The Complete Kingdom Trilogy

by Robert Low

  Old Jewry in daylight was bad enough, Kirkpatrick thought as he crabbed up the overgrown street, with the gaping doorways leering at him and the half-splintered window shutters seeming to glare balefully, like injured eyes. At night, it would be a place of horrors, real and imagined, and he was glad to reach the sanctuary of St Olave’s, sliding through the open doorway into the dim and cool illusion of safety, all balm to his sweating fear.

  Voices. He paused, feeling the sweat slide down his back, but he forced himself to speak when he saw the owners of the voices – a priest in black habit and scapular, tall, gaunt and angular, arguing with a white-haired, red-faced man in paint-stained tunic and hose which an apron, as riotously daubed as Joseph’s Coat, had failed to protect.

  ‘Ho,’ Kirkpatrick hoarsed out and both men whirled, startled.

  ‘Is this some alehouse?’ The red-faced man thundered, staring accusingly at Kirkpatrick, ‘where folk can rush in and out as they please?’

  ‘There is a riot in Ironmonger Lane,’ the priest said gently, adding woefully, ‘again.’

  ‘Have folk come in here?’ Kirkpatrick demanded in a rasp even he did not like. ‘A scuttling little man followed by another, black and spider-like?’

  The priest looked him over and Kirkpatrick felt a spasm of irritation at how he must look; it had been bad enough when he was disguised as a beggar, in sackcloth hood and torn old clothes which stank of the cabbage smell you get from marinading in your own farts. Now he was slathered with fluids and watery blood and grease, so he realized he was unlikely to get reasonable treatment – the red-faced man confirmed it.

  ‘Who the Devil are you, sirra?’ he demanded truculently, but the priest held up one placating hand for he had heard the voice, at odds with a beggar’s look. No whine or deference in it – on the contrary, it had the tone and timbre of command so the priest stepped carefully.

  ‘Ekarius came in. Another followed him, asking after him as you have done.’

  ‘Who is Ekarius?’ demanded Kirkpatrick and the red-faced man elbowed the priest aside.

  ‘My assistant – and who are you?’

  ‘Assistant what?’ answered Kirkpatrick and the red-faced man went purple, drew some of the fat from his belly to his chest and puffed up like a pigeon.

  ‘I am William of Thanet, Master artist,’ he bellowed. ‘I will not ask again …’

  ‘Neither will I.’

  Kirkpatrick showed him the dagger; even at six feet of distance it pricked a hole in the man’s pompous bluster and he sagged and sputtered. The priest made the sign of the cross and said: ‘Christ be praised.’

  ‘For ever and ever,’ Kirkpatrick answered, then jerked the dagger meaningfully.

  ‘Ekarius mixes paints for Master William,’ the priest answered quickly and the dumbed William nodded furious agreement.

  ‘Little man, speaks strangely, says he is a pilgrim from the Holy Land?’

  ‘As to that last, my son, I could not say,’ the priest declared and William of Thanet found his voice.

  ‘From Cologne,’ he spluttered. ‘He has seen the church of St Maria Lyskirchen, as have I – he can recall some of the frescoes and is helping me recreate them here …’

  He waved and Kirkpatrick saw, for the first time, the great, intricate webbing of scaffold clawing up two of the walls, half masking Christ in His Glory and The Last Supper. Cologne – well, that fitted at least – Ekarius was almost certainly Lamprecht.

  ‘Can he paint?’ Kirkpatrick asked, bemused and William of Thanet exploded.

  ‘Christ in Heaven, no – he simply recalls figures and positions I have forgotten. I let him limewash, mind you. When he is not darting around …’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  Both men pointed upwards.

  ‘He has made a nest up there,’ snorted William. ‘Like a squirrel.’

  Kirkpatrick looked up, then back at the men.

  ‘It would be best,’ he said, ‘if you went about your business elsewhere for the moment.’

  ‘It would be best,’ the priest answered firmly, ‘if you were to hand me that dagger and kneel in prayer.’

  William of Thanet knew that was not about to happen and dragged the priest away. At a safe distance they would run and fetch a bailiff – if they could find one in all the ructions and if they could find one willing to enter Old Jewry even in daylight.

