Making his way up the High Street in the November dawn with the dog loping at his heels, Gil felt he was no closer to learning what had distressed his wife. Her long talk on All Souls’ Day with Catherine, her nurse, governess, duenna, had left her very tearful but still unable to explain why. Anxious questions had got him the assurance that it was nothing he had done or said, nothing he could help with. He would have been more able to believe her if she had not spent the past three nights lying rigid with her back to him, refusing any overtures he made.

‘Aye, Gil,’ said a voice in his ear. He looked up, startled, to find Nicol Renfrew beside him, Socrates nosing his hand in greeting. That aimless, heavy-eyed grin lit the round face. ‘You were thinking, I can see that. Not a good idea, thinking, man. It makes your head ache. If you think too much it rots your brain.’

‘Is that so?’ Gil fell into step with the other man. ‘Where did you learn that?’

‘Oh, in the Low Countries. They all say that there. I’ll prove it, too,’ added Nicol, waving his arm largely and just missing a woman with a bucket of water. She shouted at him, but he appeared not to hear her. ‘I’d a dream last night, all because I was thinking too much yesterday.’

‘Is that right?’ Gil asked, hoping he was not to be regaled with an account of the dream. The hope was false; Nicol launched into a complex, rambling narrative involving his father, someone called Lord Simon who might have been another painted flask, Grace, and an extra hand, though whose that might be was not clear. Gil strode on up the High Street in the grey daylight, nodding at intervals, while Nicol expounded the different forms these elements had taken in the course of the night.

‘You’re not listening, are you, Gil?’ he said suddenly. ‘No that I’d blame you,’ he added, giggling, ‘it’s a daft tale and I’m daft to heed it, but it’s no good manners no to listen when someone talks to you.’

‘That’s true,’ agreed Gil resignedly, ‘and I was listening. Your father had just given you a hand to compound something.’

‘Aye, but it was all of wood. And it’s no use now, anyway.’ Nicol waved happily at the man on duty at the Castle gate as they passed into the courtyard. ‘Are you here for these quests, on Danny Gibson and our Robert? Have they set Nanty free yet?’

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I can’t get at the truth. I think your sister Agnes fetched Allan Leaf to Augie’s house for him, but she won’t admit it, nor anything else, and he claims she never said where she found it.’

‘No, she wouldny,’ agreed Nicol. ‘She might now, if the Provost uses his thumbscrews.’ He looked round vaguely, and flourished his arm again. ‘See, there’s Robert and poor Danny waiting for us, all under a cloth of state and attended by armed men. No, it’s no armed men, it’s just Tammas Sproull.’

Gil, who had already noticed the corpses, laid out under a striped awning in case of rain and guarded by one of the constables, gave him no answer but went to turn back the linen cloth and look at the young mummer. After four days the body was beginning to smell, but the expression had relaxed and was remote and peaceful, the face pitifully young. Socrates put a paw on the edge of the bier and stood up to sniff with interest.

‘Looks like he’s asleep, don’t he no?’ said Tammas gloomily. Gil nodded, muttered a brief prayer, then looked similarly at Robert Renfrew, who really might have been asleep, a surprisingly healthy colour in his face, his expression one of faint surprise. After a moment Gil snapped his fingers to the dog, crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps into the Castle hall. Here, early though it was, a good crowd had gathered for the entertainment.

‘There’s Wat and Adam,’ said Nicol, still behind him and pointing largely, ‘and Christian with them, the poor soul. And all the mummers over there, see them, and Andrew Hamilton and Dod Wilkie. And here’s Augie just come in the door. We’re all gathered for Danny, though there’s only me and yoursel for Robert.’

Gil made his way through the gathering towards the Forrest brothers. Nicol gangled after him, grinning at one or two people who spoke to him, but it was not till Morison caught up with them, nodded to Gil, clapped the other man’s shoulder and said solemnly, ‘Good day to you, Nicol. I’m right sorry about the news, man,’ that the tenor of the other remarks reached Gil. He turned to stare.

‘Your father?’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

‘He’s deid,’ said Nicol cheerfully. ‘I’m rid of him at last, and none of my doing either. We found him cold in his bed,’ he elaborated, and giggled. ‘So I had wine instead of ale to my porridge, to toast my fortune.’

‘Dead in his – What from?’ Gil closed his mouth, swallowed, and said more carefully, ‘I’m right sorry to hear that, Nicol. Do you ken what killed him?’

