A Pig of Cold Poison (13 page)

‘Rubbish!’ exploded Renfrew. ‘How would he get hold of it? I never heard such nonsense. My workroom’s locked, the supply of flasks is still in the barrel there in the corner, all in their straw, and the spare ones Grace makes up for me are here –’ He turned to the shelves beside him, and patted a small, expensive sample of the cabinetmaker’s craft. ‘In this cabinet.’

‘How many flasks do you use?’ Gil asked.

‘I keep three for the drops. Grace fills the three at a time, and puts them by here for me, and when I empty one, as I did this morn, I pass it to her. Then when I get to the third one she makes up a fresh batch.’

Gil frowned, working this out. Something did not tally.

‘You leave it all to your good-daughter?’ asked Maistre Pierre curiously.

Renfrew shrugged. ‘I can trust her well enough wi that. The receipt’s clear, she’s capable of following it right, and it makes her feel useful forbye. I maybe need to bid her strengthen it,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I feel as if the humours are unbalanced again the day.’

‘Much has happened in the day,’ observed Maistre Pierre.

‘I’d have thought she was useful for more than that,’ said Gil. ‘She seems both skilled and competent.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Renfrew, with a sudden bark of laughter. ‘You’d be surprised. Aye, she’s a useful lassie, particular at making apple-cheese. I canny interest you in a box? Anyway, maister, the spare flasks,’ he picked open one of the many little doors in the cabinet, ‘would be with Grace, lying empty and waiting to be filled, or else here for my use. So it canny have been one of mine that Bothwell had, and when I think of the help I’ve given that lad, the advice and the stores I’ve put in his way, it fair makes my blood boil that he should misuse the craft that way.’

The doors of the cabinet bore labels with writing on them. Gil bent and looked closely, but found the words much abbreviated.
Absint., Tanac., Alc. mol.
, he read. The open cavity was unlabelled and empty; there were stains on the light wood which smelled vaguely herbal, though the cabinet and the whole chamber smelled so strongly of spices and drugs it was hard to identify one odour. Maister Renfrew, appealed to, agreed that it was the same way as his drops smelled.

‘The last two or three you finished,’ said Gil, ‘did you give them to Mistress Grace yourself?’

‘Oh, likely. Or I’d gie them to Frankie or to Robert to pass on to her. So it gets to her, it’s no great matter.’

‘But none has been missed?’

‘And the one in your purse now, Frankie?’ asked Maistre Pierre across the denial.

‘It’s the right stuff,’ Renfrew said irritably. ‘I lifted it this morning and I’ve had two or three doses in the day. I ken my own receipt. What are you trying to show, Peter? Are you suspicioning Bothwell intended to leave it here for me?’

‘Not Bothwell necessarily,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘but we have wondered if it was intended for you.’

Renfrew stared at him, then laughed again.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’ll not entertain it. That’s a daft idea. Besides, there’s nothing goes on in my workroom that I’m not in control of.’ He closed the little door, and looked at them curiously. ‘You’re serious in this, aren’t you, Peter?’

‘We are,’ said Gil. ‘Is there anyone in the house capable of brewing up such a poison?’

Renfrew shrugged. ‘Robert and James and me, we’re all busy at sic things from time to time. Nicol likely could and all, daftheid though he is, I trained him well. So aye, any of us, maister. But as I said, there’s naught occurs in my workroom but I’m in charge of it, whoever’s handling the bellows. No, I canny see that it could ha been aimed at me. Whatever sort of an ill-doer he is, Bothwell would never ha had the chance to set it in here, and nobody under my roof could do sic a thing, for reason that I take care of all the potyngary stuffs that would pyson a man.’

‘The workroom was locked yesterday, you say?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘It was. You saw me unlock it the now. It’s aye locked when I’m out of the house or when the shop’s empty.’

‘Is there another key?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, Jimmy has a key, being a partner in the business, but he keeps it close as I do.’

‘And do you have any more idea what yesterday’s poison might be?’

‘None.’ Renfrew opened the workroom door, a little too quickly for his son who was revealed within a yard or so of the other side. ‘Robert, have you no work to occupy you?’

‘Aye, Faither,’ returned the young man, ‘but it’s all in the workroom where you were just now.’

