By the time the Serjeant arrived the gathering had split into several parts.
At Mistress Sproull’s announcement the remaining men among the guests had taken themselves hurriedly into one of the window bays again, their backs to the goings-on. Gil would have joined them, but for a feeling that the flustered Augie needed his support. Kate, however, went into immediate action.
‘I’ll see to this, sir,’ she announced, one hand on Morison’s arm. ‘You make certain Maister Renfrew and his colleagues have all they need. Here’s Gil can help you, and Alys, I’d be right glad of your — ’
Alys looked round and nodded from where she was already conferring with Mistress Sproull.
‘There is still time to get her home,’ she said, ‘since it is only next door, but also we should send to tell her mother and the midwife.’
‘Aye, you’re right, lassie,’ agreed Babb, stroking Mistress Mathieson’s perspiring forehead with one large gentle hand, ‘we’ve time, but we’d best no stand about, just the same.’
Leaving Maister Renfrew issuing curt instructions to Kate and to the women of his own household, Gil followed Morison as ordered, and found himself recalling the way his mother had addressed his father as my lord in company, formal and respectful and at times extracting the same expression of deep but wary relief as he had just seen on Morison’s face.
In the hall-chamber, the sick man had been laid on the great bed, the plaids and mantles which had been laid there bundled on to a stool, the embroidered counterpane hastily drawn back and mounded at his feet. The remaining mummers were huddled by the wall while the Forrest brothers and James Syme conferred in low tones at the bedside. Morison hurried to join the apothecaries, saying anxiously, ‘How does the poor laddie? Is he — is he still —?’
‘He’s still alive,’ said Syme, ‘but I fear we must prepare for the worst. Is the priest sent for, Augie?’
The other champion sobbed aloud at this, scrubbing at his eyes with the cuff of his doublet and smearing soot on the back of his hand. Judas patted him clumsily on the shoulder. Gil crossed the room to join the men and offer sympathy, got them to sit down on the padded bench which matched the hangings of the bed, and drew a back-stool to one end of it so he could see their faces. Robert Renfrew hurried in as he seated himself, carrying a heavy leather case and a silver basin and followed at a more measured pace by his father.
‘Tell me about this,’ Gil said encouragingly to the mummers, trying to ignore the bustle. ‘That’s not the way the play should go. What was meant to happen?’
They all stared at him, and then the Judas pulled himself together and said wearily, ‘Well, the champion should rise up and all be — all be well again, maister. That’s what the play’s about, see.’
Gil nodded agreement. ‘Was anything else different, before Danny fell?’
They looked at one another uneasily, and Judas, who seemed to be the spokesman, said, ‘No. No that you’d call different, considering.’
‘Considering what?’ Gil summoned patience.
‘I’ll no believe it,’ said the St Mungo. He pushed his mitre back to scratch his head. ‘Nanty’s a good fellow, he’d no do sic a thing.’
‘Here’s the priest,’ said the piper quietly, as a stir at the chamber door signalled the entry of Father Francis Govan from the Franciscan house across the way. One of the maidservants entered with a jug of hot water, staring round-eyed, and lingered until pushed out by Wat Forrest. His brother was using mortar and pestle to bruise some powerful-smelling herbs.
‘Nanty and Danny had words,’ said Judas reluctantly. ‘Down in the kitchen yonder, afore we come up to play the play.’
‘And what was that about?’ Gil asked. Again they looked at one another uneasily.
‘About the lassie Renfrew?’ said the Bessie. He had removed his headdress, which lay at his feet like a mound of washing; closer inspection showed that Ysonde was right, and the main component was a bed-sheet, nine or ten square yards of heavy linen. The fellow’s neck muscles must be strong, Gil thought, to carry that on his head. ‘See, Nanty was out in the yard getting a word wi her when we should ha been all in the kitchen setting out the moves.’
‘And Danny took exception to that?’ Gil prompted.
‘He gaed out to the yard,’ said the piper, ‘called him in, demanded what they’d had to say at sic a moment.’
‘And Nanty said it was nothing, and nane o his mind,’ supplied Bessie. ‘A bit of a ding-dong they had, though it was just a shouting match, they never flung fists.’
