Chapter Three

Gil was having difficulty keeping his face straight.

He knew it was inappropriate. One man had died and another was facing torture, trial and possibly hanging. Bothwell’s friends were deeply anxious for him, his sister was almost frantic. But never before had what felt like half of Glasgow come separately and asked him to take on a case. He feared he was not concealing his amusement well; Alys had looked at him quite severely before she left for home. The remaining supplicants, meanwhile, were gazing hopefully at him by the light of the hall candles, where they had all adjourned after Mistress Bothwell’s outburst.

‘The evening’s wearing on,’ he had said when they came up the stairs. ‘Adam, if I call by the shop tomorrow, I can find out how your brother has proved the flask, and get a longer word wi you.’

‘Aye, fair enough,’ agreed Adam, ‘but I’ll wait and see Mistress Bothwell to her door, I think.’

‘No need,’ Alys had said quickly. ‘Mistress Bothwell will lie at our house tonight.’ Her eyes met Gil’s. ‘They have one servant, who sleeps out,’ she added. He nodded, with some reluctance. In her present state it was hardly right to let the woman go home alone, and though he would have preferred not to offer protection himself he would certainly lose an argument with Alys about the appearance of partiality.

‘I’m right grateful,’ admitted Mistress Bothwell, pleating up the hem of her apron between small hard hands. ‘I’d not — I canny fancy sleeping in an empty house, after sic a day.’

‘Better Maister Forrest walks us home now,’ said Alys, at which Adam made sounds of assent, ‘and my father may stay and help you talk to the mummers.’ She looked about her. ‘Take this light into the window there and I will send him to you.’

So now, seated on one of Morison’s good tapestry back-stools, he poured the men more ale, handed a beaker to his father-in-law, and said, ‘Why are you so certain it was none of Bothwell’s doing?’

They looked at one another and shook their heads.

‘Ye just canny think o Nanty doing sic a thing,’ said Anderson. ‘He’s aye that sweet-tempered, never a man to hold a grudge or, or — ’

‘He’s been good friends wi Danny Gibson,’ said Bowster. ‘Until these last two-three month when they both took a notion to the lassie Renfrew, they were scarce out of one another’s company in leisure time, for all I heard.’

‘Went drinking thegither, went out to the butts on a Sunday,’ agreed Anderson.

‘Did their being rivals for the little Agnes make a difference?’ asked Maistre Pierre. The two shook their heads again.

‘They wereny spending as much time thegither,’ offered Bowster, ‘but they were friends enough when we met for the play. The lassie’s well watched, ye ken, she’d have a word for them if her faither’s back was turned, but it’s no as if either lad got that close to her.’

‘And yet they quarrelled in the kitchen here,’ Gil said. ‘Was that over Agnes?’

‘Aye, well,’ said Bowster uncomfortably. ‘It was just shouting. A cause Nanty had a word wi the lassie. Seems they’d pledged no to get the advantage o one another.’

‘Tell me about Danny Gibson,’ said Gil. ‘He’s one of the armourer’s journeymen?’

‘Aye, he’s — he worked for William Goudie,’ said Bowster.

‘The armourer, ye ken,’ said Anderson. Gil, who had dealt with the burgh armourer for years, merely nodded. ‘Him and Davie Bowen both, which is how their fight was that good, seeing they had leisure to practise it any chance their maister would let them.’

‘It was good,’ agreed Gil, with the thought that anything to be salvaged from the afternoon might be a comfort to Gibson’s friends. ‘I don’t know when I last saw a display as accomplished.’

‘Has Maister Goudie been told?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘Aye, I’ve tellt him,’ Bowster said, sighing, ‘I’ve tellt the two houses where we were engaged to play the play the morn, I’ve let Archie Muir know that leads the other company in case he wants to take on the engagements in our place. I think I’ve tellt the most of Glasgow, maister, and it’s no been easy.’

Gil took the hint, and poured some more ale.

‘Has either man enemies?’ he asked. ‘Bothwell or Gibson, I mean. Have they quarrelled with anyone else lately?’

The two mummers looked at one another again, and Anderson shrugged his shoulders.

‘No that I ever heard,’ he said.

‘Nor me,’ agreed Bowster, and raised his beaker.

‘No rivals at anything else, no insults, nothing like that?’

‘Nothing like that, that I ever heard,’ Bowster said, emerging from the beaker. ‘A’body that I tellt just now that the lad was dead was right cut up about it, and all, and couldny believe it was Nanty’s doing.’

‘Now, the flask,’ Gil said, accepting this. ‘When did you see it was the wrong one?’

