Now both the knights were on their feet and snarling demands for this to end. Fitzwalter thumped the table until the noise of that beat down the cries and shouts; the young Ross and the Hospitaller subsided, scowling.
‘Well,’ said Fitzwalter with a thin smile. ‘That was more entertainment than any imagined. I am sure these two nobiles are pleased that it is over, before the curiosity of their very heads is brought out for our amusement.’
There was laughter and the talk flowed back, soft as honey; Kirkpatrick was not surprised when Fitzwalter sent a man down with coin – more than was necessary for the amusement provided. He wants to know the news the Hospitaller brings to Ross, he thought to himself, and will be disappointed, for I am not about to reveal it.
Kirkpatrick was almost sure – and revealing it would unveil his own standing in places too high for his disguised station – that the knights of St John were planning an attack on heathen-held Rhodes. That had been the talk in the quiet of the Bruce night, between brothers and those as trusted. Partly, they had worked out, because the Hospitallers needed a new base, not dependent on the good graces of the Lusignan who owned Cyprus, and because such an attack would show the Pope and others that they, unlike the Templars, were still capable of striking a blow against the infidel.
Knowledge of the when and where of all that would be financially advantageous to the Ross, who had trading concerns in Cyprus.
‘What does your companion do?’ demanded the young Ross loudly, cutting through the chatter. ‘Is he as gifted with reason?’
‘Almost the opposite, my lord,’ Kirkpatrick said, standing and bowing deferentially, ‘since he has not the sense to avoid drinking water from streams, which accounts for the state of his belly. Never drink water in preference to small beer, my ma said to me.’
There was laughter at that, but Kirkpatrick was sweating at the attention drawn to the absent Hal. Yet he had his own plan and started to put it out.
‘In truth, I hardly know the man. I met him on the road two days since and we travelled for the safety in it.’
‘You say?’ murmured Fitzwalter thoughtfully, but Ross of Wark had the recent bitterness of plots revealed still stuck in his craw and wanted to bring this mountebank cheapjack down.
‘I reason,’ he said triumphantly, ‘that you are a lute player, since you wrap those grimy rags round each individual finger, so allowing you to strum.’
‘A good bowman does the same,’ Kirkpatrick pointed out and Ross dismissed it with a scornful wave.
‘You never drew one well,’ he sneered.
‘A lockpick does the same,’ Fitzwalter offered. ‘Or a light-fingered dip.’
‘Heaven forfend,’ Kirkpatrick answered, crossing himself piously and hoping that no-one worked out that a good man with a dirk needed his fingers nimble, too. Then he smiled.
‘Or a wee chiel who sells fiddly needles and thin thread and needs pick them out o’ a pack,’ he added and Fitzwalter acknowledged it with a thin smile, while the rest of the table laughed.
‘Your reason is flawed,’ Fitzwalter said to the sulking young Ross. ‘Your monger here wraps his fingers to preserve his fortune. Pity – I would have welcomed a good lute player.’
‘Reason and Fortune were ever rivals,’ Kirkpatrick declared, while the food wafted in and out of his nostrils, clenching his belly with desire. ‘I have tale on it, if your lordship pleases – and is disposed to make a wee bit meat come my way, by way of recompense.’
‘A tale? Good enow. Steward, I daresay you have mutton, hung for the right amount of time and now cooked – hung since Martinmas if these wool dealers are any mark. I am expecting it on my own trencher and am sure you can find a bone or three for this man.’
The steward managed a smile and a deferential bow. The hall silenced, looking at Kirkpatrick, who took a breath.
‘Once,’ he began, ‘Reason and Fortune argued over who had rank on the other. Fortune declared that the one who managed to do more would be the better. “See that ploughboy there?” he said to Reason. “Get inside him and if he is better with you than with me, I will stand aside for you anywhere we meet.” So Reason got inside the boy’s head.
‘When the boy felt Reason in his head, he began to think: “Why should I plough field all my life? I could be happy somewhere else, too.” He went hame then and telt his da, who promptly beat him for his impudence and ignorance, since serfs bound to the land cannot just do as they wish.’
‘And with good reason,’ the friar announced, then realized what he had said and subsided, face flaming, amid a welter of laughter.
Good, good, Kirkpatrick thought as he waited for it to die. Now they have forgotten the wee Lord o’ Herdmanston; I hope he takes due advantage.