by Robert Low
Far out on the green beyond the castle rock, horsemen galloped back and forth – four hundred at least, lances glittering. It was an illusion, all the same – and one Bruce had used to his advantage more than once – for these were no knights, nor even armoured serjeants. They were mounted infantry in padded coats with long, wicked spears, who finally came together like a flock of sparrows, hurling from their shaggy garrons to form up in a thick block bristling with twelve-foot pikes while the horse-holders led away fistfuls of excited, plunging mounts.
There was confusion, a few fell here and there and even from this distance, Bruce fancied he could hear the poisonous roars of their vintenars, each one determined that their twenty-man command would not be a disgrace.
He craned to see better, but could not distinguish anyone and certainly not Jamie Douglas, who was simply one man in the crowd of them. Closest to the pennant, certes, Bruce thought. At least his block has proper arms and not merely long poles – he wondered if Kirkpatrick and Hal of Herdmanston would succeed and vowed more candles to St Malachy to ensure that they did.
There was a flurry behind him and he heard mutter, turning to see his chaplain Thomas Daltoun scurrying up. Come to give the King confession? It was not on any list Bruce remembered and he frowned.
‘Your brother is here, my lord,’ the chaplain declared and Bruce’s frown started to become painful over his eyes. Edward here? He had been sent to Stirling to prosecute the siege – had demanded the command, in fact, and Bruce had relented, for he knew that he had a trinity of troublesome commanders on his hands, not just Randolph and Douglas vying for glory.
He had thought Edward wanted to devise some equally cunning and glorious way to take Stirling and, if he dared admit it, had manufactured that ploy as surely as he had pitted Randolph against Douglas for the same reason.
But Edward was here in Edinburgh – surely he could not have taken Stirling by storm?
He came in, big and bluff and broad. He nodded to the exiting Chancellor but his usual beaming grin seemed forced and Bruce grew apprehensive.
‘Brother,’ he said, ignoring – as he always did – the lack of protocol Edward used. ‘You have news of Stirling – Mowbray is in chains, the fortress is ours and your glory outshines all others.’
‘It is your glory I am polishing,’ Edward declared grimly, and then glanced pointedly at Daltoun. Bruce said nothing and, eventually, Edward took the hint, though he scowled at the favour shown the chaplain. He took a deep breath, as if about to plunge into freezing water – and now Bruce was frankly afraid.
‘Mowbray is on his way south to English Edward,’ his brother said quickly, as if anxious to spit the words from him before his mouth was stopped up. ‘He carries news of the truce we made, him and I, that Stirling will be surrendered if not relieved by an English army by the Feast of the Nativity of St John.’
The words hung like black smoke, slowly dissipating. Bruce blinked and his head reeled with it, could only gape at his brother and, gradually, felt the thunder in his temples as his brother’s cool, challenging stare would not be broken.
Daltoun shrank as the moment stretched and seemed to thrum like a taut rope.
‘What were you thinking, brother?’ Bruce asked eventually, his voice trembling. ‘Were you thinking?’
Edward flushed a little and the arrowed furrow between his eyes deepened – but he held his temper, which amazed Daltoun and confused his brother.
‘I was thinking that something had to be done,’ he answered slowly and Bruce gave a strangled gasp.
‘Something was done,’ he roared, before catching himself and standing, breathing heavily, his face a strange mask of red flush and unhealthy pallor; Daltoun, fascinated, saw the cicatrice bead with clear drops.
‘You issued an ultimatum to the Scots still with the Plantagenet,’ Edward declared truculently and Bruce exploded.
‘I did,’ he bellowed. ‘I did, brother. I tied the Plantagenet to a time. Now you have shackled me to a place. Have you gone mad, brother? Do you think YOU are king here?’
The French was spat out so that Daltoun swore he saw the words form in the air, though it might, he concluded afterwards, simply have been spit. But the last statement lurched out like a sick dog and sat there festering while the air twisted and coiled between the two.
It was what he wanted, Bruce thought bitterly, wildly. He is not content with Carrick, my last brother …
Edward Bruce leaned forward on the balls of his feet and, for a wild moment, Daltoun thought he was about to do the unthinkable and assault his brother. Assault the King …
‘The opposite, brother,’ Edward replied, sinking back a little, his voice sibilant-soft. ‘I thought to secure you the throne.’
Bruce, stunned, could only gawp and open his mouth like a landed fish. Edward forced a lopsided wry smile.
