The Counterfeit Madam (7 page)

‘There’s Danny Bell, that’s a lorimer, he doesny dwell on the toft but come in to his workshop by the day. Has a dog as ill favoured as himsel, but at least he’s taught it to do his bidding.’ That was complimentary, by Sempill’s low standards; the man was a stringent judge of dogs. ‘And Dod Muir, that’s an image-maker, works in wood and metal and all sorts, wee hurb of a niffnaff. Both of them pays their rent right enough and all.’

At least, he reflected, peering into a low ramshackle shed and finding an assortment of barrels and a stock of small pieces of wood, at least Dame Isabella did not seem to have died by violence. This must be the image-maker’s woodstore, and yonder was certainly the lorimer’s workshop, with the scraps of leather round the door and pieces of horse-harness hung in the window; the lorimer himself, a young man with startling red hair, was visible at his bench working with leather-punch and hammer. His dog, a small shaggy creature with sharp ears, lay in the doorway and watched Gil suspiciously.

Two of the children from the pewterer’s house ran past him as he moved on, heads down as if fearing pursuit. He hoped they had got out to play for a while. The image-maker was not at home, his house shuttered and silent; the man sounded inoffensive, to judge by Sempill’s contemptuous description.

He moved on down the path, past another long low house with an open barn at its further end.

‘Then there’s Noll Campbell,’ Sempill had said, tapping the rent-roll. ‘I’ve had more trouble wi him than the whole – It’s another hallirakit Erscheman, a right sliddery scruff, wi a mouthful o abuse for any that speaks wi him, one that would sell his granny for dog’s meat. Makes enough to keep a prentice, but will he ever ha the rent together for the quarter-day? No him! I wish you well o him.’ There was a vindictive tone in his voice; clearly this Campbell and Sempill had crossed more than once.

In the barn, the whitesmith straightened up and stared at him under black scowling brows, tongs in hand; behind him in the shadows another man turned to look. That must be the apprentice. Gil nodded at them, and the smith bent to his work again, tap-tapping at what seemed likely to become a lantern.

Beyond the building was a kaleyard with a drying-green, where the women were still arguing in Ersche over a piece of linen. The children ran back up the path, and the two women paused as he came into sight, gazing open-mouthed at him, two Highland women with brows as dark as the smith’s, one young and slender, the other older and heavier. Both were clad in brown linen aprons tied on over loose checked gowns, whiter linen folded and pinned on their heads.

‘Good day to you,’ he said, raising his hat to them. ‘Is that Danny Sproat’s stable down yonder?’

One of them nodded. The older one said civilly enough, in accented Scots,

‘Aye. Aye, it is. But you will not be finding Danny the now. He iss out with the cart and the donkey, just, and not back before tomorrow so he was saying.’

‘I’m only wanting a look inside the stable,’ he said reassuringly. They looked at each other, and the one who had spoken gathered up the disputed washing.

‘Bethag will show you,’ she said, turning towards the houses. ‘There is a way of opening the door, to be keeping the donkey in, you ken.’ She added something in Ersche; the other woman gave her a sharp look, then smiled awkwardly at Gil and gestured towards the small building at the foot of the toft. He followed her, looking about. The kaleyard seemed to be divided up; none of the households would get a living from it, but it would provide all with some green vegetables for most of the year, assuming the donkey did not get through the woven hazel fence.

The door was well secured, though he could probably have opened it without difficulty. Bethag dragged one leaf open and nodded at the shadowed interior; he peered in, identifying stall and manger for the donkey and the standing for the little cart it pulled. The woman spoke in Ersche, pointing at the far wall.

‘What is it?’ he asked. She gave him that awkward smile again and crossed to open a shutter above the cart standing, and by its light showed him a place where the planking was splintered and gnawed. Something scurried over their heads in the low rafters, and she looked up apprehensively. ‘Aye, you get rats in a stable. You need a dog here. Can Danny Bell not bring his dog down to sort matters?’

She nodded, and moved to the door, pointing at the feed sack with a sour, unintelligible comment. He looked about again, comparing the small building with the rent he knew Sproat paid and finding it reasonable, and turned to follow her out.

Pain stabbed savagely at his head, and the world went dark.

The next thing he was fully aware of was of lying facedown on grass, soaking wet and shivering, with an upheaval in his stomach which became a paroxysm of vomiting. As it passed off and he collapsed shuddering on one elbow again, a pair of booted feet came into his field of view, followed by a swirl of dark red broadcloth.

