The Counterfeit Madam (5 page)

‘I should wish to see the house as well,’ said Maistre Pierre, rising.

‘Oh, no, maister, I couldny allow that,’ said Madam Xanthe. ‘That’s a privilege has to be earned, you might say.’

‘Nevertheless—’ began Philip.

‘An account of what offices it contains would be enough for now,’ Gil said. ‘How many chambers, madam? And closets?’

‘Seven chambers,’ she returned promptly. ‘Including this we’re standing in. One, two—’ She counted visibly. ‘Three closets. Four hearths. That’s under this roof, and then under their own roofs there’s the kitchen, the washhouse, the stores – Cato can show you those. I’d hope he’s able for that,’ she added, looking sourly down at the boy, who gave her a deprecating grin. ‘I’ll bid you good day, maisters. And if you’re to look into the matter of the false coin, Maister Cunningham,’ she digressed again, with another sideways glance from the painted eyes, ‘I’m right glad to hear it, for I’m sure we’ll all rest easier in our beds for knowing you’re on the hue and cry.’

Leading them down the stair and across a chamber where the woman Agrippina was mending linen, the boy called Cato led them out by the back door of the house and across a paved yard. Early flowers in tubs shivered in the wind on either side of the doorsill.

‘The flowers are bonnie. Do you tend them?’ Gil asked.

‘No me, maister, I’ve a black thumb,’ confessed Cato. ‘A’thing I tend to dies. No, that’s Kit– Cleone,’ he corrected himself, ‘that sees to the plants. She says it makes a nice change, raising up something that stays up.’

Gil looked sharply at the boy, aware of Philip Sempill on his other side reacting in the same way, but Cato, apparently oblivious to the double meaning in his words, went on,

‘This is the kitchen, maisters. Are you wanting to see in? Only that Ste– Strephon isny in a good mood the day, and if the supper spoils—’

‘It’s a good kitchen,’ Gil said, assessing the little building. ‘Two doors and plenty windows. You’d get out easy enough if it caught fire.’

‘That’s what Strephon says,’ agreed Cato. ‘And yonder’s the privy, and the coal house, and the lime house, and the feed store, and—’ He led them onwards, telling off all the buildings as they passed them.

‘When did Madam Xanthe move in here?’ asked Maistre Pierre, looking about him.

‘A month afore Martinmas last,’ said Cato promptly.

‘Early October, so more than six month since,’ observed the mason. ‘And I would say no maintenance done in that time and longer.’ He nodded at the row of storehouses. ‘Two broken hinges, peeling paint, the limewash not renewed this winter. The window-frames are dry, they need a coat of linseed. The bawdy-house may pay a good rent, but it is not a good tenant. These houses of timber must be groomed like a horse, daily.’

‘I hardly think maintenance was in the lease,’ said Philip Sempill.

‘I’ve never been tellt to do aught about that,’ said Cato, equally defensive. ‘Madam aye has other tasks for me. And Hercules,’ he mangled the name badly, ‘is aye waking nights, in case of trouble, so he has to sleep daytimes.’

Gil nodded. It had seemed likely there was some more impressive guardian about the place than this lad. He wondered what Hercules might own for his baptismal name.

They followed Cato past the storehouses, across a second small courtyard, and through a gap in a wicker fence into a garden which sloped down towards the Molendinar and a further sturdy outhouse by the distant gate. To left and right more wicker fencing marked the edges of the property. The hammering from the next toft was clearly audible.

‘That’s the pleasance,’ the boy said unnecessarily, waving at the low bristles of box hedging. ‘It was right bonnie when we came here, but I’ve no notion how to keep it, and nor’s Kit. And yonder’s the washhouse, where the lassies has a bath every month and washes all their hairs. They’ve a right merry time of it,’ he said wistfully, ‘I’d like fine to join them, for they take in cakes and ale and all sorts, and bar the door. But that’s when madam has me empty the privy and the garderobe, and stands over me to see I do it right.’

‘There is a garderobe?’ enquired Maistre Pierre with professional interest. ‘Where is it? Where does it drop?’

Cato turned, grinning, and pointed back at the house. It rose above the cluster of outhouses, much plainer on this side, with a row of small upper windows which engendered regular waves in the thatch, and a high stone chimney with four octagonal pots.

‘You see the upstairs windows, maister? That’s Cleone and Daphne’s chamber at this end, and then the next one’s Armerella’s and Calypso, and then Galatea and Clymene.’ He was stumbling over these names too; it took Gil a little while to recognize Amaryllis. ‘And at that end it’s the two windows of madam’s chamber and closet, see, and the garderobe’s atween them and it drops down the outside of the house next the privy.’

