The Counterfeit Madam (29 page)

Walking slowly down through the silent burgh, the plaid wrapped round both of them against a light drizzle which had begun while they were admiring the paintings, Alys leaned her head against Gil’s shoulder and said,

‘I should like a longer look at that house by daylight.’

He had been thinking how good it would be to fall into bed. ‘Hmm?’ he said.

‘The paintings are very good. One could put a plate-cupboard in front of the naked lady, though it would be a shame to hide the golden hair. It has how many chambers?’

‘Seven chambers, three closets, four hearths under the main roof,’ he recounted. ‘Or so Sandy said, the first time we were there.’

‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully, as they turned in at the pend which led to her father’s house. ‘Smaller than this, but a good size.’

‘A good size for what?’ he asked, with a faint feeling of alarm.

‘For us.’ She paused under the pend, the beams of his small closet over their heads. ‘This is my father’s house, Gil. You should have your own roof, and when you take an assistant you need to have room to house him.’

‘An assistant?’ he repeated in surprise, his voice rising.

‘Hush, you will wake John. Yes, you need an assistant. I’d suggest Lowrie, after today, but you will make your own decision of course.’

‘Will I?’ he said. And what was I thinking earlier about being managed? ‘He made a good impression, did he?’

‘He did. Oh, he is not you, but if you teach him he could be nearly as good as you. His manners are good, he is well read. Socrates likes him.’

‘An infallible sign of merit,’ he said, amused. She pushed him lightly.

‘No, but think how difficult it would be if you took someone the dog disliked. Where is he, anyway?’

‘Waiting for us at the door.’

The house door opened at that, and as Socrates whisked inside out of the rain Maistre Pierre’s voice, lowered in deference to the hour, said,

‘Are you to stand out there till the dawn, or are you coming in?’

‘I’d not expected you so early,’ said Otterburn with faint irony. ‘How’s Mistress Mason the day?’

‘Weary.’ Gil grimaced.

He had not slept well, despite fatigue and the late night; conversations of the day had replayed themselves over and over in his head, while Alys breathed slowly beside him. This morning she was tired, stiff and cross, and dealing with a crisis in the kitchen. She had shown no interest in explaining to her father and Ealasaidh, who were agog to hear them, any of the details of her day in Strathblane. It had been left to Gil to convey the gist of her adventures and their results, with an account of the midnight interview with Sempill and Lady Magdalen. Ealasaidh had been first amused and then shocked, crying out in disapproval of Dame Isabella’s behaviour. Maistre Pierre had listened more carefully, taking particular note of one or two points, and then frowned at Gil.

‘Better this way,’ he said.

‘Och, yes, better indeed. But to be stirring trouble in the Isles!’ said Ealasaidh. ‘And her no kin to any of the folk there! That is simple badness, though I suppose,’ she added darkly, ‘it would be all you would expect of an immodest woman like that.’

Gil nodded.

‘I wish McIan was still here,’ he said. ‘He might make me understand how things are out to the West.’

‘No, no,’ said Ealasaidh seriously, ‘there is no understanding it, for as soon as it is settled, they are changing what they ask for.’

‘But do you think the old woman’s scheme will have had any success?’

‘No knowing at all,’ she said. ‘Money is not a thing they are using much, it might have made no difference at all.’

He had called briefly on his uncle, to give him the end of the tale, though he had skimmed over Alys’s
Straunge Aduenture
. Canon Cunningham’s reaction had been similar to Maistre Pierre’s.

‘We would certainly have had to question everyone in the matter,’ he agreed. ‘Better this way, without letting the light of day into everyone’s inmost thoughts. Indeed, Gilbert, almost one might say the old – dame had been executed ahead of her trial, it comes so convenient for the Crown.’

‘So one might,’ agreed Gil. His uncle shot him a sharp look.

‘As to this mad scheme of hers, to destabilize the Isles, I never heard of such a thing. Rank treason, at least in intent. I very much doubt whether it would have succeeded,’ he pronounced.

Now Otterburn was saying much the same thing.

‘No saying it would have worked. It’s a barter market out there, little enough coin changes hands.’

‘Aye, but the whole chain leaked,’ Gil said. ‘It was the coin getting away every time a purse moved that worried Blacader and the Treasury. It seems as if they kent it was going out to the Isles, but not where it was coming from, till we started digging here in Glasgow.’

‘Did they now?’ Otterburn was shuffling papers on his desk. ‘Aye, here we are. You might like a sight o my report, and then you can have a read at the man Miller’s deposition. Oh, and his Christian name, maister, you’ll never guess, I might as well tell you straight, is Hilary. What were his parents thinking on? No wonder he stuck wi his surname or his by-name! We got a confession off him for Dod Muir, seeing we had witnesses a plenty, and he’s admitted to the two miners wi a bit persuasion, well, one o them, he swears the other was an accident, but him and Noll Campbell both are determined neither of them slew Dame Isabella. How did ye get the blue velvet purse then, I asked him, and he says,
She gied me it hersel
. For all his hard work, he says. Can you credit it?’

