The Rough Collier

Chapter Twelve

Walking into Dalserf from the ferry at Crossford, Alys had no trouble finding the kirk, long before Steenie’s helpful comment. It stood on the flat ground in a bend of the Clyde, neatly built of dressed red stone, and had a tall porch and two glazed windows in its south wall. A dozen or so small cottages crouched round it, and a track led to more perched among the trees in a cleft of the steep valley side, woodsmoke rising through their thatched roofs to mingle with the green haze of the new leaves.

Sir Simon Watt, priest of Dalserf, a small wiry man bundled in a worn budge gown, was delighted to receive a bonnie young lady as a visitor. He said so, a number of times, while he bustled about the low-ceilinged chamber above the porch, setting a stool for Alys, calling down to one of the old women in the church for ale from the best brewster in the place, locating a box of sweetmeats someone had given him last Yule. Finally he sat down opposite her, and surveyed her appreciatively with sharp grey eyes.

‘And what can we do for you in Dalserf, madam? I take it you’re no after pastoral counsel, seeing Jackie Heriot’s a deal closer to Belstane than we are. You’ve never crossed the Clyde just to view our wee kirk?’

‘No,’ admitted Alys, ‘though it is a pretty kirk, and so well tended. It is mostly old work, I think? But the pulpit is new.’

‘Aye, and Our Lady on the wall by the chancel arch.’ Sir Simon’s lean face split in a grin like Socrates’. ‘The good women about the place were right put out when she was painted fresh,’ he confided, offering the sweetmeats. ‘They had to explain all their petitions to her again, they said, for she looked so different she must certainly be a different person.’

‘But of course!’ said Alys, sharing his amusement.

‘And is it no Belstane where the man’s been raised up out of the peat-digging, all uncorrupted? What’s this I hear about him doing miracles?’

‘Many people have come to view him, and now to make their petitions before him. I think Sir John is hopeful,’ said Alys cautiously, ‘but we have seen no miracles.’

‘Well, the word’s all across my parish the day, and there’s a many folk crossed the Clyde seeking some benison or other. Though what Leezie Lockhart’s looking for, and her past fifty and never wedded, is more than I can jalouse, and so I told her when she was through the place this noon bound for the crossing.’

‘My groom said the ferry was more busy than usual,’ said Alys. ‘I hope they are not disappointed. The body seems to us a man like any other, slain long since and buried there. He’s hardly uncorrupted, rather he’s tanned with the peat like old leather, and he will fall into dust if we do not bury him soon.’

‘Aye,’ said Sir Simon, nodding sagely. He lifted a marchpane cherry from the box, and bit into it. ‘I can see how that would be. Well, I canny prevent my flock running after such a thing, and if one or two finds peace of mind by it, well and good, it’s a grace. So how can I help you, madam?’

Alys set her beaker down and folded her hands in her lap.

‘I am a friend of Joanna Brownlie,’ she said. ‘I think you know her, and you’ll know she has not to seek for her troubles.’

‘Aye, I do. But I heard she’d taken a second husband. Is that not succeeding — ?’

‘That’s the man who is missing from the coal-heugh. And now he is dead.’

‘Never!’ The priest crossed himself with the hand that held the cherry, and muttered briefly in Latin. They both said Amen, and he continued, bright-eyed, ‘I’d heard about that, but I never knew it was Joanna’s man, the poor lassie. Been gone for months, is that right?’

‘Five weeks,’ said Alys precisely. ‘Since the morrow of St Patrick’s day. And found dead only yesterday, though we think — my husband thinks,’ she corrected scrupulously; she might still be annoyed with Gil but she would give him all credit, ‘he has been dead since before Lady Day.’ She smiled earnestly and the priest nodded again. ‘Joanna needs the support of her kin, good though the folk at the coal-heugh are to her, and I hoped you might have some clearer idea than she does herself about where her brothers are.’

‘Her brothers!’ Sir Simon sat back, looking at her in some dismay. ‘She’ll get no support from them. Still, I suppose they should be given the chance. You never can tell, wi’ kin.’

‘They are not close, then?’

‘Oh, they’re not close. Never were. I suppose it’s no wonder, two great laddies wi’ the farm work to see to would take it ill out that their mother made such a pet of the wee thing, but they never took to her, as bonnie as she was, and then they both left home no long after I came to the benefice, and got set up for themselves.’

‘Yes, I think Joanna was a late bairn. They would already be well grown when she was born. Mistress Lockhart must have missed her sons when they left,’ said Alys, and got a sharp look at her use of the surname.

