J. Tomlin - The Templar's Cross

When he stepped out from under the trees, the stone monastery and its high spire stood before him, surrounded by wooden buildings, guesthouses, barns and fields of crops and cattle. Between knee-high rows of kale, two friars in brown robes and leather girdles with hoes over their shoulders trudged toward a barn through the mist. There should have been a porter at the gate, but no one answered when he tugged on the bell.

He pushed open the gate and walked to the front door of the church, stamped the mud from his feet, and shook out his cloak. As he had hoped, bells for None, the midafternoon prayers, had not yet rung, which left him ample time to reach his meeting with Duncan. Inside, a heavily veiled woman knelt before a statue of the Virgin Mary, and another at the altar rail muttered a prayer. A gray-haired, tonsured lay brother was polishing a silver reliquary. Law cleared his throat and the friar looked up at him, allowing Law to catch his eye. The man, hands tucked into his sleeves, made his way to the nave where Law waited.

“Can I help you, my son?” he asked.

“Brother,” Law said with a nod of his head, “mayhap. I recently returned from the war in France and seek to locate an old friend. I think he may bide in your guesthouse.”

The friar shook his head. “It isn’t the season for pilgrims, so we haven’t any guests with us the nonce.”

“He’s middling height and his yellow hair is so light it is almost white. Has anyone like that been here in the past weeks?” At the friar’s raised eyebrows, Law explained, “Mayhap I waste my time seeking him, but I’ve few friends left since-” He swallowed. “I was at the Battle of Verneuil, you see. So I am eager to find my one friend.” He knew putting one truth about his past in a tangle of lies would make the story more believable.

The friar quickly crossed himself. “It was a sad day when we heard that news. The king ordered prayers for all lost there, especially the earls.”

“In the town mayhap or heard of such from a friar at one of the other abbeys?”

Rocking backward and forward on his feet, the friar stared into the distance. “Aye,” he said, thoughtfully, “I did see a stranger similar to what you mentioned not long past, two days ago it was. He was speaking to another man when I was carrying a basket of bread to the leper house. But he ne’er abided here, so I fear it is no help to you.”

“No, brother, learning he has been in Perth and may yet be here does indeed help me.”

A bell began to toll above them. “I need to go,” the friar said hastily. “But I wish you well in finding your friend.”

Law pulled his cloak around himself when he went out into the lengthening shadows, but the rain had finally stopped. He picked his way along the path, back through the port into the dank streets of the burgh, eager to reach Blackfriars. Most likely Blinsele was wrong that the man had left Blackfriars, so there was a good chance that Duncan had spotted him. The abbey was on the far north side of the city, and he preferred it was full dark when he met Duncan in case their quarry was about, so he took his time as he walked.

A fog, thin and clammy, blurred the buildings as he passed. The crisp scent of autumn was quickly overlaid with the stench of blood and offal from slaughtering that was done in this part of Perth. His throat closed and he choked on the smell. Shutters were banging closed as he passed the tightly clustered buildings with jetties that thrust out above the street turning it into little more than a warren. A wife dragged a squalling wean through the door and slammed it closed behind her.

He passed shadowy shops as the sun sank below the high city walls, shops with bloody beef carcasses stood next to poulterers where dark, motionless lines of birds hung, as far as he could see into their murky depths. The last of sunset’s light faded into black night.

In an open doorway a burly man stood silhouetted in lamplight, a pig’s carcass over his shoulder dripping gore down his apron. “Beannachd leat,” he called out to Law congenially.

Law had never had Gaelic but even he knew a civil good night so he replied, “Mar sin leat,” with a brisk wave.

Blackfriars was out of Perth and into a suburb past the Red Brig Port. The street narrowed once through the port and his boots squelched in icy mud of the roadway. A wind moaned through the pines setting branches to scraping and groaning. A fragment of moon slithered from behind clouds only to hide again. His weakened leg burned with fatigue, and he stumbled in a rut.

Finally, he heard a mournful chant of vespers prayers roll from the monastery: Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina.

O Lord, make haste to aid me indeed, and Law snorted softly at the thought. If he needed help, he’d do better to depend upon his good sword arm, for God, if the priests weren’t lying about there being one, did not seem eager to aid him.

Behind the monastery’s high stone walls, beams of light from the windows of the monastery broke the thick darkness, or Law might have missed the alley where he was to meet Duncan. Fences on both sides formed a dark passageway. He peered in and took a step into the narrow path where he’d told Duncan to meet him so they didn’t chance frightening off their quarry. He didn’t want to call out, but apparently Duncan had hidden himself well. Or perhaps he’d given up and gone back to the room he rented above a baker. The faint chanting from the monastery ceased.

“Duncan, where in Hades are you?” Law called softly.

Running his hand along the damp wooden fence, Law walked into the dark pathway. A blackbird burst out of hiding almost at his feet with a clatter of feathers and a harsh squawk. The waving, pewter moonlight seeped through the clouds to make strange passing shapes on the ground over a dark lump against the dyer’s fence. And then through a break in the clouds, the moonlight reflected in wide-open eyes. The mixed stench of blood and urine and shit hit Law’s nostrils. He stood frozen, hand on his hilt and then turned in a slow circle searching the shadows.

Nothing moved, so he squatted beside the body, wishing he had a lantern. He laid the back of his hand against Duncan’s cheek. It was still slightly warm but so still there was no doubt the man wasn’t breathing. To be sure, Law put his hand over the nostrils. No air moved.

By feel, he ran hands down Duncan’s body, briefly pausing over the warm, sticky wetness in the middle of his chest, felt for his scabbard and found a still-sheathed sword. That gave him pause. How had someone gotten close enough that a man-at-arms as seasoned as Duncan hadn’t even drawn his weapon? He felt for Duncan’s purse and slipped fingers inside it, feeling coins still there. Not robbed, then. He extracted them and rubbed them with his thumb, thoughtfully, before he put one back into the leather purse, so it wouldn’t appear that Duncan had been robbed. Three demi-nobles went into his own.

Law straightened and took a careful step back. It was too dark to see any marks in the soggy ground, but there must be some there. He backed away a few more steps before he turned and considered the stone fence that surrounded the monastery. He let out a long puff of breath before he limped through the mud to the tall gate between tall stone pillars. By feel he located the bell pull and yanked. The bell clamored.

Law looked over his shoulder towards the dark where Duncan’s body lay, an oddly bereft feeling welling in his chest. He had not loved the man, had resented his demands and yet…he had been the last tie to so much of Law’s life, had saved him on the battlefield. Law suddenly realized that never before in his life had he been completely alone, with no comrade to share a cup of wine or guard his back.