Well, yes, I can, thought Gil, skimming Walter’s neatly scribed copy of the report to the Archbishop. It was a masterpiece of suppression and suggestion, and would fit neatly with his own; he was glad to see that Alys’s adventure and her part in the arrest of Miller was one of the items suppressed here too. Pride in her achievements was one thing, bringing these to the attention of senior churchmen was another. As for Dame Isabella, better to have her murdered by a passing counterfeiter than to put what really happened onto paper where anyone might read it.

‘And I’ve a couple o the lads down the Gallowgate now wi one o the clerks,’ Otterburn continued, ‘asking about among the neighbours to see if they can find out why they were all so feart for the man. We might clear up a couple more matters while we’re about it.’

‘So how many have you held, in the end?’ Gil asked.

‘It’s in there.’

‘What, no others? Miller, Saunders and Noll Campbell. You’ve let the women go? And the miners’ laddie?’

‘Oh, him!’ said Otterburn. ‘Aye, young Livingstone came by afore Sext, wi a tale of escorting the laddie out to see his kin put in the ground, so I released him into his hands, for there’s no reasonable charge I could bring against him. The deil kens what Livingstone will do wi him, but he’s no my problem any more. As for the women in the case! Sic a weeping and wailing as you never heard, and that bairn screaming and all, I bade them begone. Likely they were in the conspiracy and all, but it was their men did the work and broke the laws o Scotland.’

‘And the gallowglass?’

‘Could talk his way out o a locked kist,’ said Otterburn. ‘No, no, I’m happy wi what I’ve got, maister, and so will the justiciars be when the time comes. Save only that I’ve to hold them and feed them till then,’ he added gloomily, ‘but I might get that past wi the other expenses. Oh, that Ersche leear woman that was in the Tolbooth, I’ve sent to the Serjeant to set her free and all.’

Gil compressed his lips, reluctant to say what he was thinking. After a moment he said instead,

‘I see the House of the Mermaiden is empty again.’

‘Is that right?’ Otterburn’s close-set gaze was expressionless. ‘Walter did say he’d seen wagons loading at the door. I dare say their prices was too dear for Glasgow. Make someone a handsome dwelling, that would, save for the price of getting a new door put on.’

‘Easy enough to turn that one, hang it the other way. What about John Sempill?’

‘What about him? That wife o his, she minds you o an alabaster weeper on a tomb, but she’s fair got him muzzled. How does she do it? He was feart to answer our questions for what she’d think o him.’

‘Will you charge him, do you think?’

‘That’s a matter for the Crown,’ said Otterburn regretfully. ‘But I’ll tell you, whether they fine him or charge him wi treason, if the land the mine’s on really does belong to Livingstone o Craigannet, then by what his son was telling me when he fetched young Berthold away, Sempill’s got more to worry him than what his wife thinks about it. Archie Livingstone’s no one to let another man get credit for what’s his. I’d say the Stirling men of law will eat well this winter.’

Dissatisfied, but unable to work out why, Gil went out into the busy Sunday morning of the burgh. Families passed him coming from hearing Mass at St Mungo’s, apprentices, journeymen and maidservants were setting out to enjoy a day off, even the weather seemed on holiday with bright sunshine broken only by a few clouds. He drifted down the Drygate among the crowds, past the two silent tofts to Canon Aiken’s house.

Here he found Lowrie absent but the young man’s uncle present, with plenty to say and a jug of Malvoisie to say it over.

‘I tell you, I’m sorry I ever ordered a coffin for the auld carline,’ the older Livingstone admitted, filling Gil’s glass. ‘If I’d kent all she’s been at, she could ha gone into the ground in her shift for all I cared, never mind her shroud! But it’s ordered and paid for, so she might as well make use o’t. So it was your bonnie lass jaloused it was a mine out at Ballencleroch? My, she’s an accomplished one. Does she keep a good household and all?’

‘Oh, she does,’ said Gil, with a fleeting thought of this morning’s discordant breakfast. ‘A generous kitchen, and rarely a cross word.’

‘She’s no sisters, I suppose?’ said Livingstone hopefully. ‘No, the best ones never do. Some more o this wine, maister. And it seems it was the counterfeiter that slew Isabella when she put an end to the scheme? Aye, well, he’d have the eye and the hand to strike the nail home, I can believe it right enough, for all young Lowrie says the man’s denying it.’

‘He’ll hang for Dod Muir,’ said Gil as he had done before.

‘Fortunate for us, though,’ said Livingstone thoughtfully, ‘that he slew her when he did, for if the matter had got out and she’d gone to trial at the Justice Ayre, everyone round her would ha been drawn in, me and my brother questioned as to whether we’d kent what she was at and whether we’d benefited from the coin she was having struck. And me a past moneyer and all! I’d never ha lived it down.’

‘Fortunate indeed,’ agreed Gil, and took another sip of the wine.

