A Pig of Cold Poison

Chapter Four

Maister Goudie’s shop along the Thenewgate was also beset by a number of lads and men old enough to know better, who were hanging about the door in the hope of setting eyes on the surviving journeyman. When Gil stepped into the shop an older man looked up from his work on a ball-ended dagger, perhaps thinking that here was a genuine customer. Through the window behind him the two apprentices were visible in the yard behind the shop, at their endless task of rottenstoning the plate mail. There was no sign of Davie Bowen, but Goudie appeared from the drawing-shop to one side, ducking past the leather curtain, slate and pencil in hand and spectacles on nose.

‘And how can we help you, Maister Cunningham?’ he asked. ‘A new dagger, is it, or a helm? Or I’ve a bonnie back-and-wame would just about suit you, all of new plate and just a wee bit chasing on the breast — ’

‘I’m not buying today,’ Gil said regretfully. ‘Maybe at the quarter-day. I just stepped by to condole with you after yesterday.’

Goudie crossed himself, and in the tail of his eye Gil saw the other man do the same.

‘That’s a kindness, sir. Aye. A shock that was, I can tell you. When they brought Davie home, weeping his heart out, the poor lad, and tellt me — aye, aye, a shock like no other.’ He paused, and peered hard at Gil. ‘Did Tammas Bowster tell me you were present when it happened, maister? I wonder, would you come up and let me know what came about, and maybe the mistress and all? Billy, you’ll mind the shop a while, man? I’d be right grateful, Maister Cunningham. Davie’s made very little sense, I’m sure we can all understand that, but I’d thought better o Tammas than the fool’s tale he gave me.’

‘I’d be glad to,’ Gil said. And thank you, St Giles, he thought. What a piece of good fortune.

He found himself bustled through the drawing-shop, past rows of hanging parchment measuring-strips and wooden patterns, past a well-thumbed book of designs on the wide bench, and up the stairs to the living quarters. Here a lean, motherly woman in striped homespun exclaimed at Goudie’s introduction, and pressed him to sit down by the brazier and accept oatcakes and a cup of buttered ale while he explained all to them. He went over the tale of Danny Gibson’s death, and they heard him out with more exclamations and sighs.

‘So Tammas had the right of it,’ said Goudie. ‘I couldny credit it myself, that he just fell down and died. And at Nanty’s hand, forbye. Is that no dreadful, mistress?’

His wife nodded, wiping at her eyes with the tail of her headdress.

‘The poor lad,’ she said. ‘But it wasny Davie’s fault, that’s clear enough. I’m grateful for you telling us that, maister.’

‘I wish I’d never let them practise in my yard,’ said Goudie glumly.

‘How is Davie?’ Gil asked.

‘Laid down on his bed wi a draught,’ said Mistress Goudie. ‘I’m no one to coddle the lads, you’ll ken, maister, but he’s in no state to work. He said he never slept. Poor laddie, he sat here at the fire weeping and telling me he wanted to dee hissel, I think he’s feart it was something he’d done that caused Danny’s death.’

‘He’s aye been soft, that lad. Billy’s fit to work the day, why not Davie?’

‘William Goudie, you shed a tear or two yoursel last night,’ challenged his lady.

‘Tell me about Danny,’ Gil requested. ‘What kind of a lad was he? Was he well liked? Had he any enemies?’

‘Not that I ken,’ said Mistress Goudie firmly. ‘He was a bonnie lad, not out of the ordinar in any way, civil enough round the house and in the work place,’ Goudie nodded agreement to this, ‘got on well wi his fellows. Behaved hissel as well as a lad that age will do, went to Mass wi the rest of us. A bit fussy to feed, he would never touch anything wi nuts in, couldny stand nuts. It made fast days a wee bit difficult, but no more than that.’

‘Did he make jokes, play tricks, anything that might have annoyed someone?’

‘No that I ever heard,’ she said doubtfully. ‘He was — he was aye sic a kind laddie,’ she finished, and sighed and dabbed at her eyes again.

‘What did he do for his leisure?’

‘Went drinking,’ supplied Goudie, ‘went out to the butts on a Sunday, played at the football on a holiday. Much like his fellows, as Mistress Goudie says.’

‘Did he belong to any league or band?’ Gil asked. ‘Any of the altar companies, or a football side, anything of the sort?’

‘No that he ever mentioned,’ said Mistress Goudie, thinking. ‘He supported St Eloi’s altar along at St Mary’s, like all the hammermen, but I never heard him speak of any other league he had to do wi. And the lads do talk, the three of them,’ she bit her lip, ‘times they’d forget I was present, as if I was their mother.’ The end of her headdress came into use again, and she turned her face away.

