‘Or Joanna, who must have handled the thing, or young Bel when she brought it to Joanna, or even her sister, or certainly her grandam — it could have been any of the folk up there save young Crombie, who was in Glasgow at the time. Or, I suppose, anyone who knew the flask was there, at the places they called on the way, or at Juggling Nick’s.’
Michael whistled.
‘All the folk at the heugh had reason enough, by what we’ve learned so far,’ he admitted. ‘Could it have been a conspiracy, then? All of them plotting together?’
‘It could. There are many possibilities.’
‘Or maybe someone at Nick’s was jealous. What do you suppose they used?’
‘I’ve no notion what it was, or what it was in either.’ Gil stirred the small bones with his toe. ‘And I hope Alys can help me, for we can hardly ask the likeliest to know hereabouts.’
Michael made a questioning noise. Gil bent to lift flask and bottle, and sniffed cautiously at each. The bottle had clearly held usquebae, but on the flask there was a faint smell of old grape spirits, a bitter whiff of something like his mother’s cough syrup, a herbal smell. Had Alys mentioned elderberries? He reached for the stopper of the flask where it lay on the table, flakes of wax still clinging to it, and stowed all three items in his purse with care.
‘Mistress Lithgo, that everyone calls a good woman,’ he said as he fastened the strings, ‘is as likely as any of them to have done it, and if she didny she likely supplied the stuff.’
Chapter Nine
The Hamiltons’ steward at Bonnington, a Hamilton himself, was quite unable to take it all in.
‘Two dead, you say?’ he repeated anxiously, as if the number might have changed since they first told him. ‘And lying as long amid the wild beasts — dreadful, dreadful. I canny credit it. You’ll take another stoup of this ale, sirs, it’s good to clear the throat and settle an uneasy wame.’ He poured generously, and Michael leaned forward to take his. He was still a pearly greenish colour, and had hardly spoken since they left the forester’s cottage and its dismal lodgers.
‘Two dead,’ Gil confirmed.
John Hamilton shook his head. ‘And to learn such a thing of Andro, the bonnie lad, the good worker he’s aye been. Oh, maister, it’s hard to credit, so it is. And taking a collier lad for his catamite and all — dreadful, dreadful! Are ye certain it’s Andro?’
‘It seems most likely,’ said Gil. ‘The body’s well past knowing, as you’ll imagine, but the height and the colour of the hair are right and it’s hard to see who else it might be, in the man’s own house. When did you see him last?’
‘Likely at the quarter-day,’ said Hamilton, shaking his head again. ‘I canny think. For such a thing to happen on our land, and me not know it! But he’s aye been a fellow that kept himself away from the house,’ he added. ‘Good at his work, he is, for all he’s no from hereabouts. Came to us from Ayrshire, he did. So what wi’ having no kin in the neighbourhood, and the way his work takes him all across the place, you’ll understand, maister, we seldom set eyes on him, and times we lend him out to other landholders forbye. Sir James your father was asking me afore he went to Stirling, Maister Michael, about getting a laddie taught his craft by working wi’ Andro. And he’s aye preferred to go home to his own roof-tree and get his own supper, rather than come up to eat wi’ the household.’
‘Well, it’s a good couple of mile from here to the cottage, which is reason enough for that,’ said Gil. ‘So you think you saw him at the quarter-day. That would be just over four weeks since. Did he collect his quarter’s fee? What was it?’
‘A wee bit coin and a sack of meal,’ supplied the steward promptly. ‘I can check the accounts, maister, if you’d wish it. I still canny credit this. Such a bonnie lad, all the lassies about the house has a notion to him. And poisoned, ye said? Was it an accident? A bad mushroom, maybe? These workers on the land often have a liking for mushrooms, the unchancy things, and it would be a judgement on the two of them — ’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gil. ‘The rats and the beasts had cleared the cooking-pot and never suffered from it, though it’s a good thought, Maister Hamilton. I’d say it’s been a deliberate poisoning, and in something they drank, though it’s possible it was meant for the other man rather than Syme.’
