After those had been exhausted or broken, it would be fists and teeth, Bruce thought grimly.
The rules regarding the conduct of squires and the hundreds who thronged to watch had been read out – no-one horsed on pain of death, no-one else armed on pain of death or loss of property – for this was no raucous entertainment, but a solemnity of chivalry to decide which knight was favoured by Heaven. It was decreed by custom and Law and, therefore, by God.
Bruce, moving stiffly and talking in single words, was aware that all the procession and pomp and conspicuous legality was because, when all else was done, there were no rules at all in that rectangle of tilt field.
Outside his tented pavilion was a low hum like a disturbed byke; they were removing the altar, crucifix and prayer book on which each man had sworn to defend the right of his honour before God. Bruce nodded for the squire to leg him up on to Phoebus and the horse, knowing what was expected of him, trembled a little, baiting on the spot so that the splendid drape of his covering flapped. Bruce settled himself with a creaking of new leather.
‘Faites vos devoirs,’ a voice called and the squire handed Bruce up his helmet.
‘Faites vos devoirs.’
The squires dragged back and fastened the flaps of the pavilion and the crowd spotted him, swelling up to a roar of approval, drowning the final ritual call for both men to ‘do their duty’.
The two caparisoned beasts moved out, led and flanked by squires, on to a tiltyard cleared of snow and laboriously sanded. The Tourney Marshal waited with one white glove in his raised hand. He paused; the crowd fell silent.
At least this is the last act of ribaldry, Bruce thought, and glanced at Malenfaunt, seeing how pale he was and how his face, framed in maille coif, seemed clenched like a fist. He wondered if his own was as stiff and tight and if the reason for appearing unhelmed was less to do with making sure the combatants were who they were supposed to be than for each of them to savour the fear of the other.
‘Laissez-les aller,’ the Marshal said, dropping the glove. Let them go. The squires bustled, handing up shield and lance; the first was slid through two straps on the left arm, the latter rammed firmly into the fewter attached to the stirrup.
Bruce half-turned to where Elizabeth sat, raised the lance in salute, seeing his squires scatter from him. The handing of the lance was the last allowable contact from human hands that either would receive until matters were over.
He took his helm from his saddle bow and slid it over his head, plunging himself into the dark cave of it, split only by the framed rectangle of view from the slit. His breath, magnified, wheezed in and out and he tried to slow it, feeling the end of his nose rasp against the metal. Opposite, the inhuman steel face of Malenfaunt stared blankly back at him.
From now on, Bruce thought, we are alone in this. Save for God.
Woods at Pittenweem
The Feast of St John the Evangelist, December, 1304
If it was not for the bad luck, Bangtail thought to himself, I would have no luck at all. It was bad enough having lost the cast of a dice to the Dog Boy without having the sour memory of losing the last of his dignity to the chiel as well.
Now Dog Boy was riding back to the comfort of Edinburgh and on to Sim at Herdmanston while Bangtail Hob, once the Dog Boy’s better in every way, followed the guide up a muddy trail in the freezing cold.
Once, but no longer. The memory of it burned him with shame and loss. He had woken, warm and languorous in the tangled bed under the eaves of Mariotta’s Howf in Kinghorn only this morning. A glorious, roaring night it had been, him and the Dog Boy both; Mariotta’s was a favourite of Bangtail’s and had been for years after Mariotta herself had gone to the worms.
He had woken in time to hear the rhythmic beat and grunt and squeal, in time to see the quine from last night sit up and stretch and yawn, her body white and marked here and there with ingrained dirt and the bruising of too-rough hands, but lithe still. She turned, smiling with a deal of teeth left, as he grunted upright and rubbed his eyes. The bed shook.
‘Sorry to have been sae much trouble,’ Bangtail growled, nodding at her bruises. The bed rattled and the squeals grew louder but Bangtail could not see behind the quine.
‘Och,’ she said gently, patting him like a dog, ‘ye were no bother, Bangtail – ye nivver are. It is the youngster ye brought that is loosening all our teeth.’
And there it was, laid out like bad road for Bangtail to glower on. Dog Boy, still ploughing exultantly and Bangtail who was ‘nivver any trouble’. His years whirled up like leaves and crashed on him like anvils; he had aches and the thinning hair on him was less straw and more silvered. He had to roll out of his bed most nights to piss.