Percy and Clifford are coming with an English army and Wishart has made a right slaister of matters, so Scotlands gentilhommes are waving their hands and sounding off like a kist of whistles. I am away to the hills and the trees and most of the fighting men are with me sorry, but a wheen of yer own are among them.
Hal knew this already; the fealtied Herdmanston men, all five of them, were with him as well as one or two of the sokemen free men holding lands under Herdmanston jurisdiction -but the bulk of Hals March riders, out for plunder, had joined Wallace.
Welcome men, Wallace admitted, smiling. Nearest I have to heavy horse.
They will run at the sight of such, Sim growled and Wallace nodded.
As will I, he answered vehemently and laughed along with Sim.
Heres the bit, he went on, losing the smile. Ye can come with me or go with Bruce. He says he an the rest of the bold community of the realm are away to put their fortresses in order.
He looked sideways, sly as a secret.
Thats as may be.
Hal looked at him and saw the truth felt the truth in the kick of his insides. They would truce their way out of it and the relief washed into his face.
Wallace saw that Hal had worked it out saw, too, the reaction and nodded slowly.
Aye, he said with a wry smile. Ye have lands to lose, same as they. Not me, though. I do not think there will a kiss of peace for me, eh?
Hal acknowledged it with a blank face and the shame-sickness that drove bile into his throat. Sim, realist that he was, merely grunted agreement; it was the safest way out of the mire they had plootered into truced back into the Kings peace and forgiven all their sins on a promise not to do it again.
Well, Wallace said. Go with Bruce then and go with God. Still I wish I had yer help. I would like to root out why Kirkpatrick tried to burn these papers, why Wishart bound these wee priests to keep their lips stitched and what the bold Bruce interest is in it.
Ye want my help? Hal asked. Even though I am in the Bruce camp?
In, Wallace pointed out, but not of.
For a man who sees everyone not for him as against him, thats a quim hair of difference to put yer trust in, Hal answered and Wallace grinned and raised the dagger, so that the torchlight stepped carefully along the razor edges.
An edge as thin as this, he admitted, which I have been entrusting my life to for a while now.
Still, he added, standing suddenly and shoving the dagger back in its belt-sheath, ye are done with the business. Go with God, Sir Hal though admit to me, afore ye do, that you are curious ower this matter.
Hal did so with a grudging nod.
I will not be a spy against Bruce, he added firmly, nor for him against yourself.
Wallace towered over him, placing one grimed ham-hand on his shoulder; just the weight of it felt like a maille hauberk.
Aye, I jaloused that and would not ask. But mark me, Sir Hal soon ye will needs decide what cote ye will wear. The longer ye take, the more badly it will fit.
Hal and Sim had stumbled back into the chares and vennels of the priory garth, where light was spilling a sour stain on the horizon as dawn fought the dark over ownership of the hills.
He could scarcely believe that he had stumbled into rebellion so easily and offered a prayer of thanks to God that there was a way out of it; all he had to do was sit at Irvine with The Bruce and the others and make sure that the lesser lords such as himself were not overlooked in the negotiations.
Then it was back home, where he would closet himself with his auld da and theyd ride out this new dawn, he thought wildly, and Roslin be damned. Yet he wondered if even Herdmanstons thick walls would survive the harsh, cold hope of it. He said the bones of that to Sim, who shrugged, looked up, then hawked and spat his own pronouncement on matters.
It will rain like pish from God, he growled moodily, then paused, stiffening. Hal followed his gaze and they watched the boys mother flit from kern to cateran, hard-faced roarer to grim growler, patient as stone and as relentless as a downhill roll.
Have ye see ma boy? He has a wish-mark
Chapter Four
Douglas Castle
Feast of The Visitation of Our Lady with the Blessed Saint
Elizabeth, July 1297
The Dog Boy watched the slipper bounce with every jerk of the foot it was barely attached to. The leg, bagged with red hose, flexed and spasmed with every grunting thrust of the unseen force pounding between it and the twin on the side, beyond Dog Boys vision.
Oh Goad, Agnes was saying. Ohgoadohgoadohgoad, a litany that rose higher and more urgent with each passing second.
Dog Boy had seen the dogs made blind and frantic by this, so much so that hed had to reach down and guide their thrusting stiffness into the right hole when they were being bred. He knew the mechanic of it, but the madness of it was only just touching him, so that he only half understood what he was feeling.
