A Trust Betrayed

by Candace Robb

  The warm day allowed Andrew to do his copying in the cloister, away from the abbot and his knowing eyes—though he could not escape his words. Andrew was making a fair copy of a letter Abbot Adam was sending to Bishop Wishart regarding some old business. In an incidental remark at the conclusion Adam complained of Andrew’s treatment by the English soldiers. Andrew had protested the passage when taking notes this morning, but Abbot Adam said his feelings were too delicate on this. Andrew cursed as a cat jumped up onto the table and jarred his arm.

  ‘Damn you!’ He jerked the parchment out from beneath the cat’s large white paws. The cat hissed at him and retreated to the corner of the table. Andrew disliked the creatures, and they knew it.

  ‘Cursing Griselda.’ The abbot softly chuckled. ‘It is no wonder she torments you.’

  A chill ran down Andrew’s back—he had not heard the abbot’s approach. He put down his pen and rose to bow to the abbot.

  ‘Forgive me, My Lord Abbot. She surprised me.’

  ‘As have I, apparently. Return to your work. I did not mean to disturb you, merely to ask you to see me after nones.’ The abbot nodded to Andrew, then, calling to Griselda, walked slowly away.

  Andrew broke out in a sweat. Adam played with him like a cat its prey. This morning he had been certain the abbot would challenge him about his absence the previous afternoon, but he had not mentioned it. All was as usual, the abbot dictating, Andrew scribbling. If Adam did not broach it at their next meeting, Andrew must bring it up himself. He could not bear this game.

  In the warmth of the sunny afternoon the upper storeys that leaned crookedly over the High Street blocked the air. But it was her mission, not the spring sunlight, that had Margaret sweating as they turned down the alley to the Fletchers’ door. She prayed for success, raised her hand, rapped sharply. Waited.

  ‘Someone is there,’ Celia whispered.

  Margaret nodded, rapped again.

  Besseta opened the door just enough to peer out. The room behind her was dark, as was the shade of mid-afternoon. ‘Margaret. So you have found me.’ She peered out farther. Her neck looked fragile beneath the cap that covered her hair. ‘Who is with you?’

  ‘Celia, my maid. She is skilled with herbs and roots. I thought if she could see Agnes, she might be able to mix something to help her.’

  ‘Agnes is sleeping. She must not be disturbed.’

  ‘Perhaps if you described Agnes’s illness to us?’

  Besseta shook her head, began to close the door.

  ‘I have an excellent sleep potion,’ Celia said.

  Besseta checked the movement of the door. ‘A sleep potion?’

  Celia pulled back the cloth on the basket she carried, lifted a packet.

  Besseta opened the door wide. ‘It is a hellhole in here,’ she said, stepping aside as if to let them see for themselves. But their eyes could not adjust to the indoor dimness so quickly. ‘You are welcome if you do not mind it.’

  There was no question of refusing the offer. Margaret stepped within, Celia following on her heels.

  It was not a pleasant room, but hardly deserved the comparison with hell. A loom at the far right caught the north light from a high window—surely not enough light in which to weave for long in most seasons. A tattered cloth covered an interior doorway to the left of the window. Though the house sat on a hill dropping off north and east and should have excellent drainage, the beaten earth floor smelled damp, and the warmth of the day made pungent various cellar odours. Margaret prayed that Celia would not wrinkle her nose. But if she had, Besseta did not notice.

  Margaret wandered towards the loom as Besseta and Celia arranged a bench and stools. The weights tied to the warp were larger than the one she had in her scrip. But on the floor near the loom were several piles of loom weights of various sizes. The smallest were much like the one Jack had clutched in death.

  By the loom sat a wool comb. On an impulse, Margaret grabbed it, concealing it behind her back as Besseta joined her.

  ‘I had no idea you did such delicate work.’ Margaret touched the unfinished piece of weaving on the loom. ‘Did you weave the mantle you are wearing?’

  ‘I did. Useless thing.’

  ‘But quite beautiful.’

  They moved over to the arranged seats, near the unlit brazier.

  ‘It would have been of more use to me to have carried down a larger loom.’

