quines dance…’
He broke off, suddenly aware he was babbling, then stared, embarrassed, at his feet and finally buried his nose in his cup and slurped.
‘The German Method,’ Bruce said slowly to the Dog Boy, ‘is how knights fight. One way. A Tourney way of fighting, though not much used, in preference to the French Method, which everyone seems to be at these days.’
He stopped, seeing the rapt, bewildered face of the Dog Boy, fixed on the words but understanding nothing.
‘There are two ways of fighting for knights,’ he went on, drunken careful, speaking only to the Dog Boy though Hal saw every eye was on him. ‘One is to train man and horse to charge straight at anything and bowl them over even if you miss with the lance. There are those who say that such a knight, on a proper horse, could burst his way through a castle wall.’
There were murmurs, half fearful, half admiring, from those who had seen heavy horse like this.
‘That is called the French Method,’ Bruce went on. ‘The German Method is to ride a lighter horse, training it to avoid contact with the other mount. To skip to one side. To dance. Once your enemy has passed you, you ride after him and, before he can turn his great beast, you strike him from where he least expects it.’
There was a collective ‘aaah’ of understanding and folk nodded to one another.
‘Like you did with the Gascon,’ the Dog Boy added.
‘Aye,’ Bruce answered. ‘I was trained that way by the Auld Templar. But the German Method is one for war, not the Tourney. So it is not much used now, because Tourneys do not like it. Not chivalric. They only call it “German” as an insult to those folk, because the real name should be “Saracen”. Those are the folk who taught it to the knights of Christendom, and an expensive lesson it was, too, though only a few took it to heart, the Auld Templar of Roslin being one. Not the way a knight is supposed to fight – the gentilhomme prefers the French way, simply because it is French. Lane du commun est toujours le plus mal bate,
The peasant donkey is almost always badly saddled – Hal wondered if he should translate it, but drink was creating a common tongue.
‘Wallace doesn’t fight like a Frenchie,’ said a voice from the dark, and the others laughed.
‘Sir William,’ Bruce said, choosing his words as if he fished in a purse to find whole coins that were not pollards, ‘is lately come to the nobiles. It is to be hoped he learns the ways of a knight well enough – but not the French Method.’
‘Is it hard to be a knight?’ demanded the Dog Boy and there were a few chuckles as this, from those who only saw a boy asking endless questions. Bruce felt himself dragged in by those dark, liquid eyes, as if pulled towards some centre far away; he felt a sudden fear and thrill mixed, as if he was a fledgling on a high place, teetering on flight’s edge.
‘Have ye plans to be a knight?’ demanded Will Elliott and, though the question dripped with ripe sarcasm, everyone was surprised when the Dog Boy shook his head vehemently.
‘No. I leave that to Jamie. I will be a spearman. They are the lads who win fights.’
‘From the mouth of a babe,’ Sim declared portentously.
‘Jamie?’ Bruce asked and Hal told him. Bruce nodded owlishly.
‘Young James Douglas in France, with Bishop Lamberton. He is now the lord of Douglas, though he is not of an age yet and Clifford now holds his lands.’
‘Jamie will get them back,’ the Dog Boy declared firmly. ‘When he is a knight. Is it hard to be a knight, lord?’
‘Hard enough, though the training for it is not the hardest part,’ Bruce answered and found he was amazing himself with what he was saying. ‘The hardest part is attending to the vows of it.’
‘What vows, maister?’
The question arrived with the inevitability of a rock rolling downhill. Hal was on the point of interrupting, seeing the strange, half-stunned look on Bruce’s face, when the earl spoke.
‘What vows would you have a knight take?’ he asked and everyone was silent, watching the Dog Boy intently, sensing there was something happening but not aware of what it was.
‘Speak up,’ Bruce demanded, staring round. ‘Jamais chat emmitoufle ne prit souris.’
The mice were safe enough, since all these cats remained muffled. Save one.
