by Robert Low
‘Men,’ she scoffed. ‘You never knew of him until now and scarce thought of me at all, yet the idea of someone else having laid a cuckoo’s egg in your nest crests you up like a dunghill cock.’
Abashed, confused, Dog Boy had no answer, so she had provided one.
‘It might have been the Faerie,’ she said. ‘On that night of nights.’
Midsummer, he remembered. As now, filled with the silent moving folk. Her smile only broadened at his look.
‘As any will tell you who knew you as a bairn,’ she had offered, ‘he is the same as you looked at that age.’
Dog Boy thought of it and the blood washed up into his head. There was no one who remembered him at that age left alive, for Jamie and he and all the others had seen to that when they had struck at Douglas Castle. Palm Sunday, seven years ago. Old Tam, former serjeant-at-arms, had hirpled up to their hiding place with news of the garrison attending the kirk in town and they’d fallen on the English like a dog pack, dragging them back and capturing the castle.
After that had come a sin-slather of revenge led by the grim stone of Jamie. Dog Boy recalled Gutterbluid the falconer, pleading for his life as Jamie ordered him strangled with a bowstring. Dog Boy had stared into the hopeless, silent-screaming eyes of Berner Philippe and then nodded so that big, grinning Red Corbie could start turning the stick that slowly broke the houndsman’s neck. Put me in the drawbridge undercroft, he’d thought, exultant with the triumph of it. Near killed me there …
They had pitched those two down the well, everyone else in the underground store, pissed on the lot and fired it. The Douglas Larder folk called it and Dog Boy thought he had forgotten it – all but the glory of discovering, in the hound record books, that he had a name.
Aleysandir.
And a place, not far from Douglas Castle itself.
He went back to it, remembering his da and his prized brace of oxen, an amazement of riches that even the reeve or priest could not match. I was sold for that, he thought bitterly, recalling all the half-dredged clues of it. When I was old enough to run fast as the dugs, my ma walked me up to Douglas as the Sire had told her to do.
He could not remember his mother’s face, but it must have been pretty for Sir William the Hardy to have been captivated enough to pump a child into her belly. And his da, who had always seemed a distant giant, must have loved her to have put up with it.
And loved me in his way, Dog Boy thought, remembering the sad wistfulness on the big slab face the day he had shown how he could run. He must have loved me a bittie, even though I was not his and a constant reminder of his wife’s faithlessness. Yet he had oxen out of it, he added bitterly to himself, so perhaps that was the love in it.
There were no signs of them when he had gone to the small vill, for time and change had brought new tenants to the half-remembered fields and they had no memory of a couple who owned a brace of oxen. Fire and famine and red war had scoured the area more than once – God save me, Dog Boy thought with a sharp sudden pang, I may have ridden it myself. He offered thanks to God then, on his knees, that he had memory of no old couple slain by him or anyone he knew. The thought that he might well have killed his own parents left him trembling every time he thought of it.
Yet they had vanished, as if they had never been, and were almost certainly dead. The clogged drain of it had shifted over the years under the weight of all he had seen and done, so that such memories came back to him at the oddest and most unlooked-for times, clenching the insides of him until he felt he must scream, or weep, or fist something to ruin.
The shift and yawn and scratch alongside him wrenched him back to the present and he turned his head to her, remembered the warm and sticky of last night. Possibly, there now would be another Hob …
He fetched his clothes and dressed as she got up and patted Hob like a dog for his cleverness in blowing life back into the fire. She clattered pots and mixed water and oats; little Bet played quietly with a straw doll and, beyond the confines of the mean withy and cloak shelter, the whole camp stirred like fleas on a dog.
Dog Boy went out into the poor night, which was racing towards lighter hues of blue; it was cool now, but would be a hot day for it, he thought, unlacing himself and making sure where he had picked would offend no one. He grunted with the pleasure of it, becoming aware, slowly, of the boy’s eyes.
‘Are you my da, truly?’
That cut him off mid-flow and it took a long moment before he managed to renew it; longer moments still, of shaking and lacing, before he turned and looked at the boy. Dark and wary, thin, with a deerlike crouch that spoke of an alertness to run.
