A Pig of Cold Poison

Chapter One

Although he was watching closely when the mummer was poisoned, it took Gil Cunningham several days and three more poisonings to work out how it was done.

There were many more people in the hall of his sister’s house than he had anticipated. The weather had been mild for late October, and not all the guests were in their winter-weight finery, so that the wide, light chamber and its two huge window bays each as big as another small room seemed to be crammed with furred wool set next to rustling taffeta-lined brocades, with a top-dressing of black silk hoods and jewelled hats. Gil, checking on the threshold with his wife on his arm, cast a glance round and muttered to Alys:

‘Sweet St Giles, she’s asked half the High Street. She’d never have noticed if I’d stayed at home.’

‘We have a good company,’ observed Alys’s father, the French master-mason, at Gil’s other side. Alys, ignoring them both, handed her plaid to the journeyman who had let them in, paused to ask after the man’s family, and went forward across the buzzing room to embrace her sister-in-law Kate, who sat enthroned beside the cradle, her crutches propped against the arm of the great chair and her gigantic waiting-woman on guard beside her.

Kate and her husband, Gil’s good friend Maister Augie Morison, had launched on the process of entertaining most of the burgh council of Glasgow and their families, in small batches, with the twofold purpose of showing off their newly extended house and their baby son to Morison’s fellow merchants. As the child’s godparents, Gil and Alys were naturally expected to be present at this first occasion, but Gil had obeyed his sister’s stringent invitation with some reluctance. He had a report to compile for his master the Archbishop of Glasgow, and two legal documents to compose before the week was out. Either would have been a preferable occupation for the afternoon, if he could not borrow a horse and ride out into the autumn sunshine. Instead here he was, in his good blue brocade, required to make civil conversation about nothing in a group of people he did not know well.

‘There is Francis Renfrew the apothecary,’ stated Maistre Pierre. ‘And Maister Hamilton. I suppose they would start with their neighbours, indeed. They had to suffer the worst while the building went on.’

‘Aye, Gil,’ said their host, appearing beside them. ‘And yourself, Pierre. I’m right glad to see you.’

‘How is Edward?’ asked Gil, nodding towards the cradle. Morison’s face broke into his lambent smile.

‘Oh, he’s well enough,’ he said, with unconvincing modesty. ‘I think he’s going to be a reader. He listened to every word on a page o Floris and Blanchflour last night.’

‘Do you tell me?’ said Maistre Pierre, suitably impressed. ‘At ten weeks of age?’

Gil preserved his countenance and gestured at the company.

‘Who have you got here today?’ he asked. ‘Looks like a town meeting.’

‘Not so many,’ pronounced Maistre Pierre. ‘There is Dod Wilkie the litster, who is Hamilton’s friend, and is that also Wat Forrest from the Drygate? It is to be hoped nobody falls ill today in the burgh, if both of the established apothecaries have closed up shop to admire wee Edward.’

‘It’s worse than that,’ confided Morison in amusement. ‘We’re to have the Play of Galossian acted later for the company, seeing it’s the season, and it seems young Bothwell, that has the potyngar’s booth at the Tolbooth, is one o the band I’ve asked in to play it. There won’t be a potyngar of any sort at liberty in the town. Bide there till I get you a glass, maisters, and then we’ll go talk to Adam and Dod yonder.’

He slipped away past three seated women. Gil identified Mistress Hamilton in ill-judged light blue velvet, Nancy Sproull the wife of Wilkie the dyer, and the hugely pregnant Meg Mathieson, second wife of Maister Renfrew the burgh’s senior apothecary. Meg shifted uncomfortably on her seat as his eye fell on her, but none of the three looked up from their intent dissection of someone else’s reputation, and Maistre Pierre said:

‘Galossian? Does he mean that tale of champions and death and healing?’

Gil nodded, still surveying the room.

‘I have never understood why such things should be seasonal.’

‘It always has been,’ Gil answered absently. ‘Any time from All Hallows Eve — ’

‘That is today,’ observed his father-in-law.

‘- to New Year. I suppose it celebrates the death of the old year and the coming of the new one. Out in Lanarkshire every parish has its own version, and the young men go about playing it in houses and farmyards and get rewarded with ale.’

‘Better, surely, to play out tales from Holy Writ,’ said Maistre Pierre in faint disapproval, accepting a brimming glass from Morison. ‘Your health, maister.’

Following his friend between the clustered backstools, Gil listened to the snatches of conversation. The chamber was not in fact as crowded as it had seemed at first sight, although all the guests had brought their ladies; unless one counted the baby and his nursemaid, and Morison’s small daughters and their stout black-browed nurse who were handing little cakes and sweetmeats, there were no more than two dozen people present, and most of the men had retired into one of the big new windows in a comfortable, argumentative group. In the further window, three women seemed to be discussing herbs for the complexion, two black cloth veils leaning together with one head of soft brown waves.