‘When Nanty drew it out of his scrip, I wondered,’ said Bowster, frowning. ‘See, he holds it up and points to it,’ he held up his beaker and imitated the gesture, ‘and tells how there’s all the herbs in it, and I saw then it was the bonnie paintit one. He’d said he’d not use one when I asked him afore, a cause they’re too expensive if it got dropped, and I thought, well, he’s changed his mind.’

‘I thought that and all,’ agreed Anderson.

‘But then when he opened it, there was no smoke like there should ha been,’ Bowster went on, ‘so it never made any sense when Sanders and me backed away. That’s our Bessie,’ he explained, when Maistre Pierre looked puzzled. ‘Sanders Armstrong, that’s whitesmith off the Fishergate. But that’s the first I kenned of it being the wrong flask.’

‘Bothwell never mentioned it earlier?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘No that I heard,’ said Bowster. He looked at Anderson, who shook his head blankly. ‘It might be he mentioned it to one of the other lads, I could ask them if you like, but it was a bit — down in the kitchen yonder, where we was supposed to robe up, and black Davie Bowen’s face, and that, it was going like a fair what wi the company above stairs and folk running up and down to fetch wine and cakes and the like, and that wee lassie getting underfoot — ’ He grinned wryly. ‘Asked poor Davie whether he was the Deil or St Maurice, she did. He didny ken what to say, the poor fellow. So as for hearing what any one of the lads said to another, it was a matter of who I was standing next to, that’s who I heard speaking, and I never heard a word of the wrong flask.’

‘No that I ever heard him mention,’ said Christian Bothwell. ‘No enemies, none to wish us ill in Glasgow at least.’

‘And outside it?’ Gil asked.

They were sitting by the fading hearth in the hall of the mason’s big sprawling house further up the High Street. When Gil and his father-in-law finally returned home they had found Mistress Bothwell here in colloquy with Alys and Catherine, the aged French lady who had been Alys’s duenna before their marriage. At Gil’s entry the wolfhound sprawled next to the ashes leapt up and hurried to greet him, tail swinging, and he had to acknowledge the animal’s welcome before he could speak. By the time he had persuaded his dog to lie down again, Alys had also come forward to greet him with rather more dignity and say softly in French:

‘I have let her tell me nothing, Gil, all is still for you to ask.’

He acknowledged this with a quick smile, and touched her hand. She returned the smile and slipped past him to see about something in the kitchen, and he went towards the hearth, taking the opportunity to study the guest while Maistre Pierre was expressing sympathy for her troubles. She was still dressed as she had been when she first hammered at Morison’s door in the twilight, though she had discarded the stained apron and released the long ends of her kerchief to hang down at her shoulders, in the custom of an older woman whose day’s manual labour was done. Her face was broad and plain, though her features were well proportioned; she looked strained and anxious in the candlelight, but her smile had a sweetness about it as she bade goodnight to the dignified Catherine.

‘Outside Glasgow,’ she said now. ‘Well, there are those we hold enemies, but they might not hold us enemies, having got the better of us.’ She noted his startled look, and folded her hands in her lap. ‘We’re no Glasgow folk by birth. Nanty and me were raised in Lanark,’ she said carefully, ‘and trained by our faither, that was apothecary in the town. But when he died there were those that claimed the shop and the workshop and all that was in it as payment for his debts, and we left Lanark and came here instead.’

‘That was two years or so since, I think,’ said Maistre Pierre. She glanced at him and nodded.

‘Had your father’s creditors any connections in Glasgow?’ Gil asked.

‘No that I’m aware.’

‘And your brother has built up his business,’ observed Maistre Pierre, ‘supplying the low end of the market, trading in pence rather than merks and turning over a tidy sum. Or so Maister Forrest tells me.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ she said obscurely. ‘Aye, we serve the Gallowgate and the lower town, wi packets of plain herbs and a few standard cures that sell well, and private consultations, discretion assured.’

‘No quarrels arising from that?’ Gil persevered. ‘A failed treatment, someone who doubts your discretion? What do the other two apothecary houses think of your work?’

She looked blankly at him, then said, ‘I see what you’re asking me. No, I’ve no mind of anyone that holds a grudge at us. Not all treatments succeed, you’ll understand, but the most of our custom recognizes that. Our discretion’s never failed that I mind, and as for the other houses, Wat and Adam are good friends, and Frankie’s aye treated us wi civility. We’re no looking at the same trade, after all. It might be a different tale if we were after his fine goods custom.’

‘What was in the flask your brother should have carried?’ Gil asked.

