Hal did not know what to say or what he thought Neil Campbell wanted him to say. He no longer cared whether King Robert ruled or ran away, only that he had enough power left to help him free Isabel and could be persuaded to use it.
Hal could not believe how bestial these trolls were and did not envy anyone trying to rule them. These were the ones left to defend the Kingdom? He wanted desperately to gather his men and ride back to the Lothians, to ferret out the whereabouts of Isabel and leave all this dog-puke rebellion alone – but Sim Craw was raving sick and he had two men left to him in all the world.
He needed food and shelter. He needed news on Isabel and where she was. So he smiled at them and nodded to Neil to translate his words.
‘The gathering in … this place,’ he announced, forgetting what these skin-wearers called the bowl-shape in the wilderness, ‘is so that you can all settle your differences …’
‘This new king,’ said a voice, sing-song sibilant and speaking English the way a man walked in new shoes, ‘is he a Wallace or an Empty Cote?’
The man was white-haired, bland-faced as oatmeal – at least what could be seen of his expressions under the great smoke-puff of hair and beard. Hal knew he was a rebel MacKenny chieftain from the true wildlands which belonged to the Earl of Ross and had a holding on the shores of a loch Neil Campbell called Ma-ruibhe in the Gaelic. Even in a land as strange as a two-headed goat, this Alaxandair Oigh caused his neighbours to blink.
‘There is an island in his loch,’ Campbell had told Hal, ‘where Saint Mael Ruaba has a shrine and where many folk are buried. There is a tree there, an oak and on it are nailed many bull’s heads, for they sacrifice there in the old way. To get to this island you have to brave the loch’s monster, the muc-sheilch. Truly, these folk are not like us.’
Coming from the likes of Neil Campbell, that was almost laughable, but Hal was chilled to the marrow by the tale of Alexander the Elder and had no mirth left in him. For all his lightness, Neil himself was careful around the old chief.
‘You should have demanded the stick, Alaxandair Oigh,’ Neil Campbell said sternly, though Hal heard the deferential politeness in his voice. The old man waved a hand.
‘Aye, aye. A Campbell puts me right, so he does – yet the question remains, wee stick or no wee stick.’
The silence fell like the sift of snow. A Wallace or a Toom Tabard – a fighter or a kneeler? Hal marvelled at how far and fast the legend of Sir Will had gone – and how the future of the King himself depended on it. Trolls or not, these were the only forces left.
‘He is the King,’ Hal replied carefully. ‘Wallace was Wallace, Balliol is his own man still. King Robert is also his own man – but if you want to know if he will fight, then let me say that his knees do not bend and the only way his cote will be stripped is from his dead body.’
There were approving growls when Neil translated that and Alaxandair Oigh nodded thoughtfully; amazed at himself, Hal realized that he actually believed what he had told them and the rest of it spilled from him, unbidden.
‘Your folk are gathering for this,’ Hal went on to his face. ‘It will be a foolish leader who, in years to come, has to tell his children that he missed out on the saving of the Kingdom and its king because he was cold and did not like his neighbours.’
That brought laughter and Hal handed the stick back to Neil Campbell and stepped away, glad to be rid of the whole matter. He went swiftly to Sim Craw’s sickbed, followed by the padding faithful of Dog Boy and Chirnside Rowan; they all looked down at Sim, seeing the pale of him and the fat sweat drops popping out on his forehead like apple pips.
Then they looked at each other, these last three and could find nothing to say. Hal tucked the blankets tighter round Sim, hoping that what he felt on them was cold and not damp, though it was hard to tell with his numbed fingers.
He glanced up at the rough canvas and branch roof of the bower, praying the snow did not turn wet, or even to rain and that the wind did not rise enough to blow this mean roof away. Dog Boy fed sticks to flare their fire to warmer life.
‘Bigod,’ said a growl of voice. ‘Ye turn a fair pretty speech – His Grace the King will be pleased to hear that his esteem is being lauded in these wild hills.’
They all whirled to see the familiar, dark, gaunt figure hirple out of the shadows, a lopsided grin on his face.
‘Kirkpatrick,’ Hal managed weakly.
‘The same,’ Kirkpatrick declared, hunkering stiffly by their fire and peering briefly at Sim Craw. He tutted and sucked his teeth.
‘He is looking poorly, certes,’ he said. ‘Jesu – the snaw is early this year. Another bad blissin’ frae Saint Malachy, whose day this is.’
Hal stared blankly back at Kirkpatrick’s revelation of what day it was, as numbed by his appearance as by cold.