Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘Here’s good fortune to the bairn,’ said Gil, recovering his countenance, and raised his beaker. They all drank, and he went on, ‘Tell me something, Nicol. How did you know it was the wrong flask Nanty Bothwell had yesterday?’

Nicol shrugged. ‘It just was,’ he said again.

‘Which one was it, then?’ Nicol gave him a doubtful look. ‘I’ve heard you can tell between them. It’s the patterns, isn’t it?’ Gil prompted, aware of Maistre Pierre watching in puzzlement.

‘They’re all different,’ Nicol said at last. ‘Same as people. Nanty should ha had Billy Bucket, that stays in his scrip for the play. He’s made of pewter and holds the smoking brew. But he never had him, he had one of the crock ones instead. Allan Leaf, it was.’

‘And where does Allan Leaf usually stay?’ Gil asked. ‘Not in Nanty’s scrip, I take it.’

‘No, not at all,’ agreed Nicol. ‘He’s often in my faither’s purse, for he holds his drops that Grace makes up for him.’

‘Where did you see him last, before Nanty had him?’

Another shrug. ‘Might ha been in the workroom. There’s three of them, you see, that do the same task, and when one’s done he puts him to wait and gets another from the cabinet. I just gave Blue Benet to Grace to fill up for him.’

Was there a reason, Gil wondered, why these were all men’s names? Was Nicol’s world peopled entirely by male objects?

‘That is very clear,’ said Maistre Pierre, refilling their beakers, ‘but if the flask you call Allan Leaf was in the workroom, which I am sure your father said was locked, how did it come to be in young Bothwell’s scrip?’

‘He did say that, didn’t he?’ said Nicol, and giggled. ‘Perhaps he flew.’

‘What are the drops for?’ asked Maistre Pierre curiously.

‘His heart, mostly,’ said Nicol. ‘Likely it’s something the Saracen learned Grace in Middelburgh when we were there.’

‘A Saracen?’ said Maistre Pierre, his eyes lighting up. ‘You have spoken with a Saracen medical man? Doctor or surgeon?’

‘He trades in materia medica ,’ said Nicol with that sudden return to rationality which kept disconcerting Gil, ‘and has knowledge you would never credit of what all his stock can do.’

‘Who was the poison intended for, do you think?’ Gil asked.

‘Well, never for Danny, the poor devil.’ Nicol looked round the tavern, nodding again to Mistress Bell at the tap. ‘He drank in here, you ken, and there’s not a soul in the room that you’d say was his enemy. A decent lad.’

‘So it seems,’ said Gil. ‘I don’t believe Nanty poisoned him for your sister’s sake either, so what was it all about? I can make no sense of it. Who was the poison for?’

‘Why, for my faither, a course,’ said Nicol, opening his eyes wide. ‘Who else?’

‘For your — ’ Gil stared at him, then closed his mouth, swallowed and said, ‘Then who put it there? Whose doing might it have been? Robert?’

Nicol shrugged again in that irritating way.

‘Could ha been. Could ha been any of us,’ he said, and giggled. ‘Save maybe my minnie, poor lass, for though she’d likely have the will to do it she’d not have the skill.’

‘You are seriously suggesting,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘that one of your family has tried to poison your father?’

‘I’m never serious,’ said Nicol, and giggled again. ‘Well, no very often. I hate him, Grace hates him, Agnes hates him, Robert hates him, Eleanor hates him, Meg — ’

‘Maister Syme?’ Gil prompted.

‘Jimmy? No, he’s all right. There’s none of us hates Jimmy, save maybe Eleanor since she has to live wi him.’

‘But does he dislike your father?’

‘No, why would he? He’s wedded him to Eleanor and made him a partner. Jimmy’s done well enough out of it all.’

‘Why do you hate your father?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Nicol gave him a sideways look. ‘He’s no easy to love,’ he said, ‘save as Holy Writ instructs us. I’ll respect him, I’m grateful when he insists on it, but I hate him as well.’

‘Was he not pleased when you came home?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘No,’ said Nicol. After a moment he half laughed. ‘We came in just at suppertime, and met wi Meg, poor lass, and they sent for Eleanor and Jimmy, and we all sat down to supper. We’d barely set a knife to the meat when Frankie said, You needny think you’ve any more claim on the business. I’ll make Grace’s bairn my heir afore you , he said.’

‘A pleasant homecoming,’ said Maistre Pierre, pulling a face.

‘Give him his due,’ added Nicol after consideration, ‘he was civil enough to Grace, made her welcome, said that about her bairn, mixed her a cup of hippocras wi his own hands after he’d made one to Meg.’

He reached for the jug and poured more ale into all three beakers.

‘But you say she hates him,’ said Maistre Pierre, puzzled. ‘Why should she hate him? She scarcely knows him.’

‘She’s seen what he did to me,’ said Nicol, as if it explained everything. Perhaps it did, Gil reflected, if Grace loved her husband.

‘I have always thought Maister Renfrew a good member of the burgh council,’ observed Maistre Pierre, ‘and a respectable burgess. He is well regarded in the burgh chamber.’

‘No guarantee of probity,’ Gil commented.

Nicol grinned at that. ‘ A true saying ,’ he said in Latin, ‘ and worthy of all men to be believed . I saw your wife in our house, Gil Cunningham.’

‘She was to call there with some remedy for Mistress Mathieson,’ said Gil.

‘I wouldny know about that. She was talking to Grace. She’ll maybe learn more than she bargains for. Grace is a wise woman, and clever as well.’

‘So is Alys,’ said Gil.

‘Aye, they were cracking away. But you’ll need to have a care to your wee wife, Gil. She’d had a fright, I’d say.’

‘What makes you think so?’ said Maistre Pierre in concern.

Nicol shrugged. ‘Just by what Grace had given her. And the look of her. She wasny looking bonny.’

‘Did she say what was wrong?’

‘I never spoke wi her. What will you do about Allan Leaf and Billy Bucket? Will you tell the Provost? Only, I wouldny like to say all that afore the assize.’ He gave Gil a sideways, sheepish smile. ‘They would laugh. Folk do, when I tell them the names of things.’

‘I need to report to him,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll try to keep Allan Leaf out of it.’ And what was troubling Alys? he wondered apprehensively. Was it simply the fact of a near neigh-bour’s successful delivery, something which had reduced her to envious tears already this autumn, or had she uncovered some fact she would not wish to tell him? Either was possible, and the second would be easier to deal with.

‘But tell me,’ said Maistre Pierre curiously, ‘what would cause your father to believe your mother played him false? You are patently his son, you are all four like enough — ’

‘I hope not,’ said Nicol, and giggled. ‘I’ve no wish to look like Frankie Renfrew, I can tell you, for he’s never been — well, enough for that. It’s an auld tale, maister, and forgot long afore you came into Glasgow I suppose. My mammy was Sibella Bairdie, and she was widowed already when she wedded Frankie. I was born eight month after he bedded her, and he cast it up the rest of her life.’

‘But you — ’ Maistre Pierre stopped, looked carefully at the other, and shook his head. ‘If you do not wish to be told how you resemble him in the face, I will not say it, but consider only your hands. They are as like to Maister Renfrew’s as my daughter’s are to mine.’ He held his own big square paw out across the table. ‘You see, hers are the same shape, though smaller and finer made, and her fingernails grow like mine, each one. Study hers when you have the chance, and then study your own against — against Maister Renfrew’s.’