A Pig of Cold Poison (5 page)

‘The flask,’ said Gil. ‘I thought Mistress Christian recognized the flask. The one that was used instead of Bothwell’s own. That bright pottery is distinctive.’

‘Well, no, it isny,’ said Adam awkwardly. ‘We’ve all three got some, all three o the businesses. We use them for the luxury goods. It was a barrel we had from Middelburgh, of painted ware out of Araby or somewhere. Frankie ordered it up last spring, and took the most of the batch, but Nanty had five or six, and me and my brother took a dozen.’

‘In proportion as you trade in the burgh,’ said Maistre Pierre, wiping his platter with a piece of bread. ‘You have your custom well apportioned between you. Maister Renfrew trades in luxuries, in cosmetics and expensive fine goods, you and your brother have the middle part of the market and young Bothwell serves the poorer sort that can yet pay for
materia medica
. All works out well, I should say.’

‘I’d say so,’ agreed Adam, ‘though I’ve noticed Frankie – well, enough of that.’

‘So whose was that flask?’ Alys asked. ‘One of Maister Bothwell’s, or another?’

‘We’d need to count them all afore I could tell you that,’ Adam admitted. ‘They’re each a bit different, but hardly enough to tell one on its own like that. I don’t see it could be one of ours, but I can check,’ he added.

‘Would the other mummers know where the flask came from?’ asked Morison.

Kate glanced quickly at him, and said, ‘You could speak to them in the kitchen, Gil, rather than bring them up where their fellow died. Maybe Maister Forrest would have some questions for them and all.’

Gil led Adam Forrest obediently down to the kitchen, reflecting that his sister had probably heard enough of the day’s troubles. In the big, busy room the mummers were easily picked out, two grey-faced men surrounded by most of Morison’s household, who were plying them with sympathy mixed with questions about what the Serjeant had asked them and what he would do next. Without their disguises it took Gil a little while to identify them. Then he recognized a gesture, the angle of a head, and realized that they were the two mitred characters, Judas and St Mungo, probably the senior men in the group.

‘Tammas Bowster and Willie Anderson,’ said Adam behind him. ‘Willie’s kin to the Serjeant, but I ken no ill of Tammas. He’s a glover in the Thenewgate.’

Andy Paterson looked round at this, saw them standing at the foot of the stair from the hall, and called for silence, into which Gil said politely, ‘May I come into the kitchen? My sister sent us down. I think these fellows wanted a word wi me.’

‘Aye, that we did,’ said the man who had played Judas, getting to his feet. ‘A word in private, maybe, maister?’

‘Take a light into the scullery,’ suggested Ursel the cook, a spare elderly woman in a clean apron. ‘And mind your good gown on the crocks, Maister Gil, they’re no all scoured yet.’

Perched uncomfortably on the wooden rack where the pots were dried, Gil watched the two mummers brace themselves for speech. They were both quite tall, St Mungo bearing a strong resemblance to his kinsman Serjeant Anderson, the glover leaner and younger with a confident manner which suggested he was his own master. The rushlight Adam had carried through from the kitchen showed them exchanging awkward glances.

‘It’s like this, maister,’ said the glover after a moment. ‘We’d a word among ourselves, the –’ he checked, pulled a face and went on – ‘the five o us that’s left. Davie Bowen’s no making much sense, poor lad, he’s that stricken by his fellow being deid all in a moment like that, but the rest of us are agreed, and we put our heads thegither, and we, and we –’

‘And we put our hands in our purses and all,’ offered Willie Anderson.

‘Quiet, Willie, let me tell it. And the thing of it is, maister, by what we’ve heard, you see into secret murders like what’s happened here for Robert Blacader, and we thought, maybe you’d consider seeing into this one for us? For it’s certain it was murder, Danny was fit and well afore the play began, and it wasny ever Nanty that done it, and we’ve –’ Bowster dug in the breast of his leather doublet and drew out a pouch. ‘We’ve gathered a fee to you, the day’s takings and a wee bit from each of us and all. Only maybe,’ he admitted, with a deprecating look, ‘it’ll no be enough, wi you being a man of law and all.’

Taken aback, Gil stared at the two, trying to think what he should say.

‘It might no take that much doing, for a learned man like yoursel, maister,’ said Willie Anderson ingratiatingly. ‘There might be enough there in wir purse.’

‘You said you’d be taking it on anyway,’ said Adam Forrest from the shadows. ‘Did you no?’

‘I said I’d report to my lord Archbishop,’ Gil corrected. ‘It’s for him to decide whether he wants me to go into the matter.’

‘Is that right?’ said Bowster in dismay. ‘Blacader’s decision?’ The two mummers looked at one another uncertainly. Anderson recovered first.

