Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘And how will the poor fellow be rising from his grave at the Last Day, all burned to ashes as he is?’ wondered the Ersche gallowglass.

‘With God all things are possible, Euan,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, mistress,’ agreed Euan, his long narrow face ser ious, ‘but God will be having a lot to see to on that day. Maybe He’ll no be bothered wi one man’s troubles.’

‘Aye, but if it was the Deil struck him down,’ said the other groom, a wiry man called Dandy, ‘then likely he’s in the Bad Place a’ready and no need of judgement or rising up.’

Euan considered this doubtfully, and Gil broke off another piece of bread and dipped it in the sauce-dish.

‘Did the fellow say aught else about the dead man, Nory?’ he asked.

‘Why, only that. He’d ha said more, I think,’ Nory admitted, ‘but their cook called him fro the kitchens, and he’d to go.’

‘See what you can get from him later,’ Gil suggested. ‘I can learn little enough about Pollock from the friars. I think they’re reluctant to speak ill o the dead, and there seems to be little good to say o him.’

‘Will I be talking to the man and all?’ said Euan hopefully.

‘No, I’ve another task for you, though it will have to wait for the morning now.’ Gil cast his mind back to the last time he had been in this guest hall. Out in the great chamber, its high ceiling now filled with shadows, then bright with summer sunlight, the elderly Infirmarer had tended to Tam and another groom while his assistant knelt over a dying man. ‘The sub-infirmarer’s an Ersche speaker, by what I recall. I want you to get a word wi him and any other Erschemen there might be about the convent, learn what you can about the dead man and about what’s going on.’

‘Och, yes,’ said Euan with enthusiasm. ‘I can be doing that. Never fear, Maister Gil, I’ll get anything there is to be kent from them.’

‘So what’s to do the night?’ asked Jennet. ‘Is there tasks for us, or do we sit about the fire and tell pilgrim tales, the way my auntie said they did when she went to St Andrews?’

‘The pilgrim tales, I think,’ said Gil, ‘but don’t stay up too late. I’ll try and get a word wi the Prior once he comes from Compline, unless he goes straight to his rest. They’ll be up again after midnight to sing Matins and Lauds, after all.’

‘Where does he sleep?’ Alys asked. ‘There was hardly room in that study, and I saw no door to another chamber. Does he have his own lodging?’

‘He’ll sleep in the dorter wi the rest,’ Gil said, recalling his one sight of a Dominican’s cell. ‘It’s a great long chamber, wi a row of beds at one end for the novices and the younger brethren, and the other end partitioned into spaces just big enough for a bed, two stools and a table, so the older men have a place to study. A Dominican Prior keeps no great state, even in a house like this.’

‘Well, if you do get a word wi him, maister,’ said Nory, ‘I’ll wager he’ll no sleep much after he hears you. It’s a troubling tale.’

Prior Boyd’s reaction was much the same, though his reasons were a little different.

‘You are certain the body was entirely consumed to ashes?’ he said in his elegant Latin, and answered himself. ‘Indeed, you would not say so if it were otherwise. This gives the matter quite another complexion.’ He rose and took a jerky turn about his study. ‘By what means could a fire be set inside a locked house — indeed, a locked chamber within a locked house — and such a fire, at that, a fire which consumed only the man’s body and not the furnishings and hangings of the chamber, let alone the other timbers of the house. By what means, Gilbert?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Nor I. But I fear the answer, truly.’ Another turn about the room. ‘I think we have to face it, nevertheless. Either it was the Devil carried the man’s soul away, setting fire to his body, or it was,’ he swallowed, ‘witchcraft. And such witchcraft as speaks a practised witch, long sunk in evil.’

‘Or it happened by some mortal means,’ said Gil. ‘As I implied before, I should prefer to consider either of these answers only if I can prove no other method.’

His kinsman studied him closely in the candlelight, and seemed to relax slightly.

‘Aye. That is a better approach. How will you set about your inquiry?’

‘I need to gather information, by questioning many people.’ Gil ticked off the list on his fingers. ‘The other persons present when the lodging was opened. Those members of the community who had dealings with Pollock. A list of all the brethren would be valuable for that. The knight of Perth who saw something that night. The man you have confined because he confessed to the deed.’ He paused, watching the Prior. His kinsman bent his head so that the shadow of his cowl hid his face.

‘Aye, you must. I see that.’

‘And yourself, sir.’ Another pause. ‘Perhaps we could begin,’ he pursued carefully, ‘by discussing Pollock himself. How long had he been lodged here? Was he a valued guest? Did he take a part in the life of the community?’

‘All our guests are valued,’ Boyd reproved. Gil waited. The Prior seated himself, and said at length, ‘His corrody originated from the late King — from James Third. I suppose it was erected in ’82 or thereby, to a good value.’

‘Of which I believe he calculated every penny that was spent on him,’ Gil said.

‘Every farthing,’ the Prior corrected, without expression. ‘The man took some part in our daily life, by walking about and talking to the servants at their work, by sitting in his small garden in fine weather, by hearing Mass daily and also some of the Office, but …’ He considered his next words and finally said, ‘I did not feel that he immersed himself in our spiritual observance as a man should do at the end of his life.’

‘Was he liked by the community?’ Gil asked. ‘Did the servants like him?’

‘I suggest you ask them.’

‘Thank you, sir, I will do that. Now, the novice who is confined.’ His kinsman looked directly at him, and then away. What is going on here, Gil wondered. ‘I understand he confessed at Chapter of Faults. When was that?’

‘Andrew Rattray.’ The Prior studied his folded hands. ‘A very promising novice, indeed one of the most promising in many years.’ He sighed. ‘On the day after the discovery, when I had already consulted with Bishop Brown and he had written to Archbishop Blacader, we held a Chapter of Faults as is our custom. I had noticed, indeed, that Brother Andrew was in some distress at my lecture the previous afternoon, but in my abstraction did not question him. Therefore it was a shock to me as well as to the rest of our brothers when he knelt before us and asked our forgiveness for causing the vanishing away of our corrodian.’

‘In so many words?’

‘In so many words. His Latin is excellent. However, when I questioned him, first in Chapter and later in private, he could give me no reasoned narrative of how he had done this deed, but only seemed convinced he was instrumental. I judged it best to confine him for prayer and reflection, to see if he might come to some sensible conclusion, but none has so far emerged, though he remains persuaded of his guilt. I have prayed with him daily myself.’ The Prior contemplated his hands a little longer. ‘I should find it very hard to believe the young man capable of witchcraft,’ he said at last.

There was a bell ringing, urgently, clanging and clashing, and the dog was barking. He had slept in his shirt. Why had he slept in his shirt? Gil struggled up out of sleep into an unfamiliar place, Alys beside him up on her elbow, Jennet across the room exclaiming in fright. Through the dog’s noise he could hear shouting, a word which spurred him into action.