A Pig of Cold Poison (3 page)

‘I’ve a wee bottle here that hangs by my side, will raise a man that’s been seven year in the grave.’

He held up a little flask of painted pottery, very like the one Maister Renfrew had taken from his own purse, paused for a fraction of a moment, and pointed to it with the other hand.

‘Seven year?’ repeated Judas. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Twelve herbs for the twelve apostles,’ began the doctor, ‘and three for the Blessed Trinity –’

Gil looked round the room. Most of the audience was engrossed, laughing at the by-play between Judas and the Bessie, who had clearly worked together before. Grace Gordon sat by her husband, elegant and modest, hands folded in her lap, watching the doctor intently, critically. Agnes Renfrew was also gazing at the doctor, her father and brother were both glowering at her again, Andrew Hamilton the elder had fallen asleep, Nancy Sproull was looking thoughtfully at Renfrew’s wife.

‘Two drops to Jack’s toes and one drop to Jack’s nose,’ pronounced the doctor. He drew the stopper with a flourish, frowned at the little flask, and bent to apply the treatment. Judas and the Bessie stepped silently backwards while, beside the tight-lipped Maister Renfrew, Maistre Pierre wondered audibly why the hero had changed his name. ‘Rise up, Jack, and sing us a song!’

‘I canny,’ protested the recumbent Jack.

‘Why no?’

‘I’ve a hole in my back would hold a sheep’s heid!’

‘We’ll ha to repeat the treatment.’ The doctor bent with another flourish. ‘Three drops to your beak and two to your bum. Rise up, Jack.’

Jack scrambled up, grinning under his helm, rubbed at his mouth and then raised both arms in a champion’s salute when the audience applauded. Alexander got to his feet, St Mungo came forward again, and the actors all launched into the final part of the play, a mix of traditional songs about Hallowe’en and improvised compliments to the company present. While they sang Jack rubbed occasionally at his mouth, and cast languishing glances at Agnes Renfrew, who studiously ignored him while her father glared at her and the piper went round with a green brocade purse decked with ribbons, shaking it hopefully at the audience.

‘What, have we to pay for them to finish?’ demanded Nicol Renfrew, and laughed again. His wife patted his arm, and drew up her dark silk skirts to find the purse hanging between gown and kirtle; around her the other women were doing the same, and the men were reluctantly fishing at belts or in sleeves. By the time the piper reached Gil his purse was well filled and jingling. Gil added his contribution and a word of praise, and the man grinned and moved on.

The actors were still working through the Hallowe’en songs. Alexander had caught his breath, and was singing lustily, but Jack was breathing hard.
What for fighting and blood he bled, Greysteil was never so hard be-sted
, Gil thought. It occurred to him that the player was becoming redder in the face rather than recovering a normal colour. The doctor, next in line, threw the champion an anxious look, spoke to him under cover of the singing. Jack shook his head, and then reeled, staggered, caught at Judas’s sleeve and went down on his knees, dragging the other man’s reversed gown off his shoulders as he fell.

‘Rise up, Jack!’ hissed Judas, hitching up his gown. One or two people laughed doubtfully, but Jack went on down, sprawling on the polished wooden planks of the floor. Judas bent to lift him, but could not get him to his feet; the other players sang on with determination as the fallen man was dragged aside. Gil, getting a closer view of the red face and rapid breathing, came to a swift conclusion. Whatever ailed him, the man was badly stricken. The children should not see this.

He looked across the chamber to find the servants, and caught the eye of the nurse Nan. Jack’s feet shuddered in the beginnings of a convulsion, Judas exclaimed in alarm, and before anyone else moved Gil picked his way through the audience, lifted Ysonde from her post at Kate’s feet, grasped Wynliane’s wrist and drew her after him. Nan met him at the door to the upper stairs as the exclamations began.

‘Let me go!’ said Ysonde, trying to squirm free. ‘Want to see the end!’

‘It’s ended,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no more play. Go with Nan, poppets.’

Nan, her black brows startling in a face pinched with sudden alarm, nodded thanks to him and gathered the indignant children to her.

‘Come, we’ll go up and make the baby’s bath ready,’ she prompted. ‘Maister Gil’s right, the play’s ended.’

