The King's Corrodian

Chapter Four

Waiting on the stone bench outside the door to the Prior’s chamber, Gil considered the situation gloomily. He had barely begun to approach the question of who might have killed Pollock, let alone how it might have happened, and now the community was shaken by this double disaster. No saying whether his kinsman would see it as obvious that he should investigate both matters; the novice’s death might be considered an internal matter. And what was Alys doing, he wondered. He had hoped she might have some success questioning the lay servants, who would not have the same objections to talking to a woman as their masters, but after dinner she had dosed everyone in sight with her newly concocted throat medicine, which he had to admit had helped, and then she had disappeared without explanation.

There was someone with the Prior just now; he could not make out the words, but the mumble of voices seemed to be Scots rather than Latin. After a time one of them grew louder, as if the speaker drew nearer to the door. The latch stirred, and the door opened a crack.

‘You’re a fool if you think so, Davie,’ said a forceful voice. ‘It has to be dealt wi, and sooner than later.’ Prior Boyd said something indistinct. ‘Aye, I’ll leave you.’ The door flung wider and a tall Dominican emerged, checked briefly at sight of Gil, then flung over his shoulder, ‘Here’s your man waiting. Better face up to it, Davie.’

Nodding to Gil, he strode off, his white scapular flapping energetically. Gil rose, and tapped on the door-frame. Within the chamber, Prior Boyd looked up from a scrutiny of his clasped hands on the reading-desk.

‘Aye, Gil,’ he said wearily. ‘Come in. We need to talk.’

‘We do, sir,’ Gil agreed.

Despite this, Boyd did not seem in a hurry to speak. He sat for some time, still gazing at his hands. Gil sat equally silent, waiting, and at length the Prior looked up.

‘Henry has the right of it,’ he said, nodding towards the door. ‘It must be dealt wi, no matter the grief it brings us.’

‘What, the boy’s death?’ Gil asked. His kinsman grunted agreement. ‘Aye. It’s a bad business, sir,’ he added conventionally.

‘Very.’ The Prior rose and took a jerky turn about his study, hands moving wildly, clutching at nothing, until he thrust them into the opposite sleeves. ‘I am able to see the implications of these events,’ he said, switching to Latin. ‘The convent is closed at night, the servants go home or sleep in their own quarters. It must have been one of this community who cruelly slew our brother and set fire to our infirmary. The conclusion is odious, but it is not to be avoided.’

‘Very true.’

Boyd turned and gazed across the chamber, light from the window catching the silver hair about his tonsure.

‘How do we proceed, Gilbert?’ he asked helplessly. ‘I have no experience of such violence within a community. It seems to me worse than the matter of our corrodian. I suppose there is no doubt that the young man was slain deliberately,’ he added in faint hope.

‘None whatever,’ said Gil firmly. ‘His throat was cut — you saw the wound yourself. I suspect he was killed while he slept, and then the fire was set, I believe to make us think it was the same circumstance as the corrodian’s.’ Whatever that is, he thought.

‘But why?’ asked Boyd in Scots. ‘Why kill the boy, sic a promising novice, and why the need to make us think it was the same as the other?’

‘I hope we can find out the answers,’ said Gil. ‘You spoke to young Rattray last night, I think. Did anyone visit him after that? Apart from whoever killed him,’ he qualified, before Boyd could speak.

‘Best ask the Infirmarer for that.’ Boyd shook his head. ‘If you can get sense out o him. Poor James, he’s right shocked by the whole thing.’

‘How was the young man when you saw him?’

The Prior returned to his desk and sat down, apparently as much to delay answering as for any degree of comfort. After a space he said, ‘He was much as he has been since I confined him.’

‘And how was that?’ Gil persevered. ‘I never met him. What sort of a laddie was he?’

‘Oh, very bright. Very promising. A fine intellect,’ said Boyd, and repeated the phrase a couple of times. Gil waited. ‘But,’ the Prior said at length, ‘maybe too much sail on for his draught, if you take my meaning. No that steady afore the wind.’

‘Devout?’

‘Passionately. He’d asked for one o the wee figures o Our Lady to be in his cell wi him, and he spent a lot o the last weeks on his knees afore her.’

‘Why?’ Gil asked bluntly.

‘Who can say? He did not, at all events.’

‘And why did he claim to be guilty o the corrodian’s death? Did he say the man was dead?’ Too many questions, he thought, but Boyd bent his head and gave them consideration.

‘When Andrew first confessed,’ he said eventually in Latin, ‘his words were, Brothers, I ask forgiveness, for I have sinned by causing the vanishing away of our corrodian. This caused some consternation in Chapter, you may conceive, and I judged it well to isolate the young man and question him myself. I asked him many times how he had achieved this, but he seemed unable to offer any means, only repeating that he was guilty by reason of his hatred for the man.’

‘Why did he hate him?’ Gil asked.

