The Lion Rampant (18 page)

‘Aye til the fore,’ Sim muttered with a grim tightening of lips and Hal shouldered into the shadows under the gate.

They moved into the hot closet of a walled garden, thick with scent and singing with night insects, both strange to Hal’s senses. Stranger still was the low gurgle, like a rain-washed drain in an Edinburgh wynd – and a groan which whirled him round in alarm, squinting into the silvered moonlight shadows.

‘Sim?’

There was another low groan and the rustle of cloth.

‘Are ye hurt, man?’

He pitched his second question more urgently than the first whispered hiss, and moved towards the groans, in time to hear an ugly wet sound; the rushing gush of stink made him reel.

‘Christ and His saints,’ Sim moaned. ‘The flux …’

Greed and two bowls of spiced chicken stew, Hal thought, and had to grit his teeth to keep from bellowing it. There were more sounds and Hal moved upwind a little.

‘Ah, bigod …’

‘Whisht,’ Hal hissed, but Sim, a squatting shadow in the dim with a face pale as moonlight, waved a hand.

‘If this has not brought a dozen guards then the place is empty,’ he grunted, which made enough sense for Hal to relax a little.

‘Go on,’ Sim added. ‘I’ll follow in a breath or two.’

Hal hestitated, but only briefly, for he needed a breath or two that did not have Sim’s innards in it. He moved through the neat undergrowth; no useful plants here, only decorative ones, which was a waste of growing land as far as Hal was concerned. The whirr and flap of wings made him pause, half-crouched in the bulked shadow of a building dominated by a tall, circular tower.

The double doors of the place were open, the inside dark as the Earl of Hell’s yett hall; Hal, sweating and icy, crept in, rolling his feet and wincing at every careless clack of booted sole on tiled floor.

The only light came from the moon and the faintest of pale glows ahead, but Hal’s eyes were dark-adapted now and made out the shape of arch and doorway. Cellar, he thought. That was where Piculph had said the crew of the
Bon Accord
were kept, so he looked for a way that led downward.

He scouted the edge of the room, slow and cat-wary, avoiding candlestand and statue, chair and bench, until he came to stairs leading down. Four steps and he was at a door, which yielded a fingerlength before the key-lock rattled it to a halt; a voice froze the blood in Hal.

‘Fit’s that thaur?’

Pegy’s northern Braid, faint and muffled through the thick timber of the door, permitted Hal to breathe again. He told Pegy who he was and heard the excited rush of murmurs from the others, but found that the door was thick, stout and locked. According to Pegy, Doña Beatriz had the key. Fretting and sweating, he promised them he would return and slid back into the shadows.

No guards; no sign of life. Perhaps, Hal thought, Piculph has done his work after all – there was a whirring sound and he ducked instinctively, throwing himself flat on the tiles. After a moment, when nothing else happened, he climbed back to a low crouch, heard a soft fluting call and perched, bewildered.

Light flared like a blast of icy breath and bobbed through the open door, a torch held in Sim’s big hand, so that Hal, blinking blindly into it, knew he was caught in a half-crouch, sword ready.

‘Whit why are ye hunkered there?’ Sim boomed and Hal sprang up.

‘Whisht, you – I heard something.’

Sim peered round, raising the sconce torch higher.

‘There is nobody …’ he began, then the whirr and the soft call came again, making Hal cry out.

‘Cooshie doos,’ Sim exclaimed with a bark of laughter. ‘Ye are hiding from the attentions o’ some cooshie doos.’

Hal realized Sim was right and that the high-roofed place had doves in it, though the next thought that struck him was where had they come from? He was too embarrassed to mention that as he straightened up and gave Sim a vicious glance.

‘Yer arse back in order?’ he demanded and Sim scowled, angry and ashamed.

‘For the minute,’ he admitted, ‘though I am black-affronted.’

‘Black-behinded as well, I am sure.’

Sim’s reply was interrupted by a dove which fluttered down, tame as a lap dog, and strutted into the torchlight in a hopeful search for food.

‘Cooshie doo,’ he declared with a triumphant grin. Hal scowled back. Doves did not fly in the dark normally, which he mentioned. Nor did they spontaneously bleed, which brought Sim’s head round to study the bird more carefully; it hopped and flapped up but there was time enough to see the pink staining on one wingtip.