  Margaret sat on the bench. ‘You brought it from Perth?’

  ‘I did.’ Besseta perched at the edge of a wobbly stool. ‘I needed something to keep my hands busy.’

  ‘While you sat with Agnes?’

  ‘Aye. Though I did not expect to be here so long.’

  Celia moved her stool back slightly, so that Besseta would need to turn her head all the way to her left to see her.

  Margaret was close enough to see that the fluted edge of Besseta’s cap trembled.

  ‘I understand Agnes was widowed, then lost a bairn.’

  Besseta fidgeted with her hands. ‘It has been a terrible time.’

  ‘She was fortunate to have you here.’

  Besseta looked down at her hands, quieted them. ‘I seem to mind you are staying with your uncle?’

  ‘I am. In fact, it was from the laundress I hired for his inn that I learned of Agnes’s misfortune.’

  Besseta looked up sharply. ‘What else did the laundress say about us?’

  ‘She grumbled that you took from her the little weaving work she had, for the priests of St Giles’.’

  ‘Rosamund.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Margaret tried not to react as Celia slipped away, through the inner doorway.

  ‘You will be satisfied with her laundering,’ Besseta said, ‘but do not depend on her weaving.’ She tried a smile.

  ‘I am glad to hear that I have not yet made a mistake with her.’

  ‘It seems a strange time to journey here—with the English at the castle.’

  ‘I hoped to hear news of my husband, Roger. He has been gone for some time.’

  Besseta’s head shook quite noticeably now. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Margaret said. ‘You have your own troubles. I should keep mine to myself.’

  ‘How—how did you find my parents when you left Perth?’

  ‘Your mother wore a lovely new cap to market with a pale ribbon woven into the border,’ Margaret said, ‘and she looked bonny. I have not seen your father since Jack departed.’

  Someone knocked on the outside door.

  Besseta rose so abruptly she tipped over the stool. It clattered as it rocked to a halt.

  Celia came through the curtained inner doorway and slipped back onto her stool as Besseta answered the street door. Margaret dropped the wool comb into her scrip.

  ‘Dame Fletcher.’ It was a man’s voice.

  ‘Master Comyn. How strange to have so many visitors in one afternoon.’

  ‘Who is here?’

  ‘Dame Kerr and her maid.’

  Margaret and Celia exchanged a glance and rose.

  Besseta opened wide the door. James Comyn filled the doorway, bending slightly to enter.

  ‘Dame Kerr, forgive me for intruding on your conversation.’ He studied her face, then Celia’s. Glanced round the room.

  ‘You did not intrude at all. We must return to the inn.’ Margaret turned to Besseta. ‘I pray you, send word to me at the inn if there is anything I can do.’

  ‘The potion?’

  Celia handed Besseta the packet. ‘That is enough for ten nights. Mix it in wine or ale. Sparingly.’

  Comyn gave Besseta a questioning look as he nodded to Margaret and Celia.

  ‘What did you see?’ Margaret asked when they reached the High Street.

  ‘There is a room back there with a locked door.’

  ‘Probably Agnes’s chamber.’

  ‘A pallet lies in the hallway just beside the door. Mistress, the odour back there is that of a sickroom and something else.’

&n
bsp; ‘There are many unpleasant odours in that house.’

  ‘I should not like to spend a night there. It is far worse than the inn. What did you put in your scrip?’

  ‘A wool comb. I’ll show you when we are back in our chamber. But first I want to talk to Janet Webster.’

  Janet’s door was open to the warm day. The weaver had pulled the loom beneath a panel in the roof that had been propped open. She stood on a bench pushing up the weft with a wooden sword, the light revealing the lovely pattern of the weave.

  ‘Good day to you, Margaret.’

  ‘Might we talk?’ Margaret asked.

  Janet tucked the sword in her girdle, stepped down off the bench with a grunt. Her brow and upper lip glistened with sweat from the warm sun.

  ‘Surely I’ve told you all I know?’

  She sat down on the bench. Margaret pulled over a stool. Celia sat on the bed in the corner nearby.