‘We got them calmed down,’ said St Mungo, ‘and we sorted out all the moves, and sat down wi a stoup of ale to wait.’
‘And then,’ took up Judas, ‘if Nanty wasny getting another word wi the lass on the stair, just afore we came up. I spoke sharp to him, but the limmer gied me a bit snash herself, and slipped away back to the company. And as well, too,’ he added darkly. ‘I’ve saved your play, she says. Did you ever hear? She’d ha felt the rough side of my hand if she’d waited, whoever her faither might be.’
When Gil stepped out into the hall, he found Kate just despatching Babb and two reluctant journeymen with the groaning, white-faced Mistress Mathieson established in a great chair, to carry her next door to her own house, escorted by her stepdaughters who appeared to be engaged in a savage whispered quarrel. Several people looked round as he emerged, but he shook his head.
‘No change,’ he said. ‘Is the Serjeant not here yet?’
‘William must have gone further afield to find him,’ Kate speculated. ‘The man’s never about when you need him.’
‘And Our Lady send that Eleanor doesny miscarry and all, what wi the excitement,’ commented Grace Gordon as she gathered up the last of the fans and cushions. ‘You’ll remember this gathering your life long, Kate.’
‘I wish I thought I could forget it,’ said Kate wryly.
The two women exchanged kisses, and Grace left, with an anxious look at her husband, who waved his fingers at her but did not move. Alys came to tuck her hand in Gil’s, whether giving or seeking reassurance he was uncertain though he was glad of her touch. Kate braced herself visibly and looked round the hall at her remaining guests. Mistress Hamilton and the quiet young wife of Wat Forrest, who had hardly spoken in Gil’s hearing all afternoon, had begun discussing childbirth with Nancy Sproull. Nancy’s daughter Nell had retired to a corner and seemed to be struggling with tears. The men were still under siege in the window bay, Andrew Hamilton and Dod Wilkie discussing some matter of burgh council business with Maistre Pierre, Nicol Renfrew sitting humming tunelessly and swinging one foot again, and young Andrew Hamilton staring alternately at the door to the hall-chamber and at the despairing figure of Nanty Bothwell at the far end of the room where he sat bound to a backstool and guarded by two journeymen in watchful pose.
‘I wonder how long we — ’ Kate began, one hand at her breast.
‘There is little we can do but wait till the Serjeant comes,’ Alys observed, ‘and pray for that poor man. Gil, do you think it can have been an accident?’
‘I don’t believe Nanty Bothwell intended to poison Dan Gibson,’ he said cautiously.
She gave him an intent look, and nodded. Kate, easing at the bodice of her dark red gown, said, ‘Of course it was an accident. I’ve dealt with the man, when I wanted straightforward simples rather than a compound wi honey at five times the price, and he’s intelligent and civil, and so is his sister. As you said, Gil, he’s not such a fool as to poison the fellow afore all these witnesses. I’m right sorry we’ve had to take and tie him. I had Jamesie fetch him a bite to eat and drink, poor man.’
‘There’s a sister, is there?’
‘Her name is Christian Bothwell,’ said Alys. ‘She is often at the booth, but I think she does a lot of the stillroom work. I think her a good woman.’
‘Where is Serjeant Anderson?’ wondered Kate distractedly, still plucking at her gown.
‘Kate, are you laced too tight?’ Gil asked. She looked down, colouring, and snatched the hand away.
‘Edward,’ she said. ‘He needs to be fed.’ She looked about the chamber as if expecting to see the baby hidden in a corner.
‘Mysie has taken him above stairs,’ Alys said. ‘I’ll fetch her down. Where will she bring him?’
‘Not here,’ said Kate, with a helpless glance at the men still ostentatiously talking matters of state. Nicol Renfrew gave her a happy smile and another tiny wave of his fingers.
‘Augie’s closet,’ Gil suggested.
He had just returned to the hall with a list of instructions for Morison, leaving Kate and Alys to settle down with the baby, his nurse Mysie, and a jug of ale, when a portentous knocking at the house door announced the Serjeant. Admitted by Andy Paterson the steward, the burgh lawkeeper proceeded into the hall, a big man in an expansive blue woollen gown with the burgh badge embroidered on the breast. He was followed by one of his constables bearing a coil of rope and a pair of rusty manacles.
