Tods Wattie tied on a new leash, scowling at Gib. Hal leaned down towards Dog Boy and Sim Craw saw the concern.
Yer a bit bloody, boy, Hal said awkwardly and Dog Boy looked at him while the huge beast of a deerhound panted and fawned on him. He smiled beatifically. There was something huge and ecstatic in his chest and the raw power of it locked with this new lord and made them, it seemed, one.
So is yourself, maister.
Sim Craws laugh was a horn bellow of its own and Hal, ruefully touching his cheek and forehead, looked at the blood on his gloved fingers, acknowledged the boy with a wave and went on after the hunt.
The pack was milling and snarling and dashing backwards and forwards, save for the powerful alaunts, who had caught up at last and charged in. One was locked to the stags throat, another to one thin, proud leg and a third to the animals groin, jerking it this way and that. The stags dulling eyes were anguished and hopeless and, too weary now to fight, it suffered the agony in a silence broken only by the bellow rasp of its breathing, blowing a thin mist of blood from flaring nostrils.
White Tam, reeling precariously in his saddle, barked out orders and the hound and huntsmen moved in with whips and blades to leash the dogs and give the beast the grace of death.
A fine stag, he said to Hal, beaming. Though it is early in the year and there will be finer come July. What will you take for yon dugs?
Hal merely looked at him, raised an eyebrow and smiled. White Tam slapped one hand on his knee and belched out a laugh.
Just so, just so I would not part with them neither.
Dog Boy heard this as if from a distance, for his world had folded to the anguish on Berner Philippes face and the mournful dark eye of Sanspeur. The rache whined and tried to lick Dog Boys hand and, for a moment, they knelt shoulder to shoulder, the Berner and Dog Boy.
Swef, swef, ma belle, Philippe said and saw that the leg was smashed beyond repair. There was a moment when he became aware of the boy and looked at him, the thought of what he had to do next a harsh misery in his eyes, and Dog Boy saw it. The Berner felt something sharp and sweet, a pang which drove the breath from him when he looked into the eyes of the dog he would have to kill. He loved this dog. The knife flashed like a dragonfly in sunlight.
Fetch a mattock, he grunted and, when nothing happened, jerked his head to the boy. Then he saw the look on Dog Boys face as he stared at the filming eyes of the dying dog and the harsh words clogged in his throat. He found, suddenly, that he was ashamed of how hard he grown in the years between now and when he had been Dog Boys age.
If you please, he added, yet still could not keep the slightest of sneers from it. Dog Boy blinked, nodded and fetched a mattock and a spade, while the dogs were hauled away and the stag butchered. Between them, they dug a hole under a tree, where the ground was mossy and still springy and put the dog in it, then covered it with mould, black leaves and earth.
Sanspeur, Philippe thought. Without fear. She had been without fear, too and that had been her undoing. It was better to be afraid, he thought to himself, and stay alive. The boy, Dog Boy, knew this Philippe turned and found himself alone, saw the boy moving from him, back to the big deerhounds and the hard, armed men he now belonged to. He did not look afraid at all.
There was a flurry off to one side, a flash of berry red, and Isabel appeared, cheeks flushed, hood back and her fox-pelt hair wisping from under the elaborate green and gold padded headpiece, her face wrinkling distaste at the blood and guts and flies. Behind her came Bruce, riding easily, and after them Bangtail Hob and Thom Bell, all black scowls and slick with a sweat that was mead for midges.
Theres your wummin, Sim said close to Hals elbow. Safe enow. What was it ye called her a hot-arsed what?
Then he chuckled and urged ahead before Hal could spit out for him to mind his business.
Martens, Isabel called out gaily and Bruce, laughing, came up with it almost at once a richesse. Hal saw Buchan scowl and, fleetingly, wondered where Kirkpatrick was.
A tan, white-scutted shape burst out of the undergrowth, almost under the hooves of Bradacus, which made the great warhorse rear. Buchan, roaring and red-faced, sawed at the reins as he and the horse spun in a dancing half-circle, then lashed out with both rear hooves, catching Bruces horse a glancing blow.
Bruces rouncey, panicked beyond measure, squealed and bolted, the rider reeling with the surprise of it, while the dogs went mad and even the big deerhounds lurched forward, to be brought short by Dog Boy and Tods Watties tongue.
Isabel threw back her head and laughed until she was almost helpless.
