They fell, as Sim knew they would, Jamie on top and driving the breath from the Welsh archer so that, when Sim lumbered up, the man was already weak and flopping; a swift dunt with the hilt of his dagger settled the matter and now Jamie became aware of the learning in this.
‘Christ’s Bones, Sim,’ he spat, looking at the smears, evil-smelling and fetid, on his clothes and hands, where they had rolled in the fresh pile. Sim Craw, who had known exactly what would happen, only smiled.
‘It is in yer hair a wee bittie,’ he pointed out helpfully. ‘Since ye are already besmeared, ye may as well take the shittiest end for cartin’ him back. Speedy now and we’ll be away, sleekit and brawlie.’
It was then that they became aware of a new smell cutting through the stench of shit, a rich, sweet smell of cooking meat that Sim knew well. From where he crouched he could see the pyre, shifting and shedding sparks as it collapsed and, revealing clear in it, the horror of a blackened horse and the man on it; even allowing for the soot and scorch, the shield fastened to one arm still bore the crude slash, a mocking red cross of the Templars smeared in blood.
‘Christ be praised,’ he whispered and Jamie, looking up in time to see it, crossed himself.
‘For ever and ever.’
They scampered from the place, half-dragging the man while his comrade sat on, oblivious, in the reek from the burning knight.
When they had reached their own camp, dumped the Welshman and told their tale, there were dark looks flung at the archer; as Gib’s Peggie said, even if it was a Templar steeped in sin it was not the Welsh who should be burning him but the Holy Mother Church and after guilt had been established.
Few, Hal noted, had ever liked the Templars, the supposed Poor Knights who arrogantly flaunted their wealth and power. No-one now questioned that these same knights were steeped in sin and he wondered how long it would be before the Inquisition writ stretched to
nobiles
who bore any semblance of the Templar cross, or had connection to them. The shivering blue cross of his own shield glowed like an accusation when he glanced at it.
The Auld Templar of Roslin, he added to himself, was well out of it these days but he had foreseen the ruin the Order had brought on itself the day they charged down Wallace at Falkirk, led by a brace of venal Masters who thought more of Longshanks’ favour than their vows.
Most disturbing of all, of course, was the fact that it threw a harsh light on all men of God – for if the Templars, who were priests when all said and done, could be so condemned, what of the wee friar? The bishop, the cardinal and – God forgive the thought – the Pope?
More pressing problems drove such thoughts away with the flies. The English, it had been noted, were on the move, north and east towards Perth. Hal wanted away from here, to where the Scots army was assembling; the archer would be missed soon enough and Hal did not want to be near when the searching commenced – but there was time for a swallow of small beer and a bite of bread.
Good bread, but not as good as the stuff in France, as Jamie loftily pointed out.
‘They make it with cheese in. Shaped in a ring and mair pastry than dough.
Gougere
, they call it an’ it is a recipe from angels themselves, you would swear.’
The others nudged each other and Sore Davey cleared his throat.
‘Is that the way of it right enough, Sir Jamie?’ he asked, bland and innocent as a nun at prayer. ‘Bigod, you are the one for style in France. Is it there you learned to comb shite in yer hair?’
The laughter was long and loud, so that Jamie, dark and bristling, looked on the point of exploding – until he saw Dog Boy’s grin and subsided with a rueful one of his own.
‘Lesson learned,’ he said to Sim, who nodded and handed him a leather flask of water, then helped him clean his curling hair, though a deal of lovelock had to be roughly hacked off with a knife, with much expression of disgust, which added to the chuckles.
Hal watched the Welshman, bound and afraid and miserably smeared with his own shite, which no-one offered to clean. Not that it would have mattered – after an hour, everyone mounted and moved off, the prisoner half-trotting, half-dragged behind Wynking Wull; each time Hal looked guiltily at the Welshman’s bruised face and bloody flayed elbows and knees, the smell of the burning knight came back to him, driving all mercy out.
They followed the English army for an hour or more, tracking them by cart ruts and the ordure, horse and human, which slimed their trail. There were sick and runaways, too, most of whom fled at the approach of a band of riders; those who were too weak or stupid were ridden down and killed by men with the stink of burned flesh still cloyed in their nostrils.
It was a fair-sized force of several long hundreds, Hal thought – but no King Edward in it. Satan has sent his lesser imp, de Valence to pitchfork us back to order.