‘Guid e’en to ye, maisters. Aye, Maister Cunningham,’ he said, looking about him. ‘So what’s this about murder being done? Strange how I’m aye finding you next to a murder.’
‘Daniel Gibson,’ said Gil, ignoring this, ‘fell down deathly sick at the end of the mummers’ play.’
‘Is the rest of the company well?’ asked the Serjeant sharply.
‘So far as I knew,’ Gil answered, impressed despite himself. The man did not usually ask such pertinent questions.
‘A terrible thing! We all saw him pysont,’ Mistress Hamilton announced with relish. ‘Poor man,’ she added.
‘Gibson was playing Galossian,’ Gil supplied, ‘and it seems as if he could have been poisoned by the drops the doctor uses to cure him. Maister Renfrew and his partners, and the Forrest brothers, are working on him now.’
‘He’s a deid man, then,’ said the Serjeant, ‘for nobody could survive that much curing.’ He laughed at his joke, and looked about him. ‘Where is he, then? I’ll need to see him, deid or no, and where’s Nanty Bothwell? Ah, you’ve got him ready for me.’
The door to the hall-chamber opened, and Morison emerged, his velvet hat in his hand.
‘Serjeant,’ he said. ‘I thought I heard your voice. Thank you for coming so prompt. It’s a matter of violent death, right enough.’
‘Death?’ said Nancy Sproull sharply. ‘Is the poor fellow dead, then?’
In the window Maistre Pierre turned to look at them, and pulled his hat off. The other men did the same, one after another, and Nanty Bothwell, between his two sentinels, bent his head and muttered a prayer.
‘He died just now.’ Morison crossed himself, and most of his hearers did likewise. ‘Father Francis was wi him.’
‘God send him rest,’ said Andrew Hamilton. His son was silent and round-eyed.
‘Aye, well,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘that’s clear enough, I’d say. Pysont by the man that’s his rival in love, so I hear, and all these folk witnesses to it, is that right?’
Nanty Bothwell looked up with a despairing ‘No!’ but most of those present nodded, and there was a general chorus of agreement. Nancy Sproull said:
‘Aye, as Agnes said, we all saw him give poor Daniel the drops that slew him.’
‘I’m none so certain,’ said Gil. ‘Bothwell seemed as dismayed as any of us at the man’s taking ill.’
‘It was hardly anyone else in the chamber ministered the pyson,’ objected Maister Wilkie. He clapped his green bonnet back on his bald patch and came forward into the room. ‘There was none of us anywhere near the man — aye, nowhere near either of them, till the moment Dan Gibson fell down.’
‘That’s truth,’ agreed Maister Hamilton.
His stout wife nodded, her chins wobbling, and young Andrew said clearly, ‘They were all there in the midst of the room, see, and the rest of us round the outside.’
His mother looked at him fondly, but Nicol Renfrew said, with that irritating giggle, ‘It was the wrong flask he had.’ Everyone turned to stare at him, and he put his head back and looked owlishly from face to face. ‘You could see that,’ he added, and giggled again.
‘How could you tell?’ Gil asked carefully, trying to recall the moment when the flask had appeared from the doc-tor’s great scrip.
Nicol waved a hand, grinning. ‘It just was.’
A reply Ysonde might have made, Gil thought.
‘This gets us nowhere,’ declared the Serjeant. ‘See here, Maister Cunningham, you’re paid of my lord Archbishop to look into murders, so it’s only natural you should want to look further. But I’m paid wi the council to keep this burgh safe, and what I’ll do to that end is arrest the man that pysont Daniel Gibson, that you’ve got held there waiting for me, and there’s the sum of it. Where is the poor fellow, sir?’
‘Yonder, in the hall-chamber,’ said Morison, with a helpless glance at Gil, while Wilkie and Maister Hamilton made approving noises and the scrawny constable looked resigned.
‘But if there’s some doubt about the flask — ’ Gil began, swallowing anger.
‘Ach, nonsense,’ said Maister Hamilton roundly. ‘We’ve only this daftheid’s word on that, and he’s the one that tellt our Andrew Dumbarton Rock was on fire.’