‘You see, madam, there he’s, just like I said! And he’s lost his hat!’

He knew the voice. Who was it?

‘Aye, just like you said. Good laddie, Cato, you did very well here. Now gie me a hand to lift him.’ Strong hands seized him, dragged him upright. Pain knifed through his head, the world swung around, and a face came close to his, a bright mouth, painted eyes, gold-edged veil. ‘Well, he’s no been drinking. Come away, son, we’ll get you indoors. Can you walk?’

‘I seen them put him in the burn!’ Cato was at his other side, urging him on. One foot in front of the other, teeth chattering, an expert grip on his elbow holding him up, he moved forward. Grass, a muddy path, more grass. Steps, a gate. A gravel path with weeds. Cato still prattling about the burn. Who had been in the burn? Was that why he was so wet? They were in a house now. The bawdy-house. What was it called? Why did his head hurt? The bawd-mistress was talking too.

‘Cato, I said you’re a good laddie, but you can be quiet the now. Come away in, son, we’ll have you in here by the brazier. There, you can lie down a bit. Cato, send Agrippina to me wi the good cordial, and bid Strephon put some broth to heat, and then fetch me some towels, two o the big ones, I’d say, till we get him dried off.’

Expert fingers were working at his clothes. He tried to push the hands away, mumbling an objection, and there was a firm grip on his chin.

‘Look at me. Look at me, Gil Cunningham.’ He opened his eyes, and found Madam Xanthe’s painted face close to his. ‘You’re wringing wet, we have to get you out those clothes and dry afore you take your death. I’m no threat to your wee wife, man.’ She moved back a little. ‘Ah, Agrippina. See me a glass o that stuff. Come up a wee bit, laddie.’

The cordial was fiery and sweet, bit his throat on the way down but sent warmth through him and seemed to clear his head. He looked about him, as Madam Xanthe dragged his jerkin off and started on the points which fastened hose to doublet. He was half-lying on a padded bench, in a chamber he had not seen before, well lit and full of women’s gear, a basket of spinning and another of sewing on the windowsill. It seemed odd to find such a thing in a bawdy-house.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Did the boy say I was in the burn?’

‘I seen you!’ Cato arrived with an armful of linen towels. ‘It was some o them next door, they carried you out the back gate and threw you into the mill-burn.’

He stared at the boy, trying to work out what this could mean.

‘And it was me got you out,’ Cato continued proudly, ‘for I saw you wereny right awake, and I thought maybe you’d not get out afore you got to the millwheels, so I ran down the bank and I got you out! I never got your hat, but,’ he added deprecatingly.

‘I was in the stable,’ Gil said after a moment. ‘Oh, my head!’

‘And then I came and fetched madam. Right lucky you was back, madam, so it was!’

‘Here,’ said Madam Xanthe, pausing in her activities, and felt round his skull with gentle hands. ‘Is your head broke?’ He flinched as she touched a tender spot. ‘No, the skin’s whole, but there’s a lump like a hen’s egg below the crown here. You’ve had a right dunt, I’d say. What were you at in the stable, that they took exception? No stealing a ride on the donkey, I hope, I’d hate to think o the sight.’

He shook his head, and immediately regretted it.

‘I don’t recall.’ He braced himself as she bent to haul one of his boots off. ‘I was. I was talking to.’ He paused, and the faces swam up in his memory. ‘Sempill and his wife. And then,’ he shivered again, and Agrippina came forward and began loosening the strings of his shirt. ‘Aye, she’s dead.’

‘Who’s dead?’ Madam Xanthe said sharply, staring up at him, the red paint on her lips suddenly stark against her white skin. He swallowed.

‘Dame – Dame Isabella. The man came to tell us. So I needny concern myself wi her lands.’

‘Dame Isabella,’ repeated Madam Xanthe, as Agrippina dragged his shirt over his head and began rubbing at his back and chest with one of the towels. ‘Aye, well, small loss her. Now we’ll ha your small-clothes off. Never fret, we’ve all seen one of those afore. Will you have me send to your wife for dry clothing, or will you borrow what we can find round the place?’ She tittered, with a brief return of her usual manner. ‘It all depends, I suppose, whether you want her to know you’re here.’

That was easy. He must be late for dinner already. Let them know now, explain the situation later. And it would take some explaining, he felt.

