Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

Bel shrugged, and pointed to the date: mcccclxx. Alys nodded.

‘1470. Before you were born,’ she agreed. ‘Or I. No reason you should know. I wonder where your grandam was, that she couldn’t keep the accounts herself.’ She looked closer at the slanting columns crawling down the page. ‘It was someone who could scarcely add up, whoever it was.’

Bel peered over her arm at the loops of writing, and put out a pointing finger at the same moment as Alys recognized that the curling scroll near the foot of the page was in fact a name. Under it a double line had been ruled, with a chilling finality.

‘Gulielmus,’ she made out. ‘That is William.’ Bel gave her a withering look. ‘And the surname is — is — Fleming. William Fleming. Was that David Fleming’s father, I wonder? I know he worked here.’

Bel shrugged, then turned her head sharply as voices sounded in the hall, and footsteps approached rapidly. Socrates got to his feet, head down, staring.

‘Alys? There’s a laddie out here asking for you.’ Phemie halted in the doorway. ‘Says he’s got a word from your man.’

‘From Gil?’ Alys jumped up and came round the end of the bed. ‘Is he safe? Who — is it Patey?’ Behind her Bel was closing up the book and lifting it off the prayer-desk, and a faint annoyance crossed her mind — I wanted more time at that — but word from Gil took precedence.

It was indeed Patey out in the dim hall, hung over and disgruntled at being sent on again from Belstane, ducking in a graceless bow and pushing Gil’s own set of tablets at her. The dog’s nose twitched as he identified the familiar scent.

‘Oh, he’s taken no harm,’ Patey agreed, ‘other than by sleeping snug in the kirk loft in Walston, while I lay wi’ the rats in a alehouse where I wouldny keep pigs, however good her ale might be. So he would have me ride on home and then they sent me up here to seek you, so you might as well look at what he’s sent and I hope it was worth it, mistress.’

Alys was already moving to the open door, drawing the tablets from their soft leather pouch, turning the thin wooden leaves to find the message intended for her. Here it was, in French, in his clear, neat letter-hand.

My dearest , she read, and her stomach swooped at the words, the man we sought died on the twentieth of March in the year we knew of. He ate dinner with others, and drank alone from a flask he had with him. Later he fell from his horse in a swoon and struck his head, and died without speaking again.

She gazed at the writing, suddenly aware of two layers of thought in her head. One was competently assessing this news and concluding that it only added to their suppositions rather than confirming anything. The other was studying the salutation, over and over, while her heart sang. My dearest , he had written. Ma plus chère. She knew well that she was loved, but here it was in writing.

‘Is it a billy-doo from your man?’ asked Phemie in envy, and she realized that yes, indeed, it was a billet-doux, the first he had ever sent her.

‘In a sense,’ she said, and put the tablets away, stowing the brocade pouch in her purse and straightening her skirt over it. ‘Where did you leave Maister Gil, Patey?’

‘He went straight down to Lanark for the quest,’ said Patey resentfully, ‘which I wanted to hear and all, and I’d ha’ thought you’d be down there yourself, mistress. And the mistress has went,’ he added, ‘all in her good gown to take him the word of the woman Lithgo and her — ’

‘What about my mother?’ said Phemie sharply.

Alys, suppressing annoyance, said, ‘She is at Belstane, and perfectly well. Patey, go see your horse attended to, and find out if Mistress Weir’s kitchen can give you some refreshment.’

‘Why is she at Belstane?’ demanded Phemie, as the man took himself reluctantly out of the house door. ‘When did she go there? I’ve not seen her since yestreen.’

‘She fetched up at my good-mother’s yett last night just before dark,’ said Alys guardedly.

Phemie stared at her. ‘So why’s she no come home this morning? Is she still there?’ Then, her suspicions growing, ‘It’s no a call on her healing, is it, Alys. What are you no telling us?’

‘She’s locked in the steward’s chamber at Belstane, that’s where she is,’ said Patey, still standing just outside the door.

‘Patey!’ said Alys, furious.

‘What?’ said Phemie.

‘And chained and all, they’re saying, seeing she’s confessed to slaying the man Murray wi’ strong poison.’

‘Patey!’ exclaimed Alys again, but her voice was drowned by Bel’s sudden sharp cry, and that by a heartbroken wailing from the doorway to Joanna’s chamber.

‘She’s done what?’ demanded Phemie, as Joanna herself tottered out into the hall, arms outstretched, her bedgown falling away from her slender kirtled figure, and collapsed on the swept stone floor at Bel’s feet. ‘Alys, what has my mother done?’

She kept repeating this while the three of them contrived to get Joanna on to her feet and supported back to her own bed. Alys, chafing at one of the widow’s limp hands, finally had no option but to reply.

‘She has confessed, as Patey said, to poisoning Thomas Murray.’ The hand she clasped tightened convulsively. ‘I do not think she did it.’

‘Then why has she — ? And why did you no tell us when you came up here? What are you at here? Whose side are you on, anyway?’

‘My husband’s,’ said Alys, as the first answer that came to her.

‘Aye, I suppose,’ said Phemie sourly. ‘And here I thought you were my friend.’

‘I hope I am,’ said Alys, flinching from this blow. ‘And Joanna’s, and Bel’s.’

‘Then why — ?’ She stopped, and stared at Alys from the foot of Joanna’s bed. ‘You’re saying you don’t believe her? Why not? Why’s she still locked in chains if you don’t think it was her doing?’

‘She isn’t in chains, believe me. Do you think it?’ Alys countered.

‘No, but …’ Phemie stopped to consider this. Alys watched with interest, despite the awkwardness of the situation, recognizing that the other girl was putting her undoubted intelligence to work perhaps for the first time. ‘She’s my mother. I ken her mind, her way o’ working. I could never see her using her craft for that kind of purpose. You’re no family, you must have a reason for no thinking it.’

Bel crossed the chamber with a small cup in her hand, and offered it to Alys for Joanna. It held the familiar brown sticky cordial, with its scent of cough-syrup. Alys glanced across at the cupboard, to see the yellow-glazed pipkin she had encountered before sitting there with its cover askew. She sniffed the cordial again, trying to compare the smell with that on the flask Gil had brought home.

‘It’s her own store of the stuff,’ said Phemie roughly. ‘You’ve no need of suspecting Bel of trying to poison her.’

‘I know that.’ Alys raised Joanna’s head, and gave her a few sips of the stuff. ‘It was a good thought. Joanna, do you feel better now? Can you talk?’

Joanna pulled herself to a sitting position, but shook her head, putting one hand to her brow. Phemie watched her, frowning, and then said, ‘Why would my mother confess to something she’d no done?’

Bel turned to look at her sister, but made no sign. Alys waited for a moment, and said, ‘For a good reason, I’d assume.’

‘She was asking at me yestreen,’ said Joanna faintly. ‘After the others left for Lanark.’ She put her hand over her mouth, staring wide-eyed at the coverlet. ‘She asked me how the poison might ha’ got into Thomas’s flask, and I said I had no notion. Oh, say she never did it!’