  Kirkpatrick found the way to the net of lashed poles, a series of slatted wooden rungs with ropes hung on either side as handholds; when he looked up, the edifice towered above him, the height of a good castle wall and, to his left, another scaffolding dappled the half-finished Annunciation with light. He bounced a little, testing the first rung and swallowed a dry spear in his throat as the entire cat’s cradle of wood swayed alarmingly.

  Sixty feet above Malise felt it just as he closed in on the whimpering Lamprecht, who was huddled in the darkest corner among pots of limewash and long brushes; the stink of paint and flax seed oil caught his throat and stung his eyes so that his frayed nerves sprang to a temper he had to fight to control.

  ‘Lamprecht, you stinking little goniel erse o’ a hoor slip …’

  Lamprecht heard the voice and found some rat courage.

  ‘Non aver di te paura, malvoglio. Tocomo – er tutto lo mondo fendoto …’

  Malise cursed; he had no idea what Lamprecht was saying, but he heard the shrill, desperate threat in the voice and swallowed his ire until it all but choked him.

  ‘Lamprecht,’ he said soothingly in French, which he knew the little rat understood. ‘Listen to me – I am here to help you …’

  ‘You come to kill. Everyone she wishes to kill Lamprecht. Fater unser, thu in himilom bist …’

  Malise heard the whine of him, heard also the descent into muttered German. Then he felt the sway of the platform and knew at once what had caused it.

  ‘Oaf,’ he hissed. ‘Unhalesome capernicous gowk …’

  He caught himself again, forced French between the grind of his teeth.

  ‘Who is my master, imbecile? The Comyn Earl of Buchan, kin to the Comyn Lord of Badenoch and both of them seeking only to reward you for what you know. Why in the name of God and all His angels would I wish you harm? I wish only to keep you safe from the imps of Satan that the Earl of Carrick has set on your trail.’

  Lamprecht, despite the screaming agony of his fingers and his crawling fear knew Malise almost certainly lied, so he shrank away and babbled; the platform swayed again and Malise was suddenly there, close enough to touch, his face lopsided with rage.

  ‘There,’ Malise declared, throwing one dramatic arm back the way he had come, ‘is the man who wants you dead. Tell me what you know …’

  ‘Hilfe … save me first,’ Lamprecht whimpered, seeing a bargain to be made, even now.

  Kirkpatrick was trembling and slick-wet when he finally hauled himself over the lip of the platform. Christ in His Heaven, he thought, whom I will surely meet two steps from here, I am so high.

  He started to tremble his way to his feet, marvelling at how anyone could climb that spider’s web of wood every day … not for all the siller in the world, he thought, starting to pick a way over the coiled rope and paint-slathered pots.

  Then the world hit him and he reeled, caught desperately with one hand and felt cloth, felt it tear, then fell, rolled and slid over the platform edge – and stopped, hanging by the snag of his sackcloth cloak. Something black fell past him with a shrill cry.

  Malise thought he had succeeded when he rammed into Kirkpatrick, catching him unawares and driving him to the edge of the platform – then, just as the man teetered on the brink, Malise felt the clawing hand grab his sleeve, tugging him off balance and they staggered until it tore. Malise, feet tangled in a coiled rope, felt himself falling, flailed wildly at the air – then clattered to the plank walkway and rolled over the edge like a stone.

  There was a sickening, bowel-opening moment of plunge, when the dim flagstones of the floor screamed towards
him – then the rope-loop cinched tight round the ankle of his shoe and, the other end fastened to the winch for raising heavy loads, he swung like the pendulum of a bell, clear across the space of the nave where the white, open-mouthed blobs of the priest and the Master limner sped below him like strange birds.

  He hit the other scaffolding with a sickening crash that drove sense and the air from him, swung back, spinning while the lashed wood creaked, cracked and finally collapsed in a rolling thunder of noise and dust clouds. On the way back again, his shoe slipped off releasing the loop and he fell the last little way like a bag of rags, rolling heavily to the feet of the astounded priest.

  Above, Kirkpatrick heard his cloak start to rip, flailed in a panic to get a handhold and heard it tear even more, so that he dropped a foot. One hand reached up and grasped a pole, just as the cloak tore in two; he hung, feeling the savage pain of his own weight tearing his arm from the socket. He looked up at the sound of a step, saw Lamprecht leaning over, brown with wide grin.

  ‘El malvoglio,’ Lamprecht said and wished he had a knife – wished he had unbroken fingers to be able to hold it. That gave him an idea and his grin grew wet and red; he raised his foot to bring it crushingly down on Kirkpatrick’s fingers.

