Robert Low - The Lion Wakes

Lang Tam saw Bangtail fall and lunged forward, tearing free from the grasp of half-a-dozen hands. Kicking feet made him stumble as he roared forward and he was on his hands and knees when Malise lunged, kicked him savagely in the mouth, then slashed right and left with his knife, to keep the lepers away.

The last wild cut was just as Lang Tam surged back upright and he had time to marvel at the moment of it, the sheer bad cess of it, how poorly he stood in the grace of God. It was no more than a catch across his throat, a blow that made him gasp – but the roaring and the drench of blood down his front told him the truth of it. His eyes rolled and he looked at the astounded, frightened-pale face of Malise, the dagger dripping blood.

‘Bugger,’ Lang Tam wheezed wearily and fell full length, his head bouncing.

Malise leaped over him and made for the door, while the lepers fell over themselves trying to get away. Behind, he heard a man roaring pungent curses.

Bangtail, he remembered dully as he stumbled out into the rain.

Lamprecht knew that information was life. It was what he traded to Malise and, he admitted, was what he should have kept to instead of playing in this treacherous game.

Now he stood in a ring of folk he knew wanted to kill him, while they stood scowling and black-despaired by the death of one of their number. He knew he had limited options and thought he would begin by establishing his credentials.

‘Kretto a in deo patrem monipotante kritour sele a dera, ki se voet te tout, a nou se voet; e a in domnis Gizoun Kriston, filiou deous in soul…’

‘Enough,’ Kirkpatrick growled, slapping him. ‘It will not stand here – ye are spoutin’ lies like a horse cowper.’

‘What is he saying?’ demanded Bruce.

‘It is the Credo,’ Kirkpatrick said and Abbot Jerome frowned. It did not sound like any Credo he knew and he admitted as much.

‘The Greek way,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘From Constantinople.’

‘Christ’s Wounds,’ Sim said, raking through the box while Lamprecht hovered in agony, watching. ‘Is this a wee toebone?’

‘Guarda per ti,’ Lamprecht pleaded. ‘Be careful. Chouya, chouya – sorry, in English – gently. That is the toebone of Moses himself.’

‘Away,’ exclaimed Sim in amazement. ‘Moses, is it? Now here is a miracle – if ye are to chain up all the toebones of Moses ye have in here, ye find the blessed wee man had four feet.’

‘Questo star falso. Taybos no mafuzes ruynes.’

Kirkpatrick, grinning, turned to the frowning Bruce.

‘He says is it is not true. All his wares are real.’

‘Ask him where Malise has gone,’ Hal demanded and Lamprecht winced at the eyes on this one. The others, even the one he now knew to be a great lord, were easier on matters, for they were reviling him. Lamprecht had found that those who paused to spit on him seldom, in the end, did him the sort of harm that balm and a decent arnica root could not cure.

Sim let a delicate sliver of white clatter to the flags and then ground it to powder, grinning – even that, though the pain of its loss hurt him to the soles of his own feet, would not have loosened Lamprecht’s throat. The one who spoke the Tongue might, but he was leashed by the great lord, so Lamprecht had no real fear of him.

But the grey-eyed one with a stare like a basilisk was different and Lamprecht knew, when the question came, that he would answer it humbly and truthfully, in the hope that he could step along the razor edge of this moment without shedding any of his blood.

Kirkpatrick listened and frowned, but Hal had caught a few words, so he could not dissemble.

‘He says Malise originally employed him to seek out a Countess. That one is in the nunnery near here, a place controlled by Robert de Malenfaunt. Folk send their unwanted women to it – unruly daughters, wee wives who have outlived their property attractions, widows fleein’ from some man who wants to get his hands on their inheritance. This Malenfaunt keeps it as a seraglio, the pardoner says.’

‘I have heard of this Malenfaunt,’ Bruce mused. ‘He is a minor lord of little account, but he serves in the mesnie of Ughtred of Scarborough. I hear he rode some decent Tourneys at Bamburgh one season.’

‘What’s a seraglio?’ Sim demanded and Kirkpatrick curled his lip in an ugly smile.

‘A hoorhoose.’

‘And he holds Isabel to ransom in sich a place?’ growled Hal.

‘I doubt she has been dishonoured or harmed,’ Bruce soothed, marvelling at the way of things, for it seemed this young Sientcler was smit with his Isabel – not his Isabel anymore, he corrected hastily, as if even the thought could reach the Earl of Buchan.

‘She is too valuable,’ he added, then clapped Hal on one shoulder. ‘Betimes – we will get her away.’

Kirkpatrick sighed, for he could see the way of it – bad enough charging down on St Bartholomew’s without thundering on to the nunnery at St Leonards. He said it, knowing it would make no difference.

‘Aye – raiding lazars and nunneries is meat an’ ale to the likes of us,’ Sim declared cheerfully and drew out the long roll of parchment. ‘What is this?’

The truth was that Lamprecht did not know – he had stolen it from Malise for the dangling Templar seal – two knights riding a single horse. He considered that the most valuable item, since he could carefully remove it from the document and attach it to another, this one painstakingly scribed to provenance the relics of Elizabeth of Thuringia. A Templar seal was as good as truth and doubled the value of his relics.

Now he watched it unroll, saw the other seal on it, one he did not know, and wished he had had the time to study it more closely. Bruce plucked it from Sim, who only held it the correct way up because the seals were at the bottom.

‘It is a jetton,’ Bruce said, marvelling and squinting in the poor light. ‘For a hundred and fifty merks.’

Lamprecht groaned at the thought of what he had just lost.

‘Whit is a jetton?’ Sim demanded.

‘A wee tally note, stamped by the Templar seal and – well, well, the Earl of Buchan’s mark,’ Bruce explained, grinning more and more broadly. ‘The Earl has clearly deposited the money at Balantrodoch and now anyone with this document can go to any Templar Commanderie from here to Hell itself and put a claim on hundred and fifty merks of silver. See? You mark off the sums given to you in these wee boxes. Like a chequerboard, which is how the Templars reckon up the sums. The jetton are really the wee counters they use to shuffle from box to box to keep track of it all.’

They all peered and murmured their awe.

‘Usury,’ Sir Henry Sientcler said, as if trying to spit out dung. Bruce smiled grimly.

‘Only the Jews have usury, my lord of Roslin. The Templars say this is not money lent, but a person’s own money, held in safety for him. Still – they make a profit on the transfer.’

‘What is this jetton for?’ demanded Hal, beginning to see the possibility. ‘In this case?’

Bruce blinked, bounced the parchment in his hand and his smile broadened further.

‘For the ransom of a Countess, for certes,’ he said, then offered a wry smile. ‘I have about four good warhorses that cost as much. Cheap for a Countess of Buchan.’

Hal began to smile, but Bruce saw the muzzle curl of it.

‘Ransomed by this wee tait of writing back to her husband,’ Hal said, with a slow, grim smile. ‘By a man this Malenfaunt will never have seen.’

‘What about Lang Tam?’ demanded Bangtail, which sobered everyone in an instant.

‘We will take care of him, if you permit,’ Abbot Jerome declared. ‘Both for your rescue and the fact that the folk here feel, in part, responsible for his death. They did not know who was who when they attacked, ye ken.’