A Pig of Cold Poison

Chapter Fourteen

Riding through the dark, as fast as one might with the lanterns held low, with two good men beside him and the horses shying at shadows and owls, Gil found his thoughts churning round and round in the events of the night.

He had been surprised, returning to the house with his father-in-law, not to find Alys waiting to hear what they had observed. (Though that was little enough, commented a small part of his mind now.) Seeing their lodging in darkness, he had assumed she must be abed already. He and Pierre had sat down to discuss the evening over a jug of ale without reaching any new conclusions, and he had made his way through the drawing-loft to join his wife, only to find the bed cold and empty, and an apologetic dog trying to explain that his mistress had gone out without him, and he needed to go down to the courtyard urgently.

Pierre and the maidservants had been as astonished as Gil. They had searched anxiously for Alys through the sprawling house, half-certain she had fallen on one of the stairs or fainted in a deserted storeroom; they had checked the garden, the bathhouse, the privy. Catherine, finally disturbed at her prayers, had not seen Alys since shortly after he and Pierre had left the house, but suggested that she might have gone to see Kate.

‘She gains great comfort from talking to your sister, maistre,’ she said formally to Gil. ‘She may not have noticed how late it is. Or perhaps,’ she added, ‘she had more questions for the women at the apothecary’s house.’

‘But to go out alone!’ worried Maistre Pierre. ‘She never does so, not this late!’

‘I’ll step round to Kate’s house now,’ said Gil, ‘and then try the Renfrew house. Though I’d have thought their woman would have said if she was there before we left.’

The dog at his heels, he made his way down the dark street. The torches on the house corners were burning low, but there was enough light to see by; at Morison’s Yard he found the double gates barred, and scrambled up long enough to crane over them and check that the house was in darkness. It must be past eleven o’clock, small wonder they were all abed. Alys could not be here.

There were still lights in the Renfrew house. He banged on the shop door with the hilt of his dagger, and after a while a shutter opened overhead and Syme’s voice said warily, ‘Who’s that at the door?’

‘It’s me, Gil Cunningham,’ he said, stepping back to see the man as a dark shape leaning from the window. ‘Has my wife been here?’

‘Your wife?’ Syme repeated. ‘No that I ever — bide there and I’ll ask.’

Gil stood on the doorstep, fidgeting, wondering where to seek next if there was no trace here. After a surprising length of time he heard the house door unbarred, and a streak of light fell out. He took one long step into the pend and found himself face to tearstained face with Eleanor Renfrew, fully clothed and holding a candle.

‘She’s not here,’ she said. ‘But nor is my fool of a brother nor his wife.’

‘It’s true,’ agreed Syme behind her. ‘Nicol and Mistress Grace are gone, and taken all their gear wi them. And afore the funeral, too! I can see no sign that Mistress Mason was here the day.’

‘No sign,’ Gil said blankly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure enough,’ said Eleanor. She peered at him over the candle, then stood back. ‘Is she not at home? You’d best come in out the cold and make certain yoursel.’

‘My wife has been here all day,’ said Syme, putting a possessive hand on her shoulder, ‘but maybe Mistress Mason wouldny disturb her if she was resting. I’ve not seen her myself.’

‘Have you asked the servants if they saw her?’ Gil demanded abruptly. ‘Or Mistress Baillie? Or Mistress Grace?’ At Grace’s name the sense of Syme’s first remark finally reached him. ‘Grace and Nicol? Did you say they’ve left the house?’

‘Taken their gear and gone, and my faither no buried yet,’ Eleanor said, nodding. She looked like someone who had taken one blow too many to the head. ‘It’s like the bairns’ rhyme, first one goes and then another. There’s just me and wee Marion left of the family.’ She giggled faintly, sounding very like her brother, and turned away to light the candles on the pricket-stand. The shadows retreated into the corners of the hall, and Syme said gently:

‘And your good-mother, and me, lass. And your own bairn soon.’

‘Alys has been here,’ said Gil with certainty. Both Eleanor and her husband turned to look at him. He nodded at the plate-cupboard, where a candle-box and two wooden candlestocks stood waiting for whoever needed them. Next to them was a lantern, a square copper object with real glass windows and a trailing chain. ‘That’s our lantern. I know it well. Pierre has four like that which he brought from France.’

