The King's Corrodian

Chapter Two

‘But how could it happen, mem?’ demanded Jennet.

All the servants were agog, hanging on every word of the narrative which their master and mistress provided over the stewed kale and stockfish in pepper sauce.

The meal had appeared almost as soon as they emerged from the corrodian’s lodging, but that was some time after their unpleasant discovery. Brother Dickon, recovering his self-assurance, had sent his junior for ‘a wee brush, a couple shovels, a fair linen cloth out the sacristy and a good stout box’. When Brother Dod returned, the two lay brothers had set about lifting the heap of crumbling, flaking fragments with care, meantime muttering the Ave Maria interspersed with curt instructions. Gil looked anxiously at Alys, but she had retired to the doorway where the dog was leaning heavily against her knee, so he hunkered down to join the two men at their charitable task. It was he who found the several lumps of metal buried in the pile, small twisted things which glinted brassily when he rubbed the black deposit off, and a larger knot of dark iron.

‘Well, well,’ said Brother Dickon, cautiously sitting back on his heels, peering over his shoulder at the objects. ‘Belt-findings, likely. And could yon be the missing key, d’ye think, maister?’

‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Gil turned the misshapen object. ‘It’s the right weight, certainly. But what a heat the fire must ha been, to melt iron like that.’

‘Aye.’ Dickon tipped another shovel-full of fragments into the box, and reached across the patch of ashes to lift another small object. ‘How about this? A finger, maybe?’

Gil drew the candles closer.

‘Aye,’ he agreed, ‘or from the other foot. Is there more of it?’

‘Canny see any.’ Dickon set the fine bone in the box beside the shoe with its gruesome content, and turned back to coax more crumbling scraps from the same area onto the shovel. ‘No, I see no more, though there’s a few teeth here. Brother Dod, easy wi that brush, I’ve no wish to swally Leonard Pollock’s mortal remains.’

‘Will we need to tell Faither Prior?’ Dod wondered. ‘And ring the passing-bell?’

‘A course we need to tell him, daftheid!’ said Dickon. ‘The bell can wait, mind you, it’s waited long enough a’ready, no to mention the proper prayers. But what exercises my mind,’ he said to Gil, ‘is where this is to lie till we get word to the Prior.’ Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘See, if it was the Deil indeed struck the man wi fire, then it’s hardly fit for him to lie in the kirk. Faither Prior’s the one to decide on that.’

‘You could leave him here meantime,’ said Alys, from the doorway. ‘There are lights already, after all. Maybe the outer chamber would be better.’

‘A good thought, mistress. And we’ll ha two o the lads to watch,’ said Brother Dickon, ‘for either way prayers’ll no hurt the matter. They can get their bite o supper after.’

‘But also, brother,’ she went on, ‘if there’s to be any prayers said, you need to get a mat or the like, to protect the friars’ habits when they kneel. This greasy floor …’

‘Aye,’ said Dickon thoughtfully, looking down at his own knees. ‘I’ll tell you, mistress, my boots hasny squeaked since the day we entered this lodging. Swimming in lard, it was.’

‘Was it set cold?’ she asked, rubbing her toe on the broad boards nearest her. ‘Or did it still run?’

‘Atwixt and atween. It’s soaked well in by now.’

By the time they had contained the inseparable ashes of Leonard Pollock and his great chair, and set the box decently on a stool with the linen cloth to cover it, the little bell had begun ringing again and the members of the community were gathering from study and from daily tasks to wash hands before the evening collation, making their way half-seen in the twilight in their white habits and black cloaks, with sidelong glances at the fateful lodging. The meal, Gil knew, would be followed directly by Compline, which was begun in the refectory and ended in the priory church. He also knew that little or nothing was permitted to interrupt Compline. Informing Father Prior, he reckoned, would have to wait until afterwards.

The guests were not expected to attend the service, it seemed. A lay servant had carried in the dishes and helped to set up the table by the fire in one of the smaller chambers, promising to return later for the crocks. He was accompanied by the kitchen cat, a large black animal with a white bib and paws, who leaped onto a windowsill to inspect them all from a safe distance, established that Socrates knew how to be polite to cats, then sauntered impudently off when Gil called the dog to heel.

