by Pat McIntosh
‘It’s waur than that, Robert. I suspect –’ said Robert’s father heavily. The five of them exchanged solemn looks, and the others nodded.
‘Aye, Frankie,’ agreed Wat Forrest. ‘I’m agreed.’
‘Agreed on what?’ demanded Morison. ‘What can we do for the poor fellow?’
They looked up, and Maister Renfrew got to his feet.
‘A priest,’ he said. ‘We should carry him to bed and bleed him, and I’ll send Robert for the needful to make a cataplasm to his feet, but a priest is the most urgent matter.’ He looked about the high light chamber, over the shocked faces. ‘Well, Agnes,’ he said brutally, ‘so much for making your own choice, lassie, for here’s the one of your sweethearts has slain the other.’
Someone screamed.
‘What?’ said Bothwell in horror. ‘I never – I didny – and it was only a couple drops touched his mouth, he never even swallowed – it must ha been something he ate –’
‘Cold pyson,’ said Renfrew, ‘and powerful at that, if a few drops can kill a man, and we all saw you minister it, my lad.’ He stepped forward, and snatched the painted pottery flask from the other man’s hand, and held it up. ‘What could be in this, to slay him in the space of a few Aves?’
‘No!’ Bothwell protested, and turned to look at Agnes Renfrew, who had risen to her feet and was staring white-faced and horrified at her father. ‘No, it wasny –’
‘Small use to deny it,’ declared Renfrew, ‘and by Christ I’ll see you hang for it, man, for I’m master of our mystery in this burgh and I’ll not have the profession brought into disrepute in this way. Seize and hold him, Wat, Adam, and I’ll thank you to send for the Serjeant, Augie.’
‘No!’ said Bothwell again. The Forrest brothers grasped his shoulders, and he looked from one to the other of them, appalled, but did not struggle. ‘No, I never!’
The stricken mummer’s feet drummed on the floor in another convulsion, and his breath rattled. Augie stared at him in distress, crossed himself, then turned to find his men with quick instructions. As two of the journeymen vanished down the kitchen stair Gil stepped forward to intervene.
‘I’m none so certain it’s Bothwell’s doing,’ he observed. ‘Why would anyone choose to minister pyson to the man like this, in front of as many witnesses?’
‘Why would I pyson any man, let alone Dan Gibson?’ demanded Bothwell, staring round at a ring of hostile faces. ‘He’s a good fellow, we’ve aye been – save for us both – and she, she, she favours me so far’s –’
‘Aye, and little use in that,’ said Renfrew with satisfaction, ‘for I’d other plans for the lass long afore this. Here, Robert, here’s the key to the workroom, you ken what to fetch.’
‘Are you saying,’ said Dod Wilkie, suddenly catching up with matters, ‘the man’s deid, Frankie?’
‘Deid?’ shrieked someone across the chamber.
‘As good as,’ said Wat Forrest.
Kate pulled herself out of her chair, took her crutches from Babb, and thumped forward, saying firmly, ‘Bear him into the next chamber, poor man, and lay him on the bed. You his friends can stay with him or go down to the kitchen as you think best, and Ursel will bring you some aquavit, which I’ve no doubt you could do with. Jamesie, Eck,’ two of the journeymen started and came forward, ‘fetch a rope and take over fro Maister Forrest. And for the rest of us, neighbours …’ She looked about her, gathering up attention despite the rival attractions in the chamber, and smiled crookedly. ‘I’d planned a few diversions for Hallowe’en, ducking for apples and the like, but it hardly seems right now. When the Serjeant gets here he’ll likely want to get our witness to what happened –’
‘I never saw,’ said someone hastily, ‘for I was talking to Barbara here.’
‘I did,’ said another voice, ‘I saw him shake the bottle to stir up the pyson –’
‘No, I –’ began Bothwell.
Somebody uttered a heartfelt groan.
‘So we’ll need to wait here,’ continued Kate, as the limp form of the champion was borne out of the room by two of the other mummers. The apothecaries followed in a solemn group. ‘Andy, would you and Ursel have them bring up more wine and another bite to eat.’
‘We’ll no all can stay here,’ pronounced Nancy Sproull from her post beside Renfrew’s wife. ‘We need to get Meg home to her own chamber, or she’ll be here longer than you care for, Lady Kate.’