‘Get on with it, then, afore I take a stick across your back,’ said his father sharply. ‘Jimmy, I think Peter and his good-son are just leaving.’

‘No,’ said Gil apologetically. ‘I need a word with your daughter Agnes.’

‘Wi Agnes?’ Renfrew stared at him. ‘Why?’

‘As you said yourself, sir,’ Gil pointed out, ‘one of her sweethearts has slain the other. I’d say Sir Thomas will want a word wi her and all, and it’s plain she can help me. I’ve given her most of the day, since she’s not left her chamber, but I must speak wi her now.’

‘You’ve no need to speak to Agnes,’ said Renfrew crisply. ‘An empty-heidit lassie like her can add nothing to what the rest of us saw.’

‘I’ll fetch her,’ offered Robert, still in the workroom doorway. Gil looked at the young man, and saw the smirk just vanishing from his face.

‘I come with you,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘I’d sooner speak to the lassie in her own chamber,’ said Gil, ‘with maybe one of the other women at her side.’

‘She’s nothing to hide from her faither,’ pronounced her father in menacing tones.

‘Then you’ll not need to be present, sir,’ suggested Gil.

Renfrew grunted sourly at that and turned to the house door. ‘You’d best come up, then,’ he said.

‘I’ll come and all,’ said Robert. ‘I want to hear what she has to say.’

With a faintly gleeful air he preceded them through into the house, up the newel stair into the hall, up a further flight.

‘What is a hurcheon?’ asked Maistre Pierre absently as they passed through a succession of ostentatious rooms, their wooden furnishings pale and new, and the hangings bright and fresh even in the dwindling daylight.

‘
Hérisson
,’ translated Gil. ‘Hedgehog.’

Finally Robert kicked at a shut door and flung it open, saying, ‘Agnes? Here’s the Provost’s men come to take you up for poisoning Danny Gibson.’

‘Robert!’ said Gil sharply, but it was drowned in Agnes’s shriek of terror. She had been lying on the handsome tester-bed which occupied most of the chamber, and she sprang up and off the bed on the far side, all in one movement, white-faced, petticoats flying, stammering:

‘No! No, I didny – I never –!’

‘Robert, you’re a fool!’ said his father.

‘Come, come, Agnes,’ said Maistre Pierre reassuringly. ‘You know enough not to pay attention to what your brother says, no?’

‘I never –’ repeated Agnes, and then the sense of these words penetrated. ‘You mean it’s not – he was –’ She swallowed, and turned a savage face on her brother, showing little even teeth. ‘Our Lady’s nails, I’ll pay you for that one, Robert, I swear it, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’

‘
There was joye to sen hem mete, With layking and with kissing swete.
Thank you, Robert,’ said Gil, without sincerity. ‘I’m sure your father can spare you now. Likely Maister Syme would like your help to close up the shop.’

‘Aye, get away, Robert,’ said Renfrew. ‘That was a daft trick. And we’ll ha none o your sarcasm, maister,’ he added. Robert gave Gil an ugly look and slunk out, and Renfrew entered the chamber, saying to his daughter, ‘Here’s Maister Cunningham wants to ask you about yesterday, Agnes. Speak up and answer him the truth, lassie.’

His face cracked in a half-smile, and the girl relaxed slightly, and came round the end of the bed. Her cheeks were wet, as if she had been weeping, and Gil saw that she was still trembling from the fright her brother had given her.

‘Shall we have some light, and then sit down?’ he suggested.

Seated by the opened shutters, he studied Agnes again in the light of the yellow sunset. She did not look as if she had slept; the blue eyes were dark-ringed, the gold curls uncombed, and she clasped and unclasped her hands, apparently unaware that she did so. Maistre Pierre was watching her with some sympathy.

‘You know your good-mother has a wee lassie,’ Renfrew said.

‘I could hardly miss it,’ said Agnes. Not so distressed as she seems, then, Gil registered.

‘Where did you find the flask, Agnes?’ he said abruptly. She reared back like a horse sharply reined in, and stared at him, mouth open, eyes very wide.

‘Find it?’ she said after a moment. ‘Me?’

‘You gave it to Nanty Bothwell on the stair,’ Gil said. Renfrew looked from his daughter to Gil, open-mouthed in indignation.

