The Counterfeit Madam

Chapter Five

Alys was not speaking to him.

He could see that she was distressed; her face was pinched and drawn back from the high narrow bridge of her nose, the delicate feature to which Dame Isabella had taken such exception. If he spoke she glanced at him, but did not react. He had seen her apply the same treatment to her father when he had displeased her. What did I say to Lowrie? he thought. I should have kept my mouth shut. Socrates, apparently feeling he was also in disgrace, leaned against his knee shivering.

It did not help that the hall of Maistre Pierre’s house was full of music and people. As well as the mason himself, the harper McIan and his sister Ealasaidh, a fiddler, a drummer, and Catherine improbably tapping a foot to The Battle of Harlaw were gathered round the hearth; in various corners of the big chamber the McIans’ two servants (Two? he thought, they must be doing well just now) and the company of musicians which somehow condensed about them wherever they went, not to mention small John and his nurse Nancy and all their own servants, seemed to be dancing to the infectious rhythms. The dinner would be burning. No, it was long past dinnertime, but the supper would definitely be afflicted, and all he wanted to do was sit down quietly and talk his day through with Alys, who could always help him to think more clearly.

The battle came to an end. Alys began shooing the women back to their work in the kitchen, and McIan set his harp aside, making certain it was standing firmly beside the arm of his host’s great chair.

‘God’s greeting to you, Maister Cunningham,’ he said, turning his white eyes towards Gil.

‘Ah, Gilbert.’ Maistre Pierre beckoned. ‘See who has blown in off the High Street. Come from Stirling the day, they tell me.’

‘How are you, sir?’ Gil came forward with Socrates at his heel. The harper rose to his majestic height and bowed, long silver hair falling over his brow, the white beard settling back on his chest as he straightened up again. ‘And Mistress Ealasaidh?’

‘We are both well, maister, by God’s grace. And so is that bonnie wee skellum yonder, that is growing like a weed.’ The blank gaze swung to small John, who was still dancing though the music had stopped, and the austere mouth softened. ‘You take good care of him in this house. I think he is well loved.’

‘Indeed yes!’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘He brightens the place,’ Gil said simply. The fiddler and drummer had retreated to the other end of the hall and now struck up a court dance, the sharp drumbeats striking pain in his head. Two recorders and a still shawm joined in on the second phrase, and one of the singers began showing John the steps. ‘Have you heard him sing?’

‘He sings like a lintie,’ offered Ealasaidh McIan, seated beside the mason on one of the two long settles. Not much past thirty, nearly as tall as her brother, she was clad for travel in the loose checked gown of an Erschewoman, her dark hair curling down her back. She looked hard at Gil, but went on, ‘His mammy was full of music, Our Lady call her from Purgatory, so small wonder if he has it too. Did I hear the man Sempill has taken another woman?’

‘He has,’ Gil agreed. ‘And she leads him as if she had a ring through his — his nose. I’d say the boy’s mammy is well avenged.’

Her eyes glittered, but her brother said,

‘Leave that the now, woman. Maister Cunningham, I have a word for you from the Archbishop.’

‘Sir?’ Gil removed his hat carefully, as if his master was present. The harper bent his head a moment, then said in a startling imitation of Robert Blacader’s ponderous speech,

‘My greetings and blessing to Maister Cunningham, and let him ken this. The matter of the false coin is in hand, it’s my will he shouldny involve himself. If I need his help I’ll send to him.’ Across the hall Alys looked up sharply, but said nothing. Gil felt himself reddening.

‘Mon Dieu!’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘But who else should deal with it in Glasgow? You or Otterburn should take it on, I would think, and he has asked you, so it cannot be him.’

The harper, reverting to his own manner, said, ‘Best to let it lie the now. You will be caught up in it soon enough, maister. There is much unknown, and more hidden.’

Used to this kind of gnomic utterance, Gil did not question the man, but replaced his hat with care, sat down beside Catherine on the other settle, and applied himself to repressing anger. His master the Archbishop had just snubbed him before his ward’s father and the entire household, and he could do nothing about it.

‘The Isles are full of the stuff,’ observed Ealasaidh.

‘We will not speak of that,’ said her brother, sitting down again. She slid him a dark look, but said no more. ‘And you, maister. What have you been at the day? There is death about you, and it links to the boy.’

‘Indirectly,’ Gil agreed, wishing he could leave the conversation, leave the hall, go and sit peacefully in their own apartment. The dog nudged his knee with his long nose, and he stroked the soft ears.

