by Pat McIntosh
‘I don’t think so,’ said Alys, relieved to be discussing this rather than her own affairs. ‘He spoke with your neighbour’s eldest son,’ she pointed unobtrusively towards the Renfrew house, and Kate nodded approval of the ellipsis, ‘who thought the poison might have been meant for his father, and that any of the household might be responsible.’
‘No help,’ said Kate, and made kissing noises at Edward. ‘None of them had the chance to put it in place, I’d have thought.’ She grimaced, then smiled reassuringly at the baby. ‘I’d like to get it cleared up, it’s worrying Augie. He’s hardly slept, these two nights.’
And nor did I last night, thought Alys, too busy thinking about – No, put it out of your mind, don’t – The images came hurtling back to confront her, and she drew a shivering breath. Meg struggling with her mother and the two midwives, the dirt and smells and indignity, the screaming and pain –
A sermon she had once read listed the five dangers to the soul newly freed from the body, Demons, punishment, the remnants of sin, doubt of the way and shrieking. She felt she understood the last one now.
‘I spoke to my lassies again, did Gil say?’ Kate said, holding her son upright. Inside the swaddling bands and the multiple woollen wrappings his legs kicked against her knees. ‘No, it’s since I saw him. Stand up, wee mannie, stand up. What a clever boy! They had another thing to say about – about the lass next door.’
Alys made an enquiring noise, not trusting her voice.
‘They both said, when she crossed the kitchen,’ Kate recalled, ‘and went on to the stair, she was just behind Andrew Hamilton.’
‘Andrew – the wright? Or his son?’said Alys, startled.
‘Oh, the boy, I’d think,’ said Kate, eyes dancing. ‘I doubt my lassies noticed the carpenter, he’s away too old for them. Young Andrew’s a likely laddie, he’ll disturb a few folk’s dreams when he gets his growth, and these two are no so much older than he is.’
‘What was he doing in the kitchen?’ Alys wondered.
‘Likely went out to the privy. He’d come back in by the kitchen to see about Ursel’s gingerbread, I’ve no doubt. Which reminds me, Ursel said there was marchpane fancies, tell Gil, but the laddie who died would have none of them. Quite sharp in refusing, he was.’
‘And yet he smelled of almonds when he was stricken down,’ said Alys. ‘That must be the poison right enough. Gil has learned that it might have been made from nuts, almonds I suppose. I never heard of such a thing.’
‘Nor did I.’ Kate bounced her son, who blew bubbles at her. ‘A bababa! A bababa, then!’
‘Did your lassies notice whether Nanty Bothwell followed Agnes?’
‘Isa didn’t notice. Mina said he did, but that it was a good bit after. I think since Bowster found the two of them talking it can’t have been that long. Long enough no to be obvious, I suppose.’
‘And Andrew Hamilton was ahead of them on the stair,’ said Alys thoughtfully. ‘So did he hear what she said to Bothwell?’
‘We could ask him,’ said Kate. ‘It might help Gil.’
They looked at one another.
‘Will you call at the house,’ Kate went on, ‘or will I send John to get him round here just now? He’s more like to tell us what he heard if his mother isn’t listening.’
‘His mother was at the gossip-ale last night, and past hearing anything much when I saw her. I’d think she had a sore head today.’
‘Yes, Babb told me she snored all afternoon at mine. Right, then. If you step up into the yard you’ll likely find John Paterson.’
The steward’s nephew was very willing to leave his task and go to look for Andrew Hamilton, but warned Alys shyly it might take some time to find him.
‘See, mem, I’ve no notion where they’re working the now,’ he admitted. ‘I’d heard they’d finished one task, but there’s two more places I could look.’
‘Then go and look, if you will,’ said Alys, and returned to report this to Kate, who was unfastening her gown preparatory to feeding Edward.
‘It’s worth the try,’ Kate said, applying her son to her breast. ‘There’s a clever boy!’ She looked up, and studied Alys’s face again. ‘Had Meg a bad time of it?’ she asked. ‘The word that reached me wasny good.’