In the butter-yellow and shadowed dim, he sat and, prickled with heat and half-ashamed, half-driven, kneaded his own tight groin while he stared at the mournful brown eyes of Mykel, head on paws and unconcerned that Agness knees were locked behind the pillars of Tods Watties arms. With every thrust Wattie grunted and Agnes squealed an answer; gradually the squeals grew higher in pitch.
Veldi snuffled hopefully, but Dog Boy had nothing for them to eat, nor looked to be getting anything until Tods Wattie was done. So he sat in the strawed dim of the stable, right up against the back wall and almost under the huge iron-rimmed wheels of the wagon, with the ghost-coloured deerhounds waiting patiently on their leashes, heads on the huge, long-nailed paws.
He and Tods Wattie and the hounds had been there two months, left behind by Sir Hal and the others, and he wondered why. Yet the idea of leaving Douglas was strange and frightening enough to catch his breath in his throat.
The castle at Douglas was all he had ever known and the people in it the only ones he had met, besides the odd peddlar or pardoner, until the arrival of Hal and all the other strangers. Now he was about to go off with this stranger, this Tods Wattie.
The squeals grew louder and faster. Dog Boy, uncomfortably aware of his groin, traced the iron rim of the cartwheel with one grimy forefinger faster and faster, while unable to tear his gawp-mouthed gaze from her feet and the fancy slipper bobbing furiously. A window-slipper, Agnes had called it, because it had elegant cut-outs designed to show off the red hose that went with them, like the stained windows of a grand cathedral.
Agnes had been told this by the Countess of Buchan, who had given them to her when she had left, as a gift for her tirewoman help; Agnes had worn red hose and slippers ever since until now, Dog Boy thought, for the hose garters lay like streaks of blood nearby and the slipper he watched had slipped from her bagged heel and wagged frantically on her toes. Her last shriek was almost so piercing as to be heard only by the dogs and she jerked and spasmed so furiously that the slipper flew off.
Tods Wattie made a curious, childlike series of whimpers and slowed the mad pulse of him, then stopped entire. The straw stopped rustling like a rainstorm and Dog Boy shut his mouth with a click and heard their breathing, harsh and ragged.
Aye, said Agnes, in a thick, dreamy voice Dog Boy had never heard from her before. Yeve rattled me clean oot of my shoe.
They laughed and then the straw rustled as they tidied themselves together. Tods Wattie lumbered out, wisped with straw sticks, and looked over to where the dogs were, seeing Dog Boy and blinking.
There ye are, he said and Dog Boy knew he was wondering how long he had been sitting. In the end, he shrugged and passed a hand through his thick hair, combed out a straw and grinned.
Go to the kitchen and see if you can find some scraps for the dugs, he said and Dog Boy scampered off.
I still have a shoe on the other foot, said the throaty voice behind him and Tods Wattie blinked a bit and shook his head. He knew he and Dog Boy and the deerhounds were at Douglas because Hal thought it safer to leave his expensive dogs away from the Scots camp at Annick, where Bruce and the others sat in wary conclave with Percy and Clifford and both armies tried hard not to break into pitched battle. Worse still was to try to travel alone on dangerous roads back to Lothian.
But, he added to himself, if Sir Hal delays longer in sending for us this hot-arsed wee besom will have me worn to a nub end.
The kitchen was a swelter. At the large table, Master Fergus the Cook and his helpers split a side of salt beef for the boiling pit, spitted geese, kneaded bread; Dog Boy saw that there was milled sawdust being mixed in with the rye, which meant grain was scarce.
A scullion elbowed his way past Dog Boy with drawn water, piped cleverly from the stone cistern somewhere above; another lugged an armful of wood for the fire, which was bigger than the smiths furnace and hotter, too. Near it, the potboys withered, trying to stir without roasting themselves, huddled behind an old damped-down tiltyard shield. In the high summer some had been known to faint from the heat and only quick hands saved those from certain death; almost all of them had the glassy weals of old burns.
Well, what do you want, boy? demanded Fergus looking up. He was no advert for his craft, being a thin, pinch-faced man from Galloway, shaved bald on head and chin to better rid himself of vermin and stay cool.
I beg the blissin of ye sir, Dog Boy said, Tods Wattie asks if you can spare some meat and cleidin for his dogs.
