The page and I followed as best we could and the two squires followed us. It was only then that I realized all three had been listening intently to the conversation between Albany and Earl Rivers; and seemed, judging by the discontented expressions on their faces, to be as disappointed by the thwarting of their visit to the chapel as their master himself. And for the hundredth time, I marvelled at Albany’s perversity; at his willingness to place himself in a position where he could so easily be at the mercy of the suspected assassin amongst them. But then again, there was safety in numbers, and I would have been with him.
For what that was worth.
It was the last day of July and we reached Edinburgh towards evening.
The sun was just beginning to set, the clouds thinning to vapour trails and mackerel shoals in the rapidly cooling sky. And there, perched high above us — so high it looked impossible to reach — was the castle, like some giant eagle’s eyrie on its impregnable rock.
I sat astride my horse, mouth open, staring upwards, just as the soldiers, ordered to set up camp in the valley below, were also gaping.
Albany smote me on the back.
‘A sight, eh, Roger?’
‘How-how do you get up there?’ I managed at last.
‘Oh, it’s not impossible, nor so difficult as it looks. It’s true that the north and south faces of the rock are well nigh vertical and almost impossible to scale, and the same, to a lesser extent, goes for the western side. But we shall approach from the east, through the town, where the ascent is gentler.’
He spoke with the confidence of a native, as he had every right to do having spent a great part of his life in the city. And no doubt he had advised the Duke of Gloucester and his captains to that effect, for the sun was setting ahead of us, going down in ribbons of flame as we prepared to lodge for the night at the monastery outside the city walls, beyond the eastern gate. This, Davey informed me, having constituted himself my guide, was the Abbey of the Holy Rood, founded by King David I and granted to the Augustinian Canons in the twelfth century.
‘On a day which should have been devoted to fasting and prayer, the king decided instead to go hunting, but was knocked from his horse by the maddened stag he was pursuing. While he lay unconscious and close to death, the king saw a vision of the stag with a cross between its antlers and heard a heavenly voice telling him to build a religious house on the spot where the accident had happened. He promised and his life was spared. As well he did,’ the page ended flippantly, ‘as we are thus provided with our night’s lodging before entering the city tomorrow.’
Albany, whom neither of us had heard approach, cuffed Davey smartly over one ear.
‘Enough of that kind of talk,’ he said sharply. ‘You’re entering the House of God. Remember it!’
Davey stammered an apology and slid away to attend to his duties, while Murdo MacGregor came to conduct his master to his room in the guest house, where the Duke of Gloucester was already lodged together with members of his immediate household. The abbey’s accommodation was restricted and the rest of the nobles had been obliged to have tents and pavilions raised in the lee of the great crag which rose behind it. And yet again on this fantastic journey, I found myself, thanks to Albany, housed in better state — within the comfort of four walls and lying on a goose-feather mattress — than my superiors. It would be something to remember in old age, I thought, and to tell my children (if they were the slightest bit interested) when I was a greybeard, sitting in the chimney corner. If, that is, my children were well-enough-to-do to possess chimneys.
But this sudden recollection of my family, so carefully suppressed for so long, hit me like a blow across the heart and made me want to turn tail and run. But run where? I was hundreds of miles from home and everything familiar, in a hostile land of beetling crags and crowding forests of twisted birch and towering pine. We had ridden through one such wood only an hour or so previously, where the pillared trunks had closed about us, and where dense undergrowth of scrub and stunted bushes had thinned in places to reveal the dark, slinking shapes of wolves. Carpets of cranberry and last winter’s leaves had deadened the noise of the horses’ hooves; had, indeed, deadened all noise as men and riders were engulfed by the flood-tide of green. The road had cut, like some gloomy cathedral aisle, straight through the heart of the trees, and I had found myself whispering, as though fearing to desecrate a holy place — or some pagan shrine! This was a countryside as inimical to me as the Waste Land of the Arthurian legends. To set myself adrift in it would be to court madness or death.
I became aware of Albany watching me as though he knew what I was thinking. He was being undressed by James Petrie, who must have entered the cell-like room without my realizing it.
The duke gave his sudden short bark of laughter.
‘You were in another of your reveries, Roger.’ He eyed me narrowly. ‘Or was it more than that?’
I began to get ready for bed myself, which I did by the simple process of stripping down to my shirt, peeing in the chamber-pot and then waiting respectfully for Albany to get between the rough linen sheets before following suit.
‘I don’t know what Your Highness means.’
The duke, clad in a soft woollen nightshift, waved at James Petrie to be gone, but listened for the click of the latch as the door closed behind his henchman before speaking again.
‘You were out of your body, Roger, I’ll swear to it. What were you seeing?’
‘In the sense you mean, nothing, my lord!’ I spoke with suppressed violence. What could I say to convince him that I did not have, had never had, the ‘sight’? ‘If I was lost in thought, I crave Your Grace’s pardon, but I was thinking — seeing, if you like, but only in my mind’s eye — my own people, my own patch of ground.’
It seemed for a moment or two as if he might take issue with me on the subject, as he had done earlier, but then he shrugged and turned away to use the chamber-pot before climbing into bed.
Thankfully, I got in, also.
But Albany was not yet disposed to sleep in spite of a long, hard and wearisome day in the saddle. He sat up, hugging his knees.
‘You don’t care for this country of mine,’ he said accusingly.
‘I find it strange, my lord. Wild, untamed. Even, if you’ll forgive my plain speaking, somewhat barbarous.’
To my relief, he was not offended. In fact, the description seemed to please him. He smiled.
‘Full of hobgoblins and witches, eh? You hear echoes of a much older religion?’
I hastened to disclaim. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that Scotland was not a Christian country, Your Grace.’
‘No, of course not.’ His tone was suave, but he gave me a sharp, sidelong, bright-eyed look. ‘But then, in your own western part of England, you have many pagan beliefs, do you not? The Old Ones in their hollow hills; the Druids; Mithraism, the worship of the Bull; the Great Goddess, Mother of the Earth …’
‘These heresies did exist once,’ I admitted.
‘But no longer?’
There was an urgent rap on the bedchamber door. I heaved a sigh of relief as the latch was lifted even before Albany had time to call ‘Come in!’
‘What the devil-?’ he was demanding furiously, as Donald Seton fell on one knee beside the bed, but checked as he looked into the squire’s white face. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
Ten
A torrent of words followed, only a few of which I understood, but I could tell from Albany’s face that something serious — or, at least, something which touched him nearly — had happened. As the squire finished speaking, the duke fired a number of rapid questions at him, using the same Scots tongue as his servitor, and, eventually, when they had been answered, he lay back against his pillows, biting his thumb.