A Pig of Cold Poison (26 page)

She rose from the little prayer-desk, stretched stiffened limbs and hugged herself, trying to still the trembling, thinking about how to proceed, wondering how her kind, civilized, considerate husband would react to what she was about to do. It was one thing to act independently of him, another entirely to act against his duty to his master the Archbishop. She had never seen him really angry, though her father had. Socrates came to her, pushed his nose under her elbow, waved his tail. She uncurled her arms and patted him, wondering how he would react if Gil struck her.

He would return soon. She moved into the outer chamber, where she lifted her plaid from its nail by the door and lit a lantern from the candle. The dog pricked his ears hopefully.

‘Stay, Socrates,’ she said, and extinguished the light.

‘It’s right kind in you,’ said Grace Gordon, folding a fine linen shift. The candle flickered in the draught as the fabric swayed in her grasp. ‘But you can see I’m a wee thing taigled here, Alys.’

‘Can I help?’ she offered.

Grace shook her head. ‘I’m about done. I’ve been packing for most of a week,’ she admitted.

‘When did you book the passage?’

‘As soon as Gerrit sent word he’d reached Dumbarton. Then he’d to loose his cargo and find another, but it seems that’s mostly on board now. He’ll wait till Wednesday for us, no longer.’ Grace considered the box she was filling, lifted a pair of shoes and crammed them into a corner. ‘I’m sorry to leave, in some ways. Meg is a dear soul, and I could learn to love Eleanor, I think, but she and me would never come to terms wi Nicol in the way, and my duty’s to him.’

‘Where are they both?’ Alys asked.

‘Meg and her mammy are below, with the bairn.’ Grace gestured in the direction of the birthing-chamber. ‘Eleanor went to lie down awhile. I hope she’ll bear up, for her own bairn’s sake.’

‘But you lost yours,’ said Alys. Grace looked up sharply at the words, her light gaze focusing on Alys’s face. ‘That must be a grief.’

‘It is.’ The other girl looked down at her packing, and pushed a bundle of stockings in at random.

‘A great pity you’ve not taken again.’

‘D’ye ken, if that’s all you came for, Alys, I’d as soon you left, and let me get on.’

‘No,’ said Alys. ‘I came to make sure you get away. I think you should leave Glasgow as soon as you can. Before the funeral, if it’s possible.’

The stare was needle-sharp this time. ‘Why? Why me?’

‘You and Nicol both.’

‘How so? Why would it be so important? What’s it to you, anyway?’

‘I think you need to know,’ said Alys gently, ‘that the Provost has learned what poison it was killed Danny Gibson and Robert.’

There was a small pause. ‘Has he now? And what would it be?’

‘Some kin of the Bothwells, an apothecary in Edinburgh,’ Alys said, watching her carefully, ‘has said it sounds to him like something brewed up from apple pips. The appearance and the action, he says, are very close.’

‘Is that right?’

‘And Gil will put everything together sooner or later.’

A wry smile. ‘So how come you’re so much faster than your man to come to conclusions?’

Alys shook her head. ‘I had all the facts, I just needed to put them in the right order. He may have to guess some of it.’

‘But suppose your conclusions are wrong, you’ve no got the facts in the right order?’

‘Grace, when I mentioned apples, you looked at your workroom door.’

Grace was silent, while she folded a woollen kirtle and smoothed it into the box.

‘Why are you doing this, Alys?’ she asked at length.

‘You saved John’s life.’

That got her a hard look.

‘The craft’s for healing, no for killing,’ the other girl repeated firmly. ‘I did nothing more than my duty to them that taught me.’

Alys bit back the reply that rose to her lips, and said, ‘You acted quickly, you knew what must be done, you reassured us. John’s family and Kate’s as well owe you a debt for ever. This is part of it, Grace.’

Another wry smile.

‘I value it,’ said Grace. ‘Well, my quine, you’ve paid your debt. You should get home, afore your man leaves here and finds out what you’re at.’

‘He’s just left,’ said Nicol in the doorway. ‘What’s his wee wife here for?’

Grace looked round, her face suddenly vulnerable, and went to her husband. He took her hands in his, but stared blankly at Alys over her shoulder.

‘What’s she want?’ he asked again, and then switched to something Alys thought must be Low Dutch, a strange hard language full of gutturals and half-familiar words. Grace answered him, he asked a question, she spoke at more length, urgently. His expression remained blank but his lanky body seemed to tense as he listened to her. Finally he mustered one of his happy grins.

