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Sim’s sword hilt smashed the words to silence, broke nose bones and sent the man to the flagstones as if he was a slaughtered ox.
‘May St Bega of Kilbucho have mercy on me,’ Sim declared, waving a cross-sign piously over the stunned man as he snored through the blood. Hal closed the door on the refuge of slow-chanting monks and looked at the felled cateran; he was sure his friends would come sooner rather than later and they had given the clerics a respite only.
‘Kirkpatrick,’ he said, shoving the fate of the monks to one side. Sim nodded. They went on.
‘Who is St Bega and where the bliddy hell is Kilbucho?’ demanded Hal as they crept along into the great, dark hall of the place, where only the shift of air allowed the impression of a lofty ceiling. Sim grinned.
‘Up near Biggar,’ Sim said mildly, peering left and right as they moved. ‘Very big on St Bee there, they are. I thought we could do with her charms here, for her only miracle.’
‘Oh aye? Good, was it?’
‘If ye had seen it,’ Sim said in a hissed whisper that did not move his lips, ‘ye’d have begged a blessin’. Seems there was a noble who handed a monastery a wheen o’lands, but a lawsuit later developed about their extent.’
He moved in crouching half-circles, stepping carefully and speaking in a hoarse whisper, half to himself.
‘The monks feared that they’d be ransacked. The day appointed for boundary-walk arrived – and there was a thick snowfall on all the surrounding lands but not a flake on the lands of the priory, so you could see where the boundary really was. The monks were smiling like biled haddies.’
‘We could use some of her frost in here,’ Hal answered, wiping his streaming face.
‘Christ be praised,’ Sim declared, chuckling.
‘For ever and ever,’ Hal responded piously, then held up a warning hand as they rounded a dark corner and came into an open area with an altar at one end and a series of fearsomely expensive painted glass windows staining the flagstones with coloured light from the fires that burned beyond. To the left was a door, slightly open, where light flickered and flared, falling luridly on the faded, peeling painting that graced one wall.
Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Hal noted. Apt enough . . .
Sim thumped him on the shoulder and nodded to where, clear and blood-dyed by flames, Kirkpatrick shoved papers methodically into a fire he had started in the middle of the room. His shadow bobbed and stretched like a mad goblin.
Hal started to move when one of the glass windows above the altar shattered in an explosion of shards and lead which clattered and spattered over the altar and flagstones. There was a burst of laughter from beyond, then a series of angry shouts.
Hal glanced back into the room and cursed – Kirkpatrick was gone. He and Sim went in, their boots crunching on broken pottery and more glass; Sim circled while Hal stamped at the flames of the fire, which threatened to spread along the thin rushes over the flagstones. In the end Sim suddenly poured the contents of a pot on it and the fire went out, sizzling and reeking of more than char.
‘What was in yon?’ Hal demanded and Sim glanced at the pot and made a face.
‘Ormsby pish, or I am no judge,’ he answered, and Hal, looking round, realised this was the Justiciar’s bedroom, with table, chair and straw-packed box bed; a wall hanging stirred in the night breeze through an open-shuttered window. Sim looked at the hanging, saw that it was a banner with a red shield of little crosses split diagonally by a gold bar.
Hal, making grunting noises of disgust, fished in the damp char for documents, squinting at them in the half-light and stuffing one or two inside his jack. There was a dovecote of similar rolls against one wall, the contents half-scattered on the straw, but Sim dragged down the fancy hanging, taken by the gilding work in it.
‘Ormsby’s arms,’ growled a voice, making both men whirl round to where Wallace bulked out the staining light beyond the doorway. He had sword and dagger in each hand and a smear of blood on a face split by a huge grin. He nodded at the limp cloth clutched in Sim’s fist.
‘Ormsby’s arms,’ he repeated. ‘We will add his head to them, by an’ by and mak’ a man of him.’
No-one spoke as Wallace stepped in, careful in bare feet, his head seeming to brush the roof.
‘A good thought, comin’ here, lads, but Ormsby has fled his bedroom. Out of yon unshuttered wind hole in his nightserk, so I am told. That must have been a sight – what have ye there?’
‘Papers,’ Hal declared, feeling the ones he had hidden burn his side as if still aflame. ‘There was a fire.’
Wallace peered and nodded, then looked at the chambered library on the wall.