Nicol flourished one hand and bowed, still grinning, and young Andrew went scarlet and glowered at his father. The Serjeant, ignoring the exchange, summoned his constable and proceeded grandly towards the door Morison had indicated. Gil, following him, paused as he found Maistre Pierre at his elbow.
‘The man is safe meantime, if he is in the Tolbooth,’ the mason observed in French. ‘But I agree, it is not at all a certainty.’
‘I’m not happy,’ Gil admitted, ‘but there is too little to go on. Better to let him take the fellow up, I suppose, while I ask questions further afield.’
In the hall-chamber the apothecaries were packing up their equipment, a set of wicked little knives, the basin in which the cataplasm had been mixed, the packets of strong-smelling herbs which went neatly back into the leather case. Robert Renfrew, holding a bowl of blood, stood aside for the Serjeant to enter and his father looked up from his herbs and said:
‘Aye, Serjeant. It’s murder right enough. Have you arrested the fellow?’
‘In good time,’ returned Serjeant Anderson, sailing towards the bed. ‘Poor Danny. A good lad, so I believe.’ He removed his hat briefly, and replaced it, then nodded at the mummers still seated in a row where Gil had left them, four of them numb and silent, the other young champion now sobbing into his hands. ‘Aye, fellows,’ he went on. ‘A bad business, a bad business. It just goes to show what following your heart can do to a young man.’
Maister Renfrew closed down his case and fastened the strap. Its lid was ornamented with the same sign as hung over his door, the sun rising out of a mortar.
‘He’s brought the craft into disrepute,’ he said grimly, ‘and I’ll see him hang for it.’
Gil turned away from the doorway and moved across the hall, towards the seated prisoner, but before he had taken two steps there was a hammering at the house door, an urgent voice shouting, ‘Let me in! Let me in! Is Nanty there?’
The two journeymen guarding the prisoner looked at one another blankly; Morison emerged from the hall-chamber, Andy Paterson the steward could be heard clumping up the kitchen stairs, but Gil himself was nearest. When he opened the door the woman on the other side of it almost fell in out of the twilight, still saying, ‘Is Nanty here? Let me see him! What’s ado?’
‘Christian!’ exclaimed the prisoner.
She straightened up, looking round for him, and hurried to his side. ‘Our Lady save us all, Nanty, what’s amiss here? They tellt me — they tellt me — it’s never true, is it? A man dead, and by your hand?’
Bothwell looked up at her, his face working.
‘Danny’s dead,’ he said. ‘It wasny by my hand, Christian, I swear it, but he’s dead none the less.’
She stood over him, some of her fears allayed, and set a hand on his shoulder. She was a stocky woman, older than her brother, dressed in a decent gown of woad-blue worsted, the ends of her linen kerchief knotted behind her head, her apron stained with the different colours of an apothecary’s stock-in-trade. She had come out without a plaid.
‘You don’t need to swear it for me, my laddie,’ she said, with fond untruth. ‘I’d never ha believed it, whoever tellt me it. But what’s ado then? Why are you bound like this?’ She turned, looking round the chamber, and her eye fastened on Gil. ‘Is it you that’s in charge, sir? Why is my brother being held?’
‘There’s a man deid, Christian,’ said Wat Forrest’s quiet wife. Barbara Hislop, that was it, Gil thought.
‘He pysont Danny Gibson,’ said Maister Wilkie bluntly, ‘no matter what he swears on, for we all saw it happen.’
‘But how?’ she said, staring at him. ‘You all saw? How would that happen, in front of a room full of people, and none of them raise a hand to stop it?’
‘All sudden, it was,’ said Mistress Hamilton. ‘We’d none of us a suspicion, till he fell down in a fit.’
‘It must ha been something in the flask, Chrissie,’ said Bothwell, swallowing hard, ‘but whatever it was I never put it there.’
‘Aye, and what flask?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve got your flask here.’ She put a hand under her apron and drew out a small pewter flask, which she shook. ‘You left it below the counter, I’d just found it when Girzie Murray from the Fishergate cam in by the booth and said you were taken up for murder.’
Well, well, thought Gil. So Nicol Renfrew was right.