‘Never say it, Nancy!’ said Renfrew, turning back from the door.
‘Oh, I’ll say it, Frankie, whether you choose or no.’ She laid a portentous hand on Mistress Mathieson’s belly, and nodded as the younger woman gasped and the great dome heaved under her touch. ‘Her time’s on her.’
‘So she was right about her dates, then,’ said Renfrew.
‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ said Maistre Pierre.
There was an appalled pause, into which Mistress Mathieson delivered another shuddering groan. Then Nicol Renfrew said, with his high-pitched laugh:
‘No doubt of the brat being yours, Faither, when it picks sic a moment to arrive.’
Chapter Two
By the time the Serjeant arrived the gathering had split into several parts.
At Mistress Sproull’s announcement the remaining men among the guests had taken themselves hurriedly into one of the window bays again, their backs to the goings-on. Gil would have joined them, but for a feeling that the flustered Augie needed his support. Kate, however, went into immediate action.
‘I’ll see to this, sir,’ she announced, one hand on Morison’s arm. ‘You make certain Maister Renfrew and his colleagues have all they need. Here’s Gil can help you, and Alys, I’d be right glad of your –’
Alys looked round and nodded from where she was already conferring with Mistress Sproull.
‘There is still time to get her home,’ she said, ‘since it is only next door, but also we should send to tell her mother and the midwife.’
‘Aye, you’re right, lassie,’ agreed Babb, stroking Mistress Mathieson’s perspiring forehead with one large gentle hand, ‘we’ve time, but we’d best no stand about, just the same.’
Leaving Maister Renfrew issuing curt instructions to Kate and to the women of his own household, Gil followed Morison as ordered, and found himself recalling the way his mother had addressed his father as my lord in company, formal and respectful and at times extracting the same expression of deep but wary relief as he had just seen on Morison’s face.
In the hall-chamber, the sick man had been laid on the great bed, the plaids and mantles which had been laid there bundled on to a stool, the embroidered counterpane hastily drawn back and mounded at his feet. The remaining mummers were huddled by the wall while the Forrest brothers and James Syme conferred in low tones at the bedside. Morison hurried to join the apothecaries, saying anxiously, ‘How does the poor laddie? Is he – is he still –?’
‘He’s still alive,’ said Syme, ‘but I fear we must prepare for the worst. Is the priest sent for, Augie?’
The other champion sobbed aloud at this, scrubbing at his eyes with the cuff of his doublet and smearing soot on the back of his hand. Judas patted him clumsily on the shoulder. Gil crossed the room to join the men and offer sympathy, got them to sit down on the padded bench which matched the hangings of the bed, and drew a back-stool to one end of it so he could see their faces. Robert Renfrew hurried in as he seated himself, carrying a heavy leather case and a silver basin and followed at a more measured pace by his father.
‘Tell me about this,’ Gil said encouragingly to the mummers, trying to ignore the bustle. ‘That’s not the way the play should go. What was meant to happen?’
They all stared at him, and then the Judas pulled himself together and said wearily, ‘Well, the champion should rise up and all be – all be well again, maister. That’s what the play’s about, see.’
Gil nodded agreement. ‘Was anything else different, before Danny fell?’
They looked at one another uneasily, an
d Judas, who seemed to be the spokesman, said, ‘No. No that you’d call different, considering.’
‘Considering what?’ Gil summoned patience.
‘I’ll no believe it,’ said the St Mungo. He pushed his mitre back to scratch his head. ‘Nanty’s a good fellow, he’d no do sic a thing.’
‘Here’s the priest,’ said the piper quietly, as a stir at the chamber door signalled the entry of Father Francis Govan from the Franciscan house across the way. One of the maidservants entered with a jug of hot water, staring round-eyed, and lingered until pushed out by Wat Forrest. His brother was using mortar and pestle to bruise some powerful-smelling herbs.
‘Nanty and Danny had words,’ said Judas reluctantly. ‘Down in the kitchen yonder, afore we come up to play the play.’
‘And what was that about?’ Gil asked. Again they looked at one another uneasily.
‘About the lassie Renfrew?’ said the Bessie. He had removed his headdress, which lay at his feet like a mound of washing; closer inspection showed that Ysonde was right, and the main component was a bed-sheet, nine or ten square yards of heavy linen. The fellow’s neck muscles must be strong, Gil thought, to carry that on his head. ‘See, Nanty was out in the yard getting a word wi her when we should ha been all in the kitchen setting out the moves.’
