Life and death, he said.’
‘Life and death?’ repeated Kirkpatrick slowly, then curled his lip in a savage smile.
‘Death, certes – the only spital I know of in Berwick is a leper house.’
‘Christ be praised,’ muttered Bruce, crossing himself.
‘For ever and ever,’ intoned the others and did the same.
‘What could a leper house want with Sir Henry?’ Bruce added, half to himself.
‘A Savoyard,’ declared Elton, nodding and admiring his lead amulet. It took a moment for him to realise the air had frosted and he looked up to see haar-harsh faces looking back at him and then each other.
‘Savoyard,’ repeated Hal in a voice full of tomb dust and echoes. Elton nodded uncertainly, the throat suddenly constrained.
‘You are sure of this name?’
Again the nod. Kirkpatrick shifted and gave a grunt.
‘Life and death,’ he muttered.
Hal snapped from the moment and glared at him, all his suspicions flooding up in a rush.
‘Aye, right enow – death for the Savoyard if ye get yer hand on him.’
Kirkpatrick’s curse was pungent and the hand that flew to his dagger hilt was white at the knuckles. Elton gave a sharp cry and stepped back, fumbling for his own weapon – then Bruce slapped Kirkpatrick hard on the shoulder.
‘Enough.’
He turned to Elton and thanked him for his information, then waited, saying nothing, until the captain took the hint and scuttled off, muttering. Bruce turned to where Hal and Kirkpatrick glared at each other like poorly leashed dogs.
‘Sir Henry is in danger,’ he said and Hal rounded on him, ruffed up and snarling, sure now that he was right, that Bruce and Kirkpatrick were responsible for the death of the master mason and that they done it to hide some other sin.
‘Not him alone – d’ye kill us all, my lord earl, to keep your secret?’
‘Hist,’ said Bruce warningly, then let his glare dampen. ‘Time ye were told some matters.’
‘My lord,’ Kirkpatrick said warningly and Bruce waved his hand dismissively.
‘Christ’s Bones, what does it matter now?’ he declared savagely, resorting to French. Taking the hint, Kirkpatrick shrugged and fell silent.
Bruce looked around; they stood as a little knot out of earshot of everyone else. It was a sun-dappled garth, drenched with morning birdsong and bursting with budding life. Not the place for this, he thought to himself. This should be delivered in a tight-locked room of shadows and a guttering candle. He took a breath.
‘When it was clear what Longshanks intended for John Balliol and this kingdom,’ he began, ‘myself and Bishop Wishart decided to forestall him. Edward planned to strip King John Balliol and the realm of its kingship and he managed the first well enough – so well that King John, shamed wee man that he is, never wants to return here even if we conquered the English tomorrow.’
You would wish, Hal thought. Better still if King John Balliol melted away like haar in sunshine, rather than hag-haunt the throne you want for yourself. He said nothing, simply tried not to tremble with excitement and apprehension while watching Bruce scowl and search for suitable words.
‘Longshanks took the regalia of the realm,’ Bruce went on, ‘the Stone and the Rood and vestements for coronation. He broke the Seal into pieces.’
‘We all saw it,’ Hal declared, bleared with the sudden misery of remembrance. ‘A harsh day for the kingdom.’
‘Aye, well,’ Bruce declared. ‘He did not get the Stone.’
Hal blinked. Everyone had seen it, cowped off its twin plinths and sweated on to a cart to be taken south to Westminster. They had built a throne round it he had heard, so that every time Edward put his arse on the seat, he consecrated himself anew as Scotland’s rightful king.
‘You saw another stone,’ Bruce declared and his face was bright with triumph. Hal felt Kirkpatrick’s eyes burn on him, a clear threat; he preferred not to look into them.
