by Jay Ruud
“Your instincts may prove right, Gildas,” Merlin mused. “We didn’t know until this afternoon that he had been on that ship. Which means he kept it from us on purpose. And he may have done so because he suspected there was something not quite right with that journey. We need to find out what he knew. And the only way to do that, it seems, is to question this Meg herself.”
“You need to go see her. You need to go now,” Dinadan said. “Don’t worry about me—Master Oswald will look after me. The only thing I regret is I won’t be with you to question that tavern wench. My, she was a sweet looking girl, wasn’t she?”
“We’ll give her your regards,” I told him as Merlin and I got up to leave. We exited the room to the sound of his laughter. It was good to see him feeling that well—last night we weren’t so sure Sir Dinadan would still be in this world by this time today. I couldn’t help but admire Master Oswald’s healing powers, and was more than ever convinced that nothing could have saved Sir Tristram from the poison in his body, if Master Oswald had failed.
As Merlin and I made our way out of the monastery, we passed the chapel in which Captain Jacques’s body had been laid out. Two of the brothers were with him now, preparing the corpse for burial. Brother Aaron had been sent to Lord Kaherdin to let him know of the murder of his officer. Looking at the body through the door, though, sent a cold shiver down my spine. It was pale and naked, drained of much of its blood, and drained too of the unique personality that had given it life. I felt in some ways like the dog who walked by my side: Even she was not especially interested in what was left of Captain Jacques—by now the body no longer smelled like the living Jacques, and she recognized that all that was valuable in that shell had deserted it. The light was out. I put my head down and took the dog by the leash, feeling the urge to get out of that place as soon as I possibly could.
Merlin had been silent since we left Dinadan’s room, but now spoke softly to me as we exited the convent, walking by the place where we had found the body. A pool of blood still stained the street. “He was a good man,” the old mage said simply. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
That wasn’t what I was thinking about right now. “The prophecy,” I said. “Those things you said in your…your vision or whatever it was. ‘The dog,’ you said. ‘the dog turns on its master.’ I don’t see how that fits. The dog didn’t turn on Captain Jacques. She was with him until the end—until after the end. She never turned on him. She loved him.”
“She’s faithful as a dog can be,” Merlin said. “Which is saying a lot. I’ve never met a human that could rival a dog in faithfulness. But can we be sure that the prophecy refers to this particular dog?”
“Oh…I…I was so sure that this dog has something to do with the answer…”
“Oh, I’m not saying she doesn’t,” Merlin assured me. “This is a dog that actually witnessed the murder of Captain Jacques. She will have a lot to do with the answer to our problem. But these ‘visions’ of mine are never literal. So the ‘dog’ referring to an actual dog would be pretty unusual. And remember the other part of the prophecy: a horned wolf? Obviously that’s not literal, because there is no such thing as a wolf with horns. Both the wolf and the dog are metaphorical, young Gildas. Surely you realize that, being the love poet that you are.”
I pulled a sarcastic face upon him and shook my head, but suddenly an idea struck me. “Merlin, the horns. Do you think it’s an allusion to cuckolding? You know, the husband whose wife is cheating on him grows invisible horns on his forehead? Is the horned wolf King Mark himself, maybe? I mean, I know he hasn’t been here in person to have a hand in killing either Tristram or Isolde, but isn’t it perfectly logical that he might have sent an envoy to do his bidding? That he ordered the murders and sent his minions here to carry them out?”
Merlin shrugged. “Possible, yes. Likely? I’m not so sure. It would have to be someone in the court who has not been here long, someone who arrived only after Tristram did. I don’t know that we’ve met anyone that newly arrived.”
“True, but there are a lot of members of the guard that we haven’t met. It could be any of that faceless multitude that do their drills in the town square.” But I noticed at this point that we were approaching the cobbled street directly outside the Cock and Bull Inn, and so I quickly changed the subject. “Have you thought at all about how we are going to break the news of the captain’s murder to Meg? It appeared to me that she had some special interest in him that went a little deeper than what he wanted for dinner last night.”
