The Counterfeit Madam

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘He has a good pupil.’ He gave her an admiring look, and returned to the fray. Socrates was poised on the man’s chest, snarling into his face, white teeth snapping, and as earlier today was reluctant to give up his catch. Trying to persuade herself it had been perfectly safe, that the blade at her breast would never have got through the whalebones, she went forward to congratulate the dog and haul him off, ignoring John Sempill’s muttered comments about taking a stick to the ill-nurtured brute.

  The prisoner was reclaimed, without gentleness. Of course, thought Alys, observing the way even Lowrie, even Luke, went out of their way to handle him roughly; eight men stood by, watched me taken at knifepoint, watched me save myself. The dog’s reaction was exactly the same.

  Stripped to his linen, his arms tied, held kneeling at the point of several whingers on the cobbles before the door of St Machan’s Kirk, the man was rather less impressive, but he still managed a snarl the equal of Socrates’ when John Sempill demanded his name.

  ‘You’re asking me, are you?’ was all the answer he got.

  ‘Aye, I’m asking. And what were you doing up the glen?’ Sempill nudged him under the ribs with the toe of his boot. ‘Back to strip the place o siller, were ye? No content wi slaying unarmed men about their lawful work, were ye? Can ye tell me good reason why I canny hang you for murder fro yon tree?’ Each question was marked by another nudge.

  ‘Lawful!’ The prisoner spat.

  ‘And what d’you mean by that?’ Another nudge from the boot, powerful enough to wind the man. ‘Show him the two corps, lads. And that worthless laddie, see if he kens him.’

  Alys rose from the table-tomb where she had seated herself in the hope that her knees would stop trembling, intending to follow the group into the church. She was distracted by Lowrie, who was making an inventory in his tablets of the prisoner’s possessions.

  ‘Mistress Mason, look at this.’

  ‘What is it?’ She crossed to where he sat on the grass, and he held out the man’s purse.

  ‘I’ve just the now opened it, I was writing down his clothes and boots. Look what was in his spoirean.’

  The purse was in fact a sturdy leather bag, almost a scrip, as big as her two hands and made to be slung from a belt. She took it, finding it heavy, lifted the flap, peered in. Something gleamed in the shadow within. Coin? Not loose, surely, it would fall to the bottom. She tilted the thing to see better, and blue velvet and gold braid caught the light.

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ she said in amazement, and drew out a fat purse. A purse of blue velvet, trimmed with gold braid. ‘Where did he have this?’

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, mistress?’

  ‘There can hardly be two of the things,’ she said, her mind working. ‘It must be Dame Isabella’s, the one that is missing. But how did he – Unless he was the stranger, that morning!’

  ‘You mean she gave him it?’ Lowrie said. ‘But in that case, was it him killed her?’

  ‘Forveleth said,’ she recalled slowly, ‘the old dame said to her, 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. So it would fit. But why did he kill her? Who is he?’ She knelt beside Lowrie, looking at his tablets without seeing them. ‘Who is involved in this anyway? Your man Attie, the other servants, I take it he’s none of those.’ He nodded agreement, a gleam of humour in his expression. ‘The folk from Clerk’s Land. Madam Xanthe and her girls. Forgive me,’ she said briefly as a wave of scarlet swept up his brow. ‘Useless to pretend such places don’t exist. What other names do we have?’

  ‘Dusty,’ said Lowrie suddenly. ‘The man Miller, the one the little girls saw.’

  ‘Of course, the one who dwells down the Gallowgate. Have you set eyes on him?’ He shook his head. ‘Nor has Gil. I can think of no others, apart from folk like yourself, or Maister Syme, or Kate’s lassies.’ She sat back on her heels and looked triumphantly at him. ‘Well, I think we have a surname and a by-name for this man, though we still do not know why he killed Dame Isabella.’

  ‘Sempill of Muirend will be disappointed,’ he said after a moment. ‘I think he’s looking forward to a hanging.’

  By the time they rode back into Glasgow in the twilight, Alys was bone-weary.