In the chamber which Nicol and his wife had occupied the hangings were still on the bed, the furnishings still in place, but kist and shelf were empty, no clothes hung on the pegs behind the door, a cavernous space under the bed spoke of items removed.

‘You see?’ said Eleanor triumphantly. ‘I was right, they’ve left, and taken all wi them.’ She stepped past him, holding her candle high, and the shadows bobbed as she crossed the room to open a further door. ‘Even her workroom stripped bare, though gie her her due, she’s left Frankie’s glassware.’

‘Workroom?’ repeated Gil, following her, the dog’s claws clicking at his heels. Andro had never mentioned a workroom; had he even searched it? ‘This was Mistress Grace’s workroom?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Eleanor. ‘See, Agnes and me lodged here afore I was wedded, and made use of the workroom for making of sweetmeats and the like, so we wereny under Frankie’s feet. Which suited us just fine, I can tell you,’ she added with a flicker of her usual manner. ‘So Agnes being lodged in the main house, in the end chamber under Frankie’s eye ever since I left, Meg put Nicol and Grace in here when they came home.’

Never say that, Nicol had said. Gil did not comment, but looked round the small closet in the candlelight. Bulbous glass gleamed, jars of glazed pottery caught the light, a microcosm of the workroom behind the shop. The brazier was cold. There was a lingering smell of -

Yes, of apples.

‘Their passage was booked from Dumbarton,’ he said over the sudden thumping of his heart. ‘Do you know what vessel? How would they get there?’

‘Surely by boat,’ said Syme from the doorway. ‘They had such a quantity of baggage, it would take two days to reach Dumbarton on a cart at this time of year.’

‘They came upriver by boat in May,’ said Eleanor, and giggled again. Socrates emerged from the workroom and cast about the main chamber, pausing at the bench with his long nose jammed against the cushion. He padded back to Gil’s side and nudged his hand, whining faintly.

Syme, consigning his wife to the care of a weary Mistress Baillie, had accompanied him to the riverbank. They had gained little there; the fisher community, its hours dictated by the tides as much as by the daylight, was awake and stirring but the best information Gil could extract was of a great stushie two or three hours since, when Stockfish Tam’s passengers, bound for Dumbarton, had turned up wi a great load of boxes and barrels on a handcart and an extra -

‘An extra passenger?’ he repeated, heart thumping again. ‘Who was it, do you ken?’

His informant spat inaccurately in the direction of the river. ‘Naw. Just I heard what he was telling them. More boxes than they’d tellt him, an extra chiel to carry, lucky if the boatie reached Partick. Mind, there was only the two of them standing there arguing,’ he added.

‘Did they — ’ Gil swallowed — ‘did all go in the boat in the end?’

‘There’s the handcart yonder, standing empty. Once they’d agreed the extra groat,’ said the man, grinning in the light of Gil’s lantern, ‘it all packed in right enough. They’ll be past Renfrew by now, wi this wind, seeing they left just afore the top o the tide.’

‘You never saw the extra passenger?’

‘Naw.’ The man turned away towards his own boat, leaving Gil staring after him.

‘If Mistress Mason was unwilling to go along wi them,’ said Syme diffidently at his elbow, ‘they might dose her wi Nicol’s drops till she couldny stand upright.’ He put a sympathetic hand on Gil’s arm. ‘If they’ve taken her wi them, she’s no harmed, maister.’

That was true, he recognized, standing there in the midnight with Glasgow whirling round him. They would scarcely take so much trouble if they had — if she was -

‘I must ha been right,’ continued Syme, ‘though it’s no pleasure to think it. Frankie’s death was never natural, if Nicol’s up and run like this, and taken Mistress Mason for a hostage.’

‘Land or water?’ Gil said aloud, hardly hearing him. ‘I must catch them.’

‘Ye’ll be faster by land,’ said the man he had spoken to, looking up from whatever he was doing. ‘There’s no a boatie on the Clyde can out-sail Stockfish Tam’s Cuthbert, even wi a burthen like yon. You’ll be at Dumbarton afore them, on a good horse, and you’ll ha what’s left of the moon in a few hours and all.’

‘I’ll ride wi you,’ said Syme.

