The Counterfeit Madam (6 page)

‘Were they fond?’

‘Doted, more like,’ said Lowrie.

‘In fairness, no,’ said his uncle to that. ‘Thomas was deaf as an adder by then,’ he explained to Gil, ‘which you can see would be an advantage, and the old carline would pat his hand, order his favourite dinner, and go her own way. They were easy enough together. Mostly.’

‘There were some rare brulzies,’ said Lowrie, ‘if he crossed her, but mostly he did as she pleased.’

‘So she’s changed little in the time.’

‘Changed not at all. She’s aye been like that, an arglebarglous steering old attercap, fit to tramp on any man’s toes, or woman besides.’

‘She’s made my mother’s life a misery,’ Lowrie contributed, ‘since ever Thomas died, two year ago at Yule, and why her woman Annot stays wi her I’ve no notion.’

‘Or any of them,’ said his uncle. ‘I’d think shame, to miscall honest workers the way she does, let alone the way she speaks to her equals.’

‘Is she lodged wi you just now? Has she said anything more about the Strathblane portions? What makes her so certain they’re hers, for instance?’

Lowrie covered his eyes with one hand, and his uncle groaned.

‘Cold tongue pie wi bitter sauce, we had for supper this night,’ he admitted. ‘We’re all of us lodged in Canon Aiken’s house, seeing he’s away to preach at his benefice, and he’s left us some of the servants. It’s a right good cook he keeps, but it was all wasted this evening, I couldny taste a morsel of it for the old dame haranguing us both. Ingratitude, enmity, lack of respect—’

‘Jealousy, bitterness,’ Lowrie supplied. ‘Oh, and ill manners. She’s aye been one to judge others by herself. She maintains that Thomas held everything in joint fee wi her, but when my uncle asked her for proof and the documents to it she began drumming her heels, and then—’ He paused, looking awkward, but his uncle took up the tale again with no qualms.

‘Then she announced that she would go to stool, and left the board. Her women went wi her, poor souls, Annot and the other one, but I’d had about all I could take o her nonsense and could face no more o the supper, good as it was. And then,’ he pursued, indignation warming his tone, ‘John Sempill turns up, saying she wanted a word wi him, as I recall her telling him in Canon Cunningham’s house, and she kept him waiting in her antechamber, then they had a roaring tulzie, I’m surprised you never heard it down here, and she dismissed him, and we had to listen to him raging about her manners and offer him a drink afore he’d leave us. Just afore we came out, that was.’

‘Well, it was an entertainment,’ said Lowrie.

‘So she has not offered any proof,’ said Alys.

‘What else has she given away?’ Gil asked. ‘And who did she give it to? Has she issue of her own?’

‘No bairns that we know of,’ said Maister Livingstone. ‘She’s right fond of Magdalen Boyd, we’ve met the lady a time or two in her company, and she’s mentioned your sister, maister. Thomas had no issue neither.’

‘I reckon Holy Kirk will be the ultimate beneficiary,’ said Lowrie.

‘As to what she’s alienated,’ pursued Maister Livingstone, ‘we aye suspicioned this other stretch of Strathblane, the next property, Balgrochan that Mistress Boyd mentioned, was rightly part of the heriot, but Archie could never prove it. She gave that to Mistress Boyd at her second marriage, whenever that was.’

‘There was the lands in Teviotdale she sold to the Maitlands,’ observed Lowrie. ‘My faither was certain he’d seen the names on something in the great kist, but there was nothing to be found when he searched, and the superior had nothing either.’

Gil nodded. The Livingstone family obviously held to the same custom as his own father, and most other landowners. The documents which embodied their right to occupy this or that portion of the realm of Scotland were kept in one place, protected with the rest of the family’s valuables. The overlord, the feu superior, would have a copy; the man of law who had drawn up the original document might or might not hold a third copy, but he would certainly have a record of the transaction written into his protocol book, his formal record of all the legal proceedings he had witnessed.

‘Who conveyed these portions for her?’ he asked. ‘How did she convince him the lands were hers to convey?
An instrument of sasine granted to any man is not sufficient proof that his wife was seized in the same lands
.’

Maister Livingstone blinked at the Latin, but both Lowrie and Alys murmured in agreement.