‘Indeed it does,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘What are all these tales I hear, Gilbert? Is that dreadful old woman dead in truth?’

‘It is news of the most distressing,’ observed Catherine in French.

‘Tell it,’ prompted McIan. His sister put a cup of ale into his hand. ‘Who is slain?’

The musicians had all gathered about the plate-cupboard at the far end of the hall, where someone had propped a new piece of music against the larger of the two salts. This one did not involve the drum. Over an argument about where the repeats should fall Gil identified Dame Isabella, with interpolations from Maistre Pierre, explained her connection with small John, described her death. Alys listened, quietly pouring more ale or handing little cakes; he was aware of her attention, though she did not look at him. Ealasaidh sat by her brother and exclaimed at each turn of the tale, but the harper was as silent as Alys.

‘To be rid of the man Sempill!’ Ealasaidh burst out as he finished. ‘Angus, we accept the offer, surely!’

‘If it still stands,’ Gil cautioned her. ‘Lady Magdalen may change her mind, now her godmother is dead.’

‘If it still stands,’ agreed her brother, ‘I am in favour.’

‘The rents would keep the boy easily,’ supplied Maistre Pierre, ‘and we may put some aside for his education as well.’

‘But this woman who is dead.’ McIan shook his head. ‘There is darkness and betrayal there.’

‘If it was her servant slew her, that is betrayal enough,’ observed Ealasaidh.

‘And the violence to yourself, Maister Cunningham.’ Gil, who had slid over that part, did not look at Alys. ‘Have you taken hurt?’

‘A headache, a wetting, no more than that.’

‘Hmm.’ Maistre Pierre rose, removed Gil’s hat, felt carefully at his skull with large gentle hands. ‘No, I think your skull is hard enough,’ he said at length, as Gil flinched. ‘A lump like a goose-egg, but nothing worse. Continue your tale. What were they concealing, do you suppose?’

‘If I knew, it wouldny be concealed,’ he said wearily. ‘All I did was look into Danny Sproat’s stable and frighten the rats. I saw nothing untoward there.’

‘No, you need to look elsewhere,’ agreed the harper.

‘I should like to search the toft, nevertheless,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Otterburn’s men are doing that,’ Gil said.

‘Drink this.’ Alys was at his elbow — when had she left the hall? — handing him a small beaker of something. He swallowed it obediently, tasting willow-bark tea, honey, something else familiar. He looked up warily and smiled his thanks, and she met his eye, though she did not return the smile. Was he forgiven or not? he wondered.

The band by the plate-cupboard embarked on another piece of music, passing this one by ear, laughing as the sweet-sharp phrases modulated in different hands. Ealasaidh, with a glance at her brother, rose and drew Alys away to talk to John, who was inclined to be a little shy of his tall aunt. The harper sat back and said,

‘I have a favour to ask of this house.’

‘Ask it,’ said Maistre Pierre largely.

‘I am bound for the West, for Ardnamurchan. I had as soon not take my sister, for I think the journey is not easy. Is it possible-’

‘Pooh! No need to ask,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘You and Mistress Ealasaidh both are welcome under my roof, sir, for as long as you wish it. What takes you into the West?’

‘I think we should not ask,’ said Gil quietly.

‘Resentment, enmity, tipping of the scales of power.’

‘That is true all over Scotland,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Oh, aye,’ said McIan, ‘and of this death here in Glasgow, but I spoke of the Isles. The false coin breeds enmity, and the rest. That is its purpose.’

‘To whose advantage?’ asked the mason.

‘Always a good question, with always the same answer.’

The Campbells, thought Gil. The Earl of Argyll. People keep mentioning the Campbells today.

‘With good reason,’ said McIan, and he realized he had spoken aloud. ‘The young one, the new earl, may not be the match of his sire, but he has the same nature. Tell me, maisters, has that pair of Campbell brothers been seen in Glasgow lately? Eoghan and Niall, you recall them?’

‘Them!’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Euan and Neil,’ Gil agreed. ‘I saw Euan at the quarter-day when he brought the money for John’s keep from Sempill, but I’ve heard nothing of them in the last month. Why, have you? Who are they working for now? Not Sempill, then?’

‘For MacIain. No, not myself, but the greatest of the name, the man that holds Ardnamurchan of the King.’ He fell silent. Gil leaned back against the settle and stared at nothing, while the musicians started on yet another tune.