‘You want to choose him a young lassie, she’ll be by far more biddable.’ That was Francis Renfrew, striking in tawny velvet braided with crimson silk, his wide-brimmed bonnet close to Wat Forrest’s neat black felt.

‘That depends on the lassie, Frankie,’ observed Maister Forrest. ‘An older one will be the more grateful to get a husband.’

Whose marriage were they hatching? Gil wondered. Could Wat be turning his mind to his brother’s future? Adam had been a year ahead of Gil at the grammar school. He must be nearing thirty, it was full time he brought a wife and her dowry to the business in the Drygate, but by all accounts biddable was not a word to apply to Renfrew’s younger daughter.

An even less biddable lassie paused in front of him, holding her wooden platter up level with her chin so that he could reach it.

‘There’s two cakes each,’ she warned him, ‘and you get one of the marchpane cherries. But there’s plenty quince zozinzes.’

‘I’ll take a quince lozenge, then,’ Gil said, ‘and leave some cakes for other people. Thank you, Ysonde.’

His sister’s younger stepdaughter gave him another penetrating grey stare.

‘Some folk’s taking more than two cakes,’ she said. ‘If you don’t take one now you might not get any. Wynliane and me made them,’ she expanded. ‘Nan helped.’

‘I see.’ Gil took a cake obediently. ‘Has Mistress Alys had hers yet?’

‘Yes, and she said it was good.’ Ysonde waited. Realizing his duty, Gil took a cautious bite of the greyish morsel, and nodded with emphatic pleasure. ‘You can get another one if you like. But I’m not giving any more to him.’ She glowered at someone beyond Gil. ‘He laughed when I said how many, and then he took a great big handful.’

‘That was ill mannered,’ Gil agreed, swallowing the final crumbs. The little cake was perfectly edible; Nan Thomson, who was now shepherding the older girl out to the kitchen with an empty tray, must have had more to do with it than Ysonde would admit.

‘You didn’t bring your baby,’ she observed.

‘No, we didn’t,’ he agreed. And he isn’t our baby, he thought, and it’s beginning to matter. ‘John’s only two, so he couldn’t take the sweetmeats round like you and Wynliane. He’d eat them all.’

‘So he would,’ she agreed solemnly. ‘I’m not eating these ones. We kept ours back in the kitchen. Now you have to go and talk to people, Mammy Kate said.’

‘Is that right?’ Gil looked around him. ‘Who will I talk to?’

‘I don’t care.’ Ysonde tossed her head. ‘They’re all growed up and boring.’

She turned away and marched past Wat Forrest just as he said rather firmly, ‘Frankie, you ken fine my brother has another in mind. I see no purpose in arguing the matter.’

‘If he goes that road, you’ll rue it, Wat,’ responded Maister Renfrew, ‘and so will he.’ He rose and stalked off into the window bay, the set of his tawny velvet shoulders suggesting annoyance and indignation. Was that a threat? Gil wondered, and turned away, not wishing to catch Wat Forrest’s eye at such a moment.

As usual at events like this, the men and women were conversing separately. Alys, easy to find in her apricot-coloured taffeta, had settled beside her sister-in-law and was bending over the cradle with a sour-faced young woman in a huge Flemish hood whose black silk cap must surely be wired to make it stand up like that. The three women nearby were still intent on someone else’s reputation, but Agnes Hamilton, wife of Andrew Hamilton the master-carpenter, looked up briefly and smiled at Gil from among her chins.

In the nearer window the men had broken into smaller clumps. Renfrew had joined Maistre Pierre, who was already deep in conversation with Wat Forrest’s brother Adam and a small sturdy man in bright green broadcloth faced with sunshine yellow, Wilkie the dyer, who had probably not produced those difficult shades in his own workshop. Morison had moved on to speak to his neighbour Andrew Hamilton, and nearest to Gil two younger men he knew slightly were discussing apothecary business while the target of Ysonde’s displeasure, seated sideways on a backstool, swung one leg and stared at the painted beams above him, humming tunelessly.

Gil looked closer at this man. He had taken him at first for a stranger, but he was startled to find he recognized him. It was Nicol Renfrew, eldest son of the apothecary, who had been in the same year as Gil at the grammar school and who had been a strange, scrawny, twitching boy with restless hands and feet and a tendency to blurt out whatever remarks came into his mind, generally trimmed with foul language, which had got him beaten on a twice-daily basis despite his undoubted ability in Latin and geometry. Here he was, filled out, even slightly plump, calm and sleepy-eyed, smiling up at the painted vines. Hooking a stool closer with his foot, Gil sat down next him.

‘Aye, Nicol,’ he said. ‘I heard you were back in Glasgow.’

