The Lion at Bay

CHAPTER NINE

Winchester Castle

Feast of St James the Almsgiver, January, 1306

Feeding the Hungry. Clothing the Naked. Burying the Dead. The bright hangings wafting gently in the thin breeze of the cathedral glowed with a piety that could not balm the anger of the droop-lidded king of England.

‘Is he likely to say more?’ Edward demanded and Monthermer looked apologetic.

‘He has been put to the Question at length,’ he answered carefully, ‘but all we know is that he is called Guillaume of Shaws and was a notary in the service of Bishop Wishart. If he had not gotten himself stinking drunk in Berwick and babbled, we would not even know that much, your Excellent Grace.’

‘A notary,’ Edward muttered, sitting in the wool-swathed chair of Lancelot, both hands flat on the table. Somewhere, drifting on the iced wind, the slow, rolling chant of the monks celebrating the feast day clashed with the clamouring masses begging for the alms that had brought them in ragged flocks.

Edward wished they would shut up, but did not voice it aloud; he was already aware that his reputation for magnanimity, piety and regal magnificence had been badly damaged by Wallace. He had been matched up against a rebel outlaw from the wild land of Scotland and ended up looking mean and petty; the thought burned him, an ember irritation in his bowels which even the thought of this great Round Table he’d had made could not balm.

A splendid thing, the table. For a tourney in celebration of Arthur and the Grail, though Edward could not remember when that had been. When he had been enthused for tourneys and the ideals of Arthur, he supposed, which had all dissipated after Eleanor died.

‘With respect, father, surely all we know is that this man spoke rebellion in his cups. Why is he considered as more?’

Edward looked at his son, taking in the violet silk of him. Before this one, he thought. I had this table made before he was born, when I was young and strong and the best knight in Christendom, when I thought of all the powerful sons I would make to glorify the Kingdom I would create here.

Now there is this one, the only one God saw fit to leave standing, so no doubt He has a plan for him. I cannot see it, he added to himself and sighed, taking on the wearisome burden of educating the boy in the staringly obvious.

‘A notary of Wishart? Young, well-educated with a neat, perjink beard, a knowledge of letters and Latin and with ambitions thwarted and a deal of resentment. He did not growl rebellion, he babbled of plots, involving folk of high degree.’

His voice, rising as he spoke, was finally brought under control, but with difficulty, so that his son took a step back, then recovered himself.

‘Gaveston says…’

‘Gaveston says, Gaveston says.’

It had been a mistake and the younger Edward knew it as the spittle flew from his father’s lips.

‘Gaveston can kiss my arse,’ Edward thundered. ‘As I hear he has been doing to your own.’

‘The prince,’ Monthermer interjected smoothly, ‘simply means, I am sure, that we have no firm proof that this man plots anything other than vague vengeance against Bishop Wishart, who dismissed him, it seems, for repeated drunkenness. The man actually laughed when he was accused of plotting with the Comyn against Your Grace.’

‘Laughed?’

Monthermer inwardly winced; wrong revelation for the time, he thought and began feverishly to summon a way out of it.

‘Laughed,’ Edward repeated ominously. ‘If you cannot even put a man to the Question but that he finds humour in it, it is hardly surprising we have no evidence. I suggest you wipe the smile from the man’s face — take his damned notary beard with it if needs must.’

‘He is dead,’ Monthermer blurted out. ‘Such was the questioning we put him to that he decided to stand before God rather than admit anything, my liege. We certainly have no firm evidence we can use as justification for dismissing the Earl of Carrick from Your Grace’s pleasure.’

He allowed his voice to tail off, knowing the King would pounce on this, as a string dangled to a cat; Monthermer looked pointedly at the young prince, who nodded brief thanks and stepped away from the conversation.

‘Bruce,’ Edward said, staring at nothing. He liked the Earl of Carrick, but did not trust him in anything other than to oppose the Comyn.

‘The Comyn,’ he said aloud.

‘Indeed, my liege,’ Monthermer agreed. ‘It seems uncommonly like it is that family who are still bent on causing trouble. But it is hard to tell — the Bruce and Comyn are at each other’s throats.’

‘They are all plotting,’ Edward rasped. ‘I can hear them, like mice in the rushes.’

Monthermer spread his hands and offered nothing better than an insincere blandness of smile.

Edward glanced up at the smooth, urbane Earl of Gloucester and did not trust him one whit more than any of the others, even those who professed unstinting loyalty. He trusted Monthermer at all because he held the title Earl of Gloucester only during the lifetime of his wife, Joan de Clare; it would revert to her son when she died and Monthermer’s only hope of advancement then was for the King’s benifice. Edward trusted in ambition and greed.

The Earl’s advice was sound, all the same. Nevertheless, the thought of rebellion soured Edward; he was sixty-six years and eight months old, the oldest king England had ever had. His many territories were at peace, his authority was supreme and, for all his age, he was fit and healthy. God, he thought, has seen to it that I am preserved. For a higher purpose, surely.

The long-held urge for Crusade still fired his veins, held back by war and the rumour of war — by Christ’s Wounds it would not erupt again like some festering ulcer and keep him from God’s purpose.

He rose, stoop-shouldered and draped in a fur which failed to keep the cold from him, then scraped the heavy Lancelot chair back from the table. It came to him that the only time he had ever been warm in this place was when he and the Queen had almost died in the fire that ravaged it three — no, four — years since.

He’d pondered on it having been deliberately started, but eventually concluded that, like all plots, no-one would dare connive against his throne while he was alive. The idea sprang up like a soldier sown from Cadmus’ dragon teeth.