Nicol shrugged. ‘Never a notion,’ he said offhandedly, ‘unless it was my prayers, man, and they never worked before this, so why now? Or maybe it was grief for Robert, since I’d say he was the only one of us that was grieved.’

Gil exchanged glances with Morison, who seemed winded by amazement.

‘When was this?’ he asked. ‘When did you discover him? Should you be here, man? There must be all to see to at home.’

‘Och, there’s only Christ and His saints ken when it happened,’ said Nicol, taking these in order. ‘Last night, for certain, he was stiff by the time I saw him. One of the maidservants came to let Grace know it when he never came down at his usual time, and I went to his chamber, and there he was. And some one of us had to come out the now,’ he pointed out, ‘to see poor Danny done right, and Jimmy’s better than me for seeing to what’s needed. No to mention Eleanor came to the house and took the hysterics when she heard the news, so Jimmy would stay wi her.’

‘Word reached us just as I left to come up the brae,’ said Morison, finding his tongue. ‘It seems it was a natural enough death, by what they’re saying.’

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Nicol cheerfully. ‘He was fine last night. Well, no to say fine,’ he qualified, ‘but fit enough.’

Gil looked about him, wondering what best to do next, aware of Socrates staring anxiously up at his face. It was likely that the Provost would want his evidence at the quest; it was also possible that the Renfrew family would not let him into the dead man’s chamber, particularly since the body would not have been properly laid out yet.

‘Did you notice anything strange about him?’ he asked, without much hope. ‘Was his chamber just as usual? Did he seem – peaceful, or as if it was easy?’

Nicol shrugged again. ‘I couldny say,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never been in his chamber for ten year, no since he last beat me, afore I went to the Low Countries. It was all neat, just as it used to be, and nothing out of place. And he looked peaceful enough, just like poor Danny there or Robert.’

‘No sign that he’d eaten or drunk anything before he died?’

‘Oh, aye. He’d had his supper wi the rest of us,’ said Nicol helpfully, ‘and we all had cakes and buttered ale afore bed, and there would be oatcakes and cheese in the dole-cupboard like there aye is.’

‘Here is the Provost,’ put in Morison. ‘And young Bothwell. Ah, poor laddie, they have questioned him.’

Bothwell, hustled into the hall by two of the Castle men-at-arms, was manacled, and his hands were bloody. He almost fell at the step up on to the dais; his sister cried out in pity, and he turned a bruised face towards her. Thumbscrews, thought Gil, and a beating. Sir Thomas must have decided to risk the chill of the torture chamber after all. Bothwell was placed against the wall under guard, the Provost made his way to his great chair, and his clerk hurried in behind him with an armful of parchments and took up position at the other end of the table. The Serjeant, brandishing the burgh mace, bawled the order for silence, and the quest began.

‘We’ve two to deal wi,’ announced Sir Thomas, ‘but the one assize can do for both. We’ll just take them in order as they happened, Danny Gibson first. Who’s here to identify the laddie?’

It was clear that the Provost’s rheum was no better, and he was inclined to be even more short-tempered than usual. He dealt ruthlessly with the business of identifying the corpse and choosing an assize, despatched its fifteen members outside to inspect Danny Gibson and agree that there was no visible sign of the cause of death, and summoned Morison to describe the event, all between loud trumpetings into another handkerchief. Gil caught his eye at one point, but received only an irritable shake of the head.

‘And then he fell down,’ ended Morison, ‘and we – all the potyngars went to see if they could help, and then he died.’

‘Aye, he would,’ said someone at the back of the hall, and one or two people laughed. Sir Thomas glared round, and the laughter subsided.

‘We’ll ha none of that. This is a serious matter,’ said the Provost. ‘Who attended him? Is any of the – aye, Maister Forrest, come and let us hear what he died of.’

‘But we ken what he dee’d from,’ objected one of the assize from within their roped-off enclosure. ‘He was pysont by Nanty Bothwell, in a conspiracy wi the lassie Renfrew, as it’s being said all round the town.’

‘You be quiet and listen, Rab Sim, and let me ask the questions,’ ordered Sir Thomas. ‘Right, Wat, tell us what you saw, man.’

Wat Forrest recounted the signs he had observed on the dying man, agreed that it seemed like poison but not one that he knew of, and reported that the stuff in the flask appeared to be poison, also unidentified.

‘So it might be what was in the flask killed Danny,’ he said earnestly, ‘but it might not.’

‘Aye, but what was it if it wasny?’ asked an assizer. ‘What else could it be?’

Nanty Bothwell raised his head at that, but gave no other sign.

‘A course it was in the flask,’ said Rab Sim.