‘It was this flask, mistress.’ James Syme stepped past Morison where he still stood open-mouthed in the door of the hall-chamber, and held up the painted pottery object which had emerged from the doctor’s great scrip at the vital moment.
‘That looks like one of — ’ she began, and bit off the words.
‘We all had some of that shipment,’ said Adam Forrest from behind Syme. ‘You ken that, Christian.’
Morison pulled himself together and came forward, saying, ‘Maisters, I think the Serjeant wants to ask us what happened, and then we’re free to go, and I’m right sorry to have had to keep you here so long.’
‘No trouble,’ said Andrew Hamilton the elder in cheerful tones, ‘I’d stay longer than this in company wi your clarry wine, Augie.’
‘So can you untie my brother, sir?’ demanded Christian Bothwell.
‘No, no, we’ll no untie him the now,’ announced the Serjeant, emerging in his turn from the hall-chamber. ‘He’s safe where he is till Tammas and me’s ready to take him away.’
‘Away? Are you arresting him? But he never — I’ll not — ’
‘He’s guilty, woman, and no use to protest,’ said Wilkie.
‘If it wasn’t the right flask,’ said Gil, nodding at the little pewter one which Christian still held, ‘where did you get the other one? The one you used?’
‘Why, I — ’ began Bothwell, and stopped, staring in horror at the bright glaze of the flask in Syme’s hand. Sweat broke out across his brow, and he closed his mouth, swallowed, and said, ‘I–I forget.’
‘No point in questioning him here,’ said the Serjeant. ‘I’ll get all the answers I need out of him, down at the Tolbooth. Now, maisters, mistresses, I’ve heard from the man’s fellows, and from the potyngars that treated him, I’ll take your account of what passed, if it’s convenient, and then I’ll get away out your road.’
‘What’s in the right flask?’ Gil asked.
‘This and that to make a smoke when it’s opened.’ Christian drew the stopper and waved her hand, and a cloud of sinister bluish vapour trailed after the open flask.
‘There’s no harm in it,’ said her brother wearily, ‘but it looks good.’
‘And in the other?’ Gil looked from Syme to his colleagues. ‘What would you say killed Danny Gibson? Can you prove what’s in the flask in any way?’
‘What, taste it ourselves?’ said Robert Renfrew. He had found a discarded tray of sweetmeats. ‘I think no!’ he said, and popped a marchpane cherry into his mouth.
His father frowned at him, and said heavily, ‘That’s a task for one of us, I’d say, it being apothecary business. There’s ways to prove pysons, though something that acts so swift and in small quantity — aye, well, the craft will tell.’
‘The craft will tell,’ agreed Syme, ‘though it takes great learning to prove a poison.’
‘I’ll take that on, Frankie,’ offered Wat Forrest. Syme looked annoyed. ‘You’ve trouble enough in your household the night, without extra work.’
‘Aye, I should be away,’ admitted Maister Renfrew reluctantly, ‘and see how the lass is doing. They’d ha sent word if the bairn had come home, I suppose. But I’d as soon see Bothwell took up for murder afore I go.’
‘No, no, just you get away, maister,’ said the Serjeant, with slightly forced civility, ‘and let me speak wi these worthies. Then we can all get home to our supper. Maister Cunningham, if you want to run about testing pysons, I’ll no stop ye, and if Maister Forrest wants to take the nasty stuff away wi him I’ll be just as glad no to have the care o sic a thing myself, but I’ll ha Nanty Bothwell safe in the cells at the Tolbooth in any case, so he’ll no slay any more folk.’
‘We’ll never dare entertain again,’ said Kate. She spoke lightly, but her eyes were shadowed.
‘No, no,’ said Maistre Pierre comfortingly, a wedge of pie halfway to his mouth. ‘Once the poor fellow is buried you can be sure it will all be forgotten.’
‘Aye, but the quest,’ said Morison. ‘The whole town will be there to hear. There was a crowd at the gates the now, when I saw the Serjeant off the premises.’
Alys patted Kate’s arm. ‘Better to wait, as my father says, till the poor man is buried,’ she said, ‘but after that, you must hold a gathering for a great many people, and hold your head up and wear all your jewels. And Augie must wear the King’s chain.’