‘The mark of a man,’ he declared suddenly, his smile fox-feral, ‘is what he would do if he knew he could get away with it.’

‘Indeed,’ Monthermer answered, wary and none the wiser.

‘I am due in Dumfries soon,’ the King declared suddenly.

‘A sheriff court,’ Monthermer agreed. ‘A mean affair, but a statement of matters so that all the great and good Scots lords will attend, to prove their devotion to your liege.’

‘And the not so good,’ Caernarvon interjected, though he was ignored save for a warning glance from Monthermer.

‘I will not attend,’ Edward declared, drawing the fur round him. ‘I feel a chill in my bones. I feel close to death’s door, so that relics must be fetched for their efficacy and relief.’

Monthermer, puzzled, hovered uncertainly, then the light broke on him and he smiled admiringly.

‘Indeed,’ Edward declared like a lip-licking cat. ‘Let us see what mice scurry out when they think this old puss is too done up to hunt them. Meanwhile — gather up every name this notary gave out. Put them all to the Question and see if they find laughter in it.’

Greyfriars Kirk, Dumfries

Feast of St Scholastica, February, 1306

His breath smoked, blue-grey in the frosted chill of the kirk and Dog Boy wondered why it was that holy places were never heated, as if it was a sin to be warm. In truth, Dog Boy was trying hard not to think of the wee Lincluden nun with the sweet smile and big eyes, the one who had giggled at him before being hurried off by an outraged matron with a face like a winter apple.

They should never have been at Lincluden at all, but Dumfries was stuffed to the rafters with the great and the good and all their entourage, so that the English justiciars had taken over the castle and the Vennel and the Comyn were in Sweetheart and Greyfriars, which belonged to them.

In truth, the Bruce had come with too many men — a hundred or so and few of them servitors, which was twice as many as anyone else — and so the Benedictine nuns of Lincluden, a mile up the Nith from the town, had had to scurry off and double up in their cells, clucking protest and outrage as they were descended on.

In truth. Was there such a thing as truth left? Dog Boy doubted it, for all was mummery here; the retinues of the Comyn and Bruce, with their lesser and greater supporters, all walked round each other, stiff-legged and ruffed as hounds while smiling and calling out greetings through gritted teeth. They all openly snarled at the English, all the same.

And Hal, for all he stood wrapped in a warm cloak, hand on the hilt of a sword and guarding the back of the Bruce, had not wanted to be here at all. Dog Boy knew this because he had heard him say so, loudly and at length, when the rider had come to Herdmanston.

‘I am his liege man, so he can summon me for service without thought. But each time I do this I put myself more at the mercy of the Earl in Dunbar.’

Dog Boy knew, vaguely, that Herdmanston belonged to Roslin first and the Earl Patrick second, but was not sure exactly how this worked. He knew, also, that Hal was talking to the Countess, because he always spoke clear English to her rather than Braid. Dog Boy also knew he should not be listening, but did so all the same, pretending to fuss with the deerhounds in case anyone happened by.

‘Besides,’ Hal went on, ‘what of the other matter? Did he have a hand in Wallace?’

Isabel’s voice was soothing and strong, laced with good sense and tinged with love — as good a balm as any Dog Boy had treated cracked paws with.

‘If he did we will never know of it, so best not to dwell on that. Besides — we have our own guilt there.’

‘I could refuse.’

Hal’s voice was flat and cold as a blade in winter.

‘He offers the usual pay,’ he added, ‘but we do not need it with what you brought. I could tell him to go to the De’il.’

‘Best leave that hoarded up where we hid it,’ she declared. Her voice was soft, yet there was steel in it, like the fangs at the edge of a velvet maw, Dog Boy thought, afore it bites you. ‘It is more dangerous in the light of day than in the dark and so cannot be of value in these times at least. Yet there is more to supporting Robert Bruce than siller, my Hal, and you know it. There is what happened in the deer park to set the seal on it, if even seal were needed.’

Hal had given in, of course and, when Dog Boy heard it, he turned his fondling of the hounds to a farewell. Next day, they had left Herdmanston — Hal, Dog Boy, Mouse, Ill-Made Jock and Sore Davey, leaving Sim Craw as reeve and having to ride off under the sour arch of his scowl at being left behind.

Now Hal stood watching the Bruce’s back, feeling the cold seep up through the worn Greyfriars flagstones and wondering at the greeting he had had when he’d arrived, straggling into Lincluden under a pewter sky and a rain fine as spray.

‘Stay close,’ Bruce had said, the welted cicatrice on his cheek writhing like a lilac worm as he spoke. ‘I will have need of good men I can trust here.’

The flickering rushlight did nothing for his face, nor that of Kirkpatrick at his back and the three of them sat in a sparse nun’s cell like plotters.

Afterwards, Hal wondered how much had actually been plotted before he had arrived — or why he was needed in it. Once he might have gathered fifty good riders to him, hobilars all — but that was ten years gone and most were dead or too old and worn by war, while the young went with other commanders. Younger ones, Hal thought morosely, with more belly for the work of herschip raiding.

Belly, he realized, was what he lacked these days and nothing made it plainer to him than the day he rode a handful of men to Greyfriars, to find Bruce slithering himself into a maille shortcoat, hidden under the loose length of a brown wool gardecorps. The hood of it was drawn up and tightened under his chin to hide the cheek-scar from view; it wept still, that scar and Hal marvelled at how it never healed. Perhaps there had been poison on Malenfaunt’s blade?