‘Did he have anything of any value?’ Gil asked. ‘I’m still trying to find a reason why he would be killed.’

‘But surely they’re saying it was Nanty Bothwell’s doing?’ questioned the armourer.

‘I’m casting all round about,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll look at all the possibilities. Did the lad have anything worth stealing, mistress?’

‘No that I ever saw.’ She looked across the chamber. ‘I packed his gear all up into his scrip, for his faither to collect when he — aye. So it’s there, maister, if you wish a look at it. He hadny that much.’

This was true. Two spare shirts, one badly worn, two pairs of hose, two doublets and a leather jerkin; comb and shaving gear, a woodcut of St Eloi brandishing the newly shod leg of the horse which stood docilely beside him on the remaining three. Drawers and other linen, a pair of shoes, a pair of boots, made a separate bundle. On one of the doublets was pinned a pewter badge of St Mirren.

‘Did he have a bow?’ Gil asked.

‘I arm my laddies myself,’ said Maister Goudie. ‘So I keep a half-dozen bows for their use. He’d his choice of any one of them, and the same for blade and buckler, to take out to the butts.’

Gil shook his head. ‘There’s nothing here to kill for, that I can see,’ he said.

‘Bothwell must ha done it,’ said Goudie. ‘But it’s a strange way to go about getting rid of your rival, to use poison on him wi half the burgh looking on.’

‘I can’t make sense of that,’ Gil said. ‘Were they rivals right enough? Did Danny ever talk to you about it, mistress?’

‘Oh, they were rivals,’ agreed Mistress Goudie. ‘At least so far as they both had a notion to the lass, and she had a notion to the both of them. I saw her a time or two at the market, wi a maidservant at her heels,’ she divulged, with a rueful smile. ‘She’d stop by the potyngar booth at the Tolbooth, and pass the time of the morning, and then she’d be along here not a quarter hour later and keeking in at our shop door, though what business a young lass would have in an armourer’s shop — well, it did no harm, or so I thought, though it’s led the lass into grief after all. But the two lads was friendly enough about it, and as good friends as ever when the lass wasny about.’

‘Perhaps she was even-handed then,’ Gil said. ‘Bothwell told me she was. He said they had an agreement, too — he and Danny Gibson, I mean.’

‘Young fools,’ said Goudie, without heat. ‘Danny naught but a journeyman, Nanty Bothwell still to make his way in his trade — her father thinks by far too well of himself to wed her to either, and so I told them both a time or two.’

‘Aye, you did that, Goudie,’ agreed his wife, ‘but did you expect them to listen?’ She sighed again. ‘Och, poor laddies. The both of them. What a business.’

‘Where did he go drinking?’ Gil asked as he rose to leave.

‘Now that I can say,’ pronounced Mistress Goudie. ‘He and Billy would argue over the best alehouse, and Danny aye swore by Maggie Bell’s house, just across Glasgow Brig.’

Tammas Bowster the glover was seated at the window of his shop, stitching intently at the many scraps of fine leather which went into a glove. Gil recalled the white kidskin he had bought in Perth in the summer. Perhaps this man could make it into something suitable for Alys, he thought.

When he stepped into the shop Bowster raised his head with a sour look, but his expression lightened as he saw Gil and he got to his feet, saying hopefully, ‘Is there any word, maister?’

‘The Serjeant hadny heard from the Castle when I was there,’ Gil said. ‘I came by to see if you’d recalled anything new that might help me.’

‘You’ll take it on, maister? You’ll see into how poor Danny came to be pysont?’

‘I seem to be doing that,’ Gil admitted. The glover set aside his work and put a stool nearer the brazier.

‘Hae a seat, maister, and I’ll answer your questions. I’ve not recalled anything,’ he admitted, ‘but if you prompt me who knows what might come to mind. Was that you at Goudie’s door the now? What’s the word o Davie Bowen?’

‘Overcome by grief. Mistress Goudie was quite anxious about him.’

Bowster nodded. ‘He’s aye a soft laddie, a gentle soul. I think his daddy put him to the armourer in the hope it would harden him. And yet he’s that good with a sword and buckler.’

The two were hardly exclusive, thought Gil.

‘Tell me about yesterday,’ he said. ‘Where did your company gather? Here, or at Goudie’s?’

‘Aye, at Goudie’s. Nanty was a bit after the tryst, last to arrive, he said he’d had a run of custom and his sister not back yet from the house. Then when we were all assembled, and certain we’d our guises all complete, we went up to Morison’s Yard in a body wi the piper playing.’

‘Your piper,’ said Gil. ‘Who is he?’

