The King's Corrodian (29 page)

‘Yes,’ said Alys, startled. Her hostess fixed the man of the house with a pointed stare, and after a moment’s indecision he wandered out into the other room, pulling the door to behind him. ‘What is it?’ Alys asked, half expecting to be asked for some assurance about what the woman had seen.

‘Did you say your mammy was a French lady?’ said Mistress Buttergask. ‘I’ve had a French lady in my head these three days, bidding me tell her daughter all sorts.’ Alys stared at her in the candlelight, too astonished to speak. ‘She says, do you mind the flowered kirtle?’

Alys groped behind her to find the stool and sat down again, still staring.

‘I—’ she began, and her voice croaked. ‘I do.’

The kirtle was made of a piece of embroidered silk she and her mother had found in the market when she was seven. She had worn it until it could be let down and added to no longer. How could this woman know about the flowered kirtle?

‘She says,’ Mistress Buttergask tilted her head, eyes closed, as if she was listening, ‘do your duty by your faither. It’s no that easy to make her out. I’ve no French. She’s aye watching ower you, I’ve got that bit. You’re to – no, you’ve
got
a good man – she says you must honour him.’

‘I do,’ Alys said again, and felt for a moment almost as if she repeated her marriage vows for her mother. But could it be her mother? How could her mother be speaking to Mistress Buttergask?

‘And you’re to bide your time. The bairns will come in their own season. She’s showing me a picture, lassie. There’s you and a wee boy wi dark hair and two bairns smaller.’ Mistress Buttergask opened her eyes. ‘She’s away. They do that, you ken, once I’ve tellt their messages. Was it your mammy, do you think, my dear?’

‘I …’ Alys began yet again, staring at her, and suddenly found she was weeping. There was a clatter and rattle of furniture and the other woman was seated beside her, drawing her head onto a capacious bosom, murmuring endearments which her own mother had not used because they were the wrong language, though the tone was unmistakable.

It seemed a long time later that she straightened up, wiping her nose and eyes on the sacking apron.

‘A wee bit better?’ said Mistress Buttergask.

‘Better,’ she agreed shakily. ‘I – I beg your pardon, I can’t think what—’

‘Well, it was needing to come out,’ said the other woman sagely. ‘Folk do that often, when I pass them a message. Even when it’s good news. You miss your mammy, then, lassie?’

She nodded, biting her lip.

‘They watch over us, whatever the priests say. You’ll maybe find something’s settled, by the time you’ve slept on it. Just mind what she told you.’ Mistress Buttergask glanced at the window. ‘Will you stay here for a bite supper? I doubt you’ve missed the Blackfriars’ mealtime. They’ll all be at Compline by now. I heard the wee bell.’

‘Well, maister, you were right,’ said Brother Dickon. ‘Aye, you’re a fine dog,’ he added, clapping Socrates firmly on the shoulders.

Gil, who had deduced this from his triumphant expression as soon as the lay brother slipped in at the guest-hall door, made an encouraging noise.

‘Brother Augustine’s missing knife, just where you said it would be,’ the other said, ‘and I’d Jamesie wi me as witness. A right cunning place, a pouch o cloth nailed onto the bottom o the planks in his bed, you could hide all sorts in there. We’d to get down on our knees to see it – well, Jamesie did – and then you’d to reach halfway under the bed to get to it.’

‘The boning knife?’ Gil questioned. ‘Where is it now?’

‘Aye, the boning knife. Blade this wide.’ Brother Dickon held out a knobbly-knuckled hand, the little finger extended. ‘Well sharpened and a point like a needle. I had Jamesie put it back where we found it, but we can easy get it if you’re wanting it.’

‘A good thought. And where is that?’

‘Whose bed was it under, d’you mean? That’s just it, maister. It was under young Andrew’s. His bed’s bare now, but I mind perfectly well which was his.’

‘Makes sense, I suppose,’ said Gil. ‘Once his friends kent it was there, one o them was bound to make use o the hiding place. But it gets us little forward.’

‘Well, it’s one o the novices,’ said Dickon. ‘Or John Blythe, I suppose,’ he added fairly, ‘though I canny see him knifing his friend Henry White.’

‘Men do strange things,’ said Gil, ‘but I’m agreed. What puzzles me is why, short o simply running mad, one o the novices should kill Andrew Rattray and Thomas Wilson both.’

‘I can think o one reason,’ said Dickon after a moment, ‘though I canny say I’d heard it o either man.’

‘You’d know more about that than I would,’ said Gil, ‘given that I think your men pick up all that’s going on.’

