by J. R. Tomlin
“Does he go armed?”
“Certes. As any man might, he carries a dagger at his belt.”
Law shrugged. “It shouldn’t matter. There are few with hair so light or in such fine clothing, much less with such a name. He’ll be easy enow to pick out.”
“I have no idea where…he has left what he stole from me. I cannot return home with matters as they stand. He must be found and followed. Once you do that, leave approaching him to me.” He gave Law a considering look. “I want you to look after this yourself. I am at the Reidheid Hostelry. Bring me news there when you have it.”
“Aye,” Law said. He knew the place, for he’d stayed there for a few days until he found the room here that would not use up his coins. “As soon as we find him.”
Blinsele gave Law a haughty nod. “I thank you.”
Law opened the door for him. When he closed it and turned back to the room, Duncan stood by the table with one of the demi-noble coins held close to his eyes as he examined it. He smiled smugly. “They’re not shaved. Good.” He scooped up two more of the coins and dropped them with a clink into a purse at his belt. Law gritted his teeth in irritation, but he’d see that Duncan saw only a single coin of the final payment. “From his look, these have brothers.”
Law took the other coins before he sat down. He rubbed them in his hand. Blinsele was paying too well for what he was asking. Law had to wonder why. “Probably. But dinnae count on seeing any of them.”
“I shall if you do.” He brayed a laugh but without a trace of amusement. “You shan’t leave our debt to me unpaid. I know you better than that.”
Law ground his teeth. He’d done no more than sharing a few flagons of wine with Duncan in France when they’d followed their lords, but the man had quickly realized that Law believed in paying his debts. Whether he truly owed Duncan one… He unclenched his teeth. “I’ll meet you at Blackfriars tonight.”
For a moment, Law stood in the door of his chamber considering something odd in Blinsele’s manner, a lack of assumption of authority he’d expect in a lord and the excessive amount he was willing to pay. But he was in no position to be picky about his patron, so he took his cloak from a peg on the wall and strode down the stairs and into the street.
On the way out of the tavern, Law sat down next to Cormac, who had his harp in his lap, tuning it. “Do me a favor?”
Cormac raised an eyebrow. “Aye, if I can.”
“Go to the Blindman’s Tavern and ask quietly if they’ve seen someone with hair so light it is almost white.” He slipped Cormac a coin. “I dinnae have time to go there myself.”
Rain dribbled down Law’s leather cloak, and cold water soaked through the seams of his boots. He turned west on Northgate, sloshing towards Northgate Port. Undaunted by the normal Scottish rain, the lord sheriff rode by on a prancing roan palfrey surrounded by his guards. Further, a horde of barefoot, ragged boys were tussling and whacking each other with sticks, one leaning against a wall holding onto his bloody nose. In the shadow of the wall, some farmers stood beside wagons, shouting out, “Leeks and onions, cheap as you will find” and “Kale, here you go. Fresh kale for your pot.”
Once through the tall stone gate, the road became rutted dirt that sucked at his boots as he slogged toward the Whitefriars Abbey. His gait had only a small hitch from the limp unless he was tired. For a moment, he regretted having sold his horse, but the walk would do him no harm. He wasn’t sure if they had a women’s hall since it was smaller than Blackfriars, but he knew it had a men’s guest hall, for Duncan had stayed there when they first arrived at Perth. It was a long trek.
The dark hills loomed before him, and soon the tree branches met and mingled overhead plunging the path into shadows as though he were passing through a long dark tunnel. The day smelled of rain and mud, and the wind carried a hint of a peat fire somewhere in the distance.
When he stepped out from under the trees, the stone monastery and its high spire stood before him, surrounded by wooden buildings, guesthouses, barns, and fields of crops and cattle. Between knee-high rows of kale, two friars in brown robes and leather girdles with hoes over their shoulders trudged toward a barn through the mist. There should have been a porter at the gate, but no one answered when he tugged on the bell.
