The Counterfeit Madam (26 page)

‘Searching the place?’ repeated Sempill. ‘What was there to find?’

‘Little enough,’ said Lowrie, ‘though he obviously thought there was more.’ He nodded to the group now carrying the prisoner in on the easier path by the gate. ‘One thing, though. Frank reckons his heels fit the tracks he found, and the rest of us are agreed.’

‘So what does that tell you?’ demanded Sempill. ‘Are you saying this is who slew the two fellows in there?’

‘He was certainly at the mine earlier today,’ Alys amended. Sempill threw her a surly look and said to his cousin, approaching over the rough grass,

‘Better tie him up, Philip, in case he gets away. The priest might have some rope. If you’re all agreed he’s guilty we could string him up here, there’s plenty trees. I’ve not had a good hanging in months.’

‘Oh, surely no, he must have a trial, maister,’ protested Sir Richie. ‘We should see if the boy recognizes him, maybe, or question him, aye, we should question him!’

‘Who is he?’ Alys asked. The prisoner was dropped on the ground, where he bounced slightly, groaning. She seized the dog’s collar before he could investigate the newcomer. ‘Did you question him?’

‘He drew his dagger on us,’ said Frank, twisting to look at a gash in the side of his leather doublet. ‘Near enough got me, and he’s nicked Harry there’s ear.’ Harry, standing beside him in John Sempill’s livery, grinned selfconsciously and mopped at the dripping blood. ‘So no, mem, we didny take the time to question him ower much.’

‘I can see you wouldny,’ she said, looking down at the man. He seemed to be of more than middling height, aged perhaps twenty or twenty-five, with well-barbered dark hair. His jerkin was dark red broadcloth, his boots were good but very dusty. ‘We must search him. Had he taken anything from the miners’ shelter?’

‘No that I saw, he was just poking about,’ Frank said, ‘looking amongst their graith and the like.’ He bent to turn the prisoner onto his back, and the limp figure convulsed like a mantrap Alys had once seen, came up snarling, a knife in his hand from nowhere in a sweeping gesture which had Frank flung sideways and crying out.

It all seemed to happen very slowly next. Lowrie dived forward, shouting, Harry grabbed at the man’s wrist, which slipped from his grasp, Alys leapt away from the action wishing she had not put Gil’s dagger back in her purse, and caught her heel in a tussock of grass and went down. The same dark lightning movement seemed to happen above her, and she was dragged to her feet, painfully by one arm, and hauled against a panting chest. A hoarse voice spoke over her shoulder.

‘Keep aff me. Keep aff me or the lassie gets it. And if that dog comes here I’ll knife it and all.’

‘
Down!
’ she ordered, almost on a reflex, and relief swept over her as the dog obeyed, reluctantly, quivering with eagerness to attack.

There was a knife sharp against her ribs. A small part of her mind recognized that it must have found one of the gaps in the whalebone bodice of her riding-dress. There were not many.

‘My son, consider what you are doing!’ protested Sir Richie. Behind him Philip Sempill emerged from the church carrying a hank of rope, and stopped, staring in horror. His cousin looked grim. Lowrie was standing poised, hands twitching, trying to work out what to do, staring at her with almost exactly the same expression as Socrates. The hoarse voice spoke again next to her ear.

‘Just stay nice and quiet where you are, and I’ll walk her down to the horses.’

Yes, and what then? Her mind raced, the whalebone forgotten. This man would never let her go alive, he used a knife too readily. This had happened to her before, perhaps there was a sign written on her brow,
Take this lassie hostage at knifepoint
, but since that time Gil had taught her one or two tricks to use against a man with a knife.

‘Right, lassie. You be quiet, the way you’re doing, and I’ll no hurt ye. We’re going to take a wee walk, see? Nice and gentle, to see the bonnie horses.’

She collected herself as the pressure of his arm tried to turn her slightly, to move backwards down to the gate. She caught Lowrie’s eye, indicated her dangling right hand as well as she could without moving. His gaze dropped, and she counted off ostentatiously with her fingers. One. Two. Three.

She went limp, so that her entire weight fell on the arm which restrained her, then as her captor braced himself against the sudden burden she dug in her heels and thrust backward. They both went over and down, hard, and she heard the wind go out of the man.

She rolled frantically aside, seized the fallen knife, scrambled up out of the way of the rushing feet and the snarling.

