by Amanda Scott
“It was that Hod, mistress! He charged through here like an angry bull and then off again down the main stairs.”
Quick footsteps behind Fiona on the service stairs heralded Kirkhill’s arrival. “What is it, my lady?” he asked her. “Tippy said you shouted for me.”
“Hod is here,” Fiona said. “He said he’d left behind a box that Old Jardine gave him. He said he must have left it in his old room.”
“He left nowt in that wee room,” Kirkhill said. “Joshua would have found anything that was there, and he would have brought it to me.”
“I know,” Fiona said. “Hod was acting strangely, too, because when I told him that Joshua was in that room, he misunderstood me. He thought that I meant he was there now. Hod said he’d seen him with you in the yard. I think that, knowing Joshua was not there, he meant to search that room. Moreover, when I shouted for Tip to fetch you, Hod pushed past me up the stairs and through this room, then down the main stairs. Should you not stop him?”
Kirkhill frowned. “Art sure he was going into Joshua’s room, lass?”
She nearly said she was, but thinking, she said, “He could as easily have been going into the inner chamber, I expect. But how did he get inside at all?”
“Through the scullery door and up the service stairs,” he said. “He could easily slip past the kitchen. People are working there now, talking, and clattering pots and such. No one else would have paid heed to a man going up the stairs.”
“But would not someone in the yard have seen him?”
“Lass, we have my own men, Jardine men, and a few of Hugh Douglas’s men here. None of them knows Hod, and only a few of our own lot know that I dismissed Hod. It was not my intention to ruin the man, just to get rid of him.”
“That may have been a mistake,” she said.
“It might, aye,” he agreed. “But just now, I’m more interested in what he came back to retrieve, and for whom?”
“Good sakes, do you think Will might have sent him?”
Chapter 16
Kirkhill hesitated before answering Fiona’s question. The question itself strongly indicated that, despite her dream, she believed or perhaps feared that Will was still alive. He, on the other hand, was nearly certain that Will Jardine was dead, and if he was right, he would soon prove it. However, until he did…
“I don’t know who might have sent Hod,” he said. “Come to that, I don’t know that he is lying about his reason for coming back.”
“Sakes, we do know that he’s up to no good, sir, or he would not have run away as he just did. Moreover, he would have approached you openly in the yard. When he said that he had seen Joshua there, he also said that Joshua was with you.”
He grimaced. If Hod had seen them both, then one of them should have seen Hod. They had apparently grown complacent at a time when they needed to keep all their wits about them and stay alert for trouble.
“You are right, lass,” he said. “The man is behaving deceitfully, and therefore we must trust nowt that he says. If he said he came here looking for a box—”
“A ‘wee box’ is what he said,” she interjected. “He said it was a wee box that Old Jardine had given him.”
“Well, if Old Jardine ever gave anyone anything of value, he gave it to Will, not to Hod. And, from all that I’ve seen, there was nowt of value here.”
“But there must have been gelt somewhere,” she protested. “I may not have had new clothes, but Will dressed well and always had silver groats to spend on himself. And lest you wonder, there is no wee box in our chamber. But the Jardines did have horses and cattle that they sold at Langholm, and apples, too. Old Jardine said the apples had long kept Jardines from starving when many other families did.”
Kirkhill said, “Do you still have that key I found on Jardine’s table?”
“Of course,” she said, touching the chains on her chatelaine that held her keys.
“Did you ever chance to ask Hod what lock it might fit?”
“Nay, why should I? You said that you had found it, so I assumed that…”
“I did ask him,” he said. “He said that he’d just found it. Sithee, when I searched for documents, he disclaimed knowledge of those, too, although he did find a list of folks who live here and work the land, and another with Spedlins’ costs for a few months past. I doubt if he can read, but he did recognize the list as an accounting. He also told me that he recognized Will’s hand, so Will must have written it.”
“Unless Hod was lying about that, too,” she said.