Now, with Syme and the mason’s youngest man Luke, he pressed on through the night, plaid wound firmly against the wind, dimly grateful for the absence of rain, his mind churning with hideous visions of Alys bound, injured, terrified. And why had she ventured out to the Renfrew house alone? What had taken her -

She must have thought matters through, and come to some conclusion. And then what? Had she gone to ask for some final scrap of information, and alerted Grace or Nicol to her suspicions? That could surely have waited till the morning, and in any case she had more sense than risk an encounter with someone they thought guilty, after the time out in Lanarkshire.

He pulled his plaid tighter and settled down in the saddle, following Luke’s piebald horse through the dark, the lantern held down at the lad’s stirrup showing them the next few steps of the road. What had altered since suppertime? What new information had reached them, to prompt Alys to action? The letter from the apothecary in Edinburgh, of course, with the information about the poison. Apple pips. The fragments Adam Forrest showed him must have been apple pips, not almonds, and the workroom had smelled of apples.

But an apple pip was a small thing. What quantity must one need to make up a flask of poison such as came into Bothwell’s hand on Hallowe’en? There were five or ten at most in one apple, so how many apples must one slice open to get a cupful? Enough to make one very ill, or to make a very large dish of applemoy, or perhaps some sweetmeat or other. It kept coming back to sweetmeats, he thought, and suddenly recalled Frankie Renfrew complaining about apple-cheese. Robert had said, We’ve apple-cheese in plenty, and later his father had remarked sourly that Grace was a great one for making the stuff. Grace, who had stripped the room where her father-in-law died. Who had expressed what seemed like genuine regret at Robert’s death. As well she might, thought Gil, if she had brewed the poison that slew him.

Grace, he recalled with a chill down his back, who had saved John’s life. We owe her a debt for life, Alys had said. A debt which was more than enough to prompt Alys to warn her that she must be suspected. That must be why she had gone to the Renfrew house. He wondered why he was not angry at the idea, and found he was more angry with Nicol and with Grace, for repaying her in this way. He knew some of his wife’s ideas on justice, and felt they were probably nearer to God’s justice than to canon law. The question of explaining things to his master the Archbishop or even to the Provost could be dealt with later, after he had Alys safe, after -

‘Maister?’ Ahead of him, Luke checked. ‘There’s a fellow on the track, maister.’

‘Who’s there?’ A voice from the darkness in front of them, a moving shadow which made Luke’s horse stamp uneasily. ‘Who’s there at this hour?’

‘Who’s abroad i the night like this?’ said Syme nervously behind Gil. ‘Is it thieves?’

‘I’d ask you the same. Who are you?’ Gil reined in beside Luke. ‘We’re bound for Dumbarton. Are you afoot? Alone?’

‘Aye.’ The man came closer, his footsteps squelching. ‘Could I beg yez for a lift to Dumbarton? Would any of yir beasts take a second man aboard?’

‘You’re wet, man,’ said Luke, holding the lantern higher to see the stranger’s face.

‘Aye, I’m wet,’ the man agreed, through chattering teeth. ‘Piracy on the river, freens, my boatie stole from me and sailed on out my sight, and me left to make my way ashore as best’s I can. But I’ve freens at Dumbarton will sort him for me, him and his extra passenger!’

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘Stockfish Tam, is it?’

With the boatman perched behind Luke and wrapped in Syme’s great cloak, which he gave up with creditable willingness, they put a fresh candle in Luke’s lantern and pressed on through the dark towards Dumbarton, accompanied by a monologue on the subject of piracy and a debt of two groats. Questions about the extra passenger established that she had been alive, conscious and talking to the pirate’s wife, though Tam had not heard their conversation, and after that Gil shut his ears to the man’s grumbles and thought about Grace Gordon and a poison brewed from apple pips, and about what they would find at Dumbarton. The Sankt Nikolaas, if she was big enough to traverse the Irish Sea, the English Channel, the German Sea, was likely to be moored out in the roads off the port, rather than run up on to the shore. Could Nicol sail Tam’s boat well enough to find her? Could he sail a boat at all? What if they failed to meet up with the Dutchman and drifted on down the river with the tide?

Most of Dumbarton was still asleep, though as they rounded the town heading for the shore a few lights showed and the smell of rising bread floated on the wind. Stockfish Tam directed them to where the Leven rippled quietly down to join the bigger river, and along the shore where Gil and Pierre had once found a fisherman willing to sail them to Rothesay in a boat of willow and skins. There were a couple of fires showing, with dark shapes squatting round them, waiting for the dawn, waiting for returning fishing-boats.

