by E R Dillon
“It isn’t that far out of our way,” Kyle said. “We’ll tag along with you.”
John led the way across the grassy field, lifting a hand to wave at the shepherd boy, who reciprocated in kind.
They rode into the woods and followed a well-used track through the trees. When they came to a shallow creek, they splashed through ankle-deep water to enter the small village ahead of them.
The villagers there were gathered around an old woman who sat on the ground in front of one of the houses. Wiry gray hair stuck out from beneath her off-white cap, and her homespun tunic was bunched up around her chubby knees. She was rocking back and forth, clutching to her ample bosom the head of a dead white dog. She seemed quite unaware of the blood dripping from the gaping wound in the dog’s chest.
No one noticed Kyle and the others drawing near, for the hooves of their mounts made no sound in the soft dirt. He doubted the villagers would have heard them in any event, for a middle-aged woman in a long brown tunic knelt beside the old woman, hurling invectives in a shrill voice at the recently departed English soldiers and volubly cursing Sir Percy and every other English nobleman, including Edward of England.
The woman in the long brown tunic abruptly ceased her denunciations the instant she looked up to see Kyle, John, and two English soldiers watching her from only four yards away. Stark terror flickered across her sharp features, and her face paled markedly. She rose slowly to her feet, as if unsure whether to run for her life, or stand her ground and beg for mercy.
The other villagers looked on in grim silence. Every one of them, including the woman in brown, knew the penalty for maligning the English king. Offenders were either flogged or mutilated, or both, which punishment was meted out in public as an example to others.
Since the English were notorious for dealing harshly with Scottish folk, the villagers expected no less from Kyle and the soldiers with him. When such treatment was not immediately forthcoming, they took heart that they might somehow escape retribution, which would have been swift, as well as painful.
John dismounted and walked over to the old woman seated on the ground. The villagers parted ranks to let him through. They were acquainted with him, both as a skilled apothecary and as a fellow countryman. Yet, their greetings were cool and reserved, as though they welcomed him, but disapproved of the company he kept.
“Mistress Fenella,” John said to the woman in the long brown tunic. “What happened to yer mother?”
The old woman spoke for herself. “The Southrons come for the rent,” she said. “I’ve not a penny in my purse, so they took my good milk cow and the ewes I planned to bring to market.”
She laid her plump cheek against the soft fur on the dead dog’s head. “There were no need to kill Bawsie,” she said, sniffling loudly. “She were old and crippled. She would not hurt a soul.” Her dark eyes narrowed and glittered brightly for a brief moment. “He did it for meanness, the haughty one did.”
“Mam owes more than she can pay,” Fenella said to John. “The Southrons put her out of the house.” She wrung her hands together. “With so many mouths to feed, I’ve not a coin to spare to help her.” She waved a hand toward the mangled plants in the tiny garden plot adjacent to the dwelling. “They trampled the crop, too. Now, there will be no cabbage or turnips for the children to eat.”
John bent down to grasp the old woman’s elbow to help her rise. “Mistress Hamilton, what will ye do? Where will ye go?”
Fenella slipped her hand under the old woman’s other elbow. “She will stay with me. It’s the least I can do for my own mother.”
Mistress Hamilton released her hold on the dead dog with great reluctance. She lumbered to her feet with John and Fenella’s assistance and tugged her shapeless tunic into place. “I won’t miss that old house,” she said as she reached up to straighten the off-white cap on her gray head. “The roof leaks every time it rains.”
For a long moment, the old woman stood without moving, her hands held out before her, frowning down at the smears of bright red blood on her palms. At last, she lifted her eyes to look directly at Kyle. Her stark gaze seemed to sear through him without seeing him. “Three a violent end shall meet,” she said. “The fourth shall cause his own defeat.”
Fenella made a strangled sound deep in her throat. She seized the old woman by the shoulders. “Mam!” she cried, shaking her soundly.
Mistress Hamilton stared at her daughter as if she’d just sprouted horns. “Unhand me, girl,” she said, bristling with indignation as she pushed the younger woman away.
