Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

Bothwell turned away from him, shaking his head. Gil stared exasperated at his back, and said, ‘I’ll tell you what I think happened. I think Agnes gave you that flask, and I think she got it from somewhere in her father’s house. Had you agreed that beforehand? Is that why you left the pewter flask behind?’

‘No!’ said Bothwell, swinging round indignantly. ‘No, we never — are you saying I’d plotted wi Agnes to slay Danny? She wouldny do sic a thing!’

‘Then who did?’ demanded Gil. ‘Somebody poisoned Danny Gibson, and I need to find out how it happened, and if it was a mischance I’d like to know who keeps that kind of strong poison lying about Glasgow and why, so I can avoid him.’

‘No me, maister!’ said Bothwell. ‘I’ve no a notion what it was. Has Wat never sent to let you know?’

‘Not yet. Maister Renfrew thought it’s most likely one of the plant infusions, but he said he’d need time wi his books to be certain of it.’

‘A plant infusion.’ Bothwell stared at the wall for a moment, much as Renfrew himself had done. ‘Aye, there’s a few things that — you’d not believe what can brew up into pyson, maister. Yew, bindweed, monkshood, there’s half a hedgerow could kill and the other half cure.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Gil said grimly. ‘Now will you tell me the truth about that flask, or will you hang for Agnes Renfrew? My deth ich love, my life ich hate, for a lady shene , is that it?’

There was a taut silence, which lasted and lasted. Finally Gil sat back and crossed one leg over the other. ‘Well, then, what will you tell me? How well do you know the lassie Renfrew? Have you had much converse wi her? What do you know of her family?’

‘N-nothing,’ admitted Bothwell. ‘I’ve not — I’ve not been that concerned to speak of them wi her — we met when he gave a feast for her birthday, two month since. All the craft was invited, and one or two neighbours, and there was dancing. We — she stood up wi me for a couple of branles, and a country-dance, and we’d a good laugh thegither, and I, I, I was right taken wi her.’

‘What did her father do about that?’ Gil asked.

‘Bid her dance wi young Andro Hamilton.’ Bothwell pulled a face. ‘She wasny well pleased, as you’d imagine. Thirteen, is he? He’s no more, certainly, though he’s a likely lad.’

‘And when did Danny Gibson meet her?’

Bothwell looked aside. After a moment he said, ‘He and I were chaffing at the booth a couple of days later, and Agnes passed by wi a basket, on her way to the baker’s. Danny was as taken wi her as I was, and she — ’ He stopped, and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘She was aye even-handed,’ he said. ‘If she spoke wi one of us she’d speak wi the other.’

‘She never had the chance to do that yesterday,’ observed Gil. ‘Where did she get the flask from?’ There was no answer. ‘Nanty, if you’ll not help me to the truth, I canny help you, and what will your sister do without you?’

‘Wed Adam Forrest?’ said Bothwell.

‘He’ll not take her if you hang for a poisoner.’

There was another pause, and finally Bothwell burst out with, ‘I canny tell you more than I have done, maister! Can you not see that?’

Descending the steps to the street, Gil spied his father-in-law approaching, conspicuous for his size even without the huge grey plaid round his shoulders. The mason, seeing him, altered his path to meet him, and clapped him on the back.

‘Ah, Gilbert! And what success so far?’ he asked.

Gil shook his head. ‘I seem to be going round in circles,’ he admitted. ‘Where are you bound just now?’

‘The new work. Well, it is hardly new,’ qualified Maistre Pierre, ‘but we have had to take that gable down almost to the foundations. I go to see how Wattie has progressed.’

‘I’m told Danny Gibson drank in Maggie Bell’s alehouse,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll cross the river with you, and we can get a jug of ale once you’ve spoken to Wattie.’

The suburb of the Gorbals was the usual haphazard mixture of poorer cottages and tall stone houses, the habitation of those who were either too poor to live in the burgh or wealthy enough to ignore the burgess regulations about indwelling. In the midst of these was the leper hospital, the roof of its little chapel of St Ninian rearing above the walls. Maistre Pierre’s new project was easy to pick out as they strolled down the steep slope of Bishop Rae’s bridge; the client was extending an existing stone house, which was swathed in scaffolding, propped with sturdy oak beams, and open down one side like a toy house Gil had seen once in the Low Countries.

‘I take it Maister Hutchison has moved elsewhere while you’re working,’ he said.

‘He has.’ Maistre Pierre grinned. ‘He has moved his family in with his good-mother, so he is very anxious that I finish. I tell him, if he had waited until the spring, it would all have gone much faster. At least we get the founds dug for the new wing.’

Waiting for the mason to finish listening to his foreman’s complaints, Gil gravitated to the smithy near to Maggie Bell’s tavern, where the usual crowd of onlookers was watching the smith and his two assistants. There was something endlessly fascinating about the way the iron came out of the fire, cherry-red or yellow or even white, soft enough to change shape under the clanging hammers, growing darker and duller as it took its new form.

‘Gil Cunningham,’ said a voice over the fierce hiss of the cooling-water. He turned, and found Nicol Renfrew by his side, grinning aimlessly. ‘I saw you at the Cross. What are you doing over this side the river?’

‘Getting a drink at Maggie Bell’s, when my good-father finishes speaking to his men.’

‘I’ll join you. You ken that’s where Danny Gibson drank?’

‘I do,’ said Gil, looking curiously at the other man. ‘Who told you that?’

Nicol shrugged again. ‘Folk tells me a’ sorts of things. I never remember who said the half of them. Maybe I saw him myself, or maybe it was Tammas Bowster, poor fellow.’

Maistre Pierre emerged from the building site, took in the situation, and waved at the tavern. Gil turned towards the wooden sign with its painting of St Mungo’s bell, saying, ‘You know Bowster? Do you know any more of the mummers?’

‘I know Sanders Armstrong,’ offered Nicol, ‘that’s their Bessie. And I know Geordie Barton that plays the pipes. But I don’t know Willie Anderson, I don’t like him.’

‘Did you know they were going to be at Augie’s house yesterday?’ Gil asked curiously.

‘I did.’ Nicol giggled. ‘Tammas tellt me. But I never tellt the old man. Did you see his face when he knew? I thought he’d have an apoplexy.’

Gil ducked in at the low door of the alehouse, and made for the corner where Maistre Pierre was already established with a large jug of ale and three beakers. Nicol wandered across the crowded room behind him, nodding to one or two people and bowing to Mistress Bell herself where she stood threateningly beside the barrel of ale.

‘I like it here,’ he said as he sat down.

‘It makes a change,’ said Gil.

‘My faither never crosses the river,’ countered Nicol. ‘Do you ken my minnie has a wee lassie?’

‘A lassie?’ Gil repeated. ‘Are both well?’

‘Oh, aye, they’re fine.’

‘My congratulations to your father,’ said Maistre Pierre heartily. ‘He must be pleased?’

Nicol shrugged. ‘Likely. I never asked him. Mally Bowen said it looks like him, they tell me, so at least he can stop casting that up at poor Meg.’

‘Casting up what?’ asked Gil.

‘He reckons she played him false,’ said Nicol as if it was obvious, ‘the same as my mammy did. But now he kens he was wrong.’