‘Geordie Barton, dwells in the Fishergate. No a bad piper, kens more tunes than some of them, but he can put away the ale like it was the last brewing in the country.’

‘And Nanty never said he had the wrong flask?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Bowster. ‘He never said aught about it at all, and you ken, I think that would be a cause Davie and Danny were getting right anxious about the play. It was Davie’s first time afore other folk, you’ll understand, and he was a wee thing on edge. Nanty likely said nothing about changing anything for fear of — ’

‘Of course.’ That made sense, though it cast no light on when the change had occurred. ‘So from Goudie’s you all walked up to Morison’s house, and went to the kitchen door.’

‘It’s a fine large kitchen. And the auld wife there — Ursel, is that her name? — was right friendly, though she was rare taigled with the company above in the hall, and sending up food. She gave us ale and gingerbread, and let us disguise oursels in her scullery, and then we waited in her kitchen till they were ready for us in the hall.’

‘And when did the two of them quarrel? Nanty and Danny Gibson?’

Bowster thought about this.

‘A’most as soon as we stepped out into the kitchen,’ he said at length. ‘I was last out, for I was helping Bessie wi his headdress, and they were going at it by then. I think by what they were saying, Danny had come into the kitchen and saw Nanty out in the yard getting a word wi the lass, and then she went off somewhere, so Danny never got his turn to speak wi her.’

‘But Nanty didn’t leave the kitchen again till you came up the stair?’

‘I’d not say that,’ said Bowster cautiously. ‘He slipped away up the stair himsel afore long, and I found him getting another word wi the lass in private. At which I tellt him, if him and Danny quarrelled again, what would it do to the play, and the lass says that about I’ve saved your play, and goes away up to the hall.’

‘And you’ve still no notion what she meant by that?

‘Never a one.’ Bowster lifted the strips of leather on his bench and turned them in careful fingers. ‘Unless maybe Nanty was for leaving us and she’s persuaded him to stay, but that makes no sense, he was enjoying his part.’

‘He says they met on the stair by chance,’ Gil observed. Bowster shook his head sceptically. ‘Did the lass come through the kitchen, or had she come down the stair from the hall?’

‘I never noticed. But there was that much coming and going, and some of the men were in and out at the door, the fellows of that household I mean, she could easy ha come in that way and me never see her, for I was taken up wi seeing that the champions never took too much of the ale-jug when it came round.’ He pulled a face. ‘I once saw an Alexander hurt bad, for that the Jack was drunk when they fought, and missed his swing.’

‘I never thought of there being so much to see over, in taking charge of the play,’ Gil said. ‘The ale was in a common jug, was it?’

‘Oh, aye, which she, Ursel I mean, filled from the household barrel in the corner of the kitchen,’ the glover assured him. ‘We all had a pull at it, to wet our thrapples for the singing, and a bit of her gingerbread off the tray. It hadny any gilt on,’ he added reflectively, ‘but it was right good gingerbread.’

‘Ursel makes good gingerbread,’ Gil agreed. He sat thinking for a space, while Bowster fidgeted with the strips of leather. ‘So the first you knew of it being the wrong flask,’ he said at length, ‘was when it appeared out of Nanty Bothwell’s scrip, in front of everyone.’

‘Aye, like I told you,’ agreed Bowster.

Gil got to his feet. ‘That’s a help,’ he said, with partial truth. ‘I’m getting things clearer in my mind, though I still don’t see how it happened. I’ll have more questions afore I’m done, I’ve no doubt.’

Bowster rose likewise.

‘If I can answer them,’ he said, and then, casually, ‘Is there any word from the Renfrew household? Is Mistress Mathieson —?’

‘Still groaning,’ said Kate. ‘Poor lass, she’s having a hard time of it, they’re saying. I’ve sent Babb twice today, with my snakestone and then a cup of one of Mother’s remedies. The house is full of her gossips, settled in for a long wait.’

They were seated where the sun streamed in at one of the great bay windows, while in the other the two little girls played some complicated game involving their dolls, a wooden horse and a handful of the red and yellow leaves which were now blowing about the yard. Kate checked that they were engrossed, adjusted the screen by the cradle to keep the light out of her baby’s face, and picked up her sewing again.

‘Tammas Bowster asked me if there was word,’ Gil said.

‘I’ve no doubt he did. Grace told me Meg’s father chose our neighbour for her, over the glover,’ Kate said circumspectly, ‘as being better able to provide for her. There’s no doubt that’s true, but I’d say she’d have preferred the other.’

That explains that, thought Gil, watching her hands as she stitched, and suddenly thought of young Mistress Mathieson’s expression as she looked at her husband. Kate was developing their mother’s tendency to be right about things.

