Candace Robb - A Trust Betrayed

By the loom sat a wool comb. On an impulse, Margaret grabbed it, concealing it behind her back as Besseta joined her.

“I had no idea you did such delicate work.” Margaret touched the unfinished piece of weaving on the loom. “Did you weave the mantle you are wearing?”

“I did. Useless thing.”

“But quite beautiful.”

They moved over to the arranged seats, near the unlit brazier.

“It would have been of more use to me to have carried down a larger loom.”

Margaret sat on the bench. “You brought it from Perth?”

“I did.” Besseta perched at the edge of a wobbly stool. “I needed something to keep my hands busy.”

“While you sat with Agnes?”

“Aye. Though I did not expect to be here so long.”

Celia moved her stool back slightly, so that Besseta would need to turn her head all the way to her left to see her.

Margaret was close enough to see that the fluted edge of Besseta’s cap trembled.

“I understand Agnes was widowed, then lost a bairn.”

Besseta fidgeted with her hands. “It has been a terrible time.”

“She was fortunate to have you here.”

Besseta looked down at her hands, quieted them. “I seem to mind you are staying with your uncle?”

“I am. In fact, it was from the laundress I hired for his inn that I learned of Agnes’s misfortune.”

Besseta looked up sharply. “What else did the laundress say about us?”

“She grumbled that you took from her the little weaving work she had, for the priests of St. Giles.”

“Rosamund.”

“Yes.”

Margaret tried not to react as Celia slipped away, through the inner doorway.

“You will be satisfied with her laundering,” Besseta said, “but do not depend on her weaving.” She tried a smile.

“I am glad to hear that I have not yet made a mistake with her.”

“It seems a strange time to journey here-with the English at the castle.”

“I hoped to hear news of my husband, Roger. He has been gone for some time.”

Besseta’s head shook quite noticeably now. “Oh.”

“Forgive me,” Margaret said. “You have your own troubles. I should keep mine to myself.”

“How- How did you find my parents when you left Perth?”

“Your mother wore a lovely new cap to market with a pale ribbon woven into the border,” Margaret said, “and she looked bonny. I have not seen your father since Jack departed.”

Someone knocked on the outside door.

Besseta rose so abruptly she tipped over the stool. It clattered and rocked to a halt.

Celia came through the curtained inner doorway and slipped back onto her stool as Besseta answered the street door. Margaret dropped the wool comb into her scrip.

“Dame Fletcher.” It was a man’s voice.

“Master Comyn. How strange to have so many visitors in one afternoon.”

“Who is here?”

“Dame Kerr and her maid.”

Margaret and Celia exchanged a glance and rose.

Besseta opened wide the door. James Comyn filled the doorway, bending slightly to enter.

“Dame Kerr, forgive me for intruding on your conversation.” He studied her face, then Celia’s. Glanced round the room.

“You did not intrude at all. We must return to the inn.” Margaret turned to Besseta. “I pray you, send word to me at the inn if there is anything I can do.”

“The potion?”

Celia handed Besseta the packet. “That is enough for ten nights. Mix it in wine or ale. Sparingly.”

Comyn gave Besseta a questioning look as he nodded to Margaret and Celia.

“What did you see?” Margaret asked when they reached High Street.

“There is a room back there with a locked door.”

“Probably Agnes’s chamber.”

“A pallet lies in the hallway just beside the door. Mistress, the odor back there is that of a sickroom and something else.”

“There are many unpleasant odors in that house.”

“I should not like to spend a night there. It is far worse than the inn. What did you put in your scrip?”

“A wool comb. I’ll show you when we are back in our chamber. But first I want to talk to Janet Webster.”

Janet’s door was open to the warm day. The weaver had pulled the loom beneath a panel in the roof that had been propped open. She stood on a bench pushing up the weft with a wooden sword, the light revealing the lovely pattern of the weave.

“Good day to you, Margaret.”

“Might we talk?” Margaret asked.

Janet tucked the sword in her girdle, stepped down off the bench with a grunt. Her brow and upper lip glistened with sweat from the warm sun.

“Surely I’ve told you all I know?”

She sat down on the bench. Margaret pulled over a stool. Celia sat on the bed in the corner nearby.

“We have been to see Besseta Fletcher,” said Margaret. “James Comyn arrived while we were there. He seemed- I felt that he came to watch over her conversation with me.”

Janet sighed. “Celia, will you hand me that pot of grease on the shelf beside you?”

Celia passed her a small earthen pot. Janet scooped some of the grease out with her fingertips and rubbed it into her hands. “Comyn might be right to be concerned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Agnes’s Tom, like my Davy, was Comyn’s man,” she said. “He died on a mission for Comyn. I expected trouble when Jack Sinclair arrived.”

“Why?” Margaret could not imagine Jack caught up in Comyn’s battles.

“I told you-Jack wished to be like Roger, even in his support of Robert Bruce,” Janet said gently.

“Jack was on her father’s business,” Margaret insisted.

“And why do you think he agreed to travel in such times?”

“For Roger.”

“That, and Besseta. Jack stayed at the Fletcher lodgings here. It was said they were to be wed.”

He clutched the loom weight in his hand. Besseta’s loom weight. Margaret closed her eyes, trying to make sense of all the noise in her head.

“You did not know they were lovers?” Janet asked.

“No.” Even had she noticed them arm in arm she would have thought little of it. Jack was that way with all women. “Besseta and I had not spoken much for many years.” Margaret was trying to absorb all this, reason her way through it.

“Someone at the Fletcher lodgings must have been indiscreet in Jack’s presence,” Janet suggested. “Talked of the plans for the raid on Holyrood.”

Margaret nodded. “Jack was holding one of Besseta’s loom weights as he died. Might she have killed him, I wonder?”

Janet shook her head. “I cannot imagine a woman cutting up her lover’s body like that.”

“I can’t either, but someone murdered him.”

“Aye.”

“Comyn seems very worried about Besseta talking to me. Perhaps he or one of his men murdered Jack?”

“If that were so, and Besseta kenned, she would be eager to tell you, I think. Vengeance.”

Perhaps Besseta would have told Margaret had they not been interrupted. “What do you know of Comyn, Janet?”

“Little more than what your uncle has told me. He once brought me a lovely piece of plaid and the wool to make an-other-the piece was charred on two sides. I think of the odor of burned wool when I think of James Comyn, smelling that all the while I copied the pattern. That was our only true encounter.”

“Is he married?”

Janet dipped her fingers in the grease again. “Old hands dry so quickly, even handling wool.” She shook her head. “Murdoch says Comyn loves the wife of another.”

“He is wealthy, that I ken.”

“He has worked for it. He does favors for his wealthy, more powerful kin.”

“What sort of favors?”

“You can be sure his efforts for his kinsman John Balliol do not go unrewarded.”