by Robert Low
There was a font near the door, no more than a large bowl on a plinth and, apart from an altar on a dais, nothing else but a worn flagged floor. Above the altar was a painting of Saint Christopher bearing the Christ Child, who scowled disapprovingly at the unlit sanctuary lamp.
There was no sign of the priest they had seen earlier – but Jop was up and fiercely challenging when they came through the door to his room, up some stairs of the wooden campanile and one level below the belfry itself.
‘Who’s this – who the De’il are you?’
He was big, Hal admitted, seemingly bigger in the low-ceilinged room, already crowded with a truckle bed, a stout kist and a brazier of red coals. Copper hair, a fierce eye, big shoulders – for a moment they all three thought they had stumbled on The Wallace by accident.
Yet a second glance told the truth of it – the face was the same, but as if someone had stuck bellows in the mouth and puffed it up. The eye was fierce, but the heart behind it was not. The height was the same, but the shoulders were fatty and the belly an ale cask.
‘Jop,’ Kirkpatrick declared and hauled out the four-sided dirk, so that the big man backed away, collided with the truckle and sat so hard Hal heard it splinter.
‘Who sent ye?’ the man hoarsed out and Kirkpatrick chuckled.
‘Nobody in London, if that is what ye think,’ he replied. ‘Though ye will speak of that place afore we are through.’
‘No English neither,’ Hal added. ‘Though Longshanks will be anxious to ask you aboot the cross ye have snugged up somewheres.’
Jop blinked and sagged, which brought a vicious chuckle from Kirkpatrick.
‘Aye, we ken of it. Ye will tell us where we can find it.’
‘It were only half the cross. Yon wee pardoner, Lamprecht, the coo shite, had half of it,’ he offered to Kirkpatrick. ‘We helped shift some loot from the back o’ the minster where it had been hid, for Mabs in Sty Lane, though it was ower treacherous to try at that time, wi’ Pudlicote’s skin still wet on Westminster’s door.’
‘And did you take it to yer kin, The Wallace?’ Hal asked.
‘Him?’
Jop was scorning and wiped some sweat from his palm across dry lips, watching the wink of the knife.
‘If ye see him, offer my blissin’,’ he said sourly. ‘God be wi’ The Wallace, for he ne’er took from a man but all he had.’
‘Meaning?’ demanded Hal, and Jop, his tongue like a lizard, spilled it all out like water from a spout.
He had sought out Wallace in the hope that his kin might shelter him and buy the gilded half-cross he had brought with him, for it was well known The Wallace had the hard cash of a dozen good raids.
Hal and Kirkpatrick shared brief glances.
‘So Wallace knows all this?’ demanded Kirkpatrick and Jop curled a lip.
‘Aye, he does. Laughed. Then took the shine,’ he said in a bitter whine. ‘I had six and Lamprecht had six. Bliddy Wallace took mine, for The Cause he says.’
He spat into the coals of the brazier.
‘Kin,’ he added venomously.
‘And the Rood?’ demanded Hal.
Jop’s face almost folded in half with the frown.
‘The Rood? Lamprecht had that, coveted it above all else … here, did he send ye?’
Hal and Kirkpatrick shot savage, stunned glances at each other, for it was clear the pardoner had cozened them all and lured them here. As if their thoughts had summoned up the Devil, the clank of a poor-iron bell above their heads was a shattering explosion.
Jop reeled up and bellowed with the shock of it, so that Kirkpatrick reared back; Jop, seeing his chance, lashed out and the blow slammed Hal backwards into the wall with a crack. Sim sprang forward and he and Jop locked with each other like rutting rams.
In an instant, all was chaos and fury. Sim and Jop strained and staggered, knocking over the brazier with a clatter, spilling hot coals in a glowing mockery of rubies; Kirkpatrick, cursing, started forward, was hit by the struggling pair and knocked sideways and over the kist.
Hal hauled himself up, saw the smoulder of old rushes and started stamping on the bloom of flame. Sim and Jop finally crashed into the bed, fell on it, broke the poles and rolled on to the floor. There was a thump and a roar, then Sim rose up and staggered back a step or two.
‘Ease up, Jop,’ he bellowed. ‘Doucely, man – we mean ye no harm.’
