Kingdom 01 - The Lion Wakes (14 page)

Agnes had been told this by the Countess of Buchan, who had given them to her when she had left, as a gift for her tirewoman help; Agnes had worn red hose and slippers ever since – until now, Dog Boy thought, for the hose garters lay like streaks of blood nearby and the slipper he watched had slipped from her bagged heel and wagged frantically on her toes. Her last shriek was almost so piercing as to be heard only by the dogs and she jerked and spasmed so furiously that the slipper flew off.

Tod’s Wattie made a curious, childlike series of whimpers and slowed the mad pulse of him, then stopped entire. The straw stopped rustling like a rainstorm and Dog Boy shut his mouth with a click and heard their breathing, harsh and ragged.

‘Aye,’ said Agnes, in a thick, dreamy voice Dog Boy had never heard from her before. ‘Ye’ve rattled me clean oot of my shoe.’

They laughed and then the straw rustled as they tidied themselves together. Tod’s Wattie lumbered out, wisped with straw sticks, and looked over to where the dogs were, seeing Dog Boy and blinking.

‘There ye are,’ he said and Dog Boy knew he was wondering how long he had been sitting. In the end, he shrugged and passed a hand through his thick hair, combed out a straw and grinned.

‘Go to the kitchen and see if you can find some scraps for the dugs,’ he said and Dog Boy scampered off.

‘I still have a shoe on the other foot,’ said the throaty voice behind him and Tod’s Wattie blinked a bit and shook his head. He knew he and Dog Boy and the deerhounds were at Douglas because Hal thought it safer to leave his expensive dogs away from the Scots camp at Annick, where Bruce and the others sat in wary conclave with Percy and Clifford and both armies tried hard not to break into pitched battle. Worse still was to try to travel alone on dangerous roads back to Lothian.

But, he added to himself, if Sir Hal delays longer in sending for us this hot-arsed wee besom will have me worn to a nub end.

The kitchen was a swelter. At the large table, Master Fergus the Cook and his helpers split a side of salt beef for the boiling pit, spitted geese, kneaded bread; Dog Boy saw that there was milled sawdust being mixed in with the rye, which meant grain was scarce.

A scullion elbowed his way past Dog Boy with drawn water, piped cleverly from the stone cistern somewhere above; another lugged an armful of wood for the fire, which was bigger than the smith’s furnace and hotter, too. Near it, the potboys withered, trying to stir without roasting themselves, huddled behind an old damped-down tiltyard shield. In the high summer some had been known to faint from the heat and only quick hands saved those from certain death; almost all of them had the glassy weals of old burns.

‘Well, what do you want, boy?’ demanded Fergus looking up. He was no advert for his craft, being a thin, pinch-faced man from Galloway, shaved bald on head and chin to better rid himself of vermin and stay cool.

‘I beg the blissin’ of ye sir,’ Dog Boy said, ‘Tod’s Wattie asks if you can spare some meat and cleidin for his dogs.’

‘Christ’s Bones,’ Fergus interrupted in his Gaelic-lilted English. ‘Cleidin? Scraps for dogs, yet? Ask for a cone of sugar, why not? Everything is running low and little chance of it being replenished that I can see. Glad it is that almost all the visitors are after having gone, for another day would have seen us chewing our own boots.’

The implication was that some unwanted guests remained and it was a sudden, sharp pain to Dog Boy to realise that he was now one of them. In an eyeblink and a series of words from the mouth of the Lady, he had gone from the company of the castle to being a stranger.

‘It will be for him, Master,’ added one of his helpers with a grin as he worked at carefully stacking and tallying a pyramid of honeycakes without breaking them. ‘He looks as if he would eat raw meat.’

‘Perhaps if yon hunt weeks back had actually routed out something worthwhile,’ Fergus grumbled, ‘but hunted stag meat is tough and a brace of fine coneys make better eating and easier cooking. Now the game is scattered and wary and there will be no good hunting for weeks. All we had from it was a dead body and a mystery.’

He broke off and thrust a round pot at Dog Boy, bright and reeking with bloody pats, some of the blood and grease slathered on the outside.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Bring the pot back sharp, mind.’

Dog Boy grinned, nodded – then shot out one hand and grabbed a honeycake, fleeing from the new catcalls and the barrage of feral curses that brought. He was almost at the door when he slammed into something dark and a hard object that whacked him on the temple.

Dazed, he staggered, found himself held up by a strong hand clamped painfully round his thin arm and looked up, past the hilt of the dagger which had smacked him, into a smear of smile.