“Hmmph. Really? I must have been preoccupied,” the old man said absent-mindedly. Despite his deference to nobility, a tact he had learned from decades of servile flattery of royalty in order to advance his own purposes, I knew that his bluntness could sometimes be too sharp for someone in a vulnerable state. And Meg could very well be quite fragile upon learning of Jacques’ murder.
We entered through the heavy wooden door, leaving the bright sun of midday for the close, dark atmosphere of the tavern. Beams of light poured through the inn’s small windows, but we sat down at a table in the corner of the room. There was no fire this early in the morning, but the smell of the ash from last evening was still in the air, along with some of the cooking smells that were already wafting out to us from down the hall: simmering beef and chicken and the tender brown crusts of pies. The dog, sitting quietly at my left side, twisted her head and caught the scent, and began to whine quietly and lick her chops.
Quite abruptly, the substantial flesh of buxom Meg came bustling by us, still wearing her gray dress and brown tunic but now unwimpled, her blonde curls trailing behind her as she moved with rapid efficiency around the tavern room, slapping a white rag over each table to clean it. “Sorry lads,” she told us. “We’re closed till after none. Oh!” she cried when she caught sight of the dog. “Hello girl!”
The borzoi padded over to Meg as if she were greeting an old friend, and while Meg held her face in her hands, the dog pressed her nose forward and stroked her head against Meg’s cheek. “Oh, my Sweetie,” Meg cooed. “Where’s your daddy this morning? What are you doing with this lot?” She smiled and winked as she glanced over at us. Merlin cleared his throat. I looked down at the floor. Perhaps it was time to break the ice. And I judged that I may be able to do this with an iota more tact than Merlin was likely to do.
“Meg…if I may call you Meg?”
“That’s my name, so what else would you be calling me?” she said, looking at me quizzically. I was feeling more and more trepidation about breaking this news to her.
“Meg, Captain Jacques will not be joining us today,” I began.
“Oh?” she said, feigning indifference. “And what’s he doing this time that’s so important?”
“Well,” I tried to explain. “It’s not that he’s doing anything, per se. It has more to do with the…condition he’s in.” When I looked over at Merlin, the old necromancer’s eyebrows had reached the top of his forehead, and his eyes appeared to be looking up at them.
“Oh, I see,” Meg said, giving a hearty laugh. “So he’s drunk, is he? Or hung over? That’s not like him, but I’m always telling him he needs to unwind and live a little. So was it you two naughty boys who led him astray…”
“No, no,” I interrupted. “He’s not drunk. It’s more serious than that, I’m afraid…”
“You mean he’s sick?” Now she seemed concerned, and turned to the dog saying “Is your daddy sick? Does he need me to bring him some nice chicken soup?”
“He’s dead.” Merlin said, decisively and with finality. Meg immediately turned completely white and her jaw dropped open as she stared at him with eyes the size of carriage wheels. I looked over at Merlin and shrugged, as if to ask what on earth he was thinking to blurt it out in that way, but he shrugged back at me and said, “Your way is like torment, Gildas. It’s as if she had an arrow in her arm and you were trying to pull it o
ut by small increments over a long period of time. Yank it out immediately, man. It will be painful, but the pain will be quicker.”
The initial shock having passed over her like a great wave, Meg was now wilting in sorrow. Her eyes filled with tears and she let out an anguished, inarticulate cry. She reminded me of nothing so much as the dog herself when we found her hovering over Captain Jacques’s body. Perhaps out of some fellow feeling, the dog put her paws on Meg’s shoulders and leaned her body into her, licking at Meg’s face with her tongue. And Meg, of course, put her arms around the dog, holding her close. She was the last part of Captain Jacques that Meg could touch or feel.
