Robert Low - The Lion Rampant

‘But not all six,’ she added, gently vicious as the kiss of a razor on a cheek. ‘Five only came from Lamprecht, for the sixth had been given away …’

‘To Bruce.’

Hal’s almost-shout snapped the stares. He remembered the day, the ruby thumbed into a cheap loaf by Lamprecht as his provenance for inveigling his way into Bruce’s confidence. It had been a plot, of course, only discovered later and at risk of their lives.

‘Bruce had the sixth. He kept it.’

Kirkpatrick seemed to tip a little, like a bag of grain with a leaking hole. He looked at Hal and smiled wanly.

‘You remember it. Of course you would.’

‘That Apostle is the only one whose name I know,’ Isabel said, almost in a whisper. ‘It is the only one Longshanks ever got back — delivered to him when it was plucked from Wallace’s scrip, together with his safe conduct from the King of France. The latter ignored as the former never could be.’

Judas.

That ruby made sure Wallace would never be forgiven at the last after he had been betrayed to the English and put on trial — Longshanks might have been persuaded to clemency for a repentant rebel, but never for a Minster thief. And it had to have been put there by Kirkpatrick, given to him by Bruce. A rich, unfortunate gift or a cynical betrayal?

Hal stared at Kirkpatrick, the sick horror of it swamping him as he looked from the man to Isabel and realized that she had known of it for a longer time. Kirkpatrick, too, saw it all stripped bare, breathed in deeply enough to raise his shoulders, set the cup down gently and got stiffly to his feet.

‘Well, there you have it,’ he said. ‘If you wish my help, you need only ask. I had better take these old bones back to Roslin. Then on to Edinburgh — or Perth if I am unlucky and have missed the court entire.’

‘Did he know what he did when he ordered the gem into Will’s scrip?’

Hal’s hoarse question flapped in like a red kite on a corpse and Kirkpatrick paused briefly in wrapping himself back in his woollens, not even looking at Hal.

‘Not what you should ask,’ he replied in a voice rasped as a hidden reef. ‘Ever.’

Hal and Isabel looked at each other and felt the old fear close on them like a claw. If it was true and the King suspected someone knew of it … Out of one cauldron into the fire, it seemed a great weariness engulfed Hal and he almost staggered under the weight of it. He did not want to believe it of the Bruce, but neither could he discount the possibility — the man had it in him to commit any sin for the furtherance of his destiny.

Kirkpatrick saw Hal’s horror and felt it, a deep pang as if it had just happened to himself.

‘As long as you deal the stones through me, you are safe,’ he said. ‘After that, let them sink into legend and oblivion. The King does not know anything of the Apostle stones now and need not ever be remembered of them, to his undoubted troubling. Besides, he has enough to concern him in the getting of an heir and mending at least part of the life between himself and his queen.’

He turned and smiled at them both.

‘He would give crown, Kingdom and all for a lick of what you pair possess,’ he added and that stunned them both to silence until he had reached the yett, the miserable Rauf trailing coldly in his wake.

‘Stay well,’ Kirkpatrick said at the door, pulling on his gauntlets as Horse Pyntle led their mounts to the foot of the stairs. ‘I will dance at your wedding.’

Hal watched him go, even gave the lie of a cheerful wave. There never was an end to it, he thought, never a happy after. For all their loving life together, he and Isabel had lived in the shadow of a vengeful Earl of Buchan and Badenoch and red war.

Now, just as it seemed they could walk to a wedding in a sunlit meadow with no shadows at all, there was the old thundercloud, black and fresh with menace, rimmed with uneasy crowns and bloated with a war that did not seem sated with slaughter and dubious victory at Stirling.

Under it was a king, whose every act to preserve the Kingdom could be no sin, and the faithful dark-hearted hound he sent to commit it was the dog Hal now had to trust to keep them safe in a world where only the sword and the tower could be truly relied on.

‘O Lord, Heavenly Father,’ Isabel murmured into the seeping cold from the open door, ‘let Your angels watch over Your servants that they may reach their destination in safety, that no enemy may attack them on the road, nor evil overcome them. Protect them from fast rivers, thieves, wild beasts — and troubled kings.’

‘Amen,’ Hal answered vehemently, sure that her prayer was not simply one for Kirkpatrick and Rauf’s safe journey.

The cold swept in the yett; Hal put his arm round Isabel like a fortress and led her into the thickness of Herdmanston’s walls.

‘Parcy,’ he called out over his shoulder. ‘Double bar the door.’