Gil stood at the door until they vanished up the stairs, then turned to look at the scene in the hall. His sister was staring at him, her hands clenched on the rim of the cradle, Alys had risen in her place, all the apothecaries in the room had converged on the fallen mummer, and the rest of the audience was still gaping, trying to work out what had happened. His eye fell on Grace Gordon, sitting tense and pale beside her husband, gaze fixed on the man’s quivering feet.

‘Gil!’ said Kate sharply. ‘What’s happened to the man?’

‘Is it poison, do you think?’ said Maistre Pierre beside him.

‘I fear so. Assuming he hasn’t taken an apoplexy,’ Gil qualified, ‘or dropped with the plague.’

‘Plague?’ repeated the woman nearest him in sudden alarm. Eleanor Renfrew, he noted, annoyed with himself for using the word aloud. ‘Is it – is that –?’

‘No, no,’ said Maistre Pierre soothingly, ‘your father will tell us in a moment, mistress. I am sure there is nothing for us to worry about.’

‘Get the armour off him,’ recommended Maister Wilkie from his post near the window. ‘It’s likely stopping him breathing.’

‘What’s best to do for him, maisters? Should we carry him to a bed?’ asked Morison, on the margin of the group kneeling round the mummer. They ignored this; they were consulting in tones of slightly forced civility, while Judas and the other players stared at them and Anthony Bothwell, still clutching the bright pottery flask, said incredulously:

‘What’s come to him? His breath was short – is it the armour right enough?’

‘The heart is very slow,’ pronounced James Syme, one hand at the pulse in the mummer’s throat, ‘and there is a great excess of choler, judging by the colour of his skin.’

‘The breathing is getting more rapid,’ observed Wat Forrest gravely, ‘and shallower.’ His brother nodded, practised fingers on the stricken man’s wrist.

‘He’s been eating almonds, you can smell them,’ contributed Robert Renfrew. ‘That’s warm and moist. It’s led to a sudden imbalance, maybe –’

‘It’s waur than that, Robert. I suspect –’ said Robert’s father heavily. The five of them exchanged solemn looks, and the others nodded.

‘Aye, Frankie,’ agreed Wat Forrest. ‘I’m agreed.’

‘Agreed on what?’ demanded Morison. ‘What can we do for the poor fellow?’

They looked up, and Maister Renfrew got to his feet.

‘A priest,’ he said. ‘We should carry him to bed and bleed him, and I’ll send Robert for the needful to make a cataplasm to his feet, but a priest is the most urgent matter.’ He looked about the high light chamber, over the shocked faces. ‘Well, Agnes,’ he said brutally, ‘so much for making your own choice, lassie, for here’s the one of your sweethearts has slain the other.’

Someone screamed.

‘What?’ said Bothwell in horror. ‘I never – I didny – and it was only a couple drops touched his mouth, he never even swallowed – it must ha been something he ate –’

‘Cold pyson,’ said Renfrew, ‘and powerful at that, if a few drops can kill a man, and we all saw you minister it, my lad.’ He stepped forward, and snatched the painted pottery flask from the other man’s hand, and held it up. ‘What could be in this, to slay him in the space of a few Aves?’

‘No!’ Bothwell protested, and turned to look at Agnes Renfrew, who had risen to her feet and was staring white-faced and horrified at her father. ‘No, it wasny –’

‘Small use to deny it,’ declared Renfrew, ‘and by Christ I’ll see you hang for it, man, for I’m master of our mystery in this burgh and I’ll not have the profession brought into disrepute in this way. Seize and hold him, Wat, Adam, and I’ll thank you to send for the Serjeant, Augie.’

‘No!’ said Bothwell again. The Forrest brothers grasped his shoulders, and he looked from one to the other of them, appalled, but did not struggle. ‘No, I never!’

The stricken mummer’s feet drummed on the floor in another convulsion, and his breath rattled. Augie stared at him in distress, crossed himself, then turned to find his men with quick instructions. As two of the journeymen vanished down the kitchen stair Gil stepped forward to intervene.

‘I’m none so certain it’s Bothwell’s doing,’ he observed. ‘Why would anyone choose to minister pyson to the man like this, in front of as many witnesses?’