‘This he did not say, though I asked him repeatedly. I hoped the protection of Our Lady in the form of her statue might bring him to rational thought and proper confession, but this had not occurred when I last — ’ his voice cracked ‘- last spoke with him.’

‘Did you tell him we had discovered Pollock’s,’ Gil selected a word carefully, ‘remains? That the man wasny carried away by the Devil or anyone else?’

‘I did.’ The Prior contemplated his clasped hands again. ‘He seemed astonished, as we all were. He repeated my words: The man was burned to ashes? In his house? Then he crossed himself, and said, So he is truly dead. Then he looked frightened, and flung himself on his knees before Our Lady and fell to his prayers. I judged it best to leave him.’ He sighed. ‘I wish I had questioned him more closely now.’

‘He looked frightened,’ Gil repeated.

‘More than that. Horrified, perhaps. Aye, I would say horrified. Poor laddie. I feel I failed him.’

‘Did he have enemies? Any who disliked him within the convent? Or any particular friends?’

‘This is-’ Boyd checked himself. ‘I would have said this is a house of brothers, living together in harmony. Clearly this is not so, but I do not know of any enemies the young man had. His friends were the other novices, with whom he experienced great fellowship and amity.’

Gil, resolving to question the other novices, waited for a moment and then said, ‘What opportunity could one of the community have to leave the dorter and go about the place by night, into the kitchen or into the infirmary?’

The Prior glanced at him, and back down at his hands.

‘The Rule,’ he said heavily, ‘forbids it. Since we are clearly dealing with one to whom the Rule is an irrelevance, I should say every opportunity. The door is not locked. The stairs are shallow, and familiar. There was no moon last night, but each man has a lantern, to light the way down for Prime, or to go out to the necessarium. The only risk, I should suppose, would be in disturbing one of his fellows. Brother Augustine sleeps in the lay brothers’ dorter, the kitchen servants sleep out in the suburb this side of the town, so access to the kitchen would be easy enough. You think that was the knife that was used?’

‘It seems the simplest conclusion. Brother Dickon has set two o his men to search for it, though God knows it’s a small enough thing to find in a place this size.’

The Prior nodded wearily.

‘I have required at Chapter that the miscreant confess, and also that any who know or suspect anything come to me privily, citing the urgent need for confession and penance. If I receive any information I will pass it to you immediately, if I am able.’

Gil nodded.

‘Thank you, sir. And the Infirmarer?’ Gil said. ‘Did he hear or see anything before the fire took hold?’

‘Better ask him yoursel.’ Boyd’s mouth twisted in what seemed like grief. ‘The sub-infirmarer will help you get a word. I think you had best not wait too long about it.’

The sub-infirmarer was the man Gil remembered, a tall fellow with a soft Ersche voice and a calm manner which was slightly fractured just now. The house two along from Pollock’s had become a makeshift infirmary, with a fire blazing in the grate of the outer room, one lay brother tearing and rolling bandages and another pounding something in a mortar on a small table barely equal to the task. A covered dish set by the fire was producing an eye-watering scent of cloves.

It seemed to be the consulting hour, for three friars sat in a row on a bench by the wall while the sub-infirmarer himself listened to Brother Archie coughing.

‘And it’s still coming up black?’ he said as Gil entered the house.

‘It is that,’ agreed Archie hoarsely, and coughed again.

‘There’s little enough I have to give you,’ said the sub-infirmarer in vexed tones. ‘Just this throat mixture of Mistress Mason’s, and that will not be lasting for ever. And the clove decoction when it’s cooled.’

‘Easy enough to make some more o the throat mixture, I’d ha thought,’ said Gil.

‘Good stuff, it is, too,’ Brother Archie remarked. ‘Right soothing, for all it’s full o pepper, she said.’

‘Pepper has great virtues,’ said the sub-infirmarer, measuring out a spoonful from the flask. ‘Come back later,’ he directed, as he tipped it into Brother Archie’s compliant mouth, ‘and you can have some clove decoction. And take care. If you get out of breath, you should sit down till it is passing off. I was telling Brother Dickon the same thing,’ he added, seeing argument in his patient’s eye, ‘so you may be reminding one another of it.’

‘Aye, right,’ said Archie. He adjusted his black scapular and got to his feet. ‘Thanks for that, Brother Euan.’ He nodded to the waiting friars and to Gil, and picked his way out. Brother Euan straightened up and looked at Gil. ‘Is it urgent?’ he asked. ‘Only there is these fellows,’ he indicated his patients, ‘and I must be checking on Brother James.’

‘I was hoping for a word wi Brother James,’ Gil said.

‘Oh.’ Brother Euan pulled at his ear. ‘No so easy, maybe. Come ben, we’ll see if he’s improved at all.’