‘She’d the lassie still at home. Told me once she’d always wanted a lassie to raise.’

‘But then she died before Joanna was grown. Like my mother,’ added Alys.

‘It comes to many of us,’ said Sir Simon in compassion. ‘Aye, Marion died, poor woman, and grievous hard she found it to leave her daughter. Could hardly go to her rest, the poor soul, till she had her man swear in front of me that he’d cherish Joanna as his own ewe lamb.’ He sighed, and shook his head. ‘That’s a deathbed I’ll recall my life long. The lassie weeping, and her father sat by the pillow like a stone statue, and the two brothers summoned from their homes the one leaning on either bedpost,’ he gestured with one hand and then the other, ‘watching their mother as she failed. Cherish her, she kept repeating, as your own ewe lamb. Swear it, Will, she said. One of the sons said, What need of him swearing, he’s aye been doted on the wench, and the other said, Swear it, Father, and get this over. But you’ve no need of hearing this, madam. What was it you were asking me? Where would the brothers have got to?’

‘Yes. Yes, I hoped you might know more than Joanna.’ Alys brought her thoughts to bear on the question. ‘I’d heard they might be in Lesmahagow, but then — ’

‘Oh, no, they’ve both left there and all. One of them moved on a while back, I mind that, for he was nearly too late in returning when their father reached his end.’

‘I wonder where they went,’ said Alys hopefully.

‘Ayrshire,’ said Sir Simon with confidence. ‘Sorn way. I’m from thereabouts myself, you understand, lassie, so it stuck in my mind when I heard. But where the other one — Glasgow? Ru’glen?’

‘No matter,’ said Alys without truth. ‘What was it Maister Brownlie died of? I heard he took ill not long after Joanna’s first husband died.’

‘He did,’ agreed Sir Simon, nodding. ‘Poor soul, he’d a bad time of it. Two month of a wasting illness, wi’ cramps to his belly and his legs, and pains in his wame to make him cry out. I visited often. He was wandering in his mind at the last,’ he added, ‘talking of owls on the bed-foot, and trying to make Joanna swear to have a care to Mistress Weir the same way he’d sworn to her mother, but he made a good end none the less, and made his confession and died at peace.’

‘Our Lady be praised for that,’ said Alys, and Sir Simon said Amen. ‘What did they treat him with? It sounds like a sorry case.’

‘Oh, there was a fellow over from the coal-heugh almost day by day wi’ one receipt or another, a simple, a decoction, a tincture. Auld Mistress Weir and the other good-daughter both are herb-wise, maybe you’ve noticed that, and they kept sending anything they thought might ease him a wee bittie. But nothing helped.’ The priest smiled ruefully. ‘They all make me feel worse, Will said to me one time.’

‘Poor man,’ said Alys. ‘At least he saw all his children established in the world before he died. Rutherglen, you said?’

‘Or Cambuslang. Or maybe it was Glasgow right enough.’ Sir Simon lifted the box of sweetmeats and held it out to her. ‘There’s a strange thing, I’ve only the now thought of it. That was Hob that moved away down the Clyde, to Ru’glen or Glasgow, and I’ve heard them say the reason why he moved was, the place he had in Lesmahagow was full of owls.’

‘Owls?’ Alys repeated, since this seemed to be expected.

‘Aye, owls. The story goes that they sat on the roof-tree and screeched all night, and stole the seed-corn out the meal kist, and he couldny take it longer and left the place. And there was his father as he lay dying talking of owls at the bed-foot, where, let me tell you, there was never an owl when I was there, poor soul.’

‘How extraordinary!’ said Alys. Do owls eat grain? she wondered. I thought they caught the mice and rats who would eat it. ‘Are there a lot of owls in Lesmahagow?’

‘I was never there,’ admitted Sir Simon.

‘And both the sons came back to the burial,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, and the displenishing, which is what brings most folk back to the old home,’ said Sir Simon drily. ‘It’s seldom an edifying sight, the family after the funeral.’

‘I hope the Brownlie funeral was harmonious.’

‘No,’ said Sir Simon. ‘I wouldny say it was.’ He shook his head, contemplating the past, and took another sweetmeat. ‘I wouldny say it was,’ he repeated.

‘Did they disagree over the will?’

Another of those sharp looks.

‘Aye, though it was clear enough. I scribed and witnessed it. All the outside gear to the sons, to divide equably atween my sons Thomas and Robert Brownlie, and the inside gear to our dear Joanna that was born in the year of 1470.’

