by Pat McIntosh
‘Very curious.’
‘Sempill was out there today.’
‘Was he now?’ Gil looked down at her, and opened the heavy door to their stair. ‘What was he doing?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said regretfully, ‘but he came home in a great temper, saying there was some trouble, and that Philip wanted to involve you. Then he saw me, and would say no more.’
‘Did you ask?’
‘Of course I did,’ she said indignantly, ‘but he was rude to me, so Lady Magdalen rebuked him, and he went off in a sulk.’ She followed him into their outer chamber, put the lantern on a kist and sat down to watch him pull on his boots. ‘I learned some useful things today,’ she added. ‘I was waiting to tell you when we were alone.’
‘Go on.’ He straightened the heels of his hose, folded the wide leg of each boot about his calf, the soft leather waxy under his fingers, and buckled the straps while Alys recounted the visits she had made and the information she had gathered. He did not ask why she had not told him this before; supper had been a lively meal, with a sparkling conversation about the power of music and little opportunity to discuss the case.
‘This is all useful, sweetheart,’ he agreed at last, stamping to settle his feet in the boots. ‘It confirms all the servants’ stories, so far as it goes. I wonder what the bag of coin was doing in Clerk’s Land?’
‘Maybe Madam Xanthe will know,’ she suggested, with an odd emphasis on the name. Their eyes met in the lantern-light, and he nodded slightly, then looked about him for his plaid. She rose to fetch it from its nail in the inmost chamber, taking the light with her. He stood quietly in the dark, wondering what the reference to Strathblane might mean, while the dog nudged his knee.
The House of the Mermaiden was lit and humming with conversation behind its shutters, but Cato led them round the side of the house and in at the back door. Madam Xanthe, gorgeously dressed and turbaned, was alone in the room where Gil had been dried off the previous day, seated by a branch of candles with a ledger open on the table before her. When they entered she looked up, smiled, and pushed the heavy volume away.
‘Maister Cunningham! In a good hour,’ she declared. ‘Oh, and a wee lapdog wi you!’ She stretched a long white hand to Socrates, who paced forward to inspect it, then on to thrust his nose into her lap. She fended him off. ‘Cato, take Maister Cunningham’s man out to the kitchen and see him dried off, and then bring us some of the good wine.’
‘And the wee cakes, madam? Ste– Strephon’s made some of his wee cakes, they’re right good this time—’
‘Aye, you daft laddie, some o the wee cakes! Now get off wi the two o ye, till I get talking to my guest.’
Luke departed hopefully with Cato, and Madam Xanthe turned to Gil, her hand still busy about the dog’s ears.
‘You’re recovered from your wetting, then?’ she observed. ‘And the dunt on the head?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said politely. ‘I hope I see you well, madam?’
‘Oh, if we’re to be formal!’ She rose and swept him a magnificent curtsy, the wide folds of her dark blue taffeta gown rustling in a great pool round her, the gold turban gleaming in the candlelight. Gil responded, and she took his arm and drew him to a seat by the brazier in the centre of the chamber. Socrates padded about, inspecting the place.
‘And madam your wife’s in good health? Your good-father? Right, now that’s seen to,’ she went on without waiting for a reply, ‘will you tell me what you ken o these false coins, or will I go first?’
‘What was the reference to Strathblane about?’ he countered, watching the painted face, which was now partly shadowed. The paint and the turban combined to remind him suddenly of one of the players in a student play two years since, a repellent boy playing Dame Fortuna in fluent Latin, who met his death within the hour. With an effort he brought his mind back to the present. What was the purpose of this summons? How much information did this pretentious individual hold, and where had it come from?
‘Och, that was just to fetch you out.’ There was a burst of loud laughter from the hall above them; Socrates growled quietly, and Gil snapped his fingers to bring the dog to his side. ‘Mind you Danny Sproat and his donkey seems to have been out that way, which is likely what put it into my mind, for as I recall Isabella Torrance had some land there. Or claimed she had.’
‘Claimed is nearer it,’ Gil agreed. ‘So now you’ve fetched me, what can you tell me? I was warned off the false coin by Robert Blacader,’ he said, keeping his voice neutral, ‘but it seems to be involved in the matter of the old woman’s death, or at least there are more false coins floating about her than seems reasonable, so if you ken aught of any use, I’d be glad to hear it.’