He dismissed that, remembering that Bruce had plucked the dagger from his cheek and rammed it under Malenfaunt’s chin, into his mouth, pinning and slitting his tongue. Malenfaunt spoke in mumbles these days, Hal had heard, but had not suffered from any poison.

At the time, Bruce’s hidden maille had seemed more than prudent, for this was an awkward meeting in a town dominated by Comyn and their supporters — the very kirk, Greyfriars, had been founded by Red Comyn’s grandmother, the formidable matriarch Devorguilla, at the same time as she had laid the stones of an abbey so she could be kisted up alongside her husband. Sweetheart Abbey it had become as a result and a powerful icon of the Comyn.

Yet Bruce need not even have been here, sheriff’s court or not, for Longshanks himself would not be attending — sick in a monastery, surrounded by the arm of St David, a portion of the chains of St Peter and a tooth said to be proof against the thunder and lightning of God’s wrath.

‘Mayhap he has over-exerted himself,’ Kirkpatrick had said wryly when this news reached the Bruce cavalcade and those who knew that Longshanks’ queen was pregnant again laughed.

Yet Bruce had sent riders off to request a meeting with the Lord of Badenoch not long after and no-one was the wiser over it — not least the Lord of Badenoch, standing there as straight and tall as he could make himself, arms behind his back to thrust out his chest and the red badge on it. Gules, three garbs, or; Hal smiled, as he always did when he recalled his father dinning the lessons of heraldry into a boy who only wanted away to the trout and calling fields.

Badenoch stood near the altar, watching the brown-clad Bruce cross the flagstones towards him. Like a monk’s arsehole, he said to himself. Does he think dressing in a parody of piety would allay suspicion?

He was also aware of the men Bruce had brought into the church with him — three, as was permitted on either side, armed as befitted their rank, but unarmoured. Behind him, Red John had his uncle Robert, big and bluff with what appeared to be a squirrel settled in a dangled curve under his nose. Then there was Patrick Cheyne of Straloch, the best tourney fighter the Comyn had — and, for the provocation in it, the battered scowl that was Malise Bellejambe.

Red John had planned this last because he had expected Bruce to bring his shadow, Kirkpatrick — but his eyes narrowed when he saw Bruce’s chosen men precede him into Greyfriars, stiff-legged as wary dogs. Seton was to be expected, a dark eagerness of a Lothian man married to Bruce’s sister — but then came the Herdmanston lord, cuckolder of Buchan, which brought a surge of rage lancing through Red John. Followed by a youth of no account at all, one Red John knew to be no more than a kennel lad for Herdmanston and that was an additional slap of insult.

But his face was stone as Bruce came up, opening his arms wide to receive the kiss of peace.

Bruce saw the wee papingo that was the Lord of Badenoch, reaching on to the tippy-toes of his high-heeled, blood-red half boots to match Bruce’s height for the purse-lipped lie of the cheek kiss, which only bussed air on both parts.

Red John wore a brimmed hat and a bag-sleeved wool cotte in dark green, with his badge on the heart side — the three gold wheatsheaves on red. Since the Buchan badge was blue, this red blazon gave the Badenoch Comyn lord his nickname.

‘I understood we had a truce,’ Bruce said when they had stepped back from one another and the launch into it took Red John by surprise, for he had been expecting more in the way of effusive pleasantries.

‘Nothing was agreed,’ he answered warily, then shrugged, ‘but nothing has been done to you and yours.’

‘Sir Henry of Herdmanston was set on by four men,’ Bruce said, whacking the words out like blades whetting on stone. ‘He was fortunate to escape with his life.’

Now he knew why the Herdmanston lord was here; Badenoch’s eyebrows went up and he had half-turned towards Bellejambe before he could stop himself. Bruce realized that Red John had known nothing of the attack, which meant it had been arranged by Buchan on his own; the Lord of Badenoch would not like that, Bruce thought. He was the power in his family by virtue of his royal claims — but it must be hard to keep an earl leashed.

‘Losing grip on your own hounds, Badenoch?’

Red John swallowed his temper and managed a shaking smile.

‘Are the Comyn to be responsible for every brigand and trailbaston in the Kingdom?’ he countered.

‘No brigands these,’ Bruce answered sharply, ‘with the same amount of coin in each of their purses — payment for a deed. The price for them was high, mark you, since all are killed.’

‘No doing of mine,’ Badenoch replied, stung as much by the failure of the ill-planned event as by the event itself — and the fact that Buchan had embarrassed him with it. ‘Besides — the Herdmanston lord has a private quarrel, as well you know.’

‘Such quarrels risk much and gain little,’ Bruce replied. ‘A strong king in the realm would put an end to them, if he valued his crown.’

Red John sighed. Here was the meat of it, the same old litany.

‘We have a king, my lord. He is called Edward. And if there is not him, then there is another, a Balliol one called King John, lest you had forgotten.’

Bruce leaned forward a little, his voice hoarse, his face, framed by the cowl of the hood, strained and seemingly anxious.

‘The truth of that is clear,’ he answered. ‘King John is a broken reed, unlikely ever to return to sit on a throne in this kingdom.’

Which was, Red John had to agree, a palpable truth but one to which he would never admit, least of all to a Bruce.

‘The clergy of this kingdom require a king,’ Bruce went on, galloping along on an argument which, Red John realized, he had long rehearsed. ‘They demand one, for a kingdom with no king is not a kingdom at all — Longshanks has reduced Scotland to a land, my lord, subject to the laws of England and the bishops here will not have an English-appointed archbishop. They will not have a king interfering with the right of the Pope alone to sail in the Sees of this realm.’