  Kirkpatrick braced, knew he would never resist the pain of it, that he was about to take a long, hard fall into Hell itself … looked up into the leering face for one final curse on the ugly little shit …

  The face changed in an instant, to one of absolute bemusement, staring down at the length of bloody steel which had just sprung out of his belly. It disappeared with a sucking sound that seemed to cut some hidden string inside Lamprecht and the little pardoner slumped sideways, mewling.

  Kirkpatrick, blinded by sweat and pain, saw a black-gloved hand grasp his wrist, then a tremendous strength hauled him up and on to the platform, where his legs refused to carry him; he sat, shaking, looking at the twitching remains of Lamprecht.

  The man who had killed him was all brown and black, wiping the length of sword clean on Lamprecht’s tunic, so that Kirkpatrick saw the pommel of it, the Templar cross clear. The man’s black spade beard split in a grin as he tore free what was around the dying pardoner’s throat, already slick with his own bloody vomit.

  ‘Rossal de Bissot,’ he announced in French, then jerked his head back the way he had come. ‘You should have realized how a fat painter would get to his workplace and saved yourself a climb. Now we must hurry and use the same counterweight lift – this place is carnage, no?’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Herdmanston Tower, Lothian

  Six days to Midsummer Eve, June, 1305

  Hal and the Dog Boy came up on Herdmanston under a low sky like a bruise, the weather hot and heavy and the garrons moving as if underwater. Thunder growled behind the hills.

  Hal came, pale as milk from the fever which had forced him off the road from York to Whitby and into the care of the Augustinians at Kirkham. It was there that the questing Dog Boy found him and brought the news of how Wallace had red-murdered Bangtail Hob.

  Now the pair of them rode down into the huddle of buildings clustered round Herdmanston, where children left off making a fat straw man for the midsummer bonfire to run up and gawp. I am a stranger, Hal realized, looking at a fat-legged toddler with a finger stuck up one nostril. There are bairns here too young to have ever laid eyes on me in the flesh.

  Herdmanston bustled, all the same, was scattered with sawdust fine as querned flour and smelled of new wood and pitch; men waved to the lord of Herdmanston from the roof where they were making the trapdoor watertight.

  Some matters were the same; Alehouse Maggie, all bosom and folded arms, gave him a wide grin and then swaddled him as if he was a bairn and not her fealtied lord; men in sweat-darkened serks jeered and chaffered, as much glad for the excuse to stop work as the sight of the bold knight of Herdmanston gasping for breath and demanding Maggie leave off and watch his ribs, which were tender yet.

  Sim Craw arrived, his iron-grey curls and beard frosted with wood shavings, his own grin wide and his wrist-grip iron hard; Hal, for the first time in a long run of days, felt a glow of peace descend on him.

  Yet not all was the same. Bet The Bread was gone, taken by the bloody flux – now her daughter, as willow-wand slim as Bet had probably been in her own youth, bobbed nervously at Hal, announced herself as ‘Bet’s Meggy’ and went away beaming and strutting when she was confirmed as Herdmanston’s cook and baker, the place her mother had once occupied.

  ‘There are some other matters,’ Sim said, when they were in the cool of the big hall and left alone with bread, cheese and leather mugs. ‘Yon Malenfaunt has had to end his legalling ower his writ, for one.’

  Hal nodded; it had hardly been a surprise. Longshanks had confiscated Herdmanston years before from the rebel Hal and handed its care to Malenfaunt, though the ownership was a parchment gift only. Malenfaunt, in all the years since, had never been capable of claiming it – but, since peace had broken out he had agitated through wee canting lawyers for the exercise of his rights.

  It had been a nagging stone in Herdmanston’s shoe – but defeat at the hands of Bruce had stripped Malenfaunt of honour, dignity and support and now he had quit the case. At least some good came of that ill-fated joust, Hal thought, remembering the sickening sight of Bruce’s cheek.

  ‘Earl Patrick has refused the use of his mill – happily, Sir Henry is letting us mill at Roslin,’ Sim went on, spraying bread as he spoke.

  Hal was not surprised at Patrick of Dunbar’s decision – the Herdmanston Sientclers were supposedly fealtied to Patrick, Earl of March, but had defied the determinedly English-supporting lord at every turn. The Earl had had to grit his teeth and welcome Hal back at every turn, too, as part of the peace terms with Longshanks, so any petty slight he could visit was grist to his mill, as Sim declared, proud of his cleverness.