‘Murderers. Thieves. Lamprecht …’
Kirkpatrick fought the panic in him – the noise of the fight, the shouting, Hal’s mad stamping on flames was all fit to wake the dead in the crypt. Jop roared forward in a rush of fear and Sim, caught off balance, went sideways. Kirkpatrick, fast and unthinking as a hornet in a fist, whirled and struck.
Jop gave a coughing grunt, swayed a little with a look of amazement on his face as he stared at where Kirkpatrick had punched him … not a hard blow …
Then the dagger thrust to his heart felled him, and like a tree he crashed to the rushed floor, his head bouncing hard enough to let everyone know he was dead.
Hal’s feet finally stopped stamping on the flames.
‘Christ be praised,’ he murmured, shocked.
‘For ever and ever,’ Kirkpatrick intoned reverently, then wiped the dagger clean on Jop’s tunic, pinched out a coal smouldering in the man’s hair and straightened.
‘Murder was no part of this,’ Hal accused.
‘It is now,’ Kirkpatrick answered, his sneer bloody in the light and there was no denying the logic of it, which made Hal click his teeth shut.
‘We should be away,’ Sim interrupted, then jerked as the bell boomed out again, loud as the doors of Hell opening.
‘Christ’s Bones …’ hissed Kirkpatrick.
‘Lamprecht,’ Sim spat and Kirkpatrick’s curse was pungent.
‘We should be away from here,’ Hal warned, but Kirkpatrick was already at the door and the others followed him. At the lintel, Kirkpatrick paused, turned and kicked the overturned brazier so that the last coals spilled out, the soft flaring chasing him out of the room.
They moved swiftly into the dim of the hall, where their shadows scored the walls in a mad dance. Someone loomed out of the dark, making Hal shout with surprise.
‘Hold,’ called a voice and Kirkpatrick whirled and struck, rat-swift and hard – save that his wrist was suddenly shackled. He gave a roar and a jerk, but Sim held the grip.
‘Christ’s Wounds,’ he spat. ‘Would ye kill a priest now?’
The wee priest, woken and brought to the body of the chapel by the noises, had fallen in his shock and sat looking up in horror at the glittering dagger and the gripped wrist that stopped it coming down on him. Sim let it go, moving swiftly to put himself between the dirk and the priest, whom he hauled up by the front of his robe, staring down into the little man’s anguished twist of a face.
‘Do ye ken me?’ he demanded and had to repeat it before the priest blinked and focused on him.
‘Ye are thieves an’ violators o’ the house o’ God … oooff.’
The air was driven out of him by Sim’s belly-blow and a second massive fist crashed behind his ear and sent him slamming to the ground.
‘Good,’ Sim said and Kirkpatrick moved to go round him. Hal caught the man’s elbow and hauled him back.
‘Mak’ siccar,’ Kirkpatrick hissed and Hal jerked roughly on the arm he held.
‘No need. You heard the man – he does not ken who we are and so can tell them nothin’. Have you no’ had killing enough?’
‘He has lots he can spill …’ Kirkpatrick hissed back, trying to tear himself free.
‘Not blood this night,’ answered Hal grimly and locked his stare with a hard one of his own.
The boom of the pounded door opening racked them from the moment; Kirkpatrick cursed and they were off like hares for the crypt door, scurrying through as smoke spilled out of Jop’s room behind them, stumbling down the crypt stairs and between the kists, then out into the rain-washed night, where the
y sucked in air and a mirr of rain soft as the lick of a fawning dog.
There was no moon, no stars, just the wet of the grass beneath their feet; then behind, flames flicked and Hal realized that Kirkpatrick had tossed the lantern aside in the crypt. Beyond that, a dull glow showed where the church burned.
The guards had come up fast, for they had been waiting, night after night, in hourly expectation of capturing the creeping, sleekit Wallace, and the dull clanking of the church bell had spilled them out, ready armed. They were holding axe and sword – one had a spear – with heater shields, maille and helmets so they thought they had the edge on three men in drover’s rags with no more than knives.
Hal cursed; the English garrison from Riccarton had not been part of their plan – though it was clear to Hal that it had been an integral part of Lamprecht’s.
The guards closed in; there was a wild whirl of grunts and the belling of steel on steel. Sparks flew from the blades and a spear from the shadows, flung at Hal by a desperate hand and falling short to skitter madly along the rutted track.
