The King's Corrodian

Chapter Six

‘Are ye making broth, or what, brother?’ asked Jennet, surveying the items on the broad table in the centre of the chamber.

‘Broth? No, no, it needs heat, not moisture,’ said Brother Michael. He moved one of the crocks aside, and drew the gory package towards him. The second Franciscan, a small man with lank fair hair who had been identified as Brother Dandy, bridled at the sight.

‘Brother!’ he said in shocked tones. ‘And this a fast day and all!’

‘All things must be verified by the path of experience,’ Alys quoted in the Latin, and translated for the servants.

Brother Michael nodded, but Tam said warily, ‘What path would that be, mem?’

‘Trying things to see if they work, as Friar Roger Bacon recommended. You know he was a Greyfriar too, don’t you? I think Brother Michael plans to try whether a piece of meat can burn to ashes.’

Brother Dandy crossed himself, and took another step backwards. Rain rattled on the horn windows, and Alys drew her plaid closer about her.

They were in the kitchen of the Franciscans’ guest hall, a wide, cold, vaulted space somewhat diminished by the presence of the table, on which Brother Michael had assembled a curious mixture of items. Six — no, eight — covered crocks, a dripping parcel of meat, a mixing bowl and a poke of flour, a tangle of small trivets, a bundle of rags, a handful of candle-ends.

‘Recreate the conditions in the man’s own chamber,’ Brother Michael said, indicating this hoard, and taking Alys’s understanding of his experiment wholly for granted. ‘Seal one, part seal another, maybe set the candle closer-’

‘What, and summon the Devil into the crock?’ said Jennet in alarm. ‘Won’t he burst free from it and carry us all off?’

‘The man wasny carried off,’ Tam reminded her. ‘His ashes was all there — he was burned to a cinder, just. Like the mistress said.’

‘Aye, but that woman yesterday,’ Jennet argued, ‘she seen the Devil clear as daylight, in the very act o taking him away.’

‘She’s right, you ken that, brother,’ said Brother Dandy nervously.

Brother Michael, ignoring this, opened out the package of meat.

‘Fat pork,’ he said. ‘Since the subject was well covered, by what they say.’

‘Jennet,’ said Alys, nodding at this, ‘we’ll want paste to seal the crocks. Can you see to that?’ She reached for the bundle of rags, and shook it out. ‘We should use one of these cloths to dry the collops, perhaps, brother, and the rest to wrap them.’

Jennet, hauling at the pump in the corner of the chamber, said, ‘What for d’you want to wrap them? That’s a new way to bake meat, surely, mem.’

Tam was already wiping one of the collops dry.

‘If ye’d a bit chalk,’ he observed, watching Brother Michael setting the crocks out in a row, ‘or maybe charcoal, ye could mark on the table by each what you’d done wi it. Do ye want this wrapped close, or a bit slack, brother?’

‘Some of each, surely,’ said Alys. ‘And would it be good to turn one of the crocks upside down?’

‘Upside down?’ Brother Michael paused, frowning at her.

‘Set the candle on the lid,’ she said, ‘and the trivet over it, and the meat in that, and then put the crock over. Then the flame can draw air if it needs. We’d have to use that one,’ she pointed to the one crock with a flat lid, ‘so it would stand up.’

‘No, no, surely,’ said Brother Michael, ‘the candle draws all the air it needs, supposing we don’t seal the lid. No need for that.’

‘I’d like to try it,’ she said. He frowned at her again, then nodded.

‘Aye, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Making trials is aye good. You can set that one up, then. Here!’ he said to Tam in alarm. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Wondering what’s on this rag,’ said Tam, lowering the cloth from his face. ‘Kind o an odd smell about it. Where’d they come from, any road?’

‘No dichting your neb,’ said Brother Michael in some relief. ‘No idea. Had them from our kitchen. They likely had them from the rag market.’

‘Here’s your paste done,’ said Jennet, shaking flour from her fingers. ‘See us one o they rags, Tam, till I wipe my hands. Is that thick enough, mem?’

Brother Dandy, backed into a corner, was muttering anxiously and crossing himself.

