Pat McIntosh - The King's Corrodian

‘The tale seems very improbable,’ said Gil Cunningham cautiously. ‘How should the Devil enter a house of Religious, and carry off one of its members?’

‘Precisely my point!’ said Archbishop Blacader in sour Latin. He gestured irritably at the nearest stool, and Gil rose obediently from his knees and seated himself. ‘But it is not one of the Dominicans who has vanished.’ He paused as if setting his thoughts in order, lifted a pewter goblet from the table at his elbow and gulped the red wine it held. In the shadows, Blacader’s secretary, the rat-faced William Dunbar, drew his plaid closer about his shoulders. Gil maintained a pose of attention, wondering what the wine was; its scent was heavy and rich, cutting through the smells of wet wool and boiling kale.

They were in the Archbishop’s own lodging in his castle in Glasgow, where Gil had been summoned almost as soon as the prelate’s retinue had dismounted in the courtyard and shaken the icy January rain off their oiled-wool cloaks and leather hoods. A branch of candles and a glowing brazier made the chamber less dark and chill than it was outside, but that was all one could say. Blacader, plump and blue-jowled, garbed for riding in expensive, mud-splashed velvet and high leather boots, finished the wine and set the goblet down. Dunbar lifted the jug and refilled it.

‘The man who has … vanished,’ pronounced the Archbishop at length, ‘is named Leonard Pollock, and is a corrodian at the convent.’

‘A corrodian?’ Gil repeated, startled. ‘With the Blackfriars?’

‘The Perth house,’ said Blacader reprovingly, ‘has a very extensive provision for guests, given that it was once the preferred royal lodging in those parts.’

‘Quite so,’ said Gil. ‘I hope they’ve mended the locks.’

The Archbishop ignored this reference to the unfortunate end met by James Stewart, first king of that name, taken unarmed while hiding below the privy in the royal lodgings of the Dominican priory at Perth, but his tone grew cooler as he continued, ‘The Perth house is well able to maintain several permanent residents. Pollock, having been a member of the late King’s household, was,’ he paused again, apparently suppressing the first word which came to his lips, ‘was lodged there some twelve or thirteen years ago, I am told, and a substantial endowment made from the Treasury for his keep.’

‘His corrody,’ agreed Gil. Blacader threw him a glance and took another gulp of his wine. Not claret, Gil thought, it seems heavier than that. Wine of Burgundy? Behind the Archbishop, Dunbar drew closer to the source of heat.

‘By means of this corrody,’ Blacader continued, ‘Pollock has been supported since ‘82 in a private lodging next to the main guest hall, a commodious stone house of two chambers with a fine chimney and its own small garden.’ Gil nodded, thinking of the guest hall of the Perth house as he had last seen it, smiling in the sunshine. A far cry from today’s weather, he reflected, as the rain rattled on the window-shutters. Blacader glanced at the gloomy skies beyond the glass above and stretched his booted feet nearer to the brazier. He seemed to be having difficulty framing his next sentence.

‘And this is the man who has vanished, my lord?’ Gil prompted. ‘What happened, then? What were the circumstances?’

‘Ach, there’s no reason to it!’ exclaimed Blacader. He looked over his shoulder directly at Dunbar. ‘William, have you Bishop Brown’s letter there? Let Gilbert have a sight of it. I took George Brown for a man of sense, Gilbert, but you may see for yourself what foolishness he writes.’

‘Bishop Brown ?’ Gil, who had also taken the Bishop of Dunkeld for a man of sense, accepted the document which Dunbar produced from his scrip, and tilted it towards the candles. ‘It tells us little,’ he said after a moment. ‘He writes of fire and black smoke, but says only that these rumours of the Devil are strong in Perth and the countryside, and damaging to Holy Church as well as to the Dominicans. You can tell he is agitated,’ he added, ‘his Latin is deserting him. There are no other facts.’

‘And he asks for the loan of my quaestor.’

‘That’s what puzzles me, my lord.’ Gil folded the paper carefully. ‘What has the Bishop to say in the matter? Perth and the Perth Blackfriars are not in his diocese; they look to St Andrews, not to Dunkeld. How will Archbishop Scheves take it if I start sniffing round his archdiocese uninvited?’

‘Hardly uninvited,’ said Blacader. ‘George Brown was at school with George Hepburn.’

‘The Provincial Prior?’ Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘I mind him when I was first at the College here, when he was lecturing to the Theology students. A fine intellect.’

‘Indeed.’ The Archbishop drained his wine. Gil contemplated the situation. Presumably Hepburn, whom he remembered as a much-respected teacher, had asked his old friend to call in a favour, rather than making a formal request through the convent’s own archdiocese, a request which was unlikely to be granted however it was couched, given the opposing politics both church and civil of the two prelates concerned. It was flattering that the Provincial Prior, elected master of the Dominicans in Scotland, should have called for him, rather than for someone within the archdiocese, but his position would clearly be precarious. And yet one did not offend the mendicant orders, he thought ruefully. He would have to go.

‘It will need a man with a clear and open mind to make sense of it,’ continued Blacader. ‘The corrodian carried off by the Devil, indeed! I hope you can assist, Gilbert. Are you able to travel the now?’

‘I am.’ Gil was reckoning in his head. ‘I can set out tomorrow, my lord, and be in Perth in three days, I suppose, or four, assuming the weather gets no worse.’

‘Aye.’ Blacader switched to Scots, a sign that the formal part of the interview was over. ‘You’d need more time than that to prepare for sic a journey. I’d suggest you call it a pilgrimage, maybe take madam your wife wi you if she’s in good health.’ Gil looked up sharply, to encounter a significant glance from his master. ‘These matters oft go smoother when there’s a bonnie young woman involved, I’m told, even in Holy Kirk.’

‘What has the Provost told him?’ said Alys in some dismay, her colour rising.

Gil had found her in the little solar at the back of the house, the chamber made comfortable with two foot-warmers full of hot stones, her needlework on her lap. She was alone; her elderly companion Catherine, who was growing frail, had been persuaded to keep her bed in this weather, wrapped in blankets and surrounded by more hot stones, and Gil knew his assistant Lowrie Livingstone was dealing with a sasine exchange out towards Partick. In the hall their small ward John McIan was rampaging about with a wooden horse while Alys’s tirewoman Jennet gossiped with his nurse; the other servants were probably in the kitchen where it was warm.

‘My thoughts too,’ Gil admitted. ‘He’s perfectly right, I’d never have reached some of the conclusions I’ve found without your help, but I thought we’d kept it hidden from him. The Provost must have let something slip. Can you be ready to leave tomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ she said simply, though her quick smile came and went in gratification at his comment. ‘How far is Perth? No knowing how long we must stay, I suppose.’ She delved under the wide skirt of her woollen gown for the purse which hung between it and her kirtle, and drew out her tablets. ‘Will you see to hiring the horses? We should have one sumpter beast at least, for six of us.’