’ said Mistress Baillie. She set off towards the door, then checked as another ragged scream tore at their ears. ‘Oh, my poor Meg!’ she exclaimed, tears starting to her eyes. ‘Oh, how can I bear it?’

‘She’s more to bear than you have, Marion,’ said Maister Renfrew, coming into the hall from the stair. ‘How is she? Is she making any progress?’

‘None,’ said Mistress Baillie bluntly. ‘We’ve tried all the receipts you sent up, all the charms, all the prayers. She’s bound up in the birthing-girdle from St Thenew’s, she’s got a knife under her pillow, the jasper-stone, Lady Kate’s snakestone, that strange thing Caterin Campbell sent round, she calls it Our Lady’s sea-nut — none of them’s done her any good. If you’d unlocked your workroom when I first asked you this would never ha come about.’

‘Superstitious nonsense — and that room stays locked now, the way things vanish. It’s coming to it, when I’ve to lock my workroom against my own household.’

‘And if you’d listened to me about her dates,’ persisted Mistress Baillie, unheeding, ‘she wouldny have been at Morison’s yesterday getting frightened into this state.’

Her tone was biting; a lesser man would have quailed, but Maister Renfrew merely said, ‘Well, it’s the lot of women. Can Grace do nothing?’

‘Grace gave her some of Nicol’s drops, but it’s no done much good,’ said Mistress Baillie. Behind Renfrew a maidservant entered the hall and padded past them. ‘It takes one who’s been through it to support a lass, especially her first time.’

‘Here, Isa,’ said Renfrew, ignoring this. ‘What are you about here, woman? There’s no word yet, there’s no call for you to be up here! Away back to the kitchen.’

‘I’m here to empty the close-stool,’ said the woman, ‘since it willny empty itsel, as any woman could work out.’ She bobbed without respect, and went on into the crowded room.

Her master stared after her in exasperation, and Mistress Baillie said, ‘Oh, get away to your prayers, man, for it’s about all you can do for Meg now. You and your pine nuts!’

Renfrew bridled at this, but said sharply, ‘We’ve got prayers being said for her at the Greyfriars, and Eleanor’s along at St Mary’s on her knees, seeing she can hardly come about the house till the bairn comes home, the way she is. So if you’ll no have me in the chamber — ’

‘It’s Mally Bowen won’t have you in the chamber, you ken that as well as I do,’ said Mistress Baillie. ‘So you might as well get along to St Mary’s yoursel, maister.’

She turned towards the door, then stood aside to let Grace Gordon emerge.

‘Grace!’ said Renfrew curtly. ‘I’ve been seeking you.’

‘I was away for another dose of the drops,’ Grace said quietly.

‘One dose is enough. She’s no needing more. Come wi me the now.’

Alys, following Mistress Baillie, caught sight of Grace’s expression. What was it? she wondered. Resignation, apprehension, fear? She slipped past the other girl and into the hot, busy room, where the ale-cup was going round again. Mistress Hamilton was embroidering an account of a cousin’s recent delivery; Alys, who had heard parts of the tale before, moved on quickly, but Nancy Sproull caught her arm, peering up at her with those dark-fringed grey eyes not entirely focused.

‘Alys,’ she said solemnly. ‘Alys, you’re a sensible lassie and a good Christian soul and all.’

‘I try to be.’

Mistress Sproull pulled her down to breathe ale at her. ‘Would you do me a favour, lass? Would you call by our house and get a word wi our Nell?’

‘With Nell?’ Alys repeated in surprise.

Nell’s mother nodded, still with that juridical solemnity. ‘She’s right grieved by yesterday’s trouble,’ she divulged in a hoarse whisper. ‘She’ll not stop weeping. See if you can talk some sense into her, lassie?’

‘I’ll try,’ promised Alys, disengaging herself with some trouble.

In the birthing chamber it was slightly less hot, and quieter between Meg’s bitter pangs. She was laid on her side on a truckle-bed, clad only in a sweat-damp shift, her hair loose and clinging to her swollen face. Bound round her, under her sagging breasts, was the birthing-girdle, a strip of parchment cut to the height of Our Lady and inscribed with grateful prayers, and charms of one kind or another were strapped to her arm or her bare thigh.

‘Mammy, make it stop,’ she moaned as Alys entered. ‘I don’t want a bairn, take it away!’

Mally Bowen, wife of Serjeant Anderson, the burgh layer-out and most experienced midwife, had both hands and one ear applied to her belly, and her mother was already bending over whispering to her. Mother and daughter turned to look at Alys with identical expressions of hope.