‘My faither might recall who handled the sale to the Maitlands. Whoever it was, if she just said they were hers, likely he’d accept it. It would take a better man than most to argue wi her,’ said Lowrie frankly. ‘She’s like a runaway cart when she gets going. What’s more,’ he went on, thinking aloud, ‘Thomas might never have had a paper for all that was his anyway, not everyone gets a new document drawn up when they inherit. Why pay for something you might never need?’

Gil nodded again, studying the spread of crabbed writing and looping signatures before him.

‘It’s clear enough by these,’ he said to Maister Livingstone, ‘that the lands of Ballencleroch with the Clachan of Campsie are rightly part of the inheritance, and therefore are now held by Livingstone of Craigannet – by your brother. I’ll proceed on that assumption for now, until the old dame can show me any different. I wonder where she had the Lanarkshire lands from?’

‘She said those had been in her family,’ said Alys. ‘Where would you go to confirm that?’

‘My uncle might ken who I should ask,’ Gil said. ‘And I should speak to your brother’s own man of law, maybe, maister. Who is he? Would he have dealt wi Dame Isabella? No, surely he’d have recognized the properties.’

‘Mm.’ Maister Livingstone’s face grew longer, and he crossed himself. ‘That was our kinsman George. A third or fourth cousin, practising in Stirling. Dee’d last Martinmas, he did. Archie’s had no call to replace him yet.’

‘His house went on fire,’ supplied Lowrie. ‘His papers went up in flames and all.’

‘Our Lady receive him,’ said Alys, and crossed herself. Gil sighed. This was not a simple trail, that was becoming obvious.

‘We need to ask your brother if he recalls who acted for the old dame,’ he said, counting off the points, ‘I need to ask my uncle what he knows about the Lanarkshire lands, and I need to get a closer look at the papers for the two properties again. Dame Isabella took them back, I think.’

‘We can send our man Jock Russell out to Craigannet,’ offered Lowrie, ‘he can fetch back word from my faither.’

‘That would help,’ Gil said. He turned away from the spread of papers and lifted the jug of Malvoisie which Ays had brought. ‘Time for another mouthful, I’d say. And while we drink it, what can you tell me, Maister Livingstone, about how coins are struck?’

‘What can I tell you?’ repeated Maister Livingstone, startled. ‘Why, about all you’d wish to ken, I dare say, for I was moneyer to James Third, along wi Tammas Todd, and oversaw the whole process for five year. What brings that into your mind? Is it this counterfeit coin you have in Glasgow? The auld carline’s never tried to pass you a false plack, has she!’

He chuckled at his joke. Gil smiled politely and refilled his glass with the dark gold wine.

‘Have a seat,’ he suggested, handing it over, ‘and tell me the process. How does it begin?’

In fact there was rather more than he wished to know. Maister Livingstone’s memory was excellent, but indiscriminate, and before long Gil’s head was whirling in a cloud of details, of the distinctions between different royal portraits on the one side of a coin and the decoration round the cross on the other, of different inscriptions and values, weights of silver and fineness of the alloy.

‘But the coining itself,’ he prompted. ‘How does that go?’

‘Oh, in the assay, as I’m just telling you.’ Livingstone sipped appreciatively. ‘Then when your metal’s been made equal to the fineness laid down by contract—’ His speech tumbled off again like a flight of pigeons, describing casting the ingots, finger-thick and a foot long, the annealing, beating flat, annealing again, the cutting into coin-sized squares which were stacked and beaten circular.

‘Then they’re cast into a vat of argol and boiled,’ he related, ‘and then they’re struck.’

‘Argol?’ questioned Alys. ‘What is that, maister?’

‘Er – it’s what you’d call tartar of wine, likely—’

‘The same as I’d use to make sponge-cakes rise?’ she said in amazement. ‘What does that do to them?’

‘I wouldny ken, mistress.’ Livingstone tasted the Malvoisie again. ‘It makes the blanks more ready to take the impress, softens the metal I suppose. Anyway then they’re struck, like I said. You’ve your pile, that’s a column of iron,’ he curved thumb and middle finger of his free hand to demonstrate the breadth, ‘wi a spike at the base to hold it secure in the block, and your trussel, that’s another column. And each of them has one face of the coin engraved on the flat end, so when you put your blank between the two and strike it a few times wi a mell, there’s your coin. Your groat or whatever you set out to strike.’