‘This and that, to raise a bit of smoke when it’s opened,’ she said, as she had before. ‘It’s harmless, so long as you didny drink it or the like, and makes a good effect. Nanty devised it himself.’

‘And it was the right stuff in the flask,’ he persisted.

‘You saw me open it, maister. It was the right stuff — at least, it smoked the right way.’

‘How did he come to leave it behind?’

She shook her head. ‘Likely he took it out of his scrip to fill it, while he was at the booth, and forgot to put it back afore he went out to the play. Better ask him yoursel, maister, if that Serjeant will let you anywhere near him. He wouldny let me in the cell to speak wi him, just took the food and the blanket I brought and sent me away from the door.’ She suddenly turned her head away, but her eyes glittered with tears in the candlelight.

Careful questioning built up an image of decent people, a fond sister, an easygoing and hardworking brother, a close friendship with the dead Danny Gibson.

‘Until the two of them took a notion to that silly wee lassie of Renfrew’s,’ Mistress Bothwell said wearily.

‘Is she so silly?’ Alys asked, crossing the hall from the kitchen stair. She had tied back the sleeves of her silk gown, and was carrying a wooden tray with several beakers and two steaming jugs. The dog Socrates thumped his tail in greeting, and Gil rose to draw a stool to the hearth to serve as a table.

‘If she thinks her faither would ever let her wed wi my Nanty,’ Mistress Bothwell answered, ‘she’s more than silly, she’s daft. He’ll give her a new gown if she asks it, or a feast for her birthday which was how she and Nanty met, but he’s got her marriage sorted, I’ll wager, and Frankie Renfrew takes interference from nobody, the more so since Andrew Slack dee’d and left him senior man in the craft within the burgh.’ She accepted a beaker from Alys, sniffed, tasted, and threw her an approving look. Alys smiled in response, and poured from the other jug for Gil and her father.

‘I would have thought your brother a good prospect,’ observed Maistre Pierre. ‘A man with his own business, another apothecary, a good age for her — ’

‘Nanty’s wife will have to work hard,’ Mistress Bothwell countered, ‘to earn her keep and her bairns’ when they come. It’s our own business, but we’re still building it up, maister.’

‘It was clear enough this afternoon Maister Renfrew does not approve,’ said Alys. ‘And you, Mistress Bothwell. Would you see it as a good match?’

‘No.’ She took a sip of her steaming beaker. Gil raised his eyebrows, and she said with more hesitation, ‘I’d be wary of any connection wi Frankie Renfrew. A man wi his own opinion on everything’s bad enough, one that canny let others alone wi their own ideas is more than I can take. He’d be present in the booth or the workshop daily directing what should be done or sold or ordered up. It’s enough trouble now to get him to put our wants on the docket for Middelburgh without altering them to what he thinks best, we’d never get the simples we needed if he had a share in the business.’

Gil was unsurprised, soon after they had retired, to hear Maistre Pierre’s distinctive loud knock at the outer door of their apartment. He padded across the further chamber in his stocking feet to admit his father-in-law, who said without preamble, ‘It must be some enemy of the young man, whatever the sister says.’

‘Or of both of them,’ said Alys, at the door of their bedchamber. ‘Or perhaps someone who dislikes Agnes Renfrew, or apothecaries in general.’

‘Hmm.’ Her father considered this, seating himself at Gil’s gesture in his usual chair by the cooling brazier. ‘I suppose.’

‘Or it could have been an accident after all,’ said Alys. She began to unpin her velvet headdress, and turned away into the other room to finish the task before the looking-glass.

‘All the man’s friends are agreed that it’s out of character,’ Gil concurred, lighting another candle from the one he held. ‘And it does seem a clumsy way to go about it, to poison your rival in front of half the High Street. What puzzles me is this business of it being the wrong flask.’

‘We must find where that one came from,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And how it was exchanged for the right one, and by whom.’

‘And whether Bothwell knew it was that flask when he opened his scrip. Did either of you think he seemed surprised to find it?’

‘He might have been,’ said Alys from the bedchamber. ‘I wonder if he paused just a little when he touched it in his scrip.’

‘I was watching Frankie Renfrew,’ admitted the mason. ‘But I thought Bothwell as amazed as the rest of us when his friend fell, which suggests he did not know it to be lethal.’

Rustling sounds suggested Alys was unlacing the apricot silk with its wide sleeves. Gil, who would normally have helped her in this task, put aside the thought of the solid, slender warmth of her ribcage between his hands, and said resolutely, ‘I must speak to Wat Forrest tomorrow, to find out what he has discovered. And to young Bothwell himself.’