‘How odd,’ said Alys. ‘What a strange way to put it. As if there was another Joanna.’

‘I thought that myself,’ agreed Sir Simon, ‘but there was never no more than the one lassie in the household. But that was the way Will dictated it, and he’d no be shifted. Poor man,’ he sighed, ‘he doted on the lassie, even though — Then the coin in his kist was to be split three ways after payment of his debts and a gift to the kirk. Straightforward, you’d think.’ Alys nodded. ‘Aye, you’d think, and you’d be wrong. What must they do but argue about what was inside gear, and discover a sum owing to Tammas that must be settled afore the coin was split. In the end, I’d say, Joanna got little more than half what was her due.’

‘It’s a strange thing, human nature,’ said Alys. ‘A great sum or a small one, neither is easy to share out.’

‘Aye. Mind, she was still left to the good. A saving man, Will Brownlie, and did well from the property he held.’ Sir Simon considered Alys. ‘Is there aught else I can tell you, lassie? I’d aye a fondness for Joanna Brownlie myself, I’d be glad to help her in her difficulties.’

‘They all made him feel worse,’ repeated Lady Egidia. ‘In what way, do you suppose?’

‘I never asked,’ said Alys with regret. ‘He is a clever man, but I think with no medical knowledge. He might not have been able to tell me. But I think he found something odd about the man’s deathbed, from the way he spoke.’

‘Yes.’ Lady Egidia stroked her cat thoughtfully. ‘I like that hood better on you, with the narrow braid,’ she observed. ‘It becomes you more than the other one. You have good taste, my dear.’

From a woman presently clad in a patched kirtle and a loose budge gown of her late husband’s this did not seem to be much of a compliment, but Alys had seen her mother-in-law dressed en grande tenue and took it at its proper valuation. Aware of her cheeks burning, she answered lightly, ‘But of course. I chose Gil.’

‘And he is making you happy?’

‘He is,’ Alys said, resolutely not biting her lip. Of course, the inquisition had to come, and a well-bred woman like this one would conduct it neither too early nor too late in the visit, and certainly in Gil’s absence.

‘You don’t seem certain.’ Lady Egidia raised one eyebrow, in an expression Alys had seen in Gil. Socrates, sprawled before the hearth, raised his head and stared at the hall door. ‘Have you quarrelled? I heard your voices last night.’

What else did she hear? wondered Alys in alarm, her cheeks flaming again. ‘No, no,’ she said hastily. ‘Gil had a dream that woke him, and we talked a while.’

‘And then lay down again.’ There was no hint of innuendo in the tone. ‘So was it today you quarrelled?’

‘We haven’t — ’ Alys began, and the eyebrow rose again. ‘It’s a disagreement only. Nothing important — well, it is important, but not — ’ She caught herself up, took a deep breath, and explained briefly: ‘He suspects all of the Crombie women, that is he suspects any one out of all of them, and I do not.’

‘It seems to me he must be right — it must be one of them is the bludy tung undir a fair presence. Do you have good reason for excluding any of them?’

‘I think so.’

Lady Egidia considered her for a moment, then smiled.

‘He’ll apologize,’ she said. ‘But don’t let him always be the one to apologize. Even when he’s wrong.’

‘I know,’ said Alys, answering more than the smile. Her mother-in-law stretched out a hand to her, over the sleeping cat, and was clearly about to speak when Socrates scrambled to his feet and they heard Alan Forrest’s voice on the stairs.

‘Mistress? It’s Jackie Heriot here, about the corp in the feed-store. Will you see him?’

‘Aye, send him up, Alan,’ said Lady Egidia resignedly in Scots, and scooped the cat up. ‘Come away in, Sir John. You’ll stay to supper?’

‘St Malessock,’ Sir John corrected, sweeping over the threshold. ‘Our martyred St Malessock, that brought the gospel to these parts and was cruelly slain for his faith.’ He seemed to have gained in stature since the morning, Alys noticed, rising with her mother-in-law and bending the knee for his blessing. The ownership of a new and possibly important relic had done much for his self-esteem. ‘I never meant to put your household out, madam,’ he demurred, when the invitation was repeated. ‘But it would be right welcome. Indeed. I’ve been up the Pow Burn wi’ pastoral comfort and a Mass for them in their grief, and thought I’d come by this way to enquire when it would suit you to have us fetch our saint away, with a great procession and music and all.’

‘Aye, St Malessock.’ Lady Egidia sat down again, and the cat settled itself ostentatiously on her knee, glaring at Alys. ‘I heard about that. Has he cured Davy Fleming?’