It was himself at the same age, he thought with a sudden leap of certainty. I would have looked like this when I was turned into the kennels at Douglas and all that went with it.
‘What does your ma say?’ he demanded and the boy frowned at that.
‘She says you are.’
‘Is she to be obeyed and always in the right?’
Hob considered it a while, before nodding uncertainly. Dog Boy grinned.
‘Aye, well, there is your answer. I am your da, God help you.’
There was a silence, and then Dog Boy moved back to the fire and the bent figure of Bet’s Meggy, stirring the oats and water in her cauldron; mean fare, he thought. I will bring better when I can.
‘I must go,’ he said and she stood and faced him, hipshot and with her head tilted. The smile was slight, but her eyes were serious.
‘Will you die?’
Bet’s Meggy wheeshed Hob and threatened him with the spurtle for his cheek, but he never moved, kept staring at Dog Boy.
‘I’ll come back,’ he said awkwardly, turning to Bet’s Meggy. ‘When I can. I’ll bring vittles and …’
‘I make no claim on you, Dog Boy,’ she said softly. ‘Neither for him, nor last night.’
Dog Boy knew that Hob did, though he would not voice it, but he nodded, and then grew more firm.
‘I will be back, God willing, when this is done with.’
She dragged him close then, held him hard for a moment or two, and released him so quickly that the pair of them staggered. He blinked, frantic not to unman himself with tears, and bent to little Bet, who put a thumb in her mouth and stared.
‘Have you a buss for me, wee yin?’ he asked and she looked uncertainly at her mother, who nodded. She took out the thumb, grinned and kissed his cheek, a sparrow peck that left snotters on his beard.
Hob stood, eyes large and bright, so that Dog Boy was lost, had no words. Then, suddenly, he dipped in his boot top and came out with his long dagger, thrust the hilt at the boy and watched his eyes widen further.
‘Take it. Defend your ma until I come back.’
Hob looked at the hilt, up at Dog Boy, then across to his ma, who smiled. He reached out a hand and took the dagger, dragging it close to his chest and cradling it like a new pup.
‘Dinna cut yerself,’ Dog Boy said with a grin, ‘or we will both of us suffer an even sharper edge – your ma’s tongue.’
There was a shared moment, the pair of them against the women, before Dog Boy nodded to Bet’s Meggy and turned away, aware of all their eyes on his back and anxious to put distance between them, yet feeling every step drag.
He was still bleared with it when he came to the forge, red-glowed and shifting with silhouettes, eldritch against the rising sun behind him. He stood, peering and shifting to try and see better, until a voice growled out of the last shadows of the night.
‘Dog Boy, stop jigging there and come closer.’
He knew it, even before he saw the shock of the battered face, the filthy wrappings round one arm and a body gone past lean and saluting scrawny. Yet the eyes were bright enough and laughing at him.
‘Sir Hal,’ he said. ‘God’s Wounds, it is good to set an eye on you.’
‘Set the pair – I do not charge.’
Dog Boy was still grinning when the loss of Sim Craw fell on him; Hal saw the eyes cloud with m
isery and knew at once what it was.
‘Sore,’ said Dog Boy, bowing his head. ‘He will be much missed.’
Hal had no words to say to Dog Boy, for all of them had been taken out by him in the past days, examined and thrown away as not adequate. Sim was gone and the hole he left in the world was filled only with black sadness.
Instead, he gripped Dog Boy by the arms – Gods, there was iron in them – and drew him close. For a moment Dog Boy stood limp, then his own arms came up and wrapped Hal and they stood for a moment, sucking the comfort of it into one another, before breaking apart.
‘You have grown a tait,’ Hal said, noting the height and width of him. He flicked the badge on the mostly unstained jupon. ‘Come up a station or two, betimes.’
Dog Boy nodded, and then blurted out the wonder of the last night before he could stop himself.
‘I have a son,’ he ended.
Hal listened to the tale of it, spilled out in fits and starts as if Dog Boy could scarce believe it himself. If my Johnnie had not died, Hal thought, he would be of ages with Dog Boy. Maybe sired his own son. The realization hit him hard and he blinked. I could be a grandda. I am now the Auld Sire of Herdmanston, as my father was.
