The King's Corrodian (35 page)

‘Voragine, I suspect. The
Golden Legend
. Tales of the saints, rather gruesome in places. I’ve seen a copy, and I think Augie Morison once ordered one and it failed to arrive for some reason.’

‘Of course, I remember it. Mère Isabelle had a copy for the library in Paris. Do not try to distract me. You will not succeed in making me ignore this dog,’ she went on, emphasising
chien
, ‘this
dog
who is on the
bed
.’ Socrates dipped his ears and thumped his tail at her, but did not otherwise move.

‘He’s being a doctor. And keeping me warm,’ Gil added absently, inspecting the prayer book. It was not so sumptuous as Alys’s, which had paintings of the saints, and a riot of plant life in its margins; this was a printed copy with images added, fine ink drawings of fanciful landscapes, animals, birds, and a few tinted woodcuts of good quality. On its first leaf the name
Alexr Stair
had been neatly crossed out and
Marryon Stair
written in below it.

‘Well, if he has fleas, you may sleep on that side, instead of me.’ She sat down on the stool Raitts had vacated. ‘It will be dinnertime soon but I need to tell you this. Gil, we are to send to Sir Silvester to let him know where Mistress Rattray may be found. I thought to send Tam round after the dinner. She was quite
boule versée
to learn of his existence, and that he is searching for her.’

‘Oh, good news indeed!’

‘She was doubtful at first,’ she admitted, ‘but I persuaded her that it could only be a good thing, that since her husband is now dead Sir Silvester can help her get access to her property, and if he knows of her existence it could be some protection for her.’

‘Very wise,’ Gil agreed.

‘And he might help her find someone to teach the little boy. She would not want him to be a harper, I suppose, like our John’s father, but there must be something he can do. Unless she has enough property to keep him in comfort,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘and even then he must be able to manage it.’

‘Rattray will advise her,’ said Gil. She looked sharply at him.

‘You will sleep after the dinner,’ she pronounced ‘Does it hurt? You had better have some more willow-bark tea.’

By next morning Gil felt a great deal better, and having won the argument with Alys and persuaded Nory to retrieve his hose he left his bed and also left off his sling, though he found it wise to be cautious in movement. So he was present to watch while she rehearsed her experiment to the same group of Dominicans as had witnessed the confession of Adam Calder, along with Sir Silvester Rattray and the Bishop, expounding her method and findings with confidence, answering their questions clearly but without conceit. In effect, he felt, and was consumed with pride in the idea, his wife was successfully defending a thesis. If only women could be admitted to the degree of doctor, he thought, what a worthy admission hers would be.

The examiners had been particularly impressed by a comparison of the twisted trivets from the experiment and the half-melted key from Pollock’s house. By the time they went in procession to dinner, served with great formality before a roaring fire in the great hall of the royal lodging, Gil felt she had certainly convinced the Prior and his subordinates of what had happened to Leonard Pollock, though as Boyd had said, it remained to be seen whether the Provincial and the two Archbishops of Scotland would accept the explanation.

‘I’m no entirely clear about it,’ confessed Maister Gregor in Gil’s ear as they entered the hall. ‘Is the lassie, madam your wife I mean, saying the man turned into a leg o mutton and burned up? So was that the Deil’s work?’

Gil, to his relief, was prevented from replying by the Priory servant who appeared to lead him to his seat. He found himself placed beside Bishop Brown, while Alys, at the other end of the table, had been assigned to share a mess with Rattray as the only man present other than Gil who was not a churchman. He wished he could hear what was being said, but the Bishop was speaking to him.

‘I hope your wife isny in the habit o putting hersel forward like that in public gatherings,’ he was saying anxiously. ‘A bonnie young woman like that, it’s asking for trouble to make hersel too noticed. Quiet, Jerome! Bad dog!’ he added. ‘The big doggie’s as much right as you to be here!’

Jerome was inclined to dispute this; Socrates curled his lip, showing several of his white fangs, and lay down on Gil’s feet under the elegant folds of the linen cloths which covered the table, with his head ostentatiously averted.

‘I’ve never known her to do so,’ Gil said. ‘She’s the
grein in gold that godly shon
, well comported at all times as well as wise and beautiful.’ Bishop Brown looked disapproving, and he belatedly recalled the final lines of that poem, in which the poet wished to hide between his lady’s kirtle and her smock. ‘It’s quite remarkable what she discovered,’ he added.