‘I’ve no doubt of it.’ Madam Xanthe paused as Cato entered with two glasses, followed by Luke with a jug in one hand and a platter of little cakes in the other. Socrates cocked one hopeful ear, but did not move. ‘Good laddie, leave them there and we’ll serve ourselves. Away out to the kitchen now, do you hear me? Aye, that’s what I hear,’ she went on as the two young men left. ‘A great sack o the stuff found on the lassie that went missing, for a start, and did I hear there was another purse gone as well?’
‘You’re well informed.’
There was another burst of laughter from the hall, and a scattering of notes from a lute. Two voices rose entwined in sweet and inappropriate harmony; Gil identified the song about the hurcheon.
‘I have my sources,’ said Madam Xanthe, pouring wine. The light from the candles struck matching dark red glints from the brocade under-sleeve within the wide folds of taffeta. She handed him a glass. ‘So what else have you got?’
‘Very little,’ Gil admitted. ‘We’ve had coin from the market, one or two from the Gorbals, none from anyone that kent who he’d got it from. Or was willing to say,’ he qualified scrupulously, thinking of Ysonde’s tale. ‘I’ve spoken to the Provost about it, and I’d a talk wi Eckie Livingstone about coining and how it’s done. That’s it.’
‘And you’d nothing useful fro this afternoon on Clerk’s Land.’ Madam Xanthe was watching him under the long painted eyelids. ‘It didny seem like a peaceable gathering.’
‘It wasny.’ He shut his mouth firmly on that. The pale eyes did not move from his face. He sat still, thinking about the long argument on the drying-green, with Maister Hamilton exerting all his authority and his considerable voice to keep order while he questioned the three hammermen about the assault on Gil, questioned Gil and Pierre about their presence on the toft, refused to listen to complaints about the fine for a fire which nobody would admit to having set too close to the thatch, and finally directed his fellow-guildsmen to be civil to the Archbishop’s man.
‘And you’ll tell Dod I want a word wi him,’ he said ominously. ‘This is all a storm in a chopin, I hope I willny have to come out to it again, or there’ll be more than the one fine to pay.’
‘But he’ll no need to be searching our houses,’ said Campbell the whitesmith.
‘No, I wouldny say he’d any need to search your houses,’ agreed Maister Hamilton. ‘Right, Maister Cunningham?’
‘What are they hiding, then?’ speculated Madam Xanthe now. ‘Something the Provost’s men missed.’
‘Or wereny looking for,’ he said, and tasted the wine. It was more of the stuff she had offered them the other morning, smooth and heavy with a dark taste of apricots. ‘They were hiding the woman Forveleth, until Campbell put her out to fend for herself, I’m reasonably sure of that. It’s Campbell’s wife is her kin, by what she says, no doubt he feels less responsible for her. They had the big sack of false coin, and exchanged it for a parcel of potyngary she had on her, I assume in the hope of getting it off the place and at least off their hands, and I’d dearly like to ken why they had that much in their possession, but of course they denied all knowledge of it.’
‘Of course.’
‘They mentioned two of Dame Isabella’s men, two of the ones that are missing—’
‘Alan and Nicol, brothers I think.’ He shook his head, and took another sip of the wine. ‘The Serjeant was to cry them abroad, but there’s been no word of them. I think they’re not on the toft, there’s little enough room to hide two men, so where they can have gone—’
‘Plenty places to hide in Glasgow,’ remarked Madam Xanthe. ‘They’re not here, at least, maister.’
‘You disappoint me. Then there’s the matter of the fire that nobody admits having set, and the prentice that Campbell claims he doesny have, though two others have mentioned him.’
‘Prentice?’ Madam Xanthe looked at him, eyes narrowed. ‘Who told you that? I’ve never seen any sign o one.’
‘John Sempill told me he kept a prentice,’ Gil recalled, ‘and I think – aye, the Provost’s men arrested him on suspicion of theft, and had to release him when his master swore it was something he’d given him.’
‘Theft of what?’
‘No idea. This was yestreen, I wasny at my best.’ He eyed her across the heavy glow of his wine. ‘And what do you know? Have you other information?’
‘Some.’ She offered him the platter of cakes. He took one and nibbled it. ‘Have you had aught from the Gallowgate? Any coin I mean?’