‘Oh, too soon to say, too soon to say. We left the poor soul asleep, did we no, mistress,’ he said with a nod at Alys, ‘which at the least will do him some good, and if he can fast as I bade him and ask the saint’s help, then I’ve great hopes. Great hopes,’ he repeated, stroking Socrates’ head.

‘And how are they all up at the coaltown?’ asked Lady Egidia.

Sir John shook his head compassionately. ‘All at sixes and sevens, madam. The young widow — Mistress Brownlie — is overcome in her grief, and Mistress Weir is quite ill wi’ concern for her.’ Alys had difficulty in recognizing this picture. ‘I said a Mass for them, though we had to make do with household candles to light it, the rats had eaten away all the ones in the box, even the wicks, indeed. Strange to think that the cause of their sadness is the source of our rejoicing, is it no? And tell me, mistress,’ he turned to Alys. Trying to work out the logic of his last statement, she was taken by surprise. ‘I think you were there when our saint came up out of the peat? Did you not see any portents? Was there no sign, no lights in the sky or flames hovering over his brow, nothing like that?’

‘Nothing,’ she said firmly, wishing Gil was present to share the moment. Sir John looked so cast down at this that she felt impelled to add, ‘But I was not there when he was discovered, sir. When Maister Cunningham and I arrived he was already taken out of his burial-place and laid on a hurdle. You should ask the men of Thorn, who found him.’

‘Thorn,’ he said reflectively. ‘Aye. Well, I can ask.’

‘Best ask them separately,’ said Lady Egidia on a sardonic note, ‘if you want to get at any sort of truth there.’

‘Oh, they would not lie to their priest,’ Sir John responded, shocked.

‘And the other folk at the coaltown?’ pursued Lady Egidia. ‘Mistress Lithgo and her daughters, young Crombie himself, how are they? I hardly think Crombie will be grieved for his grieve,’ she pronounced, savouring the play on words, ‘but the man was part of the household, so I’ve heard, and it stirs up the melancholy humours when death comes under your roof.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Sir John, crossing himself. ‘As you say, madam, young Crombie’s hardly touched by it, save that he must be at the quest in Lanark the morn’s morn. They were to ride out shortly after I came away, and lie in Lanark town tonight. The old lady was to go and all, though I tried to persuade her against it.’

‘Mistress Weir?’ exclaimed Alys involuntarily. Both of them looked at her, and she was annoyed to find herself blushing. ‘But can she travel so far?’

‘That was my concern, though I think her stronger than she looks. And spryer,’ the priest added. ‘These old women are often — indeed.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lady Egidia in the same sardonic tone as before.

‘As for Mistress Lithgo and the two lassies, I scarcely saw them. The younger lassie was attending on her grandam, though I did wonder — and the older one and her mother were that busy about their stillroom, mixing and pouring this and that.’ Alys glanced sharply at her mother-in-law and found her own sudden anxiety mirrored in the older woman’s face. ‘But I talked a while with Mistress Brownlie, brought her to a knowledge of God’s goodness and grace, comforted her I hope. Indeed.’ He crossed himself.

‘I’m sure you were a comfort,’ said Lady Egidia, sounding sincere.

‘What were you going to say of Bel?’ Alys asked. ‘The younger lassie,’ she added, as he looked blankly at her.

‘Oh, the younger one. No, I wondered if she wished — och, it’s a daft notion, poor lassie, she canny speak her needs, only that she knelt afore me as if she would ha’ made some confession. But her grandam called her and told her not to take up my time. Certainly it takes a time to confess the poor lass. I’m sure Mistress Weir was right. Indeed.’ He wound down as if his string had run out, and crossed himself again.

‘I am sure you are right,’ said Alys soothingly. Lady Egidia looked at her, but did not speak. ‘Sir John, had you any acquaintance with the dead man — with Thomas Murray?’

‘Wi’ Murray?’ Sir John looked from her to Lady Egidia. ‘I did, indeed, a small acquaintance. A good enough fellow, but a good opinion of himself.’

Confession, thought Alys. He has confessed the man.

‘Was he honest in his employment?’ asked Lady Egidia, stroking the cat.

‘He was. I can safely say that he was.’ Sir John nodded judiciously.

The two women looked at one another again. One thing he cannot have confessed, thought Alys, and saw the same assumption in her mother-in-law’s face.

