The Counterfeit Madam (23 page)

‘Well, we are wanting no words with you,’ she retorted, ‘so you may take yourself away, whether to your wife or the hoors next door I carena!’

‘It’s talk wi me now, or talk wi the Provost’s men at the Castle,’ Gil suggested, ‘and I think you’ll find I’m more civil than they are.’

The younger woman appeared at the door behind her sister-in-law’s muscular shoulder, her baby clasped tightly to her.

‘
An caisteal?
’ she repeated in alarm. ‘Let them in, sister, we not – we never—’

The other children were not visible. Barabal, when asked, said sulkily that they were with her man’s sister.

‘And where does she dwell?’ Gil enquired, seating himself in the whitesmith’s chair.

‘Yonder.’ She jerked her head vaguely northwards.

‘Is that where Alan and Nicol are lodged and all?’

Her eyes widened, but she said nothing. The younger woman, laying the sleeping baby in its cradle, began to move about the hearth, finding oatcakes and cheese and a bottle of something, clearly taking comfort from obedience to the laws of hospitality. Gil, hoping it would not be usquebae, said,

‘I’ve heard a bit about Thursday morning.’ Barabal scowled at him. ‘How come Miller was here? He dwells down the Gallowgate, does he no?’

‘He was discussing matters,’ said Barabal, while the other woman crossed herself at the sound of the name.

‘What was he so angry about? Frightened your weans, I think, mistress?’

‘There is no knowledge at me of that,’ she said. ‘The man was in a great rage, but it was not my business what angered him.’

‘I hope the weans never saw him killing Muir.’

‘No, they were down the back, thanks be to Our Lady,’ she said, ‘I was keeping them there out his way, and I waited till he had hid the—’

‘You kent he was in there?’ demanded Neil Campbell. ‘You kent he was in the kist, and you never said?’

‘You would never jaloused it,’ she retorted, ‘if this lang drink o watter was not powterin where it was none o his business!’

‘Where did Miller go after he hid the body?’ Gil asked. She shook her head, the ends of her linen veil swinging against her massive bosom.

‘Off down the burn, likely, to his own place. He is not one that welcomes being spied on, you will understand.’

‘And after that the three men came looking for help. They’re kin of yours, are they?’

‘On her mother’s side,’ said Neil hastily. She threw him a very ugly look.

‘That Billy is no kin of mine,’ she objected, ‘you will never say so.’

‘He must be kin to somebody,’ Gil said. ‘So far as I can make out everyone in this is related. How is the man Miller your kin?’

She checked, staring, then shook her head again, looking alarmed.

‘No kin to any of us, that one!’ she said. ‘They are all in the guild thegither, just.’

Her sister-in-law came forward with a beaker in one hand and a platter in the other, and offered them to Gil with the graceful curtsy he had seen other Ersche women make. He accepted, concealing reluctance, and sipped at the beaker. It was usquebae, and new stuff at that, the raw, fiery spirit biting at his throat. Neil said something in Ersche, and the young woman tightened her lips and set about preparing food for him too.

‘Then later,’ said Gil, ‘the woman Forveleth was here. I think she’s your cousin, Mistress Bethag?’ She looked round, and nodded shyly. ‘So it was hardly friendly of your man when he exchanged the bag of coin for the package of apothecary goods in her bundle, and gave it to Mistress Barabal.’

Barabal made the sign against the evil eye.

‘You are knowing too much a’thegither!’ she said, glowering. He smiled, and raised the horrible usquebae in a toast to her.

‘And where is the purse of blue velvet?’

She shook her head. ‘I have seen no purse of blue velvet, and so I was telling the soldiers when they were here.’

Neil translated the question at Gil’s nod, but the other woman made the same answer. No purse of blue velvet had been on the toft since the day they moved in, no matter how hard the Provost’s men had searched.

Gil paused to eat one of the oatcakes. It had been smeared with green cheese, and was rather tough. He had heard Maggie say that the cook’s mood affected the baking. Small wonder, then, he reflected, and took another sip of usquebae, hoping the one would cancel out the other. The combination was even less palatable.

