by E R Dillon
“What’s not for you?” Macalister said, holding his mug out to John for a refill.
“Marriage, of course,” Kyle said. His chin sank to his chest. “I had a wife and a child, but I let them down when they needed me the most.” He lifted his face to his companions, his handsome features etched with pain and grief. “My boy was only eight years old. I should have been there for him, but I wasn’t.”
“That accounts for why ye treated Ogilvy’s grandson, Hob, so gently,” Macalister said with compassion. His eyes then took on a distant look. “Eighteen months ago, I lost my mother, my father, and my sister at Berwick when Edward torched the entire city.” He stared at some horrific inward vision, his dark brows locked in a frown. “Some of the burghers there wanted revenge against the Southrons for past grievances, and rightfully so, but they took out their anger on Southron merchants who did nothing to deserve it. Right there in Berwick’s own harbor, the burghers murdered those merchants and burned their warehouses. Edward sent five of his ships to deal with the burghers, but the vessels foundered in the mouth of the Tweed. The burghers climbed onto them and killed or captured every one of the seamen aboard.
“Shortly after that, Edward marched to Berwick at the head of his army to contend with those burghers himself. They mocked him from behind the safety of their walls, baring their backsides to him and hurling insults. That was when Edward brought out the Warwolf, a war machine that battered down the city’s walls in a matter of hours. The burghers tried to surrender, but Edward paid no heed to their pleas for mercy. For the next three days, thousands of men, women, and children in and about Berwick fell to the sword, butchered like cattle, until Edward saw fit to call a halt to the carnage. Before he departed, he set fire to everything that would burn.”
The tale had a sobering effect on Kyle. “How did you escape?” he said, now surprisingly clear-headed.
“A few of us managed to skirt the Southron army and flee westward,” Macalister said. “We ended up here, in Ayr, determined to start afresh.” He laid a hand on Kyle’s arm. “I shall never forget what the Southrons did to my family, nor will I fail to exact revenge whenever I can. However, time has done much to heal the sting of loss. The dead are gone, and I must let them rest in peace. Ye must do the same. Ye cannot let past tragedies erode yer soul, for who knows but that the morrow may bring the chance to set matters straight.”
“He’s right,” John said to Kyle. “But then,” he added ruefully, “there are times when those lost to us do not leave us in peace, like my Colina with the light brown hair.”
“You have my sympathy, old friend,” Kyle said. He assumed the woman about whom John spoke was deceased, although he had no idea how her death came to pass. He drained the contents of his mug and held it out for more beer.
****
Flames from a raging inferno pressed in upon Kyle. Red embers fell from timber beams burning overhead, singeing his hair, searing his skin through his linen shirt. Dense smoke stung his eyes. Tears blurred his vision. He inched along the earthen floor on his hands and knees in the scorching heat, filled with dread at what he would find ahead of him.
The persistent thud of a fist hammering on a wooden door woke him with a start in the cool darkness of the sheriff’s office. He rolled from his pallet, his heart pounding in his chest. Although relieved it had only been a dream, he feared that the nightmares, which had not plagued him for three years now, were starting up again.
He padded on bare feet to the front room, his pace slow to keep his head from toppling from his shoulders. With a grimace, he opened the door to the hulking form of Inchcape standing outside in the murky pre-light of dawn. “Well?” he said, wincing at the sound of his own voice.
“There’s been another murder,” Inchcape said. There was none of the usual arrogance on his brutish face. He seemed genuinely afraid. “An English soldier.”
Kyle’s concern over his inability to recall leaving John’s shop last night took second place to Inchcape’s news. “Who is it?” he said, his interest piqued despite the throb in his temples.
“I don’t know,” Inchcape said. He nervously smoothed the drooping mustache that framed his thin lips and clean-shaven chin. “That lad just reported it,” he added with a jerk of his thumb.
Kyle lifted his eyes to gaze beyond Inchcape’s beefy shoulder.
