A MASS FOR THE DEAD (3 page)

There was a stir in the hall and the MacDonald entered, followed by his tail of retainers, his
gille-mor
, or sword bearer, members of his
luchd-tighe
, and a number of other clansmen and followers, all talking roisterously of the hunt they had had and calling for ale.

Two of them struggled to carry in a dead stag, which they heaved to the floor of the hall. The old hound got up and sniffed interestedly at it, but the men shooed him away, and he limped over to rejoin the other hounds, now settling in a corner of the space.

The MacDonald was not a tall man, dark haired and dark eyed, showing more of the Celt than the Norse in his looks. He was dressed for the hunt, but the wool of his
brat
was of a fine weave, fastened with a large jewel-encrusted pin of gold, and he wore boots of the finest leather. His keen eyes sought us out in the hall. Apparently the sentry had told him of our arrival. After a moment he signaled for me to join him where he sat on a finely carved wooden chair before the peat fire, drinking ale from a
mether
made of silver and ivory.

“Your Lordship,” I began, not knowing if he would remember me, but he did.

“Muirteach, is it? What is this news from Colonsay?”

“It’s Prior Crispinus. My father.” I stopped speaking a moment to swallow, my throat gone suddenly dry.

“Well, what of him?”

“He’s dead. He was murdered.” I heard the silence behind me, followed quickly by the beginnings of shocked converse in the hall.

“Saint’s blood,” he swore, almost starting up out of his chair. His eyes narrowed, and he settled in his seat again. “Who did it?”

I shrugged my shoulders in answer to his question.

“Rome will not be happy. Nor the King, I’m thinking.” He thought, taking a sip from his glass. “Especially if no one is held accountable.”

He looked at me, his gray eyes keen. “Tell me what happened,” he commanded.

I told him, at least what we knew of it all.

“His fingers just touching the Sanctuary Cross.” His Lordship drained his ale. He wiped his mouth with a fine napkin of richly embroidered linen. “It’s an abomination, that is. Sacrilege.”

He looked at me again, and I felt like a bull at a summer cattle fair. “Muirteach, you are his son. And you’ve a good mind in you, and are not ill favored, for all that you—” He hesitated, his eyes going to my leg for a moment.

“For all that I cannot run,” I finished for him.

“Aye, well, there is that. But, as I’ve said, you’ve a good mind, and you can read, and write. Aye, you’ll be just the man I’m needing.”

Now my eyes narrowed. For when the MacDonald said he needed you, you got suspicious, for all that he was called
Buachaill nan Eilean
, the Herdsman of the Isles.

“Yes?” was all I said.

His Lordship called to his henchman for claret, but did not answer me immediately. The man brought the wine, and set it on a small table within easy reach of His Lordship’s chair.

The Lord of the Isles poured wine into two silver goblets and offered me one.

“Aye, you’ll be the man for it, being his son and all as well.” He looked at me, measuring me. “I want you to find the killer. And once justice is done, then we can write to Rome. And the King. There’s no need to be troubling them before we know who killed him.”

“They’ll hear, at least the King will, in Edinburgh, with his daughter your wife.” There was no point in arguing about the other. I would have to find my father’s killer. The MacDonald was right, it was my duty as a son, for all that I had not loved my father. And now it was my duty to my clan’s overlord as well; he had just made it so.

His Lordship smiled. “Aye. Best you write the King, then, and bring it to me when you are done. Away in the back room with you now. I’ll see to it that you’ve parchment and pen. And a light. You can be writing to the King before the meal, and then—”

“What am I to write?”

“Simple.”

I groaned. It did not sound simple to me, but the MacDonald continued. “Tell him the Prior has been killed, and that we are close to finding the murderer. And when we have brought him to justice we will be letting him know of it. Oh, and send greetings from my wife.” He beamed. “I’ll send Fergus with the letter. He’s been wanting to see Edinburgh. Or is the King at Rothesay the now?”

He left. My stomach growled. A servant ushered me into the back room of the hall, where I found a table, illuminated by the fading evening light shining through the slit window, and the same henchman soon brought writing materials and a candle, just as the MacDonald had promised.

