‘Aye,’ added Sim and then tried to brighten matters. ‘We will ride south and bring your man home, mind you, so have comfort in that.’
It was a comfort, too, Hal saw, but only a little one. He met Fat Davey in the main hall of the stone keep that was perched on an outcrop of rock and surrounded by the timber and ditch of the old motte and bailey. They had started rebuilding Roslin in stone, but work had ceased when the Sientclers were captured, the money hoarded for expected ransom. At least they can start anew on that, Hal thought bleakly. Two dead, one to be freed and no money paid out at all.
Fat Davey was grateful for Hal’s offer to take the Auld Templar to Balantrodoch, as was proper. Him and his clothes, his maille, his equipage and his warhorse all belonged to the Temple in common; another knight would have it.
But not everything, it seemed. Hal found Fat Davey’s face staring into his own like a bleak moorland that sucked the life from any muttered commiserations.
‘It was too much for him, the loss of John Fenton and then his son,’ Fat Davey said, shaking his head. ‘He just took to his bed and stared at the wall.’
He paused, fought for control and wrenched it into himself.
‘Save for the once,’ he added, fished in his pouch and brought out a small linen bag, handing it to Hal.
‘He said, just before the last, that you should have this,’ he said, his cheeks a shadow of the squirrel satchels that had once bulged there. ‘For varying reasons, he said. Not least of them being ye are the only grown Sientcler free and in the world.’
Hal thought of the Auld Templar’s son, dead in the Tower and almost certainly bowstring murdered, or starved like The Hardy. Grandson Henry, father to the three bairns still at Roslin, was held in one of Edward’s own castles, Briavel in Gloucester and, with luck, would be home soon – if Edward continued to think Fitzwarin more of a gain than the loss of a Sientcler prisoner. Or was not simply feeling waspish over the Scots affair.
His shadow was long, dark and unpredictable, Hal thought and soon Edward Plantagenet would be back, when matters would rush like a flood. There would be no exchanges then, when Longshanks turned all his energy to the Scots; Hal had a moment of panic to be on the move, to have Henry Sientcler back with his wife and weans before the raging storm of a vengeful king broke on the world.
Hal realised that Davey was right – with his own father dead and the Auld Templar himself stiff in the neighbouring chamber, Hal was the only adult Sientcler left out in the world; the linen bag suddenly started to burn the palm of his hand.
He tipped it out, saw that it was a ring and heard the thunder in his ears for the seconds it took him to realise it was not the seal of Roslin.
‘Aye,’ Davey said with a grin, ‘I admit I was a wee bit facered when I first saw it. I thought the Auld Templar was offerin’ ye the keys of Roslin. He was awfy quiet and prayerful when he heard John Fenton had died at Cambuskenneth and the news of his son’s death cracked his heart open.’
‘Christ’s mercy on us all,’ Hal declared, astonished. ‘Roslin belongs to his grandson, Henry, whom we will bring back safe. And after him are his sons.’
He studied the ring. Sim peered at it over his shoulder.
‘Silver, chalcedony,’ he declared loftily, then looked blandly into the stares of the others. ‘What? It is a wise man who kens the look of baubles. Saves ye guddlin’ in a dead man’s armpit for the cess when ye can lift the real shine.’
‘What’s the markings, then?’ Hal challenged and Sim squinted, then shrugged.
‘A wee fishie,’ he said and Davey shrugged when Hal questioned him with silent eyes.
‘No wisdom from me,’ he said. ‘The Auld Templar just gave it me and told me to deliver it to yourself. His only words on the matter were that it was an auld sin.’
Hal studied it carefully. A series of lines drawn into a fish shape. The old Christ symbol from Roman times, he recalled vaguely, though he could not bring the Latin of it to mind. He tried it on, but his knuckles were too big.
An auld sin. Hal shivered.
Chapter Nine
Northumberland, on the road to Hexham Priory
Vigil of Saint Ebbe the Younger, April, 1298
The oaks unfurled new leaves and the world was raptured by rainbows. The writs came and Hal rode out with his men to join the Bruce cavalcade; on the ride south, they saw cows wrap their tongues round fresh green and rip it up, chewing contently; sheep nibbling in hurdled areas, brown land turned under the plough.