  Sempill of Muirend had indeed been disappointed. His reaction, in fact, put her in mind of small John denied a sweetmeat, involving as it did red-faced shouting, stamping and finally a prolonged sulk. She found herself wondering how Lady Magdalen dealt with these episodes: did she use one of the remedies which were so effective with a small boy? The adult was less easily distracted, could not be smacked and put to bed, and would not be reasoned with. Finally Philip Sempill took his cousin on one side and talked to him quietly and forcefully, then returned with a curt,

  ‘Get him on a horse, then.’

  There was still some delay. Decisions had to be made, and Frank’s slashed arm to be bound up. Sir Richie was persuaded to allow the two dead miners to lie in St Machan’s overnight, arrangements made for their burial on Monday, for the boy Berthold to be present (‘My father will see to that,’ said Alys confidently) and for one of Sempill’s men to ride down Strathblane to spread the word that the demons were vanquished and proved to be no more than flesh and blood.

  ‘Though whether they’ll believe it,’ said Sir Richie dubiously, ‘I couldny say. They’re fond o a good story, see, and demons make a better tale than miners.’

  The remaining horses were untied and led out to graze and find water before the ride back, and at Lowrie’s suggestion, several of the men went up the glen to dismantle the miners’ shelter and pack their belongings into the hides which had covered it, bringing them back to stow in St Machan’s safe from further pilfering.

  ‘It belongs to the boy,’ he said, ‘and if he gets away after all this, he’ll ha need of it.’

  Alys, who had been hoping nobody else would recognize Berthold’s criminal status, said nothing and Berthold himself, shown the bundles as they were hoisted into the loft, merely nodded. He seemed to have retreated into a distant, silent place; Alys thought he was probably hungry, but she did not wish to mention it in front of Sir Richie, who could hardly feed all of them.

  The prisoner himself, tethered to the great ring handle of the church door, watched all with a sour expression. He still denied everything, refused to account for his presence in the glen, and claimed he had never seen the two dead men before.

  ‘He touched them willingly enough,’ said Lowrie. ‘It might be true.’

  ‘Not everyone holds by the belief,’ Alys said.

  ‘Aye, but it’s more often scholars, folk that’s been to college, that accept that the dead are dead. This fellow looks far more like to believe they’ll sit up and accuse him, or bleed when he touches them, or the like.’

  ‘He reacted to the name,’ she said, snapping her fingers for the dog.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Addressed as Miller from across the little church, the prisoner had frozen briefly, but made no other sign, and refused to answer when asked if that was his name, even when encouraged by Sempill’s boot and fist. Since the man was obviously a quick thinker, Alys was inclined to take this as proof; the others were less convinced. The blue velvet purse had elicited even less response, although John Sempill had exploded in righteous indignation when he understood what it was, and had to be restrained.

  Finally, the prisoner tied on Alys’s horse, Alys herself put up behind Lowrie, the boy Berthold perched in front of Tam, they set off. They made a good pace down the valley, hoping to reach the better road before the light began to fade. John Sempill was still deep in his sulk, but Philip brought his horse alongside Lowrie’s and said,

  ‘Do we take him to the Tolbooth, or to the Castle?’

  ‘The Castle,’ said Alys promptly. ‘The Provost is more like to accept him without arguing. He has the better instruments of interrogation, too,’ she added, glancing at John Sempill’s
hunched back. Philip followed her look, and grinned.

  ‘A good argument,’ he agreed. ‘Do you think we’ve found the man that killed Dame Isabella?’

  ‘He denies it,’ said Lowrie. ‘He denies knowing her.’

  ‘Otterburn will sort that,’ said Philip confidently.

  ‘I don’t see why else he would have the purse,’ said Alys. ‘We know,’ she paused, assembling an accurate statement, ‘we know that Dame Isabella saw two men from her window, one called Campbell and another, and asked for the blue purse and dismissed her waiting-woman. Now we have the purse, and a man she might not have known. It fits, but not inarguably, I suppose.’

  ‘He might have stolen it from someone else,’ Lowrie agreed, as Philip looked surprised. ‘Or been given it, or even had it from the miners before he killed them.’

  ‘I never thought of that,’ said Alys.

  They pressed on, passing little knots of cattle being driven home for the night, sleepy herd-laddies trudging behind them. Socrates ignored their dogs with a lofty air. Alys clung to Lowrie’s waist and considered the day. It seemed to her to have been extremely successful; she had achieved what she set out to do in this country of strange adventures, and more besides. But where had the blue purse come from? Why would Miller, if he was Miller, kill Dame Isabella?