‘If the Serjeant will let you,’ said Maistre Pierre gloomily. ‘He has decided the man is guilty, as has Frankie, I suppose.’

‘I’ll go to the Provost if he won’t,’ said Gil. ‘But Alys, you could find out for me, if you will, if all the flasks Bothwell took from the joint order are accounted for, or if that could be one of them.’

‘Yes,’ she answered thoughtfully. Silk rustled again. ‘We must check those. But we need to account for the ones that went out to customers with some preparation in them, as well. It could be one of those.’

‘She is right,’ said her father. ‘And there is another thing I wonder at about young Bothwell. If the father’s substance all went to pay his debts, where did these two get the money to set up in business in Glasgow?’

Alys emerged from the inner chamber, fastening a bed-gown about her, and came to sit down with her comb.

‘Their mother’s portion?’ she hazarded. ‘It needn’t be much, if the season was right. They needn’t even have a physic garden. So much of an apothecary’s stock-in-trade is there for gathering in the countryside at the right time of year. Enough coin to lay in some ginger and liquorice, and a good eye for growing things, and perhaps a few crocks and mortars and paper for packaging, and you have the start of your trade.’

Maistre Pierre shook his head. ‘It puzzles me. Why Glasgow? Why not Edinburgh or Linlithgow, or another nearer town to Lanark?’

‘That’s a good point,’ said Gil. ‘It may not be relevant, but who knows what is relevant at this stage?’

Alys turned to smile at him, her face half obscured by the sheet of honey-coloured hair which gleamed gently in the candlelight.

‘I’ll see what I can learn,’ she said again. ‘And Gil — I know you would rather not have her here, but she would have been alone in the house tonight if she went home.’

‘Aye, very true,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It was a wise decision, ma mie.’

Gil made no answer. After a moment she continued, ‘Gil, has anyone else prayed for the poor man?’

‘Father Francis was there,’ he pointed out.

‘No, I mean for Nanty Bothwell. Whatever happens, he has lost a friend, and he probably gave him the poison that killed him. He needs our prayers.’

‘I have a Mass said for him tomorrow,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And we can remember him in our devotions tonight. I have no doubt Catherine has already done so.’

She was silent for a few strokes of her comb, then said, ‘If it is not poison in the painted flask — well, no point in speculating on that yet, I suppose. The man fell so soon after the drops touched him it seems most likely to have been that. If we are right, we need to establish what it was, and how it got in the flask, and what it was doing there.’

‘Who was it intended for, and who put it there,’ Gil added.

‘We said that before,’said Maistre Pierre. ‘If the young man forgot or mislaid the right flask, he must have replaced it at some time. But why with one full of poison?’

‘It could simply have been someone’s store of the poison,’ said Alys slowly, ‘and lifted by accident. The stuff already in the flask, I mean, and the flask simply taken as a substitute.’

‘That’s possible,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘But would a practised apothecary use what was in the flask without knowing what it was?’

‘There was no label on it, was there?’ asked the mason.

‘None when I saw it,’ said Gil.

Alys combed reflectively at her hair for a little while, then said, ‘What of the other people who were there? How did they look when the man fell? Father, you remarked on Maister Renfrew’s fit of rage, but that happened long before the flask appeared.’

‘Shock? Surprise? I didn’t see their faces,’ Gil said.

‘Shock and surprise,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘Amazement. One or two thought it still part of the play, I suppose. Then you moved, Gil, and several watched you. I could not think what you were at myself.’

‘It seemed most important to get the children out of the chamber first.’

‘Yes, indeed. Kate mentioned that while she was nursing Edward,’ said Alys. ‘She was grateful, Gil. Wynliane still has nightmares, and seeing a man die in such a way would certainly set her off.’ He grunted, slightly embarrassed. ‘I looked at my father first, and Maister Renfrew beside him. He seemed amazed. Then you moved, and then when I looked again all the apothecaries had rushed forward, except for that one, is it Nicol Renfrew? Who stayed in his seat and laughed. Such a strange man.’

‘He always was strange,’ Gil said. He described Nicol as he recalled him from their schooldays, and she listened carefully, but said:

‘And the women were all shocked, I think. Poor Nell Wilkie was very distressed, I found her weeping in a corner later, but of course she could not leave until her parents did. She kept saying, It’s horrible, it’s just horrible. I wondered if she had a liking for either man herself. And what with Meg beginning in labour like that as well, both her stepdaughters were overset. It’s fortunate Grace is a woman of sense, for if I’d to rely on Eleanor Renfrew — ’ She bit the sentence off, and applied her comb again.

