Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘What, have we to pay for them to finish?’ demanded Nicol Renfrew, and laughed again. His wife patted his arm, and drew up her dark silk skirts to find the purse hanging between gown and kirtle; around her the other women were doing the same, and the men were reluctantly fishing at belts or in sleeves. By the time the piper reached Gil his purse was well filled and jingling. Gil added his contribution and a word of praise, and the man grinned and moved on.

The actors were still working through the Hallowe’en songs. Alexander had caught his breath, and was singing lustily, but Jack was breathing hard. What for fighting and blood he bled, Greysteil was never so hard be-sted , Gil thought. It occurred to him that the player was becoming redder in the face rather than recovering a normal colour. The doctor, next in line, threw the champion an anxious look, spoke to him under cover of the singing. Jack shook his head, and then reeled, staggered, caught at Judas’s sleeve and went down on his knees, dragging the other man’s reversed gown off his shoulders as he fell.

‘Rise up, Jack!’ hissed Judas, hitching up his gown. One or two people laughed doubtfully, but Jack went on down, sprawling on the polished wooden planks of the floor. Judas bent to lift him, but could not get him to his feet; the other players sang on with determination as the fallen man was dragged aside. Gil, getting a closer view of the red face and rapid breathing, came to a swift conclusion. Whatever ailed him, the man was badly stricken. The children should not see this.

He looked across the chamber to find the servants, and caught the eye of the nurse Nan. Jack’s feet shuddered in the beginnings of a convulsion, Judas exclaimed in alarm, and before anyone else moved Gil picked his way through the audience, lifted Ysonde from her post at Kate’s feet, grasped Wynliane’s wrist and drew her after him. Nan met him at the door to the upper stairs as the exclamations began.

‘Let me go!’ said Ysonde, trying to squirm free. ‘Want to see the end!’

‘It’s ended,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no more play. Go with Nan, poppets.’

Nan, her black brows startling in a face pinched with sudden alarm, nodded thanks to him and gathered the indignant children to her.

‘Come, we’ll go up and make the baby’s bath ready,’ she prompted. ‘Maister Gil’s right, the play’s ended.’

Gil stood at the door until they vanished up the stairs, then turned to look at the scene in the hall. His sister was staring at him, her hands clenched on the rim of the cradle, Alys had risen in her place, all the apothecaries in the room had converged on the fallen mummer, and the rest of the audience was still gaping, trying to work out what had happened. His eye fell on Grace Gordon, sitting tense and pale beside her husband, gaze fixed on the man’s quivering feet.

‘Gil!’ said Kate sharply. ‘What’s happened to the man?’

‘Is it poison, do you think?’ said Maistre Pierre beside him.

‘I fear so. Assuming he hasn’t taken an apoplexy,’ Gil qualified, ‘or dropped with the plague.’

‘Plague?’ repeated the woman nearest him in sudden alarm. Eleanor Renfrew, he noted, annoyed with himself for using the word aloud. ‘Is it — is that —?’

‘No, no,’ said Maistre Pierre soothingly, ‘your father will tell us in a moment, mistress. I am sure there is nothing for us to worry about.’

‘Get the armour off him,’ recommended Maister Wilkie from his post near the window. ‘It’s likely stopping him breathing.’

‘What’s best to do for him, maisters? Should we carry him to a bed?’ asked Morison, on the margin of the group kneeling round the mummer. They ignored this; they were consulting in tones of slightly forced civility, while Judas and the other players stared at them and Anthony Bothwell, still clutching the bright pottery flask, said incredulously:

‘What’s come to him? His breath was short — is it the armour right enough?’

‘The heart is very slow,’ pronounced James Syme, one hand at the pulse in the mummer’s throat, ‘and there is a great excess of choler, judging by the colour of his skin.’

‘The breathing is getting more rapid,’ observed Wat Forrest gravely, ‘and shallower.’ His brother nodded, practised fingers on the stricken man’s wrist.

‘He’s been eating almonds, you can smell them,’ contributed Robert Renfrew. ‘That’s warm and moist. It’s led to a sudden imbalance, maybe — ’

‘It’s waur than that, Robert. I suspect — ’ said Robert’s father heavily. The five of them exchanged solemn looks, and the others nodded.

‘Aye, Frankie,’ agreed Wat Forrest. ‘I’m agreed.’

‘Agreed on what?’ demanded Morison. ‘What can we do for the poor fellow?’

They looked up, and Maister Renfrew got to his feet.

‘A priest,’ he said. ‘We should carry him to bed and bleed him, and I’ll send Robert for the needful to make a cataplasm to his feet, but a priest is the most urgent matter.’ He looked about the high light chamber, over the shocked faces. ‘Well, Agnes,’ he said brutally, ‘so much for making your own choice, lassie, for here’s the one of your sweethearts has slain the other.’

Someone screamed.

‘What?’ said Bothwell in horror. ‘I never — I didny — and it was only a couple drops touched his mouth, he never even swallowed — it must ha been something he ate — ’

‘Cold pyson,’ said Renfrew, ‘and powerful at that, if a few drops can kill a man, and we all saw you minister it, my lad.’ He stepped forward, and snatched the painted pottery flask from the other man’s hand, and held it up. ‘What could be in this, to slay him in the space of a few Aves?’

‘No!’ Bothwell protested, and turned to look at Agnes Renfrew, who had risen to her feet and was staring white-faced and horrified at her father. ‘No, it wasny — ’

‘Small use to deny it,’ declared Renfrew, ‘and by Christ I’ll see you hang for it, man, for I’m master of our mystery in this burgh and I’ll not have the profession brought into disrepute in this way. Seize and hold him, Wat, Adam, and I’ll thank you to send for the Serjeant, Augie.’

‘No!’ said Bothwell again. The Forrest brothers grasped his shoulders, and he looked from one to the other of them, appalled, but did not struggle. ‘No, I never!’

The stricken mummer’s feet drummed on the floor in another convulsion, and his breath rattled. Augie stared at him in distress, crossed himself, then turned to find his men with quick instructions. As two of the journeymen vanished down the kitchen stair Gil stepped forward to intervene.

‘I’m none so certain it’s Bothwell’s doing,’ he observed. ‘Why would anyone choose to minister pyson to the man like this, in front of as many witnesses?’

‘Why would I pyson any man, let alone Dan Gibson?’ demanded Bothwell, staring round at a ring of hostile faces. ‘He’s a good fellow, we’ve aye been — save for us both — and she, she, she favours me so far’s — ’

‘Aye, and little use in that,’ said Renfrew with satisfaction, ‘for I’d other plans for the lass long afore this. Here, Robert, here’s the key to the workroom, you ken what to fetch.’

‘Are you saying,’ said Dod Wilkie, suddenly catching up with matters, ‘the man’s deid, Frankie?’

‘Deid?’ shrieked someone across the chamber.

‘As good as,’ said Wat Forrest.

Kate pulled herself out of her chair, took her crutches from Babb, and thumped forward, saying firmly, ‘Bear him into the next chamber, poor man, and lay him on the bed. You his friends can stay with him or go down to the kitchen as you think best, and Ursel will bring you some aquavit, which I’ve no doubt you could do with. Jamesie, Eck,’ two of the journeymen started and came forward, ‘fetch a rope and take over fro Maister Forrest. And for the rest of us, neighbours …’ She looked about her, gathering up attention despite the rival attractions in the chamber, and smiled crookedly. ‘I’d planned a few diversions for Hallowe’en, ducking for apples and the like, but it hardly seems right now. When the Serjeant gets here he’ll likely want to get our witness to what happened — ’