  Where the Glazert met the Kelvin, turning towards Glasgow, Lowrie and Philip Sempill consulted briefly and ordered more speed. There was little more traffic than there had been in Strathblane. The carts had found their destination or settled down somewhere for the night; they passed a few groups of riders, occasional people on foot, most with curious looks for the cavalcade. Ten riders at a fast trot through the spring twilight, thought Alys, one of them stripped to his shirt, can hardly be an everyday sight. She clung tighter to Lowrie, her teeth rattling.

  At the Stablegreen Port the guards had heard them coming, and were waiting to swing the heavy gate across the way behind them in the very last of the light. Lowrie called his thanks, but John Sempill suddenly roused himself to say,

  ‘Right, Livingstone, you can tell the Provost I’ll be at home if he wants me, and you two wi me,’ he flung over his shoulder at his two men. ‘Philip, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m for the Castle,’ said his cousin. ‘They’ll be glad of the extra hands, I’d think, to get this fellow into custody.’

  ‘Aye, well, if you’d let me put him on a rope you’d ha no need to worry,’ retorted Sempill, and clattered off into the night towards Rottenrow, his men behind him. Lowrie watched him go, lit by the lanterns on successive house-corners, and said to Philip, ‘Likely we’ll deal better without him, but we might need his witness about the property and the silver mine.’

  ‘He might prefer not to give it,’ said Alys. Philip made no comment. ‘Luke, leave your horse with Tam and go on home, and you can tell them where we are.’

  ‘What, here on the Stablegreen?’ said Luke blankly, and she realized the boy was nearly asleep, and Berthold was completely comatose in Tam’s grasp.

  ‘We’ll be at the Castle,’ she said. ‘Go on now, and tell them in the kitchen to put some food aside for me.’

  Andrew Otterburn, roused from a domestic evening by his own fireside, was at first startled to be presented with a half-naked prisoner, but when he grasped who the man might be he was delighted.

  ‘We’ll get someone to identify him,’ he said, as Miller was manhandled away across the courtyard, struggling as fiercely as he had done outside St Machan’s. ‘The trouble the Clerk’s Land folk have caused me the day, it’s no pain to me to get one o them out to put a name to this fellow. Walter, see to it, will you, and see these beasts baited. And find someone that speaks High Dutch and all, maybe speir at the College if there’s none o the men.’

  ‘Or send to my father,’ suggested Alys. Walter nodded and hurried off.

  ‘And who’s the laddie, anyway?’ asked the Provost.

  ‘It’s a long tale,’ said Lowrie. ‘May we sit down? And might we beg a bite to eat? The laddie’s likely fasting since this morning, and the rest of us, well, it’s long while since dinner.’

  ‘Aye, come up, come up to my chamber and we’ll see to it,’ said Otterburn, but Alys was not listening. Socrates had pricked his ears and rushed away across the courtyard. Light shifted under the arch of the gatehouse, hasty feet echoed, and a tall figure with a lantern emerged into the torchlight, paused to look about, and made straight for where she stood, the dog dancing round him. Gil had come for her.

  Neither of them spoke. A quick smile, a searching look exchanged in the torchlight, and they turned to follow Otterburn, hands brushing lightly back to back. But suddenly she felt she could go on for as long again.

  The tale took a while. Food appeared, bread and cold meat and the remains of an onion tart, with a huge jug of ale; she ate, the jug went round, and Lowrie embarked on a competent and precise account of what had passed that day. Otterburn listened well, she thought. He asked a few pertinent questions, called Frank in to explain his part. That was when she realized that she and Gil, Lowrie and Philip Sempill, were the only ones in the Provost’s chamber; the servants and the boy Berthold had been left in the antechamber.

  ‘Have the men something to eat?’ she asked, interrupting Frank’s account of the capture of their prisoner. A grin spread across his face.

  ‘Our Lady love you, mistress, aye, we have. Much what you have here,’ he nodded at the laden tray, ‘so long as that greedy Sim hasny finished it afore I’m done here.’

  ‘Get on wi your tale, then,’ said the Provost, ‘and you’ll catch up wi him the sooner.’