The accommodation which they had been allowed was more comfortable than Gil had expected, now that their servants, who numbered three house-servants and two grooms borrowed from Gil’s uncle Canon Cunningham for the journey, had spent some time re arranging the sparse furniture and kindling the fire. Gil had still not worked out how they would arrange themselves for sleep; Jennet could hardly lie in the same chamber as the men. Perhaps Alys had the answer, he decided.

‘How was the whole wee house no burned down?’ Jennet went on now, mopping pepper sauce from her platter with a piece of hard bread. ‘It makes no sense, unless it truly was the Deil carried him off.’

‘Was it no one of the novices set fire to him?’ asked Nory, Gil’s body-servant. He was a skinny fellow in his forties, very neat in the suit of clothes he had had as a New Year’s gift; he had been in Gil’s service for four months or so and promised well. ‘The lad ’at brought our dinner was saying they’ve one of the novices locked away, for that he confessed to killing the man. No that it’s any great loss, he says,’ he added primly. ‘Seems he wasny well liked.’

‘Aye, but the lodging was locked tight against thieves,’ said Tam, one of Canon Cunningham’s grooms. ‘So how did he get in to set fire to the man?’

‘And how will the poor fellow be rising from his grave at the Last Day, all burned to ashes as he is?’ wondered the Ersche gallowglass.

‘With God all things are possible, Euan,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, mistress,’ agreed Euan, his long narrow face ser ious, ‘but God will be having a lot to see to on that day. Maybe He’ll no be bothered wi one man’s troubles.’

‘Aye, but if it was the Deil struck him down,’ said the other groom, a wiry man called Dandy, ‘then likely he’s in the Bad Place a’ready and no need of judgement or rising up.’

Euan considered this doubtfully, and Gil broke off another piece of bread and dipped it in the sauce-dish.

‘Did the fellow say aught else about the dead man, Nory?’ he asked.

‘Why, only that. He’d ha said more, I think,’ Nory admitted, ‘but their cook called him fro the kitchens, and he’d to go.’

‘See what you can get from him later,’ Gil suggested. ‘I can learn little enough about Pollock from the friars. I think they’re reluctant to speak ill o the dead, and there seems to be little good to say o him.’

‘Will I be talking to the man and all?’ said Euan hopefully.

‘No, I’ve another task for you, though it will have to wait for the morning now.’ Gil cast his mind back to the last time he had been in this guest hall. Out in the great chamber, its high ceiling now filled with shadows, then bright with summer sunlight, the elderly Infirmarer had tended to Tam and another groom while his assistant knelt over a dying man. ‘The sub-infirmarer’s an Ersche speaker, by what I recall. I want you to get a word wi him and any other Erschemen there might be about the convent, learn what you can about the dead man and about what’s going on.’

‘Och, yes,’ said Euan with enthusiasm. ‘I can be doing that. Never fear, Maister Gil, I’ll get anything there is to be kent from them.’

‘So what’s to do the night?’ asked Jennet. ‘Is there tasks for us, or do we sit about the fire and tell pilgrim tales, the way my auntie said they did when she went to St Andrews?’

‘The pilgrim tales, I think,’ said Gil, ‘but don’t stay up too late. I’ll try and get a word wi the Prior once he comes from Compline, unless he goes straight to his rest. They’ll be up again after midnight to sing Matins and Lauds, after all.’

‘Where does he sleep?’ Alys asked. ‘There was hardly room in that study, and I saw no door to another chamber. Does he have his own lodging?’

‘He’ll sleep in the dorter wi the rest,’ Gil said, recalling his one sight of a Dominican’s cell. ‘It’s a great long chamber, wi a row of beds at one end for the novices and the younger brethren, and the other end partitioned into spaces just big enough for a bed, two stools and a table, so the older men have a place to study. A Dominican Prior keeps no great state, even in a house like this.’

‘Well, if you do get a word wi him, maister,’ said Nory, ‘I’ll wager he’ll no sleep much after he hears you. It’s a troubling tale.’

Prior Boyd’s reaction was much the same, though his reasons were a little different.