He pushed open the gate and walked to the front door of the church, stamped the mud from his feet, and shook out his cloak. As he had hoped, bells for None, the mid-afternoon prayers, had not yet rung, which left him ample time to reach his meeting with Duncan. Inside, a heavily veiled woman knelt before a statue of the Virgin Mary, and another at the altar rail muttered a prayer. A gray-haired, tonsured lay brother was polishing a silver reliquary. Law cleared his throat, and the friar looked up at him, allowing Law to catch his eye. The man, hands tucked into his sleeves, made his way to the nave where Law waited.
“Can I help you, my son?” he asked.
“Brother,” Law said with a nod of his head, “mayhap. I recently returned from the war in France and seek to locate an old friend. I think he may bide in your guesthouse.”
The friar shook his head. “It isn’t the season for pilgrims, so we haven’t any guests with us the nonce.”
“He’s middling height and his yellow hair is so light it is almost white. Has anyone like that been here in the past weeks?” At the friar’s raised eyebrows, Law explained, “Mayhap I waste my time seeking him, but I’ve few friends left since—” He swallowed. “I was at the Battle of Verneuil, you see. So I am eager to find my one friend.” He knew putting one truth about his past in a tangle of lies would make the story more believable.
The friar quickly crossed himself. “It was a sad day when we heard that news. The king ordered prayers for all lost there, especially the earls.”
“In the town mayhap or heard of such from a friar at one of the other abbeys?”
Rocking backward and forward on his feet, the friar stared into the distance. “Aye,” he said, thoughtfully, “I did see a stranger similar to what you mentioned not long past, two days ago it was. He was speaking to another man when I was carrying a basket of bread to the leper house. But he never abided here, so I fear it is no help to you.”
“No, brother, learning he has been in Perth and may yet be here does indeed help me.”
A bell began to toll above them. “I need to go,” the friar said hastily. “But I wish you well in finding your friend.”
Law pulled his cloak around himself when he went out into the lengthening shadows, but the rain had finally stopped. He picked his way along the path, back through the port into the dank streets of the burgh, eager to reach Blackfriars. Most likely, Blinsele was wrong that the man had left Blackfriars, so there was a good chance that Duncan had spotted him. The abbey was on the far north side of the city, and he preferred it was full dark when he met Duncan in case their quarry was about, so he took his time as he walked.
A fog, thin and clammy, blurred the buildings as he passed. The crisp scent of autumn was quickly overlaid with the stench of blood and offal from slaughtering that was done in this part of Perth. His throat closed, and he choked on the smell. Shutters were banging closed as he passed the tightly clustered buildings with jetties that thrust out above the street turning it into little more than a warren. A wife dragged a squalling wean through the door and slammed it closed behind her.
He passed shadowy shops as the sun sank below the high city walls, shops with bloody beef carcasses stood next to poulterers where dark, motionless lines of birds hung, as far as he could see into their murky depths. The last of sunset’s light faded into black night.
In an open doorway, a burly man stood silhouetted in lamplight, a pig’s carcass over his shoulder dripping gore down his apron. “Beannachd leat,” he called out to Law congenially.
Law’s Gaelic was good enough to know a civil good night, so he replied, “Mar sin leat,” with a brisk wave.
Blackfriars was out of Perth and into a suburb past the Red Brig Port. The street narrowed
once through the port, and his boots squelched in icy mud of the roadway. Wind moaned through the pines setting branches to scraping and groaning. A fragment of moon slithered from behind clouds only to hide again. His weakened leg burned with fatigue, and he stumbled in a rut.
Finally, he heard a mournful chant of vespers prayers roll from the monastery: Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina.
O Lord, make haste to aid me indeed, and Law snorted softly at the thought. If he needed help, he’d do better to depend upon his good sword arm, for God, if the priests weren’t lying about there being one, did not seem eager to aid him.
Behind the monastery’s high stone walls, beams of light from the windows of the monastery broke the thick darkness, or Law might have missed the alley where he was to meet Duncan. Fences on both sides formed a dark passageway. He peered in and took a step into the narrow path where he’d told Duncan to meet him, so they didn’t chance frightening off their quarry. He didn’t want to call out, but apparently Duncan had hidden himself well. Or perhaps he’d given up and gone back to the room he rented above a baker. The faint chanting from the monastery ceased.
