The King's Corrodian (15 page)

‘Now I canny tell,’ he said discontentedly, ‘whether that had gone out afore the crock fell over, or no.’

‘Does it matter?’ asked Tam. ‘Can you no set it up again?’

‘Aye, I suppose. Make a note, lassie,’ he added. ‘Gunpowder no a good idea.’

‘Are ye just going on wi it?’ said Jennet. ‘What if the rest blows up and all?’

‘There was no more rags like thon,’ said Tam. ‘Likely it’d been used for cleaning a harquebus or some such thing.’

Running footsteps heralded the arrival of two lay brothers, who stopped at the doorway, peering in suspiciously.

‘What’s blew up now, brither?’ said one of them. ‘Is that burning meat? It’s a fast day, isn’t it no?’

‘Nothing to concern you. Nothing to worry anybody,’ said Brother Michael irritably.

‘There’s Brother Dandy come blundering into Nones, interrupting the Office –’

‘There was no need for that!’

‘– and saying you’re all blown to pieces and three others along wi you, and Faither Prior sending us out to look, but it doesny appear like that to me.’

‘Dandy’s a fool,’ said Brother Michael. He took the cloth from Jennet and dabbed ineffectually at his face, glanced at the bloodstains and looked surprised. ‘It was a crock. No great matter. Nobody’s hurt.’

The two lay brothers looked at one another, and at Alys; she smiled, and nodded reassuringly, and after a moment they withdrew. Brother Michael began picking up the singed experiment, his booted feet crunching on the broken pottery on the floor.

‘Where’s the lid o the broken one went?’ Tam wondered.

‘Never mind that, where’s the collop?’ Jennet said.

‘There,’ said Tam, looking upwards. Alys followed his gaze and saw, directly over Brother Michael’s head, a palm-sized piece of raw meat adhering to the stonework of the vaulted ceiling.

Jennet began to laugh, and the fragment peeled away with a faint sucking sound and dropped onto Brother Michael’s tonsure. He clapped a hand over it, looked blankly at the result, wiped his palm on his habit and said to Alys, ‘Read me the notes, lassie. What all was in this one again?’

Ignoring Jennet’s giggles, Alys obeyed, and carefully took notes as the remaining crocks were assembled. As she worked she became aware of a smell of burned meat, of hot fat, of soot. The servants were both aware of it too, she realised, and were trying to identify which crock was the source.

‘Makes you right hungry, and all,’ said Tam. ‘No, it’s none o these.’

‘It’s that one!’ said Jennet finally. ‘The mistress’s one. Look at your crock, mem!’

‘And this one unsealed,’ said Brother Michael, paying no attention. Alys wrote down
No selit
and looked round at her own experiment at the far end of the huge table. For a moment she thought it unchanged; then she saw that something was oozing from the gap between the lid and the crock inverted on top of it, something yellowish, which congealed as it touched the well-scrubbed wood. Hot fat.

‘The floor,’ she said. ‘The floor of the house was greasy.’

The crock was giving off heat; she could feel it when she approached. Brother Michael, his own experiments settled, came to join her, put a hand close and drew it away again sharply.

‘Still at work, whatever’s happening.’

‘The floor of the man’s house was covered in grease,’ she said again. He nodded, without looking at her.

‘The fat feeds the flames. Melts wi the heat, and burns like a tallow candle wi the clothing as a wick, and the excess runs off. Wouldny ha happened if he’d been naked.’

‘He’d no ha sat there naked on a winter’s night,’ said Tam.

‘He’d never ha sat there naked,’ objected Jennet. ‘It’s no decent!’

Alys looked longingly at the crock, but before she could speak there was the tramp and scuffle of booted feet outside, and a little group of Franciscans appeared at the open door, a small man at their centre with clipped silver hair and very black eyebrows. She curtsied, aware of Jennet bobbing beside her and Tam bending his head. There was no mistaking Father Prior, even before he spoke.

‘Michael!’ he said, and sniffed suspiciously. ‘What are you at now, brother?’

‘An experiment,’ said Brother Michael, in a less irritable tone than he had used for the lay brothers.

‘And what does the experiment consist in?’ Father Prior stepped into the kitchen. Behind him one of his entourage held a smoking thurible, another bore a basin and aspergillum. The smoke of the incense wafted into the room, fighting with the reek of burned pork. ‘Are you putting these good folk at risk? Is anything else like to explode?’

‘No,’ began Brother Michael, and was interrupted by a sharp crack.

