Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘She reads it well,’ said Gil.

Alys blushed and nodded, but persisted, ‘Only smoke, Father? No flames? No smell of brimstone?’

‘None,’ he agreed with care. ‘No evil smells at all, no stink of brimstone or aught else. Only …’ He hesitated, shaking his head. ‘I couldny detect it, but Brother William our subprior says there was a strange smell, kinna sweet, like nothing he had smelled before.’

‘Pleasant?’ asked the Bishop doubtfully. His little dog growled at Socrates, and Maister Gregor bleated faintly in protest at one or the other. The Bishop delved in the fur-lined sleeve of his great velvet gown and produced a titbit which he fed to the spaniel. Socrates ignored all this with dignity.

‘Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, so he says,’ said the Prior.

‘And what did you find in the chamber?’ Gil prompted.

The Prior shook his head again. ‘There wasny that much furniture. A bed, a kist, a great chair, two stools. The bed was as it was made up by one o the lay servants the previous morn, hadny been slept in. The kist stood open as if he’d been looking in it; one of the stools had fallen over. But the chair-’ He crossed himself, and went on resolutely, ‘The chair was burned almost to ashes. It was a wee while afore we saw it was there; indeed, it was only when Brother Dickon recognised one o the arms we realised what the ashes were.’

‘And the man Pollock was vanished away,’ said Bishop Brown.

‘Although the outer door was barred,’ said Alys.

‘I think there’s a chimney,’ said Gil. ‘A fireplace, a hearth? Is the roof harmed at all? Thatch scorched, slates cracked?’

‘The roof’s tiled, and it’s taken no hurt, though the tiles are blackened,’ said the Prior. ‘There’s a wee hearth, but the chimney was blocked at the same time as the window, on the same docket.’ He looked at Gil, and reverted to Latin. ‘The community is much disturbed by these events. I should be very glad to know the truth of the matter, in order to negate the rumours which abound in the neighbourhood.’

‘And these are?’ Gil enquired. ‘Is it more than simply the tale of the Devil carrying the man away? Do other matters trouble you?’

The Prior bent his head, examining his fingertips.

‘Folk must be looking for reasons why it might happen,’ Alys said in Scots, ‘what might draw the Devil to the house, and if they find none they’ll make them up.’

He looked up at her, relief in his face for a moment at her understanding.

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And little to the credit of the community.’

Gil was silent, considering this.

‘I wish,’ reiterated Father David, ‘to know the truth of the matter. However unpalatable it may be, the truth is more nourishing than the poison of rumour or the sweets of wishful thinking, and Truth is, after all, the watchword of our Order. Moreover, if it was indeed the work of the Devil, exorcism will be required.’

‘It should ha been done long since,’ said Bishop Brown again.

‘I’ll want to see the lodging where this happened,’ Gil said, with resignation. Across the small chamber Alys gathered her skirts together as if to rise. ‘Though I suppose there’s little enough to be seen now after, what, ten days?’

The two senior churchmen looked at one another.

‘It has been sealed,’ said the Prior. There was a pause, and then he continued delicately, ‘As soon as it was perceived that something strange had occurred, and that it would be better investigated by someone from outside our house, we determined that all should be left as it had been found. Brother Dickon became quite emphatic on the matter, in fact, so Chapter ordered him to nail up the house. It is easily unsealed.’

‘That will be a help,’ said Gil. He remembered Brother Dickon, the senior lay brother of the house, who had been sergeant-at-arms to the late King James Third, and could well imagine him becoming emphatic. But why should it be someone from outside the house who investigated, he wondered. ‘And I’ll want to question everyone who witnessed the place being opened, and probably the rest of the community forbye.’

‘I will give orders at Chapter tomorrow that all should cooperate with you,’ said Boyd.

‘And the man and woman in the house outside the walls and all, I suppose,’ said Maister Gregor. ‘They’ve all sorts to tell you, I’d ha thought.’

‘The man and woman?’ Gil repeated. ‘Who are these?’

‘They witnessed the Devil leaving the house,’ said Bishop Brown in Latin. Maister Gregor nodded in assent, crossing himself assiduously. ‘The woman is not reliable. She hears voices,’ he said fastidiously, ‘but her tale is borne out. Sir Silvester Rattray, the former Ambassador to England, a knight of my diocese and a supporter of Dunkeld Cathedral, in general a man of sense and not given to fancies, was lodging with his acquaintance Mistress Buttergask. Chancing to look out in the night, he clearly saw the Devil rise up above the house and fly away. And so did the woman. She has not hesitated to describe this vision to her acquaintance.’

‘I can see she wouldny,’ said Alys in Scots. ‘Nor would it lose in the telling, I suppose.’

‘Aye,’ said the Prior. His voice was without expression, but his lip curled.

‘I had best see the house now,’ said Gil. He caught Alys’s eye across the chamber; she nodded agreement and rose. The Bishop set his dog on the floor, where it began yapping at Socrates again, and Prior Boyd rang a little bell on his desk.

‘Brother George,’ he said over the dog’s noise to the young friar who answered it, ‘show Maister Cunningham the corrodian’s house, and send to Brother Dickon to open it up for him.’

‘I’ll just come along and all,’ said Bishop Brown. ‘Rob, you can mind Jerome till I get a look at this.’

‘Will you not take us yourself, Father?’ Alys asked in careful Latin. ‘It would be good to have your witness also.’

The young friar looked startled; after a moment the Prior rose, saying, ‘Very well. I can spare a few moments afore the afternoon lecture.’

‘And the more of us there is the better,’ said Maister Gregor anxiously, ‘in case he comes back again.’

‘In case who comes back?’ asked the Bishop in wary tones.

‘Why, Auld Nick! He could be waiting in there for-’

‘Rob, he has more to do than hide in a shuttered house,’ said his master. ‘Whispering daft ideas in your ears, for one thing.’ He swooped on his dog and thrust it into his secretary’s arms. ‘Bide here and mind Jerome.’

Bundled in their various plaids, the rest of the party emerged into the cloister, Socrates at Gil’s knee. Rather than cross the wintry garden in the icy drizzle, they made their way round the walkway under the severe vaulting, past Chapter House and refectory, where the smell of stockfish cooking for the next meal floated out, past the high decorative windows of the guest hall, and through a narrow slype between guest hall and library.

‘How big is your library, sir?’ Gil asked.

‘Oh, it’s a good size,’ said the Bishop, before the Prior could answer. ‘Near a hundred books, many o them new print, besides the study copies o Peter o Spain and Peter Lombard. I borrow from it mysel, by David’s grace.’

They emerged into the courtyard which served the guest lodgings. To their left was the guest hall, in which Gil hoped their servants were unpacking and making what comfort was possible in the big, chill building. Across the yard, facing them, was the elaborately worked facade of the royal lodgings, and on the right a row of doors and windows proclaimed a set of four small individual domiciles, each with a fenced plot before the door.