The King's Corrodian

Chapter Thirteen

‘They did!’ agreed Brother Martin, and two more men agreed with him. Beside Mureson, Adam Calder was shivering, his teeth chattering, whether in shock or with the cold was not clear, for he was not wearing his cloak.

‘I saw him,’ he said, nodding eagerly. ‘I cam out the privy and there he was in front o me, all in shadow in one o our habits, and I yelled and he ran. That way,’ he gestured along past the Chapter House and the Prior’s study.

‘Did you see him?’ Gil asked Mureson.

‘We should hunt for him,’ said someone. ‘He must be in the kirk.’

‘I tell you he’s not,’ said someone else.

‘What, hunt for a madman wi a knife? In the dark?’

‘I was right behind Adam,’ said Mureson. ‘It was him got the bigger fright, but I near- I louped like a lassie when he yelled.’ His voice trembled, though he was not shivering. ‘Dear God, I think I’ll go to the Charterhouse the morn.’

‘Did either of you recognise him?’ Gil asked.

‘If we all go thegither we’ll be safe enough.’

‘N-no, I didny get a sight — it was all so quick!’ Calder’s teeth were chattering again.

‘You want torches for that,’ Tam said to the incipient search-party. ‘You aye need torches for a search like that.’

‘Will you come wi us, maister?’ someone asked.

‘I will not,’ said Gil. ‘If the fellow has any sense, he’s hastened up the night stair and he’s back in his bed and warm by now, and I’d advise all you gentlemen to do the same.’

‘Sound advice, Maister Cunningham,’ said the Prior, appearing behind Brother Martin. The young man yelped in alarm, and staggered back against his neighbour. His ghostly father glanced at him, than surveyed the rest of the group by the light of his small lantern. ‘What is this unseemly assembly about?’ he demanded from behind the light. ‘Why are so many of our community out their beds at this hour, making so much noise when you are supposed to be observing a strict silence?’ There was some shuffling, and a general murmur of apology and requests for forgiveness. ‘Brother Martin, can you explain?’

‘Brother Adam and Brother Sandy saw the murderer, Faither,’ supplied Brother Martin. ‘And the rest o us came down when we heard them yelling. We were just going to hunt for him when you-’

‘He went that way,’ said someone else.

‘He must be in the kirk, there’s naught else there!’

‘There’s the night stair, like Maister Cunningham said.’

‘The more talk there is the now,’ said Boyd, raising his voice a little, ‘the longer will the imposition of silence last.’

A silence fell immediately, into which Calder said, ‘But Faither, I was face to face wi him!’

‘Did you see him too, Brother Sandy?’ asked the Prior.

‘I was just behind Adam when he — no, I …’ Mureson tailed off.

‘Very well. You and Brother Adam, come wi me, and the rest o you, go back to your beds, and try to sleep between now and Matins. Unless anyone else feels he has anything to add?’ he finished, in a chilly tone which was far from encouraging.

‘Should we no hunt for him?’ said someone from the shadows. ‘He must be somewhere about!’ Several voices agreed with him.

‘As Maister Cunningham has said,’ the Prior pronounced over the objections, ‘the fugitive is likely back in his bed by now and getting warm. You’ll all do the same, if you please. Maister Cunningham, do you wish to question these two?’

‘I’d be glad of the chance,’ Gil admitted. ‘In your study, sir? I’ll follow you. I want a look round first.’

Boyd peered at him in the lantern-light but did not question this. Instead he waited while the gathering dissolved, its members slipping away one by one with murmurs of, ‘Mea culpa, Faither,’ and when the last had gone, turned and paced off down the length of the cloister. The two novices followed obediently.

Gil watched until they vanished into the Prior’s study, and said, ‘Dandy, see us those lanterns over here. Something went down, something metal.’

‘Metal?’ Dandy obediently approached with the light. ‘Did they really see the madman, Maister Gil?’

‘Something like this?’ Tam’s booted toe nudged an object on the flagstones. Gil swooped on it.

