‘I am in no danger from him,’ she replied. ‘He would have the skin taken off his back by my husband if he as much as bruised me. That privilege belongs to Buchan.’
Hal blinked at the bleakness of the last words and Isabel came out of the dark place she had gone, blinked and forced a new smile.
‘But he is not . . . pleasant,’ she said. ‘And he may do harm to others.’
‘I would worry about Tod’s Wattie if I were he, lady,’ piped a new voice and they looked at the Dog Boy, hovering round Isabel’s stirrup. ‘Tod’s Wattie loved they baists and yon man killed them with evil potions.’
Sim studied the Dog Boy, seeing the pinch of his face, the bruised eyes. Seeing what Hal saw, that wavering faint image of wee dead Johnnie. God alone knew what had gone through this lad’s mind while he had been in the moatbridge pit but it had only been the grace of Our Lady that it had not been the moat weight itself. Yet the lad had had to listen to it crush Gib to bloody fragments and the Lord alone knew what that had done to him.
The Dog Boy felt the eyes on him and grinned at Sim before turning back into Isabel’s fond stare. He was not sure what it was he felt for this high-born woman but he wanted, at one and the same time, to put his head on her breast and have his forehead stroked – and his hands on those same breasts. The combined raggle of these feelings frequently left him flustered, tight in chest and groin.
Hal caught Bangtail’s eye and sent him off down the column. Twenty riders and four wagons had set off from Annick Water three days ago, following the arrival of Tod’s Wattie just as peace broke out and everyone went their way. Hal and his small mesnie were headed north, first to Stirling, then on into Buchan lands. Delivering, Hal thought, like a mercantile carter.
Not all the men at Annick had traipsed homeward and the roads were shadowed with folk gone back to brigandry, either in the name of Wallace, or King John – or just themselves. Now there were at least a dozen carts and wagons, upwards of seventy folk, all trailing after for the protection of the armed men and despite Hal’s protests, cajoling and even threats.
Travellers all, they were latched on for safety and with their own reasons for getting down this road; one even hirpled along on a crutch refusing all invites to be taken into a cart, since he had sworn to walk to the Priory of Scone, in penance and surety of a miraculous cure. Each day they left him behind, each evening, he hobbled painfully in to the nearest fire and Hal wondered if the Priory had recovered enough from the scouring of no more than a few weeks ago to offer him succour.
Then there was the Countess. Hal sighed. Bruce had been almost wheedling, but it was Sir William who had finally persuaded Hal to escort the Countess back to her husband.
‘It has to be done and it were best done by someone unlike to be seen grinning at the husband’s cuckoldin’,’ the Auld Templar had said, then handed Hal a folded white square of fine linen with a thick black bar across the top.
‘That is a Templar gonfanon, he said. ‘Though you are not strictly a Poor Knight, ye are being asked to serve yin, namely masel’, so such a banner will keep ye safe frae both sides. Naebody with sense will want to irritate the Templars, even an earl havin’ his wayward wife returned by them.’
Hal could not find a good reason for refusing the man who had come to their rescue at the bridge and, besides, Hal had had another request that sent him in the same direction and the irony of where that had come from did not pass him by. It seemed Sir William knew something of it, too, since he asked, polite and innocent, about the fat wee man, Bisset, who had arrived looking for Henry Sientcler and no-one else.
‘A wee relic from Douglas, Sir William,’ Hal declared, shrugging lightly. ‘Wallace promised to hunt the man – he was scrivener or somesuch to Ormsby at Scone and it was thought he might ken something about the murder of yon mason.’
Sir William stroked his grizzled chin and nodded, only half listening.
‘Oh aye? And does he?’
Hal shrugged.
‘Nothin’ helpful,’ he said and wondered then why he lied. Sir William grunted and patted Hal on the shoulder, a gesture that brought a memory of his father so sharp it nearly made Hal grunt. He wanted to get back to Herdmanston, to put the confusion of Bruce and Wallace and Buchan and Englishmen far away from him, and said as much.
‘Aye, well,’ Sir William said thoughtfully. ‘Deliver the Coontess and yer done with Bruce – though I would seriously consider where yer future lies. Wallace is off to Dunkeld, I hear. Or to besiege Dundee. Or Stirling. Ye see the way of it – his rabble flit like wee midgies and clegs here and there and everywhere. He is not the man to tak’ on the English in the field, no matter what Wishart thinks.’