‘We scattered the Invaders at the Old Glen,’ he went on, ‘while Angus Og and his men killed many good warriors and took a deal of their provender as plunder.’
He broke off and looked round at them all.
‘But the Invaders are like lice. If you do not kill them all, they will simply return.’
There were nods and grunted agreement at this — then a man stood up and held out his hand. Dog Boy knew him as Gillespie a small chief from somewhere that was barely in the Kingdom at all. He did not like the man, the way he did not like strange dogs.
‘I am Gillespie, known as Erkinbald of the True People of Auld Burn in Cawdor,’ he said, sibilant slow. ‘I have listened to His Honour and seen the Lothian lord who stands with him. It is all very fine that this Lothian lord has come to defend the birthright of the True People of Auld Burn and very fine that we are gathered here to do the same.’
He stopped and looked round at the others while Neil Campbell muttered the meanings to Hal and the wind flared into the silence, flurrying snow and flattening the flames.
‘I did not see anyone here defending the birthright of the Auld Burn folk when the Irishers raided, even though they had to cross some of your lands to get to us. Nor do I hear the Lothian man telling me how he and his wee handful will kill all the lice.’
Again he paused and folk stirred, some eager to reply but bound by the conventions of the oak branch. Others had their hands out, but were silent still.
‘My father’s father,’ Gillespie went on with maddening slowness, ‘fought against your people, Grann. Seventy-four different battles. My father never passed a day without shedding the blood of either Grann’s folk, or of less than kindly neighbours to us. I myself have fought the Invaders fourteen times. You claim we are all of one blood, but if the Invaders had not come to these lands, we would be fighting each other, or even the lowland men from Lothian, who send priests to turn us to their way of God and away from the old way of our own saints and Christ priests.’
There was a flurry, like a shadow of wind and, suddenly, Grann had the stick and was almost nose to nose with Gillespie, who took a surprised step away from the man snarling at him. He spat out the words like the sparking of wet wood, looking round the fire-blooded faces.
When he had finished, he waited, standing stern as an old tree, while Neil Campbell spoke the English of it to the Lothian lord. Then he went on, with the same bitter rage as if he had not stopped.
‘There is Gillespie, whose father’s father fought mine and lost as much as he won. Whose father fought all his neighbours and gained neither land nor honour from it. Who himself fought the Invaders — who still burned him out. Until he came here with all the rest of us, he has never won.’
He broke off and slashed them with his feral stare while Neil Campbell bent to murmur the translation only in Hal’s ear, glancing uneasily at Grann, for he felt the tension coiling in the snow wind.
‘I know my father’s deeds and his father before him,’ Grann spat, the Gaelic liquid as flowing fire, ‘but I also know what I myself have done. I have fought these English and everyone who supports them, be it MacDougall or MacDonald, every day of my waking life since good king Alexander died.’
There was a half-angered, half-shamed shifting among the MacDonalds at that, for there had been a birling of politics beyond The Mounth since Bruce had taken the throne.
Before it, the MacDougalls had been patriots and the MacDonalds pro-English; now the reverse held true, though Hal was black in his thoughts that it could all change, just as easily. No matter which of them supported Bruce, Hal knew, the other would take the opposite stance, for old feuds would not suffer a MacDougall and a MacDonald to stand shoulder to shoulder.
‘There has never been a day I did not take a head to preserve in oil,’ Grann went on and folk shifted uneasily at that, which was altogether too heathen for Christian men to hear.
‘But Gillespie is right in one thing,’ Grann went on, ignoring them. ‘Not all blood is the same. These English have blood that is black, like the belly-blood of slaughtered hogs, fat with the best of our own land. The blood of the Lothian lord’s people is red, but flows thick and slow. The blood of the Auld Burn people is thin and clear — like water.’
There was a howl at that and Gillespie hauled out his only weapon, an eating knife. There were yells and growls and, eventually, Neil Campbell signalled to his own men and they waded in, dragging people apart.
Neil himself took Grann by the arm and led him out of the circle, taking the stick from him as he did so. He handed it to Hal and then called for silence; the Dog Boy saw the Lord of Herdmanston, slightly embarrassed, turning the stick round and round in one grimy hand.
Hal did not know what to say or what he thought Neil Campbell wanted him to say. He no longer cared whether King Robert ruled or ran away, only that he had enough power left to help him free Isabel and could be persuaded to use it.
Hal could not believe how bestial these trolls were and did not envy anyone trying to rule them. These were the ones left to defend the Kingdom? He wanted desperately to gather his men and ride back to the Lothians, to ferret out the whereabouts of Isabel and leave all this dog-puke rebellion alone — but Sim Craw was raving sick and he had two men left to him in all the world.
He needed food and shelter. He needed news on Isabel and where she was. So he smiled at them and nodded to Neil to translate his words.
‘The gathering in… this place,’ he announced, forgetting what these skin-wearers called the bowl-shape in the wilderness, ‘is so that you can all settle your differences…’
‘This new king,’ said a voice, sing-song sibilant and speaking English the way a man walked in new shoes, ‘is he a Wallace or an Empty Cote?’
The man was white-haired, bland-faced as oatmeal — at least what could be seen of his expressions under the great smoke-puff of hair and beard. Hal knew he was a rebel MacKenny chieftain from the true wildlands which belonged to the Earl of Ross and had a holding on the shores of a loch Neil Campbell called Ma-ruibhe in the Gaelic. Even in a land as strange as a two-headed goat, this Alaxandair Oigh caused his neighbours to blink.
‘There is an island in his loch,’ Campbell had told Hal, ‘where Saint Mael Ruaba has a shrine and where many folk are buried. There is a tree there, an oak and on it are nailed many bull’s heads, for they sacrifice there in the old way. To get to this island you have to brave the loch’s monster, the muc-sheilch. Truly, these folk are not like us.’
Coming from the likes of Neil Campbell, that was almost laughable, but Hal was chilled to the marrow by the tale of Alexander the Elder and had no mirth left in him. For all his lightness, Neil himself was careful around the old chief.
‘You should have demanded the stick, Alaxandair Oigh,’ Neil Campbell said sternly, though Hal heard the deferential politeness in his voice. The old man waved a hand.
‘Aye, aye. A Campbell puts me right, so he does — yet the question remains, wee stick or no wee stick.’
The silence fell like the sift of snow. A Wallace or a Toom Tabard — a fighter or a kneeler? Hal marvelled at how far and fast the legend of Sir Will had gone — and how the future of the King himself depended on it. Trolls or not, these were the only forces left.
‘He is the King,’ Hal replied carefully. ‘Wallace was Wallace, Balliol is his own man still. King Robert is also his own man — but if you want to know if he will fight, then let me say that his knees do not bend and the only way his cote will be stripped is from his dead body.’
There were approving growls when Neil translated that and Alaxandair Oigh nodded thoughtfully; amazed at himself, Hal realized that he actually believed what he had told them and the rest of it spilled from him, unbidden.
‘Your folk are gathering for this,’ Hal went on to his face. ‘It will be a foolish leader who, in years to come, has to tell his children that he missed out on the saving of the Kingdom and its king because he was cold and did not like his neighbours.’
That brought laughter and Hal handed the stick back to Neil Campbell and stepped away, glad to be rid of the whole matter. He went swiftly to Sim Craw’s sickbed, followed by the padding faithful of Dog Boy and Chirnside Rowan; they all looked down at Sim, seeing the pale of him and the fat sweat drops popping out on his forehead like apple pips.
Then they looked at each other, these last three and could find nothing to say. Hal tucked the blankets tighter round Sim, hoping that what he felt on them was cold and not damp, though it was hard to tell with his numbed