“And bring some more claret,” I told him, as I sharpened the quill and attempted to compose the letter. The end result, I told myself, was none so bad, for all that I had never written to a King before.

To His Majesty King Robert II the Steward of Scotland

From John MacDonald, Dominus Insularium, Lord of the Isles

Greetings: We desire you to know as soon as ever we could inform our Royal Father of the sad events which have here transpired at Oronsay Priory on this day June the 27, 1373. Our beloved Prior of Oronsay, Crispinus MacPhee, has been found done to death in a cruel manner by some criminal as yet unknown. As we do not wish to cause any undue concern to our well loved royal father, we hasten to assure him of our intent to bring the perpetrator of such an infamous deed to justice, and that right soon, and communicate with you at such time as that has been done. In addition I hasten to assure you that my ladywife, your own daughter Margaret, rests well and sends you all kind greetings.

Now it only remained to catch the murderer, I thought wryly. The servant reappeared and, finding I had finished, left again to summon the MacDonald. He inspected the letter and was well pleased, clapping me on the back, and walking with me to the main room where the tables had been set up and the meal already underway.

Seated at the far end of a lower table, I ate my fill at last. Venison, salmon, oatcakes, bannocks, cheese, honey and curds. Mead and claret. I had just about reached my limit when I saw the MacDonald gesture to a tall, thin, older man and motion in my direction. By this time the pages were removing the dishes, and people had begun to mill about. So I was not too surprised when the man approached me a short while later. He had a slight stoop, from time spent over books perhaps, and blond hair going a bit to gray, but his blue eyes when he looked at me were clear and penetrating, his manner calm and soothing.

“You are Muirteach MacPhee?” he inquired.

“Aye. I am.”

“Himself was wanting myself to accompany you back to Colonsay. I am Fearchar Beaton, the physician.”

We knew of Fearchar Beaton, in Colonsay. He was famous all over the Isles, as all the Beatons were, for their knowledge.

The story goes that one of them, while walking down the road carrying a fine hazel staff, had been approached by a strange gentleman. The man asked where the Beaton had gotten his hazel staff, then asked the Beaton to return to that same hazel tree, and watch a hole beneath it, where he would see six serpents leave, and then return, the white adder coming last. The Beaton was to catch this last serpent and bring it to the gentleman.

The Beaton agreed, and found all as the strange gentleman had promised at the hazel tree. When he returned to the gentleman, with the white adder carefully stopped up in a bottle, the man was delighted. Opening the bottle, he flung the serpent into a pot he had boiling by the roadside. He then asked the Beaton to watch the pot for a wee while, as he had to leave, and on no account to let it boil over.

The Beaton did so, but the pot boiled furiously, and he could not stop it. He reached for the lid, burned his finger with some of the potion, and put his finger in his mouth. The eyes of his wisdom were opened, and he understood the language of beasts, and plants, which were helpful to the sick and infirm, and the healing of every ache and pain that man is known to suffer.

I am not knowing if that story is true, but sure enough it is that all the Beatons are renowned healers and physicians. None are better. Some have even studied in far off Spain, and in Paris. But whyever would the MacDonald be wanting the Beaton to return to Colonsay with me?

The Beaton himself answered my question, before I could ask it.

“Himself is wanting me to look at the body, to see what I can tell about the manner of his death,” he said. “The body of the Prior. Is it your father, lad?”

I bristled a bit, whether it was from being called lad, or from the kind tone of voice the man had, I did not know.

“Aye. I am his bastard.”

“No shame in that. It is the man who makes his own way in the world, not his father.”

I shrugged my shoulders. Perhaps. “When do you want to be going?”

“First light tomorrow. I’m not wanting to wait too long to see it. We could almost go tonight.” For this close to midsummer the sky still held some light, even so close to midnight as it was.

“The crew is tired. As I am.”

He did not rankle at my tone. “Well, then, you will sleep, and we will leave in the morning. Tell your crew. Was no one telling you where you can bide?”

“In the hall here, I’m guessing. Or in the guest house.” The feast showed no signs of stopping at any point soon.

The Beaton nodded. “That’ll be the way of it, for sure. Here. Come with me. You can stay at my house, and we’ll be away early in the morn that way. Get the others.”