‘Could a bin something he ate,’ said another assizer. ‘Was there a refreshment afore the play, maybe?’

‘I told you to let me ask the questions,’ said Sir Thomas irritably. ‘Where’s these mummers? Tammas Bowster, come and tell us what passed afore the play.’

‘Does he ken it was the wrong flask?’ asked Nicol in Gil’s ear. ‘Will Tammas tell him?’

‘Likely.’ Gil was watching the assize. It did not seem to him that they were hostile to Bothwell, but the evidence being put to them was not favourable. Bowster was now detailing the events in the kitchen, how the two young men had disagreed over Agnes Renfrew and how the refreshment handed round had been common to all.

‘So there’s your answer, Davie Johnson,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘They all shared the refreshment. It wasny in that, whatever slew the poor lad.’

‘It might ha been a bad cake,’ persisted Johnson.

Sir Thomas glared round the hall, ignoring this. ‘Is any of the Renfrew household here?’ His eye fell on Nicol. ‘Is it just you? Where’s Frankie?’

‘He’ll no be coming,’ said Nicol, pushing forward to the edge of the dais. ‘He’s no able.’ He gave Sir Thomas one of his sunny, heavy-eyed smiles, and the Provost stared at him in growing indignation until he realized what the bystanders were saying.

‘Dead? Are you saying Frankie Renfrew’s dead, man?’

‘Aye, he’s dead,’ agreed Nicol. ‘I found him.’

Sir Thomas looked briefly at Gil, then back at Nicol in some bafflement.

‘I’m right sorry to hear it,’ he said, ‘for he’ll be a sad miss in the burgh, but –’

‘I’m no,’ said Nicol. ‘We’ll none of us miss him in our house, save maybe wee Marion.’

‘But we’re here to deal wi Danny Gibson’s death, and we’ll get on wi that for now. Come up here, man and tell us what your sister Agnes has to do wi the matter.’

‘Oh, she’s nothing to do wi’t,’ said Nicol, stepping obediently on to the dais, ‘for Frankie would never ha let either of them wed her. He’s got other plans for her, seeing Adam didny want her to wife, being a man of good sense.’ Adam Forrest went scarlet at this, and Nanty Bothwell looked up and stared at his sister. ‘But I suppose those will come to naught now,’ went on Nicol. ‘There’s none will want to wed her if she’s to drown for poisoning Robert.’

‘We’re dealing wi Danny Gibson,’ repeated Sir Thomas. ‘If your sister’s naught to do wi that, why were these two lads quarrelling over her in Maister Morison’s kitchen?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nicol, ‘for I wasny there, man, but maybe it was because Agnes fetched the flask to Nanty out of our house, that had the poison in it.’

Nanty Bothwell lunged forward exclaiming, ‘No! No, it was nothing to do wi her, she never knew what it was!’

‘You be quiet,’ said one of his guards, and dragged him back to buffet him round the head. ‘Stand there at peace now!’

Bothwell sagged against the wall, half-stunned, and Sir Thomas said over the sudden buzz of conversation, ‘You’re certain it came from your house?’

‘Oh, aye.’ Nicol smiled at him.

‘How are you so sure it had the poison in it? Wat Forrest’s just tellt us it might not.’

‘Oh, aye, it might not,’ agreed Nicol. ‘But it might, too. Hard to say.’

Sir Thomas snarled faintly. ‘Tell me a straight tale, man, and be quick about it.’

‘It’s no very straight,’ said Nicol, shrugging again. ‘Anyway she said she never. Just Gil Cunningham thought she did.’

Sir Thomas closed his eyes, rubbed his brow, and said wearily, ‘Leave Maister Cunningham out of it and tell me what you know, Nicol Renfrew, till I see if it helps us any.’

‘What I know? You mean all what I know? That’s a lot, man,’ objected Nicol.

‘All that’s to our purpose the now. About your sister Agnes and the flask.’

‘Agnes and the flask?’ repeated Nicol. ‘She fetched it to him, since he’d forgot the one he should ha had. I never saw her fetch it, seeing I was in Augie’s house at the time, but it’s the flask that should ha held my father’s drops for his heart, one of those that he keeps in his workroom. I saw it in our house just afore we left to see the play.’

‘Those were never drops for the heart,’ said Wat Forrest clearly.

Sir Thomas nodded at him, leaned back and spoke to his senior man-at-arms, then said to Nicol, ‘Why are you so certain it was your sister fetched it?’

‘Because he said so.’ Nicol made one of his wide gestures in Gil’s direction.

