The word went out, of course, so that the others knew – Patrick and Parcy Dodd and the others all chaffed him about it and, finally, declared that they would wet the fortunate head of the Royal Houndsman in Edinburgh.
They chose the Black Bitch, as much for the aptness of name as for it being the worst stew in the town, and now Dog Boy shoved his way towards it, forcing through the frenzy of people; he could scarcely tell the difference between those frantic to leave and those frantic to squeeze the last measure of brittle pleasure from the place – but the fear was the same.
Yet there was a strange unreality. Silversmith apprentices paraded a wooden bier with a fat, ornate nef, a gorgeously worked fretwork ship of silver blazoned with Mary and Child and an enticement to customers to visit their shop. Butchers, slipping in their offal, bellowed the prices of pork and capon – originally high, they were falling rapidly because doom galloped at them and everything had to be gobbled. A pair of beadles led a whoremonger to the stocks, shuffling him through the dung close to a horse trough which would provide the dirty water he was to be soaked in.
Normal, as if the sky was not falling; Dog Boy ducked into the sweltering roar of the Bitch and his appearance swelled the bellow of it with a joy of noise from the six men who had ridden into Edinburgh with him and now dominated the tavern. The others in it, even the scarred and hard, kept to the sidelines of them.
Shining with sweat and drink, his men thrust a horn beaker of ale into one hand and hailed him loudly; he was their darling now, was the elevated Dog Boy.
‘The Royal Dog Boy he is now,’ bellowed Patrick and the others roared their approval once again, while Troubadour Tam Napier struck up his battered old viel in a tune that set everyone jigging.
Buggerback Geordie shoved forward a woman, dark-eyed and dark-haired, half-moon sweat under the arms of her dress and her smile only partly ruined by some missing teeth. She had the finest pair of breasts Dog Boy had seen in a time and, coyly batting her eyes, she pulled them out for him to see.
‘This is Dame Trapseed,’ said Archie Gower, known to everyone as Sweetmilk, for no reason anyone could fathom. ‘We brings her as Yer Honour’s gift on this night and hopes she elevates ye higher still.’
‘Ma Dame,’ Dog Boy said with a mocking, courtly bow and the laughter rang into the rafters. He went to a bench in the deeper shadows of the flickering tavern and took her on his knee, felt the heat of her through the dress as she wriggled on his lap and giggled at what she was creating underneath her; her breasts were slick.
‘If you do not sit still,’ Parcy Dodd yelled at her across the fug and noise, ‘you will stop our captain thinking entire, as God ordained.’
‘God? Whit has God to do wi’ this?’ demanded the woman, who had fumbled loose the ties on Dog Boy’s braies by feel alone. She adjusted herself, hiked her dress a little and Dog Boy could not believe the skill of her when he felt the heat and wet and knew what she had done.
‘God it was who created Man,’ Parcy went on, ‘and gave him both a pyntle and a keen and cunning mind. In His wisdom though, he ordained that Man could only use one of them at a time.’
The crowd roared and demanded more. Parcy obliged. Dame Trapseed wriggled and bounced a little, so that Dog Boy grunted in the half-dark.
‘Once,’ Parcy began, while folk shushed their neighbours, ‘there was a great rain, a gushing scoosh that some folk thought was the second Flood sent by the Lord.’
Dog Boy, anticpitating a gushing scoosh of his own, tried to concentrate on Parcy.
‘They ran to their priest, a good wee man, who went out into the pour of it all, even down to the banks of the burn, which rose in spate as he begged and pleaded with the Lord. The watter rose up roon his ankles and the reeve came up to ask if he would no’ be better climbin’ oot – the reeve would help. The priest refused, saying that the Lord would save him, and the reeve went on his way.’
The woman was in a rhythm now, a gentle sway, like reeds on a riverbank; Dog Boy gave up with Parcy.
‘The watter rose up to his waist and still the priest begged the Lord to save him. His own sire rode up on a fine horse, all drookit but come to save the wee priest from the flood. But the priest refused, allowing that only the Lord would save him, and the sire rode away as the river spouted on.’
Dog Boy bit the back of the woman’s shoulder, for the place was silent now save for the rhythmic swish of the woman and the sound of her ragged breathing. No head even bothered turning to them, all the same.
‘Finally, the watter was at the priest’s neck and up comes the King himself in a boatie, rowin’ like a bloody raider frae the isles, demanding that the priest save himself by climbin’ in. But the priest refused, claiming that God would save him – and the King swept on doon the river.’