The King's Corrodian (2 page)

‘And you have seen the mood in the burgh,’ said George Brown, Bishop of Dunkeld, his round, good-humoured face creased with anxiety. He was interrupted by another flurry of yapping, and muzzled the little spaniel on his lap with one plump hand. ‘Be at peace, Jerome! Bad dog!’ he said in Scots.

‘Oh, no, my lord, do not scold him,’ said Alys. ‘He’s defending his maister. He’s a very good dog.’ Socrates, sitting politely by Gil’s knee, turned his head and gave her a reproachful look.

‘A course he is,’ said Maister Gregor the Bishop’s secretary, reaching to pet the animal, an indulgent smile on his sheep-like countenance. ‘He’s the best wee dog in Perth, aren’t you no, Jerome?’

‘Rob, this is no the moment,’ said the Bishop.

‘There was a gathering outside St John’s Kirk as we rode by,’ Gil said in Latin, ‘with much shouting. I heard witchcraft mentioned.’

‘And the man at the port tried to persuade us to turn back,’ said Alys in Scots, ‘to lodge wi the Franciscans instead.’

‘One of our brothers was pelted with mud yesterday,’ said Prior Boyd. ‘It is urgent that we determine what has happened and whether the Devil or some mortal agency was responsible.’

‘It would have been better to have conducted the exorcism immediately,’ said the Bishop. His dog yapped again, and Socrates sighed and put his chin on Gil’s knee.

‘I confess,’ said Gil, slightly apologetic, ‘that I find it easier to believe in the mortal agency than in a physical action by the Devil.’

‘The fact remains, Gilbert,’ said Prior Boyd, ‘the man is vanished, and there is no trace and no sign of him.’

‘Start at the beginning, sir,’ said Gil. ‘How did you find he was missing?’

David Boyd, Prior of the Dominican convent of Perth and Gil’s third cousin, glanced about his sparsely appointed study, straightened the stack of papers on his reading-desk with a longing look, lifted one of the books, contemplated it, and set it down again with precision. They all watched him in an extending silence; Gil wondered that Maister Gregor managed to hold his peace.

‘On the morning of the second day after Epiphany,’ the Prior said finally, ‘our cook sent his servant with the man Pollock’s morning repast, as was his custom. The servant returned to him saying that he had found the door barred and could get no reply. Fearing the man might be sick or injured, our cook summoned two other lay brothers, and they attended the door of the man’s lodging with loud shouts and knocking. By this time,’ some disapproval crept into the austere tones, ‘our subprior’s attention had been drawn to the matter, and he commanded the lay brothers to break down the door. This they did.’

Gil glanced at Alys, who was frowning intently as she followed the fluent, elegant Latin.

‘So the door was barred from the inside,’ he said.

His kinsman flicked him an irritated glance, and continued, ‘All who were present, a considerable number, swear that when the door was burst open, neither smoke nor flame emerged. Nevertheless, when our subprior made an entrance he smelled smoke and burning, and called for the shutters to be flung wide for light. This being done, he perceived that there was no appearance of anything burned in the outer chamber, and that the door of the inner chamber, in which our corrodian slept, was shut fast.’

‘It’s extraordinary!’ exclaimed Maister Gregor. ‘It makes no sense!’

‘Rob,’ said the Bishop in warning tones.

‘This was in daylight?’ Gil said, glancing at the heavy sky beyond the high window.

‘It was perhaps half an hour after sunrise by this,’ said the Prior.

‘After nine of the clock,’ said Gil. ‘So there was light enough to see by.’

‘Our subprior,’ resumed the Prior, inclining his head in agreement to this statement, ‘setting his hand to the inner door, found it warm to the touch, but locked against him. He knocked and called to the resident many times, but on receiving no answer ordered that door broken down as well.’ He paused, considered his fingertips again, then looked at Gil from within the shadow of his hood. ‘You must understand that the inner chamber has no window. It once had one, that looked out onto the back gardens of the houses across the path that runs by the wall, as do the windows of the other houses, but the corrodian himself asked some years ago that it be filled in with stones and mortar.’

‘Do we know why?’ Gil asked. Alys glanced at him, then back at Boyd, waiting for the answer.

‘He gave a reason which we felt to be spurious,’ said the Prior remotely, ‘but since he paid for the work to be done, the community allowed it.’

‘So the inner chamber was in darkness,’ Gil said.

