The King's Corrodian

Chapter One

‘The tale seems very improbable,’ said Gil Cunningham cautiously. ‘How should the Devil enter a house of Religious, and carry off one of its members?’

‘Precisely my point!’ said Archbishop Blacader in sour Latin. He gestured irritably at the nearest stool, and Gil rose obediently from his knees and seated himself. ‘But it is not one of the Dominicans who has vanished.’ He paused as if setting his thoughts in order, lifted a pewter goblet from the table at his elbow and gulped the red wine it held. In the shadows, Blacader’s secretary, the rat-faced William Dunbar, drew his plaid closer about his shoulders. Gil maintained a pose of attention, wondering what the wine was; its scent was heavy and rich, cutting through the smells of wet wool and boiling kale.

They were in the Archbishop’s own lodging in his castle in Glasgow, where Gil had been summoned almost as soon as the prelate’s retinue had dismounted in the courtyard and shaken the icy January rain off their oiled-wool cloaks and leather hoods. A branch of candles and a glowing brazier made the chamber less dark and chill than it was outside, but that was all one could say. Blacader, plump and blue-jowled, garbed for riding in expensive, mud-splashed velvet and high leather boots, finished the wine and set the goblet down. Dunbar lifted the jug and refilled it.

‘The man who has … vanished,’ pronounced the Archbishop at length, ‘is named Leonard Pollock, and is a corrodian at the convent.’

‘A corrodian?’ Gil repeated, startled. ‘With the Blackfriars?’

‘The Perth house,’ said Blacader reprovingly, ‘has a very extensive provision for guests, given that it was once the preferred royal lodging in those parts.’

‘Quite so,’ said Gil. ‘I hope they’ve mended the locks.’

The Archbishop ignored this reference to the unfortunate end met by James Stewart, first king of that name, taken unarmed while hiding below the privy in the royal lodgings of the Dominican priory at Perth, but his tone grew cooler as he continued, ‘The Perth house is well able to maintain several permanent residents. Pollock, having been a member of the late King’s household, was,’ he paused again, apparently suppressing the first word which came to his lips, ‘was lodged there some twelve or thirteen years ago, I am told, and a substantial endowment made from the Treasury for his keep.’

‘His corrody,’ agreed Gil. Blacader threw him a glance and took another gulp of his wine. Not claret, Gil thought, it seems heavier than that. Wine of Burgundy? Behind the Archbishop, Dunbar drew closer to the source of heat.

‘By means of this corrody,’ Blacader continued, ‘Pollock has been supported since ‘82 in a private lodging next to the main guest hall, a commodious stone house of two chambers with a fine chimney and its own small garden.’ Gil nodded, thinking of the guest hall of the Perth house as he had last seen it, smiling in the sunshine. A far cry from today’s weather, he reflected, as the rain rattled on the window-shutters. Blacader glanced at the gloomy skies beyond the glass above and stretched his booted feet nearer to the brazier. He seemed to be having difficulty framing his next sentence.

‘And this is the man who has vanished, my lord?’ Gil prompted. ‘What happened, then? What were the circumstances?’

‘Ach, there’s no reason to it!’ exclaimed Blacader. He looked over his shoulder directly at Dunbar. ‘William, have you Bishop Brown’s letter there? Let Gilbert have a sight of it. I took George Brown for a man of sense, Gilbert, but you may see for yourself what foolishness he writes.’

‘Bishop Brown?’ Gil, who had also taken the Bishop of Dunkeld for a man of sense, accepted the document which Dunbar produced from his scrip, and tilted it towards the candles. ‘It tells us little,’ he said after a moment. ‘He writes of fire and black smoke, but says only that these rumours of the Devil are strong in Perth and the countryside, and damaging to Holy Church as well as to the Dominicans. You can tell he is agitated,’ he added, ‘his Latin is deserting him. There are no other facts.’

‘And he asks for the loan of my quaestor.’