The inner chamber was also warm, with a fire burning in the grate. Thin daylight came in at the window and showed a kist, two or three stools, and two plank cots like the one Gil had slept in last night; in one of these the Infirmarer lay, propped on a hard backboard, and beside the fire, legs stretched comfortably to the blaze, sat Euan Campbell. As Gil stepped in he scrambled to his feet, an ingratiating grin on his face.

‘Maister!’ he said. ‘I came for a word wi Brother Euan here, like you were saying, but he’s as busy, what wi the fire. Minding the Infirmarer, the poor man, is the most help I can be for him. You see how he is.’

‘I do,’ said Gil, studying the sick man. He lay unmoving, limp against the supporting board, eyes half open, his breathing rough and rapid, and did not respond even when Brother Euan touched his shoulder and spoke to him. ‘Sweet St Giles, how long’s he been like this?’

‘Since afore Terce, maybe,’ said Brother Euan. ‘He was fine after the fire, for all he was so distressed, but when we were all to be rising for Terce I found him like this. We were moving him down here when we set up after the Office.’ He gestured about him to indicate his temporary quarters. ‘I’ve dosed him wi what I can find in the kitchen, but valerian would be the best thing and that’s hardly a kitchen herb.’

‘Can Euan no go into the town for you?’ Gil offered, with faint malice. ‘If you gave him a list he could call at the apothecary. Or maybe the Infirmarer at one o the other houses would help.’

‘I was never thinking of that,’ said Brother Euan. ‘It would be a big help. I could be making up a list, easy, and Brother Edward would give us coin for it.’ He bent to his superior and shook the old man’s shoulder more firmly. ‘Brother James! James! Wake up, man!’

A crease appeared between Brother James’s brows, and he swallowed slightly but did not seem to rouse. Gil hooked one of the stools closer with his foot, and seated himself by the head of the bed.

‘A dose of the throat mixture, maybe?’ he suggested. ‘Milk? Water, even? Then you could get back to your patients. Euan, get a list from Brother Euan and get out into the town. And never a word out yonder of who it’s for,’ he cautioned. ‘You can tell the other religious houses what’s amiss, but best if nobody about the town connects you too close wi the Blackfriars.’

‘Never fear, Maister Gil,’ said Euan, innocence shining on his cheekbones. ‘I’ll keep all right, and never be letting a word slip. And when I get back,’ he added, pausing in the doorway, ‘I can maybe be getting a word wi another Ersche speaker that’s here, so Brother Euan is telling me, that is a McIan and likely will be glad to hear o Ardnamurchan.’

In a little while Brother Euan returned with a beaker of warm milk. It smelled herbal, though Gil could not identify the receipt. With some difficulty the sub-infirmarer coaxed a few mouthfuls down his superior’s throat, but finally he straightened up and said, ‘That ought to be helping him, but I should see to the fellows out by. A strange thing, it is: those who assisted at the fire, they were fine last night when we finally retired, but the day they are presenting to me with breathing troubles, sore throats, pains here,’ he rubbed his breastbone. ‘And all our simples and linctuses gone up in smoke.’

‘Where were you sleeping last night?’ Gil asked. Brother Euan bent his head and crossed himself.

‘We have been taking it in turns,’ he said, ‘while the poor laddie was confined. One of us was in the infirmary the whole time. Last night it was Brother James’s turn, and I was sleeping in my cell in the dorter.’

‘Was that generally known?’

‘Och, yes. I was talking about it after supper, for one, and we’ve been taking turn about ever since he was confined, as I was saying.’ He shook his head and looked away. ‘Much do I regret it.’

‘You think you would have woken sooner?’ Gil asked.

‘I know it.’ He glanced at his superior, who seemed slightly less withdrawn, and touched his ear. Gil grimaced. ‘The laddie might not be dead if I had been there.’

‘Whoever killed him might simply have waited for the next chance,’ Gil pointed out. Brother Euan considered this, crossed himself again, and went back to the outer chamber. Gil lifted the cup and touched Brother James’s shoulder as Brother Euan had done.

‘A wee drop more?’ he suggested.

The old man accepted two sips of the cooling milk, and then a third. Then he turned his face away from the cup.

‘No more — now,’ he whispered. Gil set the cup down by the leg of the bed, and took one of the thin dark-spotted hands. ‘Who — who?’

‘Who am I? I’m Gil Cunningham. The quaestor.’

‘Ah.’ Brother James’s eyes opened, peering up at Gil. ‘Oh, aye. Questions?’

‘I have, sir. Are you well enough to hear them?’

‘I’ll no be — better.’

‘I hope you will,’ said Gil, though he doubted it. The hand in his tightened briefly, and the mouth twitched. ‘What woke you last night, sir? When did you know there was a fire?’

‘The light. Flames. Light.’

‘You mean the light from the flames woke you?’ A small nod. ‘So the fire had a good hold already?’

‘Aye.’

‘So you rose and ran out to give the alarm?’