‘And invite the Provost,’ said Gil, ‘and our uncle.’
‘And your neighbours,’ added Alys. ‘You are right, Kate, Grace Gordon is well worth the knowing. When did you say they came home, she and Nicol?’
‘In May, was it? Poor soul, she’d have had her own bairn by now, but she miscarried within days of reaching Glasgow, and kept her chamber a month or more after it. She’s well now, I’d say, but — ’ Kate glanced at Alys, and stopped in mid-sentence.
The last of the other guests had eventually left, still exclaiming about the afternoon’s entertainment, but Kate had begged the mason’s party to wait on and eat a bite of supper in private with them, saying, ‘I’ve no idea what’s left in the house, it could be thin fare, but we could both do with your company.’
In fact it was a substantial meal before them, the more so since Kate picked at her plate of cold raised pie and refused the mould of rice and almonds which Ursel had sent up with apologies.
Morison cast her an anxious glance now, served Alys with a wedge of onion flan, and said, ‘I’m less than convinced it was murder under our roof, anyway. Young Bothwell seemed as stricken as any of us by the man’s death. Can you do aught about it, Gil? After all, you — you got me — ’
Kate shivered. He dropped his serving-knife to put a comforting hand over hers.
‘I feel very sorry for that poor woman, his sister,’ said Alys. She and Kate had been in time to witness the removal of the prisoner, with Christian’s angry attempts to interfere restrained by Nancy Sproull and a more sympathetic Barbara Hislop.
‘I’m not convinced it was murder by Nanty Bothwell,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll report to my lord and get his instruction, but I agree, Augie, I should be asking questions already, before folk forget what they saw.’
‘And what did we see?’ asked Maistre Pierre rhetorically. ‘The only opportunity to poison the man while the players were there in the hall,’ he gestured with his third slice of pie at the door of the small chamber where they sat, ‘was when the doctor put the drops to raise him up.’ He grimaced at the irony implied. ‘But was there some other way it could be ministered?’
‘The sword?’ said Morison.
‘Was wooden,’ said Gil, ‘and they never struck flesh. It was a very clever display,’ he added, ‘they were well practised.’
‘The armour?’ suggested Alys. ‘Something they ate or drank in the kitchen?’
‘Christ preserve us,’ said Morison, ‘I never thought o that. Kate, should we —?’
‘I’ll ask Ursel,’ said Kate with more resolution. ‘She was to give them ale, she’d likely serve it from the barrel or from a common jug, but she might ha noticed something.’
‘The man was rubbing at his mouth,’ Gil recalled, ‘just before he collapsed. Did the drops go on his mouth, Alys? I think you saw better than I did.’
‘The second time,’ she agreed. ‘The first time he only touched the man with the lip of the flask, but the second time when he said, Three drops to your beak, I saw them fall.’
‘If that was the moment,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘it worked with astonishing speed.’
‘He fell down within a quarter-hour,’ said Alys.
‘Less,’ said Gil. ‘The length of a Te Deum, maybe.’
‘I can’t bear this. Let’s talk of something else,’ said Kate. ‘Tell me how John does.’
Nothing loath to discuss his foster-son, Maistre Pierre launched into an account of how the boy had escaped into the garden that morning, and had been found seated on the stone bench beside the wolfhound Socrates, singing to a blackbird.
‘He has a sweet little voice,’ said Alys, ‘and very true.’
‘Well, his father is a harper,’ Kate pointed out, ‘and his mother could sing, by what you tell me.’
Morison had turned his head, listening to a disturbance elsewhere in the house. He pushed his chair back, but before he could rise the chamber door was opened.
‘Maister?’ said Andy Paterson. ‘My leddy? Here’s Adam Forrest out in the hall, wanting a word wi Maister Gil, and I’ve two o the mummers in the kitchen on the same errand. What’ll I do wi them all?’
‘Give the mummers some ale and bid them wait,’ said Kate decisively, ‘and ask Maister Forrest if he’d care to step in here and join us, and bring him a glass and trencher.’
Adam Forrest, much embarrassed, refused food but was persuaded to some more of Morison’s claret.
‘My good-sister Barbara keeps a good kitchen,’ he said, ‘we’d our supper already, though none of us was that hungry, what wi one thing and another.’
