The King's Corrodian by Pat McIntosh Read Free Book Online Page A

finally sketched with decisive gestures a narrow chamber not far from where the door had been.
    ‘About there,’ he said. ‘He’d be atween the patient and the door, if there was ever anyone kept there the night. Him or Brother Euan. No that Brother James would ha heard if the Last Trump sounded, bless him,’ he added. ‘He’s no so good the day, wasny fit to rise for Terce. I hope he does better. Right, maister. If we can clear the tiles, and they great timbers, we should be able to—Have you ever seen a corp that burned to death?’
    ‘No,’ Gil admitted. ‘Have you?’
    ‘Aye. No a bonnie sight.’ The lay brother bent to a blackened timber, and Gil tossed his plaid over a singed rosemary bush and hurried to take the other end. Fragments of tile slid away as they heaved. ‘These tiles is all done, we’ll get none fit to use again.’
    They progressed sideways with the length of wood between them, and set it down some distance away.
    ‘Tell me more about the man Pollock,’ said Gil, rubbing wet ash from his hands, and stepped back into the ruins.
    ‘Him? Why?’
    ‘Because nobody else seems to want to talk about him,’ said Gil deliberately, bending to gather broken tiles, ‘and I’d say you were a man to gie me a straight answer. Is there aught like a basket we could use to fetch these out of the mess?’
    ‘A basket.’ Brother Dickon straightened up with care, stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. One of his industrious team looked up, left his task and joined them at the double. ‘Brother Jamesie, get to the store, will you, find two-three baskets. Sound ones, mind, that will hold these broken tiles. Should ha thought o that mysel,’ he allowed as his henchman trotted off. ‘Pollock. Well, it’s right hard to say aught about him, maister, seeing we’re enjoined no to speak ill o the dead, and him no buried yet either.’
    ‘If he was still alive, what would you ha said?’
    The lay brother’s grizzled beard split in a grin.
    ‘I’d ha warned you he was a sleekit, spying yadswiver,’ he said promptly. ‘We tellt you as much yesterday, how he’d go about the place, overhearing all sorts that was none o his mind, writing it down in his wee tablets and casting it up at a man later. He’d a go at me,’ he admitted, ‘wishing to call me into trouble for some language I used that was no seemly, but I preferred to take it to Chapter o Faults mysel, and so I tellt him. Wasny any great penance,’ he added.
    ‘Was he a man given to drink? Could he have been asleep when the fire started?’
    ‘That’s one thing he was moderate in,’ said Dickon consideringly. ‘I’m no certain I ever seen him fou, nor even a wee thing argumentative wi drink. He’d no need o a drink to start an argument,’ he added, his tone souring.
    ‘Had he any friend in the convent?’ Gil asked. ‘There’s no other permanent lodger, is there? No other corrodian?’
    ‘No. Faither Prior – no Prior Boyd but the previous one, Prior Blythe that’s novice-master now – he put his foot down when there was to ha been another, said we’d enough to do wi one, we’d ha no more. That one went to the Greyfriars, I heard. No, Pollock had no friends in the convent, though he’d spend enough time talking wi one or another o the friars, getting wee favours of them, getting them to run errands for him.’
    ‘Getting the friars to run errands?’ Gil repeated.
    ‘Aye.’
    Brother Jamesie arrived with an armful of baskets, and a great sheet of tarred canvas folded into a bundle over his shoulder.
    ‘See, we could stack them on this, Brother Dickon,’ he said, ‘easier to get them all out the road after. Or I suppose we can use them for backfill,’ he added.
    ‘We’ll find a use for them,’ agreed his superior. ‘Good thinking, lad.’
    ‘And Sandy Raitts is in a right passion, ower there in the cloister,’ added Brother Jamesie, grinning. ‘Seems the pilgrim lady wants into his library, and he’s