Nativity of Christ (Christ’s Mass Day), 1304
Steam from horses and riders blended with the fine gruel of churned up mud and snow in a sluggish mist that was filled with shouts and grunts and clashes of steel so that the men behind Bruce shifted on their horses.
‘Wait,’ he commanded and he felt them settle — all but brother Edward, of course, who muttered and fretted on his right.
Bruce looked at the wild, swirling melee, men hammering one another with blunted weapons, howling with glee, breaking off to bring their blowing horses round in a tight circle and hurl themselves back into the mad knotted tangle of fighting.
‘Now,’ Edward growled impatiently. ‘There he is…’
‘Wait.’
Beyond the mud-frothed field loomed the great, dark snow-patched bulk of the castle, where the ladies of the court watched from the comfort of a high tower, surrounded by charcoal braziers, swaddled in comforting furs and gloved, so that their applause would sound like the pat of mouse feet.
‘Now,’ Edward repeated, his voice rising slightly.
‘Wait.’
‘Aaah.’
Bruce heard the long, frustrated growl, saw the surge of the powerful destrier and cursed his brother even as he signalled the others to follow the spray of kicked-up mud. With a great howl of release, Bruce’s mesnie burst from the cover of the copse of trees and fell on the struggling mass.
Too soon, Bruce realized. Far too soon — the target saw Edward descend, the trail of riders behind him, and broke from the fight to face them, howling from underneath the bucket helm for his own men to help him. De Valence, he bellowed. De Valence.
Edward’s light, unarmoured horse balked and swerved as de Valence’s powerful warhorse reared and flailed with lethal hooves, the blue and white, mud-stained caparison flapping. Coming in on the other side, Bruce leaned and grabbed a handful of de Valence’s surcoat, took a smashing blow on his mailed arm which numbed it, causing him to lose his grip.
De Valence, off balance on the plunging destrier, gave a sharp, muffled cry and fell sideways, raking one spur along the caparisoned back of the warhorse. It screamed and bolted; de Valence, his other foot caught, bounced off behind it, yelling once as he carved a rut through the mud and into the dangerous, prancing pack.
‘Him,’ yelled Edward and his brother screwed round in the saddle as a figure — the one who had hit him, he realized — tried to get away from the Bruce men. ‘Rab — get him.’
Bruce reacted like a stoat on a rabbit, without thinking, seizing the man round the waist and hauling him bodily out of the saddle ignoring the curses and kicks and flails. He carried the man out of the maelstrom melee and dumped him like a sack of metal pots.
Malenfaunt, dazed and bruised, felt rough hands on him; someone tried to tear off the bucket helm, but it was laced to his shoulders. Then a voice, rough as a badger’s rear-end, bellowed into the breathing holes for him to yield. He waved one hand, sore and sick with the knowledge of what this might cost him — and at the hands of the Bruces, whom he already hated. Even the satisfaction of having saved de Valence from capture did not balm it much.
Bruce saw the man’s device, knew the man for Malenfaunt and rounded on his grinning brother.
‘We struck for an eagle,’ he said bitterly, ‘but ended with a chick.’
Edward scowled; the friendly scramble of tourney continued to whirl like the mad scrapping of dogs, to celebrate the birthday of Christ.
Abbey of Evesham, Worcester
The same night
Kirkpatrick slid to Hal’s side.
‘Gone to London,’ he grunted softly out of the side of his mouth, rubbing his hands at the flames of the great fire and not looking at Hal. He hawked, then spat in the fire so that the sizzle made those nearest growl at his bad manners. Kirkpatrick’s grin back at them — travellers and pilgrims all — was feral, as befitted his pose as a hireling soldier, rough as a forge-file and not to be trifled with.
‘Had that from three of his kind, bone-hunting wee shites like himself. Heading for Compostella, says one o’ them.’
‘They ken it is him?’ Hal demanded and Kirkpatrick nodded.
‘Aye,’ he said in a whisper. ‘An ugly dung-drop who speaks strangely and is named Lamprecht? Not hard to find even if he keeps his name hidden. Besides, he was a known face to the wee priests here.’
Hal stared moodily at the fire, while the wind howled and battered. There was snow in that wind and the travel next day would be hard and slow — they would probably have to lead their horses for most of it, so there was another curse to lay at the door of the wee pardoner, whose cunning had robbed an earl and almost led Hal and Kirkpatrick and others to their death. Hal shifted and winced; the cut under his ribs was still scabbed and leaking.
‘Should have watched him closer in the first place,’ Kirkpatrick said, as if in answer. ‘Should have dealt with him and Jop both in that night.’
Hal turned brooding eyes on him.
‘Easy as that, is it? Killed then or killed soon,’ he replied bitterly. ‘Scarce makes a difference — murder is murder.’
‘Weesht,’ hissed Kirkpatrick, looking right and left. ‘Keep that sort o’ speech laced.’
He leaned forward, so that his lips were closer, his breath tickling the hair in Hal’s ear.
‘That bell did not ring itself and it was clear that was what wee by-blow Lamprecht came for, not any Rood or rubies. He rang it out and set us in the path o’ the English garrison for revenge and now he has the power to do the Bruce a bad turn, for the Earl has revealed himself in his desire for the Rood, as plain as if he had nailed his claim to the crown to the door of St Giles. And if the Bruce suffers, we suffer.’
‘Jop is beyond us. Lamprecht is a creishy wee fox,’ Hal replied, ‘who has contrived to get us killed and failed. He is running and will want to take his ill-gotten goods away. We should let him.’
Kirkpatrick made a head gesture to say perhaps, perhaps not. There was merit in the Herdmanston lord’s appreciation of matters — the wee pardoner was certainly headed south, from monastery to abbey, priory to chapel, all places where he was sure of a free meal and a safe bed for the night. But the wee bastard had the Rood and Bruce, for all that pursuing it was a danger to him — and so all those round him — could not see it pass him by and do nothing.
Returning to London was certainly not safe for Lamprecht, Kirkpatrick thought, so it may be that Hal has it right and Lamprecht was planning to carry on to the coast and a ship to France. Back to the eastern Middle Sea, where his riches could be sold with no questions asked and where his way of speaking would not mark him.
‘He was daft to try what he did,’ Hal muttered. ‘He must hold a hard hate for what we did to him that night in the leper house of Berwick.’
Kirkpatrick flapped a hand, keeping his voice low as he hissed a reply.
‘We did nothing much — showed him a blade and slapped him once or twice. He was fortunate — for his partnering of that moudiwart bastard Malise Bellejambe he should have been throat-cut there and then.’
‘Your answer to all,’ Hal replied tersely and Kirkpatrick looked back at him from under lowered brows.
‘That way we would not now be dealing with a nursed flame that will not be put out as easily as spit on a spark,’ he said. ‘Our saving grace is that the wee pardoner is stupid enough to try and play intrigue with the nobiles, whose lives entire are spent in makin’ and breakin’ plots and plans more cunning than any Lamprecht may devise.’
‘Like Buchan?’
Kirkpatrick nodded grimly.
‘Throw a Comyn in the air and ye discover a wee man thumbin’ his neb at a Bruce when he lands. Buchan has sent yon Malise in pursuit of Lamprecht, to find out what he has that the Bruce chases.’
‘Death for the wee pardoner, then,’ Hal growled sullenly, ‘no matter who reaches him first.’
Kirkpatrick, swaddling himself in cloak, surged with irritation.
‘Christ, man, ye are a pot o’ cold gruel,’ he spat in a sibilant hiss. ‘Make your mind to it — the wee pardoner
