‘Too fine slippers for you,’ Malise added, soft and vicious in her ear, his breath tickling the stray strands of her sweat-damp hair. ‘They belong to the Coontess, if I am not mistaken.’
The fingers ground her jaw and, suddenly, let her go. She stumbled on weakened legs and would have fallen, but his hand shot out and held her under one arm, hauling her upright.
‘You ken where she has gone,’ Malise said and Agnes saw his other hand, resting on the two-lobed pommel that gave the weapon at his belt its name – bollock dagger. She felt sick.
‘She gave me the slippers,’ she heard herself say. ‘Afore she left . . .’
‘She came back, did she not?’ Malise persisted, his mouth close to her ear; his breath smelled like stale milk. ‘Ran to here – who better to shelter the hot-arsed Bruce hoor than Douglas Castle’s ain wee hot-arsed trollop, eh? Who was her tirewummin when she was first here.’
‘Never,’ Agnes said, feeling the fingers burn. Her head swam and she swore she heard the snake-slither of the dagger leaving the sheath. ‘Came back.’
‘Ye will tell me,’ Malise started to say, then something clamped on the back of his neck and jerked him backwards. Loosed, Agnes crumpled in a heap.
At first Malise thought a horse had bit him and struggled, cursing, to get free. Then a second hand swam into view, a huge grimed affair with split nails which snaked out of the dazzle of sun and locked on his throat, instantly cutting off his breathing. Choking, kicking, Malise looked up into the big, round face of Tod’s Wattie, boar-eyed with rage.
‘Ye cantrips ye,’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll maul the stanes with ye, ye bauchlin’ wee bastard. I’ll dunt ye some manners . . .’
Desperately, Malise half-fumbled out the dagger and Tod’s Wattie spotted it and roared even louder. He shook Malise left and right like a terrier with a rat and Malise felt the world whirl and turn red at the edges. The dagger clattered from his fingers and his vision blackened and and started to narrow.
‘Drag a dirk out on me, is it?’ Tod’s Wattie shouted and flung Malise away from him. ‘I’ll tear aff yer head and shite down yer neck, ye jurrocks.’
‘Here, here – enough of that.’
The new voice brought Tod’s Wattie round in a whirl, in time to see one of the castle’s garrison come panting up, sweating in his helmet and leather jack. He staggered to a halt and leaned on his spear, looking from one to the other.
‘What’s all this?’
Tod’s Wattie had turned to help Agnes back on to shaky legs and he felt her hanging on him like a wrung-out dishcloth, which only made him angrier. He waved a free hand at Malise, who was on his hands and knees, retching and whooping in air.
‘He was footerin’ with Agnes here,’ Tod’s Wattie declared. He knew the guard, Androu, was sweet on Agnes, so he was not surprised at the narrow-eyed look the man gave Malise.
‘Was he so?’ Androu said, then looked at Agnes. ‘Is this right?’
Agnes nodded and Androu shut one eye and glared grimly with the other, while Malise climbed, wavering, back to his feet.
‘Right you,’ Androu said, scooping up the dropped dagger. ‘You and me will see what Tam . . . the Sergeant . . . thinks of this.’
‘Mistake,’ Malise managed to croak, appalled at the ruin of his voice. He has torn my throat, he thought wildly. I will be dumb.
‘Aye,’ said Tod’s Wattie viciously. ‘It was a mistake right enough. If ye make it again it will be your last.’
Androu soothed him, then prodded Malise with the spear butt, so that he was forced to weave off. Tod’s Wattie, Agnes leaning on his arm, started to help her back to the kitchen.
‘Dog Boy,’ she said, but the Dog Boy was gone.
Dog Boy was not having the finest of days. He knew this when he ran in blind panic from the man, sure he could hear the boots scuffing after him. He went back across the Ward and found himself heading for the only safety he knew, the kennels.
He knew it was a mistake when he skidded round the wattle-and-daub corner, into the raised, curious faces of the kennel lads, carrying the dirty straw out to the courtyard. Gib and The Worm stopped and straightened.
‘Blood of Christ,’ The Worm declared, snorting snot from his nose. ‘It’s yon hawk botherer who was too fine for the like of us.’
Dog Boy saw Gib’s pig-faced pout. Almost everything irritated Gib and Dog Boy knew that included him – even more after the showing-up he’d had during the hunt and because Dog Boy had been plucked from the castle kennels to serve with the Lothian lord.
Now he wandered around with only two big dogs to see to, which was not work at all; Gib was convinced it should have been him chosen and that, somehow, Dog Boy had contrived his downfall.
‘What are you seeking?’ he demanded, slightly more curious than angry but still careful to sneer. He always sneered these days.
Dog Boy stumbled his tongue on an answer. The sight of them had been cold water on his panic and he realised, suddenly, that the man was nowhere to be seen and almost certainly not pursuing him. He felt confused and embarrassed.