The King's Corrodian Read Online Free PDF

‘for either way prayers’ll no hurt the matter. They can get their bite o supper after.’
    ‘But also, brother,’ she went on, ‘if there’s to be any prayers said, you need to get a mat or the like, to protect the friars’ habits when they kneel. This greasy floor …’
    ‘Aye,’ said Dickon thoughtfully, looking down at his own knees. ‘I’ll tell you, mistress, my boots hasny squeaked since the day we entered this lodging. Swimming in lard, it was.’
    ‘Was it set cold?’ she asked, rubbing her toe on the broad boards nearest her. ‘Or did it still run?’
    ‘Atwixt and atween. It’s soaked well in by now.’
    By the time they had contained the inseparable ashes of Leonard Pollock and his great chair, and set the box decently on a stool with the linen cloth to cover it, the little bell had begun ringing again and the members of the community were gathering from study and from daily tasks to wash hands before the evening collation, making their way half-seen in the twilight in their white habits and black cloaks, with sidelong glances at the fateful lodging. The meal, Gil knew, would be followed directly by Compline, which was begun in the refectory and ended in the priory church. He also knew that little or nothing was permitted to interrupt Compline. Informing Father Prior, he reckoned, would have to wait until afterwards.
    The guests were not expected to attend the service, it seemed. A lay servant had carried in the dishes and helped to set up the table by the fire in one of the smaller chambers, promising to return later for the crocks. He was accompanied by the kitchen cat, a large black animal with a white bib and paws, who leaped onto a windowsill to inspect them all from a safe distance, established that Socrates knew how to be polite to cats, then sauntered impudently off when Gil called the dog to heel.
    The accommodation which they had been allowed was more comfortable than Gil had expected, now that their servants, who numbered three house-servants and two grooms borrowed from Gil’s uncle Canon Cunningham for the journey, had spent some time re arranging the sparse furniture and kindling the fire. Gil had still not worked out how they would arrange themselves for sleep; Jennet could hardly lie in the same chamber as the men. Perhaps Alys had the answer, he decided.
    ‘How was the whole wee house no burned down?’ Jennet went on now, mopping pepper sauce from her platter with a piece of hard bread. ‘It makes no sense, unless it truly was the Deil carried him off.’
    ‘Was it no one of the novices set fire to him?’ asked Nory, Gil’s body-servant. He was a skinny fellow in his forties, very neat in the suit of clothes he had had as a New Year’s gift; he had been in Gil’s service for four months or so and promised well. ‘The lad ’at brought our dinner was saying they’ve one of the novices locked away, for that he confessed to killing the man. No that it’s any great loss, he says,’ he added primly. ‘Seems he wasny well liked.’
    ‘Aye, but the lodging was locked tight against thieves,’ said Tam, one of Canon Cunningham’s grooms. ‘So how did he get in to set fire to the man?’
    ‘And how will the poor fellow be rising from his grave at the Last Day, all burned to ashes as he is?’ wondered the Ersche gallowglass.
    ‘With God all things are possible, Euan,’ said Alys.
    ‘Aye, mistress,’ agreed Euan, his long narrow face ser ious, ‘but God will be having a lot to see to on that day. Maybe He’ll no be bothered wi one man’s troubles.’
    ‘Aye, but if it was the Deil struck him down,’ said the other groom, a wiry man called Dandy, ‘then likely he’s in the Bad Place a’ready and no need of judgement or rising up.’
    Euan considered this doubtfully, and Gil broke off another piece of bread and dipped it in the sauce-dish.
    ‘Did the fellow say aught else about the dead man, Nory?’ he asked.
    ‘Why, only that. He’d ha said more, I think,’