Kirkpatrick, chaffering and huckstering, dispensed good cheer and sold well, while Hal scowled and tried to keep his new-soled boots out of the worst of the mud. He felt guilty that Nichol had waterproofed them with pig fat while Kirkpatrick had been swiving his wife.
By the middle of the afternoon the glory of the day was gone back to iron and pewter, the dark closing in – but the deed, as Kirkpatrick said with satisfaction, was done; two cheapjacks had been seen plying their trade in the market and would now, unremarked, seek the hospitality of the castle, in the name of Christ and for a consideration to the Steward.
The Steward was a fat, harassed wobble and looked them up and down with some distaste. They had smeared fat on their faces against the cold and the charcoal dust had blackened it, while the rags wrapped round their hands against the freeze were grimy, the nails half moons of black.
‘For God’s Grace I cannot turn ye away,’ he grumbled, ‘but ye will eat at the end of the table and will share each other’s platters – I cannot see another wanting yer mucky fingers in his gruel.’
Hal knew that it was more the gift of silver than God’s Grace that had landed them at the Master of Closeburn’s table, while Kirkpatrick hoped the reference to gruel was a jest and not a reality in this place of poor commons.
The hall was well lit and Kirkpatrick slid in, mouse quiet and head down, keeping his pack close to him when he sat and taking it all in. Hal dumped his in a corner and joined Kirkpatrick at a bench, where they exchanged wordless information on what they saw.
The top table was dominated by empty high seats – the Master of Closeburn was absent again and Hal drew attention to it with a sharp nudge in Kirkpatrick’s ribs.
‘Chess,’ he whispered.
Kirkpatrick was scanning faces, relieved to see a few he knew slightly and who would know him only when he was not dressed so badly, or blackened of face. He had been more worried about the Closeburn women, but had suspected – correctly – that Closeburn’s fortalice was too dominated by soldiery for their taste; they would be in Auchencas, peaceful and unmolested.
Most of those at the low table, above and below the salt, were soldiery of some sort, or travellers like themselves. There were a peck of wool dealers from the Italies, a friar and a deal of rough-faced men that Kirkpatrick thought to be garrisoned here rather than passing through.
The top table held three only, one of them a knight of St John, dark and sinister in his black surcote with its white cross. Kirkpatrick did not know any of them and nudged Hal in turn.
‘The thin one with the fancy beard,’ Hal whispered. ‘Or, a fesse between two chevrons, gules. That’s Fitzwalter’s arms – the crescent on it makes him a second son.’
‘There is a John, I believe, who did not go to the Church,’ mused Kirkpatrick softly. ‘All the Fitzwalters are retinued to King Edward’s son, the Caernarvon, so that explains them being here. How about the other – the younger one?’
Hal squinted while the noise washed the hall; a servant brought them dishes and slapped them down with poor grace, no doubt considering himself a cut above the ones he catered to.
‘Or, three bougets sable,’ Hal said with a frown. ‘Again with a crescent. I know the device, but it should be three silver water butts on red, not black on gold – the arms of Ross.’
‘Ah,’ said Kirkpatrick, spooning pottage – surprisingly good – into his mouth. ‘The Wark end of the Ross family, not the Tain end. But the end is the same – where a Ross is, there are his captives.’
Hal felt a leap inside him – yes, of course. The Ross had holdings in England, at Wark on the Tyne, so perhaps this sprig of the family tree was here to escort Isabel and the others further south. The idea gripped him, almost sprang him to his feet to rush off and search – the wet nose of a questing hound brought him sharply out of the moment and he looked down.
It was a rough-coated talbot and the feel of it, the smell of the pennyroyal rubbed in its coat against fleas, brought the Dog Boy so harshly back to Hal that he had to bow his head to hide the unmanning of his eyes. He would never see the boy, or Herdmanston again, that much he was sure of. Once Isabel was rescued, he and she were gone from this God-forsaken realm …
There was a ripple down the length of the hall; the high table had called for entertainment and declared that all the lower orders must provide some form of it for their supper. The friar had started to sing in a surprisingly good, if unsteady voice and folk beat the tables appreciatively. One by one the wool dealers started in, with songs and capers and jests of varying success; Hal started to shrink his neck into his shoulders as the wave of it washed towards them.
Then the young Ross was peering the length of the table and pointing his eating knife.
‘You. You there – the babery at the foot.’
Folk laughed and Kirkpatrick immediately sprang to his feet and bowed, then capered with his arms long and his jaw thrust out, exactly like the baboon he had been compared to. There was a raucous roar of laughter and Kirkpatrick, from the corner of his mouth, hissed at Hal.