‘State papers, nae doubt,’ he declared, ‘if the Justiciar of Scotland saw fit to try and burn them. So they might be of use – when I find a body that can read the Latin better than me.’
‘It will be hard,’ Hal said, not correcting Wallace on who had been doing the burning. ‘Sim put the flames out with a pint of the great man’s pish.’
‘Did he so?’ Wallace laughed and shook his head. ‘Well, I will find a wee clever man with a poor nose to read them.’
Hal, who was also uncomfortably aware that he was not admitting his own reading skills, laughed uneasily and Wallace strode back to the door, then paused and turned.
‘Mind you,’ he said, innocent as a priests’s underdrawers, ‘I am wondering why yon chiel of The Bruce – Kirkpatrick is it?’
Hal nodded, feeling the burn of the eyes, while the sconce torch did bloody things to the Wallace face.
‘Aye,’ Wallace mused. ‘Him. Now why would he birl his hurdies out that self-same unshuttered window not long since, as if the De’il was nipping his arse?’
He looked from Hal to Sim and back. Outside, something smashed and there were screams. Wallace shifted slightly.
‘I had best at least try to bring them to order,’ he said, his smile stained with fire, ‘though it is much like herdin’ cats. I will seek you later, lads.’
His departure left a hole in the room into which silence rushed. Then Sim let out his breath and Hal realised he had been holding his own.
‘I do not ken about the English,’ Sim said softly, ‘but he scares the shite out of me.’
Nor is he as green as he is kail-looking, Hal thought and decided it was time the pair of them were elsewhere.
The quiet of the chapel refuge was feted with a blaze of expensive waxen light and the soft hiss of babbled prayers, so that the flames flickered as the huddled canons gasped for air.
Cramped as it was, a clear space existed where Bruce knelt, though he did not bow his head. There was a fire in him, a strange, glowing flow that seemed to run through his whole body, so fierce at times that he trembled and jerked with it.
He looked at the painted walls of the chapel. In a cowshed, Mary nursed the newborn Child by her naked breast in a bed, while Joseph watched from a wooden chair to the right. They smiled at Bruce. In the foreground, the heads of an ox and an ass turned and regarded him with their bright, mournful eyes. An angel stood and regarded him coldly in the background and above, in Latin, the words The Annunciation to the Shepherds seemed to glow like the fire in his body.
Bruce bowed his head, unable to look at the face of the smiling Virgin, or the disapproval of the angel. The deed was done, the secret safe according to the gospel of Kirkpatrick, breathing hard from having had to run from burning the evidence.
More sin to heap on his stained soul. Bruce thought of the man he had killed, a perfect stroke as he cantered past the running figure; it was only afterwards he had seen it to be an old priest. Longshanks had replaced a lot of the livings here with prelates of his own and these were, Bruce knew, much hated and fair game for the lesser folk – but a priest, English or not, was a hard death on the soul of a noble, never mind an earl.
The Curse of Malachy – his hands trembled and the candle in it spilled wax down on to the black-haired back of it, cooling to perfect pearls.
The Curse of Malachy. His father had given the Clairveaux church where the saint was buried a grant of Annandale land in return for perpetual candles, and Bruce, for all he sneered at the spine his father seemed to have lost, knew that it was because of the Curse of Malachy. Every Bruce feared it as they feared nothing else.
The canons chanted and he tried to blot out the Curse and the thought that it had led him to slay one of their brothers on holy ground. Innocents, he thought. The innocents always die.
He saw the tiles in front of him, an expanse of cracked grey. Letters wavered, small and faint, in the top corner of one and felt a desperate need to see them clearly. Squinting, he read them: ‘D i us Me Fecit. The mark of the maker, Bruce thought. Alfredius? Godfridus?
Then it came to him. Dominus Me Fecit. God Made Me. He felt his hand tremble so violently that the candle went out and wax spilled on to his knuckles. The mark of the maker. God Made Me. I am what I am.
‘My lord of Carrick.’
The voice brought him round and his sight wavered, blinded by staring at the candle and the tiles.
‘God Made Me,’ he muttered.
‘As he did us all,’ the voice answered, gruff and fruited with good living. Wishart, he recognised.