‘I’ve spoken to Andy,’ she went on, ‘and to Ursel. The mummers had ale, out of one jug, and gingerbread from a common tray, while they were in the kitchen. There was all sorts coming and going, so it’s possible someone spoke to the — the man that died, and gave him something else to eat or drink, but nobody saw any such thing, though they all agreed he’d had a shouting match with young Bothwell. I think Gibson was mostly talking to the Judas after that.’

‘Kate, that’s excellent,’ he said. ‘It bears out what the mummers themselves have said. I’ve another question for you to ask your household now.’ She looked up, eyebrows raised. ‘I think Agnes Renfrew slipped out to fetch something for her stepmother. Which door did she use?’

‘The hall door,’ said Kate firmly. ‘At least — I saw her leave that way, Jamesie let her out. There he is in the yard, Gil, you could ask him if he let her back in. Is it important?’

‘It’s something that puzzles me.’

Out in the yard, Jamesie was quite willing to leave his task of stacking tin-glazed pottery dishes on the rack opposite the gates, but when Gil explained his question he scratched his head in thought.

‘I’d say I never let her back in,’ he pronounced after a moment. ‘I mind letting her out to go back to her own house, for that her mammy needed some special cushion, as if our cushions wasny good enough for her, and she laid her plaid over her shoulders when she left. That’s how I mind it, I’d to fetch the plaid from the bed in the good chamber where we’d laid them all, and I’d to try twice to get the right one, but she’d ha need of it. That bonnie blue gown she’d on wouldny keep the wind off her.’

‘But she never came back by the hall door,’ Gil prompted.

‘No, I’d say she didny. You could ask Andy,’ the man suggested. ‘Maybe he let her in after I’d gone from the door. Which I did once all the guests was arrived.’

A little searching located Andy, assisting his master in the counting-house in sorting through the bills for the coming quarter-day. Both men listened to his question, but shook their heads.

‘I mind seeing the lass as she returned,’ admitted Augie, ‘but I only caught sight of her in the midst of the hall, with the cushion in her arms. Kate did offer Mistress Mathieson her own herb cushion, but it seems she wanted this one.’

‘I never noticed,’ said Andy. ‘Here’s that docket from the Sankt Nikolaas, maister, wi the clarry wine on it. If Jamesie didny let her in, Maister Gil, she never came in by the hall door, for I’d have heard her rattling at the pin. You could ask if Ursel noticed her in the kitchen, or one of the lassies. They were quite taken wi all the fine clothes,’ he added, inspired, ‘maybe they’d ha taken note if she cam in that way.’

‘A good thought,’ Gil said. He returned to report this to Kate, and found Ysonde hanging over the cradle, cooing to its sleeping occupant. As he sat down she said in honeyed tones:

‘Wee Baby Floris, all s’eepy. You’re no to wake him,’ she added to Gil, and whisked off to the other window and the game with her sister.

Gil raised his eyebrows at Kate, who said solemnly, face straight, eyes dancing, ‘That’s what Ysonde calls him, because she and Wynliane are in a book, but Edward isn’t.’

‘Oh, aye, and Augie said he’d read Floris and Blanchflour to him,’ Gil recalled. ‘I hope his life has less adventure in it than Floris’s.’

‘So do I, indeed. Did Jamesie have anything useful to say?’

Gil recounted his information and Andy’s suggestion, at which she made a note in her tablets to speak to the two maidservants.

‘Is it a matter of the time she returned?’ she asked.

‘Something like that.’

‘I wish we’d never thought of entertaining,’ she said, sighing. ‘Bad enough Meg going off into labour that way, but this other — ah, well. What’s done’s done.’

‘When did Augie ask the mummers in?’

‘Two days afore. Tuesday, I suppose,’ she said in some surprise, ‘it’s still only Friday today. He told me about it on Wednesday, there was no time to do anything, other than warn Meg — ’

‘So the household knew?’

‘The women did,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think they told our neighbour himself. They may not have wanted to. He’s a hard man to cross, in chamber, hall and counting-house, it seems, and considering how he looked when I did tell him, I’d have kept quiet if I was in Meg’s shoes too.’

Gil thought about the events here in the hall. ‘Kate, when it happened — did you get a sight of any of the other faces? Did any of them seem …’ He paused, groping for words.

‘Was anyone affected out of the ordinary?’ she supplied. He nodded. Of his four surviving sisters Kate was his favourite, and the closest to him in temperament and thought. Of course she knew what he meant. ‘I never noticed,’ she went on. ‘I wasny well placed to see the faces. Maybe Babb or Andy would be more help.’ She paused, needle in the air. ‘I’d think one or other of the women, Nancy or Barbara or Agnes Hamilton, might call by this afternoon before they go in to wait on Meg. I’ll ask them and all — circumspectly.’

