The man-at-arms was called Murdo, and he knew the country well. He evinced very little interest in who Tiphaine was or how she came here, but he listened intently to her edited version of the meeting at South Shields. He seemed already to know who Rollond de Brus was, which both annoyed her and excited her suspicions, but on the other hand she was alone in a foreign country with war about to break out, and she needed all the friends she could get. Even dubious ones.
They tracked the friar as far as the Great North Road, where they had their first argument. Tiphaine wanted to follow him closely; Murdo insisted they hang back so Oswald didn’t spot them. ‘We have an advantage,’ he said. ‘We know where he is going, but he doesn’t know we are following him.’
They spent the night in a monastic hospice at Wooler, listening to thunder hammer off the flanks of the Cheviots. Morning brought damp, clammy weather and also the ominous sight of clouds of smoke rising to the south-west. Tiphaine wondered briefly where Simon was, or whether he was still alive, and then pushed the thought firmly from her mind. ‘Aye, it’s begun,’ said Murdo, mounting his horse. ‘We’ll need to go carefully now. We are only half a dozen miles from the border. Stay close to me.’
Tiphaine had no intention of doing anything else. They rode out of the hospital gates just as its single bell began to ring prime with dull clanging strokes. ‘Why are they breaking the truce?’ she asked. ‘And on a Sunday, too. What about the Truce of God?’
Murdo snorted. ‘As if anyone on the Borders gives a damn about God.’
They left the Great North Road and descended to the coast near Lindisfarne, its monastery and church dark in the distance. More smoke boiled up, to the north-west this time. The roads were ominously empty, and despite last night’s thunderstorm the air seemed heavy and threatening. After a couple of hours Murdo pointed ahead to a walled town on a steep hill, the silver sheet of a river winding at its feet. ‘Berwick,’ he said.
The tide was coming in by the time they reached the south bank of the Tweed. A ferry took them across the rushing river, the castle looming high above them and the town falling down the slope towards the water. Murdo appeared to know the ferrymen, and they him. ‘Have you seen Brother Oswald recently?’ the man-at-arms asked.
‘Oswald of Halton? That fat scoundrel. Aye, he came up the south road this morning.’
‘Know where I can find him?’
‘The stews, of course. He’ll be at the whores, as usual.’
Tiphaine could not help herself. ‘Even on a Sunday?’
‘On the seventh day, God rested,’ said the ferryman.
The sentries at the gates were nervous, eyeing the clouds of smoke, but some of them recognised Murdo too and greeted him; they paid no attention to Tiphaine, clad in her dusty gown. Inside the gates the streets were packed with people, many of them country folk from the surrounding villages who had seen the smoke of burning farms and come to seek shelter inside Berwick’s walls. Anxious, frightened faces surrounded them. On Castlegate, Murdo dismounted outside an inn and went briefly inside.
‘I’ve taken a room,’ he said, coming back out. ‘Wait there, and do not go out for any reason.’
‘Can’t I come with you?’
‘Oswald will recognise you, and I don’t want him to know you are here. Ask the servants to send up some hot water and a cake of soap. I won’t be long.’
Murdo knew Berwick well; better, perhaps, than he should have done. He had served in the garrison once, but he had visited the town before in other guises, and he knew the pattern of its streets and the towers of its churches better than those of his home town, Finlaggan, back in the Sudreyjar, the Southern Isles. Descending Castlegate, he walked down towards the port and came to Sandgate, a narrow cobbled street fronting a row of warehouses and rough stone buildings. He stopped by one of these, looking at a large man in a greasy tunic who stood in the doorway, arms folded across his chest.
‘Is Oswald here?’ Murdo demanded.
The man said nothing. Murdo flipped a silver penny into the air and the man reached out and caught it, then folded his arms again. ‘Room at the back,’ he said.
Murdo pushed open the door and went inside. The smells of steam and smoke and sweat mingled in the air. Pink figures moved through the steam, gasping and diving out of the way when they saw Murdo’s mail coat and helmet. Ignoring them, Murdo walked through the steam rooms and came to another door, which he flung open without ceremony. ‘Brother Oswald,’ he said. ‘I want a word with you.’