Her father stirred, and broke his long silence with, ‘Well, well, we were all shaken. Violent death in the midst of rejoicing — I hope it is not an ill omen for young Edward, or for the house. Now what must we do tomorrow? Who must we speak with? The brothers Forrest, I suppose, Maister Renfrew, Mistress Bothwell.’

‘I can do that,’ said Alys, ‘if you speak to Maister Renfrew, Father. See if you can find out about the other flasks. We can hardly trouble the rest of the household while Meg …’

‘I’ll talk to the Forrests and to the accused man,’ said Gil into the pause, ‘and see where that leads me, but I’d best get a word with the Provost first of all.’

‘Do that,’ said his father-in-law. ‘And now I suppose you have better things to think of than talking of murder. I go to my bed. Goodnight, my children.’ He got to his feet, and they bent their heads for his blessing. At the door he halted, and clapped Gil on the shoulder, nodding.

‘Something else to think about,’ he said cryptically, with a flick of the eyes towards Alys as she retreated to their bedchamber. ‘A good thing, I think.’

‘It’s a puzzle,’ said Wat Forrest, looking sourly at the painted flask. ‘It’s pyson right enough, and strong pyson at that as Frankie said, for it slew a couple sparrows and a seamew that fancied the bread and all, much the same way as poor Danny.’

‘The same way,’ Gil repeated.

‘Well, allowing it was smaller creatures,’ said Adam.

‘Aye,’ agreed his brother. ‘It acted much quicker, wi no seizures, they just fell over and twitched a time or two, even the seamew, that’s a lusty bird.’

I haue brought a remedy with me that is the grettest poyson that euer ye herd speke of,’ Gil said thoughtfully.

‘You have?’ said Wat quickly. ‘Ha! You’re at your quoting from books again. Find me a book wi this in it, then, for as to what it is, Gil, I’ve no more notion than when I started.’

‘Have you decided what it isn’t?’

‘Oh, we’ve started a list,’ said Adam.

They were in the Forrest brothers’ workroom, a powerful-smelling place lined with shelves. A wall of pottery jars, each carefully labelled in the neat script taught at the grammar school, faced an array of mysterious pieces of glassware and metal tubes. There was a scrubbed and much-stained bench in the middle of the room, and a small charcoal burner gave off a welcome heat but was not, Gil suspected, there to warm the occupants although the day outside was bright and cold, the wind biting. At the other side of the chamber, by the window which gave on to the shop, Wat’s quiet wife Barbara Hislop, niece of the late Andrew Slack, was working at something in a lead mortar between trips into the shop itself to deal with a customer. It was amazing how much of the Upper Town needed rice or nutmegs or digestive lozenges this morning.

‘There’s a few substances you can set aside immediate,’ Wat said helpfully, ‘that never take the form of a liquid, or else demand heat to liquefy them. Then there’s the colour, which is like watered milk, that lets you leave aside those that are said to be green or yellow or the like, and the smell, for I’d think there’s no smell from the flask, though to tell truth I haveny got that close to it. No strong smell, we’ll say. And we’ll do without proving it by taste, for I’ve a wife and a bairn to think of.’ The wife looked round at this; they exchanged a glance, and she smiled slightly and addressed the mortar again.

‘So we’re no much forrard,’ said Adam.

‘We know now it’s poison in this flask, the one that was in Bothwell’s scrip,’ said Gil. ‘If we knew what it was, it might tell us who put it there, but there could be other ways to find that.’ He nodded at the bright thing sitting innocently on the workbench. ‘Knowing where the flask itself came from would help.’

‘Well, from Araby,’ said Wat.

‘We had a dozen, as I tellt you,’ said Adam. ‘There’s seven still on the shelf yonder,’ he pointed at the furthest rack, ‘and we need to go through the book and check, but I think the other five’s accounted for, gone out holding one preparation or another for the gentry trade.’

‘That’s assuming they’re still in the houses they went to,’ Gil observed. ‘If you let me have a list, I’ll see to tracking them down.’

There was a pause, in which the brothers looked at one another.

‘I could see to that,’ said Barbara Hislop in her soft voice. ‘I delivered the most of them, after all. I could call by each one and ask if it’s still there.’

‘Aye, that’s the way,’ said Wat in relief. Gil, recognizing that confidentiality was a requirement in other professions than his own, nodded with some reluctance.

‘Maybe you’d do more than ask, mistress,’ he suggested. ‘If you could try to set eyes on each one, and make a note of it, that would be better. I wouldn’t need to see your note unless you learn aught the Provost has to hear,’ he added, ‘but I’d as soon know it was writ down somewhere just what you learned.’