‘Why would I pyson any man, let alone Dan Gibson?’ demanded Bothwell, staring round at a ring of hostile faces. ‘He’s a good fellow, we’ve aye been – save for us both – and she, she, she favours me so far’s –’

‘Aye, and little use in that,’ said Renfrew with satisfaction, ‘for I’d other plans for the lass long afore this. Here, Robert, here’s the key to the workroom, you ken what to fetch.’

‘Are you saying,’ said Dod Wilkie, suddenly catching up with matters, ‘the man’s deid, Frankie?’

‘Deid?’ shrieked someone across the chamber.

‘As good as,’ said Wat Forrest.

Kate pulled herself out of her chair, took her crutches from Babb, and thumped forward, saying firmly, ‘Bear him into the next chamber, poor man, and lay him on the bed. You his friends can stay with him or go down to the kitchen as you think best, and Ursel will bring you some aquavit, which I’ve no doubt you could do with. Jamesie, Eck,’ two of the journeymen started and came forward, ‘fetch a rope and take over fro Maister Forrest. And for the rest of us, neighbours …’ She looked about her, gathering up attention despite the rival attractions in the chamber, and smiled crookedly. ‘I’d planned a few diversions for Hallowe’en, ducking for apples and the like, but it hardly seems right now. When the Serjeant gets here he’ll likely want to get our witness to what happened –’

‘I never saw,’ said someone hastily, ‘for I was talking to Barbara here.’

‘I did,’ said another voice, ‘I saw him shake the bottle to stir up the pyson –’

‘No, I –’ began Bothwell.

Somebody uttered a heartfelt groan.

‘So we’ll need to wait here,’ continued Kate, as the limp form of the champion was borne out of the room by two of the other mummers. The apothecaries followed in a solemn group. ‘Andy, would you and Ursel have them bring up more wine and another bite to eat.’

‘We’ll no all can stay here,’ pronounced Nancy Sproull from her post beside Renfrew’s wife. ‘We need to get Meg home to her own chamber, or she’ll be here longer than you care for, Lady Kate.’

‘Never say it, Nancy!’ said Renfrew, turning back from the door.

‘Oh, I’ll say it, Frankie, whether you choose or no.’ She laid a portentous hand on Mistress Mathieson’s belly, and nodded as the younger woman gasped and the great dome heaved under her touch. ‘Her time’s on her.’

‘So she was right about her dates, then,’ said Renfrew.

‘
Ah, mon Dieu!
’ said Maistre Pierre.

There was an appalled pause, into which Mistress Mathieson delivered another shuddering groan. Then Nicol Renfrew said, with his high-pitched laugh:

‘No doubt of the brat being yours, Faither, when it picks sic a moment to arrive.’

By the time the Serjeant arrived the gathering had split into several parts.

At Mistress Sproull’s announcement the remaining men among the guests had taken themselves hurriedly into one of the window bays again, their backs to the goings-on. Gil would have joined them, but for a feeling that the flustered Augie needed his support. Kate, however, went into immediate action.

‘I’ll see to this, sir,’ she announced, one hand on Morison’s arm. ‘You make certain Maister Renfrew and his colleagues have all they need. Here’s Gil can help you, and Alys, I’d be right glad of your –’

Alys looked round and nodded from where she was already conferring with Mistress Sproull.

‘There is still time to get her home,’ she said, ‘since it is only next door, but also we should send to tell her mother and the midwife.’

‘Aye, you’re right, lassie,’ agreed Babb, stroking Mistress Mathieson’s perspiring forehead with one large gentle hand, ‘we’ve time, but we’d best no stand about, just the same.’

Leaving Maister Renfrew issuing curt instructions to Kate and to the women of his own household, Gil followed Morison as ordered, and found himself recalling the way his mother had addressed his father as
my lord
in company, formal and respectful and at times extracting the same expression of deep but wary relief as he had just seen on Morison’s face.

In the hall-chamber, the sick man had been laid on the great bed, the plaids and mantles which had been laid there bundled on to a stool, the embroidered counterpane hastily drawn back and mounded at his feet. The remaining mummers were huddled by the wall while the Forrest brothers and James Syme conferred in low tones at the bedside. Morison hurried to join the apothecaries, saying anxiously, ‘How does the poor laddie? Is he – is he still –?’

