The King's Corrodian (10 page)

A crease appeared between Brother James’s brows, and he swallowed slightly but did not seem to rouse. Gil hooked one of the stools closer with his foot, and seated himself by the head of the bed.

‘A dose of the throat mixture, maybe?’ he suggested. ‘Milk? Water, even? Then you could get back to your patients. Euan, get a list from Brother Euan and get out into the town. And never a word out yonder of who it’s for,’ he cautioned. ‘You can tell the other religious houses what’s amiss, but best if nobody about the town connects you too close wi the Blackfriars.’

‘Never fear, Maister Gil,’ said Euan, innocence shining on his cheekbones. ‘I’ll keep all right, and never be letting a word slip. And when I get back,’ he added, pausing in the doorway, ‘I can maybe be getting a word wi another Ersche speaker that’s here, so Brother Euan is telling me, that is a McIan and likely will be glad to hear o Ardnamurchan.’

In a little while Brother Euan returned with a beaker of warm milk. It smelled herbal, though Gil could not identify the receipt. With some difficulty the sub-infirmarer coaxed a few mouthfuls down his superior’s throat, but finally he straightened up and said, ‘That ought to be helping him, but I should see to the fellows out by. A strange thing, it is: those who assisted at the fire, they were fine last night when we finally retired, but the day they are presenting to me with breathing troubles, sore throats, pains here,’ he rubbed his breastbone. ‘And all our simples and linctuses gone up in smoke.’

‘Where were you sleeping last night?’ Gil asked. Brother Euan bent his head and crossed himself.

‘We have been taking it in turns,’ he said, ‘while the poor laddie was confined. One of us was in the infirmary the whole time. Last night it was Brother James’s turn, and I was sleeping in my cell in the dorter.’

‘Was that generally known?’

‘Och, yes. I was talking about it after supper, for one, and we’ve been taking turn about ever since he was confined, as I was saying.’ He shook his head and looked away. ‘Much do I regret it.’

‘You think you would have woken sooner?’ Gil asked.

‘I know it.’ He glanced at his superior, who seemed slightly less withdrawn, and touched his ear. Gil grimaced. ‘The laddie might not be dead if I had been there.’

‘Whoever killed him might simply have waited for the next chance,’ Gil pointed out. Brother Euan considered this, crossed himself again, and went back to the outer chamber. Gil lifted the cup and touched Brother James’s shoulder as Brother Euan had done.

‘A wee drop more?’ he suggested.

The old man accepted two sips of the cooling milk, and then a third. Then he turned his face away from the cup.

‘No more – now,’ he whispered. Gil set the cup down by the leg of the bed, and took one of the thin dark-spotted hands. ‘Who – who?’

‘Who am I? I’m Gil Cunningham. The quaestor.’

‘Ah.’ Brother James’s eyes opened, peering up at Gil. ‘Oh, aye. Questions?’

‘I have, sir. Are you well enough to hear them?’

‘I’ll no be – better.’

‘I hope you will,’ said Gil, though he doubted it. The hand in his tightened briefly, and the mouth twitched. ‘What woke you last night, sir? When did you know there was a fire?’

‘The light. Flames. Light.’

‘You mean the light from the flames woke you?’ A small nod. ‘So the fire had a good hold already?’

‘Aye.’

‘So you rose and ran out to give the alarm?’

‘Aye.’ The old man’s eyes closed, and after a moment tears leaked from the corners. ‘Shame. Ashamed. Duty of …’

‘You owed the young man a duty of care,’ Gil supplied. The hand in his tightened slightly. ‘But he was already dead. Whoever killed him set the fire hoping to conceal his deed. You did the right thing in raising the alarm quickly, or more of the Priory could have burned.’ An idea came to him. ‘Perhaps Our Lady made use of your frailty, to protect those still living.’

Brother James’s mouth twitched again, but he said nothing to that.

‘Can you mind last night, before you all retired? Who visited the infirmary? Faither Prior came to speak to young Rattray, I ken that, but was anyone else in the place?’

After a moment, Brother James whispered, ‘Robert. Henry.’ He swallowed. ‘Sandy – Sandy Munt. Other Sandy. Librarian.’

‘Five?’ said Gil. ‘Is that usual?’

‘Four. Rheum.’

‘Did anyone else speak to Rattray, apart from the Prior? Last night, or at other times?’

‘Henry. Teacher. Confessor.’

