arms outstretched and his scarred cheek pressed to the embossed pattern of the one in front of the chapel altar. The tiles were all different, each one a coat of arms of Les Neufs Preux, the Nine Worthies, and Kirkpatrick was not certain whether the King thought the pattern on that particular tile would have some holy benefit. Hector, he saw, the hero of Troy.
The King, a cruciform of repentance and thanksgiving, was naked save for the play of red and blue light streaming down from the stained windows to pool exactly where he lay. He stirred, looked sideways up at Kirkpatrick and smiled wanly.
‘I am breathing in the smell of holiness,’ he declared, half muffled by the press of his cheek. Holiness seemed a little like scented smoke to Kirkpatrick, though that might have been the remains of incense clinging to him from the Mass the King had recently attended with Abbot Thomas. Like wasps, priests droned somewhere in the distance.
Kirkpatrick watched Bruce raise himself and sit naked and crosslegged, his still-flat belly stained red and blue with light. He knew, more than anyone, what had sucked the juice from Bruce, all the same, after a flurry of activity that had seen the new king trail his weary mesnie north as far as Aberdeen to put the fear in those supporters of the Comyn.
Bruce had extorted money from east coast ports and flung merchants into prison as hostage for it, demanded military service from Perth and elsewhere, threatened the Earl of Strathearn with hanging if he did not swear to the new king. His supporters had captured Brechin, Cupar and Dundee.
Now, though, it was beginning to unravel. Percy and Clifford were methodically scouring the southwest. Dumfries had fallen to them, as well as Ayr — and Tibbers, where the luckless John Seton had been dangled by the neck like bad fruit.
None of that was what had driven the King to the altar of a private chapel. A simple roll of vellum had done that, brought by two Templars, one of them the same Rossal de Bissot who had snatched Kirkpatrick from the long drop to the floor of St Olave’s, who had gifted the Rood for the coronation.
Kirkpatrick did not know exactly what it said, but the rumour of it was flowing out, coupled to the feverish, gleeful cries of the Comyn supporters — the new king, usurper and murderer, was about to have the Holy Church’s saving grace withdrawn from him and the Pope’s writ of excommunication was due any day.
‘Everyone else enters life unsullied,’ Bruce murmured, half to himself while Kirkpatrick tried to ignore the raising hairs on his arms. ‘I entered already cursed by a saint and now I am burdened with such a panoply of sin. The Devil stalks me, Kirkpatrick.’
There was not enough cynic in Kirkpatrick to ignore such a statement and he peered right and left, as if to see it lurking, even in such holy shadows. Last year, near the Tweed, a priest had come upon an imp which had a lamb held in sharp-toothed jaws and had beaten it with his holy staff until it had finally dropped the beast and run off.
The local abbot had confirmed all this and Kirkpatrick had no reason to doubt it, so that a king — and all those who supported him — left without holy aid in a world of Satan was a doom better not contemplated. It was hard to ignore it, all the same, with Bruce’s peeling nose and raddled cheeks cause for fascinating concern that the Devil had already paid him a visit and smacked leprosy into him.
Suddenly, Bruce unreeled a list of instructions, hurried and hoarse, as if he wanted the taste of it out of his mouth; Kirkpatrick struggled to take it all in — the Cathar physicker had disappeared and Bruce feared the worst in it. Find the Cathar physicker and make sure he could never speak of the medical secrets he had been privy to. On the way, ride with two Templars, one of them Rossal de Bissot, the knight who had rescued him in St Olave’s, and make sure the pair reach Berwick safely.
Kirkpatrick nodded, as if he had fully understood, which was a lie since he did not see the need to hunt down and kill the little physician — unless, as he thought later, the wee heretic knew more than Kirkpatrick himself regarding Bruce’s condition.
The idea of that soured him, but he growled out a repeat of his instructions and said that it would be done, though he marvelled quietly at how God tests you even as you are planning your life and thinking it your own.