‘If he was to decide against you,’ he suggested, ‘maybe you could just look into it a wee bittie anyway? Maybe as far as wir purse would take you?’

Gil shook his head, more in disbelief than anything else, but Adam said, ‘No harm in that, surely, Gil?’

‘If I’m to report to Robert Blacader, I need more to tell him,’ said Gil. ‘Why are all Anthony Bothwell’s friends so certain he’s innocent, for a start? And I need to know more about the play, and all the players. This is no place for –’

‘Gil?’ The scullery door creaked open, and Alys stepped in, holding up her apricot silk skirts with one hand. ‘Gil, here is Mistress Bothwell wanting a word.’

‘Maister Cunningham?’ The woman’s voice was high with anxiety. ‘Maister, will you act for my Nanty? He’s there in the Tolbooth, John Anderson’s got him in chains, he’s as innocent as a babe of any poisoning. Will you act for him, and clear his name?’

Gil was having difficulty keeping his face straight.

He knew it was inappropriate. One man had died and another was facing torture, trial and possibly hanging. Bothwell’s friends were deeply anxious for him, his sister was almost frantic. But never before had what felt like half of Glasgow come separately and asked him to take on a case. He feared he was not concealing his amusement well; Alys had looked at him quite severely before she left for home. The remaining supplicants, meanwhile, were gazing hopefully at him by the light of the hall candles, where they had all adjourned after Mistress Bothwell’s outburst.

‘The evening’s wearing on,’ he had said when they came up the stairs. ‘Adam, if I call by the shop tomorrow, I can find out how your brother has proved the flask, and get a longer word wi you.’

‘Aye, fair enough,’ agreed Adam, ‘but I’ll wait and see Mistress Bothwell to her door, I think.’

‘No need,’ Alys had said quickly. ‘Mistress Bothwell will lie at our house tonight.’ Her eyes met Gil’s. ‘They have one servant, who sleeps out,’ she added. He nodded, with some reluctance. In her present state it was hardly right to let the woman go home alone, and though he would have preferred not to offer protection himself he would certainly lose an argument with Alys about the appearance of partiality.

‘I’m right grateful,’ admitted Mistress Bothwell, pleating up the hem of her apron between small hard hands. ‘I’d not – I canny fancy sleeping in an empty house, after sic a day.’

‘Better Maister Forrest walks us home now,’ said Alys, at which Adam made sounds of assent, ‘and my father may stay and help you talk to the mummers.’ She looked about her. ‘Take this light into the window there and I will send him to you.’

So now, seated on one of Morison’s good tapestry back-stools, he poured the men more ale, handed a beaker to his father-in-law, and said, ‘Why are you so certain it was none of Bothwell’s doing?’

They looked at one another and shook their heads.

‘Ye just canny think o Nanty doing sic a thing,’ said Anderson. ‘He’s aye that sweet-tempered, never a man to hold a grudge or, or –’

‘He’s been good friends wi Danny Gibson,’ said Bowster. ‘Until these last two-three month when they both took a notion to the lassie Renfrew, they were scarce out of one another’s company in leisure time, for all I heard.’

‘Went drinking thegither, went out to the butts on a Sunday,’ agreed Anderson.

‘Did their being rivals for the little Agnes make a difference?’ asked Maistre Pierre. The two shook their heads again.

‘They wereny spending as much time thegither,’ offered Bowster, ‘but they were friends enough when we met for the play. The lassie’s well watched, ye ken, she’d have a word for them if her faither’s back was turned, but it’s no as if either lad got that close to her.’

‘And yet they quarrelled in the kitchen here,’ Gil said. ‘Was that over Agnes?’

‘Aye, well,’ said Bowster uncomfortably. ‘It was just shouting. A cause Nanty had a word wi the lassie. Seems they’d pledged no to get the advantage o one another.’

‘Tell me about Danny Gibson,’ said Gil. ‘He’s one of the armourer’s journeymen?’

‘Aye, he’s – he worked for William Goudie,’ said Bowster.

‘The armourer, ye ken,’ said Anderson. Gil, who had dealt with the burgh armourer for years, merely nodded. ‘Him and Davie Bowen both, which is how their fight was that good, seeing they had leisure to practise it any chance their maister would let them.’

‘It was good,’ agreed Gil, with the thought that anything to be salvaged from the afternoon might be a comfort to Gibson’s friends. ‘I don’t know when I last saw a display as accomplished.’

‘Has Maister Goudie been told?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Aye, I’ve tellt him,’ Bowster said, sighing, ‘I’ve tellt the two houses where we were engaged to play the play the morn, I’ve let Archie Muir know that leads the other company in case he wants to take on the engagements in our place. I think I’ve tellt the most of Glasgow, maister, and it’s no been easy.’

