J. Tomlin - The Winter Kill

“Possibly, but what was she doing so far from Saint Leonard’s? Was she yon to talk to someone? Who? Why was she alone? Some questions may be answered when I talk to the man who found her body. But aye, there are questions. Her father had that much of the right of it.”

“That is a long way from home. But she still could have been lost in the snowstorm.”

“It is too distant to believe that she just wandered yon. No, there must have been a reason she was so far from home. I’ll have to see what people say. And whether they tell the same tale. I’m curious to see what Maister Kennedy has to say about all this aid he was supposedly giving her.”

“I can help. Give me something to do.”

“I’ll think of something,” Law lied.

“Don’t spin me a tale.” Cormac glowered. “I helped you before, you ken.”

Law sighed. He could only hope this wouldn’t be as dangerous as the last time Cormac had helped him. “I will think of something. I just haven’t found out enough yet.”

After he was stretched out on his cot, Law reread the letter that some cleric, mayhap even Kennedy, had written for Jannet to send to her father.

He was most wonderful in visiting the boy-a beacon of kindness. When he heard my sad story, he vowed to aid me. He gave me his oath…

After he snuffed the candle, he kept thinking back to what she said Kennedy had offered. He wondered about Kennedy. At the least, it was a most peculiar thing for a cleric to do. First, he had to find out from Kennedy whether the story was the truth. If it was, why, by all the Saints, would he would have gone to such expense and risked a great scandal? Where would he have found the money for such an expensive undertaking? Certainly, no one would believe the story that it was done innocently.

Jannet was spinning in a snowstorm, like a leaf, wearing her green embroidered kirtle, her long hair blowing wide. She kept whirling, her mouth agape with a voiceless scream. Then the dead earl of Douglas’s voice boomed, “You failed her, Law. You failed me and let me die. You failed your friend, Iain. You never do anything right.”

Law ran up narrow tower stairs. He had to find his dead lord and make him stop before everyone knew how much Law had failed him. But when he reached the top of the stairs, gasping for breath, Sister Mhairi Dorothea was bending over a body on a bed. The body was Jannet. Ice encased her face, and her open mouth was stuffed with snow. The sister was cutting away Jannet’s clothing with a gleaming knife. She frowned at Law. “Open the window. She must go back into the storm.”

Law awoke in the dark, sat straight up, gasping for breath. He sat on the edge of the bed and ran hands through sweat-dampened hair. The wind rattled the shutters like the clatter of bones. It made him feel as though the room were a crypt.

Crystalline boys’ voices filled the air as Law hammered with the iron knocker. A stooped, hollow-eyed friar opened the door. When Law said he was here to see Maister Kennedy, he said, “The maister is out the now.” But Law insisted, so he led Law down the hall. “I’m Brother Nevan, the doorkeeper. Yon is Brother Hugh’s office, the maister’s assistant.”

When Law opened the door, Brother Hugh looked up with one blond eyebrow raised in inquiry. Law smiled and explained that he had questions authorized by the lord sheriff for the song school maister.

“I dinnae ken when Maister Kennedy will be here. He has sent no message.”

Law waited as a reedy young student was sent to relay instructions to someone named Brother David. An older priest left with an armful of parchments. Then, for the first time, Law was alone with the most striking man he had ever seen, even in the stark black of a friar’s robes. He was taller even than Law, broad-shouldered. He sat straight on his stool writing at top speed some lengthy list. When he rose to cross the room for a document from a side table, he moved smoothly with athletic self-possession. His dark gold hair was in lively curls around a small tonsure and bounced as he nodded to himself as he worked. He was in his early twenties, Law guessed. Brother Hugh sanded the list he had been working on and put it on a third table with several others.

“I suppose the song school must be complicated to run,” Law said.

“We have a great many matters to keep straight,” Brother Hugh said, smiling. “Managing the lands that support the school, contributions, and keeping discipline with the students… But this is a slow time with the foul weather. A good time to catch up with things. Many of the students have returned home for a time, and we aren’t preparing for a major feast. I prefer it when things are frantic and bustling. God wants us to keep our hands busy.”

“Is Maister Kennedy also having a slow time?”

From the hardening of the friar’s expression, Law knew he had made a misstep, although he wasn't sure how.

“As I telt you an hour ago, Sir Law, I am the maister’s assistant. If you tell me what you need from Maister Kennedy, mayhap I can save you some time. The school has no connection to the lord sheriff, so why would he send you here? “

“This is just a routine burgh matter that Sir William asked me to take care of for him.”

Brother Hugh went back to sit on the corner of his table, folded broad hands at his waist, and frowned at Law. “If it is a routine burgh matter, then I should be able to take care of it, and you need nae bother him with it.”

“His involvement in it…his being a priest and his involvement in it, I think he would prefer that it be discussed privily.”

Hugh’s eyes widened, and he pursed his lips. “It would nae have to do with Jannet Neyn Patrik Ross, would it?”

Law raised his eyebrows in false surprise. “It is delicate.”

“I heard students gossiping, saying she had died. He will nae take well to you bothering him about her.”

“If he refuses to aid me, all I can do is inform the lord sheriff. Whether Sir William will take it to the lord bishop I cannae say.”

“So it is about her.”

Law shrugged.

“Then you will have to speak to Maister Kennedy. I ken nothing about the woman. I did nae want to.” His expression had tightened. He sat behind his table and spread a fresh piece of parchment, then plunged his quill into the inkwell as though to stab it.

“Have you been a friar long?”

“Five years.”

That did not surprise Law. Like many, the friar must have been sent young to a monastery. Casually, Law said, “I suppose it is natural you’d be angry she took up so much of Maister Kennedy’s time.”

Brother Hugh laid his quill down and looked at Law with a puzzled expression. “Why would I be angry? It is a woman’s way to try to tempt men from saintliness, but the maister is a good priest. I feel sorrow and pity that it is so, but woman brought the stench of evil upon herself in the Garden of Eden. It is nae for me to question. I won’t think upon women enticing men into their evil ways, intoxicating them with the sins of the flesh. I don’t ken about such things or want to. I’m sorry she died without a priest yon to give her unction and forgive her for her sins. But men are safe from her enticements, and that must have been God’s will. God’s will is my will. I have no will of my own.” His voice had taken on the rhythm of a street friar preaching damnation. He gave a small shake, smiled, and said in a normal tone, “I have no reason to be angry.”

Law kept his tone casual. “Of course, I understand about temptation.” Aye, Law did, but he’d certainly share nothing about that with this friar.