‘And Danny took exception to that?’ Gil prompted.
‘He gaed out to the yard,’ said the piper, ‘called him in, demanded what they’d had to say at sic a moment.’
‘And Nanty said it was nothing, and nane o his mind,’ supplied Bessie. ‘A bit of a ding-dong they had, though it was just a shouting match, they never flung fists.’
‘We got them calmed down,’ said St Mungo, ‘and we sorted out all the moves, and sat down wi a stoup of ale to wait.’
‘And then,’ took up Judas, ‘if Nanty wasny getting another word wi the lass on the stair, just afore we came up. I spoke sharp to him, but the limmer gied me a bit snash herself, and slipped away back to the company. And as well, too,’ he added darkly. ‘I’ve saved your play, she says. Did you ever hear? She’d ha felt the rough side of my hand if she’d waited, whoever her faither might be.’
When Gil stepped out into the hall, he found Kate just despatching Babb and two reluctant journeymen with the groaning, white-faced Mistress Mathieson established in a great chair, to carry her next door to her own house, escorted by her stepdaughters who appeared to be engaged in a savage whispered quarrel. Several people looked round as he emerged, but he shook his head.
‘No change,’ he said. ‘Is the Serjeant not here yet?’
‘William must have gone further afield to find him,’ Kate speculated. ‘The man’s never about when you need him.’
‘And Our Lady send that Eleanor doesny miscarry and all, what wi the excitement,’ commented Grace Gordon as she gathered up the last of the fans and cushions. ‘You’ll remember this gathering your life long, Kate.’
‘I wish I thought I could forget it,’ said Kate wryly.
The two women exchanged kisses, and Grace left, with an anxious look at her husband, who waved his fingers at her but did not move. Alys came to tuck her hand in Gil’s, whether giving or seeking reassurance he was uncertain though he was glad of her touch. Kate braced herself visibly and looked round the hall at her remaining guests. Mistress Hamilton and the quiet young wife of Wat Forrest, who had hardly spoken in Gil’s hearing all afternoon, had begun discussing childbirth with Nancy Sproull. Nancy’s daughter Nell had retired to a corner and seemed to be struggling with tears. The men were still under siege in the window bay, Andrew Hamilton and Dod Wilkie discussing some matter of burgh council business with Maistre Pierre, Nicol Renfrew sitting humming tunelessly and swinging one foot again, and young Andrew Hamilton staring alternately at the door to the hall-chamber and at the despairing figure of Nanty Bothwell at the far end of the room where he sat bound to a backstool and guarded by two journeymen in watchful pose.
‘I wonder how long we –’ Kate began, one hand at her breast.
‘There is little we can do but wait till the Serjeant comes,’ Alys observed, ‘and pray for that poor man. Gil, do you think it can have been an accident?’
‘I don’t believe Nanty Bothwell intended to poison Dan Gibson,’ he said cautiously.
She gave him an intent look, and nodded. Kate, easing at the bodice of her dark red gown, said, ‘Of course it was an accident. I’ve dealt with the man, when I wanted straightforward simples rather than a compound wi honey at five times the price, and he’s intelligent and civil, and so is his sister. As you said, Gil, he’s not such a fool as to poison the fellow afore all these witnesses. I’m right sorry we’ve had to take and tie him. I had Jamesie fetch him a bite to eat and drink, poor man.’
‘There’s a sister, is there?’
‘Her name is Christian Bothwell,’ said Alys. ‘She is often at the booth, but I think she does a lot of the stillroom work. I think her a good woman.’
‘Where is Serjeant Anderson?’ wondered Kate distractedly, still plucking at her gown.
‘Kate, are you laced too tight?’ Gil asked. She looked down, colouring, and snatched the hand away.
‘Edward,’ she said. ‘He needs to be fed.’ She looked about the chamber as if expecting to see the baby hidden in a corner.
‘Mysie has taken him above stairs,’ Alys said. ‘I’ll fetch her down. Where will she bring him?’
‘Not here,’ said Kate, with a helpless glance at the men still ostentatiously talking matters of state. Nicol Renfrew gave her a happy smile and another tiny wave of his fingers.
‘Augie’s closet,’ Gil suggested.