‘He died in mortal sin,’ said Lady Egidia, as Alan Forrest entered the hall, followed by the women with responsibility for the linen and tableware. ‘Ah, supper must be ready.’

‘You asked me of his employment, madam,’ said Sir John, ‘and I say he was an honest workman.’

Alys’s estimate of Sir John rose. It took a strong character to stand up to her mother-in-law.

Over supper, by unspoken agreement, they allowed the priest to soliloquize almost uninterrupted on the forthcoming translation of St Malessock. Alan Forrest listened from his place next him at the board, with a wary expression as if he was certain too much of the planned junketing would devolve on him.

‘It’ll be a longer procession than the opening of Parliament, Jackie,’ he said at last. ‘You should send to Lanark and get the carts from Corpus Christi, and save your feet — ’

‘No, no,’ broke in Lady Egidia, in tones of innocence. ‘I’m certain you should put the corp — the saint on the Meikles’ cart, Sir John. They brought him here, after all.’

‘The men of Thorn must have a part,’ said Alys, keeping her face straight despite the image this conjured up. ‘And if he should recover, so must Sir David.’

The meal was over, the long table cleared away, and the two women, Socrates and Sir John had retired to sit by the brazier in one of the smaller chambers before Alys accepted that Gil would not be home that night. The evening ahead of her suddenly seemed very long and empty, though the board had been set up for the game of tables, and she knew there was a piece of plain sewing waiting in their chamber. She sat smiling and nodding and caressing the dog as her elders conversed, wondering whether he had stayed away because she had argued with him, or because it was too late to come home. When the priest finally rose to take his leave, and extricated himself in a flurry of compliments and Indeeds, Lady Egidia looked wryly at her and said:

‘My dear, if you’re only now learning that love hurts, you have been fortunate.’

‘Am I so obvious? I’m sorry, madame — I was better reared than that.’

‘Not to our guest, I imagine, but I could tell you were elsewhere. Gil will put his duty first, you know that. He’ll be home when he’s done it.’

‘I wouldn’t have him otherwise,’ Alys said firmly. Lady Egidia turned her head sharply as a step sounded in the hall, but Socrates had done no more than prick his ears, so Alys was not disappointed when it was Alan who appeared in the doorway, looking harassed.

‘It’s her from the Pow Burn at the yett, mistress,’ he said. ‘She’ll not say what she wants, save it’s for Maister Gil only. I’ve tellt her he’s not here and won’t be back this night, but she’s saying she’ll wait.’

‘Which of them?’ asked Alys with sudden anxiety. ‘Is something wrong up there?’

Alan looked at his mistress, who nodded. And I was trying not to put myself forward, thought Alys.

‘It’s Mistress Lithgo. The one that does the healing. She was up at the yett as soon as I saw Jackie Heriot out to the road, just walked down from the coaltown. She’ll not say what it is,’ he repeated, ‘only it’s for Maister Gil.’

‘See if she’ll speak to one of us,’ said Lady Egidia, regaining control.

Beatrice Lithgo was seated in the steward’s room, still wrapped in a great blue plaid, her indoor cap covered by a veil of coarse black linen secured with a carved wooden pin. Her feet were propped on a brass box of charcoal, a cloth bundle and a jug of hot buttered ale beside them, and she held a cup in her hands. Her face was shadowed from the candlelight but she was as still and tense as a strung bow. As Alys stepped into the room and closed the door, she looked up and her mouth twitched in a small smile.

‘M-my husband is not here,’ Alys said. ‘He went — he went on an errand. We think he may not come back till morning now.’ Beatrice considered this, the expression of her eyes hidden. ‘Is there some difficulty at the coal-heugh? Can I help, or should we send someone with torches to Cauldhope?’

‘No, Maister Michael’s not who I need.’ The other woman looked down at the cup of buttered ale, and up again. Her shadowed gaze met Alys’s and slid aside. She looked higher still, at the broad boards stretched between the rafters, and took a breath. ‘I want to ask Maister Cunningham who I should tell.’

‘Tell what? Has something happened? Are your daughters safe? Is Joanna — ?’

‘They’re well enough.’ Again, the quick glance at the ceiling. Then, squaring her shoulders and looking Alys in the eye, she said, ‘I need to ask your man who I should tell that I poisoned Thomas Murray.’

Alys put out a hand and steadied herself on the corner of the steward’s desk. She became aware that her mouth had fallen open; closing it, she said very carefully, ‘You wish to confess to poisoning Thomas Murray?’

‘You heard me right,’ Beatrice assured her, with a faint flicker of her usual irony.