Gil took the hint, and poured some more ale.

‘Has either man enemies?’ he asked. ‘Bothwell or Gibson, I mean. Have they quarrelled with anyone else lately?’

The two mummers looked at one another again, and Anderson shrugged his shoulders.

‘No that I ever heard,’ he said.

‘Nor me,’ agreed Bowster, and raised his beaker.

‘No rivals at anything else, no insults, nothing like that?’

‘Nothing like that, that I ever heard,’ Bowster said, emerging from the beaker. ‘A’body that I tellt just now that the lad was dead was right cut up about it, and all, and couldny believe it was Nanty’s doing.’

‘Now, the flask,’ Gil said, accepting this. ‘When did you see it was the wrong one?’

‘When Nanty drew it out of his scrip, I wondered,’ said Bowster, frowning. ‘See, he holds it up and points to it,’ he held up his beaker and imitated the gesture, ‘and tells how there’s all the herbs in it, and I saw then it was the bonnie paintit one. He’d said he’d not use one when I asked him afore, a cause they’re too expensive if it got dropped, and I thought, well, he’s changed his mind.’

‘I thought that and all,’ agreed Anderson.

‘But then when he opened it, there was no smoke like there should ha been,’ Bowster went on, ‘so it never made any sense when Sanders and me backed away. That’s our Bessie,’ he explained, when Maistre Pierre looked puzzled. ‘Sanders Armstrong, that’s whitesmith off the Fishergate. But that’s the first I kenned of it being the wrong flask.’

‘Bothwell never mentioned it earlier?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘No that I heard,’ said Bowster. He looked at Anderson, who shook his head blankly. ‘It might be he mentioned it to one of the other lads, I could ask them if you like, but it was a bit – down in the kitchen yonder, where we was supposed to robe up, and black Davie Bowen’s face, and that, it was going like a fair what wi the company above stairs and folk running up and down to fetch wine and cakes and the like, and that wee lassie getting underfoot –’ He grinned wryly. ‘Asked poor Davie whether he was the Deil or St Maurice, she did. He didny ken what to say, the poor fellow. So as for hearing what any one of the lads said to another, it was a matter of who I was standing next to, that’s who I heard speaking, and I never heard a word of the wrong flask.’

‘No that I ever heard him mention,’ said Christian Bothwell. ‘No enemies, none to wish us ill in Glasgow at least.’

‘And outside it?’ Gil asked.

They were sitting by the fading hearth in the hall of the mason’s big sprawling house further up the High Street. When Gil and his father-in-law finally returned home they had found Mistress Bothwell here in colloquy with Alys and Catherine, the aged French lady who had been Alys’s duenna before their marriage. At Gil’s entry the wolfhound sprawled next to the ashes leapt up and hurried to greet him, tail swinging, and he had to acknowledge the animal’s welcome before he could speak. By the time he had persuaded his dog to lie down again, Alys had also come forward to greet him with rather more dignity and say softly in French:

‘I have let her tell me nothing, Gil, all is still for you to ask.’

He acknowledged this with a quick smile, and touched her hand. She returned the smile and slipped past him to see about something in the kitchen, and he went towards the hearth, taking the opportunity to study the guest while Maistre Pierre was expressing sympathy for her troubles. She was still dressed as she had been when she first hammered at Morison’s door in the twilight, though she had discarded the stained apron and released the long ends of her kerchief to hang down at her shoulders, in the custom of an older woman whose day’s manual labour was done. Her face was broad and plain, though her features were well proportioned; she looked strained and anxious in the candlelight, but her smile had a sweetness about it as she bade goodnight to the dignified Catherine.

‘Outside Glasgow,’ she said now. ‘Well, there are those we hold enemies, but they might not hold us enemies, having got the better of us.’ She noted his startled look, and folded her hands in her lap. ‘We’re no Glasgow folk by birth. Nanty and me were raised in Lanark,’ she said carefully, ‘and trained by our faither, that was apothecary in the town. But when he died there were those that claimed the shop and the workshop and all that was in it as payment for his debts, and we left Lanark and came here instead.’

‘That was two years or so since, I think,’ said Maistre Pierre. She glanced at him and nodded.

‘Had your father’s creditors any connections in Glasgow?’ Gil asked.

‘No that I’m aware.’

‘And your brother has built up his business,’ observed Maistre Pierre, ‘supplying the low end of the market, trading in pence rather than merks and turning over a tidy sum. Or so Maister Forrest tells me.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ she said obscurely. ‘Aye, we serve the Gallowgate and the lower town, wi packets of plain herbs and a few standard cures that sell well, and private consultations, discretion assured.’