‘Indeed! And look what we have.’

They stared at the knife in his hand. A wooden handle, a long narrow blade, its edge curved with much sharpening, the point like a needle.

‘So he was here,’ said Tam. ‘I thought they’d just managed to fright themselves, maybe telling stories or the like, and fancied they saw him.’

‘No,’ said Gil, turning the wicked thing. ‘He was here all right.’

Sending Dandy back to the guest hall, with instructions to make sure the two novices still there returned to the dorter, Gil followed the Prior to his study. Here, by the extravagant light of three candles, Boyd was questioning Mureson and Calder. All looked round as Gil entered, but he signed to his kinsman to continue and found himself a seat, prepared to listen quietly. Tam took up position by the wall, the image of a well-trained servant.

‘So you were leaving the necessarium,’ Boyd said, ‘when you encountered a brother wi a knife, is that what you’re saying, Adam?’

‘Not quite, Faither.’ Adam Calder stood in an attitude of humility, hands tucked in his sleeves, head bent. ‘I’d just got there, reached the door, when I saw him. He was coming at me wi his knife, all ready to cut my throat. It was Brother Sandy was leaving.’

‘I was just opening the door, Faither,’ agreed Mureson. He had adopted the same pose, but now raised his head and shuddered in recollection. ‘I–I was taking care my lantern didny blow out, and there was this great skelloch outside the door, and afore I could close it this shadow leaped past and I near jumped out my boots, and Brother Adam fell against the door. So I yelled out and all, wi the fright, and Adam says, Did you see him? and I says, Who was it? and then the others cam down to see what was amiss.’

‘I see,’ said the Prior. ‘So, Adam, you saw the man with the knife, let out a skelloch, and Brother Sandy came out of the necessarium in the same moment, and let out another.’

Mureson nodded, and shuddered again, but did not speak. Calder said, ‘Aye, Faither.’

‘And then what?’

‘He ran off along the cloister, Faither, like I said.’

‘Sandy, did you see the man at all?’

‘I only saw his shadow, Faither,’ said Mureson. ‘It was,’ he bit his lip, ‘it was like a giant’s shadow. Magna atque terribilis.’

Boyd looked at Gil.

‘Maister Cunningham? Do you have questions for these two?’

‘I do,’ Gil said. ‘Adam.’ Calder turned towards him, head still bent. ‘Look at me, Adam.’ Calder raised his head, keeping his eyes downcast. ‘No, look at me,’ Gil insisted. ‘This is no moment for custody of the gaze.’ He waited until Calder met his eye, rather tentatively, and went on, ‘You had just reached the door of the privy when you saw this figure, is that right?’

‘It is, maister.’

‘What did you see? Can you describe it?’

‘Well …’ Calder hesitated. ‘It was one o ours, maister, for he was wearing a habit, and coming at me wi his knife in his hand, all ready to cut my throat, so I yelled out, and Sandy heard me and yelled out and all, and the madman just pushed past me so I fell against the door, and ran off instead o-’

‘Could you identify him?’

Calder shook his head.

‘No, maister. It could ha been near any o us, save maybe Faither, or Faither John, or Faither Henry.’

‘Why none of those?’

‘Well.’ Calder looked blank for a moment, then expanded his statement: ‘Faither was there later, and Faither Henry’s lying sick, and Faither John’s got his sleeping draught and besides, he’s a kenspeckle figure wi’s bald head shining.’

‘I see,’ said Gil. ‘So none o those three, but any other. And the knife? What like was that?’

‘I never got a right look at it,’ said Calder regretfully, ‘just a common kitchen knife, I think, wi a narrow blade.’

‘How long was it?’

‘Maybe so long?’ Calder held his hands out, forefingers eight inches or so apart.

‘So you had got to the door of the privy, and saw this figure coming at you wi the knife,’ Gil said. Calder nodded. ‘Where from? Where was he?’