Alys smiled at him and said, ‘It’s an experiment with fire, brother, no a spiritual matter. Our souls are in no danger.’

‘Danger?’ said Brother Michael. ‘A course it’s dangerous! All trials is dangerous, you never ken what will happen.’ He turned to look at his fellow, and shook his head. ‘Never mind that, Dandy, make yoursel useful. Get your tablets out and write this down that I tell you.’

Alys wondered later whether it would have been more expeditious if she had sent her two servants to wait beside Brother Dandy. Despite their very competent help, it was more than an hour before all the experiments were set up. This was largely because Brother Michael persisted in checking everything himself, the wrapped collop of pig-meat, the trivet, the candle-end stuck to the bottom of each crock and carefully lit before the trivet with its burden was lowered in and the lid placed on top and sealed, part sealed, left unsealed, as he decided and dictated to his record-keeper.

‘No so fast, brother!’ complained Dandy as the list of attributes of the first jar was rattled off. ‘I canny scribe that quickly!’

‘My mistress can,’ said Jennet, looking sideways at him. Alys was already opening her own tablets and drawing the little stylus out of its holder. Brother Michael, ignoring this exchange, began a description of the second crock. The pause while he worked a strip of flour-and-water paste into the rim of the lid enabled her to catch up; she had already set up her own inverted crock, at the other end of the table, and made notes of what had gone into it.

‘Did you decide what was on that cloth?’ she asked Tam quietly. He shrugged.

‘Kinna like lamp-oil or the like, but no so strong.’

‘It’s left your neb all black,’ Jennet observed pertly. ‘Here, see us another rag and I’ll take it off for you.’ She dabbed at the dark smudge on Tam’s nose, and he reared back. Brother Michael began his description of the next assemblage, and Alys hastily turned her attention to his words, but was aware of a brisk argument behind her.

‘There’s sand, or glass, or the like on that rag! It’s scratched me!’

‘Nothing o the sort. See? This one’s clean.’

Outside the kitchen a bell began to ring. Brother Dandy said anxiously, ‘Michael, that’s the bell for Nones. We need to go. Michael, that’s the bell!’

‘Sealed halfway around,’ said Brother Michael, ignoring him.

‘Aye, it has. Look — it’s drawn blood!’

‘It’s naught but a wee scratch. There must ha been sand on your neb a’ready, it was never on this cloth. Here, can you smell burning?’

‘Crock number four,’ continued Brother Michael. Alys dragged her awareness back to the tablets in her hand and made another note.

‘A course I can smell burning, we’ve just been setting light to all sorts. It’s wee specks o dark stuff. It must ha been on that other cloth,’ said Tam. He stepped over to the light of the horn window, inspecting his forefinger. ‘See, it’s wee grains-’ He tasted carefully. Then: ‘St Mungo’s garters! Get away fro that crock, man, afore it explodes! Get down, mem!’

‘What-’ Brother Michael broke off his enumerations and turned to stare at him. Brother Dandy, taking Tam’s word for it, cannoned past Jennet to the door, knocking her flying as he went, Tam seized Alys and threw her to the floor, Brother Michael exclaimed in irritation, and the fourth crock exploded with a bang.

It was not a large explosion, but it was quite spectacular. Alys was aware of a bright, brief light, a sizzling, a rattling sound as fragments of pottery landed around them, though she could not have said in what order these things happened. She squirmed out from under Tam, and got to her knees, feeling a little shaky.

‘Are ye hurt, mem?’ he asked anxiously, scrambling up to give her his hand. ‘I’m right sorry about knocking ye down.’

‘I’m not hurt,’ she assured him, brushing dust from her woollen gown. ‘That was quick thinking. What — was it gunpowder on the cloth? Brother Michael, your face!’

Jennet was getting to her feet too, rubbing her elbow, glaring at the open door. Brother Michael stood in the midst of his experiment, staring about him, blood dripping down his jaw from several small cuts. Jennet seized another rag, checked it briefly, and tried to apply it to the wounds, but he jerked away from her, still staring at the table. The base of the fourth crock was present, cracked in three pieces, and in their midst the trivet shattered in several more; there was no sign of the wrapped collop. The two crocks nearest the demolished one had fallen over, and the lit one had lost its lid, disgorging a lightly singed bundle and a strong smell of scorched meat. The candle was out.

