The Counterfeit Madam (11 page)

‘So someone she trusted,’ said Alys. ‘Gil, did you say her head was bare when she lay dead? Could one of her women have been combing out her hair?’

‘That would fit,’ he agreed. ‘It was all about her head in locks. Not Annot, I think, she mentioned combing her earlier but not just before she was sent out. Perhaps it was the other one.’

‘So you seek the woman who is gone missing,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘Do you think the Serjeant will find her?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Alys. ‘We need to speak to her, but she may not have the answer. Even if she had returned, the woman might have left her mistress again for some reason, and the killer took advantage of the moment.’

‘I do not think the Serjeant will find her easily,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘All his shouting of names at the Cross does is tell the pursued he must go to ground.’

‘Ah. And if she has kin in Glasgow, they will not give her up. You are right, maister,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘But she has also robbed her mistress.’

‘She or another.’ Gil put a hand to his head. ‘I wish I knew how long it was before Annot discovered her, and when the men came back and sat watching the door.’

‘You suspect more than one person is involved?’ Maistre Pierre deduced.

‘I don’t know.’ He leaned back against the settle, wishing he could think clearly. Alys looked at him anxiously, but before she could speak Socrates scrambled up from where he lay sprawled before the hearth, and stood glaring at the door, head down and hackles up. Maistre Pierre rose, feet sounded on the fore-stair outside, someone knocked loudly.

There were two of the Provost’s men on the step, wearing triumphant grins and bearing a message.

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed the senior man, ‘we went through the toft like ripe fruit, me and a couple lads from the top, four more at the back gate wi their arms open, and we got a few things that was well worth it, one suspicion o theft, one fine for a fire too close to the thatch. We never got into the man’s workshop that we was to search, he wasny present, there was no key to his house and no sufficient reason for breaking down the door. But the best of the catch, maister, was the woman that’s wanted by the Serjeant for this matter in the Drygate.’

‘What, already?’ said Gil in amazement. ‘She was on the toft you searched? What was she doing there? Who was she hiding wi?’

‘Now that, maister,’ admitted the man, ‘I’ve no notion o. Dickon, you took her up, did she say aught in your hearing?’

‘No to say a useful word,’ said his companion. ‘She’d a bundle wi her, and a bit roastit cheese in her hand, and cam running out the back gate like a roe deer, right into my arms.’ He rubbed his ear. ‘Gied me a good bang on the lug wi her bundle, she did, right heavy it was, and I was one o the lucky ones, and calling us for everything, so we searched the bundle, and here was this bag o siller. We’ve got her for theft any road, whatever else she’s done.’

‘Aye,’ said the other man, ‘and the Provost says, if you’d wish to see her questioned afore she gets handed to the Serjeant, come by first thing the morn’s morn and you can ask her what you will, and he’s sent the same word to Maister Livingstone that’s her maister.’

‘She will have kin there,’ said Ealasaidh from the background. ‘There will be someone on the toft that is out of the Highlands, I have no doubt.’

‘At least two of the women,’ agreed Gil. ‘Tell Maister Otterburn I’ll be at the Castle at Prime, man.’

‘If the woman,’ said Maistre Pierre, closing the great door behind the two men, ‘is a speaker of Ersche, you need an interpreter.’

‘She speaks Scots well enough to be employed,’ Alys said.

‘None the less.’ Maistre Pierre looked at Ealasaidh. ‘It might be wise to take another speaker of the language with you.’

‘Och, yes,’ she agreed, ‘I would be happy to help. I can find out for you why she killed her mistress, no trouble.’

‘Why did your father do that?’ Gil asked. ‘I’ve no need of help to question the woman, and if I do, I’ve no doubt Otterburn can put his hand on an Ersche-speaker.’

Alys, shaking her hair out of its long braid, lifted the comb and said,

‘Perhaps she will be useful.’ He grunted, and she looked intently at him in the candlelight. ‘How is your head?’

‘Sore. I’ll live. I am
soo ful of knyghthode that knyghtly I endure the payne
.’ He unlaced his doublet and drew it off. ‘I suppose I can hardly take you as well now, it would look—’

‘As if I really couldn’t trust you,’ she finished, and gave him an enigmatic stare. ‘No, not after today’s work.’

‘That’s not what I was going to say,’ he said ruefully. ‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry if you’re to be embarrassed by it.’

‘I can deal with it,’ she said. ‘I sent Luke to the apothec-ary’s when he came in, with a list of sweetmeats and delicacies. Tomorrow by daylight he will take them round to the bawdy-house in a basket with ribbons, to the front door, as a gift from me. Oh, and a purse for the laddie. Cato, did you say he was called?’

