The King's Corrodian by Pat McIntosh

subprior?’ said someone else.
    ‘And Sandy Munt’s a first-year novice,’ continued George.
    ‘Sandy Raitt’s the librarian,’ said the third man on the bench.
    ‘Now, he’ll certainly be in the library,’ said the first.
    The library was comfortingly familiar, with its row of shelves and scent of worn leather bindings, and at this hour of the day, when most were free to pursue the studies which were a great part of the purpose of the Order, it was full. A few people raised their heads when Gil entered, but only the librarian continued to glare at him as he picked his way between the tables and reading-desks.
    ‘This is a private library!’ he hissed as Gil reached him. ‘We canny have everyone running in and out! There was
women
in here this morning!’
    So Alys did get in, Gil thought, schooling his expression. She didn’t mention that.
    ‘I am in search of Father Henry,’ he said quietly in Latin. The librarian scowled at him, but someone at a nearby reading-desk looked up and caught Gil’s eye – the tall, decisive man who had left the Prior’s study earlier.
    ‘I am Henry White,’ he said, ‘instructor of the Dominican young. How may I help you?’
    ‘I hope you may instruct me, sir,’ said Gil.
    In the guest hall the Blackfriars servants had kept the fire going, and Socrates and the big black cat from the kitchens were sharing the hearth, at a cautiously formal distance from one another. Father Henry seated himself, refused ale, studied first Socrates and then Gil carefully, and then nodded.
    ‘I had the pleasure of speaking wi your wife earlier,’ he said. ‘To something I remarked to her she replied,
My husband would say the same
. I see why she said it.’
    Gil raised one eyebrow, but no further explanation was forthcoming. Instead the other man sat back, watching him for a moment, and then said, ‘You want to know about young Rattray, I take it?’
    ‘Among other things,’ Gil agreed. ‘Father Prior has given me one account of the lad, I’d like to hear another.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Father Henry looked down at his hands folded on his lap. ‘A loss to the Order. A very promising young man.’ He crossed himself and murmured a prayer. Socrates rose to sit down beside him, and nudged his free hand.
    ‘Was he really?’ Gil asked when he was done. ‘Or is that simply what you’ll say to his kin?’
    ‘He has no kin, I believe,’ said White, absently scratching the dog’s chin. ‘But aye, he was genuinely promising. The most o our intake is townsmen, you understand, but this year we’ve three sons o landholders, none o them baronial maybe but more cultured, more educated, than we generally get. Calder, Rattray and Mureson. Rattray’s family held land over near Montrose, and I’d ha said he was the most able o the three, the most flexible in his thinking. An ardent soul, perhaps, burning ower bright for his own good at times, but wi a great grasp o the works o Brother Thomas, and a considerable understanding o church history. Some o the questions he asked in class were deep, very deep.’
    ‘So what did you think o his claim to have caused Pollock’s vanishing?’
    After a pause, White said simply, ‘I didny ken what to think.’ Gil made a questioning noise. ‘Oh, I never thought he had aught to do wi’t in reality, but the boy was convinced he was instrumental, though he couldny bring himself to say how.’
    ‘Couldny bring himself?’ Gil repeated. That was not what Father Prior had told him. ‘You mean he said as much?’
    White looked down at the flagstones beside him, ordering his thoughts.
    ‘I spoke with him more than once while he was – isolated,’ he said. ‘He was missing classes, after all. I wished to set him work. Each time I asked him, in so many words, if he could tell me why he was being kept separate from his brothers, he replied,
Because I am evil
.’ White looked up and met Gil’s eye. ‘I showed him how no man is wholly evil, and how to find the good