‘Would it no be more likely Nanty Bothwell stole it out of your father’s house?’ demanded one of the assize. ‘What’s he say himself, anyway, Provost? Has he been put to the question?’

‘I’m asking the questions,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘We’ll have Anthony Bothwell’s statement read out in a wee while. Nicol Renfrew, are you telling us your sister stole a flask of poison out of your father’s workroom and gave it to one of her sweethearts to poison the other?’

Gil closed his eyes for a moment. Prompting the witness, he thought, is the presiding officer’s prerogative.

‘You’re putting words into my mouth, Provost,’ said Nicol, laughing indulgently. ‘I’m saying Agnes fetched the flask from our house, for I’d seen it there afore we came out, but where she found it or what she thought was in it I’ve no knowledge. Nor what Nanty Bothwell thought he’d do wi it.’

‘Have you asked her if she’d done sic a thing?’

‘We don’t talk,’ said Nicol simply. ‘Besides, there’s been all to do in our house these last days, what wi my minnie brought to bed and now the old man struck down. There’s been more to think on than a silly lassie. You’ve more chance than I have, now she’s locked up here.’

‘What’s a flask of poison doing lying about the house,’ asked one of the assize, ‘where a lassie can find it? That’s no very good practice.’

‘Oh, it wasny lying about,’ objected Nicol, ‘for it would all have run out if it was lying, and pysont the whole lot of us wi the foul airs. It was standing just where it ought to be when I saw it, all at peace on the shelf. Mind, I’ve no notion whether it was poison in it then,’ he qualified.

This generated a three-cornered argument involving Sir Thomas, Nicol and the assize, who seemed unable to accept that any householder, much less an apothecary, could have a container in his house whose contents he could not identify at once. Gil, despite his several anxieties, found the exchange amusing, as did most of the women in the audience. Sir Thomas, eventually losing his temper, ordered the assize to leave the subject and attempted to get out of Nicol a statement of who might have filled up the flask. Finally he abandoned that too.

‘Right, that’ll do for that,’ he said. ‘Walter, let’s have Bothwell’s deposition, afore we’re all demented wi this.’

Walter the clerk rose, selecting a sheet of parchment from the array before him, found his place and began in a clear monotone, ‘Anthony Bothwell compearing, deponit that on All Hallows Eve in the year of Our Lord 1493, in acting of the play of Galossian …’

It was roughly what the man had said yesterday, Gil realized, tidied into continuous narrative in Walter’s competent prose. The failure to bring the right flask, the statement about almond milk, were included. Whatever had prompted them to use the thumbscrews, Sir Thomas and Andrew had got no new facts out of Bothwell.

‘I should not be here,’ he muttered to Morison. ‘I need to speak to Syme.’

‘Never worry your head,’ said Nicol at his other side. ‘The auld man went quiet in his sleep. I’d say it was his heart, mysel, he would forget he was past fifty.’

And by now he would be washed and laid out, Gil recognized, as the assize began asking questions about Bothwell’s statement. Was a third sudden death in the same group of people really something to look at closely, or was he being unduly suspicious?

‘Can we no ask the lassie what it was she brought him?’ asked one of the assize.

‘She should be here by now,’ said Sir Thomas irritably. ‘Where’s Andro got to?’

With the words, a door was flung open, raised voices reached them, and Agnes was hustled in shrieking furiously and striking out with her manacled hands at the two men-at-arms who gripped her shoulders. One of them contrived to get hold of her fetters and dragged her up on to the platform.

‘Let me go, you villains!’ she shouted. ‘Let me go, afore my faither comes – he’ll slay you, he’ll have the law on you, he’ll –’

‘Be silent, lassie!’ bawled Sir Thomas, and she stopped, open-mouthed, and stared at him. ‘Your faither can be no help to you now.’

‘Aye he can,’ she protested. ‘He’ll get a man of law to speak for me –’

‘Frankie Renfrew is deid,’ said Sir Thomas.

Agnes went very still. She stared at the Provost for a moment, then turned her head and looked direct at her brother. She must have noticed him as she was dragged in, Gil realized. Again, she must be far less upset than she appeared to be, though that seemed to be changing now.

‘Died in his sleep,’ said Nicol cheerfully. ‘Found this morning.’

Agnes swallowed. She had gone white, the blue eyes suddenly huge in her pinched face.

‘Poison?’ she said. ‘Was it poison? It must ha been the same person as poisoned Robert, then.’

