Ayrshire Murders

by E R Dillon

  Inchcape howled in outrage and disbelief, his face twisted in anguish. The sword in his left hand swung wide of its mark. Even with the spike of the axe lodged in his upper arm, he somehow managed to hang onto the gelding’s bridle with his right hand. Such a grievous wound would have incapacitated any ordinary man, but it only appeared to provoke him further. His countenance blazed anew with murderous rage.

  Kyle saw his own death in Inchcape’s eyes. His left hand flew to the hilt of his sword. As he drew it forth, the scrape of the emerging blade against the metal rim of the scabbard seemed to go on forever.

  Inchcape flung back his arm to land the final stroke with his sword.

  The tip of Kyle’s blade cleared the lip of the scabbard just as an ear-splitting shriek rent the air. Hob burst into the open yard from the shadow of the trees to heave his axe at Inchcape’s helmeted head. Moonlight glittered on polished steel as the small weapon cartwheeled through the air.

  Inchcape took his eyes off Kyle for no more than a split second to glance in the boy’s direction.

  That was time enough for Kyle, in one swift graceless motion, to drive the point of his sword into Inchcape’s throat through the chain mail links of his hauberk.

  Inchcape’s arm faltered in mid-swing. His eyes flared in surprise. His mouth moved in soundless agony.

  Kyle freed his blade from Inchcape’s neck with a sharp jerk.

  Blood streamed from the gash in Inchcape’s throat to stain the front of his armor. He toppled from the saddle like a felled tree, dead before he crashed to the ground.

  Kyle gazed down at his vanquished foe, reflecting on whether honor and justice had now been served. Why then did Inchcape’s death, or more accurately, execution, leave him feeling empty and dissatisfied? Was it because what he really sought was revenge and because there was still a third man from whom an accounting was due? He would deal with Fenwick at some later date. At the moment, there was a raid underway and raiders with whom to contend.

  When he glanced around him, he saw men on foot moving without hindrance about the open yard. The sight of the five riderless horses led him to conclude that all but one of the raiders had been slain. While he was looking on, the remaining raider made a bid for freedom by wheeling his mount to head for the lane, which would take him to the main road.

  Macalister also saw the raider trying to escape. He shouted for Fergus to go after the man, who by that time was more than halfway to the tree-lined lane. The dog took off like a shot, its ears pricked and the hair bristling along the ridge of its backbone.

  Kyle climbed down from the saddle close to where Inchcape’s body lay on the ground, taking care not to jar his injured limb. He wiped his sword on the dead man’s cloak before returning the blade to his scabbard. He put his booted foot on the bloody shoulder piece to jerk his father’s axe from the bull hide armor. After he slipped the handle through the loop on his saddle, he looked around for his own axe. On finding the broken pieces, he tucked the salvageable metal parts into his saddle roll.

  He was searching for Hob’s axe when Macalister walked over to stand beside him. “Did anybody get hurt?” he said, looking up briefly.

  “A few cuts and bruises,” Macalister said. “Nothing that won’t mend.”

  Kyle continued the hunt, his eyes to the ground. “Too bad one of the raiders got away.”

  A long keening howl came from the direction of the main road. Both men paused to listen to it.

  “He didn’t get far,” Macalister said grimly. He bent down to retrieve something embedded in the dirt and held it out for Kyle to see. “Were ye looking for this?”

  “I was,” Kyle said, taking the small axe from Macalister’s hand. He wiped the mud from it and stuck the shaft under his belt.

  Macalister stood facing Kyle in the moonlight, his blunt features in shadow. “For a while there, during that fight with Inchcape, I thought ye were a goner.”

  Kyle clapped Macalister on the shoulder with his good hand. “For a while there, I did, too.”

  “I notice ye favor yer arm,” Macalister said. “Is it broke?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kyle said.

  Macalister probed the damaged shoulder with his fingers. “It feels sound. There’s no blood, either. It might be out of joint.”

  “Do you know how to fix it?” Kyle said.

