lung and every other filthy ague.
Fitting, then, that this street, bordered by lurching houses that drifted like timber-rotted ships in a slow wind of alley, should puke them out at the leper house of St Bartholomew, a shrouded ghost of stone in the shadows – save for one area, spilling butter-yellow glow out through the cracks of great double doors that led to a garth and then under an archway to the street.
The dripping band stopped and Bruce offered a grin to the Dog Boy. Dressed like the rest of them in plain tunic and rough cloak fastened with an iron pin, with no blazoned jupon or blaring heraldic shield, the Earl of Carrick looked like the Dog Boy’s da and was clearly enjoying the entire event.
Unlike Kirkpatrick, who did not like the idea of the heir to Annandale and the rightful throne of Scotland dressed like a peasant and putting his life in such danger.
He had said as much at length, about the foolishness of an earl of the kingdom plootering about, risking his neck in a foolhardy adventure with a band of scum. The band of scum had growled back at him for that – Bangtail Hob, Lang Tam, Sim and Will Elliott, all scowling angry. Even Hal had curled his lip, seeing he was included in the insult until Bruce had told Kirkpatrick, in a voice like the flat slap of a blade, to keep his teeth together.
Now they handed the reins of their stolid, dripping garrons to Will and slithered wetly away to their assigned tasks. Sim and Hal took up positions on either side of the great doors; no-one spoke and the Dog Boy, a loop of rough cloth over his head as a hood, took a deep breath and moved forward.
Hal felt his throat constrict at the sight of the lad, looking smaller than ever against the great double door, heavy with beams and thick with studded nails. Beyond it was the cookhouse, the yellow-red glare of it unable to be contained even by a door like this, because it was the one part of the spital that never slept.
From somewhere in the town, faintly pressured by the limp wind, came the drifting sound of instrument and motet voice – ahi, amours, com dure departie. It spoke to Kirkpatrick, achingly, of ale and wine and warmth and fug – more than that, it spoke of Oc and what he had done with the Cathars there, so that he almost grunted with the kick of it. Suddenly, this unknown little pardoner Lamprecht seemed to have conjured up all the smoke-blackened memories Kirkpatrick had thought long since nailed up behind the door in his head.
The Dog Boy had known about cookhouses from his time in Douglas. The way to get in had been his idea and the only reason he had voiced it at all was because a great earl, an individual so far above him as to be lost in clouds, had shared a cup and his innermost thoughts one night. The Dog Boy had been his man from that moment and spilling out his plan to approving nods had filled him with a sudden flooding sense of his own new value, so that the rush of it left him reeling and light-headed.
He hammered on the door with his nut of a fist, then kicked it hard because he wasn’t sure he had made enough noise.
Inside, the cookhouse sweaters paused as if frozen. Abbot Jerome looked at the helpers, lepers all in various stages of illness, yet with skills needed to bake bread and prepare food. The only cuckoo in the nest was the big- bellied Gawter, charged by Malise with watching this door and the kitchen staff. He blinked once or twice at the thump, but when it came a second time, he moved to the postern set into one of the huge gates and slid back the panel that let him look out.
At first he could see nothing, then a voice dragged his eyes down to where a ragged boy stood, hunched under a piece of sodden sacking, rain dripping off the end of his nose. Gawter had seldom seen a more miserable sight.
‘Away with ye,’ he growled, relieved to see it was only a laddie. ‘No alms from here.’
‘Beggin’ only the blissen’ of God an’ a’ His saints on ye sir,’ he had back. ‘I am here deliverin’, not askin’ – a good lady whose man has recently passed on delivers her grace on the spital, for the elevation of his soul.’
Gawter paused, licking his lips with confusion.
‘A brace of lambs,’ the boy persisted and Gawter turned in confusion to Abbot Jerome and had back an approving nod. The Abbot tried to make it all seem as natural as breathing, but the truth of the matter was that his heart leaped, for he knew a ruse when he heard one. The spital depended on donatives and was guaranteed a lamb and a pig every ten days, from the guild of merchants.