‘Gil Cunningham,’ said the other man after a moment, and produced a high-pitched chuckle. ‘So what you doing here? Did you ever see such a parcel of stuffed sarks, and the auld man the worst of them? I’d never ha come, but he insisted.’

Perhaps the man was less changed than he had thought. Gil ignored this remark, and went on, ‘Where is it you’ve been? The Low Countries? Did I hear it was Middelburgh?’

‘So they said,’ agreed Nicol vaguely, and waved a hand. ‘Could a been anywhere. They spoke Latin,’ he added. ‘And the Saracen tongue.’

‘What are you doing now you’re back?’ This was harder work than it should be. ‘Do you work with your father?’

Nicol shrugged one shoulder, and swung the foot again. ‘He’s no need of me. He’s got Jimmy Syme and my dear little brother, he’s not needing another to fetch and carry. So Agnes and Grace does that, when they’re not fetching for my new mammy.’

High Street gossip swirled in Gil’s head. Syme was Nicol’s brother-in-law, four or five years younger than him, wedded to the elder daughter perhaps two years since and now standing over yonder conversing stiffly with the same dear little brother, and Agnes was the younger girl. Whatever the older was called, it was not …

‘Grace?’ he queried.

‘My blessed wife.’

‘Your wife? Good wishes on the marriage. When was that?’

‘Last Yule, or thereabout.’ Nicol’s heavy-lidded gaze lifted above Gil’s head, and his vague expression warmed. ‘Speak of the devil.’

The woman moved forward from behind Gil as he rose to greet her. He had a swift impression of height and slenderness, a modest gown of dark silk brocade and foreign cut, then light grey eyes met his and he found himself read, assessed, evaluated, in the time it took her to curtsy and smile at him. She must be nearly his height, and fully as intelligent as Alys.

‘Introduce me, Nicol,’ she prompted, an odd lilt to her voice.

‘Grace,’ said Nicol offhandedly. ‘Gil Cunningham. We were at the grammar school,’ he enlarged.

‘Grace Gordon,’ she supplied resignedly, and leaned forward to kiss Gil in greeting. ‘I’m aye glad to meet a friend from Nicol’s boyhood.’

‘The surname explains the accent,’ Gil said, seating her and reaching for another stool.

‘Aye, I’m a Buchan lass,’ she agreed, ‘though I met Nicol in Middelburgh.’ A movement by the door to the kitchen stair caught her eye; she turned to look at the girl just crossing the chamber, and apologized. ‘I wonder what Agnes has been up to now?’

‘She likely stepped out to ease hersel,’ said her husband. ‘Leave the lass alone, why can’t you? She’s seventeen.’

‘That’s exactly why I can’t leave her alone,’ she said patiently, ‘and neither Meg nor Eleanor is fit to have an eye to her the now.’ Ah, that was the older daughter’s name, thought Gil, pleased to get that called back to mind. ‘Och, she’s brought Meg the lavender cushion, that’s all. She must have run round to the house. Forgive me, Maister Cunningham, I should leave family business at home. Aye, Nicol and I met in Middelburgh.’

‘You’ll find it damp here,’ Gil offered, as a harmless gambit.

‘I do, but at least I don’t miss the east wind.’

‘What’s to talk o but the weather?’ said Nicol irritably. ‘East wind, west wind, damp or cold, so? Even my faither canny sort that, whatever else he can order.’

‘Then tell me about this play we’re to see,’ said his wife. ‘Who might Galossian be? We’ve no tales o him in the nor’east, though we’ve plays enow. Is it comical, or are we like to weep at it, Maister Cunningham?’

‘Both, I suspect, depending on the acting,’ he offered, and she laughed, a sound as attractive as he had thought it might be. ‘It’s an old tale of battle and the hero’s death, with a doctor who comes in to cure him.’

‘And who plays the doctor? I hope it’s someone well qualified!’

‘I’ve no notion,’ Gil admitted. ‘Augie said it’s the company that young Bothwell from the Tolbooth runs with, so maybe he’ll take that part.’

‘Bothwell,’ said Nicol, and produced that high-pitched chuckle. ‘Tammas Bowster’s company, wi Bothwell playing the doctor?’

‘So Augie said.’

‘Tammas Bowster, and Nanty Bothwell from the Tolbooth. Galyngale ne lycorys Is not so swete as her love is. Does my faither ken yet, Grace, d’you think?’

‘I’ve no notion,’ she said quietly. Gil glanced from her to Maister Renfrew the elder, who was now deep in discussion with Maister Wilkie, opened his mouth to ask what the exchange meant, and found himself forestalled as Ysonde popped up in front of him.

‘Mammy Kate wants you,’ she said abruptly. ‘But you’re no to make Baby Floris cry.’

