Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘Aye,’ said Brother Dickon baldly. ‘Aye, it is, my lord,’ he added with more circumspection. ‘There’s a wee bit carving off the arm there, where it hasny quite burned up. Here, watch yoursel, maister,’ he added as Gil stepped forward incautiously. ‘The boards is right waxy, all round about — I’ve no notion where it’s come fro’. Watch and no slip.’

‘I can tell that,’ Gil said rather grimly, regaining his balance. ‘We need lights in here, and plenty o them. What I can see makes no sense.’

‘Indeed no,’ said Bishop Brown. ‘No sense at all. Why would the man set light to his chair, and vanish away like this, and leave the stool couped ower like that? And did you say the kist stood open, Dickon? And how would the chair burn to ashes and yet nothing else in the chamber catch light?’

Gil held the lantern high.

‘The ceiling’s marked above it,’ he said. ‘The flames have gone straight upwards, by the look o’t, and not spread out at all.’

‘The fire has been fierce,’ said Alys behind the Bishop. He looked over his shoulder, and turned, putting a hand to her elbow.

‘No, no, lassie, come away. It’s no fit — no need for you to trouble yoursel.’

‘Let her by, sir,’ said Gil. He could hear the dog snuffling in the outer room. ‘Her eye’s acute, she might see things I’d miss.’

‘I can see nothing,’ she said decidedly, ‘till we have more light. Why did the man have the window blocked, I wonder. It’s like a storeroom in here. And Socrates thinks there are rats in the place.’

‘I’d no be surprised. The window was afore my time,’ said Brother Dickon, ‘but I heard he was afeared o housebreakers fro outwith the Priory. Dod,’ he called.

‘Aye, Ser- Brother Dickon?’ answered his henchman from the outer door.

‘Away and fetch a couple o branches o candles. Six or eight lights, I’d say.’

The Bishop, nodding approval of this, stepped carefully into the inner chamber, holding his great velvet gown up about his knees.

‘Well,’ he declared, after a long look about him into the shadows, ‘I canny see aught that tells us what happened in here, nor what’s come to the man. I hope you can learn more, Gilbert, for I ken well you’ve a knack for it; that’s how Blacader made you his quaestor. But I’ll away now and be about my own duties. I’ll hold you in my prayers, the both o you, but I’m no so certain it’s right to keep your wife at your side, maister. I fear you may lead her into spiritual danger,’ he added in Latin.

‘We can keep each other safe from that,’ said Gil in Scots. ‘I wouldny dream o leading her anywhere,’ he added. ‘She’s her own mistress.’

The Bishop grunted, gathered his gown tighter about him, delivered a blessing with his free hand and swept out, checking briefly in the house doorway as he encountered Brother Dod with his arms full of ironwork and wax.

Even with eight candles alight, the small space was gloomy and full of leaping shadows. Moving cautiously on the greasy floorboards, Gil peered behind the box bed, bent to look under it, craned to see on top.

‘Tell me how the man lived,’ he said. ‘Lives. We have no proof of his death yet.’

‘How he lives?’ Brother Dickon, watching his movements, cocked his head to think about this.

‘Does he take any part in the life of the community?’ Alys asked. She was quartering the other portion of the chamber, touching the panelled walls fastidiously, peering into the empty hearth. Socrates was still in the outer room, blowing hard into a corner, the hackles standing up on his narrow back.

‘Too much,’ said Brother Dod.

‘Dod,’ said his senior warningly.

‘Aye, but he did, Ser- brother. He was aye into things, peching about like a bellows, asking what he’d no right to ken. It’s been fine and peaceful wi’out him.’

‘Dod!’

‘His food was sent across here,’ Alys prompted. ‘He never ate wi the rest of you?’

‘No him,’ said Brother Dickon unguardedly. ‘No, he reckoned his corrody paid for a richer diet than the community gets, so he would have that served to him, meat and fish and all sorts we’re no allowed, even on fast days. The amount of meat he ate in a day would ha fed my troop a week on campaign, I can tell you. And since the guest hall was empty this time o year it was carried to his lodging. It was the lad fetching his morning meat that found the place barred, ye ken, mistress.’

‘So Prior Boyd said,’ Gil commented. He set the light on the stool by the kist, lifted the lid, which creaked, and began to turn over the topmost layer of the goods it held. A remarkably good cloak, a bundle of parchments, more garments; several sets of tablets in their brocade or leather bags. Why did the man need so many tablets, he wondered. ‘And after he’d broken his fast, what did he do?’

‘As Dod says,’ said Dickon reluctantly. ‘He’d gae about the place, watching all what went on, asking ower many questions. Times he’d bring a stool out and sit afore his door in the sun, just keeping an eye. No this time o year, a course,’ he qualified.

‘ Ans que vent ni gel ni plueva ,’ said Gil absently.

Brother Dickon looked closely at him, then said, ‘Hah! Aye, wind and hail and rain aplenty here.’

‘And if he seen aught that didny conform,’ said Brother Dod in resentful tones, ‘it’d be wi Father Prior by Compline, or else he’d be at your elbow, speaking o what he’d remarked, wondering what it was worth no to report it.’

‘Is that so?’ Gil turned to look at the two lay brothers: Dickon, against the light, rigid with disapproval, and beyond him the younger man swelling with remembered indignation. ‘But what could he extort that way in a house o religion? You hold all your goods in common. There’s no way to get coin or valuables to him in return.’

‘Is that what happened to my good wax candles?’ Brother Dickon asked.

‘Might be,’ muttered Dod.

‘Privileges,’ said Alys. ‘Did — does the man go into the town?’

‘No a lot,’ said Dod in faint relief at the change of subject.

‘He’s no been fit for the walk in a year or two,’ said Dickon. ‘He’s had one or two callers, mind, folk that comes to visit him regular.’

‘I’ll need their names,’ said Gil. He tilted a set of tablets to the light. ‘Unless they’re in here.’

‘Billy Pullar,’ said Dickon thoughtfully, ‘was one o them, and Jaikie Wilson I mind. Journeymen, the both o them, to different craftsmen o the town.’

‘And Andrew Rattray?’

Both lay brothers looked sharply at him.

‘He’s no a townsman,’ said Dickon. ‘He’s one o ours. A novice, poor lad.’

‘Poor lad?’ Gil queried. ‘Why d’you say that?’

‘He’s in the jail,’ said Dod. Socrates slipped past him, his claws clicking on the greasy boards, and began sniffing about the chamber.

‘He’s in confinement,’ corrected Dickon. ‘Ever since-’ He stopped.

‘Ever since what?’ Gil asked.

‘Ever since he confessed,’ said Dod. ‘Faither Prior said he was best shut away, even if he didny do it.’

‘Confessed to what?’ Gil persevered. Socrates was pawing at something among the legs of the fallen stool, snuffling hard at whatever he had found. Gil snapped his fingers at the dog, but was ignored.

‘Confessed,’ said Dickon heavily, ‘at Chapter o Faults, to slaying our corrodian. Only since he couldny say clear how he did it or where the man’s corp might be, Faither Prior isny convinced, but like Dod says, he reckoned he’s best confined away fro his brothers.’

‘He never mentioned-’ Gil began.

‘Gil! Look what the dog has!’ said Alys in panicky French. Two strides took him to her side. She had brought her branch of candles over to light Socrates’ investigation, and now was pointing and staring wide-eyed. ‘A shoe! A shoe, with- with-’