John Logan sat astride his mule, his handsome face drawn and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep.
A skinny eleven-year-old boy in an ill-fitting brown tunic perched on the mule’s rump behind John. The boy’s countenance reflected a general mistrust of foreigners, which was undoubtedly why he sought out John, rather than enter an English garrison on his own to fetch the sheriff’s deputy.
“Good morrow,” Kyle said to John. It crossed his mind that he probably looked as bad as the older man did, thanks to the quantity of beer they consumed last night. “What do you know of this matter?”
“Erskine here woke me,” John said, “to tell me of a dead Southron he found earlier this morning. I thought ye should take a look at the body before somebody else happens upon it. He says it’s in a shepherd’s hut a mile or so to the southwest.”
Kyle turned to Inchcape. “Tell Upton and Vinewood to hitch up a wagon. They’ll need it to fetch the body.”
Inchcape departed without argument to do as he was bidden.
Kyle went back inside to dress. He put his leather scale armor over his clothing, after which he set out for the stable to saddle the gelding.
In a short time, he and the English soldiers followed John and Erskine from the garrison. They turned south and headed down the coast. The only sound they heard was the low rumble of wagon wheels and the muffled clop of hooves on the dirt road.
The eastern sky grew brighter with each passing moment. A cool breeze blew in from the Firth of Clyde, and the fresh air somewhat lessened the ache in Kyle’s head.
Before they reached the village of Alloway, the boy urged them to turn inland. They continued across rolling grasslands until they came to a wooded area.
“Over there,” Erskine said, pointing to a dark shape barely visible through a thicket of trees.
The shepherd’s hut stood in the center of a shadowed hollow, the vertical timbers of its outer walls warped with age. A thin mist hovered close to the ground, glazing every stone and blade of grass with a silver sheen. The first rays of the sun would soon reach into the vale to dispel the morning chill and gild the small wooden structure with a brilliant gold to make it warm and inviting. Just now, though, the hut squatted in the gloom, its narrow door ajar. With no windows to let in the light, the dark interior looked more like a tomb than a dwelling.
A bay horse, saddled and bridled with hobbles on its forelegs, grazed a short distance away. The fine creature lifted its head and pricked its ears at their approach.
Kyle dismounted and tied the reins to a nail poking out from the weathered boards on the side of the hut. An inspection of the ground around the entryway showed nothing. If there had been any footprints earlier, they were gone now, obliterated by sheep tracks all over the place.
He opened the door to look inside. The morning light, although dim, was sufficient to show the gruesome sight in the center of the single room.
A man lay on his side, pinned to the earthen floor by a sharpened stake through his temple. Though his face was in shadow, the red slashes on his throat stood out against the pallor of his skin. A Norman helmet, bull hide armor, and a sword on a leather belt, all of which marked him as an English soldier, reposed on a bale of hay at his booted feet.
Despite the cool air outside, the interior of the hut was warm. The source of the heat was a small brazier standing in the corner.
John entered the hut and went down on one knee beside the body to test the rigidity of the limbs. “I’d say he’s been dead for at least ten hours. I’m going to need more light to examine him.” He climbed to his feet to rummage around the bottom of his medicament bag. After a momen
t, he extricated a tallow candle and a pair of flints.
Kyle took the candle from John’s hand and crossed over to the brazier to blow on the coals. When the frilled gray lumps began to glow, he touched the wick to them.
Upton walked into the hut just as the candle flared to life. He stopped in his tracks, uttering a small sound deep in his throat, his eyes fixed on the dead man’s face.
“You know him?” Kyle said as he passed the lighted candle to John.
“That’s Archer from the garrison,” Upton said quietly.
Kyle leaned down to get a better look. “So it is,” he said with mild surprise. He did not like Archer, but he would never have wished such a fate on the man. “I wonder what he was doing out here.”
John tipped the candle and dripped hot wax onto a wooden shelf attached to the back wall to make a secure seat for the base. The flickering yellow light gilded a pair of pottery cups at the far end of the shelf.