She disappeared back into the crowd as swiftly as she had appeared, leaving him wondering if he had heard right. Nicol had just quoted Floris and Blanchflour, and then …

‘Oh, you heard right,’ said Kate when he reached her. Alys, still hanging over the sleeping infant, looked up, her eyes full of laughter. ‘Never mind that now, Gil, have you heard yet what Augie’s done? It’s young Bothwell’s company he’s asked to play Galossian for us. I thought Renfrew would have an apoplexy when I told him myself just now.’

‘So Augie told me,’ Gil said. ‘Is it a difficulty, Kate?’

‘You could say that, Maister Gil,’ pronounced her wait-ing-woman Babb from behind the great chair.

‘It is,’ Kate said anxiously, looking about her. ‘Where is Agnes Renfrew?’

‘Yonder with Nell Wilkie,’ said Alys, pointing into the window without raising her hand from the carved rim of the cradle. Glancing that way, Gil identified the two unmarried girls, the bare heads tilted together so that gold curls and oak-brown waves mingled. Wat Forrest’s wife was with them, and seemed to find their conversation amusing. ‘And, Kate,’ Alys went on, ‘is the armourer’s lad not in the same company?’

‘Aye, Mistress Alys, he is,’ agreed Babb. ‘He plays the hero, they tell me. And the glover’s in it and all, playing Judas that does all the speaking.’

‘Dan Gibson and Tammas Bowster,’ said Kate, and sat back. Finding Mistress Hamilton looking at her across the chamber she smiled brightly, and said, so only Gil and Alys could hear, ‘Trust Augie, he never knows — Gil, we must just make the best of it, and hope the lassie behaves, but will you be on the alert for any trouble? And I don’t like the look of Meg Mathieson, either. I never expected her to be here.’

‘Best of what?’ Gil asked. ‘I don’t think I know any more than Augie.’

‘The apothecary and the armourer lad’s both been courting her all year,’ said Babb with relish. ‘But she canny decide which she favours.’

‘And her father favours neither,’ Alys completed.

‘So that’s what Nicol meant.’

Ysonde materialized beside them, peered possessively into the cradle, and said, ‘You leave our baby alone. That’s Mammy Kate’s baby. Mammy,’ she went on, before any of the adults could react, ‘there’s men in the kitchen talking to Ursel, and one of them’s got his face all black, and one of them’s wearing a bed-sheet. Is that for the play?’

‘A bed-sheet?’ said Kate in surprise. ‘Over his clothes?’

‘No.’ Ysonde reflected briefly on this. ‘On his head.’

The journeyman who had admitted them earlier appeared at the kitchen door and crossed the chamber to his master, who heard what he had to say and clapped his hands for silence.

‘The players are here, neighbours,’ he announced. ‘If we make oursels ready, they’ll be up any time to entertain us.’

Two sorts of bustle began at his words, the women shifting chairs and arranging themselves with Babb’s help, the men drifting reluctantly into the main chamber from the window space. Morison’s household clattered in from the kitchen and retired to a corner, the grizzled steward Andy glaring sternly at the younger maidservants, who had a tendency to giggle. Gil watched all in some amusement, having found himself a place against the wall.

‘Och, it’s only the old play,’ said one of the two girls Alys had pointed out. ‘What’s so wonderful?’

‘Guard your tongue, Nell,’ said the dyer’s wife briskly, and thrust a backstool at her daughter. ‘Here, set that for Meg, next Lady Kate, and come and get another.’

So that was Nell Wilkie, with the soft brown hair, a comely young woman but nowhere near as striking as her friend. Agnes was a plump little soul, with a head of gold curls, a pretty face, huge blue eyes, and a kissable mouth. A wise father would have had her married off before now, which probably meant that Maister Renfrew was not wise where his younger daughter was concerned. The cut and quality of her blue silk gown suggested the same.

‘There is Maister Renfrew’s new wife,’ commented Maistre Pierre in his ear. ‘Meg Mathieson. I am surprised she has come out. Do you suppose it is twins?’

‘No way to tell,’ said Gil, watching Agnes seat her burgeoning stepmother, place an assortment of cushions at her back and hand her a fan of swan’s feathers. ‘Could be a consort of four voices, by the size of her.’

His father-in-law guffawed, then straightened his face hastily as Maister Renfrew passed them, towing his younger son by the sleeve of his green brocade gown.

‘You’ll stand by your sister,’ he was saying, ‘and oversee her behaviour, and no argument from you.’

‘She’s none of my — ’ began the young man, a handsome youth if he had not been at the spotty stage, and swallowed as his father turned to glare at him. ‘Aye, sir.’

Neither Agnes nor her stepmother seemed pleased to see their menfolk; Agnes greeted her brother with a sniff and a flounce of her blue silk skirts and the stepmother, not many years older, eyed her husband warily as if uncertain of his mood. He smiled kindly at her, which seemed to alarm her more, patted her shoulder and turned away to join Gil and Maistre Pierre, tucking himself in beside the mason’s wide furred gown.