“We found the captain this morning,” Merlin continued, his voice informative and objective. “He had been murdered perhaps a little after prime at the gate to the abbey. His dog was with him”
“Murdered! Now Meg’s face changed again, this time slowly reddening with anger. “Who would do such a thing? Why? What could mon capitan possibly have that anyone would think was worth killing him over?”
“Information, we think.” Merlin explained. “The captain was on his way to see us when he was killed. He told us last night that he wanted to tell us something, and he made it clear that it had to do with the case we are investigating.”
“Case?” Meg echoed, but was paying little attention. Now she broke down completely, melting in tears. “He promised, you know to take me out of this place. He…” she blurted out between sobs, “He said he loved me. Told me he was saving his money and one day I would leave this place and go to live with him, once he had his own house in the town instead of quarters in the guards’ fort. It’s why he volunteered for all those extra tasks, like going on the ship that brought you two here He would always get some extra something from Lord Kaherdin, that he could put toward his own little fortune that he thought would make me comfortable once we were married. I didn’t care about all of that. And now he’s gone…and we were never able to marry as he wanted…” Once more she broke down, wailing now with such intensity that I feared we would get no more out of her this day. I raised my eyes questioningly to Merlin, but he was determined to move on.
“Young lady,” he began again. “Can you tell us…”
“Murdered, you say?” She was back to being angry. “Why does his dog have no signs of a fight on her? Surely she would have tried to defend him if he was accosted in the street…”
“Captain Jacques’s throat was cut,” Merlin declared indelicately. “The killer must have followed him, or lain in wait, then come up behind him with rapid stealth and slit his throat in one quick motion, slinking away before the dog even knew what had happened.”
“A professional killer then,” I mused out loud. “A soldier.”
“My lady,” Merlin pleaded, giving her a bump in social status while he was at it. “If you are as angry about this as we are, you must help us find this monster. The same person who killed Jacques is almost certainly also the one who killed Sir Tristram and La Belle Isolde as well, and tried to kill us last night, nearly succeeding with our friend Sir Dinadan. We need to stop him before he kills somebody else. Perhaps even makes an attempt on your own life, if he thinks you know something!”
“I take it you two think I know something, or you wouldn’t be here. Maybe talking to you is what got my Jacques killed. Maybe if they see me talking to you, they’ll come after me too!”
“They, or he, will come after you in any case,” Merlin asserted. “Was your affair with Captain Jacques a secret? If anyone else was aware of your relationship, then this killer will soon know about it, if he doesn’t already.”
“Well let him come, then!” she called out defiantly, standing up and striking the table with her fist so vehemently that the dog retreated back to my side and sat quietly again. “We’ve got half a dozen strong lads working here, and a few wenches that can hold their own as well. And a kitchen full of knives. I hope he does come looking for me. It’ll be the last thing the bastard ever does.”
Merlin nodded. “God’s whiskers, I believe you’d do it, too. But remember, others may be the target before you are. But if you help us, it may be that we can catch this murderer first, before anyone else is harmed.”
“And what would be the use of that?” She was back to her despondent mood once more. Tears poured from her eyes as she choked out, “It will not bring him back. Nothing will bring back my beautiful captain,” and with that her sobs overcame her again.
Before Merlin could open his mouth again, I thought I would try a different tack. “Are you sure that the captain was serious when he told you he would marry you? I mean, some of these men say these things to all kinds of women, but are only toying with their emotions…”
“He loved me!” Meg exploded, her voice cracking between sobs. “He had no other women! It was I that he came to when he needed to confide in someone.”
“Like last night?” I prompted.
“Yes! Exactly like last night.” And with that she narrowed her eyes at me, as if I’d tricked her into something.
“You need to tell us what Captain Jacques talked to you about last night,” Merlin stated definitively. “You know that the final outcome of that meeting was his decision to talk to us about what he knew of the murder suspects. He couldn’t tell us last night because we were attacked—attacked, I say again, by the same people who killed him. You owe it to his memory to tell us what you know.”
