And Hal, for all he stood wrapped in a warm cloak, hand on the hilt of a sword and guarding the back of the Bruce, had not wanted to be here at all. Dog Boy knew this because he had heard him say so, loudly and at length, when the rider had come to Herdmanston.
‘I am his liege man, so he can summon me for service without thought. But each time I do this I put myself more at the mercy of the Earl in Dunbar.’
Dog Boy knew, vaguely, that Herdmanston belonged to Roslin first and the Earl Patrick second, but was not sure exactly how this worked. He knew, also, that Hal was talking to the Countess, because he always spoke clear English to her rather than Braid. Dog Boy also knew he should not be listening, but did so all the same, pretending to fuss with the deerhounds in case anyone happened by.
‘Besides,’ Hal went on, ‘what of the other matter? Did he have a hand in Wallace?’
Isabel’s voice was soothing and strong, laced with good sense and tinged with love — as good a balm as any Dog Boy had treated cracked paws with.
‘If he did we will never know of it, so best not to dwell on that. Besides — we have our own guilt there.’
‘I could refuse.’
Hal’s voice was flat and cold as a blade in winter.
‘He offers the usual pay,’ he added, ‘but we do not need it with what you brought. I could tell him to go to the De’il.’
‘Best leave that hoarded up where we hid it,’ she declared. Her voice was soft, yet there was steel in it, like the fangs at the edge of a velvet maw, Dog Boy thought, afore it bites you. ‘It is more dangerous in the light of day than in the dark and so cannot be of value in these times at least. Yet there is more to supporting Robert Bruce than siller, my Hal, and you know it. There is what happened in the deer park to set the seal on it, if even seal were needed.’
Hal had given in, of course and, when Dog Boy heard it, he turned his fondling of the hounds to a farewell. Next day, they had left Herdmanston — Hal, Dog Boy, Mouse, Ill-Made Jock and Sore Davey, leaving Sim Craw as reeve and having to ride off under the sour arch of his scowl at being left behind.
Now Hal stood watching the Bruce’s back, feeling the cold seep up through the worn Greyfriars flagstones and wondering at the greeting he had had when he’d arrived, straggling into Lincluden under a pewter sky and a rain fine as spray.
‘Stay close,’ Bruce had said, the welted cicatrice on his cheek writhing like a lilac worm as he spoke. ‘I will have need of good men I can trust here.’
The flickering rushlight did nothing for his face, nor that of Kirkpatrick at his back and the three of them sat in a sparse nun’s cell like plotters.
Afterwards, Hal wondered how much had actually been plotted before he had arrived — or why he was needed in it. Once he might have gathered fifty good riders to him, hobilars all — but that was ten years gone and most were dead or too old and worn by war, while the young went with other commanders. Younger ones, Hal thought morosely, with more belly for the work of herschip raiding.
Belly, he realized, was what he lacked these days and nothing made it plainer to him than the day he rode a handful of men to Greyfriars, to find Bruce slithering himself into a maille shortcoat, hidden under the loose length of a brown wool gardecorps. The hood of it was drawn up and tightened under his chin to hide the cheek-scar from view; it wept still, that scar and Hal marvelled at how it never healed. Perhaps there had been poison on Malenfaunt’s blade?
He dismissed that, remembering that Bruce had plucked the dagger from his cheek and rammed it under Malenfaunt’s chin, into his mouth, pinning and slitting his tongue. Malenfaunt spoke in mumbles these days, Hal had heard, but had not suffered from any poison.
At the time, Bruce’s hidden maille had seemed more than prudent, for this was an awkward meeting in a town dominated by Comyn and their supporters — the very kirk, Greyfriars, had been founded by Red Comyn’s grandmother, the formidable matriarch Devorguilla, at the same time as she had laid the stones of an abbey so she could be kisted up alongside her husband. Sweetheart Abbey it had become as a result and a powerful icon of the Comyn.
