The Complete Kingdom Trilogy (37 page)

‘He is alive still,' Bruce declared and knelt, shoving his face close to the dying man's. ‘He is trying to speak …'

The man's mouth opened and closed a few times; Bruce bent closer, so that his ear was almost to the lips of the man, and Hal was shamed that the earl was so bent on uncovering the secret of his Stone that he defiled the last peace of a dying man.

Then the man vomited a last wash of blood, on which sailed the wafer of the Last Rite like a little white boat. Bruce sprang up, his face peppered with bloody spray, which he wiped away with distaste. The uncle bowed his head and knelt, while the priest began to intone prayers.

Bruce blinked once or twice, then flung himself out and Hal went after him. Kirkpatrick, his hand numbing from clutching the sagging pardoner, thought to make sure that the man was, indeed, the Savoyard they had sought and not some luckless leper.

‘Manon de Faucigny?' he rasped.

The uncle raised his head from his pious revery, gently brushed the sweat lank hair from the dead man's paling forehead.

‘Malachy,' he said and Kirkpatrick jerked.

‘His name was Malachy de Faucigny,' the uncle went on softly. ‘He thought that had too much Jew in it for an England where they were banned, so he changed it.'

Kirkpatrick's mouth went dry, then he shook the thoughts away from him. Best not to mention this, he thought.

Bangtail and Lang Tam were pitched into a nightmare. They had come up on a door, which did not yield, then ploughed on through the wet and the mud to stumble into the backcourt privy. Where there is a shitehouse, Bangtail hissed in Lang Tam's ear, there is a wee door to get to it.

They found it, a darker shadow against the black – and it opened smoothly enough. Bangtail grinned as he stepped inside; no man liked to have a barrier between him and emptying his bowels when it came to the bit.

The pair of them halted in the dark of what seemed to be a large room, a hall or refectory. The air was fetid and rank and the dark yielded up the contents reluctantly – the flags of the floor, vague shapes on either side; the rushes shushed as they stepped.

A bed with a bench at the end of it. Another. Yet one more on the other side of them.

The figures loomed up suddenly, vengefully, the stuff of nightmares.

‘Ye baistits,' screeched a voice and a blow struck Bangtail on the arm. Another whacked his knees. He heard Lang Tam curse.

Then he saw what attacked them. Noseless. Festering. Some with rags binding the worst of their wounds, some fresh from their dormitory beds and unswaddled, the fish-belly pale of them smeared with the black stains of rot.

The lepers, whose touch was condemnation, whose very breath was death.

Bangtail howled like a mad dog then and fought through them, panicked and flailing. He heard Lang Tam yelling, felt his fists strike something that he did not even wish to see.

Light flared at the far end, silhouetting the mad horde of lepers, whose dormitory sleep Bangtail and Lang Tam had shattered. Bangtail saw it and plunged towards it, finding, like a miracle from Christ Himself, that those who had been snarling in front of him had vanished like snow from a sunwarmed dyke.

Then he saw the figure scurrying forward, the naked-fang gleam of long steel waving like a brand in the dark.

Malise knew he had escaped from the Dying Room with seconds only. He had snatched up his cloak and slung the scrip over his shoulder at the sound of the Bruce warcry, heading down the corridor that linked the Dying Room, conveniently, to the leper dormitory; from there, he knew, he could reach the outside. His plans were thrown in the air and there was nothing now but escape and the gibbering fear of what was plunging at his heels drove him on.

The riot inside confused him and he hacked his knife at the mass of figures until they scattered, then hurled himself through before they could recover enough to counter. Suddenly, he was close to a face he knew, saw it was one of the Herdmanston men and lashed out with his other hand, a wild shriek of terror trailing it like flame.

Bangtail saw the blow only at the last, managed to duck the worst of it, but was still flung full length, stars whirling into him.

Lang Tam saw Bangtail fall and lunged forward, tearing free from the grasp of half-a-dozen hands. Kicking feet made him stumble as he roared forward and he was on his hands and knees when Malise lunged, kicked him savagely in the mouth, then slashed right and left with his knife, to keep the lepers away.

The last wild cut was just as Lang Tam surged back upright and he had time to marvel at the moment of it, the sheer bad cess of it, how poorly he stood in the grace of God. It was no more than a catch across his throat, a blow that made him gasp – but the roaring and the drench of blood down his front told him the truth of it. His eyes rolled and he looked at the astounded, frightened-pale face of Malise, the dagger dripping blood.