The chanting stopped as all the heads turned; the Prior stumbled forward and knelt while Wishart thrust out one hand to have his ring kissed. The ring was not visible under the armoured gauntlet and the Prior hesitated, then placed his lips on the cold, articulated iron segments.
Wishart hardly looked at him, watching Bruce get up. The Malachy Curse, no doubt, he thought to himself, seeing the grim face on the young lord of Carrick. It had hagged his father all his life, but Wishart had hoped it had passed this one by.
He knew the tale of it, vaguely – something about a previous Annandale Bruce promising a priest that he would release a condemned felon and then hanging him in secret. The said priest was angered and cursed the Bruces – which did not seem very saintly to Wishart, but God moves mysteriously and that is what Malachy eventually became. A saint.
The Bruces had been living under the shadow of it ever since and there was something, Wishart admitted to himself, in young Robert’s assertion that it had unmanned his father completely. Hardly surprising, Wishart thought, when you find that a canting, irritating wee priest you have as a thwarted dinner guest later turns out to be Malachy, one of God’s anointed, with the power of angels at his disposal. At the very least, you would have to question your luck. More seriously, every sick cow, murrained sheep and blighted crop was laid at the door of the Curse, so that the Bruces had sullen and growling commons to constantly appease.
‘I was praying,’ Bruce declared accusingly, and the Bishop blinked, looked down and waved the Prior to his feet.
‘So you were,’ he replied, as cheerfully as he could manage, ‘and I will be joining you afore long, mark me. Prior, your robing room will be perfect for a quiet meeting.’
The Prior bobbed. He was not about to beg for what he knew all the canons wanted – an end to the plunder and pillage and an assurance that no more robed prelates would be killed – for it did not seem the time for it, when the Bishop of Glasgow stood in maille coat and braies and coif. Ironically, the mace dangling from one armoured fist was the only reminder that he was a Bishop of the Church in Scotland and forbidden to use an edge on any man – though not, it seemed, forbidden to bludgeon one to death.
Bruce looked at the warrior Bishop, thinking the old man might expire of apoplexy wearing all that padding and metal in this heat. Thinking, also, that Wishart had the strained look of a man either unable to cope with a bad turd or bad news.
He followed the lumbering Bishop into the cramped, hot robing room and was surprised to find Wallace there, sitting on the only bench and leaning on his hand-and-a-half. He made no move to get up with due deference, which irritated Bruce, though he forgot it the instant Wishart spoke.
‘The Lords Percy and Clifford have raised forces and are marching up through Dumfries,’ Wishart said without preamble. ‘Fifty thousand men, or so I am told.’
Wallace never blinked, but his fists closed tighter on the hilt of the sword and Bruce heard the point of it grind into the stone floor. He saw Wishart’s stricken face and knew the truth of matters at once.
‘You had counted on more time,’ he accused and Wishart nodded grimly.
‘Until next Spring,’ he growled. ‘Edward is far to the south with an army he wants to take to Flanders to fight the French and he and the likes of the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford are in a sulk ower baron rights and tolts on wool. I didnae think there would be a force got ready until too late in the season, so would wait out the winter and come in Spring. I had . . .’
‘You had forgot the English Marcher lords,’ Wallace interrupted, and his stare was cold on Wishart’s red, sweat-sheened face. ‘You had forgot the shadow of Longshanks is long, Bishop, and growing ever closer. How is that from a man who is, folk tell me, a master of cunning?’
Wishart clanked as he flapped one dismissive hand.
‘I did not expect Percy nor Clifford to raise forces,’ he grunted. ‘I thought they would not thole the cost of it, since they made such noises about the money for Edward’s French affair. Besides – Percy is De Warenne’s grandson and would not want to make the old Earl of Surrey look a fool for governing Scotland as Viceroy from his estates in England.’
Bruce laughed, nasty and harsh.
‘Aye, well,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There is you, scheming away and thumping every pulpit about how this is a kingdom, a realm separate from the English and with its own king – so much, it seems, that you have lost sight of what the English think.’
‘Aye, ye would ken that well enow,’ Wallace answered blackly, and Bruce’s smile had no mirth in it that any of the other two could see.