Upton and Turnbull shifted uneasily in their saddles at the old woman’s pronouncement against them. The horses stamped and blew in response to the sudden nervous tension of their riders.
Kyle soothed the gelding by stroking its reddish-brown neck. He was not a superstitious man. Neither did he give credence to signs or portents. He only believed in what he could see and feel. Yet, he wasn’t surprised to hear his demise would be untimely. If truth be told, wasn’t all death untimely? In any case, he lived by the sword, or more accurately, by the short-handled battle axe, so he held no illusions about eventually dying at the hand of a foe who used his own weapon of choice. Experience and skill got him this far, but there was always the risk that one day he would face someone who was either a split-second faster than he was, or just plain luckier, and that would be the end of him.
The villagers exchanged fearful glances. The last thing they wanted was for Kyle or the soldiers with him to charge Mistress Hamilton with witchcraft. She would be burned alive at the stake, and they might well suffer a similar fate for harboring a witch in their midst.
“She’s not herself today,” Fenella said to John in an effort to forestall such an indictment.
The villagers joined in, murmuring their concurrence that Mistress Hamilton was, indeed, talking out of her head. They urged Fenella to take her mother inside to rest.
Fenella cast an anxious glance at Kyle, as though expecting him at any moment to point an accusatory finger at her and her mother to have them arrested. The benign expression on his face encouraged her to hustle the old woman, protesting with every step, into her house.
With the two women out of sight and hopefully out of mind, the remaining villagers bade John farewell and proceeded to disperse. One of them even brought his mule over to him to hasten his departure. Not a soul stepped forward to consult him about this malady or that injury, as they were wont to do on his infrequent visits there.
Kyle caught the eye of an able-bodied young man. “You, there,” he said, pointing at him. “Stand your ground.”
The young man froze. “Aye?” he said, quaking in his boots at being singled out from among the others.
“Get a spade,” Kyle said, “and bury that dog.”
The young man sagged with relief. “Aye.” He touched his forehead with the knuckle of his forefinger before hurrying away to do as he was bidden.
On the way back to Ayr, Kyle sent Upton and Turnbull on ahead in order to have a private word with John. He told the older man what Father Ian had mentioned concerning Ormesby’s deplorable treatment of the Scottish gentry and of Sir Percy’s dismissal of the charges against the English soldiers who had hanged a local shepherd without even a hearing.
John took the news in stride. “Ormesby’s every deed has Edward of England’s approval and support. Sir Percy does, too, for that matter. Any decision either of them makes carries the weight and might of their king behind it. Sir Percy may be young, but he’s the real power in Ayrshire, as was Sir Nicholas de Segrave, Sir Percy’s predecessor. It was Segrave who initiated the curtailment of Sheriff Crawford’s authority and limited his duties until he became naught but a bailie with a fancy title.” He looked over at Kyle, his expression grave. “The same goes for yer post as deputy. If ye don’t yet know it, ye soon will.”
“Sheriff Crawford informed me of that before he left,” Kyle said. “There’s a certain satisfaction in running felons to ground, but I neve
r liked collecting taxes anyway. That’s just another way to take money from folks who can barely afford to keep food on the table.”
John rode in silence for a while, scowling at the road ahead. “What do ye think she meant?” he said at length.
“She was riled,” Kyle said, picking up John’s line of thought with ease, for he too wondered about Mistress Hamilton’s pronouncement. “Rightly so for what Sweeney and his cronies did to her.”
“But it was against us she spoke, not them.”
Kyle shrugged his broad shoulders. “If it bothers you that much, why don’t you ask her about it?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” John said. He seemed well satisfied with the suggestion. He then gave Kyle a sidelong glance. “What about the Brodie girl’s murderer? Do ye think one of the villagers did it?”
“I do,” Kyle said.
“Which one?”
“It’s hard to tell just yet.”
“It’s one of those lads ye spoke to in the field, is it not?”
