The King's Corrodian (16 page)

‘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?’

Enquiring on the Highgate for Maister Andro Pullar’s place of business got Gil first a disparaging, ‘Oh, him! He’s along that way.’ The second citizen he asked spat copiously on the cobbles, just missing Gil’s boots, before he jerked a thumb at the next forestair and said, ‘Yonder, in the grand house, like an honest man.’

‘It’s a grand house indeed,’ said Euan, impressed. ‘There’s a good living for a man o law in this town, that’s plain.’

Gil, climbing the stair, said nothing, but rattled the pin at the oak door. Euan had a point; it was a very handsome house, tall and narrow in the Dutch style, and recently built by the look of the stones of the lower floor. A clerk answered the door, and bowed them into a neat chamber where a liveried servant was kicking his heels on a bench along one wall, but rose as they entered. Besides the bench there was a table, a tall desk and a hearth with a fire in it. The furnishings were all new, locally made by a good craftsman, Gil thought. A door at the far side of the chamber was firmly shut, but voices were audible through it.

‘You’ll no mind waiting,’ the clerk announced officiously. ‘My maister’s got someone wi him the now. Hae a seat on yon bench if you wish, maister.’

He took up a pen from the desk and returned to copying something. Euan retired to a corner, conveniently close to the fire. Gil shook the rain from his plaid, nodded at the servant and sat down, wondering whether he needed a clerk to admit clients to his own house. Lowrie or one of the servants usually answered the door, and his notary’s practice was hardly profitable enough to keep a clerk as well as Lowrie. He occupied the time reckoning how much work he would need to bring in to make it worthwhile, and was concluding that he had no wish for that much extra work, when the voices from the inner chamber became suddenly louder.

‘I assure you, Mistress Trabboch—’

The clerk looked up, and the waiting servant flinched and braced himself.

‘You’ll assure me o nothing, you handless, shilpit wee sumph!’ declared a loud harsh voice. ‘Six weeks you’ve had to find him, in a place this size, and what can you tell me?’

‘I doubt you’ve been misinformed, mistress, for I—’

‘I wasny misinformed. Isabella Newton kens him as well as she kens me, she’d no mistake him.’

‘It’s a pity she couldny recall what habit he was wearing. But I assure you, mistress, there’s none o that name in any o the houses hereabout.’

‘Useless, you are! You’ll no see a penny piece for this, for I’ll no believe you’ve stirred yoursel off your arse in the matter at all. I’ll see mysel out, man. I’d no trust you to convey me to your ain stair.’

The door flung open, and a tall woman stalked out, her wide skirts swirling round her, a harassed maidservant hurrying after her.

‘Thomas,’ she said sharply as she crossed the chamber, elbowed the clerk aside when he would have opened the door for her, jerked at the latch and flung the heavy boards back. The door, rebounding, caught her servant’s shoulder as he hurried to accompany her, then crashed shut behind the party.