Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘You never saw the extra passenger?’

‘Naw.’ The man turned away towards his own boat, leaving Gil staring after him.

‘If Mistress Mason was unwilling to go along wi them,’ said Syme diffidently at his elbow, ‘they might dose her wi Nicol’s drops till she couldny stand upright.’ He put a sympathetic hand on Gil’s arm. ‘If they’ve taken her wi them, she’s no harmed, maister.’

That was true, he recognized, standing there in the midnight with Glasgow whirling round him. They would scarcely take so much trouble if they had — if she was -

‘I must ha been right,’ continued Syme, ‘though it’s no pleasure to think it. Frankie’s death was never natural, if Nicol’s up and run like this, and taken Mistress Mason for a hostage.’

‘Land or water?’ Gil said aloud, hardly hearing him. ‘I must catch them.’

‘Ye’ll be faster by land,’ said the man he had spoken to, looking up from whatever he was doing. ‘There’s no a boatie on the Clyde can out-sail Stockfish Tam’s Cuthbert , even wi a burthen like yon. You’ll be at Dumbarton afore them, on a good horse, and you’ll ha what’s left of the moon in a few hours and all.’

‘I’ll ride wi you,’ said Syme.

Now, with Syme and the mason’s youngest man Luke, he pressed on through the night, plaid wound firmly against the wind, dimly grateful for the absence of rain, his mind churning with hideous visions of Alys bound, injured, terrified. And why had she ventured out to the Renfrew house alone? What had taken her -

She must have thought matters through, and come to some conclusion. And then what? Had she gone to ask for some final scrap of information, and alerted Grace or Nicol to her suspicions? That could surely have waited till the morning, and in any case she had more sense than risk an encounter with someone they thought guilty, after the time out in Lanarkshire.

He pulled his plaid tighter and settled down in the saddle, following Luke’s piebald horse through the dark, the lantern held down at the lad’s stirrup showing them the next few steps of the road. What had altered since suppertime? What new information had reached them, to prompt Alys to action? The letter from the apothecary in Edinburgh, of course, with the information about the poison. Apple pips. The fragments Adam Forrest showed him must have been apple pips, not almonds, and the workroom had smelled of apples.

But an apple pip was a small thing. What quantity must one need to make up a flask of poison such as came into Bothwell’s hand on Hallowe’en? There were five or ten at most in one apple, so how many apples must one slice open to get a cupful? Enough to make one very ill, or to make a very large dish of applemoy, or perhaps some sweetmeat or other. It kept coming back to sweetmeats, he thought, and suddenly recalled Frankie Renfrew complaining about apple-cheese. Robert had said, We’ve apple-cheese in plenty , and later his father had remarked sourly that Grace was a great one for making the stuff. Grace, who had stripped the room where her father-in-law died. Who had expressed what seemed like genuine regret at Robert’s death. As well she might, thought Gil, if she had brewed the poison that slew him.

Grace, he recalled with a chill down his back, who had saved John’s life. We owe her a debt for life, Alys had said. A debt which was more than enough to prompt Alys to warn her that she must be suspected. That must be why she had gone to the Renfrew house. He wondered why he was not angry at the idea, and found he was more angry with Nicol and with Grace, for repaying her in this way. He knew some of his wife’s ideas on justice, and felt they were probably nearer to God’s justice than to canon law. The question of explaining things to his master the Archbishop or even to the Provost could be dealt with later, after he had Alys safe, after -

‘Maister?’ Ahead of him, Luke checked. ‘There’s a fellow on the track, maister.’

‘Who’s there?’ A voice from the darkness in front of them, a moving shadow which made Luke’s horse stamp uneasily. ‘Who’s there at this hour?’

‘Who’s abroad i the night like this?’ said Syme nervously behind Gil. ‘Is it thieves?’

‘I’d ask you the same. Who are you?’ Gil reined in beside Luke. ‘We’re bound for Dumbarton. Are you afoot? Alone?’

‘Aye.’ The man came closer, his footsteps squelching. ‘Could I beg yez for a lift to Dumbarton? Would any of yir beasts take a second man aboard?’

‘You’re wet, man,’ said Luke, holding the lantern higher to see the stranger’s face.

‘Aye, I’m wet,’ the man agreed, through chattering teeth. ‘Piracy on the river, freens, my boatie stole from me and sailed on out my sight, and me left to make my way ashore as best’s I can. But I’ve freens at Dumbarton will sort him for me, him and his extra passenger!’

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘Stockfish Tam, is it?’

With the boatman perched behind Luke and wrapped in Syme’s great cloak, which he gave up with creditable willingness, they put a fresh candle in Luke’s lantern and pressed on through the dark towards Dumbarton, accompanied by a monologue on the subject of piracy and a debt of two groats. Questions about the extra passenger established that she had been alive, conscious and talking to the pirate’s wife, though Tam had not heard their conversation, and after that Gil shut his ears to the man’s grumbles and thought about Grace Gordon and a poison brewed from apple pips, and about what they would find at Dumbarton. The Sankt Nikolaas , if she was big enough to traverse the Irish Sea, the English Channel, the German Sea, was likely to be moored out in the roads off the port, rather than run up on to the shore. Could Nicol sail Tam’s boat well enough to find her? Could he sail a boat at all? What if they failed to meet up with the Dutchman and drifted on down the river with the tide?

Most of Dumbarton was still asleep, though as they rounded the town heading for the shore a few lights showed and the smell of rising bread floated on the wind. Stockfish Tam directed them to where the Leven rippled quietly down to join the bigger river, and along the shore where Gil and Pierre had once found a fisherman willing to sail them to Rothesay in a boat of willow and skins. There were a couple of fires showing, with dark shapes squatting round them, waiting for the dawn, waiting for returning fishing-boats.

‘Bide here,’ said Tam, and slid down from Luke’s horse. The animal sighed in relief, and he crunched off along the shore, hailing the nearest fire.

‘The custumar,’ said Gil, looking about him. Dumbarton Rock loomed over them against the stars, the narrow moon slid in and out of clouds, and one or two windows in the town showed lights. Here on the shore, apart from the two fires, there was little to see. It was still some hours to dawn, he reckoned, and by far too dark for customs work or for loading or unloading goods unless the matter was urgent. As it was now. The custumar would be virtuously asleep in his bed.

‘I ken him,’ said Syme unexpectedly. ‘James Renton. He’s a cousin of my oldest brother’s wife.’

‘Where does he stay?’

‘One of those, I would think, convenient for the shore.’

Peering where Syme pointed, Gil made out several taller houses. He was debating asking at the fireside which was the custumar’s when Stockfish Tam tramped back to them, followed by four or five of the dark shapes from the firesides.

‘I’ve tellt these fellows what’s abroad,’ he said, ‘and there’s one of them willing to take you out to the Dutchman, rouse her skipper, and we’ll pass the word along the shore and a hantle more o us lie out and wait for Cuthbert when she comes down the channel. That’s supposing he hasny sunk her off of Bowling,’ he added bitterly. ‘Right?’