by Robert Low
‘The thin one with the fancy beard,’ Hal whispered. ‘Or, a fesse between two chevrons, gules. That’s Fitzwalter’s arms – the crescent on it makes him a second son.’
‘There is a John, I believe, who did not go to the Church,’ mused Kirkpatrick softly. ‘All the Fitzwalters are retinued to King Edward’s son, the Caernarvon, so that explains them being here. How about the other – the younger one?’
Hal squinted while the noise washed the hall; a servant brought them dishes and slapped them down with poor grace, no doubt considering himself a cut above the ones he catered to.
‘Or, three bougets sable,’ Hal said with a frown. ‘Again with a crescent. I know the device, but it should be three silver water butts on red, not black on gold – the arms of Ross.’
‘Ah,’ said Kirkpatrick, spooning pottage – surprisingly good – into his mouth. ‘The Wark end of the Ross family, not the Tain end. But the end is the same – where a Ross is, there are his captives.’
Hal felt a leap inside him – yes, of course. The Ross had holdings in England, at Wark on the Tyne, so perhaps this sprig of the family tree was here to escort Isabel and the others further south. The idea gripped him, almost sprang him to his feet to rush off and search – the wet nose of a questing hound brought him sharply out of the moment and he looked down.
It was a rough-coated talbot and the feel of it, the smell of the pennyroyal rubbed in its coat against fleas, brought the Dog Boy so harshly back to Hal that he had to bow his head to hide the unmanning of his eyes. He would never see the boy, or Herdmanston again, that much he was sure of. Once Isabel was rescued, he and she were gone from this God-forsaken realm …
There was a ripple down the length of the hall; the high table had called for entertainment and declared that all the lower orders must provide some form of it for their supper. The friar had started to sing in a surprisingly good, if unsteady voice and folk beat the tables appreciatively. One by one the wool dealers started in, with songs and capers and jests of varying success; Hal started to shrink his neck into his shoulders as the wave of it washed towards them.
Then the young Ross was peering the length of the table and pointing his eating knife.
‘You. You there – the babery at the foot.’
Folk laughed and Kirkpatrick immediately sprang to his feet and bowed, then capered with his arms long and his jaw thrust out, exactly like the baboon he had been compared to. There was a raucous roar of laughter and Kirkpatrick, from the corner of his mouth, hissed at Hal.
‘Jakes. Search.’
Hal slithered away, clutching his stomach and those that bothered to see him at all jeered. Kirkpatrick watched him go, then capered further, picking up plate, eating knife and, finally, the priest’s wooden spoon, juggled them briefly, then bowed again as people thumped the table.
The priest took back his spoon, staring at the imagined grime on it with distaste; Kirkpatrick bowed like a pretty courtier and apologized.
‘You should think before you act, my son,’ the friar sniffed piously.
‘As to that, Father, I have to say that it is God’s fault,’ Kirkpatrick answered. ‘For he gave Adam the means to think and a stout pizzle – but the ability only to work one at a time.’
The laughter was loud and long, inflamed by the rash of the friar’s outraged face.
‘Good,’ declared the knight of St John in French. ‘Do you perform other magicks? You are as black as any saracin.’
‘Not as skilled as any of those you have just called “robber” in their own tongue,’ Kirkpatrick replied in good English and saw the eyes of the Fitzwalter narrow. Good, he thought bitterly, let him know I understand French and the paynim tongue and am not the cheapjack I seem – well planned, Kirkpatrick.
In the same moment, he had heeled round on to the new road and spurred up it with a fresh plan.
‘I can, however, reveal where you have lately come from,’ he went on and the Hospitaller frowned a little at that, then shrugged.
‘Well – speak on.’
‘Let me know when I am wrang-wise,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘From … Carlisle.’
Folk jeered, for that was hardly a feat given that anyone passing through Closeburn was either coming from or headed to that place.
‘Before that – York,’ Kirkpatrick added and had a murmur when the Hospitaller stayed silent. ‘Before that …’
He paused and folk strained expectantly.
‘London.’
Folk laughed. If York had been correct then London was less of a struggle for anyone to work out.