‘You are certain the body was entirely consumed to ashes?’ he said in his elegant Latin, and answered himself. ‘Indeed, you would not say so if it were otherwise. This gives the matter quite another complexion.’ He rose and took a jerky turn about his study. ‘By what means could a fire be set inside a locked house — indeed, a locked chamber within a locked house — and such a fire, at that, a fire which consumed only the man’s body and not the furnishings and hangings of the chamber, let alone the other timbers of the house. By what means, Gilbert?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Nor I. But I fear the answer, truly.’ Another turn about the room. ‘I think we have to face it, nevertheless. Either it was the Devil carried the man’s soul away, setting fire to his body, or it was,’ he swallowed, ‘witchcraft. And such witchcraft as speaks a practised witch, long sunk in evil.’

‘Or it happened by some mortal means,’ said Gil. ‘As I implied before, I should prefer to consider either of these answers only if I can prove no other method.’

His kinsman studied him closely in the candlelight, and seemed to relax slightly.

‘Aye. That is a better approach. How will you set about your inquiry?’

‘I need to gather information, by questioning many people.’ Gil ticked off the list on his fingers. ‘The other persons present when the lodging was opened. Those members of the community who had dealings with Pollock. A list of all the brethren would be valuable for that. The knight of Perth who saw something that night. The man you have confined because he confessed to the deed.’ He paused, watching the Prior. His kinsman bent his head so that the shadow of his cowl hid his face.

‘Aye, you must. I see that.’

‘And yourself, sir.’ Another pause. ‘Perhaps we could begin,’ he pursued carefully, ‘by discussing Pollock himself. How long had he been lodged here? Was he a valued guest? Did he take a part in the life of the community?’

‘All our guests are valued,’ Boyd reproved. Gil waited. The Prior seated himself, and said at length, ‘His corrody originated from the late King — from James Third. I suppose it was erected in ’82 or thereby, to a good value.’

‘Of which I believe he calculated every penny that was spent on him,’ Gil said.

‘Every farthing,’ the Prior corrected, without expression. ‘The man took some part in our daily life, by walking about and talking to the servants at their work, by sitting in his small garden in fine weather, by hearing Mass daily and also some of the Office, but …’ He considered his next words and finally said, ‘I did not feel that he immersed himself in our spiritual observance as a man should do at the end of his life.’

‘Was he liked by the community?’ Gil asked. ‘Did the servants like him?’

‘I suggest you ask them.’

‘Thank you, sir, I will do that. Now, the novice who is confined.’ His kinsman looked directly at him, and then away. What is going on here, Gil wondered. ‘I understand he confessed at Chapter of Faults. When was that?’

‘Andrew Rattray.’ The Prior studied his folded hands. ‘A very promising novice, indeed one of the most promising in many years.’ He sighed. ‘On the day after the discovery, when I had already consulted with Bishop Brown and he had written to Archbishop Blacader, we held a Chapter of Faults as is our custom. I had noticed, indeed, that Brother Andrew was in some distress at my lecture the previous afternoon, but in my abstraction did not question him. Therefore it was a shock to me as well as to the rest of our brothers when he knelt before us and asked our forgiveness for causing the vanishing away of our corrodian.’

‘In so many words?’

‘In so many words. His Latin is excellent. However, when I questioned him, first in Chapter and later in private, he could give me no reasoned narrative of how he had done this deed, but only seemed convinced he was instrumental. I judged it best to confine him for prayer and reflection, to see if he might come to some sensible conclusion, but none has so far emerged, though he remains persuaded of his guilt. I have prayed with him daily myself.’ The Prior contemplated his hands a little longer. ‘I should find it very hard to believe the young man capable of witchcraft,’ he said at last.

There was a bell ringing, urgently, clanging and clashing, and the dog was barking. He had slept in his shirt. Why had he slept in his shirt? Gil struggled up out of sleep into an unfamiliar place, Alys beside him up on her elbow, Jennet across the room exclaiming in fright. Through the dog’s noise he could hear shouting, a word which spurred him into action.

‘Fire,’ he said, flinging back the clothes, groping for his outer garments. ‘There’s fire in the convent. I must go and help.’

‘Mercy on us, we’ll be burned in our beds!’ said Jennet. Alys straightened the bedclothes and swung her legs out of bed, feeling for the tinder box on the stool beside her. When she had a light she went to the chamber door and peered out.

‘There is nothing to see on this side of the building,’ she reported. ‘The fire is in the convent itself, maybe? Socrates, quiet!’

‘What is it, mem?’ Nory’s voice. Gil dragged on the leather jerkin he had ridden in and stepped into his boots.

