Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘I’ll hear what you’ve to tell me first,’ said the Serjeant, tucking his thumbs into his belt. ‘And you, Maister Cunningham. I’m told you were present when the dead man took the pyson.’

‘We’ve just now uncovered how it was ministered,’ said Renfrew. ‘Look here.’

Gil allowed him to expound the poisoning method as if it was his discovery, only relieved that he had accepted the idea. The Serjeant listened, and peered suspiciously at the drop of milky fluid oozing from the centre of the ball of marchpane.

‘And it slew him the same way as poor Danny Gibson?’ he said. ‘Danny never ate any marchpane cherries, did he?’

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘Danny’s friends say he couldn’t abide nuts, even almonds.’

‘Aye,’ said the Serjeant. ‘So it was maybe the same pyson, but it likely wasny the same person, if the way it was ministered differs like this. Well, we ken that, seeing Nanty Bothwell’s still in chains up the Castle, he couldny ha been down here pysoning expensive kickshawses.’

‘He could ha made it up earlier,’ said Renfrew rather desperately. ‘He could ha left them there, and my laddie only now found them. Or his sister — ask at her, Serjeant, whether she slipped in here and put them ready to his hand.’

‘Aye, right,’ said the Serjeant. ‘Now, maister, tell me what transpired when the laddie took the pyson.’

Gil gave him as clear an account as he could of what had passed. The Serjeant listened attentively, inspected the shelf under the counter where the box had been placed, and asked where Gil had been standing when Grace Gordon entered the shop.

‘Aye, aye,’ he said, scanning the unswept floorboards as if he expected to find footprints on them, ‘that’s clear enough, maister. And now I’ll see the corp, if you please.’

Flinching at the term, Renfrew led him into the house. Gil followed slowly, and was completely unsurprised to encounter Alys in the shadowy hall.

‘Gil,’ she said, coming to tuck her hand in his. ‘How terrible a thing for the family.’

She sounded very weary, but entirely herself. He kissed the high narrow bridge of her nose, feeling that the world had suddenly come straight round him.

‘Who have you spoken to?’ he asked quietly.

‘Agnes. She denies all. Nell Wilkie is with her now, but she may not stay long. I think she is quite dismayed by Agnes’s attitude.’

‘Do they know what has happened?’ He nodded towards the door of the chamber where the Serjeant could be heard questioning Grace.

‘Yes,’ she said baldly.

‘How did she take the news?’

She was silent a moment. ‘Agnes seemed pleased that her brother is dead. I was quite shocked. She said Serve him right , and would not pray for him, though Nell did. And then I asked her about the flask, and Nell reminded her of what she told her on the day, in Kate’s house I mean, about thinking it was her father’s drops for his heart. She denied all, laughed in Nell’s face, said she must be imagining things. We tried to show her that it would save Bothwell’s life if she came forward, but she said, Why should I get into trouble to save him? Poor Nell is quite distressed. She favours Bothwell herself.’

‘Unpleasant,’ said Gil, tightening his clasp on her hand. She returned the grip, and leaned her head against his arm for a moment. ‘Alys, I think you might look in at the kitchen.’

‘The kitchen? Why?’

‘I’m staying here no longer than I have to,’ declared the woman with the knife. ‘I’ll be away as soon as my term’s up. But I suppose there’s our supper to see to, even if they’re no wanting to eat in there the night.’ She rolled back the striped sleeves of her kirtle and bent to hack savagely at a turnip on the board before her, the little cubes flying from under her blade.

‘Indeed,’ said Alys, ‘Your mistress must eat, for her baby’s sake, but the rest of the household is in a great upset.’

‘No blame to you for that, either, Elspet,’ said Isa from her position by the charcoal range. ‘There’s none of us happy under this roof, even if we areny pysont.’

‘How so?’ said Alys innocently. ‘It’s a wealthy household, I’d have thought you’d be well suited here.’

She was seated by the hearth in the kitchen of the Renfrew house, a commodious limewashed structure across the cobbled yard from the back door, its nearest wall a sensible three paces from the house in case of fire. There was little bacon hung from the rafters so close to pig-killing time, but an array of well-scoured metal pans stood on a rack near the fire and the tin-glazed crocks on the shelf by the range glowed yellow in the shadows. She had been welcomed in and offered refreshment, plied with anxious questions, allowed to explain how Robert had died and that nobody else was in danger. She was guiltily aware that she was in another woman’s kitchen, gossiping with her servants, but the chance to ask questions was too valuable to pass up.

The two much younger girls in the corner, still pallid and tearstained despite her reassurances, shook their heads now at her comment and Elspet said, ‘Oh, there’s aye enough to eat, the mistress is well taught, for all she’s young, and runs a good house. But the maister’s an ill-tempered man and the young ones are no better, aye quarrelling and disputing, carping and criticizing. It’s no a happy house.’

‘Do they not agree well?’ Alys said. She bent to put her ale-cup on the flagstones beside her stool. ‘Brothers and sisters often argue, I believe,’ she added. ‘I have none.’

‘There’s squabbles,’ said Elspet, attacking another turnip, ‘and there’s the kind of thing we get in this house, and they’re no the same thing. And there’s what you heard, Isa, and all.’

‘There is,’ agreed Isa. She turned from the pot she was stirring and gestured with a dripping spoon. ‘Wi these ears I heard her. I’ll pay you for that, Robert , she says, if it’s the last thing I do . What way’s that for a decent lassie to talk to her brother?’

‘And she did,’ said Elspet. She scraped the heap of yellow cubes into a bowl beside her and reached across the table for a bunch of carrots. ‘Pay him, I mean. Or someone did.’

‘Surely no!’ protested one of the two in the corner. Her name was Babtie, Alys thought.

‘Oh, aye,’ said the other one darkly. ‘I’d put nothing past her.’ She bared her arm above the elbow, to show an array of many-coloured bruises. ‘See these? That’s from I lost a bunch of ribbons off her blue gown, that one’s from when I washed her hair last and got soap in her eye — ’

‘There was the time Robert stole her billy-doo,’ said Elspet. ‘God send him rest,’ she added perfunctorily. ‘Aye, a billy-doo. From young Walkinshaw, it was.’ Alys, who had been pursued by Robert Walkinshaw before she met Gil, pulled a face. ‘Read it out afore the family at dinner, though she tried to stop him, and laughed when she swore she’d be even. And do you ken what she did, mem?’ Alys shook her head. ‘She cut the codpiece out of all his hose, every pair he had, and threw them in the pigsty. He’d to wear his faither’s for a week, and the maister doesny favour joined hose, being the age he is. You should ha heard what young Robert had to say about that.’

‘Aye, but,’ said Babtie. ‘That’s different. Putting pyson for someone, for your own brother, that’s no — that’s no …’ She paused, unable to find a word.

‘It cannot have been Agnes, surely,’ said Alys. ‘Could she do such a thing? Put poison in the sweetmeat so it would not be noticed?’

‘It’s Agnes and Eleanor makes those cherries,’ said Isa. ‘Eleanor’s hardly been round the house the last couple of days, except she’s been talking wi the mistress, so it won’t have been her. It would take our fine lassie no time at all to pyson one or two out of a box and put it where she’d know he’d get them.’