The Lion Wakes

Chapter Nine

Northumberland, on the road to Hexham Priory

Vigil of Saint Ebbe the Younger, April, 1298

The oaks unfurled new leaves and the world was raptured by rainbows. The writs came and Hal rode out with his men to join the Bruce cavalcade; on the ride south, they saw cows wrap their tongues round fresh green and rip it up, chewing contently; sheep nibbling in hurdled areas, brown land turned under the plough.

‘I thought Wallace had harried this place thoroughly,’ Bruce said, with a half-sneer, half-wry laugh. He sounded disappointed to see this evidence of life, even if folk hurried off, running out of their pattens to get away from the cavalcade.

‘Folks ken where to hide a brace of kine so that even the herschip misses it,’ Sim grunted back with his usual lack of deference. Hal said nothing, though he marvelled at the folk they passed, ploughing and husbanding, hoping to squeeze in a desperate harvest before war came in the summer and knowing there was a fair chance all that effort would go to waste. Yet they would burn fields and slaughter livestock themselves rather than see it fall into the hands of invaders – as the Scots would in their turn.

Like Saint Ebbe, he thought, who took a blade to her nose and face so that the invading Danes would think her too ugly to rape. The ones who suffer most are the innocent.

Some folk never made it as far as the dreaming summer and they came on the evidence of it a day later, moving through lush valleys and low woodlands, the sweat itching them, the insects humming and pinging. The smoke brought half dreaming heads up and the scouts – Hal’s men on their sturdy garrons – came galloping back with the news that a steading burned on the far side of the ridge.

‘I would see,’ Bruce declared and was off before anyone could tell him differently. With a muffled curse, Kirkpatrick followed after, looking wildly round and waving to Hal. Wearily, Hal kicked the sleepwalking garron into surprised life, heard Sim bawling for Bangtail and Lang Tam to move.

It was an outwork of Hexham’s holding; probably, Hal thought, the peasant who worked it thought that the further he was from the influence of the priory reeves, the happier his life would be. Well, he had paid a high price for the freedom to cut firewood rather than collect it, or poach for the pot and miss a few plough days for the lordship.

He and his family lay on the sheep pasture near the softly muttering stream, not far from the blackened bones of their home; the wattle had burned, but the daub had hardened and cracked, so that the roof had fallen in and the walls stood like the shell of a rotted tooth.

The dead were all close together, Hal saw, and the women – a mother and a daughter becoming a woman, he thought -were still clothed. Led from the house and murdered, with no chance to flee and no attempt at rape.

‘Baistards,’ Sim growled and waved a hand at the churned earth. ‘Took what they needed in a hot trod and did red murder for the sake of it.’

‘How many, d’ye think?’ Bruce demanded, circling his horse.

‘Twenty,’ Kirkpatrick declared after a pause to study the hoof chewed ground and Sim nodded agreement.

‘Why would they kill them?’

The question was piped clear from the Dog Boy’s bewildered voice and Hal saw his face – puzzled, but not so shocked as it should have been for a young lad of a dozen years or so, coming on death on a warm April afternoon. He was growing fast, Hal thought. And hard.

‘For the sport in it,’ Sim declared bitterly.

‘For the terror in it,’ Bruce corrected. ‘So that others will see this and fear the ones who did it.’

‘Scots, then, you think?’

‘Aye,’ Bruce answered, ‘though belonging to no army. Left behind and on the herschip for the profit.’

‘We should rejoin the main force,’ Kirkpatrick offered nervously, as Bruce stepped his horse delicately round the strewn bodies.

The mother looked old and death had not been kind to her, yet she was no older than his own wife when she had died, Hal thought. No older than Isabel…

‘A mercy the child was slain,’ Bruce said, his voice a cat’s tongue of harsh rasp, and Hal blinked, then realised Bruce was thinking of his own dead wife and Marjorie, the daughter left to his care.

‘A father is no nurse. A young girl needs a mother,’ Bruce went on softly, speaking almost to himself. He remembered his own daughter then, dark eyes, little full lips parting in a smile, the image of her mother; he closed his eyes against the memory of the chubby-faced mommet he had so neglected. The best he ever did for her was keep her from being taken as a thumb-sucking hostage after Irvine – which was as well, since he had broken all his oaths since.