Sir Thomas looked at her, his eyes narrowed, then turned to Andro and conferred with him again. As the man made his way down off the dais and through the press of people, the Provost said, ‘Right, lassie, what was this flask you brought out of your house to give Nanty Bothwell on Hallowe’en?’

‘I never brought any flask,’ said Agnes. She seemed to be trembling. ‘It was nothing to do wi me. I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.’

‘It never flew from our house to Augie’s,’ observed Nicol. ‘Somebody shifted it.’

‘Maister Cunningham?’ said Andro at Gil’s shoulder.

 

‘It’s right hard to believe,’ said James Syme. He was standing at the desk in the workroom, his hand on a stack of papers. He shook his head. ‘I – I suppose it’s grief that slew him, but he seemed stout enough last night. You’d never ha taken him for one to die of grief.’

‘So Nicol said,’ agreed Gil. ‘Did anyone hear anything? He’d no chamber-fellows, no company?’

‘It’s a big enough house there’s no need for the maister to share his chamber,’ divulged Syme, with a flicker of his usual manner. ‘And seeing Mistress Mathieson’s lying apart the now, being new delivered, he’d be all his lone.’ He looked intently at Gil. ‘Is there any suspicion about his death, maister? Is that why you’re here?’

‘The Provost and I would both like to be sure there’s no suspicion.’

‘Oh,’ said Syme slowly. He shuffled the papers into a neat stack and turned from the desk. ‘You’ll want a look at the chamber, then, for a start.’

‘How have the women taken it?’ Gil asked, following the man up the stair.

‘Grace has been a marvel,’ said Syme over his shoulder. ‘My – my wife was that struck down, weeping fit to break her heart, poor lass, and her good-mother was right bad too, but Grace and Mistress Baillie atween them two got them calmed down and resting. Grace had some drops that worked a wee miracle.’

Did she, now? thought Gil.

‘The women are little help,’ Syme added, ‘the maidservants I mean, they were all in pieces already with the one lass being taken up alongside Agnes, they’re useless the day, but Grace saw to getting him laid out, and we’ve taken Mistress Mathieson’s opinion on the burial, and – we ordered as much in the way of mourning yesterday, you’ll understand, for Robert, that it’s no been a hard task for me the day.’

‘How are matters left?’ Gil asked. ‘Who gets the business? I’d have thought you and Robert would be his heirs, by the way he talked, but he’ll not have had time to change that since Saturday.’

‘I’ve no a notion. I was looking for the will just the now. His share might be all left wi Mistress Mathieson.’ Syme led the way through one of the well-furnished chambers Gil had seen before, and into the next. ‘Here it’s, maister. This is where we found him.’

The high tester-bed was stripped, the hangings gone, the woollen mattress bare and hauled up into a ridge to air. Pillows were stacked on the kist at the bed-foot, blankets of several colours were folded on a stool by the wall, and a red worsted counterpane lay forgotten in a heap beyond the bed-frame. There was nothing to be learned here, Gil recognized. Sighing, he looked about him.

‘Did you see him before he was moved?’

‘I did. Nicol came out to find me and break the word to my wife. He’s a kind man, I think,’ said Syme thoughtfully. ‘I never understood Frankie’s – well.’

‘How was he lying? How did he look?’

Syme bent his mind to this.

‘When I saw him,’ he said with care, ‘he was lying in his bed, on his back, with his mouth open and one hand here.’ He pressed a hand to his chest, just below the windpipe. ‘The bedclothes were flung back, but Nicol and Grace both had tried to find a heartbeat, likely that was their doing.’

‘His legs?’

‘Straight. One foot turned out a wee bit.’ Syme eyed Gil. ‘He’d gone quite peaceful, I’d say. He’d neither struggled nor voided. There was no blood, nor other signs.’

‘But,’ Gil prompted after a moment.

Syme shook his yellow head. ‘I’d not like to start anything – anything –’

‘But,’ Gil said again.

‘It was just –’ He bit his lip. ‘Just somehow awful like the way Robert looked, once we’d laid him out, and the way poor Gibson looked. And yet, one peaceful death’s much the same as another, and those two slipped away easy enough at the very end. There’s nothing to go on.’

‘Nothing but an experienced man’s feeling that something wasny right,’ Gil said. He bent to look under the bed-frame. ‘The jordan is missing. Had it been used? Has Mistress Grace taken it away to empty it?’

‘Aye, likely. He’d voided urine in it, a reasonable quantity for a man his age, the colour what you’d expect considering his state of health.’

