Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘No, for I’m going out. I’ve a message to you from the old man. He bade me tell you,’ he ticked them off on his fingers, ‘the shop’s about out of lavender water, he wants more brought down, and where was the small glass gourd, oh, and his drops is getting low. Here’s Blue Benet.’ He handed her another of those painted flasks, studied his hands, and giggled. ‘Aye, that’s the lot. Now I’m away out.’

‘Will you be back for supper?’

‘Aye, likely. I’m going to tell Tammas Bowster that Meg’s brought home her bairn.’

He slouched out of the room, and Grace watched him go, tight-lipped. After a moment she sighed, and smiled, and said, ‘He’s a kind man, my Nicol, whatever else. Did you ken his mother?’

‘No, for she died long before we came to Glasgow. Maybe Agnes Hamilton knew her,’ Alys suggested. ‘Is it you makes up Maister Renfrew’s drops? I saw him taking some yesterday. And Nicol has some as well.’ She heard herself giggling as Nicol had done. ‘Drop, drop, drop, everyone has drops. Do you make his too? Does Robert have drops?’ She closed her mouth firmly, alarmed by the words which were falling out of it. Dropping out of it. What is wrong with me? she wondered. Where are my manners flown to?

‘No,’ said Grace quietly. ‘It’s his father makes those up.’ She came to sit down, gave Alys another of those sharp, assessing looks, and nodded. ‘Aye, you’ll do. Do you want to sleep a bit? Put your feet up on the bench.’

‘No, I don’t want to sleep.’ It seemed like a very bad idea. There might be dreams waiting. ‘I’d rather talk,’ she said hopefully. ‘Tell me how you met Nicol. Did you love him when you were wedded?’ That’s better, said the watchful voice in her head. You can ask any woman that kind of question.

‘I favoured him,’ said Grace, smiling slightly. ‘He’s well learned, and mostly civil, and the — the man that taught us both would have us wed.’

‘Was that in Middelburgh? Will you go back there?’

Grace sighed. ‘I’d like to. We’d friends there, and elsewhere in the Low Countries.’

‘Then why not go?’

‘Frankie won’t hear of it. Now we’re here, he says, we can stay and take a hand in the business. Which doesny please the rest of them.’

‘Why not? I’d have thought they’d like the extra help.’

‘Aye, but there’s the extra outgoings.’ The other girl sighed again. ‘And the questions it raises about Nicol’s place here.’

‘Surely he is the eldest son?’

‘Aye, and Frankie sent him into the Low Countries to learn his trade,’ Grace said rather bitterly. ‘But now he’s learned it, Frankie won’t hear what he says. All he does is cry him down a fool. I’d say he’s decided Syme and wee brother Robert can be bent to his purpose better than Nicol ever could. So Nicol’s to stay here and do nothing, while his father takes me for — ’ She bit that off.

‘Why did you come back to Scotland?’ Alys asked.

Grace gave her a rueful look. ‘You’re full of questions the day, aren’t you no? Well, I suppose that’s my doing, and you’ll mind little enough of it the morn.’

‘I like to know things,’ said Alys happily. She had come down from her cloud now, but was feeling pleasantly relaxed, though some of her thoughts did not seem to be in her control. ‘So why did you come back, if Nicol dislikes his father so much?’

‘I’m not right sure,’ said the other girl. She rose and went to the window, looking out of the glazed upper portion over the bleak garden and fiddling with the turn-button on the shutter below it. ‘Time we gathered the last of the autumn simples,’ she noted. ‘I suppose Nicol was determined, and I’d a notion to see where he grew up. But all we’ve done in coming here is make Frankie the more resolved that Nicol’s to have no part in the business, or the proceeds, and nothing like his share of the property in the old man’s will.’

‘He has his rights,’ said Alys, ‘but that’s unkind. It’s a father’s duty to see his children established in the world.’

‘Aye, well, he says he’s already done more than Nicol deserves.’ Grace left the window, and looked down at Alys, the grey eyes considering her carefully. ‘I should start another batch of his drops. It takes a day or two while the virtues combine.’

‘Maister Renfrew’s drops? I saw him take them,’ Alys said again. ‘They worked right well, and quickly at that. Is it his heartbeat that troubles him, or the threat of an apoplexy?’

‘Excess of choler, properly, together wi he’s no a young man though he will behave as if he’s twenty. I think I have all the simples here to put to them.’

‘Then I should get away and leave you to your work.’ Alys rose, finding her legs more certain than they had been. ‘I’m right grateful for your help, Grace.’

‘Och, never mention it,’ said Grace. ‘Are you fit to go home alone yet? Aye, I think you are. Had you a lassie wi you? I’ll call her.’

‘N-no,’ said Alys, with sudden decision. ‘Jennet’s in the kitchen here. Send and tell her, if you would, I’ve stepped next door to see my good-sister, so she may go home in her own time. Kate will want to hear the news of — ’ She swallowed. It was all still there in her head, waiting to pounce. ‘News of Meg.’

It was probably fortunate, Gil thought later, that the Serjeant greeted his request to speak to the prisoner again with nothing more offensive than:

‘Forgot what you’d asked him, have you? Aye, he’s still where he was. But you’ll ha to be quick, the Provost sent for him a bit back and I’ll have him up to the Castle for questioning as soon as Tammas Sproull gets back from his dinner. And the quest on Danny Gibson’s cried for the morn’s morn,’ he added, unlocking the door to the end cell.

‘I won’t keep him long,’ said Gil, biting back a sharper answer. He stepped into the cell as Bothwell got to his feet, looking alarmed. ‘I’ll shout when I’m done.’

The Serjeant barred the door and went away, grumbling under his breath. Gil looked at the prisoner, who said, ‘Is it — is it more questions? For I’ve said all I have to say, maister.’

‘Have you?’ said Gil. ‘That’s a pity.’ He sat down cautiously on the bench, and looked up at Bothwell. ‘You haveny told me all you have to tell, that’s for certain, and I’m getting a bit displeased about running round Glasgow finding out things you could have told me yourself in the first place.’ Bothwell eyed him warily. ‘Do you want to hear what I’ve learned?’

‘I’d sooner hear how my sister does,’ the young man admitted.

‘Well enough, but not best pleased wi you, for the same reason,’ said Gil. ‘Now, she found the pewter flask, the one you should have had in your scrip, under the counter when she closed up the booth, and the filler alongside it. She thought likely you’d been filling it and been interrupted by a customer. Tammas Bowster says you came late to the tryst at Goudie’s, saying there had been a rush of custom, which would fit wi that.’ Bothwell looked steadily down at him, his face giving away nothing. ‘Where did Agnes get the one you used in the play?’

‘I told you, it was one of ours,’ said Bothwell, startled into speech.

‘Your sister says not. The six you had from Renfrew are still in their wrappings where she stowed them.’

‘It was a spare one he …’

‘He what?’ prompted Gil as that statement halted in mid-air.

Bothwell bent his head and muttered, ‘I forget.’

‘Who gave you it, Nanty? It’s important. Your life hangs by that flask, you understand me? As things stand, the assize will likely find you slew Danny Gibson and you’ll be sent to Edinburgh for trial, and I wouldny give much for your chances there if you’ll not defend yourself.’