The Complete Kingdom Trilogy: The Lion Wakes, The Lion at Bay, The Lion Rampant. Robert Low
and a guard stuck his wet head inside.
‘A knight, my lord. Sir Marmaduke Thweng …’
Bruce was on his feet even before the man stepped through the flap on to the wooden boards.
‘Sir Emm,’ he bellowed.
‘Sir R,’ Thweng replied, grinning. It came out as ‘sirra’, which was the jest in the piece, and they both growled like delighted dancing bears as they hugged and slapped.
‘Bigod, it is fine to see you,’ Bruce exclaimed. ‘When was the last time we met?’
‘Feast of Epinette,’ Thweng replied. ‘The tourney at Lille four years ago. You did that trick of facing a fully armed knight on a palfrey and daring him to hit you. Fine feat of horsemanship – but you were young then and reckless. Besides, they were all full of the French Method at Lille that year.’
‘Ha,’ Bruce roared back. ‘The German Method will always defeat it.’
Kirkpatrick sat quietly and if he thought anything of being ignored it never showed in his face. In fact, he was so used to being overlooked that he was actually trying to recall what the French and German Methods were – and smiled when he remembered. A tourney style of fighting, the French Method involved training a warhorse to run full tilt and bring an opponent down by sheer momentum of horse and rider. The German was to use the dexterity of a much lighter horse to avoid such a rush, wheel round and reach the opponent before he could re-engage.
Thweng accepted the wine a squire brought him and sat, shoving aside a puddle of clothing. He looked pointedly at the smiling Kirkpatrick and Bruce waved one hand.
‘My man, Kirpatrick of Closeburn,’ he announced. ‘Kirkpatrick, this is Sir Marmaduke Thweng of Kilton. He is kin – a cousin by marriage, is it? More than that, a friend from the tourney circuit.’
‘My lord,’ Kirkpatrick replied softly, with a short bow. ‘Your reputation goes before you.’
Thweng nodded and sipped, while Kirkpatrick showed nothing on his face at all. More than a mere landless Bachelor knight of the household, Thweng thought as he studied the man. Less than a friend.
‘What brings you forth from Yorkshire, Sir Emm?’ asked Bruce.
‘I bring greetings from your father in Carlisle,’ Sir Marmaduke said and watched Bruce’s face grow cold, though he managed a stiff nod of acknowledgement and thanks. Thweng drank and said nothing more on the subject, though there was a lot more he could say – Bruce the Father had spat and snarled like a wet cat and the pith of it was not what his son had done but that he had dared to do it at all. This was the first time young Bruce had acted for himself in matters of the Kingdom and it would not, Thweng knew, be the last.
‘I am off to Berwick from here,’ Thweng said and looked sideways up at Bruce. ‘Edward is no fool. He in no wise believes Percy’s assurances that the north is safe, but has held it up to the others so he can get the army off to Flanders to fight the French. However, he has kicked the Earl of Surrey off his estates to come up with another army to finish this Wallace off. I daresay the Scots are unimpressed by an old man who complains of the cold in his bones when he comes north – but come he now must and Treasurer Cressingham waits impatiently in Roxburgh. Ormsby is in Berwick, telling all who will listen about how he fought like a lion to escape the clutches of the infamous Wallace at Scone.’
‘A tale of marvels, for sure,’ Kirkpatrick offered wryly, and Sir Marmaduke smiled.
‘I hear he ran out of a window,’ he said and had it confirmed by a nod. Thweng laughed, shaking his long head.
‘The wolves gather, then,’ Bruce said moodily. None more ravening than Edward himself, the Faerie mist of him drifting steadily, mercilessly northward like a pall. Longshanks, Bruce thought, will not be pleased at having this Scots boil erupt on his kingdom’s neck and still remain unlanced. His interests are in France – further still, if truth be told, in the Holy Land.
Yet he was old and such temper was not good for an old man …
‘How is the English Justinian these days? Choleric as ever?’
Sir Marmaduke smiled at the new name given to King Edward, only half in scathing jest, as he rampaged through the laws of the land creating and remaking them to suit himself as he went. It was not, Thweng was sure, anything approaching the legendary codifying of the Roman emperor.
‘Liverish,’ he replied diplomatically. ‘The wool business has caused him problems as you might imagine, while he will not debase the sterling coinage against all the crockards and pollards from abroad. That decision, at least, is a good one.’
Bruce stroked his beard – in need of trim, Thweng noted – and pouted, thinking. The wool business – seizing the entire country’s output on the promise to pay for it later -had caused most of the dissent in Scotland, mainly because it was Cressingham as Treasurer who had ordered the Scots to conform to it and no-one believed his promises of future payment, never mind Edward’s. The profit from it had been eaten by armies for all the wars King Edward seemed to embroil England in and his own barons were growing tired of it. Wishart’s timing had not been out by much, Bruce realised.
‘The Jew money will have run out,’ he mused and Thweng nodded. The Jews of England had been summarily thrown out of the country not long since and all their assets taken for the Crown – again, eaten by armies.
‘At least you are returned to the loving grace of the English Justinian,’ Thweng declared, ‘so proving that you are not so reckless as the youth I traded lances with at Lille.’
‘Just so,’ Bruce replied and Kirkpatrick saw his eyes narrow a little, for he could sense a chill wind blowing from Sir Marmaduke. When it came, it was pure frost.
‘I also came bringing a visitor,’ Thweng went on, savouring the wine. ‘One who asked for you particularly. Before I deliver your guest, let me once again congratulate you on maturing into a man and leaving the furious, reckless boy behind.’
Now the hairs on Kirkpatrick’s arms were bristled and you could stand a cup on the thrust of Bruce’s bottom lip.
‘You will do right by this guest,’ Thweng declared, leaning forward and lowering his voice. ‘The sensible course. You will know what it is.’
He rose, idly tossed the empty cup to a frantically scrabbling squire, then stuck his head out of the tent flap. When he drew back, Isabel entered.
Bruce saw her, the hood of her cloak drawn back to reveal the copper tangle of her hair, the damp twisting it tighter still, the eyes bright and round, blue as sky and feverish – he thought – with longing.
He was, as ever, wrong. The wet had soaked her to the bone and the long ride on Balius had made her weary to the marrow, yet none of that had dented the hope she felt, the hope that blazed from her eyes.
His face shattered it.
She saw him blink and, in the instant before he spread a great, welcoming smile on it, saw the flickers of annoyance and irritation chase each other like hawk and heron across it. It had been forlorn hope, of course and she had known it in the core of her. Love was not anything deep between them but she had hoped for a better affection than what she saw. He would not take her into the safety of his arms, his castle and away from Buchan, and the weight of that descended on her.
She had taken her chance on the road back to Buchan, knowing that her refuge at Balmullo was probably gone from her, that she would be cloistered in some lonely Keep until such time as arrangement were made to cloister her somewhere more holy and uncomfortable. The aching memory of the bruises and angry lust Buchan had inflicted added urgency to her escape; getting away from the oiled skin-crawl of Malise only sauced the affair.
Yet it was all for nothing – Bruce would not help. Even as it crushed her, she cursed herself for having given in to the foolishness of it. There had been similar in her life – an older knight and, after him, the ostler boy, neither of whose names she could remember. All she recalled was the