That last proved no easy job, as most of the crew were just getting started on the
uisgebeatha
, and finally we left Eachann there, drinking and arguing with a redheaded MacLean, and Gillecolm flirting with a dark haired MacDonald girl. They both absent-mindedly agreed to meet us at the causeway at first light. I doubted whether either of them would sleep this night, but for myself, I was ready to.

The Beaton, as the MacDonald’s physician, had a small house just on the mainland, past the causeway, close to the houses of His Lordship’s bodyguard.

I stumbled once on the slippery stones of the causeway, and he looked at me sharply but said nothing, not asking how I had come by my limp.

We reached his house and he said, before opening the door, “I’ll just be calling out to Mariota, my daughter, to apprise her of the fine guests I’ve brought with me from the feast at the Hall.”

This brought a snort of laughter from Seamus, who had drunk a little too much of the claret, what with his father not present to watch over him at the feasting.

I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep. From dawn, when Seamus had first wakened me, until now seemed a lifetime and more. And so I did not look too hard at Mariota as she bustled about in the Beaton’s tidy whitewashed house, putting more bedding down by the fire, but merely sat idly, yawning. Finally I lay down on some soft linen covered mattress—stuffed with heather and bracken I’m sure it was, but not a twig poking me anywhere—and remembered nothing else.

* * * * *

We woke early, too early, I thought, groaning, as we washed and dressed hurriedly in the growing morning light. The cold water helped to wake me, and the hot oatcake with honey and butter did as well. The Beaton served no ale with breakfast, just water, but the thirst was on me after last night’s feast and I found that it refreshed me. Seamus had more trouble rousing himself. The strong drink of the night before had gotten the better of him, unused to it as he was. He looked as pale as the sand on the Strand, and only shook his head when the Beaton’s daughter offered him a bannock.

“He’s taken too much drink,” I said to her.

“Fine I can see that,” she replied with a little edge to her voice. She went over to the hearth and I watched her uncork some vials and pour some liquid, along with some hot water, in a mazer. She muttered a charm over it while she stirred what was in the cup.

She had a graceful way of moving that was easy to watch, and her long yellow braids hung down as she bent over the fire. I guessed her age to be about twenty, not that much younger than myself. “Here,” she said, returning to where we sat, “tell your friend to drink this.” She looked at me critically. “And I think you could be using a sip or two of it as well.”

“Thank you,” I muttered, sounding churlish even to myself.

I handed the cup to Seamus, who downed most of it, making a mouth at the taste of it. He handed it back to me, and I drank the last few swallows. It tasted bitter and dark, but something in it did me some good. After a minute I was noticing I felt more alert, and that Seamus did not look so green and actually was eating his oatcakes.

At this point the Beaton entered the house, looking wide-awake for all the early hour.

“Let’s be away, then,” he commanded, and we gathered our belongings and made to leave. I was surprised to see his daughter also put on her
brat
, blue it was, I remember, and striped with green, and then gather some things together in a satchel

“Is she coming with us?” I demanded. She shot me a look for she had heard me. Her eyes were blue, like her father’s.

“Aye, and whyever not? We’ve no patients to see to here, and Mariota has a good eye, and a good mind as well. She serves as my assistant,” explained her father, and we left the house.

We met Eachann and Gillecolm at the causeway, along with last night’s harper, wanting a ride to Colonsay. Gillecolm had a fine smile on his face but said little of the reason for it. Yesterday’s drizzle had blown away with the night and the sky was crisp blue with fine tendrils of clouds caressing it. The sweet scent of the wild flowers filled my nose and for a moment, as Mariota passed, I smelled a sweeter scent, of elderflower mixed with something else I could not place.

Chapter 3

T
he Beaton replaced the sheet covering my father’s battered face. I looked at him demandingly, but his eyes gave no clue to what the body had told him. Some herbs burning in a brazier, there in the stone room off the infirmary, filled the air with a sharp smoky fragrance. They almost covered the scent of decay, which emanated like incense from the body on the plank table, while light from the open doorway and a window high in the wall had picked out the details of my father’s injuries rather more clearly than I would have liked.