  ‘We have been to see Besseta Fletcher,’ said Margaret. ‘James Comyn arrived while we were there. He seemed—I felt that he came to watch over her conversation with me.’

  Janet sighed. ‘Celia, will you hand me that pot of grease on the shelf beside you?’

  Celia passed her a small earthen pot. Janet scooped some of the grease out with her fingertips and rubbed it into her hands. ‘Comyn might be right to be concerned.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Agnes’s Tom, like my Davy, was Comyn’s man,’ she said. ‘He died on a mission for Comyn. I expected trouble when Jack Sinclair arrived.’

  ‘Why?’ Margaret could not imagine Jack caught up in Comyn’s battles.

  ‘I told you—Jack wished to be like Roger, even in his support of Robert Bruce,’ Janet said gently.

  ‘Jack was on her father’s business,’ Margaret insisted.

  ‘And why do you think he agreed to travel in such times?’

  ‘For Roger.’

  ‘That, and Besseta. Jack stayed at the Fletcher lodgings here. It was said they were to be wed.’

  He clutched the loom weight in his hand. Besseta’s loom weight. Margaret closed her eyes, trying to make sense of all the noise in her head.

  ‘You did not know they were lovers?’ Janet asked.

  ‘No.’ Even had she noticed them arm in arm she would have thought little of it. Jack was that way with all women. ‘Besseta and I had not spoken much for many years.’ Margaret was trying to absorb all this, reason her way through it.

  ‘Someone at the Fletcher lodgings must have been indiscreet in Jack’s presence,’ Janet suggested, ‘talked of the plans for the raid on Holyrood.’

  Margaret nodded. ‘Jack was holding one of Besseta’s loom weights as he died. Might she have killed him, I wonder?’

  Janet shook her head. ‘I cannot imagine a woman cutting up her lover’s body like that.’

  ‘I can’t either, but someone murdered him.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Comyn seems very worried about Besseta talking to me. Perhaps he or one of his men murdered Jack?’

  ‘If that were so, and Besseta kenned, she would be eager to tell you, I think. Vengeance.’

  Perhaps Besseta would have told Margaret had they not been interrupted. ‘What do you know of Comyn, Janet?’

  ‘Little more than what your uncle has told me. He once brought me a lovely piece of plaid and the wool to make another—the piece was charred on two sides. I think of the odour of burned wool when I think of James Comyn, smelling that all the while I copied the pattern. That was our only true encounter.’

  ‘Is he married?’

  Janet dipped her fingers in the grease again. ‘Old hands dry so quickly, even handling wool.’ She shook her head. ‘Murdoch says Comyn loves the wife of another.’

  ‘He is wealthy, that I ken.’

  ‘He has worked for it. He does favours for his wealthy, more powerful kin.’

  ‘What sort of favours?’

  ‘You can be sure his efforts for his kinsman John Balliol do not go unrewarded.’

  ‘I thought therein lay his honour, that he was committed to his kinsman’s right to the throne.’

  ‘It has become that, I think. But it began as a mission for another.’ Janet rose, pressed her hands to the small of her back, arched to consider the light coming through the roof. ‘I must get further today.’ She glanced down at Margaret. ‘Do you really think Comyn murdered Jack? Is that why you are so curious about him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hoped to learn something I could use to keep him away from the Fletchers tomorrow. I need to speak further to Besseta.’

  ‘Ask Murdoch to help. He’s taken in ill part the cruel murder of Jack Sinclair.’

  ‘He doesn’t behave so.’

  ‘He thought if he seemed indifferent you would give up your mission. Tell him this will allow you to leave all the sooner.’ She tilted her head, studied Margaret for a moment. ‘Murdoch tells me you pick a lock as well as he does.’

  Much good it had done her. She would do better to unlock the secrets of the men in her life.

  Back in their chamber, Margaret drew the wool comb from her scrip. ‘This I did not show Janet.’

  Four long, narrow bone prongs with tapered edges. If one were to stab at flesh and drag the prongs down they might make a wound like Roger’s. It nauseated Margaret to hold it.

  ‘I believe this is what someone used on the side of my husband’s face.’

  Celia crossed herself.

