A Pig of Cold Poison (2 page)

‘Bothwell,’ said Nicol, and produced that high-pitched chuckle. ‘Tammas Bowster’s company, wi Bothwell playing the doctor?’

‘So Augie said.’

‘Tammas Bowster, and Nanty Bothwell from the Tolbooth.
Galyngale ne lycorys Is not so swete as her love is
. Does my faither ken yet, Grace, d’you think?’

‘I’ve no notion,’ she said quietly. Gil glanced from her to Maister Renfrew the elder, who was now deep in discussion with Maister Wilkie, opened his mouth to ask what the exchange meant, and found himself forestalled as Ysonde popped up in front of him.

‘Mammy Kate wants you,’ she said abruptly. ‘But you’re no to make Baby Floris cry.’

She disappeared back into the crowd as swiftly as she had appeared, leaving him wondering if he had heard right. Nicol had just quoted
Floris and Blanchflour
, and then …

‘Oh, you heard right,’ said Kate when he reached her. Alys, still hanging over the sleeping infant, looked up, her eyes full of laughter. ‘Never mind that now, Gil, have you heard yet what Augie’s done? It’s young Bothwell’s company he’s asked to play Galossian for us. I thought Renfrew would have an apoplexy when I told him myself just now.’

‘So Augie told me,’ Gil said. ‘Is it a difficulty, Kate?’

‘You could say that, Maister Gil,’ pronounced her wait-ing-woman Babb from behind the great chair.

‘It is,’ Kate said anxiously, looking about her. ‘Where is Agnes Renfrew?’

‘Yonder with Nell Wilkie,’ said Alys, pointing into the window without raising her hand from the carved rim of the cradle. Glancing that way, Gil identified the two unmarried girls, the bare heads tilted together so that gold curls and oak-brown waves mingled. Wat Forrest’s wife was with them, and seemed to find their conversation amusing. ‘And, Kate,’ Alys went on, ‘is the armourer’s lad not in the same company?’

‘Aye, Mistress Alys, he is,’ agreed Babb. ‘He plays the hero, they tell me. And the glover’s in it and all, playing Judas that does all the speaking.’

‘Dan Gibson and Tammas Bowster,’ said Kate, and sat back. Finding Mistress Hamilton looking at her across the chamber she smiled brightly, and said, so only Gil and Alys could hear, ‘Trust Augie, he never knows – Gil, we must just make the best of it, and hope the lassie behaves, but will you be on the alert for any trouble? And I don’t like the look of Meg Mathieson, either. I never expected her to be here.’

‘Best of what?’ Gil asked. ‘I don’t think I know any more than Augie.’

‘The apothecary and the armourer lad’s both been courting her all year,’ said Babb with relish. ‘But she canny decide which she favours.’

‘And her father favours neither,’ Alys completed.

‘So that’s what Nicol meant.’

Ysonde materialized beside them, peered possessively into the cradle, and said, ‘You leave our baby alone. That’s Mammy Kate’s baby. Mammy,’ she went on, before any of the adults could react, ‘there’s men in the kitchen talking to Ursel, and one of them’s got his face all black, and one of them’s wearing a bed-sheet. Is that for the play?’

‘A bed-sheet?’ said Kate in surprise. ‘Over his clothes?’

‘No.’ Ysonde reflected briefly on this. ‘On his head.’

The journeyman who had admitted them earlier appeared at the kitchen door and crossed the chamber to his master, who heard what he had to say and clapped his hands for silence.

‘The players are here, neighbours,’ he announced. ‘If we make oursels ready, they’ll be up any time to entertain us.’

Two sorts of bustle began at his words, the women shifting chairs and arranging themselves with Babb’s help, the men drifting reluctantly into the main chamber from the window space. Morison’s household clattered in from the kitchen and retired to a corner, the grizzled steward Andy glaring sternly at the younger maidservants, who had a tendency to giggle. Gil watched all in some amusement, having found himself a place against the wall.

‘Och, it’s only the old play,’ said one of the two girls Alys had pointed out. ‘What’s so wonderful?’

‘Guard your tongue, Nell,’ said the dyer’s wife briskly, and thrust a backstool at her daughter. ‘Here, set that for Meg, next Lady Kate, and come and get another.’

So that was Nell Wilkie, with the soft brown hair, a comely young woman but nowhere near as striking as her friend. Agnes was a plump little soul, with a head of gold curls, a pretty face, huge blue eyes, and a kissable mouth. A wise father would have had her married off before now, which probably meant that Maister Renfrew was not wise where his younger daughter was concerned. The cut and quality of her blue silk gown suggested the same.