He smiled. “He would have no reason to lie about that. Moreover, although Old Jardine told me that first day that he was still running things here, I doubt that he was up to keeping accounts or working with pen and ink in his bed even then.”
“I never saw him with such implements,” Fiona said thoughtfully. “It was Will who got angry with me, too, for not keeping the household accounts properly.”
“I have not found them, either,” Kirkhill said. “Mayhap I should take charge of that key for now, though,” he added. “It may be more important than we know. And, if it is, it may not be safe for you to keep it on you as you do.”
Nodding, she detached one of two key rings from its chain on her chatelaine and thumbed through its keys. Frowning, she let that ring fall and, finding the right one on the second ring, she detached it and gave it to him.
Having expected to find it next to the long pantry key, Fiona had found it instead near one nearly as long to the buttery and wondered how she had mixed them in her memory. She understood that Dickon worried lest Hod or someone else try to take the key from her. But why it might matter to anyone else, she could not imagine.
Mayhap it fit the small box for which Hod had said he was looking. But if it did, and Old Jardine had given both items to him, surely Hod would have said as much to Dickon when Dickon asked him about the key.
Perhaps Old Jardine had not given him the box. Perhaps the old man had kept his gelt in that box and Hod had meant to take both away with him.
But how, she wondered, could he have forgotten something so valuable if he had meant to steal it in the first place? Surely, just the thought of stealing Jardine’s money would have taken precedence over anything else the man had been doing.
But what if it wasn’t a wee box at all? What if it had been too large to take with him, too heavy with gold and silver, or jewels, or whatever else it was that the old man had hidden away? Then where, she asked herself, was that big box now?
Shaking her head at her fancies, she decided she would be wiser to concern herself with her own affairs. Only four days remained until Thursday, when they would leave for Dunwythie Hall. If she was going to look anything like a stylish lady by then, she’d do better to see to her bairn and help Flory with the hemming.
Whatever Old Jardine had left would go to her son, and although she might not quite trust Dickon completely yet, she knew she could trust him to see to that.
Accordingly, she spent a pleasant afternoon with Flory and took supper at the high table with Dickon and Tony, while the maidservant ate quietly beside her for propriety’s sake. The men took turns reminiscing about adventures they had enjoyed together, and when Fiona burst out laughing at something that Tony said, she realized that she was enjoying herself hugely.
Kirkhill smiled at Fiona’s laughter, but he knew that if he was right, it would not last. He had talked to Joshua and would take Tony into his confidence after supper. Joshua would select four of their own well-trusted lads to help as well.
Bidding the lass goodnight, he wondered how angry she would be that he had said nowt to her about what he had deduced or how he was going to handle it. That Hod still took enough interest in something at Spedlins to risk returning to find it had decided Kirkhill to keep his notion to himself until he learned if he was right.
Inviting Tony into his chamber to dice with him, he voiced the invitation loudly enough so that anyone nearby would overhear him. But when they were in the cha
mber with the door shut, he said, “We have work to do tonight, and it won’t be pleasant. But it must be done in full secrecy if we can manage that.”
“What are you up to now, Dickon?”
“Grave robbing,” Kirkhill said brusquely. “We’ll need shovels and rope.”
They waited until well after midnight, taking care meantime that Kirkhill’s men took guard duty. Then, leaving the tower silently and on foot, with light from only the misty moon and the stars above, they made their way to the graveyard.
“Yonder, lads,” Kirkhill said quietly, knowing how easily voices carried on such a still night. He pointed to Jeb’s grave. “Dig, there. It should still be soft.”
Half an hour later, by slipping ropes carefully under the well-shrouded body, they were able to lift it out without incident and set it gently beside the open grave.
Pale light from the occluded moon shone faintly into the hole.
“There’s nowt there,” Tony said. “What did you expect to find?”
“Help me down into the hole,” Kirkhill said, drawing his dirk from his boot.