  ‘Dog Boy needs confirming as a cottar,’ Sim continued when Hal seemed not to have recognized his word skill, ‘now that ye have manumitted him from bondage. He would not ken ploughshare from auld heuch, so I have kept him working with the dugs for money payment – Sir Henry sent a brace o’ braw wee deerhound pups which have grown leggy since an’ Dog Boy loves yon animals.’

  Hal, feeling at ease from pain and care, sitting in his own rebuilt hall, could only smile at it all, the comforting balm of the familiar, of Herdmanston at work and far removed from the maelstrom it stood in – yet the next words drove the old chill back in him.

  ‘Kirkpatrick came,’ Sim said, frowning over his mug. ‘There was a stushie in Lunnon, it appears, where yon wee pardoner was killed dead an’ that hallirakus likkie-spinnie Bellejambe seems as good as. I would surmise so, since Kirkpatrick looked like a week-auld corpse himself and he the victor of the tourney atween them.’

  So the pardoner was dead. Hal felt relief that it had happened, more that it had not been him who’d had to do the deed – and guilt at feeling both.

  ‘Christ be praised,’ he said.

  ‘For ever and ever,’ Sim replied, then cleared his throat.

  ‘Kirkpatrick is now away to Sir Henry at Roslin,’ he went on, ‘charged with pursuing “the other matter” – I jalouse this is the same matter Bangtail died for.’

  Hal met his eye with one of his own, as hard as glass so that Sim’s eyebrows seemed suddenly to shoot up to avoid colliding into a frown. Curved as Saracen scimitars they stayed that way for a long moment, then he nodded.

  ‘Aye, weel,’ he growled. ‘I have had men out, making discreets and riskin’ nothing. Every spoor says that Wallace has gone to ground and his men scattered. He has not been seen since he arrived at Roslin a while back. Mayhap this is the end of him.’

  ‘Wallace is never ended,’ Hal replied tersely, then forced a smile.

  ‘Wallace came to Roslin?’ he asked and shook his head. ‘So even Sir Henry keeps secrets from me – is there any good news in this dish of grue?’

  He paused apologet
ically, then waved a hand which encompassed Herdmanston and everything done to it.

  ‘Apart from all this, which is sweetening indeed – more power to you for it, Sim Craw.’

  Sim, muttering pleased, waved a dismissive hand, then laid his leather mug down, slow and careful, a gesture Hal did not miss.

  ‘There is a last matter,’ Sim said, ‘but I leave it to yourself as to the good or bad news in it.’

  Hal paused, then forced a smile.

  ‘Weel, I am sittin’, so the shock will no’ throw me on my back. Speak on.’

  ‘Sir Henry kept the news of it until now, when he thought you better suited to the receipt of it. Wallace brought the Coontess to Roslin and, if ye send word, she is almost certes headed here.’

  Herdmanston Tower, Lothian

  Midsummer Eve, June, 1305

  He sent word, would have dragged Hermes from Olympus to deliver it faster if he could. Then he waited, limping up and down and fretting, leashed only by the certainty that, if he stormed over to Roslin, he would shatter something delicate as a glass web.

  The days slid away, thunder-brassy and hot and still she did not come. Tansy’s Dan and Mouse lugged four of Herdmanston’s fat porkers to the barmkin green and cut their throats.

  Then they, Ill-Made Jock, Dirleton Will, Sore Davey and others skinned and jointed them, cramming them into cauldrons for boiling while the grass grew greasy and red; Dog Boy whipped up a pig’s head and danced with it, rushing at the young bairns and roaring while they ran away with squeals of delight.

  Tansy’s Dan strung entrails round him like ribbons and joined in, dancing barefoot with the Dog Boy on the blood-soaked grass, the pair of them shrieking with laughter, gore splashing them to the knees. For a time, the lust of it leaped from head to head like unseen lightning so that the knowledge of the feast to come and the peace to enjoy it and the dizzying freedom from work sent everyone giggling mad; they grabbed pig heads from one another, pretended to be charging boars, swung them by the ears and sprayed crimson everywhere.

  Toddlers, sliding and slipping on unsteady legs, were blood-drenched head to toe. Young babes sucked on kidneys, their mums red-lipped as baobhan sith from eating liver.