It is almost midsummer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Black Bitch Tavern, Edinburgh
Feast of St Columba, June 1314
The Dog Boy pushed through the throng and wished he was not here at all, nor headed where he was going; the one was altogether too crowded, the other such a trial that the setting for it was aptly named.
Edinburgh stank of old burning and feverish, frantic desperation. The castle bulked up like a hunchback’s shoulder, blackened and reeking from where it had been slighted; carts still ground their iron-shod wheels down the King’s Way, full of stones filched from the torn-down gate towers and bound for other houses or drystane walls.
Without a garrison, the town itself filled up with wickedness, with men from both sides of the divide and every nook in between, with those fleeing from the south and those filtering in from the north seeking loved ones or an opportunity. It packed itself with whores and hucksters, cutpurses, coney-catchers, cunning-men and counterfeiters, while the beadles and bailiffs struggled to keep order with few men and less enthusiasm.
What Dog Boy and the others had brought, of course, did not help, even though it was a handful of parchment, no more. Delivered to the monks of St Giles with instructions from their king, it was a spark to tinder, as far as Dog Boy was concerned.
Twelve parchments he had delivered, each hastily copied and sent here. Six were being further copied here, shaven-headed scribblers fluttering their ink-stained mittened fingers, while six were taken out by large-voiced prelates and thundered from altar and wynd corner.
The shriving pews would fill, soon. Those seeking absolution would creep from the shadows, heaped high with pride, avarice, lust and murder, to dump it at the rood screen in the hope of God’s forgiveness. The sensible sinners would flee.
Dog Boy could not read, but he knew the content of those parchments, the copies flying out to Stirling, Perth and every other ‘guid toon’ in the Kingdom. He had not known the jewel he had plucked from Berwick, bouncing around in the saddlebags of the courier’s stolen horse.
A letter, from the Plantagenet to de Valence:
… to spare Leith for the port, but burn Edinburgh town and so to raze and deface it as a perpetual memory of the Law of Deuteronomy lighted upon it, for their falsity and disloyalty. Also sack as many villages around and burn and subvert them, putting every man, woman and child to fire and sword, without exception, for they are creatures who have defied God and king both.
There was more, all in the same harshness, a great long slather of venom which had been read to Dog Boy when he had been taken in to see the King — as if that had not been shock and horror enough.
Bruce was laid up, propped on pillows in St Ninian’s with a face grey and blotched, peeling and unhealthy with sheen. He smiled as Dog Boy was brought to him, the ruin of his cheek gaping like a second mouth and his hand barely able to wave the fingers.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said into the wide-eyed concern of Dog Boy’s face, while the caring monks fussed, moving awkwardly round the great pillar of his brother Edward, who grunted like an annoyed boarpig.
‘Poison,’ he said flatly and the King fluttered weary fingers.
‘They would have been better at it,’ he wheezed. ‘Besides, this is not new, even if no one knows the cause.’
There was a silence where no one looked at anyone else, for the cause was already on everyone’s lips: lepry. No one dared admit it, all the same, just as they did not dare admit that this might be the end of the King. True, this had happened before and as bad — yet Edward had been made heir this time, just in case …
‘The Coontess would ken,’ Dog Boy blurted and the King managed another ruined smile.
‘She is no longer a countess, but Isabel MacDuff’s treatments were an ease, even though she fed me the worst of potions,’ he admitted, and then glared at the monks. ‘At least she sweetened them.’
He turned to the Dog Boy again.
‘You were daring and sprung a prize from Berwick,’ he said and indicated that Edward should read it. Even in the hot, fetid sickroom the words were rotted with hate.
‘Your reward is twofold,’ Bruce went on. ‘Take a dozen copies to the monks of St Giles and have them make copies and spread the word of this in Edinburgh. Other copies will be sent to all the good towns of the realm.’
‘It will cause panic,’ Edward argued, frowning. ‘Folk will flee Edinburgh like ants from a boiled nest.’
‘And so avoid a death that otherwise would have come on them unawares,’ Bruce replied stolidly. ‘I would rather have panic and mayhem, brother, than the deaths of those I am elevated to serve. Besides, if folk hear what the Plantagenet has marked down for them, they will grow as angry as they do fearful.’
‘The best of the realm’s men are already here,’ Edward insisted. ‘The ones who brought their own arms — men of substance, with a holding in this kingdom and a reason for needing its future.’
‘Not enough,’ Bruce said wearily. ‘I had three earls of the realm at my side — one is run off and two I made myself. The Plantagenet, even without half of his, brings thousands — twenty or more, it is said.’
‘God be praised,’ muttered Dog Boy and everyone fluttered a swift cross on their breast.
‘For ever and ever.’
‘On your return,’ Bruce went on, turning his head to Dog Boy, ‘comes the better part of the reward. I am advised, by Sir James Douglas, that you are a master with hounds, which accounts for your name.’
He smiled, lopsided this time for the cheek-drag was irritating him. Dog Boy saw that the portion of pillow under his neck, exposed by his turning head, was yellowed with old sweat.
‘You and I are auld friends,’ Bruce added. ‘Nivver violet a lady.’
Dog Boy jerked as if stung and then flushed; he had not known the King had recalled that campfire moment all those long years ago.
‘So you are now made houndsman to the King,’ Bruce declared. ‘Before witnesses. When I am well, we will hunt together, you and I, and you will breed the best dogs a king can have.’
Dog Boy had quit the place, stunned by it all. Afterwards, all during the swift ride to Edinburgh, he had been silent and numbed — raised, bigod, to be Royal Houndsman. Dog Boy crowned.
The word went out, of course, so that the others knew — Patrick and Parcy Dodd and the others all chaffed him about it and, finally, declared that they would wet the fortunate head of the Royal Houndsman in Edinburgh.
They chose the Black Bitch, as much for the aptness of name as for it being the worst stew in the town, and now Dog Boy shoved his way towards it, forcing through the frenzy of people; he could scarcely tell the difference between those frantic to leave and those frantic to squeeze the last measure of brittle pleasure from the place — but the fear was the same.
Yet there was a strange unreality. Silversmith apprentices paraded a wooden bier with a fat, ornate nef, a gorgeously worked fretwork ship of silver blazoned with Mary and Child and an enticement to customers to visit their shop. Butchers, slipping in their offal, bellowed the prices of pork and capon — originally high, they were falling rapidly because doom galloped at them and everything had to be gobbled. A pair of beadles led a whoremonger to the stocks, shuffling him through the dung close to a horse trough which would provide the dirty water he was to be soaked in.