‘Afore that,’ Kirkpatrick went on. ‘Bruges.’
The knight’s forearms, straight on either side of his trencher, flexed under the tunic and his knuckles went white; folk murmured at it, but most – who could not see that far – applauded this feat.
‘Before that … Genoa,’ Kirkpatrick went on smoothly and now the knight was leaning forward, snarling like a dog on a leash.
‘Before that,’ Kirkpatrick declared with a flourish, ‘Cyprus.’
The knight rose with a scrape of chair, his face thunderous. He crossed himself.
‘Heathen magicks,’ he bellowed. ‘Heresy …’
‘Christ’s bones, Sir Oristin – sit.’
It was the Fitzwalter, waving a languid hand and shaking his head. The Hospitaller sat, glowering into the easy smile of Fitzwalter, who turned appreciatively to Kirkpatrick, narrowing his eyes.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Now explain the trick of it. I hope you do it well, for this brother in Christ has burning faggots in his eyes.’
There was silence now at how this had transpired and even the drunks were dry-mouthed – though Kirkpatrick would have wagered all his day’s profits that one or two would count a burning heretic as fair entertainment to end with.
‘No magic,’ he said easily, spreading his hands. ‘Carlisle is simple enough – no great spell needed to thasm up that. A one in two chance that the lord was coming and not going.’
His confidence unlatched the tension a little; a soldier, drunker than the rest, sniggered and was then cut off by a neighbour.
‘Once Carlisle was sure, it is easy to pin York, because there is a commanderie of St John there,’ Kirkpatrick went on and nodded deferentially to the knight. ‘A good and pious knight of the Order would wish to have himself excused for spending too many nights away from any commanderie, to commend his soul to God before travelling onward.’
Now the knight was mollified and eased, Kirkpatrick saw; Fitzwalter was nodding and stroking his thinly razored beard.
‘London is obvious, because it is where all travellers come from the ports of the south,’ Kirkpatrick went on and paused, which was partly the showman in him, partly because this was the tricky part.
‘Bruges,’ he said slowly, knowing this was the tricky part, ‘because it avoids Paris and a deal of France, which is an unhappy place thanks to King Philip the Fair. Or unfair, if you are a Templar or a Jew.’
Folk laughed at this – the Italies wool dealers mostly, who knew of the French king’s plots against the Templars and of his banning all Jews so that he could seize their holdings and goods. No-one made much comment on the latter, all the same, since the king of France was simply copying the king of England and for the same reason.
‘Indeed,’ Fitzwalter mused. ‘So far, so reasoned – Sir Oristin wishes to avoid the … awkwardness … of association with the Poor Knights in a country already fired with crusading fervour for proscribing heathen Jews.’
He turned to the Hospitaller.’
‘Does he have the right of it so far?’
The Hospitaller, who was not proud of his avoidances, admitted it with a grudging nod.
‘How did he know I have come from abroad at all,’ he said in a sepulchral voice, ‘let alone Genoa.’
Kirkpatrick shrugged.
‘You were never born as dark,’ he said with a laugh to take the sting from it, ‘so acquired such a slap from a su
n you do not find in these lands.’
‘And Genoa is first and most common port for anyone coming from Cyprus,’ he added with a lofty flourish, ‘where the Knights of St John have had their largest commanderies since they left the Holy Land.’
Now there was laughter, from relief Kirkpatrick thought. The young Ross of Wark shifted in his seat as though cocking a buttock to fart and scowled at Kirkpatrick.
‘You are well informed for a cheapjack,’ he pointed out suspiciously and Kirkpatrick beamed back at him.
‘I make as much from news and the reasoning of it as from ribbons and needles,’ he answered and those who knew business well enough nodded agreement and grinned. Kirkpatrick, buying time for Hal, nudged the stallion of this up into a canter.
‘It is such reasoning that lets me reveal, if the bold knight of St John allows, why he is here in Closeburn.’
Fitzwalter’s eyebrows went up and the Hospitaller shifted uneasily.
‘Well,’ Fitzwalter declared slyly, ‘this is better entertainment – what say you, Sir Oristin? Can he magick out your secrets?’