‘That is correct. By this time I had been summoned, and can speak for what happened when the inner door was broken open.’ David Boyd paused again, and at length said reluctantly, ‘In common with all present, I saw smoke emerge from the opening.’

‘Smoke,’ Gil repeated.

‘How much smoke, Father?’ asked Alys in Scots. Boyd looked at her, startled. ‘Was the whole chamber full of smoke, or was it some wee thing burning?’

‘No a great amount,’ he answered in the same language, studying her intently. ‘You understand Latin, daughter?’

‘She reads it well,’ said Gil.

Alys blushed and nodded, but persisted, ‘Only smoke, Father? No flames? No smell of brimstone?’

‘None,’ he agreed with care. ‘No evil smells at all, no stink of brimstone or aught else. Only …’ He hesitated, shaking his head. ‘I couldny detect it, but Brother William our subprior says there was a strange smell, kinna sweet, like nothing he had smelled before.’

‘Pleasant?’ asked the Bishop doubtfully. His little dog growled at Socrates, and Maister Gregor bleated faintly in protest at one or the other. The Bishop delved in the fur-lined sleeve of his great velvet gown and produced a titbit which he fed to the spaniel. Socrates ignored all this with dignity.

‘Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, so he says,’ said the Prior.

‘And what did you find in the chamber?’ Gil prompted.

The Prior shook his head again. ‘There wasny that much furniture. A bed, a kist, a great chair, two stools. The bed was as it was made up by one o the lay servants the previous morn, hadny been slept in. The kist stood open as if he’d been looking in it; one of the stools had fallen over. But the chair—’ He crossed himself, and went on resolutely, ‘The chair was burned almost to ashes. It was a wee while afore we saw it was there; indeed, it was only when Brother Dickon recognised one o the arms we realised what the ashes were.’

‘And the man Pollock was vanished away,’ said Bishop Brown.

‘Although the outer door was barred,’ said Alys.

‘I think there’s a chimney,’ said Gil. ‘A fireplace, a hearth? Is the roof harmed at all? Thatch scorched, slates cracked?’

‘The roof’s tiled, and it’s taken no hurt, though the tiles are blackened,’ said the Prior. ‘There’s a wee hearth, but the chimney was blocked at the same time as the window, on the same docket.’ He looked at Gil, and reverted to Latin. ‘The community is much disturbed by these events. I should be very glad to know the truth of the matter, in order to negate the rumours which abound in the neighbourhood.’

‘And these are?’ Gil enquired. ‘Is it more than simply the tale of the Devil carrying the man away? Do other matters trouble you?’

The Prior bent his head, examining his fingertips.

‘Folk must be looking for reasons why it might happen,’ Alys said in Scots, ‘what might draw the Devil to the house, and if they find none they’ll make them up.’

He looked up at her, relief in his face for a moment at her understanding.

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And little to the credit of the community.’

Gil was silent, considering this.

‘I wish,’ reiterated Father David, ‘to know the truth of the matter. However unpalatable it may be, the truth is more nourishing than the poison of rumour or the sweets of wishful thinking, and
Truth
is, after all, the watchword of our Order. Moreover, if it was indeed the work of the Devil, exorcism will be required.’

‘It should ha been done long since,’ said Bishop Brown again.

‘I’ll want to see the lodging where this happened,’ Gil said, with resignation. Across the small chamber Alys gathered her skirts together as if to rise. ‘Though I suppose there’s little enough to be seen now after, what, ten days?’

The two senior churchmen looked at one another.

‘It has been sealed,’ said the Prior. There was a pause, and then he continued delicately, ‘As soon as it was perceived that something strange had occurred, and that it would be better investigated by someone from outside our house, we determined that all should be left as it had been found. Brother Dickon became quite emphatic on the matter, in fact, so Chapter ordered him to nail up the house. It is easily unsealed.’

‘That will be a help,’ said Gil. He remembered Brother Dickon, the senior lay brother of the house, who had been sergeant-at-arms to the late King James Third, and could well imagine him becoming emphatic. But why should it be
someone from outside the house
who investigated, he wondered. ‘And I’ll want to question everyone who witnessed the place being opened, and probably the rest of the community forbye.’

‘I will give orders at Chapter tomorrow that all should cooperate with you,’ said Boyd.

‘And the man and woman in the house outside the walls and all, I suppose,’ said Maister Gregor. ‘They’ve all sorts to tell you, I’d ha thought.’

‘The man and woman?’ Gil repeated. ‘Who are these?’