‘That’s what puzzles me, my lord.’ Gil folded the paper carefully. ‘What has the Bishop to say in the matter? Perth and the Perth Blackfriars are not in his diocese; they look to St Andrews, not to Dunkeld. How will Archbishop Scheves take it if I start sniffing round his archdiocese uninvited?’

‘Hardly uninvited,’ said Blacader. ‘George Brown was at school with George Hepburn.’

‘The Provincial Prior?’ Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘I mind him when I was first at the College here, when he was lecturing to the Theology students. A fine intellect.’

‘Indeed.’ The Archbishop drained his wine. Gil contemplated the situation. Presumably Hepburn, whom he remembered as a much-respected teacher, had asked his old friend to call in a favour, rather than making a formal request through the convent’s own archdiocese, a request which was unlikely to be granted however it was couched, given the opposing politics both church and civil of the two prelates concerned. It was flattering that the Provincial Prior, elected master of the Dominicans in Scotland, should have called for him, rather than for someone within the archdiocese, but his position would clearly be precarious. And yet one did not offend the mendicant orders, he thought ruefully. He would have to go.

‘It will need a man with a clear and open mind to make sense of it,’ continued Blacader. ‘The corrodian carried off by the Devil, indeed! I hope you can assist, Gilbert. Are you able to travel the now?’

‘I am.’ Gil was reckoning in his head. ‘I can set out tomorrow, my lord, and be in Perth in three days, I suppose, or four, assuming the weather gets no worse.’

‘Aye.’ Blacader switched to Scots, a sign that the formal part of the interview was over. ‘You’d need more time than that to prepare for sic a journey. I’d suggest you call it a pilgrimage, maybe take madam your wife wi you if she’s in good health.’ Gil looked up sharply, to encounter a significant glance from his master. ‘These matters oft go smoother when there’s a bonnie young woman involved, I’m told, even in Holy Kirk.’

‘What has the Provost told him?’ said Alys in some dismay, her colour rising.

Gil had found her in the little solar at the back of the house, the chamber made comfortable with two foot-warmers full of hot stones, her needlework on her lap. She was alone; her elderly companion Catherine, who was growing frail, had been persuaded to keep her bed in this weather, wrapped in blankets and surrounded by more hot stones, and Gil knew his assistant Lowrie Livingstone was dealing with a sasine exchange out towards Partick. In the hall their small ward John McIan was rampaging about with a wooden horse while Alys’s tirewoman Jennet gossiped with his nurse; the other servants were probably in the kitchen where it was warm.

‘My thoughts too,’ Gil admitted. ‘He’s perfectly right, I’d never have reached some of the conclusions I’ve found without your help, but I thought we’d kept it hidden from him. The Provost must have let something slip. Can you be ready to leave tomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ she said simply, though her quick smile came and went in gratification at his comment. ‘How far is Perth? No knowing how long we must stay, I suppose.’ She delved under the wide skirt of her woollen gown for the purse which hung between it and her kirtle, and drew out her tablets. ‘Will you see to hiring the horses? We should have one sumpter beast at least, for six of us.’

‘Five. I’ll leave Lowrie here in charge of the house.’

‘A good thought. Someone must have a care to Catherine and John and the maidservants.’ She was already noting items on her list. ‘You, Nory and Euan, Jennet and me. A donation of meal, and we should take that barrel of figs since none of us like them. Bedding. I suppose we’ll be lodged separately? The women’s hall is set apart?’

‘I don’t recall,’ he confessed. ‘I know they have one.’ He lifted the smaller footwarmer by its ring, using the corner of his gown to protect his hand, and moved to the door of the little solar. Socrates the wolfhound, curled round the larger footwarmer, raised his head to watch him. ‘I must clear up some of the papers on my desk before we leave.’

‘Confession. We must all be confessed if we are to ride so far.’ Alys made another note. ‘If Father Francis will come to the house, will you make do with that, or should I send to the Blackfriars as well? And Euan may call at my father’s house and let him know while he is down the High Street.’

