by J. R. Tomlin
His head ached with the effort of remembering his tutoring and his eyes burned from straining in the smoky air, but it was a clue and the only clue he had, so he tucked the letter back into his doublet. “Under the statue of Our Lady,” he pondered. After a few hours of nursing mugs of yeasty ale, Law ordered two bowls of bean gruel that at least filled their bellies.
“I suppose you ken no Latin, Cormac?” Law said thoughtfully.
Cormac looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “And who would teach a minstrel his Latin?” But the youngster watched Law as he bent over the letter and Law just shook his head.
When no more sunlight came in through the boards of the shutters, Law pushed back his chair and stood up. “Playing your clàrsach is safer, Cormac.”
“Aye. But following you is more exciting.”
Law huffed through his nose. “If you hang with me, it’s your own fault.”
“Where are we going?” Cormac asked, walking beside Law into the street.
Law pulled his cloak around him. There was a smell of snow in the air, and the cold damp air made his bruised jaw ache. “We’re going to the Kirk of St. John.”
“At this hour?”
“Aye. Is it ever too late to pay a visit to the Blessed Virgin?”
“I…suppose not.”
As they walked, bits of moonlight broke through the clouds to reflect on the icy cobbles. The sharp wind tugged at Law’s cloak. He kept close to the buildings to stay out of sight in the silent street. It only took ten minutes to reach the dark, towering bulk of the Kirk of St. John. He led Cormac past the high, carved front doors and made a circle around the outside to the back where high walls enclosed what must be a garden for the priests. Within, bare branches scratched at the sky in the wind. As he walked, he ran a hand along the wall, covered in places with a thick growth of ivy, looking for a gate. Even after going the entire length of the enclosure, he found no entrance.
“Why don’t we go through the doors?” Cormac whispered.
“Because I need to dig in the garden.”
Cormac gave a soft, “Hmmmph.” as Law jerked experimentally on the vines and then reached high over his head, grasped them, and pulled himself up. A handful snapped off in his hands, but he managed to grab onto some thicker ones. He flung an arm over the top of the wall and levered himself high enough to peer into the dark garden. Masses of shrubs made dark clumps that might be good hiding places should anyone appear. With a grunt, he slid his body along the top and let himself down the other side. He turned loose to land with a thud, pain shot through his bad leg and bit back a curse.
When he looked up, Cormac was clinging to the top and wriggling his way over. He let go and landed on his feet. The moonlight lit his grin. He opened his mouth but Law cut him off with a whispered, “Whisht.”
Law leaned close to Cormac’s ear and said, “We’re looking for a statue of the Virgin.” He looked around the garden that was all shadows and mysterious shapes from the flicker of moonlight escaping past blowing clouds. A few fruit trees with limbs like skeletal fingers waving in the breeze lined the wall they had just come over. In the middle was a giant, hoary oak with a few dead leaves still attached that rattled and scraped in the wind.
A dark shape of a couple of pines thrust upwards near the rear doorway from the church. A priest was outlined by light from within. Law grabbed Cormac’s arm and jerked to the ground behind one of the shrubs. He squirmed his way forward until he could see the doorway, as the priest closed the door. Holding his breath, Law listened for any sound, a footstep or word of alarm. The silence stretched out for several minutes and at last Law decided it was safe to get up off the wet ground.
Cormac nudged Law and pointed past the oak where a human shape seemed to glimmer in a passing moonbeam. Law nodded and led the way, but it was a statue of the patron saint of the kirk, St. John the Baptist, his hand raised to preach. Law wished he’d dared to bring some light but the risk would have been too great. He circled the big oak and spotted another shape, behind a large bush. He nudged Cormac with an elbow.
They slipped through the dark to a statue of the Blessed Virgin. He knelt at a brick-edged flowerbed that surrounded the weathered Madonna holding the Child in her arms. All that was left of the flowers were a few withered, dead stalks. He reached to pat around the edge of the base of the statue feeling for any loosening of the soil. It had been tended for the flowers, but the soil had hardened in the autumn rain and chill. He bent close trying to see but it was all a mass of shadow. Patting and thrusting his fingers into the soil, one side seemed a little looser. It wasn’t as hard as it might have been. Clearly this bit beneath the edge of the statue had recently been disturbed.