‘No quarrels arising from that?’ Gil persevered. ‘A failed treatment, someone who doubts your discretion? What do the other two apothecary houses think of your work?’

She looked blankly at him, then said, ‘I see what you’re asking me. No, I’ve no mind of anyone that holds a grudge at us. Not all treatments succeed, you’ll understand, but the most of our custom recognizes that. Our discretion’s never failed that I mind, and as for the other houses, Wat and Adam are good friends, and Frankie’s aye treated us wi civility. We’re no looking at the same trade, after all. It might be a different tale if we were after his fine goods custom.’

‘What was in the flask your brother should have carried?’ Gil asked.

‘This and that, to raise a bit of smoke when it’s opened,’ she said, as she had before. ‘It’s harmless, so long as you didny drink it or the like, and makes a good effect. Nanty devised it himself.’

‘And it was the right stuff in the flask,’ he persisted.

‘You saw me open it, maister. It was the right stuff – at least, it smoked the right way.’

‘How did he come to leave it behind?’

She shook her head. ‘Likely he took it out of his scrip to fill it, while he was at the booth, and forgot to put it back afore he went out to the play. Better ask him yoursel, maister, if that Serjeant will let you anywhere near him. He wouldny let me in the cell to speak wi him, just took the food and the blanket I brought and sent me away from the door.’ She suddenly turned her head away, but her eyes glittered with tears in the candlelight.

Careful questioning built up an image of decent people, a fond sister, an easygoing and hardworking brother, a close friendship with the dead Danny Gibson.

‘Until the two of them took a notion to that silly wee lassie of Renfrew’s,’ Mistress Bothwell said wearily.

‘Is she so silly?’ Alys asked, crossing the hall from the kitchen stair. She had tied back the sleeves of her silk gown, and was carrying a wooden tray with several beakers and two steaming jugs. The dog Socrates thumped his tail in greeting, and Gil rose to draw a stool to the hearth to serve as a table.

‘If she thinks her faither would ever let her wed wi my Nanty,’ Mistress Bothwell answered, ‘she’s more than silly, she’s daft. He’ll give her a new gown if she asks it, or a feast for her birthday which was how she and Nanty met, but he’s got her marriage sorted, I’ll wager, and Frankie Renfrew takes interference from nobody, the more so since Andrew Slack dee’d and left him senior man in the craft within the burgh.’ She accepted a beaker from Alys, sniffed, tasted, and threw her an approving look. Alys smiled in response, and poured from the other jug for Gil and her father.

‘I would have thought your brother a good prospect,’ observed Maistre Pierre. ‘A man with his own business, another apothecary, a good age for her –’

‘Nanty’s wife will have to work hard,’ Mistress Bothwell countered, ‘to earn her keep and her bairns’ when they come. It’s our own business, but we’re still building it up, maister.’

‘It was clear enough this afternoon Maister Renfrew does not approve,’ said Alys. ‘And you, Mistress Bothwell. Would you see it as a good match?’

‘No.’ She took a sip of her steaming beaker. Gil raised his eyebrows, and she said with more hesitation, ‘I’d be wary of any connection wi Frankie Renfrew. A man wi his own opinion on everything’s bad enough, one that canny let others alone wi their own ideas is more than I can take. He’d be present in the booth or the workshop daily directing what should be done or sold or ordered up. It’s enough trouble now to get him to put our wants on the docket for Middelburgh without altering them to what he thinks best, we’d never get the simples we needed if he had a share in the business.’

Gil was unsurprised, soon after they had retired, to hear Maistre Pierre’s distinctive loud knock at the outer door of their apartment. He padded across the further chamber in his stocking feet to admit his father-in-law, who said without preamble, ‘It must be some enemy of the young man, whatever the sister says.’

‘Or of both of them,’ said Alys, at the door of their bedchamber. ‘Or perhaps someone who dislikes Agnes Renfrew, or apothecaries in general.’

‘Hmm.’ Her father considered this, seating himself at Gil’s gesture in his usual chair by the cooling brazier. ‘I suppose.’

‘Or it could have been an accident after all,’ said Alys. She began to unpin her velvet headdress, and turned away into the other room to finish the task before the looking-glass.

‘All the man’s friends are agreed that it’s out of character,’ Gil concurred, lighting another candle from the one he held. ‘And it does seem a clumsy way to go about it, to poison your rival in front of half the High Street. What puzzles me is this business of it being the wrong flask.’

‘We must find where that one came from,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And how it was exchanged for the right one, and by whom.’

‘And whether Bothwell knew it was that flask when he opened his scrip. Did either of you think he seemed surprised to find it?’

‘He might have been,’ said Alys from the bedchamber. ‘I wonder if he paused just a little when he touched it in his scrip.’