The apothecary’s response to the question, Gil thought. He stood by the head of the bed and surveyed the chamber. There were two painted kists against one wall, the initials MM displayed in a wreath of daisies on each. The one at the bed-foot, he recalled, had Renfrew’s initials. ‘Most of us can find the jordan in the dark. Was there any sign that he’d tried to strike a light, maybe to get at his drops, to call for help?’

‘Ah.’ Syme considered. ‘When I saw him, which was maybe half an hour after they’d found him, for I came straight away and left Nicol to bring my wife, when I saw him there was an empty candlestock on the dole-cupboard yonder, which was at the bedhead then. Grace must ha taken it for cleaning, like the jordan.’

‘Empty. As if the candle had burnt out.’ Gil moved to the dole-cupboard, a well-made piece whose spiral-turned legs matched the more massive posts of the bed. He lifted the neat brass latch and opened the little door to peer in at the empty platter.

‘I suppose so.’

‘What do they usually put in the dole-cupboard?’ he asked. ‘I think Nicol mentioned oatcakes and cheese.’ His uncle’s housekeeper Maggie had always left little sweet cakes and a cup of ale; he had encountered this more substantial dole first in his father-in-law’s house, oatmeal bannocks and hard cheese, or sometimes a cold meat pasty, set ready to deal with night-time hunger in a household devoted to manual labour.

‘When I was prentice here,’ said Syme carefully, ‘it was aye oatcakes and a finger of hard cheese. I’ve no notion whether Mistress Mathieson has changed that.’

Gil nodded, and lifted a few crumbs of oatcake from the platter. ‘And was the wee flask of his drops anywhere?’

‘No that I saw.’ Syme looked about as Gil had done earlier. ‘I wonder where Grace would have put his clothes from yesterday?’

‘In the kist?’ He nodded at the bed-foot.

Syme moved the stack of pillows on to the bed-frame and opened the painted lid. ‘Indeed, aye.’ He lifted the dead man’s purse from a corner of the box and came to empty the contents out on to a flat portion of the mattress. ‘This and that, his coin-purse, his beads, his tablets and seal.’

‘And his drops.’ Gil lifted the little flask and shook it, then drew the stopper and sniffed cautiously. ‘It seems to have been the drops, right enough, but it’s empty.’ He offered the mouth of the flask to Syme, who sniffed with equal caution and nodded.

‘That’s his drops. Nothing odd about them, I’d say.’

‘Did he ever keep a separate store of the remedy here in the chamber?’

‘I wouldny know. You might ask at Mistress Mathieson, if she’s fit to talk, or at Grace.’

Gil looked about him again, then moved around the room, bending to peer under the bed again, looking into the kist where Renfrew’s clothes had been folded. His linen had been removed, presumably with the sheets from the bed, which would all be in the washhouse by now. There was no sign of anything untoward, other than Syme’s unease and his own feeling that this death must be considered carefully.

‘Might I see him?’ he said.

Maister Francis Renfrew was laid out in the same chamber where his son had lain, washed and shrouded, candles burning at his head and feet. The maidservant Isa was on her knees in a corner of the chamber, her beads in her hand; she looked up when they entered, and rose, saying in some relief, ‘Will I just get back to the kitchen now, Maister Jimmy? There’s the dinner to see to, and Babtie no feeling too good again, no to mention the wash willny wait, it being Monday and the first wash of the month.’

‘Aye, on you go, Isa,’ said Syme, his felt hat held against his chest. ‘I’ll get someone to him. Thanks, lass.’

She bobbed briefly and slipped out of the room. Gil bent his head and offered a brief prayer, then drew back the shroud and studied the corpse. As Syme had said, there was nothing untoward to see; the face was a healthy colour, perhaps not as high a colour as the man had sometimes flown in life, and once the jaw softened and the mouth could be closed the expression would be as peaceful as Robert’s. Gil bent to sniff at the cold lips, but there was no odour at all; reaching for the nearest candle, he held it to cast light into the dark cavern of the open mouth, without success. Resignedly he set the candle back in its place and inserted his forefinger, feeling cautiously round the stiffened tongue and behind the teeth. The cavity felt strange, and curiously much smaller than his own mouth felt when he explored it. Many of the back teeth were missing.

‘What are you doing?’

He looked up, to see Grace Gordon standing in the doorway, her light eyes wide with astonishment.

‘Wondering what he ate last,’ he said, returning to the task.

‘Why?’ She came forward into the room. ‘What’s it to you? Never tell me you think he was pysont!’