Another hour convinced Hal the English were headed for Perth and he decided to break off following them, cut away with their prisoner to Scone, where he hoped the Scots were still assembling. He was growing wary with the approach of night, sure that the English would have heard of their dogged presence and be taking steps against it with their own light horse, the prickers and hobilars Hal did not want to meet.
They came up over a small rise, with the last of the day breathing itself out into a muggy dusk of insect whine and zip and halted, the garrons fretting, flicking tails and tossing their heads against the vicious bites.
Dirleton Will, scouting ahead, suddenly appeared, flogging his garron in a dead run into the pack of them, pointing behind him.
‘Horse … three prickers chasing a lone man,’ he panted. ‘They will be on us in an eyeblink.’
There was a flurry of panic and scowls, brandished weapons and a few shouts but they had barely sorted themselves when the lone rider bounded up over the brackened lip of the rise, checked a little at the sight of them, then plunged down like a grateful bird to a nest.
The three hobilars who rode after him, closing in like harrying wolves, suddenly found they had charged into a pack of hunting dogs. Jamie Douglas, Dirleton Will and Mouse led the rush on them and there was a moment of squealing, flailing and blood which Hal tried to ignore as he faced the lone rider.
Browns and muted greens made the man a shadow in the shadows, the worn patch of him at odds with the way he carried himself and the voice he used to greet them; the way he moved was as slow and careful as a strange dog.
‘God be praised,’ he said.
‘For ever and ever.’
The tension slackened a little because men had weapons ready and Sim’s big latchbow, spanned and quarrelled, was level, though it weaved and wavered with the irritated movement of his horse.
‘Unsmart that monster,’ the stranger said with a foreign lilt to his voice that Hal knew was French, ‘for if it goes off now, the dance of it is as likely to hit yourself as me.’
Sim scowled, though he lowered it and the stranger brought his arms carefully in, resting both hands lightly on the front of his saddle. Jamie Douglas plunged up on his excited, bouncing garron, grinning and waving a bloody sword.
‘All dead,’ he declared in French. ‘English hobilars … is this who they were chasing?’
Hal was suddenly irritated by the young lord of Douglas, but he managed a smile.
‘My lord James of Douglas,’ he said to the saturnine rider, trying to be elegant in French himself. ‘I am …’
‘Sir Hal, the lord of Herdmanston and friend of the King,’ the man declared with a twist of smile.
‘I know you. My name is Rossal de Bissot,’ he added and Hal’s eyebrows went up at that, for he knew the name well, suddenly saw the face more clearly.
‘You brought the Rood,’ he answered, breaking into English, seeing now the carriage of the man, a Templar travelling in secret; the one broiled alive on his horse leaped to his mind and his throat so that, before he could stop, the mention of it burst past his lips.
De Bissot nodded, his eyes hard in a blank face and his accented English was terse and clipped.
‘You saw the abomination?’
‘I smelled it,’ he answered and Sim Craw growled that he had seen it. Hal’s eyes told de Bissot all that was needed and he sighed.
‘It is a heathen thing from Outremer,’ he said, flat as a blade. ‘Crusaders brought tales of it back and the Welsh took to it when their lands were invaded. A Cantref Roast they call it there and they did it against every English knight they could ambush during the wars. Left them like markers to put the fear in, like a gaff on a fish.’
‘Aye, weel,’ grunted Sim, squinting to understand the man’s way of speaking, ‘they had reason, no doubt.’
De Bissot turned glassed eyes on him and nodded.
‘In the name of God,’ he said, ‘I have ridden down fleeing women, burst the heads of children, thrown old men on the pyres of their own homes, committed more bloody ruin on the unarmed and innocent than any priest can stand to hear in confession.’
‘In the name of God and against the heathen,’ Hal attempted, but the fish stare swung blankly on to him.
‘I did it against the Welsh, who were not considered Christian enough for mercy. This is one reason the Order is cursed by God.’
Folk shifted uneasily at this confession; it was one thing to hear the gleeful, whispered rumours, another to have one of God’s own soiled angels admit his heresy.
‘No man, cursed or other, deserves to be cooked like a haunch.’
The Dog Boy’s voice was firm and sure, cutting through them all to place a ghost of smile on the shadowed face of de Bissot.
‘The one they did it to here was called Jehan de Chaumont, a brave knight of the Order, who sacrificed himself so I might escape.’
