The King's Corrodian (30 page)

‘Nae difference. A look at all your monks, a look at their faces, now in daylight. It came to me last night, there’s no certainty he was tonsured under his right name. He could ha called himsel anything he pleased, I suppose. I don’t imagine you ask for certificates o baptism when a man rattles a purse o money at you.’

‘No,’ said Boyd rather faintly. ‘It – I suppose it’s a reasonable request. It could take a wee while to sort,’ he warned. ‘At this hour, folk are all at their studies, save for those in the infirmary or the kirk.’

‘I’ll wait,’ she said, and reached for the jug of ale which Gil and Brother Dickon had been sharing. ‘Maybe you’d get that list out that you had last night, so we can be sure I’ve seen them all. I’d no wish for any to get owerlooked, by accident.’ Her emphasis was not pleasant.

Gil, wishing desperately that Alys was here to share in this scene, said, ‘Will I ask for a bit more refreshment, mistress?’

‘You might as well,’ she said ungraciously. ‘I’ve a thirst on me like a carter’s, for I’d sic an argument wi the Franciscans, and all for nothing. He’s no there. So we’ll have another look for him here.’

As Boyd had said, it took a little time to organise a procession of all the able-bodied men in the place. Once again, Gil sat by with the book, this time marking off each man as he entered the guest hall, faced Mistress Trabboch, and was dismissed with varying degrees of disgust or disparagement.

‘It’s a right collection o shilpit studiers and lectours,’ she commented as the novices were led out in a group by John Blythe. ‘Is that the lot?’

‘There’s the fellows in the infirmary,’ Gil said, ‘who canny be moved. One’s on his deathbed, one’s injured. There are two corps in the chapel, if you want to be thorough, and a man locked away for slaying one or both o them.’

She stared at him for a moment, as if suspecting him of joking, then said, ‘It’s a right peaceable community, this, I can tell. I’d best see them and all. Where’s your infirmary?’

‘No, we canny have that,’ said the Prior. ‘Faither James is slipping away, he’ll no need to be disturbed, and Faither Henry needs to sleep the now.’

‘I ken what to do at a sickbed,’ she retorted, and rose. ‘Where’s your infirmary, then? I’m determined I’ll see every man that dwells within these walls.’

Rather to Gil’s surprise, she did indeed know how to behave at a sickbed. Led into the infirmary by Prior Boyd she inspected Brother Euan with that direct, disparaging stare, dismissed him as of no account, and swept past him into the inner chamber of the little house. There she glared at the gallowglass who was sitting by the fire again, inspected the two sick men and then dropped to her knees by Father James and recited two
Aves
and a prayer for the dying in a soft murmur quite at odds with her usual manner. Rising, she crossed herself, peered suspiciously at Father Henry as if he might have changed identity while she was occupied, and strode out again. The Prior and his entourage hurried to keep up with her; Gil brought up the rear, enthralled.

‘Neither o them,’ she said, pausing in the courtyard. ‘Where’s these two corps?’

‘One o them’s no very—’ began the Prior.

‘You’ll no conceal any o your monks fro me,’ she said. ‘Deid or alive, I’ll be certain you’re no hiding my man here.’

‘Have you ever seen a corp brought out o a burned house?’ Gil asked. She threw him a black look.

‘No. I’ll get by.’

‘We must enter by the west door,’ said Prior Boyd, giving up the unequal struggle.

The church was dim, and the chill struck to the bones. Led in by Prior Boyd, Mistress Trabboch strode up the nave, looking about her, and remarked, ‘I canny be doing wi the way the Blackfriars runs a kirk. No pictures, no carving, no colours. Dreich, to my way o’t, so it is. Where’s these corps?’

‘In St Dominic’s Chapel,’ said Boyd, turning that way.

‘One thing, you’ll no need to worry about them going off, in this cold. Preserve a corp for a lifetime, it would.’ She paused to curtsy in the direction of the tabernacle in the chancel with its ever-burning light, and followed him into the chapel, her skirts swirling about her.

The two friars praying over the biers looked up in alarm, and Boyd said soothingly, ‘Mistress Trabboch wishes to pay her respects to the dead. She’ll no interrupt you.’

Wilson, stretched on a board under a linen sheet, was beginning to settle into his death, the face relaxing and turning waxy. Gil wondered briefly why he was not yet shrouded, then realised that most of the body would still be stiff, and also that the Provost’s men might wish to see the injuries. Brother Archie held the sheet back, crossing himself with his free hand, and Mistress Trabboch approached, looked closely, turned away.

‘No,’ she said briefly. ‘Where’s this other?’

‘He’s already coffined,’ Gil said, ‘and no a bonnie sight. He’s the one that burned.’

