The Complete Kingdom Trilogy (118 page)

‘Ruy Vaz and his men are on their way,' Hal added, hoping it was true.

De Grafton moved, sudden as an adder, the tongue of ruined whip flicked and a dove veered off and flew away, calling alarms. De Grafton frowned.

‘You have severed enough to ruin my aim,' he said and tossed the whip away with disgust. It was that, more than anything so far, which drove a cold steel blade of determined hate into Hal, suddenly revolted by a man who had spent the long, hot afternoon practising his whip on an innocence of doves while his human victims marbled in the heat.

‘Wee birds and women,' Hal answered, finding his voice at last. ‘This seems your strength, de Grafton.'

He moved as he spoke, between the fronds of a palm, crushing the jade-pale stems and heads of some flowers, so that a cloying perfume rose up.

‘The lady? She believed this Piculph, thought to go with him and throw herself on the mercy of Ruy Vaz.'

De Grafton's lip curled with revulsion.

‘Thought to use her women's ways', he said, ‘to slither out from punishment and leave me to bear the brunt of wrath. I killed her as you would the snake in Eden and then found out what was needed from Piculph.'

‘Who was no great fighter,' Hal answered, sidling closer.

‘A Serjeant of the Order of Alcántara,' de Grafton sneered. ‘If they are all like that, the Moors will be in this port within the year.'

‘You will never ken,' roared Sim, bulling up from the floor, even as Hal shouted at him to stay.

De Grafton slid to one side, the sword flicked, fast as the whip, and there was a dull clang and a splash which curdled Hal's blood; he sprang forward, but recoiled to a halt as the sword flicked out at him. From where he stood he could see Sim sprawled on the far side of the pool where the blow had flung him, half in and half out, covered in blood and not moving; Piculph's disturbed body swung and turned while doves mourned in the moonlight.

‘You have a key I need,' Hal said, trying not to look at Sim, while de Grafton cocked his head to one side like a curious bird.

‘I am charged with delaying you – preventing you entire if I can,' he replied, almost sadly. ‘I gave my oath to my lord Percy and his English king, as a Poor Knight.'

‘The Poor Knights are no more and your oath is as worthless as your honour – you are long fallen from any grace,' Hal replied, moving a bough of fragrant blossoms from in front of his face. ‘Piculph did not die because you wanted to know how many were coming here – he died because you wanted to know if Rossal was. Himself and the Templar writ he carries. Which you would take from his whipped body after he had revealed the secret word.'

There was silence, broken only by the gory drip and the flutter of terrified doves.

‘Did you work out that you alone had not been party to the knowledge? They did not trust you, de Grafton, even though they could prove nothing. Yet Rossal knew – perhaps God told him.'

He shifted slightly for advantage, poised and ready for a strike.

‘You can deny your oaths and cheat the Order enough to gull foolish men and silly women,' he went on. ‘But God is watching, my lord.'

There was a pause, and then the doves erupted in fragile terror as de Grafton launched into a snarling frenzy, seeing all his plans shredded at the last.

He was fast and trained with all the honed skills of a Templar, so that Hal reeled away, a shock jolting through him at how slow he was, how far removed from his own old skills. Yet the same reflex that had cut the whip from Sim sprang the bough of blossoms from his hand and slapped its fragrance into de Grafton's face, making him turn his head to avoid it; the scything blow hissed over Hal's ducking shoulder like a bar of light.

Then the clouds drifted over the moon and everything was sunk into darkness.

There was silence, broken only by the frantic bird-sounds, which clouded Hal's ears. There was nothing but scent and space and blackness – but it was the same for de Grafton, he thought, and fought to control the ragged rasp of his treacherous breathing.

A flurry of thrashing came from his left – a bird had blundered into de Grafton and he had struck out, so Hal moved as swiftly as he dared and slashed left and right, then retreated without, it seemed, hitting anything.

Birds whirred and slapped through the dark, flute-wailing their distress. Something splashed in the fountain and Hal wondered if de Grafton was there; the idea that he was finishing off a wounded Sim almost sprang him recklessly forward, but he fought the urge.