‘Riders,’ Bangtail called out sharply.

There were three, padded and mailled, mounted on good horses, with latchbows bouncing at the saddle. They all had little round shields and rimmed iron helmets and one carried a banner, yellow with a red cross on it. Behind were more; around thirty, Hal tallied swiftly.

‘Norfolk’s arms,’ Kirkpatrick murmured to Bruce and he nodded. Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk was, with his peers Hereford and Arundel, providing most of the army controlled by De Warenne for the defence of England. These riders, Bruce thought probably amounted to about half of the mounted crossbows in that army – his spies had told him there were scarcely 1,500 foot and 100 horse left to De Warenne.

The lead rider was tall, with a wisp of black beard and a dagger of cold stare which he switched between Bruce and Hal, taking in the jupons and surcoats, the heraldry there. On his own part, Hal saw a white shield with three little green birds on it, their wings folded across their backs. Argent, three alaudae, vert, addorsed, he registered and smiled; the Auld Sire would always be with him, in every coat of arms he looked at.

‘I thought you might be from the Priory,’ the rider said, his voice an accented French burr. ‘But I see you have come further than that – Carrick men, is it? I do not know the engrailed blue cross, mark you.’

‘We are passing through,’ Bruce replied easily. ‘To the Priory. We are Carrick men with a writ of utbordh from De Warenne – you know this term?’

‘I know it,’ the man said stiffly, then managed a smile. ‘Safe passage. I am Fulk d’Alouet.’

‘Oh, very good,’ Hal said before he could stop himself, and the cold stare settled on him.

‘Lark,’ he added limply, waving at the man’s shield with its three larks. ‘Your device.’

‘You are?’

Wishing I had kept my lip fastened, Hal thought, but forced a smile.

‘Sir Henry Sientcler of Herdmanston.’

There was no answering smile from Fulk.

‘I thought you were the ones who had done this,’ he declared, encompassing the tragedy with a spread of one arm. ‘They were Scots, of course.’

‘We had no hand in this,’ Bruce replied. ‘Though you are correct that they were Scots. Possibly some English there as well. Mayhap a Gascon or two.’

The smile broadened and Bruce knew he was right -D’Alouet and the riders coming up behind him were all Gascon mercenaries, last remnants of the ones who had ridden away from Stirling.

‘Yes. Brigands, then,’ Fulk d’Alouet replied, then sighed wearily. ‘I knew these folk well enough. We came to water our horses several times.’

‘Feel free to water them now,’ Bruce answered and the Gascon’s face darkened.

‘I am already free to water them,’ he snapped. The rider with the banner, dark-eyed, dark-bearded, dark-mannered, gave a little grunt and a gesture across his throat.

‘See to the horses,’ Fulk said to him and climbed heavily out of his saddle. Hal watched Bruce do the same and, with a glance to Kirkpatrick, levered over the rump of the animal and dropped to the ground, legs stiff as old logs.

There was a show of stretching and grunting while a Gascon led off the horses, leaving Fulk and the young man, on foot now and swaddled by the limp banner. Fulk unlaced the bascinet and pulled it off, then hauled off the maille coif and the padded arming cap, rubbing one hand through the sweat-streaked crop of his hair. Without it, he seemed younger, though the corners of his eyes were hardened with lines.

‘What is your business this far south?’

‘An exchange,’ Bruce answered, though he had been tempted, with a flash of anger, to tell this minor that it was none of his business.

‘My lord,’ Kirkpatrick said, ‘we should be rejoining the others.’

It was timely and calculated, letting this Fulk know that Bruce was someone of quality and that he had more men at his back. Yet Fulk’s head came up like a hound on scent.

‘You are the younger Bruce,’ he said slowly, the realisation closing on him. ‘The rebel Earl of Carrick.’

‘I have the honour,’ Bruce replied. ‘Though rebel is harsh.’

Hal saw that Kirkpatrick was watching the dark man with the banner and the line of dismounted men leading their horses to the stream, with little flicks of his eyes, one to the other. He turned to watch Bruce and the Gascon, who suddenly grinned broadly and dropped the helmet to his feet.

‘Bon chance to you, my lord earl,’ he said and thrust out a hand, which Bruce automatically took, found the Gascon’s grip on his wrist hard and realised, in a sudden, shocking flash, that Fulk had dropped his helmet to free up his left hand – which was now behind his back.

