J. Tomlin - The Templar's Cross

He was, for a change, in luck!

Law pulled the folded parchment out and sat back on his heels. As he carefully unfolded it, a bit crumbled off the browned edge. The ink was faded though he could make out the letters. He let out a sigh at the Latin words scrawled across the page. It was many years since a fragment of that language had been beaten into him by a tutor in the earl’s household, though little more than enough to read his prayers.

The greeting was easy enough: Salutem …

The word Templar was clear enough and a reference to a crucifix.

There was no one he could ask to translate it, so he’d have to manage somehow. He slid the letter into the breast of his doublet and carefully replaced the clothes as he’d found them and relocked the kist. It wouldn’t keep Wrycht from realizing the kist had been searched but if it delayed it, all the better. Wrycht would suspect that Law had the letter, but there was no way he could be sure. A sharp whistle from the hall made him jump to his feet, hurry out the door, and close it, only to whirl and raise his hand as though knocking. He looked over his shoulder for Cormac, but the minstrel was gone. However, Wrycht was walking up the stairs toward him.

Wrycht’s face crunched into lines of anger.

Law put up his hand and strode to Wrycht. “Good. I thought I had missed you. Let’s find a quiet corner. Something happened I want to talk to you about.” He motioned downstairs, wondering as he did so where Cormac had hidden. “Forbye, I want ale.”

They found a corner table, told a servant to bring them a pitcher of ale and two cups, and when the boy had left Law filled the cups. He swirled the ale in the cup, considering it, before he spoke as Wrycht glared. “The lord sheriff has demanded that I find him a killer.”

Wrycht’s eyes widened slightly. “What did he say?”

“That if I didnae find one for him, he would hang me for the murders.” Law took a leisurely sip of his ale. “I have no intention of hanging.”

He leaned closer to Law and whispered, “I swear on my mother’s grave, I had nothing to do with it. And you cannae possibly think that Marguerite is a killer.”

“Then someone in the burgh kens more than you’ve told me. It could not have been by chance that they were both murdered the same night.” He stood up and gave Wrycht a long, hard look. “Someone will hang for the murders, and it shall nae be me.”

As he stepped out into the misty rain and closed the door of the inn, a voice in the shadows said, “Hoi, Sir Law.”

Heart racing, Law spun as he grabbed for his hilt, but it was just Cormac giving him a roguish grin. “What the devil are you doing out here?”

Cormac laughed. “I was afraid he’d recognize me and be suspicious, so I hid around the corner and climbed out a window.”

“Fast thinking.” Law gave the closed door a glance. “Let us be off in case he decides to try to follow me.”

Law knew he was too easy to find at his own room or the inn below, so he walked three blocks to the nearest tavern. The air was thick with peat smoke and the smell of stale ale. He tried to convince Cormac that he should return to perform at Cullen’s tavern as usual, but the minstrel gave him a stubborn look, so they settled in at a table. Law pushed back his hood, and ran his hand to push the blond, dripping strands of hair out of his eyes. Cormac chattered about Perth and his adventures as a minstrel. Law listened, smiling at the young man’s cheerful tales. Let the lad talk, he thought, because his stories were better than thinking about battles and bloody death. But he could only put off trying to decipher the letter so long and at last he pulled it out to bend over the faded lettering. Word by word, he tried to work it out though at least half the words were ones that he had no clue of. But there were some he did know, “sub simulacrum Dominae Nostrae …” he understood to mean under the statue of Our Lady and “ecclesiam Sancti Johannis Baptiste in paradiso…” he was fairly sure meant in the garden of the Kirk of St. John the Baptist.

His head ached with the effort of remembering his tutoring and his eyes burned from straining in the smoky air, but it was a clue and the only clue he had, so he tucked the letter back into his doublet. “Under the statue of Our Lady,” he pondered. After a few hours of nursing mugs of yeasty ale, Law ordered two bowls of bean gruel that at least filled their bellies.

“I suppose you ken no Latin, Cormac?” Law said thoughtfully.

Cormac looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “And who would teach a minstrel his Latin?” But the youngster watched Law as he bent over the letter and Law just shook his head.

When no more sunlight came in through the boards of the shutters, Law pushed back his chair and stood up. “Playing your clarsach is safer, Cormac.”

“Aye. But following you is more exciting.”

Law huffed through his nose. “If you hang with me, it’s your own fault.”

“Where are we going?” Cormac asked, walking beside Law into the street.

Law pulled his cloak around him. There was a smell of snow in the air, and the cold damp air made his bruised jaw ache. “We’re going to the Kirk of St. John.”

“At this hour?”

“Aye. Is it ever too late to pay a visit to the Blessed Virgin?”

“I…suppose not.”

As they walked, bits of moonlight broke through the clouds to reflect on the icy cobbles. The sharp wind tugged at Law’s cloak. He kept close to the buildings to stay out of sight in the silent street. It only took ten minutes to reach the dark, towering bulk of the Kirk of St. John. He led Cormac past the high, carved front doors and made a circle around the outside to the back where high walls enclosed what must be a garden for the priests. Within, bare branches scratched at the sky in the wind. As he walked, he ran a hand along the wall, covered in places with a thick growth of ivy, looking for a gate. Even after going the entire length of the enclosure, he found no entrance.

“Why don’t we go through the doors?” Cormac whispered.

“Because I need to dig in the garden.”

Cormac gave a soft, “Hmmmph.” as Law jerked experimentally on the vines and then reached high over his head, grasped them, and pulled himself up. A handful snapped off in his hands, but he managed to grab onto some thicker ones. He flung an arm over the top of the wall and levered himself high enough to peer into the dark garden. Masses of shrubs made dark clumps that might be good hiding places should anyone appear. With a grunt, he slid his body along the top and let himself down the other side. He turned loose to land with a thud, pain shot through his bad leg and bit back a curse.

When he looked up, Cormac was clinging to the top and wriggling his way over. He let go and landed on his feet. The moonlight lit his grin. He opened his mouth but Law cut him off with a whispered, “Whisht.”

Law leaned close to Cormac’s ear and said, “We’re looking for a statue of the Virgin.” He looked around the garden that was all shadows and mysterious shapes from the flicker of moonlight escaping past blowing clouds. A few fruit trees with limbs like skeletal fingers waving in the breeze lined the wall they had just come over. In the middle was a giant, hoary oak with a few dead leaves still attached that rattled and scraped in the wind.

A dark shape of a couple of pines thrust upwards near the rear doorway from the church. A priest was outlined by light from within. Law grabbed Cormac’s arm and jerked to the ground behind one of the shrubs. He squirmed his way forward until he could see the doorway, as the priest closed the door. Holding his breath, Law listened for any sound, a footstep or word of alarm. The silence stretched out for several minutes and at last Law decided it was safe to get up off the wet ground.