Sweat trickled down him and he found himself in a half-crouch, as if the ground would open up a safe hole and let him crawl in; the scent of flowers and old blood drifted on the night breeze.

The clouds slid off the moon; a silver and black shadow flitted across from his left and the blow almost tore the sword from Hal's grip, forcing him to dance backwards. He parried once, twice, managed to block a low cut to the knee, and then was alone as de Grafton whirled away like a wraith.

In a moment he was back; the swords clashed and sparks flew, the blades slid together to the hilt and, for an eyeblink, Hal was breath to fetid breath with de Grafton, feeling the sweat heat of him, seeing the mad eyes and the white grin; but then the Templar's head bobbed like a fighting cock and Hal reeled back from the blow on his forehead. Something seemed to snag his arm and he knew he had been cut.

De Grafton laughed softly.

‘Do you have the writ, I wonder? Or the secret word? Or both? I will cut you a little, then we will find out the truth.'

The pain crept through and Hal felt blood slide, felt the grip of his hand on the hilt grow slack and reinforced it with the left. A bird called throatily and de Grafton was suddenly close, his blade beating down Hal's own.

‘We will find out,' he repeated and Hal knew the next strike would be to render him helpless, for de Grafton to truss up and question.

‘It will do you no good,' Hal panted through the red swirls of pain. ‘The writ and the word are both gone to Ruy Vaz.'

There was a pause and Hal cursed himself. Clever, he thought, gritting through the pain of his arm – give him no excuse to spare you. Yet he could only kneel like a drooping bullock at the slaughter and wait for it.

There was a whirring thump – De Grafton screamed and arched, and then bowed at the waist with the agony of the steel arbalest prong driven like a pickaxe into the join of neck and shoulder; behind, the bloody apparition that was Sim bellowed like a rutting stag, his face sliding with gore.

‘Kill me, would ye? Ye bliddy wee limmer, I will maul the sod wi' ye.'

De Grafton, reeling and shrieking, gave up trying to reach the prong and started to swing round on the unarmed Sim – Hal's desperate, lunging two-handed stroke tore his own sword from his weakened grasp, but not before it had cut the Templar from his wounded shoulder almost to his hip. He fell in two directions and his heels drummed.

The birds whirled and called and the heels danced to stillness. Sim wiped the mess on his face into a horror mask of streaks and heaved in a breath; his teeth were bright in the moonlit scarlet of his cheeks.

‘Aye til the fore,' he panted and Hal blinked from his numbness.

‘I thought he had killed you,' he said and Sim scowled.

‘The blow hit the arbalest – look, his cut has ruined it entire.'

He prised the weapon from the ruin of De Grafton and flourished it with disgust.

‘He has severed the string and put a bliddy great gash in the stem. I will never find another.'

‘Ye are all bloody,' Hal managed to say and Sim wiped his gory face again.

‘From the pool – Piculph's blood. Apart from a dunt on my back, I am unhurt – more than can be said for yerself.'

Hal allowed himself to be led away from the corpses and the stink of blood and exotic blooms. Sim struck up a light, which made them blink, and presented Hal with his sword, worked free from de Grafton's corpse. Then he examined the arm with a critical eye.

‘Nasty and deep, but the lacings in yer arm are intact, so ye will get the use of it back.'

Hal tried not to let the pain wash him, concentrated on staring at the sword and wondering at the keen edge which had slashed de Grafton to ruin. Too fancy, Rossal had admitted when he had handed the sword over and now Hal saw the extent of it: the Templar cross in the pommel and letters etched down the blade and now outlined clearly in de Grafton's blood: C+S+S+M+L. Across the hilt was N+D+S+M+L and Hal wondered if there was a Templar left who could tell him what they meant.

Sim searched de Grafton for the key and vanished with it; not long afterwards the place was suddenly filled with the
Bon Accord
sailors. Hal let Pegy have his head, listened dully to him sending Somhairl and some men to check on the ship while he sat, fired with the agony of his arm and trying not to move at all.

The big Islesman was back all too soon; the ship was foundered and half-sunk at its moorings, the steering whipstaff cut.

‘Baistit,' Pegy swore and kicked the bloody ruin of de Grafton so that the head lolled sickeningly. ‘He knew he had won afore ye arrived, Sir Hal.'