‘From,’ Calder swallowed, and licked his lips, ‘from along by the side o the refectory. He was right on me when I saw him, but that’s where he was coming from.’

‘I see. Then you and Brother Sandy yelled, and the figure ran off down the cloister.’ Another nod. ‘Why did you not run after him? There were the two of you, after all.’

‘I — we’d got a fright, maister,’ said Calder reproachfully.

‘Adam,’ said the Prior in rebuke. Calder bent his head.

‘Mea culpa, Faither,’ he said. ‘But I think that was the reason, maister. We were that busy picking oursels up and I was telling Sandy what I’d seen, and then other folk heard us and came down. And then you was there, and then Faither came down and commanded us.’

‘You’re quite certain you didny recognise him,’ Gil said.

‘It was ower dark,’ Calder said, ‘and he just pushed past me, like I said. I’d not know him again, I saw so little. He was bigger than me, and he moved fast,’ he offered.

‘And he ran off down the cloister. Will you come out and show me how, the now? Where he went?’

‘Now? In the dark?’ Calder looked dismayed. ‘Those flagstones are no safe, maister. It’s one thing a madman running, I’d not care to try it wi no light, or even wi one of our lanterns.’

‘You don’t have your own lantern the now,’ Gil observed.

‘No, mine’s burning low, I wanted to save it for Matins. I just came down in the dark. The steps are easy enough, if you keep your hand to the wall. But as for running in the cloister, maister, I’d as soon not try it.’

‘Very well,’ said Gil. ‘It will do in the morning.’ He considered the novice for a long moment; Calder shifted uneasily under his gaze, and then bent his head in that attitude of humility again. Eventually Gil said, ‘I think we might let them get back to bed, Prior, do you?’

‘I’d be glad to, sir,’ said Calder, wriggling a little. ‘I never did get to the-’

‘Ah. Brother Sandy,’ said the Prior, ‘see Brother Adam to the necessarium, and then the pair of you get to your beds. There’s little enough time afore Matins.’ He raised his hand in a blessing, and the two young men bowed and said Amen. He watched them go, and when the door had closed behind them turned a face of exasperation to Gil.

‘What was that about?’ he demanded.

‘You tell me, sir,’ suggested Gil.

‘Hah! I wish I could! Is the lad deluded, or making himself important, or have they frightened themselves telling tales in the dorter? Does he merely want the attention of his elders and his peers?’

‘You saw that too?’ Gil shook his head. ‘Could be any of those, I suppose. The thing is, we found this, out there where he claims to have encountered the murderer.’ He drew the knife from his sleeve and laid it on the desk. Boyd recoiled, staring at it as at a basilisk.

‘Is that- aye, it must be, surely! A common kitchen knife wi a long blade.’ He tore his gaze from the weapon and looked at Gil in deep dismay. ‘Outside? Out on the ground here in the cloister? So he really was there.’

‘Aye,’ said Gil. ‘I think he was.’

‘You didny show this to Brother Adam,’ the Prior observed shrewdly.

‘Never put all your cards on the table at once,’ Gil said. ‘What I should like to do now, sir,’ he went on without looking at Tam, ‘is set a watch.’

‘Ah. You think the — the killer will come back for it?’

‘I do. He likely kens where it went down. I know I heard it rattle on the stones, from a few steps away. The rest were too busy arguing to pay attention. He’ll come back for it, rather than risk it being found in the morning and returned to the kitchen-’

‘With our brothers’ blood on it? Surely not!’ said Boyd in distress.

‘-leaving him without a weapon,’ Gil continued.

‘Aye, I see. Do you want one or two o the brothers to assist you? Brother Dickon, maybe? A handy man in a stushie.’

‘I’ll wager,’ Gil said. ‘No, I’d as soon keep the numbers down. The more men watching, the more likely we are to be noticed, to alert the quarry. I’d sooner you were aware of it, but I can do without anyone else. How do I find you if we do take him?’

