‘What brings ye here?’ demanded Chirnside truculently and Kirkpatrick held out his hands to the flames and rubbed them, unconcerned by Chirnside’s scowls or the frank amazement of the others.
‘I am here telling these chieftains that His Grace is alive and well and will return in the spring,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘This will be greeted with smiles by these sorry chiels, since it means they can go home for the winter.’
He rubbed his hands more vigorously, as if the mention of the word had brought more cold, though it might have been the sudden swirl of snell wind.
‘Then I am headed south on a mission for … someone else,’ he said mysteriously.
‘So he is alive and well,’ Hal declared. ‘Himself, the King.’
‘A wee bit battered and bruised,’ Kirkpatrick admitted, ‘after taking a dunt at Methven. He and others have been scrambling ower these hills since, runnin’ an’ fightin’ like hunted wolves.’
‘Where is he?’ demanded Chirnside Rowan roughly and Kirkpatrick placed a shushing finger on his lips.
‘Safe. Last I saw of him he was smiling like a biled haddie at Christina Macruarie of Garmoran and his dunted face seemed no hindrance to her liking of it. He is in the care of a wheen of Islesmen of that rare wummin’s mesnie, including a fair fleet of galleys. Mind you, I suppose he will be on his knees most of this day, begging the forgiveness of Malachy in the hope of better advancement.’
‘Christ’s Bones,’ Chirnside breathed admiringly. ‘He is sparkin’ a new wummin? Yin with galleys?’
Hal poured a scowl on him.
‘With his queen fresh taken by his enemies,’ he pointed out scathingly. ‘And us sitting chittering oor teeth in the cold and wet. Others are even worse, with necks in a kinch or on a spike.’
‘Ach, you’re a bowl o’ sour gruel, man,’ Kirkpatrick scoffed. ‘At least the King is safe.’
‘Unless he dies from labouring at the tirlie-mirlie,’ Chirnside laughed. Dog Boy offered his own scowl at this shocking vision of the King swiving Christina Macruarie to terminal exhaustion. Then he looked at Kirkpatrick like an eager dog.
‘Jamie?’ he asked and grinned delightedly when Kirkpatrick nodded.
‘Safe with His Grace. It was young Jamie Douglas who found the only wee boat for miles that let us row away from Dunaverty afore the English arrived.’
Hal wondered if there was a boat still waiting for Kirkpatrick after his mission and whether it would take four more; Sim Craw, he thought bitterly, would benefit from some of this Macruarie hospitality, if only the bed and her lovenest blanket. Distantly he heard the murmur of Neil Campbell’s sibilant voice, telling the others the news Kirkpatrick had brought.
It was over, he thought dully. Another failed rebellion. More blood and ashes – and where did that leave him and the others in his care? That brought memory on him and he turned to Kirkpatrick, who was exchanging more of his news with Chirnside and Dog Boy.
‘Where are ye headed?’ he demanded and Kirkpatrick smiled soft and slow, for he had not arrived here by accident and he now gathered in the Herdmanston lord, gentle as tickling trout.
‘Ah – I wondered when ye would recall that. South. To where a certain countess is being held.’
Hal stared and Kirkpatrick tried not to be irritated at the blankness of it; Christ’s Bones, the man was mainly for sense save ower this wummin.
‘Isabel,’ he persisted, as he would to a child. ‘I ken where she is being held. I thought you and I might go there.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Closeburn Castle, Annandale
Ferial Day following the celebration of the Sancti Quatuor Coronati (Four Crowned Martyrs) November, 1306
Cheese and sobbing. Not the best of the world, Isabel thought, to take into Eternity but fitting enough for this prison which might see the end of me.
She tossed the half-round of hard cheese away and laboriously heaved at the sack it had lain on until she had struggled it across the floor in arcs, leaving little trails of barley from the gnawed holes. Mildewed, she thought, which is why it was left when they emptied this place to use as a prison. Now it will be a pillow, at least. She blew a tendril of hair from her face and fretted at the untreated grey in the russet.
‘In the name of God, girl, shut up.’
Mary Bruce was stern as a stone Virgin, but her French was pitch perfect and precise; Marjorie was past all that, the fear rippling her body with weeping.
‘Auntie, they will kill us all,’ she wailed and Mary slapped her shoulder, then gathered her into her bosom in the next moment.
‘Swef, swef,’ she soothed. ‘They will not kill us – and speak French. You are the daughter of a king, girl, not some Lothians cottar.’