Tam flung himself and Jennet to the floor, Jennet squeaking indignantly. Two of the brothers in the doorway ran away. The man with the basin dropped the aspergillum, but Father Prior said, with a grim note in his voice, ‘I think you may rise, man. Michael has cost us anither crock, no waur than that.’

Tam climbed to his feet with a sheepish grin, and bent to help Jennet. Brother Michael was already frowning over the broken crock; it had simply split into two unequal parts, revealing another bundle of singed rags in its soot-blackened interior.

‘I should pay for the crocks,’ said Alys hastily, ‘seeing they’re broken to answer my question.’

‘That would be generous, daughter,’ said Father Prior, although his tone said,
The least you can do
. ‘And what question would that be?’

‘Fire,’ said Brother Michael before she could speak. ‘Will fire work within a closed space. Whatna conditions will it require.’

‘And?’

‘Mostly it doesna,’ he admitted. ‘Thon one seems to be in action, but we need to wait till it cools enough to open it. If we had some glassware,’ he said to Alys.

‘God forbid!’ said Father Prior. ‘Understand me, Michael, I willny have this kitchen nor any other part of this priory covered in broken glass. I never heard that our brother Roger shattered glassware in his experimenting, and I see no need for you to do so.’

‘Aye, Faither,’ said Brother Michael with reluctance.

‘And,’ said his superior in the same tone, ‘you willny leave this chamber until all is straight again and these potsherds swept up and put on the midden.’ He eyed Alys and the two servants, and went on, ‘I’ll send Doty wi a mess of food to the four o ye, for the dinner has waited long enough a’ready.’

He delivered a brief blessing over Alys’s murmured thanks and swept out, his cohort scattering to let him pass. Tam closed the door behind them and whistled, but Brother Michael merely looked along his depleted row of experiments and said, ‘This one’s cold, and that. We can open them up.’

The food, brought by a wary lay servant, was simple but hot and welcome: a big bowl of bean and lentil pottage, with roots chopped into it, a whole loaf of that day’s rough bread to eat it with, a jug of thin ale. Brother Michael looked at it blankly, but when Alys asked him if he was hungry he waved her away.

‘No the now, lassie! Eat if you must,’ he added in a kinder tone, ‘I’ll see to these first.’

‘It’s right tasty,’ said Tam, scooping up a generous portion of the thick concoction on a lump of the bread.

‘You should eat while the food is hot, brother. The experiments will still be there when you have finished,’ Alys prompted. ‘And then I can make notes for you.’

‘Hmf!’ he said, but came to join them.

‘But how does this show you what happened to the man?’ Jennet said suddenly, as if continuing a conversation. ‘Even if you can set fire to a lump o meat, and you’ve no done that yet, it doesny prove that’s how he burned up. He’d never ha sat still waiting to catch alight, he’d ha jumped up, for sure.’

‘Good question,’ said Brother Michael, tearing off another hunk of bread.

‘Maybe he was asleep,’ said Tam, ‘and his clothes was well alight afore he knew it.’

Jennet shuddered, and crossed herself.

‘Our Lady send sic a thing never happens to me. What a way to go!’

‘Flares up quickly,’ said Brother Michael, through a mouthful of bread and pottage. ‘Well alight, as you say.’ He closed his eyes to think, chewing, and after a moment added, ‘Too fast to smother them yoursel. Need help.’

‘And there was none to be summoned,’ said Alys.

‘Aye.’

‘We all meet our end some time,’ said Tam philosophically, and took a pull at the jug of ale.

By the time the food was finished, all the experiments had ceased working. When Alys approached hers she found the crock cooling, with little ticking noises, and the fat beginning to congeal round its rim. Brother Michael threw it a glance, but began at the other end of the row of crocks and worked his way methodically along it, dictating notes on the state of each.

‘It’s no learning you anything,’ said Jennet, when the friar had uncovered a fourth container of barely scorched cloth, cold meat and snuffed-out candle. ‘None o it’s doing aught, save the two that exploded.’ He frowned in irritation, but she went on, ‘No that that’s a bad thing. I’d as soon no more o them explode afore we’ve left here.’

‘Jennet,’ said Alys, ‘see if you can find a broom, and start sweeping up the broken pot.’ She wrote,
Clout scaldit, meat no brent
against the last of Brother Michael’s experiments, and turned to her own. He gestured to her to uncover it herself; setting her tablets and stylus down, she took a deep breath and laid hands on the upturned crock.

It came away from its lid readily enough, being still rather hot to handle. She drew it up, and looked at what it revealed.

‘It hasny worked,’ she said in disappointment.