Hares, she called out to Bruces wild, tilting back and Hal, despite himself, felt the flicker of his groin and shifted in the saddle. Then he realised the Berner was bellowing and half-turned to see the biggest brute of the alaunts, unused in the hunt and fighting fresh, rip its chains out of its handlers fists and speed off after Bruce, snarling.
There was a frozen moment when Hal looked at Sim and both glanced to where Malise, off his horse, stared after the fleeing hound with a look halfway between feral snarl and triumph. In a glance so fast Hal nearly missed it, he then turned and looked at the alaunt handler, who looked back at him.
The chill of it soured deep into Hals belly. The hound had been deliberately released and a trained warhorse frightened by a leaping hare?
Sim he said, even as he kicked Griff, but the man had seen it for himself and spurred after Hal, bellowing for Tods Wattie and Bangtail Hob. Buchan, bringing Bradacus miraculously back under control, watched them crash through the undergrowth in pursuit of Bruce and tried not to smile.
White Tam, hunched on the mare, ploughed on relentlessly while the hunt swirled and whirled around him, knowing the truth of matters that he was too old and slow these days, so that he reached the hunt when it was all over bar the cutting up. White Tam knew the ritual of cutting up well now, talked more and more in a language gravy-rich with os and suet, argos and croteys, grease and fiants.
He was aware only of the vanishing of Bruce and the others as an annoyance by well-bred oafs who chased hares.
Go after the Earl of Carrick, he ordered those nearest. Mak siccar he does not tumble on his high-born arse.
Bruce, half-clinging on for dear life, finally got control of the rouncey and became aware, suddenly and with a catch of fear in his throat, that he was alone. He turned this way and that, hearing shouts but confused as to direction then, for fear his anxiety would cause the trembling horse to bolt again, he got off the animal and stroked it quiet, neck and muzzle.
The leveret was long gone and he shook his head at the shame of having let his mount bolt, even if it had been sorely provoked by a kicking destrier. Hares, he thought with a savage wryness. A husk of hares he would take delight in telling her.
He looked round at the oak and hornbeam, the sun glaring cross-grained through branches, thinly prowling over his face like delicate, warm cat paws. The bracken was crushed here, there was a smell of broken grass and turned earth and the iron tang of blood, which made Bruce uneasy. The mystery of how a hare, which was not a forest animal at all, had been there at all nagged him a little and the worry of plots surfaced like sick.
Then he realised this was where the stag had been brought to bay by the deerhounds and relaxed a little, which in turn brought the rouncey to an even breathing. Even so, there was a musk that puzzled him, the more so because it came from the rounceys sweat-foamed sides and the saddle; he had been smelling it all day.
The alaunt came out of the undergrowth like an uncurling black snake, a matted crow of snarls that skidded, paused and padded, slow and purposeful, the shoulders hunched and working, the slaver dripping from open jaws.
Bruce narrowed his eyes, then felt the first stirrings of fear it was stalking him. Then, with a deep panic he had to grip himself to fight, he realised what the musk smell was and that hare scent, blood and glands, had been deliberately smeared on saddle and horse flank. A deal of hare scent, too, now transferred to himself.
There was a pause and Bruce fought to free the dagger at his belt, cursing, seeing the inevitable in the gathering tremble of the beasts haunches. Somewhere, he heard shouts and the blare of a hunting horn too far, he thought wildly. Too far
The black shape launched forward, low and fast, boring in to disembowel this strange, large, two-legged prey that smelled right and looked wrong. The rouncey squealed and reared and danced away, reins caught in the bracken, and the alaunt, confused by scent from two victims, paused, chose the smaller one and, snarling, tore forward.
There was a streak through the grass, a fast-moving brindle arrow, rough-haired and uncombed. It struck the flank of the alaunt in mid-leap and Bruce, one forearm up to protect his throat, reeling back and already feeling the weight and the teeth of the affair, saw an explosion of snarls and a ball of fur and fang rolling over and over until it separated, paused and then alaunt and Mykel surged back at each other like butting rams.
Their bodies whirled and curled, opened and shut. Fangs snapped and throats snarled; one of them squealed and bloody slaver flew. Bruce, shocked, could only watch while the rouncey danced and screamed on the end of its tether then a second grey shape barrelled in and the ball of fighting hounds rolled and snarled and fought a little longer until the alaunt, outmatched even by one, broke from the pair of deerhounds and sped away.
