Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

The stare was needle-sharp this time. ‘Why? Why me?’

‘You and Nicol both.’

‘How so? Why would it be so important? What’s it to you, anyway?’

‘I think you need to know,’ said Alys gently, ‘that the Provost has learned what poison it was killed Danny Gibson and Robert.’

There was a small pause. ‘Has he now? And what would it be?’

‘Some kin of the Bothwells, an apothecary in Edinburgh,’ Alys said, watching her carefully, ‘has said it sounds to him like something brewed up from apple pips. The appearance and the action, he says, are very close.’

‘Is that right?’

‘And Gil will put everything together sooner or later.’

A wry smile. ‘So how come you’re so much faster than your man to come to conclusions?’

Alys shook her head. ‘I had all the facts, I just needed to put them in the right order. He may have to guess some of it.’

‘But suppose your conclusions are wrong, you’ve no got the facts in the right order?’

‘Grace, when I mentioned apples, you looked at your workroom door.’

Grace was silent, while she folded a woollen kirtle and smoothed it into the box.

‘Why are you doing this, Alys?’ she asked at length.

‘You saved John’s life.’

That got her a hard look.

‘The craft’s for healing, no for killing,’ the other girl repeated firmly. ‘I did nothing more than my duty to them that taught me.’

Alys bit back the reply that rose to her lips, and said, ‘You acted quickly, you knew what must be done, you reassured us. John’s family and Kate’s as well owe you a debt for ever. This is part of it, Grace.’

Another wry smile.

‘I value it,’ said Grace. ‘Well, my quine, you’ve paid your debt. You should get home, afore your man leaves here and finds out what you’re at.’

‘He’s just left,’ said Nicol in the doorway. ‘What’s his wee wife here for?’

Grace looked round, her face suddenly vulnerable, and went to her husband. He took her hands in his, but stared blankly at Alys over her shoulder.

‘What’s she want?’ he asked again, and then switched to something Alys thought must be Low Dutch, a strange hard language full of gutturals and half-familiar words. Grace answered him, he asked a question, she spoke at more length, urgently. His expression remained blank but his lanky body seemed to tense as he listened to her. Finally he mustered one of his happy grins.

‘Aye, thanks indeed, mistress,’ he said. ‘But Grace is right, she’s aye right, you need to get away now. Put up your plaid and I’ll see you to your door.’

‘I’d be grateful,’ she admitted, rising. She was unused to being out in the burgh alone quite this late, and it had surprised her how the shadows had seemed to threaten her footsteps. ‘I had a lantern.’

Grace put out her arms. ‘ Our dance is done, sister adew . My thanks, lassie,’ she said. ‘I’ll pray for you.’

‘And I for you,’ said Alys. ‘God speed the journey.’

They embraced, and Nicol said impatiently, ‘Come away, come away now, for we’ve other things to see to and all.’

Her head hurt. For what felt like years that was all she was aware of; then gradually she recognized that the world seemed to be rocking, and water slopped coldly quite close to her. There was a smell of fish, and it was dark, but the principal thing was still the headache.

Somebody groaned. After more years somebody else spoke, a voice she did not know. It seemed to be angry. Not Gil, but Gil was going to be angry -

Her head was really painful. She had not had a headache like this for a long time. She tried to put her hand up to her brow, but it would not move, because her wrists seemed to be fastened together. She tugged at the fastening, and groaned again.

Fresh air reached her face as her plaid was turned back. A gentle hand touched her cheek.

‘ Que passe? ’ she asked.

‘Lie still,’ said someone in horrible French.

‘My head hurts,’ she said.

‘Yes. He hit you hard.’

‘Hit me …?’

She opened her eyes. It was still nearly as dark as it was behind her eyelids, but after a moment she recognized a sky of black clouds, stars sailing between them. Water splashed again. A dark shape came closer to her, and she flinched.

‘And forbye,’ said the angry voice in Scots, more distantly, ‘that’s another groat ye’re owing me, for we never contracted for more than the two o ye and yir goods, let alone if all yir baggage sinks the Cuthbert afore we reach Dumbarton- keep baling, mannie!’

‘You’ll get your extra,’ said another voice. She knew it. It had promised to see her to her door, and then — and then -

‘He hit me,’ she said.

‘He did,’ agreed Grace in that badly accented French. ‘He should never have done it. I’m truly sorry, my dear, after what you did for us.’

‘Where are we?’

‘Beyond Erskine, I think.’

‘Erskine?’ she repeated. ‘What — where — are you taking me to — ’ She tried to rise, to sit up, to raise her head enough to see what was happening. A boat. They must be in a boat. That had been the boatman demanding money. Where were they taking her? Why was she here?

‘Haud still!’ ordered the Scots voice. ‘We’ve no more than a handspan o freeboard, we’ll ship half the Clyde if ye stot about like that!’

‘Rest easy,’ said Grace.

‘Let me sit up!’

Grace bent to assist her, heaved her to a sitting position. Her head stabbed pain and the world swam round her, but when it steadied she was aware of the banks of the river sliding past her, bushes and reeds briefly lit by the lantern at the mast while the water chuckled and sparkled inches from her shoulder. Little birds stirred, fluttered, called alarm as the light passed their roosting-places. Somewhere a fox barked.

She seemed to be sitting on tarred canvas, and her feet were in water in the bottom of the boat. Before her the lantern-light glowed dark rust on the sail and outlined shapes below it, the baggage, the boatman at the tiller, a moving form which must be Nicol scooping water back into the river. She raised her bound hands to her brow, pressing the cords against her face.

‘Why?’ she asked simply.

‘You’re our insurance,’ said Nicol. His accent was as bad as Grace’s; she suddenly recognized Burgundian French.

‘ Hein? ’

‘He thinks he can bargain with your man,’ Grace said. ‘Use you as a token to pay for our safe passage.’

‘But he — ’ She swallowed. ‘He need not have known until after you had left Glasgow. I’d have said nothing.’

‘Keep baling, maister,’ ordered the boatman. ‘ Cuthbert ’s no accustomed to carrying boxes, she’s better wi fish, and it makes her uneasy. Keep baling.’

Grace bent forward so her head was close to Alys’s.

‘Can you swim?’ she ask quietly.

‘No.’

‘If I free you, you’ll not try to get away? You could sit here on the bench at my side and be more comfortable.’

Bench? she wondered, and groped for the right word. Thwart, was it? Grace’s French was like her own Scots, a second language, much used but not completely familiar. Concentrate on the situation, she told herself wearily.

‘Where could I go?’ she returned. Grace laughed faintly, produced her penknife and sawed through the cords at Alys’s wrists. She flexed her fingers painfully, and accepted help to move on to the thwart with Grace, her head stabbing pain as she moved. The other girl opened huge wings which turned out to be a heavy cloak, and drew Alys to her side under it.

‘The wind bites right through your plaid,’ she said. ‘It takes this boiled wool to keep it off. How is your head? How do you feel?’