Yet Bruce need not even have been here, sheriff’s court or not, for Longshanks himself would not be attending — sick in a monastery, surrounded by the arm of St David, a portion of the chains of St Peter and a tooth said to be proof against the thunder and lightning of God’s wrath.
‘Mayhap he has over-exerted himself,’ Kirkpatrick had said wryly when this news reached the Bruce cavalcade and those who knew that Longshanks’ queen was pregnant again laughed.
Yet Bruce had sent riders off to request a meeting with the Lord of Badenoch not long after and no-one was the wiser over it — not least the Lord of Badenoch, standing there as straight and tall as he could make himself, arms behind his back to thrust out his chest and the red badge on it. Gules, three garbs, or; Hal smiled, as he always did when he recalled his father dinning the lessons of heraldry into a boy who only wanted away to the trout and calling fields.
Badenoch stood near the altar, watching the brown-clad Bruce cross the flagstones towards him. Like a monk’s arsehole, he said to himself. Does he think dressing in a parody of piety would allay suspicion?
He was also aware of the men Bruce had brought into the church with him — three, as was permitted on either side, armed as befitted their rank, but unarmoured. Behind him, Red John had his uncle Robert, big and bluff with what appeared to be a squirrel settled in a dangled curve under his nose. Then there was Patrick Cheyne of Straloch, the best tourney fighter the Comyn had — and, for the provocation in it, the battered scowl that was Malise Bellejambe.
Red John had planned this last because he had expected Bruce to bring his shadow, Kirkpatrick — but his eyes narrowed when he saw Bruce’s chosen men precede him into Greyfriars, stiff-legged as wary dogs. Seton was to be expected, a dark eagerness of a Lothian man married to Bruce’s sister — but then came the Herdmanston lord, cuckolder of Buchan, which brought a surge of rage lancing through Red John. Followed by a youth of no account at all, one Red John knew to be no more than a kennel lad for Herdmanston and that was an additional slap of insult.
But his face was stone as Bruce came up, opening his arms wide to receive the kiss of peace.
Bruce saw the wee papingo that was the Lord of Badenoch, reaching on to the tippy-toes of his high-heeled, blood-red half boots to match Bruce’s height for the purse-lipped lie of the cheek kiss, which only bussed air on both parts.
Red John wore a brimmed hat and a bag-sleeved wool cotte in dark green, with his badge on the heart side — the three gold wheatsheaves on red. Since the Buchan badge was blue, this red blazon gave the Badenoch Comyn lord his nickname.
‘I understood we had a truce,’ Bruce said when they had stepped back from one another and the launch into it took Red John by surprise, for he had been expecting more in the way of effusive pleasantries.
‘Nothing was agreed,’ he answered warily, then shrugged, ‘but nothing has been done to you and yours.’
‘Sir Henry of Herdmanston was set on by four men,’ Bruce said, whacking the words out like blades whetting on stone. ‘He was fortunate to escape with his life.’
Now he knew why the Herdmanston lord was here; Badenoch’s eyebrows went up and he had half-turned towards Bellejambe before he could stop himself. Bruce realized that Red John had known nothing of the attack, which meant it had been arranged by Buchan on his own; the Lord of Badenoch would not like that, Bruce thought. He was the power in his family by virtue of his royal claims — but it must be hard to keep an earl leashed.
‘Losing grip on your own hounds, Badenoch?’
Red John swallowed his temper and managed a shaking smile.
‘Are the Comyn to be responsible for every brigand and trailbaston in the Kingdom?’ he countered.
‘No brigands these,’ Bruce answered sharply, ‘with the same amount of coin in each of their purses — payment for a deed. The price for them was high, mark you, since all are killed.’
‘No doing of mine,’ Badenoch replied, stung as much by the failure of the ill-planned event as by the event itself — and the fact that Buchan had embarrassed him with it. ‘Besides — the Herdmanston lord has a private quarrel, as well you know.’
‘Such quarrels risk much and gain little,’ Bruce replied. ‘A strong king in the realm would put an end to them, if he valued his crown.’
Red John sighed. Here was the meat of it, the same old litany.