  17

  Not a Murderer By Nature

  Abbot Adam knelt at his prie-dieu, his Pater Noster beads wound in his long, slender fingers. Andrew, settled into his customary chair, folded his hands in his lap, bowed his head.

  Adam rose, still holding his beads. They swung in rhythm to his graceful walk as he joined Andrew. His eyes twinkled. Like Griselda. Cat and master were of a kind, Andrew thought. But quickly the abbot’s expression changed to one of sadness.

  ‘Father Andrew.’ He shook his head as at a troublesome child. ‘You disobeyed your lord abbot.’

  ‘My Lord—’

  The abbot put up his hand, silencing Andrew. ‘Of course you have prepared an excuse, and you might even believe it. But it does not change the matter of your disobedience.’

  ‘I pray you forgive me, My Lord Abbot.’

  ‘Forgiveness comes in many forms, Father Andrew. Apology and a penance of prayer or fasting.’ Adam tilted his head back, studying the ceiling. ‘That would be the easiest path for me.’ He lowered his head, smiled briefly at Andrew. ‘For I do love you, Andrew, like a son you have been to me.’ He dropped his head, moved his beads through two Hail Marys, whispered tranquilly. ‘I have been praying over it, you see.’

  ‘I believe the Lord would wish me to help my sister.’

  ‘You took a vow of obedience.’

  Andrew said nothing, but he could not take his eyes off Adam’s face, nor could he hide his loathing.

  It was the abbot who looked away first. He shook his head over his beads. ‘I was mistaken about you, and now I pay the penalty.’

  Make your point! Andrew wanted to shout. But he did not. He sat and suffered, as ever a pawn in his abbot’s hands. Except that he ceased to listen.

  Until the abbot roared, ‘Have you heard anything I have said?’ His colour was high, his eyes burning.

  ‘I was praying, My Lord Abbot. You seemed to be arguing with yourself, and I thought it more polite not to listen.’ Andrew trembled as he said it, but the abbot’s look of disbelief offered a strange comfort.

  Adam’s expression soon turned to scorn. ‘You wish to make me think you mad so that I will not send you to Soutra? I see it now. It will not avail you.’

  So he had been right, Soutra was to be his sentence. It shook Andrew, but he was determined not to let the abbot witness his fear. ‘How soon do you send me?’

  ‘I cannot say. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week. I must pray over it.’

  Soutra. ‘I shall be confessor to the English soldiers?’


  ‘Do you have an objection?’

  My life! My name! But Andrew chose not to answer that aloud. ‘For how long, My Lord Abbot?’

  ‘For ever, if it suits me.’

  Eternity stretched before Andrew.

  He did not bother to wait for more of Abbot Adam’s scorn or venom. Bowing respectfully, he rose and left the room. He walked slowly. There was no hurry now. His fate had been decided for him. To the abbey kirk he walked, hands tucked in his sleeves to hide his trembling. Within the kirk he knelt at Our Lady’s altar.

  Help me, O Mother. Help me open my heart to the English soldiers. Help me hear their confessions and give them absolution. Help me see them as God’s children. In this he could disappoint Abbot Adam by staying alive. And if he found a way to help John Balliol’s cause, all the better.

  The wool comb sat on the table between Margaret and Celia as they ate.

  ‘How do you know that was the weapon used on Master Sinclair?’ Celia asked.

  ‘If you had seen the wound, you would ken.’ Margaret pushed away from the table. ‘But was it Besseta who wielded it? Or Agnes? And why?’

  ‘You must eat.’

  ‘Besseta trembled so. What if she takes too much of the sleep draught?’

  ‘She will curse me for the time spent at the midden. There is little valerian, but much mallow root in it.’

  ‘Celia!’

  Margaret expected laughter. But Celia did not smile. Her great dark eyes were quite solemn, her pale face pinched as usual. ‘It was a way in, that is all.’

  Margaret did not know quite what to make of her new ally, whether she would later regret the lesson in lock picking she must give her. But Celia’s assurance comforted Margaret enough that she could eat, fortifying herself for a negotiation with Murdoch. She went in search of him after supper.

  She caught Geordie headed to the tavern with a trencher.