‘My cell is the first on the left next the day stair, but I’ll no be sleeping. I’ll admit, I’ll be easier for knowing there’s a watch being kept.’ Boyd shook his head. ‘I never heard o sic a thing happening, anywhere in the Order. It grieves me sair it should happen here in Perth.’

‘Lightning can strike anywhere,’ said Gil. Hark at me, I am just as sententious as Brother Dickon, he thought, as he bent his head for the Prior’s blessing.

‘So who’s standing this watch?’ Tam asked quietly, watching Gil as he peered into the shadows under the cloister walk.

‘I will,’ said Gil. ‘Any that wishes can join me.’

‘Aye, well, I’d really relish going back to Glasgow to tell the Canon, much less madam your mother, how I’d let you get hurt for the sake o my night’s sleep.’ Tam moved along the side of the refectory after Gil. ‘So how much o that was an invention, the laddies had to tell us?’

‘How much do you think?’ Gil straightened up and looked at the man by the faint lantern-light.

‘If we hadny found the knife,’ said Tam after a moment, ‘I’d ha said all of it, but that makes it look as though this madman, or whatever he is, really was here.’

‘Aye,’ Gil agreed, and went back to the refectory door, set deep in its heavily carved archway. ‘I think this will have to do. It’s dark enough, it ought to hide you, and I’ll get beyond the day stair where that buttress is, and we should have him boxed in.’

‘I see your plan,’ said Tam after a moment. ‘As long’s he searches where we found the thing, we should have him.’

‘Aye, as long as,’ Gil said cynically. ‘You ken what happens to plans. Tam, go back to the guest hall, making a noise wi that gate, and let the other fellows know what’s ado. Bring back my cloak and your own and come as quiet as you can. And bid them get some sleep and relieve us after Matins,’ he added. ‘Hey, how the chevaldoures woke al nyght. No sense in two o us freezing our cods off when we can spread the pleasure about.’

‘Smells as if it’s like to snow,’ Tam observed, and set off along the cloister walk. Gil looked about him, standing quietly in the bitter dark, and listened carefully. Out in the burgh a dog barked, another answered, someone shouted at them. An owl screeched and was answered. Closer at hand someone was snoring, muffled behind the dorter windows, and something rustled in the grass in the cloister garden. The owl screeched again, and Tam approached quietly along the walkway, the two cloaks bundled in his arms.

‘Brought your gloves and all,’ he said, producing the felt mittens from under his arm. ‘Right. What’s the order o the night, then?’

‘I cannot believe how foolish you have been,’ said Alys in rapid, furious French, tugging at the bandages on Gil’s arm and chest. He yelped, and she loosened them slightly with gentle hands, though her voice did not change. ‘To put yourself in such a position, with only Tam to assist you, to catch your man and then to let him disarm you! Is that easier?’

‘It is,’ he said, attempted to flex the arm, and stopped. ‘It was the snow.’ She pulled her bedgown closer at the neck, glancing automatically at the window of the bedchamber, where the candlelight caught the flakes of snow whirling past, and snorted inelegantly. ‘Help me put my shirt back on, sweetheart.’

‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ she retorted. ‘You are to drink this and lie down and try to sleep.’

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I need to question the fellow. I promised young Rattray I would make his killer confess.’

‘Your shirt is not fit to wear,’ she said, ‘and I am not getting a clean one out of the baggage for you. Also, you are talking nonsense.’

He pushed Socrates’ head off his knee and got to his feet resignedly, waited a moment until the chamber stopped whirling, and bent to dig in the nearest of the bags. She watched, with an obstinate set to her mouth, until he turned dizzy again and nearly fell, when she exclaimed under her breath and came to support him back to sit on the bed. Socrates immediately leaned against his knee again.

‘You are not fit,’ Alys said. ‘Lie down, and I will question the prisoner.’

‘No, I need to deal with him,’ he said. He put his good hand up to touch her cheek. ‘Yes, I know I left you out of it and I’m sorry for that. Would you have had me wake you?’