‘She did.’ Suddenly Alys was back in that space between the bed and the window, Meg’s screams echoing in her ears while the other women knelt doing dreadful things –
‘Alys.’ Kate’s hand reached across the guzzling baby to clamp down on hers. ‘Alys, how much did you see?’ She hesitated, unwilling to put it into words. ‘Screaming and pain and blood?’ She nodded in relief. ‘Look. Never let it worry you. It’s not that bad. You forget, Alys.’
‘How?’ she burst out. ‘How can you forget that?’
‘When you’ve a new baby,’ Kate declared, ‘you’ll forget your own name. I think nursing rots the brain,’ she added, looking down at Edward. ‘No, the recollection of the crying-time vanishes away immediately. Ask Meg about hers and see what she says. Mother and Margaret both promised me, it would be bad at the time but you forget afterwards, because the bairn’s such a delight, and do you know, they were right.’ She smiled anxiously into Alys’s face, and shook the hand she held gently. ‘Never fear, lassie. My mother’s right about most things.’
‘That’s true,’ said Alys, mustering a shaky smile.
‘Put it out of your mind just now. You’re not …?’
She shook her head, trying to control the turmoil of feelings in her body.
‘Believe it, Kate, you’ll be first to hear after Gil and my father,’ she said, ‘if I ever –’
‘Baby Floris is getting fed,’ announced Ysonde, materializing beside them. ‘Wynliane, Baby Floris is –’
‘No need to tell all the neighbours,’ said Kate, laughing, as Wynliane hurried to join her sister. The two girls hung cooing over the baby, who rolled his eyes at them and redoubled his efforts, possibly in case of interruption. Alys looked about her.
‘Where is John?’ she asked.
‘In bed,’ said Ysonde. ‘It was his bedtime.’ She pointed at the further box hedges. ‘We made him a wee bed down there in among the hedge.’
‘Is he there now?’ Alys rose and went to look. There was no sign of the little boy. ‘Ysonde, he isn’t here. Where can he be?’
‘He must have runned away,’ said Ysonde. ‘He’s a naughty boy.’
‘I don’t see him.’ Alys stared about the garden, but saw no sign of a bright red tunic.
‘Ysonde, go and help Mistress Alys find John,’ prompted Kate. ‘Both of you. Nancy,’ she called, ‘where did John go?’
The cluster of women broke open, and three faces turned towards them. Nan, the older woman, was the first to realize what was being said, and got quickly to her feet.
‘Can he get through the fence?’ she asked. ‘A limber wee laddie like that, he’d get in anywhere.’ She turned toward the nearest of the neat fences which lined the long boundary.
‘The mill-burn!’ exclaimed Alys, her heart leaping into her throat. ‘Could he –?’
Edward screamed indignantly as Kate sat up straighter. She hastily shifted her hold on him, and he fell silent and resumed his meal.
‘Alys, go out and look on the path,’ she recommended. ‘It’s so muddy down there you’ll see his wee footprints easily if he’s got out. Nancy, Mysie, go and look in the kaleyard and then up in the yard, ask the men if they’ve seen him.’
‘Would he go so far?’ Alys asked, hurrying down to the gate. ‘When did we – when did you see him, Ysonde?’
‘Last night,’ said Ysonde. ‘It was his bedtime, I telled you.’
‘No, my lassie, not in your game,’ said Kate. ‘John might have run somewhere he shouldn’t be and we need to find him. How long ago was he here?’
‘Just a wee bit ago,’ offered Wynliane. ‘He was being our wee boy.’ She looked about. ‘Could he be hiding under the hedges?’
‘Maybe you should lo
ok,’ suggested Kate, and the two girls began to scurry round, bending to look under the little box hedges and calling ‘John, John!’
‘There’s no gaps in this bit fence,’ said Nan to Alys as she struggled with the gate. ‘I’d say he’s no out there, mistress, but you have to check.’ She hurried past, scanning the close-set palings. Alys stepped out on to the path which ran along the bank of the mill-burn, past the ends of the long narrow properties whose frontage was on the High Street. No small red-tunicked person was visible, no prints of the little leather shoes of which John was so proud showed up in the muddy, much-trodden surface. She looked up and down, saw a pair of workmen approaching, a woman with a basket of washing coming the other way. No sign of John, and surely if they had seen him they would wave, or shout, or –
‘Mistress!’ It was Nan’s voice, urgent. ‘He’s next door. In the physic garden.’