‘
The wisdom of an heap of learned men
,’ he quoted. ‘Alys, that is true cunning.’

She looked at him sideways, round the honey-gold curtain of her hair. Her mouth twitched as if she was repressing a smile.

‘And what is it worth,’ she asked, ‘if I promise not to tell your mother?’

‘Fights like a wildcat,’ Otterburn said succinctly. ‘One man wi a hot ear, two more wi scratches, and wee Allie wi a bitten thumb, and we’ll all pray that doesny infect.’

‘Annot’s saying she’s aye had a temper,’ said Maister Livingstone sourly.

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of that,’ objected Lowrie beside him. ‘She’s aye seemed to me one that took what life threw at her, and stayed calm about it.’

‘So she’ll stay in chains, maister,’ continued Otterburn, ignoring this, ‘but apart fro that you can all ask her what you please. And Mistress McIan to be interpreter, I take it?’

‘What was in her bundle?’ Gil asked. ‘The men said something about coin.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Otterburn looked slightly less gloomy, and indicated the rack of shelves behind him, where a swathe of checked cloth suggested a plaid knotted round a collection of objects. ‘That’s a rare piece of good fortune. Well, I think it is. She’d a leather bag o coin about her, which I take to be the one that’s missing from the dead woman’s kist, according to her other waiting-woman, as you reported to me last night. Where’s that note, Walter? It’s quite a sum, and the interesting thing about it, maister,’ he accepted a sheet from his clerk and turned it towards Gil, ‘is that it’s all false money, every piece.’

‘False?’ Livingstone repeated, startled. ‘How would the old – woman come by false coin?’

‘All of it?’ Gil stared at the Provost, then looked down at the inventory of Forveleth’s bundle. Walter’s neat clerk-hand listed a few personal items, and beneath them quantities of coin, line upon line, the totals adding up to a magnificent amount.

‘All false coin,’ repeated Otterburn, ‘the most o’t these James Third placks and the threepenny piece wi the four mullets, same as we’ve been finding all about Glasgow. Now what do you make of that, maister? I,’ he said in faint triumph, ‘think you’re in the matter now whatever my lord says. And I’d like it if you’d cast an eye over the coins themselves, Maister Livingstone,’ he added, ‘now we’ve as many of them gathered in the one place, and see what you can tell us.’

‘Aye, gladly,’ agreed Livingstone.

‘Was she maybe collecting it?’ offered Ealasaidh from beside Gil. ‘Maybe she would take it out of use.’

‘Hardly,’ said Gil. ‘It’s near five hundred merks’ worth. Even Blacader couldny spare that easily out of a year’s income.’ He looked at Otterburn, and back at the notes. ‘Have you questioned the woman about it at all?’

‘No a word. I wanted my supper, and I reckoned she’d keep. Will we have her up here, or go down to her? It’s warmer here.’

The woman Marion or Forveleth was somewhat battered by her experiences, but her spirit was not affected. Dragged struggling into the little panelled chamber by two of Otterburn’s men she halted before his desk, glared at him, and spat something in Ersche which made Ealasaidh’s mouth tighten.

‘You speak civil to the Provost!’ ordered one of her escort, with a blow to her shoulder. She turned on him, manacled hands aiming for his crotch in a rising hammer-blow which he avoided expertly. His companion seized and flung her to the floor, where she knelt hissing more virulent Ersche.

‘Compose yoursel, woman!’ said Livingstone. Otterburn looked down at her, then over to where Gil and Ealasaidh sat near the window.

‘Do we want to ken what she’s saying, mistress?’ he asked.

‘No, I would say not,’ agreed Ealasaidh disapprovingly. ‘You should think shame, a decent woman, using language the like,’ she added to the prisoner. Forveleth turned her head to see who spoke, and froze, her mouth open, staring.

‘You!’ she said after a moment. The men in the chamber looked at one another.

‘Do you know her?’ asked Otterburn. Ealasaidh shook her head.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I was never seeing her in my life. She speaks the Gaelic of the Lennox, we have not travelled there much.’

‘She seems to know you,’ said Gil warily. Forveleth glanced at him, then addressed Ealasaidh in Ersche. There was a brisk exchange of what seemed to be repeated assertion and denial, before Otterburn broke in with,

‘Enough of this. Speak Scots, woman, or we’ll ha what you say put into the Scots, one or the other. What’s it about, mistress?’

Ealasaidh shook her head again, reddening.