‘Perhaps not,’ she admitted after a moment, and turned to search for a clean shirt. Jennet, wrapped in a blanket over her shift, came back into the chamber with a tray of steaming beakers. Nory followed her, cast one critical, assessing glance at his master and went to help Alys.

‘Here’s the buttered ale, mem,’ said Jennet, ‘and a good drop of usquebae to it and all. Did you no drink your other dose, maister?’

‘I’ll take that,’ he said, reaching for the tray. She held it out of his reach.

‘You’ll drink the other first.’

Wondering why women all turned into his old nurse when there was an injury to tend, he drank the bitter brew in the other beaker, and was handed his spiced ale as if it was a reward, but had barely tasted it when Nory emerged from the corner of the chamber with a clean shirt.

‘Come, we’ll help you into this,’ Alys said in Scots, ‘and I shall help question the prisoner too.’

‘Tam’s out there heating up his pilliwinks,’ said Jennet.

‘I hope there’ll be no need o that,’ said Gil repressively, allowing Nory to ease the shirt onto his bandaged arm. His injuries were not serious, he felt, though they had bled impressively, and Alys had cleaned the cuts well with more of the same usquebae. They were still stinging, despite the salve she had daubed on them before covering all with bandages begged from Brother Euan across the courtyard.

‘Drink your ale,’ she said, as she tied the strings of the shirt on his chest. ‘The spices are to engender blood to replace what you’ve lost, being hot and dry, and the ale will replace bodily moisture.’

‘And here I thought it was for comfort,’ he said.

‘That too.’ She looked at him critically, then kissed him quickly and said, ‘You’re not so bad as I feared. Will you put on the doublet, or do you prefer a loose gown?’

‘The doublet’s past wearing and all,’ he admitted. ‘Nory, d’you think you can patch it? Aye, the furred gown, sweetheart. My solsicle of swetnesse,’ he added quietly as she helped him into it.

Nory was inspecting the doublet, his prim mouth turned down.

‘I’m no leatherworker, maister,’ he warned them. ‘I’ll maybe speak wi Dandy about it, but I doubt you’re looking for a new one. Or you could line it wi taffeta,’ he added, ‘seeing what a thorough job he made o slashing it, and be in the fashion for once. Flame-coloured, maybe, to pull through the slashes in wee puffs.’

‘No my colour,’ said Gil, equally solemn. Alys giggled, on a faintly hysterical note, and fastened the hooks and eyes down the front of the gown for him.

‘Fair takes me back,’ Nory added. ‘My previous maisters, God rest their souls, ruined a few doublets this way, though they both favoured velvet and brocades ower the leather.’

The doublet was probably ruined right enough, Gil thought, but equally probably it had saved his life, considering the events of the last hour or two.

He and Tam had stood in the cold and dark for a long time, waiting, not moving, before the first flakes of snow flittered out of the black sky. The snowfall grew thicker quite quickly and began to lie, drifting into corners under the cloister walkway, catching on Gil’s cloak and boots. He watched it a little anxiously, wondering whether it would make him more or less noticeable here in the shadows. The black cat slipped along the cloister in search of mice, his white patches faint in the little light there was, paused with a paw lifted in a patch of snow to consider him, then padded on into the shadows.

When he finally heard a footstep, it was from the direction he had least expected of those possible. A scuffle, the clink of a latch away to his right, and the door at the foot of the night stair eased open. There was cautious movement; the door closed, very quietly. No point in risking the cold draught waking a brother, Gil thought approvingly. All along this had been done with care and planning; he had never been convinced that the killer was mad, only that he was working, with a warped but definite intelligence, to some deep private plan.

Quiet steps sounded. Standing well back in the corner between the buttress and the wall, Gil kept as still as he might, hoping his face was well shadowed by the collar of his cloak. Even in here in the midnight under the cloister’s vaulted roof, a face might be noticed, eyes might glitter in a stray gleam.