‘Now I canny tell,’ he said discontentedly, ‘whether that had gone out afore the crock fell over, or no.’

‘Does it matter?’ asked Tam. ‘Can you no set it up again?’

‘Aye, I suppose. Make a note, lassie,’ he added. ‘Gunpowder no a good idea.’

‘Are ye just going on wi it?’ said Jennet. ‘What if the rest blows up and all?’

‘There was no more rags like thon,’ said Tam. ‘Likely it’d been used for cleaning a harquebus or some such thing.’

Running footsteps heralded the arrival of two lay brothers, who stopped at the doorway, peering in suspiciously.

‘What’s blew up now, brither?’ said one of them. ‘Is that burning meat? It’s a fast day, isn’t it no?’

‘Nothing to concern you. Nothing to worry anybody,’ said Brother Michael irritably.

‘There’s Brother Dandy come blundering into Nones, interrupting the Office — ’

‘There was no need for that!’

‘- and saying you’re all blown to pieces and three others along wi you, and Faither Prior sending us out to look, but it doesny appear like that to me.’

‘Dandy’s a fool,’ said Brother Michael. He took the cloth from Jennet and dabbed ineffectually at his face, glanced at the bloodstains and looked surprised. ‘It was a crock. No great matter. Nobody’s hurt.’

The two lay brothers looked at one another, and at Alys; she smiled, and nodded reassuringly, and after a moment they withdrew. Brother Michael began picking up the singed experiment, his booted feet crunching on the broken pottery on the floor.

‘Where’s the lid o the broken one went?’ Tam wondered.

‘Never mind that, where’s the collop?’ Jennet said.

‘There,’ said Tam, looking upwards. Alys followed his gaze and saw, directly over Brother Michael’s head, a palm-sized piece of raw meat adhering to the stonework of the vaulted ceiling.

Jennet began to laugh, and the fragment peeled away with a faint sucking sound and dropped onto Brother Michael’s tonsure. He clapped a hand over it, looked blankly at the result, wiped his palm on his habit and said to Alys, ‘Read me the notes, lassie. What all was in this one again?’

Ignoring Jennet’s giggles, Alys obeyed, and carefully took notes as the remaining crocks were assembled. As she worked she became aware of a smell of burned meat, of hot fat, of soot. The servants were both aware of it too, she realised, and were trying to identify which crock was the source.

‘Makes you right hungry, and all,’ said Tam. ‘No, it’s none o these.’

‘It’s that one!’ said Jennet finally. ‘The mistress’s one. Look at your crock, mem!’

‘And this one unsealed,’ said Brother Michael, paying no attention. Alys wrote down No selit and looked round at her own experiment at the far end of the huge table. For a moment she thought it unchanged; then she saw that something was oozing from the gap between the lid and the crock inverted on top of it, something yellowish, which congealed as it touched the well-scrubbed wood. Hot fat.

‘The floor,’ she said. ‘The floor of the house was greasy.’

The crock was giving off heat; she could feel it when she approached. Brother Michael, his own experiments settled, came to join her, put a hand close and drew it away again sharply.

‘Still at work, whatever’s happening.’

‘The floor of the man’s house was covered in grease,’ she said again. He nodded, without looking at her.

‘The fat feeds the flames. Melts wi the heat, and burns like a tallow candle wi the clothing as a wick, and the excess runs off. Wouldny ha happened if he’d been naked.’

‘He’d no ha sat there naked on a winter’s night,’ said Tam.

‘He’d never ha sat there naked,’ objected Jennet. ‘It’s no decent!’

Alys looked longingly at the crock, but before she could speak there was the tramp and scuffle of booted feet outside, and a little group of Franciscans appeared at the open door, a small man at their centre with clipped silver hair and very black eyebrows. She curtsied, aware of Jennet bobbing beside her and Tam bending his head. There was no mistaking Father Prior, even before he spoke.

