Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘I suppose you’re right.’ She made more notes on her list. ‘Does Grace have enough reason to poison anyone, so far as one ever does? She loves Nicol, I think, though it was not a love-match, and surely she hardly knows his family. But Meg’s marriage is certainly not a happy one,’ she added. ‘She might wish to be rid of Maister Renfrew. I know I would, if I was wedded to him.’

‘Would you use poison, in such a case?’ Gil asked, half serious. She looked up at him, shook her head, and went on writing. ‘We can probably leave Eleanor out of it, in that she lives elsewhere now, but Agnes is fully capable of making and using such a thing.’

‘But if it was hers,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘she would not have given it to Bothwell, unless she intended the result.’

‘I think we must include Eleanor,’ said Alys. ‘She is probably about the house daily.’ She bit the end of her stylus, and studied her list. Gil looked over her shoulder, and said:

‘It gets us nowhere, you know. It looks as if everyone in the household would cheerfully dispose of any of the others.’

‘We need to find out where in the house Agnes got the flask from,’ said Alys. ‘It’s a pity her father insisted on being present when you spoke to her.’

‘I don’t know how we do that. Likely she won’t confess to you either, now we’ve had that tale from her. I have no direction yet from the Archbishop, so I can’t question her more pressingly,’ said Gil. ‘And you know, whoever brewed the stuff itself has committed no crime so far, unless it was Agnes after all. There’s no law about making up poisons, only about using them on fellow Christians.’

‘There is the moral crime,’ said Alys. ‘The burden of guilt in having provided the means of Danny Gibson’s death.’ She shook her head wearily, and closed up her tablets. ‘It must be wrong to do this. It’s one thing to draw up such a list as a — an exercise for the mind, it’s another entirely to use it to speculate on which of our neighbours might be planning to poison another. These are Christian souls, and — ’

‘If it offers a means to prevent a Christian soul from committing murder,’ said Catherine unexpectedly, ‘your list has done that person a great service, ma mie .’

‘As always, madame, you are right,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And now, I suppose, having decided that we cannot decide, we had as well go and sleep on it. Will you go to the quest on Danny Gibson, Gilbert?’

‘I think I must,’ said Gil, watching Alys brace herself. For what? he wondered. For privacy with him? For what he might ask her? ‘Sir Thomas may change his mind and decide to call my evidence.’

Crossing the dark drawing-loft, the light from their candle making leaping shadows of wonderful curves and angles from the wooden patterns which hung from the ceiling beams, he reached out to take her hand. She did not withdraw it, but let it lie quietly in his, and when he drew her to a halt she stood beside him, her shoulders tautly braced. The dog sat down and leaned against her knee, looking up at her face.

‘What is it, Alys?’ he asked her. ‘Something is wrong. Can I help? Can I put it right?’ She shook her head. ‘Is it something I’ve done?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, Gil, it isn’t you.’

‘Is it something about Christian Bothwell? Or about Agnes?’

‘No! No, it’s nothing like that.’

‘Wouldn’t it help to talk about it, then?’

‘No.’

‘Have you tried prayer?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about a distraction? Would that help?’ He let go of her hand to reach up and caress the line of her jaw within the drape of her black linen hood, and she reared back to snatch at his wrist and freeze, staring at him, her eyes round and dark with distress in the candlelight. Socrates reared up to paw at both of them, whining anxiously.

‘Very well,’ Gil said gently, his heart knotted in sympathy. ‘Not that. Come to bed, sweetheart, and sleep on it. Things may look different in the morning.’

For a moment he thought she would speak; then she turned obediently and moved on through the bounding shadows towards the other door, the dog adhering to her skirts. He followed, riven with anxiety. In the eighteen months since he had first met her he had grown used to her companionship, to her — Yes, he thought, her friendship, she is my good friend as well as my lover and spouse. It put the whole world out of frame if that conjunction did not agree, and he did not know how to put it right.

‘I thought we would come to visit anyway,’ said Alys. ‘It’s company for everyone.’

‘I’m right pleased to see you,’ said Kate, looking hard at her face. What did she see? Alys wondered. Was it all there to read in her eyes? ‘Babb, will you tell the kitchen?’

They had risen in the morning to the news, brought in by the men who had fetched the water, that the bellman was crying the quest on Danny Gibson put off for two days. Sir Thomas’s rheum must be worse, Gil had speculated. So after hearing Mass and praying for her mother and everyone else who should be remembered on All Souls’ Day, none of which helped the turmoil in her head, Alys had gathered up John and his nurse and made for Morison’s Yard.

‘Onnyanny!’ announced John behind her from Nancy’s arms. ‘Onny anny !’

‘Ysonde and Wynliane,’ she corrected. ‘Are the girls upstairs?’

Kate laughed, shook her head, and reached for her crutches. ‘We’re all going out into the garden for some fresh air. Nan took the girls down first, and we were about to follow.’

Alys looked about the hall, and realized that Mysie was wrapped in a huge striped plaid and holding Edward bundled in a sheepskin. Kate herself was also warmly clad.

‘Onnyanny!’

‘We’ll just get you down these steps, my doo,’ said Babb, returning from the kitchen door. ‘Do you lassies want to take they bairns down the garden first?’

Mysie, taking the hint, set off with Nancy. As they crossed the yard John could be heard remarking, ‘Baba. Onnyanny baba.’ One arm in its bright red sleeve emerged from Nancy’s plaid and gestured at Edward.

Maister Morison’s property, like all the other tofts on the east side of the High Street, was much longer than it was wide and sloped down towards the mill-burn, divided from its neighbours by neat whitewashed fences of split palings shoulder-high on either side. Beyond the yard, past the barn and cart-shed which belonged to the business, past the kaleyard where hens pecked about among the autumnal plants and the kale waited for its first frost, they reached the little pleasure-garden. The low box hedges enclosed only well-dug earth at this time of year, the grassy paths bare of daisies or buttercups, but the spot was sheltered and in the thin sunshine warm enough to sit in. By the time Kate and Alys reached it, Wynliane and Ysonde had borne John off to take part in their game, the three nursemaids had tipped all three benches upright and already had their heads together discussing diet and feeding, and Edward was awake and happy to be handed over to receive attention from his mother and godmother.

‘Has Gil learned anything more?’ Kate asked, unwrapping her son a little. Babb surveyed the garden, checked that her mistress wanted nothing more, and strode off towards the house.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Alys, relieved to be discussing this rather than her own affairs. ‘He spoke with your neighbour’s eldest son,’ she pointed unobtrusively towards the Renfrew house, and Kate nodded approval of the ellipsis, ‘who thought the poison might have been meant for his father, and that any of the household might be responsible.’

‘No help,’ said Kate, and made kissing noises at Edward. ‘None of them had the chance to put it in place, I’d have thought.’ She grimaced, then smiled reassuringly at the baby. ‘I’d like to get it cleared up, it’s worrying Augie. He’s hardly slept, these two nights.’