“Ha!” Meg spat, clearly veering toward the angry once more. “He wouldn’t be a memory if it weren’t for you people! Him deciding he was going to talk to you is the thing that got him killed! Don’t you know that? Why in the world should I help you?”
Merlin, unflappable, challenged her with his reply. “Because by not helping us, you’re helping whoever killed Captain Jacques. You let them get away with his murder. And with other murders. Can you live with that?”
“No.” she said quietly. “But I don’t like you.”
“You don’t have to,” Merlin conceded. “You just have to tell us.”
Meg blinked and wiped some of the persistent tears from her red eyes. But she seemed determined to get through this testimony before she allowed the heaviness of grief to overwhelm her at last. “He was concerned about something he had overheard,” she began. “While he was on that long voyage that took him to Cornwall and left him becalmed there for days. Something he overheard on the boat.”
“Overheard?” Merlin repeated. “Who was he listening to? Was it La Belle Isolde herself? Her lady perhaps, or the lord Kaherdin?”
“Are you telling this or am I?” Meg said with some vehemence. When Merlin silently conceded to her, she went on: “This was on the voyage back from Cornwall, during the evening, so it was dark. Captain Jacques had come up out of the hold onto the deck. He said there were only a few of the crew on deck, and two of Kaherdin’s close advisors, who were leaning over the ship’s rail with their backs to him, and he perhaps ten or twelve feet behind them, but obscured by the mast in the middle of the ship. He heard them talking about Sir Tristram and the lady Isolde—the Irish Lady Isolde is the one I mean. And he came to me last night and he wanted to talk about it with me, saying that he’d heard this but he didn’t know what it meant and he didn’t know who it was who said it, so he was unsure whether he ought to tell you two or not. Because, you know, it wasn’t at all certain, but it was really bothering him.”
“Yes, of course, I understand,” Merlin said. “But God’s knuckles, woman, tell me what it was he overheard!”
“Well, all right then, one of the fellows leaning over the railing says, ‘Well, this is the funniest trip I’ve ever been a part of. I wonder if we’ll get this Queen Isolde back to Saint-Malo in time to save Sir Tristram from the poison in his wound,’ and then the other one snaps back with a ‘Sir Tristram is done for, take my word for it. That poison in his system has got no antidote. He’s food for the worms.’�
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“But who was talking? Which one of them said this?” I wanted to know. But Meg narrowed her eyes at me and chided me back.
“I told you, didn’t I, that Jacques couldn’t see them except from behind, and that in the dark he couldn’t tell which one was talking. Do I have to keep repeating myself here?”
“No,” Merlin said, looking down at me and lowering his own eyebrows menacingly. “Please, go on and tell us the upshot of this.”
“Right,” Meg continued. “Well the first fellow doesn’t like what he’s hearing, and he says ‘What do you mean, the poison’s got no antidote? How do you know what the poison is?’ And the second fellow gets a little nervous then, you see, and he hems and haws a bit and says, ‘Well, from what I hear, anyway. They say that when those Norsemen poison their weapons, it’s with a really powerful poison that has no known antidote.’ And I guess the first fellow lets it go, then, and they don’t talk about it anymore. But that’s the whole story. That’s what Captain Jacques told me about, and that’s what he said he was going to tell you this morning. And so that’s what got him killed. And now you’ve got what you came for, so I’d appreciate it if you would leave. I’m going to need some time to be alone and cry as much as I can.”
Merlin gave a slight bow of his head and said, “My dear, we share some small part of your grief. Captain Jacques was friendly and helpful to us, was an excellent ambassador for the city and for Brittany, seemed kind and competent. His loss is felt, even by those of us who had met him only very recently.”
Meg nodded, holding her hand to her mouth and momentarily holding back her tears. But Merlin continued, “Is it possible, however, for us to talk with the manager of this establishment? I understand you will want to find a private place, but if we could speak to someone in charge—no, this doesn’t concern you or Captain Jacques—we would be most grateful.”