Then, in the lip of light expanded by Sim holding up the torch at arm’s length, they both saw the limp white hand beyond.

Doña Beatriz had died quickly, struck from behind by a single blow from a blade that had sliced upwards off her shoulderblades and cracked open her skull; her hair lay like dead wet snakes in the spreading darkness of blood.

‘Backhand stroke wi’ a broadsword,’ Sim growled, waving away the flies greedy for gleet. ‘She was running, which spoiled the aim – planned to swipe her head off her neck but missed.’

‘Piculph?’ Hal suggested, bemused, but Sim had run out of knowledge and merely shrugged, winced and massaged his belly, trying not to look as Hal, swallowing his own spit hard, fumbled in the stiff, bloody ruin of the woman’s body.

‘No key,’ he declared finally, smearing the back of his clean hand across his sweat-moist lips.

They moved towards the faint pale glow, unnerved enough now for Sim to stub out the torch on the tiles, pressing his boots on the embers, swift and silent, as a prudent man would who had known only rush floors and wood surrounds; the acrid stink of the smoke trailed them towards the light.

There was a door, open just enough to let out the faintest of glows, an alarmed dove which flew off in a rattle of wings – and a faint, regular heartbeat of sound which paused them both and brought their heads together.

‘A wee fountain,’ Sim hissed, his breath foul in Hal’s face.

‘A horologe,’ Hal replied, having seen the ticking wonder of gears and cogs that had been mounted in Canterbury. Sim, who had only heard of such a thing, looked sceptical as they slid, fast and quiet, into the room.

The light came from the moon, which was almost straight above and shining through a roof tight-slatted with wooden beams, but otherwise open – Hal realized they were inside the tower he had seen from the outside and that this view of it was as strange.

The floor was earth and blue-tiled meandering paths, spattered with white splashes where it was not thick with exotic plants. A pool dominated the centre and the walls, all around, top to bottom, were pocked with regular square niches, as tall and wide as two fists one on top of the other; even as he stood and gaped, Hal heard the flute-note call that was now familiar.

It was the sprung stones, girdling the entire thing at waist height like a belt, that finally clicked it into place for the pair of them.

‘A doocot,’ Sim marvelled. It was exactly that: the sprung stones to keep the rats from climbing up to the eggs and squabs; the slatted roof to keep the hawks from the same, while allowing the doves in and out. Yet something had killed a couple of birds, their bodies splayed like orchids veined with blood. The ticking was louder.

‘Water,’ Sim declared, pushing through the veil of blossoms to the pool.

It was almost all blood, the pool, drained from the gently swinging nakedness of Piculph, hanging from the sorrowful bend of a willow-tree bough.

He had been hard used so that death had come as a mercy to him, but not before he had suffered the shrieking terror of being whipped to a flayed ruin. Nor had he been dead long enough for all the life to have drained away; it fell, viscous and soft as cat’s paws, drop by ticking drop from the dangle of his arms and head.

The slamming door whirled them round and Sim gave a sharp cry as something whirred like a dove wing through the air, curved round his neck and jerked him off his feet; he flew forward and was dragged, choking.

Hal, with reflexes even he did not know he possessed, slashed out with the sword and the black, thin snake that seemed to have leaped out and grabbed Sim round the neck whipped away; there was a curse and Hal sprang to Sim’s side as the man rolled over, coughing and choking.

He had time to see that it was no snake but the remains of a leather thong – a whip, he realized, remembering Piculph’s ruined body – and then a voice cut the air.

‘Quick, for an old man. You have spoiled my surprise – and I had spent a deal of time perfecting that lash; I did not know how many would come and needed an advantage.’

De Grafton stepped into the moonlight like a verse in black and silver, the limp dangle of the whip in one hand, the flash of steel in the other. He wore black Templar robes and it seemed as if the dark had eaten him.

‘Two only? Then Piculph told it true.’

He shrugged ruefully.

‘Pity. I did not believe him. I thought this Ruy Vaz would send his host at least – two old men is not a little insulting.’

‘Enough for you,’ Sim managed, but his voice was hoarse and the throat burn in it palpable.

‘Ruy Vaz and his men are on their way,’ Hal added, hoping it was true.

De Grafton moved, sudden as an adder, the tongue of ruined whip flicked and a dove veered off and flew away, calling alarms. De Grafton frowned.