It seemed to have been a very long day already, and it was not over yet. The sasine transaction which had begun it was unlikely to come back at him, but everything else seemed to have questions attached which would lead him in all kinds of directions, and he was feeling unbelievably weary. Perhaps that was the dunt on the head, he thought. Begin at the beginning: where is the title to Balgrochan? Is it important that the old woman kept it back? Where was Sempill this morning if he didn’t see Dame Isabella?

‘Well, Gilbert,’ said Maistre Pierre beside him, sounding amused. ‘And was that the whole tale, son-in-law?’

He opened his eyes with a start. The hall was much emptier and much darker than it had been a moment ago. The musicians had vanished.

‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said hastily.

‘No, of course not. But what have you been about, that the whole town is talking of you being rescued naked from the bawdy-house?’

‘What?’ he exclaimed, and put a hand involuntarily to his head as pain stabbed. ‘Sweet St Giles, no wonder Alys is displeased. It was nothing of the sort — indeed they saved my life, I think.’

‘As strong as that?’ The mason sat down. ‘Tell me again. We have time before supper, I think.’

‘Where is McIan gone?’

Maistre Pierre waved a large hand towards the courtyard.

‘They are gone to settle in, or perhaps to see John in his cradle. Now tell me about the bawdy-house.’

‘We’ll set up the table shortly,’ said Alys from the other end of the hall. She came forward, still unsmiling. ‘Go over the first part, at least. They took you in and warmed you, sent here for dry clothing. What did they give you for your hurt?’

‘Some sort of cordial, and a bowl of broth.’ He looked up at her. ‘We owe them a debt, sweetheart.’

‘For certain,’ agreed Maistre Pierre.

She nodded.

‘I suppose we do,’ she agreed, with what seemed like reluctance. ‘I’d sooner have you live, and spoken of all over the town, than otherwise.’ She considered the hand he extended to her, and put her own in it. The world seemed to straighten round him. ‘So how did it happen?’

McIan and his manservant departed after supper for some engagement in the burgh. The harper was his usual dignified self, clad in a blue velvet gown with his hair combed down over his shoulders, but his sister watched them leave and said,

‘The Deil alone knows when himself will be home. It might be before the dawn. By what Whistling Tam was saying it will be a wild night of it.’

‘You do not go with him?’ asked Maistre Pierre curiously. She shook her head.

‘I’ve no notion where he gets the strength. There is ower many years on me for riding all day and then playing all night after it. I had sooner be here, where the bairn is.’ She looked round their faces as they stood by the hearth. ‘But I think you have things to discuss. I should go to my rest, maybe.’

Alys and her father both exclaimed against this, and Gil said, concealing reluctance, ‘You’ve heard the half of it already, and I could do with the woman’s view of what I saw. You and Alys will see things I never noticed.’ And a pity that Catherine always retires immediately supper is cleared, he thought.

‘Come and sit down,’ said Alys. ‘We have no usquebae in the house, but there is wine.’

In fact Ealasaidh was little help. Gil went over the morning again, detailing what he had seen and learned, and she exclaimed over every turn of the tale as she had done earlier, with shocked comments about the customs of Dame Isabella and her household. Alys listened quietly, and said as he finished,

‘Scatology not eschatology, despite her age.’ He glanced at her, acknowledging the play on words, and she went on, ‘I think you are right, Gil, there are things which do not make sense.’

‘The whole thing makes no sense!’ declared her father. ‘More wine, mistress?’

‘But to permit someone to come close enough with a hammer and nail!’ said Ealasaidh, accepting her refilled glass. ‘And occupied like that, the shameless woman!’

‘How well did she hear, do you know?’ asked Alys.

‘A good point,’ said Gil. ‘Certainly her voice was like a deaf woman’s.’

‘I thought she had no trouble when we saw her yesterday,’ objected Maistre Pierre.

‘There’s many can hear well enough if they know they’re addressed,’ said Ealasaidh.

Gil frowned, trying to fit this into the sequence he had assembled.

‘She’d have seen him — or her,’ he added scrupulously, ‘over the back of the settle.’ He rose and paced about the hearth, gesturing to place the furniture of the chamber where Dame Isabella died. ‘A settle much like that one, perhaps a little lower, near the window. The close-stool behind it. The bed about here, in the midst of the chamber, so one must approach round one side of it or the other. No chance of creeping up on her.’

‘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.

‘Hers,’ she said, in a tone which invited no discussion. Gil and Otterburn exchanged startled glances.

‘So where,’ Gil said, recovering first, ’is the cap your mistress was wearing when Annot last saw her? When she went to stool?’

‘I’d maybe no mind. And keep her off me!’ said the prisoner indignantly.