Brother Oswald sat on the edge of a narrow bed, a bandage on one hand and his cassock bunched around his waist. A woman knelt on the floor in front of him, working busily. The friar looked up, his face beet red with tension and outrage. ‘How dare you burst in here— Oh, body of Christ. It’s you.’
‘I want a word,’ Murdo repeated. ‘Get rid of the bawd.’
‘Fuck you,’ said the friar. ‘I paid for this, and I want my money’s worth. Come on, woman! Faster, God damn it!’
The woman complied. She was not young, Murdo thought; her breasts were wrinkled and she was missing several teeth. Oswald must be short of money. The friar leaned forward suddenly, gasping, and then flopped back on the bed, heaving like a stranded whale. Murdo jerked his thumb at the door and the woman scrambled up and out of the room.
‘You are a disgrace to your habit and your order,’ Murdo said.
‘Go to hell. I’m not listening to lectures on morality from Agnes of Dunbar’s spy.’
Murdo regarded him. ‘You were her spy yourself, once, until you mucked it up. You had one simple task, to bribe the guards at the Cow Port to open up and let our troops into Berwick, and you butchered it. You didn’t even have the decency to come back and explain what went wrong, Muc Sassanach.’
‘No,’ growled Oswald. ‘I didn’t fancy telling Black Agnes I had failed. Would you?’
‘I don’t fail. Where and when is the meeting?’
Oswald sat up. ‘What meeting?’
‘Don’t be coy with me. You carried a message from the Seigneur de Brus to the Disinherited, telling them to meet him and yourself in Berwick today. Come to the usual place, you said. Where is the usual place?’
‘If I tell you, Brus will cut my tongue out.’
‘And if you don’t, I will cut your balls off,’ said Murdo, drawing his sword. ‘Where and when is the meeting?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because I’m coming too. My mistress doesn’t like being shut out of councils. She wants to know what’s going on.’
‘Jesus,’ said Oswald. ‘Brus is an evil bastard, you know. If you show up, he’s likely to kill us both.’
‘I don’t frighten easily, Oswald. You ought to know that. I want to see the English traitors for myself, and I want to hear from their own lips what they plan to do. This whole campaign could turn on them. I’ll take care of Brus, all you have to do is confirm my story. I’ll see you safe too, though Christ knows why.’
‘Honour among thieves,’ said Oswald. ‘How refreshing to see the old values observed.’ He looked at the sword blade still pointed at his groin. ‘We meet at Saint Leonard’s convent in Bondington, an hour after vespers.’
‘See? That wasn’t so difficult,’ said Murdo, sheathing his sword. ‘Are you still working for the priory at Durham?’
Oswald said nothing. ‘So you are, then,’ said Murdo. ‘You’re spying on Brus for Brother Hugh, aren’t you? If Brus finds out, he’ll dip your bollocks in silver and wear them as earrings.’
‘He won’t find out,’ said Oswald. ‘Or if he does, he’ll learn a few things about Black Agnes’s spy as well.’
‘It’s settled then. We keep each other’s secrets.’ Murdo raised a hand in mock salute. ‘Until tonight, brother.’
Back at the inn, Murdo took off his helmet and set it down on a table. He had a long straight nose like the prow of a galley and short, roughly cropped brown hair. Steam curled from a jug of water on the table, next to a basin and a cake of yellow soap. ‘They meet at Saint Leonard’s convent,’ he said. ‘I know the place. It’s a Cistercian house in Bondington, just outside the walls and not far from the castle. The Scots smashed it up in ’33 when they were trying to recapture the town, just before the battle at Halidon Hill. Only a handful of nuns still live there, and they mostly keep to the cloister.’
‘A perfect place for a rendezvous,’ said Tiphaine.
‘Aye,’ said Murdo, pulling his mail tunic off over his head. It jingled faintly as he dropped it to the floor.
Tiphaine looked around. ‘Where is my room?’
‘This is your room,’ said Murdo, taking off the heavy quilted doublet he wore under the mail. ‘They only had one private room left. The refugees from the countryside have taken pretty much every available room in Berwick. It was this, or the common room floor.’
‘I see,’ said Tiphaine. ‘I’m not sure I want to share my room with a man.’ She looked again as Murdo unlaced a sweat-stained linen shirt and dropped it on the floor beside the jack. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ mimicked the woman who called herself Murdo. ‘Does this make a difference, then?’