‘It seems a great deal of work to make a groat,’ she said dubiously.

‘Oh, it’s that,’ he agreed, ‘but you don’t make just the one groat. A good man working wi a basket of blanks can strike twenty or thirty in an hour.’

‘So it is a noisy process,’ said Gil.

‘Aye, it’s noisy. Your moneyer has to strike hard and straight every time, and the pile and trussel ring out, being iron, and then there’s the beater and the shear-man. Plenty o noise in a Mint, there is.’

‘Do the dies have to be iron?’ Gil asked. ‘Would a softer metal do?’

‘Oh, it would
do
,’ agreed Livingstone, ‘but it wouldny last. You’d need a fresh die afore the six month was out, and you never get them quite the same, no matter how good your craftsman is. You’d get the Mint accused o making false coin!’ He laughed at that.

‘And how about waste?’ asked Gil. ‘Things go wrong in any craft.’

‘They do,’ Maister Livingstone nodded solemnly. ‘You’ve to make certain each groat’s worth a groat, that there’s as many coins out of a pound of siller as there should be, no more and no less. You need to be sure both images are struck clean and single, wi no double strikes or part strikes, and you need to weigh it all in and all out again to make sure none of it’s walked out in your moneyer’s shoon. And the dies has to be locked up at the day’s end and given out again the next morning.’

‘The dies? So they never go missing?’ said Gil. Maister Livingstone grinned.

‘What do you think, maister? But they’re generally found again. There’s no that many folks can dispose of them, a wee session all round wi the torturer uncovers what happened quick enough.’

‘But surely,’ said Lowrie, and stopped as they all looked at him. ‘Surely an engraver could make you a die if you wanted one? No need to risk stealing what would be missed, just get the man to copy a coin for you – you might even get the same engraver that made the originals, if you paid him enough.’

‘Aye, you could,’ said his uncle with scepticism, ‘but you’ve still to get the siller, which is one of the scarcest things in all Scotland, I’ve no need to tell you, laddie, as well as finding the other craftsmen you need.’

‘How much room does the coiner use for working?’ asked Alys. ‘The Mint must be a good size, I suppose, but if you need not have the assay-house and the strongroom and so forth, could a man work by his own hearth?’

‘Aye, or in an outhouse,’ agreed Livingstone. He considered. ‘The other work has to be done somewhere, a course. I’d agree wi you, a counterfeiter likely won’t trouble himsel wi the assaying, but the metal still has to be cast and cut and annealed.’

‘Somewhere wi space for metalworking, then,’ said Gil. ‘Even if they clear it all away when they’re not at the task. A fire or a furnace, tongs and a crucible and ladle—’

‘Furnace,’ said Livingstone. ‘You’ll not melt siller on a kitchen fire.’ He set down his glass, and looked at the dark window. ‘We’d best away up the road, maister. The auld wife has to be watched, or she’s up to all sorts. I’ll not weep at her funeral, I can tell you. Have I tellt you all you need for now?’

‘We were wedded just before Martinmas,’ said Magdalen Boyd. Gil eyed her, wondering how to put his next question. She saw his expression and smiled faintly. ‘John and I deal excellently well,’ she said. ‘I’ll not deny it was a matter of convenience for both of us, but I’ve found great good in him.’

‘You have?’ said Gil before he could help it. ‘I mean – I’m glad to hear that.’

It was probably not yet Terce, but he had begun the day before Prime recording an exchange of sasines on a muddy toft away along Rottenrow. After a short but frustrating interview with Canon Cunningham, which the older man had ended by claiming an early appointment at his chamber in the Consistory Tower, he had crossed the street to the gates of the town house which had once belonged to John Sempill and was now the property of his cousin Philip. Lady Magdalen had greeted him pleasantly, sent out to find her husband, and sat down to talk to her guest; a tray with small ale and little cakes had appeared immediately.

‘He’s that attentive,’ she went on, ‘far more than my first man, and he manages my estates for me, which is something I found a great burden, for I’ve no understanding o these things.’