‘Michael!’ he said, and sniffed suspiciously. ‘What are you at now, brother?’

‘An experiment,’ said Brother Michael, in a less irritable tone than he had used for the lay brothers.

‘And what does the experiment consist in?’ Father Prior stepped into the kitchen. Behind him one of his entourage held a smoking thurible, another bore a basin and aspergillum. The smoke of the incense wafted into the room, fighting with the reek of burned pork. ‘Are you putting these good folk at risk? Is anything else like to explode?’

‘No,’ began Brother Michael, and was interrupted by a sharp crack.

Tam flung himself and Jennet to the floor, Jennet squeaking indignantly. Two of the brothers in the doorway ran away. The man with the basin dropped the aspergillum, but Father Prior said, with a grim note in his voice, ‘I think you may rise, man. Michael has cost us anither crock, no waur than that.’

Tam climbed to his feet with a sheepish grin, and bent to help Jennet. Brother Michael was already frowning over the broken crock; it had simply split into two unequal parts, revealing another bundle of singed rags in its soot-blackened interior.

‘I should pay for the crocks,’ said Alys hastily, ‘seeing they’re broken to answer my question.’

‘That would be generous, daughter,’ said Father Prior, although his tone said, The least you can do. ‘And what question would that be?’

‘Fire,’ said Brother Michael before she could speak. ‘Will fire work within a closed space. Whatna conditions will it require.’

‘And?’

‘Mostly it doesna,’ he admitted. ‘Thon one seems to be in action, but we need to wait till it cools enough to open it. If we had some glassware,’ he said to Alys.

‘God forbid!’ said Father Prior. ‘Understand me, Michael, I willny have this kitchen nor any other part of this priory covered in broken glass. I never heard that our brother Roger shattered glassware in his experimenting, and I see no need for you to do so.’

‘Aye, Faither,’ said Brother Michael with reluctance.

‘And,’ said his superior in the same tone, ‘you willny leave this chamber until all is straight again and these potsherds swept up and put on the midden.’ He eyed Alys and the two servants, and went on, ‘I’ll send Doty wi a mess of food to the four o ye, for the dinner has waited long enough a’ready.’

He delivered a brief blessing over Alys’s murmured thanks and swept out, his cohort scattering to let him pass. Tam closed the door behind them and whistled, but Brother Michael merely looked along his depleted row of experiments and said, ‘This one’s cold, and that. We can open them up.’

The food, brought by a wary lay servant, was simple but hot and welcome: a big bowl of bean and lentil pottage, with roots chopped into it, a whole loaf of that day’s rough bread to eat it with, a jug of thin ale. Brother Michael looked at it blankly, but when Alys asked him if he was hungry he waved her away.

‘No the now, lassie! Eat if you must,’ he added in a kinder tone, ‘I’ll see to these first.’

‘It’s right tasty,’ said Tam, scooping up a generous portion of the thick concoction on a lump of the bread.

‘You should eat while the food is hot, brother. The experiments will still be there when you have finished,’ Alys prompted. ‘And then I can make notes for you.’

‘Hmf!’ he said, but came to join them.

‘But how does this show you what happened to the man?’ Jennet said suddenly, as if continuing a conversation. ‘Even if you can set fire to a lump o meat, and you’ve no done that yet, it doesny prove that’s how he burned up. He’d never ha sat still waiting to catch alight, he’d ha jumped up, for sure.’

‘Good question,’ said Brother Michael, tearing off another hunk of bread.

‘Maybe he was asleep,’ said Tam, ‘and his clothes was well alight afore he knew it.’

Jennet shuddered, and crossed herself.

‘Our Lady send sic a thing never happens to me. What a way to go!’

‘Flares up quickly,’ said Brother Michael, through a mouthful of bread and pottage. ‘Well alight, as you say.’ He closed his eyes to think, chewing, and after a moment added, ‘Too fast to smother them yoursel. Need help.’

‘And there was none to be summoned,’ said Alys.

‘Aye.’

‘We all meet our end some time,’ said Tam philosophically, and took a pull at the jug of ale.