“Sakes, d’ye expect to find demons down there?”
“Be silent, Tony,” Kirkhill muttered. “This is no time for levity. And keep careful watch. That moon is casting too much light on us here.”
With help from Tony and Joshua, and by digging out precarious footholds in the side of the grave with his dirk, Kirkhill managed to find footing on the bottom, well to one end of the grave.
Squatting on his heels, taking care not to move about, he began carefully digging with the tip of his dirk.
Jeb’s shrouded body had packed the dirt beneath it, but he realized straightaway that the soil was looser than it should be. His heart pounded. He was not a superstitious man by nature, but graveyards were spooky places by daylight, and sensible men had never thought that disturbing the dead was a good idea.
The tip of the dirk met with something that was neither soil nor rock.
Shifting slightly to ease the dirk back into his boot, he began to dig with his hands. His fingertips quickly touched cloth.
Brushing dirt away, he uncovered what was clearly a leg garbed in a man’s leather breeks. His stomach clenched in discomfort, but finding boot leather next, he told himself to settle down, muttering, “Thank God, I’m not straddling his head.”
“Joshua,” he said then, his voice just loud enough for the two at the grave’s edge to hear him. “Tell the lads to step well back and keep careful watch for any approach. I’ve had a sense of watchers everywhere for weeks but never stronger than right now. And I don’t want anyone surprising us at this bit of work.”
“You found something then,” Tony murmured.
Without replying, Kirkhill inched his feet forward, keeping each to its own edge of the grave until he could brush soil carefully away at the other end. He knew what he would find but felt inexpressible relief to realize that although the face was the one he sought, only its left profile was visible.
Will Jardine was exactly where Kirkhill had expected to find him, but Will was not grinning up at him, so he had not grinned up at Fiona either.
Fiona woke Sunday morning to the sound of her son’s cheerful gurgling. Opening her eyes, she saw that Flory had brought the baby into her bedchamber and was sitting with him in the window embrasure, making faces at him.
Flory looked up. “He smiled at me, my lady. Ha’ ye seen him smile?”
“I have, aye, but ’tis rare,” Fiona said. “Mayhap he will be a sober man, like Sir Hugh.” She felt guilty, saying that, because Hugh had been kind to her. But still she thought of him as she had known him, a man of stern, unbending demeanor.
Flory was watching her. As Fiona met her gaze, the maid smiled and said, “He’s sma’ yet, mistress. He just be beginning to take note o’ things around him. And soon now, he be a-going on a journey all the way to Dunwythie Hall. Ye be a-going to see some minstrels there, laddie.” Her gaze slid away from Fiona’s to the baby again. “I recall the minstrels at Lady Jenny’s betrothal feast, Davy-lad. They gave grand entertainment. Mayhap these will be the same ones.”
“We’ll see soon enough if they are,” Fiona said. She thought they might be the same, since Jenny and Hugh had spent time with the troupe that had entertained at Annan House on that occasion. But neither Mairi nor Jenny had said they would be the same people, so she did not want to speculate. She said, “I’ll feed him now, Flory. Then I’ll dress and go downstairs to break my fast.”
“I brought ye a basket o’ bread and sliced beef,” Flory said, again seeming to avoid her eye. “The laird did say he thought ye’d want to breakfast in here today.”
“Did he?”
“Aye, for he said ye’d ha’ much to do. He be a-thinking, he said, o’ riding to the Hall today, instead o’ waiting, unless ye think ye canna manage it so.”
“Today! Good sakes, Mairi does not expect us until Thursday, but I think she will be delighted if we arrive earlier. I’d like it fine, too. In troth, I have gey little left to do. We finished hemming the skirts she gave me, and I’d have few things to pack even if I were to take everything I own. David’s clothes and such—”
“I packed them up afore ye awoke,” Flory said.
“Then we can be ready whenever his lordship wants to go,” Fiona said.