‘Do — do you know what that will lead to? If you confess? If you are found guilty?’

‘Drowning.’

The Scottish form of execution for a woman, thrust into a pit with the hands tied, held down by long poles. Probably better than hanging, if one had the choice. Alys stared at her, then turned away and poured herself a cup of the buttered ale, as much for something to do with her hands as anything else. She sat down, and sipped the fast-cooling brew, her mind still racing. After a moment she said, ‘But what about your children?’

An infinitely small shrug was the only response.

‘How.’ She swallowed. ‘How did you do it? What did you use? Why did you do it?’

This could not be happening. Gil should be here. Why had he not come home?

‘I put the poison into the flask,’ said Beatrice, patiently and very slowly. ‘Seeing Arbella had tellt him to use it to mind her birthday.’

‘When? When did you put it in the flask? And what did you use?’

‘You keep asking me that. I should ha’ thought you could work it out for yourself, lassie.’

‘No, I think you have to tell us.’ Alys frowned, trying to fit this into what she knew already. ‘I don’t understand why, either. Should we send after Sir John Heriot? Would you wish to confess to him?’

‘No,’ said Beatrice briefly. ‘He was annoying my lassies, Thomas I mean. And Joanna,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘When did you put the poison in the flask?’ Alys asked again.

‘I got the chance while he made his farewells.’

‘But where was the flask then?’

‘In his scrip. In the hall. They were all in the window chamber, and nobody saw.’

It fits together, thought Alys. As I should have expected.

‘And what was it? What did you use?’

‘Work it out, lassie.’ Beatrice sat back, her shoulders softening as if she had laid down a burden. ‘Now, if your man’s no looked for till the morn’s morn, you’ll have to keep me here,’ she prompted. ‘A dangerous felon like me’s no safe to be running about the countryside in the dark. Will your good-mother be wanting to chain me?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Alys found she was still staring at the older woman, unable to read her expression. ‘Sir John cannot be far on his road — would you like me to send after him? Will you not confess to him?’

‘Our Lady save you, my dear,’ said Beatrice, with a flicker of amusement, ‘I stood out there in the mirk getting chilled to the bone, waiting for him to take his leave. No, we’ll not trouble Sir John. Your man can hear me when he comes home.’

‘Won’t they miss you at the coal-heugh? Your daughters will be worried.’

‘Not them. I sent them off to bed, after Raffie left for Lanark wi’ Arbella, and shut myself into the stillroom. They’ll no ken till the morn that I’m no in there minding a triple-distillation.’

‘What — what will happen to them? They can’t …’ Alys ran out of words, and Beatrice gave her another ironic smile.

‘They’ll can go wi’ their brother. I’ve got him a good position as under-grieve wi’ Russell at Laigh Quarter, over in Cadzow parish, though his grandam doesny know of it yet. Have no fears for them, lassie.’

There was another pause, while Alys’s thoughts swirled and submerged like linen surging in a wash-tub. A fresh point surfaced, and she seized on it.

‘What about the other man, the forester? Did you know about him? Did you know about Murray being — ’

‘No, I never discussed his tastes wi’ the man. And I never knew about the other fellow. I’m right sorry about him,’ Beatrice said. It sounded like the truth.

‘Tell me again,’ said Alys. ‘You put the poison — ’

‘Into the flask, where it was in his scrip in the hall, afore he left. Because he was annoying my lassies and Joanna. That’s the trouble wi’ herbs,’ she said sadly. ‘They can heal, and they can kill, and once you’ve the knowledge in your hand, it’s too easy to use it. Will you lock me in, lassie? I brought my night-cap, I can lie here as well as anywhere.’

As Alys stepped from the chamber, Alan Forrest, on the stair outside with a candle, said in an urgent whisper, ‘Mistress — Mistress Alys — I heard all that.’ He held out a substantial iron key. ‘What are we to do wi’ her? Maister Gil’s no back yet, we’ll no see him till the morn, what will we do?’

‘We tell Lady Egidia first,’ said Alys, turning the key in the lock and giving it back to him. ‘She must direct where we put her or if she stays there. And we must get word to Gil as soon as may be in the morning.’

‘Aye, but where is it he’s gone? And there’s the quest and all, I took it you and the mistress’d want to go down to Lanark first thing to witness that. And an owl out there screeching in the stable-yard, fit to deave every beast in the place,’ he added, following her up the curling stair to the hall.

Lady Egidia was as astonished as Alys had been.

‘Confessed to poisoning Murray?’ she repeated. ‘I canny believe it. It goes against everything I ever heard of her.’