By the time the food was finished, all the experiments had ceased working. When Alys approached hers she found the crock cooling, with little ticking noises, and the fat beginning to congeal round its rim. Brother Michael threw it a glance, but began at the other end of the row of crocks and worked his way methodically along it, dictating notes on the state of each.

‘It’s no learning you anything,’ said Jennet, when the friar had uncovered a fourth container of barely scorched cloth, cold meat and snuffed-out candle. ‘None o it’s doing aught, save the two that exploded.’ He frowned in irritation, but she went on, ‘No that that’s a bad thing. I’d as soon no more o them explode afore we’ve left here.’

‘Jennet,’ said Alys, ‘see if you can find a broom, and start sweeping up the broken pot.’ She wrote, Clout scaldit, meat no brent against the last of Brother Michael’s experiments, and turned to her own. He gestured to her to uncover it herself; setting her tablets and stylus down, she took a deep breath and laid hands on the upturned crock.

It came away from its lid readily enough, being still rather hot to handle. She drew it up, and looked at what it revealed.

‘It hasny worked,’ she said in disappointment.

‘What, yours and all, mem?’ said Jennet, emerging from the scullery with a broom and shovel. ‘Here, Tam, gie’s a hand here.’

‘It has,’ corrected Brother Michael. ‘See?’ He poked at the blackened bundle which still lay on the trivet, then drew his eating-knife from his purse and used it to prod the unsavoury object. ‘Burned all round. Cloth’s all gone, meat’s been burned. Fat’s run down.’ He scraped at the lid between the feet of the trivet. ‘See, plenty fat left.’

‘But it’s no burned to ash,’ objected Tam. Alys was staring at her experiment.

‘Fire needs air. Common fire. I’ve proved it,’ said Brother Michael offhandedly. ‘Starved o air it goes out, every time.’ He looked at his row of failed assays. ‘Those are proof it’s common fire we’re dealing wi. But this,’ he prodded the crust of the burned meat again, ‘this has begun to burn up afore it ran out o air.’

‘Why’s this one different?’ said Tam. ‘Was there a hole in the crock, or what?’

‘The flame could draw air in at the bottom,’ said Alys. ‘Until the fat running out blocked the gap.’

Brother Michael nodded.

‘Aye. And the bit o meat was a sight bigger within the crock than a man is within his bedchamber. He burned to ashes, but this ran out o air and ceased burning. We need a bigger crock.’

‘I think Father Prior might object,’ said Alys.

‘What about a bread-oven?’ said Jennet, bending to sweep under the empty charcoal range. ‘That’s just a big crock, is it no?’

‘Like mistress, like maid,’ said Brother Michael obscurely. ‘But no the day.’

‘No,’ agreed Alys.

* * *

‘How do I find Mercer’s Land?’ Alys asked the porter as he swung the outer door of the priory open for them.

‘The Mercer’s Land, lassie?’ he said, and scratched the back of his head within his hood. ‘It’s right the other side the town. See, you go in at the South Port here, and right through the town and out the Red Brig Port, and then you cross the Town Ditch, and it’s …’ He paused to reckon, staring absently at a group of riders emerging from the port. ‘Third or fourth on your right, it would be. Canny miss it.’

‘Thank you, brother,’ Alys said, and curtsied. He raised his hand in the conventional blessing, and she stepped out into the drizzle to find the riders had halted before the door, a mounted woman with a whip in her hand, three men and another woman riding pillion. Their horses were trampling in circles while the woman gave orders in a loud, harsh voice.

‘Ask at him, Thomas you great fool, he has to tell you. Is there any Alexander Stair dwelling here, ask him. And he’ll tell you true or it will be the waur for him.’

The man addressed answered inaudibly, and she cursed him and tugged on her reins so that her horse swung round, its hindquarters narrowly missing Tam.

‘Here, watch out!’ he objected.

She turned her head and cursed at him too, and when he did not step back fast enough, cut at him with her whip. The thong missed, but Alys said briskly, ‘Madam, permit my servant to pass, if you please.’

She found herself inspected briefly by a hot, dispassionate gaze like a hawk’s, and dismissed; the rider turned away as her own servant returned from the priory door.

