Kirkpatrick sighed, for he could see the way of it – bad enough charging down on St Bartholomew’s without thundering on to the nunnery at St Leonards. He said it, knowing it would make no difference.
‘Aye – raiding lazars and nunneries is meat an’ ale to the likes of us,’ Sim declared cheerfully and drew out the long roll of parchment. ‘What is this?’
The truth was that Lamprecht did not know – he had stolen it from Malise for the dangling Templar seal – two knights riding a single horse. He considered that the most valuable item, since he could carefully remove it from the document and attach it to another, this one painstakingly scribed to provenance the relics of Elizabeth of Thuringia. A Templar seal was as good as truth and doubled the value of his relics.
Now he watched it unroll, saw the other seal on it, one he did not know, and wished he had had the time to study it more closely. Bruce plucked it from Sim, who only held it the correct way up because the seals were at the bottom.
‘It is a jetton,’ Bruce said, marvelling and squinting in the poor light. ‘For a hundred and fifty merks.’
Lamprecht groaned at the thought of what he had just lost.
‘Whit is a jetton?’ Sim demanded.
‘A wee tally note, stamped by the Templar seal and – well, well, the Earl of Buchan’s mark,’ Bruce explained, grinning more and more broadly. ‘The Earl has clearly deposited the money at Balantrodoch and now anyone with this document can go to any Templar Commanderie from here to Hell itself and put a claim on hundred and fifty merks of silver. See? You mark off the sums given to you in these wee boxes. Like a chequerboard, which is how the Templars reckon up the sums. The jetton are really the wee counters they use to shuffle from box to box to keep track of it all.’
They all peered and murmured their awe.
‘Usury,’ Sir Henry Sientcler said, as if trying to spit out dung. Bruce smiled grimly.
‘Only the Jews have usury, my lord of Roslin. The Templars say this is not money lent, but a person’s own money, held in safety for him. Still – they make a profit on the transfer.’
‘What is this jetton for?’ demanded Hal, beginning to see the possibility. ‘In this case?’
Bruce blinked, bounced the parchment in his hand and his smile broadened further.
‘For the ransom of a Countess, for certes,’ he said, then offered a wry smile. ‘I have about four good warhorses that cost as much. Cheap for a Countess of Buchan.’
Hal began to smile, but Bruce saw the muzzle curl of it.
‘Ransomed by this wee tait of writing back to her husband,’ Hal said, with a slow, grim smile. ‘By a man this Malenfaunt will never have seen.’
‘What about Lang Tam?’ demanded Bangtail, which sobered everyone in an instant.
‘We will take care of him, if you permit,’ Abbot Jerome declared. ‘Both for your rescue and the fact that the folk here feel, in part, responsible for his death. They did not know who was who when they attacked, ye ken.’
‘He had brothers and a sister at home,’ Bangtail argued bitterly.
‘We can scarce cart his remains, Bangtail,’ Sim answered, but gently. ‘Enough for his kin to know he has a Christian burial in a fine house of God.’
Bangtail looked at Sim, then away and shivered at the memory of the inmates of this fine house of God.
‘Best make like a slung stone,’ Sim declared, ‘rather than stand here like a set mill.’
‘I would be joining you for the fight of it,’ Henry Sientcler declared mournfully, ‘but I am under parole and so cannot raise a weapon against the English.’
‘If it is done right,’ Bruce said slowly, looking at Hal as he spoke, ‘there will be no fight in it – but, by God, there will be discomfort for the Comyn. Isabel MacDuff will be freed and Sir Hal may take her into his care.’
He laughed with the sheer joy of it.
‘Everyone is made happy,’ he declared, beaming.
The sudden, sharp sound of pealing bells made them all freeze and cringe.
‘In the name of God…’ Sim began.
‘The alarm,’ Kirkpatrick declared, but Lamprecht, to everyone’s astonishment, started a mirthless laugh and rattled off another sibilant trill of his strange tongue.