Gil nodded, reflecting that his father-in-law might come up to bid them farewell and safe journey. No point in wondering whether Alys would go down the High Street herself; she and her new stepmother existed on terms of the barest courtesy, the situation made worse by Mistress Ealasaidh’s advanced pregnancy.

‘But Gil,’ Alys looked up from her list, the high bridge of her nose outlined against the grey light at the window, ‘why are you sent for? If someone thinks they have seen the Devil himself, is it not rather a matter for Holy Church?’

‘I don’t know.’ He closed the door and set the little box of hot stones down again, blowing on his fingers. ‘The Bishop’s letter was clear only on that point, that he wants me. The rest of the tale-’ He pulled a face. ‘Something about smoke and fire and a lost key, and how it’s disturbed the peace of Perth and all the country round.’

‘I can well imagine it has,’ she said. ‘I see why the Devil has been mentioned, but is it not simply a house fire? You said that Pollock had his own little house, like the old men at St Serf’s here.’

‘The Bishop said no more. Vanished away in fire and smoke, were his words,’ Gil said, quoting the Latin. She nodded. ‘No mention of the presence or absence of witnesses, nor of what the lost key should lock or unlock. And then the request for the loan of Blacader’s quaestor.’

‘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?’

Brother Dod crossed himself, licked his lips, and applied the crowbar. Two or three mighty heaves dislodged the planks.

‘You told us the door was barred, sir,’ Gil said. ‘Were the shutters barred and all?’

‘Dickon?’

‘Aye, Faither, they was barred,’ confirmed Brother Dickon, looking up from the lanterns. ‘He’d sealed hissel in well, which was no surprising considering the weather. It was the midst o that cold snap we had,’ he elaborated to Gil as he closed the little door on the second lantern. ‘Freezing hard it was.’

‘It’s open, er, brother,’ reported Brother Dod. Brother George eased himself to the back of the group; the Bishop craned forward, clutching his episcopal cross for protection, but before Gil could speak, a small bell began to toll somewhere in the priory, with rapid light strokes. The Prior looked at the sky.

‘Is it that hour already? Sirs, madam, I’ll leave you. I’ve a lecture to deliver. Brother Thomas’s words on the Lombard, honey to the soul, wasted on the- Well, I’ll get a word wi you later, Gilbert. Brother George, come wi me.’ He offered a general blessing and strode off, the young friar following him.

As the paling gate clacked shut behind them, Gil replaced his hat and said politely to the Bishop, ‘I’d be glad of a moment to look about me afore we all crowd into the place, sir. Brother Dickon, I think you were among the first through the door? Can you show me how it all lay?’ He gestured to Socrates, ordering him to stay with Alys; the dog sat down beside her, but pointedly turned his head away.

‘Aye, well,’ said Brother Dickon, ‘there was little enough to see here in the outer chamber.’ He stepped over the threshold, lighting Gil into the little house. ‘All in order, as he’d left it when he retired, just the way you see it now.’ He held both lanterns high, then moved to open the shutters. The grey daylight made little difference. ‘There was a smell o smoke and burning, and Brother William our subprior found the inner door yonder was warm to the touch. We’d to smash the lock, as you see, maister, and then-’

‘A moment,’ said Gil. He stood still, looking about him. The outer chamber was adequately furnished, with a cushioned settle, two stools, a small table, a cold brazier. The walls were panelled with good Norway pine, the ceiling was of the same wood, and a small crucifix and several painted woodcuts of various martyrdoms hung next to the settle. Behind the door and on either side of the window were hangings cut down from a much larger tapestry. Gil moved to the window and sniffed at the woollen folds. They were musty, and rather damp, as could be expected when the house had not been heated for days, but the predominant scent was of smoke. He sniffed again, registering — was it woodsmoke? And incense? There was something else, something sweetish and unfamiliar, as Prior David had reported.

‘Aye,’ said Brother Dickon again. He gestured at the inner door. ‘Will you see the worst o’t, maister?’

