Robert Low - The Lion Rampant

Obsessed with the imperative for a legitimate heir, he had thought to put her at her ease regarding what he considered the most important trouble to their marriage — the rumour of his leprosy, whose very breath could kill. So he had brought out the women he had sought comfort from in the Queen’s years of captivity, adding a dash of wee bastards like a sprinkle of bile to it.

It was designed to put the newly arrived Queen at ease, since it showed that the women the King had been ploughing — and the offspring circulating, all self-aware and defiant — were fine and healthy and that rumours of leprosy were just that.

Of course the women, younger by far and sweeter and more proud, had rotted the moment with their own display and Isabel, there at Hal’s side for the Christ’s Mass feast, had shaken her head in sorrow and muttered: ‘ Fenêtre d’enfer .’

Window of Hell was apt enough, Hal thought, to describe the sewn-into dresses, slit daringly up to the thigh, fox tails hanging underneath at the back so that the strained fabric did not fold into the crack of their buttocks, front cut to the navel, so tight on the hips and groin, to show off their little fecund round bellies, that folk called them mumble-cut because ‘you can see their coney-lips move, but you cannot hear what they say’.

Isabel knew then, from the purse-mouthed, fake-gracious smile on the Queen’s face, that the court was no place to be from now on; Elizabeth would scourge the mistresses from it, for she was no longer the naïve girl Bruce had known and her English captivity had robbed her of what sweetness she’d had and replaced it with intrigue.

Kirkpatrick watched Isabel fold into composure on a stool brought by Mintie, hands arranged neatly in her lap, fur-trimmed gown draped round her shoulders against the draught. No fenêtre d’enfer here, Kirkpatrick thought, and a wheen of years on her — but still a woman to take your breath away.

‘So,’ she declared eventually, sweet as new honey. ‘You did not come here with the King’s wishes or requests, for he made the same at Edinburgh and had the same answer. So why are you here?’

Kirkpatrick nodded slowly and took a deep breath, as if about to plunge under cold water.

‘God’s provision,’ he answered, echoing Hal’s earlier answer and seeing the Lothian lord’s bewildered frown.

‘A provision,’ Isabel added, lowering her voice, ‘made possible by His Apostles. Is that not why you are here, Black Roger?’

That name, so redolent of the dark nature of the man, coupled to the conjuration of the Apostles, chilled the air and made the wine lees even more bitter. Kirkpatrick’s foot stopped swinging and Hal lost the frown as the realization washed him.

‘The King’, Kirkpatrick said slowly, ‘was curious as to why Hal went to Glaissery with twenty armed men. He thought it overly solicitous of some wee Order relics, but was not unduly worried when I told him the history of de Bissot’s sword. Which is why you had that blade gift from him. He values loyalty and friendship these days, does King Robert.’

‘You ken different, of course,’ Isabel answered flatly.

‘The Kingdom is not yet cleared of trailbaston and worse,’ Kirkpatrick answered. ‘They would have use for some expensive wee gems on the way up to Glaissery, more so for the money those baubles fetched and which was brought back to pay for all this reordering.’

Hal was silent. He had hoped that the last remnants of the Templars, now simply Benedictines in the wilds of the north, would have kept a close mouth on the matter. He had hoped that bringing two of the fat rubies known as the Apostles to them, under the guise of returning Rossal de Bissot’s Templar blade — and the Beauseant banner — to its final rest, would be a shrewd move, since they had contacts still who could get a good price for them, even allowing for a donation to their wee church. He had not liked the secrecy, but bowed to Isabel’s sense when she pointed out that the gems had once graced a holy relic and a king need not be reminded of it.

The two Apostles were from six Isabel had acquired, from Wallace himself no less. Originally, they had formed part of the cross on the reliquary that held the Holy Rood, taken south by Longshanks and subsequently stolen from his Minster treasury. Twelve gems had formed the reliquary cross, pigeon-egg rubies so perfectly matched and red it was said each bore the blood of a different Disciple.

‘I had six,’ Isabel said suddenly. ‘A gift from Wallace, who had them from his kin, Jop. In turn, he had them as his share of the loot for helping in robbing the Minster. He thought to sell them to Will Wallace, not being able to rid himself of them and thinking of all the loot Wallace must have accumulated.’

‘And Will simply took them, for the Cause,’ Kirkpatrick added and chuckled, shaking his head admiringly. ‘I was there when Jop said this.’

‘I recall it well — you knifed him,’ Hal reminded him and Kirkpatrick heaved a sigh and shrugged.

‘Aye, well,’ Kirkpatrick said slowly. ‘If you need to sell more, you would be best to do it through me. I want nothing from it — but as long as I remain in the King’s service, your secret is safe.’

‘Why would you do this?’ Hal demanded and Kirkpatrick shifted a little in his seat and waved a dismissive hand.

‘For the same reason I helped free your lady. I owed both you and she thanks and service.’

For seven years of my life, Hal thought viciously, but let the bad air of it hiss away, so that he sagged with relief and a strange kind of freedom.

‘With this I am quit of it,’ Kirkpatrick added and Hal saw that the thing mattered to him, too.

‘Is the King so fashed about the Rood jewels?’

Isabel’s question slashed Kirkpatrick’s eyes away from Hal; he swung round to sit properly in the chair, as if to concentrate on the answer.

‘It is long since the relic was lost and the Rood itself is returned, kisted up in a new reliquary — if you believe that it is the true one.’

‘It has been longer still since that Minster theft,’ Isabel went on into Kirkpatrick’s stone stare. ‘Wee baubles of the Plantagenet treasure pop up over all the lands abroad and few bother about it — not least the present Edward. If he does not share the wrath his father had for having been so robbed, why would King Robert?’

Kirkpatrick stayed silent and Isabel, bland as old porage, studied her hands for a moment, and then stared Kirkpatrick in the face.

‘Their worth, perhaps? It is an expensive business, raising a new army for what he expects will come in the spring. And the famine bites. There are wee merchants stirring from Flanders and elsewhere thanks to the victory at Stirling, but mayhap trade is too slow for our king’s liking.

‘Besides,’ she added with a wry twist of smile, ‘Robert was never good with siller — liked getting it, certes, but could never keep it long.’

Hal, blinking, looked at Isabel, who was locked in a stare with Kirkpatrick so intense he swore he could see blue sparks.

‘The King’, Kirkpatrick answered softly, ‘knows nothing. He will remain in that state of bliss if I have my way — but wee monks in Glaissery tell me matters because they wish it to reach the ears of the King, for his safety and concern.’

Of course they would, Hal thought miserably. The wee monks of Glaissery, trying hard to pretend they never belonged to the Poor Knights, owe the Bruce everything they have in this kingdom. So they would tell him, through Kirkpatrick, his ferret of secrets, his doer of black deeds in the Royal Cause.

‘Let me guess why Robert would care if he knew,’ Isabel went on softly. ‘Not because those gemstones are from the lost relic of the Holy Rood, nor because they are worth siller. There are four Apostles remaining with me now that two are sold. There were six. Wallace’s six, which he had from Jop. The other six went to Lamprecht. Folk think they were taken by the Order when they killed him and then recovered by the English later …