Hal shook himself back to the road and the night and the mud, in time to see the little black cattle, horns like curved scimitars, stampeding off down the road in a scatter of mud and water and English garrison.
‘Time to be away,’ said a calm voice – Dog Boy – and they wraithed off into the night, Dog Boy calling up his cattle dogs as he went. By the time lack of breath forced them to stop, he was frowning, for one of the pair had not responded.
‘I fear it is killed,’ he growled. ‘Good Beauchien,’ he added, patting the other.
Beauchien, Hal thought and laughed, then winced at what that did to his head. Sim was fussing round his ribs and muttering, so that Hal realized, with a sudden shock, that he had been badly cut. Kirkpatrick nodded admiringly to the Dog Boy.
‘Timely appearance,’ he said. ‘That trick wi’ the kine saved our hides, certes.’
‘I had the wit of Lamprecht’s intent too late,’ Dog Boy said mournfully apologetic. ‘I am sorry.’
‘What wit?’ Sim demanded, peering at the dark stain along Hal’s ribs and tutting disapproval.
‘The daftie boy,’ Dog Boy said. ‘He wanted the shell from yon pardoner’s hat but it was only later that I realized he had asked for it before and also been refused.’
He stopped and stared at the slowly comprehending faces.
‘Lamprecht came here before and the daftie boy saw him. I am betting sure the pardoner went to see Jop – and then went to find us and the Earl Robert. I dinna ken why, but I was sure no good was in it.’
A plaintive bawling snapped the silence and Sim cursed.
‘Stirk Davey’s coos are scattered,’ he moaned. ‘The Riccarton English will be sooking the juice off steaks afore the morn’s done – and we are out by a pretty penny.’
Hal thought that a harsh judgement on a timely use of charging cattle, but his head hurt so much that he felt sick and could not speak for a long time. When he did, it was not cows that he spoke of.
Instead, his question fell on them like a crow on a dead eye, made them realize who was missing.
‘Where’s Lamprecht?’
CHAPTER FOUR
Lincoln
Nativity of Christ (Christ’s Mass Day), 1304
Steam from horses and riders blended with the fine gruel of churned up mud and snow in a sluggish mist that was filled with shouts and grunts and clashes of steel so that the men behind Bruce shifted on their horses.
‘Wait,’ he commanded and he felt them settle – all but brother Edward, of course, who muttered and fretted on his right.
Bruce looked at the wild, swirling mêlée, men hammering one another with blunted weapons, howling with glee, breaking off to bring their blowing horses round in a tight circle and hurl themselves back into the mad knotted tangle of fighting.
‘Now,’ Edward growled impatiently. ‘There he is …’
‘Wait.’
Beyond the mud-frothed field loomed the great, dark snow-patched bulk of the castle, where the ladies of the court watched from the comfort of a high tower, surrounded by charcoal braziers, swaddled in comforting furs and gloved, so that their applause would sound like the pat of mouse feet.
‘Now,’ Edward repeated, his voice rising slightly.
‘Wait.’
‘Aaah.’
Bruce heard the long, frustrated growl, saw the surge of the powerful destrier and cursed his brother even as he signalled the others to follow the spray of kicked-up mud. With a great howl of release, Bruce’s mesnie burst from the cover of the copse of trees and fell on the struggling mass.
Too soon, Bruce realized. Far too soon – the target saw Edward descend, the trail of riders behind him, and broke from the fight to face them, howling from underneath the bucket helm for his own men to help him. De Valence, he bellowed. De Valence.
Edward’s light, unarmoured horse balked and swerved as de Valence’s powerful warhorse reared and flailed with lethal hooves, the blue and white, mud-stained caparison flapping. Coming in on the other side, Bruce leaned and grabbed a handful of de Valence’s surcoat, took a smashing blow on his mailed arm which numbed it, causing him to lose his grip.
De Valence, off balance on the plunging destrier, gave a sharp, muffled cry and fell sideways, raking one spur along the caparisoned back of the warhorse. It screamed and bolted; de Valence, his other foot caught, bounced off behind it, yelling once as he carved a rut through the mud and into the dangerous, prancing pack.
‘Him,’ yelled Edward and his brother screwed round in the saddle as a figure – the one who had hit him, he realized – tried to get away from the Bruce men. ‘Rab – get him.’
Bruce reacted like a stoat on a rabbit, without thinking, seizing the man round the waist and hauling him bodily out of the saddle ignoring the curses and kicks and flails. He carried the man out of the maelstrom mêlée and dumped him like a sack of metal pots.
Malenfaunt, dazed and bruised, felt rough hands on him; someone tried to tear off the bucket helm, but it was laced to his shoulders. Then a voice, rough as a badger’s rear-end, bellowed into the breathing holes for him to yield. He waved one hand, sore and sick with the knowledge of what this might cost him – and at the hands of the Bruces, whom he already hated. Even the satisfaction of having saved de Valence from capture did not balm it much.
Bruce saw the man’s device, knew the man for Malenfaunt and rounded on his grinning brother.
‘We struck for an eagle,’ he said bitterly, ‘but ended with a chick.’
Edward scowled; the friendly scramble of tourney continued to whirl like the mad scrapping of dogs, to celebrate the birthday of Christ.
Abbey of Evesham, Worcester
The same night
Kirkpatrick slid to Hal’s side.
‘Gone to London,’ he grunted softly out of the side of his mouth, rubbing his hands at the flames of the great fire and not looking at Hal. He hawked, then spat in the fire so that the sizzle made those nearest growl at his bad manners. Kirkpatrick’s grin back at them – travellers and pilgrims all – was feral, as befitted his pose as a hireling soldier, rough as a forge-file and not to be trifled with.
‘Had that from three of his kind, bone-hunting wee shites like himself. Heading for Compostella, says one o’ them.’
‘They ken it is him?’ Hal demanded and Kirkpatrick nodded.
‘Aye,’ he said in a whisper. ‘An ugly dung-drop who speaks strangely and is named Lamprecht? Not hard to find even if he keeps his name hidden. Besides, he was a known face to the wee priests here.’
Hal stared moodily at the fire, while the wind howled and battered. There was snow in that wind and the travel next day would be hard and slow – they would probably have to lead their horses for most of it, so there was another curse to lay at the door of the wee pardoner, whose cunning had robbed an earl and almost led Hal and Kirkpatrick and others to their death. Hal shifted and winced; the cut under his ribs was still scabbed and leaking.
‘Should have watched him closer in the first place,’ Kirkpatrick said, as if in answer. ‘Should have dealt with him and Jop both in that night.’
Hal turned brooding eyes on him.
‘Easy as that, is it? Killed then or killed soon,’ he replied bitterly.