‘The servant only — across the door. We will needs deal with him.’
Hal locked eyes with him, knowing what Kirkpatrick meant. He shook his head, mimed a blow and Kirkpatrick, after a pause, shrugged. He moved close to the sleeping bundle across the threshold, knelt and put the fluted dagger in the man’s heart at the same time as he smothered his mouth. There was only a brief whimper and then stillness, so that when Hal came up, all bristling with silent outrage, Kirkpatrick straightened, wiped the dagger and shrugged.
‘Always best to mak’ siccar,’ he hissed and opened the door.
The room was warm, the brazier on a slab still glowing like a fierce red eye. There were three beeswax candles in tall holders streaked with old meltings and the light was a glow on the two men, heads almost touching, bent over the chess set; they looked up with astonishment as Hal and Kirkpatrick stepped in, the latter dragging the body of the servant and closing the door.
‘Who in the name of God are you?’ demanded one, starting to rise, but Kirkpatrick was round on him like a stoat on a rabbit, the long dirk winking like gold in his fist.
‘Easy, kinsman,’ he said with a vicious grin and Sir Roger, the Master of Closeburn, sat down heavily, one hand at his throat.
‘Black Roger,’ he said faintly.
‘The same.’
‘Where is Isabel?’ demanded Hal, looking round in bewilderment and then at the other player. ‘Who are… wait. I ken your face.’
‘So ye should,’ Kirkpatrick declared and moved swiftly to disarm his namesake of his dagger. ‘Yon is the wee man who treated us both at times, for injuries gained in the service of his liege lord.’
‘The physicker,’ Hal said uncertainly. ‘Bruce’s doctor.’
‘What do you want here?’ demanded the Master of Closeburn, recovering enough to try and reassert himself; Hal saw him clearly for the first time and was struck how like Kirkpatrick he was. You could not miss the kinship, Hal said to himself, though the Master was older, heavier of face and body.
It was a marvel Kirkpatrick had not been spotted the minute he stuck his face inside the castle — but then the face had been black as a Moor’s and no-one would have given a wee cheapjack a second glance. Still — Hal now knew why Kirkpatrick had looked so sweated, having to stand with all eyes on him and the possibility of his likeness to his namesake kinsman imminent.
Kirkpatrick nudged him impatiently out of this, indicating for him to search the physician for arms and, when that was done, turned back to his namesake, now sitting upright and tensed as if to spring.
‘I would unlatch that look,’ Kirkpatrick said, ‘if I were you, kinsman. A word or deed misplaced will see you trying to stuff yer blood back in yer throat with both hands.’
‘Whit why are ye here?’ Sir Roger demanded again, though he unclenched a little.
‘He is here for me,’ said the physician quietly and Kirkpatrick chuckled and nodded. Hal looked from one to the other, then back to Kirkpatrick.
‘What is this? Where is Isabel?’
‘Isabel?’ repeated Sir Roger. ‘Isabel who?’
‘Coontess o’ Buchan,’ Kirkpatrick answered smoothly, then threw something on the desk, where it tinkled and spun slightly; a ring, Hal saw. The physician reached out one hand and lifted it as though his fingers had suddenly become fat sausages that did not belong to him.
‘I took it from Creishie Marthe at Methven,’ Kirkpatrick said, ‘who had fresh cut it aff the finger o’ a wee man-at-arms whose shield told his allegiance — Closeburn.’
‘Robert Haws,’ Sir Roger said, almost wearily. ‘He never returned. We never found trace of him at all.’
‘Aye, weel, he is dead, certes, since I saw Creishie Marthe slit his throat wide. Ye are goodly shot of him,’ Kirkpatrick answered, ‘for he was the thieving wee rat who stole James of Montaillou’s most precious possession. Being a prisoner, poor wee James could hardly protest and you would not have cared much then, kinsman — until ye discovered what secrets this physicker had to tell. Secrets to bring a rich reward from Edward of England.’
He nodded at the doctor, sitting stunned and holding the ring.