‘Fire somewhere in the convent,’ he called, and bent to buckle the straps. ‘You men rouse yourselves, we can lend a hand.’

Crossing the outer chamber he ordered the dog to stay and unbarred the guest-hall door. The night was cloudy, with only a few stars showing, but there was a red glow rising from behind the hall, over in the priory. The bell was still ringing, and as he emerged into the raw cold the lay brothers appeared, trotting in a tight disciplined group, rakes and hay-forks at the port and Brother Dickon recognisable at their head in the eerie light.

‘Aye, maister,’ he called across the courtyard, ‘we’ll likely be glad o yir help.’

Gil let the door slam behind him and followed, through the narrow passage by the library into the main cloister. A towering column of red-lit smoke full of sparks was visible from here, not rising from this range of buildings but beyond.

‘The infirmary!’ said one of the lay brothers. ‘Ser- Brother Dickon, it’s the infirmary!’

‘Aye, lad,’ said his superior. ‘I’ve een in my heid.’

In the small courtyard by the infirmary building there was panic and disorder. Prior Boyd and another elderly man were planted stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, the one praying aloud, the other lamenting incoherently. About them friars ran to and fro shouting, their black and white lit wildly by the leaping flames which issued from the windows of the infirmary. The fire burned with a greedy sound, a snapping and crackling and roaring, and a heat which struck the face and hands. Someone was hauling on the handle of the draw-well, making the wooden mechanism squeal, while someone else hastened with a bucket.

Brother Dickon halted his troop at the entrance to the courtyard and assessed the situation.

‘Dod, Archie, Tammas, get across and help them deal wi the roof,’ he said decisively. ‘Jamesie, Eck, go and get a bucket chain together. Maister, will you come wi me? I need to learn if that laddie got out.’

‘My thought and all,’ said Gil rather grimly.

‘Rattray?’ said Prior Boyd when Brother Dickon grasped his sleeve. ‘Why, no, I- Our Lady protect him! James? Did Andrew get out?’

‘Andrew?’ His elderly companion turned a horrified face to the flames. ‘Oh, David! Oh, Our Lady forgive me! I never — I never thought-’

‘Where is he lodged?’ Gil demanded.

‘Along at the end,’ said the elderly friar, wringing his hands. ‘By the last window, in a wee cell by himself. Maybe he heard me shouting,’ he said hopefully. ‘Maybe he heard me shout “Fire!” or the bell or that.’

Gil did not pause to answer him, but plunged towards the burning building. It was a timber-framed structure of three bays, the red roof-tiles now cracking and shattering in the heat, the upper floor beginning to catch. The last window disgorged a furious blaze, flames licking out and upwards like dancing devils.

At his shoulder Brother Dickon bawled, ‘We’ll never get into that, but he might ha got out the cell. Here, maister!’

He produced a length of rag from under his scapular, and then another, dunked them in a passing bucket of water, handed Gil one. Tying it about his face, Gil followed him into the blaze, with a quick silent prayer to St Giles for protection.

He would have nightmares about it for years, he thought afterwards. The wet cloth helped, but the smoke bit at his eyes, obscured everything, and groping through a strange building amidst flames and roaring heat seemed to take more courage than he had known he possessed. Sparks and flakes of burning wood fell past him, a table in flames appeared before him and collapsed as he moved round it. Strange smells caught his throat, even behind the wet rag, as the infirmarer’s stock burned.

He kept as close as he could to Brother Dickon, who suddenly dropped to his knees. Gil knew a surge of alarm, but the older man crawled forward, feeling from side to side, and he realised that the air was clearer near the ground and got down likewise. For what seemed like forever they searched the outer chamber in this way, the flames crackling round them, burning debris falling like snow, but when Brother Dickon opened a door in the far wall a great gout of flame rushed out, with a roar like a lion’s. The Dominican rolled over, away from the door, and scrambled to his feet, half crouching.

‘Run!’ he bellowed, and stumbled back the way they had come. Gil rose, coughing, and followed him, and suddenly a dark shape loomed before them, one of the other lay brothers, grasping an arm of each with strong hard hands, pulling them towards the door.

They lurched choking from the building just as the far end collapsed with a great crash, flames shooting up into the night sky. Someone threw a bucket of water over Gil, which was when he realised that his hair and his hose were smouldering, and someone else held another bucket so that he could drink palmfuls of the water to soothe his throat.

