The King's Corrodian (22 page)

Outside the windows, lights, horses and people were moving about uneasily, Mistress Trabboch’s harsh voice resounding over all with contradictory riders to her men. Through this came hurrying feet, another light, a voice calling, ‘Faither? Faither Prior!’

Gil strode to the hall door and jerked it open just as one of the lay brothers raised a fist to hammer on it. Startled, the man reared back, saying, ‘Is our Prior here? He’s called for. Faither!’ he exclaimed, seeing Boyd behind Gil. ‘You need to come. It’s our librarian.’

‘Sandy?’ Boyd said. ‘What’s wrong, Archie? What’s he at?’

‘I think he’s killt Faither Henry!’

The cloister was dark and filled with the bitter wind, the bulk of the church looming against a ragged sky dotted with stars, but in the corner of the walkway by the library a cluster of candles and lanterns revealed confused patches of white, which resolved into sleeves, cowls, habit hems, appearing and disappearing against the black cloaks of a number of Dominicans. Many voices offered advice: the order for silence had clearly been forgotten.

‘No, don’t move him yet.’ Brother Euan’s soft voice cut through the hubbub. ‘Lay that over him, that’s right.’

‘What’s happened?’ demanded Prior Boyd. ‘How bad is he? Is it Henry indeed?’

Brother Euan looked up, and sat back a little, so that over Boyd’s shoulder Gil could see the patient, sprawled on the flagstones under two cloaks and a blanket. Henry White’s long face and thick dark hair showed in the light, with a dabble of dark blood on his cheek.

‘He is breathing well,’ said the sub-infirmarer. ‘No! Don’t move him!’ he repeated sharply to the man at his right. ‘I am not knowing how long he has been like this, but the blood is sticky on his head rather than wet.’ He indicated a patch on his own long skull, behind the left ear.

‘I found him like that,’ said another voice. Raitts, standing by the wall, sulky and resentful, with his hands bound by what looked like his own belt. ‘He was lying there and I heard him snoring, and came to see if it was some gangrel body seeking alms, and it was him. I never struck him, no matter what you say,’ he added to the man at his side. One of the second-year novices, Gil thought. Tam moved quietly from behind Gil and took up a stance at Raitts’s other side.

‘What is going on?’ asked Prior Boyd, in more authoritative tones. Several people began to answer him, but he held up one hand, pale in the flickering light, and pointed to the novice. ‘You. David Brown, is it? I canny see you in this light.’

‘No, Faither, it’s Robert Aikman.’ The young man ducked his head in a bow. ‘Archie and me was watching wi Brother Euan, and he sent us to find you, and as I cam through the slype I heard a noise, and came to see what was up, and here was our librarian, and Faither Henry on the ground. So I shouted, and he ran, and Archie and me caught him, and Archie fetched Brother Euan—’

‘Aye, and I should be sitting with Faither James,’ said Brother Euan, ‘to let these laddies be getting some sleep. There is too much the now for one Infirmarer, Faither, we will need to be choosing another to learn beside me.’ He looked down at Father Henry, his hands gentle on the man’s inert shoulder, at odds with the irritation in his voice.

‘I found him like that,’ said Raitts again. ‘I cam by here and there he was, and then these two come shouting at me and a course I ran, who wouldny, but I never struck him down.’

‘Can he be moved?’ the Prior asked Brother Euan.

‘I’ve sent Archie to fetch a hurdle,’ said the sub-infirmarer obliquely. ‘I’d as soon carry him steady on that as lift him wi his head falling all about. We could do wi a couple folk to be going ahead, make up the other bed, fetch hot stones from the kitchen. And you need to see Faither James, Faither,’ he added significantly.

‘Is this where he was lying when you found him?’ Gil asked Raitts.

‘He was closer to the wall,’ said Raitts. ‘I rolled him over to see who it was and why he was snoring like that. He’s stopped the snoring,’ he added unnecessarily. ‘He stopped when I moved him.’

‘Good,’ said Brother Euan.

‘How long ago was this?’ Gil asked. Raitts shrugged.

‘The half o an hour? No as much as an hour. I cam by here …’ He checked, and shuddered, ‘I cam by here to go into the kirk for that I heard voices in the guest yard, and there was
women
there. At this hour o the night! What’s women doing here the now? It’s no right!’

‘The woman who was in the yard has left,’ said Gil soothingly. ‘How come you were about? Where were you when you heard her?’

‘More to the point, why was Faither Henry here?’ said the Prior. ‘Who has struck him down, and why? This community is cursed, I begin to believe it.’ He crossed himself.

Brother Archie arrived with a wicker hurdle. Gil, looking around him, wondered if the whole community was now awake and here in the cloister. There seemed to be at least ten people milling about, though it was hard to count in the darkness. Brother Euan took over, issuing orders, getting his patient moved carefully onto the hurdle, directing four men to take the corners. The Prior firmly ordered everyone else back to bed, reminding them of the imposed silence, and followed as the small group with its burden moved off towards the door.

From his post Tam said, ‘An accident, maister? Or was he struck?’

‘I’m no certain.’ Gil moved towards the wall, where Raitts and his captor still stood, apparently uncertain of what to do. ‘Bring that light, would you? About here, you said he was lying?’ he said to Raitts, who looked up and nodded numbly.

‘Maybe a bit along. I canny mind.’

Faced with this level of precision, Gil resorted to inspecting the wall over a length of two or three ells, holding the light close and peering at the warm-coloured stone. He was rewarded; not far from where White had lain he found a dark sticky patch about shoulder height, with dark hairs caught in it. He touched it and sniffed his fingers.

‘Blood,’ he said aloud.

‘What’s that?’ said Raitts. And then, as if he could hold the question back no longer, ‘Maister, is she really gone?’

‘I saw her leave,’ said Gil.

‘What brought her here?’ he demanded fretfully. ‘How did she come here, out o all places?’

‘She’s seeking her man,’ Gil said. ‘Some friend thought she saw him here in Perth.’

‘Oh.’ The tone was dismayed. Raitts subsided, staring into the dark garden, or perhaps into some hell of his own. Brother Robert edged away a little.

‘You think he fell, then?’ said Tam.

‘I do.’ Gil straightened up and looked about him. ‘Though it’s hard to see what he might ha tripped over. And he hit the back o his head.’

‘These stones is slippy when they’re wet. Maybe he just couped ower.’

‘It’s stopped raining,’ Gil observed.

Robert Aikman quietly leaned forward, unbound Raitts’s wrists and held the belt out to him. The librarian looked down at his freed hands, then picked up the nearest lantern, and made for the doorway into the church, ignoring the belt. The novice watched him go, then looked helplessly at Gil.

‘Maybe you should go back to the infirmary,’ Gil suggested.

Left alone with Tam, he lifted the remaining lantern, looking about him.

‘It makes no sense,’ he said. ‘What was White doing here at this hour, when they should all have been abed? What was Raitts doing? And why should White fall over and strike his head, here where the flagstones are level and dry?’

‘That one they were holding for it,’ said Tam, ‘said he cam past here acos he heard women in the courtyard.’ He chuckled briefly. ‘You could hear that woman at Glasgow, I’d wager. As if he was planning to hide in the kirk,’ he elaborated.

‘Aye, it’s possible, though why he was abroad in the night at all—’

‘Maister Cunningham!’ Hurrying feet, a light at the doorway. A Dominican, his lantern picking the white sleeves and hem of his habit out of the night. ‘Maister Cunningham? Faither Prior sends for you, as soon as may be.’

‘What is it?’ Gil made for the door, Tam following hastily.

‘It’s Faither Henry. He’s – his habit’s a ower blood. He’s been stabbed!’

‘He’s living,’ said Brother Euan in his quiet voice, ‘and will live yet, by God’s grace. But aye, he’s been stabbed.’

‘Where?’ Gil demanded, keeping his voice down in turn. ‘Can I see the wound?’

‘Here.’ Brother Euan turned to the bed where the second patient lay, his head and shoulders on a backboard, a heap of bloody linen and wool discarded by his feet, one of the infirmary assistants just removing a basin of reddened water. Across the chamber, Prior Boyd had assumed his stole and was murmuring softly over Father James, whose face had changed in a subtle way Gil had seen before. ‘Our Lady has had our brother in her care, truly,’ the sub-infirmarer went on, drawing away the blankets over Henry White. ‘See, no great injury. I am thinking it has missed anything vital, and we found it afore he was bleeding to death.’

There was a long gash skidding down the left side of the man’s ribcage, oozing blood again after having been washed. There was blood still caked in the mat of black hair over the belly. Despite his words, the injury looked extensive, and Gil said as much.

‘Aye, but none so deep,’ said Brother Euan. He reached for a roll of bandage. ‘The knife has caught the ribs, I would say, and slid off. It goes only into the flesh here, not so deep as the vitals.’ He scooped something green from a tub onto a piece of linen and slapped it on the wound. ‘And St Dominic be praised I had Billy make up some of this the day. Will you take an end o that backboard, maister, till I get him wound up?’

