Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘It’s a dreadful thing, for a young man to be struck down in the midst of his fellows like that,’ she observed, ‘but it happens often enough. Folk fall sick, or an injury poisons the blood. Death can strike at any of us, as God wills it.’

‘Amen,’ agreed Nell in a small voice, and crossed herself.

‘Is it Maister Bothwell?’ Alys asked. ‘Held in the Tolbooth by the Serjeant. Is that what troubles you?’

‘Would it not trouble anybody,’ Nell said, with an assumption of more spirit, ‘a bonnie fellow like that to be taken up for murder. Especial when he — ’

‘When he what?’ prompted Alys. Nell shook her head. ‘When he never meant to? Is that what you were going to say?’

‘Well, a course he never meant to!’ said Nell. ‘They’re — they were good friends, him and Danny Gibson! Poor fellow,’ she turned her face away again, ‘lying there in the Tolbooth and thinking on his friend’s death.’

‘Your sympathy does you credit,’ said Alys gently. ‘Would it help you to pray for him?’

‘I’ve done little else the day,’ admitted Nell, ‘but pray for him and Agnes and — ’

‘Why Agnes? You think she needs your prayers? I’d have thought,’ she kept her tone light, ‘that now she’s rid of one sweetheart she can just take the other, and no need to decide between the two of them.’

‘It’s no that way,’ Nell said, and sniffled.

‘Which one did she favour?’

‘Neither of them!’ Nell rubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. ‘She just likes having the two of them on a string, when there’s folk in Glasgow would be glad to call either of them — ’

‘Which is it you like?’ Alys asked, with a sinking heart.

‘I never meant myself!’ said Nell quickly.

‘That would be a wonder, two well-favoured young men like that. Is it Nanty Bothwell?’ After a moment Nell sniffled again, and nodded. ‘He’d be a good choice, he’s a good worker and has his own business, if only we can get this charge of murder dealt with.’

‘He’s a bonnie fellow,’ Nell repeated, and sighed heavily, ‘but he’s never looked my way, he can only see Agnes. And how could he — Serjeant Anderson’s decided he’s guilty, you could see that when he took him away!’

‘Serjeant Anderson is not the whole of the law,’ said Alys. ‘Nell, can you tell me anything about that flask? It seems it was the wrong one, but we can’t find out how it came into Nanty Bothwell’s hand. Did Agnes fetch it for him?’

‘Will he not say?’

‘He claims it was one of his own, but all the ones he had are accounted for, and so are the ones Wat Forrest took. It must have come from the Renfrew house, though Maister Renfrew denies it.’

‘He would, would Maister Renfrew,’ said Nell. ‘Agnes aye says her father likes nothing to stir in his house without he knows of it. It’s one of her chiefest pleasures to balk him in that.’

‘So she fetched Nanty the flask when he asked her to find him one.’

Nell looked at her and nodded. ‘But she never knew what was in it,’ she said earnestly. ‘She said, she thought it was her father’s drops, that he takes for his heart. She never thought it was poison. She was as stricken as any of us when Danny fell.’

‘Where did she get it from? Was it in her father’s workroom?’

‘She never said. We never spoke of it, till after — after — and then we hardly had time for more than a couple of words, what wi Meg — ’

She turned her face away again, rubbing at her eyes. Alys sat looking at her, considering what to do next.

‘I wonder,’ she said, half aloud, ‘why Agnes has not come forward to show the young man innocent.’

‘If she’d spoken in front of the Serjeant,’ objected Nell, ‘he’d ha taken her off in chains instead of Nanty.’ There was a pause, in which she seemed to go back over the conversation. ‘You said, If we can get this charge dealt with . Does that mean Maister Cunningham’s looking into it, the way he did when Maister Morison — ’

‘Yes,’ said Alys.

‘Then have you never asked her about it?’

‘Gil asked her last night,’ said Alys. ‘She denied all. Her father was there,’ she added.

‘She’d never admit it afore him,’ said Nell, still thinking. ‘Alys, does your man think Na — Maister Bothwell’s innocent?’

‘He thinks it was an accident,’ said Alys carefully, ‘and so do I. He gave Danny the poison, we all saw that, but we both think he never knew it was there.’

‘And he’s never said how he came by the flask,’ said Nell. Alys waited, and the other girl smiled crookedly. ‘He’s protecting her, I suppose. He’ll risk hanging, rather than get her into trouble. Well, I’m no such a fool. If we can get Agnes to come forward, Maister Bothwell will be safe, is that right?’

‘It depends on the Provost,’ Alys pointed out, ‘but I think Sir Thomas will see that.’

Almost unconsciously, Nell reached for an oatcake and bit into it.

‘D’you think maybe I should call on her?’ she said.

Gil’s reaction to the news of the postponed quest had been mostly relief. He did not feel like dealing with Sir Thomas’s irritated questions. He had slept badly, aware of Alys lying rigid beside him, but when he had asked her again, softly, if she wished to talk she had pretended to be asleep. Later he thought she was weeping.

‘Sir Thomas’s rheum must be worse,’ he said as they sat down to their porridge.

‘It gives you two extra days to make a case for young Bothwell,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘What will you do, do you think?’

‘Pray,’ said Gil succinctly. ‘Call on my uncle, perhaps call on the Renfrew household. What about you?’

‘We go to hear Mass at Greyfriars,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘So should I,’ he said guiltily, recognizing the date. All Souls’ Day, the day when one recalled the faithful departed, a day for praying for those one had lost. ‘Maybe I should do that before I call on the Renfrews.’

‘They likely hear Mass as well,’ said Maistre Pierre.

The High Mass at Blackfriars, the university church, was soothingly familiar. The building itself, the processing canons and members of the university, the young voices of the students’ choir, the incense rising blue from the swinging censers, were all just as they had been when Gil was a student there himself. He found a pillar to lean against and let the chant wash over him, trying to call up the faces of his father and brothers, the sister who had died young, his grandparents, the other people to whom he owed a duty of prayer. The man whose death he had uncovered in Perth last August. Danny Gibson, still waiting for burial. Most of them remained stubbornly invisible, though oddly he had a clear image of Ealasaidh McIan, sister of the harper, aunt to young John. She was in good health the last he had heard of her, only a month or so ago, but now she seemed to be trying to tell him something. The boy , she said, over and over. Look to the boy . We keep him safe, he answered her, but she did not seem to hear him.

‘Gil?’

He opened his eyes. Standing beside him was his friend Nick Kennedy, Junior Regent in the faculty of Arts, expert on the writings of Peter of Spain and author of a book on the subject which, if he ever finished it, would make his name and that of his university known across Europe. There was a wide grin on his dark-browed face. Behind him the service seemed to be over, the Dominicans processing back into the enclosed part of the convent, singing as they went.

‘You were well away,’ said Nick. ‘Come and have some Malvoisie. John Shaw wants the barrel finished, there’s a new one due in a day or two and he needs the room.’