Lingering Misgivings
A monk ushered Broderick and Adrian into the abbot’s parlor. Broderick had met Septimus before so wasn’t surprised by the initial aloof greeting. What could one expect from an Englishmon? However, a crack appeared in the cleric’s supercilious demeanor when he was informed of Cladh’s death. “We’ve looked high and low for him,” Septimus declared with a frown after making the sign of his Savior across his body. “Did he drown?”
“He was murdered, his skull cleaved open.”
Septimus gripped the arms of his chair and shifted his considerable weight. “How do you know this?”
Broderick explained the circumstances of finding the sexton’s body, ending with, “An unknown monk sought shelter in the castle gatehouse. I suspect one o’ yer brothers went berserk, and…”
Septimus bristled. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Laird Maxwell. All my brethren are accounted for. However…”
Broderick raised a brow. “What?”
Septimus rose. “Come with me.”
Broderick and Adrian followed the abbot out of the abbey, through the grounds, to a small hut on the edge of the cemetery. He supposed this was a gardener’s shed, until the cleric opened the rickety door. A pallet, piles of clothing, a food-encrusted bowl on the scarred, lopsided table that was more like a stool, the odor of aged flesh: all indicated this was Cladh’s humble abode.
Suspended on a sagging rope-line above the empty hearth were bolts of woven cloth that obviously did not belong there.
Adrian gasped.
A knot tightened in Broderick’s gut. “Do ye recognize them, lad?”
“Aye. ’Tis part of the cargo from the Hebridean birlinn.”
“Could it be from the bale ye clung to, before ye were shoved off?”
Adrian chewed his lip. “’Tis hard to say.”
Beads of sweat had broken out on the abbot’s forehead. He tucked his hands in the folds of his sleeves and tutted. “We surmise Cladh found the cloth on the beach. By rights, proceeds from the sale of salvage belong to the abbey, but you can see he intended to sell it piece by piece.”
Broderick detected hesitation, but he waited.
Septimus toed the packed earth. “The old man found something else.”
“Ye mean someone else.”
The abbot nodded. “A shipwreck survivor. An arrogant man.”
“Did he tell ye his name?”
“He claimed he couldn’t recall it. However, the Almoner might still have his clothing.”
Ten minutes later, Adrian confirmed the sand-coated garments stuffed in the Almoner’s cupboard had belonged to Corbin Lochwood.
Broderick feared his knees might buckle. He’d left Kyla and Lily in Caerlochnaven with his archrival on the loose. He’d had doubts about Lochwood’s sanity after learning it was he who insisted the birlinn not heave to at his command. The consequences of that action had been disastrous.
It seemed the man had survived the sinking and committed murder, perhaps not surprising since he’d already left Adrian to drown.
Broderick gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders to quash the panic that threatened to render him incapable of movement. Lily was the only other surviving Maxwell.
“Please send a party of monks to the beach for Cladh’s body,” he told the abbot. “Ye can also take charge of what I suspect is his rowboat. We found it on the sandbar. I must return at once to Caerlochnaven.”
*
Corbin quickly wriggled out of the skirt and dragged on Hamish’s trews, hampered by the low ceiling of the undercroft that forced him to bend double.
He was having second thoughts about the wisdom of claiming to be afflicted with leprosy. If the trysting couple told of the encounter there’d be a hue and cry. A witch-hunt would ensue. He was already being pursued, now he’d made things worse. Kyla MacKeegan had, indeed, befuddled him to the point he couldn’t think.
He ought to dispose of the maud, but it was a mite chilly to go about in only an ill-fitting shirt. He draped the shawl across his shoulder like a plaid and knotted it, hoping folk would think he was just another poorly-dressed peasant.
The rope belt would prevent the baggy trews from falling down round his ankles.
Constraining two females and getting them into the sexton’s boat could prove difficult. He still had the knife, but might be better off disappearing into the meadows and making his way home to Glenkill Tower.
However, one of the women was the feisty redhead who would have gone back to Skye by the time he mustered an army and returned. The prospect of a tussle with Kyla MacKeegan fired his blood. When he made it to Glenkill, it would be with her and Lily Maxwell in tow.
Then he could implement the next stage of his new plan.
*
Lily whined when Kyla told her they wouldn’t be going out to practice with the slings.
“Why? Just because my brother isna here? Ye like him more than ye like me.”
Aye, but in a different way.
“That’s nay true,” she replied, skirting around the truth. “But I would feel safer if he were here.”
And excited about the prospect of spending time with him.
“Is it because of the leper?”
“Aye…”
And nay. She didn’t believe for a moment that a leper wandered the undercroft of Caerlochnaven.
“…but we have naught to worry about if there is a leper. We’re nay heretics.”
Hoping the nonsensical notion would make sense to a bairn, she chuckled inwardly at her own unreasonable fears. The shock of her near-drowning had caused all kinds of imaginings.
Doreen was probably right. The maidservant had made up some outlandish excuse to draw attention away from her transgression.
There was surely nothing to fear from a poor beggar woman who’d sought shelter in the undercroft. “We can go out for a short while,” she conceded.
Lily’s smile of glee banished any lingering misgivings.