The King's Corrodian (3 page)

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 –’

‘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—’

‘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.