He wondered, having recently seen the Kings face as everyone else must have seen it, if the murder to cover up whether Bruce had lepry or not had been worth seven years behind Roxburghs stones. He wondered it aloud now, sitting on the tarred deck under the flapping belly of the sail, staring into Kirkpatricks face.
There was silence for a moment, smeared with the creak of rigging and rope, the slap of wave on the cogs hull and the dull flap of the huge square sail, puffing with weak breath, like a man dying.
Well, answered Kirkpatrick at length, it seemed so at the time, with our backs to the wall and the ram at the gates. Later, when the King fell ill near to death, in fact the rumours grew stronger than ever. Worth it? Not for you, I am thinking, but you will have a warmer welcome at Closeburn these days.
Hal had heard how Bruce had handed the liberated Closeburn lands to his faithful dog, Roger Kirkpatrick, so that he was now Lord Roger Kirkpatrick. Same name as the kin he had killed on that night and there was the Devils hand in that contrivance.
All I need is a knights dubbing, promised this very year, and I am achieved of all, Kirkpatrick went on proudly. Nigh on twenty years service to the Bruce, mark you.
Aye, Hal answered slowly. You have been raised.
Kirkpatrick fell silent, realizing how far Hal of Herdmanston had fallen and ashamed and angry at himself for letting his pride get in the way of appeasement. He smiled, trying to recover a little.
I will change my device, he said, attempting to make amends. Those fat sacks on a shield are too arrogant and mercantile for my taste.
Arrogant and mercantile, Hal repeated and found himself smiling at this new-found knightly fire from Kirkpatrick, who had the decency to flush a little and make a wry smile of his own.
I hear you are eyeing up a wife as well, Hal added and Kirkpatrick nodded, trying to make light of it, though the lady in question was an heiress with a good few acres.
What happened to the wummin whose man stabbed you for yer dalliance?
The question was, as usual from Hal, a bolt that took away Kirkpatricks breath, though he reeled away from it and recovered quickly, the memories fleeing through him like panicked deer. He had used an old love as cover for their task and shamelessly taken advantage of her former regard. He remembered Annie and himself in the cellar before they gained entrance to Closeburns castle. Nicholl, her man, coming out of the dark later, weeping angry at Kirkpatricks ruining of his nice life and taking revenge.
He was supposed to have horses for their escape, but delivered a dagger instead; Kirkpatrick felt the burning memory of where it had gone in his back and all but crippled him. It had taken a long time to recover and he never fully had but it had given him time to plan vengeance.
Fled, he answered thickly, though it was only half the truth and he had spent a deal of time and silver tracking them both down. He could scarce remain in Closeburn with me as lord and master.
And the wummin what was her name? Annie? Hal queried and saw the flat stare of Kirkpatrick, so that he knew the truth of it; Annies man, Nicholl, had not survived Kirkpatricks wrath. It was the mark of the man that Hal could not be sure that Annie had, childhood sweetheart or no. Blood and blood, Hal thought, a trail of it, thick and viscous as a snail track, leading always back to Kirkpatrick.
For your new device, he said harshly, you should consider a hand with a bloody dagger in it. Fitting.
Kirkpatrick did not even blink.
You must take better care of that maille, said a voice in French, splitting the moment like a wedge in a tree; they both turned into the spade-bearded face of Rossal de Bissot.
The sea air will rust it unless you do, he went on blandly, though it is good that you wear it constantly, to get used to the weight again.
Hal, in the act of heaving it up and slithering back into its cold embrace, was less smiling about the affair, but de Bissots approval was genuine and his enthusiasm uplifting.
By the time we reach Crunia, he beamed, clapping Hal on his metalled shoulder, you will be as before fit to be a Poor Knight of the Order.
Slight chance of that these days, Hal replied shortly and Rossal nodded.
God wills, he answered, and then smiled again, thinly. There was a time when you were considered for such an honour, he went on, to Hals astonishment. Your kinsman, Sir William, approached your father on the matter.
Sir William? The Auld Templar?
De Bissot frowned at the term, but nodded.
Yes, so you called him. It was shortly after the loss of your wife and child. Sir William asked to approach you and was refused, since you were sole heir to Herdmanston and your father did not want to lose you as well.
Hal was astounded. Sir William Sientcler of Roslin, the Auld Templar, had never mentioned it, nor had his father. It could easily have been done, too, for Hals grief at losing his wife and young son had been great enough to have driven him to the monkish life of a Templar, while Sir William, as Gonfanonier banner-bearer of the Order, had the clout to arrange it.
De Bissot saw his look and his smile broadened the grey-streaked spade beard.
Yes. You might have been standing here with us, he said and Kirkpatrick shifted a little at that.