‘None? Well, we’ll lie up here anyway, and learn if it’s the truth. Go back and tell him we’ll lodge here.’

‘What a termagant!’ Tam had slipped past the horse, and Alys made haste to remove them all from the scene. ‘I’ll wager she gets plenty use of that scurge.’

‘I wonder who she’s after,’ said Jennet. ‘D’ye suppose it’s a servant, or her man ran away, or the like?’

‘Whoever it is, I hope he sees her first,’ said Tam, grinning, and followed Alys through the South Port’s shadowy tunnel.

‘Where are we going, mem? Are we no going back to the Bl-’ Jennet began, and stopped as Tam nudged her in the ribs. ‘To our own place,’ she finished.

‘No yet,’ Alys said.

It was well after midday, and the light was beginning to fade, but the Watergate was bustling with shops and stalls dripping in the rain; apprentices bawled their masters’ wares, merchants and stout burgesses paraded about in furred gowns. Opposite the row of shops stood the mansions of the wealthy, backing onto the river. What had Gil called it? Ah, yes, the Tay.

‘I hope it’s somewhere warmer than thon kitchen, then,’ said Jennet, pulling her plaid tighter about her.

Alys had to ask her way twice more before she found the house she sought. It was out past the dyeworks and tanners’ yards of the northern suburb, one of several small timber-framed buildings on a strip of land running down to the river. It had a pair of flowerpots by the door, one with a straggling clump of lavender in it.

‘That’ll no do well this weather,’ said Tam.

Alys rattled at the pin. Inside the house a child’s voice called, ‘Door, Mammy! Door, Mammy!’ and a woman answered, ‘I hear it, my lamb.’ Light footsteps approached, and the door opened.

The woman who stood there was so different from what Alys expected that for a moment she could only stand, open-mouthed, her tactful greeting silenced. Young, not so much slender as thin, decently dressed, her head clad in good linen, a baby of eight months or so on her hip and an older child clinging to her skirts, she would have been pretty were it not for the scar across her eye and the badly broken nose which had set crooked and flattened. Her expression suggested she was braced for the onlookers’ reaction, whether it was revulsion or pity.

Alys swallowed her words, and just in time spied a curl of red hair escaping from the linen undercap. Enlightenment struck her.

‘Mistress Margaret Rattray?’ she said.

‘None by that name here,’ said the other woman, and began to close the door.

‘That’s a pity,’ Alys persisted. ‘I have sorry news for her.’

‘News?’ The tone was apprehensive. ‘What news would that be?’

‘From the Blackfriars.’

The woman seemed to brace herself even further, and stood aside.

‘Aye, you’d best come in.’

They stepped into a modest chamber, adequately furnished, with cushions and a brazier to make it comfortable. A spinning wheel, the baby’s cradle, some toys, were scattered about. A spider-legged baby walker stood by the settle. The woman closed the door behind her and leaned against it, holding the baby protectively.

‘Is he-?’ she began. ‘Is Andrew-?’

‘Andrew Rattray is dead,’ said Alys gently.

Margaret Rattray’s gaze dropped. Studying a wooden animal with deep interest, she said in a thread of a voice, ‘Well, he’s wi Our Lady now, for certain.’

‘His friends have told us how great a devotion he had for her,’ Alys said.

‘Mammy?’ said the older child. ‘Mammy, is it folk?’

‘It’s folk, my lamb,’ said Mistress Rattray. ‘Three folk come to talk wi Mammy. Come, you go in your walker till I heat some ale for them.’

‘Can I do that for ye, mistress?’ offered Jennet, just as Alys realised with a chill of dismay that the child was blind.

‘Aye, my wee brither,’ said Mistress Rattray, still dry-eyed, clasping the drowsy baby against her shoulder. ‘There was four year atween us, and our parents both dee’d the year after I was wed, just after Drew was born.’

‘That’s hard,’ said Alys, and Jennet added a murmur of sympathy from where she knelt by the hearth. Tam, across the room playing with Drew and a ball with a bell in it, nodded agreement.

‘And then Andrew would go for the Blackfriars. Skene was against it, but then he was against near everything-’

‘That was your man?’ said Alys, detecting a bitter note in her voice.

