‘Kirkpatrick,’ de Bissot answered and the shadows of his face writhed in a wry smile. ‘I saved his life once before, in London. I cannot, this time, afford to try alone.’
The name, even allowing for the French knight’s way with it, brought all the heads up and a silence which stretched to wrap the sound of the Templar’s mount chewing the bit and shaking its head against the flies.
Hal finally turned into the grim, inquiring faces and laid the matter out like a length of poor cloth. It was received in silence for a moment, then men shifted and spoke.
‘Kirkpatrick? Are you wit-struck?’
Sim’s face was dark and truculent, a scowl which rasped Hal for no reason he could pin.
‘Aye,’ he answered. ‘The De’il o’ red murder hissel’ – in need o’ our aid.’
‘Have you taken leave of your sense?’ Mouse demanded and there were murmurs of agreement. Then Mouse saw Hal’s face and added, hastily: ‘Lord.’
‘A hard task, right enough,’ Clem Graham added sombrely. ‘Your man is in fetters for sure and surrounded by Comyn, thick as fleas on an auld dug.’
‘You are after wanting us to pluck him out, lord,’ Dirleton Will summarized, inspecting hard cheese for the worst of the mould. ‘From the teeth of the row we have already caused snatching away a Welsh archer, with folk out on the search for us.’
He popped a piece of de-moulded cheese in the middle of his beard where his mouth should be and chewed once or twice.
‘And this Kirkpatrick is the same wee mannie who promised ye a bad turn, first chance he could take,’ he added pointedly, so that those around him growled agreement as to the man having put himself beyond all aid by his own foul actions.
‘Working for Templars,’ added Fingerless Tam, nodding his point to those who looked his way. ‘Who worship Baphomet.’
Rossal de Bissot heard that and shifted slightly in his saddle.
‘They say,’ he murmured, ‘that God and all His angels have turned their backs on the Order of Poor Knights. Yet some of us hold to the vows.’
There was silence while folk turned that round in their heads, then Chirnside Rowan waved midges away from his face and snorted derision.
‘Away wi’ ye Tam Scott,’ he jeered. ‘Ye would not ken a Baphomet if it came up and beshat ye.’
There was laughter and Nebless Sandie, with a sly look at Jamie, took his chance.
‘Ask Sir Jamie,’ he declared, ‘for it seems some Baphomet loited on his lovelocks only recent.’
‘If he did,’ Jamie Douglas answered, whip-smart, ‘then Baphomet is a Welshman. If you have the belly for it, lads, there are a wheen of wee Baphomets over by, waiting for you to take a closer look.’
There were mutters at this dig on their courage, but Hal knew his men well; courage they had in plenty, but there was a deal of practical in it.
‘It is fey, this plan,’ Bull rumbled and, since he seldom said anything at all, the astonishment provided silence for him. He looked surprised himself and grew uneasy under the stares until he stared at his stirrups and grew red in the face. But Sim had spotted the grim jut of Hal’s beard.
‘You are set on this, then?’ he demanded.
‘I am a dubbed knight,’ Hal said, feeling the closing jaws of it even as he spoke. ‘I might only be a wee one from the Lothians, but the obligation is on me for it. Besides – Malise Bellejambe is overdue his reward.’
Those who remembered the murder of Tod’s Wattie nodded and the others had heard enough of it to want to be part of a vengeance.
‘Well said,’ Jamie declared cheerfully. ‘Count me with this mesnie, for I am a knight with no less honour than any here.’
‘No knight me,’ Sim Craw rumbled, ‘but my honour is as fine.’
Dirleton Will stirred at that and shook his head.
‘Away, Sim – ye are ower auld for chargin’ into folk as if in a tourney fight. Better ye leave that to nobiles and folk who dinna need to roll out o’ their beds in the middle of the night to take a pish.’
‘Ye slaverin’ wee lume. I will show ye auld – ye will reflect on it when I take ye by the clap of the hass and rip the harigails from ye …’
‘Easy,’ Hal said warningly and Sim subsided while Dirleton Will, unfazed by a threat to grab him by the throat and tear out his entrails, held up placatory palms to the scowling Sim and ruined it with a wicked sickle of smile.
Hal listened to the dry laughter, hoarse as a wind through stubble and knew it for the whistle in the dark that it was. Even this fearful, the Herdmanston men would still ride to war and Hal was sure much of it had to do with what the Welsh had done to the Templar knight in the pyre; he now had a name and that added to the horror for those who had seen and smelled him.
‘If you will give me a brace of good men,’ de Bissot declared, ‘I will strike at their rear while you strike at their head. If, in the middle of this, someone can pluck Kirkpatrick free, we will have done God’s work this day. Speed and surprise.’
‘Och aye,’ Jamie Douglas declared, his grin wild, the Dog Boy a feral mirror on his right. ‘God’s work. We are the braw lads for that, mark me.’
CHAPTER TWELVE