Kyle inspected the cups, one of which was unused. The other held an ounce of brew, which he gave a tentative sniff before he handed the cup to John. “Does that mead smell peculiar to you?”
John brought the cup to his nose. “It does,” he said. He dipped his little finger into the amber liquid and touched the tip to his tongue. “Somebody used it to mask the taste of hemlock.” He scowled into the cup for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” Kyle said.
“This reminds me of my own preparation,” John said. “I prescribe hemlock only for hopeless cases, and I warn them to use it with care. A single drop can ease the pain for a while, whereas two drops will ease the pain forever. I’ve given it to less than a handful of people over the last six months.”
“I’ll need a list of their names,” Kyle said.
“Certainly,” John said. He rolled up his sleeves and bent down to grasp the shaft of the wooden stake. He gave it a tug to extract it from Archer’s temple, but the bone in which it was embedded held it fast. After two more unsuccessful attempts, he put his foot on the side of the dead man’s head and yanked hard on the shaft. The stake slid free, bringing with it bits of pinkish-gray matter from inside the skull.
At that point, Upton, ashen-faced and bilious-looking, stumbled from the hut with his hand over his mouth.
John laid aside the sharpened piece of wood and knelt down beside the body to commence his examination.
Ten minutes later, John rose to his feet. “It was the hemlock that killed him,” he said, wiping his hands on a linen rag.
“How can you tell?” Kyle said.
John indicated the raw gaping hole in the temple area where the wooden stake had been removed. “There is no bruising on the skin around the entry wound in his skull,” he said. “In addition, there is no bleeding from the slashes on his throat.”
“They are just like the ones on Sweeney’s neck,” Kyle said, musing over a recent memory. “Is there anything else? Anything that might indicate who did it?”
“Not that I can see,” John said. “Other than the obvious damage, there are no marks of violence on him.” He glanced over at Kyle, confounded. “I don’t understand why anybody would cut the throat of a man who was already dead.”
“Maybe he didn’t know Archer was dead,” Kyle said. “Then, there is the possibility it was done out of hatred or revenge. That’s completely understandable in Archer’s case, for he was a rather disagreeable fellow.” He raised his eyes to the shelf with the cups on it. “That’s curious.”
“What is?” John said, following his gaze.
“There’s no jug for the mead,” Kyle said.
“Perhaps,” John said, “the murderer didn’t want anyone who came upon the body to drink the poisoned mead.”
“A considerate murderer,” Kyle said with a tight smile. “How ironic.”
He went outside to look for Upton and Vinewood. He found them standing together, engaged in quiet conversation. “John is finished in there now.”
The two English soldiers went into the hut to remove the body. It took all four of them to wrestle the dead weight of Archer’s body onto the wagon bed.
“You can take him on to St. John’s for burial,” Kyle said to Vinewood. To Upton, he said, “I want you to come with me. You can use Archer’s horse.”
Chapter 10
Vinewood drove the wagon out of the wooded hollow, bound for town.
Archer’s body lay on the hard planks of the wagon bed. Since he was unmarried and childless, his horse and his gear would be sold to pay for his burial. The silver coins in his purse would be given to the prior at St. John’s to buy food to distribute to the poor.
John rode beside the wagon as it bounced along the grassy track. He alone served as escort for the dead English soldier.
Erskine was long gone, having departed shortly after their arrival at the shepherd’s hut. Kyle saw no reason for the boy to linger, being satisfied that his only involvement in Archer’s murder was in finding the body, and nothing more.
With Upton on Archer’s bay, Kyle headed inland, bound for Brodie’s house. The sun in the east looked large and mellow through the morning haze.
In a short while, they rode into Brodie’s front yard, scattering chickens before them. The house was made of logs, with pitch clogging the chinks between the fitted timbers. A fat sow roamed freely with a litter of piglets trailing behind her. The ploughed land behind the dwelling was rife with beans, peas, and other edible crops.