‘Mistress!’ It was Lowrie at her elbow. ‘That was well done! You’re no hurt, are you?’

‘I’m hale.’ She found she was grinning in relief. ‘Gil taught me it.’

‘He has a good pupil.’ He gave her an admiring look, and returned to the fray. Socrates was poised on the man’s chest, snarling into his face, white teeth snapping, and as earlier today was reluctant to give up his catch. Trying to persuade herself it had been perfectly safe, that the blade at her breast would never have got through the whalebones, she went forward to congratulate the dog and haul him off, ignoring John Sempill’s muttered comments about taking a stick to the ill-nurtured brute.

The prisoner was reclaimed, without gentleness. Of course, thought Alys, observing the way even Lowrie, even Luke, went out of their way to handle him roughly; eight men stood by, watched me taken at knifepoint, watched me save myself. The dog’s reaction was exactly the same.

Stripped to his linen, his arms tied, held kneeling at the point of several whingers on the cobbles before the door of St Machan’s Kirk, the man was rather less impressive, but he still managed a snarl the equal of Socrates’ when John Sempill demanded his name.

‘You’re asking me, are you?’ was all the answer he got.

‘Aye, I’m asking. And what were you doing up the glen?’ Sempill nudged him under the ribs with the toe of his boot. ‘Back to strip the place o siller, were ye? No content wi slaying unarmed men about their lawful work, were ye? Can ye tell me good reason why I canny hang you for murder fro yon tree?’ Each question was marked by another nudge.

‘Lawful!’ The prisoner spat.

‘And what d’you mean by that?’ Another nudge from the boot, powerful enough to wind the man. ‘Show him the two corps, lads. And that worthless laddie, see if he kens him.’

Alys rose from the table-tomb where she had seated herself in the hope that her knees would stop trembling, intending to follow the group into the church. She was distracted by Lowrie, who was making an inventory in his tablets of the prisoner’s possessions.

‘Mistress Mason, look at this.’

‘What is it?’ She crossed to where he sat on the grass, and he held out the man’s purse.

‘I’ve just the now opened it, I was writing down his clothes and boots. Look what was in his
spoirean
.’

The purse was in fact a sturdy leather bag, almost a scrip, as big as her two hands and made to be slung from a belt. She took it, finding it heavy, lifted the flap, peered in. Something gleamed in the shadow within. Coin? Not loose, surely, it would fall to the bottom. She tilted the thing to see better, and blue velvet and gold braid caught the light.

‘
Ah, mon Dieu!
’ she said in amazement, and drew out a fat purse. A purse of blue velvet, trimmed with gold braid. ‘Where did he have this?’

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, mistress?’

‘There can hardly be two of the things,’ she said, her mind working. ‘It must be Dame Isabella’s, the one that is missing. But how did he – Unless he was the stranger, that morning!’

‘You mean she gave him it?’ Lowrie said. ‘But in that case, was it him killed her?’

‘Forveleth said,’ she recalled slowly, ‘the old dame said to her,
Here’s that Campbell coming down the street and another wi him,
and then she said,
Hand me the blue purse out my kist and get out o here
. So it would fit. But why did he kill her? Who is he?’ She knelt beside Lowrie, looking at his tablets without seeing them. ‘Who is involved in this anyway? Your man Attie, the other servants, I take it he’s none of those.’ He nodded agreement, a gleam of humour in his expression. ‘The folk from Clerk’s Land. Madam Xanthe and her girls. Forgive me,’ she said briefly as a wave of scarlet swept up his brow. ‘Useless to pretend such places don’t exist. What other names do we have?’

‘Dusty,’ said Lowrie suddenly. ‘The man Miller, the one the little girls saw.’

‘Of course, the one who dwells down the Gallowgate. Have you set eyes on him?’ He shook his head. ‘Nor has Gil. I can think of no others, apart from folk like yourself, or Maister Syme, or Kate’s lassies.’ She sat back on her heels and looked triumphantly at him. ‘Well, I think we have a surname and a by-name for this man, though we still do not know why he killed Dame Isabella.’

‘Sempill of Muirend will be disappointed,’ he said after a moment. ‘I think he’s looking forward to a hanging.’

By the time they rode back into Glasgow in the twilight, Alys was bone-weary.