‘Why would I do that?’ she countered boldly. Definitely not so distressed as she seems, thought Gil. ‘What would I – does he say I gave him it?’

‘Never mind what he says,’ said Gil. ‘I’m interested in what you say. Where did you find it?’

‘What’s this about?’ demanded Renfrew. ‘My lassie never had aught to do wi the flask. I told you all that below stairs the now!’

‘I never had it,’ she said resolutely, shaking her head. ‘It was nothing to do with me.’

‘I’ve heard a different tale,’ said Gil. ‘You saved the play, you claimed. Where did you find the flask?’

‘Why would I have the flask?’ she said. ‘It’s nothing to do wi me, is it, Daddy? You keep all those things in your care, locked in the workroom, we never get a sight of them, what would I be doing passing one to Nanty Bothwell?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ said Gil. ‘Nanty forgot to lift the one he should have had with him, so he asked you to find him something that would do, when you slipped back here to fetch your good-mother a cushion.’

‘Why are you accusing her like this?’ demanded Renfrew. ‘What’s the proof you have?’

‘I never did anything of the sort,’ said Agnes, sounding alarmed. ‘You canny show I did, either!’

‘Aye, what proof?’ demanded Renfrew again.

‘She was seen talking to Nanty, out in the yard, when she left Morison’s house,’ said Gil. ‘And seen afterwards, talking to him on the kitchen stair. That was when she said she’d saved the play. You brought Nanty that flask, Agnes, and it killed Danny Gibson. Was that your intention?’

She turned her face away from the light, putting one hand up to cover her eyes.

‘Do you think I’ll ever forget how he died?’ she whispered. ‘You canny torment me like this, maister. Daddy, stop him! I never –’

‘That’s nothing to say to the matter!’ said Renfrew angrily. ‘It’s all hearsay! How could she get the flask, let alone whatever was in it, when the key to the workroom was in my purse all the time?’

‘Did you know what you’d lifted?’ Gil asked. ‘Did you know it was poison? Did you plan to have one lad kill the other and be hanged for it?’

‘No, I never. Where would I get something like that?’ she asked, without looking round. ‘Tell me that, maister! My faither keeps control over all that moves in this house, and certainly over all that’s to do wi the craft. How would I find sic a flask, let alone poison to put in it to–’ Her face crumpled, and she covered it with her hands again. ‘Oh, the poor laddie!’

‘Danny died. Nanty will hang,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘unless we can show it was a mistake, that he’d no knowledge of what was in the flask. One of your sweethearts has died, but you could save the other one by telling me the truth, Agnes.’

‘That’s more than enough!’ exploded Renfrew.

He got to his feet and patted his daughter’s shoulder, and she turned to bury her face in the waist of his woollen gown, wailing, ‘Send them away, Daddy!’

‘Aye, never fret, my lammie. That’s all you get, Maister Cunningham. I’ll not hear any more of this nonsense, and I’ll answer no more questions myself. Away and tell the Provost it was Nanty Bothwell done it.’

‘How long will you stay in your chamber, Agnes?’ asked Maistre Pierre suddenly. ‘You are needed out in the house. Your good-mother is abed, there is the house to run –’

‘I’ll see to what needs decided under my own roof, Peter Mason,’ said Renfrew angrily. ‘There now, my pet, they’re just away.’

‘If you change your mind, Agnes,’ said Gil, ‘you can send word to my wife.’

‘I’m no that keen on your story,’ said Sir Thomas Stewart, Provost and Sheriff of Glasgow. He pushed aside his notes on Danny Gibson’s death, and blew his nose resonantly into a large linen handkerchief. ‘Confound this rheum, a man canny think straight wi his head full of ill humours. Tell me it all again, till I see how it will sit wi the assize.’

He huddled into his huge furred gown, tucking his hands up the sleeves. Gil obediently began again at the beginning, and recounted what he had learned so far. Sir Thomas listened attentively, blowing his nose from time to time, and shaking his head.

‘I’m still no convinced,’ he said at last, ‘and what’s more I think the assize will never understand it. You’re saying you think this lassie fetched a flask from her father’s house, that turned out to hold poison, and it was all an accident. But the lassie denies it, so does her father, and you’ve given me no reason why Frankie Renfrew should have strong poison lying about his place and not recognize it.’