‘They are here,’ Dog Boy went on, as if he had read Hal’s mind. ‘All the Herdmanston folk who could come to support the Kingdom and our king.’
There was marvel in his voice, but Hal already knew, had been told by his kin from Roslin about how the Herdmanston fields were being tended. Chirnside Rowan, grizzled and grinning, had come up with Sore Davey, pox-marks unfaded. One by one, old familiar faces had come up to him out of the midsummer night, bending a knee and anxious to give him news, to offer balm and solace for the loss of Sim Craw.
Fingerless Will, Dirleton Will, Mouse – they were all here, older and leaner and with wives and bairns and even grandweans. Full of news and hope.
Alehouse Maggie had died the previous month, they told him, so it was a blessing that Sim had not lived to learn of that, for it would have broken his heart. Cruck houses had been rebuilt around Herdmanston’s broken tower, the garth wall had been drystaned anew, but neither brewhouse nor forge nor bakery had been rebuilt – the first because they had no brewer with the death of Maggie, the second because they had no smith since Leckie the Faber had run off to spend a year and a day in a town and so escape his bondage. And the third because Bet’s Meggy had no one in the keep to bake for.
It was probably burned out anew, he thought, by the English foragers, or the deserters and outlaws from both sides – but the hopeful eyes lashed him to silence on this.
He had thought only of Isabel, yet he was still the lord of Herdmanston – the Auld Sire, no less. He told them he would be back once matters were settled here. He told them Herdmanston would be rebuilt – which got him a look from Sir Henry of Roslin, worried that he would be asked to help foot the bill. Hal put Henry at ease by telling him he would not call on his liege-lord aid and, because of what he had done to help the King, Henry relaxed, thinking Hal had been promised royal largesse.
The truth Hal kept to himself; underneath the stone cross, nestling with the remains of his son and his wife, were six Apostles, buried long ago by himself and Isabel; those wren’s-egg rubies which had once graced the reliquary of the Black Rood would more than pay for Herdmanston.
Given by Wallace to Isabel as a gift, he recalled.
Isabel. He stared at the dawn until the light started to blind him; somewhere beyond the glare of it, she waited for him. Or so he hoped.
A horn blared and Dog Boy shifted.
‘Muster,’ he said simply and Hal nodded. Dog Boy waited expectantly, but Hal made no move and, when he spoke, the bitterness tainted it.
‘On your way, Dog Boy,’ he said. ‘I remain here, by order of the King. I have, it seems, done enough service.’
He managed a wry twist of smile up into Dog Boy’s obvious confusion.
‘What he means is that I am auld and wounded and long removed from the practice of arms. He means it well, but I am left with the women and bairns.’
Dog Boy felt a rush of anger at that treatment of this man, but let it slide away – even from just looking, it was clear that Hal of Herdmanston would be a danger to himself if he put on harness and stood in a wall of men in such an affair as this.
Unlike Kirkpatrick, who stumped up, cowled and braied in maille and wreathed in smiles. He thrust a shield at Hal.
‘Fresh done by the limner here. I took your advice.’
Hal stared at the upraised iron fist, clutching a dagger which dripped blood. It was exactly as he had described it to Kirkpatrick in a fit of venomous pique.
‘Aye,’ he said, seeing the glint of laughter in Kirkpatrick’s eyes. ‘You will put the fear in them with this, certes.’
‘They will ken me, which is to the point,’ Kirkpatrick declared vehemently. ‘They know me as the royal wolfhound, a wee sleekit backstabber. Now they will see that I am a knight of this realm as well.’
Hal did not know whether Kirkpatrick meant the English or all the Scots lords who fought them. Both, he decided as Kirkpatrick frowned down at him.
‘I am sorry you have to remain here, but Sir John will be happy to have some expert help. See what came out of those tun barrels …’
He turned away to follow Dog Boy, laughing as he did so, then paused.
‘The smith says your sword is ready.’
Hal went into the forge lean-to, wondering what Kirkpatrick meant about the tun barrels. The smith was a dark, unsmiling man, his leather apron pitted with old spark-burns, and he handed Hal the sword wordlessly; it had been cleaned and sharpened and polished lovingly.