‘What brought Miller back that evening?’ he asked. ‘The Provost’s men found him in the forge out here wi a parcel of scrap metal on him. What was he looking for?’

‘Old metal, I am supposing,’ said Barabal before the other woman could speak. ‘He takes the old stuff, the broken pieces—’

‘The scrap,’ he supplied. ‘What, you mean he buys it in from other hammermen?’

‘Hah!’ she said bitterly, and Bethag in the shadows shook her head.

‘Not buying,’ she said softly.

‘Does Maister Hamilton ken this?’ he asked.

‘What are you thinking?’ retorted Barabal.

Opening his purse he fetched out the brass die, and held it out on his palm.

‘You ken what this is, mistress?’ he said.

‘Not me!’ said Barabal boldly, though her eyes had narrowed at the sight. ‘Good enough brass, but someone is hammering at it, by the look of it.’

‘Was Miller looking for this, maybe?’

‘I would not be knowing. I never spoke wi the man, I had the bairns to keep from him. They fear him.’

‘There should be two of these. Is the other one about the toft, would you say?’

Her sister-in-law said something emphatic in Ersche, which Neil translated:

‘There is nothing the like on this toft. She is sure of that.’

Gil frowned, trying to pull all this into one tale. It would not fit. Something was still missing, something he had not asked.

‘How much have you had to do wi Dame Isabella?’ he ventured.

‘Who?’ said Barabal blankly, at the same time as the younger woman said,

‘Is mistress to Forveleth, is so?’

‘And to Alan and Nicol,’ agreed Gil. ‘What has she done for you?’

‘Nothing good,’ said Barabal, ‘causing them turn up here and ask our aid, and us wi troubles enough!’

‘But before that?’ Gil suggested. ‘Had she no part in the other troubles?’

‘No,’ said Barabal firmly. Her sister-in law shook her head, though whether in agreement or disagreement Gil was not certain.

‘Has Miller been here the day?’ he asked.

‘Why would he do that?’ returned Barabal. ‘He has ears, the same as the rest of Glasgow, he will be hearing of what has happened. Why do you think we are shut in here, instead of about the toft as we should be? Half the Drygate was running about the place this morning, wanting to question us, nothing for it but to pretend we are not here. None of their mind it is, whatever happens on Clerk’s Land.’

‘She here yestreen,’ said Bethag reluctantly. ‘Miller.’

Gil, familiar with the Ersche confusion with the Scots
he
and
she
, simply looked questioningly at her. She gazed back at him, spread her hands, and spoke rapidly to Neil.

‘She is saying,’ he relayed, ‘The man was here yesterday. After you was here and before I came to the door, she is saying.’

‘And what did he want then?’ Gil asked.

‘They were shouting,’ he relayed. ‘She was not understanding it all. Her Scots is not so good as mine,’ he said disparagingly. ‘Were you hearing what they said, Barabal?’

‘I was not,’ she said firmly, ‘and nor was Bethag if she has any sense.’

‘He wanted her man to do something,’ the gallowglass went on, ‘and he would not. And he wanted him to go somewhere with him the day.’

‘Where?’

The answer to that was clear enough: Strathblane.

‘Why?’ Gil asked. ‘What did he want there?’

She shook her head blankly. ‘Important,’ she said. ‘No ken why.’

Alys was still not to be seen, and nobody seemed to know where she had gone.

Leaving the two women to be escorted up to the Castle by Neil Campbell, Gil had made for home by the path along the mill-burn, pausing to look into the donkey-shed at the foot of Clerk’s Land. It was empty, and the cart was absent as well; presumably Sproat had some work somewhere.

At the house he was greeted with faint hostility by the women in the kitchen.

‘The dinner-hour’s long over, Maister Gil,’ said Kittock pointedly when he appeared in the doorway. ‘I might find you some bread and cold meat, but. No, I’ve no idea where the mistress is, but if that one up the stair thinks she can tell me how to run my kitchen,’ she went on, as much to the loaf she was hacking as to Gil, ‘she can go and bile her heid.’