‘I’ve been unable to speak to the lassie alone,’ Gil corrected, ‘and her father won’t hear of what I say, and laughed at my suspicions.’

‘I’m no surprised,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘He keeps a tight hand on his household, does Frankie, he’d never accept sic a notion, and no more do I. Is that the best you can do, Gilbert?’

‘Bear in mind, sir, I’ve yet to hear from my lord Archbishop, I’m acting on my own account for now, so I can hardly insist on speaking to Agnes against her father’s wishes. I’ve no notion whether she’d tell a different tale if I did. I’d hoped my wife might get a word with her, but she’s –’ He broke off, unwilling to expand further on that. ‘She hasn’t succeeded yet,’ he finished. ‘There’s been no word from Stirling, I take it?’

‘No, no, I think there hasny. Walter clerk would ha brought it to me if there had.’ Sir Thomas hooted gloomily into the handkerchief again and wiped his eyes with his embroidered shirt cuffs. ‘Confound this rheum. No, Gilbert, I’m no willing to give you a direct order to question the lassie. It seems to me there’s little enough to connect her with the matter, other than that it’s one of her two admirers that’s slain the other. I’ll put young Bothwell to the question in the morning, and see what light he’ll cast on the matter, but –’

‘She was heard speaking to him,’ Gil pointed out.

The Provost shook his head again. ‘So was the lad who died heard speaking to him, you tell me,’ he said, ‘and those two had high words. That’s a better argument for why he’s dead, though how Bothwell came by the poison so quick after the quarrel – did anyone think to search him or his scrip?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ admitted Gil in some embarrassment. ‘When I learned the flask he should have carried was left in the booth, I thought no further of it. That was unwise.’

‘Aye, well, maybe John Anderson searched it, though whether he’d write down all he found is another matter.’ Sir Thomas rubbed thoughtfully at his reddened nose. ‘No. Now, this flask that has the poison in it. We’ve got Bothwell and Frankie Renfrew both claiming it’s Both-well’s, your wife’s witness that it isny because all the ones he had are still in the packing and the docket wi them, and that daft Nicol Renfrew saying it’s one of his father’s that should have drops in it. If that’s right, and Nicol knows the flask, how come Frankie doesny? No, no, Gilbert,’ he added as Gil opened his mouth to interrupt, ‘I heard you the first time, but it’s how it will look to the assize that matters. Quiet, now, and let me think.’

Gil sat hopefully, watching the older man. Sir Thomas must be in his forties, a small neat balding individual, usually dressed with quiet, rich good taste. Today, packaged in several layers of different furred garments, he resembled a disaster in a skinner’s workshop. He was tapping on the desk before him now, considering the quest on Danny Gibson.

‘Aye,’ he said finally, drawing the papers toward him. ‘I’ll tell you what, Gilbert. I’ll direct the assize to the cause of death, and order them not to consider who’s guilty here. They’ll no like it,’ he admitted, ‘for they aye relish getting someone took up for slaying or murder, but they’ll have to live wi the disappointment for once. Then if you’re right, and my lord agrees, we can follow it up, and if you’re wrong, well, we’ve got young Bothwell locked up anyway, though I’ve a notion John Anderson would like rid of him. It’s no very convenient having a lodger in the Tolbooth.’ He blew his nose again. ‘Confound this rheum. I’m away to my supper and my bed, and hope I feel more like the thing the morn’s morn. My lady’s got some remedy or other for me to take, but to be honest I’d as soon a good dram of usquebae.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Gil, concealing his reaction. ‘When will you question Bothwell?’

‘Oh, that’s for the morn and all,’ said Sir Thomas, rising and clutching his furs about him. ‘I’ll not risk standing about there in the tower just now, all in the damp and cold. Bid you goodnight, laddie, and I’ll see you in my court.’

Gil left the Castle in some annoyance, but by the time he reached the Wyndhead he was more resigned to the situation. It seemed as if he had spent the entire day asking questions to no effect, and now Sir Thomas had put a stop to any further action this evening, except perhaps to find out what Wat Forrest had learned. However it was late in the day, darkness had fallen and the denizens of the upper town were making their way home for supper, and the evening was sufficiently cold that after speaking to Wat it was attractive to think of doing the same, and then of sitting by the fire, discussing what they had learned so far with Pierre and Alys.

Yes, with Alys. And what was wrong there? he wondered, with a rush of anxiety.

When they left the Renfrew house Maistre Pierre had set off to speak to his men at the other site by the cathedral, and Gil had gone straight home, to discover that though nobody in the main house knew she was there, his wife was in their dark lodging, curled up in the bed in her kirtle, dry-eyed and silent in a tight little ball. Socrates, who was not allowed on the bed, had been wedged in firmly at her side with his chin on her shoulder, and had made it politely clear to his master that he felt his mistress needed him. Alarmed and puzzled, Gil had lit candles, spoken to Alys, stroked her hair, tried to find out what was troubling her, but she would not speak except to tell him to go away. Obeying might not have been wise, he was aware, but he did not know what else to do.

He paused at the top of the Drygate, standing under the torch on the corner of someone’s house, to consider matters. In the last couple of months she had been quite unwell when her courses began, but a brief reckoning of the calendar had already told him that that was probably not the answer, and the dog’s response suggested something different. Nicol’s remark that she had had a fright might be nearer it. Where had she been this afternoon? She was going to call at the Renfrews’ house, and Jennet had said something about Kate. Neither of those should have been alarming, the social events round a birth were women’s work after all and Kate would hardly – unless she and Kate had discovered something she disliked.

He thought about that. Alys was inclined to make friends with the people involved in a case, and he was sure it did not help her to be impartial. Look at how she brought Christian Bothwell home, he reflected. If she had learned something this afternoon which reflected badly on Christian, or on Agnes Renfrew, would she have retreated from it in this way? No, probably not, he decided. Her ability to face unpalatable facts was one of the things he valued about her. So how unpalatable must something have been to reduce her to the state in which he had found her earlier? Perhaps Kate can tell me, he thought, I can go there after I speak to Wat. He set off down the Drygate, pulling his plaid up against the wind.

The Forrest brothers were closing up the shop, Wat fastening the shutters while Adam swept the debris of the day’s trading out into the street. They both looked up when he halted beside the door.

‘Gil,’ said Adam hopefully. ‘Have you learned anything?’

‘Nothing,’ said Gil. ‘Whatever I ask, it leads me no further. I’m more certain than ever it was an accident, but I canny prove it, and Nanty willny speak.’ He looked from one man to the other in the light spilling from their doorway. ‘Have you learned aught about the poison?’

‘No really,’ said Wat. He shook the shutters to check they were secure, and gestured to Gil to enter. ‘Come and I’ll show you what I’ve done so far.’

‘You’d hear Meg Renfrew had a wee lassie,’ said Adam, following them in. ‘The image of Frankie, so the howdies said.’

‘I did.’

Gil waited while the brothers stowed the last oddments about the shop, closed the box with the money and lifted the candles. Leading the way into the workshop, Wat said, ‘He’ll be after me within the week to betroth the bairn to our Hughie, I’ll wager.’ He set the box down within his sight and nodded at the pottery flask where it sat bright and innocent on the bench in the candlelight. ‘Now, this. We’ve tried this, we’ve tried that, we’ve tested it for colour and for how quickly it boils, for how it mixes with oil and milk and butter.’

‘Butter?’ repeated Gil, startled.

‘There’s some poisons can be combined with goose-grease or butter, to smear on the skin or work into a glove or the like,’ said Wat. He caught sight of Gil’s expression, and grinned. ‘If you’re wishful to poison someone, man, there’s a way to it, whatever care your victim takes.’

‘So I see,’ said Gil. ‘And does this stuff work that way?’

‘No need,’ said Adam. ‘It slew Danny just from touching his skin, we think. The best we can do is that it’s some plant infusion or distillation.’

‘But there’s this.’ Wat drew on a scorched and stained glove and reached for a small dish. ‘We emptied it out into a glass, to get a better look at the colour, and when we poured it back, there was this left as residue. You’d be surprised what gets past the searce.’ He carried the dish to the light, and poked with a spill at one of the objects which lay on it. ‘You see?’