‘Typical,’ said Maistre Pierre, shaking his head. ‘It need not be so, there are ways to keep the soil from the house walls, but local wrights never make use of them.’

‘It’s no so bad,’ said Cato. ‘The rain washes the most o’t down. Stinks a bit when it’s a dry spell.’

‘So have you seen enough to make a decision?’ enquired Philip Sempill over the boy’s head.

‘We’d like a bit time to consider,’ said Gil promptly. ‘I told the old – dame it would be longer than two days, after all.’ He moved towards the house, saying to Cato, ‘Are the neighbours any trouble? There’s a good many folk working on the toft on this side that we passed. Who dwells on the other side?’

‘That’s Maister Fleming,’ said Cato. ‘He’s the weaver, ye ken, has his weaving-shed out the back there. He’s no bother, no since madam bought all the blankets for the house off him and cleared his warehouse. This side’s more trouble, they’s aye a din ower the fence. See, there’s Adkin Saunders the pewterer for a start, a short temper he has, him and his wife’s aye arguing and their weans screaming—’ This was patently true, the children could be heard screaming now. ‘And then there’s Noll Campbell the whitesmith, he’s a good craftsman, we’ve some o his tinwares in the hall, but he’s a right grumphy fellow. Madam says the two o them has a competition to see who can work longest, and then they has great arguments and shouting and their wives joining in and all.’

‘A pewterer, a whitesmith – who else is there?’ asked Philip Sempill.

‘Danny Bell the lorimer,’ supplied Cato, counting carefully on his fingers, ‘Dod Muir the image-maker, that took a stick to me when I went to fetch Ki– Cleone’s shift when it blew ower the fence. And thingmy wi his donkey-cart. That’s all five.’

‘So you have to disentangle the ownership,’ said Alys, ‘and then make certain Dame Isabella gives the right piece of land to Tib. How can you do that? Does your uncle expect you to cast a horoscope, or raise an incantation over a brazier of herbs, or something?’

‘The Canon has confidence in his nephew,’ said Catherine in faint reproof.

‘Rather too much confidence,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll go up in the morning and get a word with him.’

‘And with Sempill or his wife, I suppose,’ offered Maistre Pierre.

The supper was over and the table dismantled. They had given a brief account of their afternoon over the meal, but now Gil was describing in more detail what had been said and what they had seen.

‘And these two tofts on the Drygate,’ Alys went on. ‘You said one of them is the new brothel. What does a two-year-old want with a brothel? Do you mean to accept it?’

‘It’s a valuable property,’ Gil said, ‘and the madam says she plans to move on soon. I’d be in favour, so long as we had that in writing.’

‘Mm.’ Alys shook out the bundle of linen in her lap and hunted for the needle in the seam. ‘And the other property?’

‘Busy. Four craftsmen and Danny Sproat with his don-key-cart. Again, a good rent-roll, probably we’d get as much as Sempill sends us each quarter from that one alone.’

‘A wise investment, then. How will you proceed?’

‘Maister Livingstone is to come here,’ Gil said, glancing at the fading light from the windows, ‘about now, indeed, and tomorrow I’ll wait on Dame Isabella, and as Pierre says I must get a word with Magdalen Boyd, though I suppose Sempill will be present. Likely the rest of the day’s my own.’

‘And this question of the false money,’ Alys said, and bit off her thread. She selected a second needle from the row stuck ready-threaded into the cushion of the bench beside her, drew the candles closer and began another row of neat stitches. ‘When will you have time to look into that?’

‘When I’ve sorted the other thing.’ Gil grimaced. ‘Though if my lord orders me to see to it, it ought to take precedence.’

‘Is there any person in Glasgow who is suddenly wealthy?’ asked Catherine. ‘I have heard nothing,
maistre
, but you speak to many people in a day’s work.’

Gil glanced at her in surprise. This small, aged, devout woman knew an amazing amount about what went on in Glasgow despite her lack of any spoken Scots; it was unusual for her to admit ignorance.

‘Nor have I,’ he admitted, ‘but that’s no help. We don’t know that the coiners are in Glasgow, and in any case it wouldn’t be wise to spend all the coin you had forged in the one place. Most folk know exactly how well off their neighbours are. A handful here, a couple of placks there, would be easier to pass off.’

‘As in the Isles,’ observed Maistre Pierre.

‘How noisy is the work?’ asked Alys. ‘I suppose if one must strike each coin the hammering would be heard.’