‘He’s still alive,’ said Syme, ‘but I fear we must prepare for the worst. Is the priest sent for, Augie?’

The other champion sobbed aloud at this, scrubbing at his eyes with the cuff of his doublet and smearing soot on the back of his hand. Judas patted him clumsily on the shoulder. Gil crossed the room to join the men and offer sympathy, got them to sit down on the padded bench which matched the hangings of the bed, and drew a back-stool to one end of it so he could see their faces. Robert Renfrew hurried in as he seated himself, carrying a heavy leather case and a silver basin and followed at a more measured pace by his father.

‘Tell me about this,’ Gil said encouragingly to the mummers, trying to ignore the bustle. ‘That’s not the way the play should go. What was meant to happen?’

They all stared at him, and then the Judas pulled himself together and said wearily, ‘Well, the champion should rise up and all be – all be well again, maister. That’s what the play’s about, see.’

Gil nodded agreement. ‘Was anything else different, before Danny fell?’

They looked at one another uneasily, and Judas, who seemed to be the spokesman, said, ‘No. No that you’d call different, considering.’

‘Considering what?’ Gil summoned patience.

‘I’ll no believe it,’ said the St Mungo. He pushed his mitre back to scratch his head. ‘Nanty’s a good fellow, he’d no do sic a thing.’

‘Here’s the priest,’ said the piper quietly, as a stir at the chamber door signalled the entry of Father Francis Govan from the Franciscan house across the way. One of the maidservants entered with a jug of hot water, staring round-eyed, and lingered until pushed out by Wat Forrest. His brother was using mortar and pestle to bruise some powerful-smelling herbs.

‘Nanty and Danny had words,’ said Judas reluctantly. ‘Down in the kitchen yonder, afore we come up to play the play.’

‘And what was that about?’ Gil asked. Again they looked at one another uneasily.

‘About the lassie Renfrew?’ said the Bessie. He had removed his headdress, which lay at his feet like a mound of washing; closer inspection showed that Ysonde was right, and the main component was a bed-sheet, nine or ten square yards of heavy linen. The fellow’s neck muscles must be strong, Gil thought, to carry that on his head. ‘See, Nanty was out in the yard getting a word wi her when we should ha been all in the kitchen setting out the moves.’

‘And Danny took exception to that?’ Gil prompted.

‘He gaed out to the yard,’ said the piper, ‘called him in, demanded what they’d had to say at sic a moment.’

‘And Nanty said it was nothing, and nane o his mind,’ supplied Bessie. ‘A bit of a ding-dong they had, though it was just a shouting match, they never flung fists.’

‘We got them calmed down,’ said St Mungo, ‘and we sorted out all the moves, and sat down wi a stoup of ale to wait.’

‘And then,’ took up Judas, ‘if Nanty wasny getting another word wi the lass on the stair, just afore we came up. I spoke sharp to him, but the limmer gied me a bit snash herself, and slipped away back to the company. And as well, too,’ he added darkly. ‘
I’ve saved your play
, she says. Did you ever hear? She’d ha felt the rough side of my hand if she’d waited, whoever her faither might be.’

When Gil stepped out into the hall, he found Kate just despatching Babb and two reluctant journeymen with the groaning, white-faced Mistress Mathieson established in a great chair, to carry her next door to her own house, escorted by her stepdaughters who appeared to be engaged in a savage whispered quarrel. Several people looked round as he emerged, but he shook his head.

‘No change,’ he said. ‘Is the Serjeant not here yet?’

‘William must have gone further afield to find him,’ Kate speculated. ‘The man’s never about when you need him.’

‘And Our Lady send that Eleanor doesny miscarry and all, what wi the excitement,’ commented Grace Gordon as she gathered up the last of the fans and cushions. ‘You’ll remember this gathering your life long, Kate.’

‘I wish I thought I could forget it,’ said Kate wryly.

