J. Tomlin - The Templar's Cross

“You watched all night?”

“Well, I thought I would see if anyone joined them the morn or if anything happened, so I found myself a place beneath an oak, wrapped in my plaid, though it was a dreich night. This morning that sleekit Dave Taylor sneaked to the door when it was barely light. He stayed not even long enough for a Pater Noster and was off again.”

Law tugged on his lower lip as he tried to decide his next action. It would most certainly not involve the minstrel, whatever it was. He did not think that Wrycht had set the assassins on him. Now the woman was another matter. She had nerve for it. She’d convinced him of that that day in his room, but that many assassins would cost a good deal of coin. How could his death possibly be worth it? He was sure that any murder she did would be purely for profit. The ratcatcher did not seem to have the coin and hiring English mercenaries would not have come cheap. He rubbed his head. Sassenachs could not be hired in Scotland. Nor would one be allowed to cross the border or travel in Scotland without a warrant from the king. There was something he was missing-perhaps another player in the game he had not yet found.

Law picked up his sword belt to buckle it on before he remembered the scabbard was empty. Some filthy scum had stolen his sword, whether the men who attacked him or a thief taking advantage of his lying unconscious. He knew he should be grateful he’d survived the attack but the loss of his sword burned. He swallowed down an unmanly burning behind his eyes. It made no difference now that the sword had been a gift and a prized one.

When he closed his eyes he could smell the torn earth, the sweat of their horses, the copper scent of blood as he knelt on the field of Bauge to be knighted. The earl had used his own sword for the accolade and with his own hands had buckled a sword belt around Law’s waist. Law fingered the worn leather of the belt, squeezing his lips tight. It was far better not to think of all he had lost. So first he would make his way to a hammersmith for a new sword. Without a sword, he was defenseless, nor could he defend a friend if he needed to. Besides, he might barely still be a knight, yet he was one.

He limped slowly, favoring his bad leg and trying to ignore the throb in his side, down to the Speygate and the imposing Spey Tower that guarded it. The hammersmith’s cobbled yard was up a vennel within a wooden fence. It held a large shed where a forge gave off a fierce, hot scent and two leather-aproned, burly hammersmiths worked over anvils. The yard rang with the blows of their hammers. Huge piles of charcoal lay in one corner of the yard. Stacks of black iron and steel awaited work in another. Through the door of a storeroom Law could see stacks of finished work, helmets, armor, sword, pikes, and shields. A scrawny apprentice was shoveling charcoal into a bucket to carry to the forge. Beside the wide gates a cart laden with ingots was being unloaded by two men while another lumbered into the storeroom carrying a finished sword. Clearly, it was a prosperous weapon smithy. It would cut into his purse, but a decent weapon was a necessity.

When the apprentice noticed him, he dropped his shovel and scurried into the storeroom. A moment later he emerged with a tall, bald, neat-featured man wearing a leather jerkin beneath a worn leather apron. The man marched toward Law and looked him over with a merchant’s eye. Law could see himself being dismissed as too poor for a sale, but the man still said politely enough, “I’m Maister Cochrane. Is there aught I can help you with?” The man’s face brightened when Law said he was in need of replacing his sword. He looked Law up and down, judging his size. “Let me show you a claidheamh mor that should do well for your needs.”

In the storeroom, weapons hung on pegs, swords of several shapes and styles, while pikes and armor were stacked in bins and helmets lined a shelf. The smith took down from a peg a double-edged sword some forty inches long with a v-shaped guard. Its elongated, leather-wrapped grip would allow its use with one or two hands.

Law examined it closely. The metal rippled in the light as he swung it. The sword felt different in his hands, not the old friend he had carried so long. But with a sigh, he bought it. It might be different, but at least he no longer felt naked, and his mind didn’t itch as though he were missing a limb.

For a while Law wandered around the burgh. He circled the Mercat Square, spent a pence on a bannock that he munched. Everywhere he kept an eye out for the men who attacked him or any of the others. Finally his side pained him so badly, his stomach roiled so he returned to his chamber.

The day had faded to dusk as Law stared out his window at the jagged line of the roofs, black against the slate sky. Mist had risen from the wet ground and wrapped like a damp shroud around the walls of the houses. His chamber felt like a tomb, his grim mood only made worse by the plink of Cormac’s clarsach and a faint rumble of voices through the floor. Going over and over the murders in his head had solved nothing and he felt ready to climb out of his skin.

The cover of the murky dusk would allow him to move about unnoticed. Perhaps it was a good time to check if all of the suspects were where he expected them to be. There had to be a good chance that whoever had ordered the attack on him was connected to the murders. He had nothing else to do and besides he needed to move-to take his mind off his frustration and anger. Law grabbed his cloak and hurried down the stairs.

Cormac was bent over his harp as he picked out a tune. Wulle was carrying ale to a table of customers. None of them paid Law any mind as he slipped out the door and stepped into the pall of the fog. The town seemed to have drawn into itself. The street was silent except for his footfalls. An owl hooted overhead. He passed a house where the sound of a couple quarreling seeped through the closed shutters.

At the house where Marguerite was staying he hunkered down in the darkness. The fog turned the faint lines of light from the shutters into a vague glow. Obviously, though, at least one of them was there. He rubbed the ache in his thigh muscle and it occurred to him that he was behaving even more suspiciously than his quarries. What would the watch say if he was caught spying in the darkness. What did he think he was going to find? Then a faint movement showed in the doorway as it opened. In the hazy light, a slight figure stepped outside and the door closed.

Marguerite?

The figure glided through the murk like a wraith, a dark cloak drawn around her and over her head, walking so softly her footsteps made no sound. Yet her direction seemed certain as though she knew exactly where she was going. There was something distinctly secretive and furtive in the way she was walking close to the buildings to avoid being seen. She stopped and turned in a slow circle, looking for watchers. Law threw himself flat on the ground, pain shooting through the slash in his back, but after a moment she went on.

Law waited a few heartbeats to follow, knowing his footsteps were not as silent as hers and his slight limp made them distinctive. He walked as quietly as he could through the fog, trying to keep his quarry within sight without giving himself away.

Pausing at a turn, he peered around the corner into the sinister darkness that smelled of dead leaves and wet earth. A house loomed like a large black hump beyond the low stone fence. He could hear Marguerite a few yards ahead open a gate that gave a metallic creak. She disappeared within and closed the gate behind her.

He crept slowly to the gate and crouched beside it. Cautiously he peered through the metalwork. Marguerite had paused and was looking around. Law ducked back, waiting, breathing as softly as he could so that the sound of his breath did not give him away in the eerie silence.