‘Send home, if you would,’ he said, giving up one arm to Agrippina’s ministrations. ‘Does the laddie ken where—’

‘I ken where!’ said Cato. ‘It’s the big house right by the Blackfriars.’

By the time the boy returned Gil felt much more human. A bowl of hot broth and a hunk of bread had warmed him and steadied his stomach, only his hair was still damp, and he was beginning to remember what had led up to the moment when someone must have struck him on the head.

‘I stepped out of the stable,’ he said. ‘The woman was ahead of me, it wasn’t her—’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ observed Madam Xanthe with irony from her seat by the window. He looked up, startled, and she met his gaze directly for a moment before the arch smile spread to her eyes. ‘I’d not like to think she’d felt the need to strike you down. You’ve a name in this town, Maister Cunningham.’

That seemed too difficult to work out. He went back to his ruminations.

‘It must ha been someone behind the door. What did the boy see?’

‘All he said to me was that he’d seen them next door throw you into the burn. If he’d seen you struck down he’d ha let us all know.’

‘I suppose nobody else was looking out,’ he said without much hope.

‘Ah, now, there’s a thought. Bide here.’

Draped like an antique statue and without his boots, he was hardly likely to go anywhere, but he said nothing, merely put his aching head back against the panelling behind him and considered what to do next. He had a good case against the tenants of Clerk’s Land, and it seemed he had at least one witness, though how good the boy Cato would be before the bailies was another matter. His immediate instinct was to accept the property on small John’s behalf and evict all the tenants, pausing only to double the rent, but the due process of the law might be a better weapon, and in any case there remained the question of why they had treated him like this. All he had done was look at the premises, make a few notes, and speak civilly to two of the women. Were they hiding something, he wondered, and if so what?

Shortly Madam Xanthe reappeared, followed by a towheaded girl in a low-cut dress who trailed a strong scent of musk and violets and paused inside the door, eyeing Gil speculatively.

‘Cleone was at her practice by the window,’ announced Madam Xanthe, ‘like a good lassie. Though it’s all good lassies in this house, a course,’ she added with another sly, sideways glance. ‘Tell Maister Cunningham what you saw, my dear.’

‘Aye, well,’ observed Cleone pertly, ‘I wouldny ha been at my practice if I could ha been sleeping, but what wi her snoring—’

‘What, again? She’ll have to go at the quarter if she canny stop that, it’s no attraction. Go on, what did you see? Was this the man?’

Cleone eyed Gil again. Her eyes were blue, with dark rings round them.

‘The one I saw was wearing black.’

‘Aye, and his black is all wet and hung up in the kitchen. He doesn’t go about draped in sheets for every day. Get on wi’t, girl.’

Cleone shrugged, causing an interesting change in the scenery of her low neckline.

‘There was those two next door, squabbling away in Ersche, and this man or one like him, clad all in black, came down the path and spoke to them. Then one of them, I think it was the Barabal one, went off up among the houses and the other one took him down to look at the donkey’s stable.’

Gil nodded in spite of himself, and winced as pain stabbed in his head.

‘And then what?’ he asked. ‘What did you see?’

‘I was studying the tablature a wee while,’ Cleone admitted, ‘but when I looked up there was a man ahint the door of the stable, and when you stepped out he struck you on the head wi his mell. And then they took and carried you out the gate, and dropped you in the water, and then I saw Cato running down our path. So I went back to my practice.’

‘Could you identify him?’ Gil asked. ‘Could you say who he was?’

She looked at him with those blue eyes, smiling earnestly.

‘It was Dod Muir,’ she said. ‘I’m right certain.’

‘The image-maker,’ Gil said, and she nodded.

‘Why did you not go out to help Cato?’ demanded her mistress.

‘Because I wasny dressed. You’re aye telling us no to show off our—’

‘Aye, that’ll do. You’re certain o what you saw?’

Cleone shrugged again.

‘It wasny Campbell nor Saunders. It wasny Danny Bell, he’s easy enough to make out, wi his hair. It wasny Sproat the donkey man, for he’s no in Glasgow. Who else would it be?’

‘You tell me, girl,’ said Madam Xanthe in exasperation. ‘Was it Dod Muir or no?’

‘Aye, it was,’ said Cleone.

‘Aye, well. So there you are, Maister Cunningham. Dod Muir the image-maker it was, if this lassie’s to be trusted, and if I was you I’d take him to law and double his rent as well.’