‘John’s growing fine,’ said Nancy from her seat by the hearth, where she was mending one of the boy’s little shirts; John himself was rosily asleep on someone’s straw pallet in the corner. Kittock turned and gave the nursemaid a harried smile.

‘I ken that, and you’re a good lass, Nancy. But I’ll no have one wi no authority coming about my door wi orders like that.’

‘What’s to do?’ Gil asked, aware that this was unwise. Jennet, chopping leeks at the other side of the great wooden table, snorted grimly. Kittock shook her head, laid a generous slice of cold meat on the wedge of bread, and looked about her.

‘I’ll not tell tales,’ she said improbably, reaching for one of a neat row of bowls at her side. ‘But there’s Annis weeping her heart out over the crocks in the scullery, and Jennet here all put out and all, I’ll not have it, and so I’ll let the maister hear.’ She spooned thick dollops of amber-coloured onion sauce over the meat, clapped another wedge of bread on top, and swept the knife through the stack, once, twice. Arranging the four little towers on a wooden platter, she stuck a scrap of parsley in the bailey at their centre. ‘There you go, Maister Gil. That’ll no spoil your supper, but it should keep you on yir feet till then.’

‘But the mistress is not back?’ he persisted, accepting the food. She had turned away to draw him a beaker of ale from the barrel in the corner, and did not hear him. Nancy looked up from her mending and nodded.

‘Never been home,’ she admitted. This was probably as many words as she ever uttered at one time.

‘She’s got the dog wi her,’ Kittock observed, returning with the beaker. Gil took it from her and set it down on the table long enough to put the leaf of parsley in his mouth. ‘The wee one was fair missing his Ocketie.’ She added another generous pinch of parsley leaves to the platter, lifted the ale again and put it in his hand. ‘Now away out my kitchen, Maister Gil, till I get my feet clear for the supper.’

‘What was she wearing?’ he asked. Jennet looked up, narrowing her eyes.

‘I got her up in her blue linen,’ she said. ‘That was afore you was awake, maister.’

The everyday gown, for the market and for calling on close friends, he thought. She would have been home before now, and if not the dog would have become bored and come to find him.

‘She took Luke,’ offered Nancy.

Upstairs in the hall he found Luke’s master and Ealasaidh McIan, seated together on the great settle admiring the jug of flowers in the empty hearth. Questioned, Maistre Pierre agreed with Nancy.

‘I had work for the boy,’ he complained. ‘Did she tell you where she went, mistress?’

Ealasaidh shook her head.

‘She was never saying, that I heard,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Was it no some errand you had set her, Maister Gil?’

‘No.’ Gil scraped oozing onion sauce off the side of one of the little towers and licked his finger, trying to recall whether Alys had said anything yesterday. No, there was nothing. And better not to mention the state the kitchen was in.

He moved to sit in one of the window-seats and stared out over the garden, unseeing, trying to order what he knew about Dame Isabella’s death. He needed to locate the serving-men, but two of them were certainly in the clear and it was possible the other two could speak for one another likewise. One of the waiting-women was still suspect, the other was not. Who else could have approached the old woman at such a moment without causing her alarm? Some kin, perhaps. The two Livingstone men spoke for one another, though he had not asked them to investigate their own household. What about Sempill? he thought, chewing. The man was capable of killing the old woman, for certain, and was good enough with his hands to achieve the skilful way she had been killed, but his amazement at hearing of her death had seemed genuine. Could he dissemble that well?

‘Perhaps she is gone to a friend’s house?’ suggested Ealasaidh, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Or to your sister’s house, maybe?’

‘She would take John if she went there,’ objected Maistre Pierre. ‘And she would not need Luke. Even Catherine does not know where she is,’ he grumbled.

Gil nodded vague agreement, and put another sprig of parsley in his mouth. Lady Magdalen, now, was she capable of the deed? It hardly seemed like a woman’s method of killing, despite what it said in Holy Writ, and she was a slender creature, but all things were possible. It should be easy enough to check whether she had been out of the house that morning. I should have done all this yesterday, he realized irritably, what was I thinking?