Kneeling, Kirkpatrick corrected and de Bissot turned to see de Villers and Sir William de Grafton at prayer.
Terce, Rossal said, still smiling. Time is given by God and should not be wasted. I will join them.
They spend a deal o time on their knees, Kirkpatrick noted sourly, watching de Bissot join his fellow knights. If they had climbed up off them long enough they might still be in the Holy Land.
They fight well enough when they are on two feet, Hal noted, remembering. Callendar Woods.
Kneeling, Kirkpatrick corrected and de Bissot turned to see de Villers and Sir William de Grafton at prayer.
Terce, Rossal said, still smiling. Time is given by God and should not be wasted. I will join them.
They spend a deal o time on their knees, Kirkpatrick noted sourly, watching de Bissot join his fellow knights. If they had climbed up off them long enough they might still be in the Holy Land.
They fight well enough when they are on two feet, Hal noted, remembering. Callendar Woods.
Kirkpatrick let the words drift like acrid smoke. Callendar Woods, where Wallaces army had been helped to shattered ruin by Templars, a Christian Order fighting Christians; Kirkpatrick had not been there, but knew that the odious taint of it had stained the Order and added to its final ruin.
Yet here they were, sailing with disbanded heretics of the Templars, carrying Templar treasure to a former Templar stronghold in Spain to fetch stored Templar weapons.
It was a deal brokered on behalf of the King of Scots with the Order of Alcántara, the Spanish who had taken over the former Templar fortress; in return, Hal knew, de Bissot and the others had been given a rickle of land and a castle somewhere in the north that they might call their own, provided no mention was made of Poor Knights.
It was, to say the least, the strangest quest he had been on with Kirkpatrick and he had been on a few. A royal request, of course, which is to say only slightly less of a command than from God.
Desperate, too, Hal had realized. Bruce sends out his two faithful auld hounds because he can trust no one else to exert their utmost, in ingenuity, strength and, above all, loyalty; he felt his grin twist wryness into his face.
Loyalty. Kirkpatrick will do it for a dubbing, a blade on the shoulder that ranks him with the other nobiles of the Kingdom. I would give mine back, if it were possible, he thought, to not be here at all.
Only for Isabel. Only for her.
He and Kirkpatrick sat in silence for a while as the ship wallowed on, the crew trying to make themselves look busy so that Pegy Balgownie would not give them something worse to do in his scowling temper at the lack of wind.
Matins to Compline and during the night as well, Kirkpatrick muttered, watching the kneeling men and reluctant to let go of his Templar bone.
O Lord, You will open my lips and my mouth shall declare Your praise, Hal intoned with mock piety. The Order Knights have a deal of questions to ask of God, who seems to have abandoned them. Unlike the King.
Kirkpatrick shook his head.
The King will not openly support the Order of Poor Knights, which no longer exists, according to the Pope. But he will not cast aside folk he owes nor will I.
The last was said with quiet vehemence and Hal knew why. De Bissot had once plucked Kirkpatrick from certain death and had been quietly instrumental in garnering support and information for the beleaguered Bruce, even before Hals capture.
And now, Hal thought, he brings even more. He met Kirkpatricks eyes and was sure they shared the same golden thought; snugged up in the depths of the Bon Accords foul swill of ballast was a nest of stout, bound boxes as full of riches as any eggs. Templar riches, plucked from the ruin of their collapse.
A stir on deck made them turn to see the other richness that nestled in the cogs belly: a fragrant drift of periwinkle-blue dress, a lush curve of lip, two large eyes, dark as olives in a fine, breath-stopping beauty of a face. Her black hair was caught up in a net of pearls and she moved sinuously, aware that every eye was on her.
Yet Hal thought the Doña Beatriz Ruiz de Castro y Pimentals beautiful face had a sharp look, like a razored heart. She was the one sent by the Order of Alcántara to finalize the details of this secret deal and if ever anything marked the difference between the two religious commands, it was Doña Beatriz, walking like a gliding dream, shadowed by her Moor, Piculph. The Templars did not care for Moors and for women even less.
Kirkpatricks soft chuckle turned Hals head to where the man gazed: the supposed Benedictines, rising hastily and moving away, as politely as they could, but pointedly nevertheless.
If nothing else betrayed them, Kirkpatrick said, then their Orders disdain for weemin is as clear as a Judas kiss.
They watched as Rossal de Bissot, braced stiffly, walked to the lady and inclined his head in a curt bow, and had it in return. Piculph, after a short pause, moved away out of earshot, Hal thought and the lady began to walk quietly along the deck, with Rossal falling in beside her, his every celibate step as if he walked barefoot on nails.