‘You want the Scots lords on your side? Win them,’ he went on, suddenly pacing to and fro. ‘This Plantagenet is not his father. This one is idle and apathetic and took himself to the brink of warring with his own barons over his catamite. Now he seeks revenge for the catamite’s death.’
He paused and turned.
‘This is the man you will not fight, brother? This is the man you taunt and then run from? How will that sit with the lords whose fealty you want – or even with those whom you already have?’
Bruce said nothing, could only stare while his head rang like a bell with the words ‘Curse of Malachy’.
‘You usurped the throne,’ Edward said flatly and Daltoun heard himself suck in his breath. ‘Took it by force and there is no shame in that – but if you want to keep it, brother, you will have to fight for it. Running away may be the German Method, as you have pointed out many times – but it will not keep this prize in the end.’
Daltoun knew that the German Method was a way of tourney fighting which involved avoiding the charge of your enemy, moving nimbly to one side and then attacking. Bruce had used it to advantage many times, in and out of tourney, but it was frowned on by all those chivalrous knights who believed the French Method – a fierce charge to tumble horse and rider in the dust – was the only honourable way of fighting.
Daltoun had time to dredge this up from the depths of his memory as the silence spread, viscous as old blood and broken only by the brothers’ heavy breathing, like galloped stallions. Then Bruce shifted slightly.
‘Get you gone, Edward,’ he said wearily and, when his brother made no move, looked up sharply at him. ‘Get out of my sight,’ he roared and Daltoun, seeing the storm clouds gather on Edward’s brow, forced his legs to move at last and cleared his throat so that both heads turned to him, as if seeing him for the first time.
The tension snapped; Edward scowled at his brother, spun and strode away; the heavy door banged. Daltoun followed him, almost colliding with the returning Chancellor, who had heard everything even beyond the thick door.
‘Christ betimes,’ Bruce spat. He turned and said it again, this time slamming his fist on the table so that the papers and wax jumped.
Typical of Edward. There is the enemy, set your lance, lift your shield – charge. No matter the odds or the sense in it, one good charge might win all …
Yet he was the last of them, his brothers. All gone to his regal desires; ambition, he thought, is the Devil.
Rash, he thought. Rash brother Edward – and with his own Devil, too. This kingdom is too small for both of us, when one is a king and the other desperately wants to be …
His brother’s words were a scourge, all the same, a rasping cilice on common sense. Edward was right, of course – he had a crown but not a kingdom, and until he faced the Invader he never would. Too soon, he thought. We are not ready – not enough trained men, not enough arms or armour …
Yet there never would be, not if he lived his three-score and ten – and he would not make that, he was sure. Not without losing some vital bits along the way, he thought with chill wryness.
I am forty, he thought
to himself. If not now, then when?
Bernard, who did not like the flush on the face of the King, saw that the cheek scar was leaking fat, slow, yellow drops. He dropped a fresh blob of wax on to the parchment, his hand shaking, and pushed it towards Bruce.
The King blinked, touched his cheek, inspected the tips of his fingers and, for a moment, looked weary and afraid. Then he shoved his fist and the royal seal stamped his authority on the parchment giving Glaissery Castle, lately ripped from the MacDougalls of Loch Awe, to the heretic remnants of the Order of Poor Knights, whatever they called themselves now.
Now it was done, he thought bleakly and, thanks to my brother, suddenly I need the secret Templars and what they can provide.
Above all, I need Kirkpatrick and Hal, those old dogs, to succeed more than ever, else I will be facing the might of England with sticks and poor hope.
Irish Sea
At the same moment
It was a scawmy water, a stained-iron bleakness of shattered gulls, heaving in slow, deep swells, sluggish as old skin; Hal hated it but that was less to do with the heaving deck than with his inability to cope with it, despite the patience of Gerald de Villers.
‘Again,’ he said and the robed figure, black scapular removed, merely inclined his head graciously and came at him once more, the great broadsword arcing left, right, feinting, coming in again. Sweating, unsteady and wheezing, Hal blocked, parried, and then stumbled from weariness; he felt the sharp kissing wind of de Villers’s blade whick past his cheek.
‘Better,’ said the monkish figure, splitting his spade beard with a grin. ‘You are growing stronger each day.’
Sourly, Hal allowed himself to be hauled up, wrist to wrist, and the man’s sword vanished into the sheath strapped round his white kirtle with its discreet red cross over the heart. In turn, that all vanished under the plain black robes – yet, no matter the lack of markings, Hal thought, no one could mistake these men for mere monks.
