‘I make no claim on you, Dog Boy,’ she said softly. ‘Neither for him, nor last night.’
Dog Boy knew that Hob did, though he would not voice it, but he nodded, and then grew more firm.
‘I will be back, God willing, when this is done with.’
She dragged him close then, held him hard for a moment or two, and released him so quickly that the pair of them staggered. He blinked, frantic not to unman himself with tears, and bent to little Bet, who put a thumb in her mouth and stared.
‘Have you a buss for me, wee yin?’ he asked and she looked uncertainly at her mother, who nodded. She took out the thumb, grinned and kissed his cheek, a sparrow peck that left snotters on his beard.
Hob stood, eyes large and bright, so that Dog Boy was lost, had no words. Then, suddenly, he dipped in his boot top and came out with his long dagger, thrust the hilt at the boy and watched his eyes widen further.
‘Take it. Defend your ma until I come back.’
Hob looked at the hilt, up at Dog Boy, then across to his ma, who smiled. He reached out a hand and took the dagger, dragging it close to his chest and cradling it like a new pup.
‘Dinna cut yerself,’ Dog Boy said with a grin, ‘or we will both of us suffer an even sharper edge — your ma’s tongue.’
There was a shared moment, the pair of them against the women, before Dog Boy nodded to Bet’s Meggy and turned away, aware of all their eyes on his back and anxious to put distance between them, yet feeling every step drag.
He was still bleared with it when he came to the forge, red-glowed and shifting with silhouettes, eldritch against the rising sun behind him. He stood, peering and shifting to try and see better, until a voice growled out of the last shadows of the night.
‘Dog Boy, stop jigging there and come closer.’
He knew it, even before he saw the shock of the battered face, the filthy wrappings round one arm and a body gone past lean and saluting scrawny. Yet the eyes were bright enough and laughing at him.
‘Sir Hal,’ he said. ‘God’s Wounds, it is good to set an eye on you.’
‘Set the pair — I do not charge.’
Dog Boy was still grinning when the loss of Sim Craw fell on him; Hal saw the eyes cloud with misery and knew at once what it was.
‘Sore,’ said Dog Boy, bowing his head. ‘He will be much missed.’
Hal had no words to say to Dog Boy, for all of them had been taken out by him in the past days, examined and thrown away as not adequate. Sim was gone and the hole he left in the world was filled only with black sadness.
Instead, he gripped Dog Boy by the arms — Gods, there was iron in them — and drew him close. For a moment Dog Boy stood limp, then his own arms came up and wrapped Hal and they stood for a moment, sucking the comfort of it into one another, before breaking apart.
‘You have grown a tait,’ Hal said, noting the height and width of him. He flicked the badge on the mostly unstained jupon. ‘Come up a station or two, betimes.’
Dog Boy nodded, and then blurted out the wonder of the last night before he could stop himself.
‘I have a son,’ he ended.
Hal listened to the tale of it, spilled out in fits and starts as if Dog Boy could scarce believe it himself. If my Johnnie had not died, Hal thought, he would be of ages with Dog Boy. Maybe sired his own son. The realization hit him hard and he blinked. I could be a grandda. I am now the Auld Sire of Herdmanston, as my father was.
‘They are here,’ Dog Boy went on, as if he had read Hal’s mind. ‘All the Herdmanston folk who could come to support the Kingdom and our king.’
There was marvel in his voice, but Hal already knew, had been told by his kin from Roslin about how the Herdmanston fields were being tended. Chirnside Rowan, grizzled and grinning, had come up with Sore Davey, pox-marks unfaded. One by one, old familiar faces had come up to him out of the midsummer night, bending a knee and anxious to give him news, to offer balm and solace for the loss of Sim Craw.
Fingerless Will, Dirleton Will, Mouse — they were all here, older and leaner and with wives and bairns and even grandweans. Full of news and hope.
Alehouse Maggie had died the previous month, they told him, so it was a blessing that Sim had not lived to learn of that, for it would have broken his heart. Cruck houses had been rebuilt around Herdmanston’s broken tower, the garth wall had been drystaned anew, but neither brewhouse nor forge nor bakery had been rebuilt — the first because they had no brewer with the death of Maggie, the second because they had no smith since Leckie the Faber had run off to spend a year and a day in a town and so escape his bondage. And the third because Bet’s Meggy had no one in the keep to bake for.
It was probably burned out anew, he thought, by the English foragers, or the deserters and outlaws from both sides — but the hopeful eyes lashed him to silence on this.
He had thought only of Isabel, yet he was still the lord of Herdmanston — the Auld Sire, no less. He told them he would be back once matters were settled here. He told them Herdmanston would be rebuilt — which got him a look from Sir Henry of Roslin, worried that he would be asked to help foot the bill. Hal put Henry at ease by telling him he would not call on his liege-lord aid and, because of what he had done to help the King, Henry relaxed, thinking Hal had been promised royal largesse.
The truth Hal kept to himself; underneath the stone cross, nestling with the remains of his son and his wife, were six Apostles, buried long ago by himself and Isabel; those wren’s-egg rubies which had once graced the reliquary of the Black Rood would more than pay for Herdmanston.
Given by Wallace to Isabel as a gift, he recalled.
Isabel. He stared at the dawn until the light started to blind him; somewhere beyond the glare of it, she waited for him. Or so he hoped.
A horn blared and Dog Boy shifted.
‘Muster,’ he said simply and Hal nodded. Dog Boy waited expectantly, but Hal made no move and, when he spoke, the bitterness tainted it.
‘On your way, Dog Boy,’ he said. ‘I remain here, by order of the King. I have, it seems, done enough service.’
He managed a wry twist of smile up into Dog Boy’s obvious confusion.
‘What he means is that I am auld and wounded and long removed from the practice of arms. He means it well, but I am left with the women and bairns.’
Dog Boy felt a rush of anger at that treatment of this man, but let it slide away — even from just looking, it was clear that Hal of Herdmanston would be a danger to himself if he put on harness and stood in a wall of men in such an affair as this.
Unlike Kirkpatrick, who stumped up, cowled and braied in maille and wreathed in smiles. He thrust a shield at Hal.
‘Fresh done by the limner here. I took your advice.’
Hal stared at the upraised iron fist, clutching a dagger which dripped blood. It was exactly as he had described it to Kirkpatrick in a fit of venomous pique.
‘Aye,’ he said, seeing the glint of laughter in Kirkpatrick’s eyes. ‘You will put the fear in them with this, certes.’
‘They will ken me, which is to the point,’ Kirkpatrick declared vehemently. ‘They know me as the royal wolfhound, a wee sleekit backstabber. Now they will see that I am a knight of this realm as well.’
Hal did not know whether Kirkpatrick meant the English or all the Scots lords who fought them. Both, he decided as Kirkpatrick frowned down at him.
‘I am sorry you have to remain here, but Sir John will be happy to have some expert help. See what came out of those tun barrels …’
He turned away to follow Dog Boy, laughing as he did so, then paused.
‘The smith says your sword is ready.’
Hal went into the forge lean-to, wondering what Kirkpatrick meant about the tun barrels. The smith was a dark, unsmiling man, his leather apron pitted with old spark-burns, and he handed Hal the sword wordlessly; it had been cleaned and sharpened and polished lovingly.
Behind the smith was a clatter and rattle, a curse and then the limner came into view, spotted with paints from where he had been touching up lordly shields all night. Red-eyed and weary, he was a small, mouse-haired ferret of a man, indignant and angry at what he had been given to do.