Once before he had dealt with Cathars and the stink of the burnings had so choked him that he had vowed then to have nothing more to do with such an unholy Holy War. Now his vows would have to be broken. Deus lo vult. He did not realize he had spoken aloud until the King replied.
‘ Ave Maria gratia plena,’ Bruce said beatifically, smiling at the dubious Kirkpatrick, whose loose-jawed gape was only a mild irritant on the peace he now felt.
‘Do not worry,’ he added as a soothe to Kirkpatrick’s face. ‘God has a Plan.’
Kirkpatrick, mindful of the new protocols even with a naked king, had bowed and backed out, his heart thundering, his body in flames and his mind like a fish in a cauldron about to come to the boil. He only hoped God’s Plan included reminding the new king to put on some clothes before he stepped from his private chapel.
He could not shake the sight from him all the way down to Cupar with the two disguised Templars — the King with his skelpt-arse face and his naked body of parti-coloured light and, above all, that gentle, sure smile as if it was the most natural thing to be holding court with his pintle hanging like a dog and his soul hovering on the brink of eternal damnation.
The Templars did not help Kirkpatrick’s cat-ruffle; for all their attempts at discreet, they rode like knights dressed like poor merchants, while they prayed and crossed themselves so often that a blind man could see they belonged to the Order. It was, Kirkpatrick thought moodily, head sunk into his shoulders against the summer mirr and the flies, more than likely that the Bruce Curse of Malachy had finally been translated, like the red pox, to himself.
Which is why it came as no surprise when they ended up in the middle of the Welsh archers. Round a bend, down a straight portion of ruts, round another, with the peewits’ call descending like a mourn at the end of the day and all their thoughts misted as breath on glass.
None of the three had anything in his head but a desire for hot food and a decent bed — and did not realize they were taken until the men were round them, grinning and jabbering.
Then the Templar called Jehan had whipped out his sword from under his cloak and launched himself with a hoarse cry of ‘ Deus lo vult ’ which did not help. Kirkpatrick grabbed de Bissot’s bridle, dragged his horse away as the knight fought his own weapon out.
‘Leave him — he is giving you a chance,’ he roared and Rossal de Bissot saw it, even as Jehan cut down two archers, the palfrey circling and baiting. It was no warhorse, all the same and Kirkpatrick saw the Welsh, cursing and scattering, were recovering themselves and dragging big arrows on to their warbows.
Rossal wrenched the head of his horse round just as Kirkpatrick’s attention was locked on the desperately fighting Jehan and his hand on Bissot’s bridle — the jerk wrenched it from his fist and himself from the back of his own horse, the whirling tumble of it a momentary confusion, the thump that bellowed the air from him a harsh pain.
None of it drove out the leaden sound of hooves drumming off into the distance — and the harsh irony of how he had saved de Bissot at the cost of himself.
There was the sudden scuffle of feet, a spray of muddy grit into his face, a sauce for it of Welsh curses, harsh as a spitting fire. Then he was hauled up into the square block of face belonging to an archer wearing a studded jack and a dark scowl; behind him, he saw Jehan’s horse struggle to its feet, limping. The knight lay face down in the mud.
The dark scowl, clearly the leader, did not have much time for anything other than to make sure Kirkpatrick was disarmed before de Valence appeared, bareheaded but armoured and accoutred — Kirkpatrick knew him at once, the blue and white striped magnificence trailing a mesnie of serjeants behind him.
Then a figure shoved from behind the proud hawk of de Valence and Kirkpatrick felt the spear twist inside him at the sight of that battered, stained face.
‘Kirkpatrick,’ Malise Bellejambe said, his voice juiced with the relish of it. He sat back in his saddle while de Valence and the Welsh scowl exchanged information and, for a moment, there were only two men, Malise and Kirkpatrick, alone in the whole of splendid creation and horn-locked at the eyes.
‘God is good,’ Malise said and twisted his bruise of a face into a long, brown smear of smile, then turned as de Valence dismounted.
‘Make sure he has no daggers hidden about him, Your Grace,’ Malise informed de Valence viciously, fawningly climbing off his own horse so he would not be looking down on his betters.