‘Aye. Nicholas Skene, burgess o Montrose, weel kent and weel respectit. You’d no think a man like that would do this to his wife-’ She gestured at her face with her free hand, and Tam jerked round to stare at her in horror. ‘It took Andrew a year to get by the objections Skene raised, about the money and the property. Mysel, I think he’d hoped to come by the lot some way, or at least manage it for Andrew whether he liked it or no, and once it was wi the Blackfriars he couldny touch it, a course.’

‘Was there much?’ Alys asked.

‘Two houses in Montrose, that the rents paid for his schooling, and a bit land in the township our mother came fro. It was after Andrew left this began,’ she gestured at her face again, ‘quarrels and beatings, and then when I was six month howding wee Maimie here he cam home drunk one nicht fro a banquet and did this to me. And he struck …’ She gestured at small Drew across the room, and then at her eyes. ‘That was his doing.’

Over the other woman’s shoulder Alys saw Tam bend his head and clench his fists, as if dealing with strong emotion. The child asked him a question, and Tam straightened up and turned to him with an effort.

‘Is your man dead?’ she asked. Mistress Rattray looked at her, away again, then down at the floor, rubbing her toe along the broad boards.

‘Aye. And now Andrew and all. What came to him? Was he sick? I never- I’ve had no word from him, these ten days or more.’

‘Ten days?’ said Alys. ‘Are you sure o that?’

Mistress Rattray paused, reckoning on the fingers of her free hand.

‘The day after Epiphany,’ she said finally. ‘He cam to me late that evening, after they was all supposed to be abed. He did that often,’ she divulged, ‘maybe once a week or so. He said he couldny rest easy, save he knew all was well wi me and the bairns. So that’s two weeks now. I’ve been kinna anxious, but Annie says there’s never been any o them about in the burgh, and I couldny ask her to speir for him any road, she’d be certain to gie me away. And now you tell me he’s deid right enough.’

‘Annie is your servant?’ Alys asked.

‘Aye, she cam wi me from Montrose. A good heart, but a light head. She’s out to the market the now.’

Alys did not comment. Instead she said, ‘You mind about the man that vanished?’

‘Aye,’ said Mistress Rattray warily. ‘You said your man’s asking questions about it.’

Jennet rose from the hearth with two wooden beakers.

‘Here’s your ale, mem,’ she said. ‘Will I put that wean in her cradle, and let you sup?’

‘They’re saying in the town, by what Annie tells me,’ Mistress Rattray went on, allowing Jennet to lift the sleeping baby from her arms, ‘the man was carried off by the Deil himsel. But that’s naught to do wi our Andrew, surely?’ She looked anxiously from Alys to Jennet.

‘The day after it happened, Andrew confessed to causing the disappearance,’ Alys said.

‘Oh!’ said Andrew’s sister in a different tone.

‘So he was confined, though he couldny explain how he caused it.’

‘Oh!’ she said again. ‘But how did that bring about his- he would never dwine and dee just for being confined, no Andrew. Oh, I canny believe he’s deid! My wee brither!’ Finally there were tears in her eyes. ‘What came to him? What are ye no telling me, mistress? Has your man found something to his discredit?’ she asked, her tone sharpening. ‘Did he have aught to do wi the one that’s dead?’

‘Not a thing to his discredit,’ Alys assured her. She paused, biting her lip. ‘Forgive me, mistress. It’s no an easy thing to tell. Andrew,’ she drew a deep breath, ‘Andrew was lodged in the Blackfriars’ infirmary, where he could be kept confined. The night before last, the infirmary burned down.’ Mistress Rattray opened eyes and mouth wide in a horrified gasp, but Alys pressed on. ‘He never burned to death, mistress. Someone had cut his throat afore the fire was set. Andrew was murdered.’

‘Murdered?’ repeated Mistress Rattray, and crossed herself. ‘Our Andrew? But why? He’d never — he’d no — it wasny Skene, was it?’

I thought you were lying, Alys said to herself, hearing the panic in the tone.