‘Escape?’
Rossal de Bissot nodded, broke back into swift French.
‘My task is to try and preserve as much of the Order as I can from the ruin it has brought on itself. The Comyn are working against me and are now friends of the English – so their enemies are my friends. The Comyn would prefer me removed from the world, so your king sought to see myself and young Jehan – may God wrap him in His Arms – safe to France, but a certain Malise Bellejambe had different ideas. He is the …’
‘I know who he is,’ Hal interrupted, feeling the sinking stone drag down to his bowels. ‘Malise Bellejambe fell out of Satan’s arse at birth and has been trying to find his way back ever since. He snared the wrong man – not the first time he has made such a mistake, but ruin for your friend, de Chaumont. Do you need help on your journey?’
‘I do not,’ de Bissot replied levelly, rising heavily to his feet. ‘I thought you might care to know – the man your king sent with us was taken and is now a prisoner. Bellejambe and some Comyn riders are taking the man to Berwick. If you wish to save him, you must move swiftly.’
Hal knew the name as if God had whispered it in his ear, but he asked anyway.
‘Kirkpatrick,’ de Bissot answered and the shadows of his face writhed in a wry smile. ‘I saved his life once before, in London. I cannot, this time, afford to try alone.’
The name, even allowing for the French knight’s way with it, brought all the heads up and a silence which stretched to wrap the sound of the Templar’s mount chewing the bit and shaking its head against the flies.
Hal finally turned into the grim, inquiring faces and laid the matter out like a length of poor cloth. It was received in silence for a moment, then men shifted and spoke.
‘Kirkpatrick? Are you wit-struck?’
Sim’s face was dark and truculent, a scowl which rasped Hal for no reason he could pin.
‘Aye,’ he answered. ‘The De’il o’ red murder hissel’ – in need o’ our aid.’
‘Have you taken leave of your sense?’ Mouse demanded and there were murmurs of agreement. Then Mouse saw Hal’s face and added, hastily: ‘Lord.’
‘A hard task, right enough,’ Clem Graham added sombrely. ‘Your man is in fetters for sure and surrounded by Comyn, thick as fleas on an auld dug.’
‘You are after wanting us to pluck him out, lord,’ Dirleton Will summarized, inspecting hard cheese for the worst of the mould. ‘From the teeth of the row we have already caused snatching away a Welsh archer, with folk out on the search for us.’
He popped a piece of de-moulded cheese in the middle of his beard where his mouth should be and chewed once or twice.
‘And this Kirkpatrick is the same wee mannie who promised ye a bad turn, first chance he could take,’ he added pointedly, so that those around him growled agreement as to the man having put himself beyond all aid by his own foul actions.
‘Working for Templars,’ added Fingerless Tam, nodding his point to those who looked his way. ‘Who worship Baphomet.’
Rossal de Bissot heard that and shifted slightly in his saddle.
‘They say,’ he murmured, ‘that God and all His angels have turned their backs on the Order of Poor Knights. Yet some of us hold to the vows.’
There was silence while folk turned that round in their heads, then Chirnside Rowan waved midges away from his face and snorted derision.
‘Away wi’ ye Tam Scott,’ he jeered. ‘Ye would not ken a Baphomet if it came up and beshat ye.’
There was laughter and Nebless Sandie, with a sly look at Jamie, took his chance.
‘Ask Sir Jamie,’ he declared, ‘for it seems some Baphomet loited on his lovelocks only recent.’
‘If he did,’ Jamie Douglas answered, whip-smart, ‘then Baphomet is a Welshman. If you have the belly for it, lads, there are a wheen of wee Baphomets over by, waiting for you to take a closer look.’
There were mutters at this dig on their courage, but Hal knew his men well; courage they had in plenty, but there was a deal of practical in it.
‘It is fey, this plan,’ Bull rumbled and, since he seldom said anything at all, the astonishment provided silence for him. He looked surprised himself and grew uneasy under the stares until he stared at his stirrups and grew red in the face. But Sim had spotted the grim jut of Hal’s beard.
‘You are set on this, then?’ he demanded.
‘I am a dubbed knight,’ Hal said, feeling the closing jaws of it even as he spoke. ‘I might only be a wee one from the Lothians, but the obligation is on me for it. Besides – Malise Bellejambe is overdue his reward.’