‘Forveleth,’ Gil said, hunkering down beside her. ‘Look at me.’ She turned the dark eyes on him, wary as a cornered animal. ‘You’re in trouble here, you must see that. You and Annot were the last to see your mistress alive, and Annot has witnesses for where she was till Dame Isabella was found dead. Then you ran off, and you were lifted yestreen fleeing from the Provost’s men, wi a great bag of false coin about you-’

‘I never!’ she said hotly. ‘I never did! I never had any such thing-’ She turned to Ealasaidh and burst into impassioned Ersche.

‘Be quiet, woman!’ ordered Otterburn. He gestured at his clerk, who moved to open the great kist by the wall. ‘What about this, then? Five hundred merk of false coin, found in your bundle.’ He put his hand on the leather sack as Walter deposited it on the table.

‘Is that the bag?’ said Lowrie. Otterburn flicked him a glance, and went on,

‘You touched that, I’d say, and to some purpose.’

She stared at the object, looked at Otterburn, back at the leather bag.

‘I never saw that in my life,’ she said firmly. ‘I have no knowledge of whose it might be, but it is never my mis-tress’s purse. That is blue velvet and gold braid. You may ask at Annot if you are not believing me.’

‘Is it, now, maister?’ Otterburn asked Livingstone, who shook his head.

‘I’m no her tirewoman. Ask at Annot, like she says, she’ll let you ken.’

Forveleth looked alarmed, and turned to Ealasaidh again, with more of the Ersche, shaking her head repeatedly. Ealasaidh answered, there was a longer exchange. Gil got to his feet, easing cramped muscles.

‘She is telling me a great story,’ said Ealasaidh eventually, and looked from Otterburn to Gil. ‘She says, she waited in the next chamber, the one where she was seeing a laid-out corp, and the old woman was calling her back in after a while, to comb her hair and listen while she abused her for a thieving Erschewoman. Then she says her mistress suddenly ordered that she bring her this purse of blue velvet and leave her, so she put the comb by and went out to the kitchen, and talked with the other women. She says they will be swearing to it if you ask them.’

‘Now that’s all foolery!’ exclaimed Otterburn, but Gil nodded, watching Forveleth’s face as Ealasaidh recounted her tale.

‘What did you do with the cap?’ he asked. The woman stared at him, then suddenly put a hand to the breast of her gown, delved briefly within its low square neckline, and drew out a crumpled handful of linen.

‘I mind now, I was putting it down my busk while I combed her hair,’ she said, ‘and then she was sending me away, so I forgot it.’

‘Like I said,’ exclaimed Livingstone, ‘thieving her mis-tress’s linen and all!’

Ealasaidh took the little bundle from her, sniffed it, inspected it briefly, handed it on.

‘This one is not hers,’ she said. Gil, shaking it out, had to agree. This cap was made in a different style, of much better linen, and though it smelled faintly of Forveleth there was a strong, sour undernote of unwashed hair about it. He stood looking down at it, watching the scene Ealasaidh had described play out in his head.

‘Why did she send you away the second time?’ he asked.

‘She’s making it up,’ said Livingstone. ‘I don’t believe a word o this.’

‘No, it makes sense, uncle,’ said Lowrie.

‘For modesty, maybe?’ said Ealasaidh. Forveleth snorted.

‘Her? She’d not know the word, for all she was flyting at Annot and me for immodest trollops. She never said why I was to leave,’ she added, ‘nor I would not be knowing what her reason was. She was looking out of the window while I stood beside her and combed at her hair, and then in the midst of that she bid me fetch her blue velvet purse and be gone.’ She paused, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘I think it was — it was-’ She groped for the Scots, then said something to Ealasaidh, who nodded slowly and translated:

‘She is thinking her mistress acted on a sudden, in haste maybe, for she would not take the time to miscall her the way she was doing in general, only she was bidding her leave her immediate.’ She looked earnestly at Gil. ‘I think that is a wise thing she says.’

‘You never looked out of the window yourself?’ Gil asked. The woman shrugged.

‘I was looking, but I was not seeing whatever it was caused her to send me away. Nor she was not giving me time to stand and stare,’ she added, her bruised mouth twisting.

‘I swear it’s no! Ask at Annot,’ protested Forveleth. ‘And no more it is not the purse she kept at her belt, that all her household has seen. I never saw this leather one in my life!’

‘Ask at the others of her household!’ protested Forveleth. ‘They’ve all seen it, they saw it just that morn when she gave money out to Alan for the potyngary she wanted!’