Wat frowned at this, but grunted agreement. His wife looked at him, then into the mortar; pushing it to one side she covered it with a cloth and said, ‘I’ll go out the now, while folk are still in their houses. How was Christian the day, sir?’ she added shyly. ‘Adam said she was to lie at your house. That was kind in you.’

‘She’s worried for her brother,’ Gil said. ‘She went down the town early, to see to the booth and get a loaf to send in for him to break his fast.’ He glanced at the window. ‘I’d best be away to the Tolbooth and speak to the man myself.’

‘Tell him he has our prayers,’ she said, and both the brothers agreed with emphasis.

‘Spoke to the Provost,’ repeated Serjeant Anderson.

‘You can send a man up to the Castle to check, if you like,’ said Gil pleasantly.

‘No, no, I’ll tak your word for it, maister.’ The Serjeant reached for his keys, rose in offended dignity from his great chair and turned towards the stair which descended from the far side of his cluttered chamber. ‘Come and get speech wi our pysoner, then. I’ve no put him to the question yet, I was waiting on instruction from the Provost myself and he’ll likely want him up at the Castle. Forbye my lord Montgomery hasny returned the pilliwinks he borrowed off me the last time he was in Glasgow.’

Suppressing the thought of what thumbscrews would do to a man used to such fine work as rolling pills and measuring tiny quantities of their ingredients, Gil followed the Serjeant down to the row of three small cells where miscreants were held until justice came their way.

‘We’ve no that much room,’ admitted the Serjeant, ‘seeing the Watch lifted a couple of lads on the Gallowgate last night, suspicion of pickery, and the ale-conners had a bit trouble yesterday and all, so we’ve a hantle of alewives, causing of mob and riot …’ He paused as a volley of shrill invective struck them from the alewives’ cell. ‘But just the same I put him in on his own, seeing it’s no right to ask other folk, even ill-doers, to share a cell wi a pysoner.’ He was unlocking the furthest cell as he spoke, and now unbarred the door and opened it cautiously, peering in. ‘Right, Anthony Bothwell, here’s a man of law to question you why you did it.’

Bothwell was on his feet when Gil stepped into the cell, a blanket round his shoulders, the end of a loaf in one hand. He ducked his head in a bow, stammering, ‘Maister Cunningham! This is right kind of you — ’

‘Wait till he’s questioned you afore you call him kind,’ said the Serjeant. ‘Just kick the door and shout a bit when you want to leave, maister, I’ll hear you in time.’

As lock and bar clunked into place Gil looked round and sat down cautiously on the stone slab which served as a bed.

‘Your sister’s loaf reached you,’ he observed.

Bothwell looked down at the crust. ‘Aye. How is she? She’s aye — she’s — ’

‘She’s out at the booth here,’ Gil said. ‘She’s feared it might be attacked if she left it unattended.’

‘Aye. I thought o that too, in the night,’ said Bothwell. He took two paces across the cell and two back, and turned to Gil, spreading his hands, the crust shedding crumbs on the filthy floor. ‘What am I to do, maister? I never pysont Danny, whatever the Serjeant says, but he’ll not hear me. I lay all night thinking, what of my sister? She’ll never wed now, we’ll never get a tocher thegither for her, who’ll go to an apothecary that’s been accusit of pysoning a man?’

‘You’d be surprised what folk can forget,’ said Gil. ‘Your sister’s asked me to look into this business. She’ll not believe you guilty, and nor do the Forrests, nor the other players.’

‘My thanks for that, maister,’ said Bothwell.

‘So sit down, man, and tell me where the flask came from.’

‘The flask?’ The other man stared at him. ‘Was it — was it the flask right enough?’

Gil detailed Wat Forrest’s observations. Bothwell heard him out in silence, and suddenly sat down on the bench and covered his mouth with the back of his free hand.

‘I’d been sure,’ he said after a moment, ‘sure as anything, it was something he’d eaten afore the play. So it was pyson, and it was me gave it to him, and neither of us ever thinking — ’ He broke off, and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Poor Danny. God ha mercy on him. And on me.’

‘Amen,’ said Gil. ‘So where did the flask come from? Is it one of your own?’

‘No, it — ’ Bothwell stopped, staring at Gil in the dull light. After a moment he looked away, and said slowly, ‘Aye, I suppose it is.’

‘You must know.’

‘Aye, it is. It’s one of mine. One of ours.’

‘So what was in it and when did it get there?’ The other man shook his head, staring at the ground. Gil looked at him in some puzzlement. ‘You must know,’ he said again. ‘Why were you carrying that one rather than the other?’