‘Aye, thanks indeed, mistress,’ he said. ‘But Grace is right, she’s aye right, you need to get away now. Put up your plaid and I’ll see you to your door.’

‘I’d be grateful,’ she admitted, rising. She was unused to being out in the burgh alone quite this late, and it had surprised her how the shadows had seemed to threaten her footsteps. ‘I had a lantern.’

Grace put out her arms. ‘
Our dance is done, sister adew
. My thanks, lassie,’ she said. ‘I’ll pray for you.’

‘And I for you,’ said Alys. ‘God speed the journey.’

They embraced, and Nicol said impatiently, ‘Come away, come away now, for we’ve other things to see to and all.’

Her head hurt. For what felt like years that was all she was aware of; then gradually she recognized that the world seemed to be rocking, and water slopped coldly quite close to her. There was a smell of fish, and it was dark, but the principal thing was still the headache.

Somebody groaned. After more years somebody else spoke, a voice she did not know. It seemed to be angry. Not Gil, but Gil was going to be angry –

Her head was really painful. She had not had a headache like this for a long time. She tried to put her hand up to her brow, but it would not move, because her wrists seemed to be fastened together. She tugged at the fastening, and groaned again.

Fresh air reached her face as her plaid was turned back. A gentle hand touched her cheek.

‘
Que passe?
’ she asked.

‘Lie still,’ said someone in horrible French.

‘My head hurts,’ she said.

‘Yes. He hit you hard.’

‘Hit me …?’

She opened her eyes. It was still nearly as dark as it was behind her eyelids, but after a moment she recognized a sky of black clouds, stars sailing between them. Water splashed again. A dark shape came closer to her, and she flinched.

‘And forbye,’ said the angry voice in Scots, more distantly, ‘that’s another groat ye’re owing me, for we never contracted for more than the two o ye and yir goods, let alone if all yir baggage sinks the
Cuthbert
afore we reach Dumbarton– keep baling, mannie!’

‘You’ll get your extra,’ said another voice. She knew it. It had promised to see her to her door, and then – and then –

‘He hit me,’ she said.

‘He did,’ agreed Grace in that badly accented French. ‘He should never have done it. I’m truly sorry, my dear, after what you did for us.’

‘Where are we?’

‘Beyond Erskine, I think.’

‘Erskine?’ she repeated. ‘What – where – are you taking me to –’ She tried to rise, to sit up, to raise her head enough to see what was happening. A boat. They must be in a boat. That had been the boatman demanding money. Where were they taking her? Why was she here?

‘Haud still!’ ordered the Scots voice. ‘We’ve no more than a handspan o freeboard, we’ll ship half the Clyde if ye stot about like that!’

‘Rest easy,’ said Grace.

‘Let me sit up!’

Grace bent to assist her, heaved her to a sitting position. Her head stabbed pain and the world swam round her, but when it steadied she was aware of the banks of the river sliding past her, bushes and reeds briefly lit by the lantern at the mast while the water chuckled and sparkled inches from her shoulder. Little birds stirred, fluttered, called alarm as the light passed their roosting-places. Somewhere a fox barked.

She seemed to be sitting on tarred canvas, and her feet were in water in the bottom of the boat. Before her the lantern-light glowed dark rust on the sail and outlined shapes below it, the baggage, the boatman at the tiller, a moving form which must be Nicol scooping water back into the river. She raised her bound hands to her brow, pressing the cords against her face.

‘Why?’ she asked simply.

‘You’re our insurance,’ said Nicol. His accent was as bad as Grace’s; she suddenly recognized Burgundian French.

‘
Hein?
’

‘He thinks he can bargain with your man,’ Grace said. ‘Use you as a token to pay for our safe passage.’

‘But he –’ She swallowed. ‘He need not have known until after you had left Glasgow. I’d have said nothing.’

‘Keep baling, maister,’ ordered the boatman. ‘
Cuthbert
’s no accustomed to carrying boxes, she’s better wi fish, and it makes her uneasy. Keep baling.’

Grace bent forward so her head was close to Alys’s.

‘Can you swim?’ she ask quietly.

‘No.’

‘If I free you, you’ll not try to get away? You could sit here on the bench at my side and be more comfortable.’

Bench? she wondered, and groped for the right word. Thwart, was it? Grace’s French was like her own Scots, a second language, much used but not completely familiar. Concentrate on the situation, she told herself wearily.

