J. Tomlin - The Templar's Cross

Loud voices that nearly drowned out the sound of a minstrel playing a clarsach harp filtered up to Law through the wooden floor above Cullen’s tavern. It was no inn and usually did not rent out rooms, but Law paid for the space at only a few pence per week. The tavern was jammed between a leather shop and a baker, the daub of the walls thin and flaking. The ground floor boasted a barrel of ale on a trestle, stools, a couple of benches and a long trestle table for eating. Mall Cullen could usually be found stirring a pot of broth that hung from a crane over a peat fire on the hearth. Gray-haired Wulle bustled about tending to the customers.

Law hunched over the chipped pitcher of ale he’d ordered from downstairs, his long legs stretched out under the table, and filled a chipped horn cup to the rim. He quickly gulped down the malty brew, sandy hair flopping into his eyes. He poured another cup and drank that, too. The ale numbed an ache that still plagued his leg. He tried not to think about the fact that it had gotten no better. When he picked up the pitcher to pour a third, there was a tap on the door. He looked up with a belch. Frowning, he called out, “Aye?”

Cormac MacEda opened the door. He was snub-nosed and barely past being a youth, his striped red-and-cream doublet with crumpled red ribbons at the seams that Law thought regrettably loud even for a minstrel. But his eyes were blue and playful under the curtain of his ginger hair.

He closed the door behind him, lounged against it, and said, “There is a man in the tavern looking for you. Says his name is Lord Blinsele.”

“Looking to hire a man-at-arms?”

“Mayhap. You’ll want to talk to him. He has siller to hire judging by his dress.”

“Send him up, lad,” Law said. “Send him up.”

Cormac glared at the reference to his youth, huffed, and turned to swagger out. “Thoir Ifrinn ort!” he called as he took the rickety stairs down to the inn.

Law considered that it was probably best that he had no idea what that meant. Like most Lowlanders he spoke some Gaelic, but his was that of a soldiers’ camp. From the tone, the comment couldn’t be good. Law stood, smoothed his worn doublet and tugged it down to try to hide the small patch midthigh in his hose. He’d dumped out the night-soil bucket this morning. After years in military camps, he didn’t leave his belongings flung about, not that he had many. Poor though he was now, he kept his meager room as neat as he could. Hopefully, someone desiring to add a lordless knight to his tail would look for no more.

Perth, Scotland

A smooth voice on the stairway said, “Aye, I see the way. Leave us the nonce.”

The door was flung open and a man strode in. He half-turned, an eyebrow raised, and watched until the minstrel was out of sight. He was a lean, erect man in his midthirties, medium height, with a hawk nose and his short beard neatly shaped. Dark hair curled around his forehead and over the back of his neck. His black velvet houppelande hung in rounded pleats to his knees. Along with his black chaperon hat twisted into a fantastical shape, he would have been fashionable even in the court of France. A dagger in an engraved scabbard hung at his belt. He swept his smiling gaze around the room. “Sir Law Kintour.”

“At your service…” Law nodded amiably. The man looked like he could afford men-at-arms in his service, but the clothes were in a French style, which was strange.

“I am Lord Blinsele.”

Law bowed and with a sword-callused hand indicated the stool he had vacated, the only seating in the room other than his pallet.

The man nodded briskly before scanning the stairway once more and pulling the door firmly shut. He ignored the stool to take a slow turn around the room. The dulcet notes of the minstrel’s clarsach came through the floor along with the sound of a strident, drunken laugh. A ragged spatter of rain clattered morosely against the shutters. The ashes of the dying peat fire in the brazier twitched and flickered. The caller watched them for a moment with bright eyes.

“What might I do for you, my lord?”

“I have heard you served the Earl of Douglas in France,” the man said at last. “And were in his confidence.”

“The Duke of Touraine as he was at his death.” Law gave a curt nod. “Aye, that is true at least in some degree.”

“Good.”

Law nodded again, trying to urge the man on. Blinsele was not the name of any lordly family he recalled, but he had been fighting in France more than in Scotland until his lord’s death. Yet he was certain he would have heard if the man was from Perth even in the month since his return. The thought of the duke’s death and his own reception at the hands of the new earl on his return curdled his belly, to be cast off as though his service had meant nothing. He pushed the thought away. From the look of it, this man had the coin to afford knights to follow him. “And you heard I was seeking a new patron,” Law prodded.

“Tell me about yourself, Sir Law. If I am to employ you, I believe I have the right to ask.”

“There is little to tell, my lord. I am thirty years old. I was a squire in the Earl Archibald’s household and knighted by his hand. Was with in him France when he was made a duke.” Law crossed to the window and opened a shutter to peer through the murk. “I was in his following when he fell in battle.”

“Yet lived to tell the tale,” Blinsele said in a mild tone.

“Aye. Some might call it luck that I was near buried in bodies. A man-at-arms, Duncan, helped me drag myself from the battlefield, or I might have died there after all. The two of us managed to make our way back home, but…” He shrugged and turned back to find the man studying him with narrowed eyes. “That is all there is to the tale.”

After a long pause the man said, “I am concerned with a private matter.”

“You have no one in your service, no servant, you would trust to handle such a matter discreetly?” This seemed odd. A lord did not take on a knight to handle private matters.

“It would be a tempting piece of tittle-tattle. But you are unknown in Edinburgh so would not be there to spread it about.”

Law stiffened. “I’m no tittle-tattler. If I give you my oath that aught you say shall go no further than this room, then it shan’t.”

The man gave an ostentatious sigh. “My lady wife has disappeared. If it were kent-” He threw himself down on the stool and leaned his arms on his legs, hands dangling between his knees. “If it were kent, I would be a laughingstock. In the court… Even in the servant’s quarters. They’d snicker behind my back and sneer to my face. Call me a cuckold. She must be found.” He gave Law a stricken look.

“But why look in Perth?”

“I was able to learn that the man I am sure she fled with is here. He was seen at the guesthouse of Blackfriars Monastery. I watched yesterday, but he must have spied me out, for he did not return.”

“She has been seen there?”

“No one is biding in the women’s hall as far as I saw. I watched as I said, well past when the gates were locked. I saw no sign of either but someone telt me he had been there only the day before.”

“He could have changed his lodging to one of the other monasteries-” Law frowned. “Or even a hostelry. It will mean watching Blackfriars, but the others would have to be checked as well.” He shrugged, wondering how to rid himself of the man. It was an appointment beneath him. Yes, his money would not last long, but to fall so low… “I’m a knight. I can guard a lord’s back, train his men, and guard his keep. I do not sneak in the night or spy on straying wives.”

Blinsele slid a hand into the breast of his houppelande and pulled out a small leather purse that he bounced once in his palm, letting the contents jingle. “I came prepared to pay well-” His mouth curved into a sly smile. “-Sir Knight.” He poured out the coins, ten demi-nobles, into his hand and dropped five of them, one by one, onto the table. “Half now and half when the job is done.”