He wondered if he had that strength himself and was taking up the rope when a soft voice stopped him; he turned to see Rossal de Bissot, a shadow at the top of the belltower stairs.
‘Take this,’ the Templar said, holding out his sword, ‘and give me your own. I would not see this fall into the hands of Guillermo and can think of no one better to wield it with honour. You are a Sientcler, after all.’
Numbed and dumb, Hal took the sword and handed over his own; the new one felt heavier, though it slid into his sheath easily enough – all but a fingerwidth of blade below the hilt.
‘Hubris,’ Rossal declared with a smile like a sickle moon in the dark. ‘That sword is longer, heavier and has more decoration on it than was ever proper for a Poor Knight.’
‘I am honoured to wield it – though you put a deal of faith in the Sientcler name,’ Hal growled, dry-mouthed with the moment and aware, yet again, of that peculiar Sientcler connection with the Order, so that every member of that family seemed to have drunk from the Grail itself. And all because a female ancestor had once been married to Hugues de Payens, the founder.
‘You will not disgrace the blade,’ Rossal answered and Hal was not sure whether it was a statement or a command. Below, he heard de Villers chanting: Vade retro Satana, nunquam suade mihi vana – begone Satan, never suggest to me thy vanities.
He knew the Knight was facing his own fear and desire for life, rejecting any possibility of salvation. Preparing to die.
Hal glanced at de Bissot and saw nothing of fear or regret, only a slight sadness when the man revealed that Widikind had already died. The Templar raised his hand in a final salute and was gone like a wraith.
Hal stood for a moment, and then crossed to the stone lip, wriggled his hips to the balance point and, with a final fervent prayer for his own salvation, slithered over the edge.
Vade retro Satana, he heard as he scrabbled in a blind sweat for footholds. Ipse venena bibas. Begone Satan. Drink thou thine own poison.
Hal, his hands straining, the sweat in his eyes, wondered how in the name of all Hell had Dog Boy ever managed this.
ISABEL
Now am I ripe in the understanding of what the love of God means. You sent me the little nun, the one called Constance, who whispered to me briefly, so briefly I hardly believed I had heard it all. He is free, she said to me. Roxburgh is taken and Hal is free. Blessed is the Lord.
CHAPTER SIX
Chapel of St Mary and the Holy Cross, Lothian
Feast of the Invention of the Cross, May 1314
Dog Boy wondered how he had done it. He had never killed a woman before and felt strange about the fact of it, even though it had not been deliberate.
They had caught the raiders off guard; those who didn’t have their thumbs up their hurdies were howkin’ lumps of fresh meat out of a boiling pot with their stolen livestock lowing and cropping grass nearby – the lucky beasts that were not jointed and bloody under sacking in the carts.
Hunger was the reason the men had raided out so far and it had been their ruin, for they should just have taken their scourings and run for it, not stopped to boil beef. But there were no skilled fighting men here, only shoemakers and fishmongers, tanners and labourers from Berwick, out on a desperate herschip for supplies because none were coming up from the south and bread was ten times the usual price.
The fact that they raided into the lands of the Earl of Dunbar, who was on their side, did not matter to them when their bellies were notched to their backbones. The fact that they were eating the badly boiled kine of the lord of Seton, another ally, did not count one whit.
Dog Boy was of the opinion that they should have left the raiders alone, since they were doing Black Jamie’s band a service with their ravaging and, besides, most were Lothian men themselves. Some of them, it was clear, knew one end of a spear from the other and probably served in the Berwick town garrison. They might have kin standing with the army sieging Stirling for the Bruce. Some might even have kin among the men here.
The Black considered Dog Boy when he had voiced this in the growing dark, frowning to show he was giving it serious thought, because that last part had made his men think. No one was fooled as to what he would decide in the end, all the same.
After a long moment of considered mummery, he had shrugged and met the knowing, feral grins of the others with one of his own.
‘As you ken, I hate the Welsh worse than the English and God will stand witness that I truly hate the English.’
He paused for the effect of it.
‘But I hate yon Plantagenet Scots worse than either.’
‘Is there any your lordship likes?’ asked a voice, daring in the dim. Patrick, Dog Boy thought. It will be Patrick and the mouth that will get him hanged this day or the next.