A Trust Betrayed by Candace Robb Page A

swollen, much like Margaret’s did after laundry day. The mantle must be her finest. Such delicate wool, woven loosely. Not warm, but lovely. The gown beneath the mantle was difficult to make out in the dim light.
     
    Someone behind Margaret stank of urine, no doubt a cure for boils or foot ulcers. A woman muttered her prayers accompanied by gentle clicking sounds—she must have Paternoster beads. That is what Margaret should have done to keep her mind on her prayers. She reached into the scrip she wore on her girdle; her fingers touched the loom weight among the beads. Such a light weight might be used to add to a weight that did not quite balance with its opposite. It might also be used for fine work. Like the mantle she had been admiring.
     
    As people began to take their leave, Margaret turned to look at the woman beside her. Her profile and her walk pricked a memory, but Margaret could not place her.
     
    “I could not help but notice your mantle,” said Margaret.
     
    Never meeting her gaze, the woman turned and hastened away.
     
    “And why would anyone talk to a stranger with things as they are in the town?” Celia said.
     
    Indeed. But if someone had spoken thus to Margaret she would have been too curious to resist a glance in their direction.
     
    Outside St. Giles a fog had moved in from the firth, rounding the corners of buildings, foreshortening the street. Margaret paused to get her bearings. Gradually the worshippers disappeared and the two women were alone but for the sweeper they had passed earlier, who had covered much distance since they had climbed the hill.
     
    “Does he sweep all the town?” Margaret wondered aloud.
     
    “I believe he is watching us,” Celia said as she looked the other way.
     
    “Let us disappoint him with a brisk walk back to the inn.”
     
    Margaret’s spine tingled as they neared the man. She could not resist a “God bless you” as she passed him.
     
    “Bless ’e,” the man muttered.
     
    The exchange calmed her. He might be precisely what he seemed, a street sweeper. She must not let the atmosphere in the town frighten her.
     
    “St. Columba!” Celia cried as she tripped, pitching forward into a puddle.
     
    Margaret reached out to help her up, but Celia waved her away. “You will muddy your sleeves.”
     
    The woman was mad worrying about another’s clothing when she was on her hands and knees in a puddle. Margaret grabbed Celia by the waist and supported her as she rose.
     
    “I stumbled on a rock,” Celia muttered.
     
    Margaret guessed that the maid’s stiffness from the previous day’s ride had caused her to stumble over her own skirt.
     
    “Holy Mother,” Celia cried as she shook out her skirts, “look at the mud.” A patch of her plaid mantle and the skirt of her russet gown were the same dark gray-brown. She brushed her hands together and muttered a curse.
     
    “Are you injured?” Margaret took Celia’s hands, turning them palms up. A few pebbles were lodged in the sticky mud, but though the skin at the edges looked red there was no blood. “No cuts, that’s a blessing. Let’s get you back to our chamber.”
     
    They continued slowly, Celia pausing several times to brush her hands as the mud dried.
     
    Behind Murdoch’s inn was a garden patch with the brown, slimy remains of the past harvest, and beyond it a low building whence came smoke and enticing smells. The kitchen, Margaret guessed.
     
    “Go up, take off those wet clothes, and warm yourself,” she told Celia. “I shall follow soon.”
     
    Margaret headed for the small building. This was not where she had thought to find her uncle, but there he stood stirring something in a large pot. And watching the door with a black look.
     
    “Where have you been?” he demanded.
     
    “At St. Giles. Celia and I went to Mass.”
     
    “Mass? After such a journey, and without an escort? Did I not tell you the women of Edinburgh cannot safely go about without an escort? Do