J. Tomlin - The Templar's Cross

Cormac nudged Law and pointed past the oak where a human shape seemed to glimmer in a passing moonbeam. Law nodded and led the way, but it was a statue of the patron saint of the kirk, St. John the Baptist, his hand raised to preach. Law wished he’d dared to bring some light but the risk would have been too great. He circled the big oak and spotted another shape, behind a large bush. He nudged Cormac with an elbow.

They slipped through the dark to a statue of the Blessed Virgin. He knelt at a brick-edged flowerbed that surrounded the weathered Madonna holding the Child in her arms. All that was left of the flowers were a few withered, dead stalks. He reached to pat around the edge of the base of the statue feeling for any loosening of the soil. It had been tended for the flowers, but the soil had hardened in the autumn rain and chill. He bent close trying to see but it was all a mass of shadow. Patting and thrusting his fingers into the soil, one side seemed a little looser. It wasn’t as hard as it might have been. Clearly this bit beneath the edge of the statue had recently been disturbed.

“Keep watch whilst I dig,” Law whispered.

Cormac half-stood so he could peer over the bulk of the bushes. The only sound was branches scraping together in the damp breeze and their quick breaths.

With a sigh at the day’s maltreatment of a good blade, he pulled out his dirk to dig under the edge, trying not to disturb the rest of the dirt. He grunted with satisfaction when a good six inches in the blade hit something hard. He nodded to himself as he sheathed the dirk. He shoveled with his bare hands to clear a space just under the edge of the statue. Law could feel a hard metal rectangle.

At last he pulled it free with a soft grunt, and set it on the grass before him. It was a metal casket a foot wide and two feet long. He could feel decorations that he couldn’t make out in the dark. He tugged at the lid. It was locked and this was not the place to make noise in opening it.

Then he wiped the dirt off his blade and hands on the sodden grass and patted the soil back into place along the edge where it was disturbed. Frowning, he looked up. The rain would settle the earth. If anyone looked closely, they would see it was disturbed but in an autumn-dead garden, that should not happen soon. He pointed to a pile of oak leaves. Cormac scooped up an armful and dumped them into the depression.

“That’s that then,” Law whispered.

“This makes no sense,” Cormac whispered back.

He stood. “Ach, it makes perfect sense.”

Cormac pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders and stamped his feet. His teeth were chattering when he said, “Then are we done here?”

Law studied the statue as though he would speak to him.

“We’re getting wet through,” Cormac complained. “Let us go.”

The minstrel’s pleas at last registered and Law shook his wet hair out of his face. “Aye. Let’s hie home.” Cormac held the box as Law climbed to the top of the wall, straddled it, and leaned down. He grabbed Cormac’s arm and gave him a boost up. With the long casket hidden under Law’s cloak, together they splashed through the icy drizzle to Cullen’s tavern. Wulle and his wife would have him on the street if they knew he’d left the door unbarred.

Law motioned to Cormac to follow him up the stairs to his room through the dark, empty tavern. Law dropped the bar to the door of his room into place. He ran his fingers over the raised decorations that were thick with verdigris. “French, I think.”

“Is it gold?” Cormac whispered.

Law shook his head. “Brass.” It was a shame to damage the box, but so be it. He used his dirk to break off the lock. When he tried to raise the catch it was stiff, but a moment’s prying lifted it.

A gold cross gleamed in the flickering light of his single candle. It was in the shape of the traditional Templar cross with a flare at the end of each branch. A red gem glowed in the center. A trill of excitement when through him. It was like finding the golden fleece of Greek legend. Not for a moment had he believed it was real.

His hands shook as he reached in and gently lifted the cross into the light. What fate had the men who had buried this gone to? Had they truly fought at that great battle so long ago? The hardened knight in Law fled, and he was the boy who had listened to the legends of Scottish heroes, of the great Robert the Bruce driving the English from their lands with the Black Douglas at his side. He ran his fingers over it, feeling its smooth surface, hefting it to feel its weight. “This is gold though,” he whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m no jeweler, but I can see if there is lead under the gold.” Law’s mouth twitched with the memory of telling the assize he did not use a dirk as he pulled the long dagger from his belt. He laid the cross facedown and shaved a tiny flake off the back. Underneath was the same golden gleam.

“O Mhuire Mhathair,” Cormac said as though a prayer.

Law steadied his shaking hands. Don’t be a fool, Law, he chided himself. There are no heroes nor ne’er were. E’en the great Bruce was just a man. There were however men alive now who would kill in a trice for something so valuable.

Cormac’s soft voice was shaking when he asked, “I don’t understand. If they kent it was there, why didn’t they retrieve it?”

“De Carnea found it and left it in a hiding place where it had been safe for a hundred years,” Law said. “What better hiding place? He obviously didn’t trust whomever he was meeting. And must have had good reason, considering his slit throat. He didn’t tell Wrycht or Marguerite either. He didn’t trust them. Or mayhap he merely never had the chance.” He huffed a laugh. “They have assumed he moved it. They’re searching all over Perth, but instead he just left it where it lay.”

“What now?”

“For the nonce, find somewhere to hide it and pray that no one realizes we have it.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and looked around the bare room. He could understand why de Carnea had left the cross in a hiding place where it had been safe for more than a hundred years. Finding a new hiding place was not so easy, though it didn’t have to do for a hundred years, only a few days.

He dropped to a knee and examined the floorboards. The cracks between them were barely wide enough to slip a blade in to pry one up. He ran his hands over the floor looking for one that had come loose and would come up easily, prodding and prying with his fingers and fingernails. Near the wall one of the boards gave a little when he pressed it. He pried at it with his fingers, but needed something more, so he took his sword and pushed it into the crack. A single push brought the wide board up with a groan of the nails. It was a shallow space barely deep enough for the purpose.

“Hand me the cross and then bring me a shirt from my kist,” he told Cormac.

The young man’s face was pale and his hands shaking when he picked up the cross.

Law wrapped it in the shirt and laid it into the opening. He fitted the board back into place and grunted as he pushed it down. “I need something to hammer it.” The hilt of his dirk served for that and he listened to be sure the hammering hadn’t awakened the couple sleeping on the other side of the wall. He groaned at the marks he had left on the board. Anyone would see it had been interfered with. They weren’t deep but the scrapes stood out like scars.

“I’ll hie me out to the street and scoop up some mud. Rub that in and it should cover the marks,” Cormac said. He turned and slipped quietly down the stairs.

Law chewed his neither lip as he ran his fingers over the board. In only a few minutes Cormac returned with a handful of the brownish-gray mud. Law worked it into the marks for a few minutes and then stopped to examine his efforts. It looked as though someone had trod dirt into the floor, so he motioned to the dirt Cormac still had cupped in his hands. “Rub it onto some other spots so this doesn’t stand out.” While Cormac did that, Law squatted beside the iron brazier, grasped the legs and lifted it, enough to scoot it to on top of the replaced board. “If I keep a good fire going, it should discourage anyone looking too close.”