Behind the smith was a clatter and rattle, a curse and then the limner came into view, spotted with paints from where he had been touching up lordly shields all night. Red-eyed and weary, he was a small, mouse-haired ferret of a man, indignant and angry at what he had been given to do.
Hal craned to see: iron hats, rimmed and tumbled like scree, every one of them black, with a white crown and a red cross. Templar war hats. Of course, Hal thought, this is the stuff out of the tun barrels, the stuff that had not been issued because of the old ghosts that haunted it.
‘Blue,’ the limner raged. ‘With St Andrew’s white cross on it. By the time I have pented them all anew and they are dry enough to wear, the battle will be ower – and a dozen more like it. What is so wrang with clappin’ them on needful skulls and being done with it?’
‘There is no Order of Poor Knights,’ the smith answered sonorously, ‘and our king will not wish it back to life.’
Hal heard the pain in it, knew at once that the man had been a Templar. He and the smith looked briefly at each other; the other nodded.
‘At Liston, until the St John Knights took it,’ he said. ‘I was only a lay brother, skilled at smithing, so I broke no oath to man or God to leave that which was cast down by the Pope himself.’
Hal nodded, then thought.
‘It is the Feast of St John,’ he said, smiling lopsidedly because his face still hurt. ‘A quarter day – a hiring day. Are you serviced?’
‘I’m Davey of Crauford, your honour,’ the smith replied. ‘Serviced to none but the King by my own desire and God by my birth into this world.’
‘I need a smith at Herdmanston.’
Hal saw the hesitation, and then the smith jerked his chin at the naked blade in Hal’s hand.
‘If you tell me where you had the sword and the answer suits me I will service to you.’
It was proud, but he was a smith and knew his worth – as did Hal, so he took no offence, simply studied the sword more closely.
‘You know this blade?’ he countered, lifting it slightly and the smith nodded. Somewhere, a horn blew, stirring Hal to a half-movement, until he realized with an avalanche of loss that it was not for him. No longer for him, for he was done … he felt like that white and red fighting cock, hauling itself on to the corpse of its opponent, crowin
g bloody victory and half-dead because of it.
That brought a reminder of Sim, a sharp pang that sucked breath from him for a moment.
‘I may do,’ the smith replied. ‘There are many like it, but they are crockards – the inscription is hammered into a made blade and hilt, whereas this was forged with the letters in it. Only one is like that and it belonged to the de Bissot, who was one of the founders of the Order of Poor Knights long ago.’
‘I had it from a de Bissot,’ Hal answered. ‘Rossal de Bissot, who is dead in Castile and did not want this blade in the hands of his enemies.’
‘Blessed be,’ the smith said. ‘I am sorrowed to hear it, for he was the last o’ his line if he handed it to you for keeping. So that is the true sword – I never thought to see it in life.’
‘Has it a name, then?’ Hal said wonderingly, handling it as if it had suddenly warmed. The smith smiled and shook his head.
‘No name, your honour. Only fame. It was made, they say, from the heathen crescent ripped off the roof of the Temple when Crusaders took the Holy City. Gold, they thought it was and were mightily disappointed to find gilded iron. Yet they put the iron to good use – the letters were put in it during the forging.’
‘What do they mean?’ Hal asked and the smith reached out one cracked thumb, running it in a caress across the fat round pommel inset with the Templar cross, then traced the letters of the hilt: N+D+S+M+L.
‘It is in the Latin,’ Davey of Crauford said. ‘I have no great skill with it, but I know this – every decent smith does. “Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux”, which means “let not the dragon be my guide” if I have been told true.’
Hal nodded confirmation and touched the blade’s letters: C+S+S+M+L.
‘Then that says “Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux”,’ the smith went on.
‘“The Holy Cross be my light”,’ Hal translated and the smith smiled.
‘So it is said. A good, blessed weapon, fit for St Michael himself. Or a Sientcler of the shivered cross.’
He went down on one knee so suddenly that Hal took a pace back, alarmed, as he felt hands round his foot. But the smith, head bowed, simply swore fealty to the lord of Herdmanston and, as the words rolled out of the man, Hal felt something shift and fill him.