J. Tomlin - The Winter Kill

Law nodded at the comment and looked about. Where she’d been found was a level spot where no drifts would have formed. The snow was up to his knees in a fairly even covering, except where it was trampled into the dirt. The snow other than that showed no helpful sign at all, not surprising. Had there been any footprints, they would have been covered in the course of the storm. He stood looking at the glimmering snow, a raven cawing from a snow heaped hawthorn, and the houses with gardens that sloped down to the Ditch. The occupants of those houses would have to be spoken to.

“I need to finish my work or the maister will make me work late the eve,” Gil said, shifting his feet.

“Aye.” Law realized that Terce was ringing at Blackfriars. Winter dark fell early. He had best hurry to speak to one more suspect, so he slipped the boy a coin and dismissed him. It had been a long day, and he wanted ale and a warm fire to thaw his icy-cold feet from the trudge through the snow. Worse, after the laborious walk, a fiery throb was lancing his scarred leg, but he wrapped his cloak close as he walked back through the city gates and across the burgh.

The streets within the gates had cleared enough that the city was once again beginning to move. A woman passed carrying a load of peat on her back; folks left the market with goods they had bought. A troop of mounted men splashed through the slush, the crowned heart of the Douglas clan on their cloaks.

The sky was already turning to slate gray with livid rosy streaks in the west. Blowing eddies of snow blurred the buildings as he passed. He stepped into the rutted stable yard at the house on Watergate Street. The house, screened from the street by ice-draped trees, had seen better days. It must have once been imposing, but several shutters now hung askew, and lichen streaked the walls. A horse snorted within the ramshackle stable.

He gritted his teeth and climbed the steps to the doorway, the throbbing in his leg growing worse at every step. As he reached the top step, Archibald Dunbar-in a shiny dark blue doublet unfastened at the neck and hose-opened the door and said, “Stop right there. What do you want?”

Dunbar’s face was weathered; he had heavy shoulders and a ham-like hand clenched into a fist. His hair was blond and his lashes and brows so light they could barely be seen. His pudgy face was twisted into a snarl. He might have been intimidating except for the paunch beneath the loosened doublet and the blood-red veins in his eyes.

“I need to speak to you about your wife’s death.”

“What about it? What business is it of yours?”

“I have some questions-”

Dunbar snarled. “Get out.”

“I won’t take much of your time, but-”

“You won’t take any of it. I’ll nae answer any questions about Jannet. So go on back out of my yard.”

Law almost smiled to himself. Traveling with an army, you learned to handle this kind of bully. He stepped close to Dunbar and glared into his eyes. “You daft bastard. Is that the message you want me to take back to the lord sheriff then, that you refuse to help with the assize? He sent me to see that this is settled as quickly and quietly as possible. And if you think you can push me about, I’ll soon show you differently.” He took another step in through the doorway as Dunbar backed away.

“Why did you nae say that the lord sheriff sent you?”

“I just did.”

“You have no idea the priests and messengers coming to my door, bothering me…” His scowl altered to a look of petulant self-pity. “But whatever they say, Jannet did nae harm herself. And no one shall blame me for driving her to it.”

“The lord sheriff tasked me to ascertain what happened before he reconvenes the assize. Now if you will spare me a wee bit of your time, Sir Archibald…”

“Aye. Come along to the fire where it is warm. There is mulled wine, and we’ll talk. I did nae mean to go at you like that. It’s been hard, you see, what with this and that.”

“It is painful, of course,” Law said and offered his hand. Dunbar’s hand was slick with sweat, and Law quickly dropped it. He followed Dunbar into the musty-smelling room and took a cup of the warm mulled wine. It was a long, dark hall with only two chairs and a bench beside a scarred trestle table in front of the fireplace.

“Now what is this about Jannet?” Dunbar demanded as he hunched over his cup. “It’s nonsense. She must have been lost in the storm. Why she’d wander about in a storm I’ll never understand. Who says anything else? Why have they put off the assize?”

“She was on the opposite side of Perth from Saint Leonard’s, outwith the walls, when she died. It seems strange she could have wandered so far, but for now I am just talking to people to find out what might have happened.”

Dunbar shook his head, shrugged, and took a long drink of his wine.

“So she left you, and you agreed to let her go?”

“A bit more than two months ago, aye.”

“She was going to seek a divorce on grounds of consanguinity, I’m telt.”

“Now bide a bit. It would have taken more gold than she or her father had to take that to Rome. No, that was nae going to happen.”

“You think she was going to come to her senses and return to you?”

“I hoped so. Dragging her back where she’d scream and wail until I beat her bloody was no way to live. So I was giving her time. But she would have been back eventually.”

Law nodded encouragingly.

“I…I suppose I could have taken her feelings more into account. So I had other women? A man does. Of course, I did, but I suppose I could have kept it where she did nae see. But she made this commotion about it, too. It is nae as though I kept the woman. It was just a whore, nothing to interfere with her. It was…just…one of those things a man does. A whore is nae important, after all. So I decided to give her some time.”

“But you were planning to take her back.”

“Certes, I was. I need an heir and a mistress for my house. ” He looked around the bare room. “My house here and in Lanark needs a mistress’s hand while I’m about my business with the royal court.”

“She had been spending a great deal of time with Maister Kennedy. Some say he was going to help her with the divorce.”

Dunbar drew back as though he’d been slapped. “How dare you spread that rumor about? There is no reason to think such a thing.”

“She wrote a letter to her father and telt him so.”

“She telt him what? What did she say in it?”

Law took the letter out of the breast of his doublet. “Just that he had been most particularly kind to her and would help her take the case to Rome.”

Dunbar bent over the letter, moving his lips as he read. “I…I find it hard to take in. She was always so careful of what anyone would say of her. But others brought me the tittle-tattle. You’re nae the first. But to invite such scandal? With a priest?”

Law took back the letter. “When did you first hear rumors?”

“Not until I returned to Perth.”

“Mayhap she wanted to return and thought the scandal would keep you from agreeing. And then out of shame, she killed herself.”

“To burn in Hell’s fire? She would nae. And she kent I would take her back. Certes, I would have. I need a wife and an heir.” His face twisted into a scowl again. “Now the whole matter of a marriage has to be thought through, and if people blame me, it will cost to make a father agree. My cousin the earl will nae be pleased. Indeed he will nae.”

“Killing herself by running out into a storm, surely she would have to be crazed to do such a thing. Was she ever crazed? Did she act the madwoman?”

“Jannet? She was furious when I brought the whore into our bed, but…more cold than a madwoman. Her anger could be icy. By all the Saints, Sir Law, I cannae see Jannet harming herself at all and not that way. Freezing to death? That must be a terrible way to die.”