‘You’re no hiding any o them from me,’ she reiterated. ‘We’ll have the cover off him.’

The coffin lid was not yet nailed down, and Gil and Brother Archie lifted it off between them, releasing a waft of the spices which had been tucked in beside the remains of Andrew Rattray, to sweeten the bedesmen’s task a little. Mistress Trabboch took a step closer, got a sight of the blackened, contorted corpse, and rocked back on her heels.

‘Body o Christ!’ she said. ‘You wereny joking, were you?’

‘Hardly, on sic a subject,’ said Gil politely. ‘The laddie had red hair, you can see some of it there.’ He touched the singed curls delicately, and she stepped backwards with obvious relief.

‘No. Stair has brown hair, I tellt you that yestreen. Dark brown.’

So have half the men in Scotland, Gil thought. Prior Boyd was saying, in equal relief, ‘Now are you convinced, madam, that we areny concealing your man here?’

‘No,’ she said baldly. ‘You said you’d one locked away for killing another one. I want a look at him.’

‘Aye, madam. It could mean you entering the convent, the retired part o the priory. It’s no proper.’

‘I’ve no wish to linger, believe me,’ she said. ‘The sooner you cease to gainsay me, the sooner my task’s done, but I’ll no leave without I see every man o your monks.’

‘Friars,’ said Prior Boyd wearily, and turned to Brother Archie. ‘Where is Brother Sandy held?’

‘Next the infirmary, Faither,’ said Archie, head bent in ostentatious meekness. ‘He’s shut in the inner chamber, and two men to watch in the outer one. He’s in the guest-hall yard, Faither, no need for the lady to—’

‘Is he a danger?’ demanded Mistress Trabboch. ‘What’s he done, any road?’

‘There are two men dead and a third stabbed,’ Gil reminded her.

‘One slain in the very library itsel,’ said Boyd.

‘Hah!’ She was making for the west door now. ‘Canny be my man then. For one, he’s feart for sharp things, couldny abide even my broidery snips, faizart poltroon that he is. For another, he’d never slay a man in the presence o his books. Thought more o them than he did o me, I can tell you. Let me get a look at him, just the same, and then we’re done.’

In the outer chamber of the house between Pollock’s and the infirmary, two lay brothers were working on more harness. To judge by the size of the yokes, the plough-oxen must be massive beasts, Gil was thinking, as the two rose and bowed to Prior Boyd.

‘Brother Eck, Brother Tammas,’ acknowledged Boyd. ‘Is Brother Sandy quiet? How has he taken his imprisonment?’

‘Quiet,’ agreed Brother Tammas. ‘Very quiet, he’s been. Just sitting there. Whiles he’s been at his prayers, he recited the Office when the rest o you were in the kirk. He’s been little trouble. Did you want a word, Faither?’

‘Mistress Trabboch wants a sight o him,’ said the Prior. Then, apparently realising how that sounded, ‘The same as she’s had o the rest o us.’

‘If we open the door,’ said Brother Eck, ‘maybe the lady can look in. Or should we bring him out?’

‘That might be best,’ said the Prior, ‘in case he decides to fight, or run away, or the like. If the two o you bring him out, one on either side, we can get a good view o his face. Will that suit, madam?’

‘Aye,’ she said shortly.

Gil drifted casually round the small room, moving behind the three Dominicans attending Boyd, until he was well placed to see both the inner door and Mistress Trabboch’s face. Tammas opened the door from one side, Eck looked through it from the other, nodded and stepped in, his brother in arms at his back. Brother Dickon’s company must have been well disciplined, Gil reflected.

‘Right, my laddie,’ said Tammas briskly, ‘on your feet. You’ve a visitor. There’s a lady out here to see you.’

‘A lady?’ Raitts sounded alarmed. ‘That’s no right, there should be no women in this place! It’s no right!’ he exclaimed, in increasing anxiety. ‘I canny – I canny be – I’ll stay here. I need to stay here!’

‘You’ll come out,’ contradicted Tammas. ‘Faither Prior’s instructions. On your feet.’

‘No, I—’

‘Right, Eck?’

‘Right, Tammas.’

Feet shuffled, and the lay brothers reappeared, moving sideways through the doorway, Eck first, Tammas last, with a protesting Raitts between them grasped by the elbows, his feet barely touching the ground. They achieved the outer chamber and set their burden down, though they maintained a grip on the librarian’s elbows.

‘The prisoner, sir. Faither,’ said Tammas crisply.

Raitts’s despairing gaze had found Mistress Trabboch. What little colour the man possessed washed away, his mouth opened helplessly, and he stared at her in horror like a man awaiting his death blow. Gil looked at the woman, and found her staring back at Raitts, equally fixed but quite expressionless.