‘Sail in the Sees,’ repeated Badenoch with a wry smile. ‘Very good, my lord. Very good.’

‘Not my own,’ Bruce answered at once, which rocked Badenoch’s boat once again; he was not enjoying the pitch of this conversation and fought to bring the helm of it back to a course he was more comfortable with.

‘Bernard of Kilwinning,’ Bruce went on, ‘pronounced the words of that, together with the doctrine that a king of this realm has a contract with the community of it — and, if he does not fulfil it, the community is entitled to remove him.’

‘I have heard all the wee priests of Kilwinning and Wishart and Lamberton cant this from every pulpit and market square they can reach,’ Red John replied laconically. ‘It makes little difference to the reality of matters.’

Now it was Bruce who was brought to a halt, blinking.

‘The community are unlikely to choose a new king from any but a legitimate line,’ Badenoch went on smoothly. ‘Else any horsecoper or cottar — or a wee lord from Herdmanston — could put himself forward for it.’

He paused, looked at Bruce with a sly peep.

‘Or Wallace,’ he added poisonously.

‘Agreed,’ Bruce countered swiftly. ‘You should know, my lord, that the clergy favour myself.’

Now there was a flat-out treason, breathtakingly brazen as a lolling whore, so that Red John had a moment, of which he was all too aware, of working his mouth like a fresh-caught fish.

‘Wishart, Lamberton…’ Bruce counted off the clergy of the realm on his gloved fingers, while Red John’s mind raced. This had to have been agreed in a meeting. A plot, by God.

‘So you see it clear, my lord of Badenoch. The tide flows in my favour. I realize that you have your own claims to this, but our feud with it defeats the purpose our bishops urge us to fulfil. That God urges us to fulfil. For the good of the realm, my lord, we must resolve this matter.’

Red John found his voice at last, though it was a twisted, ugly parody of it, hoarse with anger.

‘You dare preach to me of the good of the realm,’ he said, his voice so low and trembling that Bruce could barely hear it. ‘You? You forget who it was who defended this kingdom, who put life and fortune at risk to fight. While you turned and twisted and bowed and scraped. What did we get from it, this honourable fight? Near ruin and imprisonment — I am only lately returned to freedom. Others are yet in peril, who would not bow the knee — Wallace is betrayed and murdered for one — while you, my lord of Annandale, gained a wife and all her lands.’

He paused, breathing heavily; he and Bruce locked eyes like rutting stag horns.

‘Yet I would do it all again,’ Red John added in a growl, ‘for a rightful king of this realm. And neither you nor your threats nor your promises will keep me from it.’

There was silence for a moment, which was only because Bruce was fighting his own temper, beginning to realize that Red John was not about to be swayed and that revealing his compact with the bishops had been a step too far. Yet he was on the path and the only way was forward…

‘There can be a rightful king of this realm,’ he answered carefully, ‘though it requires your consideration, my lord, as leader of the Comyn. If I am crowned, with Comyn approval, I will not be slow with reward — Carrick and Annandale would be laurels to the Comyn.’

Red John’s eyes narrowed; he knew Bruce’s brother coveted those titles, so the bribe was daring, if not a little desperate.

‘Do not oppose the bishops’ choice, whatever it may be, at the very least,’ Bruce added.

‘The bishops’ choice?’

It was hissed out, with all the venomous bile released by a knife in a dead sheep’s belly.

‘Yourself, of course,’ Red John went on, his face ugly with sneer. ‘You consider yourself a rightful king, chosen by God Himself.’

It was not a question and Bruce did not quite know how to reply, caught between his desire to shout it out and the shackles of prudence that had kept it secret for so long. In the end, he opened and closed his mouth a few times and said nothing.

Red John climbed up on to the tips of his toes and leaned a little, his scythe of red beard quivering as vibrantly as his voice.

‘Even if John Balliol is a broken reed,’ he declared, soft and vicious, ‘he has a son. Even if the son fails, there is myself. Even if I fail, there are other Comyn more fitting to be rightful king of this realm than you, my lord of Annandale. This you must know, for even if Plantagenet, that Covetous King, took advantage of the moment, the conclave that decided you were not fit to rule was fair and legitimate even then.’

He flicked one hand, no more, on to the Bruce shoulder, a sneering dismissal.

‘God has a plan for this realm,’ he spat, ‘but you do not feature in it as king, my lord. If you declare yourself openly as the usurping bastard you are in secret, you will find a Comyn opposing you at every turn.’

The flick tipped the pan of it, the arrogant sneer of it bringing the memory of when Red John had grabbed him by the throat — Jesu, actually laid hands on an Earl of Carrick. The rage filled Bruce, consumed him, for what he had failed to do then and what had burned him ever since when he thought of it.

He was aware of a bright, white light with a voice at the centre, which might have been God or Satan but was polite as a prelate’s servant as it put the question to him. He felt the dagger hilt under his hand, had it out and slammed into the ribs of the posturing little popinjay who opposed him, all in the time it took to answer ‘yes’.

Red John felt the blow, could scarcely believe that Bruce had dared to strike him and then, with a sudden, savage twist of fear, felt the tug and heard the suck of the dagger coming out. There was a burning sensation and his legs trembled.

Bruce stared at what he had done. The thunder of it was loud as a cataract in his head and he saw Badenoch teeter backwards on his high heels and start to bend and sag, so he dropped the dagger and reached out to support him, an instinctive gesture.