‘Bugger,' Lang Tam wheezed wearily and fell full length, his head bouncing.

Malise leaped over him and made for the door, while the lepers fell over themselves trying to get away. Behind, he heard a man roaring pungent curses.

Bangtail, he remembered dully as he stumbled out into the rain.

Lamprecht knew that information was life. It was what he traded to Malise and, he admitted, was what he should have kept to instead of playing in this treacherous game.

Now he stood in a ring of folk he knew wanted to kill him, while they stood scowling and black-despaired by the death of one of their number. He knew he had limited options and thought he would begin by establishing his credentials.

‘Kretto a in deo patrem monipotante kritour sele a dera, ki se voet te tout, a nou se voet; e a in domnis Gizoun Kriston, filiou deous in soul
…'

‘Enough,' Kirkpatrick growled, slapping him. ‘It will not stand here – ye are spoutin' lies like a horse cowper.'

‘What is he saying?' demanded Bruce.

‘It is the Credo,' Kirkpatrick said and Abbot Jerome frowned. It did not sound like any Credo he knew and he admitted as much.

‘The Greek way,' Kirkpatrick said. ‘From Constantinople.'

‘Christ's Wounds,' Sim said, raking through the box while Lamprecht hovered in agony, watching. ‘Is this a wee toebone?'

‘Guarda per
ti,' Lamprecht pleaded. ‘Be careful.
Chouya, chouya
– sorry, in English – gently. That is the toebone of Moses himself.'

‘Away,' exclaimed Sim in amazement. ‘Moses, is it? Now here is a miracle – if ye are to chain up all the toebones of Moses ye have in here, ye find the blessed wee man had four feet.'

‘Questo star falso. Taybos no mafuzes
ruynes.'

Kirkpatrick, grinning, turned to the frowning Bruce.

‘He says is it is not true. All his wares are real.'

‘Ask him where Malise has gone,' Hal demanded and Lamprecht winced at the eyes on this one. The others, even the one he now knew to be a great lord, were easier on matters, for they were reviling him. Lamprecht had found that those who paused to spit on him seldom, in the end, did him the sort of harm that balm and a decent arnica root could not cure.

Sim let a delicate sliver of white clatter to the flags and then ground it to powder, grinning – even that, though the pain of its loss hurt him to the soles of his own feet, would not have loosened Lamprecht's throat. The one who spoke the Tongue might, but he was leashed by the great lord, so Lamprecht had no real fear of him.

But the grey-eyed one with a stare like a basilisk was different and Lamprecht knew, when the question came, that he would answer it humbly and truthfully, in the hope that he could step along the razor edge of this moment without shedding any of his blood.

Kirkpatrick listened and frowned, but Hal had caught a few words, so he could not dissemble.

‘He says Malise originally employed him to seek out a Countess. That one is in the nunnery near here, a place controlled by Robert de Malenfaunt. Folk send their unwanted women to it – unruly daughters, wee wives who have outlived their property attractions, widows fleein' from some man who wants to get his hands on their inheritance. This Malenfaunt keeps it as a
seraglio,
the pardoner says.'

‘I have heard of this Malenfaunt,' Bruce mused. ‘He is a minor lord of little account, but he serves in the
mesnie
of Ughtred of Scarborough. I hear he rode some decent Tourneys at Bamburgh one season.'

‘What's a
seraglio?'
Sim demanded and Kirkpatrick curled his lip in an ugly smile.

‘A hoorhoose.'

‘And he holds Isabel to ransom in sich a place?' growled Hal.

‘I doubt she has been dishonoured or harmed,' Bruce soothed, marvelling at the way of things, for it seemed this young Sientcler was smit with his Isabel – not
his
Isabel anymore, he corrected hastily, as if even the thought could reach the Earl of Buchan.

‘She is too valuable,' he added, then clapped Hal on one shoulder. ‘Betimes – we will get her away.'

Kirkpatrick sighed, for he could see the way of it – bad enough charging down on St Bartholomew's without thundering on to the nunnery at St Leonards. He said it, knowing it would make no difference.