  Macalister grasped Kyle’s elbow with one hand and his upper shoulder with the other hand. He rotated the arm for a moment before giving it a forceful tug.

  Kyle grunted at the sharp pain, but the persistent ache from the injury subsided almost immediately. He flexed his arm experimentally. “That’s much better,” he said with appreciation.

  A second keening howl brought Macalister’s head around. “I’d better check on Fergus,” he said. He then set out for the lane.

  Kyle noticed Hob’s small form hunched over a man lying on the ground in the shadow of the trees. He gathered the reins and headed that way with the gelding in tow. As he drew near, he saw that the man was Ogilvy, who was either unconscious or dead. He went down on one knee beside the boy and slipped a comforting arm around his thin shoulders.

  “Grandpa hasn’t moved since he got hit on the head,” Hob said. “Is he dead, do ye think?”

  Kyle placed a hand on the old man’s chest and felt the steady hammer of his heart. “Nay, he’s not dead,” he said. “However, I would be but for your quick thinking.” He pulled the small axe from his belt and handed it to the boy. “You were very brave to take on that raider by yourself. You saved my life.”

  Hob turned and buried his face in Kyle’s chest. “I didn’t want ye to die,” he said, his voice muffled.

  Kyle was at a loss for words. He folded the boy in his arms. After a moment, he grasped him by the shoulders to hold him at arm’s length, noting the smudged marks of tears on his thin face. “Here, now,” he said. “Let’s have no more of that.”

  Hob rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Will Grandpa go to heaven, like yer son?” he said, blinking hard to clear his vision.

  Kyle was sure the old man would come around, but he was unsure when that would be. “Don’t you worry about your grandpa,” he said. “He’s too ornery to die.”

  Ogilvy opened one eye to fix a baleful stare on Kyle. “I heard that,” he said. He tried to sit up on his own but gave it up with a loud moan. “Oh! My head!” He pressed a hand on either side of his temples. In doing so, his felt cap slipped back to reveal the bascinet beneath.

  “So that’s how you managed to cheat death,” Kyle said, his eyes on the dent in the metal helmet.

  “Not for long, the way I feel,” the old man growled. “Help me up.”

  Between the two of them, Kyle and Hob hauled the old man, grunting and groaning, to his feet. To keep him that way, they propped him against the trunk of the nearest tree.

  By that time, the other defenders began to gather round. Some bore superficial wounds crusted with drying blood, while others appeared to be unscathed.

  A young man, to whom Hob bore a fair resemblance, spoke up first. “I can help ye rebuild, uncle,” he said to Ogilvy.

  “Nay, Guthrie,” the old man said. “I’ve had enough. After I wed Mistress Hamilton, I plan to take my lady wife and what’s left of the flock farther north. The Southrons will never find me up in those hills. Hob and his mother are coming with me. Ye are welcome to come, too.”

  While the old man was talking, Kyle let his gaze rove over the faces of the men gathered there. He was astonished to see the baker, the chandler, the tinsmith, and the silversmith from Ayr. They seemed like ordinary men in every respect, yet it was evident that each was willing to take extraordinary measures to protect his family and his home, as well as that of his neighbors. Bishop Wishart had encouraged him, Kyle, to do likewise, even going so far as to give him a medallion to return, should he decide to do so. A light touch on his arm interrupted the thread of his thoughts.

  “Master Kyle,” Guthrie said. “I speak for all of us h
ere when I say we’re grateful ye came when ye were needed.”

  The others nodded and murmured their agreement.

  “Like yer father did in the old days,” the baker said.

  “My father?” Kyle said.

  “Aye,” Guthrie said. “He were always there to help whenever the raiders beset us. Neither me nor my sister, she’s Hob’s mother, would be alive today if it weren’t for James Shaw.”

  Just then, Macalister walked up leading a dark horse with a body draped across its back. Fergus trailed along at his heels.

  “I reckon Fergus must have tore out his throat,” Ogilvy said, indicating the dead man.

  Macalister shook his head. “There’s not a mark on him,” he said. “When I got there, he was lying on the ground with his neck broke.”