‘There is Maister Renfrew’s new wife,’ commented Maistre Pierre in his ear. ‘Meg Mathieson. I am surprised she has come out. Do you suppose it is twins?’

‘No way to tell,’ said Gil, watching Agnes seat her burgeoning stepmother, place an assortment of cushions at her back and hand her a fan of swan’s feathers. ‘Could be a consort of four voices, by the size of her.’

His father-in-law guffawed, then straightened his face hastily as Maister Renfrew passed them, towing his younger son by the sleeve of his green brocade gown.

‘You’ll stand by your sister,’ he was saying, ‘and oversee her behaviour, and no argument from you.’

‘She’s none of my –’ began the young man, a handsome youth if he had not been at the spotty stage, and swallowed as his father turned to glare at him. ‘Aye, sir.’

Neither Agnes nor her stepmother seemed pleased to see their menfolk; Agnes greeted her brother with a sniff and a flounce of her blue silk skirts and the stepmother, not many years older, eyed her husband warily as if uncertain of his mood. He smiled kindly at her, which seemed to alarm her more, patted her shoulder and turned away to join Gil and Maistre Pierre, tucking himself in beside the mason’s wide furred gown.

‘I’ll just stand ower here,’ he said softly, ‘where Meg canny see me. She’s the sizey a house, you’d think she was carrying a football team, and it makes her carnaptious.’

It took perhaps a quarter-hour of stir and argument to get the company seated in a half-circle round the door which led to the kitchen stair. Mistress Hamilton was in a draught, Nancy Sproull the dyer’s wife could not see past Eleanor Renfrew’s headdress and Andrew Hamilton the younger, all of thirteen and very grown-up in dark brown broadcloth, had to be separated from a glass of Dutch spirits his parents had not seen him acquire. Gil dealt with that for Kate without alerting either parent, the other problems were solved, the two little girls settled at Kate’s feet, Nicol Renfrew was persuaded to move his backstool beside his wife’s, and the audience was declared ready.

Morison nodded to his steward, who signalled in turn to a journeyman standing ready by the door, and the man slipped out to the kitchen. A distant set of ill-tuned small-pipes struck up a discordant noise; feet sounded on the stairs, there were three loud knocks on the door, and it was flung wide.

‘Haud away rocks, haud away reels!’ began a stentorian voice, and Judas entered.

Gil knew two or three versions of the play, but had not seen this company perform before. The other actors filed in behind the piper, whose small-pipes were eventually silenced, and bowing to their audience launched into the traditional song about Hallowe’en while their Bessie wielded a broom inexpertly round the legs of stools and backstools. They carried garlands of coloured paper and withies; their costumes were the usual mix of old clothes and ingenuity, discarded gowns turned to the lining, card mitres for Judas and St Mungo painted and stuck with gold braid, the Bessie character with plaits of horsehair dangling from her vast linen headdress, a bedspread train pinned to her ample waist. The two champions wore real, rather battered armour, though their swords were of wood, and one had his face blacked with soot. Gil had seen both combatants in the armourer’s workshop. Which of them was Agnes’s fancy? he wondered.

Judas was declaiming his next speech now, announcing the coming fight. His acting style was striking, ornamented with huge dramatic gestures which bore no relation to the words he was using, so far as those could be understood; the accent used by Lanarkshire folk on a stage had always puzzled Gil.

The young apothecary from the Tolbooth was indeed playing the doctor in an imposing tall hat of black paper. He was a stocky fellow, buttoned into a too-long gown tucked up over a shabby belt of scarlet leather, a vast scrip hanging at his side. He had glanced once at Agnes Renfrew, conspicuous in her blue silk, then stood silent against the wall while all were introduced.

‘If you don’t believe the word I say,’ Judas ended, with sudden clarity, ‘call for Alexander of Macedon, and he’ll show the way! Alexander! Alexander! Alexander!’

‘I know Alexander,’ announced Ysonde. ‘Our Da’s got a poetry book about him.’

Her sister shushed her, but Judas bowed to her, and declared, ‘Aye, bonnie young lady, and here he comes the now!’

The black-faced champion came forward into the acting space, saluted the company with his sword, mumbled Alexander’s speech about how he had conquered the world except for Scotland, and summoned Galossian as the champion of all Scotland to come forth and fight him. As the champion’s name was called the requisite three times, Gil found Maistre Pierre’s elbow in his ribs, drawing his attention to Maister Renfrew on the mason’s other side.

One glance, and Gil shared his father-in-law’s concern. The apothecary’s face was engorged with apparent rage, a vein throbbing wildly in his temple under the silk bonnet whose crimson matched his brow and cheeks, his bulging eyes fixed on Agnes, who in turn was gazing adoringly at the young man in the buttoned gown. Gil was just in time to see her brother nudge her, and then pinch her arm viciously. A commotion of her skirts suggested she had kicked him in return.

