‘Aye, indeed,’ Wishart said, as if he had read Hal’s mind, ‘it’s as well, then, that Wallace here put a stop to the Douglas raids on the Bruce, in favour of discomfort to the English in Lanark. A proper blow. A true rebellion.’
Douglas scowled at the implication, but the man in question shifted slightly, the light falling on his beard making it flare with sharp red flame. The side of his face was hacked out by the shadows and, even sitting, the power of the man was clear to Hal and everyone else. His eyes were hooded and dark, the nose a blade.
‘Heselrig was a turd,’ Wallace growled. ‘A wee bachle of a mannie, better dead and his English fort burned. He was set to assize me and mine for a trifle and would have been savage at it.’
‘Indeed, indeed,’ Wishart said, as if soothing a truculent bairn. ‘Now I will speak privily with the Earl of Carrick, who has come, it seems, to add his support to the community of the realm.’
‘Has he just,’ answered Wallace flatly and stood up, so that Hal saw the size of him – enough of a tower for him to take a step back. Wallace was clearly used to this and merely grinned, while The Hardy followed him as he ducked through the door, arguing about where to strike next.
Wishart looked expectantly at Kirkpatrick and Hal, but Bruce started to pace and glower at him.
‘They are mine,’ he said, as if that explained everything. Hal bit his lip on the matter, though he knew he should have walked away from the mess of it, before the wrapping chains of fealty to the Roslin Sientclers shackled him to a lost cause.
He glanced over at Kirkpatrick and saw the hooded stare he had back. Noble-born, Hal thought, and carries a sword, though he probably does not use it well. Not knighted, with no lands of his own – yet cunning and smart. An intelligencer for The Bruce, then, a wee ferret of secrets – and a man Bruce could send to red murder a rival.
‘So – you and Buchan, plootering about in the woods like bairns, tryin’ to red murder yin another?’ Wishart scathed. ‘Hardly politic. Scarcely gentilhommes of the community of the realm, let alone belted earls. Then there is this ither matter – ye never saw the body, then?’
Bruce rounded on him like a savaging dog, popping the French out like a badly sparking fire.
‘Body? Never mind that – what in God’s name are you up to now, Wishart? The man’s a bloody-handed outlaw. Barely noble – community of the realm, my arse.’
Wishart sipped from a blue-glass goblet, a strangely delicate gesture from such a sausage-fingered man, Hal thought. The bishop stared up into Bruce’s thrusting lip and sighed.
‘Wallace,’ he said heavily. ‘The man’s a noble, but barely as you say. The man’s an outlaw, no argument there.’
‘And this is your new choice for Scotland’s king, is it?’ Bruce demanded sneeringly. ‘It is certainly an answer to the thorny problem of Bruce or Balliol, but not one, I think, that your “community of the realm” will welcome. A lesser son, a family barely raised above the level? Christ’s Bones, was he not bound to be a canting priest, the last refuge of poor nobiles?
‘Aye, weel – some become bishops,’ Wishart answered mildly, dabbing his lips with a napkin, though the stains down the front of his serk bore witness to previous carelessness and Bruce had the grace to flush and begin to protest about present company. Wishart waved him silent.
‘Wallace is no priest,’ he answered. ‘No red spurs nor dubbing neither, but his father owns a rickle of land and his mother is a Crawfurd, dochter of a Sheriff of Ayr – so he is no chiel with hurdies flappin’ out the back of his breeks. Besides, he is a bonnie fighter – as bonnie as any I have ever seen. As a solution to the thorny problem of Bruce or Balliol it takes preference over murder plots on a chasse, my lord.’
‘Is that all it takes, then?’ Bruce demanded thickly. ‘You would throw over the Bruce claim for a “bonnie fighter”?’
‘The Bruce claim is safe enough,’ Wishart said, suddenly steely. ‘Wallace is no candidate for a throne – besides, we have a king. John Balliol is king and Wallace is fighting in his name.’
‘Balliol abdicated,’ Bruce roared and Kirkpatrick laid a hand on his arm, which the earl shook off angrily, though he lowered his voice to a hoarse hiss, spraying Wishart’s face.
‘He abdicated. Christ and All His Saints – Edward stripped the regalia off him, so that he is Toom Tabard, Empty Cote, from now until Hell freezes over. There is no king in Scotland.’