Robert Low - The Lion Rampant

‘My lord earl.’

‘You may leave.’

The Dominican’s face was a beautiful thing and de Valence took some vicious comfort from it before he turned from the closed door into the bustle of the clerks. For all that, he knew that Isabel MacDuff was in danger. If the game of kings being played out above their heads did not include her as a vital piece, then she would fall to the flames.

The clerks moved in with their blizzard of bad news in vellum and the room seemed suddenly stifling, every candle flame a sear. De Valence moved to the shuttered slit of window and pulled them open, so that the night breeze, sodden with damp, snaked in to shiver the sconces.

He stood for a moment, hearing the muffled noises of the castle settling for another night, saw the red eye of brazier coals flaring in the breeze and the figures moving past it, no more than shadows. A wall guard shifted into the lee of a merlon and left his dog to trot the walkway; de Valence felt a spasm of irritation at this slackness, just because the King had quit the place.

Then, however, he heard the dog bark and was reassured: a good dog more than made up for a bad guard.

Out in the cloaking dark, Jamie Douglas gave a muffled curse at the sound. No one needed reminding of the last time the Scots had attempted to stealth their way up the walls of Berwick’s fortress — foiled by a barking dog.

‘It will be the same one,’ Parcy Dodd muttered miserably. ‘Aulder by a bit and wiser than ever.’

‘Given Fair Days and petted,’ Dog Boy agreed softly, his grin white in the dark. ‘Fat with the finest for having saved an entire wee town.’

‘I dinna see any cheer in this revelation,’ muttered Sweetmilk.

‘Never fash,’ Dog Boy answered. ‘Just make sure you move gentle as spider silk and get Sim Craw’s marvel up under the wall without discovery. Leave the wee beastie to me — tonight I am more Dog Boy than Aleysandir.’

Hal heard the mention of Sim Craw and watched Sweetmilk scuttle into the dark, half-crouched and hunchbacked under the rolled-up ladder. As much as the arbalest, that ladder was Sim’s legacy, he thought to himself, as the ache of loss settled in him again, bone-deep. He thought of Sim then, turning slowly in the bladderwrack and weed, his face wrapped in the wisps of his own white hair …

The slap of a hand on his shoulder wrenched him from the sorrow into the face of Jamie Douglas, the expression on it a large, silent question. Hal shrugged it off and went ahead, following Kirkpatrick, Dog Boy and Sweetmilk; somewhere, Parcy Dodd and Horse Pyntle held the horses.

‘We were kine the last time we did this,’ Jamie muttered, ‘which let us get close to the walls.’

Not now, Hal thought. A cow this close to Berwick and still uneaten would excite more interest than not, while stumbling people, seeming starved and shut out from safety by couvre-feu and caution, were all too common in these times.

It took them a long time in the dark and wet, all the same, as they crept slowly to the foot of the mound, slipping into the wet ditch and up out the far side, shivering and cold. They carried no swords, only long dirks, and wore no armour other than jacks — though Jamie’s had metal plates sewn into the padding, rather than just straw stuffing.

The only ones burdened were Sweetmilk with the ladder and Dog Boy with the long pike-spear — though Kirkpatrick eyed Hal’s slung latchbow with a jaundiced stare. It had been Sim’s and he had brought it more for remembrance than use, Kirkpatrick thought. Unnecessary and risky, he added sourly to himself as he climbed painfully up the castle mound. Above them the White Wall loomed ghostly in the dark.

Sweetmilk, panting like a mating bull, scrambled up the mound almost on his hands and knees with the Dog Boy close behind and everyone else trying to avoid the twenty-foot spear he carried low to the ground.

At the foot of the wall, Sweetmilk shed his load as silently as he could and then leaned his back to the ashlar, his face gleaming sweatily in the dark. He cupped his hands and Dog Boy, the spear notched into the neat socket at the top of the rolled ladder, stepped into the stirrup of them, then up on to Sweetmilk’s shoulders. The man grunted and buckled a little, so that the others held their breath; then he straightened and braced, grinning.

Dog Boy, perched on Sweetmilk, raised the spear high, straining against the tipping weight of the ladder, until the padded prongs slid softly over the crenellation. Slowly he withdrew the spear and passed it back down to the hands of Hal, who disposed of it in the grass. Wiping his lips with the back of one hand, Dog Boy tugged gently on the length of cord, heard the soft click of release and then the ladder pattered down the wall like a cat after mice.

Almost before it had cascaded on to the muffled curses of Sweetmilk, Dog Boy had tugged a test on it and then was up it like a rat up a spital drain.

He was almost at the top when he heard the growl and froze. Now came the hardest task…

He reached into the dangle of his scrip, broke off a piece of what was there and tossed it up over the merlon to the walkway. The growl stopped; Dog Boy climbed until his head was up above the level and dog and man stared at each other in the dripping mirk. It growled.

Dog Boy threw more, mumuring gently. The dog snapped it up and whined uneasily; the tail flickered. Dog Boy climbed up to waist height and held out his hand, so that the animal had to creep close for the prize — which it did.

‘Swef, swef,’ Dog Boy soothed and the dog whined and let him come over to feed another delicious morsel. Dog Boy sat in the dark-shadowed lee of the merlon and fed the last to the dog, fondling its ears while it ate, tail wagging.

Is a dog bound by a blood pudding? It is, Dog Boy thought sadly, caressing the animal and drawing it close while it licked his fingers and whined, tail working furiously. Bound and tied by it, especially if it had tasted such before, when it was fêted.

But folk are fickle and forgetful, he thought, slowly, gently, drawing his knife. That was then and this is now and the wee beastie craves what once it enjoyed.

It does not deserve this, he added sorrowfully, feeling the blade of the knife cold as poor charity. The animal gave a choke, no more, as voice and life were cut from it, and before it could take its last wheeze of breath, Dog Boy had it by the scruff of the neck while its heart pumped thickly out of the gaping throat, trailing like ribbons as he threw it over the wall.

Below, the rush and thump of it falling made everyone jump and Sweetmilk, spattered with blood, had Jamie’s hand clamped on his mouth to muffle the curses.

‘Gardyloo,’ Jamie growled. ‘That will be our signal.’

‘Not yours,’ Hal replied flatly. ‘You are forbidden to set foot on the wall …’

‘Away with you,’ Jamie said, releasing Sweetmilk so suddenly that the man stumbled. ‘I did not come to this jig to stand at one side and admire you lassies.’

Hal looked from him to Kirkpatrick, but any help he sought from there was stillborn with the man’s weary shrug.

They started up the ladder.

Hal led the way, panting and sweated by the time he reached the top. Wet inside and out, he thought laconically as he heaved himself as quietly as he could over the crenellation. The misery of Dog Boy’s face brought him up short and he stared as the man looked bitterly at his bloody palms and then wiped them on his tunic.

‘I am ill named,’ he growled to Hal. ‘I am the curse of dogs. Every one I meet dies.’

Never mind the men — aye, and women, too — that have regretted bumping into you, Hal thought, but he held his tongue in his teeth and merely patted Dog Boy on his sodden shoulder, glancing up and down the length of gleaming, empty walkway as he did so.