‘I heard her confess and all, mistress,’ Alan assured her.

‘She asked me to lock her in,’ Alys said, ‘but would you wish her to lie in the steward’s chamber? Certainly it is warm and dry and we can give her a pallet and a blanket, but — ’

‘Aye, that’s the best plan. You’ll see to that, Alan. And no point in trying to find Gil till the morning.’ Lady Egidia frowned. ‘Will he come home, I wonder? If he’s really gone so far as Elsrickle, it must be fifteen or sixteen mile from here, he may go straight to Lanark for the quest. Well, no sense in fretting over that just now.’ She waved at the door. ‘Go and see Mistress Lithgo comfortable, Alan, and maybe you would let the dog run in the yard a bit, and then you can get to your own rest.’ She delivered a brisk blessing, and her steward departed reluctantly, towing an equally reluctant Socrates. ‘A good man, Alan,’ she said as their footfalls diminished down the stairs, ‘but his ears are by far too long, and everything he hears gets to Eppie. Sit down, my dear, and we’ll see if we can work this out between us.’

‘My head is all in a whirl,’ Alys confessed, obeying. ‘I can make no sense of it. Why would Beatrice do such a thing? She is the one everyone calls a good woman.‘

‘A good healer,’ agreed Lady Egidia. ‘A wise woman, in all senses of the word. So if we assume there is some reason for her action, we’ll get on better.’

‘I can think of only one reason for such an action,’ acknowledged Alys.

‘But who? Who is she protecting?’

‘Someone she loves? Someone important to her?’

‘You’ve spent time with her lately. Who would you say is important enough for her to go willingly to execution for that person?’

Alys considered this, turning over her conversations with Beatrice Lithgo in her mind, but nothing seemed to offer itself. She shook her head.

‘She is a woman of great reserve. Her daughters, of course, and her son if he was suspected, though I don’t think Gil has even considered him — ’

‘He was in Glasgow at the time, I believe,’ agreed her mother-in-law.

‘- but as for Joanna and the old woman, I should say she was very fond of Joanna but held Mistress Weir in … in …’ She paused, searching for a suitable word. ‘Respect, I suppose, as one ought.’ Their eyes met, and she saw amused acknowledgement of this in her mother-in-law’s expression. ‘No more than that. I’ve seen no sign that she dislikes her, but there is no liking.’

‘I wonder why she stays there,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘Has she nowhere else to go?’

‘If her portion is tied up in the business, it will be impossible for her to leave without unpleasantness,’ said Alys. ‘And the same must apply to Joanna, I suppose.’

‘So we think Mistress Lithgo is protecting her daughters, or possibly Joanna. Do you suppose she thinks one of them poisoned Murray, or simply that one of them is suspected? I wonder what the younger girl wanted to confess?’

‘Gil suspects all of them, including Mistress Lithgo herself,’ observed Alys. ‘I suppose he must have given away that much when he was last there.’

She drew her tablets out of her purse, and smoothed a list of dry stores off the second leaf, burnishing the last marks with the back of her fingernail. Socrates returned midway through this process, and had to be reassured and ordered to lie down. That dealt with, she made a neat list of the five names, and after a moment’s deliberation added Raffie at the end. Incising several columns beside the list, she said thoughtfully, ‘We know some of them have the knowledge of simples and poisons, but how much knowledge does it take?’

‘It has to be something which can be given in liquid,’ supplied Lady Egidia, ‘with a taste that can at least be disguised.’

‘And a single dose must suffice.’ She looked at her list. ‘Much as I like her, I could not credit Joanna with so much sense, any more than a spring lamb, but perhaps I misjudge her. All the others could know that much from either Arbella or Beatrice.’ She made a mark beside each name in the first column.

‘What next?’ asked Lady Egidia. Alys glanced up sharply at her enthralled tone, wary of mockery, but the older woman’s expression matched her voice. ‘Opportunity, or a reason for ministering poison?’

‘Opportunity,’ said Alys firmly. She tried to recall the several conversations about the silver flask, piecing them together as they came to her mind. ‘Mistress Weir gave the flask to Bel to take to Murray before he and Joanna left their apartment. By Joanna’s account, she put it straight in his scrip under his eye.’

‘So Arbella and her granddaughter had the chance, but not Joanna. Raffie was in Glasgow, I suppose. What of the other two?’