Hal only caught the word, repeated several times – guastamondo.
Kirkpatrick, his face pale and sheened in the flickering light, turned and translated.
‘This Lamprecht came across to London from Flanders,’ he growled, ‘and hurried on north, to York and then here. To be first with his wares.’
He ripped a medallion from round the pardoner’s neck, fierce enough to jerk the man and snap the cord.
‘To peddle worthless shite such as this to the feared and desperate.’
‘Swef, chiel,’ Bangtail muttered uneasily, ‘lest God takes offence.’
‘This dog is an offence,’ Kirkpatrick snarled, then wiped his sweat-sheened face as the bells hammered out in the background.
‘He says he came across with someone named Guastamondo and has beaten the news of it by a week,’ Kirkpatrick declared and would have said more, save that Bruce forestalled him.
‘ Guastomondo,’ said Bruce softly. ‘My father told me that was the name he had in Outremer. The Breaker of Worlds.’
Even the bells paused as he stopped and looked round them all, his face serious as plague.
‘Edward is back in England.’
No-one spoke for a moment, then Sir Henry cleared his throat and touched Hal’s arm.
‘We had best stir ourselves. This will put a heart we do not need into the garrison.’
Hal did not reply. He was staring at the medallion swinging in Kirkpatrick’s fist and reached out to grasp it. Then he fixed his stone gaze on the pardoner.
‘This,’ he said, holding the amulet up to dangle like a dead snake. ‘Tell me of this.’
The pounding at the door was a great, dull bell that slammed Isabel from sleep, spilling her upright. The nun who had been assigned to sleep at her feet – latest in an endless rotation of watch-women – came awake as suddenly, whimpering and afraid.
Clothilde her name was. She was from France, part related to the kin of the Malenfaunts there and dispatched all the way from the warm dream of vineyards to the cold stone and damp of Berwick by a family who wanted rid of an unwanted child. What happened to her mother Isabel did not know, but Clothilde had been here almost all her life, as an Oblate. Isabel, who had been here for almost half a year, shivered at the thought of such a time trapped in this eggshell of stone and corruption.
‘Men are coming,’ Clothilde said in a small voice. Isabel knew the child – she could hardly see her, even at fifteen, as a woman – feared the arrival of men and the reason for their coming. Malenfaunt, Isabel knew, took money and favours for allowing a select few to plunder the delights of a nunnery and, though some of the women were willing and depraved enough, some were not and Clothilde was one.
‘Come closer to me,’ Isabel said and the little Oblate scurried to her. I am her prisoner, Isabel thought with a wry twist of smile, yet she cowers behind my nightdress. She saw the scarred forearms of the little nun, knew that the girl sat and crooned hymns and psalms to herself when she thought no-one could see, slicing her flesh for the glory of God and an offering to the Virgin to rescue her.
The door slammed open so suddenly that Clothilde shrieked. The Prioress stood like a black crow with a candle, the sputtering tallow pooling her in eldritch shadows.
‘You are to come,’ she said to Isabel, then frowned at Clothilde. ‘Get away from there, girl.’
‘Come where?’ Isabel answered. The Prioress turned the scowl on her, but it was a pallid affair by the time it rested on Isabel’s face; long weeks of realising that this Countess could not be cowed by words and was not to be beaten by sticks had sucked the surety from the Prioress.
‘You are to be released.’
The words spurred Isabel into dressing swiftly, her heart and mind whirling. Freed.
She followed the Prioress through the dark corridors to the Refectory, which seemed to be full of men – her heart thundered at the sight of the tall, saturnine Malenfaunt, leaning languidly on the table and studying a document. He raised his head and was smiling when she came in.
‘My lord earl – your wife, safely delivered.’
Bewildered, Isabel stared at Bruce, who stared back and offered a stiff little bow.
‘Good wife,’ he said blandly. Then Isabel saw Hal and her heart threatened to leap out of her throat, so that