‘Where could I go?’ she returned. Grace laughed faintly, produced her penknife and sawed through the cords at Alys’s wrists. She flexed her fingers painfully, and accepted help to move on to the thwart with Grace, her head stabbing pain as she moved. The other girl opened huge wings which turned out to be a heavy cloak, and drew Alys to her side under it.

‘The wind bites right through your plaid,’ she said. ‘It takes this boiled wool to keep it off. How is your head? How do you feel?’

‘Confused.’ Alys sat still, glad of the warmth but uncertain of the close contact. Through the headache she said, ‘I still don’t understand – what gain is it to bring me away like this? Surely it can only fetch Gil after me faster than ever?’

‘You’re our insurance,’ said Nicol again. ‘Even if he reaches Dumbarton before we sail, he’ll let us go rather than see harm come to you, I’d say.’

She swallowed hard. What had Gil said about this man? What was the condition called?
Akrasia
, that was it,
Impotens sui
, the state of not having power over oneself, of being unpredictable, without moral judgement. What did he threaten?

‘Nicol, you won’t harm her,’ said Grace. Was that anxiety in her tone?

‘You don’t know that,’ said Nicol, giggling. ‘And nor does Gil Cunningham.’ He bent to his task again, and water splashed over the side. The river did seem to be sliding past very close to the topmost plank of the boat; there was a surprising amount of baggage piled in the midst of the little craft, and beyond it the boatman was now doing something mysterious with a rope. The sail flapped, their speed checked in the water, something swung. Water slopped and Nicol’s activities with the baler redoubled, the sail filled again and the chorus of creaks began a different tune. Child of a western seaport, she understood enough about small boats to know that the wind was not completely favourable, that the set of the sail must be altered to make the most of it. They must have negotiated one of the bends in the river. On the Renfrewshire shore an owl screeched, and another answered.

‘I wouldn’t have told Gil,’ she said quietly. ‘And I don’t think he knew about the apple-cheese or your workroom. It would take him a little time to come to the right answer. But now – your house is the second place he’ll look for me when he finds I’m not at home, and Isa knew I’d been there. He’ll pursue us to Dumbarton with all the speed he can make.’

‘Isa also saw you leave,’ said Grace, equally quietly. ‘I don’t know what my husband intends.’ She sighed. ‘Such a fright I had when he bore you in at the back gate. Then we had to fasten you on to the handcart, all among the luggage, and then we had the argument with this fisherman. I regret this. I really regret this.’

‘What does your husband fear Gil will do?’ she asked. Her hands seemed to be trembling again.

‘Prevent us leaving. Take either of us up for Frankie’s death.’

‘Either of you?’

Grace’s face turned towards her, a pale blurred oval in the lantern-light. Incongruously, there was a laugh in her voice. ‘Either of us. And whichever he takes for it, he’d be wrong.’

Alys digested this.

‘It was his heart, then?’ she said.

‘It was.’

‘You’re very sure.’

‘I witnessed it.’

‘You were there when he died. In his chamber, in the midnight.’

‘He’d summoned me there.’

It was one thing, she discovered, to suspect something so dreadful, but quite another to have it confirmed. Appalled, Alys put a hand out, groped for Grace’s, gripped it. The clasp was returned. ‘How long?’ she asked. ‘How long had he been – been – imposing himself –’

‘Five month. Any time he saw the opportunity. Any time his son was out of it with the drops, which seemed to happen more often lately. Sometimes in our own bed, wi Nicol drugged at my side.’

Please God and Christ and Our Lady and all the saints, she begged, send that Nicol could not hear their voices, above the increased creaking of the boat, the splash of the baling. And blessed Mary, forgive me that I complained of my own barrenness, when this was happening almost next door.

‘What a blessing you have not conceived while you were in Glasgow.’

Another faint, bitter laugh. ‘I made sure of that. And he never suspected.’

‘He wished to – to replace the one you lost himself?’

‘My God, you’re fast. Yes, that was what he told me, time and time again. He’d make sure his heir was a Renfrew born. But that wasn’t the worst of it.’

Alys made a small questioning noise, but the answer struck her almost at the same moment.

‘The tisane,’ she whispered. ‘The night you came home.’ Grace’s hand tightened on hers, and she felt the movement as the other girl nodded. ‘Ah, what wickedness! No wonder you –’