‘Frankie, you should sit down,’ suggested Maistre Pierre quietly, putting his hand on the apothecary’s arm. Renfrew started at the touch, and looked round, gasping for breath. On the other side of the room Augie Morison had noticed and was watching anxiously.

‘Will I find you a seat?’ Gil asked, while Galossian detailed his defence of Scotland. The man could speak well, but the tale seemed to involve more giants and other heroes than other versions. Renfrew shook his head, but reeled as he did so, and Gil nodded to Morison, slipped quietly past the apothecary and fetched one of the green leather backstools from the nearer window space. Once persuaded to sit down, Renfrew shut his eyes for a moment, then reached for his purse, opened it clumsily and fumbled within for a small flask of painted pottery, which he unstopped and tipped to his mouth. Whatever it contained, its effect was rapid; the man’s breathing settled, his colour began to improve. The people nearest had turned to look, but the players were reaching the exchange of insults between the two champions, and their distraction was brief. Morison, watching carefully, relaxed and sat back.

‘I’m well,’ said Renfrew irritably, waving his free hand at them. ‘Leave me be, I’m well.’

‘I stay with him,’ said Maistre Pierre quietly. Gil nodded, and returned to his place; across the intervening landscape of black silk French or Flemish hoods his sister caught his eye, but he shook his head. Beyond her Alys smiled at him, and turned her attention to the play, where to the chil-dren’s delight the champion of Scotland, describing his armour, had just reached the immortal line:

‘My arse is made of rumpel-bone! I’ll slay you in the field!’

St Mungo handed his garland to the Bessie and stepped forward, straightening his mitre. ‘Here are two warriors going to fight,’ he intoned, ‘who never fought before. Galossian bids you cheer him on, or he’ll be slain in all his gore. A-a-amen.’

The champions bowed formally to one another and to Kate as the lady of the house. Then, apparently taking his opponent by surprise, Galossian swung on his heel, bowed and performed a crashing salute of sword on buckler, his eyes fixed on Agnes Renfrew. Agnes went scarlet; several of the older ladies nodded with sentimental approval, but Maister Renfrew’s colour rose again and by the wall the young apothecary in his buttoned gown looked grim.

‘Lay on, lay on!’ ordered Alexander rather desperately. ‘I’ll rug you down in inches in less than half an hour!’

‘He said that before,’ observed Ysonde.

Galossian turned, took up an obviously rehearsed position, and the fight began. Gil, watching critically, felt it had been carefully practised, and amounted to a display. It was certainly very impressive, with much shouting, stamping, and crashing of the wooden swords on the leather-covered bucklers, and ranged right across the chamber and back again. The players cheered both warriors impartially, and when St Mungo encouraged them again the audience joined in. The two little girls squeaked and shrieked with excitement, young Andrew Hamilton forgot his sulks and jumped up and down, and at length, with a mighty blow which only just missed his helm, Alexander was struck down. He fell his length, and Galossian raised his sword in response to the audience’s cheers, then fell on top of his enemy.

‘Why’s he dead?’ Ysonde asked. ‘He winned!’

Nicol Renfrew produced that high-pitched laugh. St Mungo stepped forward again, and declared the champion slain, while the Bessie attempted to sweep both corpses off the stage.

‘A doctor!’ exclaimed Judas. ‘A doctor for Poor Jack!’ The entire company called for a doctor, in a deep mutter which made Kate’s older stepdaughter scramble on to her knee, shivering. ‘Ten merks for a doctor!’ said Judas.

The mutter changed to a a strange, hissing, grumbling,
Here-he-is-here-he-is-here-he-is
, at which Gil felt the back of his neck crawl, and Wynliane whimpered and buried her head in Kate’s sleeve. The young apothecary stepped away from the wall, and marched forward importantly, elbows akimbo.

‘Here comes I, a doctor, as good a doctor as Scotland ever bred.’

Kate was coaxing the little girls to look up and watch the funny man. The dialogue continued, much hindered by the Bessie, with the old, old jokes localized for Glasgow (
Where have you travelled? Three times round the Indies and the Dow Hill, and twice across Glasgow Brig
) and the long recital of what this doctor claimed to cure (
The itch, the stitch, the maligrumphs, the lep, the pip, the blaen, the merls, the nerels, the blaes, the spaes and the burning pintle
.) The women laughed at that, the men ignored the joke, Judas and the doctor bargained at length over his fee while the two slain champions lay getting their breath back, and finally the doctor opened his scrip, announcing loudly: