A Pig of Cold Poison (6 page)

‘I was watching Frankie Renfrew,’ admitted the mason. ‘But I thought Bothwell as amazed as the rest of us when his friend fell, which suggests he did not know it to be lethal.’

Rustling sounds suggested Alys was unlacing the apricot silk with its wide sleeves. Gil, who would normally have helped her in this task, put aside the thought of the solid, slender warmth of her ribcage between his hands, and said resolutely, ‘I must speak to Wat Forrest tomorrow, to find out what he has discovered. And to young Bothwell himself.’

‘If the Serjeant will let you,’ said Maistre Pierre gloomily. ‘He has decided the man is guilty, as has Frankie, I suppose.’

‘I’ll go to the Provost if he won’t,’ said Gil. ‘But Alys, you could find out for me, if you will, if all the flasks Bothwell took from the joint order are accounted for, or if that could be one of them.’

‘Yes,’ she answered thoughtfully. Silk rustled again. ‘We must check those. But we need to account for the ones that went out to customers with some preparation in them, as well. It could be one of those.’

‘She is right,’ said her father. ‘And there is another thing I wonder at about young Bothwell. If the father’s substance all went to pay his debts, where did these two get the money to set up in business in Glasgow?’

Alys emerged from the inner chamber, fastening a bed-gown about her, and came to sit down with her comb.

‘Their mother’s portion?’ she hazarded. ‘It needn’t be much, if the season was right. They needn’t even have a physic garden. So much of an apothecary’s stock-in-trade is there for gathering in the countryside at the right time of year. Enough coin to lay in some ginger and liquorice, and a good eye for growing things, and perhaps a few crocks and mortars and paper for packaging, and you have the start of your trade.’

Maistre Pierre shook his head. ‘It puzzles me. Why Glasgow? Why not Edinburgh or Linlithgow, or another nearer town to Lanark?’

‘That’s a good point,’ said Gil. ‘It may not be relevant, but who knows what is relevant at this stage?’

Alys turned to smile at him, her face half obscured by the sheet of honey-coloured hair which gleamed gently in the candlelight.

‘I’ll see what I can learn,’ she said again. ‘And Gil – I know you would rather not have her here, but she would have been alone in the house tonight if she went home.’

‘Aye, very true,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It was a wise decision,
ma mie
.’

Gil made no answer. After a moment she continued, ‘Gil, has anyone else prayed for the poor man?’

‘Father Francis was there,’ he pointed out.

‘No, I mean for Nanty Bothwell. Whatever happens, he has lost a friend, and he probably gave him the poison that killed him. He needs our prayers.’

‘I have a Mass said for him tomorrow,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And we can remember him in our devotions tonight. I have no doubt Catherine has already done so.’

She was silent for a few strokes of her comb, then said, ‘If it is not poison in the painted flask – well, no point in speculating on that yet, I suppose. The man fell so soon after the drops touched him it seems most likely to have been that. If we are right, we need to establish what it was, and how it got in the flask, and what it was doing there.’

‘Who was it intended for, and who put it there,’ Gil added.

‘We said that before,’said Maistre Pierre. ‘If the young man forgot or mislaid the right flask, he must have replaced it at some time. But why with one full of poison?’

‘It could simply have been someone’s store of the poison,’ said Alys slowly, ‘and lifted by accident. The stuff already in the flask, I mean, and the flask simply taken as a substitute.’

‘That’s possible,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘But would a practised apothecary use what was in the flask without knowing what it was?’

‘There was no label on it, was there?’ asked the mason.

‘None when I saw it,’ said Gil.

Alys combed reflectively at her hair for a little while, then said, ‘What of the other people who were there? How did they look when the man fell? Father, you remarked on Maister Renfrew’s fit of rage, but that happened long before the flask appeared.’

‘Shock? Surprise? I didn’t see their faces,’ Gil said.

‘Shock and surprise,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘Amazement. One or two thought it still part of the play, I suppose. Then you moved, Gil, and several watched you. I could not think what you were at myself.’

‘It seemed most important to get the children out of the chamber first.’

‘Yes, indeed. Kate mentioned that while she was nursing Edward,’ said Alys. ‘She was grateful, Gil. Wynliane still has nightmares, and seeing a man die in such a way would certainly set her off.’ He grunted, slightly embarrassed. ‘I looked at my father first, and Maister Renfrew beside him. He seemed amazed. Then you moved, and then when I looked again all the apothecaries had rushed forward, except for that one, is it Nicol Renfrew? Who stayed in his seat and laughed. Such a strange man.’

‘He always was strange,’ Gil said. He described Nicol as he recalled him from their schooldays, and she listened carefully, but said:

‘And the women were all shocked, I think. Poor Nell Wilkie was very distressed, I found her weeping in a corner later, but of course she could not leave until her parents did. She kept saying,
It’s horrible, it’s just horrible
. I wondered if she had a liking for either man herself. And what with Meg beginning in labour like that as well, both her stepdaughters were overset. It’s fortunate Grace is a woman of sense, for if I’d to rely on Eleanor Renfrew –’ She bit the sentence off, and applied her comb again.

Her father stirred, and broke his long silence with, ‘Well, well, we were all shaken. Violent death in the midst of rejoicing – I hope it is not an ill omen for young Edward, or for the house. Now what must we do tomorrow? Who must we speak with? The brothers Forrest, I suppose, Maister Renfrew, Mistress Bothwell.’

‘I can do that,’ said Alys, ‘if you speak to Maister Renfrew, Father. See if you can find out about the other flasks. We can hardly trouble the rest of the household while Meg …’

‘I’ll talk to the Forrests and to the accused man,’ said Gil into the pause, ‘and see where that leads me, but I’d best get a word with the Provost first of all.’

‘Do that,’ said his father-in-law. ‘And now I suppose you have better things to think of than talking of murder. I go to my bed. Goodnight, my children.’ He got to his feet, and they bent their heads for his blessing. At the door he halted, and clapped Gil on the shoulder, nodding.

‘Something else to think about,’ he said cryptically, with a flick of the eyes towards Alys as she retreated to their bedchamber. ‘A good thing, I think.’

‘It’s a puzzle,’ said Wat Forrest, looking sourly at the painted flask. ‘It’s pyson right enough, and strong pyson at that as Frankie said, for it slew a couple sparrows and a seamew that fancied the bread and all, much the same way as poor Danny.’

‘The same way,’ Gil repeated.

‘Well, allowing it was smaller creatures,’ said Adam.

‘Aye,’ agreed his brother. ‘It acted much quicker, wi no seizures, they just fell over and twitched a time or two, even the seamew, that’s a lusty bird.’

‘
I haue brought a remedy with me that is the grettest poyson that euer ye herd speke of
,’ Gil said thoughtfully.

‘You have?’ said Wat quickly. ‘Ha! You’re at your quoting from books again. Find me a book wi this in it, then, for as to what it is, Gil, I’ve no more notion than when I started.’

‘Have you decided what it isn’t?’

‘Oh, we’ve started a list,’ said Adam.

They were in the Forrest brothers’ workroom, a powerful-smelling place lined with shelves. A wall of pottery jars, each carefully labelled in the neat script taught at the grammar school, faced an array of mysterious pieces of glassware and metal tubes. There was a scrubbed and much-stained bench in the middle of the room, and a small charcoal burner gave off a welcome heat but was not, Gil suspected, there to warm the occupants although the day outside was bright and cold, the wind biting. At the other side of the chamber, by the window which gave on to the shop, Wat’s quiet wife Barbara Hislop, niece of the late Andrew Slack, was working at something in a lead mortar between trips into the shop itself to deal with a customer. It was amazing how much of the Upper Town needed rice or nutmegs or digestive lozenges this morning.

‘There’s a few substances you can set aside immediate,’ Wat said helpfully, ‘that never take the form of a liquid, or else demand heat to liquefy them. Then there’s the colour, which is like watered milk, that lets you leave aside those that are said to be green or yellow or the like, and the smell, for I’d think there’s no smell from the flask, though to tell truth I haveny got that close to it. No strong smell, we’ll say. And we’ll do without proving it by taste, for I’ve a wife and a bairn to think of.’ The wife looked round at this; they exchanged a glance, and she smiled slightly and addressed the mortar again.

‘So we’re no much forrard,’ said Adam.

‘We know now it’s poison in this flask, the one that was in Bothwell’s scrip,’ said Gil. ‘If we knew what it was, it might tell us who put it there, but there could be other ways to find that.’ He nodded at the bright thing sitting innocently on the workbench. ‘Knowing where the flask itself came from would help.’

‘Well, from Araby,’ said Wat.

‘We had a dozen, as I tellt you,’ said Adam. ‘There’s seven still on the shelf yonder,’ he pointed at the furthest rack, ‘and we need to go through the book and check, but I think the other five’s accounted for, gone out holding one preparation or another for the gentry trade.’

‘That’s assuming they’re still in the houses they went to,’ Gil observed. ‘If you let me have a list, I’ll see to tracking them down.’

There was a pause, in which the brothers looked at one another.

‘I could see to that,’ said Barbara Hislop in her soft voice. ‘I delivered the most of them, after all. I could call by each one and ask if it’s still there.’

‘Aye, that’s the way,’ said Wat in relief. Gil, recognizing that confidentiality was a requirement in other professions than his own, nodded with some reluctance.

‘Maybe you’d do more than ask, mistress,’ he suggested. ‘If you could try to set eyes on each one, and make a note of it, that would be better. I wouldn’t need to see your note unless you learn aught the Provost has to hear,’ he added, ‘but I’d as soon know it was writ down somewhere just what you learned.’

Wat frowned at this, but grunted agreement. His wife looked at him, then into the mortar; pushing it to one side she covered it with a cloth and said, ‘I’ll go out the now, while folk are still in their houses. How was Christian the day, sir?’ she added shyly. ‘Adam said she was to lie at your house. That was kind in you.’

‘She’s worried for her brother,’ Gil said. ‘She went down the town early, to see to the booth and get a loaf to send in for him to break his fast.’ He glanced at the window. ‘I’d best be away to the Tolbooth and speak to the man myself.’

‘Tell him he has our prayers,’ she said, and both the brothers agreed with emphasis.

‘Spoke to the Provost,’ repeated Serjeant Anderson.

‘You can send a man up to the Castle to check, if you like,’ said Gil pleasantly.

‘No, no, I’ll tak your word for it, maister.’ The Serjeant reached for his keys, rose in offended dignity from his great chair and turned towards the stair which descended from the far side of his cluttered chamber. ‘Come and get speech wi our pysoner, then. I’ve no put him to the question yet, I was waiting on instruction from the Provost myself and he’ll likely want him up at the Castle. Forbye my lord Montgomery hasny returned the pilliwinks he borrowed off me the last time he was in Glasgow.’

Suppressing the thought of what thumbscrews would do to a man used to such fine work as rolling pills and measuring tiny quantities of their ingredients, Gil followed the Serjeant down to the row of three small cells where miscreants were held until justice came their way.

‘We’ve no that much room,’ admitted the Serjeant, ‘seeing the Watch lifted a couple of lads on the Gallowgate last night, suspicion of pickery, and the ale-conners had a bit trouble yesterday and all, so we’ve a hantle of alewives, causing of mob and riot …’ He paused as a volley of shrill invective struck them from the alewives’ cell. ‘But just the same I put him in on his own, seeing it’s no right to ask other folk, even ill-doers, to share a cell wi a pysoner.’ He was unlocking the furthest cell as he spoke, and now unbarred the door and opened it cautiously, peering in. ‘Right, Anthony Bothwell, here’s a man of law to question you why you did it.’

Bothwell was on his feet when Gil stepped into the cell, a blanket round his shoulders, the end of a loaf in one hand. He ducked his head in a bow, stammering, ‘Maister Cunningham! This is right kind of you –’

‘Wait till he’s questioned you afore you call him kind,’ said the Serjeant. ‘Just kick the door and shout a bit when you want to leave, maister, I’ll hear you in time.’

As lock and bar clunked into place Gil looked round and sat down cautiously on the stone slab which served as a bed.

‘Your sister’s loaf reached you,’ he observed.

Bothwell looked down at the crust. ‘Aye. How is she? She’s aye – she’s –’

‘She’s out at the booth here,’ Gil said. ‘She’s feared it might be attacked if she left it unattended.’

‘Aye. I thought o that too, in the night,’ said Bothwell. He took two paces across the cell and two back, and turned to Gil, spreading his hands, the crust shedding crumbs on the filthy floor. ‘What am I to do, maister? I never pysont Danny, whatever the Serjeant says, but he’ll not hear me. I lay all night thinking, what of my sister? She’ll never wed now, we’ll never get a tocher thegither for her, who’ll go to an apothecary that’s been accusit of pysoning a man?’

‘You’d be surprised what folk can forget,’ said Gil. ‘Your sister’s asked me to look into this business. She’ll not believe you guilty, and nor do the Forrests, nor the other players.’

‘My thanks for that, maister,’ said Bothwell.

‘So sit down, man, and tell me where the flask came from.’