‘The Countess of Buchan’, he said, turning the full weight of his blunt-weapon face on Hal, ‘is married to Henry de Beaumont.’
He waited, viciously long enough to see Hal’s stricken bewilderment, and then laughed again, a sound like shattering glass.
‘Alice Comyn inherited the title when the Earl died, for he repudiated Isabel at the last. The lands are actually held by me, as king, of course. Henry de Beaumont married Alice and now claims to be Earl of Buchan, a vellum title only. He does not care for me much and not only over his Buchan lands – he was twice handed Mann by the Plantagenet and twice had it removed by the Ordainers. Since I took it last year, he has precious slim chance of ever getting that isle back and less of claiming the lands of Buchan.’
He paused, his face now looking like a bad clay mask.
‘Isabel MacDuff is now no more than a lady from Fife,’ he went on. ‘Though I am sure the title was never the attraction between you and her.’
Bruce did not add – did not need to – that he once had an interest there himself when he was younger and Hal, who had known it then and come to terms with it well enough since, simply nodded.
He wondered, though, if kingship had driven all obligation for Isabel’s sacrifice out of him.
‘A lady of Fife in a cage,’ he dared, aware that this exchange was Bruce’s revenge for his bluntness and fighting the anger it brought, at the easy way Bruce assumed he was ‘back in service’, with no questions asked of seven years’ captivity. More galling yet was the realization that it was true, since there was little else for him and no other way to set about freeing Isabel.
‘Indeed,’ Bruce answered smoothly. ‘As was my sister until recently. And she and my wife and daughter are all held captive – but we shall soon have release for them all.’
He lost the frost in his voice, fuelled it with a smile.
‘I have not forgotten Isabel’s bravery in defying husband and Comyn entire to be a hereditary MacDuff Crowner,’ he added gently, and then drew himself up a little, shaking the soft from him like a dog coming out of a stream.
‘Events are moving,’ he said portentously. ‘I have issued an ultimatum to those Scots lords still serving King Edward, so that they have until November of this year to swear fealty to me or be dispossessed of their Scots lands.’
Hal thought about it, but could only see that this would bring the English down on their heads, which was no help to taking Berwick or freeing Isabel, and said so. Bruce’s smile widened; the cheek stretched and seemed almost to be parting.
‘Just so. King Edward will have no choice. He must muster an army and come at us. And I shall take his last fortresses from him, so they cannot be used in the furtherance of his rampage.’
Hal saw it then, acknowledging it with grudging admiration. The English would plooter north in the old style, achieve nothing and, because they had no firm bases or supply, would suffer even more quickly than usual and retire, because Bruce would not face them in the field.
‘Indeed,’ Bruce confirmed, touching two fingers to the cheek, as if to reassure himself that it was not split and leaking. It was an old habit, Hal saw, ingrained over the years.
‘When Edward Plantagenet fails again, it may be that his own disaffected will round on him,’ the King went on. ‘The Scots lords who follow him will see sense and abandon him. The Kingdom will be secured.’
Your crown will sit steadier, certes, Hal thought; he wondered if he had said it aloud and was flustered enough to say the next thing that came into his head. ‘A decent enough plan. If they ask a truce, then the release of captives will be part of it.’
Bruce, eyebrows raised, offered him a slight mocking bow, so that Hal flushed with his own presumption.
‘I need your service, Lord Hal,’ Bruce went on but Hal was not sure what use he could be and said as much, adding – again forgetting he addressed a king – that he was equally unsure if he had the belly for the work now.
Bruce nodded, as if he had considered the matter, which was true. He also knew that he had already captured the man, yet the triumph of bending Hal to the royal will was not as savage a joy as with others he had snared; it seemed like calming a fine stallion you must geld.
‘If it will provide belly, let me tell you that the reward will be our utmost effort to free Isabel and her safe delivery into your care,’ he answered. ‘If events work out as planned, Berwick will fall to us. At worst, we will negotiate the freedom of all captives.’
He saw the gaff of that go in.
‘As for your abilities,’ he went on, ‘they are well remembered.’ He paused and smiled, lopsided so as not to strain the cheek. ‘Betimes, someone vouches for you.’
He raised one hand into the red and gold stain of light from the nave window. There was a pause, and then a figure stepped forward from the shadows, limping a little, moving slow and silent across the flagged floor.
An auld chiel, Hal thought. Another wee monk?
Then the light poured through the nave on to the iron-grey head, turning it to blood and honey and a shock of the familiar.
‘Ah, Hal,’ said Kirkpatrick, almost sadly. ‘You were ever a man for good sense, save ower that wummin.’
ISABEL
He came to me in the night. He does not do it often these days – so little that, may God forgive me, I was almost glad to see him in my loneliness, for he has long since ceased to pain me with his foulness, which is harder for him to achieve each time. He blames me and beats me for it, but even that strength is going from him. You gave me Malise Bellejambe, Lord, an image of Man in my world, for there is no other here save those I can remember. Is it my own sins that make You even more cruel than he is? I do not understand, O God, for what he does to me is surely cruelty to Yourself. May it be that this is a mirror to make me understand that nothing can protect me, O God, unless it is the shield on which there is no device, but all the heavens and the sun displayed. The only pure thing I have to offer You is my mind. Take it, Lord, and offer me that shield.
CHAPTER THREE
Palais du Roi, Paris
Feast of St Joseph of Arimathea, March 1314
The stink of it swamped from the Île des Juifs, pervasive and acrid, wrapping round them like snake coils so that the Queen of England had to raise a scented hand to her nose. It was an irony that the fire which had burned Isabella’s hands and arms so badly the year before should now be of a help; the wounds had festered and she wore scented gloves to hide the glassy weals.
Out on the Seine, the daring were collecting the ashes of her godfather, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Temple, burned the day before alongside Geoffroi de Charney, Master of Normandy. They had recanted their confessions publicly and her father had ordered the pyre built and the two Templars roasted slowly on it. Too slowly, as it turned out, for de Molay had uttered a long and pungent curse prophesying that his tormentors would be in Hell within the year.
Isabella thought her godfather’s name would live a long time in memory, as a martyr to the Order and not least because of the Curse he had brought down on the Pope and her father. She said it aloud, which made Beaumont, Badlesmere and the young Earl of Gloucester shift a little at the daring in it. They were well used to this slip of a queen having the cunning of a fox and more backbone than her husband, but they kept those thoughts to themselves.
As they did their views on the Templars – but publicly at least, the Order had been condemned at Vienne two years since