‘I see it.’ Gil moved his head this way and that to get a better look at the fragments. ‘What would you say it is? It looks to me like scraps of nutmeat. A broken almond, or the like.’

‘I’d say the same,’ agreed Wat happily, ‘and Adam’s agreed. It’s about the hardness of nutmeat, and by daylight it’s white, like cream rather than like milk.’

‘Almonds. Who mentioned almonds?’ Gil recalled. ‘When the lad fell, someone – aye, it was Robert Renfrew – said he’d been eating almonds, for you could smell them on him.’

‘I mind that,’ agreed Adam. ‘You could smell them, the boy was right for once.’ Gil glanced at him, and he grimaced. ‘He’s not a natural apothecary, young Robert, for all Frankie says.’

‘I never heard that you could brew a poison out of almonds,’said Gil doubtfully.

‘Nor I,’ agreed Wat. ‘Nor there’s nothing in the books we have. Mind, if you put the right things to it, you can brew poison wi anything, but this hasny the look of something that’s been brewed from a complex receipt. The more you put to a compound, the muddier it gets.’

‘Not if it’s distilled out,’ Adam reminded his brother.

‘Frankie was working with some sort of nuts this morning,’ Gil recalled. ‘The label said
Nux pines
. Could that be it?’

‘Pine nuts?’ Wat guffawed. ‘Frankie? I wonder who those were for?’ He grinned at his brother, and added to Gil, ‘They’re reputed excellent for –’ he gestured expressively – ‘propping up what willny stand. They’re no poisonous, save you take too many, and you’d need to eat a sackful at a sitting for that.’

‘I’ve heard they eat them in Italy and places like that,’ said Adam. ‘Gil, have you learned anything at all yet?’

‘A little.’ Gil leaned against the bench and summarized what he knew or suspected so far, while the two men listened with lengthening faces. When he finished, Wat shook his head.

‘I’ve aye kent it was a quarrelsome house,’ he admitted, ‘but I never thought it was that bad. I’m more than ever glad I turned Frankie down yesterday. I’d say your choice is a better one, Adam.’

Gil, keeping his face blank, asked, ‘Would you have said any of the household had the skill to produce this?’

‘Frankie himself,’ said Wat, ‘for he’s good at his trade. Jimmy, a course, and likely young Robert would know how though whether he’d achieve it I couldny say. How much Frankie’s taught his daughters I’ve no notion. But it’s hard to assess another’s craft without seeing them at work.’

The Morison household was preparing to sit down to supper. The great board had been set up in the hall, the two young maidservants were shaking out the linen cloths to go over it, and the little girls and their nurse were waiting to set out the spoons and wooden trenchers. As Gil followed Andy Paterson across the chamber, the older child, Wynliane, intercepted him, looking up earnestly at his face. Her eyes were blue, darker than Agnes Renfrew’s. He paused, and smiled at her.

‘Good evening, Maister Gil,’ she said in her soft voice, and bobbed a child’s curtsy. ‘Will you stay for supper?’

‘He better not,’ said Ysonde from her nurse’s side. ‘Isn’t enough pastries.’

‘Ysonde,’ chided Nan. ‘That’s no a polite lassie.’

‘Well, there isn’t,’ asserted Ysonde.

Gil went on to find Kate, his mood lightened slightly as it always was by contact with Ysonde. His sister was inspecting some linen with Babb in the next chamber, supported on her crutches and holding up one end of a long cloth opposite a candle.

‘It looks well enough by this light,’ she said to Babb. ‘Set it aside and we’ll have another look by daylight. Will you stay to supper, Gil?’

‘Ysonde says there aren’t enough pastries,’ he reported. Kate rolled her eyes. ‘I’m expected at home. I only called by to ask if you had seen Alys this afternoon.’

‘I did,’ she agreed, accepting two corners of the cloth from Babb and waiting while the big woman lifted the folded end of the cloth. ‘I gave her a message for you.’

‘Was she well?’

‘Well enough. Sit down a moment,’ she said, glancing at him, and helped Babb put the final folds in the cloth. ‘There, put it on the plate-cupboard, Babb, and we can search for stains by daylight. Ask Ursel if the supper will wait a quarter-hour, would you?’