The blade clattered on to the stones, bounced and twisted, little drops of blood flying up like rubies, the sound ringing like a bell; every head came up.

Seton got to the centre of it first, with a bull roar to alert Hal and the Dog Boy, dragging his sword out with a grating hiss.

He was a step ahead of Red John’s uncle Robert, whose bellow of outrage drowned Seton and rang round the Greyfriars stones. He sprang towards Bruce, his own blade clearing the scabbard and whirling above his head.

Seton grabbed Bruce by one arm, spilling the Earl backwards even as he cut viciously down on the springing Robert Comyn. Hal saw the blow slice into the flesh of the man’s neck, heard the sinister hissing of it and the surprised little yelp Robert Comyn made as his head parted company with the rest of him, all save for a raggle of flesh.

‘Get him away,’ Hal yelled to the Dog Boy, who bundled the flap-handed, stumbling Bruce away while Hal and Seton, panting like mad dogs, closed shoulder to shoulder, backing away from the fallen, bleeding figures; Robert Comyn’s body writhed, his feet kicking furious splashes from the lake of his own blood.

Malise wanted no part of this. Cheyne of Straloch, equally paralysed, was starting to haul his blade out and Malise had no doubt that the thick-headed, barrel-bodied lout would plunge forward like a ravening wolf…

‘Murder,’ he yelled and sprinted for the back door of the chapel. ‘Murder. A Comyn! Murder.’

Hal and Seton looked at each other and backed off towards the kirk’s front door while Cheyne plunged towards them, stopped uncertainly, then knelt by the fallen Badenoch, unable to do much than flap a free hand while watching Hal and Dog Boy slither backwards out of the chapel.

Whatever happened now, Hal thought wildly, red war has returned to the Kingdom.

An hour later

The smoke was pall-black, thick as egret feathers and the English justiciars sat under it, miserable with surrender; Sir Richard Giraud wisely flung open the doors of the castle and Bruce men spilled into it, led by Edward, his great slab of a face grim as black rock. The English hovered uncertainly, fearful of what might be done to them and not even sure what had happened.

They were not alone in their confusion. In the hall of the fortress, the brothers Bruce and a few chosen straightened up overturned benches and sat, the Bruce himself a silent, floor-staring effigy.

‘Has he spoke?’ Edward demanded suddenly, rounding on Kirkpatrick, who pointed to the head-hung Bruce and didn’t have to say anything more. Edward tore off his maille coif and scrubbed his head with frustration; he had learned that there had been a ‘tulzie’, that Badenoch and his uncle were down, probably dead and the perpetrator of it sat shivering and muttering about the ‘curse of Malachy’.

Edward fought his own rising panic about that Bruce plague. He had sent riders to inform their supporters to gather their forces and had managed to take Dumfries from the quailing English by bluster and threat of burning. The Comyn, though, were still around and no doubt sending out for their own forces — the whole affair was as messy as dog vomit and his brother, the head of the family, was a gibbering uselessness.

‘Innocent blood.’

The voice turned him round, into the anxious, raised face. Edward looked at his brother and thought he looked as he had when he was six and in trouble; it was not a look he cared to find on the Earl of Carrick and Annandale, the man who would be king.

‘What happened, brother?’ he demanded, for the umpteenth time. He had heard from Hal and Seton and the dark youth they called Dog Boy, but had not learned much about what his brother had actually done to Red John Comyn. Stabbed him, he had heard — but there was a pinking poke and there was a paunch-ripping thrust and Edward did not know which his brother had done.

Bruce’s grip was sudden on Edward’s wrist, a talon that pulled him close, into the anguish.

‘God forgive me, Edward, for I have sinned. In a house of God, no less — the curse of Malachy…’

‘In the name of Christ,’ Edward thundered, snatching his hand back so vehemently that his brother was almost jerked from the bench, ‘what did ye do to him?’

‘No doubt I have killed him.’

The answer was low and hoarse and filled with pain and fear. Hal almost went to the man to lay the comfort of a hand on his shoulder, but that was a step too far and he hovered on the brink of it.

‘Ye doubt ye have killed him?’

The question was sharp and harsh, bringing all heads round to where Kirkpatrick, eyes feral and narrowed as a hunting cat, looked from the stricken Bruce to the brothers, one by one.

‘By God, no,’ Alexander said suddenly, seeing the way of it, while Niall and Thomas blinked and shuffled uncertainly. Without Robert, Hal realized suddenly, they are lost.

‘You have a good heart, brother,’ Edward said to Alexander, his French thick and hoarse, ‘but one unacquainted with such work as this. Use your vaunted head, all the same — you are clever enough to see how this must be played out.’

There was silence for a heartbeat while this sank in; the timing was rotten as wormed oak, but the sense of it was clear — there was no going back from an attack on the Lord of Badenoch. The Bruce faction was now at war with both Comyn and English and, if they were to have a chance of winning, the head of it must be declared king of Scots. The eyes turned to the figure on the bench, still shaking and now gnawing his nails.

‘No point to any of it,’ Kirkpatrick growled, ‘if Red John still lives.’

The truth of it hung over them, heavy as the smoke pall outside.

‘Red John was the impediment to matters,’ Kirkpatrick went on and would have said more, but Edward interrupted him.

‘See to it,’ he ordered. ‘Then we must be away from here…’

‘God in Heaven,’ whispered Bruce. ‘The curse of Malachy…’

Edward rounded savagely on him, almost unmanned himself by the summoning of that old Bruce plague.