‘Did you find him? Did you find him?’ It was the elderly Infirmarer, his hands shaking in the firelight.

‘No, Faither,’ said Brother Dickon hoarsely by his side. ‘We went as far’s we dared, and no sign o him. I doubt he’s never got out o his cell.’

‘But was he locked in?’ Alys smeared more green ointment on Tam’s brow. ‘Or had he perhaps had a sleeping draught?’

‘No to both.’ Gil tipped his head back against the upright back of the settle. The two women had lit the fire again and it was warm here in the guest hall; he was already beginning to think of the place as a refuge. At his feet Jennet knelt over a pannikin of wine, swirling it in the firelight to infuse the spices she had added. ‘Father James seems to have panicked, and simply run out of the building shouting “Fire!” It’s fortunate that someone in the dorter heard him, or it could have spread to the main range.’

‘It was burning fiercest at that end the building,’ observed Nory. ‘Where they said he was lodged, I mean. I doubt maybe it started there. Likely the laddie was owercome by the smoke and never knew what was happening, poor chiel. God send it was quick.’ He crossed himself, and Dandy did likewise.

‘We’ll hope that,’ said Tam, and flinched as Alys anointed another burn.

‘Or maybe it was the Devil carried him away,’ said Euan in portentous tones, ‘like the other one.’

‘Mercy on us!’ Jennet exclaimed. ‘There must be something badly amiss wi this place, maister, that the Devil can come and go as he likes! Should we maybe no leave here and lodge wi the Greyfriars?’

‘This fire was very different,’ said Gil. ‘The one which consumed Pollock was confined to one place, almost as if it was in a brazier, and the rest of the house is near undamaged. This one has destroyed the entire infirmary, like an ordinary house fire, and a fierce one at that. If you lads hadny been here I think it could have been worse. Father Prior may be a great scholar and a famous preacher, but he’s no man for quick action.’

‘Aye, the Infirmarer was fair lamenting his ointments and simples,’ said Nory. ‘He hardly kent which to grieve for the more, all his way of life gone up in flames or the young man that was trapped.’ His tone was disapproving.

Gil said, ‘It’s the shock. It takes folk strangely.’

‘If the fire was so different from the other,’ said Alys, pinning a bandage on Tam’s arm, ‘so ordinary, could it have been set a purpose?’ She looked about her to see if any burns remained unsalved, then considered Gil, moving the candles close to the hearth.

‘Surely never!’ said Euan, shocked, and Dandy muttered agreement. ‘Who would do sic a thing in a house of holy men?’

‘The town’s no so happy wi the Blackfriars, by what we saw,’ observed Tam, rolling down his singed sleeve.

‘It could ha been,’ said Gil grimly, ignoring them. ‘Brother Dickon will come for me as soon as there’s light to see, though Christ Himself kens that’s none so early at this time of year. We’ll search the wreckage, see if we can find the missing laddie, see if we can learn aught else.’

Alys made no comment, but tucked her hand into his and held it tightly. He caressed the knuckles with his thumb, and smiled at her.

‘This is about ready, mem,’ said Jennet, feeling the side of the pan with a cautious hand. ‘Have we beakers, or that?’

Inspecting his boots and jerkin by daylight, Gil found they were not so badly damaged as he had feared, though they stank of smoke like everything else about him. He was buckling on the boots again and contemplating the fact that since he had an established income he could now afford another pair if Nory could not refurbish these for best, when Brother Dickon opened the main door of the guest hall and stepped in, shaking drops of rain from his sleeves.

‘Aye, maister,’ he said, rather than offering the conventional friars’ blessing. ‘How d’ye feel the day?’

‘Hoarse,’ Gil admitted.

‘Aye, me and all, and the rest o the house. You should ha heard us croaking at Prime. And Brother Infirmarer canny help us, by reason o the fire itself, and all his simples consumed.’

‘My wife has a receipt which might help. The most of what it asks is common kitchen stores, she tells me. She’s gone hoping for a word wi the cook, now we’ve broken our fast.’

‘Oh, aye?’ Brother Dickon pulled a face. ‘Good luck to her, though I’d say if anyone can get round Brother Augustine this morn, madam your wife can. He’s no in a charitable state, what wi the broken night, and one o his best knives is missing the day and naeb’dy admitting to having lost it. A good cook, he is, and like all good cooks he’s a wee thing.’ He paused, considering Brother Augustine. ‘Touchy,’ he concluded.

