He strode brusquely across to the quiet dignity of Sir Richard Siward and stood over him until the man looked up, his gaze cold and level.
‘You have backed the wrong side,’ Bruce declared simply in French. ‘I spare you, all the same, if only so you can take this to the Plantagenet.’
He thrust out one arm with a sealed packet in it and, after a pause, Siward took it and nodded. Bruce took a deep breath and plastered a forced, wan smile on his face as he turned to the others.
‘Now, gentilhommes, look out your finest cloth — you are off to a coronation.’
Hal took the news into the yard, where the others were making some comfort in a portion of the stable that still had roof on it. They had started a careful fire, were heating pease brose and were less than enthused by Bruce’s coronation plans.
‘A bloody hard ride to Glesca,’ Mouse mourned, stirring the pot and savouring what he could see, which was all he would get of the meal in it.
‘Then to Scone, dinna forget,’ Ill-Made answered bitterly, ‘where kings are made.’
‘In the wet,’ muttered Sore Davey, looking up at the pewter sky through the raggles of remaining thatch.
‘Afraid of a wee bit damp?’
The voice brought them all round, the recognition took knuckle to forehead; Mouse dropped to one knee, as if Bruce was already crowned king. Bruce moved in to the lee of the stable, a slight figure in clerical garb following after, pot hung round his neck and a quill and parchment ready.
‘When yer lordship is ready,’ Hal said diplomatically, ‘there we will be, at your side. Rain or shine.’
‘Since ye hold the purse,’ added Dog Boy daringly and saw the eyes flicker with recognition when they turned on him, the raising eyebrows losing their annoyed arch.
‘I know you,’ Bruce said, at first only remembering the face from among those in Greyfriars — then it came to him. ‘Dog Boy.’
‘Aye, the verra same, yer grace,’ Dog Boy responded cheerfully; the cleric scribbled and Bruce saw Dog Boy’s quizzical look and smiled.
‘Brother Bernard of Kilwinning is documenting matters,’ he said, ‘for a chronicle. This is part of what you put up with when you take a throne.’
‘Aye, aye,’ Dog Boy answered, smiling. ‘Scribblings. Stappit with wee fa’sehoods and cheatry.’
Bernard bristled.
‘This is for a true Chronicle of Events,’ he blustered.
‘Where black is not dirt,’ Ill-Made Jock threw in, emboldened. Hal cleared his throat warningly.
‘Ach, man, yer scrapings are as hintback as a creepin’ fox with the truth,’ Dog Boy ventured and waved a careless hand, while Hal watched Bruce to see if the amusement began to turn like soured milk. ‘Like this — what have ye to say on this?’
Bernard harrumphed and made a show of consulting his notes.
‘The fortalice at Tibbers was taken after a gallant struggle and Sir Richard Siward surrendered unto the mercy o’ the king, who graciously spared his life.’
‘Aye, aye,’ Dog Boy said into the scoffs and jeers that followed that. ‘No mention o’ the ones who were not spared I notice.’
‘Some were put to death,’ Brother Bernard responded cautiously. ‘I could mention that, yes — in truth, I had thought to…’
‘Put to death,’ Dog Boy echoed and shook his grim, raggled head. ‘There’s nice for ye. Put to death. Much the better way to say how we had them kneeling an’ bashed their skulls in. Eh? Blood everywhere and screaming, my wee priestie, like a herd o’ freshly gelded nags.’
‘Some matters,’ Bruce said slowly, thoughtfully, ‘are best left out, so as will not frighten bairns or women.’
He looked at Dog Boy, who agreed with a firm nod and the air of a man not about to let go the bone of it; Bruce remembered the last time he had spoken with the Dog Boy, though he could not remember when. About honour and vows, though — he remembered that and how it had made him feel, spilling out his revulsion at himself like vomit.
‘What have ye to say about Red John’s murder, then?’ Dog Boy demanded of the priest and Hal almost leaped at him.
‘Steady,’ he began, stepping forward and not even daring to look at Bruce. Brother Bernard, however, was equally lost in the discourse of it.
‘Naw, naw,’ he answered, wagging a finger. ‘Murder it was not, for there was no forethought felony in it, nae praecognita malitia of any sort. Rather it was a hot, sudden tulzie, a melletum that is called in law “ chaud-melle”. Mind, in canon and common law baith, fighting is condemned — but God’s creatures has a passion of nature as it were…’
He saw the looks, realized who stood at his back and went worm-limp.
‘So it is argued, my lord,’ he added weakly.
‘I have heard,’ he added faintly.
Bruce’s head thundered at the memory of that slide of blade into Badenoch’s body, as if there was only the thick wool of his clothing, as if there was nothing beneath at all.
‘Gather your gear,’ Hal harshed out, snapping them all from the painful silence. Bruce managed a shaky laugh.
‘Bigod,’ he said, ‘I am seldom disappointed discoursing with Herdmanston men. Take good care of them, Sir Hal — and yourself. I have a singular task for you.’
Then he turned to the trembling cleric and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder with a jocularity that never quite reached the shroud of his face.
‘ Chaud-melle,’ he repeated. ‘Hot tulzie. I like the sound of that.’
Hal watched them go, Bernard of Kilwinning expounding his theory, Bruce appearing to listen. No forethought malice, Hal thought to himself — aye, that would sit better than what I suspect, though cannot quite bring myself to believe sufficiently.
That the entire event was planned, even down to the Bruce grief in it.
CHAPTER TEN
Herdmanston, Lothian
Feast of Saint Cuthbert of Dunbar, March, 1306
Even God rested on the seventh day, Hal thought, but Malenfaunt thinks himself greater than that — besides, he has the grim face of the Devil himself at his back, shaped for this occasion like the Earl of Buchan.
He and the young Patrick, heir to the earldom of March — here to legitimize the affair — had arrived at Herdmanston’s tower in a smoke of righteous power, ostensibly to assert the rights of Malenfaunt to Herdmanston and capture one of the foul slayers of the Lord of Badenoch — though the truth, as everyone on the besieging side was careful to step round, was more to do with Buchan’s wife and her lover.
There was a rustle and scrape as Sim scuttled to his elbow and both cautiously peered out between the roof merlons, the rain steady as sifting flour.
‘Is that the young Patrick there?’ Sim demanded and Hal raised himself a little to look. There was a dull thump of sound, a faint tremble up through the soles of their feet and both men instinctively ducked.
‘Mind yer head,’ muttered Sim, his badger-beard face dripping with sweat, rain and scowl. Hal slithered his back to the merlon, face to the wet-black sky; he did not think the springald bolts would be a danger to his head at this height, for they were aimed where they had been pointed since the arrival of the besiegers — at the Keep entrance.
The stout oak door, studded and banded with iron, had cost the enemy four dead and twice as many wounded to drench with oil and fire down to cinders and twisted hinge metal. Now the springald was trying to shoot