It was on a fox-sharp face, the eyes cold and dark, the nose speckled with old pox-marks. There was a chin but not much of one and it made the man’s teeth stick out like a rat’s from between wet lips limned by a wisped fringe of beard and moustache.

‘A wee thief,’ he said with suet-rich satisfaction and looked triumphantly at Fergus. ‘It seems my arrival is timely.’

Fergus cleaned his hands on his apron and looked at the newcomer, whom he disliked on sight. He glanced pointedly at the blood-clamp fist that gripped Dog Boy’s arm and the man raised an eyebrow and opened it with a sudden, deliberate gesture.

Dog Boy, pot in one hand, cake in the other, wanted to rub the affected bit but could only wriggle it, looking warily from the man to Fergus, who jerked his head silently at him to go. Heedless of the blood on his hands, Dog Boy crammed the honeycake in his mouth, then darted for the kennels, holding his puny biceps.

‘You are?’ Fergus said and the man lifted his head haughtily.

‘Malise Bellejambe,’ he declared. ‘Sir Malise Bellejambe,’ he added pointedly. ‘And you will lose a kitchen full of honey-cakes if you keep that attitude with wee thieves.’

‘Sir,’ Fergus declared, in a tone that made it clear he did not believe the title for a moment. ‘I remember you from before. You came with the Earl of Buchan. Now you are back. Whit why?’

Malise wanted to force the man to his properly deferential knees, but managed a shaky smile instead.

‘The Countess has become strayed from his entourage,’ he said. ‘The Earl fears she may have gotten lost and is mounted on yon great beast of a warhorse, which is not one for a woman to ride. The roads are no place for a woman alone.’

He paused and smiled, as if a little ashamed of his lord’s indulgences in letting his wife gallop around the country astraddle a warhorse, without escort or even chaperone. The memory of her escape burned him – Christ’s Bones she was a cat-cunning imp of Satan. Stole away while they all slept and managed to take the damned warhorse with her; Malise had been in a panic since, for he knew Buchan would suspect that their sleep was fuelled by drink and that they had been less than watchful. It was the truth, but not what Malise wanted to have to tell his master.

‘The Earl has sent me to guide her back. I thought she might have returned here.’

There was silence for a moment, for all remembered the noises of the Earl punishing his wife, and Fergus thought, vehemently, that it was scarce a surprise that the Countess had run off. Wisely, he did not voice it.

‘Aye – as to that I could not say,’ Fergus declared instead and rounded on the silent, still, open-mouthed scullions, raking them with his eyes until they became a sudden flurry of activity.

‘No such lady is here,’ he added. ‘The Douglas Lord and Lady, bairns and all are gone elsewhere. Thomas the Sergeant is left as steward, so you would be wise to speak to him.’

Malise stroked his chin as if considering it.

‘There was a quine,’ he said. ‘Agnes, I believe her name was. Acted as tirewoman to the Countess when she visited here. I would speak with her.’

His diffidence was a lie, for he knew the trull well enough to remember the sway of her hurdies and the lip-licking promise it gave. It was desperation to seek her out in the hope that she knew where the Countess had gone – but Malise was all rat-frantic now. Fergus raised an eyebrow.

‘She will be here somewheres,’ he said. ‘As I say – best to talk to Thomas and let him ken you are nosin’ around his charges like a spooring dog.’

The warning was sharp and Malise felt the sting of it burn him. He inclined his head, gracious, polite, innocent as a nun’s serk.

‘My thanks,’ he said, fixing his eyes on Fergus’s own. ‘I will remember you for it.’

Stepping out from gloom to bright, he squinted against the light, then spotted the skinny runt of a thief, scuttling like a rat across the Ward towards the stable block. Aha, he thought, the little listening mouse hears much. If I were he, I would run to warn this Agnes, whom he no doubt kens . . .

Dog Boy half turned and saw the weasel-faced stranger look directly at him, then stride purposefully on. He gibbered in fear, the pain in his arm burning in stripes like the man’s fingers.

He remembered that the hard blow on the side of his head had been made by the hilt of a dagger and the panic made him fumbling careless. He turned, half-stumbled, dropped the pot and went to pick it up, then realised how close the man was. He left it and ran. More convinced than ever of Dog Boy’s intent, Malise followed after.

Agnes, pulling her shift straight and picking straw from her hair, was coming out of the stables, leaving first to try to put some face on the unavoidable gossip. She was dreamy and sticky, the sun seemed like honey on her skin and she started to adjust her cap when Dog Boy sped round the corner and skidded to a halt.

