The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  "That won't be necessary, milady," Owyn said, touching his forelock. "I'm only sorry that—"

  "Our business is concluded, Mr. Phyffe. Wait outside with Father Fennan, please. I want a private word with these two."

  "As you say, milady." Giving a perfunctory bow, Owyn followed the priest out. Fennan swung the oaken door closed as he left.

  Lady DuBoyne eyed me a moment, lips pursed, then pushed a small purse toward me. "This is for you, minstrel. And your daughter."

  "I don't understand."

  "It's money for travel, the farther the better. And for your silence. My husband is no longer young and has no head for wine, but he's still my husband. I will not have him ridiculed."

  "I saw nothing to laugh at, milady, and Noelle saw nothing at all. You need not pay us."

  "The girl is truly blind then? I thought the ribbon might be an artifice. Come closer, child. You have a beautiful voice."

  "Thank you. Do you know me, lady?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Have we met? You seem… familiar to me, though I can't say why. Have you ever visited the convent at Lachlan Cul?"

  "No, and I'm sure we've never met. You're very lovely. I'd remember."

  "I must be mistaken, then. Forgive me, the country where I live is a land of shadows. It's confusing sometimes. But Tallifer is right, there's no need to buy our silence."

  "Then consider it a payment for your song."

  "The song was for any who listened, not for you alone. You needn't pay for it and you have nothing to fear from us. We'll not trouble you again."

  She turned and started for the door so hastily I had to grab her arm to save her from injury. I glanced back to make our goodbyes, but Lady DuBoyne didn't notice. She was leaning forward on the desk, her face buried in her hands.

  "Well?" Owyn said when we joined him in the hall. "What did she want?"

  "Not much," I said. "She asked us to be discreet."

  "Discretion is always wise," Father Fennan agreed. "We live in fearsome times."

  "That lady has nought to fear," Noelle said sharply. "Her son has a ballad of his own already. Tell me, Father, did Logan fight those battles or just bribe minstrels to praise his name?"

  "Hardly," the priest said, surprised. "As his confessor, I assure you the song doesn't tell half the carnage he's wrought, and he despises it. He once struck a guardsman unconscious for singing it."

  "I'm surprised he didn't hang the poor devil," Noelle snapped. "This is an unlucky town for singing, gentlemen. We'd best be away from here."

  Owyn glanced at me, arching an eyebrow. I shrugged. I had no idea why Noelle was so angry. Or why Lady DuBoyne had broken down. Women have always been an alien race to me, as fascinating as cats and no more predictable.

  Noelle was right about one thing, though: Garriston was unlucky for us. The sooner we saw the back of it, the better.

  Pleading the lateness of the hour, the priest led us to the chapel, which had its own exit through the town wall. He seemed uneasy, eager to have us gone.

  "Good luck and Godspeed," he called, as he strained at the heavy door. "And remember, discretion!" The armored door clanged shut like the gates of hell.

  "Paid to the last penny," Owyn said somberly, hefting his purse. "A successful engagement, I suppose. At least we finished with a profit."

  But we weren't finished with Garriston, nor it with us. We'd scarcely retired to our tents when a commotion arose from behind the city walls. Shouting, men running. A raid? Trouble between the DuBoynes and their guests?

  I was pulling on my boots when horsemen thundered into our camp followed by foot soldiers on the run, shouting for us to come out, tearing open the tents and wagons. My first thought was to reach Noelle, but I was seized as soon as I showed myself.

  "Hold him! He's one of them!" The rat-eyed bailiff who'd been with Kenedi the first day was on horseback, armed with a poniard, directing the search. Owyn stalked boldly out to demand an explanation, but the bailiff ordered him seized as well. Then they dragged Noelle out and marched the three of us back to the stronghold under guard, directly to the great hall.

  The linens were gone now and the high table was occupied by the steward, Kenedi, Black Logan, his younger brother Godfrey, and the heads of the guest families, Randal Ramsay, Nicol Duart, and Ian Harden. Red-eyed, disheveled, and still half-drunk from the feast, they were in an evil mood, eyeing us like wolves 'round a wounded calf.

  Armed guards ringed the room and blood was in the air, real blood. A body was laid out on a trestle table in the center of the room covered by a sodden sheet, bleeding gore onto the flagstones.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Owyn said coldly. "Why have we been unlawfully seized?"

  "You've been brought to answer, Mr. Phyffe," Randal Ramsay said coldly. "For murder."

  "Whose murder?"

  "See for yourself." The squat soldier holding Noelle thrust her forward, banging her into the corpse. She recoiled, and as he reached for her again, I pulled free and tackled the lout from behind, slamming his face into the floor! Once, twice, and then the others were on me, dragging me off him, kicking me down.

  "Enough!" Black Logan's bark stopped the beating instantly. "This is a court, not a damned alehouse brawl!"

  "What kind of court?" Owyn said coolly. "I see no townsmen here to act as a jury."

  "This isn't a hallmote hearing for selling bad ale, Phyffe," Ramsay said. "As the crime is against a peer of the realm, only his equals can sit as judges."

