The Lion at Bay. Robert Low
him,’ she ordered and his men went to shoulders and feet. She hovered the skewer over it and saw him brace – then she struck.
He howled, thrashed, vomited and fainted. The skewer went flying from her hand and skittered across the rushed flags; even as it did she knew she had failed.
It took ten minutes for him to recover. Slick with new sweat, he managed a wan grin from the whey of his face.
‘I have the idea o’ it, now, lady,’ he said and held out his hand for the skewer. ‘Ye have the strength o’ purpose but no arm for the deed.’
She handed it to him and he wrapped all but the last fingerjoint length of it in a cloth while she watched, fascinated and appalled. Could she do this if it were her suffering?
He placed the tip of the skewer gently, just where she indicated and the blue-black mass seemed to Isabel to be pulsing now. Then he nodded to Fergus and the others, who came up and placed their hands on him in readiness.
‘Bigod,’ he said, lifted one great fist and hammered it down on the handle of the skewer.
When he came to his senses for the second time she had placed both fists on either side of the punctured wound and squeezed a festering, stinking mass of green-black pus until the blood flowed cleanly. Then she washed it in clean water and bound it in a warm bran poultice and made him a drink of henbane, knotgrass and yarrow.
He drank it obediently, made a face.
‘What did ye lace into this?’
She told him.
‘I stirred in some honey,’ she added, ‘which is what you do wi’ wee boys.’
He grinned, though his face was still pale.
‘I thought ye had poured in a pint o’ my pish, rather than taste it yersel’ to find what is sufferin’ me.’
She tidied up stinking cloths and bowls, moving soft so that the men, Fergus among them, would not be woken, though she doubted a shrieking Devil could have stirred them.
‘I have no need to lick your piss, or cast your astrology,’ she told Wallace, smiling the while, ‘for it would still come out the same – yon wound had black bile in it. If ye keep the cloths clean and take rest, ye will be none the worse in a few days.’
He experimented and grinned admiringly at her.
‘Och, the pain is vanished entire already. I will sleep the night a bit an’ be gone away by mornin’.’
‘You need more rest than that,’ she argued. ‘Some decent meals would not go amiss either.’
He frowned and shook his infested tangle of hair.
‘I have not far to go. Tam Halliday at Moffat is a safe place. We go there when all else has failed us.’
She looked sharply at him.
‘You should not be tellin’ me that, where other ears can hear. That said in a kitchen is told in a hall, sir.’
He shrugged and gave her back a lopsided smile.
‘Yer husband kens fine I am headed for there. He is safe now – I am here, am I not, at his instruction?’
‘Is he so safe, then?’
The words were out before she could stop them and he cocked his head on one side.
‘Give yer tongue more Fair days than yer head, lady,’ he replied, his smile robbing it of sting. ‘He has good points, has yer husband.’
She flushed at his chiding and he sighed a little and waved one hand.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘the man is a lion in his own cause.’
‘His cause is himself,’ Isabel persisted warningly and Wallace nodded.
‘Exactly so – and so it is that he has need o’ me. His cause is the spoiling of Bruce, ever the Comyn way, which is why he needs me, to keep Bruce dangling on declaring a kingship that belongs to John Balliol.’
He paused and the smile grew broader.
‘Mind, I would not be as sure o’ the new wee Lord o’ Badenoch, Comyn though he is.’
She nodded, knowing Red John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch since his father’s death, had his own claims to the throne. A cousin to her husband and more important because of his lineage, that wee red-headed lord could be tempted – save that he was still currently imprisoned for his part in the rebellion. She had no doubt that he would wheedle his way out, as everyone else had.
She thought of Hal and wondered where he was.
‘I will let you sleep, Sir William,’ she answered, turning away with the light.
‘Have ye seen ony o’ yer man?’ he asked, soft, gentle – and vicious as a slap. It made her turn and put one hand to her throat at the sudden rush of memories. All she could do was shake her head and he gave a long, slow series of nods in answer.
‘A good man is Hal o’ Herdmanston,’ he went on, speaking low, his face almost vanished in the dim beyond her light.
‘Not a name welcomed by some in this house,’ she managed.
‘Blue’s beauty, red’s all taken, green is grief and yellow forsaken,’ he replied, half to himself and she heard his chuckle. ‘I still have memory o’ the words o’ love, ye see, for all that it seems to have passed me by.’
‘Leave,’ she said suddenly, flooded with sadness for the man. ‘Leave this land. Find a life elsewhere. Peace …’
The chuckle was dry, rasping as talons on a wall.
‘Too late.’
His eyes glazed and she knew he was looking to a future that might have been.
‘Is John Balliol worth this?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Is any king?’
Wallace snapped from his reverie.
‘There speaks the Eden serpent’s yin true friend,’ he replied, though his grin took any venom from it. He leaned forward a little, his face set, his eyes hot.
‘John Balliol is our liege-lord,’ he said. ‘To fight for anything else in this riven kingdom is simply to forge your own chains on behalf of some usurping tyrant.’
He leaned back on the pillow and managed a tired smile.
‘And if that is too fine coming from the brigand likes of me, then settle for this – too many men would bid me to a roast an’ stick me with the spit these days. I have picked my road and will walk to the end o’ it.’
She felt a wave of sorrow and, suddenly, his face formed in the sconce light as he rose up and thrust his stare at her, serious as a stabbing. For a moment she thought he had felt her pity and was ashamed of it – then realized that all the pity came from him.
‘Your road, lady, is forked an’ ye have stood at the cross for too long. Birk will burn be it burn drawn; sauch will sab if it were simmer sawn. Mark me.’
In the morning, he bid her farewell with thanks and a gift which she hid from Buchan. Then he and all his men were gone, leaving only the sour smell and the litter behind. Buchan, risen and breakfasted early, was able to take leave of his wife at the house door in daylight, as if only he and his entourage had arrived.
‘Wife,’ he said, grunting up on to the palfrey. He felt a sudden rush of utter sadness, for her as much as himself and for what might have been if matters had twisted differently. She was beautiful still, while the events of the night before and the reason for his coming at all showed the strength and skills of her. A fine countess she would have made.
Then the memories of all her stravaigin’, her slights and breathtaking dishonours wrenched pity from him and he nodded over her head, to the spider-leg thin Malise at her back.
‘Watch,’