What reason was there for killing the old woman? Was she killed because she was an objectionable old beldam, or for another reason? How was her death connected to the matter of the false coin? I ought to get a longer word with Sandy Boyd, he thought, frowning, and absently lifted the last of the onion sauce with the final crust of bread. And I should never have let Neil Campbell out of my grasp just now. I wonder where his brother is?

‘Perhaps she went to the tailor,’ Ealasaidh offered. ‘That might take the whole day.’

In fact, Gil thought, I have spent two days allowing others to direct me. I need to take charge of my own investigation. Confound this blow on the head, it has addled my wits more than I realized.

He set the platter down on the cushion beside him and swallowed the last of the ale.

‘I’m going out again,’ he said. ‘If Alys comes back, send to let me know, will you? I’ll be about the Drygate or Rottenrow.’

Canon Aiken’s house was quieter than when he was last there; the black hangings were still at the door and windows of the wing where Dame Isabella had died, and Maister Livingstone was seated glumly in the upper hall, reading in a small worn book. He rose when Gil was shown in, setting the book aside, and exclaimed,

‘In a good hour, maister! You had my message, then?’

‘No,’ said Gil blankly. ‘Message?’

‘Jock Russell’s back from Craigannet, man. You mind he was to ride out to ask Archie about some of these properties? Lucky it was we waited till the next day to send him, and he took word o the auld beldam’s death as well as the other questions we had, and now he’s back, wi word from my brother and a note of her will that they found in her kist. Fetch wine and cakes, Tammas,’ he added to the retreating servant. ‘Come and get a seat, and look at this, likely you could do wi a look at it, for it concerns your sister.’

‘Does it now?’ said Gil, raising his eyebrows.

‘Aye. Lady Tib will get the land in Lanarkshire after all, the other would go to Lady Magdalen if it wasny part o the Livingstone heriot right enough. The auld ettercap’s been stirring it.’

The note was in fact a full copy in a set of wax tablets. The document was clearly enough drawn up, and had been signed only a few days ago. Gil studied it carefully, not entirely sure what to expect, though after this disclosure he hoped there would be no unpleasant surprises; what startled him was the direct bequest to John Sempill, the size of another to Lowrie, and the final destination of the residue.

‘Did she have so much to leave?’ he asked. Livingstone grimaced.

‘She did not, though she thought she did, that’s clear. Archie reckons the land at Gargunnock that she’s left the lad was part of the heriot and all, same as both the plots in Strathblane. Just the way Lowrie’s luck falls, that. And I’d say Archie’ll be in for a fine battle wi John of the Isles for most of the rest. Stirling men of law will eat well this winter. Aye, set it there, Tammas, we’ll serve oursels.’

‘Why John of the Isles? He’s dispossessed, he’s landless and forfeit and living on the King’s pension, why would a woman like Dame Isabella leave him near all she had?’ A woman who
couldny stand these heathen names
, who abused her Ersche servants for thieving fools, he was thinking.

‘Christ and His saints alone ken, but she thinks the world o him. She made a right tirravee when he was brought to Stirling last year,’ Livingstone said sourly, handing him a glass of Malvoisie, ‘wanting Archie to offer to keep the man, or offer him funds, or the like. The names she called him when he wouldny oblige her, you’d wonder she wasny struck down by a thunderbolt on the spot.’

Gil sipped the wine and considered the words incised in the greenish wax. The copy was cramped but the original had been carefully composed; Maister Edward Cults of Stirling, whose name was in the colophon, was clearly a qualified notary. It assigned the familiar parcels of land to each of her goddaughters and another
to my nephew Lowrence Livinston for that his faither will not see to his providing
, with further gifts of some value to all three, and conventional if paltry sums to the testatrix’s own household. To
Jhone Sempil of Muirende, spous of my gude-dochter Magdalen Boidd
went another piece of land in Renfrewshire, along with
my smal kiste of norowa dele with al held therin
, and then the final sentence:
Al uthir gudes, chattils and londes of which I dye invest or infeft I leve to the use of Jhon Macdonneld sumtyme erle of Ross callit Lord of the Yles for his lifetyme
.