Sempill of Muirend had indeed been disappointed. His reaction, in fact, put her in mind of small John denied a sweetmeat, involving as it did red-faced shouting, stamping and finally a prolonged sulk. She found herself wondering how Lady Magdalen dealt with these episodes: did she use one of the remedies which were so effective with a small boy? The adult was less easily distracted, could not be smacked and put to bed, and would not be reasoned with. Finally Philip Sempill took his cousin on one side and talked to him quietly and forcefully, then returned with a curt,

‘Get him on a horse, then.’

There was still some delay. Decisions had to be made, and Frank’s slashed arm to be bound up. Sir Richie was persuaded to allow the two dead miners to lie in St Machan’s overnight, arrangements made for their burial on Monday, for the boy Berthold to be present (‘My father will see to that,’ said Alys confidently) and for one of Sempill’s men to ride down Strathblane to spread the word that the demons were vanquished and proved to be no more than flesh and blood.

‘Though whether they’ll believe it,’ said Sir Richie dubiously, ‘I couldny say. They’re fond o a good story, see, and demons make a better tale than miners.’

The remaining horses were untied and led out to graze and find water before the ride back, and at Lowrie’s suggestion, several of the men went up the glen to dismantle the miners’ shelter and pack their belongings into the hides which had covered it, bringing them back to stow in St Machan’s safe from further pilfering.

‘It belongs to the boy,’ he said, ‘and if he gets away after all this, he’ll ha need of it.’

Alys, who had been hoping nobody else would recognize Berthold’s criminal status, said nothing and Berthold himself, shown the bundles as they were hoisted into the loft, merely nodded. He seemed to have retreated into a distant, silent place; Alys thought he was probably hungry, but she did not wish to mention it in front of Sir Richie, who could hardly feed all of them.

The prisoner himself, tethered to the great ring handle of the church door, watched all with a sour expression. He still denied everything, refused to account for his presence in the glen, and claimed he had never seen the two dead men before.

‘He touched them willingly enough,’ said Lowrie. ‘It might be true.’

‘Not everyone holds by the belief,’ Alys said.

‘Aye, but it’s more often scholars, folk that’s been to college, that accept that the dead are dead. This fellow looks far more like to believe they’ll sit up and accuse him, or bleed when he touches them, or the like.’

‘He reacted to the name,’ she said, snapping her fingers for the dog.

‘Maybe.’

Addressed as
Miller
from across the little church, the prisoner had frozen briefly, but made no other sign, and refused to answer when asked if that was his name, even when encouraged by Sempill’s boot and fist. Since the man was obviously a quick thinker, Alys was inclined to take this as proof; the others were less convinced. The blue velvet purse had elicited even less response, although John Sempill had exploded in righteous indignation when he understood what it was, and had to be restrained.

Finally, the prisoner tied on Alys’s horse, Alys herself put up behind Lowrie, the boy Berthold perched in front of Tam, they set off. They made a good pace down the valley, hoping to reach the better road before the light began to fade. John Sempill was still deep in his sulk, but Philip brought his horse alongside Lowrie’s and said,

‘Do we take him to the Tolbooth, or to the Castle?’

‘The Castle,’ said Alys promptly. ‘The Provost is more like to accept him without arguing. He has the better instruments of interrogation, too,’ she added, glancing at John Sempill’s hunched back. Philip followed her look, and grinned.

‘A good argument,’ he agreed. ‘Do you think we’ve found the man that killed Dame Isabella?’

‘He denies it,’ said Lowrie. ‘He denies knowing her.’

‘Otterburn will sort that,’ said Philip confidently.

‘I don’t see why else he would have the purse,’ said Alys. ‘We know,’ she paused, assembling an accurate statement, ‘we know that Dame Isabella saw two men from her window, one called Campbell and another, and asked for the blue purse and dismissed her waiting-woman. Now we have the purse, and a man she might not have known. It fits, but not inarguably, I suppose.’

‘He might have stolen it from someone else,’ Lowrie agreed, as Philip looked surprised. ‘Or been given it, or even had it from the miners before he killed them.’

‘I never thought of that,’ said Alys.

They pressed on, passing little knots of cattle being driven home for the night, sleepy herd-laddies trudging behind them. Socrates ignored their dogs with a lofty air. Alys clung to Lowrie’s waist and considered the day. It seemed to her to have been extremely successful; she had achieved what she set out to do in this country of strange adventures, and more besides. But where had the blue purse come from? Why would Miller, if he was Miller, kill Dame Isabella?