‘I’ll just stand ower here,’ he said softly, ‘where Meg canny see me. She’s the sizey a house, you’d think she was carrying a football team, and it makes her carnaptious.’

It took perhaps a quarter-hour of stir and argument to get the company seated in a half-circle round the door which led to the kitchen stair. Mistress Hamilton was in a draught, Nancy Sproull the dyer’s wife could not see past Eleanor Renfrew’s headdress and Andrew Hamilton the younger, all of thirteen and very grown-up in dark brown broadcloth, had to be separated from a glass of Dutch spirits his parents had not seen him acquire. Gil dealt with that for Kate without alerting either parent, the other problems were solved, the two little girls settled at Kate’s feet, Nicol Renfrew was persuaded to move his backstool beside his wife’s, and the audience was declared ready.

Morison nodded to his steward, who signalled in turn to a journeyman standing ready by the door, and the man slipped out to the kitchen. A distant set of ill-tuned small-pipes struck up a discordant noise; feet sounded on the stairs, there were three loud knocks on the door, and it was flung wide.

‘Haud away rocks, haud away reels!’ began a stentorian voice, and Judas entered.

Gil knew two or three versions of the play, but had not seen this company perform before. The other actors filed in behind the piper, whose small-pipes were eventually silenced, and bowing to their audience launched into the traditional song about Hallowe’en while their Bessie wielded a broom inexpertly round the legs of stools and backstools. They carried garlands of coloured paper and withies; their costumes were the usual mix of old clothes and ingenuity, discarded gowns turned to the lining, card mitres for Judas and St Mungo painted and stuck with gold braid, the Bessie character with plaits of horsehair dangling from her vast linen headdress, a bedspread train pinned to her ample waist. The two champions wore real, rather battered armour, though their swords were of wood, and one had his face blacked with soot. Gil had seen both combatants in the armourer’s workshop. Which of them was Agnes’s fancy? he wondered.

Judas was declaiming his next speech now, announcing the coming fight. His acting style was striking, ornamented with huge dramatic gestures which bore no relation to the words he was using, so far as those could be understood; the accent used by Lanarkshire folk on a stage had always puzzled Gil.

The young apothecary from the Tolbooth was indeed playing the doctor in an imposing tall hat of black paper. He was a stocky fellow, buttoned into a too-long gown tucked up over a shabby belt of scarlet leather, a vast scrip hanging at his side. He had glanced once at Agnes Renfrew, conspicuous in her blue silk, then stood silent against the wall while all were introduced.

‘If you don’t believe the word I say,’ Judas ended, with sudden clarity, ‘call for Alexander of Macedon, and he’ll show the way! Alexander! Alexander! Alexander!’

‘I know Alexander,’ announced Ysonde. ‘Our Da’s got a poetry book about him.’

Her sister shushed her, but Judas bowed to her, and declared, ‘Aye, bonnie young lady, and here he comes the now!’

The black-faced champion came forward into the acting space, saluted the company with his sword, mumbled Alexander’s speech about how he had conquered the world except for Scotland, and summoned Galossian as the champion of all Scotland to come forth and fight him. As the champion’s name was called the requisite three times, Gil found Maistre Pierre’s elbow in his ribs, drawing his attention to Maister Renfrew on the mason’s other side.

One glance, and Gil shared his father-in-law’s concern. The apothecary’s face was engorged with apparent rage, a vein throbbing wildly in his temple under the silk bonnet whose crimson matched his brow and cheeks, his bulging eyes fixed on Agnes, who in turn was gazing adoringly at the young man in the buttoned gown. Gil was just in time to see her brother nudge her, and then pinch her arm viciously. A commotion of her skirts suggested she had kicked him in return.

‘Frankie, you should sit down,’ suggested Maistre Pierre quietly, putting his hand on the apothecary’s arm. Renfrew started at the touch, and looked round, gasping for breath. On the other side of the room Augie Morison had noticed and was watching anxiously.

‘Will I find you a seat?’ Gil asked, while Galossian detailed his defence of Scotland. The man could speak well, but the tale seemed to involve more giants and other heroes than other versions. Renfrew shook his head, but reeled as he did so, and Gil nodded to Morison, slipped quietly past the apothecary and fetched one of the green leather backstools from the nearer window space. Once persuaded to sit down, Renfrew shut his eyes for a moment, then reached for his purse, opened it clumsily and fumbled within for a small flask of painted pottery, which he unstopped and tipped to his mouth. Whatever it contained, its effect was rapid; the man’s breathing settled, his colour began to improve. The people nearest had turned to look, but the players were reaching the exchange of insults between the two champions, and their distraction was brief. Morison, watching carefully, relaxed and sat back.

‘I’m well,’ said Renfrew irritably, waving his free hand at them. ‘Leave me be, I’m well.’