‘You’d get them back eventually,’ he said. ‘John of the Isles is, how old? Sixty? Can’t be far short of it.’

‘Aye, but that’s no the point, is it?’ said Livingstone indignantly. ‘He’ll get how many years’ worth o rents off that, if it’s hers to leave, and we reckon it isny.’

‘Have you found the Norway deal kist she leaves to Sempill? I wonder what’s in it?’

‘So did we,’ said Livingstone. ‘It’s not in her baggage. Some earnest o good behaviour, or the like, I’ve no doubt, that she extorted from him afore she wedded her goddaughter to the man.’

It would fit, thought Gil, but did not comment. ‘She gives no reason for the bequest of land.’

‘She’s entitled to assign what’s hers where she wishes,’ said Livingstone, ‘and that’s hers – or at least, it isny ours – but I agree, you wonder why, more particular when her servants, that she owes a duty to, get no more than five merks each. Though I suppose wi the way they’ve run off, she’s no that much of a duty to them. And Archie’s full able to see to the lad’s providing,’ he added.

‘I never doubted it,’ Gil said, still studying the will. ‘I’ll not mention this to Sempill.’

‘I’d be grateful,’ said Livingstone. ‘There’s enough to see to, without him underfoot demanding his rights afore they’re due.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘At least we can see the auld ettercap into the ground now, Christ be praised. Were you at the quest? I never saw you.’

‘I was elsewhere. What did it conclude?’

‘Oh, clear enough, clear enough, murder by an unknown felon, though I did think for a while they’d bring it in against the woman Marion, or whatever she’s cried. But Otterburn can steer an assize, he’s no so daft as he’s made out, and they returned that after a bit.’

‘Did you wait for the second one?’

‘I did not. Naught to do wi us, and I’d to speak wi Andro Hamilton to get Dame Isabella in her kist and received at Greyfriars. We’ll put her in the ground the morn’s morn.’

‘Did Lowrie stay? If he’s not back it’s maybe not over yet—’

‘Lowrie?’ said Livingstone, in surprise. ‘He’s away out the town wi your good lady, maister. Out to Strathblane.’

Leaving Maister Livingstone to establish belatedly whether any of his own household had been anywhere near Dame Isabella’s quarters on the fatal morning, Gil strode up the Drygate to the Castle, turning this news over in his mind. He knew his wife well enough to be sure she had some purpose in the journey, and she had made certain of her escort – Lowrie and two men, Luke, the dog, and whoever had accompanied his uncle’s horses made a good retinue. She ought to be safe, he thought, and Lowrie has a good head on his shoulders. But what will she ask, and who will she ask it of? What will she find? Will she ask the right questions?

What are the right questions? he wondered, and had to admit he was not certain of the answer. And when will they be back? He glanced at the sky. It was not more than four in the afternoon, there were four or five hours of daylight left, and it was a good dry day. They might be back for supper.

Otterburn was not in a good mood.

‘I could ha done wi your presence,’ he said grimly, ‘as the finder o the man Muir. No to mention as one that can contradict the Serjeant. He’s fine when it’s a matter o forestalling or avoiding the mercat fee, John Anderson is, but gie him a trail to follow and he’ll cross it as sure as winking. I’d the deil’s own job to keep them from naming that woman in the Tolbooth for the old dame.’

‘No, it was never her,’ Gil said absently. ‘What did they resolve about Dod Muir? And where did that pair of gallowglasses get to?’

‘Oh, we’re putting some fellow Miller to the horn. Mind, it would help if I kent his forename, Dusty willny do for the paperwork, but the two women you sent up here wi that sly fellow made the tale clear enough, and spoke up to it. Eventually. Even an assize couldny mistake the matter. Is that who you’re wanting, the man Campbell? I thought he was about the place, maybe talking wi Andro. You could try at the guardhouse.’

‘Have you searched for Miller?’

Otterburn gave him a look which his mother would have called old-fashioned.

‘My faith, I never thought o that. What do you think we’ve been doing? Andro’s no long back, in fact, he was down the Gallowgate wi four men asking the fellow’s whereabouts, but turns out nobody kens him. Must be invisible.’