‘Wishart had the idea from the Auld Templar,’ Bruce went on, ‘who knew this master mason, a Fleming who had been overseeing work at Roslin until matters brought it to a halt. The mason went to work at Scone to wait and see if Roslin’s ransoms left enough to resume rebuilding and was glad of the interest of a Bishop – glad, too of the promised purse, just for choosing a stone that looked the same as the one Longshanks planned to take. Then he used his Savoyard carver to make some of the marks expected and they switched it with the real one.’
‘This worked?’ Hal declared, astonished and Bruce’s chin came truculently up.
‘Why not? Few have seen the Stone up close and none of the English who took charge of it. They saw what they expected to see – a block of sandstone, with strange wee weathered and worn marks here and there, sitting where it was supposed to be.’
Right enough, Hal thought, his excitement rising. Which of those who knew would have risked speaking out?
‘The master mason, Gozelo,’ Bruce declared as if in answer, then continued: ‘He, in company with Kirkpatrick here, took the stone to the Auld Templar at Roslin, where it would be secreted away until the day it was needed.’
The day you sat on it, Hal realised, seeing Bruce’s face. The day you would need as much of the kingdom’s regalia as you could recover, to make you legitimate, especially if John Balliol still lived, sulking in the protective shadow of the Pope. By God’s Wounds, Hal marvelled, you had to admire the mountain of the man’s ambition and the length of his plans – he would not even be eligible to be crowned until his own father died.
Then he went cold. The mason, Gozelo, had been killed; Bruce saw the look and transferred it, with a brief glance, to Kirkpatrick, who had the grace to flush slightly.
‘The mason ran,’ Kirkpatrick growled. ‘An hour or two from Roslin, he panicked and ran. He did not wait for any promised purse.’
‘No doubt he thought you would pay him in steel,’ Hal snapped, reverting to Scots.
‘I had no such plans,’ Kirkpatrick snarled back. Bruce soothed them both like a berner with hounds.
‘No matter what was thought,’ he added, ‘the mason fled. Kirkpatrick had to take the Stone on to Roslin himself, where the Auld Templar and John Fenton took charge of it – the less folk involved, the easier the secret of it could be kept.’
‘The Auld Templar gave me a horse and told me to go after Gozelo,’ Kirkpatrick added sullenly. ‘He pointed out – rightly, for sure – that once he thought he was safe away, the mason would look to recompense himself and the only way to do that was get reward from the English by telling them how they had been duped.’
The Auld Templar – had he persuaded Kirkpatrick to red murder, or had that been Kirkpatrick’s own idea? Hal saw the truth of it, bleak as a wet dog, and remembered his father’s advice on the day of the battle at Stirling’s Brig: do not trust anyone, he had said. Not even the Auld Templar, who is ower sleekit on this matter.
Kirkpatrick saw the bleakness and shrugged.
‘Mak’ siccar, the Auld Templar said. So I did.’
Make sure. Hal glanced at the dagger hanging at Kirkpatrick’s waist; fluted, thin and sharp.
‘I took that ring from him,’ Kirkpatrick went on, his stropped razor of a face pale. ‘Took it back to the Auld Templar as proof the deed was done. He asked for such proof in particular.’
Hal glanced to where Kirkpatrick looked. The ring round his neck was Gozelo’s own, plucked from his dead finger and returned to Roslin. An auld sin…
‘Now you ken my interest in it,’ Kirkpatrick added wryly. ‘Rather than your dubious charms.’
‘The mason is to be regretted,’ Bruce broke in, frowning. ‘He was never meant to be found either, yet up he popped, like a fart at a feast, on a day’s hunting at Douglas.’
And there was the Curse of Saint Malachy at work, he added to himself, tangling my sin up with my own reins, to be hauled out for the world to witness.
Hal saw the Earl’s face and wanted to believe the shame and regret he saw there. Regretted only because he did not stay decently hidden, Hal thought bitterly, rather than because you had to red murder him. Hal remembered the hunt where Gozelo had surfaced – recalled, too, where the body had been taken and marvelled anew at the width and breadth of Bruce.