Hal, crushed with the black dog of it, fell back to studying the sword, half-numbed, watching the gleet and blood crust into the grooves of the letters in a haar of weariness, until light and voices burst over him, driving him up and out of it, as if breaching from a dark pool.

‘Christ betimes,' said a familiar voice, ‘what a charnel hoose.'

It was an effort to raise his head and stare into the wide grin.

‘Kirkpatrick,' Hal slurred like a drunk. ‘You are late.'

 

 

 

ISABEL

Thou deckest Thyself with light as if it were a garment and spreadest out the Heavens like a curtain. A sign, Lord, to silence my weeping and I thank You for it. I saw him, through the smoke, through the crowds howling at the shrieks of the burning woman, a dark and strange angel, hooded and careful but the only one not looking at the poor soul writhing on the pyre, but up at me. He knows I saw him, too. O Lord. Joy of joys – a sign. Matters are changing; winds are shifting.

Dog Boy.

Berwick Town, Berwick

Ember Day, Feast of the Visitation, May 1314

He should not have been there, in the thronged Marygate. He could hear Jamie say it even as he walked into the crowd of the place. You are not meant to be strolling inside Berwick town, Aleysandir. You are supposed to be observing the folk in it, their movements and their bought truce. You are supposed to be me, Aleysandir – so says the King – and I am too kent a face for you to be waving its like at the English in Berwick.

I am supposed to be kin, Dog Boy answered himself, grimly exultant with the daring of it, though he would never say it to Jamie's face. My blood is your blood, Jamie Douglas – and your blood would bring you here if you were in my boots.

His boots were clotted with filth of alleys and wynds choked with ‘English sojers', though the truth of matters was that they were not English at all, but the
mesnies
of those Scots lords still loyal to the Plantagenet and fearing for the loss of their lands in the north. Unable now to go home, they were lost men, all of their old lives torn from them and only soldiering left. Swaggering and roaring, they lurched through the streets in search of drink and whores and, above all, food.

That was part of what had brought Dog Boy into the town, mingling easily with the other travel-stained, just one more well-worn fighting man with an iron hat, a gambeson that had seen better days and a festoon of hand weapons dangling from belt and back.

He and Jamie knew the place was starving already, with ale a sight cheaper than bread, yet those Scottish
nobiles
bound to King Edward were clearly mustering – and food was arriving, grain and meat and ale, in carts guarded by English wearing the badge of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke.

The presence of his own
mesnie
meant the Earl was here, but with just enough numbers to garrison the castle and keep all the food and drink safe. Not for the town, nor even for the garrison, nor the Scots lords, but for others – supplies, stockpiling here for the bulk of the army because the fortresses they usually relied on for invasion were all gone. That meant the English were due here in force soon – but where were they now?

Dog Boy had heard that labour on the Berwick town-wall defences had stopped because the workers were too weak and he saw for himself the ditch and rampart, half-finished and no more than a dyke. You could take the town, he thought to himself, with a jester's bladder on a stick – though the castle was still formidable.

He had heard, too, that Isabel MacDuff was the sight to see, dangling from the Hog's Tower in her cage, but in the time it took to battle for a leather jack of warm ale at Tavish's Tavern, Dog Boy learned that her charms had been overcome by a new entertainment.

They were burning a witch under the walls of the castle.

The mob gathered in the moody dim of a day gone to haar off the sea, expectant and lusting with the desperation of those who need bread but will take blood if it is offered.

Dog Boy filtered along with them, the Napiers and Harpers and Butlers from Edinburgh and the Lothian March roistering alongside the sullen MacDougalls and McNabs from beyond the Mounth, who patently wished they were not here at all, in a soft southern place where no one spoke the True Tongue.

Dog Boy was elbowed and shouldered, growling so that folk knew he was no easy mark, with his dagger and old sword, an axe and a rimmed iron hat dangling from his belt. He searched the battlements, squinting in the growing fog and premature pewter dim and not expecting to see her at all, having heard she could only be viewed if you stood in the bailey, which was a step too far for him. Surprise stiffened him, then, when he saw her.