Christs Bones, Fergus interrupted in his Gaelic-lilted English. Cleidin? Scraps for dogs, yet? Ask for a cone of sugar, why not? Everything is running low and little chance of it being replenished that I can see. Glad it is that almost all the visitors are after having gone, for another day would have seen us chewing our own boots.
The implication was that some unwanted guests remained and it was a sudden, sharp pain to Dog Boy to realise that he was now one of them. In an eyeblink and a series of words from the mouth of the Lady, he had gone from the company of the castle to being a stranger.
It will be for him, Master, added one of his helpers with a grin as he worked at carefully stacking and tallying a pyramid of honeycakes without breaking them. He looks as if he would eat raw meat.
Perhaps if yon hunt weeks back had actually routed out something worthwhile, Fergus grumbled, but hunted stag meat is tough and a brace of fine coneys make better eating and easier cooking. Now the game is scattered and wary and there will be no good hunting for weeks. All we had from it was a dead body and a mystery.
He broke off and thrust a round pot at Dog Boy, bright and reeking with bloody pats, some of the blood and grease slathered on the outside.
Here, he said. Bring the pot back sharp, mind.
Dog Boy grinned, nodded then shot out one hand and grabbed a honeycake, fleeing from the new catcalls and the barrage of feral curses that brought. He was almost at the door when he slammed into something dark and a hard object that whacked him on the temple.
Dazed, he staggered, found himself held up by a strong hand clamped painfully round his thin arm and looked up, past the hilt of the dagger which had smacked him, into a smear of smile.
It was on a fox-sharp face, the eyes cold and dark, the nose speckled with old pox-marks. There was a chin but not much of one and it made the mans teeth stick out like a rats from between wet lips limned by a wisped fringe of beard and moustache.
A wee thief, he said with suet-rich satisfaction and looked triumphantly at Fergus. It seems my arrival is timely.
Fergus cleaned his hands on his apron and looked at the newcomer, whom he disliked on sight. He glanced pointedly at the blood-clamp fist that gripped Dog Boys arm and the man raised an eyebrow and opened it with a sudden, deliberate gesture.
Dog Boy, pot in one hand, cake in the other, wanted to rub the affected bit but could only wriggle it, looking warily from the man to Fergus, who jerked his head silently at him to go. Heedless of the blood on his hands, Dog Boy crammed the honeycake in his mouth, then darted for the kennels, holding his puny biceps.
You are? Fergus said and the man lifted his head haughtily.
Malise Bellejambe, he declared. Sir Malise Bellejambe, he added pointedly. And you will lose a kitchen full of honey-cakes if you keep that attitude with wee thieves.
Sir, Fergus declared, in a tone that made it clear he did not believe the title for a moment. I remember you from before. You came with the Earl of Buchan. Now you are back. Whit why?
Malise wanted to force the man to his properly deferential knees, but managed a shaky smile instead.
The Countess has become strayed from his entourage, he said. The Earl fears she may have gotten lost and is mounted on yon great beast of a warhorse, which is not one for a woman to ride. The roads are no place for a woman alone.
He paused and smiled, as if a little ashamed of his lords indulgences in letting his wife gallop around the country astraddle a warhorse, without escort or even chaperone. The memory of her escape burned him Christs Bones she was a cat-cunning imp of Satan. Stole away while they all slept and managed to take the damned warhorse with her; Malise had been in a panic since, for he knew Buchan would suspect that their sleep was fuelled by drink and that they had been less than watchful. It was the truth, but not what Malise wanted to have to tell his master.
The Earl has sent me to guide her back. I thought she might have returned here.
There was silence for a moment, for all remembered the noises of the Earl punishing his wife, and Fergus thought, vehemently, that it was scarce a surprise that the Countess had run off. Wisely, he did not voice it.
Aye as to that I could not say, Fergus declared instead and rounded on the silent, still, open-mouthed scullions, raking them with his eyes until they became a sudden flurry of activity.
No such lady is here, he added. The Douglas Lord and Lady, bairns and all are gone elsewhere. Thomas the Sergeant is left as steward, so you would be wise to speak to him.
Malise stroked his chin as if considering it.
There was a quine, he said. Agnes, I believe her name was. Acted as tirewoman to the Countess when she visited here. I would speak with her.
His diffidence was a lie, for he knew the trull well enough to remember the sway of her hurdies and the lip-licking promise it gave. It was desperation to seek her out in the hope that she knew where the Countess had gone but Malise was all rat-frantic now. Fergus raised an eyebrow.