Kirkpatrick knew, with sick certainty, that there had been a great error and he was the one who had made it. Lamprecht was nowhere near here and Mabs would not want folk walking out of Sty Lane who could chain Jop and Lamprecht, Mabs and Sty Lane and robbery of the King’s Treasury in one shackle.
She leaned against the fetid timbers of the sty and gazed fondly at the giant sow.
‘Yes, yes,’ she crooned. ‘You are a greedy girl …’
Her giggle, strangely young and girlish, was chopped short by a thin, high whistle from Kirkpatrick as he sprang forward and Mabs reeled back. Rat-Fur slithered to put her behind him – but Kirkpatrick’s blow was no slaughterman’s cut, it was the flick of a killer.
Rat-Fur staggered away, choking and holding his throat, a thin jetting of blood forcing itself between the clench of both his hands. Both Mabs were squealing as loudly as each other and men were shouting – one of the big-hatted ones ran at Hal and he slashed the air, forcing the man to a skidding halt. For a few steps Hal danced awkwardly with him, slithering in the clotted mud, then the man bored in, a great slack, foolish grin splitting the tangled hair of his face.
Hal was no knife fighter, but he knew a few tricks. He raised his arm as if to strike, then lashed out with his foot, feeling it collide high up on the man’s thigh. It missed his cods, but the pain jolted him, deadened the leg so that he fell and then lay, one hand raised like a knight demanding ransom for yielding.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘I have daughters …’
Hal stopped, the dagger poised. The man got on one knee, then lashed with his free hand, a sharp knuckle that slammed into Hal’s already damaged ribs. The pain whirled through him like fire, a blinding shriek that took him to his knees in the shite; he heard the man snarl, saw the long butcher knife winking.
Stupid, he thought. Should have just killed him.
Then there was a sudden spill of bodies, men with the lower part of their faces covered, wielding long swords and the wrists that knew how to use them. The man facing Hal half-turned, gave a short scream and tried to run; the better portion of a good blade flashed into his ribs, spraying gore as it came. As he fell away, the man holding the blade let it slide out with a soft suck and grinned with his eyes – even without the mask, Hal knew Edward Bruce.
The men brought by Kirkpatrick’s whistle came up fast and hard, muffled as much against the stink as recognition. There was a flurry of cuts and screaming, then Hal turned to see that Mabs, trembling and on her knees, was the only one left; only she and the pigs squealed in terror now.
‘God disposes,’ Kirkpatrick said to Mabs. ‘How fast the world turns, eh Mabs – one minute you are planning the diet of your pet. The next, you ARE the diet of your pet.’
‘Wait,’ said Mabs, looking from Kirkpatrick to Hal and then at the rest of the grim, masked men who had appeared. Armed like King’s men, she thought, but hidden against recognition, so not them. If not Longshanks, then there was a chance to deal …
‘Wait? For what? Friendship? Something deeper?’
‘Enough,’ growled the muffled voice of Edward. ‘This is no place to be toyin’ with your food, man. Eat the porker, or leave her on yer plate.’
Men laughed as Mabs whimpered and appealed to the one man who seemed detached and unconcerned.
‘The Rood. The Rood, lord,’ she said. Hal, nursing his ribs, was taken by surprise; he had been watching the giant sow, seeing her unconcerned and luxuriating. Sae cantie as a sou in glaur – happy as a pig in muck. It had been a phrase he thought he had understood until now, when he had seen a sow of this size luxuriating in her filth.
Mabs’ desperation jerked him from the reverie, stunned him with a shock like cold water as to how he had been standing in the midst of all this, daydreaming.
‘The Rood,’ he repeated and Mabs leaped on it, worried it with feverish hope.
‘Jop and Lamb Prick had it, sir,’ Mabs wheezed, nodding furiously in agreement with her own words. ‘I gave Lamb Prick the little bitty wood in the thing, sir, of being more account to him than me. Jop wanted more and persuaded Lamb Prick to steal the cross with the stones. A murrain on them both.’
Hal blinked as the words sank in like rain on a desert. He tried to straighten, felt something tear and gasped, so that Kirkpatrick turned to him, frowning.
‘Is that all of it?’ Hal managed.
Her head threatened to nod itself from her shoulders, her huge breasts shook.
‘Round his neck on a string. It is no more than finger-length, lord.’
Kirkpatrick and Hal exchanged glances. It was good to have matters confirmed, but no joy to be reminded that it had been under their noses at the start …
‘Faugh,’ said Edward Bruce. ‘This place stinks and is dangerous – time we were away.’
Mabs saw the look in Kirkpatrick’s eye.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Wai –uurgh.’