‘I’m not easy in my mind.’ Gil withdrew his finger and looked at it. The usual whitish material was caked under the nail, scraped from the dead man’s teeth; there were some darker fragments lodged in it, which seemed to be crumbs of oatcake.

‘He had oatcakes and cheese to his dole,’ Grace agreed, still disapproving. Her voice was high and sharp with tension this morning. And small wonder, he reflected. ‘He’d eaten them, it was all over his teeth, so I rinsed out his mouth. No sense in upsetting Meg further, if she felt equal to seeing him afore we can close his mouth, I thought.’

‘A good thought,’ said Syme solemnly. ‘A right good thought.’

‘You saw nothing out of the ordinary?’ Gil asked.

‘Beyond him being deid, you mean?’ she responded, her tone acrid. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. He’d slept in his own bed, eaten his own dole, lit his own candle. There was no albarello of pyson in the chamber, no marchpane fancies. Are you thinking now it wasny Agnes that slew Robert?’

‘No.’ Gil drew back the shroud, looking down the length of Renfrew’s body, flabby and blue-veined, with a paunch the man’s garments had concealed in life. How undignified death is, he thought, stripping away all the defences we put in place. Is this how God and the saints see us?

‘You might leave him some dignity,’ said Grace, echoing his thoughts.

‘I’d rather send him justice, if he should need it.’

‘Justice? For Frankie?’ she said bitterly. Syme looked at her in astonishment, but she turned to leave the room, just as Nicol slouched in from the hall.

‘Aye, lass,’ he said, putting an arm round her, and raised his eyebrows at Gil. ‘Getting a word wi Frankie, are you, Gil?’

‘He’s looking for poison,’ said Grace into his shoulder. ‘He thinks it wasny Agnes slew Robert.’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Nicol cheerfully, ‘for it’s just been determined up at the Castle that it was Agnes slew both Robert and Danny Gibson. I brought the lassie Jess down the road wi me.’

All three people in the room stared at him.

‘Gibson as well?’ said Syme at length. ‘Have they let young Bothwell go?’

‘They were just striking off his chains and all when I came away. I’d thought his sister was hoping to cure his hurts wi her tears.’ He grinned. ‘Unguentum Lacrimae, how would that sell, would you say, Grace?’

‘Is that right, d’you think, maister?’ Syme said to Gil.

‘It’s the best we’ll get,’ he said. ‘I’d thought Danny’s death was an accident, myself, but I’d never ha hoped to convince the assize it was none of Bothwell’s intent. Someone was right eloquent, I’d say.’

‘It was the Provost,’ said Nicol, without great interest. ‘What do we need to see to here, Jimmy? If Gil’s no wanting the corp, can we see to getting the old man buried along wi Robert? There’s no denying it would be handier to put them both under at the one time.’

Syme swallowed this one with difficulty, and suggested, ‘We’ll need to send round word to his gossips. They’ll want to drink to his memory, and that will have to be for this night. We’ll no get the two of them buried afore the morn’s morn, and it might need to be the day after. Wednesday, that would be.’

‘The morn’s morn,’ repeated Nicol. ‘Aye, I suppose Gerrit might wait so long. Grace?’

She looked steadily at him, and nodded.

‘I’ll get on wi packing,’ she said.

 

‘No, I’m no interested,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘If you’ve found nothing we can show an assize, and none of the household suspects poison, I’m no for opening it up. They’ve enough to bear for now, what wi this morning’s work and the head of the house dead and all.’

‘I think Syme is uneasy,’ said Gil. ‘He said the corp somehow resembled Robert’s.’

‘They’re father and son,’ said the Provost irritably. ‘What else would they do but resemble one another?’ He sat back in his great chair; Walter the clerk looked up briefly, then went back to his scratching pen. ‘We’ll take a look at this a moment, if we must. Was there any sign of poison in the chamber or elsewhere?’

‘The house is full of poisons,’ Gil observed. Sir Thomas grunted. ‘There was no sign in the chamber, and no sign the man had taken poison, but then Robert shows no sign either by now, even the smell of almonds has left him.’

‘Aye. Now who was in the house that might have ministered the stuff?’

‘The maidservants.’

‘No. No that lot.’

‘No, I agree. Mistress Mathieson, who everyone says is not fit to leave her bed, though I’ve seen her up and seated in a chair. Her mother. Grace and Nicol. The man himself,’ he added scrupulously, ‘though if it was the same poison, he could never have taken it himself and then left all tidy. It works too fast.’

‘Aye, and we don’t know yet what it was. The mes-senger’s no like to reach me afore this evening at the best, this time of year,’ said the Provost, glancing at the dull window.