‘Alys can likely deal wi him.’ Gil lifted his plaid. ‘How’s the ruin the day?’

‘A sorry sight.’ Brother Dickon turned back towards the door. ‘I’d a wee look as soon’s it began to lighten,’ he went on as they crossed the courtyard, ‘and it was still smouldering, but this rain’ll likely ha seen to that. I’ve set my lads,’ he ducked into the slype by the library, ‘I’ve set my lads to make a start on the end by the door, where we searched a’ready last night, and you and I’ll have a good nose about at the other end o the building, for the laddie never got out — or if he did,’ he added grimly, ‘he’s vanished into thin air. He’s no been seen.’

The infirmary was an ugly sight, as Brother Dickon had said. The further end had collapsed completely, the roof-tiles in a blackened layer over fallen timbers, part of a wall standing up like a broken tooth. The end by the door was still standing, though much of the roof had fallen in. Over all the reek of smoke hung, and the drizzle had laid the worst of the ash into a clinging slurry. Brother Dickon’s little troop was working hard, habits kilted up, more wet rags bound about their faces to keep the ash out, their sturdy boots and thick leggings smeared with the stuff. Gil’s two grooms were with them, and several young Dominicans, presumably novices of the house, their natural high spirits much subdued by the task. They had already amassed a number of stacks of different salvage, unbroken tiles, timbers only partly burned, a couple of pieces of furniture. Gil accepted a wet rag himself and made his way to the far end of the ruined building, assessing the task before them.

‘The fire was fiercer this end,’ he said. The lay brother grunted agreement. ‘It’s brought the whole structure down here, and yet the two couple o rafters at the other end are still standing.’

‘Have to come down, mind. The whole thing’ll need rebuilt.’ Brother Dickon dragged a charred beam aside, and kicked at the remains of the wall below it, which crumbled obligingly. ‘The laddie was in the end chamber by hissel, by what I can make out, and this should be the one next it.’

‘Where would the Infirmarer have been?’ Gil asked. Brother Dickon surveyed the scene, measured off a section and then another with his forefingers at arm’s length, and finally sketched with decisive gestures a narrow chamber not far from where the door had been.

‘About there,’ he said. ‘He’d be atween the patient and the door, if there was ever anyone kept there the night. Him or Brother Euan. No that Brother James would ha heard if the Last Trump sounded, bless him,’ he added. ‘He’s no so good the day, wasny fit to rise for Terce. I hope he does better. Right, maister. If we can clear the tiles, and they great timbers, we should be able to-Have you ever seen a corp that burned to death?’

‘No,’ Gil admitted. ‘Have you?’

‘Aye. No a bonnie sight.’ The lay brother bent to a blackened timber, and Gil tossed his plaid over a singed rosemary bush and hurried to take the other end. Fragments of tile slid away as they heaved. ‘These tiles is all done, we’ll get none fit to use again.’

They progressed sideways with the length of wood between them, and set it down some distance away.

‘Tell me more about the man Pollock,’ said Gil, rubbing wet ash from his hands, and stepped back into the ruins.

‘Him? Why?’

‘Because nobody else seems to want to talk about him,’ said Gil deliberately, bending to gather broken tiles, ‘and I’d say you were a man to gie me a straight answer. Is there aught like a basket we could use to fetch these out of the mess?’

‘A basket.’ Brother Dickon straightened up with care, stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. One of his industrious team looked up, left his task and joined them at the double. ‘Brother Jamesie, get to the store, will you, find two-three baskets. Sound ones, mind, that will hold these broken tiles. Should ha thought o that mysel,’ he allowed as his henchman trotted off. ‘Pollock. Well, it’s right hard to say aught about him, maister, seeing we’re enjoined no to speak ill o the dead, and him no buried yet either.’

‘If he was still alive, what would you ha said?’

The lay brother’s grizzled beard split in a grin.

‘I’d ha warned you he was a sleekit, spying yadswiver,’ he said promptly. ‘We tellt you as much yesterday, how he’d go about the place, overhearing all sorts that was none o his mind, writing it down in his wee tablets and casting it up at a man later. He’d a go at me,’ he admitted, ‘wishing to call me into trouble for some language I used that was no seemly, but I preferred to take it to Chapter o Faults mysel, and so I tellt him. Wasny any great penance,’ he added.