In that moment, he was fourteen and back with the Auld Templar on the tiltyard at Lochmaben – and the knight had seemed old even then – being taught how to fight and, for the first time, given a real sword instead of a blunted one. Because of it, he had not tried to strike the Auld Templar once in the fight and, eventually the knight stopped and looked at him.

‘What,’ he said heavily, ‘d’ye think ye are at here, boy?’

‘Defending myself,’ Bruce answered sullenly, more question in it than certainty.

‘No,’ the Auld Templar replied, ‘for the best way to achieve that is…?’

‘Attack?’

‘So set to, laddie.’

Bruce swallowed.

‘You are unarmoured, sir,’ he pointed out stiffly. ‘Whereas I have helmet and maille and padding.’

He said this bitterly, for the weight was crushing him and the Auld Templar insisted he wore it from the moment he stepped on the yard to the moment he left it.

‘Are ye feared, laddie?’

The soft voice stung Bruce and the Auld Templar saw the lip come out.

‘I might hurt you, sir.’

‘You may dream of it,’ the Auld Templar chuckled, then his face grew set and dark. ‘I will come at ye, sirra, in the count of three. There will be blood on this yard and if ye don’t fight me as if ye meant it, it will be yer own, I swear. Mak’ a warrior of ye, yer da declares, even if it kills ye. So set to.’

Bruce felt the prickle of anger and fear.

‘Three,’ said the Auld Templar suddenly and came at him, so that Bruce yelped, barely managing to deflect the overarm broadsword stroke in a bell-clang shock that stunned his whole arm. What followed was the most intense three or four minutes of his life to that point, a whirr of blades scything like light and, at the end of it, the Auld Templar cursed and hurled himself away, sucking the back of his hand, where Bruce’s blade had nicked him.

Bruce, panting and wild-eyed, watched him suck and spit, then chuckle, his grey beard splitting in a smile.

‘Now ye ken what it is like when some enemy aims to kill ye. Now here is what ye do to thwart him.’

He remembered it all in the time it took Fulk to flick out the dagger from the small of his back and bring it round in a wicked snake-strike aimed at Bruce’s throat.

Kirkpatrick called out, sharp and high, but Bruce did not shy away from the stroke; the Auld Templar’s lessons were strong in him and he stepped forward into the attack as smooth as dancing and slammed his armoured forehead into Fulk’s face. The Gascon dagger ground off the rim of Bruce’s bascinet helmet and hissed harmlessly over the maille aventail.

The Gascon, with no maille or helmet, went reeling away, spitting blood and pungent curses. The man with the banner started forward only to stop short, as if leashed by Sim’s great bellow. He paused, half-crouched and scowling, looking at the great, spanned crossbow pointed at him.

‘At this range, chiel, it will rip ye a new hole in your arse,’ Sim declared, smiling amiably, even though he knew it was unlikely the man understood him.

Fulk struggled like a beetle, finally righted himself and sat up; his men were milling, seeing their leader go down and shouting out, collecting weapons.

‘That was well done,’ Fulk said, climbing to his feet, a lopsided bloody smile on his face. He spread his arms in apology. ‘I had to try. You are a fair ransom and we are mercenaries, when all said and done. I would not have lasted long as leader if I had passed up this chance. Now, of course, matters are worse for me.’

‘You are a fool,’ Bruce said and Hal saw that rage had switched him to French. ‘I have a writ from the lord who pays you – if you had succeeded, he would have hanged you. There was no reason for blood to be spilled here. There still is not – walk away.’

Kirkpatrick had reined round and was galloping off, but Bruce did not turn at the sound, though Fulk did, knowing the man was going to fetch more men. It had been a bad day, dumped on his nethers like a child in front of his hard men. There was only one way back from that

…

He drew his sword and Bruce sighed.

‘My lord…’ Hal said, concerned that an earl was putting his life at risk in a brawl. Sim kept the crossbow levelled at the banner-carrier, while the Dog Boy sat his mount, eyes wide, mouth open.

Fulk came forward, all at a rush, so that Bruce barely had time to clear his scabbard and parry the brief flurry of strokes. That had been the mercenary’s best chance, though he did not know it at the time. What followed, Hal saw, was a lesson in fighting.

