‘Aye, right enough,’ Kirkpatrick had declared, ‘but I am charged to seek out the King’s sister and wee daughter, so that is what I will do. Will you come?’
There was no refusing it and he had made what provision he could for those he left behind. He remembered the thrashing Sim Craw, soaking his pallet branches with sweat and steaming in the cold air, while Dog Boy and Chirnside Rowan looked on.
‘Take him to the King,’ he had said. ‘Neil Campbell will help. When that is done, go where ye will.’
Chirnside Rowan, who wanted home, nodded agreement, but Hal could hardly find the courage to look Dog Boy in the face and, when he did so, his heart creaked like a laden bridge.
‘I ken,’ he said softly, ‘that there is little left at Herdmanston, less at my kinsman’s Roslin. I may never return to it, even if this venture is a success, for I am outlaw and there is nothing for me there.’
Dog Boy felt stunned by it, could not move nor speak.
‘I took you from Douglas,’ Hal went on, speaking faster now, as if to rid himself of the words, ‘at the behest of Jamie’s stepma and never regretted it for an eyeblink. Now I release you. Find Jamie and tell him this – he will take you into his care and, Heaven willing, you will both be back at Douglas when God and all His Saints wake up in this kingdom.’
The youth’s face was with him now, as he stood in the snow-humped riggs of a backcourt, feeling the wet cold seep up through his ruined soles. Pale and stricken at the thought of never seeing Hal again, the Dog Boy had brimmed his tears over and they had clutched briefly; the ache of it now was sharper than the keening snow wind.
Kirkpatrick tapped on a door, then again, then stood away from the faint light that would be spilled when someone came to answer it. He was grinning to himself when he saw it was her, her hand raised with a smoking crusie in it, the other clutching the wrap of warm wool to her as she stood, peering uncertainly.
‘Who is it there?’
He stepped forward, into the falling faintness of the crusie’s glow.
‘Annie,’ he said. ‘Bigod, yer as lovely as ever ye were.’
Hal was astounded at the sharp yelp and the plunge of darkness as the crusie fell to sizzle in the snow. There was a pause and all their eyes adjusted.
‘You …’ she said and Kirkpatrick, still grinning, nodded. The blow took him by surprise, a calloused round-house slap that whipped his head sideways. Then Hal heard her burst into tears and Kirkpatrick felt the soft warmth of her, flung into his arms.
‘Annie,’ he said, working the jaw to see if any teeth had been loosened.
‘Ye cantrip, reeking dungheap,’ she replied and sprang from him, hands on hips and the wrap flowing free so that Hal saw the considerable matronly curves of her through a dress too thin for the biting wind. She will catch chill, he thought wildly, then looked right and left to see if any of the nearest of her neighbours had come to spy.
‘I will return, ye said,’ she accused. ‘And so ye have – a dozen years later.’
‘Fifteen,’ Kirkpatrick corrected and then wished he had not piled the truth on it.
‘I was a lad,’ he added weakly. ‘With scarce any chin-hair.’
Her voice lowered too, with a swift backward glance – o-ho, thought Hal, there is a husband in this mix.
‘And I scarce had quim fluff,’ Annie hissed, ‘neither of which stopped ye.’
‘Ye were not unwilling,’ Kirkpatrick replied desperately, for this was not entirely on the track he had planned. But he and Hal saw her face soften. It was plumped and blurred a little from the heart-stopper Kirkpatrick remembered, but still brought a stirring in him. First love, he thought with a sudden ache of loss and a leap of envy at what the hidden man in the house behind her had achieved over him.
‘Weesht on that,’ she said, with another quick, birdlike flick over one shoulder. ‘I have a man noo – a good man who makes a fair livin’ from shoemaking and merchanting in charcoal and I am Mistress Annie Toller. I dinnae want to present him with an auld love on his threshold.’
‘Then do not,’ Kirkpatrick declared with a rueful smile. ‘Present me as Rab o’ Shaws, a cheapjack in need of shelter. This is Hal o’ Herdmanston likewise. Tell him we will give fair pay in ribbons and geegaws for warmth and whatever food he can spare.’
She shivered and not entirely from the cold.
‘Black Roger,’ she said softly and Kirkpatrick jerked at the name while Hal cocked his head with interest; this name was new.
‘We hear of ye from time to time,’ Annie went on. ‘And that is the name that comes with it. If ye are back here on dark business, Roger, ye can go your way.’
‘Nothin’ o’ the kind,’ Kirkpatrick lied. ‘I need ye to find Duncan, all the same. I need his help on a matter.’
‘What matter?’
Kirkpatrick bridled.
‘Annie, it is freezin’ cold – yer turnin’ blue on the step here.’
‘What matter?’
Kirkpatrick turned and indicated for Hal to come forward.