‘Aye.’ The old man’s eyes closed, and after a moment tears leaked from the corners. ‘Shame. Ashamed. Duty of …’

‘You owed the young man a duty of care,’ Gil supplied. The hand in his tightened slightly. ‘But he was already dead. Whoever killed him set the fire hoping to conceal his deed. You did the right thing in raising the alarm quickly, or more of the Priory could have burned.’ An idea came to him. ‘Perhaps Our Lady made use of your frailty, to protect those still living.’

Brother James’s mouth twitched again, but he said nothing to that.

‘Can you mind last night, before you all retired? Who visited the infirmary? Faither Prior came to speak to young Rattray, I ken that, but was anyone else in the place?’

After a moment, Brother James whispered, ‘Robert. Henry.’ He swallowed. ‘Sandy — Sandy Munt. Other Sandy. Librarian.’

‘Five?’ said Gil. ‘Is that usual?’

‘Four. Rheum.’

‘Did anyone else speak to Rattray, apart from the Prior? Last night, or at other times?’

‘Henry. Teacher. Confessor.’

‘Right,’ said Gil. He lifted the beaker of milk. ‘Another wee mouthful?’

While the old man took another sip, and another, Gil considered the situation. At length, setting the cup down again, he asked, ‘Did Rattray ever say anything to you about just how he caused the man Pollock to vanish?’

Brother James frowned, working the question out, but then whispered, ‘No. Just — guilty. Spent his time — knees. Our Lady.’

‘So Faither Prior said and all,’ Gil said. He disengaged his hand from the old man’s, and sat back. ‘I’ll leave you, sir. Brother Euan will likely send someone in to sit by you. God send you mend from this, whatever ails you.’

A very slight nod was his answer, but the hand he had released moved in what might have been a blessing. Gil said Amen and went out to the other chamber, where the line of patients was no shorter but the lay brothers were now working together on another herbal concoction. Brother Euan looked up from dressing a burn.

‘George,’ he said to the young friar under his hands, ‘when I finish with this you can be sitting with Brother James for a bit. Can I help you more, maister?’

‘Not the now,’ said Gil, in answer to the tone rather than the question. ‘I could do wi a word when you’ve the time, but later will do fine. Who would he mean by Brother Henry?’

‘Faither Henry,’ corrected Brother Euan and his patient at the same time. ‘He is Lector principalis,’ Brother Euan continued. ‘And novice-master.’

‘I seen him in the library the now,’ offered the patient.

‘Now there’s a surprise,’ said one of the waiting line.

‘Robert,’ said Gil, checking the names off on his fingers. ‘Sandy Munt. And Sandy the librarian.’

‘Robert Aikman?’ said George. ‘Second-year man, same as me.’

‘Or Father Robert the subprior?’ said someone else.

‘And Sandy Munt’s a first-year novice,’ continued George.

‘Sandy Raitt’s the librarian,’ said the third man on the bench.

‘Now, he’ll certainly be in the library,’ said the first.

The library was comfortingly familiar, with its row of shelves and scent of worn leather bindings, and at this hour of the day, when most were free to pursue the studies which were a great part of the purpose of the Order, it was full. A few people raised their heads when Gil entered, but only the librarian continued to glare at him as he picked his way between the tables and reading-desks.

‘This is a private library!’ he hissed as Gil reached him. ‘We canny have everyone running in and out! There was women in here this morning!’

So Alys did get in, Gil thought, schooling his expression. She didn’t mention that.

‘I am in search of Father Henry,’ he said quietly in Latin. The librarian scowled at him, but someone at a nearby reading-desk looked up and caught Gil’s eye — the tall, decisive man who had left the Prior’s study earlier.

‘I am Henry White,’ he said, ‘instructor of the Dominican young. How may I help you?’

‘I hope you may instruct me, sir,’ said Gil.

In the guest hall the Blackfriars servants had kept the fire going, and Socrates and the big black cat from the kitchens were sharing the hearth, at a cautiously formal distance from one another. Father Henry seated himself, refused ale, studied first Socrates and then Gil carefully, and then nodded.

‘I had the pleasure of speaking wi your wife earlier,’ he said. ‘To something I remarked to her she replied, My husband would say the same. I see why she said it.’

Gil raised one eyebrow, but no further explanation was forthcoming. Instead the other man sat back, watching him for a moment, and then said, ‘You want to know about young Rattray, I take it?’

‘Among other things,’ Gil agreed. ‘Father Prior has given me one account of the lad, I’d like to hear another.’

‘Hmm.’ Father Henry looked down at his hands folded on his lap. ‘A loss to the Order. A very promising young man.’ He crossed himself and murmured a prayer. Socrates rose to sit down beside him, and nudged his free hand.

‘Was he really?’ Gil asked when he was done. ‘Or is that simply what you’ll say to his kin?’