‘Right,’ said Gil. He lifted the beaker of milk. ‘Another wee mouthful?’

While the old man took another sip, and another, Gil considered the situation. At length, setting the cup down again, he asked, ‘Did Rattray ever say anything to you about just how he caused the man Pollock to vanish?’

Brother James frowned, working the question out, but then whispered, ‘No. Just – guilty. Spent his time – knees. Our Lady.’

‘So Faither Prior said and all,’ Gil said. He disengaged his hand from the old man’s, and sat back. ‘I’ll leave you, sir. Brother Euan will likely send someone in to sit by you. God send you mend from this, whatever ails you.’

A very slight nod was his answer, but the hand he had released moved in what might have been a blessing. Gil said
Amen
and went out to the other chamber, where the line of patients was no shorter but the lay brothers were now working together on another herbal concoction. Brother Euan looked up from dressing a burn.

‘George,’ he said to the young friar under his hands, ‘when I finish with this you can be sitting with Brother James for a bit. Can I help you more, maister?’

‘Not the now,’ said Gil, in answer to the tone rather than the question. ‘I could do wi a word when you’ve the time, but later will do fine. Who would he mean by Brother Henry?’

‘Faither Henry,’ corrected Brother Euan and his patient at the same time. ‘He is
Lector principalis
,’ Brother Euan continued. ‘And novice-master.’

‘I seen him in the library the now,’ offered the patient.

‘Now there’s a surprise,’ said one of the waiting line.

‘Robert,’ said Gil, checking the names off on his fingers. ‘Sandy Munt. And Sandy the librarian.’

‘Robert Aikman?’ said George. ‘Second-year man, same as me.’

‘Or Father Robert the subprior?’ said someone else.

‘And Sandy Munt’s a first-year novice,’ continued George.

‘Sandy Raitt’s the librarian,’ said the third man on the bench.

‘Now, he’ll certainly be in the library,’ said the first.

The library was comfortingly familiar, with its row of shelves and scent of worn leather bindings, and at this hour of the day, when most were free to pursue the studies which were a great part of the purpose of the Order, it was full. A few people raised their heads when Gil entered, but only the librarian continued to glare at him as he picked his way between the tables and reading-desks.

‘This is a private library!’ he hissed as Gil reached him. ‘We canny have everyone running in and out! There was
women
in here this morning!’

So Alys did get in, Gil thought, schooling his expression. She didn’t mention that.

‘I am in search of Father Henry,’ he said quietly in Latin. The librarian scowled at him, but someone at a nearby reading-desk looked up and caught Gil’s eye – the tall, decisive man who had left the Prior’s study earlier.

‘I am Henry White,’ he said, ‘instructor of the Dominican young. How may I help you?’

‘I hope you may instruct me, sir,’ said Gil.

In the guest hall the Blackfriars servants had kept the fire going, and Socrates and the big black cat from the kitchens were sharing the hearth, at a cautiously formal distance from one another. Father Henry seated himself, refused ale, studied first Socrates and then Gil carefully, and then nodded.

‘I had the pleasure of speaking wi your wife earlier,’ he said. ‘To something I remarked to her she replied,
My husband would say the same
. I see why she said it.’

Gil raised one eyebrow, but no further explanation was forthcoming. Instead the other man sat back, watching him for a moment, and then said, ‘You want to know about young Rattray, I take it?’

‘Among other things,’ Gil agreed. ‘Father Prior has given me one account of the lad, I’d like to hear another.’

‘Hmm.’ Father Henry looked down at his hands folded on his lap. ‘A loss to the Order. A very promising young man.’ He crossed himself and murmured a prayer. Socrates rose to sit down beside him, and nudged his free hand.

‘Was he really?’ Gil asked when he was done. ‘Or is that simply what you’ll say to his kin?’

‘He has no kin, I believe,’ said White, absently scratching the dog’s chin. ‘But aye, he was genuinely promising. The most o our intake is townsmen, you understand, but this year we’ve three sons o landholders, none o them baronial maybe but more cultured, more educated, than we generally get. Calder, Rattray and Mureson. Rattray’s family held land over near Montrose, and I’d ha said he was the most able o the three, the most flexible in his thinking. An ardent soul, perhaps, burning ower bright for his own good at times, but wi a great grasp o the works o Brother Thomas, and a considerable understanding o church history. Some o the questions he asked in class were deep, very deep.’