The door swung in at his touch. Within was darkness, and a stronger smell of smoke and that strange sweetish smell, overlaid by incense. Gil took one of the lanterns from the lay brother and moved into the shadows, peering about him. As his eyes adjusted, the box bed emerged from the dimness, curtained in what looked like more of the same tapestry; beyond at its foot was a substantial kist, a stool beside it. Another stool lay overturned beside the dark hollow of the little hearth, and next to that was the pile of ashes which must be the remnants of the great chair.

‘And this is what you saw when you broke the door open?’ he asked.

‘This is what we saw. It’s no been touched, maister. Well,’ qualified Brother Dickon, ‘it’s been well smoked and sprinkled. Incense and holy water, to mak siccar. Forbye the kist was standing open, like as if he’d been searching in it for something, I closed it down mysel for fear o mice or worse.’

‘I take it you checked behind the bed.’

‘I looked there mysel. And fetched under it wi the crowbar and all. He was nowhere to be found in this chamber or the other, maister.’

‘There was a great crowd at the door, I think?’

‘There was.’ The lay brother paused for a moment, reckoning. ‘Ten or a dozen o us, by the time we got entry, and a course no all those cam in, several was still out in the yard. So he never hid hissel in the outer chamber and slipped out at our backs.’

‘Nor went up that chimney.’

‘It’s still blocked. A slate across it, well mortared in place; I had Dod get a good look by daylight. Right neatly done. It’s blocked this flue but no the one from the front chamber. There’s a wee crack o light visible, but nothing like the full width o the flue. Forbye the man Pollock would never ha got up a chimney, the way he was.’ Gil made an enquiring noise, still gazing round him, taking in the detail of the scene. Dickon asked: ‘Did, er, did Father Prior never gie you a description?’

‘No yet.’

‘Ah.’ Dickon lowered his voice. ‘He’d be my height, I suppose, and a wee thing broader in the shoulders, but long since gone to fat. Twice my weight, I’d guess, and a course it had went for his knees and his hips, and his legs was swoled like tree trunks. He wouldny use a stick, which would ha helped him, so he gaed about rolling like a drunken sailor, and groaning the whole time, complaining o the pain. Made him right birky, so it did, though there’s one or two said he’d aye been like that, a sour kind o man.’ He bent his head. ‘And here I’ll ha to confess this at Chapter o Faults, for it’s no charity to speak o the man so.’

‘Have you seen enough, Gilbert?’ asked the Bishop from the outer chamber. ‘I’d best get back to my diocese, seeing Prior David’s caught up wi his lecture, but-’ His voice tailed off as he peered over Brother Dickon’s shoulder into the dark space. ‘Christ and His saints preserve us all,’ he said after a moment, crossing himself. ‘Is that the man’s great chair, indeed? That heap of ashes? And yet the bed-curtains areny harmed? And truly no smell of brimstone or — or — ’

‘Aye,’ said Brother Dickon baldly. ‘Aye, it is, my lord,’ he added with more circumspection. ‘There’s a wee bit carving off the arm there, where it hasny quite burned up. Here, watch yoursel, maister,’ he added as Gil stepped forward incautiously. ‘The boards is right waxy, all round about — I’ve no notion where it’s come fro’. Watch and no slip.’

‘I can tell that,’ Gil said rather grimly, regaining his balance. ‘We need lights in here, and plenty o them. What I can see makes no sense.’

‘Indeed no,’ said Bishop Brown. ‘No sense at all. Why would the man set light to his chair, and vanish away like this, and leave the stool couped ower like that? And did you say the kist stood open, Dickon? And how would the chair burn to ashes and yet nothing else in the chamber catch light?’

Gil held the lantern high.

‘The ceiling’s marked above it,’ he said. ‘The flames have gone straight upwards, by the look o’t, and not spread out at all.’

‘The fire has been fierce,’ said Alys behind the Bishop. He looked over his shoulder, and turned, putting a hand to her elbow.

‘No, no, lassie, come away. It’s no fit — no need for you to trouble yoursel.’

‘Let her by, sir,’ said Gil. He could hear the dog snuffling in the outer room. ‘Her eye’s acute, she might see things I’d miss.’