‘He has no kin, I believe,’ said White, absently scratching the dog’s chin. ‘But aye, he was genuinely promising. The most o our intake is townsmen, you understand, but this year we’ve three sons o landholders, none o them baronial maybe but more cultured, more educated, than we generally get. Calder, Rattray and Mureson. Rattray’s family held land over near Montrose, and I’d ha said he was the most able o the three, the most flexible in his thinking. An ardent soul, perhaps, burning ower bright for his own good at times, but wi a great grasp o the works o Brother Thomas, and a considerable understanding o church history. Some o the questions he asked in class were deep, very deep.’

‘So what did you think o his claim to have caused Pollock’s vanishing?’

After a pause, White said simply, ‘I didny ken what to think.’ Gil made a questioning noise. ‘Oh, I never thought he had aught to do wi’t in reality, but the boy was convinced he was instrumental, though he couldny bring himself to say how.’

‘Couldny bring himself?’ Gil repeated. That was not what Father Prior had told him. ‘You mean he said as much?’

White looked down at the flagstones beside him, ordering his thoughts.

‘I spoke with him more than once while he was — isolated,’ he said. ‘He was missing classes, after all. I wished to set him work. Each time I asked him, in so many words, if he could tell me why he was being kept separate from his brothers, he replied, Because I am evil.’ White looked up and met Gil’s eye. ‘I showed him how no man is wholly evil, and how to find the good in himself and strengthen it to cast out the evil, but he persisted in saying that he was evil. I asked him in what way, and he offered the disappearance of our corrodian as evidence. I asked him how he had achieved that, and he replied again: Because I am evil.’

‘It makes no sense,’ said Gil, and realised they had reverted to Latin.

‘No. What is more, it makes a nonsense of years of teaching in logic and analytical thought. He should have learned to dissect a syllogism at fourteen.’

‘Indeed,’ said Gil. He paused, and said carefully, ‘I believe you were also his confessor.’

‘I was. This was not said under the seal of confession.’ White also paused, and said with equal care, ‘I think I may say to you that the young man did not confess anything to me which would help your investigation.’

Gil bowed his head in acknowledgement of this, and considered what he had learned so far.

‘So we have a young man,’ he said, ‘intelligent, highly strung, emotional-?’ White nodded. ‘Who suddenly becomes convinced that he is evil and that he has therefore caused the corrodian to disappear, with no logical explanation for the belief.’

‘A fair summary.’

‘And the fact that Pollock had not disappeared, that his ashes were still in his lodging, was not known to anyone. What could the boy have been doing, to make him think he had caused this situation? Was his reading supervised? Could he have been lured into some of the darker mysteries?’

‘I see where you are leading this,’ said White, ‘and I may say that I am working on the subject of witchcraft myself, and my conclusion, though there are those who disagree with me, is that there is no such thing, no power to cause harm by casting spells. On the other hand its devotees are invariably far gone in heresy and in the worship of the Devil.’

‘Had you taught your students this?’

‘I have discussed it with them.’ He produced a reluctant smile. ‘Andrew and his friend Sandy Munt argued the matter forcibly, but were unable to prove the existence of witchcraft to my satisfaction. Everybody knows is not proof. Indeed, what everyone knows is quite frequently erroneous.’

‘Pollock was in the habit of extortion,’ said Gil. ‘I found Andrew Rattray’s name among his papers.’

‘Was he now?’ said White softly. There was a short silence. ‘I must question Andrew’s fellows, the other students. Poor young man, I hope Our Lady has received him under her mantle, whatever he has been dabbling in.’

‘I need to question them too,’ said Gil. ‘Let us not lose sight of the fact that someone slew this young man, unshriven, still in his confused state, and tried to conceal the deed by setting a fire which has seriously injured the community. That is murder and arson, which are both pleas o the Crown and capital offences. Whoever is responsible must be found, for the sake of his immortal soul and of his brothers.’

‘Believe me, I have not lost sight of it,’ said White rather sharply. They looked at one another, and after a moment White gave a slight bow. ‘I agree. Your investigation should take precedence. I would appreciate it if you would send them to me when you are done.’

Andrew Rattray’s fellow students were still in the library, though how much work they were doing was questionable. Their faces, as their teacher summoned them one by one, were a series of studies in surprise, well-concealed alarm and concern, but when Gil led the four of them through the slype and into the warmth of the guest hall without Father Henry they relaxed slightly.

‘Tak a seat,’ he invited. ‘Will you have some ale?’

‘I’d not say no,’ admitted the nearest as they gathered stools and settled themselves, and the others nodded.

‘Tell me your names, first.’ Gil lifted the jug from the table, and one of the group sprang up to serve. Socrates, sprawled by the hearth again, raised his head to follow the movement, then settled again, nose on paws, watchful. The cat had left as they entered, sauntering out towards the kitchens with the air of one whose neighbourhood had been invaded by undesirables.