“Keep watch whilst I dig,” Law whispered.
Cormac half-stood so he could peer over the bulk of the bushes. The only sound was branches scraping together in the damp breeze and their quick breaths.
With a sigh at the day’s maltreatment of a good blade, he pulled out his dirk to dig under the edge, trying not to disturb the rest of the dirt. He grunted with satisfaction when a good six inches in the blade hit something hard. He nodded to himself as he sheathed the dirk. He shoveled with his bare hands to clear a space just under the edge of the statue. Law could feel a hard metal rectangle.
At last he pulled it free with a soft grunt, and set it on the grass before him. It was a metal casket a foot wide and two feet long. He could feel decorations that he couldn’t make out in the dark. He tugged at the lid. It was locked and this was not the place to make noise in opening it.
Then he wiped the dirt off his blade and hands on the sodden grass and patted the soil back into place along the edge where it was disturbed. Frowning, he looked up. The rain would settle the earth. If anyone looked closely, they would see it was disturbed but in an autumn-dead garden, that should not happen soon. He pointed to a pile of oak leaves. Cormac scooped up an armful and dumped them into the depression.
“That’s that then,” Law whispered.
“This makes no sense,” Cormac whispered back.
He stood. “Ach, it makes perfect sense.”
Cormac pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders and stamped his feet. His teeth were chattering when he said, “Then are we done here?”
Law studied the statue as though he would speak to him.
“We’re getting wet through,” Cormac complained. “Let us go.”
The minstrel’s pleas at last registered and Law shook his wet hair out of his face. “Aye. Let’s hie home.” Cormac held the box as Law climbed to the top of the wall, straddled it, and leaned down. He grabbed Cormac’s arm and gave him a boost up. With the long casket hidden under Law’s cloak, together they splashed through the icy drizzle to Cullen’s tavern. Wulle and his wife would have him on the street if they knew he’d left the door unbarred.
Law motioned to Cormac to follow him up the stairs to his room through the dark, empty tavern. Law dropped the bar to the door of his room into place. He ran his fingers over the raised decorations that were thick with verdigris. “French, I think.”
“Is it gold?” Cormac whispered.
Law shook his head. “Brass.” It was a shame to damage the box, but so be it. He used his dirk to break off the lock. When he tried to raise the catch it was stiff, but a moment’s prying lifted it.
A gold cross gleamed in the flickering light of his single candle. It was in the shape of the traditional Templar cross with a flare at the end of each branch. A red gem glowed in the center. A trill of excitement when through him. It was like finding the golden fleece of Greek legend. Not for a moment had he believed it was real.
His hands shook as he reached in and gently lifted the cross into the light. What fate had the men who had buried this gone to? Had they truly fought at that great battle so long ago? The hardened knight in Law fled, and he was the boy who had listened to the legends of Scottish heroes, of the great Robert the Bruce driving the English from their lands with the Black Dougl
as at his side. He ran his fingers over it, feeling its smooth surface, hefting it to feel its weight. “This is gold though,” he whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m no jeweler, but I can see if there is lead under the gold.” Law’s mouth twitched with the memory of telling the assize he did not use a dirk as he pulled the long dagger from his belt. He laid the cross facedown and shaved a tiny flake off the back. Underneath was the same golden gleam.
“O Mhuire Mháthair,” Cormac said as though a prayer.
Law steadied his shaking hands. Don’t be a fool, Law, he chided himself. There are no heroes nor ne’er were. E’en the great Bruce was just a man. There were however men alive now who would kill in a trice for something so valuable.
Cormac’s soft voice was shaking when he asked, “I don’t understand. If they kent it was there, why didn’t they retrieve it?”
