by Pat McIntosh
‘Is there any person in Glasgow who is suddenly wealthy?’ asked Catherine. ‘I have heard nothing, maistre, but you speak to many people in a day’s work.’
Gil glanced at her in surprise. This small, aged, devout woman knew an amazing amount about what went on in Glasgow despite her lack of any spoken Scots; it was unusual for her to admit ignorance.
‘Nor have I,’ he admitted, ‘but that’s no help. We don’t know that the coiners are in Glasgow, and in any case it wouldn’t be wise to spend all the coin you had forged in the one place. Most folk know exactly how well off their neighbours are. A handful here, a couple of placks there, would be easier to pass off.’
‘As in the Isles,’ observed Maistre Pierre.
‘How noisy is the work?’ asked Alys. ‘I suppose if one must strike each coin the hammering would be heard.’
‘Noisy enough. Hard to keep it secret in the countryside,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘unless the workshop was very isolated, and yet in a town the neighbours are just as alert.’
Alys raised her head, listening.
‘Not hammering,’ she said, ‘but someone in the courtyard. Could it be Maister Livingstone?’
‘I’ll take him up to our lodging,’ said Gil, rising as the sound of feet on the fore-stair reached them. ‘We can sit in my closet.’
‘You see,’ said Alexander Livingstone finally, contemplating the array of documents on the bench cushions, ‘we’ve the whole chain here, from when my grandsire Archibald took sasine from Albany’s steward in ’35, down to my brother Archie’s payment of the heriot fee ten year since when he inherited.’ He turned to lift his glass of wine from the window-ledge where he had set it, and drank appreciatively.
‘It’s very clear,’ observed Alys. ‘Is it unusual to find so complete a record?’
‘Not particularly,’ said Gil. ‘My father had a set of papers very like this, the record of sasine from the Hamiltons, with all the succession from his grandsire.’ He bent to the nearest, to reintroduce its crumbling seal into the little linen bag which protected it.
‘I mind my grandsire telling me,’ offered Lowrie, ‘how his faither, that’s old Archibald, had to go to take sasine all over again and get that first instrument given in his hand, only because the King wanted all writ down so it would be clear at law. He aye said there was no need of papers until the King started meddling.’
‘Ah!’ said Alys. ‘So all Scotland suddenly had to get all written down.’ She looked at Gil, her eyes dancing. ‘Notaries’ wives must have come out in new gowns that year.’
‘Those that were wedded,’ said Maister Livingstone seriously, hitching his yellow velvet round his shoulders. ‘Notaries were mostly churchmen at that day.’
Gil’s closet at the end of the short enfilade of chambers was barely big enough for two guests, let alone the armful of documents the Livingstone men had brought. They had abandoned his writing-desk and returned to the outermost room just as Alys arrived with the wine; she had stayed to watch fascinated while Maister Livingstone spread out the succession of parchments under the two candles on the pricket-stand, with a brief comment about each, like a fortune-teller laying out cards.
‘So that’s the original,’ he went on now, gesturing again at the first document with its crumbling seal. ‘Then it passed from Albany to Alan Stewart as feu superior, and then to the present man, John Stewart, that’s now titled Earl of Lennox—’
‘All very clear,’ Gil agreed. ‘And here’s the record of renewal of sasine at your grandsire’s death in ’62, and then at your father’s death ten year since, with the sasine-oxen duly noted.’
‘I like this one,’ said Alys, bending to one of the papers. ‘Twa oxin, gra hornit and white checkit. They must have been handsome beasts.’
‘They were,’ said Maister Livingstone sourly. ‘I mind those. Best plough-team on the lands, they were.’
‘Where are these usually kept?’ Gil asked, nodding at the array of documents.
‘The strongbox at Craigannet,’ said Lowrie. ‘My faither and me sorted them out afore we set out for Glasgow, all that seemed germane to the auld body’s plans. You should see what we kept back,’ he added, brushing dust from his person.
‘Why?’ asked Gil. Both men looked at him a little blankly, but Alys nodded. ‘Why did your father think the sasines might be needed?’
There was a pause, into which Lowrie said,
‘Ah. Well.’
‘She’s done something of the sort afore,’ said his uncle with reluctance. ‘Archie said, take these along in case, and no to lose them.’
‘Are you saying, in fact, Thomas may not have alienated the lands we’re dealing wi today? That her claim is false?’
‘I’d be surprised if he did,’ said Maister Livingstone, hitching up his yellow velvet again.
‘Tell me about it. When did she wed your uncle? Why did they wed? They must ha been both well up in their age.’
‘For mutual comfort of each other’s possessions,’ muttered Lowrie. Alys suppressed a giggle. ‘He once tellt me he’d known her when they were both young,’ he added. ‘I think they both knew Elizabeth Livingstone. Her that was wedded to John of the Isles,’ he elucidated, ‘she and Thomas, and I suppose my grandsire, were second cousins or thereabouts.’ He found his uncle staring at him, and subsided.
‘Isabella and Thomas was wedded in ’90,’ said Maister Livingstone, returning to the point. ‘I think Thomas had his eye on some lands she had in Strathblane at the time, which would sit nicely alongside these two Livingstone holdings that we’re at odds about now. But she kept a tight grip on their management, no joint feus for her, and yet somehow Thomas’s own property all turned out to have been held in joint feu after he died.’
‘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 want
ed 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 ther
e’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?’