“More than likely.”
“How do ye know?”
“All three of them lied to me.”
“What did they say?”
“It was what they didn’t say,” Kyle said. “None of them admitted to being keen on Abigail, like her sister told me they were.”
“Perhaps they didn’t want to give ye cause to think them guilty.”
“That may be so,” Kyle said, “but one of them is culpable. I just need to think of a way to flush him out.”
****
It was early afternoon when Kyle and John reached the outskirts of town. They rode through the streets to Tradesmen’s Row, where John took his leave and turned aside to go home.
Kyle continued on to the garrison. As he rode under the portcullis, he saw a somber gathering of townsfolk beginning to collect around the raised wooden platform in the center of the courtyard.
A grim-faced man of considerable girth, whom Kyle recognized as the English marshal, stood with smug self-assurance at the bottom step leading up to the platform.
Kyle reined in to hail an English soldier walking across the courtyard with a halberd slung over his shoulder. “What’s going on over there?”
The soldier paused to squint up at Kyle in the sunlight. “The marshal sets the floggings for Mondays.” He gave Kyle a look that suggested he should already know that. “And today be Monday.”
Kyle nodded his thanks to the soldier, who went over to join the other men-at-arms stationed around the platform with their halberds grounded. The town’s burghers endorsed corporal punishment for thieves, drunkards, and other petty offenders, but few of them approved of an English marshal carrying out the sentence, which explained the grave expressions of those assembled there to watch.
Kyle made his way over to the stable. After tending to the gelding, he hurried across the courtyard to the main hall, which was situated on the ground floor of the castle, in the hope that he was not too late to get something to eat.
He was.
The cavernous hall was empty of soldiers, and the long tables in it were littered with crusts of bread, gnawed bones, and other remnants of the noon meal more than an hour past. A handful of adolescent boys from the streets of Ayr, pressed into willing service with the promise of a free meal, worked under the watchful eye of a rotund townsman with a willow switch in his hand. They collected clay mugs into a basket and tossed food scraps to a pack of dogs rooting through the straw on the timber-plank floor. Every now and then, when their willow-switch-wielding overseer wasn’t looking, one of the boys would sneak a choice morsel from the table and slip it into his mouth.
The administrative offices were located above the main hall on the second floor of the castle, as were the sleeping quarters for those in command of the garrison and the occasional guest of the castellan. Since Sir Percy’s office was in such close proximity, Kyle decided it was time to call upon him to introduce himself. His appetite could wait until later.
He strode toward the stairway built against the back wall and mounted the wooden steps two at a time. He walked down the long hallway running between the chambers on either side. The door at the far end was open, so he went there first. His wide-shouldered frame filled the doorway as he paused to knock lightly on the doorjamb.
A lean Scotsman of middle years was seated at a desk in the receiving room. He raised his eyes from writing in a neat hand with a quill pen on a rectangular piece of vellum. The shelves behind him were filled with rolls of parchment, and the anteroom he occupied led to a larger chamber beyond.
“May I help ye?” he said.
“Where is Sir Percy’s office?” Kyle said.
“This is it,” the man said. “I am Neyll, Sir Percy’s clerk.” His voice lacked any semblance of welcome or warmth, though it was carefully civil, in keeping with his station. His forehead was wide, rendered tall by his receding hairline. His hair was as black as his eyes, which peered out from deep sockets with a shrewd intelligence. His features were ordinary and unremarkable, unlike the burgundy tunic he wore, which was made of the finest linen, like that imported from Flanders, embroidered on the sleeves and cut in the latest fashion. The belt about his trim waist was studded with semiprecious stones, and his dark mustache and beard were neatly clipped.
Kyle detected the scent of roses coming from the man’s clothing. He sniffed again to make sure. “Will you let Sir Percy know Kyle Shaw, deputy sheriff, is here to see him?”
Neyll placed the quill in the upright holder in front of him and laced his fingers together. “Do ye have an appointment?”
“I do not,” Kyle said, “but he will want to see me.”