‘Bide here,’ said Tam, and slid down from Luke’s horse. The animal sighed in relief, and he crunched off along the shore, hailing the nearest fire.

‘The custumar,’ said Gil, looking about him. Dumbarton Rock loomed over them against the stars, the narrow moon slid in and out of clouds, and one or two windows in the town showed lights. Here on the shore, apart from the two fires, there was little to see. It was still some hours to dawn, he reckoned, and by far too dark for customs work or for loading or unloading goods unless the matter was urgent. As it was now. The custumar would be virtuously asleep in his bed.

‘I ken him,’ said Syme unexpectedly. ‘James Renton. He’s a cousin of my oldest brother’s wife.’

‘Where does he stay?’

‘One of those, I would think, convenient for the shore.’

Peering where Syme pointed, Gil made out several taller houses. He was debating asking at the fireside which was the custumar’s when Stockfish Tam tramped back to them, followed by four or five of the dark shapes from the firesides.

‘I’ve tellt these fellows what’s abroad,’ he said, ‘and there’s one of them willing to take you out to the Dutchman, rouse her skipper, and we’ll pass the word along the shore and a hantle more o us lie out and wait for Cuthbert when she comes down the channel. That’s supposing he hasny sunk her off of Bowling,’ he added bitterly. ‘Right?’

‘Right,’ said Gil slowly, putting the image that comment generated firmly from his mind. He would by far rather take the first opportunity to get Alys to safety, but he had to admit he would be less use in a brawl in a small boat, if it came to that, than he would be on board the Sankt Nikolaas persuading her skipper to help them.

‘I could wake the custumar,’ said Syme diffidently. ‘He’ll want to inspect the baggage Nicol has wi him, I’ve no doubt. If he sends a boat out, it might hold things up.’

‘Aye, do that,’ said Gil. ‘A good notion.’

Crouched in the stern of a small boat, a stout son of Dumbarton hauling on the oars in the darkness, Luke shuddering beside him, he watched the approaching riding-lights swaying high up near the stars.

‘How can you tell which is which?’ he asked.

‘I can mind where yer boatie was by day,’ said their oarsman. ‘Unless Gerrit moved her after sunset, she’ll be in the same place.’ It seemed to be a joke; he laughed shortly, leaned on his oars for a moment, then rowed on.

‘Maister Gil,’ said Luke tremulously. The boy was obviously terrified of being on the water, Gil recognized. He should never have accepted his help. ‘Maister Gil, do you speak Dutch? Will you can talk to this skipper?’

‘A little,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping he’ll speak Scots.’

‘Gerrit?’ said the oarsman. ‘No a lot. He gets by, the most of them does.’

‘Will we get the mistress back, by doing this?’

‘We’d better,’ said Gil.

Five, six more strokes, and the oarsman backed one oar, swung the little boat round, bumped against the side of a much larger vessel.

‘There ye are,’ he said. ‘Will I hail them for ye, or are ye wanting to take them by surprise?’ It was too late for that: a hoarse voice spoke from the darkness above them. ‘Aye Nikolaas,’ said the boatman. ‘Here’s an archbishop’s questioner for you, wanting a word wi Dutch Gerrit.’

Gil found a ladder of rope and wood at his shoulder; he tugged it cautiously, and scrambled up, aware of the familiar scents of tar and salted wood, hemp and damp wool, and climbed over the side on to the deck. Luke tumbled after him, almost sobbing with relief at being on a bigger boat. The deck swung under his feet, a barefoot man beside him held a dagger which gleamed in the light of the lantern slung beside the crucifix on the stern-castle railing, and across the waist someone moved towards him, very large in the shadows.

Deliberately he drew off his hat, saluted the cross, turned to the approaching man. No, men, there were two more, their bearing hostile. Mustering his few words of Low Dutch, he took a breath and said hopefully, ‘Skipper Gerrit?’

By the time Syme and the custumar joined them, Gil had contrived to set aside his anxieties, concentrate on his ability with words, and explain matters to the skipper.

He had observed before that the men of the Low Countries seemed to come in two sizes, small and fine-boned or very large. Gerrit van ’t Haag was definitely one of the latter, filling the after-cabin, nodding and wrinkling his large nose, his fair head bent to listen to the mixture of Low Dutch, French and Scots they were using.

