The King's Corrodian (33 page)

‘Drink your ale,’ she said, as she tied the strings of the shirt on his chest. ‘The spices are to engender blood to replace what you’ve lost, being hot and dry, and the ale will replace bodily moisture.’

‘And here I thought it was for comfort,’ he said.

‘That too.’ She looked at him critically, then kissed him quickly and said, ‘You’re not so bad as I feared. Will you put on the doublet, or do you prefer a loose gown?’

‘The doublet’s past wearing and all,’ he admitted. ‘Nory, d’you think you can patch it? Aye, the furred gown, sweetheart. My
solsicle of swetnesse
,’ he added quietly as she helped him into it.

Nory was inspecting the doublet, his prim mouth turned down.

‘I’m no leatherworker, maister,’ he warned them. ‘I’ll maybe speak wi Dandy about it, but I doubt you’re looking for a new one. Or you could line it wi taffeta,’ he added, ‘seeing what a thorough job he made o slashing it, and be in the fashion for once. Flame-coloured, maybe, to pull through the slashes in wee puffs.’

‘No my colour,’ said Gil, equally solemn. Alys giggled, on a faintly hysterical note, and fastened the hooks and eyes down the front of the gown for him.

‘Fair takes me back,’ Nory added. ‘My previous maisters, God rest their souls, ruined a few doublets this way, though they both favoured velvet and brocades ower the leather.’

The doublet was probably ruined right enough, Gil thought, but equally probably it had saved his life, considering the events of the last hour or two.

He and Tam had stood in the cold and dark for a long time, waiting, not moving, before the first flakes of snow flittered out of the black sky. The snowfall grew thicker quite quickly and began to lie, drifting into corners under the cloister walkway, catching on Gil’s cloak and boots. He watched it a little anxiously, wondering whether it would make him more or less noticeable here in the shadows. The black cat slipped along the cloister in search of mice, his white patches faint in the little light there was, paused with a paw lifted in a patch of snow to consider him, then padded on into the shadows.

When he finally heard a footstep, it was from the direction he had least expected of those possible. A scuffle, the clink of a latch away to his right, and the door at the foot of the night stair eased open. There was cautious movement; the door closed, very quietly. No point in risking the cold draught waking a brother, Gil thought approvingly. All along this had been done with care and planning; he had never been convinced that the killer was mad, only that he was working, with a warped but definite intelligence, to some deep private plan.

Quiet steps sounded. Standing well back in the corner between the buttress and the wall, Gil kept as still as he might, hoping his face was well shadowed by the collar of his cloak. Even in here in the midnight under the cloister’s vaulted roof, a face might be noticed, eyes might glitter in a stray gleam.

His quarry moved quietly past him, a flurry of snow outlining the double blackness of cloak and cowl against the night, past the foot of the day stair, past the necessarium. In the corner of the cloister the footsteps paused, there was a small metallic sound, a narrow beam of light sprang out from one of the friars’ small lanterns. The dark figure bent over the light, swinging it to and fro, its weak yellow glow picking up the uneven flagstones. Gil eased himself away from the wall, slid the felt mittens off his hands, drew his dagger. Tam should be about in place by now—

‘Looking for something?’ Tam asked from beyond the searching figure.

The lantern dropped with a clatter and the searcher straightened up and gasped.

‘Oh, brother, you—’ he began, took in Tam’s un-habited outline in the last flicker of the candle, and turned to make for the day stair, straight into Gil’s arms.

Sidestepping a vicious punch, Gil chopped backhanded with the pommel of his dagger at the back of his opponent’s neck. Thick folds of black woollen cowl made the blow less than effective; the other’s knees gave, briefly, then he recovered and seized Gil’s arm, whirling away as he passed. Gil went with the move, spun the searcher round into Tam’s grasp, wrenched free and as Tam hoisted the other’s arm up behind his back got a good handful of the black cloak and pressed the point of his dagger into the man’s ribcage.

‘Hold still, will you!’ Tam said, but the captive twisted out of his grasp, one knee jerked, Tam slid on a patch of snow and fell back cursing breathlessly.

Gil tightened his grip on the cloak, pushed the dagger point more intently into the man’s ribs, and said, ‘Be still! Is this what you were looking for?’

He jabbed the dagger again, and before Tam, recovering, could join the fight their opponent twisted about again, moved his arm sharply within the cloak, jerking the dagger out of Gil’s hand. It rattled on the flagstones, and all three of them pounced on it. Gil’s head collided with someone else’s and the world retreated sharply.

