‘Wait,’ he commanded and he felt them settle – all but brother Edward, of course, who muttered and fretted on his right.
Bruce looked at the wild, swirling mêlée, men hammering one another with blunted weapons, howling with glee, breaking off to bring their blowing horses round in a tight circle and hurl themselves back into the mad knotted tangle of fighting.
‘Now,’ Edward growled impatiently. ‘There he is …’
‘Wait.’
Beyond the mud-frothed field loomed the great, dark snow-patched bulk of the castle, where the ladies of the court watched from the comfort of a high tower, surrounded by charcoal braziers, swaddled in comforting furs and gloved, so that their applause would sound like the pat of mouse feet.
‘Now,’ Edward repeated, his voice rising slightly.
‘Wait.’
‘Aaah.’
Bruce heard the long, frustrated growl, saw the surge of the powerful destrier and cursed his brother even as he signalled the others to follow the spray of kicked-up mud. With a great howl of release, Bruce’s mesnie burst from the cover of the copse of trees and fell on the struggling mass.
Too soon, Bruce realized. Far too soon – the target saw Edward descend, the trail of riders behind him, and broke from the fight to face them, howling from underneath the bucket helm for his own men to help him. De Valence, he bellowed. De Valence.
Edward’s light, unarmoured horse balked and swerved as de Valence’s powerful warhorse reared and flailed with lethal hooves, the blue and white, mud-stained caparison flapping. Coming in on the other side, Bruce leaned and grabbed a handful of de Valence’s surcoat, took a smashing blow on his mailed arm which numbed it, causing him to lose his grip.
De Valence, off balance on the plunging destrier, gave a sharp, muffled cry and fell sideways, raking one spur along the caparisoned back of the warhorse. It screamed and bolted; de Valence, his other foot caught, bounced off behind it, yelling once as he carved a rut through the mud and into the dangerous, prancing pack.
‘Him,’ yelled Edward and his brother screwed round in the saddle as a figure – the one who had hit him, he realized – tried to get away from the Bruce men. ‘Rab – get him.’
Bruce reacted like a stoat on a rabbit, without thinking, seizing the man round the waist and hauling him bodily out of the saddle ignoring the curses and kicks and flails. He carried the man out of the maelstrom mêlée and dumped him like a sack of metal pots.
Malenfaunt, dazed and bruised, felt rough hands on him; someone tried to tear off the bucket helm, but it was laced to his shoulders. Then a voice, rough as a badger’s rear-end, bellowed into the breathing holes for him to yield. He waved one hand, sore and sick with the knowledge of what this might cost him – and at the hands of the Bruces, whom he already hated. Even the satisfaction of having saved de Valence from capture did not balm it much.
Bruce saw the man’s device, knew the man for Malenfaunt and rounded on his grinning brother.
‘We struck for an eagle,’ he said bitterly, ‘but ended with a chick.’
Edward scowled; the friendly scramble of tourney continued to whirl like the mad scrapping of dogs, to celebrate the birthday of Christ.
Abbey of Evesham, Worcester
The same night
Kirkpatrick slid to Hal’s side.
‘Gone to London,’ he grunted softly out of the side of his mouth, rubbing his hands at the flames of the great fire and not looking at Hal. He hawked, then spat in the fire so that the sizzle made those nearest growl at his bad manners. Kirkpatrick’s grin back at them – travellers and pilgrims all – was feral, as befitted his pose as a hireling soldier, rough as a forge-file and not to be trifled with.
‘Had that from three of his kind, bone-hunting wee shites like himself. Heading for Compostella, says one o’ them.’
‘They ken it is him?’ Hal demanded and Kirkpatrick nodded.
‘Aye,’ he said in a whisper. ‘An ugly dung-drop who speaks strangely and is named Lamprecht? Not hard to find even if he keeps his name hidden. Besides, he was a known face to the wee priests here.’
Hal stared moodily at the fire, while the wind howled and battered. There was snow in that wind and the travel next day would be hard and slow – they would probably have to lead their horses for most of it, so there was another curse to lay at the door of the wee pardoner, whose cunning had robbed an earl and almost led Hal and Kirkpatrick and others to their death. Hal shifted and winced; the cut under his ribs was still scabbed and leaking.
‘Should have watched him closer in the first place,’ Kirkpatrick said, as if in answer. ‘Should have dealt with him and Jop both in that night.’
Hal turned brooding eyes on him.
‘Easy as that, is it? Killed then or killed soon,’ he replied bitterly. ‘Scarce makes a difference – murder is murder.’
‘Weesht,’ hissed Kirkpatrick, looking right and left. ‘Keep that sort o’ speech laced.’