Gil obediently helped the assistant to support White’s head and shoulders off the bed, so that Brother Euan could roll the bandage round the man’s muscular ribcage, strapping the wound securely. He fastened the end with a pin, nodded to them to lower the board, and turned his attention to the head injury, snipping away the hair round the contusion with a small pair of shears. His assistant quietly moved the linen-wrapped hot stone nearer to White’s other side and pulled the blankets up about the broad shoulders.

‘I’d thought he simply fell,’ said Gil, ‘cracked his head on the wall – in fact, I found where he struck – but this is another matter.’

Brother Euan threw him a look, but said simply, ‘Aye.’

‘It’s hardly an expert thrust,’ Gil went on, thinking aloud. ‘I suppose it could have been some kind o argument, then an unexpected blow, he went backwards and struck his head, the other fellow ran off …’

‘Or no.’ Brother Euan was smearing more green ointment on the head wound.

‘What, you reckon …’ Gil began. Their eyes met, then the sub-infirmarer looked down at his work.

‘Why was he abroad in the night?’

‘Why was Father Henry abroad in the night?’ Gil countered. ‘And now everyone’s been ordered back to bed, which hardly helps me find who was abroad and who wasny.’

‘Has he said nothing?’ asked Alys.

‘He’s still in a great swound from the blow to the head,’ said Gil. ‘Brother Euan felt he was best left like that meantime. Until he rouses and can tell us, if he will tell us, we’ve no idea who is to blame.’

‘And a knife,’ she said. ‘So the kitchen knife is not down the well.’

‘It looks like it,’ Gil agreed. ‘The Prior was determined we should not search for it just now, in the dark. It can wait until the morning, he says.’

‘What will you do?’ She was frowning. ‘Will Father Prior let you question them all now? He has really been little help so far, has he?’

‘More of a hindrance,’ said Gil drily, ‘though I hope it isn’t deliberate. When he finished ministering to Father James he heard what Brother Euan and I had to say, and agreed to call an early Chapter meeting after Terce and permit me to speak to it. Whether I’ll be able to question any alone, without him present too, we’ll see in the morning. Somehow I doubt it.’ He stretched his hands and feet to the dying fire. The black cat, taking exception to this, rose and stalked out of the room, tail flicking. Socrates watched it go, then lay flat again. ‘I suspect he’ll have to announce Father James’s death to them, he doesn’t look long for this world, which won’t help.’

‘What an evening,’ Alys said. ‘Indeed, what a day it has been. Gil, that woman. I saw her earlier, I think she is staying at the Greyfriars.’

‘I saw her earlier too,’ Gil said. ‘She expected the man of law Pullar to have found her husband. I wonder why she wants him back? Five years’ desertion is a long time.’

‘She seems like a woman to hold onto her possessions,’ Alys said. ‘A pity she and Mistress Rattray’s man could not make a match of it, they’d be better suited.’

‘The symmetry would be pleasing,’ he conceded.

She ignored this, biting the back of a finger thoughtfully. ‘Gil, this is very strange about Father Henry. Why was he talking to someone there, and at that hour? What was he talking about that would end in such an argument? There seem to have been a great number of the friars about, when they should all have been abed. What raised the alarm, I wonder?’

‘They may have been roused by Mistress Trabboch’s visit,’ Gil speculated. ‘She made enough noise, after all.’

‘Yes,’ said Alys inattentively. ‘I wonder, could he have been out about the place for the same reason as the other night?’

‘Whatever that is,’ said Gil.

‘You said he had heard something outside,’ Alys recalled, ‘and rose to see what it was. You also said he sleeps at the far end of the dorter.’

‘So Raitts said,’ agreed Gil.

‘His hearing must be good. Nobody else heard what he heard? He roused nobody to go with him?’

‘Secrecy,’ said Gil. ‘Whether he genuinely heard something, or simply went out to pursue something, someone, he suspected, he won’t tell us.’

She nodded. ‘It seems very like it. I suppose tonight he might have heard Mistress Trabboch and come out to see what was afoot, but it could equally well be the same reason, as I said.’

‘It hardly seems like the man to indulge simple curiosity,’ Gil said. ‘And we won’t know the answers till he recovers enough to tell us, if he does.’ He got to his feet. ‘Time we were abed and all, sweetheart. I’m past thinking clearly.’