Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘I need to pick up the dog — I left him at the west door.’

The Malvoisie was golden and tempting. Seated in Maister Kennedy’s chamber in the shabby university building, Socrates lying on his feet, Gil accepted the glass his friend handed him and said, ‘How’s Peter of Spain?’

‘Stuck fast,’ said Nick, grimacing. ‘I need a sight of one of Hermannus Petrus’ sermons. I’ve heard William Elphinstone has a copy at Aberdeen, but he’s no wrote back to me yet.’ He sat down, looking at Gil with some concern. ‘And how’s yourself? How’s Mistress Alys and the wee laddie?’

‘The boy’s fine. So is Alys.’

Nick’s scrutiny intensified.

‘Liar,’ he said after a moment. ‘Have you quarrelled?’

‘My business if we have, surely?’ said Gil a little stiffly.

‘No if your friends are concerned for you both. Is it a quarrel?’

‘No.’ The dog lifted his head to look at him. Nick waited, and he found himself saying, ‘I’m not sure what it is. Something has upset her, but she won’t talk to me about it.’

‘Does she need to?’ Nick wondered, and Gil suddenly recalled that his friend was priested. ‘Why should she talk to you about it?’

‘Because we usually do,’ he said. ‘No, Nick, I’m not one of your students, you’re not confessing me.’

‘I’m not offering to. Was it something you did?’

‘No, it wasn’t — at least, she says not. Nick, leave it.’

‘Do you know what it might be?’

‘She was at the Renfrews’ house. It seems as if she witnessed the birth. Kate thinks it might be that.’

‘Oh. Women’s business.’ Maister Kennedy subsided, and contemplated his glass of Malvoisie for a short time. ‘Did Lady Kate say aught else?’

‘She said,’ admitted Gil reluctantly, ‘that Alys might not let me help. That it might need another woman rather than a man.’

‘That’s a true word,’ said his friend. ‘She’s a wise woman, your sister. Take her advice, Gil. Leave it to the women and keep your distance. Would you talk to your wife if you’d trouble wi your engyne, after all?’ He jerked an expressive thumb. The blaes, the spaes and the burning pintle , thought Gil, and found his face burning.

‘She’d hardly miss noticing it if I did,’ he protested. Socrates looked up again, and beat his tail on the floor.

‘Aye, I’m glad to hear it, but would you discuss it?’ Maister Kennedy tossed off the remaining wine in his glass and reached for the jug. ‘Think on it, Gil. Now tell me what’s to do wi this mummer that died on Hallowe’en. What happened? Whose doing was it?’

Andrew Hamilton the younger was where Maister Kennedy had said he would be, some way up in the roof of the college dining hall, helping his father to assemble a tenon joint the size of his own head. Gil stood watching as the boy steadied the great oak beam, calling directions with aplomb to the two men on the ropes below him, and his father stood by with the maul ready to strike when the joint married.

‘North a bit,’ said Andrew. ‘South a wee bit. An inch lower — now !’

The maul struck, the joint slid home.

‘Is that her?’ said the older Hamilton. He bent to feel at the smoothed surfaces of the timbers, and nodded. ‘Aye, she’ll do at that. Good work. We’ll have the pegs in now, Drew.’

Father and son, working together, pinned the joint with the three great oak pegs, each thicker than a man’s thumb, two struck in from one side, one from the other. Socrates flinched at the banging and leaned hard against his mas-ter’s knee. The two journeymen had glanced at Gil, but they were obviously used to being watched while they worked and paid him no more attention until he went forward to call up into the rafters, ‘Maister Hamilton?’

‘Aye?’ The wright peered down at him. ‘Who is it? Oh, it’s you, Maister Cunningham. Good day to ye.’

‘And to you, sir. Might I have a word wi young Andrew?’

‘Wi him?’ Hamilton looked round and jerked his head at his son. ‘Aye, we’re done for the moment here. Away down, Drew, and see what Maister Cunningham wants.’

The boy set down his own maul and obeyed, descending the ladder with what seemed like reluctance. He must think it’s about that glass of Dutch spirits, thought Gil with sudden perception.

‘Aye, maister?’ said Andrew, reaching the ground. Then, possibly hoping to pre-empt a scolding, ‘That was a terrible thing to happen at the play. Is Lady Kate recovered from the fright?’

‘She’s well, thank you,’ said Gil, looking at the boy. He was just beginning to get his growth, and his feet and hands seemed much too big for him. ‘I was going to ask you about the play. I hope maybe you heard something when you were there that might help me.’

‘Me?’ said Andrew warily. ‘What kind of thing?’

‘Did you hear Nanty Bothwell talking on the stair to Agnes Renfrew?’

‘When would that be?’ prevaricated Andrew. ‘She never got a word wi him, he was all tied up and sitting wi two fellows guarding him. Agnes never went near him.’

‘Not then. Before the play,’ said Gil. Andrew looked at him under brows which were beginning to lower like his father’s. ‘On the kitchen stair.’

‘Oh.’ The boy looked down, and fidgeted one foot across the scuffed floorboards. ‘I don’t know about that. Was Agnes on the stair?’

‘You know fine she was,’ said Gil. ‘She came up the stair just behind you, and Nanty Bothwell followed her. So did you hear them?’

‘No — no really,’ protested Andrew. ‘I mean, I wasny listening. I wasny trying to hear.’

‘I’m sure you weren’t, Andrew. But it’s a choice between getting Agnes into trouble with her father, or letting Nanty Bothwell hang. Because he will hang, if we don’t find out where that other flask came from. So if you did hear anything at all, quite by accident, we need to know what they said.’

‘I don’t see that,’ said Andrew. ‘Besides — ’ He broke off.

‘She gave him the flask, didn’t she?’ said Gil.

‘Well, if you’re as sure, why are you asking me?’ Gil made no answer. Andrew slid a glance at him, and looked down at his feet again. Socrates stepped forward, his claws tapping on the planks, and Andrew scratched behind the dog’s soft ears. ‘Maybe she did,’ he said after a moment. ‘I never saw, for they were further down, round the turn of the stair. I only heard them. I couldny tell what they had.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Well, he said — Nanty Bothwell said — Did you get it? and then he said, Here, what’s this? As if it was something unexpected, you ken?’ Gil nodded. ‘And then she said, He’d locked his workroom, I had to take what I could find . And then I heard someone else coming up the stair, so I went on up, for I didny want to be found eavesdropping.’

‘He’d locked his workroom,’ Gil repeated. ‘I suppose that means her father.’

Andrew shrugged. ‘She never said.’

Outside the college Gil paused to consider matters, reflecting gratefully on the value of scholarly discussion. It was mid-morning, the street still busy with people going out to hear Mass or fetch in the day’s marketing. He was guiltily aware that his uncle would take mild offence if he did not report the news of the last two days in person, and aware also of the paperwork still waiting for him at home, which he had not touched for several days, and after weighing up the relative merits of dealing with either of these and tackling an interview with Agnes Renfrew, with or without her father, he decided that nothing untoward would happen if he let Agnes wait.

A further hour’s discussion with his uncle, in his chamber in the Consistory Tower, proved very soothing. Much refreshed, he went home for dinner, where he and Catherine dined in splendour at the top of the table, exchanging stately French compliments, and the rest of the household discussed Nanty Bothwell’s chances. Over a dish of applemoy Catherine directed the conversation to a point where she could remark, with her usual formality: