by Pat McIntosh
‘I thought maybe you’d want me soon, mem,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy from the door.
‘Aye, very like,’ said Mistress Graham, ‘and if you’ll can counsel this silly lassie to dry her eyes and get back to her work, I’ll want you too. Here, Bess, go over by the other window, speak to Mistress Mason and answer what she asks you like a good girl.’
‘I’ll try, mem,’ said Bess shyly. She was a pretty girl, with a quantity of fair curling hair and hazel eyes red with weeping. The sleeves of her shift and woollen kirtle were rolled up to show bare sturdy forearms, and scraps of thread clung to the folds of her skirt.
‘Tell my mistress what you were telling me the now,’ said Jennet encouragingly. ‘About the laddie at the back yett. Attie, did you cry him?’
‘Was it Attie indeed?’ said Alys, leading the way across the hall, out of earshot of the two little seamstresses.
‘It was, mem,’ said Jennet, ‘and she talked wi him till his fellow cam back for him.’
‘Let Bess tell me herself,’ said Alys, and Bess nodded.
‘That’s right, what she says, mem,’ she admitted. ‘I was talking to the laddie all the while his fellow was up the town, and then he cam back, and the two o them went away, and the next I heard was, the old dame at Canon Aiken’s was slain by one o her servants, and, and,’ she wiped at her eyes, ‘I’m fearing it was Attie, and he seemed like such a nice laddie.’
‘What was the other fellow called?’ Alys asked.
Bess paused, the new question steadying her a little.
‘Alan, I think. That’s what Attie called him.’
‘What was his errand, did you learn?’
Another pause. The girl clearly had not thought about these details before.
‘I think they said it was the ’pothecary on the High Street. That’s right,’ she said more confidently, ‘they’d a great list o messages from there, ginger and cloves and sulphur and that. Why they’d no gone to our own ’pothecary here on the Drygate they never said.’
‘What made you think it was Attie had killed their mistress?’ Alys asked gently. Bess bent her head, wiping at her eyes again, and Jennet said,
‘Och, that was what one o the other lassies tellt her. She was down the drying-shed, this other one, see, where the blankets go when they come back fro the fuller’s, right at the foot o the yard next the back gate.’ Alys nodded. It made sense for the damp fulled wool to stay where it came onto the property, rather than be carried up the slope to where it might make other items musty. ‘And she heard some folk arguing on the path, just through the wall, see, that were running away from their employ because their mistress was dead.’
‘I need to speak to that lassie myself,’ said Alys.
The second girl was a rather different proposition, something which was obvious as soon as Mistress Graham, hearing her name, announced that Alys would be very welcome to go out to the weaving-shed to speak to Ibbot. Called from her loom in the busy shed, the girl bounced over to the door, shaking back dark elf-locks and smirking at Bess in a way Alys disliked immediately.
‘Oh, aye, mem, I heard them,’ she averred. ‘Talking all kind o treason, they were, and plotting how to be rid of what they’d stole.’
‘What did you hear?’ Alys asked. ‘How many were they?’
‘Two,’ she said. ‘Oh, and a woman and all.’
‘And they spoke in Scots?’
‘What else would they speak?’ Ibbot retorted.
‘You be civil to my mistress,’ said Jennet at Alys’s elbow. ‘Tell her what they were saying, what you heard.’
‘I’m telling her, am I no? So there was two o them, and a woman, and they stopped just by the drying-shed, and I could hear as clear as day through the cracks in the planks, see, and they were arguing what they should do next. One said, Why are we running, and another said, The old witch is dead, or so she says, are you wanting the blame for it? Then he says, We must be rid o – something, and the other said, Aye and something else and all, I never learned what it was,’ she said with regret, ‘and the woman says, They’ll seek for us, where will we go?’
The nearest weaver rested her shuttle a moment and said,
‘She’s been on about that these two days, mem, never heed her.’
‘You keep out o this, Mamie Elliott!’ retorted Ibbot. ‘Just in cause you never heard anything like.’
‘Aye, well, she’s aye making trouble, mem,’ said the weaver, and kicked at the treadle of her loom. A heddle lifted, the threads parted, and she took up her work again.