“Sir Percy sees no one without an appointment,” Neyll said. Although he was seated, he somehow managed to look down his long nose at Kyle looming over him. His disdainful gaze took in the dusty clothing and the tawny hair in disarray about the broad shoulders. “He is a very busy man.”
“So am I,” Kyle said. He strode past Neyll’s desk to enter the chamber beyond.
Neyll jumped to his feet, knocking over his low stool in his haste to get around the corner of his desk. “Halt!” he cried as he ran after Kyle. “Ye cannot go in there without an appointment.”
Sir Henry de Percy sat at a marble-topped oak desk with his back to the window. He looked up as Kyle bore down on him with the clerk nipping at his heels like an ill-tempered dog. “That will do, Neyll.”
Neyll hesitated, his face flushed and his lips set in an implacable line. He opened his mouth to protest, but apparently thought better of it, for he closed it again without saying a word. He cast a scathing glance at Kyle before he gave Sir Percy a bow barely decent enough to satisfy protocol. He turned on his heel and marched back to his desk in the anteroom.
Sir Percy was younger than Kyle expected, being no more than twenty-four years of age, with soft brown eyes and cherubic features. The cut of his velvet clothing was simple, yet the garment was well made, and the midnight blue color flattered his tanned complexion. His only adornment was a signet ring on the middle finger of his right hand and a gold ring set with a lustrous stone on the third finger of his left hand. His bearing was that of a man aware of his importance, but such was expected of an English nobleman who bore the heavy responsibilities of his office. Kyle got the impression, though, that Sir Percy would be happier out in the open air hawking and hunting, rather than confined to a desk.
The other furnishings in the office consisted of a side table, a washstand near the window overlooking the courtyard, and a huge storage trunk in the corner. In front of the desk were two high-backed carved chairs, one of which was occupied by the foreign nobleman who arrived at the garrison on the same day as Kyle and who now wore a light blue velvet garment trimmed with silver cording.
“I beg your pardon for the intrusion,” Kyle said. “I’m―”
“I know who you are,” Sir Percy said, interrupting him without being rude. “I heard you when you came in.”
“I fa
iled to notice you were in conference,” Kyle said. “I can come back when you are not otherwise engaged.” He inclined his head in a slight bow to the foreign nobleman, who acknowledged him with the vapid wave of a hand.
“That won’t be necessary,” Sir Percy said with a bland smile. “Besides, you look like a man with something on his mind.” He leaned back in his cushioned chair, his elbows on the padded arms, his fingers forming a tent while he waited for Kyle to speak.
“You’re right about that,” Kyle said. “What I have to say concerns the rape and murder of a village girl three days ago. The dead girl’s father claims an English soldier did it. The man was seen in the vicinity about the time his daughter disappeared.”
“The girl’s death is a tragedy, of course,” Sir Percy said, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from his velvet sleeve, “but those folks are always blaming us for everything that goes wrong in their pitiful lives.”
“Perhaps their lives would not be so pitiful if you English treated them better.”
Sir Percy got slowly to his feet, sweeping aside a parchment roll to place his hands flat on the polished marble surface of his desk. He leaned forward, his soft brown eyes suddenly fierce as they held Kyle’s gaze. “I suggest you tread with care, Master Deputy. You are speaking to the castellan of Ayrshire, appointed by the King of England himself.”
“Then perhaps as castellan,” Kyle said, returning Sir Percy’s piercing gaze, “you can put a stop to English soldiers from this very garrison raiding homesteads in the shire.”
“You are mistaken,” Sir Percy said, his manner cold. “That is the handiwork of Scottish rebels.”
“Those were English soldiers who raided Ogilvy’s homestead the other night,” Kyle said, his tone emphatic. “They did it under the cover of darkness, hooded like bandits.”
“How do you know this?”
“There were four witnesses to the deed.”
“Where are these so-called witnesses?” Sir Percy said.
“You are looking at one of them,” Kyle said. “I saw the raiders with my own eyes.”