Kirkpatrick watched the grey-faced Hal peel off the maille coif and then bend at the waist to shake himself like a dog until the hauberk slithered off and pooled at his feet. It took the tunic with it, so that Hal sluiced water from a bucket on his naked top half.
Ill-used, Kirkpatrick thought, seeing the glassy weals. And too lean, so that the muscle is wasted. He felt ashamed, as he always did when he remembered that last night, the night Hal was taken; it was hard to speak of it to anyone, let alone Hal himself, though they had done it in the quiet of dark, talking as if their words were halt and lame, remembering the murder and betrayal that had taken them into and then out of Closeburn Castle. Almost to safety …
What happened, Kirkpatrick had asked, after you sat me on the horse and sent it off? Hal had heard the depths of shame and bitterness in his voice and was surprised at it; to him it had been no more than sense: Kirkpatrick had secrets best not tested with the Question, there was one horse that would not carry them both and, besides, Kirkpatrick was wounded. Of course, there was the sick in it, the callous way Kirkpatrick had used him for his own ends by pretending that they were rescuing Isabel rather than red-murdering another target of the Bruce.
Even so, there had not been a conscious tallying of all that, merely a matter of seconds to leg the bleeding Kirkpatrick on the beast and slap it into a gallop, and turn to face the men and dogs coming for them.
He had killed the snarling dogs, losing the sword in the last of them, so that all the men who came up rushed him and forced him to the ground. When he told this, in fits and starts, Kirkpatrick nodded.
‘It must have been sore,’ he said simply and Hal wanted to tell him the truth of it. Kicked and punched and smacked with sword hilts, with John Fitzwalter bellowing out to take him alive, by God. Smashed by the studded gauntlet of the Hospitaller Oristin del Ard, while young Ross of Wark screamed at him to get up. Get up – why? So you can knock me down again?
A boot into his cheek and nose, so that his head rang; that’s for the killing of the Master of Closeburn. Not me, Hal thought. Kirkpatrick did that. To his own kin, no less.
A flurry of kicks in the ribs and half of his face; that’s for the Jew prisoner. Not a Jew, Hal thought, a wee Languedoc Cathar, physicker to Bruce and holder of some secret that could not be allowed out, the true nature and condition of the Bruce’s sickness. The Master, his own kin, Kirkpatrick did for pleasure, Hal had wanted to shout, but he was sent to do the physicker down to Hell, dragging me in his wake with his lies. All the same, Hal only yelped and groaned as he took the painful price for Kirkpatrick’s killings: a vicious flurry of stamps that broke fingers and an elbow.
A further series of savage whacks with something heavy – a spearshaft or the flat of a sword – which drove the air from him and agony in, so that he threshed and gasped, thinking, Jesu, they have done for me now. For Dixon, someone yelled. Poor auld Dixon.
The gaoler, clanking his keys, Hal thought. Kirkpatrick did that. Or perhaps it was the servant who had lain across the door to the Master’s solar and was killed in his sleep – Kirkpatrick did that as well. Or one of the guards on the postern gate – I confess it, I killed the pair of them, though Kirkpatrick helped.
Blood on blood, a trail of it and most left by Black Roger Kirkpatrick. I should not even have been there, Hal had wanted to tell them, save that Kirkpatrick led me to believe I was rescuing Isabel, who was long gone.
To a cage in Berwick.
Hal had thought of that every day he woke in Roxburgh, nursing his injuries and his anger, trying to stare through the dark, imagining a similar cage mere feet of stone away, where Bruce’s sister languished. By the time they had allowed him to hobble up to the battlements for air and exercise, Bruce’s sister was gone. Just like that, cage and all, and it had taken a deal of wheedling persuasion to discover that she was not dead, merely so sick that she had been removed to the care of nuns to recover.
Hal had wondered if Isabel had sickened; for a long time he did not even know if she still lived and had only been sure of it when the King had spoken of her. King Robert … the title was still strange to Hal.
He wondered, having recently seen the King’s 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 Roxburgh’s stones. He wondered it aloud now, sitting on the tarred deck under the flapping belly of the sail, staring into Kirkpatrick’s face.
There was silence for a moment, smeared with the creak of rigging and rope, the slap of wave on the cog’s 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 Devil’s hand in that contrivance.
‘All I need is a knight’s 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 Kirkpatrick’s 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 Closeburn’s castle. Nicholl, her man, coming out of the dark later, weeping angry at Kirkpatrick’s 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; Annie’s man, Nicholl, had not survived Kirkpatrick’s 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.’