‘I can see nothing,’ she said decidedly, ‘till we have more light. Why did the man have the window blocked, I wonder. It’s like a storeroom in here. And Socrates thinks there are rats in the place.’

‘I’d no be surprised. The window was afore my time,’ said Brother Dickon, ‘but I heard he was afeared o housebreakers fro outwith the Priory. Dod,’ he called.

‘Aye, Ser- Brother Dickon?’ answered his henchman from the outer door.

‘Away and fetch a couple o branches o candles. Six or eight lights, I’d say.’

The Bishop, nodding approval of this, stepped carefully into the inner chamber, holding his great velvet gown up about his knees.

‘Well,’ he declared, after a long look about him into the shadows, ‘I canny see aught that tells us what happened in here, nor what’s come to the man. I hope you can learn more, Gilbert, for I ken well you’ve a knack for it; that’s how Blacader made you his quaestor. But I’ll away now and be about my own duties. I’ll hold you in my prayers, the both o you, but I’m no so certain it’s right to keep your wife at your side, maister. I fear you may lead her into spiritual danger,’ he added in Latin.

‘We can keep each other safe from that,’ said Gil in Scots. ‘I wouldny dream o leading her anywhere,’ he added. ‘She’s her own mistress.’

The Bishop grunted, gathered his gown tighter about him, delivered a blessing with his free hand and swept out, checking briefly in the house doorway as he encountered Brother Dod with his arms full of ironwork and wax.

Even with eight candles alight, the small space was gloomy and full of leaping shadows. Moving cautiously on the greasy floorboards, Gil peered behind the box bed, bent to look under it, craned to see on top.

‘Tell me how the man lived,’ he said. ‘Lives. We have no proof of his death yet.’

‘How he lives?’ Brother Dickon, watching his movements, cocked his head to think about this.

‘Does he take any part in the life of the community?’ Alys asked. She was quartering the other portion of the chamber, touching the panelled walls fastidiously, peering into the empty hearth. Socrates was still in the outer room, blowing hard into a corner, the hackles standing up on his narrow back.

‘Too much,’ said Brother Dod.

‘Dod,’ said his senior warningly.

‘Aye, but he did, Ser- brother. He was aye into things, peching about like a bellows, asking what he’d no right to ken. It’s been fine and peaceful wi’out him.’

‘Dod!’

‘His food was sent across here,’ Alys prompted. ‘He never ate wi the rest of you?’

‘No him,’ said Brother Dickon unguardedly. ‘No, he reckoned his corrody paid for a richer diet than the community gets, so he would have that served to him, meat and fish and all sorts we’re no allowed, even on fast days. The amount of meat he ate in a day would ha fed my troop a week on campaign, I can tell you. And since the guest hall was empty this time o year it was carried to his lodging. It was the lad fetching his morning meat that found the place barred, ye ken, mistress.’

‘So Prior Boyd said,’ Gil commented. He set the light on the stool by the kist, lifted the lid, which creaked, and began to turn over the topmost layer of the goods it held. A remarkably good cloak, a bundle of parchments, more garments; several sets of tablets in their brocade or leather bags. Why did the man need so many tablets, he wondered. ‘And after he’d broken his fast, what did he do?’

‘As Dod says,’ said Dickon reluctantly. ‘He’d gae about the place, watching all what went on, asking ower many questions. Times he’d bring a stool out and sit afore his door in the sun, just keeping an eye. No this time o year, a course,’ he qualified.

‘Ans que vent ni gel ni plueva,’ said Gil absently.

Brother Dickon looked closely at him, then said, ‘Hah! Aye, wind and hail and rain aplenty here.’

‘And if he seen aught that didny conform,’ said Brother Dod in resentful tones, ‘it’d be wi Father Prior by Compline, or else he’d be at your elbow, speaking o what he’d remarked, wondering what it was worth no to report it.’

