The Kingdom Series Books 1 and 2: The Lion Wakes, The Lion At Bay. Robert Low
the sense of it to try to the Bruce advantage in it. Short of a plot to kill him from a covert, he had failed to unravel it, but since he’d had nothing else to occupy him the time wasted had scarcely mattered. The bitterness of that welled up with last night’s brawn in mustard, a nauseous gas that tasted as vile as his marriage to the MacDuff bitch.
It had seemed an advantageous match, to him and the MacDuff of Fife. Yet Isabel’s own kin, bywords for greed and viciousness, had slain her father, which was no great incentive for joing the family. Even at the handseling of it, Red John Comyn of Badenoch had tilted his head to one side and smeared a twisted grin on his face.
‘I hope the lands are worth it, cousin,’ he had said savagely to Buchan, ‘for ye’ll be sleeping with a she-wolf to own them.’
Buchan shivered at the claw-nailed memory of the marriage night, when he had broken into Isabel MacDuff. He had done it since – every time she was returned from her wanderings – and it was now part of the bit, as much as lock, key and forbiddings to make her a dutiful wife, fit for the title of Countess of Buchan. That and the getting of an heir, which she had so far failed to do; Buchan was still not sure whether she used wile to prevent it or was barren.
Now here she was, supposedly ridden to Douglas on an innocent visit and using Bradacus’ stablemate, Balius, to do it. Christ’s Wounds, it was bad enough that she was unchaperoned – though she claimed such from the Douglas woman – but without so much as a servant and riding a prime Andalusian warhorse in a country lurking with brigands was beyond apology.
She could be dead and the horse a rickle of chewed bones … he did not know whether he desired the first more than he feared the second, but here she was, snugged up in a tower, refusing him his rights while he languished in his striped panoply in the outer ward, too conscious of his dignity to make a fuss over it.
That dropped the measure of her closer to the nunnery he was considering. He was wondering, too, if she and Bruce … He shook that thought away. He did not think she would dare – but he had set Malise to scout it out.
Now he sat and fretted, waiting for her to appear so they could begin this accursed hunt, though if matters went as well as the plans laid, the Gordian knot of the Bruces would be cut. Preferably, he thought moodily, before Bruce’s secret blade.
Which, of course, was why he and his men chosen for this hunt were armed as if for war, in maille and blazoned surcoats; he noted that the Bruce was resplendant in chevroned jupon, bareheaded and smiling at the warbling attempts of young Jamie Douglas to sing and play while controlling a restive mount. Yet he had men with him, unmarked by Carrick livery so that no-one could be sure who they belonged to.
He looked them over; well armed and mounted on decent garrons. They looked like they had bitten hard on life and broken no teeth – none more so than their leader, the young lord from Herdmanston.
Hal felt the eyes on him and turned to where the Earl sat on his great, sweating destrier, swathed in a black, marten-trimmed cloak and wearing maille under it. The face framed by a quilted arming cap was broad, had been handsome before the fat had colonised extra chins, was clean-shaven and sweating pink as a baby’s backside.
The Earl of Buchan was a dozen years older than Bruce, but what advantage in strength that gave the younger man was offset, Hal thought, by the cunning concealed in those hooded Comyn eyes.
Buchan acknowledged the Herdmanston’s polite neck-bow with one of his own. Bradacus pawed grass and snorted, making Buchan pat him idly, feeling the sweat-slick of his neck even through the leather glove.
He should have begged a palfrey instead of riding a destrier to a hunt, he thought moodily, but could not bring himself to beg for anything from the Douglases or Bruces. Now a good 25 merks of prime warhorse was foundering – not to mention the one his wife had appropriated, and he was not sure whether he fretted more for her taking a warhorse on a jaunt or for her clear, rolling-eyed flirting with Bruce at table the night before.
Brawn in mustard and a casserole of wheat berries, pigeon, mushrooms, carrots, onions and leaves – violet leaves and lilac flowers, the Lady Douglas had said proudly. With rose petals. Buchan could still feel the pressure of it in his bowels and had been farting as badly as the warhorse was sweating.
It had been a strange meal, to say the least. Old Brother Benedictus had graced the provender and that was the last he said before he fell asleep with his head in his rose petals and gravy. The high table – himself, Bruce, the ladies, wee Jamie Douglas, the Inchmartins, Davey Siward and others – had been stiffly cautious.
All save Isabel, that is. The lesser lights had yapped among themselves, friendly enough save for those close to the salt, when the glowering and scowling began at who had been placed above and below it.
Conversation had been muted, shadowed by the distant cloud that was King Edward – even in France, Buchan thought moodily, Longshanks casts a long shadow. He had put Bruce right on a few points and been pleased about it, while giving nothing away to clumsy probings about his intentions regarding the rebelling Moray.
‘Exitus acta probat,’ he had answered thickly, choking on Isabel’s smiles and soft conversation with the Lady, talking right across him and ignoring him calculatedly.
‘I hope the result does validate the deeds,’ a cold-eyed Bruce had answered in French, ‘but that’s a wonderful wide and double-edged blade you wield there.’
Hal would have been surprised to find that he and Buchan shared the same thoughts, though his had been prompted by the sight of the Dog Boy, whose life had been wrenched apart and reformed at last night’s feast as casually as tossing a bone to a dog.
‘Your hounds are settled?’ Eleanor Douglas had called out to Hal, who had been placed – to his astonishment – at the top of the lesser trestle and within touching distance of the high table. He thought she was trying to unlatch the tension round her and went willing with it. Then he found she only added to it.
‘Yon lad is a soothe to them, mistress,’ he had replied, one ear bent to the grim, clipped exchanges between Buchan and Bruce.
‘It pleases me, then, to give you the boy,’ the Lady said, smiling. Hal saw the sudden, stricken look from Jamie, spoon halfway to his mouth, and realised that the Lady knew it, too.
‘Jamie will have me a wicked stepma from the stories,’ she went on, not looking at her stepson, ‘but he spends ower much time with that low-born chiel, so it is time they were parted and he learns the way of his station.’
Hal had felt the cleft of the stick and, with it, a spring of savage realisation – the hound-boy is a byblow of The Hardy, he thought to himself, and the wummin finds every chance to have revenge on wayward husband and her increasingly fretting stepson. Gutterbluid was one and now I am another – a dangerous game, mistress. He glanced at Jamie, seeing the stiff line of the boy, the cliff he made of his face.
‘I shall take careful care of the laddie,’ he had said, pointedly looking at Jamie and not her, ‘for if he quietens those imps of mine, he is worth his weight.’
He realised the worth of his gift only later and, staring at the scrawny lad, marvelled at the calm he brought to those great beasts; the Berner’s mean spirit came back to make Hal frown harder and he suddenly became aware that he was doing it while glaring at the Earl of Buchan.
Hastily, he formed a weak smile of apology, then turned away, but he realised later that Buchan had not been aware of him at all, had been concentrating, like a snake on a vole, on the arrival of his wife.
She appeared, a spot of blood on the vert of the day, smiling brightly and inclining her head graciously to her scowling husband, the huntsmen and hound boys. She sat astraddle, on a caparisoned palfrey – at least she is not riding my other warhorse this time, Buchan thought viciously – while the Lady of Douglas, demure and aware of her rank, rode sidesaddle and was led by Gutterbluid, who had her hawk on his wrist.
Isabel wore russet and gold and, incongruously to Hal, worn,