  Kyle bent closer to look at the face of the dead man slung over the saddle. “It’s Weems,” he said, straightening his back. Mistress Hamilton’s dire pronouncement echoed in his mind, the words of which he recited aloud: “ ‘Three a violent end shall meet, the fourth shall cause his own defeat.’ ”

  “What does that mean?” Macalister said.

  “Mistress Hamilton was looking at me when she uttered those words,” Kyle said, “but they were meant for Sweeney, Inchcape, Archer, and Weems, who had just departed from there that day. Sweeney, Inchcape, and Archer perished by violent means, whereas Weems broke his neck on his own rope. He strung it across the path to catch me, but in his panic to escape, he forgot it was there.” He made a move to leave. “I’d better see to it before somebody else gets hurt.”

  “I already took it down,” Macalister said, indicating the hemp rope coiled around the saddle bow.

  “Good man,” Kyle said. “It is rather a coincidence, is it not, that such a fate actually befell each of those men?”

  A couple of the tradesmen shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, as though convinced the deaths were anything but coincidental.

  “One of the other raiders might have put that rope there,” Macalister said, unconvinced.

  “I doubt it,” Kyle said. “Only a sneak like Weems was capable of such an underhanded thing.”

  “It is just and fitting then,” Macalister said, “that he got caught in his own trap.”

  Kyle scanned the faces of those around him. “I’m sure nobody has any objection,” he said, “if I take those dead men back to the garrison with me. They are proof that English soldiers are involved in the raids.”

  “I’d lend ye a wagon,” Ogilvy said, “but it went up in flames with the byre.”

  “I’ve got one ye could use,” Guthrie said. “It’s not in great shape, but it should hold together long enough to get ye back to town. I can take ye to where it is, if ye wish it.”

  Kyle mounted the gelding and held out his left hand to pull Guthrie up behind him. “I reckon it’ll take me quite a while to fetch that wagon,” he said to those gathered. “When I get back, I won’t notice if any of that gear or all of those fine horses go missing. I just want the bodies.”

  He then turned the gelding to head across the field beyond the burned-out shell of Ogilvy’s stone cottage.

  ****

  It was well after midnight by the time Kyle drove Guthrie’s wagon down Harbour Street and on to the garrison.

  The gates were closed, as they should have been at that hour, and the guard on duty in the watchtower leaned over the edge of the parapet to look down at the wagon. “Who goes there?” he bellowed.

  “Kyle Shaw, deputy to the sheriff of Ayrshire.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” the guard said. “You may enter.”

  “Send a man straightaway to awaken Sir Percy,” Kyle called out before the guard disappeared from view.

  After a long moment, the wooden gates creaked apart wide enough for the wagon to pass through.

  Light from the moon shone down into the empty courtyard as he drove the wagon over to the main hall and stopped out front. He was unhitching the gelding from the traces when Sir Percy stuck his head out of the window above him.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Sir Percy shouted. “What do you want?”

  “You wanted proof,” Kyle shouted up to him. “I’ve got it.”

  Sir Percy muttered an unintelligible expletive. “Oh, very well,” he said. “I’ll be right down.” He withdrew his head from the window.

  Five minutes later, Sir Percy strode through the door of the main hall in a loose-fitting nightgown, with slippers on his feet and a lighted candle in his hand. His hair, disheveled from slumber, stood erect on his head. “What is so important that it cannot wait until morning?” he said, his tone peevish at being roused from his bed. The soldier who woke him followed him out into the courtyard and waited silently behind him.

  “See for yourself,” Kyle said, with the sweep of his hand toward the wagon.

  Sir Percy walked up to the rotted slats on the near side of the wagon, the candle held high to see into the back of it.

  The wavering flame shed a soft yellow light on six scantily clad bodies laid across the wooden bed.

  Sir Percy’s countenance changed from annoyance to anger in a single blink. It was evident from the resolute set of his mouth that he recognized Inchcape and Weems among the dead men. “Who did this?” he demanded, raising his eyes to Kyle’s face. “Surely it was Scots rebels,” he added in response to his own query.