‘I too have little to report,’ said Maistre Pierre, spreading potted herring liberally on his wedge of bread. Further down the long board young John McIan, perched on his nurse’s knee, shouted something unintelligible and waved a crust. Nancy hushed him, but the mason grinned at his foster-son, waved back, and continued, ‘Maister Renfrew was willing enough to talk to me, but all he would say was that the young man is guilty, and must hang for it.’

‘Is there any word of Meg?’ Alys asked.

Her father shook his head, swallowed a mouthful and said, ‘No, it seems she still labours, poor woman. I did not stay long, the household is manifestly in turmoil, full of strange women, and only the two young men are in the shop. I got word with Frankie by enquiring how he did after yesterday.’

‘The two young men,’ Gil repeated, handing the last bite of his bread and herring to the dog sitting politely at his elbow. ‘Robert and Nicol, do you mean?’

‘Robert and young Syme, the son-in-law. I had forgotten about Nicol.’

‘Did you ask about the flasks?’ Alys prompted.

‘I did. He would not entertain the thought that it could be one of his.’

‘But it must be,’ said Alys. ‘Kittock tells me a lad came from the Forrests’ shop to say all theirs are accounted for, and the six that the Bothwells took were still in their packing, safe in Christian’s stillroom, with the docket of receipt as well.’ She looked at Gil across the table. ‘We spent a good time exploring the room. She was very willing to tell me about all her stores, and we must have opened every container in the house. There was nothing that answers to Adam Forrest’s description of what is in the flask.’

‘Nor in the booth,’ said Gil. ‘Like you, I looked in every pig and flagon in the place. None of them held poison — at least, not that variety,’ he qualified. ‘Unless it’s very thoroughly hidden, or there is no more than went in the flask, it isn’t in the booth.’

‘Nor in the house,’ she agreed.

‘I hope you have both washed your hands before you ate,’ said Maistre Pierre.

Beside him Catherine, who had been masticating potted herring on white bread with the crusts removed, set down her beaker and said in her elegant toothless French, ‘It is very remarkable that so many of the young man’s friends have asked you to prove him innocent.’

‘Half of Glasgow,’ Gil agreed.

‘Except,’ she went on, nodding in acknowledgement of this, ‘the Renfrew girl. And yet he had spoken to her just before the play, I understand.’

‘I wondered about that too,’ said Alys. ‘Perhaps she can’t get away to speak to Gil. They must all be at sixes and sevens just now.’

‘The household of Maistre Renfrew is a large one, and I think not all its members are willing to be ruled by their master. Nevertheless,’ she raised one liver-spotted hand to prevent Maistre Pierre interrupting, ‘I do not see why that should lead them to poisoning and murder.’

‘My thoughts exactly, madame,’ Gil said, smiling at her. He had held the old lady in respect already, but since his marriage he had come to admire her perception and tact. As for how she acquired her information, it was clear that though she spoke no Scots she understood it well. Now she bent her head in reply to his comment, and said to Alys:

‘You should call on the household, ma mie, to pay the duty of a neighbour.’

‘So I thought,’ agreed Alys.

John, squirming down from Nancy’s lap, pattered up the length of the table, ignoring attempts by other members of the household to distract him, paused to insert his soggy crust into Socrates’ willing mouth, and halted beside his foster-father’s tree-like knee.

‘Up!’ he commanded. Maistre Pierre hauled the boy on to his lap, pulling the child’s long tunic down over the little fat legs in their woollen stockings.

‘That daughter,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘the younger one, is particularly unruly. You would never have behaved like that, Alys.’

Her quick smile flickered. ‘It was never necessary,’ she said with composure. ‘Gil, what will you do this afternoon? Who do you need to speak to?’

‘Most of Glasgow,’ he said. ‘John, would you like a piece of apple? I’ll have to speak to Renfrew myself, I suppose, and the men of the household. I can hardly disturb the women just now. I called on Maister Hamilton and Maister Wilkie before I spoke to Kate, but neither of them had much more to offer, and of course their wives were from home.’

‘Morple,’ ordered John, extending a hand, fingers wriggling. Gil handed him another slice of the apple, and Socrates’ nose quivered in indignation.

‘He must say If you please,’ Alys prompted.

‘Pease,’ said John obligingly, and beamed, displaying some well-chewed fragments. He was a handsome child, with a strong look of his father the harper, and seemed to be intelligent as well as musical. Gil, who was his legal guardian, was beginning to think in terms of the universities of Europe, and set aside each quarter as much as he could of the income the boy had from his dead mother’s property towards that end.