‘They witnessed the Devil leaving the house,’ said Bishop Brown in Latin. Maister Gregor nodded in assent, crossing himself assiduously. ‘The woman is not reliable. She hears voices,’ he said fastidiously, ‘but her tale is borne out. Sir Silvester Rattray, the former Ambassador to England, a knight of my diocese and a supporter of Dunkeld Cathedral, in general a man of sense and not given to fancies, was lodging with his acquaintance Mistress Buttergask. Chancing to look out in the night, he clearly saw the Devil rise up above the house and fly away. And so did the woman. She has not hesitated to describe this vision to her acquaintance.’

‘I can see she wouldny,’ said Alys in Scots. ‘Nor would it lose in the telling, I suppose.’

‘Aye,’ said the Prior. His voice was without expression, but his lip curled.

‘I had best see the house now,’ said Gil. He caught Alys’s eye across the chamber; she nodded agreement and rose. The Bishop set his dog on the floor, where it began yapping at Socrates again, and Prior Boyd rang a little bell on his desk.

‘Brother George,’ he said over the dog’s noise to the young friar who answered it, ‘show Maister Cunningham the corrodian’s house, and send to Brother Dickon to open it up for him.’

‘I’ll just come along and all,’ said Bishop Brown. ‘Rob, you can mind Jerome till I get a look at this.’

‘Will you not take us yourself, Father?’ Alys asked in careful Latin. ‘It would be good to have your witness also.’

The young friar looked startled; after a moment the Prior rose, saying, ‘Very well. I can spare a few moments afore the afternoon lecture.’

‘And the more of us there is the better,’ said Maister Gregor anxiously, ‘in case he comes back again.’

‘In case who comes back?’ asked the Bishop in wary tones.

‘Why, Auld Nick! He could be waiting in there for—’

‘Rob, he has more to do than hide in a shuttered house,’ said his master. ‘Whispering daft ideas in your ears, for one thing.’ He swooped on his dog and thrust it into his secretary’s arms. ‘Bide here and mind Jerome.’

Bundled in their various plaids, the rest of the party emerged into the cloister, Socrates at Gil’s knee. Rather than cross the wintry garden in the icy drizzle, they made their way round the walkway under the severe vaulting, past Chapter House and refectory, where the smell of stockfish cooking for the next meal floated out, past the high decorative windows of the guest hall, and through a narrow slype between guest hall and library.

‘How big is your library, sir?’ Gil asked.

‘Oh, it’s a good size,’ said the Bishop, before the Prior could answer. ‘Near a hundred books, many o them new print, besides the study copies o Peter o Spain and Peter Lombard. I borrow from it mysel, by David’s grace.’

They emerged into the courtyard which served the guest lodgings. To their left was the guest hall, in which Gil hoped their servants were unpacking and making what comfort was possible in the big, chill building. Across the yard, facing them, was the elaborately worked facade of the royal lodgings, and on the right a row of doors and windows proclaimed a set of four small individual domiciles, each with a fenced plot before the door.

‘Have you other residents?’ Gil asked. ‘Other permanent guests?’

‘None at present,’ said Father Prior. ‘The other houses are used only at the pilgrimage season, nearer to St John’s Tide. The gardens come in handy,’ he added in Scots.

‘The most o them stop no more than a night or two,’ said the Bishop, ‘for they’re on their way through from Dunkeld and on to St Andrews. There’s little in Perth to draw them.’

The nearest house was boarded up, with splashes of red sealing-wax here and there over the nails, and a well-executed image of the Virgin and Child chalked on the window-shutters. Its trampled little garden held a bench, a stone shelter stacked with kindling with a closed coalhouse beside it, and a rose tree, bare and spiky in the winter air. As they entered through a gate of palings, young Brother George came round the end of the royal lodgings, together with two stalwart lay brothers, one of them hefting a crowbar, the other carrying two copper lanterns. They bowed their heads to the company, but their backs were very straight.

‘Dickon,’ said the Prior. ‘Here is Maister Cunningham and madam his wife. You’ll gie him every assist in your power, I trust.’

‘I will, Faither,’ said the older brother. He was a wiry grizzled man with a scar across one eye, his bushy beard striped like a badger’s head. ‘Sooner we get to the roots o this, the better all round, I’d say.’ He nodded to Gil, raising his hand in something like a salute, gave Alys a considering look, and waved his underling forward. ‘Brother Dod, shift they planks, will you?’