‘Aye – raiding lazars and nunneries is meat an' ale to the likes of us,' Sim declared cheerfully and drew out the long roll of parchment. ‘What is this?'

The truth was that Lamprecht did not know – he had stolen it from Malise for the dangling Templar seal – two knights riding a single horse. He considered that the most valuable item, since he could carefully remove it from the document and attach it to another, this one painstakingly scribed to provenance the relics of Elizabeth of Thuringia. A Templar seal was as good as truth and doubled the value of his relics.

Now he watched it unroll, saw the other seal on it, one he did not know, and wished he had had the time to study it more closely. Bruce plucked it from Sim, who only held it the correct way up because the seals were at the bottom.

‘It is a
jetton,'
Bruce said, marvelling and squinting in the poor light. ‘For a hundred and fifty merks.'

Lamprecht groaned at the thought of what he had just lost.

‘Whit is a
jetton?'
Sim demanded.

‘A wee tally note, stamped by the Templar seal and – well, well, the Earl of Buchan's mark,' Bruce explained, grinning more and more broadly. ‘The Earl has clearly deposited the money at Balantrodoch and now anyone with this document can go to any Templar Commanderie from here to Hell itself and put a claim on hundred and fifty merks of silver. See? You mark off the sums given to you in these wee boxes. Like a chequerboard, which is how the Templars reckon up the sums. The
jetton
are really the wee counters they use to shuffle from box to box to keep track of it all.'

They all peered and murmured their awe.

‘Usury,' Sir Henry Sientcler said, as if trying to spit out dung. Bruce smiled grimly.

‘Only the Jews have usury, my lord of Roslin. The Templars say this is not money lent, but a person's own money, held in safety for him. Still – they make a profit on the transfer.'

‘What is this
jetton
for?' demanded Hal, beginning to see the possibility. ‘In this case?'

Bruce blinked, bounced the parchment in his hand and his smile broadened further.

‘For the ransom of a Countess, for certes,' he said, then offered a wry smile. ‘I have about four good warhorses that cost as much. Cheap for a Countess of Buchan.'

Hal began to smile, but Bruce saw the muzzle curl of it.

‘Ransomed by this wee tait of writing back to her husband,' Hal said, with a slow, grim smile. ‘By a man this Malenfaunt will never have seen.'

‘What about Lang Tam?' demanded Bangtail, which sobered everyone in an instant.

‘We will take care of him, if you permit,' Abbot Jerome declared. ‘Both for your rescue and the fact that the folk here feel, in part, responsible for his death. They did not know who was who when they attacked, ye ken.'

‘He had brothers and a sister at home,' Bangtail argued bitterly.

‘We can scarce cart his remains, Bangtail,' Sim answered, but gently. ‘Enough for his kin to know he has a Christian burial in a fine house of God.'

Bangtail looked at Sim, then away and shivered at the memory of the inmates of this fine house of God.

‘Best make like a slung stone,' Sim declared, ‘rather than stand here like a set mill.'

‘I would be joining you for the fight of it,' Henry Sientcler declared mournfully, ‘but I am under parole and so cannot raise a weapon against the English.'

‘If it is done right,' Bruce said slowly, looking at Hal as he spoke, ‘there will be no fight in it – but, by God, there will be discomfort for the Comyn. Isabel MacDuff will be freed and Sir Hal may take her into his care.'

He laughed with the sheer joy of it.

‘Everyone is made happy,' he declared, beaming.

The sudden, sharp sound of pealing bells made them all freeze and cringe.

‘In the name of God …' Sim began.

‘The alarm,' Kirkpatrick declared, but Lamprecht, to everyone's astonishment, started a mirthless laugh and rattled off another sibilant trill of his strange tongue.

Hal only caught the word, repeated several times –
guastamondo.

Kirkpatrick, his face pale and sheened in the flickering light, turned and translated.

‘This Lamprecht came across to London from Flanders,' he growled, ‘and hurried on north, to York and then here. To be first with his wares.'

He ripped a medallion from round the pardoner's neck, fierce enough to jerk the man and snap the cord.

‘To peddle worthless shite such as this to the feared and desperate.'

‘Swef, chiel,' Bangtail muttered uneasily, ‘lest God takes offence.'

‘This dog is an offence,' Kirkpatrick snarled, then wiped his sweat-sheened face as the bells hammered out in the background.