Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘Have you other residents?’ Gil asked. ‘Other permanent guests?’

‘None at present,’ said Father Prior. ‘The other houses are used only at the pilgrimage season, nearer to St John’s Tide. The gardens come in handy,’ he added in Scots.

‘The most o them stop no more than a night or two,’ said the Bishop, ‘for they’re on their way through from Dunkeld and on to St Andrews. There’s little in Perth to draw them.’

The nearest house was boarded up, with splashes of red sealing-wax here and there over the nails, and a well-executed image of the Virgin and Child chalked on the window-shutters. Its trampled little garden held a bench, a stone shelter stacked with kindling with a closed coalhouse beside it, and a rose tree, bare and spiky in the winter air. As they entered through a gate of palings, young Brother George came round the end of the royal lodgings, together with two stalwart lay brothers, one of them hefting a crowbar, the other carrying two copper lanterns. They bowed their heads to the company, but their backs were very straight.

‘Dickon,’ said the Prior. ‘Here is Maister Cunningham and madam his wife. You’ll gie him every assist in your power, I trust.’

‘I will, Faither,’ said the older brother. He was a wiry grizzled man with a scar across one eye, his bushy beard striped like a badger’s head. ‘Sooner we get to the roots o this, the better all round, I’d say.’ He nodded to Gil, raising his hand in something like a salute, gave Alys a considering look, and waved his underling forward. ‘Brother Dod, shift they planks, will you?’

Brother Dod crossed himself, licked his lips, and applied the crowbar. Two or three mighty heaves dislodged the planks.

‘You told us the door was barred, sir,’ Gil said. ‘Were the shutters barred and all?’

‘Dickon?’

‘Aye, Faither, they was barred,’ confirmed Brother Dickon, looking up from the lanterns. ‘He’d sealed hissel in well, which was no surprising considering the weather. It was the midst o that cold snap we had,’ he elaborated to Gil as he closed the little door on the second lantern. ‘Freezing hard it was.’

‘It’s open, er, brother,’ reported Brother Dod. Brother George eased himself to the back of the group; the Bishop craned forward, clutching his episcopal cross for protection, but before Gil could speak, a small bell began to toll somewhere in the priory, with rapid light strokes. The Prior looked at the sky.

‘Is it that hour already? Sirs, madam, I’ll leave you. I’ve a lecture to deliver. Brother Thomas’s words on the Lombard, honey to the soul, wasted on the- Well, I’ll get a word wi you later, Gilbert. Brother George, come wi me.’ He offered a general blessing and strode off, the young friar following him.

As the paling gate clacked shut behind them, Gil replaced his hat and said politely to the Bishop, ‘I’d be glad of a moment to look about me afore we all crowd into the place, sir. Brother Dickon, I think you were among the first through the door? Can you show me how it all lay?’ He gestured to Socrates, ordering him to stay with Alys; the dog sat down beside her, but pointedly turned his head away.

‘Aye, well,’ said Brother Dickon, ‘there was little enough to see here in the outer chamber.’ He stepped over the threshold, lighting Gil into the little house. ‘All in order, as he’d left it when he retired, just the way you see it now.’ He held both lanterns high, then moved to open the shutters. The grey daylight made little difference. ‘There was a smell o smoke and burning, and Brother William our subprior found the inner door yonder was warm to the touch. We’d to smash the lock, as you see, maister, and then-’

‘A moment,’ said Gil. He stood still, looking about him. The outer chamber was adequately furnished, with a cushioned settle, two stools, a small table, a cold brazier. The walls were panelled with good Norway pine, the ceiling was of the same wood, and a small crucifix and several painted woodcuts of various martyrdoms hung next to the settle. Behind the door and on either side of the window were hangings cut down from a much larger tapestry. Gil moved to the window and sniffed at the woollen folds. They were musty, and rather damp, as could be expected when the house had not been heated for days, but the predominant scent was of smoke. He sniffed again, registering — was it woodsmoke? And incense? There was something else, something sweetish and unfamiliar, as Prior David had reported.

‘Aye,’ said Brother Dickon again. He gestured at the inner door. ‘Will you see the worst o’t, maister?’

The door swung in at his touch. Within was darkness, and a stronger smell of smoke and that strange sweetish smell, overlaid by incense. Gil took one of the lanterns from the lay brother and moved into the shadows, peering about him. As his eyes adjusted, the box bed emerged from the dimness, curtained in what looked like more of the same tapestry; beyond at its foot was a substantial kist, a stool beside it. Another stool lay overturned beside the dark hollow of the little hearth, and next to that was the pile of ashes which must be the remnants of the great chair.

‘And this is what you saw when you broke the door open?’ he asked.

‘This is what we saw. It’s no been touched, maister. Well,’ qualified Brother Dickon, ‘it’s been well smoked and sprinkled. Incense and holy water, to mak siccar. Forbye the kist was standing open, like as if he’d been searching in it for something, I closed it down mysel for fear o mice or worse.’

‘I take it you checked behind the bed.’

‘I looked there mysel. And fetched under it wi the crowbar and all. He was nowhere to be found in this chamber or the other, maister.’

‘There was a great crowd at the door, I think?’

‘There was.’ The lay brother paused for a moment, reckoning. ‘Ten or a dozen o us, by the time we got entry, and a course no all those cam in, several was still out in the yard. So he never hid hissel in the outer chamber and slipped out at our backs.’

‘Nor went up that chimney.’

‘It’s still blocked. A slate across it, well mortared in place; I had Dod get a good look by daylight. Right neatly done. It’s blocked this flue but no the one from the front chamber. There’s a wee crack o light visible, but nothing like the full width o the flue. Forbye the man Pollock would never ha got up a chimney, the way he was.’ Gil made an enquiring noise, still gazing round him, taking in the detail of the scene. Dickon asked: ‘Did, er, did Father Prior never gie you a description?’

‘No yet.’

‘Ah.’ Dickon lowered his voice. ‘He’d be my height, I suppose, and a wee thing broader in the shoulders, but long since gone to fat. Twice my weight, I’d guess, and a course it had went for his knees and his hips, and his legs was swoled like tree trunks. He wouldny use a stick, which would ha helped him, so he gaed about rolling like a drunken sailor, and groaning the whole time, complaining o the pain. Made him right birky, so it did, though there’s one or two said he’d aye been like that, a sour kind o man.’ He bent his head. ‘And here I’ll ha to confess this at Chapter o Faults, for it’s no charity to speak o the man so.’

‘Have you seen enough, Gilbert?’ asked the Bishop from the outer chamber. ‘I’d best get back to my diocese, seeing Prior David’s caught up wi his lecture, but-’ His voice tailed off as he peered over Brother Dickon’s shoulder into the dark space. ‘Christ and His saints preserve us all,’ he said after a moment, crossing himself. ‘Is that the man’s great chair, indeed? That heap of ashes? And yet the bed-curtains areny harmed? And truly no smell of brimstone or — or — ’