‘Percy and Clifford do not like Edward’s foreign wars,’ Bruce said bitterly. ‘But this is not a foreign war. Edward treats these lands not as another realm but as part of his own – so Percy and Clifford cannot avoid raising forces to put down a home rebellion, no matter how it makes grandda De Warenne look. To do otherwise is treason. Besides – Edward is coming and none of his lords in the north will want to face him without having done something. Even the Earl of Surrey will have to lever himself off his De Warenne arse and play the soldier once more.’
Wishart looked miserably at the floor, then straightened, blew out of pursed, fleshy lips and nodded.
‘Aye, right enough,’ he said. ‘It was a misjudgement. Now we have to deal with it.’
‘Deal with it?’ Bruce bellowed. ‘How do manage that, d’ye think? Even allowing for your spies seeing triple, the English have too many men, it appears. A fifth of fifty thousand would be enough, for nothing I have seen persuades me that this rabble Wallace leads will stand in the open field against them.’
He broke off, breathing heavily, then nodded grimly at Wallace.
‘No offence.’
‘None ta’en,’ Wallace replied, suddenly cheerful. ‘You have the right of it, for sure – mine are men best fighting out of the hills and woods, my lords. So that is where we will go.’
Wishart looked as if he would protest and Bruce felt a sharp stab of anger at the presumption of Wallace, about to up and go without so much as a by-your-leave bow – but he swallowed the bile of it and nodded soberly.
‘Aye, that will be the way of it – but you should go with what men you have and what will go with you who are free of obligation to myself and the other nobles.’
Wallace turned narrowed eyes and gazed at Bruce from under lowered brows.
‘And yourself, lord of Carrick?’
‘I will gather up the Douglas, the Bishop here and others and we will make what resistance we can from our fortresses. The English will have to deal with us and that will buy you time to cause havoc.’
Wallace stared at Bruce a long time, then slowly nodded.
‘Longshanks is coming. This will cost you dear,’ he said, looking from Wishart to Bruce and back.
‘In the noble cause,’ Wishart declared and Wallace clasped them both, wrist to wrist, then went out, silent as a wraith for all his bulk. It suddenly seemed to the others that the room had doubled in size. No-one spoke for a moment, then Wishart cleared his throat.
‘And the truth?’ he demanded. Bruce looked coldly at him.
‘My purpose in joining this now-failed enterprise has already been achieved,’ he said pointedly. ‘The mason is buried anew.’
Wishart nodded weary agreement.
‘So we will get ourselves to Irvine with what men we have and prepare to negotiate,’ Bruce added. Wishart’s belly quivered under the armour as he dragged himself haughtily upright. ‘Ye’d yield? Without a fight?’
Bruce’s bottom lip stuck out like a shovel and Wishart, who knew the sign well, found some caution.
‘The king himself will come north,’ Bruce growled angrily. ‘Like the black wind he is. Wallace will fight – he has to, for he has no lands to his own name and is an outlaw, no more. You lose nothing bar some dignity for having to kneel and kiss Edward’s ring, for the Church lands are sacrosanct.’
He thrust his mace of a face into Wishart’s own.
‘But we,’ he said, slapping the chevroned jupon, ‘risk losing everything. We, the community of the realm you depend on to free it. Edward will come north with his scowl and his evil eye – I could lose Carrick and my father Annandale. God’s Blood, Wishart, I place my rights to the crown in jeopardy here. Douglas will lose his Lanark lands – do you want us all fastened up in Berwick, or the Tower?’
More to the point of it, Wishart thought bitterly, is that Buchan and the rest of the Comyn, ostensibly supporting Edward but covertly allowing Moray’s rebels free rein, would come out smelling as if they’d been dipped in crushed rose petals. They play this game of kings more skilfully than the young Bruce, he saw, who needed some cunning heads round him.
‘Of course,’ he said, bowing to the inevitable, ‘negotiation is tricky business. Involved and sometimes lengthy. And what of Wallace?’
Bruce grunted sourly.
‘Wallace owes nothing save allegiance to a deposed king who wishes nothing to do with his kingdom,’ he growled. ‘He owns no lands, suffers the worry of no tenant and looks down his sword at each man he meets, asking only if he is for The Wallace. If not, he is against him.’
‘No bad thing in these days,’ Wishart countered defiantly.
‘Simplistic,’ Bruce spat back over his shoulder as headed for the door. ‘And probably brief. Whether negotiations are long or short, it will come out as it always does – with us on our knees.’
He paused and turned.
