Now he stood in a ring of folk he knew wanted to kill him, while they stood scowling and black-despaired by the death of one of their number. He knew he had limited options and thought he would begin by establishing his credentials.
‘Kretto a in deo patrem monipotante kritour sele a dera, ki se voet te tout, a nou se voet; e a in domnis Gizoun Kriston, filiou deous in soul . . .’
‘Enough,’ Kirkpatrick growled, slapping him. ‘It will not stand here – ye are spoutin’ lies like a horse cowper.’
‘What is he saying?’ demanded Bruce.
‘It is the Credo,’ Kirkpatrick said and Abbot Jerome frowned. It did not sound like any Credo he knew and he admitted as much.
‘The Greek way,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘From Constantinople.’
‘Christ’s Wounds,’ Sim said, raking through the box while Lamprecht hovered in agony, watching. ‘Is this a wee toebone?’
‘Guarda per ti,’ Lamprecht pleaded. ‘Be careful. Chouya, chouya – sorry, in English – gently. That is the toebone of Moses himself.’
‘Away,’ exclaimed Sim in amazement. ‘Moses, is it? Now here is a miracle – if ye are to chain up all the toebones of Moses ye have in here, ye find the blessed wee man had four feet.’
‘Questo star falso. Taybos no mafuzes ruynes.’
Kirkpatrick, grinning, turned to the frowning Bruce.
‘He says is it is not true. All his wares are real.’
‘Ask him where Malise has gone,’ Hal demanded and Lamprecht winced at the eyes on this one. The others, even the one he now knew to be a great lord, were easier on matters, for they were reviling him. Lamprecht had found that those who paused to spit on him seldom, in the end, did him the sort of harm that balm and a decent arnica root could not cure.
Sim let a delicate sliver of white clatter to the flags and then ground it to powder, grinning – even that, though the pain of its loss hurt him to the soles of his own feet, would not have loosened Lamprecht’s throat. The one who spoke the Tongue might, but he was leashed by the great lord, so Lamprecht had no real fear of him.
But the grey-eyed one with a stare like a basilisk was different and Lamprecht knew, when the question came, that he would answer it humbly and truthfully, in the hope that he could step along the razor edge of this moment without shedding any of his blood.
Kirkpatrick listened and frowned, but Hal had caught a few words, so he could not dissemble.
‘He says Malise originally employed him to seek out a Countess. That one is in the nunnery near here, a place controlled by Robert de Malenfaunt. Folk send their unwanted women to it – unruly daughters, wee wives who have outlived their property attractions, widows fleein’ from some man who wants to get his hands on their inheritance. This Malenfaunt keeps it as a seraglio, the pardoner says.’
‘I have heard of this Malenfaunt,’ Bruce mused. ‘He is a minor lord of little account, but he serves in the mesnie of Ughtred of Scarborough. I hear he rode some decent Tourneys at Bamburgh one season.’
‘What’s a seraglio?’ Sim demanded and Kirkpatrick curled his lip in an ugly smile.
‘A hoorhoose.’
‘And he holds Isabel to ransom in sich a place?’ growled Hal.
‘I doubt she has been dishonoured or harmed,’ Bruce soothed, marvelling at the way of things, for it seemed this young Sientcler was smit with his Isabel – not his Isabel anymore, he corrected hastily, as if even the thought could reach the Earl of Buchan.
‘She is too valuable,’ he added, then clapped Hal on one shoulder. ‘Betimes – we will get her away.’
Kirkpatrick sighed, for he could see the way of it – bad enough charging down on St Bartholomew’s without thundering on to the nunnery at St Leonards. He said it, knowing it would make no difference.
‘Aye – raiding lazars and nunneries is meat an’ ale to the likes of us,’ Sim declared cheerfully and drew out the long roll of parchment. ‘What is this?’
The truth was that Lamprecht did not know – he had stolen it from Malise for the dangling Templar seal – two knights riding a single horse. He considered that the most valuable item, since he could carefully remove it from the document and attach it to another, this one painstakingly scribed to provenance the relics of Elizabeth of Thuringia. A Templar seal was as good as truth and doubled the value of his relics.
Now he watched it unroll, saw the other seal on it, one he did not know, and wished he had had the time to study it more closely. Bruce plucked it from Sim, who only held it the correct way up because the seals were at the bottom.
‘It is a jetton,’ Bruce said, marvelling and squinting in the poor light. ‘For a hundred and fifty merks.’
Lamprecht groaned at the thought of what he had just lost.