Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

Kate, reared as strictly as he had been in the principle that one did not upset the kitchen, merely nodded, and turned to clump over to sit beside him, propping her crutches across her knee.

‘I spoke to my lassies,’ she said as Babb left the room. ‘They noticed Agnes come in by the kitchen door, right enough, and they were both certain that she looked at young Bothwell as she came in, not at the lad who died.’

‘And yet she had spoken to Bothwell earlier, so it should have been Danny’s turn. It’s proof of nothing, but it is suggestive. Did she speak to anyone?’

‘No, they said she went straight to the stair.’

‘Thanks for this, Kate. I’ve another question for your kitchen.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Ask Ursel, if you would, if anything she served the mummers had almonds in it.’

‘Almonds? Like marchpane, or the like?’

‘Anything of that sort,’ he agreed.

‘I’ll ask her.’ She looked at him sideways. ‘Now why are you asking me if Alys was well? I’d my doubts about her myself, Gil. She seemed right shaken. She ate all the cakes on the tray, which is not like her, she usually takes one or two for manners, no more. She — it seems she witnessed the birth next door, and by what I hear Meg’s time was none of the easiest. I had to ask her direct before she’d admit it. I think she’s had a bad fright.’

‘Oh.’ He swallowed, dismayed. ‘What — I mean, how — how alarming would that be?’

Kate gave him another sideways look, amusement in her face.

‘I’d not have wanted Augie present,’ she said.

He digested this, and after a moment braced himself, saying, ‘Thanks, Kate. That must be it. I’d best be up the road and see what I can do.’

‘She may not want your help,’ Kate observed. He looked sharply at her. ‘Gil, how do you get a bairn in the first place? It might take another woman to comfort her.’ He stared, working out her meaning in growing embarrassment, and she bit her lip. ‘I’d come back with you, but there’s the men’s supper here — ’

‘No.’ He rose. ‘See to your own household, Kit-cat. I need to sort this myself, whether she’ll let me or not.’

She looked up at him rather anxiously.

‘Bid her come down here the morn’s morn,’ she suggested. ‘I’d take it as a favour — the — the quest on Danny Gibson’s called for nine of the clock. I could do wi the company.’

He nodded. ‘Thanks, Kate,’ he said, and gripped her shoulder briefly.

‘Ursel’s saying,’ announced Babb in the doorway, ‘that the supper’ll spoil if she keeps it back any longer, so if Maister Gil’s no staying he’d best be off out the road, my leddy.’

‘You see where Ysonde gets her manners,’ said Kate resignedly. ‘Goodnight, Gil.’

To his astonishment, and initial relief, Alys was in the hall of her father’s house, overseeing the same tasks as had been in hand at Morison’s Yard. Socrates was lying on the hearth watching her carefully, though he scrambled up when Gil entered and came to explain his earlier dereliction of manners, tail wagging, ears deprecatingly flattened. There was no sign of Christian Bothwell; she must have decided to stay in her own house this night.

‘Am I late?’ he asked, acknowledging his dog’s apology.

‘No,’ said Alys lightly, with a tense note in her voice which he recognized. ‘We waited supper. I thought you were working.’

‘I was.’ He turned to wash his hands in the pewter bowl set by the door, peering into the sparkles of candlelight on the water as if they might tell him how to handle this. ‘I called by Morison’s Yard,’ he added, lifting the linen towel. ‘Kate asked me to bid you down there tomorrow, while the quest is held. I’d assume the men will all go up to the Castle.’

‘Likely.’ She finished setting out the spoons, added the small salt from the plate-cupboard, inspected the table, and nodded. ‘Bid them serve as soon as they like, Kittock. I’ll call the maister.’

Over supper she maintained the same light manner, discussing something Socrates had done during the day, to the dog’s evident embarrassment, and reporting what Nancy had said about John. Gil and her father, after an exchange of glances, supported her in this; Catherine silently absorbed stockfish-and-almond mould, and further down the table the mason’s men exchanged the day’s gossip with the maidservants. Gil caught two different versions of what Meg Renfrew’s mother had said to her son-in-law, and some speculation about why Danny Gibson had been poisoned.

‘Shall we have music?’ said Maistre Pierre as the board was lifted. ‘It’s a good time since you played the mono-cords for us, ma mie .’

‘No,’ said Alys unequivocally. ‘We have the case to consider.’ She brought the jug of wine over to the hearth and arranged herself on the settle, tense and upright. Socrates lay down heavily on her feet. ‘We need to compare what we know.’

Slightly to Gil’s surprise, Catherine joined them. The old woman would usually have retired to her own small chamber after supper, where he was aware she regularly spent some hours at prayer before sleep. Tonight she sat quietly in their midst, beads in hand, lips moving, eyes downcast under the black linen folds of her veil, although midway through Maistre Pierre’s account of their interview with Nicol Renfrew Gil realized that her attention was not on her beads but on Alys.

‘Can he really tell one flask from another?’ said Alys at the end of her father’s recital.

‘He seemed quite certain he could,’ said Gil. ‘We could test it. It must be part of the way his mind works.’ He ventured to put his arm along the back of the settle, behind Alys. She glanced up at him, with a tiny grimace which might have been a smile, then frowned at her hands. The dog looked up at them both, beat his tail twice on the boards and lowered his nose on to his paws again. ‘He thinks he last saw that flask, Allan Leaf he called it, in the workroom waiting to go up to Grace to be filled with Frankie’s drops.’

‘But the workroom was locked,’ Alys said. ‘Agnes must have found it somewhere else.’

‘He was also certain the poison was for his father,’ observed Maistre Pierre, ‘although Frankie himself found the idea ridiculous.’

‘One would, I suppose,’ said Alys thoughtfully. ‘What if I told you such a thing?’

‘I should laugh in your face,’ he agreed, ‘but then I think I am a good master.’

‘Probably Maister Renfrew does too. If it was not for him,’ said Alys, ‘if it was intended for Danny Gibson, then how could it have happened? Could Nanty Bothwell be lying? Could he have done it alone?’

‘I’d say not,’ said Gil. ‘There’s too much circumstance against it. He would have had to lay hold of a flask, not one of his own, and he had to have it ready before the mummers came to Morison’s Yard. And why go to so much trouble, why not use his own flask?’

‘If he used his own flask it would be known to be his doing,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘He could hardly avoid that, in the face of half Glasgow.’

‘But he claims it is his flask in any case,’ said Alys. ‘No, that doesn’t seem logical. Then could he be in conspiracy with Agnes?’

‘I’d believe it of her,’ said Gil, ‘but not of him. He’s quite clear-headed enough to see that he must be found guilty, as things stand.’

‘And if it was some other,’ said Alys slowly, ‘Robert for instance, conspiring with Agnes or not — ’

‘Or Renfrew himself,’ Gil offered. ‘If he keeps such close control over his workroom as he claims, it’s hard to see how any other could make the stuff in his house.’

‘Yes, but whoever it was, they could not know in advance that the flask would be needed. No, that doesn’t hold up. Which leaves us with Agnes alone,’ she finished, pulling a face, ‘acting on the spur of the moment. Father says you spoke to her,’ she said to Gil.