The King presented the fact significantly, like a lawyer ending his case.
‘Has Your Grace made enquiries?’ Wishart asked blandly and the King’s drooping eye twitched a little as he considered if the bishop’s innocence was real. In the end, he made a small flicking gesture of dismissal.
‘The local priest claimed only to be witness to the invasion and torching of the house of God. He might have said more than he did, save that God gathered him to His Bosom. His heart gave out.’
‘Aye,’ sighed Wishart with beatific sadness, ‘the Question will do that to a man.’
The King looked hard at him.
‘There is no torture permitted in this realm,’ he declared. ‘Only the rule of Law.’
No-one spoke and the lie hung there.
Bruce remained silent, trying not to let the relief that flooded him rise up and swamp his face, wondering wildly how long the priest’s heart had lasted before it had stopped the mouth. What had the priest told Longshanks, Bruce wondered? Not enough, certes, or I would not be standing here, watching that eye droop like a closing shutter …
In the end, Edward was forced to continue.
‘Find the rest of this reliquary and the relic that was in it,’ he demanded. ‘Find Wallace – mark this, my lords, the Scotch who wish to return fully to my grace, who wish remittance of their fines and full return of their lands, have until forty days from now to hand Wallace over. They will be watched to see how they do.’
‘There are Scots loyal to you,’ Wishart declared, which was stepping carefully with words, Bruce thought. Then a voice crashed in like a stone in a pool.
‘All Scotch are thieves.’
Eyes turned and Malenfaunt, leaning through the huddle around the prince, drew back a little – but his eyes were fixed firmly on Bruce. The King, about to storm the man into the rushes and out of the castle for his impudence, paused.
He had heard rumours about the lord of Annandale, of course, but whispered by Bruce’s enemies … still, it might pay to let this hound run a little. Besides, his wayward son and that bastard of a serpent, Gaveston, were watching, so a lesson in kingship might be timely.
‘You have something to say, sirra?’ he rasped and Bruce saw Malenfaunt quail a little, lick his lips and flick one snake-tongue glance sideways. Bruce followed the glance and came into the sardonic face of John the Red Comyn.
‘I merely insist, Your Grace, that all Scotch are thieves,’ Malenfaunt said, almost desperately. He was not so sure as he had been concerning this. Bruce, he had been told, was no true knight, preferring the German Method of fighting, and his reputation as the second best knight in Christendom was badly earned. Malenfaunt had seen for himself the tactics used and paid for them. Or Badenoch had, since the ransom Bruce had demanded was beyond the means of any Malenfaunt.
‘All Scots, my lord?’ Bruce answered softly, with a wry smile and Malenfaunt felt the surge of anger in him, the flaring rage against the man who had cozened him out of the Countess of Buchan years before, who had laid him in the mud yesterday with a foul trick. It was the sneering smile on Bruce that angered Malenfaunt and anger was as good as courage for what he had been set to do.
‘Some more than others,’ he replied. ‘Thieves of honour especially, who swear one thing and do another at the expense of their better’s mercy.’
That was clear enough and even Wishart’s warning hand on his arm did no good. Bruce shook it off and any sense with it.
‘You will defend that, of course, before God,’ he replied and Malenfaunt felt the cold, sick slide of fear in his belly. Bruce did not seem afraid at all, for a man who could not fight like a true knight …
‘In your beard,’ he spat back. ‘God defend the right.’
‘Swef, swef,’ Wishart demanded, attempting to patch the tearing hole of this. ‘The King forbids such combats à l’outrance …’
‘Usually,’ the King replied and staved in the hull of Wishart’s hopes. Usually. The King had not meant matters to go this far, yet he had recently removed Bruce from the sheriffdoms of Ayr and Lanark because of the whispers, seeing the dangers in handing too much power to the man.
He felt a sharp pang of annoyance and sadness; he did not want to lose Bruce to his own foolish ambition, so perhaps a humbling would be good for him. It was clear this Malenfaunt creature had been set to the task by Bruce’s enemies, but he could be leashed by a king. He would have a word with both men, make it clear that, despite the use of edged weapons, death was not the finale here – though defeat in the sight of God would be humbling enough for either of them.
Afterwards, reeling with the surprise of it, Bruce was still wondering how he had landed in such a mire. Wishart was sure of how – and why.
‘You lost yer head, my lord,’ he declared bitterly and Bruce had to admit that was true enough, cursing himself for it.