His quarry moved quietly past him, a flurry of snow outlining the double blackness of cloak and cowl against the night, past the foot of the day stair, past the necessarium. In the corner of the cloister the footsteps paused, there was a small metallic sound, a narrow beam of light sprang out from one of the friars’ small lanterns. The dark figure bent over the light, swinging it to and fro, its weak yellow glow picking up the uneven flagstones. Gil eased himself away from the wall, slid the felt mittens off his hands, drew his dagger. Tam should be about in place by now-

‘Looking for something?’ Tam asked from beyond the searching figure.

The lantern dropped with a clatter and the searcher straightened up and gasped.

‘Oh, brother, you-’ he began, took in Tam’s un-habited outline in the last flicker of the candle, and turned to make for the day stair, straight into Gil’s arms.

Sidestepping a vicious punch, Gil chopped backhanded with the pommel of his dagger at the back of his opponent’s neck. Thick folds of black woollen cowl made the blow less than effective; the other’s knees gave, briefly, then he recovered and seized Gil’s arm, whirling away as he passed. Gil went with the move, spun the searcher round into Tam’s grasp, wrenched free and as Tam hoisted the other’s arm up behind his back got a good handful of the black cloak and pressed the point of his dagger into the man’s ribcage.

‘Hold still, will you!’ Tam said, but the captive twisted out of his grasp, one knee jerked, Tam slid on a patch of snow and fell back cursing breathlessly.

Gil tightened his grip on the cloak, pushed the dagger point more intently into the man’s ribs, and said, ‘Be still! Is this what you were looking for?’

He jabbed the dagger again, and before Tam, recovering, could join the fight their opponent twisted about again, moved his arm sharply within the cloak, jerking the dagger out of Gil’s hand. It rattled on the flagstones, and all three of them pounced on it. Gil’s head collided with someone else’s and the world retreated sharply.

When it returned he was kneeling, pain stabbing in his arm and side, a harsh-breathing shadow dark above him just striking again. He lunged sideways, his own dagger whistling past his ear, found someone’s knee beside his shoulder, managed to get his arm behind it and yanked hard. The foe collapsed on top of him, and Tam fell on top of all, driving the wind from Gil’s chest. This time Tam kept hold of the captive, and contrived to stun him with a punishing blow to the side of the head.

‘I’ve got him! Help me bind him, maister!’ he said. Gil staggered to his feet and went to Tam’s aid, but his hand seemed to be wet and slippery with something, and the cloister was swinging about badly. They got their captive secured with his own belt, as Raitts had been. Tam drew out his tinderbox and began striking a light, and as Prior Boyd and half his flock emerged from the day stair, succeeded in lighting the candle in the dropped lantern.

‘Aye, Brother Adam,’ he said, holding the light down to see who they had caught. ‘Got a fresh candle, did you? This one’s never burnt out, it’s all but new.’

‘Brother Adam,’ said the Prior, staring down at the kneeling prisoner. ‘What have you done, my son?’

Adam Calder raised his battered head.

‘I did nothing, Faither,’ he said, through split lips. ‘These two attacked me here outside the privy. See how they’ve beaten and bound me, Faither.’

‘Aye,’ said Tam grimly, ‘and see how you’ve let my maister’s blood. Maister Gil, you’re bleeding all ower the snow.’

Prior Boyd, having led Matins, appeared in the guest hall as Gil emerged from the chamber where he had been washed and bandaged. The Prior came in some state, attended by the novice-master Father John Blythe, the subprior Robert Park, Brother Dickon, and several others, all grim-faced, though one or two were suppressing yawns.

‘We have not yet questioned Brother Adam,’ Boyd said in his elegant Latin, once he had ascertained that Gil was not seriously injured. ‘Before I speak to him, I wish to hear, and for these others to hear, what you witnessed and why you seized and bound him.’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Gil waited until the Prior was seated, and sat down rather heavily himself. ‘He was searching, as I surmised, where the knife had been dropped.’