Gil stared at her in fascination, trying to reconcile this image of John Sempill with the man he knew. After a moment he abandoned the attempt and said,

‘Tell me more about these two tofts on the Drygate. How did you come by them?’

‘They were a part of my tocher when I was first wedded,’ she said. ‘My brother purchased them in ’89. There’s no need for you to worry about them, they’re mine to dispose of as I please, wi John’s consent, and you can see I have that.’

So the feu superior was either the Archbishop or the burgh, he thought, and the records should be in Glasgow. That simplified that.

‘Did you ken who were the tenants?’

She nodded, going faintly pink across the cheekbones.

‘The wester toft, the one where there’s all the workshops, we took on wi the most of those tenants in place. The other one, the house—’ She bit her lip. ‘My brother purchased that from one of the Walkinshaws. I think it was where their mother dwelt afore she founded the almshouse. We had one tenant or another in it for a year or two, and then this – woman and her business offered me a good rent, and my brother thought I should accept.’

‘You’ve had no dealings direct with her?’

She shook her head.

‘My brother dealt wi’t first, and then John since we were wedded, and I think he’s had no need o speaking wi the woman, she’s sent the rent in good time each quarter-day. To tell truth, maister, I’ve never been in the house. I was right concerned, what Maister Livingstone said about the paintings. Are they – are they—?’

‘The ones I saw were seemly enough,’ he assured her, ‘though the subjects themselves were a touch wanton. A few painted drapes and they’d be fit for anyone’s een.’

‘Hmm.’ She did not sound convinced. ‘Or maybe a good coat o limewash. So have you come to a decision, maister?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gil. ‘I’d like a closer look at all the workshops, and a wee while wi the accounts. But it’s beginning to look like a right generous offer.’

She gave him another gentle smile.

‘It’s only right that John’s heir should be his own get,’ she said, ‘but I’d not want to see the other bairn lose by it. His mother was gently bred, after all.’

So is his father, in his own country, thought Gil, but said nothing. She nudged the plate of little cakes towards him, but anything she might have said was drowned out by the arrival of John Sempill, flinging wide the house door and exclaiming,

‘There you are, Gil Cunningham! I was out in the town looking for you.’

‘I sent word I’d meet you here,’ Gil said mildly, rising. Sempill snorted angrily, but slammed the door behind him and came forward to salute his wife, his belligerent expression softening as he looked at her.

‘Did you get a word wi Dame Isabella, John?’ she asked. ‘Is all clear now?’

‘Aye,’ he said airily. ‘She’s – showed me how it happened. Likely there’s more to discuss,’ he added, ‘I’ll need another word wi her. What’s ado here?’

‘We’ve been talking o the two tofts on the Drygate,’ said his wife. ‘Maister Gil would like to see the rent-rolls.’

He dragged another backstool beside hers and sat down.

‘Aye, I suppose,’ he said ungraciously. ‘I’ve got them in the kist in our chamber. Is that what you’re here for?’

‘Part of it,’ Gil said. ‘I’ve to find out the history of these lands out in Strathblane and all, and I hoped you might help me there. Did I hear you say you’d taken the one Dame Isabella named to be Lady Magdalen’s property already?’

Sempill scowled at that.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But I’ve just said, I was mistaken. It’s never been Maidie’s. I’d mixed up the two names. See, they’re too much alike,’ he went on more fluently, ‘Balgrochan and Ballencleroch, and it’s Balgrochan that’s been Maidie’s all along. She showed me that last night, and the old – woman’s confirmed it now, may she—’

‘John.’

‘I think you had that from Dame Isabella too,’ Gil said, looking at Lady Magdalen. She nodded. ‘Was there ever any thought that it might no ha been hers to dispone?’

‘We’ve got the dispositions,’ said Sempill before his wife could speak, ‘all sealed and witnessed. The lands o Balgrochan are Maidie’s own, I tell you.’

‘John.’ She put a calming hand on his wrist. He subsided, and she said direct to Gil,‘To tell truth, my god-mother’s Livingstone kin by marriage put up some tale o it being part of the heriot land at the time, but I took it she would ken what she’d a right to. I set it down to them no wishing to see the land go out o the family. I’m beginning to wonder, now, if she’s maybe been mistaken. She’s well up in her age, after all, she might be getting – for all she’s so vigorous, you ken—’

‘Childish? A course she is!’ said Sempill. ‘And has been for years, at that.’