‘Reason, not magic,’ Kirkpatrick corrected hastily and Fitzwalter acknowledged it with a mocking bow while the heads of all the others swung to and fro between them; some had even worked out the danger of the game being played.
The Hospitaller was clearly unhappy at the prospect, but he could not admit it under Fitzwalter’s eye and eventually nodded. Silence fell and people waited eagerly.
‘Your commanderie in this kingdom is Torphichen,’ Kirkpatrick declared, ‘which is far from here – yet you would be there now if you had travelled from the one in York. You did not and will pay penance for it – so your reason for being here is pressing.’
The Hospitaller stiffened.
‘A lady?’ the drunken soldier called out and the celibate knight was halfway out of his seat seeking the culprit with glaring eyes; young Ross wisely soothed him sitting again.
‘Not lady, nor pursuit of personal gain,’ Kirkpatrick went on, as if thinking it out – though he had done that long since. ‘So a quest then. The Holy Grail perhaps.’
The Hospitaller relaxed in his seat a little and some of the audience applauded, thinking he had got it right. One or two called out ‘God be praised’ and the rote reply sibilated round the table.
‘Yet,’ Kirkpatrick declared like a knell and let it hang there for a moment.
‘The Grail has remained hidden for many hundreds of years,’ he went on. ‘They say the Templars have it and that Order does not deny it, so knights seldom quest for it these days – and knights of St John are forbidden to do it, out of the sin of pride.’
‘True enough,’ Fitzwalter confirmed. ‘So – no Grail discovered in Closeburn then.’
Kirkpatrick held up one grimy, wrapped hand and brought the laughter to a halt.
‘There are other reasons for a knight of St John to be abroad from his commanderie,’ he continued, ‘but almost all of them are because he is on the business of the Order.’
‘Which should remain the business of the Order,’ the knight growled warningly.
‘As it will,’ Kirkpatrick answered smoothly. ‘Though this is not the business of the Order.’
‘You dare …’
‘Let him speak,’ Fitzwalter declared and there was enough steel in his voice for the Hospitaller to glance at him with a threat of his own.
‘The business you have with the Order is at Torphichen,’ Kirkpatrick went on while the two knights locked glances; he saw it was the Hospitaller who looked away, ‘and you are a confirmed and pious and loyal knight of St John.’
‘I am,’ growled the knight. ‘You would do well to remember that.’
‘You are also Sir Oristin Del Ard,’ Kirkpatrick went on, ‘and have retained the arms of your house on the hilt of that fine eating knife. Not permitted by your Order, of course, for the sin of pride and avarice and a few others no doubt. But excusable – you are not alone in it.’
The knight was all coil now, like a snake waiting to pounce.
‘The Del Ards are in the retinue of the Earl of Ross in the north,’ Kirkpatrick went on and then waved one hand to the young scowl on the other side of the Hospitaller.
‘And here is your liege lord’s kin, from Wark. No doubt he will be pleased with the news you bring to him first, before you take it to Torphichen.’
Now both the knights were on their feet and snarling demands for this to end. Fitzwalter thumped the table until the noise of that beat down the cries and shouts; the young Ross and the Hospitaller subsided, scowling.
‘Well,’ said Fitzwalter with a thin smile. ‘That was more entertainment than any imagined. I am sure these two nobiles are pleased that it is over, before the curiosity of their very heads is brought out for our amusement.’
There was laughter and the talk flowed back, soft as honey; Kirkpatrick was not surprised when Fitzwalter sent a man down with coin – more than was necessary for the amusement provided. He wants to know the news the Hospitaller brings to Ross, he thought to himself, and will be disappointed, for I am not about to reveal it.
Kirkpatrick was almost sure – and revealing it would unveil his own standing in places too high for his disguised station – that the knights of St John were planning an attack on heathen-held Rhodes. That had been the talk in the quiet of the Bruce night, between brothers and those as trusted. Partly, they had worked out, because the Hospitallers needed a new base, not dependent on the good graces of the Lusignan who owned Cyprus, and because such an attack would show the Pope and others that they, unlike the Templars, were still capable of striking a blow against the infidel.
