‘With or without you, brother,’ Bruce went on sternly, ‘the matter was not well done. And if you had been caught in it, all of us were ruined. Christ’s Bones – here you are arguing with a lesser rank like some drunken cottar and showing exactly the same disregard for station and dignity as you did in Sty Lane. It is not just yourself you risk nowadays, Edward – it is the Bruce name. My name and rank more than yours.’
Hal, fastening his belt back round his tunic, saw Kirkpatrick’s sullen scowl at being no better than ‘lesser rank’. He also saw Edward chew his bottom lip to keep silent; he knew why, too – the rumours of it were whispers within the mesnie that here was a man who wanted at least one of the titles his elder brother held and was not going to get it until that brother had the compensation of a crown. Only ambition outstripped Edward Bruce’s recklessness.
‘We must find and deal with Lamprecht,’ Bruce went on; Edward, still blunt as a hammer-blow, voiced what that really meant.
‘We have to kill him,’ he growled, ‘before he can tell others what he knows.’
‘He can tell no-one, my lords’ Hal replied carefully, ‘without giving away his own part in such affairs. Better to let him crawl away to a hole across the sea.’
‘He will tell all he knows if put to the Question,’ Bruce pointed out, patiently because he valued the Herdmanston lord and did not want to slap him down, as Edward was about to do until a look from his brother clapped his lips shut.
‘The pardoner is clever,’ Bruce went on, ‘but greedy. He will try and sell that reliquary treasure, or parts of it. Even the sight of one of those Christ-Blood rubies will trap him. Besides – there is the matter of the Rood itself. He has it. I want it.’
He looked from one to the other of them like a stern father.
‘Aye, weel, Your Grace,’ Hal said sourly. ‘Whatever his business wi’ us, it is concluded and it is my opinion that Lamprecht will consider himself safer abroad now he has failed to discomfort myself and Kirkpatrick – and Your Grace’s honour. I dinna think his revenge runs so deep as will have him try again. I understand he was birthed in Cologne – mayhap he will return there wi’ his prize.’
‘Comyn will not let him,’ Bruce replied and the cutting blade of that was too sharp to answer. Bruce let the silence slide for a moment, the thoughts piling up behind his eyes as he removed, studied, then replaced the cheek pad.
‘Buchan has sent his animal Malise after Lamprecht, and Red John Comyn works hand in glove with his Comyn cousin, the Earl,’ he said eventually. ‘If all they suspect is that the pardoner has information contrary to my comfort, it will be enough to keep them searching. If Red John suspects the presence of the Rood, he will want it for himself and his own plans for the throne of Scotland. He will not rest until he unearths it.’
Bruce removed the pad from his cheek, inspected it and put it back, his eyes bleak as a winter sea. For a moment, Hal saw the ugly wound and blanched at it, then the trailing conroi of his thoughts took him to Malenfaunt and the duel, incited by Buchan and Comyn.
For Buchan it had probably been in response to the business of Isabel, whom Bruce had ransomed from Malenfaunt while pretending to be Isabel’s husband and using that man’s own money. But Buchan had not had his countess back – Hal had got her, however briefly.
In turn, he thought bitterly, that act, for Bruce at least, was revenge for the time when Red Comyn had taken Bruce by the throat in public and threatened to knife him. Now it came to Hal, sudden as sin and just as thrillingly blasphemous, that perhaps English Edward was the best strong hand the unruly kingdom of Scots needed for, without it, the realm was already in a war with itself, played out in a mating-snake writhe of plot and counterplot, dark knifings and treachery.
‘Matters are not lost,’ Kirkpatrick said into Hal’s thoughts. ‘I can find Lamprecht – but not with Sir Hal in tow.’
He looked into Hal’s outrage and shrugged.
‘Your idea of stealth and cunning in these matters is limited to not shouting who you are at the top of your voice,’ he said, half apologetically and in French, which softened the bile of it. ‘Besides – you are hurt.’
Bruce looked from one to the other, removed the linen square and studied the stains, then replaced it.
‘Kirkpatrick,’ he said, ‘shall stay in London and seek out this Lamprecht. Hal – go back north. The men you sent must have found some trace of Wallace by now. Find Wallace, and take care of your wound, for I have need of you yet.’
Hal nodded; he had had enough of London’s stew of streets and alleys, while his ribs ached and burned in equal measure, so he leaped on Bruce’s suggestion like a fox into a coop. He and Kirkpatrick headed for the door, pausing to offer passage to one another with exaggerated courtesy.
Bruce watched them go, shoulder to shoulder like two padding hounds who snarled and growled at each other, yet seemed capable of springing to each other’s defence in an eyeblink.