‘Did you hear any names?’ Alys asked, before Ibbot could continue the argument.
‘Oh, aye, that’s how I kent it for her sweetheart,’ said Ibbot, jerking her thumb at Bess with an unpleasant air of triumph. ‘The woman had some heathen name, Ersche or the like I dare say, and one o the men was Alan, so who would the other ha been but his fellow that she was speaking to? Attie, or whatever she cried him.’
‘You never heard his name used?’ said Alys.
‘No, but who could it ha been else?’ repeated the girl.
‘You never keeked through the cracks?’ Jennet said in faint disbelief.
‘Aye, but they must ha heard me, for they went away,’ said Ibbot. ‘I got naught but a glimp of their backs. Blue velvet livery, they wore.’
‘So you heard,’ said Alys, ‘two men in blue velvet, one called Alan, and a woman with an Ersche name, running away because their mistress was dead, and speaking of how they must be rid of something.’
‘Two things. Maybe more. One o them said these and the other one said this and all. Likely they’d stole her purse or her jewel-box.’ Ibbot smirked again. What lay between the two girls, Alys wondered.
‘Is that all you heard?’ she asked. ‘Did they say where they were going?’
‘Oh, aye. Am I no telling you? For the one man said to the woman, Here, you take that back, and she said, Where to? and he said, The potyngar away down the High Street, and she said, Where will I get you after? Then they argued a bit more, and it fell out she was to get them somewhere they said was handy for the potyngar’s, and then the other man said, We need to be rid of these first, I’m no walking through the town in it, and then they went away.’
‘Ah,’ said Alys. ‘Thank you, Ibbot.’
‘So I’m right, am I no? Him that she’s a fancy to has slain his mistress and run off, and the Serjeant’s seeking him now?’
‘No,’ said Alys. ‘Attie is still wi Maister Livingstone, who trusts him.’ I won’t say just how well, she thought, anything to wipe that smirk off this girl’s face. ‘It must be two of the other men you heard.’
Ibbot snorted, tossed the black elf-locks like a refractory pony, and flounced away. Beside Alys, Bess put out a hand to grasp the doorpost and said faintly,
‘Oh, is that true, mem? Is he really safe?’
‘Aye it’s true!’ said Jennet stoutly. ‘If my mistress says it, you can be sure it’s right.’ She lent a sturdy arm as the other girl swayed, and helped her to the nearest weaver’s stool, hurriedly vacated, as work halted and whispers spread across the shed.
‘There, lass,’ said the woman whose seat she occupied, seizing a limp hand to chafe it with sympathy, ‘all’s well after all, you were right to be sure o him. You’ll see your laddie again, never doubt it.’
‘And what you’ve told me will help indeed,’ Alys said. ‘Thank you, Bess.’
‘More questions, is it?’ said Forveleth, staring through the shadows of the cell.
‘More questions,’ said Alys. ‘And some food. I think you may not have eaten today.’
‘That’s a true word.’ The woman laughed rather bitterly. ‘At least they fed me last night at the Castle. This great lump of a man would be sparing no food for his prisoners, I think.’
Alys made no reply, but drew the loaf and the meat pasty from her basket and set them on Forveleth’s folded plaid. She had pursued the woman from the Castle to the Tolbooth with some misgivings, kno
wing that the Serjeant would be far less likely to allow her to speak to the prisoner than either the Provost or his captain, and had hit on this as a means of access. To her surprise it had worked.
‘She’ll be wi us a day or two yet,’ the Serjeant had said, ‘I’m no wanting her to fade away afore she can be tried. Shout when you’re done, mistress. Oh, and you can tell your man,’ he added, ‘I’ve had no word o the other servants yet, but we’ll track them down, never fear.’
‘When you left the house on the Drygate,’ she said now, as Forveleth broke off a piece of the pasty, ‘where did the men go?’
‘Men?’
‘No, we’ll not play games.’ Alys sat down on the narrow plank bed, hoping her gown would not suffer too much. ‘Listen, Forveleth, the Serjeant reckons you are guilty in Dame Isabella’s death.’
‘So he is telling me. He would have me sign a paper about it, but I told him, no, I will sign nothing.’