There was what seemed like a very long silence. Then Raitts closed his mouth and whimpered slightly, a small defenceless sound. As if it was a signal, Mistress Trabboch took a step backwards.

‘I never saw him in my life afore,’ she said levelly, turned on her heel and swept out into the courtyard.

Gil, staying behind as Boyd and his retinue hurried after her, saw Raitts close his eyes and relax, so much in fact that he feared the man was about to swoon. He stepped forward, but the two lay brothers had a firm grasp.

‘Bear up, man!’ said Tammas. ‘We’ll ha none o that now! You can go back in your cell and sit quiet, you’re no wanted longer.’

‘Is she gone?’ Raitts demanded, his voice shaking. ‘Is she really gone?’

‘No, hold up a moment,’ said Gil. ‘Wait.’

Out in the yard, the harsh voice was drowning anything the Prior might have attempted to say.

‘Well, if he’s no to be found, he’s no to be found. I’ll need to get back to Ayrshire and see to my daughter’s wedding, get it ower afore Lent.’

Raitts was staring at the door. Boyd said something which might have been conventional good wishes for the marriage.

‘Aye, well, she’s done better than she deserves. Stair would teach her to read, but Mungo Schaw o Coilsfield doesny object to that. Says it keeps a woman out o trouble.’ Boyd made another indistinct comment. ‘Aye, well, I’ll away then.’

The voices receded. Gil relaxed slightly, and looked at Raitts, who was still staring at the door.

‘She’s gone now,’ he said. ‘Did she sell all your books?’

‘H-half,’ said Raitts distractedly. ‘Nearly the half. Mungo Schaw, did she say?’ There were tears glittering in his eyes, but he allowed his guards to ease him back into the inner chamber without resistance.

‘I think she’ll not be back,’ Gil said.

‘As God wills it,’ said Prior Boyd, crossing himself. ‘But I hope you may be right.’ He caught Gil’s eye and nodded slightly. ‘I am aware of what she said.’

‘Two-edged,’ Gil said elliptically.

‘Aye. Though the character reference might not have been a defence in any case,’ said Boyd, retreating into Latin. ‘You wished to see me, Gilbert?’

‘I did, sir.’ Gil lifted the scrip at his feet and drew out the folded shirt. ‘We discovered this, among the linen waiting for the wash.’

Boyd watched as he opened the garment out, his face crumpling in distress as he recognised the bloodstains.

‘What are you showing me, Gilbert?’

‘The shirt someone wore when he cut Andrew Rattray’s throat, I believe,’ said Gil. ‘Unless there’s been an animal slaughtered lately.’

‘The slaughtering was before Yule,’ said Boyd, ‘and it is to be hoped that it would have been done more neatly.’ He touched the stains delicately, and crossed himself again. ‘So you think this is the boy’s blood? Andrew’s?’

‘I do, sir.’

The Prior closed his eyes to murmur a prayer, then said, ‘Tell me the rest.’

Choosing his words with care, Gil laid out the discovery of the shirt and the knife. His kinsman listened in mounting distress, and when he had done rose abruptly and went to look out of his window at the darkening infirmary garden with its ruins.

‘We have the wrong man,’ he said.

‘It seems likely, sir.’

‘I was certain I understood where your discourse led us.’ He leaned on the low sill. ‘Lessons in humility are rarely welcome. What should we do, Gilbert? How do we discover which of my flock is a killer, without reason, even attacking his confessor who should stand as a father to him? It will be a man I ken well, a man I have taken for my brother. How do we find who he is?’

‘What I should like to do,’ Gil said, thinking of his vision of Andrew Rattray, ‘is set a trap for him, tonight.’

‘A trap?’ Boyd turned to look at him. ‘What kind of trap?’

‘A baited trap,’ said Gil, ‘but first I may need to talk Brother Euan round. Have we time afore supper, do you think?’

‘I don’t like it, Maister Gil,’ said Tam. ‘It’s a daft plan, and dangerous. What if we’re no quick enough? What if he gets by us?’

‘You have a better one?’ Gil asked, settling himself in his corner.

‘As for letting the mistress in on it, that beats all, so it does.’

‘Tam. Be quiet, man.’

‘Aye, I ken. Wait who kens how long, for who kens what, armed wi a knife and like to slay someone this night.’

‘Tam, if you canny be silent, you can go to your bed.’

The man subsided, with a few more grumbles, but Gil had retired into himself, into the quiet watchful state of mind he had been taught as a boy by his father’s huntsman, waiting in such a way that the quarry would not be alarmed, and found it easy enough to ignore him.