He had just returned to the hall with a list of instructions for Morison, leaving Kate and Alys to settle down with the baby, his nurse Mysie, and a jug of ale, when a portentous knocking at the house door announced the Serjeant. Admitted by Andy Paterson the steward, the burgh lawkeeper proceeded into the hall, a big man in an expansive blue woollen gown with the burgh badge embroidered on the breast. He was followed by one of his constables bearing a coil of rope and a pair of rusty manacles.
‘Guid e’en to ye, maisters. Aye, Maister Cunningham,’ he said, looking about him. ‘So what’s this about murder being done? Strange how I’m aye finding you next to a murder.’
‘Daniel Gibson,’ said Gil, ignoring this, ‘fell down deathly sick at the end of the mummers’ play.’
‘Is the rest of the company well?’ asked the Serjeant sharply.
‘So far as I knew,’ Gil answered, impressed despite himself. The man did not usually ask such pertinent questions.
‘A terrible thing! We all saw him pysont,’ Mistress Hamilton announced with relish. ‘Poor man,’ she added.
‘Gibson was playing Galossian,’ Gil supplied, ‘and it seems as if he could have been poisoned by the drops the doctor uses to cure him. Maister Renfrew and his partners, and the Forrest brothers, are working on him now.’
‘He’s a deid man, then,’ said the Serjeant, ‘for nobody could survive that much curing.’ He laughed at his joke, and looked about him. ‘Where is he, then? I’ll need to see him, deid or no, and where’s Nanty Bothwell? Ah, you’ve got him ready for me.’
The door to the hall-chamber opened, and Morison emerged, his velvet hat in his hand.
‘Serjeant,’ he said. ‘I thought I heard your voice. Thank you for coming so prompt. It’s a matter of violent death, right enough.’
‘Death?’ said Nancy Sproull sharply. ‘Is the poor fellow dead, then?’
In the window Maistre Pierre turned to look at them, and pulled his hat off. The other men did the same, one after another, and Nanty Bothwell, between his two sentinels, bent his head and muttered a prayer.
‘He died just now.’ Morison crossed himself, and most of his hearers did likewise. ‘Father Francis was wi him.’
‘God send him rest,’ said Andrew Hamilton. His son was silent and round-eyed.
‘Aye, well,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘that’s c
lear enough, I’d say. Pysont by the man that’s his rival in love, so I hear, and all these folk witnesses to it, is that right?’
Nanty Bothwell looked up with a despairing ‘No!’ but most of those present nodded, and there was a general chorus of agreement. Nancy Sproull said:
‘Aye, as Agnes said, we all saw him give poor Daniel the drops that slew him.’
‘I’m none so certain,’ said Gil. ‘Bothwell seemed as dismayed as any of us at the man’s taking ill.’
‘It was hardly anyone else in the chamber ministered the pyson,’ objected Maister Wilkie. He clapped his green bonnet back on his bald patch and came forward into the room. ‘There was none of us anywhere near the man – aye, nowhere near either of them, till the moment Dan Gibson fell down.’
‘That’s truth,’ agreed Maister Hamilton.
His stout wife nodded, her chins wobbling, and young Andrew said clearly, ‘They were all there in the midst of the room, see, and the rest of us round the outside.’
His mother looked at him fondly, but Nicol Renfrew said, with that irritating giggle, ‘It was the wrong flask he had.’ Everyone turned to stare at him, and he put his head back and looked owlishly from face to face. ‘You could see that,’ he added, and giggled again.
‘How could you tell?’ Gil asked carefully, trying to recall the moment when the flask had appeared from the doc-tor’s great scrip.
Nicol waved a hand, grinning. ‘It just was.’
A reply Ysonde might have made, Gil thought.
‘This gets us nowhere,’ declared the Serjeant. ‘See here, Maister Cunningham, you’re paid of my lord Archbishop to look into murders, so it’s only natural you should want to look further. But I’m paid wi the council to keep this burgh safe, and what I’ll do to that end is arrest the man that pysont Daniel Gibson, that you’ve got held there waiting for me, and there’s the sum of it. Where is the poor fellow, sir?’
‘Yonder, in the hall-chamber,’ said Morison, with a helpless glance at Gil, while Wilkie and Maister Hamilton made approving noises and the scrawny constable looked resigned.