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

The dead were all close together, Hal saw, and the women – a mother and a daughter becoming a woman, he thought -were still clothed. Led from the house and murdered, with no chance to flee and no attempt at rape.

‘Baistards,’ Sim growled and waved a hand at the churned earth. ‘Took what they needed in a hot trod and did red murder for the sake of it.’

‘How many, d’ye think?’ Bruce demanded, circling his horse.

‘Twenty,’ Kirkpatrick declared after a pause to study the hoof chewed ground and Sim nodded agreement.

‘Why would they kill them?’

The question was piped clear from the Dog Boy’s bewildered voice and Hal saw his face – puzzled, but not so shocked as it should have been for a young lad of a dozen years or so, coming on death on a warm April afternoon. He was growing fast, Hal thought. And hard.

‘For the sport in it,’ Sim declared bitterly.

‘For the terror in it,’ Bruce corrected. ‘So that others will see this and fear the ones who did it.’

‘Scots, then, you think?’

‘Aye,’ Bruce answered, ‘though belonging to no army. Left behind and on the herschip for the profit.’

‘We should rejoin the main force,’ Kirkpatrick offered nervously, as Bruce stepped his horse delicately round the strewn bodies.

The mother looked old and death had not been kind to her, yet she was no older than his own wife when she had died, Hal thought. No older than Isabel …

‘A mercy the child was slain,’ Bruce said, his voice a cat’s tongue of harsh rasp, and Hal blinked, then realised Bruce was thinking of his own dead wife and Marjorie, the daughter left to his care.

‘A father is no nurse. A young girl needs a mother,’ Bruce went on softly, speaking almost to himself. He remembered his own daughter then, dark eyes, little full lips parting in a smile, the image of her mother; he closed his eyes against the memory of the chubby-faced mommet he had so neglected. The best he ever did for her was keep her from being taken as a thumb-sucking hostage after Irvine – which was as well, since he had broken all his oaths since.

‘Riders,’ Bangtail called out sharply.

There were three, padded and mailled, mounted on good horses, with latchbows bouncing at the saddle. They all had little round shields and rimmed iron helmets and one carried a banner, yellow with a red cross on it. Behind were more; around thirty, Hal tallied swiftly.

‘Norfolk’s arms,’ Kirkpatrick murmured to Bruce and he nodded. Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk was, with his peers Hereford and Arundel, providing most of the army controlled by De Warenne for the defence of England. These riders, Bruce thought probably amounted to about half of the mounted crossbows in that army – his spies had told him there were scarcely 1,500 foot and 100 horse left to De Warenne.

The lead rider was tall, with a wisp of black beard and a dagger of cold stare which he switched between Bruce and Hal, taking in the jupons and surcoats, the heraldry there. On his own part, Hal saw a white shield with three little green birds on it, their wings folded across their backs. Argent, three alaudae, vert, addorsed, he registered and smiled; the Auld Sire would always be with him, in every coat of arms he looked at.

‘I thought you might be from the Priory,’ the rider said, his voice an accented French burr. ‘But I see you have come further than that – Carrick men, is it? I do not know the engrailed blue cross, mark you.’

‘We are passing through,’ Bruce replied easily. ‘To the Priory. We are Carrick men with a writ of utbordh from De Warenne – you know this term?’

‘I know it,’ the man said stiffly, then managed a smile. ‘Safe passage. I am Fulk d’Alouet.’

‘Oh, very good,’ Hal said before he could stop himself, and the cold stare settled on him.

‘Lark,’ he added limply, waving at the man’s shield with its three larks. ‘Your device.’

‘You are?’

Wishing I had kept my lip fastened, Hal thought, but forced a smile.

‘Sir Henry Sientcler of Herdmanston.’

There was no answering smile from Fulk.

‘I thought you were the ones who had done this,’ he declared, encompassing the tragedy with a spread of one arm. ‘They were Scots, of course.’

‘We had no hand in this,’ Bruce replied. ‘Though you are correct that they were Scots. Possibly some English there as well. Mayhap a Gascon or two.’

The smile broadened and Bruce knew he was right -D’Alouet and the riders coming up behind him were all Gascon mercenaries, last remnants of the ones who had ridden away from Stirling.

‘Yes. Brigands, then,’ Fulk d’Alouet replied, then sighed wearily. ‘I knew these folk well enough. We came to water our horses several times.’

‘Feel free to water them now,’ Bruce answered and the Gascon’s face darkened.

‘I am already free to water them,’ he snapped. The rider with the banner, dark-eyed, dark-bearded, dark-mannered, gave a little grunt and a gesture across his throat.

‘See to the horses,’ Fulk said to him and climbed heavily out of his saddle. Hal watched Bruce do the same and, with a glance to Kirkpatrick, levered over the rump of the animal and dropped to the ground, legs stiff as old logs.

There was a show of stretching and grunting while a Gascon led off the horses, leaving Fulk and the young man, on foot now and swaddled by the limp banner. Fulk unlaced the bascinet and pulled it off, then hauled off the maille coif and the padded arming cap, rubbing one hand through the sweat-streaked crop of his hair. Without it, he seemed younger, though the corners of his eyes were hardened with lines.

‘What is your business this far south?’

‘An exchange,’ Bruce answered, though he had been tempted, with a flash of anger, to tell this minor that it was none of his business.

‘My lord,’ Kirkpatrick said, ‘we should be rejoining the others.’

It was timely and calculated, letting this Fulk know that Bruce was someone of quality and that he had more men at his back. Yet Fulk’s head came up like a hound on scent.

‘You are the younger Bruce,’ he said slowly, the realisation closing on him. ‘The rebel Earl of Carrick.’

‘I have the honour,’ Bruce replied. ‘Though rebel is harsh.’

Hal saw that Kirkpatrick was watching the dark man with the banner and the line of dismounted men leading their horses to the stream, with little flicks of his eyes, one to the other. He turned to watch Bruce and the Gascon, who suddenly grinned broadly and dropped the helmet to his feet.

‘Bon chance to you, my lord earl,’ he said and thrust out a hand, which Bruce automatically took, found the Gascon’s grip on his wrist hard and realised, in a sudden, shocking flash, that Fulk had dropped his helmet to free up his left hand – which was now behind his back.

In that moment, he was fourteen and back with the Auld Templar on the tiltyard at Lochmaben – and the knight had seemed old even then – being taught how to fight and, for the first time, given a real sword instead of a blunted one. Because of it, he had not tried to strike the Auld Templar once in the fight and, eventually the knight stopped and looked at him.

‘What,’ he said heavily, ‘d’ye think ye are at here, boy?’

‘Defending myself,’ Bruce answered sullenly, more question in it than certainty.

‘No,’ the Auld Templar replied, ‘for the best way to achieve that is … ?’

‘Attack?’

‘So set to, laddie.’

Bruce swallowed.

‘You are unarmoured, sir,’ he pointed out stiffly. ‘Whereas I have helmet and maille and padding.’

He said this bitterly, for the weight was crushing him and the Auld Templar insisted he wore it from the moment he stepped on the yard to the moment he left it.