‘Aye, very wise,’ put in Jennet from her post by the door. She was clearly dismayed by the condition of both the cell and its occupant, holding her skirts up away from the dirty straw on the floor and casting sympathetic glances at Forveleth’s bruises, which showed up even in the dim light. ‘Put your mark on nothing, that’s the way.’
‘So if you will tell me the truth,’ persisted Alys, ‘it will help you.’
‘Will it?’ Forveleth chewed cautiously, as if her mouth hurt.
‘You went out by the back gate,’ Alys said, ‘and along the path by the mill-burn. Two of the men were with you, I think Alan and Nicol. They are brothers, am I right?’
‘Yes, brothers, those two.’ The woman peered at Alys, then down at the pasty. ‘What did I do then? I’d maybe not remember,’ she said, and broke off another fragment.
‘You argued, on the path,’ said Alys. Forveleth looked up sharply, and made the horns against the evil eye. ‘One of them, Alan I think, gave you the package from the potyngar, that he still had on him, and told you to take it back.’
‘Aye, and the surly grollop wouldny – How do you know all this? Who’s been spying on me?’
‘What else did they want rid of? They were saying they had to be rid of something.’
‘It was someone listening. We thought there was someone listening!’
‘What was it they had to be rid of? Was it the livery? They could hardly go through the town in livery without being seen and recalled later.’
‘How would I be remembering?’
‘And then where did you go?’ Alys pressed. ‘You tried to take the package back to the potyngar, and had no fortune there. When did you go back to Clerk’s Land? Where were you in between the times?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ Was that a note of relief? Her hand was still clenched in the ancient sign of protection.
‘Why Clerk’s Land, anyway? Is one of them your kin? Which is it, the woman Campbell?’
‘There is no Campbells that is my kin!’ she said sharply. ‘If you must know, it is Bethag nic Donuill, that is cousin to my brother’s wife, is married on the whitesmith, more’s the pity for her and all. So it was her I went to, and they let me in, but when the laddie came running to say there was the Provost’s men at the close-mouth they were quick as the wind to push me out the door.’
‘Did Alan and Nicol not go with you to Clerk’s Land? Where are they now, Forveleth? ‘
‘She’s maybe lost them,’ said Jennet. ‘Likely they went another way. Maybe they’re not wanting her wi them.’
Forveleth looked round at that, but did not answer.
‘The purse your mistress had in her jewel-kist,’ said Alys. ‘What was it like?’
‘Blue velvet and gold braid.’ There was puzzlement in her voice now, at the change of subject.
‘What was in it, do you know? Her body-servants would know that, surely?’ Jennet stirred at the doorway, but Forveleth accepted the idea.
‘Coin, I suppose. I never looked, but Annot said she did. It felt like coin in my hand.’
‘And you gave it to her, the last you saw her alive.’
‘That iss so.’ Suddenly the accent was marked.
‘Why did she ask you for it, do you think, at such a moment? Who had she seen coming down the Drygate?’
The prisoner exclaimed in Gaelic and scrambled backwards into the corner of her cell, making the horns again with one hand, crossing herself with the other.
‘How do you know all this?’ she repeated. ‘Where was you watching me?’
‘So who was it? Why would she give money to such a person?’ Alys leaned forward, to put a hand on Forveleth’s wrist, but the woman snatched her arm away. ‘Whoever it was, they may really have been the last to see her alive. Is it someone you need to protect, or is it a stranger? Why are you letting yourself be suspected?’ There was a silence, broken by Forveleth’s panting breath. ‘My dear, Alan and Nicol were both out about your mistress’s errands. Attie can speak for Alan at least. They were elsewhere when she died.’
‘Is it Alan she fancies?’ Jennet asked.
‘Mary mild protect me,’ burst out Forveleth, ‘you know too much!’
‘So tell me the rest,’ invited Alys.
Another panting silence. Then Forveleth gave an incoherent wail and buried her face in her hands. Jennet stepped away from the door and put a hand on her shoulder, saying,
‘There, now, you tell my mistress all, she’ll help you the best she can.’
‘Who came to her window?’ Alys asked.