‘Sandy Munt,’ said the one with the mousy hair and the round face.

‘Sandy Mureson,’ said the one with the jug. One of the landholder’s sons, Gil recognised, accepting a brimming beaker.

‘My name’s Adam Calder,’ said the tow-headed one nearest the fireplace. The other landholder lad and a local voice, Gil thought, perhaps from somewhere over into Angus like Rattray himself. ‘That’s a fine wolfhound, maister. Is he a good hunter?’

‘Never mind that the now, Adam. I’m Patey Simpson,’ said the last, a lean young man with a Fife accent. He pushed dark hair out of his eyes. ‘What d’you want wi us, maister? Is it about Andrew? He was our freen, we’d no ha hairmed him.’

‘It’s about Andrew,’ Gil agreed. ‘If it was none o you, then who was it? Somebody slew him, and then set fire to the infirmary to hide it.’

‘Oh!’ said Munt. ‘You mean, so they’d think it was the same as what happened to-’ He gestured over his shoulder in the general direction of the corrodian’s house.

‘Wasn’t it the same?’ said Calder, staring in surprise. ‘I thocht it was.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ Gil agreed. ‘So I need Andrew’s friends to tell me about him. What was he like? Who did he get across? Did he have any enemies?’

They looked at one another, and shook their heads blankly.

‘He was a member o the community,’ offered Calder. ‘One o the limbs, like it says in the Epistle.’

‘He was just ordinar,’ said Munt.

‘Och, Sandy, he wasny!’ contradicted Mureson. ‘He was away the best scholar o the five o us, for one thing. But no made up wi it,’ he assured Gil. ‘He’d as like to help any o us wi learning by rote, or debating questions, or rhyming Our Lady.’

‘He was right good at that,’ said Simpson.

‘I’m no,’ said Calder. ‘I canny do the rhymes. Andrew was helping me.’

Gil nodded. He knew of the Dominican leisure occupation of composing impromptu rhymes to the Mother of God, hailing her in gilded terms and capping each other’s efforts.

‘So he was a good fellow, then?’ he asked.

‘He was,’ said Munt, his round face distressed. ‘It’s — I canny believe he’s dead. He’s no been wi us for a few days, right, no since Faither Prior put him away, but it’s like he’ll be back as soon as, as soon as-’ He stopped abruptly, and hid his face in his beaker.

‘I think you were in the infirmary last night,’ Gil said. ‘Complaining o the rheum?’

‘Sandy, you never!’ said Mureson.

‘We were forbidden,’ said Calder in disapproval. ‘All the limbs ought to obey the head, St Paul says it. You’ll ha to confess that.’

Munt emerged, reddening.

‘Aye,’ he admitted to Mureson, ignoring Calder. ‘I’d a daft notion, I thought — I thought maybe I’d get a word wi Andrew, so I went when Brother Euan wasny there, but Faither James kept a good eye on me just the same. He gied me a couple o cherry pastilles, mind, but I had to thank him and leave. No chance o nipping along to where Andrew was.’

‘He’d no ha spoken to you,’ said Mureson. ‘No if he was ordered to keep solitary. He’s — he was like that.’

‘Very proper behaved,’ confirmed Calder. ‘Which was why-’

‘He’d his moments, mind you,’ Simpson interrupted. ‘Wi hair that colour, ye ken, maister. He’d his moments. But we’d leave him be, and he’d come round again in no time.’

‘He’d words now-and-now wi Sandy Raitts,’ said Munt, ‘but so does all of us. Even Faither Henry crosses him. Even Faither Prior crosses him, it’s that easy.’

‘Were you surprised when Andrew confessed to causing Pollock’s disappearance?’

‘Oh, that was a right tirravee!’ said Simpson. The others nodded.

‘He’d no been right for a day or two,’ said Munt. ‘Brooding a bit, like, and no joining in the crack. We’re no supposed to sit and chatter,’ he confided unnecessarily, ‘but if you ken where’s out of the wind and out of hearing — anyway, the last few days he was wi us Andrew wasny for joining in, just hung about at the edge o things.’

‘Looking like someone stole his bannock,’ offered Simpson. ‘We asked him what was the matter, but he wasny for telling us.’

‘How long had he been like that?’ Gil asked carefully, setting his beaker down for the dog to finish the last inch or so of ale.

‘Och, a day or two,’ Munt repeated.

‘So before the corrodian disappeared?’

They looked at one another again.

‘That’s right,’ said Munt after a moment. ‘Before Pollock vanished.’

‘No idea what was wrong? Word from home, discipline from your superiors, that sort o thing?’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Mureson.

‘He’s — he’d no kin,’ said Munt, ‘that he ever mentioned. Parents deid a year or two, afore he was ever tonsured, by what he said. Nor he never spoke o his home or where it was.’

