J. Tomlin - The Winter Kill

One day after it was ended and over, Sir Law Kintour realized that he and Jannet Neyn Patrik Ross had trudged through the snow on the same day and perhaps at the same hour-although miles apart. Wind had whipped both of them raw on that harsh Scottish November day. But at that moment, he had never heard of her or the house near which she died.

By the time he contemplated this quirk of fate, he could see it happening in his mind. Like an unseen watcher on a nearby mountain, he saw her grasp her thick cloak as she rushed out the narrow doorway. There was a dark shape behind her as she ran down the path. Her hair was honey-gold and whipped in the wind, entangling snowflakes in its strands; her fair, narrow face and long neck gave her a look of vulnerability. She bent forward as she ran into swirling gusts of white, a woman escaping, headlong, from Satan.

From his vantage point, he saw her look over her shoulder and open her mouth to scream. She ran until she struggled through the blowing snow, and he saw how it was done to her. She’d had no chance at all. He watched her go still, unmarked and sprawled facedown, while snow drifted to cover her body like a shroud. Then there was only the howl of the wind.

But that day as she ran, Law’s job was catching a stringy, young man from Lothian named Richerd Ancraft. The lad had found a good position at the house of the Bishop of Dunkeld, running errands for the steward, Nicholl of Annand. Now Nicholl believed the young man was stealing small items-gloves and things of that ilk-to sell. They’d even searched him for contraband but found nothing. The steward wanted the matter resolved quietly, with no embarrassment to himself before the bishop. The steward had paled at the thought, muttering that the bishop was a relation to the king. Having hired a thief would make him look like a fool, and Richerd had been cunning enough not to get caught.

The bishop’s man had hired him for this, because, Law realized with bitterness, he looked enough like the rough workers that he would not be noticed amongst them. His natural skin tone was fair but weathered from years in the sun. His light hair was a bit ragged, and his limp might make him look helpless. A closer look at his deep chest and wide shoulders, however, might disabuse the observer of that notion. He’d left his sword in his room at the inn, since no workman would carry such a weapon, but the long dirk at his belt would serve as well. He’d try not to be seen, but if he were, the quarry would not take him for one of the bishop’s well-liveried servants. That was a certainty.

Law had been detailed to catch the man red-handed, so the steward could solve the problem with minimal awkwardness with his employer. So Law slipped out of his own room above the inn well before dawn. He wrapped his feet in an extra layer of cloth, before stomping on his boots, for winter had set in. With luck, the buildings would cut off the worst of the weather. But with his heavy wool doublet and thick, dark cloak, even the chill would not keep him from his task.

Sunrise was turning louring clouds to waves of pewter and slate. In the murk of early day, a light fall of snowflakes blew in the wind. He took the narrow Cutlog Vennel through the middle of Perth, and the smell of the wood that was carried through it to be milled blended with the stench of piss. Law reached South Street and followed it to the bishop’s house, a block from Watergate Street. He pressed his back to the wall, clapped his hands, and rubbed them together. Already, his fingertips felt numb, but he pulled his cloak closed and his hood up. Law hoped that the quarry would leave soon on his errand to the market, as he did every week for the bishop’s all-male household. Law had to detect how the man sneaked goods out of the house.

Richerd was so intent on watching over his shoulder as he slipped from the stair tower at the front of the house that he didn’t even notice Law watching. When the man sneaked out of sight, into a tiny alleyway, Law straightened and strolled in the same direction. He slumped and dragged his feet, like a workman on his reluctant way to a day’s labor. In the alley, Richerd pushed an empty barrel against the wall, hopped onto it, and reached overhead to untie a bag hanging from a window by a rope. He jumped down, staggered, and fumbled to keep from dropping the loot onto the wet ground.

Law was running toward the culprit, sliding his dirk out of his belt. He rammed his shoulder into Richerd’s side and slammed him into the wall.

The youth gave a yelp. “Let me go!”

Law leaned into him, holding him against the wall with his shoulder, and put the dirk to his neck. “I’ll have that bag. Now.”

“I…I…I’m the bishop’s man.” Richerd gulped. “He’ll have your head!”

Law snorted as he lifted his weight from Richerd just enough to grab the bag from his grip.

Richerd whimpered. “Let me go. I’ll pay you…everything that I have. Just let me go.”

He trapped the young thief against the wall, again, with his weight in order to sheath his dirk. He then jerked the trembling youth around to twist his arm behind his back. “Back in you go. The steward can deal with you.”

He shoved the scrawny lad before him up the stairs to the bishop’s door and gave it a kick because his hands were occupied. A servant opened the door. The steward, a small, neat man in an old-fashioned, knee-length tunic laced up the front, motioned him in. Law shoved the young miscreant at them. He tossed the little bag of booty to the beaming steward. “Hanging out the window from a cord high enough overhead that no one would notice-especially in the half-dark.”

The steward opened the bag and shook his head. “This is what I needed to take him before the sheriff.”

By this time, Richerd was sniveling with tears dripping down his face. “You dinnae pay me enough to take care of my mam and my four sisters. And if I’m in a dungeon, they’ll starve.”

“You should have thought of their starving before you stole from the bishop,” the steward snapped.

He counted out coins from his purse, three merks, as though each came out of his hide, and dropped them into Law’s outstretched hand. At the door, Law glanced once over his shoulder at the pathetic scene. To think he’d once been a feared knight. Now he defeated bawling youths.

He walked through battering gusts of snow to the inn and slammed the door closed. When Cormac looked up from where he sat plucking his harp, Law gave him a glower and sat, back against the wall. He motioned to Wulle Cullen, the innkeeper from whom he rented a room above the inn, to bring him a cup of ale.

Wulle looked at him thoughtfully. “What is chewing your arse? Did they nae pay you?”

“They paid.” He shook his head. “I’ve had enough of this kind of thing-as much as I can stand. I caught the sleekit thief, but he was a sniveling lad, nothing more. I dinnae ken if his story of a starving mam was true, but I’m fed up to my neck with it. Is this the only way for me to keep from starving? There must be something that is worth doing.” He wondered what it would take to wash away the stink of months of living hand to mouth, bullying petty thieves for merchants.

“A man does what he must to keep food in his belly.”

“That cannae be right, Wulle. Many a thing I’d starve before I would do. Bad leg or no, I’m a good hand with a sword and still have a mind that works. I’d put them to good use, but this kind of work sickens me.”

Wulle sat a cup of ale down in front of Law. “Drink that down. It’ll cure what ails you. And go down the vennel to Mother Dickson’s-” He winked. “-for a bit of bobbing before the snow is too deep to make it yon.”