‘She claims she was seeing me, here in Glasgow two days since, when I was still at Stirling and witnesses to say so. Nonsense, it is. What do you wish to ask her, maister?’

‘How could she do that?’ Otterburn asked. ‘If you’ve witnesses, why did she persist? When was this, anyway?’

‘I never saw you in Glasgow before, mistress,’ said Livingstone, ‘and I’d say this woman’s been nowhere I haveny been mysel in the last two days.’

Not quite true, thought Gil.

‘It is nothing, nothing at all,’ said Ealasaidh, the scarlet sweeping down her neck under the black woollen veil of her formal hood. ‘She is babbling.’

‘I am not, and you know it,’ said the prisoner in her accented Scots. ‘If it isny true now, it will be, I tell you that. You were always at the man’s shoulder, him that is man of the house where this one,’ she nodded at Gil, ‘is good-son. A better gown, you were wearing. Red brocade and velvet sleeves,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Never mind this now,’ said Otterburn, losing patience. ‘There’s as much to go over afore she gets handed to the Serjeant. You, woman, what’s your name?’

Her name was Forveleth nic Iain nic Muirteach, which caused Walter some trouble, and she was born in Balloch in the Lennox. She had served Dame Isabella five years now, before and after her marriage to Thomas Livingstone, and the old carline’s temper was getting worse, she’d have left anyway at the quarter-day –

‘That’s enough o that,’ said Otterburn. ‘Why did you run off when you found her dead?’

‘Did she find her dead?’ Gil asked. ‘I’d as soon go over yesterday from the start, maister, if you’ll allow it.’

Otterburn glanced at him, and sat back. Gil came forward from his seat by the window and stood looking down at the prisoner. She looked back at him hardily, despite the split lip and the bruises on her face. Her decent worsted gown was stained and filthy from her night in the cells, and scraps of damp straw clung to sleeve and hem.

‘Your mistress is dead,’ he said after a moment. She nodded, and waited for him to continue. ‘Do you know how she died?’

‘No.’ She paused to consider. ‘I was thinking maybe it was – it was—’ She threw a few words of Ersche at Ealasaidh, who said sulkily,

‘She was thinking it was an apoplexy, the same as you were saying, Maister Cunningham.’

‘So you did see her after she was dead,’ Gil said. ‘Tell me about the morning. You and Annot got her up, I think, and then called the men in so she could give them orders.’ Forveleth nodded at that. ‘What happened next?’

She closed her dark eyes to think.

‘We washed her,’ she said. ‘Och, no, she would be saying her prayers first. A good hour, that took her. Then she would, she would,’ she hesitated, ‘attend to something private, you understand.’

‘I understand,’ said Gil. ‘I also understand that the two of you, Annot and yoursel, were in and out for a space while she was occupied.’

Forveleth tightened her swollen mouth, winced, but nodded agreement. ‘Until she ordered us away,’ she said. ‘
Out of my sight
, she said, and called us a pair of worthless trollops. Forever bad-wording us, she was. So we left.’

‘What did you do then?’ Gil asked.

For the first time, Forveleth looked uneasy.

‘I’d maybe no mind,’ she said.

‘You’ve been clear enough up to now,’ Otterburn said.

‘You went to the kitchen eventually, we ken that,’ Gil said. ‘Where were you between the time you were dismissed and the time you reached the kitchen?’

‘About. It’s a fair walk out to the kitchen.’

‘Annot got there long before you did.’ Gil studied her, thinking about Alys’s comments last night. ‘Did you go back in to your mistress? You were combing her, I think. What did you do with her cap?’

‘Her
cap
?’ the woman repeated.

‘A cap?’ said Otterburn, interested. ‘Now there’s one in your bundle, lassie. How did that get there?’

‘Is that you stolen your mistress’s linen as well as the rest?’ demanded Livingstone.

‘I never!’ she said sharply, as Walter rose and quietly fetched the bundle. ‘Here, that’s mine, those are my things—’

‘What, all of it?’ Otterburn untied the heavy woollen stuff and spread it out. ‘Two shifts, a kirtle,’ he glanced at the prisoner still kneeling before him, ‘aye, yours rather than hers to judge by the quality, a comb, some good linen,’ he patted the folded wad, checking that nothing nestled among the layers, ‘two holy pictures and your Sunday beads. This cap,’ he turned it, put both hands inside it to mould it out, and looked at the prisoner again. ‘Yours or hers, woman?’

Ealasaidh came forward with her hand out. Otterburn gave her the item, raising his eyebrows, and she sniffed at it, then bent to sniff at the kneeling woman, moving her linen veil aside despite Forveleth’s objections.