‘You have severed enough to ruin my aim,’ he said and tossed the whip away with disgust. It was that, more than anything so far, which drove a cold steel blade of determined hate into Hal, suddenly revolted by a man who had spent the long, hot afternoon practising his whip on an innocence of doves while his human victims marbled in the heat.

‘Wee birds and women,’ Hal answered, finding his voice at last. ‘This seems your strength, de Grafton.’

He moved as he spoke, between the fronds of a palm, crushing the jade-pale stems and heads of some flowers, so that a cloying perfume rose up.

‘The lady? She believed this Piculph, thought to go with him and throw herself on the mercy of Ruy Vaz.’

De Grafton’s lip curled with revulsion.

‘Thought to use her women’s ways’, he said, ‘to slither out from punishment and leave me to bear the brunt of wrath. I killed her as you would the snake in Eden and then found out what was needed from Piculph.’

‘Who was no great fighter,’ Hal answered, sidling closer.

‘A Serjeant of the Order of Alcántara,’ de Grafton sneered. ‘If they are all like that, the Moors will be in this port within the year.’

‘You will never ken,’ roared Sim, bulling up from the floor, even as Hal shouted at him to stay.

De Grafton slid to one side, the sword flicked, fast as the whip, and there was a dull clang and a splash which curdled Hal’s blood; he sprang forward, but recoiled to a halt as the sword flicked out at him. From where he stood he could see Sim sprawled on the far side of the pool where the blow had flung him, half in and half out, covered in blood and not moving; Piculph’s disturbed body swung and turned while doves mourned in the moonlight.

‘You have a key I need,’ Hal said, trying not to look at Sim, while de Grafton cocked his head to one side like a curious bird.

‘I am charged with delaying you – preventing you entire if I can,’ he replied, almost sadly. ‘I gave my oath to my lord Percy and his English king, as a Poor Knight.’

‘The Poor Knights are no more and your oath is as worthless as your honour – you are long fallen from any grace,’ Hal replied, moving a bough of fragrant blossoms from in front of his face. ‘Piculph did not die because you wanted to know how many were coming here – he died because you wanted to know if Rossal was. Himself and the Templar writ he carries. Which you would take from his whipped body after he had revealed the secret word.’

There was silence, broken only by the gory drip and the flutter of terrified doves.

‘Did you work out that you alone had not been party to the knowledge? They did not trust you, de Grafton, even though they could prove nothing. Yet Rossal knew – perhaps God told him.’

He shifted slightly for advantage, poised and ready for a strike.

‘You can deny your oaths and cheat the Order enough to gull foolish men and silly women,’ he went on. ‘But God is watching, my lord.’

There was a pause, and then the doves erupted in fragile terror as de Grafton launched into a snarling frenzy, seeing all his plans shredded at the last.

He was fast and trained with all the honed skills of a Templar, so that Hal reeled away, a shock jolting through him at how slow he was, how far removed from his own old skills. Yet the same reflex that had cut the whip from Sim sprang the bough of blossoms from his hand and slapped its fragrance into de Grafton’s face, making him turn his head to avoid it; the scything blow hissed over Hal’s ducking shoulder like a bar of light.

Then the clouds drifted over the moon and everything was sunk into darkness.

There was silence, broken only by the frantic bird-sounds, which clouded Hal’s ears. There was nothing but scent and space and blackness – but it was the same for de Grafton, he thought, and fought to control the ragged rasp of his treacherous breathing.

A flurry of thrashing came from his left – a bird had blundered into de Grafton and he had struck out, so Hal moved as swiftly as he dared and slashed left and right, then retreated without, it seemed, hitting anything.

Birds whirred and slapped through the dark, flute-wailing their distress. Something splashed in the fountain and Hal wondered if de Grafton was there; the idea that he was finishing off a wounded Sim almost sprang him recklessly forward, but he fought the urge.

Sweat trickled down him and he found himself in a half-crouch, as if the ground would open up a safe hole and let him crawl in; the scent of flowers and old blood drifted on the night breeze.

The clouds slid off the moon; a silver and black shadow flitted across from his left and the blow almost tore the sword from Hal’s grip, forcing him to dance backwards. He parried once, twice, managed to block a low cut to the knee, and then was alone as de Grafton whirled away like a wraith.