Fulk was powerful and skilled, fought like a mercenary, without finesse and out to finish matters as swiftly as possible. He cut left, right, feinted, slashed at the legs, and Bruce, stepping backwards, weight on the back foot, met each one; blades clanged, sparks flew.

The Gascon paused then, breathing heavily, realising he faced a different temper of opponent than usual. Yet the man was an earl, a Tourney fighter, unused to the real world…

He started on a new series of cuts and slashes, found himself, shockingly, face to face with Bruce, who had stepped inside the arc of the sword. A hand took his wrist; Bruce spat in his eyes and stabbed downward with his own weapon, so that the fine-honed point went into the instep of Fulk’s left foot.

Blinded, the agony a shriek that went all the way to the groin and belly of him, Fulk staggered away, flailing wildly though he could not do much since his swordhand was gripped in what seemed like a forge vice. Bruce followed, jerked savagely and tore the sword from the Gascon’s grip as the man dragged screaming pain across his face, raking his own nose and forehead with his maille-backed gauntlet in an attempt to get Bruce’s spit out of his eyes.

He cleared them, but had time only to see Bruce’s sword go up and shied away from it. His own, in Bruce’s left hand, came up in a whirling stroke, wet and ugly, that took him under the armpit, cut the arm, half the chest and all life bloodily away.

The Gascons growled and started forward – then stopped. Kirkpatrick came pounding up with a score of riders behind him, Bangtail and others to the fore with their wicked Jeddart staffs waving.

‘We are leaving,’ Bruce said to the banner bearer. ‘You may have this offal when we are gone.’

He wiped Fulk’s blade clean on the man’s own jupon, smearing a red slick through the three green larks. Then he drove it into the ground, sheathed his own, mounted and rode off, his back to the Gascons in as pointed a gesture of scorn as anyone had seen.

‘By Christ, he can fight, though,’ Sim said admiringly as they caught up with each other, trailing in his wake and surrounded by the warm, safe, leather and horse stink of their own men. Bruce heard it and half turned, smiling wryly.

‘The German Method,’ he said and saw their bemused looks. Then he laughed and spurred ahead, so that only Kirkpatrick saw the tremble in the hands that held the reins so lightly, for he knew The Bruce as he knew his own hands, knew the fears in him were the same as other men and that the greatest one was not the Curse of Malachy, but failing to be anything less than best.

Kirkpatrick also knew that Bruce, for all he treated his henchman like a loyal dog, had long since relied on the skill, discretion and care Kirkpatrick lavished. Bruce thought he knew why the Closeburn noble did this and would have been surprised to find that Kirkpatrick, though he had once thought the same, was no longer as sure that it was only for advancement.

That night, with the fires sprouted like red flowers in the dark, Bruce came down to where Hal sat with the rest of the Herdmanston men. That itself was strange, for he had a panoply to shelter in, a great affair of blue and white with ropes as complex as ship rigging and a whole bed frame in it – he was a belted earl of the realm and used to the style of it.

Yet he arrived into the middle of the Herdmanston clutter, so that the chat died like a smothered candle.

‘I would share fire and a cup, if you have it,’ he said in careful English and with a lopsided smile, then waved a leather bottle in one hand so that it sloshed. ‘In case the cup is empty, I brought something to fill it.’

‘Welcome and doubled,’ Hal answered, realising Bruce was drunk. Since there was little else to do but be polite, he smiled and offered the earl his own seat by the fire. Yet Bangtail and the rest sat, awkward and silent, even when they shoved out their horn cups to have the contents of the bottle splashed waveringly in it.

‘Is Fitzwarin not joining us?’ Hal asked politely and Bruce, his face pure as a priest’s underclothes, announced that the Lord Fitzwarin was playing chess with Kirkpatrick. Hal did not say more; he knew already – as did everyone – that the haughty and annoying Fitzwarin, forever harping on about his kinship with De Warenne himself, grated on Bruce. No-one would be sorry to see the arse of him vanish over a horizon.

That ended conversation, all the same, and folk shifted uneasily, unable to speak.

‘What is the German Method?’

It came, fluted as a bell, from the Dog Boy and cracked the strain of the moment like a stone thrown on an iced pool. Men chuckled.

