Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

An infinitely small shrug was the only response.

‘How.’ She swallowed. ‘How did you do it? What did you use? Why did you do it?’

This could not be happening. Gil should be here. Why had he not come home?

‘I put the poison into the flask,’ said Beatrice, patiently and very slowly. ‘Seeing Arbella had tellt him to use it to mind her birthday.’

‘When? When did you put it in the flask? And what did you use?’

‘You keep asking me that. I should ha’ thought you could work it out for yourself, lassie.’

‘No, I think you have to tell us.’ Alys frowned, trying to fit this into what she knew already. ‘I don’t understand why, either. Should we send after Sir John Heriot? Would you wish to confess to him?’

‘No,’ said Beatrice briefly. ‘He was annoying my lassies, Thomas I mean. And Joanna,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘When did you put the poison in the flask?’ Alys asked again.

‘I got the chance while he made his farewells.’

‘But where was the flask then?’

‘In his scrip. In the hall. They were all in the window chamber, and nobody saw.’

It fits together, thought Alys. As I should have expected.

‘And what was it? What did you use?’

‘Work it out, lassie.’ Beatrice sat back, her shoulders softening as if she had laid down a burden. ‘Now, if your man’s no looked for till the morn’s morn, you’ll have to keep me here,’ she prompted. ‘A dangerous felon like me’s no safe to be running about the countryside in the dark. Will your good-mother be wanting to chain me?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Alys found she was still staring at the older woman, unable to read her expression. ‘Sir John cannot be far on his road — would you like me to send after him? Will you not confess to him?’

‘Our Lady save you, my dear,’ said Beatrice, with a flicker of amusement, ‘I stood out there in the mirk getting chilled to the bone, waiting for him to take his leave. No, we’ll not trouble Sir John. Your man can hear me when he comes home.’

‘Won’t they miss you at the coal-heugh? Your daughters will be worried.’

‘Not them. I sent them off to bed, after Raffie left for Lanark wi’ Arbella, and shut myself into the stillroom. They’ll no ken till the morn that I’m no in there minding a triple-distillation.’

‘What — what will happen to them? They can’t …’ Alys ran out of words, and Beatrice gave her another ironic smile.

‘They’ll can go wi’ their brother. I’ve got him a good position as under-grieve wi’ Russell at Laigh Quarter, over in Cadzow parish, though his grandam doesny know of it yet. Have no fears for them, lassie.’

There was another pause, while Alys’s thoughts swirled and submerged like linen surging in a wash-tub. A fresh point surfaced, and she seized on it.

‘What about the other man, the forester? Did you know about him? Did you know about Murray being — ’

‘No, I never discussed his tastes wi’ the man. And I never knew about the other fellow. I’m right sorry about him,’ Beatrice said. It sounded like the truth.

‘Tell me again,’ said Alys. ‘You put the poison — ’

‘Into the flask, where it was in his scrip in the hall, afore he left. Because he was annoying my lassies and Joanna. That’s the trouble wi’ herbs,’ she said sadly. ‘They can heal, and they can kill, and once you’ve the knowledge in your hand, it’s too easy to use it. Will you lock me in, lassie? I brought my night-cap, I can lie here as well as anywhere.’

As Alys stepped from the chamber, Alan Forrest, on the stair outside with a candle, said in an urgent whisper, ‘Mistress — Mistress Alys — I heard all that.’ He held out a substantial iron key. ‘What are we to do wi’ her? Maister Gil’s no back yet, we’ll no see him till the morn, what will we do?’

‘We tell Lady Egidia first,’ said Alys, turning the key in the lock and giving it back to him. ‘She must direct where we put her or if she stays there. And we must get word to Gil as soon as may be in the morning.’

‘Aye, but where is it he’s gone? And there’s the quest and all, I took it you and the mistress’d want to go down to Lanark first thing to witness that. And an owl out there screeching in the stable-yard, fit to deave every beast in the place,’ he added, following her up the curling stair to the hall.

Lady Egidia was as astonished as Alys had been.

‘Confessed to poisoning Murray?’ she repeated. ‘I canny believe it. It goes against everything I ever heard of her.’

‘I heard her confess and all, mistress,’ Alan assured her.

‘She asked me to lock her in,’ Alys said, ‘but would you wish her to lie in the steward’s chamber? Certainly it is warm and dry and we can give her a pallet and a blanket, but — ’

‘Aye, that’s the best plan. You’ll see to that, Alan. And no point in trying to find Gil till the morning.’ Lady Egidia frowned. ‘Will he come home, I wonder? If he’s really gone so far as Elsrickle, it must be fifteen or sixteen mile from here, he may go straight to Lanark for the quest. Well, no sense in fretting over that just now.’ She waved at the door. ‘Go and see Mistress Lithgo comfortable, Alan, and maybe you would let the dog run in the yard a bit, and then you can get to your own rest.’ She delivered a brisk blessing, and her steward departed reluctantly, towing an equally reluctant Socrates. ‘A good man, Alan,’ she said as their footfalls diminished down the stairs, ‘but his ears are by far too long, and everything he hears gets to Eppie. Sit down, my dear, and we’ll see if we can work this out between us.’

‘My head is all in a whirl,’ Alys confessed, obeying. ‘I can make no sense of it. Why would Beatrice do such a thing? She is the one everyone calls a good woman.‘

‘A good healer,’ agreed Lady Egidia. ‘A wise woman, in all senses of the word. So if we assume there is some reason for her action, we’ll get on better.’

‘I can think of only one reason for such an action,’ acknowledged Alys.

‘But who? Who is she protecting?’

‘Someone she loves? Someone important to her?’

‘You’ve spent time with her lately. Who would you say is important enough for her to go willingly to execution for that person?’

Alys considered this, turning over her conversations with Beatrice Lithgo in her mind, but nothing seemed to offer itself. She shook her head.

‘She is a woman of great reserve. Her daughters, of course, and her son if he was suspected, though I don’t think Gil has even considered him — ’

‘He was in Glasgow at the time, I believe,’ agreed her mother-in-law.

‘- but as for Joanna and the old woman, I should say she was very fond of Joanna but held Mistress Weir in … in …’ She paused, searching for a suitable word. ‘Respect, I suppose, as one ought.’ Their eyes met, and she saw amused acknowledgement of this in her mother-in-law’s expression. ‘No more than that. I’ve seen no sign that she dislikes her, but there is no liking.’

‘I wonder why she stays there,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘Has she nowhere else to go?’

‘If her portion is tied up in the business, it will be impossible for her to leave without unpleasantness,’ said Alys. ‘And the same must apply to Joanna, I suppose.’

‘So we think Mistress Lithgo is protecting her daughters, or possibly Joanna. Do you suppose she thinks one of them poisoned Murray, or simply that one of them is suspected? I wonder what the younger girl wanted to confess?’

‘Gil suspects all of them, including Mistress Lithgo herself,’ observed Alys. ‘I suppose he must have given away that much when he was last there.’

She drew her tablets out of her purse, and smoothed a list of dry stores off the second leaf, burnishing the last marks with the back of her fingernail. Socrates returned midway through this process, and had to be reassured and ordered to lie down. That dealt with, she made a neat list of the five names, and after a moment’s deliberation added Raffie at the end. Incising several columns beside the list, she said thoughtfully, ‘We know some of them have the knowledge of simples and poisons, but how much knowledge does it take?’