“De Carnea found it and left it in a hiding place where it had been safe for a hundred years,” Law said. “What better hiding place? He obviously didn’t trust whomever he was meeting. And must have had good reason, considering his slit throat. He didn’t tell Wrycht or Marguerite either. He didn’t trust them. Or mayhap he merely never had the chance.” He huffed a laugh. “They have assumed he moved it. They’re searching all over Perth, but instead he just left it where it lay.”
“What now?”
“For the nonce, find somewhere to hide it and pray that no one realizes we have it.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and looked around the bare room. He could understand why de Carnea had left the cross in a hiding place where it had been safe for more than a hundred years. Finding a new hiding place was not so easy, though it didn’t have to do for a hundred years, only a few days.
He dropped to a knee and examined the floorboards. The cracks between them were barely wide enough to slip a blade in to pry one up. He ran his hands over the floor looking for one that had come loose and would come up easily, prodding and prying with his fingers and fingernails. Near the wall one of the boards gave a little when he pressed it. He pried at it with his fingers, but needed something more, so he took his sword and pushed it into the crack. A single push brought the wide board up with a groan of the nails. It was a shallow space barely deep enough for the purpose.
“Hand me the cross and then bring me a shirt from my kist,” he told Cormac.
The young man’s face was pale and his hands shaking when he picked up the cross.
Law wrapped it in the shirt and laid it into the opening. He fitted the board back into place and grunted as he pushed it down. “I need something to hammer it.” The hilt of his dirk served for that and he listened to be sure the hammering hadn’t awakened the couple sleeping on the other side of the wall. He groaned at the marks he had left on the board. Anyone would see it had been interfered with. They weren’t deep but the scrapes stood out like scars.
“I’ll hie me out to the street and scoop up some mud. Rub that in and it should cover the marks,” Cormac said. He turned and slipped quietly down the stairs.
Law chewed his neither lip as he ran his fingers over the board. In only a few minutes Cormac returned with a handful of the brownish-gray mud. Law worked it into the marks for a few minutes and then stopped to examine his efforts. It looked as though someone had trod dirt into the floor, so he motioned to the dirt Cormac still had cupped in his hands. “Rub it onto some other spots so this doesn’t stand out.” While Cormac did that, Law squatted beside the iron brazier, grasped the legs and lifted it, enough to scoot it to on top of the replaced board. “If I keep a good fire going, it should discourage anyone looking too close.”
“You’ll need some extra peat.”
Law grunted. A few groats for extra peat was the least of his worries. Somehow he would have to use the cross as bait to lure out a killer—preferably without getting killed himself in doing so.
6
The next morning, Law slapped his hands together, his breath fogging in front of him. He opened the shutters and leaned into the cold morning, craning to see up and down the alleyway and into the courtyards beyond, past angled slate roofs to where women scrubbed laundry in steaming cauldrons, while babies squalled at their feet. Men bent over their workbenches and a couple of dogs ran barking after a fleeing cat. Shouting children trailed behind.
He pulled the shutters closed and prodded the fire in the brazier to life, feeding it several lumps of peat, scolding himself for letting it go down. He took the letter he had taken from Wrycht from the breast of his doublet. The feel of parchment under his fingers reminded him of his days in the Earl of Douglas’s household sitting with the other squires while their tutor forced them to learn a few rudiments of Latin, happier days when he’d thought he knew what his future was. For a moment, he studied the words again before he thrust it into the flames. It flared, burned, and was nothing but curved ash.
With a nod of satisfaction, he walked to the door, rubbing the ache out of his thigh, and shouted down, “Cormac!”
When the minstrel came to the foot of the stairs, Law said, “I must go out for a while.” He tossed Cormac a couple of merks. “Do me a favor and procure us a hot meal. A good one, whatever you can find.” His stomach grumbled. “Buy some sausages.”
Law took his cloak from the peg where he’d hung it to dry. It was still damp around the bottom but would have to do. He threw it on and pulled up his hood and then tucked the casket under his arm. He pulled the cloak close making sure that no one could see what he carried. A sharp wind had blown away the clouds and whistled sharply through the street. It felt of winter rapidly approaching.
