J. Tomlin - The Intelligencer

A couple of the apprentices looked toward her, elbowed each other, and watched her, grinning. But the other two roared on, shoving and shouting curses. Widow Gray slammed down the mallet and stomped across the room that had fallen totally silent. Law hid a grin behind his hand as she bellowed, "No stramash in my tavern!"

The apprentice with his hands full of his fellow's tunic front gaped at her. He hastily pulled his hands back. "Och, 'twas just a wee-"

Widow Gray grabbed him by the nape of his neck and the seat of his hose and jerked him up so that his toes scrabbled for purchase on the floor. She marched him, squawking as he went, to the door. Someone threw it open for her, and she tossed her burden face first into the mud. She turned and shook her fist at the others at the table. "Any more trouble and out the rest of you go."

Law was chuckling at the speed with which the arguing youths hunched, humble-faced, over their cups, but his laughter died as a blond-haired man slipped through the door behind the glowering widow. For a fisherman, his hodden gray coat-with its slits in the back to allow climbing in the rigging-was cleaner than it should have been, but otherwise, he might have been any fisherman taking his ease after a day's labor. Law lifted his beaker and took a long drink. He turned slightly as though looking out one of the windows into the drizzly night as he watched the man out of the corner of his eye.

The fisherman took a beaker of ale from one of the girls and scanned the room, giving each man there a quick look. He pulled a sour face and crowded in to sit near a window where he stared out into the night. His shoulders were hunched, and he had a dejected scowl. Vespers rang, and gradually the crowd began to thin, as in ones and twos the men wandered off to their homes. When the room was down to a dozen men, two or three still watching Cormac play, the man grunted loudly in disgust and got to his feet.

Law nodded amiably to Widow Gray and said, "You have braw ale. I'll be sure and return the next time I bide in Glasgow." By that time, the door had slammed behind his quarry, so he strode out into the night to see the man walk through the arch and turn to the left. That direction was away from the River Clyde, not the way a fisherman on his way home would take. Law loosened his dirk in its leather sheath, raised his hood again to shadow his face, and hurried to reach the corner before his target could get out of sight. He peered around the corner and ducked back as his quarry looked over his shoulder. After giving it a couple of breaths’ space, he looked out again to see the shadowy figure striding away.

Law kept his cloak pulled close around him as he followed through the dark. He matched his stride to the shadow ahead of him. When the man looked over his shoulder again, Law ducked his head to stare at his feet and listed a bit as though he were drunk. When the fisherman paused, continuing to look at him, Law began to sing in a slurred voice.

With a shrug, the fisherman turned and once again strode away, picking up his pace. He was now walking very fast, and Law didn't dare quite keep up, though he dropped his singing and his staggering. Suddenly, the man shouted. In the flickering light of a nearby torch, he saw Dave Taylor jump the man from behind and wrap an arm around his throat. Law drew his dirk and ran. Taylor dragged the struggling, cursing man backwards toward the maw of a dark-filled alley.

The man managed to twist to the side. His leg went behind Taylor's, and he kicked Taylor's feet out from under him. As Taylor went to the ground, Law tackled their target. The man uttered a loud Ooomph as he fell on his back. Law straddled him, his weight on his chest and his dirk at the man's throat. Their quarry opened his mouth to shout, but when Law pressed the point of the blade into his skin, he snapped his mouth shut. A trickle of blood ran down his neck.

Taylor had already bounced to his feet. He kicked the man in the side and then said, "Drag him into the alley."

Law reversed his dirk and gave their quarry a hard thump on the head with the hilt. His eyes rolled up. "Grab his hands. I hope you have some rope somewhere about you."

"In the alley." Taylor grabbed one of the man's hands and waited as Law jumped to his feet and grabbed the other. "You could have just gagged him. Now we have to wait for him to wake up." Their quarry's head lolled back as they dragged him into the narrow opening between two buildings, both with their storefront shuttered and dark for the night.

Law heard Cormac say, "You caught him," and looked over his shoulder to see the minstrel, lute case across his back, standing just inside the alleyway.

"Aye. Keep watch while we question him."

Cormac propped a shoulder against the corner of the building, pulled his sgian-achlais from the sheath under his arm, and pretended to clean his fingernails. By the time Law turned back to Taylor, he already had their quarry's hands tied.

Taylor said very softly, "Feel his palms. He's nae fisherman. That is a certainty, and he's nae expert at faking it. There's not a hint of the smell of fish about him."

Law ran his fingers over the man's palms, not nearly calloused enough for the hard labor of a fisherman, but there was a little callous on his palm and another between his thumb and forefinger that Law knew well from having exactly the same. "I'd wager good siller that is from sword work."

"Did you hear him speak?" Taylor asked.

"I dinnae think he said a word the whole time he was there. But it was noisy, so-" He broke off when the man groaned.

"Good." Taylor slapped the man's cheek. "Wake up, you sleekit weasel."

Law stifled a laugh at the slippery Dave Taylor calling someone else sleekit, but the pretend fisherman gave a loud groan, so he pressed a hand over the man's mouth. The last thing they needed was attention. "Wheesht. If you dinnae want your throat slit, you'll keep quiet."

The man's eyes gleamed in the dark as he rolled them, darting his glance from Law to Taylor and back again. Law removed his hand. "Now you'll tell us who you are. What the message was you passed along, and who it was from?"

The man thrashed, kicking his legs and arching his back. Law straddled him, sitting hard on his chest and put his foot-long dirk in front of the man's eyes. "Yours would nae be the first blood on my blade. Keep still." And it would not be, of course, but he'd never killed a man helpless and bound. Damn Taylor anyway . "Now who are you? The truth."

The man darted his gaze around again, but when Law pressed the dirk just under his eye, he gasped out, "Edmund… Edmund Langholme." Law frowned at the man's accent.

Now Taylor drew his dirk as well and stood, glaring down at their captive. "You're nae Scot."

"I'm looking for work," the man gabbled. "That's all. My mother. She is a Scot, but my da, he's from Northumberland. So…I thought I could pass for a Scot, and there is work to be found on boats on the River Clyde. I mean no harm."

Taylor kicked Langholme, if that was really his name, hard in the ribs. "Dinnae lie to me. You carried a message. What was it?"

"How… How do you…" He rolled his head around and tried to writhe, but Law had him firmly pinned.

Law put his dirk closer to Langholme's eye.

"All right. A man gave me money to deliver a message. I handed it to some man, and that's all."

Law grabbed the man's bound hand and twisted it back. "That's nae fisherman's hand. You're…what? A man-at-arms? Surely you’re nae knight, sneaking like a thief into Scotland."

Taylor hunkered down and grabbed Langholme by the hair. He jerked his head back. "I'd as soon slit your throat as look at you, so tell us the truth. What was in the message?"