‘I stay with him,’ said Maistre Pierre quietly. Gil nodded, and returned to his place; across the intervening landscape of black silk French or Flemish hoods his sister caught his eye, but he shook his head. Beyond her Alys smiled at him, and turned her attention to the play, where to the chil-dren’s delight the champion of Scotland, describing his armour, had just reached the immortal line:

‘My arse is made of rumpel-bone! I’ll slay you in the field!’

St Mungo handed his garland to the Bessie and stepped forward, straightening his mitre. ‘Here are two warriors going to fight,’ he intoned, ‘who never fought before. Galossian bids you cheer him on, or he’ll be slain in all his gore. A-a-amen.’

The champions bowed formally to one another and to Kate as the lady of the house. Then, apparently taking his opponent by surprise, Galossian swung on his heel, bowed and performed a crashing salute of sword on buckler, his eyes fixed on Agnes Renfrew. Agnes went scarlet; several of the older ladies nodded with sentimental approval, but Maister Renfrew’s colour rose again and by the wall the young apothecary in his buttoned gown looked grim.

‘Lay on, lay on!’ ordered Alexander rather desperately. ‘I’ll rug you down in inches in less than half an hour!’

‘He said that before,’ observed Ysonde.

Galossian turned, took up an obviously rehearsed position, and the fight began. Gil, watching critically, felt it had been carefully practised, and amounted to a display. It was certainly very impressive, with much shouting, stamping, and crashing of the wooden swords on the leather-covered bucklers, and ranged right across the chamber and back again. The players cheered both warriors impartially, and when St Mungo encouraged them again the audience joined in. The two little girls squeaked and shrieked with excitement, young Andrew Hamilton forgot his sulks and jumped up and down, and at length, with a mighty blow which only just missed his helm, Alexander was struck down. He fell his length, and Galossian raised his sword in response to the audience’s cheers, then fell on top of his enemy.

‘Why’s he dead?’ Ysonde asked. ‘He winned!’

Nicol Renfrew produced that high-pitched laugh. St Mungo stepped forward again, and declared the champion slain, while the Bessie attempted to sweep both corpses off the stage.

‘A doctor!’ exclaimed Judas. ‘A doctor for Poor Jack!’ The entire company called for a doctor, in a deep mutter which made Kate’s older stepdaughter scramble on to her knee, shivering. ‘Ten merks for a doctor!’ said Judas.

The mutter changed to a a strange, hissing, grumbling, Here-he-is-here-he-is-here-he-is, at which Gil felt the back of his neck crawl, and Wynliane whimpered and buried her head in Kate’s sleeve. The young apothecary stepped away from the wall, and marched forward importantly, elbows akimbo.

‘Here comes I, a doctor, as good a doctor as Scotland ever bred.’

Kate was coaxing the little girls to look up and watch the funny man. The dialogue continued, much hindered by the Bessie, with the old, old jokes localized for Glasgow (Where have you travelled? Three times round the Indies and the Dow Hill, and twice across Glasgow Brig) and the long recital of what this doctor claimed to cure (The itch, the stitch, the maligrumphs, the lep, the pip, the blaen, the merls, the nerels, the blaes, the spaes and the burning pintle.) The women laughed at that, the men ignored the joke, Judas and the doctor bargained at length over his fee while the two slain champions lay getting their breath back, and finally the doctor opened his scrip, announcing loudly:

‘I’ve a wee bottle here that hangs by my side, will raise a man that’s been seven year in the grave.’

He held up a little flask of painted pottery, very like the one Maister Renfrew had taken from his own purse, paused for a fraction of a moment, and pointed to it with the other hand.

‘Seven year?’ repeated Judas. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Twelve herbs for the twelve apostles,’ began the doctor, ‘and three for the Blessed Trinity — ’

Gil looked round the room. Most of the audience was engrossed, laughing at the by-play between Judas and the Bessie, who had clearly worked together before. Grace Gordon sat by her husband, elegant and modest, hands folded in her lap, watching the doctor intently, critically. Agnes Renfrew was also gazing at the doctor, her father and brother were both glowering at her again, Andrew Hamilton the elder had fallen asleep, Nancy Sproull was looking thoughtfully at Renfrew’s wife.

‘Two drops to Jack’s toes and one drop to Jack’s nose,’ pronounced the doctor. He drew the stopper with a flourish, frowned at the little flask, and bent to apply the treatment. Judas and the Bessie stepped silently backwards while, beside the tight-lipped Maister Renfrew, Maistre Pierre wondered audibly why the hero had changed his name. ‘Rise up, Jack, and sing us a song!’

‘I canny,’ protested the recumbent Jack.

‘Why no?’

‘I’ve a hole in my back would hold a sheep’s heid!’