‘I keep warning them o gossip,’ said Dickon. ‘They might no pick that up, it would be kept close secret after all, but I’ve no seen aught that would suggest it mysel either. And then why would he go on and knife Faither Henry?’

‘No, that’s easy enough. I’d guess Faither Henry suspected what was afoot, and went out to find and challenge the man responsible, maybe to persuade him to confess.’

‘Aye, that would fit,’ said Dickon. ‘And he was at the same the other night and all, when two men each thought he was whispering in corners wi the other. They must ha seen him wi the – the man responsible. And that’s a joke,’ he said without humour. ‘Responsible! No very responsible, to go about killing your brothers.’

Gil, who had not suspected Brother Dickon of a sententious streak, preserved silence, and after a little the lay brother went on, ‘Could it be some reason from afore they all were tonsured? Some common secret out in the world?’

‘I wondered about that,’ Gil said. ‘We’d have to dig into their pasts, Wilson and White and all the novices, which is none so easy without Faither Prior’s assistance.’

‘Aye,’ said Brother Dickon thoughtfully. ‘I’d tell you what I ken, gladly, but there’s maybe other matters, things only kent by those that accepted them for clothing.’

‘We could make a start,’ said Gil. ‘Have you time the now?’

The other man glanced at the window, judging the light.

‘An hour or so,’ he said.

‘Right,’ said Gil. ‘Fetch us a jug o ale from the kit chens, and let me hear it all.’

By the time Dickon returned, Gil had listed the three victims in his tablets, and noted what he already knew of them.

‘Aye, that’s right,’ said Dickon, drawing a stool up to the table opposite him. ‘Thomas Wilson’s a local man. Was, I should say. His faither’s living yet, he’s in the almshouse down by the haven, what’s it cried? St Barbara’s, that’s it. There’s a couple o brothers and some other kin in the burgh – you’d find them if you asked about. Likely Faither Prior’s let them hear o his decease so they might be in the place the day. What was his faither’s trade? Now you’re asking. I’d need to get Jamesie onto that, he’s a Perth man and all.’

‘And he never travelled? Wilson, I mean.’

‘Might ha been as far’s St Andrews or Edinburgh. Never overseas, I’d swear to that.’

Gil made a note, and went on, ‘And speaking ill o the dead it may be, but I hear he was cheating on the rents in the town.’

‘Lord love you, son, that’s no new,’ said Brother Dickon. ‘The most o us kens that, or suspects it, though it’s not got to Faither Prior yet.’

Gil absorbed this comment, made another note, and Brother Dickon said, ‘And while I mind, I’ve learned the prisoner stayed in the kirk the whole time till Matins. One o the lads that was praying had, er, meditated for a bit wi his een shut, but the other would swear to Brother Sandy being there on his knees afore Our Lady all the while.’

‘I never thought he had killed Wilson,’ said Gil, ‘but that makes it even less likely. Did you ask him about the knife?’

‘I did, but he never made much sense. Mumbled something about a library being no place for sharp steel, a course he was relieved that we never found a knife there.’

‘Well, it was worth asking. Thanks, man.’ Gil looked down at his tablets again. ‘Henry White’s a Lanarkshire man, so I’m told, though it’s no a name I can place.’

‘It’s his mother’s name,’ said Dickon significantly. ‘I’m told his faither was a lord, recognised young Henry, paid for his schooling.’

‘Ah. D’you ken where?’

‘Lanark itsel, I think. Then I suppose he’d join the Glasgow house, and I ken he’s studied overseas, Cologne and like that.’

‘How long has he been here?’

‘Longer than me. Me and the lads took the habit in the autumn o ’88,’ he added helpfully, ‘after Sauchieburn. I think he’s been here eight or ten year.’

Gil noted that, and stared at the gouges he had made in the wax, willing them to make some kind of pattern. He could see no connection. Not that it was essential to connect Father Henry to the others, he recalled.

‘Andrew,’ he said. ‘I think he was o good family, by what Faither Henry said. From somewhere north o here, out towards Montrose, aye?’

‘Aye. They held land near Brechin, I think it was. He’d been at the college at St Andrews, I ken that, for he once said,
At St Andrews they teach Bible studies, no Theology
. No that I’d ken the difference, and the most o them’s been at St Andrews, seeing we’re the nearest house to there.’

‘Any kin living?’

‘Parents deid, I believe. There might ha been a sister, but she’d likely be wed by the time he joined us. I’ve a notion he’d a, er, friend in the town here,’ Dickon continued, ‘for that he was out at night a time or two that I kent.’