‘No, it’s no the purse the old dame usually had by her,’ agreed Lowrie.

‘There would never be room in the kist for a bag that size,’ said Gil.

Otterburn glanced at him, and grunted.

‘So where did it come from?’ he repeated. ‘It was tied in your plaid wi the rest, woman, no sense in denying it-’

‘I never put it there!’ The manacles clinked again as Forveleth spread her hands. ‘I was never seeing it afore, I wouldny ken who had it nor who put it in my things, I am not wanting anything to do with it.’

‘That’s fortunate,’ said Otterburn, ‘for you’ll no see it again, save when it’s produced as evidence.’ He hefted the thing in his hand, and nodded to Livingstone. ‘Walter, where’s the counting-cloth? If you’d take the lot over to the window, maister, I’d be glad of anything you can tell me about it.’

‘Whose house were you sheltering in on Clerk’s Land?’ Gil asked Forveleth. He trawled through his memory for the names, and listed them. ‘Is someone there kin to you? Saunders the pewterer wi the screaming weans, Danny Bell the lorimer, Campbell the ill-tempered whitesmith, Dod Muir, Danny Sproat.’ He watched her carefully, but her expression did not alter. ‘I’d guess it was Campbell’s house. A kinsman, is he?’

‘He is not!’ she said quickly. ‘And nor his wife neither. There is no Campbells kin to me!’

‘That makes a change,’ said Gil. ‘So is that where you were sheltering? What took you there?’

‘I was not sheltering, I was just passing through the toft,’ she retorted, ‘when all on a sudden it was full of soldiers. Any decent woman would run from men of that kind.’ She spat in Gaelic again and glared at the two men who had escorted her in, who still stood on either side of her. One of them kneed her shoulder.

‘Less of that, you,’ he said sharply.

‘Marion,’ said Lowrie. Recovering her balance, she glanced up at him. ‘Why did you run? And the three men? Why did you all go off? You never thought we’d blame you for the old dame’s death, did you?’

‘Three men?’ she said, and bent her head.

‘Where are the men?’ Gil asked. She shrugged her shoulders, not looking up.

‘I’ve not saw them. I’m no their keeper.’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Otterburn impatiently. ‘Maister Cunningham, she’s to be turned over to the Serjeant, so if you want to ask her any more, ask at him.’ Gil nodded. ‘He might get some more out of her wi the pilliwinks, but I’d say we’d enough to charge her wi a good few things already.’ He watched as the prisoner was hauled to her feet, protesting. ‘Theft, possession of false coin, fleeing a murder scene, and probably murder as well. Take her away, lads. Right, Maister Livingstone, have you anything to tell us off these coins?’

Lowrie met Gil’s eye across the chamber, but did not speak. His uncle, who had spread the contents of the leather sack out across the squared counting-cloth on a stool by the window, and was sliding the thin coins about into different groups, did not reply at first; when Otterburn repeated the question he looked up and said,

‘Aye, aye, they’ve plenty to tell me. Bide a bittie till I — ah!’ He turned a coin over and back again, tilted it to the light, and put it carefully between two others. ‘That’s it, I’d say.’ He was still turning coins over, adding them to one pile or another. ‘These are struck wi two different sets of dies, Provost.’

‘Different coiners?’ asked Otterburn. ‘Are we looking for two workshops?’

‘No, no, I’d say not, for some of them-’ he turned another coin. ‘These threepenny pieces, some of them have one pattern on the reverse and some another, but the same head on them.’

‘One die has worn out?’ Gil suggested.

‘Aye, more like.’ The man’s fingers danced over the little heaps of coin. ‘See, here we’ve this head, a good copy of the second portrait of James Third, and on the reverse a cross and four mullets, where it should be a cross wi two mullets and two pellets. Now these ones are the same, and these, save that the die’s wearing away, you can scarce see one o the mullets and the head could be Queen Margaret for all you can discern.’

‘Is it no just the coin that’s worn?’ Otterburn asked.

‘It’s no worn. It’s as thick as the others.’ Livingstone tapped the offending coin with his fingernail. ‘I’d say the die wasny steel. Maybe brass or the like, something softer any road. Now here,’ he lifted four or five coins, which slithered in his hand like fish-scales. ‘Here we’ve a fresh head, wi ringlets, which the other never had, and the worn mullet on the reverse, and here we’ve the new head and a new reverse wi all showing clear.’

‘So what does that let me know?’ Otterburn asked, peering at the late king on one of the coins. Livingstone looked blankly at him for a moment, then assembled his thoughts.

