orders from an earl and King Edward himself.
A girl, Agnes, fed Isabel bread soaked in watered wine and she had been grateful for that because of the thirst — then watched the girl steal her last jewel, a locket with his hair; she hoped Malise did not catch the quine, for there would be blood.
She wondered where Malise was. There had been too much blood already and she knew now that what had happened to her was the punishment of God for all her sins. She tried to call out her own name, but could not speak and all that came into her head was ‘ Ave Maria, gratia plena ’ and then ‘ panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie ’.
She lay in the tower room while they took away the shutters and made the window into a door leading to the cage they were fixing on the wall. When she was better — and the weather warmer, the castellan had insisted — she would be forced into the cage, in full view for most of the day, though she could retire ‘for purpose of her privies’ by asking her gaoler, Malise.
Blakebourne had also, for mercy, insisted that the cage be on the inside wall of the Hog Tower, so only the castle would see and not all the gawpers who chose to come up from the town itself.
Apart from the workmen, no-one came. When they had gone for the night, leaving her in the chill dark with the cold swooping talons through the open door-window, she breathed softly, easily, regularly. Started to count them — one, two. Out, in. Measuring her life.
She knew the dark was closing in. She liked the dark. In the dark she could dream up the sun of Hal and bask in it.
Closeburn Vill, Annandale
The day after…
They walked the market on a day of blue and gold and cheesecloth clouds, where breath still smoked and people bundled themselves up and stamped their feet. Closeburn was too small for a decent market and seemed to consist mainly of deals being done for the staples, the fleece skins of sheep slaughtered at Martinmas. Hal, who knew the business well, reckoned the clip would fetch a good price when it, in turn, was sold in the spring.
Kirkpatrick, chaffering and huckstering, dispensed good cheer and sold well, while Hal scowled and tried to keep his new-soled boots out of the worst of the mud. He felt guilty that Nichol had waterproofed them with pig fat while Kirkpatrick had been swiving his wife.
By the middle of the afternoon the glory of the day was gone back to iron and pewter, the dark closing in — but the deed, as Kirkpatrick said with satisfaction, was done; two cheapjacks had been seen plying their trade in the market and would now, unremarked, seek the hospitality of the castle, in the name of Christ and for a consideration to the Steward.
The Steward was a fat, harassed wobble and looked them up and down with some distaste. They had smeared fat on their faces against the cold and the charcoal dust had blackened it, while the rags wrapped round their hands against the freeze were grimy, the nails half moons of black.
‘For God’s Grace I cannot turn ye away,’ he grumbled, ‘but ye will eat at the end of the table and will share each other’s platters — I cannot see another wanting yer mucky fingers in his gruel.’
Hal knew that it was more the gift of silver than God’s Grace that had landed them at the Master of Closeburn’s table, while Kirkpatrick hoped the reference to gruel was a jest and not a reality in this place of poor commons.
The hall was well lit and Kirkpatrick slid in, mouse quiet and head down, keeping his pack close to him when he sat and taking it all in. Hal dumped his in a corner and joined Kirkpatrick at a bench, where they exchanged wordless information on what they saw.
The top table was dominated by empty high seats — the Master of Closeburn was absent again and Hal drew attention to it with a sharp nudge in Kirkpatrick’s ribs.
‘Chess,’ he whispered.
Kirkpatrick was scanning faces, relieved to see a few he knew slightly and who would know him only when he was not dressed so badly, or blackened of face. He had been more worried about the Closeburn women, but had suspected — correctly — that Closeburn’s fortalice was too dominated by soldiery for their taste; they would be in Auchencas, peaceful and unmolested.
Most of those at the low table, above and below the salt, were soldiery of some sort, or travellers like themselves. There were a peck of wool dealers from the Italies, a friar and a deal of rough-faced men that Kirkpatrick thought to be garrisoned here rather than passing through.
The top table held three only, one of them a knight of St John, dark and sinister in his black surcote with its white cross. Kirkpatrick did not know any of them and nudged Hal in turn.
‘The thin one with the fancy beard,’ Hal whispered. ‘ Or, a fesse between two chevrons, gules. That’s Fitzwalter’s arms — the crescent on it makes him a second son.’
‘There is a John, I believe, who did not go to the Church,’ mused Kirkpatrick softly. ‘All the Fitzwalters are retinued to King Edward’s son, the Caernarvon, so that explains them being here. How about the other — the younger one?’
Hal squinted while the noise washed the hall; a servant brought them dishes and slapped them down with poor grace, no doubt considering himself a cut above the ones he catered to.
‘ Or, three bougets sable,’ Hal said with a frown. ‘Again with a crescent. I know the device, but it should be three silver water butts on red, not black on gold — the arms of Ross.’
‘Ah,’ said Kirkpatrick, spooning pottage — surprisingly good — into his mouth. ‘The Wark end of the Ross family, not the Tain end. But the end is the same — where a Ross is, there are his captives.’
Hal felt a leap inside him — yes, of course. The Ross had holdings in England, at Wark on the Tyne, so perhaps this sprig of the family tree was here to escort Isabel and the others further south. The idea gripped him, almost sprang him to his feet to rush off and search — the wet nose of a questing hound brought him sharply out of the moment and he looked down.
It was a rough-coated talbot and the feel of it, the smell of the pennyroyal rubbed in its coat against fleas, brought the Dog Boy so harshly back to Hal that he had to bow his head to hide the unmanning of his eyes. He would never see the boy, or Herdmanston again, that much he was sure of. Once Isabel was rescued, he and she were gone from this God-forsaken realm…
There was a ripple down the length of the hall; the high table had called for entertainment and declared that all the lower orders must provide some form of it for their supper. The friar had started to sing in a surprisingly good, if unsteady voice and folk beat the tables appreciatively. One by one the wool dealers started in, with songs and capers and jests of varying success; Hal started to shrink his neck into his shoulders as the wave of it washed towards them.
Then the young Ross was peering the length of the table and pointing his eating knife.
‘You. You there — the babery at the foot.’
Folk laughed and Kirkpatrick immediately sprang to his feet and bowed, then capered with his arms long and his jaw thrust out, exactly like the baboon he had been compared to. There was a raucous roar of laughter and Kirkpatrick, from the corner of his mouth, hissed at Hal.
‘Jakes. Search.’
Hal slithered away, clutching his stomach and those that bothered to see him at all jeered. Kirkpatrick watched him go, then capered further, picking up plate, eating knife and, finally, the priest’s wooden spoon, juggled them briefly, then bowed again as people thumped the table.
The priest took back his spoon, staring at the imagined grime on it with distaste; Kirkpatrick bowed like a pretty courtier and apologized.
‘You should think before you act, my son,’ the friar sniffed piously.
‘As to that, Father, I have to say that it is God’s fault,’ Kirkpatrick answered. ‘For he gave Adam the means to think and a stout pizzle — but the ability only to work one at a time.’
The laughter was loud and long, inflamed by the rash of the friar’s outraged face.
‘Good,’ declared the knight of St John in French. ‘Do you perform other magicks? You are as black as any saracin.’
‘Not as skilled as any of those you have just called “robber” in their own tongue,’ Kirkpatrick replied in good English and saw the eyes of the Fitzwalter narrow. Good, he thought bitterly, let him know I understand French and the paynim tongue and am not the cheapjack I seem — well planned, Kirkpatrick.