There was another pause. Then Bothwell drew a deep breath, exhaled hard and said, ‘Maister, you’ve just tellt me I killed my nearest friend. I’m no thinking that well. Can I get a bit of time to get my head clear?’

‘I’ve aye found,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘that the sooner I ask the questions, the better the answers I get.’

‘No in this case,’ said Bothwell.

‘Well, let’s talk about something else. Have you enemies in Glasgow? Anyone that dislikes you enough to get you accused of murder?’

‘Me?’ said Bothwell in blank amazement. ‘No! No that I — no.’ He shook his head.

‘Why Glasgow anyway? Why did you settle here after you left Lanark?’

Bothwell grimaced. ‘Our grandam was a Glasgow woman. We’d kind memories of her.’

‘And the move was a good one?’

‘Oh, aye. Till now. Wat and Adam have been good to us, and Frankie’s aye free wi advice and encouragement.’ He shot Gil a wry look. ‘Seeing we’re hardly after the same custom.’

The same remark as his sister had made.

‘Tell me about Danny Gibson,’ said Gil. ‘What kind of a fellow was he?’

‘A good friend.’ A painful half-smile. ‘We seen eye to eye on so many things, it was no wonder we both — ’ He stopped, and there was another pause.

‘Both went after the same girl,’ Gil supplied.

‘Aye.’

‘Which of you did she favour?’ Another shake of the head. ‘Neither of you? Do you tell me a young lass like Agnes Renfrew contrived to be even-handed between you?’ Surely not that empty-headed little creature — Alys could have managed it, he thought, but Alys is by far wiser.

‘Look, we can just leave Agnes out of this,’ said Nanty Bothwell. ‘She’s got nothing to do wi it, I tell you. I never slew Danny out of jealousy or for any other reason, it was a foul mischance, and no point in asking questions.’

‘What did you and Danny have words about in the kitchen before the play?’

‘We never did,’ said Bothwell, looking up indignantly.

‘I’ve heard different. You had speech with Agnes Renfrew out in the yard, and then hot words with Danny in the kitchen.’

‘Oh.’ Bothwell looked down again. ‘That. Aye, well, I saw Agnes in the yard and stepped out — just to pass the time of day,’ he said fluently, ‘no that she was able for much conversation for she’d to run home on some errand for her stepmother, seeing it’s just next door. And then, well, Danny was angry at me for getting a chance at speaking wi her when he hadny. We’d an agreement. We’d pledged,’ he said, with a sideways glance at Gil. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he suddenly put his hand over his mouth again. ‘Ah, the poor fellow,’ he said behind it.

‘And then you spoke to her again on the stairs. What did she have to say then?’

‘Nothing. She was on the stair, I met her there. By happenstance.’

‘Are you sure it was happenstance? You’d a lot to say to each other, for a chance encounter.’

‘Why are you questioning me? You know the whole tale, that’s clear,’ said Bothwell. ‘I tellt you to leave Agnes out of this, forbye.’

‘No, for I don’t know what she meant by saying she’d saved the play.’ There was no answer. ‘What had she to do with the play?’

‘Nothing,’ said Bothwell firmly. ‘Ask her. Ask her faither. Do you think Frankie Bothwell would ever let his lassie near a company of mummers?’

‘Right,’ said Gil, rising. He kicked the door and shouted loudly for the Serjeant. ‘I’ll do just that, man, for if you’ll not help me to the truth I’ll get there another way.’


Below the painted sign depicting a marble mortar and pestle a crowd was gathered about the door of the Both-wells’ booth. Its demeanour seemed to be peaceful, but Gil hastened his stride along the side of the Tolbooth, past the other small booths and stalls with their array of enticing wares spread out in the chilly sunshine.

‘No need to hurry,’ said the capper from his doorway, knitting-wires unheeded in his hand. ‘They’ll be there a while yet.’ Gil checked to look at the man, who went on, ‘I canny interest you in a good new bonnet, maister? No, I thought not. Trade’s been as quiet the day so far, they’re all along by Christian’s door trying to hear what’s to do wi her brother.’

‘I’d like to know the same,’ said Gil, rather grimly. The capper threw him a jaded look and ducked back into his booth, taking up his thread of wool again.

Christian Bothwell was behind the counter in the booth, dispensing packets of herbs and folded papers of pills, a snippet of news or thanks for a word of sympathy along with each. To his surprise Gil recognized his wife beside her, neat this morning in her everyday blue gown and plain black silk hood, taking the money and counting the change as if she had done it all her life. He managed to catch her eye over the heads of the crowd, and she smiled at him, spoke quietly to Mistress Bothwell, but made no effort to leave. With some trouble he elbowed his way to the front, and the two women finished the transaction they were occupied with and turned to him.

