He looked at her. They had been together long enough for him to already know her moods by the way she held herself – anger stiffened her body, which actually enticed Hal, even if he knew the lash that would accompany it.
‘I have followed the plough,’ he said, remembering the days when, as a boy, he had trotted after the brace of oxen driven by Ox Davey, walking in that straddle-legged way ploughman do, one foot on weed, one foot on soil and a valley, deep as a hand, between. Davey had been Red Cloak’s da, he remembered suddenly.
Sim himself – older and stronger, as it seemed he had been all through Hal’s life – had showed him what to do with the worms. They would carefully pick the wrigglers, exposed by the scart of the plough, heel a hole in the soil, drop the worm in and say, like a ritual, ‘There ye be, ya bugger. Work’
Isabel was not surprised by the statement; it came to her that nothing this man did would surprise her.
‘You have not followed the plough for a while,’ she replied, smiling, and he looked at her, stern as an old priest, which did not suit him and almost made her laugh.
‘When I became a man, I put aside childish things,’ he said and, because he was perched on the back of Balius, was able to look down his nose at her.
‘And took up the pompous, it appears,’ she answered tartly. ‘I take the hint that I should also put away the childish, but have no fears – I imagine my husband has a lesson or two prepared, while the De’il, as anyone will tell you, has a special room made ready for my imminent arrival.’
She reined the palfrey hard, so that it protested as its head was wrenched.
‘It is hard to decide which is worse,’ she called out as she turned away from him, ‘though the De’il, I am thinking, will be less vicious than the Earl of Buchan – and less tedious than a ploughman from Herdmanston.’
Cursing, Hal half turned, looking for words of apology and racking himself for his stupidity – what in the name of God had made him sound like some crabbed auld beldame?
The great warhorse grunted and leaned on the reins, testing the limits of the rider. Hal, though he was still getting used to the distance from the ground, had ridden a warhorse like this before – Great Leckie, his father’s destrier – to learn the ways of fighting with lance and sword. Leckie had been a lesser radiance than this Balius, though just as expensive to keep.
Hal saw Pecks, the ostler released by Bruce to make sure Balius reached Buchan in pristine condition, sitting sullenly on the cart solely committed to the oats, peas and beans for the beast’s fodder. It was moot, Hal thought moodily, whether Bruce was more concerned about returning a glossy Balius or a glossy wife to the Earl of Buchan.
He slewed back round to face front – and stiffened. Black, greasy, sullen as raven feathers, the smoke trails drifted wearily into the leaden sky and he reined in Balius, feeling the gathered power of the beast, which always seemed on the point of exploding. Pecks, lurching with the bounce of the cart in the ruts, stood up a little and craned to see.
‘Are we biding yonder?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘I see they have the fires stoked. Hot commons and warm beddin’ the night, is it yer honour?’
Hal growled and spat and Pecks, who was used to working for better than his master’s discarded leman and a supposed knight with the ways of a dog, looked at Hal with some disgust; these Lothians were filthy as pigs, with manners to match and the finest thing about their leader, this so-called Sir from Herdmanston, was the horse that was not his own and which he should not be riding.
The blow on his chest reeled him backwards and he gawped at the arrow. Then the world sped towards him, big and black, and he jerked instinctively, but something seemed to hit him in the face. Alarmed, he then felt a crashing blow on his shoulder and the side of his head and, at last, realised that they were attacked and tried to get off the bed of the cart.
Around the time he found out the crash on shoulder and head had been his falling off the cart to the road, the arrow that had gone through his eye and into his brain finally killed him.
Hal saw the ostler hit, saw the brief astonished look, then the second arrow took the man in the eye and he went down. An arrow whacked into Hal’s chest – but he was wearing an arming jack and a coat of plates and a cloak, all sodden, so the shaft bounced, caught and hung pathetically, snagged to the cloth of his coat. The hard blow of it, even cushioned by padding, rocked him backwards and rattled his back teeth.
Then Hal saw the men pelting out of the trees and the entrance to the inn, yipping with little bird-like cries. Behind, he heard more high-pitched screeches and the screams of the attacked.