Kyle dismounted and tied the gelding to a fence post. “Go around the back in case Brodie tries to flee.” He walked up to the front of the house and knocked on the door.
A black dog sunning itself in a bare patch of dirt raised its head to peer at him. After a moment, it lost interest and went back to sleep.
Esa opened the door. On seeing Kyle, her plain face lit up. “Come in.” She wiped her hands on the off-white apron tied around the waist of her gray tunic and stepped aside to let him enter.
Kyle walked ahead of her into the kitchen, where she went back to kneading a mound of raw dough on a wooden table under the window.
“Is your father at home?” he said, watching her capable hands massage loose flour on the surface of the table into the sticky mass.
“Aye,” she said. “He’s in the garden out back.”
“Where was he last night?”
“Ye can ask him that yerself.”
“I’m asking you.”
“He were here in the house all night,” she said. “The same as me.” She punched the dough with more force than was necessary. “Does that answer yer question?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Ye don’t believe me?” she said, her brown eyes flashing.
“You do realize,” he said, “that in vouching for your father, as you did for the night of Sweeney’s murder, you also vouch for your own whereabouts.”
“Do ye think I killed Lucky Jack, then?”
“Not really,” he said. “I think you are capable of doing so, but I don’t think you did it.”
His response seemed to please her, but he was unsure whether it was because of his confidence in her innocence or because he thought she was capable of murder.
She paused at her labors, her fingers sunk to the knuckles in the soft brownish dough. “Life was simpler before ye Southrons came to this country.”
“You mistake me for English,” he said. “I am a Scotsman to the bone, born and bred in this very shire.”
Her eyes searched his face for the truth of his claim. “Why then do ye stand up for Southrons? Their pompous judges sit in their fancy courts and presume to speak for God. The old folk sought justice the old way. That should be good enough for ye.”
“The kinsman of a wronged party still has the right to act as blood avenger,” he said, “but only within the confines of the law. He can challenge the guilty man to fair combat before witnesses, but if he goes out alone and strikes the man down, though the man be guilty, the kinsman places himself outside the law, and thus subjects himself
to punishment under the law.” He paused before adding, “Whether the law is English or Scots, as sheriff’s deputy, I am sworn to uphold it.”
She made no comment as she separated the kneaded dough into three equal portions and shaped them into loaves. She then placed a damp cloth over the raw dough to allow it to rise.
She rolled up her sleeves and proceeded to wash the flour from her hands in a bowl on the side board. “Something must have occurred to bring ye out this way. Was another Southron murdered in his bed?”
He marveled at the accuracy of her guess. “As a matter of fact,” he began, but he fell silent when he noticed the distinctive pattern of the scratches on the inside of her right forearm. The marks were faint, long healed but still discernible. He leveled a pale blue gaze at her. “Did you kill your sister?” he said quietly.
She dried her hands on her apron, her eyes averted. “As good as. She told me Lucky Jack promised to marry her, and she planned to run off with him that very night. I tried to reason with her, but the silly girl was determined to leave. It was then she told me she was carrying his child. I grabbed hold of her to shake some sense into her, but she clawed at me with those sharp fingernails of hers. I shoved her away in anger. God forgive me for what I told her next. I said if she went away with him, she deserved whatever happened to her, for his kind would turn her out into the streets as soon as he grew tired of her.”
She raised her head to look at him, her plain face set in stony grief. “If I thought that was the last time I would ever see her alive, I would have chained her to the fence outside and left her screaming abuses at me for doing so.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He knew she was telling the truth, and at that moment, he felt it unnecessary to add to her distress by mentioning that Sweeney already had a wife.
He exited the house by the rear door, leaving her standing at the wash basin, staring inwardly at her own demons, oblivious to his departure.
Outside, Upton sat on a chunk of wood in the shade of a beech tree, his back against the smooth trunk. He watched with half-closed eyes as Brodie used a hoe to chop at the weeds growing in the furrows of the garden plot.