‘Well. They’ve cut a set o dies, and used them to make all these,’ he waved a hand above the greater part of the heaped coins, ‘and then when they wore out they’ve cut a new set, first the head and then the cross. I’m no sure it-’

‘Cut?’ said Gil. ‘Not cast?’

‘No, that’s likely why they’re using brass,’ Livingstone said. ‘You can engrave it, see. It’s an easier process for your counterfeiter, you just need to draw the image on the end o the die and engrave it, no need to play about wi casting in iron and impressing on steel. If you’ve a man wi a good ee and a steady hand, it’s no great trouble.’

‘How easy is it to find sic a one?’ asked Otterburn. Livingstone shrugged.

‘Easy enough. When I’d charge o the Mint for the late king I could ha laid my hand on five or six in Edinburgh, within easy walk o the Mint, and likely the same again further about the town.’

‘Gets us nowhere much,’ said Otterburn. He tossed the coin in the air, caught it on the back of his hand. ‘Heads or crosses, maister?’

‘Heads,’ said Lowrie promptly. The Provost looked at him, half-smiling, and uncovered the coin. The cross with its four mullets greeted their gaze.

‘It was never her,’ said Ealasaidh, striding down the High Street beside Gil.

‘I’m agreed,’ said Lowrie, on her other side, ‘but what makes you say that?’

Gil dragged his mind from an unsatisfactory interview with the Serjeant. The man had been at pains to tell him that the carpenters at work in Canon Aiken’s house had left no mell or other such implement lying about, something Gil should have thought to check for himself, and had made clear his expectation of getting a confession out of Forveleth before noon. Torture was a valuable method of interrogation, Gil knew, but he disliked the thought of it applied to a woman.

‘She thought it was an apoplexy. Nor she never robbed the old woman of the blue velvet purse.’

‘She could be lying,’ Gil offered.

‘She could.’ Her tone made it clear she thought it unlikely.

‘Why did she say she had seen you before?’ Lowrie asked.

‘Och, that.’ She reddened again. ‘Foolishness. There is those that see things, and it means little. What will you do now, Maister Cunningham? Who will you question next?’

‘Sempill,’ said Gil, his heart sinking at the thought. Ealasaidh snorted. ‘And I should speak to your uncle’s household again, Lowrie.’

‘That should be easy enough arranged,’ said the young man. He drew a breath and went on, rather hesitantly, ‘Maister Gil, did Dame Isabella — when she spoke wi you — did she, did she say aught about me?’

‘About you?’ Gil paused, staring at him and trying to recall the conversation he had had with the deceased. ‘No, I’d say not. Should she have?’

‘No,’ said Lowrie hastily, reddening. Gil turned to move on, but Ealasaidh took hold of his arm.

‘Is that no Maister Mason’s boy?’ she asked, craning her neck to see through the groups of people in the busy street. ‘A good laddie, that. He is seeking someone.’

‘Maister Gil!’ said Luke, dodging round a group of women with baskets, their plaids bright in a sudden blink of sunshine. ‘Mistress.’ He doffed his cap to Ealasaidh and then to Gil, acknowledged Lowrie politely and stood in front of them, catching his breath. ‘The maister said I should tell you, Maister Gil.’

‘Tell me what?’ Gil gestured down the street, and they moved on.

‘About yestreen,’ Luke said earnestly. ‘See when the mistress sent me to the ’pothecary shop, and I got a great list o things, and she bade me ask for a sweetie myself, and I had one of the marchpane cherries-’ Gil repressed a shudder. He would never feel the same about marchpane cherries since last autumn. ‘Oh, and Jennet and me took the basket to the house wi the mermaiden on the door afore I started work the day, and they were right pleased wi the gift, said how it was awfy generous o the mistress. I never saw any lassies in their stays, but,’ he added with regret.

‘Is that what you were to tell me?’ Gil prompted.

‘No, no, it was this. When I told the maister of it he said you should hear it. I was talking wi Maister Syme, see, and I mentioned how strange it was that two o that old carline’s men should ha been in his shop right at the time she was killed-’ How did the boy know that? Gil wondered. Information seemed to travel round the burgh on the wind. ‘And Maister Syme said No, no, it was just the one. And the maister said I was to let you hear it. And another thing,’ Luke went on. ‘Lady Kate sent to say she’d be glad of your company a wee while the day, one of the wee lassies has something she wants to tell you.’ He judged Gil’s expression correctly, and added, ‘The mistress bade me say she thought it was something to the point.’