‘Aye,’ Lang Tam Loudon enthused, the dam in him burst and spilling words. ‘I heard your lordship say that about fighting yon Gascon. I am right sorry I missed it, too, for I am told it was a bonnie affair, as good as watching 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 ye temper your honour and remark on how nice the colour is and how is suits her – even if the plain truth is that it would gag a sow.’

The laughter was loud and long now.

‘Now we ken why ye are named Bangtail,’ Ill Made Jock shouted from the fringes of the fire.

‘A glance at yer face,’ Bangtail countered, swift and vicious, ‘and we are in no doubt why ye are called Ill Made.’

‘Bangtail counts cunny more than honour,’ Sim declared, ‘which everyone kens. This is his excuse for a lie – but it is still an excuse.’

‘Ach, Sim,’ Bangtail said, ‘the world is not as divided, like the border atween this Kingdom and the English, where ye can declare “here we are and there you are and we are different from you”. When it comes to the bit, though, ye cannae tell an English Dodd from a Scots yin, or a Kerr in Hexham from another in Roxburgh.’

‘Ye can always tell a Kerr,’ growled Sim, ‘since all that breed are left-handed.’

Bangtail leaned forward, his sharp, fox face guttering with shadows and light from the flames. Hal saw that Bruce was fascinated, listening intently.

‘Let me spier ye this, Sim Craw,’ Bangtail went on. ‘Is it good to misguide your enemy? To make him think, maybes, that ye are weaker than ye are, so that he makes a bad fist of attacking ye?’

Sim nodded, reluctantly.

‘So it is fine to lie to an enemy,’ Bangtail ended triumphantly and Bruce slapped one hand against the other with delight at Sim’s scowl.

‘By God’s Grace,’ he roared in English, ‘I am truly sorry I never sat with Herdmanston men before this, for the entertainment in it is finer than a tumbler and juggling act.’

‘Aye, weel, so ye say, your lordship,’ Bangtail responded, preening, and Hal could not resist leaping in.

‘Thanks to his lordship, we have learned a deal this night,’ he declared, nodding deferentially to Bruce, who acknowledged it with an elegant, slightly mocking, one of his own.

‘We have learned,’ he went on smoothly, ‘that Bangtail cannot judge which leg of a wummin is finer, the left or the right.’

Hal paused and let the puzzled frown of the man in question squeak on his forehead for a heartbeat.

‘The truth of it for him is somewhere atween, of course,’ he added and there was laughter at that.

‘Abune all, there is the truth about lies,’ Hal went on, warming to matters now and aware that Bruce was watching him closely. Never harms to stamp the mark of who leads Herdmanston, like a firm seal impress in warm wax, Hal thought.

‘As I jalouse the workings of it, from his lordship and Bangtail here,’ he continued, ‘it seems that if a pig-faced friend appears with some pretty ribbons, ye crack their heart with the truth. If a pig-faced enemy appears with some pretty ribbons, ye tell them how wonderfully fine they look – an’ strike from behind as they preen.’

Above all, Sim Craw thought as the laughter roared and circled like the wind round the fires, we have learned that young Bruce is also a man who can win the hearts of hard men of no station – the commonality of the kingdom who, until now, Sim believed to be the province of Wallace alone.

Here was a new thing, to find a man who was a powerful gentilhomme of the kingdom, yet who could share a cup, in companionable friendship, with a boy who did not even own a proper name.

Hexham Priory, Northumberland

Feast of St Donan the Martyr of Eigg, April 1298

Hal came up whooping and streaming water, dashed it from his eyes and dried his face on his serk, the sun warm on his back and a breeze with enough chill in it to remind him that this was the north in April.

He blinked back into the garth at Hexham, to the walls with their unpleasant stone the colour of dried blood, blackened here and there by fires set the year before – even Wallace had not been able to prevent the Galloway men’s looting and arson, though he had hanged a few afterwards.

Hal saw Kirkpatrick staring at him intensely, a needle glare that almost made him recoil. Even when he stared back, the man’s gaze did not shift and Hal grew irritated, both at the rudeness and the lick of fear the man’s eyes smeared on him.

‘If ye bring ribbons an’ some decent wine ye might have a chance,’ he snarled. ‘Though I would not put much store by your supposed charm.’

Kirkpatrick blinked and flushed to the roots of his hair at the implication.

‘Yon bauble,’ he muttered. ‘Round yer neck. Looked mighty fine, that is all. Where did ye come by it?’

