Being here nagged Kirkpatrick, because it was a lick and spit away from Closeburn, seat of the Kirkpatricks and held by his namesake, who had no love for the rebel Wallace and would as soon hang them both side by side.
Isabel, however, merely smiled at his fears, though she was the other rub on the fluffed fur of Kirkpatrick’s nerves – the Countess of Buchan, striding along in ungainly leather riding boots and a plain dress, which she tucked up to ride astraddle when the fancy took her.
Wearing a threadbare hooded cloak, red-eyed from woodsmoke, having cooked for all of them over an open fire, like any auld beldame wife of a horsecorser.
It was a perfect disguise, admittedly – Buchan would not be looking for his wife here – but not only was it simply delaying the inevitable, it was not right that a noblewoman of the realm should be chaffering and handing out bowls to the likes of Dog Boy and Stirk and himself.
Hal, of course, didn’t mind – it had been his idea – and Kirkpatrick, not for the first time, shook his head over how the lord of Herdmanston was mainly for sense, save over this woman.
Still, he thought, she has at least one good use in her for me and he had put it to her one night when she was alone at the smoking fire where she was cleaning bowls and horn spoons. Squatting companionably beside her, at length he said, slow and careful as a man walking on eggs, ‘It would be better, do ye ken, if I saw to the Wallace alone.’
She wiped the last bowl clean, tucked a stray tendril of hair back under her hood and looked at him for the first time, waving away insects drunk on woodsmoke.
‘Hal did not come all this way to stand by while you speak,’ she said.
‘Why did he come?’ demanded Kirkpatrick, low and urgent. ‘That is the question begging here.’
‘No harm will come to Wallace,’ she answered firmly – more firmly than she was actually sure of, if the truth was known. But it was known only to her and to Hal and Kirkpatrick simply had to take the face of it – which he did, scowling.
‘I will hold you to it, mistress,’ he said. ‘I do not want any brawl between Hal and the Wallace over Bangtail Hob, for there is no telling which of them will come out the other side of it alive and no matter which it is, all will be in ruin.’
‘I wish this was for the concern of the lord of Herdmanston,’ she answered sharply, ‘but I know it is because of Bruce’s plans, whatever they are. You forget how well I know him.’
‘I do not forget how well you know him,’ Kirkpatrick answered. Others were moving towards the fire.
‘I pray the blessin’ o’ heaven on ye, lady, that the lord o’ Herdmanston has forgot that fact entire,’ he added viciously as he wraithed away.
They had not spoken since, in all the long days down through Peebles and Traquair, into the forest vastness that had been the Wallace stronghold and was now no more than a lair for the ragged remnants, gone back to brigandage.
By the time they circled the animals near St Cuthbert’s Chapel, while Stirk Davey was haggling grazing payment with the monks, it was clear that word of them had gone out; among the Moffat gawpers were two or three riders, who came no closer than long bowshot, looked and left.
Patient as a stone in a river, Kirkpatrick moved among the chiels and monks, chaffering and exchanging news, dropping the name Wallace in now and then to see whose eyes narrowed or widened.
As dusk crept in, he came to the fire as they gathered for thick soup and oat bread. Red-dyed by the embers he spoke without looking at any of them, as if he muttered into his bowl.
‘We will be visited tonight and they will come armed, though they will do us no harm unless we leap up and threaten them. Hal and I will go with them and if we are not returned within two hours, you must talk among yourselves as to what is best.’
Then he looked up into the great broad grin of the Dog Boy and managed one in reply.
‘Get quickly to the meat of it, where you come looking to lift us safely out of their donjean,’ he added and had back a low laugh or two for his pains.
The visitors came later than Kirkpatrick had expected, shadows against the black, a faceless voice thick with suspicion and menace.
‘Bide doucelike. If as much as the hair on the quim o’ yer wummin twitches, ye will rue it.’
For a moment, all was still, frozen – then the slim rill of a woman’s voice sluiced away the terror.
‘Lang Jack Short,’ Isabel said, firm and fierce. ‘At our last meeting, ye would no more have discussed my nethers than you would have refused the meat and ale of my hospitality at Balmullo the night we fixed Will Wallace’s leg.’
Hal almost cried out with the delight of it; if he was not already in thrall to her, he would have loved her for this moment alone; there was a pause, then a face, broken-nosed ugly, shoved itself into the embered glow of the fire,
‘Coontess?’
‘The same,’ she answered tartly. ‘Here to see Sir William. So less of your sauce, Lang Jack and do what you have been bid.’