‘Klaas — Nicol t’ief your vrouw,’ he said disapprovingly. ‘Is niet goed. I help. Help you,’ he clarified, grinning and stabbing a sausage-like finger at Gil.

‘And we’ll have his baggage sealed afore you sail, captain,’ said Maister Renton. The custumar, woken by his kinsman, had apparently reacted strongly to the idea of uncustomed goods leaving his port, and turned out in person, his doublet fastened awry and his clerk rubbing bleary eyes and lugging the canvas bag with the great custom-book in it. ‘The idea, slipping past me in the night like this!’

The skipper gave him an innocent look. ‘Niet goed,’ he agreed, shaking his head.

‘The boatmen are out waiting,’ said Syme to Gil. ‘They told Maister Renton where they would lie afore we came on board.’

The custumar appeared to be passing the information to the skipper, to judge by his gestures. The big man reached past him, without rising, to open the cabin door.

‘Allons-y,’ he said. But Gil had already slipped out on to the deck, impelled by a sudden surge of fear. Luke followed as if glued to his elbow. Out in the dark there was bustle and movement, several men with cudgels, the mate issuing curt, guttural orders. He stepped to the side, peering into the night past the pre-dawn lights of Dumbarton and the black bulk of the Rock.

Away across the water, a voice suddenly spoke, a woman’s voice, high-pitched and frightened. Heart thumping, he stared tensely towards the sound. Alys? He thought not, but — Another voice rose in a loud shout that lifted a flock of flapping seabirds, which whirred over their heads, making Luke cross himself, exclaiming a blessing. Several of the sailors did likewise.

‘Ah!’ said the skipper behind him. ‘Kommt Klaas. Waar sint other schouten?’

Out in the dark there was an exchange with one of the other rocking vessels, and another loud halloo! and a shout of Gerrit! Then over towards the Rock an outbreak of more shouting, of struggles and splashing, a scream.

‘To the boat!’ proclaimed the skipper in thick Scots, and seized Gil’s elbow. ‘Ve save your vrouw!’

Six men at the oars shifted the ship’s boat across the flat water, across the wind, at a brisk pace. Gerrit in the stern steered towards the noise, Gil beside him. He had persuaded Luke quite readily to stay with Syme and the custumar. Lights showed on another of the merchant vessels, someone shouted a question. Gerrit answered, and shortly another boat followed them. It seemed to take for ever to cross the dark water to where shouting and splashing, a high quivering lantern, the white glimmer of spray identified the battle, and when they reached it and Gerrit’s men tumbled over the side into the shallows it was hard to work out who was on which side. Scots voices challenged and answered. The men of Dumbarton seemed to be fighting with one another as much as with Nicol.

‘Mind her, Erchie! She’s got a knife!’

‘And where’s my two groats? Where are they? Eh?’

‘Alys?’ Gil said sharply into the turmoil.

‘No to mention you’ve run her aground!’

‘Gerrit!’ Nicol’s voice. ‘Par là! Attrape-elle!’

Gerrit lurched past him over the side of the boat, splashed into the night, surely not walking on the — it must be a sandbank, Gil surmised, drawing his dagger, and followed, ducked past a whirling cudgel and plunged after the big Dutchman. There was certainly someone out there, hurrying through the shallows towards the lights of the town. Gerrit, more used than he to moving through the tide, was gaining on him and on the running figure, then with a flurry of splashes the big man pounced.

‘Waar komms du, ma fille?’ he said. ‘Votr’ mari ist hier.’

‘Alys!’ said Gil again.

‘Gil!’ Her voice was tight with fear. ‘Oh, Gil!’

By the time they got back aboard the Nikolaas in the greying dawn, one thing was clear to Gil: if and when he got his wife to bed, she was unlikely to turn her back on him as she had done the last few nights. She clung to him as they waded back towards the boats, her teeth chattering with delayed shock; she seemed almost dazed with relief, and when he bent to kiss her she shivered and pressed her body against his as if to assure herself he was really there.

‘I thought I might not see you again,’ she said.

‘So did I.’ As they moved her wet skirts dragged through the water, which was surely deeper. ‘Is that another gown ruined?’

‘And the shoes.’