Law walked briskly toward High Street wondering at the quandary he had involved himself with. Wrycht and Marguerite both were lying but how much did Dave Taylor know, he wondered. Was he just following Law, or more deeply involved? Somehow Law had to use the cross as a weapon to free himself from the web of lies and murder before he ended up with his neck stretched in a noose.
He looked up at Perth’s high walls before it disappeared beyond the roof peaks of the burgh’s cluttered streets. Here he had no allies except for a minstrel, no one to guard his back, no one he could trust. The only thing that made him feel better was the thought of a full belly back at his room and ridding himself of the evidence that he had found the cross that seemed to be the cause of so much bloodshed.
He followed High Street toward the wide stone bridge that crossed the River Tay, glancing side to side to be sure he was not followed. When he spotted Dave Taylor dart into an alleyway. Cursing, he spun on this heel and darted in the opposite direction between two wagons. He turned into Meal Vennel, strode fast to turn into the first alleyway, and wended his way through the narrow, stinking passage to South Street. When he looked over his shoulder, there was no sign of the ratcatcher, but to be sure, Law made his way back to the Mercat Square, zigzagged his way through peddlers shouting bargains, as goodwives argued for better prices,
At the foot of the bridge, he turned and skirted around the retaining wall that supported it. He took one last slow look around. A wagon was clattering its way onto the bridge toward the port on the other side of the river, but no one so much as glanced Law’s way. The reeds gave up a green smell and a fish splashed in the shallows. With a hand on the stones of the wall, Law made his way down the steep slope to the reeds along the river’s edge. After a final glance over his shoulder, Law gave the casket a hard throw, aiming under the arch of the bridge. It splashed and sank.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief and began the trudge home, his leg aching from the dash back and forth through the town.
Law had only just sat on the edge of his bed, his hands plunged into his hair as he thought out what to do, when a beaming Cormac returned with a loaf of bread under one arm, a string of sausage links dangling from his hand, and a basket with a couple of roast chickens under the other arm. “You’re in a strange mood today,” he said as he laid the food out on the table. He pulled out his single-edged sgian-du
bh and cut a leg off one of the birds to hand to Law.
The scent of roasted fowl and the oniony sausage made Law’s stomach grumble. He ripped the meat off with his teeth and chewed. “Mayhap. But I ken what I have to do. I have places to go today. You are not to go with me.” When Cormac opened his mouth to object, Law shook his head. “I won’t put you in more danger than I already have, and this is something that I want to be seen doing.”
“So you’re bribing me to stay put?” Cormac gave him a wry smile. “Is that the reason for all the bounty you gave me the coin for?”
Law stabbed another of the sausages and took a huge bite. “One of the reasons. Forbye after freezing last night, we both deserve it.”
Cormac frowned. “The sheriff… What he said about hanging. You think that he meant it?”
Law swallowed the sausage and followed it with a bite of the chewy bread. “Oh, aye. He meant it right enough. I have to give him someone to save my own neck. And I dinnae have long to do it.”
“But who?”
Law shrugged. “Mayhap whoever is the easiest. I’m not going to hang, that I can tell you, lad.”
Cormac scowled at him. “I told you I’m no lad.”
“No.” Law shoved the rest of the bread in his mouth. “I suppose you are not.” He jumped to his feet. “I’m going to see if I can finally discover where de Carnea was staying.”
“Why? What does it matter now?”
Law’s mouth twitched. “It will keep Dave Taylor busy as he follows me. And it will prove something to me if I find it. I am beginning to think I understand how Duncan’s murder was connected to him.”
Cormac squinted at him thoughtfully. “You just dinnae want to tell me what is going on.”
“Some things are best not telt for the nonce.”
The inn next to the Speygate Port had no name that Law had heard but was the only other in Perth that took guests. There were not all that many places in Perth with rooms to let. It was all the way down Watergate near the south wall. He trod over icy cobbles and pulled his cloak tight around him against the stinging wind that gusted through the streets. Brown leaves flew in eddies before it and swirled around his feet with a rattle like bones. He looked up at the louring sky. The dead leaves would soon be decently interred beneath winter snows.
