Slowly but surely the panic drained out of me, leaving me with a feeling akin to emptiness, like a vessel that has been cleaned and scoured. And gradually, in its turn, calmness and sanity returned. I was not alone any more. I was sure, although I had had no sign, that my prayers would be answered.
The chapel door creaked open and I turned my head. A man’s form was framed in the doorway.
‘What, by all that’s holy, are you doing in here, Roger?’ Albany demanded. He sounded annoyed. ‘Murdo and Donald have been searching everywhere for you.’
Eleven
I turned my head.
A shaft of pale sunlight — too pale for early August, though I guessed that to be normal this far north — inched its way across the threshold elongating Albany’s shadow and making him appear both taller than he was and somehow menacing. Motes danced along its length, whirling and spinning. Somewhere I could hear a cat mewling and a faint smell of cooking wafted from the castle kitchens, borne on a freshening breeze.
‘Do you want me, my lord?’ I asked, surprised. I moved towards him across the dusty floor. ‘I thought you would be closeted with the duke and your uncles, working out terms of the peace. I presume there is going to be peace?’
‘All that can wait,’ Albany answered tersely, adding on a bitter note, ‘Whatever they decide, I doubt it will concern me. At least, not yet.’ He grinned, baring his teeth like a hunting dog scenting his prey. Not for the first time I speculated about this plan of his that would secure him the throne of Scotland in the face of what was obviously turning into a combined opposition of friends — well, former friends — and foes alike. There was nothing to be gleaned from his expression as he moved out of the sunlight and glanced around him, a little contemptuously I thought, at the meagre proportions of the chapel. ‘You still haven’t said what you’re doing here. Is our sainted Queen Margaret of such interest to you?’
I explained her descent from the kings of Wessex, including Alfred, and her relationship of half-great-niece to the Confessor himself, and then told him bluntly that I had sought her protection to see me safely home again to the west country. I added that I had also offered up prayers to those other two sons of the Somerset soil, Saint Dunstan and Saint Patrick.
To my astonishment the information seemed to disturb him.
‘Nonsense!’ he exclaimed sharply. ‘What I mean is,’ he amended hurriedly, ‘that the saints have too much else to do, are far too busy, to attend to the likes of us.’
I knew he really meant ‘the likes of you’, but was too tender of my feelings to say so. (I’ve never yet encountered a high-born person of either sex who did not think him- or herself worthy of the special attention of every saint known to man.) But I let it go with a smile and a shrug.
‘Besides,’ Albany went on with a nervous laugh, ‘I don’t want the saints’ intervention on your behalf, at least not yet awhile. I’ve work for you to do. That’s why Murdo and Donald and I have been searching for you.’
‘Work, my lord?’
He snorted. ‘Oh, don’t put on that innocent, I-don’t-know-what-you-mean face with me, Roger. You were present when Donald brought me the news that my servant and friend, Rab Sinclair, has been arrested and is awaiting trial for the murder of his wife. I’ve already said that I want you to prove him innocent.’
I sighed. ‘My lord, as I understand it, Master Sinclair was caught literally red-handed, still holding the knife, in the presence of his wife’s body. It would need a miracle, a total suspension of belief, for anyone to prove your friend innocent.’
Albany looked mulish. ‘He swears he’s innocent. That’s good enough for me.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Not yet. He’s immured in one of the prison cells. But I have permission to visit him. You will accompany me.’
‘So you don’t yet know what his story is?’
‘No.’
‘He doesn’t deny, I take it, that he did indeed kill his wife?’
‘No, of course not. How could he?’
‘So what is his defence?’
‘I’ve already told you!’ Albany sounded irritated. ‘I haven’t yet seen him. I’m waiting for you to accompany me. Now!’
The considerate prince and master had disappeared. In his place was an arrogant man used, even in exile, to having his orders and whims obeyed. It reinforced my belief that, however much one may delude oneself, it is impossible ever to know real friendship between commoner and king. (Or, in this particular case, not quite a king, but one who had not altogether given up hope.)
There was no point in postponing the evil day any longer, so I stood back with a courteous gesture — well, I thought it was courteous, but the duke looked highly suspicious of my sudden politeness — and begged him to lead the way.
The prison cells of Edinburgh castle were as noisome as any other prison cells anywhere, probably, in the world. The smell was, as always, the worst thing; an odour compounded of shit and urine and rotting food mixed with sweat and that peculiarly sour stench of bodily fear. We had no difficulty in passing the guards; a scrawled line from one of Albany’s half-uncles opened all doors. My own feeling, which I naturally kept to myself, was that each side of the Council table, Scots and English, were glad to be rid of him on any pretext: he had become an embarrassment to them both. The case of Rab Sinclair had proved a godsend; it was rather like tossing a dog a bone or giving a child a toy to play with while the adults made the important decisions. I didn’t suppose for a minute that Albany saw it that way, or that any such suspicion crossed his mind, so intent was he on helping his old servant, even to the extent of neglecting his own affairs. Reluctantly, I was forced to admire him for that.
There was the sound of trickling water somewhere in the cell and the walls were furred with lichen and moss whose seeds must have entered one way or another, though it was impossible to tell exactly where. There was no glimmer of daylight to be seen. The gaoler, a grim man with greasy black hair and a wall eye, had provided me with a lantern whose feeble glow nevertheless gave sufficient illumination to make out the figure of a man hunched up in one corner of a bed — if you could have called it that — his manacled feet fastened by a chain to a rusty ring fixed in the wall. As we approached, the wavering beam illuminated a handsome face not yet grown haggard by incarceration, but showing signs of worry and fatigue.
He glanced up and, with a cry of joy, struggled to his feet.
‘My lord! My dearest lord! You’re here! You’re actually here, in Edinburgh!’ He seized Albany’s hand and tried to kiss it, but the duke gently pushed him back on to the bed and sat down beside him. I was left standing, holding the lantern, like the lackey they thought I was. The man went on joyfully, ‘I didn’t expect you, not without some fighting. I knew, of course, that the Sassenachs were within sight of the city walls, but like everyone else, I suppose, I imagined that there would be resistance.’ He added eagerly, ‘Have the Council already affirmed you as king?’
‘No, not yet.’ Albany spoke tersely, but then, as his friend would have spoken again, silenced him by continuing, ‘No more of that for now. Your concerns are more pressing. We need to prove you innocent of this charge against you before you are brought to the humiliation of a trial. And here — ’ he nodded towards me — ‘is someone who is going to help us.’
I would have demurred, but was interrupted by the prisoner.
‘Who is he? How can he possibly help us?’
The tone was arrogant, dismissive even, making it plain that no low-born commoner could possibly be of use to a Sinclair except in a menial capacity. ‘And why are we talking English? Is he English?’ was a question uttered with the utmost suspicion. ‘I thought it was Murdo — he’s tall enough — but I see now that it isn’t.’