‘I make no claim on you, Dog Boy,’ she said softly. ‘Neither for him, nor last night.’
Dog Boy knew that Hob did, though he would not voice it, but he nodded, and then grew more firm.
‘I will be back, God willing, when this is done with.’
She dragged him close then, held him hard for a moment or two, and released him so quickly that the pair of them staggered. He blinked, frantic not to unman himself with tears, and bent to little Bet, who put a thumb in her mouth and stared.
‘Have you a buss for me, wee yin?’ he asked and she looked uncertainly at her mother, who nodded. She took out the thumb, grinned and kissed his cheek, a sparrow peck that left snotters on his beard.
Hob stood, eyes large and bright, so that Dog Boy was lost, had no words. Then, suddenly, he dipped in his boot top and came out with his long dagger, thrust the hilt at the boy and watched his eyes widen further.
‘Take it. Defend your ma until I come back.’
Hob looked at the hilt, up at Dog Boy, then across to his ma, who smiled. He reached out a hand and took the dagger, dragging it close to his chest and cradling it like a new pup.
‘Dinna cut yerself,’ Dog Boy said with a grin, ‘or we will both of us suffer an even sharper edge – your ma’s tongue.’
There was a shared moment, the pair of them against the women, before Dog Boy nodded to Bet’s Meggy and turned away, aware of all their eyes on his back and anxious to put distance between them, yet feeling every step drag.
He was still bleared with it when he came to the forge, red-glowed and shifting with silhouettes, eldritch against the rising sun behind him. He stood, peering and shifting to try and see better, until a voice growled out of the last shadows of the night.
‘Dog Boy, stop jigging there and come closer.’
He knew it, even before he saw the shock of the battered face, the filthy wrappings round one arm and a body gone past lean and saluting scrawny. Yet the eyes were bright enough and laughing at him.
‘Sir Hal,’ he said. ‘God’s Wounds, it is good to set an eye on you.’
‘Set the pair – I do not charge.’
Dog Boy was still grinning when the loss of Sim Craw fell on him; Hal saw the eyes cloud with misery and knew at once what it was.
‘Sore,’ said Dog Boy, bowing his head. ‘He will be much missed.’
Hal had no words to say to Dog Boy, for all of them had been taken out by him in the past days, examined and thrown away as not adequate. Sim was gone and the hole he left in the world was filled only with black sadness.
Instead, he gripped Dog Boy by the arms – Gods, there was iron in them – and drew him close. For a moment Dog Boy stood limp, then his own arms came up and wrapped Hal and they stood for a moment, sucking the comfort of it into one another, before breaking apart.
‘You have grown a tait,’ Hal said, noting the height and width of him. He flicked the badge on the mostly unstained jupon. ‘Come up a station or two, betimes.’
Dog Boy nodded, and then blurted out the wonder of the last night before he could stop himself.
‘I have a son,’ he ended.
Hal listened to the tale of it, spilled out in fits and starts as if Dog Boy could scarce believe it himself. If my Johnnie had not died, Hal thought, he would be of ages with Dog Boy. Maybe sired his own son. The realization hit him hard and he blinked. I could be a grandda. I am now the Auld Sire of Herdmanston, as my father was.
‘They are here,’ Dog Boy went on, as if he had read Hal’s mind. ‘All the Herdmanston folk who could come to support the Kingdom and our king.’
There was marvel in his voice, but Hal already knew, had been told by his kin from Roslin about how the Herdmanston fields were being tended. Chirnside Rowan, grizzled and grinning, had come up with Sore Davey, pox-marks unfaded. One by one, old familiar faces had come up to him out of the midsummer night, bending a knee and anxious to give him news, to offer balm and solace for the loss of Sim Craw.
Fingerless Will, Dirleton Will, Mouse – they were all here, older and leaner and with wives and bairns and even grandweans. Full of news and hope.
Alehouse Maggie had died the previous month, they told him, so it was a blessing that Sim had not lived to learn of that, for it would have broken his heart. Cruck houses had been rebuilt around Herdmanston’s broken tower, the garth wall had been drystaned anew, but neither brewhouse nor forge nor bakery had been rebuilt – the first because they had no brewer with the death of Maggie, the second because they had no smith since Leckie the Faber had run off to spend a year and a day in a town and so escape his bondage. And the third because Bet’s Meggy had no one in the keep to bake for.