‘Ed ockies,’ announced John, holding up one foot so that his red stocking showed.

‘Red stockings,’ Gil agreed. ‘Mammy Alys knitted them.’

He caught sight of Alys’s expression as she watched the child, but before he could say anything Catherine announced, ‘Then we must all go about our various tasks. You may tell Mistress Mathieson I have prayed for her, and also for her infant, ma mie.’

‘Well, if it’s one o mine,’ said Maister Renfrew sharply, ‘he must ha stole it. I’ve no wish to go through my books to prove it, for such a one as him, and I see no point in adding the charge of theft to a charge of murder forbye, but that’s the beginning and end of it, Maister Cunningham.’

‘Do you think?’ said Gil mildly.

‘Aye. Or else the sister’s lying.’

‘My wife said she saw the six still in their straw,’ said Gil, ‘and the docket itemizing six flasks of Araby ware in your own writing, lying beside them. That seems clear enough to me.’

‘Aye.’ Renfrew tapped irritably on his tall desk. In his workaday clothes of brown wool he was a less flamboyant sight than yesterday, but the two grouse feathers pinned in his felt hat by a brooch with a huge chunk of amber suited well with his bearing. Elbows out, shoulders squared, neck stretched, he had met Gil’s question about the painted flasks with lively indignation. ‘So he must ha stole it, whether from my shop or from one of my customers.’

‘The curious thing is, he says it’s one of his,’ said Gil.

‘The man’s a pysoner. Small wonder if he’s a leear as well.’

‘You’ve made good use of the shipment, I think. They’re bonnie things. I saw you had one about you, yourself.’

‘Aye,’ said Renfrew. ‘There’s two sizes, see, though I kept all the bigger ones for my own business, and the wee one holds a good quantity for the kind of draught that’s taen in a minimissimal dose. I’ve gave out a few in the last year.’

‘Have you any thoughts about what the poison itself might be?’

Renfrew blinked slightly at the change of subject, and his high colour lessened as he applied his mind to this question. He stared distantly at the shelves of his workroom for a space, while Gil looked round him. This business, as the other apothecaries had made clear, was aimed at the higher end of the market, with an emphasis on such luxury goods as cosmetics and perfumes, dyestuffs and sealing-wax and the more expensive foodstuffs. The outer room, which was the shop, was lined with sacks of raisins and rice, almonds and figs, pigs of honey and treacle, glass jars of lavender water. The workroom was laid out differently from Wat Forrest’s, but held a similar assortment of alarming equipment. Some of the jars on the crowded shelves were marked with a black cross, some had parchment or paper covers with writing on them. The nearest mortar held a quantity of large pale seeds which Renfrew had been pounding at when Gil came in; the box beside it was labelled with a flourish Nux pines. Do pines have nuts on them? he wondered. Not in Scotland, for certain.

His attention was recalled as Renfrew shook his head portentously.

‘I don’t deal in pyson as such,’ the older man admitted, ‘save maybe for killing rats, so it’s no a matter where I’ve great practical experience, but I’ve read as wide in the subject as any man in Glasgow. It’s not arsenical salts, that’s for certain, nor any of those that acts first on the belly, which cuts out a great number. It worked instanter, which lets us set aside all the slower ones, you’ll appreciate.’ Gil nodded at this, but Renfrew went on without looking at him, ‘I’d say it might be one of those that can be got by infusion or maybe distillation from plants, seeing it was in that cloudy liquid form, but I’d need time wi my books to get any closer. Has Wat never come back to you wi an answer?’

‘Not yet,’ Gil said. ‘If that’s the case, it’s something a good apothecary could brew up for himself, is it, rather than something that has to be imported from the Low Countries?’

‘If that’s the case,’ said Renfrew, ‘aye.’

‘Is Anthony Bothwell a good enough apothecary to do that kind of thing?’

‘I suppose he might be,’ admitted Renfrew with reluctance.

‘What about his sister?’

‘Oh, never. Women are all very well for carrying out the wee tasks,’ he elucidated, ‘concocting sweetmeats, compounding an ointment or reducing an infusion, all my lassies can deal wi sic matters, though times they overdo it,’ he added bitingly. ‘But the great tasks are men’s work. Women hasny the application, you see, on account of their natures are more cold and moist than ours, it means you canny rely on them.’

‘I see,’ said Gil, comparing this assertion with what he knew of the women in his life. It did not seem to match. ‘So you think this must be something Bothwell himself distilled.’

‘It could be,’ said Renfrew, ‘and that’s as close as I’ll say. We’ll ken more when Wat has done proving it.’

‘If Bothwell’s that good an apothecary,’ said Gil casually, ‘why did you not like the match for Agnes?’