‘Was he a man given to drink? Could he have been asleep when the fire started?’

‘That’s one thing he was moderate in,’ said Dickon consideringly. ‘I’m no certain I ever seen him fou, nor even a wee thing argumentative wi drink. He’d no need o a drink to start an argument,’ he added, his tone souring.

‘Had he any friend in the convent?’ Gil asked. ‘There’s no other permanent lodger, is there? No other corrodian?’

‘No. Faither Prior — no Prior Boyd but the previous one, Prior Blythe that’s novice-master now — he put his foot down when there was to ha been another, said we’d enough to do wi one, we’d ha no more. That one went to the Greyfriars, I heard. No, Pollock had no friends in the convent, though he’d spend enough time talking wi one or another o the friars, getting wee favours of them, getting them to run errands for him.’

‘Getting the friars to run errands?’ Gil repeated.

‘Aye.’

Brother Jamesie arrived with an armful of baskets, and a great sheet of tarred canvas folded into a bundle over his shoulder.

‘See, we could stack them on this, Brother Dickon,’ he said, ‘easier to get them all out the road after. Or I suppose we can use them for backfill,’ he added.

‘We’ll find a use for them,’ agreed his superior. ‘Good thinking, lad.’

‘And Sandy Raitts is in a right passion, ower there in the cloister,’ added Brother Jamesie, grinning. ‘Seems the pilgrim lady wants into his library, and he’s no for letting her in.’

‘What have I tellt ye about gossip, lad?’ said Dickon.

‘She said she wanted to see the library,’ said Gil with misgivings, and Brother Jamesie went red and ducked his head in apology.

‘She was being right civil to him,’ he assured them. ‘He’ll maybe no say anything that bad to her. Just he doesny like ladies ower much.’

‘Jamesie!’ said his superior sharply. ‘Get back to work, and less o your prating.’

‘Aye, but he doesny,’ argued Jamesie. ‘That’s why he’s been minding the library these two year and no out on the road, ken, so he doesny have to speak to ony ladies. How he managed afore he was tonsured- a’richt, I’m going, I’m going!’

‘And so I should think! Gossip’s a sin,’ Brother Dickon reminded him. ‘You’ll ha to confess that.’

‘Aye,’ said Jamesie, bitterly. ‘And if those better’n me ever confessed their faults likewise, I’d ha less objection.’

‘Jamesie.’

At the warning in his superior’s voice, Jamesie offered no more argument, but swung away to the section where he had been working. Brother Dickon glared at his back, but returned to his own task in silence.

‘Did Pollock have other friends?’ Gil asked after a moment. ‘I think you mentioned folk who visited him from the town.’

‘Aye, a few. They’d come and go freely enough in the outer yard, never tried to get inside the cloister that I noticed. I can let you have their names, likely.’

‘Had he money of his own? Apart from what was paid for his keep, I mean.’

‘Now that I couldny say.’ Brother Dickon hoisted his first basket of sherds and made for the tarpaulin. ‘But,’ he paused before tipping the blackened mass out, ‘he never wore the clothes that were provided him. Nor the shoes. Aye well clad he was, warmer than us this weather, and plenty coal and kindling to his wee house, more than my lads ever fetched to him.’

‘Did you ever run into him afore?’ Gil asked. ‘When you were still sergeant-at-arms, I mean. Given you were both members o James Third’s household.’

‘I did,’ replied Brother Dickon baldly. ‘I couldny say if he minded me,’ he added. ‘I’m a wee thing changed since then. The beard makes a difference.’

‘He’d hardly have enemies in a house of Religious like this,’ Gil went on delicately, slinging broken tiles as he spoke. His companion produced a sardonic grunt. ‘But did he have any particular unfriends about the place?’

‘Oh, I couldny say,’ said Brother Dickon. He shifted another handful of tiles, and paused, staring through the charred timbers below them. Gil paused too, watching him, as Dickon turned, very deliberately, threw the tiles into the waiting basket, and turned back to look closer. Then he crossed himself.

‘Is that-?’ Gil began.

‘Aye, it is, maister. We’ve found our missing laddie.’