‘It was a man Campbell, so she said,’ admitted Forveleth eventually, raising her head. ‘She said, Here’s that Campbell coming down the street, and another wi him, and then she said, Hand me the blue purse out my kist and get out o here.’
‘Which man Campbell?’ Alys asked. ‘The one from Clerk’s Land, or the one who was to come home soon, or another?’
‘I was never seeing him. I tried to look past her, over her shoulder, to see was it Bethag’s man or another, and she struck me away. But when I went to another part of the house, to overlook her window, all I was seeing was a stranger, and the back of him at that.’
‘Where was the stranger?’ Alys asked. ‘Was he at the window?’
She shook her head.
‘Walking out at the gate, he was, as if he’d been within on an errand.’
‘What did he look like? What way did he turn from the gate?’
‘He was turning up the hill,’ said Forveleth after a moment, gesturing with her left hand. ‘I never saw him, I told you that.’ Alys waited, watching her. ‘He was tall, I suppose. Wrapped in a great gown or cloak or the like. Just a – a black figure.’ She shivered, and crossed herself. ‘Like as if it was Death himself come for the old carline.’
Jennet, mouth open in amazement, crossed herself likewise.
‘I’m no surprised you ran off!’ she declared. ‘But you’d ha been better to stay and tell your maister what you seen?’
‘What, and be taken up for theft of the blue purse?’
‘If you had stayed where you were,’ said Alys, ‘and the purse could not be found in your possession, you would have been safe enough from that charge. As it is, there’s this matter of the leather bag of coin. Do you know anything about that at all? Did you know it was all false coin?’
Forveleth shook her head in the gloom.
‘The first I ever saw of it was when they showed it me afore the Provost. What have I to do wi false coin?’
‘What had your mistress to do wi false coin?’ countered Alys. No answer. ‘How did it get into your bundle, then?’
‘If it was in my bundle,’ said Forveleth sourly. She paused to think. ‘When I – I had the package from the—’
‘The package from the apothecary,’ said Alys helpfully.
‘Aye. I had my linen and my spare kirtle rowed in my good plaid, and I put the, the package in wi them when I,’ she swallowed, ‘went back to Clerk’s Land. It was not there when I saw my things laid out afore the Provost, and the bag
o coin was, so they said. Whether it was them that put it there, or some other, I canny tell.’
The rain had stopped. Emerging blinking into the afternoon sun, Alys considered the length of the shadows and thought about what to do next.
‘Who else have we to question?’ Jennet asked at her elbow. ‘Is this what Maister Gil does all day and all? I’d like fine to get my living like that, just talking to folk. Only maybe no in a cell, the next one, mem?’
‘Not in a cell, no,’ said Alys. ‘We will go up the hill again and call on Lady Magdalen Boyd. I should have offered sympathy before now.’
She set a brisk enough pace up the High Street to silence Jennet, which gave her space to think. The death of Dame Isabella made little sense in any way, and the random inclusion of the counterfeit coins seemed to make even less sense. Finding the man, or men, who had spoken to Dame Isabella at her window might be the next step, but how do we do that? she wondered. Is there anyone on the Drygate who might have seen them? Who dwells opposite? Has Gil spoken to the neighbours? Where was Forveleth between speaking to Nanty Bothwell by the Tolbooth and escaping from Clerk’s Land? And where have the men gone to? Alan and Nicol, and the third one, what was his name?
‘Who was that, mem?’ asked Jennet. Alys paused and looked about her. They were near the top of the High Street, within sight of the high pink sandstone walls of the Castle, with smaller cottages on either side. A few people were moving about, and some of the boys from the grammar school on Rottenrow were just starting a battle with their book-bags for possession of the Girth Cross. She could see nobody she knew.
‘Who?’ she asked.
‘Was a man that looked as if he kent your face,’ said Jennet, staring at one of the low houses. ‘He dodged down the path yonder, atween that house and the next. Tall fellow wi a padded jack.’
‘Was he wearing a badge?’ She could think of nobody she knew who wore a padded jack about the burgh.
‘None that I saw. No, he’s away, I canny see him. Just it was odd the way he went off, as if he’d avoid us.’