  Jerking his arm free of his guard, Owyn strode boldly to the table with the corpse. Noelle helped me to stand as Owyn drew the sheet back. His mouth narrowed, but he gave no other sign.

  "Who's been killed?" Noelle whispered to me. "Is it the steward?"

  "God rest him," Owyn said quietly, gazing at the corpse. "Father Fennan seemed a good man, but he was only a parish priest, unlettered and coarse of speech. I doubt he was of noble birth."

  "Fennan was not the only one attacked," Ramsay said. "The laird of Garriston also lies wounded and is unlikely to—"

  "He's not dead yet," Logan snapped. "He's survived worse."

  "When he was younger, perhaps," Ramsay countered, "but he's been failing for some time. No one of sound mind would have loosed you to ravage the countryside!"

  "Gentlemen, please," Owyn interrupted. "Could you save your private quarrel for a more convenient time? My friends and I have been hauled from our beds to no good purpose I can discern. There are any number of folk here with cause to harm Laird Alisdair while we have none. If you wish us to testify, let's get on with it."

  His sheer audacity stunned the room to silence.

  "Testify?" Gillespie Kenedi sputtered. "You are charged with the crime!"

  "On what basis?"

  "You are the only strangers here, and you were last seen with the priest. Money was found in your tent."

  "Money paid to me by the lady of the manor for the night's performance," Owyn replied. "As to the priest, when last we saw him he was alive and well. He saw us out through a portal at the rear of the chapel and bolted it behind us. Once outside the walls, we could not return, and since you found me abed with my wife who will swear I never left once I'd arrived—"

  "Your wife will swear," Kenedi sneered.

  For a moment Owyn stood silent, his eyes locked on the steward's until Kenedi looked away. "Gentlemen, I have been falsely charged with murder. I have answered that charge with truth. I can have six free men in this room in half an hour to vouch for my word. But there is a simpler way. You have impugned my wife's honor, Mr. Kenedi. Suppose we put the question to the test in the courtyard? With any weapons you choose."

  It was a bold move, and pure bluff. Owyn was a lover, not a fighter. Though lightning quick with a dirk, he had no real skill with weapons. But he was a master at reading audiences. The Scottish lords, tired and surly, brightened at the idea of a trial by combat. And he read Kenedi correctly as well. The steward had the arrogance of his high office
, but no belly for a fight.

  "No offense was intended to your wife," Kenedi muttered.

  "Then you accept my word and my explanation?" Owyn pressed.

  "Yours, yes. But what about the other minstrel? Who was he abed with? His daughter?"

  Owyn glanced at me, warning me with his eyes to control my anger. But he wasn't the only one who could read people. Owyn was about to lie for me and I couldn't let him. Nothing but the truth could save us now.

  "My daughter was with Owyn's family," I said. "I was quite alone."

  "Then you could have returned," Kenedi said intently. "The gate guard has admitted he drowsed off. You could easily have passed by him to commit the crime."

  "To what end? I have no quarrel with anyone here."

  "You were sent by Lord Alisdair's enemies," Kenedi countered. "You arrived on a stolen horse. My bailiff can testify that the horse came from Garriston."

  "No need. I accept your word that the horse came from Garriston. Was the reeve who rode it a Garriston man also?"

  The question surprised him. It surprised me as well, but there was no turning back now. Murder had been done, and someone would pay for it before first light. Denials were useless. I had neither witnesses nor friends to vouchsafe my word. I had only my road-weary wits and the glimmer of an idea.

  "Aye," Kenedi conceded, "the reeve was from Garriston. Why?"

  "Because he attacked me in a wood on the way to Orniston. I buried him there." That woke them up.

  "You admit you killed the reeve?" Kenedi said.

  "In self-defense, yes."

  "Why would a reeve attack you?" Black Logan asked. "Did you quarrel?"

  "No, we hardly spoke. And he seemed more interested in killing Noelle than me."

  "Same question: Why would he attack your daughter?"

  "Much as it pains me to admit it, Noelle is not my daughter. She was a resident at the convent at Lachlan Cul until recently, when it burned."

  "All was lost," Noelle put in. "A sister was taking me to her family when she died of injuries. Tallifer saved me."

  "A touching tale but irrelevant," Kenedi sneered. "After killing the reeve, you likely came to Garriston for revenge."

  "If I'd known the lout came from Garriston, I would hardly have ridden his horse here. Chance brought us to this place, or perhaps fate."

  "An ill fate," Kenedi snorted. "You rode here on the horse of a murdered man yet claim you know nothing of the attacks on our laird and his chaplain?"

  "I didn't say that. I had no part in what happened tonight, but I believe we may have caused it."

  "Don't bandy words, minstrel," Randal Ramsay demanded. "What are you saying?"

  "I think what happened tonight was the echo of another crime, one that occurred many years ago."

  "What crime?" Logan asked.

  "Before I answer, I have a question of my own." Turning to Noelle, I quietly asked her something that had troubled me. Then I turned back to the court. "Gentlemen, I believe the explanation lies in a ballad I heard when I came to this town—"

  "What nonsense is this?" Kenedi sputtered. "You stand accused of murder—"

  "Let him talk," Randal Ramsay interrupted. "His life is in the balance. But bear in mind, minstrel, if we don't care for your tale, you'll never tell another. Go on."