Sim’s roar was so close it made Hal’s ear buzz and he jerked back as a sword came at him, managing to fend it off with the dirk, though the blow numbed his arm and all but ripped the weapon from his grasp.
He ducked, spun, slashed and felt the blade catch, heard a howl. A blade slithered at him and he only just managed to turn sideways so that it slid through his tunic, leaving a strange cold line under his ribs. The man behind it stumbled on, unable to stop and off balance so that Hal’s knife thrusts, three quick viper strikes in his unprotected neck dumped the man onto the muddy track.
Kirkpatrick was snarling like a pit-fighting dog in a mad jig with two guards. More were coming up and the bobbing lights of their lanterns were clear; behind, Hal heard curses and the crypt door splinter, half turned to see the last flare of flame as more guards stamped out the fish-oil flames of the thrown lantern and freed the entrance into the chapel cemetery.
They were in deep trouble, Hal knew, as two men came at him. He stepped, half-turned and slammed a shoulder into the nearest, sending him reeling back and cutting him with a slash. Then something hit him on the back of the head and the world wobbled, a place of whirling dirt and muddy water.
He found himself on his hands and knees, forced himself to rear upright, slashing wildly, feeling the back of his head start to burn, hearing the roar of his own sucking breathing. His mouth was full of the salted metal tang of blood and he felt the sudden talon grasp of fingers on his shoulder; he wondered, almost idly, what had happened to the Dog Boy.
The hand wrenched him round and he swung weakly, felt his knife hand clamped and a voice hissed:
‘It’s me. Sim. Leave off that.’
Then, in the misted haze of his head, Hal heard the bawling of cattle and almost laughed. Sim, on the other hand, was cursing and dragging him sideways; the pair of them fell in the mud and rolled over as black shapes clattered past, bellowing their annoyance. A slim, dark shadow yelped and nipped at their heels.
Hal shook himself back to the road and the night and the mud, in time to see the little black cattle, horns like curved scimitars, stampeding off down the road in a scatter of mud and water and English garrison.
‘Time to be away,’ said a calm voice – Dog Boy – and they wraithed off into the night, Dog Boy calling up his cattle dogs as he went. By the time lack of breath forced them to stop, he was frowning, for one of the pair had not responded.
‘I fear it is killed,’ he growled. ‘Good Beauchien,’ he added, patting the other.
Beauchien, Hal thought and laughed, then winced at what that did to his head. Sim was fussing round his ribs and muttering, so that Hal realized, with a sudden shock, that he had been badly cut. Kirkpatrick nodded admiringly to the Dog Boy.
‘Timely appearance,’ he said. ‘That trick wi’ the kine saved our hides, certes.’
‘I had the wit of Lamprecht’s intent too late,’ Dog Boy said mournfully apologetic. ‘I am sorry.’
‘What wit?’ Sim demanded, peering at the dark stain along Hal’s ribs and tutting disapproval.
‘The daftie boy,’ Dog Boy said. ‘He wanted the shell from yon pardoner’s hat but it was only later that I realized he had asked for it before and also been refused.’
He stopped and stared at the slowly comprehending faces.
‘Lamprecht came here before and the daftie boy saw him. I am betting sure the pardoner went to see Jop – and then went to find us and the Earl Robert. I dinna ken why, but I was sure no good was in it.’
A plaintive bawling snapped the silence and Sim cursed.
‘Stirk Davey’s coos are scattered,’ he moaned. ‘The Riccarton English will be sooking the juice off steaks afore the morn’s done – and we are out by a pretty penny.’
Hal thought that a harsh judgement on a timely use of charging cattle, but his head hurt so much that he felt sick and could not speak for a long time. When he did, it was not cows that he spoke of.
Instead, his question fell on them like a crow on a dead eye, made them realize who was missing.
‘Where’s Lamprecht?’
CHAPTER FOUR
Lincoln
Nativity of Christ (Christ’s Mass Day), 1304
Steam from horses and riders blended with the fine gruel of churned up mud and snow in a sluggish mist that was filled with shouts and grunts and clashes of steel so that the men behind Bruce shifted on their horses.
‘Wait,’ he commanded and he felt them settle – all but brother Edward, of course, who muttered and fretted on his right.