‘We’ll ha to repeat the treatment.’ The doctor bent with another flourish. ‘Three drops to your beak and two to your bum. Rise up, Jack.’

Jack scrambled up, grinning under his helm, rubbed at his mouth and then raised both arms in a champion’s salute when the audience applauded. Alexander got to his feet, St Mungo came forward again, and the actors all launched into the final part of the play, a mix of traditional songs about Hallowe’en and improvised compliments to the company present. While they sang Jack rubbed occasionally at his mouth, and cast languishing glances at Agnes Renfrew, who studiously ignored him while her father glared at her and the piper went round with a green brocade purse decked with ribbons, shaking it hopefully at the audience.

‘What, have we to pay for them to finish?’ demanded Nicol Renfrew, and laughed again. His wife patted his arm, and drew up her dark silk skirts to find the purse hanging between gown and kirtle; around her the other women were doing the same, and the men were reluctantly fishing at belts or in sleeves. By the time the piper reached Gil his purse was well filled and jingling. Gil added his contribution and a word of praise, and the man grinned and moved on.

The actors were still working through the Hallowe’en songs. Alexander had caught his breath, and was singing lustily, but Jack was breathing hard. What for fighting and blood he bled, Greysteil was never so hard be-sted, Gil thought. It occurred to him that the player was becoming redder in the face rather than recovering a normal colour. The doctor, next in line, threw the champion an anxious look, spoke to him under cover of the singing. Jack shook his head, and then reeled, staggered, caught at Judas’s sleeve and went down on his knees, dragging the other man’s reversed gown off his shoulders as he fell.

‘Rise up, Jack!’ hissed Judas, hitching up his gown. One or two people laughed doubtfully, but Jack went on down, sprawling on the polished wooden planks of the floor. Judas bent to lift him, but could not get him to his feet; the other players sang on with determination as the fallen man was dragged aside. Gil, getting a closer view of the red face and rapid breathing, came to a swift conclusion. Whatever ailed him, the man was badly stricken. The children should not see this.

He looked across the chamber to find the servants, and caught the eye of the nurse Nan. Jack’s feet shuddered in the beginnings of a convulsion, Judas exclaimed in alarm, and before anyone else moved Gil picked his way through the audience, lifted Ysonde from her post at Kate’s feet, grasped Wynliane’s wrist and drew her after him. Nan met him at the door to the upper stairs as the exclamations began.

‘Let me go!’ said Ysonde, trying to squirm free. ‘Want to see the end!’

‘It’s ended,’ said Gil. ‘There’s no more play. Go with Nan, poppets.’

Nan, her black brows startling in a face pinched with sudden alarm, nodded thanks to him and gathered the indignant children to her.

‘Come, we’ll go up and make the baby’s bath ready,’ she prompted. ‘Maister Gil’s right, the play’s ended.’

Gil stood at the door until they vanished up the stairs, then turned to look at the scene in the hall. His sister was staring at him, her hands clenched on the rim of the cradle, Alys had risen in her place, all the apothecaries in the room had converged on the fallen mummer, and the rest of the audience was still gaping, trying to work out what had happened. His eye fell on Grace Gordon, sitting tense and pale beside her husband, gaze fixed on the man’s quivering feet.

‘Gil!’ said Kate sharply. ‘What’s happened to the man?’

‘Is it poison, do you think?’ said Maistre Pierre beside him.

‘I fear so. Assuming he hasn’t taken an apoplexy,’ Gil qualified, ‘or dropped with the plague.’

‘Plague?’ repeated the woman nearest him in sudden alarm. Eleanor Renfrew, he noted, annoyed with himself for using the word aloud. ‘Is it — is that —?’

‘No, no,’ said Maistre Pierre soothingly, ‘your father will tell us in a moment, mistress. I am sure there is nothing for us to worry about.’

‘Get the armour off him,’ recommended Maister Wilkie from his post near the window. ‘It’s likely stopping him breathing.’

‘What’s best to do for him, maisters? Should we carry him to a bed?’ asked Morison, on the margin of the group kneeling round the mummer. They ignored this; they were consulting in tones of slightly forced civility, while Judas and the other players stared at them and Anthony Bothwell, still clutching the bright pottery flask, said incredulously:

‘What’s come to him? His breath was short — is it the armour right enough?’

‘The heart is very slow,’ pronounced James Syme, one hand at the pulse in the mummer’s throat, ‘and there is a great excess of choler, judging by the colour of his skin.’

‘The breathing is getting more rapid,’ observed Wat Forrest gravely, ‘and shallower.’ His brother nodded, practised fingers on the stricken man’s wrist.

‘He’s been eating almonds, you can smell them,’ contributed Robert Renfrew. ‘That’s warm and moist. It’s led to a sudden imbalance, maybe — ’

‘It’s waur than that, Robert. I suspect — ’ said Robert’s father heavily. The five of them exchanged solemn looks, and the others nodded.