‘Noisy enough. Hard to keep it secret in the countryside,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘unless the workshop was very isolated, and yet in a town the neighbours are just as alert.’

Alys raised her head, listening.

‘Not hammering,’ she said, ‘but someone in the courtyard. Could it be Maister Livingstone?’

‘I’ll take him up to our lodging,’ said Gil, rising as the sound of feet on the fore-stair reached them. ‘We can sit in my closet.’

‘You see,’ said Alexander Livingstone finally, contemplating the array of documents on the bench cushions, ‘we’ve the whole chain here, from when my grandsire Archibald took sasine from Albany’s steward in ’35, down to my brother Archie’s payment of the heriot fee ten year since when he inherited.’ He turned to lift his glass of wine from the window-ledge where he had set it, and drank appreciatively.

‘It’s very clear,’ observed Alys. ‘Is it unusual to find so complete a record?’

‘Not particularly,’ said Gil. ‘My father had a set of papers very like this, the record of sasine from the Hamiltons, with all the succession from his grandsire.’ He bent to the nearest, to reintroduce its crumbling seal into the little linen bag which protected it.

‘I mind
my
grandsire telling me,’ offered Lowrie, ‘how his faither, that’s old Archibald, had to go to take sasine all over again and get that first instrument given in his hand, only because the King wanted all writ down so it would be clear at law. He aye said there was no need of papers until the King started meddling.’

‘Ah!’ said Alys. ‘So all Scotland suddenly had to get all written down.’ She looked at Gil, her eyes dancing. ‘Notaries’ wives must have come out in new gowns that year.’

‘Those that were wedded,’ said Maister Livingstone seriously, hitching his yellow velvet round his shoulders. ‘Notaries were mostly churchmen at that day.’

Gil’s closet at the end of the short enfilade of chambers was barely big enough for two guests, let alone the armful of documents the Livingstone men had brought. They had abandoned his writing-desk and returned to the outermost room just as Alys arrived with the wine; she had stayed to watch fascinated while Maister Livingstone spread out the succession of parchments under the two candles on the pricket-stand, with a brief comment about each, like a fortune-teller laying out cards.

‘So that’s the original,’ he went on now, gesturing again at the first document with its crumbling seal. ‘Then it passed from Albany to Alan Stewart as feu superior, and then to the present man, John Stewart, that’s now titled Earl of Lennox—’

‘All very clear,’ Gil agreed. ‘And here’s the record of renewal of sasine at your grandsire’s death in ’62, and then at your father’s death ten year since, with the sasine-oxen duly noted.’

‘I like this one,’ said Alys, bending to one of the papers. ‘
Twa oxin, gra hornit and white checkit
. They must have been handsome beasts.’

‘They were,’ said Maister Livingstone sourly. ‘I mind those. Best plough-team on the lands, they were.’

‘Where are these usually kept?’ Gil asked, nodding at the array of documents.

‘The strongbox at Craigannet,’ said Lowrie. ‘My faither and me sorted them out afore we set out for Glasgow, all that seemed germane to the auld body’s plans. You should see what we kept back,’ he added, brushing dust from his person.

‘Why?’ asked Gil. Both men looked at him a little blankly, but Alys nodded. ‘Why did your father think the sasines might be needed?’

There was a pause, into which Lowrie said,

‘Ah. Well.’

‘She’s done something of the sort afore,’ said his uncle with reluctance. ‘Archie said, take these along in case, and no to lose them.’

‘Are you saying, in fact, Thomas may not have alienated the lands we’re dealing wi today? That her claim is false?’

‘I’d be surprised if he did,’ said Maister Livingstone, hitching up his yellow velvet again.

‘Tell me about it. When did she wed your uncle? Why did they wed? They must ha been both well up in their age.’

‘For mutual comfort of each other’s possessions,’ muttered Lowrie. Alys suppressed a giggle. ‘He once tellt me he’d known her when they were both young,’ he added. ‘I think they both knew Elizabeth Livingstone. Her that was wedded to John of the Isles,’ he elucidated, ‘she and Thomas, and I suppose my grandsire, were second cousins or thereabouts.’ He found his uncle staring at him, and subsided.

‘Isabella and Thomas was wedded in ’90,’ said Maister Livingstone, returning to the point. ‘I think Thomas had his eye on some lands she had in Strathblane at the time, which would sit nicely alongside these two Livingstone holdings that we’re at odds about now. But she kept a tight grip on their management, no joint feus for her, and yet somehow Thomas’s own property all turned out to have been held in joint feu after he died.’