‘Indeed, aye. Very original work,’ said the Bishop. ‘Very clever. A course, if Michael Scott from the Greyfriars was in charge, it would be original.’ He heaved a satisfied sigh. ‘So it seems as if Pollock’s vanishing wasny what we feared at all, but something quite natural. And this other matter, o the novice that ran mad and slew two others,’ he went on, as a servant placed a dish of roasted meat in gravy and another of turnips in pepper sauce between them. ‘That’s been a bad business, a very bad business, but I think we can say it’s ended well. You did good work there and all, Gilbert; it was convenient you being here. I’m right glad I had Davie ask for you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Gil, spooning turnips onto the Bishop’s platter.

‘Mind you,’ said Brown critically, ‘I’m no so sure the lad should ha had access to a rope. I’d ha thought better o Brother Dickon, he’s usually sharper than that in matters o discipline and custody.’ He fed his dog a piece of the meat, while Gil preserved a tactful silence. ‘But now Calder’s hanged hissel, I think we can assume it was because he’d come to a realisation o his wickedness, which is something, even if he never confessed, and it spares us the trial and all, which would ha been a speak for the whole o Scotland, whether Holy Kirk had handled it or we’d turned him ower to the secular arm.’

‘That’s a true word,’ Gil agreed, thinking that there was probably no point in repeating Brother Eck’s account of the last conversation he had had with Calder, in which the young man had railed bitterly against a world which did not appreciate his motives or his worth. Nor was there any point in revealing his own doubts about the position of the knot in the rope which had been convincingly arranged about Calder’s neck when he saw the corpse. Brother Dickon’s men must all have been trained to kill in various ways, he reflected.

‘But it’s strange he was never recognised to be mad afore this,’ pursued Bishop Brown.

‘The insane can be cunning indeed,’ said David Boyd, when the tables had been lifted and they had all settled around the cavernous fireplace. At a secular feast, there would have been music and dancing; here, there was wine and candied fruit, and one of the servants by the window with a lute. The Prior seemed to Gil to have aged ten years since he first saw him. ‘Our brother Adam managed to hide what he was from all of us, even his fellow novices, even his teachers.’

‘Is that right?’ said Sir Silvester Rattray, in a tone of polite disbelief, and accepted a sweetmeat from the platter the novice Brother George was handing him.

‘Most folk prefer to think the best of others,’ said Alys. ‘It’s natural.’

The Prior gave her an approving look. Another churchman conquered, Gil thought, hiding a smile in his glass of the excellent white Rhine wine.

‘None the less,’ said Rattray, ‘my kinsman was murdered here in the safety o this Priory, a young man to whom you owed the duty o a parent, leaving his only sister unprotected, unsupported, in fear o a violent man.’

Yes, you have studied the law, as Alys said, Gil thought.

‘Hardly unsupported,’ said the Prior, ‘if you’re taking on responsibility for her.’

‘I’ve a wife and bairnies to see to,’ said Rattray unconvincingly, adjusting his velvet gown so that the silver braid on the sleeves caught the dull light from the windows. ‘I can lend her countenance, but she needs resources o her own.’

‘Indeed,’ said Boyd, gesturing to the man with the flagon to pour Rattray more wine. ‘I’ve discussed it wi our factor and our man o law, as it happens, and it seems to us, since the boy never finished his noviciate, it would be reasonable to return a portion o the lands he brought to us when he was tonsured. One-third seems like a good offer.’

‘Does it indeed?’ Rattray raised his eyebrows.

Gil caught Alys’s eye, and she smiled at him. Mistress Rattray was secure, then, though it seemed unlikely Rattray would countenance any approach Tam might make for her marriage.

‘This might be better discussed at another time,’ he suggested.

‘Wi our man of law present,’ said the Prior. ‘I think you’re acquaint wi Edward Gilchrist, Sir Silvester.’

Rattray’s face cleared.

‘I am that. A reasonable man, Gilchrist,’ he said. ‘Aye, I’ll meet him and discuss the matter.’

‘Sir Silvester,’ said the Bishop, ‘what’s your thought now concerning the death o Leonard Pollock?’

‘Aye, the man Pollock.’ Rattray seemed to increase in height, and his manner became more formal. ‘Other than to condole wi you on the recent violent happenings, I would like to say, Prior, that having witnessed Mistress Mason’s proceedings in Mistress Buttergask’s kitchen, and now heard her expound the whole matter wi sic excellent lucidity, I’m convinced o what happened to Pollock. I believe he was consumed by fire when his garments caught light, and that what I saw that night was the smoke from his burning, though Bessie,’ he caught himself up, ‘Mistress Buttergask, will maintain it was the Devil carrying off the man’s soul.’

‘No reason it should not be both,’ observed the Prior, and crossed himself.

Rattray bowed in acknowledgement of this, and went on, ‘I’ll send to the Provost to say the same, and I’ll make it clear to any that mention it to me. Likely we’ll no convince the entire town, but we’ll maybe get them to leave off the talk o witchcraft and devilry.’

‘That would be an act o great friendship,’ said the Prior.

Later, in the milling about in the chilly cloister while his men were called for and the Dominicans assembled to escort their two noble guests to the gate, Rattray drifted deliberately to Gil’s side.

‘A word wi you,’ he said quietly, and led him aside. Having done so he seemed reluctant to begin, studying the flagstones under his feet with some interest.

Gil said, ‘Has Mistress Buttergask contrived to clean out her oven yet?’

‘Oh, that!’ Rattray laughed. ‘Aye, though the bread tasted mighty strange the day, what wi the soap and the mutton fat! I like your wife, Cunningham.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Gil politely. ‘So do I.’

‘You may well.’ Rattray grinned. ‘She had me near convinced she kent naught o Margaret Rattray. I was right glad to have your man come yesterday wi the lassie’s direction. I was round on her doorstep within the hour, and Bessie’s there the day trying to persuade her to move in. Two bairns and their mammy to fuss over, she’d be overjoyed to have her.’

‘That would be a good solution,’ Gil said. ‘At least till Mistress Rattray’s found her own feet.’

‘Aye.’ Rattray gazed across the yard at the drawing on the battered shutters of Pollock’s house. ‘I’ll pass your findings about that business ower yonder to the Treasury. They’ll deal wi the rest themsels. No need for you to delve into that at all.’

‘What, the man wi the …’ Gil gestured at his chest where a badge might hang, and Rattray nodded significantly. ‘I’d no intention o doing so, but I’m glad the matter’s in good hands. If James Stewart or those close to him want to send coin out o Scotland, I’ll not interfere, no matter what I think o’t.’

‘Quite so,’ said Rattray. ‘And another thing I thought to mention.’ There was a pause, in which he dug with the toe of his boot at a weed growing between two flagstones. ‘Bessie – Mistress Buttergask,’ he began. Gil waited. ‘She hears voices,’ said Rattray at last. ‘In her head. I’m never sure if it’s a version o the Sight, seeing she’s from north o here, but the thing is, her voices tell her things, and one or two o them she’s repeated to me and they’ve been close to the mark, gey close to the mark.’

‘I know a couple of folk wi the Sight,’ Gil said.

‘Aye, well, you ken how what they see, what they tell you, can be right, but no always quite how you expect. Thing is, I think Bessie said something to Mistress Mason, and it worked strong on her. I didny ask either o them about it, but Bessie passed a remark or two to me later.’

‘Did she?’ Gil said. Could that be what had altered Alys’s mood so much the other night?

‘Aye. No idea what it was she said, what it was about, but I’d take it seriously if I was you. Bessie seemed to think it was important.’

In the quiet hour before supper, when all the visitors had left, Alys was off brewing a final batch of cough linctus, and Gil and Socrates were sitting quietly by the fire in the lesser chamber, accompanied by the kitchen cat, a tap on the doorframe heralded the three remaining first-year novices, Munt, Mureson and Simpson. The dog got to his feet to inspect them, and they entered diffidently, with a certain amount of nudging and hanging back, until Mureson got up enough courage to speak.

‘We thought we ought to ask how you’re doing, maister. Is it – were you badly hurt?’

‘A few scratches, that’s all,’ Gil said, oddly touched by this. ‘I’ll live. Come in to the fire. How are you all?’ he asked when they were seated.

They looked at each other, and Munt said, ‘Well enough, maister. A bit – a bit surprised, maybe.’

‘Surprised?’ he repeated. ‘About Calder, you mean?’

‘Aye, that’s it,’ agreed Simpson. ‘We aye thought he was daft, but we never thought him mad. Brother Archie was telling us how he was boasting o what he’s done, making out he was called to it. Called to cleanse the world o sinners? That must be madness. And then to lay hands on himsel and all.’