‘The Gallowgate?’ He shook his head. ‘We’ve no trade down there that I’m aware of. I’d say,’ he added, thinking of the children again, ‘there are more false coins found at the foot of the town than up here, but that’s all I ken.’
‘Aye.’ She drank some of the wine, then suddenly set her glass down on the table and sat up straight. ‘The deil fly away wi this, I’m sick o playing Tarocco. Come away up, maister.’
‘Up?’ he repeated, startled.
‘Aye. Up to my chamber.’ The arch expression surfaced, for the first time this evening; she put a long white finger to her painted lips and looked at him sideways. ‘I’ve that to show you, will make you right astonished.’
‘Will it, now?’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
She lifted her glass again. ‘Bring the wine.’
Warily, he followed her from the chamber, through another where shadows jumped from her candle, to a narrow stair at its far corner. The dog was at his heels, claws clicking on the waxed boards.
‘This was what I liked about this house,’ she said, setting foot on the lowest step. ‘The second stair, completely separate from the hall. Come away up,’ she said again, holding the candle high. ‘I’ll tell you, once we’ve left, you should move in here wi your wee wife, set up your own household. A man should be maister under his own roof.’
‘You think?’
‘I know.’
She stepped off the stair into another darkened chamber, opened a door which was barely noticeable in the candlelight, set off upwards again. This time they emerged in a bedchamber, sparsely furnished, the box bed curtained with plain linen. Socrates set off to explore the room.
‘You don’t bring clients here,’ Gil recognized, looking about him. Madam Xanthe did not answer; setting down glass and candle on a stool she delved under her dark blue taffeta to produce a key, crossed the chamber, and unlocked another half-hidden door.
‘My closet. Come in, maister. Bring the candle, and come and unlace me.’
Gil paused in the doorway of the small place. It held even less furniture than the outer room: a desk, a couple of kists, two stools. A shelf with books, a lute in an open case. Its owner, staring challengingly in the candlelight.
‘Can you not unlace yourself?’ he suggested.
‘Oh, now!’ The pale eyes glinted, the husky voice was mocking. ‘You don’t want to disrobe me, reveal my white flesh and soft—’
‘I think,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘you’re about as soft as tempered steel. Sandy.’
Sandy Boyd gave a crack of laughter.
‘I wondered!’ he said. ‘I wondered if you’d jaloused me.’ He dragged off the gold turban, and ran his fingers through pale hair. ‘Christ aid, how can women wear these tight things all day? What gave me away?’
Gil shook his head.
‘Nothing particular, I think. You’re gey like your sister, and Madam Xanthe’s too good to be true.’
‘Oh, never!’ Boyd put a hand to his cheek, with Madam Xanthe’s simper. ‘How can you say so? Maybe true, but good, maister?’
Gil grinned. ‘What’s it in aid of?’
‘Aye, well.’ Boyd flung off the blue taffeta. ‘I wasny joking when I asked if you’d unlace me, Agnes has a strong arm and I’ll never reach the knot she’s used.’ He turned his back and Gil obediently began work on the knot in the lacing of the dark brocade kirtle. ‘As for what it’s in aid of, what but this false coin? I’m put in here by Robert Blacader to get at the source. See, it’s good stuff. Good silver. The Treasury wants to ken where it’s coming from.’
‘Oh, you are, are you?’ He took in the rest of the utterance. ‘What, you mean it’s purer silver than the coin of the realm?’
‘That’s just what I mean. Thanks.’ Boyd wriggled the kirtle loose, and began to work one arm out of the tight sleeve. Socrates clicked into the room and over to thrust his nose against the brocade skirt. Boyd pushed him away with his free hand. ‘Blacader said,’ another short laugh, ‘they could buy it all up at face value, coin it new and still make a good profit at the Mint, save that we’d not want word to get round.’
‘I can see that.’ Gil turned to the jug of wine where he had set it on one of the kists, and refilled his glass. ‘Does the old woman’s death fit in here, do you suppose? That’s my prime concern the now, particularly if you’re after the coin.’