Renfrew’s colour rose again.

‘That’s no concern of yours!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll wed my lassies where I choose!’

‘Just the same I’d ha thought,’ Gil persevered, trying to keep the same casual tone, ‘that since you’ve wedded Eleanor to one apothecary you might ha chosen another for Agnes.’

‘I can do far better than that for her,’ said Renfrew angrily. ‘She’s a bonnie wee thing, and she’ll have a good tocher, and once I let it be known — ’

‘So why not Bothwell?’ Gil asked. ‘He’s a hard worker, he’s built up the business from nothing in a couple of years.’ He and his sister, he qualified in his mind, and I hope she’ll forgive me for ignoring her contribution. ‘I’d have thought he’d seem like a good husband for any girl, until this happened yesterday.’

‘Aye, well, it’s as well I’d no thought of consenting to either of her choices,’ said Renfrew triumphantly, ‘or she’d be betrothed to either a pysoner or a corp by now.’

Rounding the corner of the Tolbooth, Gil encountered Eleanor Renfrew, a maidservant behind her. She was a plain young woman, with the same big blue eyes as her sister in a sour face both pinched and puffy with pregnancy. She was warmly clad against the sharp wind, the hood of her heavy cloak drawn over her everyday linen headdress and a plaid over all concealing her size. She did not seem to have been to market, since she had no basket or packages with her, and the servant was yawning.

‘Good day, mistress,’ he said, raising his hat. She curtsied, and would have moved on, but he said, ‘I was by your father’s house just now. There’s still no word of your good-mother.’

‘Likely no,’ she said. ‘It’s no going well.’

‘Might I have a word, mistress?’ he asked. ‘We could get a seat in St Mary’s Kirk — ’

‘Our Lady love you, no!’ she said. ‘I’ve spent all morning there on my knees asking aid for Meg, my back’s like toothache, and I’m about out of my head wi boredom. I was just on my way home, for I can tell my beads there as well as in St Mary’s, so you might as well come along.’

Wondering what use such grudging prayers would be, he turned to accompany her, and was surprised to be led into a wynd just above the Tolbooth.

‘I thought you’d have stayed under your father’s roof,’ he said. ‘There’s certainly room in that house.’

‘Syme wished to have his own place.’ She raised the latch on the door of a small narrow house, and stepped inside. ‘Buttered ale, Maidie, and then we might as well get on wi the supper. Hae a seat, maister.’

She looked about her with evident pleasure, shedding cloak and plaid to hang behind the door. The chamber was sparsely furnished, but the few pieces were good, and there were embroidered hangings at the windows to keep the draughts out. A door at the back led into the kitchen, where Maidie was now rattling crocks, and a stair in the corner suggested at least one upper chamber. Syme must be doing well out of the business to cover the rent here, Gil thought, surrendering his own plaid.

‘What was it you wished to say?’she asked, sitting down by the brazier and poking at it with a piece of kindling.

‘Yesterday, at my sister’s house,’ he said. ‘Would you tell me what you saw?’

‘What I saw?’ she repeated, startled. ‘A bad business, that. I hope Lady Kate’s none the worse of it today. As for what I saw, maister, why, the same as a’body else. Nanty Bothwell gave Danny Gibson something that slew him, with all the guests looking on.’

‘That’s true,’ Gil agreed. ‘Did you know the flask he had?’

She shrugged. ‘They’re all over Glasgow. One of a batch my father had from Middelburgh and sold on to the other potyngars.’

‘No way to tell whose it was?’

She laughed sourly. ‘Ask at my brother Nicol, why don’t you. He’ll likely have a name for it.’ Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘Daftheid that he is, he has names for everything about him. He’s no so bad as he was, when he was a boy you had to call his platter Barnabas and his eating-knife Maister Lute or he would eat nothing. It would surprise me not at all if he had a name for the very flask and told you where it had been afore Nanty Bothwell showed it to the company.’

‘Now I think of it,’ Gil said slowly, ‘when we were at school he had names for both inkhorn and penknife. And yesterday he was very sure it was the wrong flask.’

‘I think we’d all jaloused that by the time he spoke.’

‘Have you had a word with your sister since then? How has she taken it?’

‘Ill, I’d say,’ she turned to accept the steaming jug from the maidservant, ‘but I’ve never spoken wi her. She slammed away into her own chamber as soon as we got Meg up the stairs, and then I was packed off out the house.’ He nodded; it would be bad luck, he knew, for a woman carrying a child to be under the same roof as another in labour.

‘Did she seem badly affected?’

‘She was gey quiet, which is no like her. I’d have said she’d had a shock,’ agreed Mistress Renfrew, ‘but then so had the rest of us. It’ll not suit her, to have one of her admirers hanged for poisoning the other,’ she added.

