Robert Low - The Lion at bay

There were more questions — the Kirkpatrick man especially was all lowered brow and suspicion, wanting to know why Lamprecht had come to Bruce at such risk when he had, clearly, riches enough. Lamprecht, scornfully, had pointed out that losing such a gem to the Earl of Carrick was no loss, when even attempting to sell one would have a pilgrim like him arrested, drawn and quartered.

‘In an earl’s purse, is to be expected,’ he had sneered. ‘In mine, not.’

Some of what Lamprecht had said was true — he could hardly sell what he had and hope to make money on the deal, or even escape. So he thought to profit from information with a man who would want to know about the Rood — though that fact brought its own unease. Bruce was, ostensibly, a loyal follower of King Edward so Lamprecht risked his neck bringing it to such a man — unless his loyalty was known differently. And if such as Lamprecht knew it, then Longshanks knew it; the thought brought a shiver up Hal’s spine.

Kirkpatrick had subsided, glowering with unease, while Lamprecht kept the lie in the tale as a hugging secret close to the burning core of him, trying not to show a vengeful smile when he looked at the Lothian lord and Kirkpatrick.

It did not take long for Bruce to reveal who Jop was, for the only Jop of the description was Gilbert of Beverley, a sometime lay brother who had been paid by the abbey to carry its borrowed Holy Standard in Edward’s army when he came north to fight Falkirk. A fine imposing sight Gilbert had made, too, having the height and width of shoulder for banner-bearing, which might have given the English something of a clue as to who he was.

They found out soon enough. Gilbert, known as Jop to all his Wallace relatives, had promptly scurried off and joined them in rebellion, only to quit that when matters grew warm. He had vanished shortly after and now they all knew where and why.

His arrival back in Scotland had come as no surprise to folk, who thought he had just lain low for a while. Now he was snugged up in Riccarton’s chapel to Saint Mirin, having claimed ‘the knowledge of Latin’ to wriggle out from under Edward’s harsh law into the court of the Church, who had some sympathy towards ex-rebels.

There would be no church or God, though, which would keep him from the wrath of Longshanks if he ever discovered Jop was one of the thieves of the Crown’s treasure from the minster.

The fire sparked, little worm-embers snapping Hal from remembrance. That cloistered conversation had been a month ago and Lamprecht had grown no more easier to be with since. Neither him nor his tale, Hal thought.

‘Jop,’ he said and wanted to say more on this cousin of the Wallace, who had none of the man’s better qualities save height. He did not need to say more on it, all the same, for each man recognized the problem of Jop and, eventually, Sim voiced it.

‘This Jop,’ Sim said, breaking Hal’s reverie. ‘Is tight-fastened in a kirk. It will be as hard to crack open as Riccarton’s Keep, I am thinking.’

‘Less soldiery in the kirk,’ Kirkpatrick declared. ‘I hear the English have stuffed the keep wi’ English, to mak’ siccar The Ogre takes no rest there. They must be sleeping three to a cot in that wee place.’

‘Aye, weel, they will be dressed soon enough if a wee priest hurls up crying that mad drovers are beatin’ in his chapel door,’ growled Sim and Kirkpatrick’s laugh was low and mirthless.

‘Ye should get abroad more, Sim Craw,’ Kirkpatrick declared, his accent broadening, as it always did when he spoke with the likes of Sim. He could make it refined and French, too, when he chose and Hal realized this was part of the shifting shadow of the man.

‘Whit why?’ demanded Sim truculently.

‘Ye would learn things. Like the time there was an auld priest o’ Riccarton,’ Kirkpatrick answered. ‘Years since. Had the falling sickness, which laid him out as if he had died. He had such a fear o’ what would happen that even a week’s wake and a belled coffin was too little precaution for him — so he took steps to mak’ siccar he would never be buried alive.’

He had them all now, locked tight in the shackles of his eyes and words.

‘He had a lidless kist made and passage cut from the chapel crypt into the graveyard beyond,’ Kirkpatrick went on, ‘in case they tombed him up alive.’

‘Did he ever have use o’ it?’ demanded the round-eyed Dog Boy and Kirkpatrick shook his head.

‘Went on a pilgrimage to Rome, for relief o’ his condition and sins. Drowned at sea.’

‘Ah, bigod,’ sighed Sim, shaking a rueful head. ‘What is set on ye will no’ go past ye, certes.’

‘So the passage is there still?’ demanded Hal and Kirkpatrick nodded, his grin catching the firelight in the dark.

‘We will be in and out o’ Saint Mirin’s wee house, easy as beggary.’

He looked at where the sun was dying, seeping red into the horizon like blood from a flayed skin; insects hummed and wheeped in the iron-filing twilight.

‘When it gets dark,’ he said.

Sim grunted as he levered himself up. Tapping Dog Boy on the shoulder, he went out to check on the cattle and the dogs, followed by the boy. Dog Boy kept glancing behind them.

‘Are yer sins hagging ye?’ Sim demanded eventually and Dog Boy shook his head, then shrugged.

‘Lamprecht,’ he said and Sim nodded.

‘There is something not right,’ Dog Boy insisted.

‘God’s Hook, laddie, ye have said a true thing there — stop twitching in the dark and help me with these God-cursed stirks.’

Hal watched them go, hearing them mutter, while Lamprecht slithered off into a bower of leaves and branches, clutching his precious bundle to him and muttering morosely about the discomfort. Hal felt like telling him he was lucky it was summer still, for in winter the drovers made a bowl-shaped withy of sticks, then broke the ice on any stream or loch, dipped their cloaks and spread them out over the withy to freeze into a shelter.

‘Sim Craw must favour one o’ those cattle,’ Kirkpatrick said with a lopsided smile, ‘since he cares for them a deal, it seems.’

Hal did not reply; Sim Craw had bought bullocks and horse both from Stirk Davey in Biggar and had them cheap on the promise that Davey would buy them back if they were returned undamaged. It meant Sim and Hal would keep the money, which had come from Bruce for the purpose, and it would go into the trickle of silver that would, one day, become the pool to rebuild Herdmanston.

Instead, he wondered aloud his fears regarding Lamprecht and that it all might be a trap set by Longshanks himself to test Bruce loyalty.

‘It might,’ Kirkpatrick agreed laconically, ‘though such subtle work is not the mark of that king. If he suspects our earl to that extent, he would be hauling in folk likely to speak of it under the Question. Confessions would be enough without all this mummery.’

Which was true enough to silence Hal to brooding on Kirkpatrick himself, until he finally voiced what had been on his mind for long enough regarding the man.

‘Whit why do ye serve the Earl?’

The answering smile was bland, with some puzzle quirking the edge of it.

‘Same as yersel’,’ he replied and saw Hal’s laconic lip-curl, faint in the growing dim.

‘Ill luck and circumstance then.’

‘Circumstance, certes,’ Kirkpatrick answered, the slow, considered words of it forged in a steel that did not pass Hal by. ‘Ill luck? Hardly that for you, my lord. What have ye suffered?’

A lost wife and son to ague. A light of love to politics. A keep to fire and pillage, done by those he counted kin and friends.

‘There is more,’ he finished sarcastically and Kirkpatrick stirred a little, then poked the fire so that flames rose and embers flared away and died like little ruby hopes.