Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘That makes sense,’ she said. ‘My husband would say the same.’

‘You could try the Greyfriars,’ he added, as if she had passed some test. ‘I’ve heard they dabble wi sic things alchemical there.’

‘Whereas here you dabble wi witchcraft,’ she said.

‘ Exactement ,’ he said. There was approval in his tone, but he returned to his book without further comment. She drew her tablets from her purse and applied herself to Albert the Great, aware that Jennet had withdrawn to a position out of the draught from the door and had started on her spinning.

The book was a good manuscript copy of Albert’s work, in a clear hand, with few of the abbreviations which could make reading difficult if they were idiosyncratic. The first section of the work she sought dealt with the forming of metals from sulphur and mercury, something she had always had doubts about, though she had never been able to procure enough of either to try them in the fire. She worked her way steadily through the three humid principles of sulphur without striking anything of use, but as she turned the page the door opened with a crash.

It was not the librarian who entered, but a much younger friar, breathing hard. He paused on the threshold, staring in surprise at Alys, then bowed briefly to White, as outside, the convent’s small bell began to ring slowly.

‘They’ve found,’ he began, and crossed himself. ‘They’ve found Andrew. In the, in the, in the ruins, Faither. They’re lifting him now.’

‘Ah.’ White crossed himself too, bent his head and muttered a prayer. Everyone said Amen , and he closed his book on the crow’s feather again, and said to Alys, ‘I should be present, if you’ll forgive me. He was one o my pupils.’

‘I’ll stay here,’ she assured him. ‘We’ll meddle wi nothing.’

Jennet, who would have clearly preferred to go and watch the excitement, cracked open the shutter of the window next the door, and peered out as the two friars left.

‘They’re a’ running across the yard,’ she reported, ‘going out-by. Is that where the bit was that burned down?’

‘Likely.’ Alys crossed herself, murmuring a prayer for the young man whose life had ended in flames and terror, drew a deep breath and addressed herself to Albertus again. She had just caught sight of something useful — ah, there it was. Indeed, yes. De putrefactione , was the heading: Of Putrefaction. Mors amp; vita ab igne fiunt … Death and life come from fire. Extrinsic fire, approaching a body — the similar element which exists in the body … As she had found with other alchemical writings, the passage did not really explain what she wanted to understand, but it provided a new way to think about it. She groped for her tablets, drew the little stylus from the case and began to copy what she read, speculation whirling in her mind.

‘They’re a’ coming back the way,’ Jennet reported, an unknown length of time later. ‘Oh, Our Lady save us, they’re bringing the corp. You can see it, mem, it’s covered ower wi a cloth but you can see where it’s a’ curled up. Where will they take him, I wonder? They’ll no can wash him, his skin would all peel off wi the water like peeling an orange.’

‘You ken a great deal about it,’ Alys said, distracted. Processional singing floated through the open shutter, deep-voiced and sincere, one of the penitential psalms. The singing was not as good as at Glasgow, where they had the resource of the College to draw on for voices, but the grief was unmistakable.

‘My sister Bess helped the layers-out, after that row o houses got burned down in Ru’glen last year. She tellt me all about it. Gied her quite a turn, it did, when the skin cam off the first one she took a cloth to.’ Jennet craned to follow the procession. ‘Aye, they’re taking him direct to the kirk. He can lie there till they coffin him, I’ve no doubt. Be an orra-shaped coffin, so it will,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘They never soften, see, if they’re burned.’

The community vanished into the church. It was probably Sext by now, Alys considered; Gil would be at a loose end if they had taken the body with them and he had nobody to question. She half hoped he might come and find her, but he did not appear, and she applied herself to copying Albert’s solid Latin prose.

She had just finished when the librarian returned, taking up his post at the writing-desk with a silent, resentful glare. Brother Henry followed him, and then several young men, very subdued, who all drew copies of the same text from the shelf by the door and looked about them for places, except one who drew out his eating-knife and began to clean the ash from under his nails. Brother Alexander, seeing this, drew a sharp breath and hurried across to him.

‘Put that away! We’ll ha no knives in here! There’s no need o sharp knives in a library, it’s no the place for it,’ he ordered, his voice trembling with outrage. The young man looked at him, then down at his knife.

‘Forgive me, brother,’ he said in Latin, and put the blade away. ‘I forgot.’

‘And you ’ll need to go now,’ said the librarian, turning triumphantly to Alys. ‘There’s no room. The desks are all wanted.’

‘Very well, sir,’ she said, and curtsied again. ‘I hope I may come back tomorrow?’

‘We’ll see about that,’ he retorted, came round the desk and almost snatched the volume she had been working from. ‘What? Where did you get this? How did you find it? You’ll no get-’

‘No summoning of demons,’ she said. ‘I ken that, sir. It was on yon shelf, third one down, at the end of the row of Albert’s works.’

Henry White looked up and nodded briefly as she turned to leave. Jennet came forward from the window with relief, and exclaimed before the door had closed behind them, ‘What’s at greetin-face? He’s like a man that’s swallowed a lemon.’

‘Maybe he has troubles we don’t know of,’ said Alys. She drew her plaid up against the rain, and turned towards the slype.

‘Where are we going now, mem?’ Jennet asked. ‘Somewhere there’s more folk to talk to, maybe?’

It took longer to get away from Blackfriars than she had expected. The friars’ dinner was served, and that for the guest hall was carried in at the same time; after it she felt it necessary to dose everyone in the household with her cough elixir, and to send a flask of the stuff into the convent with her compliments and a placatory message to the Infirmarian. Dinner had been a silent affair; the men were all morose after their morning’s work, the reek of smoke and — yes, burned flesh — which hung over them discouraged conversation, and Gil was disinclined to discuss matters, though he pointed out that it was Father Prior’s decision as to whether he should investigate the death of the young man in the ashes; this would have to wait for a Chapter meeting.

‘What’s in that stuff, mem?’ Tam asked as they made their way out of the gate. ‘Right tasty, it is, I’d never ha taen it for medicine.’

‘That would be the honey,’ Alys said, choosing her path with care over the muddy ruts in the roadway. ‘Then there’s pepper, and sage tea, and thyme. They were out of celery seed, so I had to make the sage tea extra strong.’

‘Pepper,’ Jennet said thoughtfully. ‘Ye’d think it would bite, then, but it doesny. It’s warmer than a comforter at your neck, so it is.’

‘Where are we going, anyway?’ Tam stared about him in the drizzle, and craned to see over the fence into the dyer’s yard they were passing. ‘No the best part o the town, this, is it? A’ the stinking trades by the brig-end, a’ these wee houses; it’s no like Rottenrow.’

‘This way,’ said Alys with confidence, turning onto the path by the Ditch. She had made certain to get directions from the servant who carried out the empty crocks after dinner.