She turned and ran to the foot of the Renfrews’ garden. There was a gate, much like the Morisons’ gate, but little used. She wrestled with its latch, struggled to drag it through the mud, squeezed through into the garden, past a barrel standing just inside the fence.
‘John?’ she called. ‘Where’s John? Come to Mammy Alys!’
No answer.
‘He’s yonder, mem, I can see him,’ said Nan, her head just visible. She put an arm over the fence to point up the slope. ‘Yonder, beyond the peas or whatever that is.’
The red tunic was visible, through the dried stems on the trellis. Not peas, surely, something more medicinal. She hurried up the path, past the midden. The Renfrews had been poisoning rats, there was a little heap of the creatures with a dead crow next them. Briefly aware of relief that John had not found that, she went on. In Kate’s garden there were voices, which must be Mysie and Nancy returning.
‘The men haveny seen him, my leddy.’
‘We’ve found him. He’s next door in the physic garden.’
‘Our Lady save us, what will he be at? There’s all sorts there he could put in his mouth!’
‘What’s he eating?’
She rounded the trellis, and the same question hit her like a flung stone. John sat on the ground, beaming up at her, his mouth smeared with fragments of something, brighter red than his little woollen tunic. He held out his hand, showing more crushed berries.
‘Morple,’ he said happily.
She knelt beside him in the earth, alarm surging up through her body, tightening her chest. With shaking hands she persuaded his mouth open, raking inside with an experienced finger, extracting broken fragments of fruit. He objected, rearing backwards, pushing at her hand, but did not bite.
‘What is John eating?’ she asked him. ‘That’s not good, John. Bad berries.’
‘Goo’ bez,’ he contradicted, opening and closing his fat little hand on the pulpy mass. She scraped them off his palm, and scooped him up, looking round.
‘Where did you get the berries, John? Show me.’ Her heart was hammering as if it would leap out of her mouth. What the fruit was poisonous? What if he– how could she face her father? How could she face the harper, the boy’s father?
‘Morple,’ he said again.
There was nothing with berries on it where he pointed. She set him on the ground again, saying, ‘Show me, John. Where were the berries?’
He looked round him, up at her, and round the garden again. More voices over the fence, men’s voices. Have you got him? Aye, there he’s over the fence in the physic garden. Christ aid, what’s he found there? She ignored them, intent on the child.
After a moment John trotted off towards a shaded corner by a laurel bush. Not the laurel, she thought, please blessed Mary I beg of you, not the laurel!
They’ll eat anything at that age, said the voices over the fence. My cousin lost one afore he was two, from eating unripe elderberries. What’s the bairn got?
‘Bez,’ said John happily. He squatted down to gather more, and held up a bright red berry between thumb and forefinger. ‘Morple, pease?’
She stared at the patch of ground where he sat. Dark oval leaves flopped this way and that, and above them little stems nodded, each bearing a curve of bright berries. Not the laurel, but nearly as bad. How many had he eaten? How many would it take to –
She found she was running towards the gate, the child in her arms, wiping fragments of berries off her hands on his back and shoulders. He was struggling, and exclaiming, ‘No! No! Want bez!’ and the gate seemed to be getting no closer, as if she was running on the spot. Her mind was whirling round and round like a squirrel in a cage. What was the treatment? Was there an antidote? How many had he swallowed?
Nan was at her side, offering to take the boy from her. She clutched him closer, despite his indignant cries, and tried to run faster.
‘What was it? What had he got at, mem?’
She stared, open-mouthed, over John’s dark curls. Her Scots had deserted her.
‘Muguet,’ she said. ‘Muguet des bois. Little white – scented – I don’t know –’
They were in Kate’s garden, and Mysie was wailing and Nancy was hiccuping in shock. Edward was screaming, the two little girls were sobbing, everyone seemed to be crying except herself and Kate and Nan, but a ring of silent, appalled men stared at the scene. She set John down on the bench, and he pushed away from her, red-faced and cross.
‘Want bez,’ he reiterated. ‘Mine bez. Now!’