‘To never lie,’ the Dog Boy answered, screwing up his young face and remembering all the ones that had gone before – the one his ma had told him when she led him through the gate of Douglas Castle. ‘Just for a wee while’, she had said. ‘I will be back.’
Men nodded and chuckled their approval, though they did not know the boy’s reasons for the choice.
‘To not pizen dugs,’ the Dog Boy said and the murmurs were angrier, for all of the men knew his reasons for that one.
‘To nivver violet a lady,’ the Dog Boy declared, half remembering something Jamie had told him and suddenly, confusingly, aware of Agnes when Malise had come for her – and the Countess Isabel. There was a moment, a flash, of Agnes’s foot bobbing, with the Countess’s slipper trembling on the edge of falling.
‘Nivver violet a lady,’ echoed Bangtail and laughed. ‘Is that the same as makin’ yin a scarlet wummin?’
‘Even proper said that’s not a vow ye could hold to, Bangtail,’ Will Elliott chimed and everyone laughed. Hal saw the Dog Boy scowl, not realising what he had said and thinking they were laughing at him. To his surprise, he saw Bruce had noted the same and reached out to lay a hand on the boy’s hunching shoulder.
‘To fear God and maintain His Church,’ the earl declared, speaking to the Dog Boy and almost as much to himself. ‘To serve the liege lord in valour and faith. To protect the weak and defenceless. To give succour to widows and orphans. To refrain from the wanton giving of offence. To live by honour and for glory. To despise pecuniary reward. To fight for the welfare of all. To obey those placed in authority. To guard the honour of fellow knights. To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit. To keep faith. At all times to speak the truth. To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun. To respect the honour of women. Never to refuse a challenge from an equal. Never to turn your back upon a foe.’
He stopped; the silence was a cloak.
‘This we vow,’ he ended, almost in a whisper, for the image of the Auld Templar swam in him and the face was his father’s and he felt unmanned by the brimming of tears.
‘Aye,’ said Sim, bustling into the moment like a bull elbowing through a herd. ‘Noted more in the breach than the observance these days, your lordship.’
‘Sma’ wonder only Wallace can lead us,’ added Lang Tam Loudon sharply, ‘if all the grand gentilhommes of the realm struggle to joogle that in the air daily.’
Hal said a sharp warning word and Lang Tam subsided, but Bruce had heard and Hal waited for the thrust of that truculent lip. Instead, he got a face, raised up from looking at the ground and as despairing as a thirsting flower in a desert.
‘Aye,’ Bruce agreed. ‘It is to the shame of this realm that those charged with its protection have to lie and foreswear their vows to maintain their station and hold to the defence of it. And even that is sacrificed on occasion.’
He paused and raked them with a sudden glare and the wine-slack seemed to have fallen from him.
‘Mark me,’ he said. ‘There will come a day when the knights of this kingdom find their vows. Then our enemies had best look to their lives.’
There was a pause, then a low burr of approval, a small growl of sound that left Hal as amazed as he was at Bruce’s vehemence. Here was a Carrick he had not seen before…
‘You should never lie,’ the Dog Boy persisted and brought loud laughs that made him glare.
‘Aye,’ Bangtail declared, ‘ye are young yet to appreciate the need for a good lie, wee yin.’
‘Tell us,’ Bruce invited and Bangtail frowned, wondering if he was being cozened. But Bruce’s face was open and smiling, his eyes bright with wine and the moment.
‘Ach, yer grace – have ye never had a wummin come to ye with the ribbons ye bought her bound in her hair? Or a wee bit fancy cloth shawl? And she asks – how do I look in this?’
Everyone was nodding; even Bruce, whose smile was broader than ever.
‘Well,’ Bangtail went on, ‘d’ye risk the quim and tell her she will be a fat milcher even with a sack on her curly pow, but she is the only wummin for miles willing to part one leg from the other? No. Ye tell her she looks fine, or