‘Aye, Frankie,’ agreed Wat Forrest. ‘I’m agreed.’

‘Agreed on what?’ demanded Morison. ‘What can we do for the poor fellow?’

They looked up, and Maister Renfrew got to his feet.

‘A priest,’ he said. ‘We should carry him to bed and bleed him, and I’ll send Robert for the needful to make a cataplasm to his feet, but a priest is the most urgent matter.’ He looked about the high light chamber, over the shocked faces. ‘Well, Agnes,’ he said brutally, ‘so much for making your own choice, lassie, for here’s the one of your sweethearts has slain the other.’

Someone screamed.

‘What?’ said Bothwell in horror. ‘I never — I didny — and it was only a couple drops touched his mouth, he never even swallowed — it must ha been something he ate — ’

‘Cold pyson,’ said Renfrew, ‘and powerful at that, if a few drops can kill a man, and we all saw you minister it, my lad.’ He stepped forward, and snatched the painted pottery flask from the other man’s hand, and held it up. ‘What could be in this, to slay him in the space of a few Aves?’

‘No!’ Bothwell protested, and turned to look at Agnes Renfrew, who had risen to her feet and was staring white-faced and horrified at her father. ‘No, it wasny — ’

‘Small use to deny it,’ declared Renfrew, ‘and by Christ I’ll see you hang for it, man, for I’m master of our mystery in this burgh and I’ll not have the profession brought into disrepute in this way. Seize and hold him, Wat, Adam, and I’ll thank you to send for the Serjeant, Augie.’

‘No!’ said Bothwell again. The Forrest brothers grasped his shoulders, and he looked from one to the other of them, appalled, but did not struggle. ‘No, I never!’

The stricken mummer’s feet drummed on the floor in another convulsion, and his breath rattled. Augie stared at him in distress, crossed himself, then turned to find his men with quick instructions. As two of the journeymen vanished down the kitchen stair Gil stepped forward to intervene.

‘I’m none so certain it’s Bothwell’s doing,’ he observed. ‘Why would anyone choose to minister pyson to the man like this, in front of as many witnesses?’

‘Why would I pyson any man, let alone Dan Gibson?’ demanded Bothwell, staring round at a ring of hostile faces. ‘He’s a good fellow, we’ve aye been — save for us both — and she, she, she favours me so far’s — ’

‘Aye, and little use in that,’ said Renfrew with satisfaction, ‘for I’d other plans for the lass long afore this. Here, Robert, here’s the key to the workroom, you ken what to fetch.’

‘Are you saying,’ said Dod Wilkie, suddenly catching up with matters, ‘the man’s deid, Frankie?’

‘Deid?’ shrieked someone across the chamber.

‘As good as,’ said Wat Forrest.

Kate pulled herself out of her chair, took her crutches from Babb, and thumped forward, saying firmly, ‘Bear him into the next chamber, poor man, and lay him on the bed. You his friends can stay with him or go down to the kitchen as you think best, and Ursel will bring you some aquavit, which I’ve no doubt you could do with. Jamesie, Eck,’ two of the journeymen started and came forward, ‘fetch a rope and take over fro Maister Forrest. And for the rest of us, neighbours …’ She looked about her, gathering up attention despite the rival attractions in the chamber, and smiled crookedly. ‘I’d planned a few diversions for Hallowe’en, ducking for apples and the like, but it hardly seems right now. When the Serjeant gets here he’ll likely want to get our witness to what happened — ’

‘I never saw,’ said someone hastily, ‘for I was talking to Barbara here.’

‘I did,’ said another voice, ‘I saw him shake the bottle to stir up the pyson — ’

‘No, I — ’ began Bothwell.

Somebody uttered a heartfelt groan.

‘So we’ll need to wait here,’ continued Kate, as the limp form of the champion was borne out of the room by two of the other mummers. The apothecaries followed in a solemn group. ‘Andy, would you and Ursel have them bring up more wine and another bite to eat.’

‘We’ll no all can stay here,’ pronounced Nancy Sproull from her post beside Renfrew’s wife. ‘We need to get Meg home to her own chamber, or she’ll be here longer than you care for, Lady Kate.’

‘Never say it, Nancy!’ said Renfrew, turning back from the door.

‘Oh, I’ll say it, Frankie, whether you choose or no.’ She laid a portentous hand on Mistress Mathieson’s belly, and nodded as the younger woman gasped and the great dome heaved under her touch. ‘Her time’s on her.’

‘So she was right about her dates, then,’ said Renfrew.

‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ said Maistre Pierre.

There was an appalled pause, into which Mistress Mathieson delivered another shuddering groan. Then Nicol Renfrew said, with his high-pitched laugh:

‘No doubt of the brat being yours, Faither, when it picks sic a moment to arrive.’