‘What, yours and all, mem?’ said Jennet, emerging from the scullery with a broom and shovel. ‘Here, Tam, gie’s a hand here.’

‘It has,’ corrected Brother Michael. ‘See?’ He poked at the blackened bundle which still lay on the trivet, then drew his eating-knife from his purse and used it to prod the unsavoury object. ‘Burned all round. Cloth’s all gone, meat’s been burned. Fat’s run down.’ He scraped at the lid between the feet of the trivet. ‘See, plenty fat left.’

‘But it’s no burned to ash,’ objected Tam. Alys was staring at her experiment.

‘Fire needs air. Common fire. I’ve proved it,’ said Brother Michael offhandedly. ‘Starved o air it goes out, every time.’ He looked at his row of failed assays. ‘Those are proof it’s common fire we’re dealing wi. But this,’ he prodded the crust of the burned meat again, ‘this has begun to burn up afore it ran out o air.’

‘Why’s this one different?’ said Tam. ‘Was there a hole in the crock, or what?’

‘The flame could draw air in at the bottom,’ said Alys. ‘Until the fat running out blocked the gap.’

Brother Michael nodded.

‘Aye. And the bit o meat was a sight bigger within the crock than a man is within his bedchamber. He burned to ashes, but this ran out o air and ceased burning. We need a bigger crock.’

‘I think Father Prior might object,’ said Alys.

‘What about a bread-oven?’ said Jennet, bending to sweep under the empty charcoal range. ‘That’s just a big crock, is it no?’

‘Like mistress, like maid,’ said Brother Michael obscurely. ‘But no the day.’

‘No,’ agreed Alys.

*   *   *

‘How do I find Mercer’s Land?’ Alys asked the porter as he swung the outer door of the priory open for them.

‘The Mercer’s Land, lassie?’ he said, and scratched the back of his head within his hood. ‘It’s right the other side the town. See, you go in at the South Port here, and right through the town and out the Red Brig Port, and then you cross the Town Ditch, and it’s …’ He paused to reckon, staring absently at a group of riders emerging from the port. ‘Third or fourth on your right, it would be. Canny miss it.’

‘Thank you, brother,’ Alys said, and curtsied. He raised his hand in the conventional blessing, and she stepped out into the drizzle to find the riders had halted before the door, a mounted woman with a whip in her hand, three men and another woman riding pillion. Their horses were trampling in circles while the woman gave orders in a loud, harsh voice.

‘Ask at him, Thomas you great fool, he has to tell you. Is there any Alexander Stair dwelling here, ask him. And he’ll tell you true or it will be the waur for him.’

The man addressed answered inaudibly, and she cursed him and tugged on her reins so that her horse swung round, its hindquarters narrowly missing Tam.

‘Here, watch out!’ he objected.

She turned her head and cursed at him too, and when he did not step back fast enough, cut at him with her whip. The thong missed, but Alys said briskly, ‘Madam, permit my servant to pass, if you please.’

She found herself inspected briefly by a hot, dispassionate gaze like a hawk’s, and dismissed; the rider turned away as her own servant returned from the priory door.

‘None? Well, we’ll lie up here anyway, and learn if it’s the truth. Go back and tell him we’ll lodge here.’

‘What a termagant!’ Tam had slipped past the horse, and Alys made haste to remove them all from the scene. ‘I’ll wager she gets plenty use of that scurge.’

‘I wonder who she’s after,’ said Jennet. ‘D’ye suppose it’s a servant, or her man ran away, or the like?’

‘Whoever it is, I hope he sees her first,’ said Tam, grinning, and followed Alys through the South Port’s shadowy tunnel.

‘Where are we going, mem? Are we no going back to the Bl—’ Jennet began, and stopped as Tam nudged her in the ribs. ‘To our own place,’ she finished.

‘No yet,’ Alys said.

It was well after midday, and the light was beginning to fade, but the Watergate was bustling with shops and stalls dripping in the rain; apprentices bawled their masters’ wares, merchants and stout burgesses paraded about in furred gowns. Opposite the row of shops stood the mansions of the wealthy, backing onto the river. What had Gil called it? Ah, yes, the Tay.

‘I hope it’s somewhere warmer than thon kitchen, then,’ said Jennet, pulling her plaid tighter about her.

Alys had to ask her way twice more before she found the house she sought. It was out past the dyeworks and tanners’ yards of the northern suburb, one of several small timber-framed buildings on a strip of land running down to the river. It had a pair of flowerpots by the door, one with a straggling clump of lavender in it.