‘Man,’ he gulped.

‘What troubles ye, my wee chook?’ Agnes purred with a grin, which froze as Malise stepped round the corner. With a whimper, Dog Boy turned and sped away.

Malise smiled, which made Agnes’s stomach lurch.

‘You are Agnes,’ he said and it was not a question. Agnes trembled, recovered and drew herself up a little.

‘Aye. You are the Earl of Buchan’s man. Malise. I mind you from before.’

She did, too, conscious then of his eyes griming over her and not liking it any better now.

‘Indeed,’ Malise replied and looked her up and down so that Agnes felt her skin ripple; she became aware, suddenly, of Tod’s Wattie’s stickiness on the inside of her thighs and prickled with a sudden shame that, just as suddenly turned to anger against this Malise for having driven away the fine moment of before.

‘I thought you left with the Coontess,’ Agnes declared haughtily and forced her legs to move, looking to get round and away from him. Malise stepped forward and blocked her.

‘I did,’ he replied and his eyes were like festering sheep droppings on her face. ‘Fine slippers ye have, mistress.’

Agnes dropped her head to look and felt him grip her chin, his fingers like the hard, horned beak of a bird. She was so astounded at it that she could not move or make a sound.

‘Too fine slippers for you,’ Malise added, soft and vicious in her ear, his breath tickling the stray strands of her sweat-damp hair. ‘They belong to the Coontess, if I am not mistaken.’

The fingers ground her jaw and, suddenly, let her go. She stumbled on weakened legs and would have fallen, but his hand shot out and held her under one arm, hauling her upright.

‘You ken where she has gone,’ Malise said and Agnes saw his other hand, resting on the two-lobed pommel that gave the weapon at his belt its name – bollock dagger. She felt sick.

‘She gave me the slippers,’ she heard herself say. ‘Afore she left . . .’

‘She came back, did she not?’ Malise persisted, his mouth close to her ear; his breath smelled like stale milk. ‘Ran to here – who better to shelter the hot-arsed Bruce hoor than Douglas Castle’s ain wee hot-arsed trollop, eh? Who was her tirewummin when she was first here.’

‘Never,’ Agnes said, feeling the fingers burn. Her head swam and she swore she heard the snake-slither of the dagger leaving the sheath. ‘Came back.’

‘Ye will tell me,’ Malise started to say, then something clamped on the back of his neck and jerked him backwards. Loosed, Agnes crumpled in a heap.

At first Malise thought a horse had bit him and struggled, cursing, to get free. Then a second hand swam into view, a huge grimed affair with split nails which snaked out of the dazzle of sun and locked on his throat, instantly cutting off his breathing. Choking, kicking, Malise looked up into the big, round face of Tod’s Wattie, boar-eyed with rage.

‘Ye cantrips ye,’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll maul the stanes with ye, ye bauchlin’ wee bastard. I’ll dunt ye some manners . . .’

Desperately, Malise half-fumbled out the dagger and Tod’s Wattie spotted it and roared even louder. He shook Malise left and right like a terrier with a rat and Malise felt the world whirl and turn red at the edges. The dagger clattered from his fingers and his vision blackened and and started to narrow.

‘Drag a dirk out on me, is it?’ Tod’s Wattie shouted and flung Malise away from him. ‘I’ll tear aff yer head and shite down yer neck, ye jurrocks.’

‘Here, here – enough of that.’

The new voice brought Tod’s Wattie round in a whirl, in time to see one of the castle’s garrison come panting up, sweating in his helmet and leather jack. He staggered to a halt and leaned on his spear, looking from one to the other.

‘What’s all this?’

Tod’s Wattie had turned to help Agnes back on to shaky legs and he felt her hanging on him like a wrung-out dishcloth, which only made him angrier. He waved a free hand at Malise, who was on his hands and knees, retching and whooping in air.

‘He was footerin’ with Agnes here,’ Tod’s Wattie declared. He knew the guard, Androu, was sweet on Agnes, so he was not surprised at the narrow-eyed look the man gave Malise.

‘Was he so?’ Androu said, then looked at Agnes. ‘Is this right?’

Agnes nodded and Androu shut one eye and glared grimly with the other, while Malise climbed, wavering, back to his feet.

‘Right you,’ Androu said, scooping up the dropped dagger. ‘You and me will see what Tam . . . the Sergeant . . . thinks of this.’

‘Mistake,’ Malise managed to croak, appalled at the ruin of his voice. He has torn my throat, he thought wildly. I will be dumb.