Hal glanced down at the ring on the cord round his neck, a little surprised. Still flustered, he scowled back at Kirkpatrick.

‘No doing of yours where this came from,’ he harshed out and Kirkpatrick’s face darkened even further, the eyes narrowing. Hal cursed; his weapons lay three steps away… but a loud burst of shouting snapped the moment away and they both turned.

Fitzwarin, his face thick with flush, came storming out of the priory guesthouse, waving his arms and bellowing incoherently. Behind him came a flustered man-at-arms, making little bleats of protest, and, after that, Bruce himself, frowning darkly.

‘Gone,’ Fitzwarin roared, then strode on before the man-at-arms could reply. Then he stopped, whirling on the man as he trotted up, forcing him to skid to a halt.

‘Gone,’ he repeated and waved his arms wildly. ‘To bloody Berwick. Are you entirely in your mind?’

‘He is on parole, my lord,’ the man-at-arms bleated. ‘I sent two men with him – but if he wants to go to Berwick, there is little I can do save protect his person.’

Fitzwarin gave a final pungent curse and strode away, leaving the man-at-arms floundering in his wake, turning with a pathetic, appealing look to Bruce. The Earl of Carrick merely looked at him, shrugged and walked across to where Kirkpatrick and Hal stood, the latter climbing into his sweat-yellowed serk, aware of a sudden chill breeze.

‘Sir Henry has taken himself to Berwick,’ Bruce explained, his languid delivery belied by the grit of his teeth. ‘Fitzwarin is less than pleased to be kept drumming his fingers here.’

‘Berwick?’ Hal demanded, bewildered. ‘Why for?’

‘A message, lord,’ said the man-at-arms coming up to join them, his face anguished. ‘I tried to tell the Lord Fitzwarin, but he would not listen.’

The man-at-arms was a captain from the braid in his belt and, in the next bobbing and deferential second Hal learned that he was Walter Elton, charged by Norfolk to bring Sir Henry Sientcler of Roslin to Hexham for the exchange.

‘Then he had a message,’ Elton went on. ‘From a pardoner.’

‘Message?’ Hal demanded.

‘Pardoner?’ said Bruce at the same time and the captain’s frantic eyes whipped between the two, then worked out that Bruce was an Earl and Hal of little account.

‘By name Lamprecht,’ he answered. ‘Has a strange way of speaking, as if all tongues were used at once. French and Latin, I heard in it. Some of the Italies, too, by the sound and even words I do not know, though they might be from the Holy Land, which he has visited.’

‘Lingua franca,’ Kirkpatrick mused, ‘which at least proves he has journeyed the lands round the Middle Sea, if nothing else.’

As have you, Hal suddenly saw and added a new dimension to the figure of the Bruce henchman.

‘Oh, he is from the Holy Land,’ enthused Elton. ‘Has the shell to prove it and lots of relics and wondrous objects -here, look, noble sirs.’

He fumbled out a cord from round his neck to reveal a stamped lead medallion, a quatrefoil on one side and a fish on the other.

‘Proof against evil spirits and wandering demons.’

No-one wanted to gainsay it, for demons existed, as everyone knew. Only last year one had been caught in the Tweed, a nasty black, snarling imp tangled in the salmon nets and beaten with sticks by the brave fishermen until it finally burst free and fled, shrieking laughter all the way back to the water. A bishop had written of it, so it must be true.

‘Message?’ Hal repeated and Elton blinked.

‘Aye, sir. Came looking for Sir Henry by name. Said he had a message for him to get to the spital in Berwick. 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.

‘You persuaded Wallace to attack Scone, so you could go there and destroy the evidence,’ he said, half in a breathy hiss of wonder. ‘That’s what Kirkpatrick was up to in Ormsby’s room – but how will you persuade folk that the Stone you have hidden is the real one?’

Bruce nodded, as if he had expected the question.

‘It does not matter – folk will believe it when the time comes. Will want to believe it – it only remains to ensure the secret of it is kept until that moment comes.’

Until you need to sit on it, Hal thought. To be crowned.

‘Burning Ormsby’s investigations should have been the end of it,’ Bruce added bitterly. ‘Save for the Savoyard stone carver we forgot about, because he was of no account.’