‘So what did you think o his claim to have caused Pollock’s vanishing?’

After a pause, White said simply, ‘I didny ken what to think.’ Gil made a questioning noise. ‘Oh, I never thought he had aught to do wi’t in reality, but the boy was convinced he was instrumental, though he couldny bring himself to say how.’

‘Couldny bring himself?’ Gil repeated. That was not what Father Prior had told him. ‘You mean he said as much?’

White looked down at the flagstones beside him, ordering his thoughts.

‘I spoke with him more than once while he was – isolated,’ he said. ‘He was missing classes, after all. I wished to set him work. Each time I asked him, in so many words, if he could tell me why he was being kept separate from his brothers, he replied,
Because I am evil
.’ White looked up and met Gil’s eye. ‘I showed him how no man is wholly evil, and how to find the good in himself and strengthen it to cast out the evil, but he persisted in saying that he was evil. I asked him in what way, and he offered the disappearance of our corrodian as evidence. I asked him how he had achieved that, and he replied again:
Because I am evil
.’

‘It makes no sense,’ said Gil, and realised they had reverted to Latin.

‘No. What is more, it makes a nonsense of years of teaching in logic and analytical thought. He should have learned to dissect a syllogism at fourteen.’

‘Indeed,’ said Gil. He paused, and said carefully, ‘I believe you were also his confessor.’

‘I was. This was not said under the seal of confession.’ White also paused, and said with equal care, ‘I think I may say to you that the young man did not confess anything to me which would help your investigation.’

Gil bowed his head in acknowledgement of this, and considered what he had learned so far.

‘So we have a young man,’ he said, ‘intelligent, highly strung, emotional—?’ White nodded. ‘Who suddenly becomes convinced that he is evil and that he has therefore caused the corrodian to disappear, with no logical explanation for the belief.’

‘A fair summary.’

‘And the fact that Pollock had
not
disappeared, that his ashes were still in his lodging, was not known to anyone. What could the boy have been doing, to make him think he had caused this situation? Was his reading supervised? Could he have been lured into some of the darker mysteries?’

‘I see where you are leading this,’ said White, ‘and I may say that I am working on the subject of witchcraft myself, and my conclusion, though there are those who disagree with me, is that there is no such thing, no power to cause harm by casting spells. On the other hand its devotees are invariably far gone in heresy and in the worship of the Devil.’

‘Had you taught your students this?’

‘I have discussed it with them.’ He produced a reluctant smile. ‘Andrew and his friend Sandy Munt argued the matter forcibly, but were unable to prove the existence of witchcraft to my satisfaction.
Everybody knows
is not proof. Indeed, what everyone knows is quite frequently erroneous.’

‘Pollock was in the habit of extortion,’ said Gil. ‘I found Andrew Rattray’s name among his papers.’

‘
Was
he now?’ said White softly. There was a short silence. ‘I must question Andrew’s fellows, the other students. Poor young man, I hope Our Lady has received him under her mantle, whatever he has been dabbling in.’

‘I need to question them too,’ said Gil. ‘Let us not lose sight of the fact that someone slew this young man, unshriven, still in his confused state, and tried to conceal the deed by setting a fire which has seriously injured the community. That is murder and arson, which are both pleas o the Crown and capital offences. Whoever is responsible must be found, for the sake of his immortal soul and of his brothers.’

‘Believe me, I have not lost sight of it,’ said White rather sharply. They looked at one another, and after a moment White gave a slight bow. ‘I agree. Your investigation should take precedence. I would appreciate it if you would send them to me when you are done.’

Andrew Rattray’s fellow students were still in the library, though how much work they were doing was questionable. Their faces, as their teacher summoned them one by one, were a series of studies in surprise, well-concealed alarm and concern, but when Gil led the four of them through the slype and into the warmth of the guest hall without Father Henry they relaxed slightly.

‘Tak a seat,’ he invited. ‘Will you have some ale?’

‘I’d not say no,’ admitted the nearest as they gathered stools and settled themselves, and the others nodded.

‘Tell me your names, first.’ Gil lifted the jug from the table, and one of the group sprang up to serve. Socrates, sprawled by the hearth again, raised his head to follow the movement, then settled again, nose on paws, watchful. The cat had left as they entered, sauntering out towards the kitchens with the air of one whose neighbourhood had been invaded by undesirables.