The two women exchanged kisses, and Grace left, with an anxious look at her husband, who waved his fingers at her but did not move. Alys came to tuck her hand in Gil’s, whether giving or seeking reassurance he was uncertain though he was glad of her touch. Kate braced herself visibly and looked round the hall at her remaining guests. Mistress Hamilton and the quiet young wife of Wat Forrest, who had hardly spoken in Gil’s hearing all afternoon, had begun discussing childbirth with Nancy Sproull. Nancy’s daughter Nell had retired to a corner and seemed to be struggling with tears. The men were still under siege in the window bay, Andrew Hamilton and Dod Wilkie discussing some matter of burgh council business with Maistre Pierre, Nicol Renfrew sitting humming tunelessly and swinging one foot again, and young Andrew Hamilton staring alternately at the door to the hall-chamber and at the despairing figure of Nanty Bothwell at the far end of the room where he sat bound to a backstool and guarded by two journeymen in watchful pose.

‘I wonder how long we –’ Kate began, one hand at her breast.

‘There is little we can do but wait till the Serjeant comes,’ Alys observed, ‘and pray for that poor man. Gil, do you think it can have been an accident?’

‘I don’t believe Nanty Bothwell intended to poison Dan Gibson,’ he said cautiously.

She gave him an intent look, and nodded. Kate, easing at the bodice of her dark red gown, said, ‘Of course it was an accident. I’ve dealt with the man, when I wanted straightforward simples rather than a compound wi honey at five times the price, and he’s intelligent and civil, and so is his sister. As you said, Gil, he’s not such a fool as to poison the fellow afore all these witnesses. I’m right sorry we’ve had to take and tie him. I had Jamesie fetch him a bite to eat and drink, poor man.’

‘There’s a sister, is there?’

‘Her name is Christian Bothwell,’ said Alys. ‘She is often at the booth, but I think she does a lot of the stillroom work. I think her a good woman.’

‘Where is Serjeant Anderson?’ wondered Kate distractedly, still plucking at her gown.

‘Kate, are you laced too tight?’ Gil asked. She looked down, colouring, and snatched the hand away.

‘Edward,’ she said. ‘He needs to be fed.’ She looked about the chamber as if expecting to see the baby hidden in a corner.

‘Mysie has taken him above stairs,’ Alys said. ‘I’ll fetch her down. Where will she bring him?’

‘Not here,’ said Kate, with a helpless glance at the men still ostentatiously talking matters of state. Nicol Renfrew gave her a happy smile and another tiny wave of his fingers.

‘Augie’s closet,’ Gil suggested.

He had just returned to the hall with a list of instructions for Morison, leaving Kate and Alys to settle down with the baby, his nurse Mysie, and a jug of ale, when a portentous knocking at the house door announced the Serjeant. Admitted by Andy Paterson the steward, the burgh lawkeeper proceeded into the hall, a big man in an expansive blue woollen gown with the burgh badge embroidered on the breast. He was followed by one of his constables bearing a coil of rope and a pair of rusty manacles.

‘Guid e’en to ye, maisters. Aye, Maister Cunningham,’ he said, looking about him. ‘So what’s this about murder being done? Strange how I’m aye finding you next to a murder.’

‘Daniel Gibson,’ said Gil, ignoring this, ‘fell down deathly sick at the end of the mummers’ play.’

‘Is the rest of the company well?’ asked the Serjeant sharply.

‘So far as I knew,’ Gil answered, impressed despite himself. The man did not usually ask such pertinent questions.

‘A terrible thing! We all saw him pysont,’ Mistress Hamilton announced with relish. ‘Poor man,’ she added.

‘Gibson was playing Galossian,’ Gil supplied, ‘and it seems as if he could have been poisoned by the drops the doctor uses to cure him. Maister Renfrew and his partners, and the Forrest brothers, are working on him now.’

‘He’s a deid man, then,’ said the Serjeant, ‘for nobody could survive that much curing.’ He laughed at his joke, and looked about him. ‘Where is he, then? I’ll need to see him, deid or no, and where’s Nanty Bothwell? Ah, you’ve got him ready for me.’

The door to the hall-chamber opened, and Morison emerged, his velvet hat in his hand.

‘Serjeant,’ he said. ‘I thought I heard your voice. Thank you for coming so prompt. It’s a matter of violent death, right enough.’

