Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘When I was prentice here,’ said Syme carefully, ‘it was aye oatcakes and a finger of hard cheese. I’ve no notion whether Mistress Mathieson has changed that.’

Gil nodded, and lifted a few crumbs of oatcake from the platter. ‘And was the wee flask of his drops anywhere?’

‘No that I saw.’ Syme looked about as Gil had done earlier. ‘I wonder where Grace would have put his clothes from yesterday?’

‘In the kist?’ He nodded at the bed-foot.

Syme moved the stack of pillows on to the bed-frame and opened the painted lid. ‘Indeed, aye.’ He lifted the dead man’s purse from a corner of the box and came to empty the contents out on to a flat portion of the mattress. ‘This and that, his coin-purse, his beads, his tablets and seal.’

‘And his drops.’ Gil lifted the little flask and shook it, then drew the stopper and sniffed cautiously. ‘It seems to have been the drops, right enough, but it’s empty.’ He offered the mouth of the flask to Syme, who sniffed with equal caution and nodded.

‘That’s his drops. Nothing odd about them, I’d say.’

‘Did he ever keep a separate store of the remedy here in the chamber?’

‘I wouldny know. You might ask at Mistress Mathieson, if she’s fit to talk, or at Grace.’

Gil looked about him again, then moved around the room, bending to peer under the bed again, looking into the kist where Renfrew’s clothes had been folded. His linen had been removed, presumably with the sheets from the bed, which would all be in the washhouse by now. There was no sign of anything untoward, other than Syme’s unease and his own feeling that this death must be considered carefully.

‘Might I see him?’ he said.

Maister Francis Renfrew was laid out in the same chamber where his son had lain, washed and shrouded, candles burning at his head and feet. The maidservant Isa was on her knees in a corner of the chamber, her beads in her hand; she looked up when they entered, and rose, saying in some relief, ‘Will I just get back to the kitchen now, Maister Jimmy? There’s the dinner to see to, and Babtie no feeling too good again, no to mention the wash willny wait, it being Monday and the first wash of the month.’

‘Aye, on you go, Isa,’ said Syme, his felt hat held against his chest. ‘I’ll get someone to him. Thanks, lass.’

She bobbed briefly and slipped out of the room. Gil bent his head and offered a brief prayer, then drew back the shroud and studied the corpse. As Syme had said, there was nothing untoward to see; the face was a healthy colour, perhaps not as high a colour as the man had sometimes flown in life, and once the jaw softened and the mouth could be closed the expression would be as peaceful as Robert’s. Gil bent to sniff at the cold lips, but there was no odour at all; reaching for the nearest candle, he held it to cast light into the dark cavern of the open mouth, without success. Resignedly he set the candle back in its place and inserted his forefinger, feeling cautiously round the stiffened tongue and behind the teeth. The cavity felt strange, and curiously much smaller than his own mouth felt when he explored it. Many of the back teeth were missing.

‘What are you doing ?’

He looked up, to see Grace Gordon standing in the doorway, her light eyes wide with astonishment.

‘Wondering what he ate last,’ he said, returning to the task.

‘Why?’ She came forward into the room. ‘What’s it to you? Never tell me you think he was pysont!’

‘I’m not easy in my mind.’ Gil withdrew his finger and looked at it. The usual whitish material was caked under the nail, scraped from the dead man’s teeth; there were some darker fragments lodged in it, which seemed to be crumbs of oatcake.

‘He had oatcakes and cheese to his dole,’ Grace agreed, still disapproving. Her voice was high and sharp with tension this morning. And small wonder, he reflected. ‘He’d eaten them, it was all over his teeth, so I rinsed out his mouth. No sense in upsetting Meg further, if she felt equal to seeing him afore we can close his mouth, I thought.’

‘A good thought,’ said Syme solemnly. ‘A right good thought.’

‘You saw nothing out of the ordinary?’ Gil asked.

‘Beyond him being deid, you mean?’ she responded, her tone acrid. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. He’d slept in his own bed, eaten his own dole, lit his own candle. There was no albarello of pyson in the chamber, no marchpane fancies. Are you thinking now it wasny Agnes that slew Robert?’

‘No.’ Gil drew back the shroud, looking down the length of Renfrew’s body, flabby and blue-veined, with a paunch the man’s garments had concealed in life. How undignified death is, he thought, stripping away all the defences we put in place. Is this how God and the saints see us?

‘You might leave him some dignity,’ said Grace, echoing his thoughts.

‘I’d rather send him justice, if he should need it.’

‘Justice? For Frankie?’ she said bitterly. Syme looked at her in astonishment, but she turned to leave the room, just as Nicol slouched in from the hall.

‘Aye, lass,’ he said, putting an arm round her, and raised his eyebrows at Gil. ‘Getting a word wi Frankie, are you, Gil?’

‘He’s looking for poison,’ said Grace into his shoulder. ‘He thinks it wasny Agnes slew Robert.’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Nicol cheerfully, ‘for it’s just been determined up at the Castle that it was Agnes slew both Robert and Danny Gibson. I brought the lassie Jess down the road wi me.’

All three people in the room stared at him.

‘Gibson as well?’ said Syme at length. ‘Have they let young Bothwell go?’

‘They were just striking off his chains and all when I came away. I’d thought his sister was hoping to cure his hurts wi her tears.’ He grinned. ‘ Unguentum Lacrimae , how would that sell, would you say, Grace?’

‘Is that right, d’you think, maister?’ Syme said to Gil.

‘It’s the best we’ll get,’ he said. ‘I’d thought Danny’s death was an accident, myself, but I’d never ha hoped to convince the assize it was none of Bothwell’s intent. Someone was right eloquent, I’d say.’

‘It was the Provost,’ said Nicol, without great interest. ‘What do we need to see to here, Jimmy? If Gil’s no wanting the corp, can we see to getting the old man buried along wi Robert? There’s no denying it would be handier to put them both under at the one time.’

Syme swallowed this one with difficulty, and suggested, ‘We’ll need to send round word to his gossips. They’ll want to drink to his memory, and that will have to be for this night. We’ll no get the two of them buried afore the morn’s morn, and it might need to be the day after. Wednesday, that would be.’

‘The morn’s morn,’ repeated Nicol. ‘Aye, I suppose Gerrit might wait so long. Grace?’

She looked steadily at him, and nodded.

‘I’ll get on wi packing,’ she said.

‘No, I’m no interested,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘If you’ve found nothing we can show an assize, and none of the household suspects poison, I’m no for opening it up. They’ve enough to bear for now, what wi this morning’s work and the head of the house dead and all.’

‘I think Syme is uneasy,’ said Gil. ‘He said the corp somehow resembled Robert’s.’

‘They’re father and son,’ said the Provost irritably. ‘What else would they do but resemble one another?’ He sat back in his great chair; Walter the clerk looked up briefly, then went back to his scratching pen. ‘We’ll take a look at this a moment, if we must. Was there any sign of poison in the chamber or elsewhere?’

‘The house is full of poisons,’ Gil observed. Sir Thomas grunted. ‘There was no sign in the chamber, and no sign the man had taken poison, but then Robert shows no sign either by now, even the smell of almonds has left him.’