‘They don’t think it was anyone entered the convent. It was someone within the Blackfriars,’ she said. ‘Did he have enemies in the community? How did he speak of the other brothers?’

Mistress Rattray shook her head disbelievingly.

‘None, that he named. Och, he got across this one and that, he named the man that guards the books a few times, but none o them was enemies. And his fellows, that he studied wi, they were right good friends by all he tellt me, the two o them that’s cried Sandy in especial. His throat cut, mistress? But how? Did nobody hear? Did he no cry out? Are you certain it was some one o the brothers?’

‘The Infirmarer is an old man, and very deaf,’ Alys said. ‘They fear the shock and guilt are like to be his death and all. My man thinks, from the way he was lying, your brother was killed while he slept, likely never knew a thing. There’s no sign anyone else got into the place, it must ha been one of the community. There’s a kitchen knife missing.’

‘Who would do a thing like that?’ Margaret Rattray crossed herself again, and looked from the sleeping baby to Drew, now listening avidly to a story Tam was telling him. ‘And my bairnies and me wi none to protect us now,’ she whispered.

‘I think some of these things are yours.’ Alys reached for her purse and drew out the bundle Mureson had given them last night. Mistress Rattray stared blankly at it, but when it was put into her hands she accepted it, and slowly unfolded the fabric, rubbing the fine hem between finger and thumb.

‘One o my mother’s veils,’ she said. ‘I didny ken he still had it. And-’ She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Our Lady be praised! It’s the title to the house. And the dockets from the Low Country.’ She closed her eyes in passionate relief. ‘Och, it’s ower worldly, to be thinking o sic a thing when my wee brother’s just met his end, but-’

‘Your care must be for the living,’ Alys said gently. ‘And these other things, they are his as well? Is the drawing of you and the bairns?’

‘It is. Andrew’s- he was good at the limning.’ She turned over the oddments in the folds of the cloth. ‘The stone we found by the river one time. A trinket off my da’s horse-furniture. Grandpa’s St James badge. I’m right glad to have these, mistress, sorry though I am that they’re to me rather than to Andrew.’ She looked up at Alys again. ‘But here — you were saying, he was confined for that he confessed to causing the man’s disappearance, is that right?’

‘So Father Prior said.’

‘I wonder.’ She crossed herself, looking anxious. ‘I wonder, could it be right? Surely he’d no — no, no my Andrew.’

‘He could never explain how it happened,’ said Alys, ‘how he caused the man to vanish.’

‘Aye, he wouldny bring himself to say.’ Mistress Rattray crossed herself again.

‘Do you ken what made him think that?’ Alys asked. ‘It was impossible he’d aught to do wi it. The house was locked fast.’

‘Aye, well, it’s happened afore, or something like it.’ She smiled sadly. ‘When he was ten or so, the priest that taught him his Latin dee’d when his house went on fire. Andrew would have it he’d caused it, for that he hated the man and he dreamed o him burning in Hellfire. He wasny,’ she tightened her mouth, ‘he wasny a good man, but Andrew’s aye felt the guilt o his death, since the man would never be confessed o his sins. He tellt me, one time we spoke o’t, he tellt me he’d wished him deid many and many times. I tried to tell him, that’s no guarantee it will happen. Look at Skene, I tellt him, have I no wished him deid many and many a time?’

‘I see,’ said Alys. ‘That would fit. I’m agreed, wishing is no enough, we haveny the power, only God can order things to His will. But Andrew was …’ she selected her words carefully, ‘I think he had very strong feelings.’

‘Oh, aye.’

‘Strong enough to think his wishing someone deid might-’

‘Aye,’ said Andrew’s sister. She looked down at the jumble of things in her lap, and covered her eyes, her fingers automatically cupping the scar. ‘Oh, my wee brother.’

There was a step outside the door, the latch lifted, the door swung open. A plump middle-aged maidservant stepped in, outlined for a moment against the light, a basket on her hip, her plaid wet with drops of rain.

‘Mistress?’ she said, peering suspiciously at the visitors. ‘I got the kale, at a bargain just while he was putting the shutters up, and a wee bit mutton will make us a nice broth. Who’s all these, then?’