‘Komm, p’tits pigeons,’ called Gerrit ahead of them. ‘Later for that. Mine schout drifts, wir mussen — ’ He abandoned the attempt to explain further and shouted abuse at his men in Low Dutch. Two of them splashed after the escaping boat. In the lantern-light Nicol Renfrew and his wife, a number of Dumbarton shoremen, the remainder of the mariners from the Sankt Nikolaas, were shouting at one another. Two Dumbarton men held Nicol by the elbows, his nose dripping darkly, Stockfish Tam confronting him from a handspan away with repeated demands for his two groats and the money to make good any damage from the grounding. Grace, also in the clutch of a couple of boatmen, was dishevelled and half-weeping, but when she caught sight of Alys she seemed to relax slightly.

‘What here?’ demanded Gerrit over the noise. ‘What passes?’

Stockfish Tam turned and reiterated his claim. Gerrit heard him, looked at the heap of baggage, kicked Cuth-bert’s planks where the boat lay on the sand, and nodded.

‘Two groat,’ he said to Nicol.

‘I’d ha given him his money long since,’ said Nicol, ‘only that these fellows willny let go my arms.’

‘And the baggage into mine schout,’ continued the big Dutchman, ‘before water deepens. Hoy there — Martin, Tonius, bring here the schout! Klaas, Custumar Renton t’attend.’

‘The custumar? I suppose I’ve you to thank for that, maister lawyer,’ said Nicol sourly. He handed some coins to Stockfish Tam, who inspected them in the lantern-light, abruptly ceased his complaints and stood aside for the Sankt Nikolaas men to transfer the boxes and bundles to their own boat. Thus lightened, Cuthbert was easily pushed off the sand into the deepening channel. The tide must have turned some time since, Gil understood, as water swirled round his calves.

‘You!’ Gerrit grasped the arm of one of the shoremen, and indicated Gil and Alys. ‘You take these two Sankt Nikolaas, ja? Is goed.’ He gestured to the men who still held Nicol. ‘And you, leave Klaas and vrouw in mine schout. We see to all now.’

Sitting in the bow of yet another small boat, Alys clamped to his side, Gil contrived not to tell the boatman what was going on, while he thanked him for turning out at low tide.

‘Aye, well,’ said the man, hauling on the oars in a leisurely way. ‘Tam’s no a bad sort, even if he is fro Glasgow. We’d no go out all on the mud for just anyone, ye ken.’

‘Mud?’ said Gil. ‘I thought it was sand.’

‘Sand where Cuthbert ran aground,’ agreed the boatman. ‘Sand halfway to shore fro that. But it’s mud a’most all else. Swallow you to the knees, it will, and hold you till you drown on the next tide.’

Alys drew a horrified breath and tightened her grip of his free hand. Gil registered the risks they had taken, then put the information resolutely aside as the little boat bumped against Sankt Nikolaas’s round flank, and concentrated instead on helping his wife on to the rope ladder, holding it taut and steady for her to climb. She reached the top, and he heard her speak gratefully to someone helping her over the side; as he began to ascend he heard feet rush on the deck, a flurry of movement, a cry from Alys and another from Luke.

‘Mistress! What —?’

‘Nicol!’ That was Syme. Gil scrambled up as fast as he might, the ladder swinging across the planks, and reached the top as Nicol Renfrew giggled and said:

‘Now, ye’ll all just stand back, away from me and where I can see you. And if that’s you, Gil Cunningham, you’ll come no nearer than the rail, or your wee wife finds out how sharp my dagger is.’

The grey light on one side, the lantern-light on the other, showed him a chilling scene. Gerrit, his mate, his mariners stood by the far rail; Syme and the custumars had apparently just emerged from the cabin, and Grace stood in the midst of the waist. All were staring at a point by the mainmast, where Nicol Renfrew held Alys in a close embrace, her black linen hood crooked, the dawn striking pale on the blade of his dagger against her throat.

‘Nicol!’ said Grace. ‘What good does this do? We’re on board now, we sail in an hour or two, why are you — ’

‘He’s here to stop us,’ Nicol said. ‘He’s here to take one of us for poisoning Frankie. Is that no right, Maister Cunningham?’

‘Poison?’ repeated the custumar. ‘Is there poison in your baggage, maister? Is that what you’re exporting?’

‘No, my loon, he canny do that,’ said Grace, ‘for Frankie took a heart attack, that’s certain.’