‘Phemie told us they all broke their fast together in the other chamber, all of them except Joanna and Murray. You know, Raffie could have given the stuff to one of his sisters to minister, perhaps without saying what it was.’ She made a note at the foot of the leaf. ‘I must ask Phemie, before she knows where her mother is and why she came here.’

‘Ask her what?’

Alys looked up with an apologetic smile, realizing she had not finished the sentence.

‘Whether she or her mother went out into the hall after Joanna came through, but before they all went to see the travellers off.’ She looked at her list, and marked two names off in the second column.

‘And we come to the reason,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘If there can be said to be a reason for killing another Christian.’ Or anyone else, thought Alys, but did not say so. ‘Did you tell me the lassie Brownlie was afraid of her man?’

‘I thought she was,’ agreed Alys. ‘Beatrice thought she was. Joanna herself will say nothing against him.’

‘Hmm. A well-reared lassie. And the younger girls?’

‘Murray made fun of Bel and her lack of speech. He had slighted Phemie, who thought he would have married her until Joanna’s portion became known — ’

‘Aye, Joanna’s portion. That’s a strange matter. Why — no, we must think this through first. What about the older women?’

‘Mistress Weir and Murray were at odds over the running of the business.’ Alys looked down at her list again. ‘She only said that she was disappointed in him, but Phemie told me, and her brother told Gil, that the man had ideas of his own which did not suit the old lady. There was shouting, Phemie said.’

‘That might be enough. Money does strange things to people. As for our penitent down in Alan’s chamber, did she give a reason, or were you to work that out as well?’

‘She said Murray was annoying her lassies, and Joanna.’

‘No,’ said Lady Egidia after a moment. ‘She is a rational woman, and a healer. That makes no sense.’

‘No. I think we are agreed, Beatrice Lithgo may have confessed, but she is probably not the poisoner.’

‘So who is she protecting?’

‘We come back to that,’ agreed Alys.

‘And today,’ said her mother-in-law, with an abrupt change of direction, ‘you went to Dalserf. What’s your interest in Joanna Brownlie?’

‘I heard a lot about the family,’ Alys said. ‘Particularly about her father’s deathbed. And his will was very interesting.’

‘What, you think the man Brownlie was poisoned and all?’

‘Well, I wonder,’ she said earnestly. ‘His death was different from Murray’s, but it sounds very like the way Matt Crombie died.’

Lady Egidia studied her for a time, her long-chinned face solemn in the candlelight.

‘How many?’ she said eventually.

‘Four of the family, I think,’ said Alys. ‘And also Joanna’s father. Five all told, I suppose, though not all by poison.’ Her mother-in-law counted on her fingers, frowning, and finally nodded. ‘But what worries me is why there has been an extra death this year.’

Lady Egidia looked at her, pursed up her long mouth, and finally said, ‘And then there is this errand that has taken Gil to Elsrickle. It’s a long ride for something that won’t prove anything whatever the answer might be.’

‘It won’t prove it, but it adds to the picture,’ Alys began, and was interrupted. Socrates raised his head, and suddenly scrabbled to his feet, claws scraping on the tiled floor, and rushed out into the hall. There was a furious hiss, a flurry of movement, a yelp from the dog almost drowned by the clatter and crash of pewter dishes, and a long-drawn-out yowling.

The two women collided in the doorway, the streaming flame from the branch of candles just missing Alys’s velvet hood. Out in the hall, the light growing as Lady Egidia hurried the length of the chamber, they found the dog abased below the plate-cupboard amid the debris of the display, while the grey cat, all standing fur and round furious eyes, swore at him from the top shelf, tail lashing.

‘Socrates!’ exclaimed Alys. ‘What a bad dog!’

‘Silky has been teasing him,’ said Lady Egidia, magnanimous in her pet’s victory. ‘I dare say she taunted him from out here just now. Has she clawed him?’

‘He seems unhurt. Oh, no, here is a scratch on his nose.’ Alys dabbed at it with her handkerchief, while the dog rolled his eyes at her and at the cat. ‘Bad dog. Look at all the dishes you have brought down!’

She lifted the nearest, and stacked them up on the shelves. Lady Egidia set down the candles and joined her in the task, remarking, ‘I’m surprised they aren’t up from the kitchen to see what the noise was. It sounded like the clap of Doom. What’s this? Oh, that piece of stone Gil had in his purse. Will you take it? If you’re going up to the coal-heugh tomorrow you could give it back to the lassie.’ She retrieved a round dish which had rolled into the hearth, and blew the ashes from it. ‘And take both Steenie and Henry with you, my dear. Silky, you are a naughty cat.’