  “Those men were killed not three hours ago in the act of burning out a homestead a few miles north of Prestwick,” Kyle said. “I was there to help stop them.”

  “Impossible,” Sir Percy said, although without conviction.

  “It was Neyll who planned that raid and likely all the others,” Kyle said.

  “Where is your proof?” Sir Percy said.

  “In my office, written in Neyll’s own hand,” Kyle said. “He evidently had an arrangement to split the profits with the soldiers who actually carried out the raids. He must now answer for his part in them, as these dead men already have.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I plan to arrest Neyll at first light. I shall then send a formal report to Edward of England charging Neyll with the wanton destruction of property, theft, exploitation, coercion, profiting from the sale of stolen goods, and the collection of illegal taxes, to name a few. I must warn you that your name will also be mentioned in connection with those and other charges.”

  “How dare you!”

  “If you claim no involvement in the whole affair, you should have no problem exonerating yourself in the eyes of your king.”

  Sir Percy fumed silently for a moment, his brow furrowed in thought. “Make your arrest, then,” he said at length. “Send your report to my lord the king. See where it will get you.”

  “The charges will stand under Scottish law.”

  “Scottish law no longer exists under the English occupation of Scotland,” Sir Percy said. “Besides, who do you think sanctioned those raids in the first place?”

  “Even King Edward wouldn’t stoop that low,” Kyle said.

  “You would be surprised how low he has already stooped,” Sir Percy said. “He considers Scotland and all those in it nothing but shite on his boot. If you dare to arrest Neyll, your head will end up on a spiked pole over the garrison gates, with your headless corpse left to rot beside it.”

  “If that’s the kind of king you serve, you deserve each other,” Kyle said in disgust.

  He was glad Count Jardine got safely away and that Edward of England would get his comeuppance from the French king for violating the trade embargo, even though that was not punishment enough, considering the damage caused to lives and property thus far because of Edward’s greed.

  He put his foot in the stirrup and mounted the gelding. “I should mention,” he said, “that Bishop Wishart has in his possession a document, which, if it ever fell into King Edward’s hands, will raise a stench in this shire that you will never live down. And,” he added, looking down at Sir Percy, “it has no
thing to do with raids or raiders.”

  With a nudge of his heels to the gelding’s belly, he set out at a brisk pace for the garrison gates, brooding on how often truth conflicted with justice, and that the law at times promoted neither truth nor justice.

  ****

  Sir Percy stared after Kyle from where he stood beside the wagonload of rapidly stiffening cadavers, oblivious to the hot candle wax dribbling down the back of his hand.

  Chapter 19

  Kyle rode slowly up Harbour Street. Beside him, lambent light from the moon flickered on the purling water of the River Ayr. Sleep for him was out of the question, for his mind churned with disquieting thoughts of Neyll, a shameless man without soul or conscience who profited at the expense of his own countrymen; of Edward of England, an unyielding and spiteful king; and of the Scottish people, a force with which King Edward must soon reckon.

  He was now ready to follow in his father’s footsteps as an advocate for the Scottish people, but he would do so in his own way and on his own terms, without spying or intrigues. As a deputy sheriff sworn to uphold the law, he would do his best to stay within the framework of the judicial system to thwart Neyll and men like him who preyed on the weak and the unprotected. That failing, however, he would not hesitate to employ other means to bring such villains to justice.

  He made his way down winding streets, empty and silent except for the steady clop of the gelding’s hooves on the cobblestones. He hardly noticed the shapeless houses crouched in deep shadow on either side of him. Only the angular rooftops were sharply defined against the starlit sky.

  He stopped the gelding and dismounted before one house in particular. The moment he sat on the top step out front, a heavy weariness overwhelmed him. Every muscle in his body ached. He shed his helmet and the chain mail coif beneath, drawing in a grateful breath of cool night air. After removing the gauntlets from his hands, he propped his elbows on his knees and put his head on his crossed arms.