‘Is it?’ said Nicol mockingly. ‘And who caused that?’

‘Not me, Nicol,’ she said, a desperate note in her voice, ‘and not you, surely?’

‘What passes here?’ demanded Gerrit. ‘Klaas, was maks u?’

Alys stared at Gil in the growing light, and swallowed hard.

‘Your father had drops for his heart already,’ she said carefully to Nicol without turning her head. ‘You knew he had them.’

Gil unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth and said, in a voice he scarcely recognized, ‘Nicol, did you poison your father?’

‘I never gave him anything he’d not prescribed himself,’ Nicol said.

‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Gil said. ‘Mistress Grace, did you poison Frankie Renfrew?’

‘I did not,’ she said. ‘I swear by my hope of salvation, I did not.’

There was a pause. Nicol turned to look at his wife. Gil tensed to jump forward, but Alys made a small movement of her hand. Stay back.

‘Grace? Is that true?’

‘I’ve just sworn it, my loon,’ she said.

Nicol’s gaze swung back to Gil. ‘D’you believe her?’

‘Do you?’

‘A course I do. No, wee lass, you’ll not trick me like that,’ he added to Alys, adjusting his grip on her arm. Over by the other rail the mate had begun stealthily moving backwards away from the group. ‘Gerrit, tell Hans I can see him. I’ve still got a blade to this bonnie wee wifie’s throat, and I’ll use it if he gets too close. A course I believe Grace,’ he continued, as if he had not interrupted himself, ‘I ken fine when to believe her.’

‘And I you, Nicol,’ said Grace. ‘Give him his answer. You didny poison Frankie either.’

Nicol looked at Gil again, smiling happily. ‘Then we needny ha come away like this,’ he said.

‘This is all nonsense,’ said Maister Renton suddenly. ‘What’s the trouble, anyway? I’ve still to prove these packages and write you out a docket for whatever port you’re headed for, and I’ve more to do the day than stand here fasting, waiting for you to tell us why you’re — ’

‘Get on and prove them, then,’ said Nicol. He drew Alys to one side, and nodded at the heap of boxes. ‘There you are, and plenty folk to help you. Grace, you have the keys, haven’t you no?’

‘But what is it about?’ Gil demanded. ‘You’ve never said, man. Why are you threatening my wife? Why did you steal her away down the river in the first place? She’s no wish to go wi you, and you’ve a wife of your own.’

‘She’s too clever,’ said Nicol. The hand holding the dagger shook a little, and a bead of something dark sprang on Alys’s neck. ‘Too clever by half. She’d worked it all out, afore ever we left Glasgow, and told it all to Grace, the bits Grace didny tell her, all the way down the Clyde.’ At the words Grace looked over her shoulder from where she bent to the stack of boxes. She and Alys exchanged a long look, but Nicol went on, ‘Frankie Renfrew brought about his own death, and I believe that, but I’m none so sure you do, Gil Cunningham.’

‘You believe your wife,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll believe mine, Nicol, if you’ll let her speak. Alys?’

The knife eased away from her white skin, and the dark bead trickled down towards the band of her shift. She met Gil’s eye and said shakily, ‘Grace is guilty only of making something someone else used. She has told me all. And we never did think Nicol guilty of — guilty of — ’

‘You see?’ said Syme from the cabin doorway. ‘Nicol, man, this is madness. Let Mistress Mason go and we can all get home to — ’

There was a bloodcurdling yell, and Grace and the custumar both cried out as something large hurtled out of the dull sky and swung down on Nicol. He went headlong, dragging Alys with him, but before they reached the planks Gil was there, flinging himself on top of him, kneeling on his wrist, snatching at the knife.

They struggled briefly, then Nicol seemed to give up. Gil dragged the other man to his feet, gave him into the grasp of two sturdy mariners, and looked about him. Syme was just helping Alys to rise, and beyond her, the large object which had appeared so timeously was -

Was Luke, surrounded by coils of rope, also picking himself up and blowing on his palms.

Two steps took Gil to Alys, to clamp her against his side, feeling he could never let go of her again. ‘Well done,’ he said to the boy. ‘Very well done, Luke. What did you do, anyway?’

‘He has climbed the mast, all in the dark,’ Gerrit said admiringly. ‘We make you a mariner, ja?’