Knowledge of the when and where of all that would be financially advantageous to the Ross, who had trading concerns in Cyprus.
‘What does your companion do?’ demanded the young Ross loudly, cutting through the chatter. ‘Is he as gifted with reason?’
‘Almost the opposite, my lord,’ Kirkpatrick said, standing and bowing deferentially, ‘since he has not the sense to avoid drinking water from streams, which accounts for the state of his belly. Never drink water in preference to small beer, my ma said to me.’
There was laughter at that, but Kirkpatrick was sweating at the attention drawn to the absent Hal. Yet he had his own plan and started to put it out.
‘In truth, I hardly know the man. I met him on the road two days since and we travelled for the safety in it.’
‘You say?’ murmured Fitzwalter thoughtfully, but Ross of Wark had the recent bitterness of plots revealed still stuck in his craw and wanted to bring this mountebank cheapjack down.
‘I reason,’ he said triumphantly, ‘that you are a lute player, since you wrap those grimy rags round each individual finger, so allowing you to strum.’
‘A good bowman does the same,’ Kirkpatrick pointed out and Ross dismissed it with a scornful wave.
‘You never drew one well,’ he sneered.
‘A lockpick does the same,’ Fitzwalter offered. ‘Or a light-fingered dip.’
‘Heaven forfend,’ Kirkpatrick answered, crossing himself piously and hoping that no-one worked out that a good man with a dirk needed his fingers nimble, too. Then he smiled.
‘Or a wee chiel who sells fiddly needles and thin thread and needs pick them out o’ a pack,’ he added and Fitzwalter acknowledged it with a thin smile, while the rest of the table laughed.
‘Your reason is flawed,’ Fitzwalter said to the sulking young Ross. ‘Your monger here wraps his fingers to preserve his fortune. Pity – I would have welcomed a good lute player.’
‘Reason and Fortune were ever rivals,’ Kirkpatrick declared, while the food wafted in and out of his nostrils, clenching his belly with desire. ‘I have tale on it, if your lordship pleases – and is disposed to make a wee bit meat come my way, by way of recompense.’
‘A tale? Good enow. Steward, I daresay you have mutton, hung for the right amount of time and now cooked – hung since Martinmas if these wool de
alers are any mark. I am expecting it on my own trencher and am sure you can find a bone or three for this man.’
The steward managed a smile and a deferential bow. The hall silenced, looking at Kirkpatrick, who took a breath.
‘Once,’ he began, ‘Reason and Fortune argued over who had rank on the other. Fortune declared that the one who managed to do more would be the better. “See that ploughboy there?” he said to Reason. “Get inside him and if he is better with you than with me, I will stand aside for you anywhere we meet.” So Reason got inside the boy’s head.
‘When the boy felt Reason in his head, he began to think: “Why should I plough field all my life? I could be happy somewhere else, too.” He went hame then and telt his da, who promptly beat him for his impudence and ignorance, since serfs bound to the land cannot just do as they wish.’
‘And with good reason,’ the friar announced, then realized what he had said and subsided, face flaming, amid a welter of laughter.
Good, good, Kirkpatrick thought as he waited for it to die. Now they have forgotten the wee Lord o’ Herdmanston; I hope he takes due advantage.
Hal had gone out and up the spiral of worn stairs, for all jakes were up and there was a servant nearby who could see him on the stairtop. He wanted to go down, for captives were more likely to be down – but there was the chance that the chess-playing lord of Closeburn would not be pushing rooks and pawns in the cellar, but in his own comfortable solar. With Isabel.
He went up, reached the next floor. Left or right – he went right, along a flagged corridor, narrow enough to make him weave along it to avoid the sconces. Well lit, he thought, feeling for the hidden dagger – then recoiling from the hilt as if it stung.
Foolishness. Try anything with a blade in it and they were lost …
He stepped cautiously round a corner – this was the keep at Closeburn, square and solid as a stone block – and came face to face with an astonished servant, his hands full of bowls and a brass ewer. Food and wine, Hal noted swiftly, for those who were behind the door, open enough to spill out yellow light – expensive yellow light, Hal noted, from beeswax candles, which turned the helmet of the guard to gold.