When it returned he was kneeling, pain stabbing in his arm and side, a harsh-breathing shadow dark above him just striking again. He lunged sideways, his own dagger whistling past his ear, found someone’s knee beside his shoulder, managed to get his arm behind it and yanked hard. The foe collapsed on top of him, and Tam fell on top of all, driving the wind from Gil’s chest. This time Tam kept hold of the captive, and contrived to stun him with a punishing blow to the side of the head.

‘I’ve got him! Help me bind him, maister!’ he said. Gil staggered to his feet and went to Tam’s aid, but his hand seemed to be wet and slippery with something, and the cloister was swinging about badly. They got their captive secured with his own belt, as Raitts had been. Tam drew out his tinderbox and began striking a light, and as Prior Boyd and half his flock emerged from the day stair, succeeded in lighting the candle in the dropped lantern.

‘Aye, Brother Adam,’ he said, holding the light down to see who they had caught. ‘Got a fresh candle, did you? This one’s never burnt out, it’s all but new.’

‘Brother Adam,’ said the Prior, staring down at the kneeling prisoner. ‘What have you done, my son?’

Adam Calder raised his battered head.

‘I did nothing, Faither,’ he said, through split lips. ‘These two attacked me here outside the privy. See how they’ve beaten and bound me, Faither.’

‘Aye,’ said Tam grimly, ‘and see how you’ve let my maister’s blood. Maister Gil, you’re bleeding all ower the snow.’

Prior Boyd, having led Matins, appeared in the guest hall as Gil emerged from the chamber where he had been washed and bandaged. The Prior came in some state, attended by the novice-master Father John Blythe, the subprior Robert Park, Brother Dickon, and several others, all grim-faced, though one or two were suppressing yawns.

‘We have not yet questioned Brother Adam,’ Boyd said in his elegant Latin, once he had ascertained that Gil was not seriously injured. ‘Before I speak to him, I wish to hear, and for these others to hear, what you witnessed and why you seized and bound him.’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Gil waited until the Prior was seated, and sat down rather heavily himself. ‘He was searching, as I surmised, where the knife had been dropped.’

‘But anybody who was there earlier could ha dropped the knife!’ exclaimed the subprior in Scots. ‘Or maybe he was seeking something else!’

‘He came back for the knife,’ Gil said. ‘He knew it was there. Nobody else did.’

Park seemed inclined to argue, but Brother Dickon said, ‘And he ran when you spoke to him, did he no?’

‘He did,’ Gil agreed.

‘And did that to you when you stopped him,’ said the Prior, nodding at the sling which supported Gil’s bandaged arm. ‘That alone is cause to question him, never mind what more actions he is to be accused o committing.’

‘Has he said anything yet?’ Gil asked.

‘No according to my lads,’ said Brother Dickon drily, ‘other than protesting that he’s no guilty, he’s much to be commended.’

‘Commended?’ repeated the subprior. ‘Our Lady save us, what’s to commend about his behaviour? How is he to be commended?’

Adam Calder, it transpired, was shut away in the space newly vacated by Alexander Raitts, and guarded by a different pair of Brother Dickon’s men. While enough seating was found for all who required to be seated, mainly in the shape of the bench for patients, hastily borrowed from the new infirmary, Brother Dickon shook snow off his cloak so that it hissed and whined in the brazier, and interrogated his minions.

‘Aye, he was kinna difficult to get shut away,’ Brother Eck agreed. ‘Fought us like a wildcat, he did, and still crying out that he wasny to be arrested, he was to be commended, Faither would ken when he heard all.’

‘That’s what we’re here for, to hear all,’ said the Prior grimly, ‘though I doubt I’ll be commending him for any o’t. The poor laddie must be mad indeed.’

Escorted out of the inner chamber, still bound, Calder gave cause to think the Prior must be right. He seemed elated, lit from within by a fire of confidence in his actions which was proof against the manifest disapproval of the row of senior Dominicans who faced him. Instead of dropping to his knees, or better still onto his face, he stood with his head high and smiled expectantly at them.

‘Well, Adam,’ said the Prior. ‘Can you account for your actions?’

‘My every action has been for the good of the Order,’ Calder declared, in rather shaky Latin.

‘For the good of the Order?’ repeated Boyd. ‘My son, to begin with the least of your offences, how was the theft of a knife from our kitchen for the good of the Order?’