They were delivered, butchered and hung, since no sensible man eats freshly killed meat – and the last delivery had been four days since; the remains of carcasses hung and swung in plain view and his cook teams were, even now, slathering joints of it with fat, herbs and mint.
But Gawter did not know this and, though there was a chance that there really were two lambs from a grief- stricken widow, Jerome fervently prayed there was not, that this was help, by Divine Grace.
‘Aye,’ Gawter said, uneasy and uncertain, but aware that refusal of such bounty would arouse suspicion. ‘That’s brawlie, wee lad – be smart with it. As weel suin as syne, as my ma said…’
Hal heard the clack and clunk of the beam locks coming off, then the grunt as Gawter heaved the beam out of the supports.
‘Bring in your lambs, then…’ he began and the door heaved in on his face, crashing him backwards to slide across the floor into a cauldron, whose contents spilled and sizzled on his legs. Gawter yelled and scrambled away, beating uselessly at the scalding soak, staggered round and came face to face with a beard like a badger’s arse and a great broad grin splitting it.
‘Baa,’ Sim said and punched Gawter in the ribs – once, twice, three times. Only on the third did Gawter feel the strange sensation which he instinctively knew was sharp metal sliding into his body but by the time he had started to reel with the horror of it, he was already dead. Sim was sliding him to the greasy straw and flagstones as Hal and the Dog Boy wolfed through the door.
‘Christ be praised,’ Abbot Jerome declared, almost sobbing.
‘For ever and ever,’ answered Hal automatically, looking from side to side for other enemies. ‘How many and where?’
‘Yin other and the leader himself’ mushed a voice, coming forward so that Sim recoiled at the sight of the wasted ruin of a face. It grinned blackly at him, waving a ladle in one dirty, swaddled fist.
‘Christ’s Bones,’ Sim yelped, ‘keep your distance and your breath from me.’
‘Where?’ Hal demanded, ignoring the gravy baster. Jerome recovered himself enough to stammer out where the other guard was – watching the main entrance to the spital – and that the leader was in the Dying Room, with Henry Sientcler, a poor foreign soul giving himself up to God and said poor soul’s Flemish uncle.
‘God be praised,’ Sim declared and was moving even before the rote responses had sighed to a finish, a grin splitting his cheekbones at the thought of coming face to face, at last, with Malise Bellejambe. Hal followed on – Bruce was at the main entrance, Kirkpatrick his ever-present shadow, while Bangtail and Lang Tam were prowling, looking for other doors.
It remained only to make sure that Sir Henry of Roslin did not die.
Lamprecht had gathered up his bits and pieces, the precious relics box slung over one shoulder – and the equally precious contents stolen from Malise, an act of savagely triumphant revenge that left the pardoner grinning like a rat as he slithered into the shadows of the spital. There were many of them, for even the cheapest tallow was too expensive for this place and only essential places were lit.
One was the barred door to the outside world, with the crop-headed, ox-muscled lout called Angus lounging under the light, yawning and exploring the painful rot of his mouth with one huge, filthy forefinger.
The pardoner grimaced at the sight. Sensal maledetto – there must be another way out of this festering place…
He was moving carefully away into the cloak of the place, folding himself into the shadows and away from the ox when the clatter and yells froze him to the spot. It came, he was sure, from the kitchens; he saw Angus shove himself away from the wall, pause with a great arrow of indecision between his eyes – then leave the light and head into the dark, towards the kitchens.
Si estar escripto en testa forar, forar, he thought – if it is written on your forehead that you leave, you leave. In another second he was at the door. In one more he had the beam in both hands and was levering it out of the retainers.
‘Haw…’
The bull bellow nearly made Lamprecht shriek and it did make him drop the heavy beam, so that it clattered to his feet and made him dance backwards while it bounced dangerously near his toes. He looked up to see Angus staring black daggers at him and heading back towards the door.
Which burst in with a blatting crash and a gust of rain-fresh air.
