Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘We’ve but now eaten,’ said Adam. ‘Christian, it’s your tale. You make it clear.’

She nodded, and sat down at Gil’s gesture, pushing her plaid back from her shoulders.

‘It came to me of a sudden,’ she said. ‘You’re still looking to know what the poison was that — that — ’ She bit her lip, and Gil nodded in sympathy. ‘Nanty and I have kin in Edinburgh, maister, a cousin of our faither’s that’s a potyngar in the Canongate. We don’t get on, but kin is kin, and it came to me that Ninian Bothwell might answer your question, seeing we’ve about exhausted the resource of Glasgow.’ She glanced at Adam, and they exchanged rueful smiles.

‘The man himself, or another of the craft in Edinburgh,’ Adam expanded.

‘A good thought,’ Gil said. ‘Do you have his direction? We could send — ’

‘I’ve done better than that.’ She unbuttoned the tight old-fashioned cuff of her gown, and drew from her sleeve a folded paper. ‘I’ve writ him a letter, begging his aid for kin’s sake and putting a descriptio of the substance to him, with Wat and Adam’s help. And its effects as well,’ she added. ‘It’s took us the most of the evening.’

‘Indeed, a good thought,’ said Alys, coming forward from the stairs. Gil looked at her carefully; she seemed to have been crying, but avoided his eye. Instead she embraced Mistress Bothwell and nodded to Adam, saying, ‘How will you send it?’

‘That’s why I was right glad to see you turn in at the door here,’ said Mistress Bothwell earnestly. ‘We could hire a man to take it, but I wondered if maybe you’d have a likely fellow about you that we could trust better with such an errand.’

‘Two days at least, to get to Edinburgh and back this time of year,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘And the wait for a reply.’

‘I cannot spare Luke or Thomas so long,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We must get on while the weather holds. Would your uncle lend Tam again?’

‘He might, but I think the Provost would send it for us, as an official errand, which would be faster. I can ask him in the morning, first thing.’

Mistress Bothwell sighed in relief. ‘I hoped you’d say aye to it.’ She held the letter out. ‘My thanks on this, maister.’

‘If it helps the case,’ Gil said, checking that the direction was clear and the seal secure. ‘I take it you’ve got no further in proving the stuff, Adam?’

‘We’ve a list this long of what it isny,’ said Adam, grimacing. ‘It’s held us back in the work of the shop, no that that’s a consideration when Nanty’s life’s at stake, but the two of us has thought of little else for the last few days, and Barbara as well.’

‘It was Barbara encouraged me to write the letter,’ said Mistress Bothwell. ‘She’s a good woman.’ Beside her, Alys murmured agreement.

‘Were you at Frankie’s the now?’ Adam asked. ‘How are they all? We’d heard nothing of their trouble till Christian came up the road at suppertime. Wat and I will have to call in the morning to condole.’

‘Frankie is much shaken, as you would expect,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We were just saying as we came home that he seems to believe his daughter guilty.’

‘So likely would the half of Glasgow,’ said Mistress Bothwell grimly.

‘And Nicol?’

Maistre Pierre grimaced. ‘I had a word with him, after you left the room,’ he said to Gil. ‘He was not sober, I should say. I asked him what he would do now, would he take up his brother’s place in the business, and he said, on the contrary, he was the more determined to go back to Middelburgh.’

‘It might just be his imagining,’ Gil said. ‘I asked him where he was all day, and he talked about a journey again, though his wife said he was abed.’

‘Ah.’ Adam Forrest exchanged a glance with Mistress Bothwell. ‘He must be still taking the stuff.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ she said.

‘Taking what?’ Gil questioned.

Adam looked disapproving. ‘Hemp. At least, a dose made from — it’s an intoxicant, a relaxant, it calms the system but confuses the mind, it prompts strange dreams.’

‘It’s right good for a vicious horse,’ supplied Mistress Bothwell. ‘I suppose the beasts willny be troubled by dreams.’

‘My mother’s groom puts hemp seeds in horse tonic,’ Gil recalled. ‘Now I think of it, there were folk that used it when I was in Paris. They would burn it and drink the smoke. One fellow swore it was better than wine for easing the mind of troubles. But I thought the hemp we grow here doesn’t have the same properties.’

‘No, potyngar’s hemp has to be imported,’ Adam said. ‘It comes from Araby, in the long run. And there’s some even stronger stuff, not the leaf but a resin of some sort, I think they call charas , we’ve had the dried leaf in the shop but never that. I’ve heard it’s put up in wee leather bags, and you make a drink of it or burn it.’

‘Oh!’ said Alys suddenly, and then, ‘Could that be what his drops are?’

‘Very like,’ agreed Adam, sounding struck by the idea.

‘He said I should ask you about it,’ Gil said to Alys, and she blushed darkly in the candlelight. ‘He’s by far calmer than when we were boys. Do you remember him at school, Adam? Who could have prescribed it to him, would you think? ‘

‘His father, most likely,’ suggested Adam. ‘I’d say it might help with his twitching and his odd ways, so if Frankie got his hands on some of the stuff, he might try if it worked.’ He pulled a face. ‘But it looks to me as if Nicol uses far more than he needs.’

‘Always the danger, with such a drug,’ observed Mistress Bothwell. She drew her plaid up over her shoulders again. ‘I must get home, Adam. There’s as much to be done in the morning, and food to take in for my brother and all. Will you get that letter away, do you think, maister?’

‘I’ll speak to Sir Thomas first thing,’ said Gil.

Having seen the callers across the yard, Maistre Pierre extinguished his lantern and began barring the door, saying, ‘So have you had a profitable evening, ma mie ? And how is John? What was this about a strange woman who fetched Mistress Grace?’

‘No,’ said Alys. ‘Catherine wished to talk to me. John is well, and sound asleep in his own cradle, and Nancy is recovering from her fright, poor girl, and will keep a closer eye on him from now on. As for who fetched Grace, I think we may never know. There was no such woman in the house, or on the High Street, today. Kate thinks it was Ealasaidh’s fetch.’

‘I think it more than likely,’ said Gil. ‘I have heard of such things. Ealasaidh herself may know nothing of the matter when we speak to her next.’

‘Do you tell me?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Extraordinary! But then, she is an extraordinary woman,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘I take my eye off the burgh for a day and what happens? Another pysoning, Frankie Renfrew’s lassie in the Tolbooth, John Anderson saying he’s done your work for you — ’

‘Is he now?’ said Gil politely, suppressing fury. Sir Thomas blew his nose and dabbed at the organ cautiously with his handkerchief.

‘So tell me the tale yoursel, Gilbert, till I understand what’s going on.’

Gil summarized the events surrounding Robert Ren-frew’s death, as carefully as he might. Sir Thomas listened, blowing his nose from time to time and fidgeting with the papers before him. His clerk, Walter, sat at the end of the end of the table, his pen squeaking as he copied something into a great book.

‘No that clear,’ said Sir Thomas when Gil had finished. He shook his head. ‘No that clear. The lassie was heard to say she’d get him for something, and she rejoiced when he was dead. What a way for a Christian lassie to behave! Frankie’s a worthy member of the council, but I’d no wed any of his bairns to any I cared for. But that doesny say she gave her brother the pyson. As for taking up the maidservant, only because the lassie accused her, I’m no convinced. What do you say, Gil?’