‘So did you get a word wi Nanty, sir?’ asked Mistress Bothwell.

‘I did. He’s not saying much.’

‘Pennyworth of treacle, lass, and I’ve my own pig here,’ said a stout woman, elbowing him aside and thumping a pottery jar down on the counter. ‘That’s a terrible thing about your brother, and all.’

‘Is it the shock, maybe?’ Mistress Bothwell said to Gil, smiling automatically at the woman and passing the pottery pig to Alys.

‘I’d say not.’ Gil looked round at the crowd, nodded to an acquaintance, and resisted the attempts of another woman with a basket of strong cheese to push past him to the counter. ‘I need to get a word wi you, mistress. There’s a few things you could tell me.’

Alys was already lifting the money-box away into the booth, and Mistress Bothwell reached for the ropes that held the counter in place.

‘Get round to the door and I’ll let you in,’ she said. ‘Forgive me, neighbours, I need a word wi this man of law, you’ll agree Nanty needs all the help he can get the now. I’ll open the shutters again in half an hour,’ she promised. ‘Your pig’ll likely take that time to fill, the treacle runs that slow this weather, Maggie.’

There were some groans, and a few disgruntled comments, but the woman with the cheese seemed to speak for most when she said, ‘Aye, Christian, take all the advice you can get. Is that no the man that got Maister Morison let off when he found a heid in a barrel?’

Inside the booth, with the shutter closed and the door latched again, it was nearly dark. Alys materialized at his side in the shadows, tucked her hand in his, and said, ‘Will he not answer your questions?’

‘He’ll tell me nothing about the item he had,’ Gil said quietly, well aware that they were far from private. ‘Nor how it came to be in his scrip instead of the other. Can you shed any light, mistress?’

‘No,’ said Mistress Bothwell from across the little space. ‘I found the pewter one in here when I lifted the counter to close up, the way I said, long after he’d left to gather wi his friends. The wee filler was there wi it, I thought like as not he’d been mixing a fresh batch of the smoking potion and filling it into the flask and maybe been interrupted by a customer and put the whole thing under the counter out the way.’

‘That sounds reasonable,’ Gil agreed. ‘But the other. Where did he get that, and when did it come by its fill of poison? Is it one of your own?’

‘One of ours? It might be.’ By her voice she was thinking carefully. ‘Frankie Renfrew would have us take a half-dozen out of a shipment he had from Araby, and I’ve no recollection we’ve used any of them. We don’t trade wi the luxury end of the market, maister. They should all still be in their straw wrappings in the basket where I stowed them.’

‘And where would that be?’ he asked.

She laughed abruptly. ‘A good question.’

‘They are not here, are they?’ said Alys. ‘Could they be in your house?’

‘Aye, very like. I’ll tak a look if it’s important, maister.’

‘I think it is important,’ said Gil patiently. ‘We need to find out where it came from and how it came to be in his scrip with poison in it, and if your brother won’t tell us we have to find out another way.’

‘But why won’t he say? That’s madness, if it’s sic an important matter. It wasn’t just us that had some,’ she said, still thinking it out. ‘Frankie ordered six dozen, I think he said, and five of them was broken or chipped past using for the business. We took a half-dozen, Wat and Adam had a dozen, so Frankie must ha had near fifty. Even Frankie Renfrew isn’t going to trade fifty flasks like that in a year.’

‘But why would either the Forrests or Maister Renfrew wish to do you such an ill turn?’ Alys asked.

‘It might not be Frankie himsel.’

‘Mistress Hislop is to check that all theirs are accounted for,’ Gil said.

‘Barbara’s a good lass. You’ll can trust what she says.’

But can I? Gil wondered. Beside him, Alys said:

‘Might my husband go by your house just now and ask your servant to look for the basket? Would it be easy for her to find?’

‘No,’ Mistress Bothwell said bluntly. ‘I stowed it out of her way. She’s a capable woman, but she’s right clumsy. I’ll not have her crashing about in my workroom. I tell you what, maister, if you would wait while I go home the now, seeing you’re in a hurry, I could fetch out the basket and bring Leezie back wi me to gie me a hand here while I’m about it.’

‘I could come with you,’ said Alys hopefully. ‘Gil can guard the booth on his own, I am sure.’

‘If you’re doing that,’ said Gil, ‘leave me a light of some sort.’

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