‘And Wallace,’ Hal added pointedly, ‘who did not trust you. Does not still.’

Bruce shrugged.

‘That is of no matter. Wallace is a brigand, for all his elevation. If he finds out, he will approve, in the end.’

Which might have been true enough once, Hal thought coldly, though while Wallace has changed the Kingdom, it has changed him, too. Wee Bisset and a Savoyard were two deaths that might not sit well with the new knight that was Sir William Wallace growing into his estate as Guardian. He said as much and saw Bruce stroke his chin and admit it grudgingly.

‘Bisset was no work of mine,’ Kirkpatrick growled. ‘That was yon ugly bastard Malise, seeking answers for the Earl of Buchan, who is no yin’s fool.’

He broke off and looked sadly at Hal.

‘You were too noisome in pursuing the Savoyard, too careless with yer use of Bisset, so that it did not take much for Buchan to latch on to matters. Particularly Bisset – Malise spoored after him from the moment he left your care. I came on it too late to prevent it.’

He paused, his eyes bleak.

‘It was a charnel hoose,’ he added, half to himself, and Hal was chilled at what the man must have seen to make such a wasteland behind his eyes. The stone of it sank into Hal’s bowels; he had left a trail a blind man could follow, let alone the sharp-eyed, cunning Malise Bellejambe. He had killed Bartholomew Bisset as surely as if he had stuck the knife in himself.

Bruce saw some of that in Hal’s face and laid the comfort of a hand on his arm, though the smile on his face did not reach beyond his too-tight cheekbones.

‘This is an old quarrel of great families of this kingdom,’ he said. ‘It is always to be expected that, whatever I do, I will have a Comyn breathing on me to find out the why and where of it.’

‘Now they have the Savoyard,’ Hal said, seeing matters for the first time. ‘Using him to lure you to them. And you need the Savoyard stone carver dead, of course, to preserve your secret.’

‘Almost,’ Bruce declared grimly. ‘They have the Savoyard, for sure, but I do not wish him dead. I want him alive. He is the only one who possibly knows where the Stone now lies. Unless you do.’

Hal blinked – then saw it, as if a curtain had been raised. The Auld Templar and John Fenton had taken charge of the Stone in Roslin and had hidden it – now both were dead and the secret with them.

Bruce saw the look and sighed wearily, passing a hand over his face.

‘I see that the Auld Templar handed you the ring and no more,’ he declared. ‘So, unless the secret is with this stone carver, then all we have done is for naught – the Stone is hidden in Roslin and no-one knows where.’

He broke off and laughed bitterly.

‘A stone lost among stones. There is some message from Heaven in this, is there not?’

From St Malachy, Kirkpatrick almost said, but clicked his teeth.

‘We must get to the leper house,’ he said instead and Hal felt a sudden thrill of fear.

‘To a trap?’ he said. ‘Where the Earl of Carrick is faced with his enemies? We can scarcely ride the whole entourage into the town – the English still hold the castle of it – so we will be alone…’

Bruce smiled, suddenly, warmed, Hal saw, by this burst of concern. He reached out and clapped a hand on Hal’s shoulder.

‘Now you know the truth of matters,’ he declared, ‘yet you still, it seems, esteem me well enough to be concerned by my fate. I am glad of that for I would have you as a friend, young Hal. The Sientclers are noted for protecting kings, after all – did not one take an arrow for King Stephen?’

‘Sir Hubert,’ muttered Hal, remembering the family history dinned into him by his father. Young Hal – God’s Bones, he had five, even six years on the Bruce and the man pats me like a new pup. He glared back at him and then at Kirkpatrick.

‘I am no shield and ye are no king,’ he replied and saw Bruce scowl at that.

‘I esteem you well enough as a belted earl of the kingdom, my lord. Even if you were a poor cottar, I would not want you walked into the teeth of your enemies. I cannot wish the same for your henchman, all the same.’

Kirkpatrick growled, but Bruce laughed, as mirthless as a wolf howl and both their gazes turned on him.

‘It is not me they want,’ he said and leaned a little into Hal’s uncomprehending frown.

‘They have the wrong Sir Henry Sientcler,’ he declared and sent Kirkpatrick off to fetch horses while the haar of that settled like a raven on Hal’s soul and a name thundered in his head like a great bell.

Malise Bellejambe.