‘You’d do better to look in other directions. Though as you say, there’s a lot of the stuff floating about her. It’s taken me the six month I’ve been here to get this far, Gil. Pour me some more o that wine and all, will you?’ He extracted his hand from the second sleeve and began easing the kirtle down over narrow hips. Beneath it he wore a woman’s shift, the neck elaborately worked and pleated. Stepping free of the heap of brocade he caught it up, threw it on top of the blue taffeta gown, and delved in the other kist.
‘Boots,’ he muttered, ‘hose, drawers, what the deil has Agnes done wi my – aye, there they are.’ He closed the lid, kicked off Madam Xanthe’s large but dainty Morocco leather shoes, and began dressing. ‘How is Maidie, anyhow?’ he asked. ‘You’ve seen her lately? And the charming John, a course.’
‘Just the day. Your sister looks well, and seems happy,’ Gil said. ‘I’d say she’s dealing uncommon well wi the charming John.’ He sat down beside the wine-jug, and went on, ‘So how far is that, you’ve got? Where does the stuff come from?’
‘If I’d jaloused that, I wouldny be here.’ Boyd tucked the shift into his hose. ‘It comes into Glasgow from somewhere, I’m assuming as bars o silver rather than lumps o rock, and gets struck into coin and then carried out to the Isles. We’re sure enough o the other end, it’s this end we want to track down, the workshop in Glasgow and the mine the stuff comes from.’
‘We?’
‘Those I work for.’ He was tying the points of his hose to a dark jerkin now and did not look up.
‘So that’s more than Blacader.’
‘I’m surprised they’ve no recruited you,’ said Boyd obliquely. ‘Mind you, a married man.’
‘And that’s how far you’ve got in six month?’
‘That and some other matters unrelated.’ He fastened a dark doublet and reached for his replenished glass. ‘Ah, that’s good. The barrel’s near finished, be time to move on soon, I canny contemplate Glasgow without a decent drink.’
‘So why am I here?’ Gil asked bluntly. ‘What do you want of me?’
‘I need a look at Dod Muir’s place, and I thought you’d like to come along.’
‘What?’
‘Wheesht! Are you wanting half Glasgow to ken you’re in my chamber? No that I’d mind, you understand, but—’
‘Why Dod Muir’s house, and why now?’ Gil
asked, lowering his voice obediently. ‘There’s plenty folk about that toft, do you reckon they’ll all be asleep? Where’s Muir himsel sleep anyway?’
‘He dwells in the house, but he’s no been back there the day, at least no by the time it was dark.’
‘And how about the dog?’ Gil added, as Socrates nudged his elbow. ‘There was one there this afternoon.’
‘It’s Bell the lorimer’s. He takes the brute home wi him at night along wi the takings. The rest’ll be asleep. No, I think Dod Muir might ha been the source o the dies they’re using, and seeing it was him put you in the mill-burn …’ He let the sentence die away. Gil sipped wine and looked at the other man. The dark clothes he now wore receded into the shadows, leaving Madam Xanthe’s painted face floating in the candlelight surrounded by wild pale hair.
‘And if we’re heard,’ he said. ‘What will you do if we’re taken up for theft and rookery?’
Boyd gave him Madam Xanthe’s arch painted smile.
‘How fast can you run?’
This was madness.
Moving quietly after Boyd, the dog at his knee, Gil wondered how he had agreed to what was, in effect, housebreaking. The moon, he recalled, was a day or two past the full; it could not be seen, but the clouds gleamed faintly silver here and there. Clerk’s Land was asleep in the rainy night, snores sounding from behind the shutters of the pewterer’s house as they slipped past. Boyd’s shut-lantern gave them just enough light to see the path before them and threw a wet sparkle on the flagstones and on the doorway of the lorimer’s workshop. Beyond it, the image-maker’s house was black against the sky.
Boyd paused, held out the lantern. He was wrapped in a huge black cloak, his head covered by a felt coif, and his face and hands floated eerily, isolated in the night, as Gil directed the light at the fastening of Muir’s door. The handle for the latch had been drawn into the house, as if the man was at home; Gil said softly,
‘Are you sure he’s no here?’
‘Nothing’s sure,’ returned Boyd, equally softly. He produced a latch-lifter, inserted it into the hole in the door and turned it cautiously, seeking the point where the hook on the end would raise the bar of the latch, while Gil held the lantern steady and wondered whether the door had been barred from the inside as well. Socrates, perhaps catching his mood, leaned hard against his leg.