Lady Magdalen bit her lip, and Gil nodded understandingly.

‘Might I see the documents?’ he prompted. Husband and wife exchanged another look.

‘If you would, John,’ she said. He rose obediently. ‘Best to fetch them down here, I think, the light’s better here.’

Does she put something in his meat? Gil wondered as Sempill left the hall. Lady Magdalen watched him go, with what seemed like genuine fondness, then turned to Gil again.

‘I think you’re no long wedded yoursel, maister?’ she said. ‘And to a French lady, am I right? You speak French, then?’

‘I was four years at Paris,’ he replied.

‘Paris! My brother studied there and all. Did you like it?’

‘I did,’ he said briefly, images of the city and the university drifting in his head. The raucous narrow streets of the Latin quarter, the stationers, the book dealers, and the great church of Our Lady on its island in the river, looming over all. He blinked, and found Lady Magdalen offering him another of the small cakes.

‘So did my brother,’ she said, nodding. ‘Travel is a wonderful thing, though the food can be strange, so I’ve heard.’

‘They eat bread and meat, just as we do.’

‘But snails as well, so they say, and garlic in everything. Oh, John, you were quick, that was clever.’

‘Aye, well, they were to hand.’ Sempill thrust the bundle of documents at Gil and went to sit down beside his wife, who gave him another of those encouraging smiles. Gil set the rent-rolls to one side and lifted the third item, the title-deed, to inspect it before Sempill changed his mind.

‘This is the wrong docket,’ he said after a moment.

‘It’s the one I put back in the kist last night,’ said Sempill aggressively. ‘It canny be the wrong one.’

‘None the less,’ Gil said, ‘it’s the title to Ballencleroch, no Balgrochan. The one the Livingstones dispute.’

‘What? Let me see!’

‘John.’ Lady Magdalen put one hand on his wrist, and stretched out the other to Gil. ‘May I see, sir?’ She took the crimped and pleated parchment and looked briefly at the heading, then at the seals at its foot, and nodded. ‘Aye, I’m agreed. My godmother must have given us back the wrong document yestreen. She must have the other still in Attie’s bag.’

‘Aye, you’re right,’ said Sempill in faint surprise, peering over her shoulder. ‘The auld – woman must have been mistook in that and all. We’ll ha to get the right one off her.’

‘Might I see that one?’ Gil accepted it back and spread it flat, studying the peripheral wording. It seemed clear enough and perfectly in order; Thomas Livingstone and Isabella Torrance his wife had taken sasine of the lands detailed, in joint possession, on a date in 1490. He drew out his tablets and found a clean leaf.

‘What are you writing?’ demanded Sempill suspiciously.

‘The names of the witnesses,’ Gil replied. ‘And the factor who acted for the Earl of Lennox. One of them might recall the name of the man of law, if Dame Isabella won’t tell me. I need to establish who has the right to this land before my sister’s marriage.’

‘I’d as soon it was put straight too,’ agreed Magdalen Boyd. ‘She’d not hear my questions yestreen, grew angry when I tried to persist, so I left the matter, but—’

‘Here’s her man Attie now,’ said Sempill, straightening up to stare at the window. ‘Just crossing the yard.’

‘Maybe she’s sent the other deed,’ said his wife. Sempill snorted, and turned to watch one of his cousin’s servants make her way across the hall in response to the knocking at the door. Gil finished making notes and checked carefully again that the name of the man who had drawn up the document was not recorded, and suddenly realized that both Sempill and his wife were exclaiming in surprise and shock.

‘But what can have happened?’ Lady Magdalen said. ‘She was in good health yesterday. John, did you see her just now? Was she well?’

‘Just – oh, just the now? Same as she was yesterday – in full voice,’ said Sempill, ‘calling me for all sorts over nothing. I’d no ha looked for her to drop down dead either. What happened, man?’

