The Lion Wakes (Kingdom Series, #1)

‘You saw another stone,’ Bruce declared and his face was bright with triumph. Hal felt Kirkpatrick’s eyes burn on him, a clear threat; he preferred not to look into them.

‘Wishart had the idea from the Auld Templar,’ Bruce went on, ‘who knew this master mason, a Fleming who had been overseeing work at Roslin until matters brought it to a halt. The mason went to work at Scone to wait and see if Roslin’s ransoms left enough to resume rebuilding and was glad of the interest of a Bishop – glad, too of the promised purse, just for choosing a stone that looked the same as the one Longshanks planned to take. Then he used his Savoyard carver to make some of the marks expected and they switched it with the real one.’

‘This worked?’ Hal declared, astonished and Bruce’s chin came truculently up.

‘Why not? Few have seen the Stone up close and none of the English who took charge of it. They saw what they expected to see – a block of sandstone, with strange wee weathered and worn marks here and there, sitting where it was supposed to be.’

Right enough, Hal thought, his excitement rising. Which of those who knew would have risked speaking out?

‘The master mason, Gozelo,’ Bruce declared as if in answer, then continued: ‘He, in company with Kirkpatrick here, took the stone to the Auld Templar at Roslin, where it would be secreted away until the day it was needed.’

The day you sat on it, Hal realised, seeing Bruce’s face. The day you would need as much of the kingdom’s regalia as you could recover, to make you legitimate, especially if John Balliol still lived, sulking in the protective shadow of the Pope. By God’s Wounds, Hal marvelled, you had to admire the mountain of the man’s ambition and the length of his plans – he would not even be eligible to be crowned until his own father died.

Then he went cold. The mason, Gozelo, had been killed; Bruce saw the look and transferred it, with a brief glance, to Kirkpatrick, who had the grace to flush slightly.

‘The mason ran,’ Kirkpatrick growled. ‘An hour or two from Roslin, he panicked and ran. He did not wait for any promised purse.’

‘No doubt he thought you would pay him in steel,’ Hal snapped, reverting to Scots.

‘I had no such plans,’ Kirkpatrick snarled back. Bruce soothed them both like a berner with hounds.

‘No matter what was thought,’ he added, ‘the mason fled. Kirkpatrick had to take the Stone on to Roslin himself, where the Auld Templar and John Fenton took charge of it – the less folk involved, the easier the secret of it could be kept.’

‘The Auld Templar gave me a horse and told me to go after Gozelo,’ Kirkpatrick added sullenly. ‘He pointed out – rightly, for sure – that once he thought he was safe away, the mason would look to recompense himself and the only way to do that was get reward from the English by telling them how they had been duped.’

The Auld Templar – had he persuaded Kirkpatrick to red murder, or had that been Kirkpatrick’s own idea? Hal saw the truth of it, bleak as a wet dog, and remembered his father’s advice on the day of the battle at Stirling’s Brig: do not trust anyone, he had said. Not even the Auld Templar, who is ower sleekit on this matter.

Kirkpatrick saw the bleakness and shrugged.

‘Mak’ siccar, the Auld Templar said. So I did.’

Make sure. Hal glanced at the dagger hanging at Kirkpatrick’s waist; fluted, thin and sharp.

‘I took that ring from him,’ Kirkpatrick went on, his stropped razor of a face pale. ‘Took it back to the Auld Templar as proof the deed was done. He asked for such proof in particular.’

Hal glanced to where Kirkpatrick looked. The ring round his neck was Gozelo’s own, plucked from his dead finger and returned to Roslin. An auld sin . . .

‘Now you ken my interest in it,’ Kirkpatrick added wryly. ‘Rather than your dubious charms.’

‘The mason is to be regretted,’ Bruce broke in, frowning. ‘He was never meant to be found either, yet up he popped, like a fart at a feast, on a day’s hunting at Douglas.’

And there was the Curse of Saint Malachy at work, he added to himself, tangling my sin up with my own reins, to be hauled out for the world to witness.

Hal saw the Earl’s face and wanted to believe the shame and regret he saw there. Regretted only because he did not stay decently hidden, Hal thought bitterly, rather than because you had to red murder him. Hal remembered the hunt where Gozelo had surfaced – recalled, too, where the body had been taken and marvelled anew at the width and breadth of Bruce.

‘You persuaded Wallace to attack Scone, so you could go there and destroy the evidence,’ he said, half in a breathy hiss of wonder. ‘That’s what Kirkpatrick was up to in Ormsby’s room – but how will you persuade folk that the Stone you have hidden is the real one?’

Bruce nodded, as if he had expected the question.

‘It does not matter – folk will believe it when the time comes. Will want to believe it – it only remains to ensure the secret of it is kept until that moment comes.’