J. Tomlin - The Winter Kill

“Until this matter is settled. With winter upon us, my keep and lands are quiet. But I pray to the Holy Virgin this is settled quickly and the poor lass laid to rest.” Running his hands through his hair, Ross sighed.

Law gave the man a direct look. “It will be. Determining whether I can find any possibility will not take so long. But important names are involved in this. Dunbar is a name not to be trifled with. The maister of the song school is an important position, a cleric the church would not give over lightly. Other names may come up as well. The lord sheriff wants it settled. You heard him say he would only give us a few days. So don’t raise your hopes too high. Even if I find something to turn over to Sir William, it still might come to nothing. It would have to be absolute proof, unless it’s against someone of no importance.”

Patrik Ross’s face fell into the long lines of a sad hound. “So we may learn who harmed my lass and not be able to…”

“You must ken how the world works. We might have a reasonable certainty and be able to do nothing about it if we cannae convince Sir William.”

“I would kill them myself!”

Law frowned thoughtfully. “Aye. You might. And find yourself in the king’s dungeon. Or hanged if your lord did nae take your part. And what of your lands and people? Your wife and son?”

Ross looked down for a long time and gave a small jerky nod. When he looked up, his face was a pasty white. “Aye. You’re right. I cannae throw my life away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is there any way I can help?”

“I doubt it. I would nae expect people would speak freely to you.”

“Do you need to keep that?” Ross motioned to the letter Law still had beneath his hand. “I…I dinnae want anything to happen to it.”

Law tapped his finger thoughtfully on the parchment. “I’ll take care with it, but it’s possible that it might be of use.” The bells of the church began to toll sext for the midday prayers, so he rose. “I’m going to go over to Saint Leonard's Priory and see whether I can speak to the infirmarer.” It would be a good place to start.

Sister Mhairi Dorothea was a short woman of about forty, plump under her dark robe and white surplice. She was a scurrying little woman, pink of face, scrubbed and starched, with prominent blue eyes in her round face.

She strode through the white-washed hall of the hospital, past a canoness on her knees scrubbing the wood floor and simple cots where the ill lay beneath piled blankets. Out of sight, someone was moaning. She led Law into a simple office with a table stacked with lists beside an inkwell and quill. She sat behind it and motioned him to a stark wooden stool on the other side.

“Did she seem worried, Sister?”

“Worried? Sir Law, she had left her lord husband. Certes, she was worried ever since she came to stay with us, but…” She blinked her protuberant eyes several times.

“Did you ken her well? Were you fond of her? She’d been here what? Two months or thereabouts?”

“Aye, just past two months.” She studied her folded hands. “It is not the place of a canoness to have particular friends, nor do I have time for gossip, if it were allowed. But she was a…a pleasant woman. Her aid in the hospital was kindly given. There was good in her in spite-” She broke off, and a blush traveled up her face to her forehead.

“I’m nae gossip, Sister. I’ll repeat nothing you tell me unless it is to the lord sheriff or the lady’s father because of need. They have a right to ken what happened to her. If something led up to her death, I need to hear it.”

She shook her head. “I dinnae ken that it led up to it, but the time she spent with Maister Kennedy had begun to cause gossip. And in the last weeks, she spent much time away from Saint Leonard’s, spent less time aiding with the sick. But she would not have confided in me, nor would I have encouraged it. So I cannae tell you more.”

“But you think she was spending time with Maister Kennedy? More than you approved of as he is a priest?”

Her mouth thinned. “Aye. And she was a married woman not obeying her husband. Of course, they should not have had a particular friendship. But whether it went further than decency, I thank the Virgin Mary, I dinnae ken anything about it.”

Law cleared his throat, realizing one motive for suicide. “She had been friends with Maister Kennedy for a few weeks then?” He wondered how to delicately raise the subject of a pregnancy with the canoness.

“Och. You are thinking the obvious.” Her mouth twitched at his raised eyebrows. “I run a hospital for the poor, not just for our canonesses. I ken the results of a man and a woman’s friendship. But I saw no signs of it in Jannet, and I think it had not been long enough that she could have been certain. Whatever I may think of her friendship with Maister Kennedy, she was nae flighty lass. She was a determined young woman. She was strong and healthy, that I can tell you from the work she did here. Maister Kennedy saw her to the door on her way home just two nights before she died, so that had nae changed. Her husband had sent her funds from her dowry, so rule out that she lacked money. Her husband…” Her mouth twisted with distaste. “…was too busy creeping after his light women to bother her, though I suppose at some time he would have demanded her back. But he seemed in nae hurry about it.”

She stood, went to the window and opened the shutter to look out onto the snow-covered garden, her back to Law. “There was nothing timid about Jannet. She did nae start or flutter about over nothing. I cannae imagine her running out into the snow in a fit of melancholy.” She closed the shutters with a snap and turned. “I dinnae ken what to think.”

Putting a smile into his voice, Law said, “So mayhap it was murder.”

“It would make more sense than self-harm.”

“Would it?”

“Wait,” she said with her prominent eyes glowing with indignation, “I did nae say she was murdered, just that killing herself made no sense. Not in the woman I’d seen aiding in the hospital. I did nae ken her well, but she was too steady for that.”

Law stretched his legs out before himself and nodded lazily. The sister might be a hard woman-probably had to be running a hospital mainly serving the poor of the burgh of Perth-but everything about her told him she said what she believed and not what was convenient. Yes, someone like her might lie, but it would be for a motive she considered a greater good. He did not find her kindly, but he could believe her.

“Do you think an accident might be more likely than murder?”

“Certes. She might have thought she could reach shelter before the storm reached her. And who would kill Jannet? She had done none harm. She had no riches to steal or inherit. Who had reason to harm her?”

Law gave her his most innocent smile. “Oh, several people, I suspect. You because you wanted to end the scandal and feared it might touch Saint Leonard’s. Maister Kennedy because she threatened his position, mayhap she threatened to go to the bishop with a story of an affair if he angered her. Her husband if he tried to force her to return and she resisted. Or someone who wanted her husband free to marry again. Or someone passing who just frightened her out into the snow.”

She gave a snort that was almost a laugh. “You could be a troubadour penning romances with such fanciful tales.”

“I’ve spent too much time catching petty thieves for merchants.” His mouth twitched with a wry smile. “My mind is aflame with possibilities.”

“It might be one of the other sisters offended at a married woman staying amongst us. Someone who envied her warm wool dresses and thought to gain them. Or one of Maister Kennedy’s older students she refused who couldn’t stand the shame of it.” She snorted in amusement again.