Her curiosity increased while she nursed the baby. Kirkhill had never objected before to her breaking fast in the hall. The men were nearly all outside by the time she went downstairs, so other than the gillie who served her and a few lads taking down trestle tables, she usually had the hall to herself.
She said nothing more on the subject to Flory, but as soon as she had dressed, she left David in her care and went downstairs to find his lordship.
To her surprise, he still sat at the high table with Tony. The trestles were already stowed away, and the lower part of the hall was empty.
“Good morning,” she said.
They returned her greeting, and Kirkhill said, “That will be all, Tony. See that everyone who will ride with us is ready to depart after the midday meal. Evart will stay here with a small household staff, but he knows that I’m leaving most of our men-at-arms in the hill camps. He can send for them if trouble arises. We’ll all be riding south if Archie summons us, so we can pick our lads up on the way, and spare their horses the extra distance.”
“Aye, I’ll see that everyone knows what to do,” Tony said, getting to his feet.
Fiona stepped onto the dais. “I hope you won’t send me away, too,” she said.
“Nay, lass, I’ve been expecting you.”
“I don’t know why you changed your mind, but I have little to do, even if we left straightaway,” she said. “I could easily have come down here to break my fast.”
“I am glad you did not, for I must tell you about something that happened last night,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that you heard it first from me.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you, but I don’t mean to reveal all the details just now. I told the lads who tidy up this dais to wait until we’ve left the table, but we’ll have more leisure to discuss it all at length whilst we ride to the Hall.”
“Good sakes, sir, what could we talk of then that we cannot discuss now?”
“Will is dead, Fiona.”
“I am sure that he must be,” she replied. “I have said so more than once.”
He looked at her, his expression calm, as though he merely waited.
A chill trickled up her spine. “Mercy, do you mean you know he is dead?”
He nodded.
“How do you know?”
“I saw him,” he said. “That is all that I mean to tell you now, and I’ll ask you to keep even that to yourself until I let the others know. Don’t even tell your Flory.”
“Nay, I won’t,” she said. “Flory swears that she never gossips, but I know she does. She also learns things from others, though. News travels fast here, so if you have found h
im, doubtless others do know, sir.”
“Aye, some others do, but only a few of my own lads, and they will keep it to themselves until I tell them they need not.”
Remembering Flory’s evasive looks earlier, she wondered if he might be mistaken in thinking that only his men knew.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you everything whilst we ride,” he said. “I’m sending Tony ahead with some men to make sure that no one is lying in wait for us. And I’ll have others riding behind. As we ride, you and I can put some distance between ourselves and those of our people who travel with us.”
With that, she had to be content, but practicing patience was not one of her strengths, so the next few hours passed by at a frustratingly slow pace. She had little appetite for her midday meal and snapped at Flory for dawdling.
“Mercy, mistress,” the maidservant protested, avoiding her eye. “Ye’d no be happy did I forget summat the bairn might need—nor yourself, come to that.”
Fiona, wondering again if Flory might know that Kirkhill had found Will’s body, was tempted to ask her straight out. But if Flory did not know, the question itself might reveal too much, so she resisted the temptation.
Shortly afterward, seeing Joshua in the yard, shouting orders to one or another of the men, she nearly ran out to ask him what he knew about Will. She resisted that urge, too, not only because she was certain that Joshua would not tell her but also because she knew he might tell Dickon that she had asked. That she might then have to endure another of Dickon’s chilly scoldings deterred her. But had one more thing delayed their departure, she might well have taken that risk.
As it was, she chafed to be off. But not until they were on the Roman road that ran up the east side of the dale, and Spedlins had disappeared in the distance behind them, did Dickon finally say, “Shall we put some distance between ourselves and those behind us, lass?”
So eager was she that she gave her horse spur enough to startle it into a lope.
Kirkhill chuckled as she reined the animal in. “I doubt you want to race,” he said. “This fellow I’m riding may not be Cerberus, but he’s faster than your lad.”