‘This’ll thaw your cods,’ she said, handing it to him, and he nodded, speaking in bursts between the chitter of his teeth.
‘Cauld. Ride. Long way frae Roslin.’
‘Why suffer it?’ Hal asked pointedly and Kirkpatrick, unwrapping himself, waved an insouciant hand.
‘I was passing.’
It was a lie so blatant that the cold Hal felt on him was more chilled than anything God had handed the world so far. He waved Mintie away, waved all of them away, so that they moved off, reluctant and sullen at leaving the fire. In the end there was himself, Kirkpatrick and Rauf, who became aware of the eyes on him, looked from one to the other and grunted his way upright, clutching the precious warmth of the cup; melting droplets sparkled in the slight of his beard as he turned and lumbered off, trailing woollens.
‘A good lad,’ Kirkpatrick noted. ‘Nephew to my wife and raised to squire, a station he could hardly have realized afore.’
‘I heard you got wed,’ Hal replied easily, taking the sting out of the reminder that neither he nor Isabel had been invited to the September affair. Kirkpatrick had the grace to look embarrassed.
‘It was hastily arranged,’ he said, but did not elaborate on why. ‘I hear your own is due in the spring,’ he added by way of balm and Hal nodded. He and Isabel had planned it for May and he added, for the politeness of it, that Kirkpatrick was welcome.
‘Aye, it will be a rare event, I am sure,’ Kirkpatrick added. ‘The King was pleased to sanction it. You will be equally pleased to know that he will not attend it and so save you a deal of expense.’
Hal raised his cup to that; the arrival of the King meant the arrival of the court, newly freed Queen, sister and all: a host of mouths eating like baby birds in a land of famine. They had been in Edinburgh for the Christ’s Mass feast, which Hal had attended with Isabel because it was expected of him; he had, to his surprise, been given the gift of a sword, fancy-hilted and engraved on the blade with the words ‘Le Roi me donne, St. Cler me porte’.
‘To replace the one you delivered to Glaissery with the Beauseant banner,’ the King had said and Hal had acknowledged it with a bow of thanks and a concern that his visit there had been so noted. His own gift – a silver medallion of St Anthony, said to have been worn by his namesake, the blessed Anthony of Padua – seemed less than worthy after that, particularly in the light of St Anthony being the patron saint of lepers and the scabby peel of the royal face.
‘The court now moves to Perth,’ Kirkpatrick went on, ‘afore it eats Edinburgh down to the nub. Yet we fair better than the English, since oats and barley are a hardy crop and wheat is not. They are starving beyond the Tweed.’
‘They are starving because Randolph and Jamie and the King’s brother scourge them of all they have left,’ Hal pointed out. Kirkpatrick waved a placating palm.
‘The winter has done for all that stravaigin’,’ he reported. ‘They have gone to their own homes. Jamie is back in Douglas, putting it in order.’
Hal had seen Douglas and Randolph at the Christ’s Mass feast, red-faced and greasy with joy and victory, reeling to their feet every so often to throw toasts at Bruce, the hero king. Isabel, as ever, had been quietly scathing.
‘You would think they had fought the Philistines,’ she muttered. ‘Instead, they took a kingdom from the son when, in all his life, they never managed to take as much as an ell of good Scots dirt from the father.’
It had been a harsh judgement on a victory which had cost so much blood; Hal mentioned it now for the enjoyment of seeing Kirkpatrick wince at the memory of his attempts to hush her as politely as could be managed.
In the end, only Dog Boy had soothed Isabel. He had moved up from below the salt, seeing her distress from down the length of the table, and brought his new wife, the smiling Bet’s Meggy, to be reminded to her. They had fallen at once to talk of Bet’s Meggy’s mother, whom Isabel had known; Hal had nodded his thanks and relief to Dog Boy, marvelling at what the years had created: a tall, dark copy of Sir James Douglas in the livery of a royal houndsman, with his round-eyed son taking care of his wee sister down at the end of the feast table and trying to miss nothing of this glorious night.
Hal had been sorry to leave them, if nothing else at court.
‘How is your lady?’ Kirkpatrick asked with a lopsided smile, breaking Hal’s reverie. He was leaning back, at ease and with one foot carelessly thrown over the arm of his seat, dangling and bobbing to some unheard music; his boots smoked gently from the heat of the fire.
‘Fine as the sun on shiny water,’ Hal answered and Kirkpatrick heard the uncertainty, cocking an eyebrow.