Hal and Sim came up, trailing Tods Wattie, the Dog Boy with a fistful of leashes and a cursing Bangtail Hob in his wake. They all arrived in time to see the alaunt, close hauled by the ghost-grey shapes, suddenly fall over its own front feet, roll over and over and then sprawl, loose and still. The deer-hounds overran it and had to skid and backtrack, only to find their prey so dead they could only paw it, snarling and whining in a thwarted ecstasy of lost bloodlust, puzzled at the leather-fletched sapling which had sprouted from the hunting dogs neck.
From out of a nearby copse strolled Kirkpatrick, latchbow casually over one shoulder.
A fine shot, Sim noted with a detached part of his brain. What was he doin, sleekit in the trees with a latchbow? He could not find the voice for it did not need to as the Dog Boy ran to secure the hounds and Hal and Bruce exchanged looks.
If you are allowed to search the saddle-bags of yon Malise, Kirkpatrick said, in a voice as easy as if they were discussing horses at table, you will surely find it full of hare shite. Terrifying for a wee leveret, to be shut up in the bouncing dark until needed. You will find also that the alaunt handler has been spirited away, though I will wager hell not long enjoy the payment he had for releasing yon monster on cue. You will not find him at all, I suspect.
No-one spoke, until Bruce turned to the snorting, panting, wild-eyed rouncey and gathered up the reins, the trembling fear in him turning to anger at what had been revealed, at the cunning planning in it and, if truth be told, his own secret attempt against Buchan.
In his minds eye, for a fleeting, bowel-wrenching flicker, he saw the dogs great jaws and the long, leaping shape of it he wrenched to free the reins from the tangle, felt them give then catch again; irritated, he hauled with all his strength.
Death ripped up out of the earth and leered at him.
Douglas Castle The next day
The hunt ended like a trail of damp smoke, filtering back in near-silence to the castle. Bruce, too bright and brittle to be true, flirted even more outrageously with the Countess, though her exchanges seemed strained and she was too aware of Buchans glowering.
No-one could stop looking at the cart which held the body though Hal had seen Kirkpatrick, riding silent and cat-hunched with a face as sightless and bland as a stone saint. Here was a man who had just seen his liege lord under attack and should be head-swinging alert yet he stared ahead and saw nothing.
He should, Hal said to Sim later, be like a mouse sniffing moonlight for more owls.
You would so think, Sim agreed but he was distracted, had come in from the dark night of the Ward to report that hed seen the Countess, huckled like a bad apprentice across to the Earl of Buchans tent by Malise and two men in leather jacks and foul grins. The noises that came from it then set everyones teeth on edge.
In the comfort of the kitchen, old limbs wrapped to ease the ache, White Tam nodded approval; the Earl of Buchan had finally seen sense ower his wayward wummin.
A woman, a dog and an old oak tree, he intoned. The more you beat them, the better they be.
Why an oak tree, Master? demanded one of the scullions and Tam told him sometimes such a tree stopped producing valuable acorns for the pigs, so some stout men, including the Smith with his forge hammer, would walk round it, hitting it hard. It started the sap up again and saved the tree.
Dog Boy, fetching scraps for the hounds, listened to the sick sounds and thought of the Countess being hit by a forge hammer. He did not think her sap would rise.
There was worse to come, at least for Hal, as the morning crept closer the Auld Templar shifted out of the shadows like a wraith and, with a pause for a single deep breath, like a man ducking underwater, said:
I need to call on your aid.
Hal felt the chill of it right there.
I am, as ever, fealtied to Roslin, he replied carefully and saw the old mans head jerk at that. Aha so I am right, he thought. He summons me as a liege lord.
Before my son came of age, the Auld Templar said slowly, I was lord of Roslin. I taught the young Bruce how to fight.
Hal said nothing, though that fact explained much about the Templars presence with the Earl of Carrick.
When my son was able, I handed him Roslin and gave my soul and arm to God, the Templar went on. I have never regretted it until now.
He stared at Hal, pouch eyes flickered with torchlight.
I cannot be seen to fight for one side or the other, he went on. But Roslin must jump.
To the Bruce, Hal said bleakly and had back a nod.
The Sientcler Way, Hal added, hearing the desperation in his own voice. The Sientcler Way was always to have a branch of the family on either side of a conflict. That way, triumph or loss, the Sientclers always survived.
The Auld Templar shook his head.
This conflict is too large and the Sientclers are too thinned. This time, we must jump one way and pray to God.