‘Death?’ said Nancy Sproull sharply. ‘Is the poor fellow dead, then?’

In the window Maistre Pierre turned to look at them, and pulled his hat off. The other men did the same, one after another, and Nanty Bothwell, between his two sentinels, bent his head and muttered a prayer.

‘He died just now.’ Morison crossed himself, and most of his hearers did likewise. ‘Father Francis was wi him.’

‘God send him rest,’ said Andrew Hamilton. His son was silent and round-eyed.

‘Aye, well,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘that’s clear enough, I’d say. Pysont by the man that’s his rival in love, so I hear, and all these folk witnesses to it, is that right?’

Nanty Bothwell looked up with a despairing ‘No!’ but most of those present nodded, and there was a general chorus of agreement. Nancy Sproull said:

‘Aye, as Agnes said, we all saw him give poor Daniel the drops that slew him.’

‘I’m none so certain,’ said Gil. ‘Bothwell seemed as dismayed as any of us at the man’s taking ill.’

‘It was hardly anyone else in the chamber ministered the pyson,’ objected Maister Wilkie. He clapped his green bonnet back on his bald patch and came forward into the room. ‘There was none of us anywhere near the man – aye, nowhere near either of them, till the moment Dan Gibson fell down.’

‘That’s truth,’ agreed Maister Hamilton.

His stout wife nodded, her chins wobbling, and young Andrew said clearly, ‘They were all there in the midst of the room, see, and the rest of us round the outside.’

His mother looked at him fondly, but Nicol Renfrew said, with that irritating giggle, ‘It was the wrong flask he had.’ Everyone turned to stare at him, and he put his head back and looked owlishly from face to face. ‘You could see that,’ he added, and giggled again.

‘How could you tell?’ Gil asked carefully, trying to recall the moment when the flask had appeared from the doc-tor’s great scrip.

Nicol waved a hand, grinning. ‘It just was.’

A reply Ysonde might have made, Gil thought.

‘This gets us nowhere,’ declared the Serjeant. ‘See here, Maister Cunningham, you’re paid of my lord Archbishop to look into murders, so it’s only natural you should want to look further. But I’m paid wi the council to keep this burgh safe, and what I’ll do to that end is arrest the man that pysont Daniel Gibson, that you’ve got held there waiting for me, and there’s the sum of it. Where is the poor fellow, sir?’

‘Yonder, in the hall-chamber,’ said Morison, with a helpless glance at Gil, while Wilkie and Maister Hamilton made approving noises and the scrawny constable looked resigned.

‘But if there’s some doubt about the flask –’ Gil began, swallowing anger.

‘Ach, nonsense,’ said Maister Hamilton roundly. ‘We’ve only this daftheid’s word on that, and he’s the one that tellt our Andrew Dumbarton Rock was on fire.’

Nicol flourished one hand and bowed, still grinning, and young Andrew went scarlet and glowered at his father. The Serjeant, ignoring the exchange, summoned his constable and proceeded grandly towards the door Morison had indicated. Gil, following him, paused as he found Maistre Pierre at his elbow.

‘The man is safe meantime, if he is in the Tolbooth,’ the mason observed in French. ‘But I agree, it is not at all a certainty.’

‘I’m not happy,’ Gil admitted, ‘but there is too little to go on. Better to let him take the fellow up, I suppose, while I ask questions further afield.’

In the hall-chamber the apothecaries were packing up their equipment, a set of wicked little knives, the basin in which the cataplasm had been mixed, the packets of strong-smelling herbs which went neatly back into the leather case. Robert Renfrew, holding a bowl of blood, stood aside for the Serjeant to enter and his father looked up from his herbs and said:

‘Aye, Serjeant. It’s murder right enough. Have you arrested the fellow?’

‘In good time,’ returned Serjeant Anderson, sailing towards the bed. ‘Poor Danny. A good lad, so I believe.’ He removed his hat briefly, and replaced it, then nodded at the mummers still seated in a row where Gil had left them, four of them numb and silent, the other young champion now sobbing into his hands. ‘Aye, fellows,’ he went on. ‘A bad business, a bad business. It just goes to show what following your heart can do to a young man.’