Simpson said, ‘Well-’

Gil raised his eyebrows, and the young man went on, ‘I saw him speaking wi Pollock, ae time. It was after that he was kinda mumpish.’

‘Wi Pollock?’ said Munt. ‘Where?’

‘Here in the guest yard.’

‘He should never ha been out here,’ said Calder in shocked tones.

‘Aye,’ said Simpson shortly. ‘They were …’ he paused, considering his words. ‘It didny look friendly.’

‘When was this, Patey?’ asked Mureson.

‘That should ha been told to Faither Henry,’ pursued Calder, ‘or even to the Chapter o Faults.’

Ignoring this, Simpson thought deeply, counting on his fingers as he did so, and finally said, ‘Three days afore the man Pollock vanished. Aye, that would be right.’

‘Can you describe it?’ Gil asked. ‘Where were they? Where were you, to catch sight o them?’

‘I was passing the slype,’ said Simpson, ‘and I looked down it, see, the way you aye do, in case there’s anything from the outside to be seen out here.’

Gil nodded, recalling his own enclosed years at the college in Glasgow, where the youngest students were not allowed out into the town without express permission.

‘And here was Andrew, maybe ten paces from the end o the slype, head to head wi Pollock. He was kinna,’ Simpson pondered, searching for a word, ‘braced, like. I could see his fists ahint his back, man, and I could tell he was trying gey hard no to haul off and strike the fellow. Then Pollock grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, and Andrew took a step back, and I heard him say, I’ll see you in Hell first. Then he turned away, and I moved on quick for fear he found me watching him.’

‘You heard no more?’ Gil asked. ‘It’s no longer spreading gossip, you understand, it’s giving me information that might lead me to discern what happened.’

‘Aye, I see that,’ said Simpson. Munt was hiding dismay, not very well, Calder was frowning; Mureson simply looked serious. ‘But I’m no right sure I heard what I heard, if you ken what I’m saying. Maybe it was from afore he professed,’ he said, brightening. ‘Aye, maybe that — for there’s naeb’dy like Pollock for digging in a fellow’s past. The Deil kens how he learned the most o’t. He was at me about a book missing fro the library at St Andrews.’

‘Was he?’ said Munt. ‘What did you say to him about it, Patey?’

‘Tellt him it was confessed and paid for, and my faither beat me for it and all. And Faither Prior kent all about it, for it was him that confessed me for it when it was lost. Wasny my fault, even,’ he added sourly. ‘How was I to ken that fleabag o a dog would take a fancy to the thing?’

‘That’s bad,’ said Calder. ‘That’s a sin, to destroy a book. Brother Sandy would be angry if he kent it, and no wonder.’

‘Brother Sandy’s aye angry,’ observed Simpson.

‘He was on at everyone, Pollock was,’ said Munt. ‘I seen him talking to Sandy Raitts one time, making signs wi his hands, smirking the way he did, and Sandy shaking wi passion. And Tammas Wilson, and even the Infirmarer once.’

‘Sandy, that’s gossip,’ said Mureson in warning tones, and his friend subsided.

‘So what did you hear?’ Gil asked. ‘What did Pollock say to Andrew?’

‘That’s just it. I’m no right sure I heard it,’ said Simpson, going red. ‘But I thought he mentioned a lassie. No by name. It was I’m sure she wouldny like — something or other. And Faither Prior was mentioned. But he didny have a lassie, did he?’

‘No Andrew,’ said Munt firmly. ‘He’s,’ he swallowed, ‘he was away too serious about all this.’ He gestured at his novice’s habit. ‘Now me, I’ve no objection if some lassie wants me to help her bring in the May in nomine Domini, but Andrew would never even ha noticed if he was asked.’

‘Sandy,’ said Mureson again. ‘That’s unbecoming.’

Munt looked away, rather uncomfortable.

‘Aye, I suppose,’ he muttered. ‘But all the same.’

‘Andrew hadny a lassie,’ said Simpson. ‘Unless it was from away back.’

‘He did and all,’ said Calder darkly. ‘He went out into the town, regular, and he wasny drinking, for he never smelled o drink. Must ha been a lassie.’

‘Into the town?’ Gil queried. ‘How do you ken that?’

‘I seen him go a few times,’ said Calder, blue eyes very round. ‘See, my cell’s opposite his in the dorter,’ he explained, ‘and whiles it takes me a good bit to drop asleep. I seen him go out, after Compline when he thought all was quiet and Faither John was snoring. And one time I followed him, to see what he was at, for he was gone far too long for it to be a call of nature,’ he went on primly, ‘and he went out across the yard here and out by the barns and through the wee postern there, and right out the house. I turned back, no wishing Brither Porter to see me, but I taxed him wi’t — Andrew, I mean — the next day, and he made believe I was dreaming.’

‘Maybe you were,’ said Mureson.

