Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [66]
Lymond’s dark face was amused. ‘I am being fattened like a thrush on flour balls and figs.’ He hitched a stool to himself neatly and sat on it. ‘I hear you are going to Blois with the cats and Mary’s little menagerie. Who goes with you?’
‘Two men I can trust. And there’ll be more there. The travelling trainers aye come in when the court arrives. It’s a grand fraternity; ye can trust them. I ken them all. Tosh’ll be there. D’ye mind Tosh?’
Lymond shook his black head. The place was a store. On one side of him was a sink, and at his elbow a high cupboard and table flap loaded with bowls and mortar, spoons, gallipots, balances. Stretching an arm, he took down and opened a stone jar, and sniffed it cautiously. ‘Christ, Archie, you could blow up the whole tedious stewing of them if you wanted to, and establish a Court of Beasts. Who’s Tosh?’
‘Thomas Ouschart’s his name. Tosh they called him when he was a builder’s laddie in Aberdeen, and a good friend you’ll find him at need. He was fairly born in the shape of a ladder; he could lift the whiskers out of a gallant’s beard-box without giving a tweak to his chin. Tosh’d take the meat off your foot.’ Abernaci rocked, incandescent with gossip.
‘He’d to get out of Scotland in a hurry, of course, but you should see him now with his tightrope—a rare act he has, him and his donkey. Gets its horoscope read whiles in Blois by the woman I told you of, that lives at Doubtance by the moneylender’s; but you won’t get him to tell you much about that.’ He broke off, his gaze following Lymond’s, and added in his matter-of-fact voice, ‘I saw your eye on these pots at Rouen. Ye ken that stuff, do ye?’
Carefully Lymond put another stoppered jar back. ‘Yes, Archie. I thought your range was a bit startling when I was being washed in warm water by Sakra-deva’s diamond hand. What drugs do you keep?’
In the withered face, the darting black eyes were steady. ‘All the ones you’re thinking of. If you knew elephants, ye wouldna be surprised.’
‘Such as—?’
‘Belladonna for their coughs, and sweet oils. You had them on you at Rouen. And soap and salt and Aak ka jur Mudar … that’s a narcotic. Bhang, ganja and kuchla when their bowels are upset.’ The wrinkled face filled with compassion. ‘Awful bad with their bowels, some of them can be.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Lymond. ‘What else?’
‘Well. Lime water—that went on Hughie’s back. Opium for a sedative. Resin and beeswax against the flies; arsenic and nux vomica for a tonic … that’s the most of it. You can see it all. There’s big supplies,’ said Abernaci informatively, ‘because elephants is big beasties.’
Below, the banging had become intermittent and joined with occasional noises of rending. Lymond was thoughtful. ‘How many people know of these poisons?’
‘The whole Court, I should think,’ said Abernaci. ‘We had to lock up the hashish and the opium in the end—they were aye daring each other to try it. The worst of the pharmacies hand it out. Bordeaux, Bayonne, Pamplona—they all sell freely. And they get it when the spice ships come in, if only from the seamen and their women. If you’ve money, it’s not hard.’
‘All the same, don’t lock it up any more’ said Lymond. ‘Don’t lock anything up. We want it to be easy.’
‘It is easy,’ said Abernaci simply. ‘Since I checked them this morning, a hundred grains of arsenic have gone.’
In the silence, the brazen blows from below sounded Ogygian: some ritual call to intercession. Then Lymond said, ‘Who has been in? The keepers? The carters, for example?’
Abernaci shook his head. ‘Not the keepers. They’re my own lads. And not the carters; not with the cats ready to travel. They’re excited enough without a wheen of heavy-footed labourers stirring them up. We had the joiners to look at the travelling cages, and the butcher’s cart, and the man with the buckets, and fifteen bushels of hempseed for the canaries; but they all stayed outside, and had one of my men with them forbye. As for the ones we let in … there were your four selves, and the Prince of Condé, to see