‘But anybody who was there earlier could ha dropped the knife!’ exclaimed the subprior in Scots. ‘Or maybe he was seeking something else!’

‘He came back for the knife,’ Gil said. ‘He knew it was there. Nobody else did.’

Park seemed inclined to argue, but Brother Dickon said, ‘And he ran when you spoke to him, did he no?’

‘He did,’ Gil agreed.

‘And did that to you when you stopped him,’ said the Prior, nodding at the sling which supported Gil’s bandaged arm. ‘That alone is cause to question him, never mind what more actions he is to be accused o committing.’

‘Has he said anything yet?’ Gil asked.

‘No according to my lads,’ said Brother Dickon drily, ‘other than protesting that he’s no guilty, he’s much to be commended.’

‘Commended?’ repeated the subprior. ‘Our Lady save us, what’s to commend about his behaviour? How is he to be commended?’

Adam Calder, it transpired, was shut away in the space newly vacated by Alexander Raitts, and guarded by a different pair of Brother Dickon’s men. While enough seating was found for all who required to be seated, mainly in the shape of the bench for patients, hastily borrowed from the new infirmary, Brother Dickon shook snow off his cloak so that it hissed and whined in the brazier, and interrogated his minions.

‘Aye, he was kinna difficult to get shut away,’ Brother Eck agreed. ‘Fought us like a wildcat, he did, and still crying out that he wasny to be arrested, he was to be commended, Faither would ken when he heard all.’

‘That’s what we’re here for, to hear all,’ said the Prior grimly, ‘though I doubt I’ll be commending him for any o’t. The poor laddie must be mad indeed.’

Escorted out of the inner chamber, still bound, Calder gave cause to think the Prior must be right. He seemed elated, lit from within by a fire of confidence in his actions which was proof against the manifest disapproval of the row of senior Dominicans who faced him. Instead of dropping to his knees, or better still onto his face, he stood with his head high and smiled expectantly at them.

‘Well, Adam,’ said the Prior. ‘Can you account for your actions?’

‘My every action has been for the good of the Order,’ Calder declared, in rather shaky Latin.

‘For the good of the Order?’ repeated Boyd. ‘My son, to begin with the least of your offences, how was the theft of a knife from our kitchen for the good of the Order?’

‘A necessary evil,’ said Calder, ‘trivial in respect of the whole. I required an implement.’

The subprior and John Blythe exchanged glances. Boyd did not look round. Gil, seated at the end of the bench, found himself admiring his kinsman’s abilities again; David Boyd was not a natural leader but he was a clear thinker, a powerful intellect, and this was now bent on his novice.

‘For what did you require an implement, Adam?’ he asked gently. ‘And we’ll speak Scots, if you please.’

‘To prune away the rotten branches,’ said Calder, in Latin, as if the answer was obvious.

‘In Scots, please, my son. What branches are these?’

‘Why, those that bear deformed fruit, or no fruit at all. They must be cut away, before they infect the rest of the vine.’

‘Explain yourself,’ said Boyd, his tone becoming grimmer. ‘Make matters plain to us. What branches have you cut away, my son?’

‘Only the two as yet,’ said Calder in Scots, with a sudden descent into regrets. ‘But those were rotten indeed, Faither. The one was stealing from our tenants in the town, and keeping the usufruct to his own use, and the other presented himsel as a clever student, one you all favoured, one you said was like to be a famous preacher-’

Was that a note of bitterness, Gil wondered, of envy. Was that at the root of his mission?

‘Andrew Rattray was one of the most promising novices this house has seen in many years,’ said Father John.

‘There, you see? He made fools o you all! Andrew Rattray had a mistress in the town. He kept her image in a secret place under his bed, a lewd drawing indeed wi her and her bairns in it, and went out to her every week. How’s that for your promising novice?’ There was no mistaking the vindictive tone now.