‘Enough, brother — get yer wit back. What’s done is done and the path we ride now needs clear heads.’

‘Will ye come?’

Hal stared at the grim-eyed Kirkpatrick, knowing with sickening surety what was intended and that Kirkpatrick could not carry it out on his own.

‘Mak’ siccar,’ Kirkpatrick added. Hal nodded.

They came out into the twilight streets, where the stone houses of the rich were the colour of old blood and the shutters barred. No-one walked abroad save themselves, prowling like a pack of wolves, all ruffed and snarling; Ill-Made and Mouse and Sore Davey followed Dog Boy and Kirkpatrick and Hal, turning this way and that, flexing anxious knuckles on drawn weapons, for there was little need of propriety now.

Somewhere lurked the Comyn and their supporters, who had been surprised and scattered, though it would not be long before they recovered themselves — at which point, it would be best to be elsewhere, Hal thought.

James Lyndsay of Donrod agreed, wiping his dry mouth with the back of one hand and shifting nervously from one foot to the other. He had been set to watch the front of Greyfriars with a parcel of his own men, equally hackled.

‘Aye, he is in there yet,’ he answered when Kirkpatrick asked about Red John. ‘They have brought nobody out, though many have gone in — monks and the like, with clean linen and scurrying like squirrels. I have set men at the back and have had no word back o’ any leaving by there.’

‘So some of them live yet,’ Sore Davey muttered, picking a scab.

‘Not Sir Robert,’ Hal replied, remembering the half-severed head of Red John’s uncle, lolling in a spreading pool of thick blood.

‘So,’ Kirkpatrick said grimly. ‘Red John it is who is alive yet.’

‘Are ye for going after him, then, Kirkpatrick?’ Lyndsay demanded and then eyed the chapel uncertainly. ‘There are a wheen of men inside.’

‘Then bring yerself an’ yer mesnie,’ Kirkpatrick declared, then looked round them all, his eyes lingering longest on Hal.

‘Be set on it,’ he warned hoarsely. ‘There is one matter only here and that is the death of Red John. Everything else is thrall to it.’

He raked them all with one last glance, while the shadows dipped; somewhere a lonely dog barked, then howled.

‘Are ye set?’

Not nearly, Hal thought to himself. Not nearly at all for dire murder in a chapel. But he nodded into the chorus of grim grunts of assent.

They hit the chapel door at a rush and stumbled in, falling over each other in a fury of desperate fear, fired to roaring anger at what they were having to do. A priest squealed and dropped a ewer of bloody water; a man with sword up and shield ready was swamped and bundled backwards by Ill-Made and Mouse, while Sore Davey cut the legs from underneath him.

There was a confused whirl of echoing screams and bell-clanging metal, which Hal plunged into blindly, Kirkpatrick at his heels. A figure loomed up, all leather jerkin and unfocused eyes — but the blade in his fist was sharper than his sight, so that Hal ducked, half-turned and scythed; there was a piercing shriek, almost high enough for only hounds to hear.

Kirkpatrick knelt by the prone figure, swathed in bloody linen, the budded mouth slack and the face pale as milk, so that even the neat little beard seemed to have faded to wheat-straw. He was aware of Hal above him, bull-breathing and dripping pats of slow blood from his blade; someone was screaming.

Hal stared in appalled disbelief at the foot he had severed, still in the raggles of a boot, which leaked blood in front of him. Strange, Hal thought with that detached madness that came on in the middle of carnage, to be lying there looking at your own foot where it should not be.

Kirkpatrick knew Red John was dying, that all the padded linen cloths, sodden with blood, were not choking the flow of life from him. His own fluted dagger seemed an irrelevance, but he slid it in anyway, so that Red John gave a little jerk, a final flicker.

‘Da.’

The voice snapped heads up and they all saw the youth, half-sheltered behind a whey-faced Malise Bellejambe. Two panting men-at-arms stood to one side, blades bloody and faces desperate — Mouse was already closing on one.

The boy. Red John’s boy, a gawky seventeen-year-old, brought to say his farewells… the realization of it hit Hal and Kirkpatrick at the same moment, but Lyndsay of Donrod was quicker still.

‘Ach, no — would ye?’ he gasped out, clutching Kirkpatrick’s arm and half-hauling the man back to his knees as he rose, grim as a rolling boulder and the knife bloody. With a savage curse, Kirkpatrick swept his free hand like a closing door, slapping Lyndsay in the face and sending him arse over tip to the flagstones.

Malise saw him coming, his worst nightmare, blood-dripping blade and all and he shrieked, backing away, almost thrusting the boy at him. Hal saw it and, in a flicker of time, curled a sneer into the wide eyes of Bellejambe — then turned and slammed his fist into Kirkpatrick’s face.

He was holding his sword when he did it, and it was only fate that made the flat of it slam Kirkpatrick forehead to chin, while the hilt-hardened fist knocked teeth from him and sent him spilling backwards to join Lyndsay.

The pair of them struggled like beetles until they righted themselves, Lyndsay scrabbling away from Kirkpatrick, who came up bellowing and blowing blood from his split lip.

‘Would you?’ demanded Hal, his blade held pointedly at Kirkpatrick. ‘A boy, now. Why no’ hunt out the mother and cousins, bring them to the altar and drown it in Comyn blood?’