‘Is that so?’ Gil turned to look at the two lay brothers: Dickon, against the light, rigid with disapproval, and beyond him the younger man swelling with remembered indignation. ‘But what could he extort that way in a house o religion? You hold all your goods in common. There’s no way to get coin or valuables to him in return.’

‘Is that what happened to my good wax candles?’ Brother Dickon asked.

‘Might be,’ muttered Dod.

‘Privileges,’ said Alys. ‘Did — does the man go into the town?’

‘No a lot,’ said Dod in faint relief at the change of subject.

‘He’s no been fit for the walk in a year or two,’ said Dickon. ‘He’s had one or two callers, mind, folk that comes to visit him regular.’

‘I’ll need their names,’ said Gil. He tilted a set of tablets to the light. ‘Unless they’re in here.’

‘Billy Pullar,’ said Dickon thoughtfully, ‘was one o them, and Jaikie Wilson I mind. Journeymen, the both o them, to different craftsmen o the town.’

‘And Andrew Rattray?’

Both lay brothers looked sharply at him.

‘He’s no a townsman,’ said Dickon. ‘He’s one o ours. A novice, poor lad.’

‘Poor lad?’ Gil queried. ‘Why d’you say that?’

‘He’s in the jail,’ said Dod. Socrates slipped past him, his claws clicking on the greasy boards, and began sniffing about the chamber.

‘He’s in confinement,’ corrected Dickon. ‘Ever since-’ He stopped.

‘Ever since what?’ Gil asked.

‘Ever since he confessed,’ said Dod. ‘Faither Prior said he was best shut away, even if he didny do it.’

‘Confessed to what?’ Gil persevered. Socrates was pawing at something among the legs of the fallen stool, snuffling hard at whatever he had found. Gil snapped his fingers at the dog, but was ignored.

‘Confessed,’ said Dickon heavily, ‘at Chapter o Faults, to slaying our corrodian. Only since he couldny say clear how he did it or where the man’s corp might be, Faither Prior isny convinced, but like Dod says, he reckoned he’s best confined away fro his brothers.’

‘He never mentioned-’ Gil began.

‘Gil! Look what the dog has!’ said Alys in panicky French. Two strides took him to her side. She had brought her branch of candles over to light Socrates’ investigation, and now was pointing and staring wide-eyed. ‘A shoe! A shoe, with- with-’

‘Oh, God,’ said Gil, as the dog delicately mouthed his prize and came to offer it to him, his stringy tail waving proudly. ‘With a foot in it. And the,’ he swallowed, ‘the bone all burned.’

‘A foot?’ said Dod in disbelief. ‘How can it be a foot? Is it his? Where’s the rest o him?’

‘That’s what I’d like to ken,’ Gil said. Alys freed herself from his clasp with a precarious smile, and he looked at her closely, then bent to receive the dog’s find. It was, as she had said, a shoe, a well-worn sturdy item of local make, spread and twisted to accommodate the swollen foot which still inhabited it. In the light of the candles Alys still held, the flesh of the ankle showed black, crisp and shrivelled, and a spur of calcined bone stood out like a handle.

‘Good dog,’ Alys said shakily. ‘Clever dog.’ Socrates gave her a considering glance, then grinned, his teeth white in the flickering light.

‘It’s his shoe, all right,’ said Dickon. ‘Seen ’em often enough. But where’s the rest o him? If he’s been carried away wi the Deil right enough, why leave his foot ahint?’

‘I think this heap of ashes must be him,’ said Gil. Then: ‘Bear up, sweetheart. Do you want to go outside? Aye, he’s here, I’m afraid.’

The two lay brothers crossed themselves simultaneously, staring. Alys stepped back, away from the grey tumble of cinders, and reached for her beads.

‘Christ on a handcart,’ said Brother Dickon reverently.

‘But what,’ Dod swallowed, ‘here, I’ve seen folk that was burned to death. It’s no, it’s no a bonnie sight, but there’s a corp to be seen, no a heap o- a heap o ash like a bonfire. How come he’s burned to a cinder and the house still standing round him?’

‘That,’ said Gil grimly, ‘is what I mean to find out.’