Hal spared the winded man a glance, no more, just to make sure he was not about to take revenge when he got his breath back – and then he saw Piculph moving through the crowd, oblivious to their presence. Hal almost cried out, but buckled it in his mouth. Widikind had said Piculph was on their side, a spy for Ruy Vaz, but Hal was no longer sure whom to trust.
There was a great roar and a surge forward; the gold had sunk one spur into the neck of the white and red and the fight was all but done. When Hal looked back, Piculph was gone; he caught Sim’s arm and dragged him close enough to shout what he’d seen in the man’s ear. Sim swivelled madly left and right while, out on the mud-bloody sand, the white cock staggered.
‘Do not look round.’
The voice was pitched low, no louder than normal and almost in Hal’s ear, so the first thing he did was start to turn until a knuckle drove into his kidneys.
‘Do not look, I said.’
It was Piculph. Hal caught himself, stared to the front, where the white cock reeled, a splash of blood forming a red cross on its breast, the spurs glittering and flashing still in the dust and the roars. Like a Templar, Hal thought. Like Rossal and the others, dying in their own final pit.
‘I thought you were all dead.’
The voice was tense and harsh, close enough so that Hal could smell the man’s wine breath and feel the hot flicker of it on his lobe; any minute now, Hal thought, Sim will turn and see this, ruining any further subterfuge in it. He spoke quickly.
‘Kirkpatrick and myself and Sim escaped. Kirkpatrick is gone to your Grand Master, who will now have proof of Guillermo’s treachery.’
He hoped this was true, though he had last seen Kirkpatrick as a wraith in the dim, vanishing in the opposite direction from the one he and Sim took from the base of the tower.
‘Then my master has won and there is hope,’ answered Piculph. ‘I am watched and suspected – in truth, I was abandoning this enterprise when I saw you as you saw me. De Grafton has worked out that the treasure, if not in the carts, was some Order magic I do not understand. He now knows that your king was warned long beforehand. That trail leads to me.’
‘De Grafton has told of this?’ Hal asked and felt the nod behind him.
‘To Do?a Beatriz. He wishes the Templar called Rossal brought to him here, but the lady does not entirely trust him.’
A snake-knot of plots, Hal thought. Out on the sand, the white’s beak fell open, gasping, and the tongue trembled like a snake; one wing trailed and the gold and green battered it with a frenzy of wingbeats and slashes.
‘Do?a Beatriz saw him fell the big steersman with a blow behind the ear,’ Piculph declared, ‘and so forced him to join her. He is sent by the enemies of your king to make sure no weapons arrive for your army but he has long fallen from the Grace of God and his Order; I am sure he sees profit in this now for himself.’
‘The crew?’
‘Held in the lady’s house,’ the voice replied. ‘The big white one to the west of the harbour on the hill above it. They were led by the Judas goat of de Grafton, told they were to be feasted and fêted – drink, whores and all. Instead, they found themselves locked in the emptied wine cellars. Your ship is guarded by Guillermo’s men of the Alcántara, and the plan was to use them to kill your crew – but they will abandon Do?a Beatriz if they find this plot is unveiled and Guillermo exposed.’
‘Someone should let them know,’ Hal replied, seeing Sim turn in his direction. The white raised its stained head, twitching and shivering and, in a single moment, a miracle of energy and courage and anger, hurled itself into the fray for the last time, the whirl of spurs scything round to strike its enemy’s golden, red-crowned head.
‘It is dangerous—’ Piculph began.
‘Anything you do now is dangerous,’ Hal pointed out, just as the light of recognition went on in Sim’s head and the scowl came down on his brows.
‘Here,’ he began and then a great bellowing roar went up, jerking him back to the fighting birds.
‘There is still de Grafton and Do?a Beatriz,’ Piculph said uncertainly, his voice drowning in the clamour, but still loud enough for Hal to hear the fear in it. ‘I do not want go there.’
For terror of the Knight or the lady? Hal could not work it out, but told Piculph he must; Sim swung back, his face sheened with sweat and excitement.
‘Blinded, bigod. The white has blinded the gold … where is yon moudiewart?’
‘Whisht,’ Hal said and fingered his lips to strengthen it, He half turned. Piculph had vanished.
On the sand, the gold spun and reeled in its terror of sudden darkness while the white gathered the last of itself and slashed and slashed the green plumage to bloody ruin. Then, one wing dragging a bloody line in the sand, it half crawled on to the barely moving body and wavered out a crowing triumph while the crowd went mad.
They love to fight, Hal had heard folk say. Bred in the bone of them, an instinct. Like a parfait, gentle knight. Like a Templar.
As I am supposed to be.
The siege lines at Stirling