‘A necessary evil,’ said Calder, ‘trivial in respect of the whole. I required an implement.’

The subprior and John Blythe exchanged glances. Boyd did not look round. Gil, seated at the end of the bench, found himself admiring his kinsman’s abilities again; David Boyd was not a natural leader but he was a clear thinker, a powerful intellect, and this was now bent on his novice.

‘For what did you require an implement, Adam?’ he asked gently. ‘And we’ll speak Scots, if you please.’

‘To prune away the rotten branches,’ said Calder, in Latin, as if the answer was obvious.

‘In Scots, please, my son. What branches are these?’

‘Why, those that bear deformed fruit, or no fruit at all. They must be cut away, before they infect the rest of the vine.’

‘Explain yourself,’ said Boyd, his tone becoming grimmer. ‘Make matters plain to us. What branches have you cut away, my son?’

‘Only the two as yet,’ said Calder in Scots, with a sudden descent into regrets. ‘But those were rotten indeed, Faither. The one was stealing from our tenants in the town, and keeping the usufruct to his own use, and the other presented himsel as a clever student, one you all favoured, one you said was like to be a famous preacher–’

Was that a note of bitterness, Gil wondered, of envy. Was that at the root of his mission?

‘Andrew Rattray was one of the most promising novices this house has seen in many years,’ said Father John.

‘There, you see? He made fools o you all! Andrew Rattray had a mistress in the town. He kept her image in a secret place under his bed, a lewd drawing indeed wi her and her bairns in it, and went out to her every week. How’s that for your promising novice?’ There was no mistaking the vindictive tone now.

Gil leaned forward. ‘The lady whose portrait Andrew kept,’ he said, ‘was his sister. I’ve spoken wi her. She’s a Christian woman, a widow, and Andrew was her only kinsman.’

Everyone turned to stare at him in a moment of amazement. Calder recovered first.

‘And if that’s so, how did he no tell Faither Prior about her, and get permission to visit her openly? Why the secrecy?’

‘There are good reasons,’ Gil said, ‘which are not your business. The fact remains you removed a promising branch which would have borne fruit for the Order, and thereby brought grief to a courageous lady and left her bairns unprotected.’ And what a chilling way to describe a death, he thought.

‘What about setting fire to the infirmary?’ asked the subprior. ‘Why did you do that, to the great sorrow and hurt o this community, and the loss o our Infirmarer, no to mention all his stock o salves and simples?’

‘It had to be done,’ said Calder reasonably, ‘if the Deil was to come and carry off Andrew’s soul the way he deservit.’

‘Adam. Are you openly admitting,’ said David Boyd, ‘that you killed Andrew Rattray, and by that means brought about the imminent death of Faither James? That you killed Thomas Wilson in cold blood, unconfessed, to the danger of his immortal soul? That you stabbed Father Henry, your teacher?’

Calder’s face changed, and he looked away.

‘Aye. Well. That wasny – he ought no to ha ordered me to desist. I’m about God’s work and St Dominic’s here!’

‘Are you admitting that you slew these two of your brothers?’ repeated the Prior.

‘Aye, I slew them. They had to be removed, you must see that.’

‘What gave you the thought that you were fit to judge them?’ asked John Blythe mildly, the candlelight gleaming on his bald crown. Calder gave him a glittering smile.

‘Why, Faither, it was what you tellt us, right at the beginning. How a Dominican must be obedient to the Rule, and bend all his thoughts to complying wi it.’

‘And what makes you think,’ said Father John, ‘that you understand the Rule well enough to assay anyone’s obedience to it, when you areny obedient to it yoursel?’

Calder bridled at that, drew himself up as well as he could with his hands bound before him, and said indignantly, ‘The Rule’s my dearest companion, the lodestar o my life.
Item, take note
,’ he declaimed, going into a better Latin than his own, ‘
that this office calls for excellency of life, so that just as the preacher speaks from a raised position, so he may also preach the Gospel from the mountain of an excellent life
. How can you say I’m no obedient to that?’

‘You dare,’ said Father John, with a sudden icy crackle in his voice, ‘you who have wantonly, savagely, killed two of your brothers, you dare to quote Humbert of Romans as your guide?’

‘I was neither wanton nor savage!’ retorted Calder indignantly. ‘I made certain that Andrew never kent what happened, though he deserved it, and I executed Thomas at one thrust, wi all possible mercy. You’ll never call that wanton?’