Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘Oh, God,’ said Gil, as the dog delicately mouthed his prize and came to offer it to him, his stringy tail waving proudly. ‘With a foot in it. And the,’ he swallowed, ‘the bone all burned.’

‘A foot ?’ said Dod in disbelief. ‘How can it be a foot? Is it his? Where’s the rest o him?’

‘That’s what I’d like to ken,’ Gil said. Alys freed herself from his clasp with a precarious smile, and he looked at her closely, then bent to receive the dog’s find. It was, as she had said, a shoe, a well-worn sturdy item of local make, spread and twisted to accommodate the swollen foot which still inhabited it. In the light of the candles Alys still held, the flesh of the ankle showed black, crisp and shrivelled, and a spur of calcined bone stood out like a handle.

‘Good dog,’ Alys said shakily. ‘Clever dog.’ Socrates gave her a considering glance, then grinned, his teeth white in the flickering light.

‘It’s his shoe, all right,’ said Dickon. ‘Seen ’em often enough. But where’s the rest o him? If he’s been carried away wi the Deil right enough, why leave his foot ahint?’

‘I think this heap of ashes must be him,’ said Gil. Then: ‘Bear up, sweetheart. Do you want to go outside? Aye, he’s here, I’m afraid.’

The two lay brothers crossed themselves simultaneously, staring. Alys stepped back, away from the grey tumble of cinders, and reached for her beads.

‘Christ on a handcart,’ said Brother Dickon reverently.

‘But what,’ Dod swallowed, ‘here, I’ve seen folk that was burned to death. It’s no, it’s no a bonnie sight, but there’s a corp to be seen, no a heap o- a heap o ash like a bonfire. How come he’s burned to a cinder and the house still standing round him?’

‘That,’ said Gil grimly, ‘is what I mean to find out.’

‘But how could it happen, mem?’ demanded Jennet.

All the servants were agog, hanging on every word of the narrative which their master and mistress provided over the stewed kale and stockfish in pepper sauce.

The meal had appeared almost as soon as they emerged from the corrodian’s lodging, but that was some time after their unpleasant discovery. Brother Dickon, recovering his self-assurance, had sent his junior for ‘a wee brush, a couple shovels, a fair linen cloth out the sacristy and a good stout box’. When Brother Dod returned, the two lay brothers had set about lifting the heap of crumbling, flaking fragments with care, meantime muttering the Ave Maria interspersed with curt instructions. Gil looked anxiously at Alys, but she had retired to the doorway where the dog was leaning heavily against her knee, so he hunkered down to join the two men at their charitable task. It was he who found the several lumps of metal buried in the pile, small twisted things which glinted brassily when he rubbed the black deposit off, and a larger knot of dark iron.

‘Well, well,’ said Brother Dickon, cautiously sitting back on his heels, peering over his shoulder at the objects. ‘Belt-findings, likely. And could yon be the missing key, d’ye think, maister?’

‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Gil turned the misshapen object. ‘It’s the right weight, certainly. But what a heat the fire must ha been, to melt iron like that.’

‘Aye.’ Dickon tipped another shovel-full of fragments into the box, and reached across the patch of ashes to lift another small object. ‘How about this? A finger, maybe?’

Gil drew the candles closer.

‘Aye,’ he agreed, ‘or from the other foot. Is there more of it?’

‘Canny see any.’ Dickon set the fine bone in the box beside the shoe with its gruesome content, and turned back to coax more crumbling scraps from the same area onto the shovel. ‘No, I see no more, though there’s a few teeth here. Brother Dod, easy wi that brush, I’ve no wish to swally Leonard Pollock’s mortal remains.’

‘Will we need to tell Faither Prior?’ Dod wondered. ‘And ring the passing-bell?’

‘A course we need to tell him, daftheid!’ said Dickon. ‘The bell can wait, mind you, it’s waited long enough a’ready, no to mention the proper prayers. But what exercises my mind,’ he said to Gil, ‘is where this is to lie till we get word to the Prior.’ Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘See, if it was the Deil indeed struck the man wi fire, then it’s hardly fit for him to lie in the kirk. Faither Prior’s the one to decide on that.’

‘You could leave him here meantime,’ said Alys, from the doorway. ‘There are lights already, after all. Maybe the outer chamber would be better.’

‘A good thought, mistress. And we’ll ha two o the lads to watch,’ said Brother Dickon, ‘for either way prayers’ll no hurt the matter. They can get their bite o supper after.’

‘But also, brother,’ she went on, ‘if there’s to be any prayers said, you need to get a mat or the like, to protect the friars’ habits when they kneel. This greasy floor …’

‘Aye,’ said Dickon thoughtfully, looking down at his own knees. ‘I’ll tell you, mistress, my boots hasny squeaked since the day we entered this lodging. Swimming in lard, it was.’

‘Was it set cold?’ she asked, rubbing her toe on the broad boards nearest her. ‘Or did it still run?’

‘Atwixt and atween. It’s soaked well in by now.’

By the time they had contained the inseparable ashes of Leonard Pollock and his great chair, and set the box decently on a stool with the linen cloth to cover it, the little bell had begun ringing again and the members of the community were gathering from study and from daily tasks to wash hands before the evening collation, making their way half-seen in the twilight in their white habits and black cloaks, with sidelong glances at the fateful lodging. The meal, Gil knew, would be followed directly by Compline, which was begun in the refectory and ended in the priory church. He also knew that little or nothing was permitted to interrupt Compline. Informing Father Prior, he reckoned, would have to wait until afterwards.

The guests were not expected to attend the service, it seemed. A lay servant had carried in the dishes and helped to set up the table by the fire in one of the smaller chambers, promising to return later for the crocks. He was accompanied by the kitchen cat, a large black animal with a white bib and paws, who leaped onto a windowsill to inspect them all from a safe distance, established that Socrates knew how to be polite to cats, then sauntered impudently off when Gil called the dog to heel.

The accommodation which they had been allowed was more comfortable than Gil had expected, now that their servants, who numbered three house-servants and two grooms borrowed from Gil’s uncle Canon Cunningham for the journey, had spent some time re arranging the sparse furniture and kindling the fire. Gil had still not worked out how they would arrange themselves for sleep; Jennet could hardly lie in the same chamber as the men. Perhaps Alys had the answer, he decided.

‘How was the whole wee house no burned down?’ Jennet went on now, mopping pepper sauce from her platter with a piece of hard bread. ‘It makes no sense, unless it truly was the Deil carried him off.’

‘Was it no one of the novices set fire to him?’ asked Nory, Gil’s body-servant. He was a skinny fellow in his forties, very neat in the suit of clothes he had had as a New Year’s gift; he had been in Gil’s service for four months or so and promised well. ‘The lad ’at brought our dinner was saying they’ve one of the novices locked away, for that he confessed to killing the man. No that it’s any great loss, he says,’ he added primly. ‘Seems he wasny well liked.’

‘Aye, but the lodging was locked tight against thieves,’ said Tam, one of Canon Cunningham’s grooms. ‘So how did he get in to set fire to the man?’