‘For the collier? Oh, what a wickedness!’ Hamilton crossed himself. ‘Who would do such a thing, to slay a man in that way and never care who else it took wi’ him?’
Gil nodded, and took another pull at his ale. ‘A wicked deed, maister. Can you tell me if the forester had enemies? Any of the lassies feel slighted, or their men maybe jealous?’
‘What, you think it was my household? Why would anyone here wish to slay the collier? He doesny come to this house, we get our coals across the river in Cadzow parish, from my maister’s own coal-heugh.’
‘I agree, if it was meant for the collier, it’s no more likely to be anyone here than elsewhere,’ agreed Gil in placating tones, ‘but if it was meant for Syme, it could well have been one of your household.’
‘Oh.’ Hamilton threw him an uncertain look, and peered into the ale-jug. ‘I’ve no a notion. I wouldny say any of our folk would poison a man. They’re no saints,’ he qualified, ‘we get squabbles and fists thrown and hair-pullings same as any household ye ever kent, but to procure poison and minister it in secret like that, well, I wouldny say so, maister.’ He set the jug back on the table before him, where it clunked emptily. ‘Now, I’ve bidden the men get a couple hurdles and a bolt of canvas, and lay them on the big cart, but how we get that down to the forester’s house is more than I can tell. We’ll maybe need to use his own handcart to bring him out. And then I suppose the Provost or the Sheriff will want to call a quest on them and raise the hue and cry, and all. Oh, my, what a thing to happen on my maister’s lands!’
‘It might be wiser to coffin them afore you move them,’ said Gil doubtfully. ‘If you’ve the stomach for it, you’d best come down yourself and look at the state they’re in.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that, sir.’ Hamilton rose. ‘Syme’s our man whatever his sins, I’ll see to his needs.’
‘And the accounts,’ Gil prompted. ‘Maybe you could check those afore we leave, make certain of whether Syme collected his fee at the quarter.’
‘Oh, aye, indeed!’ The steward bustled to the door of his chamber and opened it. ‘Will! Where’s Will Thomson? Send to him I want the last quarter’s account.’
Someone answered distantly, and he plunged out into the next chamber with a brief word of apology. Michael finished his beaker of ale and said, ‘Will you need me back at the cottage?’
‘We left two of your men there,’ Gil reminded him. ‘No need to enter the place. Or you could ride into Lanark for me and get a word with the Provost. I think my mother said Archie Hamilton the Sheriff was away just now, so it goes rightly to the Provost as his depute.’
‘I’ll do that, and wait for you at Juggling Nick’s. I’d as soon not go back to the forester’s place. The whole clearing was fit to turn your wame,’ Michael admitted. ‘What wi’ that great owl sitting in the yew tree watching the house. I was near enough taking a stone to it, save that my head was whirling by the time we came away.’ He paused, and grimaced resignedly. ‘Then I’ll need to get up to the Pow Burn, to break it to them. I take it you’d wish to be present?’
‘I do,’ agreed Gil, once more aware of being favourably impressed by his sister’s seducer. ‘I have things to ask them.’
Maister Hamilton hurried back into the chamber, a stout black-gowned clerk following him with a leather-bound roll of parchment open in his hands.
‘Here’s a thing, Maister Cunningham!’ the steward exclaimed. ‘Syme never came for his fee at Lady Day. Will here has it all writ down clear as day, he can show you in a moment.’
‘All writ down,’ confirmed his clerk in a squeaky voice. ‘All but four of the outside men had their fee on the quarter-day itself, and the remaining three we paid out on the Tuesday following, when maister steward here came back from Edinburgh. But Andro Syme’s never been up to the house.’ He ran his finger down the lines of crabbed writing. ‘And to tell truth, sir, it had slipped my mind, or I’d ha’ been out to his place to mind him o’t myself. It makes the accounts untidy, you’ll understand, sir, when a man’s fee gets left lying like that.’