‘I sclimmed up all their scaffolding,’ said Luke. ‘Then there was a block I saw I could ride down on and get his attention, so I just did. I couldny call out to you first, maister,’ he said earnestly, ‘for he’d ha heard me and all.’

‘Maister Mason will hear of this,’ Gil said, and clapped the boy on the shoulder with his free hand. ‘And I thought you were afraid of boats.’

‘Oh, aye, boats,’ agreed Luke, ‘but scaffolding is just scaffolding.’

‘Let me understand,’ said Maistre Pierre.

It was next day, after dinner, and he had joined them on the settle by the fire, one arm around Alys, his hand gripping Gil’s shoulder, as if he could not yet believe they were both safe unless he was touching them. The dog, still slightly offended that they had gone out without him, was sprawled on the hearth. Opposite them, Catherine sat with her beads, bright dark eyes watching them all under her black linen veil.

They had given the household an explanation of sorts when they reached Glasgow the evening before, weary and damp despite the hospitality of Renton and his wife, who had provided food, rest, a fire to dry their clothes. Not that Gil and Alys had rested much, either then or when they fell into their own bed; matters between them were certainly mended, though Gil did not entirely understand why or how.

‘This whole case has been all back to front,’ he said after a moment.

‘How so?’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Well — Gibson died, poor fellow, and set us asking questions. We asked so many that by this third death, which I think was the one intended all along, we already had most of the answers. Not that it helped much. And yet what happened to Gibson was an accident.’

‘Intended?’ repeated Maistre Pierre. ‘This woman concocted a deadly poison which killed two people without her intention — ’

‘So she swore to me,’ said Alys. ‘I do believe her.’

‘You think it was intended to kill the third? But you said she also swore she had not killed her good-father. So what was her intention? Simply to see how the poison was made?’

‘I can’t say,’ said Alys, as she had already said to Gil. He was certain the turn of phrase was carefully chosen. ‘But she did not use it. Nor did Nicol.’

‘I suppose each was protecting the other,’ remarked Catherine, ‘which is very commendable in a married couple.’

‘Why did she change her mind?’ demanded Maistre Pierre.

‘She said it was a heart attack,’ said Alys, and shivered. ‘She — she witnessed it. I think she is guilty of that at least.’

‘What, of causing a heart attack?’ Gil turned his head to look at her, startled by the idea.

‘No. Of watching it and doing nothing to help. His drops might have — might have — ’

‘Might have made things worse,’ said Gil.

‘You are talking in riddles,’ complained Maistre Pierre, but Catherine was nodding, and Alys was staring at him, her eyes wide.

‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ she breathed. ‘Of course! And he never — he never — ’

‘He never swore he did not kill his father,’ Gil agreed. ‘Though he first told me it was none of his doing, the morning of the quest.’

‘And we let him go,’ she said.

‘Still riddles!’

‘I suspect Nicol has been tampering with his father’s drops,’ said Gil. ‘It’s only a guess,’ he admitted, ‘but it would fit. They didn’t seem to be helping him much lately. I asked Adam about it this morning. There are things one could add to the mix, obviously, but even putting in too much of something that’s already in the compound could be effective, and he hinted as much, you recall, Alys.’

‘And we let him go,’ she said again.

‘It would be impossible to prove, even if I could persuade the Provost that it hadn’t been a simple heart attack.’

‘If his wife suspected it,’ Maistre Pierre was considering the idea, ‘it would explain why she was so quick to clear Frankie’s chamber and wash him.’

Alys shivered again. What was troubling her? Gil wondered. Was she simply tired?

‘It was her idea to come to Glasgow, she told me,’ she said. ‘How she must regret it.’

‘You think justice has not been served?’ said Maistre Pierre, watching Gil’s expression.

‘Justice has not been served,’ he agreed.

‘No, surely,’ said Alys, ‘it is the law which has not been served. Justice has been done, I think.’

‘I think you correct, ma mie,’ said Catherine. ‘The poor lady. She has much to regret.’

‘No, that sounds too philosophical for my taste,’ said her father. He gripped Gil’s shoulder tightly, released it, and got to his feet. ‘I must get to work. I have accounts to see to for the quarter day. Not to mention some reward to consider for Luke, since I can hardly offer him my daughter’s hand. I leave you to your philosophy.’