  ‘Aye well, it’s soon ended,’ admitted Frank, ‘for that’s about all. Save for the man getting loose again, and Mistress Mason here capturing him. And then—’

  ‘I did not!’ she protested. Gil leaned away to look down at her, concern in his face. Socrates, sprawled across their feet, raised his head, then went back to sleep. ‘It was all of you took and bound him.’

  ‘Aye, once you’d fell on him and winded him,’ said Frank admiringly. ‘A neat trick that, mistress, I’d like to ken who taught you it.’

  ‘The drop-dead trick,’ she explained to Gil. He nodded, and she saw she would not get to sleep tonight without giving him a complete tale.

  ‘Then we stripped the man Miller, while he was in his swound,’ said Lowrie, ‘and while Sempill of Muirend set to questioning him I made an inventory of his goods, and found this in his spoirean.’ He drew the blue velvet purse from the breast of his doublet, and leaned to set it on the desk before Otterburn. The Provost looked at it gloomily for a long moment.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said finally to Gil. ‘Here’s us searching Glasgow and the Gallowgate, putting a watch on the ports, crying the fellow at the Cross, and your lassie falls on him out the sky and fetches him home.’

  Gil’s arm was round her again. ‘I’d expect no less.’

  Otterburn looked at them both with the hint of a smile, but all he said was,

  ‘And John Sempill questioned him, did he? What did he learn fro the man?’

  ‘Little,’ said Lowrie. ‘He denies all, or answers nothing.’

  ‘It’s a great pity John isny here to tell us himself,’ observed Gil.

  ‘He went home,’ said Alys. ‘I thought,’ she said slowly, assembling her recollections, ‘I thought he knew the man. When he asked his name, the man said, You’re asking me? As if he was surprised. And even before that, Sempill was very determined to hang him out of hand. He was very angry when we insisted on bringing him here to justice.’

  Otterburn’s gaze went from her to Gil, and then to Philip Sempill, while Lowrie said,

  ‘You could be right at that, mistress.’

  Philip said nothing, but his face darkened in the candlelight under Otterburn’s steady stare. After a moment the Provost said, raising his voice a little,

  ‘Right, Walter, how’re you getting on wi those tasks I set you?’

  His c
lerk stepped in from the antechamber, looking smug.

  ‘It’s the man Miller right enough, maister,’ he said, ‘named afore witnesses and writ down on oath. As for what he swore he’d do to the woman that named him, well, it’s as well her Scots isny that good.’

  ‘She understood what she swore to?’ said Gil sharply.

  ‘I’m no caring,’ said Otterburn over Walter’s assurances. ‘She’s sworn and that’s that. And the interpreter?’

  The interpreter proved to be one of the men-at-arms, a sturdy fairish man introduced as Lappy, which surely must be a nickname. He claimed he had spent time at the wars in High Germany and learned some of the language. Alys had doubts about the man’s vocabulary, but Berthold, roused and brought through, understood the first questions put to him clearly enough. The boy seemed so stunned by the events of the day that he did not react with surprise, but nor did he answer. A spate of words tumbled out, clearly a question of his own, and another.

  ‘Haud on!’ said the interpreter. ‘I’m no that fast.’ He paused, putting the words into Scots. ‘He’s asking, maister, what o his faither and his uncle, when are they to be buried, will he can get to the burial? Is that right, they’re dead?’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Otterburn, before Alys could speak, ‘if he answers my questions, I’ll see about it. Then ask him again why he’s in Scotland and what they were doing.’

  The boy’s eyes turned to Otterburn, then to Alys. He spoke to Lappy, sounding surprised.

  ‘He says, did the other man no tell you? It was him called them here, he thinks, and him that gave them orders.’

  ‘Other man,’ said Otterburn flatly. ‘Does he mean the man Miller? The prisoner?’

  ‘Nein, nein!’ said Berthold as Lappy translated. ‘Der böse Mann!’ He pulled an angry, sulky face.

  ‘John Sempill!’ said Alys and Lowrie together.

  ‘I’m feart he’s right,’ said Philip.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘This is a right tirravee,’ said John Sempill of Muirend angrily. ‘Why did you have to rout Maidie out her bed and all? It’s none o her mind, any o this.’