‘Has she favoured either of them over the other?’ Gil asked carefully, leaning forward to take a beaker from her. The buttered ale was not as hot as he would have liked, but well spiced.

‘I’d not have said so. But I’ve not spoken to her of them more than once or twice. I’m not round the house as much now I’ve my own place to see to,’ she looked round her again with satisfaction, ‘and she’s not like to confide in me anyway.’ She saw Gil’s raised eyebrows. ‘We don’t get on, maister. There’s none of us gets on, save for Meg, poor girl.’

Gil, whose siblings had squabbled and then made up on a daily basis throughout his childhood, concealed his thoughts on this.

‘So you’d not know which she would have preferred,’ he prompted.

‘Neither of them, like I said. No point in preferring either one anyway, she likes keeping them hanging round her heels, but she kens fine the old man will have a match for her soon.’

Does she? Gil wondered. And does she accept the idea?

‘Who will he choose?’ he asked.

‘You don’t think he’d tell us? I’ll say this for Syme, he listens to what I have to say. My faither never minded me in his life, and for all Agnes can get anything she wants out of him — did you see that gown she had on yesterday? — she’ll not dare cross him either.’

He drank some of the buttered ale, and changed the subject. ‘Do you think it was a deliberate poisoning?’

‘How would I — ’ She stopped. ‘No,’ she said at length, ‘I’d say not. Nanty Bothwell’s a decent man, and he’s got sense enough to see that would never work. What good to get rid of your rival if you’re clapped in the Tolbooth in chains?’

‘Or by anyone else?’

‘Not likely, surely? Danny Gibson was a decent fellow too by all I’ve heard. Agnes wouldny harm her two lapdogs, and none of the rest of us …’ Her voice trailed off; she thought for a brief space, then looked at him with what seemed to be genuine reluctance. ‘The only thing I can think — Robert’s one for malicious tricks. He sent Meg a pair of gloves at her birthday, all in secret so the old man took it they were from,’ she bit her lip, ‘from someone she knew. He blued her ee, she’d to keep the house for a week till it faded. Then Robert boasted of it to Syme, and denied it when Syme told the old man, which led to — But I don’t see how he could ha done this. It must ha been a mischance of some sort.’

‘If it was a mischance, where might the poison have come from?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never a notion. Do they ken what it is yet?’

‘One of the plant infusions, we think.’

‘Our Lady save us, that’s little help.’ She pulled a face. ‘What’s more, sir, any of us, any woman in Glasgow that’s got a stillroom, could make up such a thing if we knew what to infuse. There’s some skill in the work, but more in knowing what to put to it, and to get something that acted so quick I’d say you’d need to look for someone well up in the craft.’

‘You’re better up in the craft yourself than your father gave me to think,’ he said deliberately.

She snorted. ‘Him! He’ll not admit the women in the house do the most of the work. It’s Grace makes half the face-creams and that, as well as his drops for his heart, and me that makes the other half, and Agnes and me that makes the sweetmeats. Syme’s a good worker, and knows the trade,’ she added approvingly, ‘which he should, having been my faither’s journeyman, but all our Robert ever does is stand about looking useless and eat the sweetmeats.’

‘And your brother Nicol?’

‘What use a daftheid like him? If I’d my way I’d send him away again, wi his moonstruck ideas, and keep Grace wi us for the sake of the business.’

‘What ideas are those?’

‘Och.’ She paused to think, looking at her empty beaker. ‘He’d give the old man willowbark tea for his heart, and such nonsense. All stuff he’s got from some foreigner he met in Middelburgh. As for what he thinks about the circulation of the blood, you’d need to hear it.’ She set the beaker back on the tray beside the jug. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to ask, sir, for I’ll need to get on wi the supper.’

‘How do you think it happened?’

She looked blank for a moment. ‘You saw how it happened as well. Oh, d’you mean how it got into the flask? I’ve never a notion, like I said already. There’s aye potions and pysons lying about an apothecary’s shop, maister, but my faither has us all trained well, we’d label sic a thing.’

‘What, a label reading “poison”?’

‘Little use that for the servants,’ she observed. ‘No, it’s a big black cross, well inked in, stuck or tied or drawn on the cover-paper. So if it was something from our house, it ought to ha been labelled.’

‘And has your family any enemies?’ he asked, digesting this.

‘Enemies? No more than most of the burgess houses of Glasgow, sir. Success breeds envy. No, this was apothecary work, maister, and the apothecaries mostly gets on well enough.’ She rose. ‘Now, the kale willny chop itself, and Maidie’s got enough to do. Where did I leave your plaid?’