‘And there was no sign of anything untoward in the bedchamber,’ Gil reiterated.

Sir Thomas grunted again. ‘And who of those might have a reason to kill Frankie Renfrew? The wife, I suppose, given that she’d sooner ha wedded Tammas Bowster, but you tell me she’s not got the knowledge. The good-mother, who I met at Frankie’s wedding,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘A woman of sense, I’d not put it past her to have the ability, and if she thought Frankie had slighted her bairn, I suppose she might. Did you get a word wi them?’

‘I did, after I’d seen the corp,’ said Gil. ‘Mistress Mathieson is hardly able to speak from shock, poor woman. Her mother made more sense, but it seems the two of them were up most of the night with the baby, and the lassie called Babtie with them, so all three can speak for one another through the night. I saw the candles,’ he added. ‘Anyone can burn a candle down, but I thought they were speaking the truth.’

‘Right,’ said the Provost. ‘And what of that daftheid and his wife? Did you ever hear sic a thing this morning? Frankie’s no able,’ he mimicked. ‘We’ll none of us miss him. Hah! Did you say they were leaving Glasgow?’

‘They have a passage booked from Dumbarton,’ Gil said, ‘sailing with the morning tide on Wednesday, assuming their dead can be in the ground by then.’

‘M’hm.’ Sir Thomas blew his nose and mopped it thoughtfully. ‘They’re not expecting to gain from the will, are they?’

‘Renfrew made that very clear,’ Gil said. ‘Nicol has had his share from the business already, and he could expect nothing. I’ve no information about whether Renfrew altered his will since they came home,’ he added, ‘but he’d no chance to make a new one since Robert’s death, so it all likely goes as you’d expect, the widow’s third portion to Mistress Mathieson and the rest between Robert, Agnes and Eleanor, with whatever he thought proper to Syme as his partner. Oh, and the bairn must get a share.’

‘They’ll not be able to divide it, either,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘till the Justice Ayre deals with that wee wildcat Agnes. They might find her innocent, after all,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You never can tell. But if Nicol’s no expecting anything under the will, why would he poison his faither?’

‘He’s never liked him,’ Gil said slowly. ‘But he said to me, when he told me his father was dead, I’m rid of him at last, and none of my doing either. Coming from him, I’d take that as the truth.’

‘And the wife, Grace Gordon, is that the name? What of her? She’s a wise woman, it seems, but is she wise enough to poison her good-father and leave no traces?’

‘It was her that cleared up, stripped the bed, washed the corp.’

‘Aye, but what gain? What benefit to her from this death?’

Gil shook his head. He was still unconvinced, but he could not muster an argument to support his suspicions.

‘She gains the return to the Low Countries, which he’d been trying to prevent, but since they must have had the passage booked already, that doesn’t seem like a reason. They could well pack and leave without him knowing, in a house that size. I think she disliked him more than she let on, but that’s not much of a reason either.’

‘Aye.’ Sir Thomas reached into his purse, produced a small box of ointment, and anointed the reddened area under his nose. Replacing the box, he said, ‘This is all assuming it was the same poison, and it was left overnight. It could ha been that wildcat Agnes left it for him, though I think she was surprised by Nicol’s news. Or it could ha been something else entirely. No, Gil, it’s too wide open, it’s like catching smoke. I’ll ha none of this. The man died of grief, and that’s that.’

 

‘Packing?’ repeated Alys, serving out stewed kale with caraways to go with the cold sliced mutton. ‘So they are leaving immediately? Not even waiting to read Maister Renfrew’s will?’

‘And young Bothwell is set free?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘That I am glad to hear.’

‘It seems Agnes did herself no favours,’ Gil said, ‘denying everything and casting blame on Bothwell or on the girl Jess indiscriminately. The Provost was able to convince the assize she was to blame for Robert’s death, and they decided on their own account to name her alone for Gibson. Bothwell may be liable for blood money, since he ministered the poison, but the Provost can consider that at more length. The man is free.’

‘And so Frankie Renfrew is dead.’ Maistre Pierre frowned. ‘I wonder what will come to the business now? There is the young widow, and the daughter and her man, but if Nicol is to return to the Low Countries –’

‘What troubles you, maistre le notaire?’ asked Catherine. ‘I think you are not convinced of the truth of something.’

Gil shook his head. ‘You are perceptive, madame. I’m not …’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not convinced Renfrew’s death is natural, but I can’t see who could be responsible.’

‘Then you must find out,’ she said, and returned to her kale.