  "The song is one you all know, the "Ballad of Black Logan," the boy warrior. Like most songs, it's part fancy, part truth.

  "For example, it speaks of his birth at Christmas. Is this true? Was he born at Yuletide?"

  "What difference—?" Kenedi began.

  "Aye, it's true enough," Nicol Duart offered. The lanky clan chief had a buzzard's hook nose, and the same implacable eyes. "It was a damned black Christmas for this country. But the rest is a lie. Young Logan never leapt from his crib to raid Lord Randal's lands. He were at least a year old before he turned outlaw." The third lord, Ian Harden, guffawed. Neither Logan nor Ramsay smiled.

  "Then the ballad is partly true. And the rest of it, the myth of a bairn riding off to war, is to explain a thing seen but not understood."

  "What was seen?" Logan demanded.

  "Here is what I believe happened. Seventeen years ago, a young wife who'd lost two stillborn children feared she might be put aside if she didn't deliver her lord an heir. So when she was expecting again, she arranged to obtain a male child. When her own child came, a frail girl born blind, she replaced it with the other and sent her true daughter off to a convent. At Lachlan Cul.

  "The boy became a fearsome warrior. But his size at birth did not go unremarked, and a local legend sprang up to explain it. A ballad that grew with his exploits."

  "You lying dog," Logan said coldly. "You dare insult my family by—"

  "Hold, hold, young Logan," Ramsay said, his face split by a broad grin. "Perhaps you haven't fully grasped the implications. If the minstrel's tale is a lie, his life is forfeit. But at least part of his story is true. And if the rest is, then you have no right to threaten anyone, nor even to a seat at this table. And fool can see you don't favor your father, and the girl looks so like Lady DuBoyne that her own husband mistook her earlier tonight."

  "My father is not well—"

  "If he is your father."

  "By God, Ramsay, step into the courtyard, and we'll see which of us doesn't know his father!"

  "I don't brawl in the street with common louts, boy. We'll hear the rest of this before I consider your offer. What of it, minstrel? Have you any proof of your tale?"

  "Lady DuBoyne knows the truth of it," I said.

  "My mother is keeping vigil with her dying husband," Logan snarled. "Anyone who dares disturb her grief for this nonsense will deal with me first."

  "I admit it's inconsiderate to trouble the lady now, but neither is it fair to condemn me without asking the one person who knows the truth."

  "We needn't hear any more," Kenedi snapped. "The minstrel has admitted to killing a reeve from this town. As steward of Garriston and head of this court, I say we condemn him for that murder and dismiss the rest of this nonsense as a pack of lies told to save himself. We can hang him straightaway unless… any of you gentlemen truly wish to dispute the birthright of Lord DuBoyne's son and heir?"

  The Scottish lords exchanged glances, and I read my fate in their eyes. Death. They couldn't risk challenging Logan in his own hall with his men about. They might raise the matter another time but that would be far too late for me.

  "Well, gentlemen?" Kenedi said. "Shall we put it to a vote?"

  "No," Logan said, his face carved from oak, unreadable. "We've gathered to resolve the murder of a priest and assault on my… on the laird of Garriston, not the death of a reeve many miles away. If we condemn the minstrel for killing the reeve, the rest remains unresolved and I will not have any stain on my name nor any question of my rights of inheritance. But I see a way to settle this. We'll send my younger brother Godfrey to ask Lady DuBoyne the truth of the minstrel's tale. If she denies it, he stands condemned out of his own mouth. Unless any man here doubts the lady's honor?"

  "The minstrel's the one who'll be dancing the hangman's hornpipe if she misleads us," Ramsay noted dryly. "He may have a misgiving or two."

  I considered that a moment. "No, as it stands, only a few know the truth of what happened, and the lady is the one most likely to tell it. I agree to the test. Send the boy."

  "So be it," Ramsay said, eyeing me curiously. "Duart will accompany the lad to vouch that all is done properly."

  "Agreed," Logan nodded, "with one stipulation. If my mother denies Tallifer's lies, he will not hang. One of you will loan him a blade, and we'll settle our differences in the courtyard. If he kills me, you can hang him afterward."

  "Or gift him with silver and a fast horse," Ramsay growled. "Duart, take the boy to speak with his mother. And listen well to her answer."

  The whey-faced youth and the burly border lord exited, and I resigned myself to wait. Perhaps for the rest of my life.

  The reply came soo
ner than I expected. A stir arose at the back of the room, which grew to an uproar. Logan bolted to his feet, his face ashen. "Help him to a chair, forgodsake!"

  I turned. Lord Alisdair had tottered into the hall, supported by Godfrey and Duart. He looked even more ancient than before, as though he might fade to smoke any moment. His muslin nightshirt was bloodstained, hanging loosely over a poultice.

  A servant fetched him a chair and Alisdair eased painfully down, but as he looked about him, his eyes were bright and alert.