Bruce looked at the wild, swirling mêlée, men hammering one another with blunted weapons, howling with glee, breaking off to bring their blowing horses round in a tight circle and hurl themselves back into the mad knotted tangle of fighting.
‘Now,’ Edward growled impatiently. ‘There he is …’
‘Wait.’
Beyond the mud-frothed field loomed the great, dark snow-patched bulk of the castle, where the ladies of the court watched from the comfort of a high tower, surrounded by charcoal braziers, swaddled in comforting furs and gloved, so that their applause would sound like the pat of mouse feet.
‘Now,’ Edward repeated, his voice rising slightly.
‘Wait.’
‘Aaah.’
Bruce heard the long, frustrated growl, saw the surge of the powerful destrier and cursed his brother even as he signalled the others to follow the spray of kicked-up mud. With a great howl of release, Bruce’s mesnie burst from the cover of the copse of trees and fell on the struggling mass.
Too soon, Bruce realized. Far too soon – the target saw Edward descend, the trail of riders behind him, and broke from the fight to face them, howling from underneath the bucket helm for his own men to help him. De Valence, he bellowed. De Valence.
Edward’s light, unarmoured horse balked and swerved as de Valence’s powerful warhorse reared and flailed with lethal hooves, the blue and white, mud-stained caparison flapping. Coming in on the other side, Bruce leaned and grabbed a handful of de Valence’s surcoat, took a smashing blow on his mailed arm which numbed it, causing him to lose his grip.
De Valence, off balance on the plunging destrier, gave a sharp, muffled cry and fell sideways, raking one spur along the caparisoned back of the warhorse. It screamed and bolted; de Valence, his other foot caught, bounced off behind it, yelling once as he carved a rut through the mud and into the dangerous, prancing pack.
‘Him,’ yelled Edward and his brother screwed round in the saddle as a figure – the one who had hit him, he realized – tried to get away from the Bruce men. ‘Rab – get him.’
Bruce reacted like a stoat on a rabbit, without thinking, seizing the man round the waist and hauling him bodily out of the saddle ignoring the curses and kicks and flails. He carried the man out of the maelstrom mêlée and dumped him like a sack of metal pots.
Malenfaunt, dazed and bruised, felt rough hands on him; someone tried to te
ar off the bucket helm, but it was laced to his shoulders. Then a voice, rough as a badger’s rear-end, bellowed into the breathing holes for him to yield. He waved one hand, sore and sick with the knowledge of what this might cost him – and at the hands of the Bruces, whom he already hated. Even the satisfaction of having saved de Valence from capture did not balm it much.
Bruce saw the man’s device, knew the man for Malenfaunt and rounded on his grinning brother.
‘We struck for an eagle,’ he said bitterly, ‘but ended with a chick.’
Edward scowled; the friendly scramble of tourney continued to whirl like the mad scrapping of dogs, to celebrate the birthday of Christ.
Abbey of Evesham, Worcester
The same night
Kirkpatrick slid to Hal’s side.
‘Gone to London,’ he grunted softly out of the side of his mouth, rubbing his hands at the flames of the great fire and not looking at Hal. He hawked, then spat in the fire so that the sizzle made those nearest growl at his bad manners. Kirkpatrick’s grin back at them – travellers and pilgrims all – was feral, as befitted his pose as a hireling soldier, rough as a forge-file and not to be trifled with.
‘Had that from three of his kind, bone-hunting wee shites like himself. Heading for Compostella, says one o’ them.’
‘They ken it is him?’ Hal demanded and Kirkpatrick nodded.
‘Aye,’ he said in a whisper. ‘An ugly dung-drop who speaks strangely and is named Lamprecht? Not hard to find even if he keeps his name hidden. Besides, he was a known face to the wee priests here.’
Hal stared moodily at the fire, while the wind howled and battered. There was snow in that wind and the travel next day would be hard and slow – they would probably have to lead their horses for most of it, so there was another curse to lay at the door of the wee pardoner, whose cunning had robbed an earl and almost led Hal and Kirkpatrick and others to their death. Hal shifted and winced; the cut under his ribs was still scabbed and leaking.
‘Should have watched him closer in the first place,’ Kirkpatrick said, as if in answer. ‘Should have dealt with him and Jop both in that night.’