‘And her household back here yestreen, all but that Marion or Forveleth or whatever she’s cried. I don’t know what to do wi them, they’ll follow her coffin all in black to make a decent show, but once she’s in the ground they’ll have to take what she’s left them and go. I’d send them to Lady Magdalen, but she’ll likely no be hiring new people for a while, by what you say. Quite the contrary, indeed.’

‘Indeed,’ Gil agreed. He set the glass down and leaned forward. ‘Maister Livingstone, I’ve another matter to consult you on.’

The hall of the White Castle was surprisingly crowded. It contained Lowrie, studiously conversing with Socrates, and Maistre Pierre speaking High Dutch with the boy Berthold; but it also contained the woman Forveleth, standing near the kitchen door in her stained and filthy clothing, her bundle at her feet, and Ealasaidh, tall and threatening in front of her. These two were hissing at one another in venomous Ersche while Alys attempted to reason with both in Scots. Gil took all this in, nodded to Lowrie, and went quietly to join Catherine where she sat at the hearth, her fingers busy at her eternal handwork while her black eyes flicked from one group to another.

‘
Que passe, madame?
’ he asked, sitting down beside her. She greeted him formally, and said, choosing her words carefully,

‘There is some objection to the presence of that woman in our kitchen.’

‘Objection?’ Gil was used to the level of charity exercised under Maistre Pierre’s roof. This did not appear to match it. ‘Why?’

‘I think she may have caused offence previously. It is hardly a guest’s place to order her out, but the matter ought to be resolved. Since our
maistre
will not intervene, it would be proper for you to do so.’

‘Do you think so?’

She nodded significantly. ‘Someone should support
la jeune madame
.’

Maistre Pierre was still as studiously intent on his conversation with Berthold as Lowrie was on his with the dog. Clearly, though he might not support Ealasaidh, he was not going to support his daughter. A sudden uneasy suspicion struck Gil, and he looked at Catherine in dismay. She nodded again.

‘She will need your help,
maistre l’avocat
.’

She certainly will, he thought, bracing himself. Catherine gave him an approving smile and returned her attention to the long trail of lace, or braid, or whatever it was, which hung from her twisted hands. He rose and crossed the room to join the argument.

It was easier than he had feared it might be to soothe matters for the moment. The Ersche argument ceased as he approached, both women looking warily at him.

‘Good day to you, Forveleth,’ he said casually. ‘The Provost told me he had ordered you set free. Have they fed you in the kitchen? Is that what brought you here?’

‘They would have fed me,’ said Forveleth resentfully, ‘but this one was ordering them to throw me in the street, and not listen to their mistress, though I said I had a word for her, and now she will not let me speak.’

‘I don’t know why she would do that,’ Gil said, raising his eyebrows at Ealasaidh. ‘It’s my wife runs this house, it’s her kitchen, she is well able to decide for herself who’ll be fed there and who she’ll speak to.’

‘This one is a fool and a false speaker,’ said Ealasaidh, her rich Scots vocabulary deserting her for the moment. ‘I was wishing only to protect the lassie from her, the way she would be taking advantage.’

‘I’m grateful for your consideration, I’ve told you that,’ said Alys, her exasperation well concealed, ‘but I can use my own judgement, you’ve no need to protect me.’

‘I meant for the best.’

‘I’m certain of that,’ agreed Gil, ‘but you’ve no need to concern yourself. Go down to the kitchen, Forveleth, and see if they can let you clean yourself up, and then maybe we can all dine soon.’ He looked hopefully at Alys. She smiled rather too brightly and said,

‘We’d all be glad to eat. Go and wash, Forveleth, as my husband says, and bid them come up to set the table if you would.’

‘And after dinner,’ Gil went on as the woman slipped away down the kitchen stair, ‘you and I and Lowrie will go down to visit Kate. Lowrie promised to tell the wee girls if there was news of the false coiners.’

‘Well, it was the younger one I promised,’ Lowrie said over dinner. ‘Ysonde, is that her name? A strong-minded lassie. She was very insistent I came back,’ he explained to Alys.

‘She would be,’ Alys said.

‘Now, this boy Berthold,’ said Maistre Pierre. He glanced at Ealasaidh, eating her dinner in a haughty silence, and went on, ‘He tells me he has no kin left in Germany, and no wish to go home for now. He seems a good laddie, though not of the cleverest, but I think he knows little about stone, for a miner’s son, and he is clumsy with his hands.’

‘So not a mason’s prentice, then,’ said Gil.

‘No. I did think of it, when you told me of the boy this morning, but he would not do. He may stay here till he learns enough Scots to get by,’ he offered, ‘but then you have to find him a position. He makes a good servant, perhaps. He likes horses. I help you to some of this mould, madame,’ he added to Ealasaidh, who accepted the gesture without speaking.

Gil glanced past Forveleth who was talking to Jennet, to Berthold seated at the foot of the board, apparently asking Luke for the names of one item after another on the table. Near them, on Nancy’s lap, John shouted the words after them.