Kirkpatrick saw, out of the corners of his eyes, the Herdmanston men moving subtly to defend their lord and realized he would make no headway here, though the anger and pain thundered in him. Dog Boy stepped closer to him, his face set as a quernstone and his foot on Kirkpatrick’s spilled dagger. Kirkpatrick glared, then lashed it back to Hal.

‘I will remember this, Herdmanston,’ he spat. Dog Boy tipped the dagger towards him with the toe of one shoe, a tinkle of sound that was suddenly bell-loud in the silence. Kirkpatrick scooped it up, whirled like a black cloud and spun away.

Hal turned to the men-at-arms, half-crouched and wary; Malise had gone, but Red John’s son still stood, pale and determined, his mouth a thin seam. The footless man had passed out or died, his final whimpers trailing echoes round the chapel.

‘Take the boy an’ run,’ Hal told the men-at-arms, ‘’afore Kirkpatrick has mind to return.’

He stood while they hurried off, looking at the bloody bag that had been the Lord of Badenoch; he saw the boy’s face again, grey with that shock of having your world reel and tip, of having the great tower and rock of someone you thought immortal vanish like haar. Hal knew that loss well and the needle of it was still sharp.

Lyndsay of Dornod let out his breath.

‘Christ be praised,’ he growled.

‘For ever and ever,’ everyone replied.

Hal’s added laugh was a mirthless twist at this parody of piety in a place drenched with blood and sin.

Tibbers Castle, Dumfries

Feast of St Kevoca of Kyle, February, 1306

Thrushes and blackbirds and fluttering white doves spun the black smoke from the burning thatch of the outbuildings while a handful of grim, blackened men lounged against the remains of a stable wall and watched, chewing crusts.

Yet the hall of Tibbers had dogs gnawing bones and chickens scratching hopefully among the rushes; somewhere in the rafters baby sparrows were learning to fly, as if the world had not turned upside down.

Hal sat and watched Bruce and a huddle of others scatter vellum, plucked from the Rolls Chest with its brightly-painted coat-of-arms, a white trefoil-ended cross on black — sable, a cross flory argent, he said by rote to himself.

The owner sat at the far end of his own hall, face blank as scraped sheepskin, hands resting on his knees and flanked by two more of the Bruce men. Hal felt sorry for Sir Richard Siward, sitting there tasting the ashes of his outbuildings and the bitterness of defeat.

Tibbers had been added to Dalswinton and Caerlavrock, all castles swept up by the Bruce mesnie, as if desperate to stamp authority on what had happened — all but this one had been burned entirely, which would have made Tibbers singular enough.

More importantly, it was where Bruce woke up as if from a sleep, started issuing orders to his scowling brother, who had become used to independent command and now had to knuckle to it; he had been sent off with the other Bruce brothers to secure Ayr as a sop.

Now Bruce was feverishly explaining to a barely comprehending John Seton that Tibbers must be held by him, for it could not easily be slighted. The faces the desperate John Seton glanced at were less than helpful — the Lindsays, Bruce’s taciturn nephew Thomas Randolph, Crawford of Ayr all presented the same stare, flat and iron as a shield. Even his own kin, Alexander and the grim Christopher Seton, seemed to grin ferally back at him, offering no help.

He is out of his depth, Hal thought, seeing John Seton’s white face. We all are — burning out the Comyn stronghold of Dalswinton, capturing Tibbers and all the rest was simply thrashing about and achieving nothing. They could not afford to garrison other than Tibbers and had ruined the rest, which only annoyed the owners into the English camp.

Blinded by Comyn, Hal thought and did not realize he had muttered it aloud until the silence fell and he became aware of the eyes on him.

‘You have something to say, my lord of Herdmanston?’

The voice was clenched as a fist, the hood-shrouded face glowering and both were the mark of the new Bruce, emerged like a foul phoenix from the aftermath of Red Comyn’s murder.

‘You are fixed on the Comyn,’ Hal declared, realizing the mire he had walked himself into but plootering determinedly on, aware of Kirkpatrick’s burst-lip sneer at the far end of the table. ‘You are forgetting the English, who will simply come and take back everything here.’

Bruce needed Hal, so he was prepared to be patient, aware that his two hunting hounds had finally snarled and bit one another and well aware of why.

‘Fhad bhitheas craobh ‘sa choill, bithidh foill ‘sna Cuiminich,’ he said with a grim smile, then translated it for those who did not have the Gaelic. ‘While in the wood there is a tree, a Comyn will deceitful be.’

Those surrounding him chuckled dutifully and Bruce let a parchment roll snap shut with a flutter of seals.

‘You must never lose sight of the Comyn, my lord of Herdmanston,’ he said, still smiling. ‘They will come at you sideways, like a cock on a dungheap.’

He saw Hal jerk at that and knew why — Kirkpatrick had shared that confidence with him, a quote from Hal’s father warning of how Buchan would strike in revenge for his wife. He heard Kirkpatrick’s crow laugh harshing into the silence that followed.

‘We lost sight of one Comyn, certes,’ he growled bitterly, ‘who should not have been allowed out of it.’

Bruce spoke quickly into Hal’s rising hackles.

‘The Comyn will require to be rooted out,’ he said smoothly, ‘the young son of Badenoch among them, so Kirkpatrick is right enough in that. Perhaps not there and then, all the same. There was enough blood spilled to affront the Lord in that wee chapel.’

‘Christ be praised,’ muttered John Seton uneasily.

‘For ever and ever.’

It fluttered round the room like the fledgling sparrows and Bruce stood for a moment, what could be seen of his face etched with lines. Then he shook himself like a dog.

