Robert Low - The Complete Kingdom Trilogy - The Lion Wakes, The Lion at Bay, The Lion Rampant

‘Sheep dressed as lamb,’ Wallace spat back. ‘At best. Gild it how ye will, tie what bright ribbons ye care on it – I am still the brigand Wallace, landless chiel of no account.’

He paused then and offered a lopsided grin out of the haggard of his face.

‘Save that I am king in the name and rights of John Balliol,’ he added softly. ‘And the commonality of this realm esteem me, even if the community does not.’

Hal saw Bruce’s eyes narrow at that; the idea of Wallace being king, in any name, was not something he liked to dwell on even if he saw that Wallace was being provocative.

The Auld Templar saw it too and tried to balm the wounded air.

‘Ye would have a hard time at a crowning, Sir Will,’ he said lightly. ‘No Rood, no Crowner – and no Stone of Scone.’

Wallace, taking the hint, offered a wan smile of his own.

‘That last is an especial loss to the Kingdom,’ he said. ‘Though it guarantees the surety of any Guardian – without the Stone there can never be a new king, only the one we have already.’

Hal braced himself for a snarling storm from Bruce, always jealous of his claims to Balliol’s crown, and was rocked back on his heels when the Earl smiled sweetly instead.

‘Indeed,’ he said, then turned to the Auld Templar. ‘As you say, Sir William – such a loss cripples kingship.’

‘Just so,’ the Auld Templar muttered, his face strange enough to make Hal look more closely, before the old man’s next words drove curiosity out of him.

‘Young Hal,’ he said with a bow, which Hal gave back. ‘I am right sore about your father. I hear he fought bravely.’

‘He is … was … an an auld man,’ Hal answered brusquely, which was as far as could go in forgiveness. The Auld Templar acknowledged it with a nod and a wry smile, though his eyes were still and steady on Hal’s face.

‘It was an ill day.’

‘For some more than others,’ Hal replied, sullen with the memory of Tod’s Wattie and John Fenton.

‘Fitzralph was also a hard loss to bear,’ the Auld Templar replied pointedly and saw Hal bristle; he cursed inwardly, for he did not want an enemy of this young man.

‘Come, come,’ Bruce clucked. ‘There was blood let on both sides and no blame accrues to you for the death of Fitzralph.’

‘We all ken who killed Fitzralph,’ Hal spat back. ‘And Tod’s Wattie. And my dogs at Douglas.’

‘Aye, aye, just so,’ Bruce interrupted. ‘And yon wee scribbler Bisset in Edinburgh, I have learned. And his sister and her man. And others, no doubt.’

He paused and turned his fist of a gaze fully into Hal’s face, which was cold and flattened by the news of Bisset. Another stone to the cairn, he thought bitterly. He had liked wee Bisset.

‘Unless ye have proof, or witnesses, ye might as well add the crucifixion of St Andrew, the betrayal of Our Lord and the forging of every crockard in the country at the man’s door,’ Wallace was saying. ‘None of it will stick to him.’

Hal winked on the brim of it for a moment, then the reality pricked him and he sagged. Bruce saw it and patted his shoulder, patronisingly soothing.

‘Aye, the loss of Fitzralph was sad,’ he said jovially, ‘but I am here to put some of that right – we have taken Stirling and can offer Fitzwarin as ransom for Henry Sientcler of Roslin.’

That was news – the fall of Stirling had been imminent for some time, but the sudden capitulation was a shock, all the same. And, thought Hal wryly, Bruce announces it and so links himself with the glory.

No-one spoke for a moment, then the Auld Templar shifted.

‘He had a mother living, and brothers,’ he said. Bruce looked bemused and the Auld Templar turned his long-moustached wail of a face on him, like black light.

‘Fitzralph,’ Hal added and Bruce, seeing he was being corrected, thrust out his bottom lip; he had been expecting beams of approval and effusive thanks and been rapped across the knuckles instead, but he managed a smiling face on matters.

‘You are over-solicitous of a wee knight’s death,’ he countered, ‘brave though it might have been. There is more at stake than this – your own grandson.’

‘God is gracious and merciful,’ the Auld Templar growled. ‘He is also watching.’

Bruce acknowledged the fact with a display of crossing himself, though his face was a stone.

‘The exchange will be conducted at Hexham. I will take Carrick men and Fitzwarin,’ Bruce went on, ‘once we have all the writs we need to traverse the country peacefully. Sir Hal – it would be good of you to join us … I am sure the young Henry will be glad to see a kinsman.’

Hal looked at the impassive Kirkpatrick, then to the Auld Templar and finally to Bruce. It was clear the Auld Templar was not up to the travel and that Bruce knew it. Proposing Hal into his retinue for the affair was a considerable honour, though one Hal could have done without.

He managed to stumble out enough thanks to draw the Carrick lip in and Bruce gathered his dignity round him like a cloak then left, trailing Kirkpatrick in his wake.

There was a long pause while the Auld Templar looked mournfully at Hal and seemed about to speak. After working his mouth like a fish for a moment or two, he suddenly clamped it shut, nodded brusque thanks and left.

There was silence afterwards, then Wallace sighed and rubbed his beard.

‘Young Bruce means well,’ he said, shooting a sideways look at Hal, ‘though he cannot help but seek some advantage from it.’

‘Which is?’ Hal asked, still brooding about Malise Bellejambe and how unassailable he seemed to be.

‘Leverage with yourself,’ Wallace replied and Hal blinked at that. For what end?

Wallace shrugged when it was put to him.

‘You will ken by and by. He will not be backward in coming forward on it. He will find something in exchange for him using Fitzwarin to ransom yer kinsman. Besides -he is stinging over his own father, who was removed from command of Carlisle because of his son’s antics. Not to be trusted now, it seems. So Bruce The Elder has gone off with his face trippin’ him and the young Bruce is facing the prospect of his Comyn rivals triumphant and does not care for it.’

He stopped and shook his head in weary, wry admiration.

‘Christ’s Bones,’ he added, ‘the Bruces have a mountain of prideful huff at their disposal, have they not?’

‘I thought Fitzwarin was yours to dispose,’ Hal responded. ‘Since it is yourself who is Guardian. Him and Sir Marmaduke Thweng both belong to the Kingdom and so to you.’

Wallace chuckled grimly, a rumble of sound Hal swore he could feel through his feet.

‘Bruce takes pleasure in removing Sir Marmaduke to spend the Christ’s Mass with himself; keeps me in my place, ye ken. Reminds me that I am, for all the new dubbing, not anythin’ like a nobile, no gentilhomme with lands north and south. Like Sir Marmaduke, who is Bruce kin by marriage. So I am constrained to give him to the care of the Bruce, which infuriates the Comyn.’

He broke off and worried his beard with one hand, almost thinking aloud rather than speaking directly to Hal.

‘In turn, mark ye, I have ordered that Sir Marmaduke will be ransomed for Comyn’s cousin, Sir John de Mowbray, instead of being set ransom-free as Bruce wishes – and that is only to put the Earl of Carrick in his place, for I have a strong regard for yon Sir Marmaduke.’

He twisted his beard and matched it with a wry smile.

‘Ye see the glaur I have to step through? So Fitzwarin’s exchange is fine by me, even if the bold Bruce takes credit for it.’

‘Ye are Guardian of Scotland,’ Hal answered, astonished and Wallace’s smile was bitter.