‘A singular ring,’ he went on, ‘which I noticed more than once when ye were tightening wraps on my ribs and slapping stinging ointment on my bruises.’
He stopped and grinned savagely at Hal, who stood like an ox, as stunned as the physician and the Master of Closeburn by all this.
‘If ye look closely at it,’ Kirkpatrick went on, speaking rapidly now, ‘ye will see it has a hand, a heart, a bag of gold, a death’s head and some fine wee writing in Langue D’Oc that says: “These three I give to thee, Till the fourth set me free.” I surmise the fourth has set the wummin free.’
‘She was my wife…’ the doctor said, then stopped and bowed his head.
‘Until ye became a Cathar. Did ye renounce the world as a Perfect? Or did she?’
James of Montaillou groaned and turned his anguished face on Kirkpatrick.
‘You know. You have seen. You were there.’
Kirkpatrick nodded grimly.
‘I was there. With Fournier and D’Albis during the risorgimento.’
Hal heard the bitter venom in his voice, knew it for the shame it was and was surprised. He knew the names of Jacques Fournier and Geoffrey D’Albis, resolute prosecutors of the Inquisition; so that had been Kirkpatrick’s crusade — against the Cathars in Carcassone. Small wonder he knew the lands of Oc, songs and all — and the lingua franca of the likes of Lamprecht.
‘Was she a “Bonne Femme”, my wee runaway?’ Kirkpatrick went on, vicious and soft. ‘Yin of these women who have achieved complete denial of the flesh you folk say is the province of the Devil? Yin who would no longer suffer resurrection back into it and so could die happy?’
The physician bowed his head and sobbed; Hal shook himself and growled. He did not know what Kirkpatrick was talking about, but the ‘bonne femme’ brought back why he was here and what Kirkpatrick was doing to the wee Bruce physicker. He might just as well have stuffed embers under the man’s fingernails.
‘Enough of this — the Coontess o’ Buchan,’ he spat. ‘Lady Mary Bruce and the child, Marjorie. Where are they kept?’
Sir Roger opened and closed his mouth a few times, then saw Kirkpatrick’s face and laughed, a sharp, nervous bark.
‘Is that why you are here?’ he demanded and laughed again so that Hal lifted his own dagger a fraction in warning.
‘They are gone, weeks since,’ the Master of Closeburn said. ‘Mary Bruce is in a cage at Roxburgh by now — the Coontess o’ Buchan similarly prisoned at Berwick. The wee lassie went south to a convent — Christ’s Bones, a man who had jaloused I had a Cathar here would have kent that the wummin were long gone.’
He smiled, a lopsided sneer, looking at Kirkpatrick’s stone face, then at Hal’s stricken one.
‘Ye have been cozened, sirra — and ye will hang with this one, mark me. A word from me…’
‘And ye die,’ Kirkpatrick declared, then turned into Hal’s stare.
Hal knew the truth of it; Kirkpatrick had known Isabel was long gone from here, had used him to help in this task — whatever it was. He did not know what business Kirkpatrick had with his kinsman or Bruce’s physicker, but the sick certainty in it was red murder, of which he had been made a part. Again.
Kirkpatrick saw the sea-haar grey cloud Hal’s eyes, knew it well and grew alarmed.
‘Hal, there are matters here beyond ye…’ Kirkpatrick began and then reeled as he was struck. With a cry he stumbled back and fell — Sir Roger immediately leaped up, heading for the baldric hanging in the shadows and the sword sheathed up in it.
‘Ach — no. Hal — have sense…’
Hal saw Sir Roger’s rabbit bolt and, by sheer instinct, went after him. James of Montaillou saw his chance and sprang for the door — caught a foot in the bundle of the dead servant and fell headlong, clattering loudly into the door.
Cursing, Kirkpatrick spidered his way upright, scrabbled across to where James of Montaillou lay, moaning; there was blood coming from his head and Kirkpatrick found the frantic trapped-bird beat of his heart beneath his tunic, felt for the right spot with his fingers — individually wrapped, he thought with a vicious triumph — and slid the dagger in.