Gil leaned forward. ‘The lady whose portrait Andrew kept,’ he said, ‘was his sister. I’ve spoken wi her. She’s a Christian woman, a widow, and Andrew was her only kinsman.’

Everyone turned to stare at him in a moment of amazement. Calder recovered first.

‘And if that’s so, how did he no tell Faither Prior about her, and get permission to visit her openly? Why the secrecy?’

‘There are good reasons,’ Gil said, ‘which are not your business. The fact remains you removed a promising branch which would have borne fruit for the Order, and thereby brought grief to a courageous lady and left her bairns unprotected.’ And what a chilling way to describe a death, he thought.

‘What about setting fire to the infirmary?’ asked the subprior. ‘Why did you do that, to the great sorrow and hurt o this community, and the loss o our Infirmarer, no to mention all his stock o salves and simples?’

‘It had to be done,’ said Calder reasonably, ‘if the Deil was to come and carry off Andrew’s soul the way he deservit.’

‘Adam. Are you openly admitting,’ said David Boyd, ‘that you killed Andrew Rattray, and by that means brought about the imminent death of Faither James? That you killed Thomas Wilson in cold blood, unconfessed, to the danger of his immortal soul? That you stabbed Father Henry, your teacher?’

Calder’s face changed, and he looked away.

‘Aye. Well. That wasny — he ought no to ha ordered me to desist. I’m about God’s work and St Dominic’s here!’

‘Are you admitting that you slew these two of your brothers?’ repeated the Prior.

‘Aye, I slew them. They had to be removed, you must see that.’

‘What gave you the thought that you were fit to judge them?’ asked John Blythe mildly, the candlelight gleaming on his bald crown. Calder gave him a glittering smile.

‘Why, Faither, it was what you tellt us, right at the beginning. How a Dominican must be obedient to the Rule, and bend all his thoughts to complying wi it.’

‘And what makes you think,’ said Father John, ‘that you understand the Rule well enough to assay anyone’s obedience to it, when you areny obedient to it yoursel?’

Calder bridled at that, drew himself up as well as he could with his hands bound before him, and said indignantly, ‘The Rule’s my dearest companion, the lodestar o my life. Item, take note,’ he declaimed, going into a better Latin than his own, ‘that this office calls for excellency of life, so that just as the preacher speaks from a raised position, so he may also preach the Gospel from the mountain of an excellent life. How can you say I’m no obedient to that?’

‘You dare,’ said Father John, with a sudden icy crackle in his voice, ‘you who have wantonly, savagely, killed two of your brothers, you dare to quote Humbert of Romans as your guide?’

‘I was neither wanton nor savage!’ retorted Calder indignantly. ‘I made certain that Andrew never kent what happened, though he deserved it, and I executed Thomas at one thrust, wi all possible mercy. You’ll never call that wanton?’

Father John bent his head and crossed himself, then turned helplessly to his Prior.

‘What can we do, Davie?’

David Boyd looked for the first time at his colleagues to right and left, and then at Gil, who shook his head slightly.

‘This is beyond our competence, I think,’ said the Prior. ‘Adam, you must be confined, for what you’ve done is no healing surgery but a great blow to the Order and a great wickedness. I’ll ha to write to the Provincial Prior in Edinburgh for advice, and to the Bishop. You may pass your time in reflection on the sin o pride, and in praying that you be not released to the secular arm, for they will certainly hang you for murder and arson.’

‘Take him within, lads,’ said Brother Dickon. Protesting wildly, shouting his innocence and good intentions to the world, Calder was dragged back into the inner chamber and its door closed firmly against him. The Prior rose, and everyone else perforce rose with him.

‘I commend you all to your beds,’ he said heavily, ‘to get what sleep you can afore Prime. As for me, I’ll be in the kirk, asking forgiveness for whatever failings, in mysel and in our community, have led our brother into sic misdeeds and foul ways of thinking.’

And Sir Silvester Rattray, Gil recalled with a sinking feeling, was to call in the morning.