‘I wasny!’ said Calder indignantly. ‘I ken what I saw, and for one that pretended he was the maist devout o all o us it was no way to carry on, I tell you.’

‘He never pretended that,’ said Munt. ‘He was a good fellow, aye ready to help. You said yoursel he helped you wi the rhyming.’

‘That was afore.’ Calder poked with his foot at the ashes fallen out of the fire. ‘It doesny do, I tell you. We’re a limbs o the one body, and for one o the limbs to be rotten, well, it poisons the whole. I waited for Faither Prior to deal wi’t, but he never.’

‘Och, you and your limbs,’ said Simpson tolerantly. ‘Leave it, Adam.’

Gil had drawn breath for another question when Socrates scrambled to his feet, ears pricked. There was a commotion outside the building, beyond the heavy door of the guest hall, with much bustle and shouting and a familiar yapping.

‘That’s my lord Bishop,’ said Mureson.

‘The Bishop?’ Gil rose, just before quick footsteps heralded Nory, raindrops spangling his plaid and bonnet, his hands red and raw with cold.

‘You’re asked for, maister,’ he said, and patted Socrates, fending him from the door. ‘Bishop Brown’s here, wanting to hear all.’

‘We’ll be wanted and all,’ said Munt with regret, and tossed off the last of his ale.

‘If any of you,’ said Gil, rising, ‘thinks of anything else that might aid me, come and tell me as soon as you can. And my thanks for this.’ He looked from one to another of the four. ‘It’s hard to lose a classmate, I ken that mysel, but keep in mind Andrew had been shriven no so long afore, and he was dead by the time the fire took him.’

‘And he’s likely under Our Lady’s cloak now,’ said Simpson. The others nodded, and all four crossed themselves, and followed Gil to the door.

‘You’ll no go afore the Bishop like that, maister,’ said Nory, capturing him. Quick expert gestures with the chilled hands straightened Gil’s garments, brushed ash from a sleeve, altered the set of his short gown. Three of the young men slipped past with a murmured word, but Mureson said softly by Gil’s ear, ‘I’ll come back later, maister.’

Gil nodded, without speaking, and the young man followed his fellows. Nory stood back and surveyed his master critically.

‘Aye, you’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’ll attend you, will I, seeing that Ersche gomeril’s away up the town?’

‘You’ll stay here and warm yoursel,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll tell all over the supper, never fear.’

The guest-hall yard was full of the Bishop’s men. Pausing to offer them room by the fire alongside Nory, Gil made for the Prior’s chamber, where he found the Prior himself, the subprior and Maister Gregor, all facing Bishop Brown in full flow.

‘I couldny credit your letter!’ the Bishop was saying as Gil entered. ‘Who would do sic a thing? Surely it’s been someone got over the wall, maybe to steal-’

‘What do we have to steal, Georgie?’ said Prior Boyd wearily. ‘I’d as soon believe it was someone from the outside, but it’s no the answer.’

‘One of your community?’ said Brown in disbelief. ‘I’ve aye admired the fellowship, the brotherhood, in this house.’ Jerome, on his lap, growled at Socrates and he tapped the animal’s muzzle. ‘Bad dog! Quiet! But how? Why?’

Boyd turned to Gil.

‘What have you discerned this far, Gilbert?’ he asked in Latin.

‘Little enough,’ said Gil in Scots. He summarised most of what he had learned, making some judicious omissions. The two Dominicans heard him out in impassive silence, Bishop Brown in increasing distress, Maister Gregor with little bleats of disbelief and shock.

‘Och, there must be some mistake!’ he said before his master could comment. ‘You canny have it right, Maister Cunningham, it’s surely been some terrible accident!’

Jerome growled again. Socrates, by Gil’s knee, turned his head away.

‘Rob, you’re a fool,’ said the Bishop. ‘The laddie’s throat was cut. That’s no accident.’

‘Aye, but their skin splits wi the roasting,’ argued Maister Gregor. ‘You mind, after Monzievaird, burying all those Murrays, how they-’

‘Aye, where it’s stretched. On the brow and the elbows and the like. No under the jaw.’ Brown turned to Gil. ‘What like kind o weapon, would you think?’

Gil shook his head.

‘No way o saying, sir. A knife, for certain, and no a penknife. It was done wi one cut. It seems possible it was this missing kitchen knife — a boning knife Brother Augustine calls it — which hasny turned up yet, but beyond that …’ He shrugged.

‘Hmm.’ The Bishop frowned. ‘It’s a bad business, Davie. A Chapter o Faults, maybe?’

The subprior nodded, silent in the corner, but David Boyd raised his chin and said, with a nip of frost in his tone, ‘That’s an internal matter, Georgie, and I’m still Prior o this house. I’ve already convened a Chapter of Faults for this evening, after supper and afore Compline. The break in the routine ought to shake the brothers, maybe shake loose something we need to hear.’