“Duncan, where in Hades are you?” Law called softly.
Running his hand along the damp wooden fence, Law walked into the dark pathway. A blackbird burst out of hiding almost at his feet with a clatter of feathers and a harsh squawk. The waving, pewter moonlight seeped through the clouds to make strange passing shapes on the ground over a dark lump against the dyer’s fence. And then through a break in the clouds, the moonlight reflected in wide-open eyes. The mixed stench of blood and urine and shit hit Law’s nostrils. He stood frozen, hand on his hilt, and then turned in a slow circle searching the shadows.
Nothing moved, so he squatted beside the body, wishing he had a lantern. He laid the back of his hand against Duncan’s cheek. It was still slightly warm but so still there was no doubt the man wasn’t breathing. To be sure, Law put his hand over the nostrils. No air moved.
By feel, he ran hands down Duncan’s body, briefly pausing over the warm, sticky wetness in the middle of his chest, felt for his scabbard, and found a still-sheathed sword. That gave him pause. How had someone gotten close enough that a man-at-arms as seasoned as Duncan hadn’t even drawn his weapon? He felt for Duncan’s purse and slipped fingers inside it, feeling coins still there. Not robbed, then. He extracted them and rubbed them with his thumb, thoughtfully, before he put one back into the leather purse, so it wouldn’t appear that Duncan had been robbed. Three demi-nobles went into his own.
Law straightened and took a careful step back. It was too dark to see any marks in the soggy ground, but there must be some there. He backed away a few more steps before he turned and considered the stone fence that surrounded the monastery. He let out a long puff of breath before he limped through the mud to the tall gate between tall stone pillars. By feel he located the bell pull and yanked. The bell clamored.
Law looked over his shoulder towards the dark where Duncan’s body lay, an oddly bereft feeling welling in his chest. He had not loved the man, had resented his demands, and yet…he had been the last tie to so much of Law’s life, had saved him on the battlefield. Law suddenly realized that never before in his life had he been completely alone, with no comrade to share a cup of wine or guard his back.
Still, no one answered, so he yanked again, impatient.
The minutes stretched out, and Law lifted his hand to the rope again when he heard the slap of sandals. A flap slid open, and eyes peered out at him from a round face lit by the flickering light of a lantern.
Law cleared his throat. “I found a body. Across the way.”
“A body? That of a person?” When Law said aye, the man’s eyes narrowed. “Not on the monastery grounds. Then it is nae our affair.”
“I must speak with the prior to see if he would send someone to keep watch on the body. The Christian thing, certes. He cannot be left to lie for the dogs.”
The yard was laid out with gravel walks between evergreens like dark giants and beyond them the outline of large guesthouses where the king and the royal court often stayed. Though the drizzle had stopped, there was still the sound of dripping water from the branches. He followed the friar up the walk toward a building where lights shone out through narrow windows that he guessed to be the refectory.
The man looked over his shoulder with pursed lips and frowned but opened the door. He motioned to a stone bench before he turned and slap-slapped back down the stone corridor. His black robe swished around his legs as he scurried through a door that he closed behind him. Law crossed his arms and sank onto the bench, his leg protesting at the length of his walk.
He shook his head. The body was out of the way. He could only hope it would not be disturbed until he returned.
There was a low murmur from beyond the door of someone reading scripture, and a smell of cooked kale, beans, and bread made his nose twitch; his empty belly grumbled. Torches in sconces on the wall threw flickering light, and he studied the shifting shapes as he considered what to do next. How much should he tell the sergeant? Should he seek out Blinsele or continue the search?
The door opened, and a short, compact friar with a square face scrunched into a scowl under a grizzled tonsure strode toward him. The cross that hung from his leather girdle was jeweled, and his robes looked to be fine wool.
Law stood and gave a respectful bow of his head. “Brother Prior?”