‘We’re no certain,’ said the man Attie, his livery bonnet held against his chest. ‘She was well enow when Annot left her to – to her prayers, but when she returned there she was—’ He crossed himself, and Sempill did likewise, pale blue eyes round with astonishment. Lady Magdalen bent her head and murmured something. ‘We’re thinking maybe she took an apoplexy, or her heart failed her, or the like. Maister Livingstone’s sent for a priest, but—’

Gil looked round the dismayed faces and pulled off his own hat.

‘Are you saying Dame Isabella’s dead? This morning?’

‘Aye,’ said Sempill sourly. ‘So the man says. Trust the auld woman to thwart me in her last deed. So you can just fold that up and let me have it back,’ he added, pointing at the document Gil still held.

‘John,’ said his wife reprovingly. ‘There’s none of us can ken the moment of our death.’

‘But how?’ Gil asked. ‘What came to her?’ His mind was working rapidly as he spoke. Lady Magdalen’s transaction would probably be unaffected, but Tib’s marriage gift would almost certainly not reach her now, so the question of whether the lands in Strathblane were Dame Isabella’s to dispose of was a matter for the Livingstone family and not for him. He began to fold the crackling parchment. ‘What came to her?’ he repeated.

Attie shook his head.

‘We’re no certain,’ he said again. ‘Annot left her in her chamber, like I said, and when she gaed back in, there she was on the floor, and stone dead.’

‘Did you fetch a priest to her?’demanded Sempill.

‘Maister Livingstone has sent for one, Attie says,’ Lady Magdalen reminded him.

‘Has anyone else seen her?’ Gil asked. ‘You’re certain she’s dead, no just fallen in a stupor? An apoplexy can be—’

‘I’m no sure,’ admitted Attie, ‘for I never saw her, but Annot’s in the hysterics and Maister Livingstone tellt the household she was dead, bade me bring word here and then go for the layer-out. Will you wish to see her afore she’s washed and made decent, mem?’

‘N-no,’ said Lady Magdalen doubtfully. ‘No, I’d sooner wait till she’s in her dignity. Send my condolences to Maister Livingstone on the death of his kinswoman, Attie, and say I’ll come down afore suppertime.’ She seemed even paler than usual; Gil, suddenly recalling her condition, and certain her husband would never think of doing so, reached for the ale-jug and filled her beaker.

‘You should drink a little,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel steadier.’

‘Aye.’ She took the beaker from him. ‘My thanks, maister. Attie, will you go down to the kitchen, tell them the news, bid them see you right. I – I—’ She put her other hand to her head, and smiled weakly. ‘I canny believe it. She’s aye been so robust, I’d ha thought she’d go on for ever.’

‘Do you need to lie down?’ said Sempill, belatedly recognizing her distress. ‘Attie, send her woman up to her! And you’ll have to leave,’ he added to Gil. ‘We canny be looking at all this stuff the now.’

‘I’ve questions yet,’ Gil said mildly, reaching for the nearer rent-roll as the man Attie bowed and retreated to the kitchen door. ‘See your wife right, man, and then we’ll talk.’

The craftsmen of Clerk’s Land were hard at work, to judge by the hammering sounds from the several houses. Armed with the details from the rent-roll and Sempill’s sour comments on each tenant, Gil made his way along the muddy path, identifying the buildings and their occupants, making a note of necessary repairs and at the same time turning over in his mind the likely effects of Dame Isabella’s death on her various schemes. It seemed hard to believe, given the old woman’s forceful presence in Maistre Pierre’s house and then in Canon Cunningham’s only the day before, but sudden death could take anybody. He knew Canon Aiken’s house where the Livingstones were lodged, further down the Drygate; he could call on them later to condole, if that was the right word in the circumstances.

The children he had heard yesterday were wailing again inside the house nearest the road, though a man’s voice shouted at them from time to time. ‘That’s Adkin Saunders, pewterer,’ Sempill had said, ‘an ill-mannered dyvour, and his wife’s a great Ersche bairdie wi no respect for her betters. They pay their rent, but,’ he had added with reluctance. The pewterer was seated by the window, intent on shaping some vessel over a mould, his hammer tapping busily, though he cast a sideways glance at the intruder. Further down the toft two women were talking shrilly in Ersche; presumably one of them was the man’s wife. What had she said to Sempill, Gil wondered.