J. Tomlin - The Winter Kill

“That is not what I need to talk to you about. When I went by the school, one of the students told me they sought you after vespers and could nae find you.”

The spoon paused on its way to the friar’s handsome mouth. He looked annoyed. “You were asking about me?”

“I was asking whether they saw anything unusual. The lad mentioned it to me. Where were you going so late?”

“I dinnae ken that it is any of your business, but I’ll think on it.” He steadily scooped up the bean potage, keeping his eyes on the bowl all the while. When the bowl was empty, he pushed it away and laid his arms on the table. “I had planned to go to the lord sheriff with this, but since he is having you look into it, I suppose it is as well to tell you. Last night after Vespers, I went back to finish some work. Sir Archibald Dunbar came looking for the song maister. You can check. Someone had to have let him in, for the doors were already locked. He had been drinking, a great deal I suspect. He was beside himself, blathering on that Jannet’s death was Maister Kennedy’s doing. He said people were blaming him for what he had nae done. I told him there was nothing I could do about it, but he wanted me to tell him where Maister Kennedy was.”

Brother Hugh contemplated his empty bowl for a moment. “I told him that Maister Kennedy had gone out. Dunbar was almost violent. He grabbed me by the arms and said he would make me tell him where Kennedy was. I pushed him away and told him to get hold of himself. How dare he threaten a friar? He seemed to come to himself then. So he left. I dinnae ken if he went seeking the song maister or no. I prayed in the chapel to calm myself and then went to my cell to sleep. And this morning I learned that Maister Kennedy had fallen and died.”

The friar looked at Law with a touch of indignation in the tight lines of his mouth. Law could see the white skin of his tonsure surrounded by the curling locks of his blond hair. The sleeves of his robe pushed back slightly exposed cords of muscles in his arms and a sprinkling of fine hairs. Law’s own image was reflected back at him in the earnest blue eyes.

“Thank you for explaining that to me.”

Brother Hugh shrugged. “I had to tell you what happened.”

Law shook his head. “All right, Brother Hugh. That is all I had to ask you.”

“It is daft to think that the woman was murdered. Do you think Maister Kennedy was murdered too?” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward to stare into Law’s face. “Are you thinking that I did it?”

“The idea had occurred to me.”

“You have an evil mind, Sir Law. I should be angry, but instead I shall pray for you. I live a godly life by the commandments and the rule of Saint Benedict. Have you told this crazy idea to anyone else?”

“There are several people I must consider might have done it. I’ve drawn no attention to considering you.”

“Then no harm done, I suppose, as long as scandal is nae attached to the Church.”

“Do you think the Church is damaged by Kennedy’s relationship with Jannet?”

The friar’s lips thinned and his eyes widened until Law could see the whites of his eyes around the iris. “She was a whore. It was Satan’s work that a priest like Maister Kennedy could nae see that. But it is her soul that was blackened with sin. It had nothing to do with the Church or with me. I am sorry that anyone must suffer the fires of Hell, but she deserves it for a lustful life.”

The sound of a chuckle made Law look up. A thin, wiry man stood a few feet from their table.

Now the man’s dark hair was combed out of his eyes, no longer stringy as it once had been. The man’s clothes were no longer ragged. Instead they were a simple, sturdy, hodden-gray; he might have passed for a journeyman worker. But the sharp eyes had not changed at all. Law shoved his stool back and jumped to his feet. He glared at Dave Taylor, whom he’d once known as a lowly rat catcher.

“You,” Law growled, clenching his fists.

And then Brother Hugh was walking briskly away. Law cursed.

“Sorry I lost you your preaching friar.” Dave Taylor smirked.

“That’s not all you lost me, you sleekit thief.” Law narrowed his eyes at the thief, who sidled to the other side of the table well out of reach. “Where is that damned cross that you stole?”

The former rat catcher put up his empty hands. “You dinnae think I still have it?” He pondered Law for a moment. “No, you will not take the cost out of my hide. Instead, you should talk to my employer. And he wants to talk to you.”

“Dinnae be so sure I won’t take it out of your filthy hide whoever your employer might be.”

Dave considered Law, and an acid smile appeared. “You had best hear what he has to say first.”

“Who?”

Dave looked quickly around. He shook his head. “I’ll nae say the name here. Just come with me.”

Law snorted. “You expect me to go with you somewhere? What for? A knife in the back?”

“Now why would I be doing that?” He laughed softly. “There would be no coin in it for me, you ken.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“You’re really afeart of me? I dinnae think so.”

Law dropped his hand to the dirk in his belt. “No, that I am not. Very well. You’ve made me curious. I shall talk to this employer of yours, but there is a debt between us, and I mean to collect.”

Dave Taylor, still a rat catcher in Law’s mind, set off into the street. Law fell in beside him. After several days of bad weather, there were carts moving through the street and rowdy cries echoing through the market. Laborers hurried to catch up on work that had gone undone. A burly wife carrying the body of a large goose under her arm jostled him aside, grumbling on his lack of good sense as she passed.

They turned into the courtyard of a sprawling stone house and stopped at the foot of a stair tower. “You ken whose house this is, I suppose.”

Law grunted and stepped toward the door. When he turned to tell the rat catcher that he was not done with him, he was gone. Through gritted teeth, Law growled, “Sleekit weasel. One day he’ll pay.”

He stood before the house of Robert de Cardeny, whose steward had employed him so recently. When the bishop was in Perth, as he often was, this was where he stayed. Law looked thoughtfully over his shoulder, watching Dave saunter away. It was not Bishop de Cardeny he had supposed the wily spy worked for, but he shrugged, climbing the curved stairs with their ornate railings. The steward, still in his old-fashioned tunic, waited at the top to open the door. He led Law through a short enfilade of cold rooms.

He opened the door to the last chamber.

Law’s mouth dropped open when he found himself face to face with Bishop Cameron, chancellor to King James. He snapped it closed. Cameron, newly made Bishop of Glasgow by the king over the protests of the pope and no more than thirty years in age, his face chapped from the cold, was garbed for riding in mud-splashed purple velvet and high boots. From the look of him, Law must have been summoned almost as soon as the chancellor’s party dismounted in the courtyard.

Now, Law thought, Dave Taylor’s appearance in Perth made considerably more sense. And confirmed who he had always thought ended up with the damned cross he had sought those months before.

“I have some questions for you, Sir Law.” Law knelt to kiss the bishop’s ring. “You seem to have recovered well from your injuries in France.” Law murmured an agreement. “I believe the sheriff has tasked you with looking into the sad death of the maister of the burgh’s song school.”

“Sad may not be the best word for what happened,” Law parried.

“How so?”

“There were signs of violence on his body,” Law said cautiously. “The marks were clearly made by a human hand, not a fall.”