‘He had eaten berries of muguet,’ she said to Kate, still unable to find the Scots word. ‘I don’t know how many but it is poisonous. We should make him vomit, we should –’
‘Right,’ said Nan practically, seized the boy and pushed a finger down his throat. He screamed angrily at her, but did no more than hiccup and scream again when she withdrew the finger. Her next attempt obtained only furious roaring, which escalated rapidly into a full-blown tantrum.
‘He’s no having any,’ said one of the men. ‘I doubt, I doubt –’
‘May lilies,’ said Kate suddenly over her son’s screaming. ‘Lily of the vale, Our Lady’s Tears.’ She was shaking, but gathered her stepdaughters to her. ‘Come, come, lassies, no need to cry. You wereny to know he’d run off.’ She handed the baby to an awed Wynliane. ‘Can you stop Edward, I mean Floris from crying for me? Andy, get the men back to work, there’s nothing for them to do here.’
‘He’ll no throw it up,’ said Nan despairingly, looking down at the roaring child in her arms. ‘Should we try salt in water, mem?’
‘I don’t like his colour,’ said Alys. ‘He’s gone very pale if that’s a tantrum. And he’s slavering.’
‘Has he vomited?’ A new voice. Alys looked round sharply, and found Grace Gordon at her elbow, her apron full of crockery. She seemed out of breath. ‘Has he vomited?’ she repeated.
‘No, we can’t make him –’
Without comment Grace set down the things she carried on the bench beside Kate, poured water and a few drops of something into a small beaker, added a single drop of something else, advanced on the child still roaring in Nan’s arms. Mysie had stopped weeping and she and Nancy were clinging together staring. Edward was still crying.
‘Had you cleared his mouth?’
‘Yes, yes, I –’
‘Hold his head, then,’ Grace directed. Alys obeyed, and the entire contents of the beaker vanished into the square scarlet mouth. John choked, spluttered, began to cry rather than roar. Grace watched him tensely until he suddenly wailed in distress, dribbled at the mouth again and was very sick. Nan tipped him expertly forward, and Grace inspected the results in the grass.
‘Only some fragments,’ she said dubiously. ‘Is he finished, do you think? He needs to empty his wee wame.’
‘No, there’s more,’ said Nan as the child wailed again.
Grace stepped back, and said to Alys, ‘What has he eaten today?’
‘Bread, porridge,’ said Alys shakily, trying to recall. ‘Nancy, what did he eat?’
‘Two raisins,’ said Nancy. ‘An apple. Or was th
at last night? Oh, mem, I’ll never forgive mysel!’ Her face crumpled again, and she scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve.
‘Bread and porridge,’ repeated Grace, bending to study the second instalment. ‘I think that’s most of it, then, and the apple, and it looks as if he’d only swallowed one or two fragments of the berries.’ She broke off a twig of box from the nearest hedge and poked at the mess on the grass. ‘Good.’
John was still crying, though the sobs were slower now.
‘He’s getting sleepy,’ said Nan, wiping the child’s mouth. Grace straightened up and came to check his pulse, then tilted up his head and raised one heavy eyelid to study his eye.
‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘The pupil is enlarged but not greatly, the pulse is steady considering how distressed he is. Poisoning progresses rapidly in such a small form, but so does the antidote. I think we’ve caught it in time.’
‘You mean he’s safe?’ demanded Nancy through her tears. ‘Oh, is he safe, mem?’
‘He must be watched,’ said Grace, ‘for the headache, cold sweats, pains in his belly. I’ll give you something for him in case that happens. But if he sleeps naturally he should be safe.’
Alys crossed herself, tears starting to her eyes. Nancy dropped to her knees on the cold ground, snatching out her beads. Mysie imitated her, and they set up a murmuring of heartfelt thanksgiving, broken by Nancy’s occasional sobs. Nan made her way to a bench and sat down on it, rather heavily, one hand going up to stroke the drowsy child’s dark curls.
‘What did you give him?’ Alys asked anxiously, thinking of a candle to St John. The boy’s weight in wax, or even double –
‘A little ipecac, to induce vomiting, always the best beginning in a case of poisoning in a child,’ said Grace with some hesitation, as if she was translating the comments out of one or more other languages, ‘and to control the heartbeat a drop of fever-bark tincture, a valuable specific against the effects of May lily or foxglove.’ She felt the child’s pulse again. ‘I wonder – maybe another drop of that the now, to be certain.’