‘How is the English Justinian these days? Choleric as ever?’
Sir Marmaduke smiled at the new name given to King Edward, only half in scathing jest, as he rampaged through the laws of the land creating and remaking them to suit himself as he went. It was not, Thweng was sure, anything approaching the legendary codifying of the Roman emperor.
‘Liverish,’ he replied diplomatically. ‘The wool business has caused him problems as you might imagine, while he will not debase the sterling coinage against all the crockards and pollards from abroad. That decision, at least, is a good one.’
Bruce stroked his beard – in need of trim, Thweng noted – and pouted, thinking. The wool business – seizing the entire country’s output on the promise to pay for it later -had caused most of the dissent in Scotland, mainly because it was Cressingham as Treasurer who had ordered the Scots to conform to it and no-one believed his promises of future payment, never mind Edward’s. The profit from it had been eaten by armies for all the wars King Edward seemed to embroil England in and his own barons were growing tired of it. Wishart’s timing had not been out by much, Bruce realised.
‘The Jew money will have run out,’ he mused and Thweng nodded. The Jews of England had been summarily thrown out of the country not long since and all their assets taken for the Crown – again, eaten by armies.
‘At least you are returned to the loving grace of the English Justinian,’ Thweng declared, ‘so proving that you are not so reckless as the youth I traded lances with at Lille.’
‘Just so,’ Bruce replied and Kirkpatrick saw his eyes narrow a little, for he could sense a chill wind blowing from Sir Marmaduke. When it came, it was pure frost.
‘I also came bringing a visitor,’ Thweng went on, savouring the wine. ‘One who asked for you particularly. Before I deliver your guest, let me once again congratulate you on maturing into a man and leaving the furious, reckless boy behind.’
Now the hairs on Kirkpatrick’s arms were bristled and you could stand a cup on the thrust of Bruce’s bottom lip.
‘You will do right by this guest,’ Thweng declared, leaning forward and lowering his voice. ‘The sensible course. You will know what it is.’
He rose, idly tossed the empty cup to a frantically scrabbling squire, then stuck his head out of the tent flap. When he drew back, Isabel entered.
Bruce saw her, the hood of her cloak drawn back to reveal the copper tangle of her hair, the damp twisting it tighter still, the eyes bright and round, blue as sky and feverish – he thought – with longing.
He was, as ever, wrong. The wet had soaked her to the bone and the long ride on Balius had made her weary to the marrow, yet none of that had dented the hope she felt, the hope that blazed from her eyes.
His face shattered it.
She saw him blink and, in the instant before he spread a great, welcoming smile on it, saw the flickers of annoyance and irritation chase each other like hawk and heron across it. It had been forlorn hope, of course and she had known it in the core of her. Love was not anything deep between them but she had hoped for a better affection than what she saw. He would not take her into the safety of his arms, his castle and away from Buchan, and the weight of that descended on her.
She had taken her chance on the road back to Buchan, knowing that her refuge at Balmullo was probably gone from her, that she would be cloistered in some lonely Keep until such time as arrangement were made to cloister her somewhere more holy and uncomfortable. The aching memory of the bruises and angry lust Buchan had inflicted added urgency to her escape; getting away from the oiled skin-crawl of Malise only sauced the affair.
Yet it was all for nothing – Bruce would not help. Even as it crushed her, she cursed herself for having given in to the foolishness of it. There had been similar in her life – an older knight and, after him, the ostler boy, neither of whose names she could remember. All she recalled was the delicious anguish, the laborious subterfuge to be in that part of the world at the same time as they were. The smile to be treasured, the fingertip touch that thrilled, the sticky paste in a pot that was valued simply because his fingers had touched it.
She had, she remembered, thought such tender secrets were her own, hugged them to herself because of that fact alone – with a murdered father and all her other kin seemingly uncaring, it was a slim path picked through thorns to the vague promise of a distant garden.