‘Nor are we,’ agreed Morison, in flagrant disregard of Maistre Pierre’s laden plate. ‘It’s a bad business, Adam.’
‘Aye, a bad business,’ agreed Adam, ‘and I’m right sorry to ha troubled you at your meal, Lady Kate, but — ’ He slid a sideways look at Gil. ‘I just. It’s a bit.’ He ran a finger round the rim of his wineglass. ‘I just — ’
‘Go on,’ said Gil encouragingly.
‘Well. Will you be looking further into the business, Gil?’
‘He will,’ said Kate and Alys, speaking together.
Gil suppressed irritation and said, ‘I’ll report to my lord, but I think he will want me to investigate, aye.’
Adam sat back and nodded in obvious relief.
‘You don’t think Maister Bothwell guilty?’ Alys said.
‘I’d never ha taken him for a pysoner,’ said Adam simply. ‘It’s what we all deal in, certainly, the most of an apothecary’s trade is in things that will kill in some quantity or another, but we’re sworn to use our skills to support life, no to end it, and Nanty’s a good craftsman, I’d never ha thought he’d bring the craft into disrepute this way, no matter Frankie Renfrew’s opinion.’
‘Do we know yet what was in the flask?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Your brother was to prove it, I think.’
‘He was just setting to that when I came out,’ admitted Adam. ‘We were both of us right puzzled by it. It’s a kind of a whitish liquid, like almond milk, though I couldny say if it smells like almond milk too, for we never got too close to it, seeing what it’s done to Danny Gibson.’
‘And what was that?’ said Gil. ‘What signs did you observe before he died?’
‘Gil, must we hear this again? You saw him too,’ objected Morison, taking Kate’s hand.
‘I’m no apothecary,’ Gil said quietly. ‘I’d as soon hear what the trained man saw.’
‘Well, we all saw him,’ said Forrest with confidence. ‘Nanty said he never swallowed, it was only a couple of drops touched his mouth. But with that minimissimal dose, he went short of breath even after he’d had time to recover from the battle, there was a great excess of choler which made his face red and caused him dizziness so that he fell down.’ He closed his eyes to recall the scene better, and Kate bit her lip and turned her face away. ‘His breathing was fast and shallow, with a great strain on the heart, leading to seizures,’ he recited, as if he was composing a report, ‘which eventually slew him.’ He crossed himself. ‘We did what we could, the five o us, but it’s my belief there would never ha been any saving him, no matter what remedies we tried.’
‘It sounds like no ailment I ever heard of,’ said Alys. ‘It could only be poison, I am certain.’
‘And I,’ said her father, ‘and the rest of Glasgow I suppose, but what poison? And if it did not get into the flask at young Bothwell’s hand, then whose?’
‘The flask,’ said Gil. ‘I thought Mistress Christian recognized the flask. The one that was used instead of Bothwell’s own. That bright pottery is distinctive.’
‘Well, no, it isny,’ said Adam awkwardly. ‘We’ve all three got some, all three o the businesses. We use them for the luxury goods. It was a barrel we had from Middelburgh, of painted ware out of Araby or somewhere. Frankie ordered it up last spring, and took the most of the batch, but Nanty had five or six, and me and my brother took a dozen.’
‘In proportion as you trade in the burgh,’ said Maistre Pierre, wiping his platter with a piece of bread. ‘You have your custom well apportioned between you. Maister Renfrew trades in luxuries, in cosmetics and expensive fine goods, you and your brother have the middle part of the market and young Bothwell serves the poorer sort that can yet pay for materia medica. All works out well, I should say.’
‘I’d say so,’ agreed Adam, ‘though I’ve noticed Frankie — well, enough of that.’
‘So whose was that flask?’ Alys asked. ‘One of Maister Bothwell’s, or another?’
‘We’d need to count them all afore I could tell you that,’ Adam admitted. ‘They’re each a bit different, but hardly enough to tell one on its own like that. I don’t see it could be one of ours, but I can check,’ he added.
‘Would the other mummers know where the flask came from?’ asked Morison.