Gil did not comment on this. Turning to the opposite leaf of his tablets he said, ‘And the other novices? How many are there, for a start?’

‘Four the same year as Andrew, four second-year men.’ Dickon leaned back, took a pull at the ale jug, and wiped his mouth and beard. ‘Where from? Now that’s another matter.’ He held up one broad, callused hand, marked off a finger with the other forefinger. ‘George Spens. Fife, I think, him and David Brown, aye, they’re both from Dunfermline. Robert Aikman from Aberdeen, Andrew Jackson from Arbroath. That’s no so far from Brechin,’ he commented. Having counted off four fingers he started counting on the other hand. ‘Mureson. Munt. Simpson. Calder. Calder’s from somewhere in Angus, Montrose or the like, cam wi a good settlement in coin to the house, no to the Order, I’m no just certain why the distinction. Mureson’s daddy’s a baron, I think, somewhere down the Spey. Munt and Simpson are both merchants’ sons, one in Dunfermline, one in,’ he paused for thought, ‘Dundee.’

‘But which o them,’ said Gil, looking at this list, ‘has any connection wi any o the men who were attacked, let alone all three?’

‘Aye, that’s the question,’ Brother Dickon was saying, when Socrates sprang to his feet growling, and there was an eruption of noise in the yard.

Hooves clattered, harness jingled, Brother Archie’s voice rose protesting uselessly, and over all a familiar, unpleasant voice declaimed, ‘I’ll see him as soon as he likes, and no argument!’

‘Our Lady save us!’ said Brother Dickon. ‘She’s back! What’s she after this time?’

‘I thought she’d got what she wanted last night,’ said Gil, stowing his tablets in their brocade pouch. ‘Best go and see, I suppose.’

Mistress Trabboch was no more prepossessing a sight by daylight than by candlelight. Her wide-skirted gown was dark red, the furred short gown she wore over it was a staring tawny the colour of rust, the boots which she was just freeing from the stirrups as Gil emerged from the guesthouse were of green leather, but none of the bright colours did more than emphasise the heavy jaw, the dark brows, the hot angry glare like a mewed hawk’s. She scowled at Gil as he approached to hold her stirrup.

‘You again!’ she said, spurning his offered hand, to slide down from the saddle herself. ‘You taken up residence here, or what? Where’s that Boyd? I want another word wi him, and he’ll no refuse me or I’ll fetch him out o there mysel,
and
tell his kinsman Boyd o Naristoun o his disobligement and all.’

‘Aye, Brother Archie,’ said Brother Dickon behind Gil. ‘Maybe you’d let Faither Prior hear the lady would wish another word wi him.’

‘Me?’ said Brother Archie in alarm. ‘Why me, Serj – brother?’

‘Can I ask your business wi my kinsman?’ Gil enquired.

‘You can,’ she said, smirking triumphantly at him, ‘but I’ll no answer, for it’s none o yours. Fetch Boyd, will you, man?’

Gil bowed, caught Archie’s eye, and made for the slype. The lay brother scurried after him, saying with open gratitude, ‘He’s more like to hear it fro you than me, maister.’

Prior Boyd was discovered in the library, in the throes of a discussion with John Blythe on the interesting topic of the precise meaning of
quotidianus
in the
Pater noster
, with reference to the vocabulary of the Greek original. It seemed the injunction to silence did not cover such learned discourse. Gil waited politely while Father John, a rotund, bald fellow with bone-rimmed spectacles and a red nose, soliloquised, with perfectly audible marginal notes, on the two possible meanings he could discern, but when the paragraph reached its conclusion, he broke in before the Prior could launch an equally scholarly response.

‘Forgive me, fathers,’ he said in Latin. ‘There is a guest at the door asking for Father Prior. It is the lady who visited last night,’ he added, and Boyd flinched. ‘She seems determined that she must speak to you, but will not reveal her business.’

‘Ah,’ said Father John, and stepped backwards, saying in Scots, ‘I’ll leave you defend us, Davie. This is where I’m right glad it’s no my turn at being Prior.’

Boyd, tucking his hands resignedly into his sleeves, nodded to the two friars nearest him, and they obediently left their books and followed. Brother Archie would have slipped away to safety, but was called back by a quiet word, so that the Prior was attended by a decent retinue on this occasion.

Mistress Trabboch was seated in the guest hall, tapping one booted foot impatiently. When Prior Boyd swept in and bowed to her she looked him up and down, ignoring his courteous greeting, and said sourly, ‘Took you a while. I want a look at all your monks.’

‘A look?’ he repeated in amazement. ‘Why? And we are not monks,’ he added. ‘We’re friars.’