‘We ride north,’ he declared, ‘to meet with Bishop Wishart and try for Dumbarton Castle as well.’

He strode brusquely across to the quiet dignity of Sir Richard Siward and stood over him until the man looked up, his gaze cold and level.

‘You have backed the wrong side,’ Bruce declared simply in French. ‘I spare you, all the same, if only so you can take this to the Plantagenet.’

He thrust out one arm with a sealed packet in it and, after a pause, Siward took it and nodded. Bruce took a deep breath and plastered a forced, wan smile on his face as he turned to the others.

‘Now, gentilhommes, look out your finest cloth — you are off to a coronation.’

Hal took the news into the yard, where the others were making some comfort in a portion of the stable that still had roof on it. They had started a careful fire, were heating pease brose and were less than enthused by Bruce’s coronation plans.

‘A bloody hard ride to Glesca,’ Mouse mourned, stirring the pot and savouring what he could see, which was all he would get of the meal in it.

‘Then to Scone, dinna forget,’ Ill-Made answered bitterly, ‘where kings are made.’

‘In the wet,’ muttered Sore Davey, looking up at the pewter sky through the raggles of remaining thatch.

‘Afraid of a wee bit damp?’

The voice brought them all round, the recognition took knuckle to forehead; Mouse dropped to one knee, as if Bruce was already crowned king. Bruce moved in to the lee of the stable, a slight figure in clerical garb following after, pot hung round his neck and a quill and parchment ready.

‘When yer lordship is ready,’ Hal said diplomatically, ‘there we will be, at your side. Rain or shine.’

‘Since ye hold the purse,’ added Dog Boy daringly and saw the eyes flicker with recognition when they turned on him, the raising eyebrows losing their annoyed arch.

‘I know you,’ Bruce said, at first only remembering the face from among those in Greyfriars — then it came to him. ‘Dog Boy.’

‘Aye, the verra same, yer grace,’ Dog Boy responded cheerfully; the cleric scribbled and Bruce saw Dog Boy’s quizzical look and smiled.

‘Brother Bernard of Kilwinning is documenting matters,’ he said, ‘for a chronicle. This is part of what you put up with when you take a throne.’

‘Aye, aye,’ Dog Boy answered, smiling. ‘Scribblings. Stappit with wee fa’sehoods and cheatry.’

Bernard bristled.

‘This is for a true Chronicle of Events,’ he blustered.

‘Where black is not dirt,’ Ill-Made Jock threw in, emboldened. Hal cleared his throat warningly.

‘Ach, man, yer scrapings are as hintback as a creepin’ fox with the truth,’ Dog Boy ventured and waved a careless hand, while Hal watched Bruce to see if the amusement began to turn like soured milk. ‘Like this — what have ye to say on this?’

Bernard harrumphed and made a show of consulting his notes.

‘The fortalice at Tibbers was taken after a gallant struggle and Sir Richard Siward surrendered unto the mercy o’ the king, who graciously spared his life.’

‘Aye, aye,’ Dog Boy said into the scoffs and jeers that followed that. ‘No mention o’ the ones who were not spared I notice.’

‘Some were put to death,’ Brother Bernard responded cautiously. ‘I could mention that, yes — in truth, I had thought to…’

‘Put to death,’ Dog Boy echoed and shook his grim, raggled head. ‘There’s nice for ye. Put to death. Much the better way to say how we had them kneeling an’ bashed their skulls in. Eh? Blood everywhere and screaming, my wee priestie, like a herd o’ freshly gelded nags.’

‘Some matters,’ Bruce said slowly, thoughtfully, ‘are best left out, so as will not frighten bairns or women.’

He looked at Dog Boy, who agreed with a firm nod and the air of a man not about to let go the bone of it; Bruce remembered the last time he had spoken with the Dog Boy, though he could not remember when. About honour and vows, though — he remembered that and how it had made him feel, spilling out his revulsion at himself like vomit.

‘What have ye to say about Red John’s murder, then?’ Dog Boy demanded of the priest and Hal almost leaped at him.

‘Steady,’ he began, stepping forward and not even daring to look at Bruce. Brother Bernard, however, was equally lost in the discourse of it.

‘Naw, naw,’ he answered, wagging a finger. ‘Murder it was not, for there was no forethought felony in it, nae praecognita malitia of any sort. Rather it was a hot, sudden tulzie, a melletum that is called in law “ chaud-melle”. Mind, in canon and common law baith, fighting is condemned — but God’s creatures has a passion of nature as it were…’

He saw the looks, realized who stood at his back and went worm-limp.

‘So it is argued, my lord,’ he added weakly.

‘I have heard,’ he added faintly.

Bruce’s head thundered at the memory of that slide of blade into Badenoch’s body, as if there was only the thick wool of his clothing, as if there was nothing beneath at all.

‘Gather your gear,’ Hal harshed out, snapping them all from the painful silence. Bruce managed a shaky laugh.

‘Bigod,’ he said, ‘I am seldom disappointed discoursing with Herdmanston men. Take good care of them, Sir Hal — and yourself. I have a singular task for you.’

Then he turned to the trembling cleric and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder with a jocularity that never quite reached the shroud of his face.

‘ Chaud-melle,’ he repeated. ‘Hot tulzie. I like the sound of that.’

Hal watched them go, Bernard of Kilwinning expounding his theory, Bruce appearing to listen. No forethought malice, Hal thought to himself — aye, that would sit better than what I suspect, though cannot quite bring myself to believe sufficiently.

That the entire event was planned, even down to the Bruce grief in it.