Kate glanced quickly at him, and said, ‘You could speak to them in the kitchen, Gil, rather than bring them up where their fellow died. Maybe Maister Forrest would have some questions for them and all.’
Gil led Adam Forrest obediently down to the kitchen, reflecting that his sister had probably heard enough of the day’s troubles. In the big, busy room the mummers were easily picked out, two grey-faced men surrounded by most of Morison’s household, who were plying them with sympathy mixed with questions about what the Serjeant had asked them and what he would do next. Without their disguises it took Gil a little while to identify them. Then he recognized a gesture, the angle of a head, and realized that they were the two mitred characters, Judas and St Mungo, probably the senior men in the group.
‘Tammas Bowster and Willie Anderson,’ said Adam behind him. ‘Willie’s kin to the Serjeant, but I ken no ill of Tammas. He’s a glover in the Thenewgate.’
Andy Paterson looked round at this, saw them standing at the foot of the stair from the hall, and called for silence, into which Gil said politely, ‘May I come into the kitchen? My sister sent us down. I think these fellows wanted a word wi me.’
‘Aye, that we did,’ said the man who had played Judas, getting to his feet. ‘A word in private, maybe, maister?’
‘Take a light into the scullery,’ suggested Ursel the cook, a spare elderly woman in a clean apron. ‘And mind your good gown on the crocks, Maister Gil, they’re no all scoured yet.’
Perched uncomfortably on the wooden rack where the pots were dried, Gil watched the two mummers brace themselves for speech. They were both quite tall, St Mungo bearing a strong resemblance to his kinsman Serjeant Anderson, the glover leaner and younger with a confident manner which suggested he was his own master. The rushlight Adam had carried through from the kitchen showed them exchanging awkward glances.
‘It’s like this, maister,’ said the glover after a moment. ‘We’d a word among ourselves, the — ’ he checked, pulled a face and went on — ‘the five o us that’s left. Davie Bowen’s no making much sense, poor lad, he’s that stricken by his fellow being deid all in a moment like that, but the rest of us are agreed, and we put our heads thegither, and we, and we — ’
‘And we put our hands in our purses and all,’ offered Willie Anderson.
‘Quiet, Willie, let me tell it. And the thing of it is, maister, by what we’ve heard, you see into secret murders like what’s happened here for Robert Blacader, and we thought, maybe you’d consider seeing into this one for us? For it’s certain it was murder, Danny was fit and well afore the play began, and it wasny ever Nanty that done it, and we’ve — ’ Bowster dug in the breast of his leather doublet and drew out a pouch. ‘We’ve gathered a fee to you, the day’s takings and a wee bit from each of us and all. Only maybe,’ he admitted, with a deprecating look, ‘it’ll no be enough, wi you being a man of law and all.’
Taken aback, Gil stared at the two, trying to think what he should say.
‘It might no take that much doing, for a learned man like yoursel, maister,’ said Willie Anderson ingratiatingly. ‘There might be enough there in wir purse.’
‘You said you’d be taking it on anyway,’ said Adam Forrest from the shadows. ‘Did you no?’
‘I said I’d report to my lord Archbishop,’ Gil corrected. ‘It’s for him to decide whether he wants me to go into the matter.’
‘Is that right?’ said Bowster in dismay. ‘Blacader’s decision?’ The two mummers looked at one another uncertainly. Anderson recovered first.
‘If he was to decide against you,’ he suggested, ‘maybe you could just look into it a wee bittie anyway? Maybe as far as wir purse would take you?’
Gil shook his head, more in disbelief than anything else, but Adam said, ‘No harm in that, surely, Gil?’
‘If I’m to report to Robert Blacader, I need more to tell him,’ said Gil. ‘Why are all Anthony Bothwell’s friends so certain he’s innocent, for a start? And I need to know more about the play, and all the players. This is no place for — ’
‘Gil?’ The scullery door creaked open, and Alys stepped in, holding up her apricot silk skirts with one hand. ‘Gil, here is Mistress Bothwell wanting a word.’
‘Maister Cunningham?’ The woman’s voice was high with anxiety. ‘Maister, will you act for my Nanty? He’s there in the Tolbooth, John Anderson’s got him in chains, he’s as innocent as a babe of any poisoning. Will you act for him, and clear his name?’