Gil picked his way to join the lay brother. At the far end of the building, the other men gradually stopped, straightened up, watched them. When Gil bent his head and removed his hat the two grooms did likewise, and one by one the whole group left their task, drifted out of the tangle of ash and timber, drew closer. The little group of novices stood shoulder to shoulder, staring in awful fascination.

‘It’s him, then,’ said one. ‘I hoped he’d- I hoped …’

‘He’d ha turned up by now if he’d escaped the fire, Sandy,’ said another. ‘It was aye more likely.’ He crossed himself, tears in his eyes.

His neighbour, a tow-headed muscular young man, said quietly, ‘I wonder how he didny get out? Or was he maybe right at the heart o the fire? Could it ha started wi him?’

‘Don’t be daft, Adam,’ said someone else roundly.

‘He’s deid, then,’ said one of the lay brothers, possibly Brother Dod.

Brother Dickon gave him a look which should have shrivelled him, crossed himself again and began, ‘Subvenite, sancti Dei, occurrite, angeli Domini.’ By the second phrase his cohort had joined in, and the novices followed. Aid him, ye saints of God, meet him, angels of the Lord: the prayer for the dead, to be said as soon as life departed. A bit late, Gil thought, staring down at what he could see through the criss-crossed beams of the roof. Nobody alive looked like that.

The body lay on its back, partly covered by a very singed blanket and black woollen habit. It was curled up and set into a strange, contorted position, the knees drawn up into the belly, the fists clenched before the face, but he could see enough of the face that he wished he could not. The lips were drawn back, the gums and broken teeth exposed, the tongue showing red in the shadows behind them. All the visible skin was blackened, presumably with soot; coppery curls as singed as the blanket clung about the brow where the skin had split. It had split on the backs of the hands too, and across the jaw, exposing rather cooked-looking flesh. There was a smell of singed hair, singed wool, burned meat, which- he found himself gagging, and turned away.

Brother Dickon finished the prayer, crossed himself and said with some sympathy, ‘Aye, it gets to ye. Right, lads, we’ll get him out o there, and then someone can let them ken we’ve found him. Have a care how you go, we’d no want bits falling off him.’

‘Is that him right enough?’ asked Dandy. ‘Is it no some blackamoor?’

‘No wi red hair,’ said Tam. ‘Whoever seen a blackamoor wi red hair?’

‘It’s the smoke, see,’ said Brother Dod. ‘It blackens all it touches, ye ken.’

In fact it took all hands, under Brother Dickon’s competent direction, to clear the debris over the body and bring matters to a point where they felt they could lift it out onto the grass. By that time word had spread, the convent bell was tolling and the community had gathered, watching in sombre silence as the remains of the young man’s bedstead were hoisted complete with the burned bedding and the blackened corpse, and carried out to set at Prior Boyd’s feet.

He took a step back in dismay at the sight, and looked round for Gil.

‘Is it him?’ he said helplessly. ‘It — you’d never ken this face, it’s no-’

‘I never met him,’ Gil pointed out. ‘Does nobody else ken him?’

‘The hair’s right,’ observed Brother Dickon, standing at attention beside the exhibit. ‘Naeb’dy else in the place has hair like that.’

‘But he — and the teeth-’

‘It’s never Andrew, it’s some blackamoor, for certain,’ pronounced the subprior. One of the novices sobbed quietly.

‘I suppose he was owercome by the smoke,’ said Prior Boyd, still staring in horrified fascination. ‘Poor laddie. What a way to-’

‘No,’ said Gil. Brother Dickon glanced sharply at him, and returned to staring over the Prior’s shoulder.

‘No? What d’ye mean?’ asked Boyd.

‘It wasny the smoke that slew him,’ said Gil deliberately. He bent over the dreadful object, touching with care. ‘See, his skin’s blackened by the smoke, but there’s no sign it entered his mouth. He wasny breathing by the time the fire took hold.’

‘Not breathing?’ repeated his kinsman. ‘Why? He was well enough when I saw him after I spoke wi you, Gilbert. He wasny taken sick that fast.’

‘No,’ Gil agreed. ‘Here’s what killed him, sir.’ The corpse was rigid, presumably from the effects of the fire, but if one looked from the side, as Gil had done when they lifted the bedstead over the broken wall, it was clear enough. ‘Someone’s taen a knife to his throat, and slit it wide open, like killing a pig. I suspect we ken why Brother Augustine’s knife is missing.’