“Aye. Brother Gilbert was wittering on about a…a body?”
“I fear so, in the alley by the dyer’s yard across the road. I must find the watch and hoped you might send a lay brother to guard the body.”
The deep folds in the prior’s face deepened. “Why the watch?”
Law gave a shrug of one shoulder. “The front of his doublet was sticky.” He held out his hand with a smudge of red on his fingertips, tempted to wipe them on his leg, but it was best not to risk bloodying his clothes and being accused himself. “So far as I could tell in the dark, he’s been stabbed.”
“We have a duty—” The man swallowed noisily. “—to see if he still lives and offer rites. Wait and I’ll have Brother Gilbert bring a lantern. We…we must see to this. I shall tend this myself.”
“The body is cooling, so it is too late—”
The man blew out a noisy breath and seemed to gather his thoughts. He called out some names.
A middle-aged, placid-looking brother stuck his head through the door. “I have a task for you. Go to the tolbooth and find Sergeant Meldrum. Have him meet us across the road.”
The man scurried away for the sergeant, and a moment later, the pudgy friar who had opened the door returned carrying a lantern. Law led the silent duo into the alley and pointed.
“Merciful Jesu…” the prior muttered. “There is no doubt the soul has departed?”
“Wait.” Law held up his hand. In the dim light of the lantern, he squinted at the ground. The water from the rain had puddled over any markings there might have been. If there had been a struggle, the signs were already erased. He stepped close and hunkered down on the opposite side of the body from the priests so the light from the lantern would fall on it. “The blood long since stopped flowing.” Law touched the slack face. He had known it was Duncan, but the sight of his face was still a jolt. The last companion from all his years in France was now dead. “And his body is cool, though not yet cold.”
The prior crossed himself before he said a prayer for the dead, “Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.”
Law sketched a cross without rising as he continued to look thoughtfully at the slash in the front of Duncan’s blood-streaked leather jerkin.
“Robbed, no doubt.” The prior sighed. “And on our doorstep.”
“His sword is here, a braw piece.” Law dumped out the merk he had left in Duncan’s purse. “And money yet in his purse. If it was robbery, it was an odd one.” He returned the coin and p
ulled open Duncan’s jerkin and the linen shirt under it.
The prior made a noise of protest. “What are you doing?”
“Bring the lantern closer. I’ll let the sergeant know what I find, but I would see for myself,” Law said to the brother who had backed up a step. In the flickering light, in spite of streaks of blood, a narrow wound was easy to make out. “This is no sword thrust. A dagger, most like. Someone was gey close to land the blow.” Duncan would never have allowed de Carnea so close with a weapon drawn and not drawn his own. If it had been a thief certainly, again, Duncan would have drawn his sword. If Duncan had enemies of his own in Perth, he’d given no hint of it, although he was argumentative in his cups.
A stir along the dark street announced the arrival of Sergeant Meldrum.
“Aye. That must be them. So let me see into this to do,” the sergeant said. He marched up to them, followed by an underling and the brother who’d fetched them, and stopped so suddenly that the brother plowed into him with an oof.
Meldrum was a short, lean man with a neat silver mustache. Piercing blue eyes caught a gleam of the lamplight. Law put him at about fifty or so, a man who had aged well.
Fixing his hands onto his hips, he bent to peer down at the body. “Stabbed then, was he?” He glared at Law. “Was this your doing?”
Law ran a hand over his face. “No. We were to tryst here and go to a tavern. I sought him when he was not on the street. I near stumbled over his body.”
“So, you kent him.”
“We were both without a patron and looking for employment. Aye, I kent him well enow.” Law sighed as he rose. “He was nae robbed.” He pointed out the valuables Duncan still carried.
Meldrum took the lamp from the brother and stepped close to Law to move it up and down as he looked Law over, and Law was glad he hadn’t wiped the blood from his fingers onto his clothes. The sergeant nodded and looked at the prior. “Did anyone from the monastery see either of them about? Hear any noise or any sort of rammy?”