‘It does. But who on earth are you?’
‘I am Lady Mora of Islay, daughter of Aonghais Óg Mac Dhòmhnuill of Islay and sister of Eòin Mac Dhòmhnuill, Lord of the Isles. I am a shieldmaiden in the service of Agnes, Countess of Dunbar.’
It was said with pride. Tiphaine stared at her, intrigued rather than frightened; if this woman had wanted to kill her, she would have done so out in the lonely wastes of Northumberland, not here in the middle of town. ‘What was a Scot doing in the garrison at Warkworth?’ she asked.
Mora splashed water on her face and body, washing away the sweat. ‘Spying on the Percys,’ she said calmly. ‘My lady wants to know where their true loyalty lies.’
‘Why?’
Mora straightened, wiping the water from her strong arms. ‘It is no secret that there are factions in the Scottish camp,’ she said. ‘My lady and her husband are leaders of one such faction. The Seigneur de Brus leads another, along with Niall Bruce of Carrick and William Douglas of Liddesdale. Most of the nobility support them, largely because Brus pays them lavishly in French gold. My lady is suspicious of Brus, and believes he has ulterior motives.’
Tiphaine shivered suddenly. ‘He does,’ she said, and she told Mora about the conspiracy last summer and Brus’s part in it. ‘When I last saw him three days ago, the herald was on his way to see your mistress.’
‘Was he now?’ Mora considered this. ‘That is interesting,’ she said slowly. ‘So, as you can guess, my lady has more than a passing interest in which way the Percys and the Disinherited will jump. If they take up the Scottish offer, Brus and his friends will win. If they stay loyal to England, there is still a chance of preventing disaster. A slim one, but a chance nonetheless.’
‘Brus set a trap for the herald. I don’t know if he reached your mistress, or even if he is still alive.’
‘News about dead heralds travels quickly. I think we would have heard by now. Perhaps Brus will tell me when we meet tonight.’
Tiphaine stared at her. ‘You are going to the meeting?’
‘Yes.’ Mora picked up her shirt and pulled it on, tying up the laces. ‘This is what will happen. You will remain in this room and not go out. I will go and reconnoitre the convent, and then find a place to hole up. After this morning’s raids, it is not safe for a Scot to be in Berwick any longer than they must. I will attend the meeting and contrive to get word to you. You must then go to Sir Thomas Rokeby, the English commander in Berwick, and tell him what I have told you. Rokeby is a good man. Ask him to take you under his protection.’
Tiphaine’s jaw dropped. ‘You would betray your own people?’
‘The Lords of the Isles are free and independent. My loyalty is to the Countess of Dunbar, not to Scotland. And from what you have said, this man Brus is dangerous and must be stopped.’
Mora pulled on her jack and mail tunic, shrugging the links of the latter into place. She picked up her helmet and set it on her head. ‘Stay safe, and wait for my message.’
‘Yes,’ said Tiphaine.
‘Good.’ Mora smiled. ‘It was a pleasure to know you, demoiselle. Perhaps we will meet again one day.’
‘Yes,’ Tiphaine repeated. ‘Perhaps.’
From the window of the room she watched Mora walk away through the teeming, half-panicky turmoil of the street. Away in the distance, smoke hung in shrouds around the flanks of the hills. She waited until Mora was out of sight, then went to the door and called for a servant. A woman in plain kirtle and apron came to the door of the room, dusting her hands.
‘I need clothes,’ Tiphaine said.
The woman glanced at her travel-stained gown. ‘I can send for a tailor, my lady.’
‘No. I need a disguise.’ Tiphaine lowered her voice. ‘I have a rendezvous with a lover. No one must know who I am.’
She handed the woman some coins. ‘Find me a white robe with a cowl and hood, like a Cistercian habit,’ she said. ‘Bring it to me by vespers.’
The fires in the valley were dying out, but smoke still hung thick as a shroud. Some of the refugees sat or stood listless in the castle courtyard, while outside others were burying the dead. There was no point in anyone going home, not when further raids could happen at any time. Lady Joan, a capable woman, was in the kitchen organising food for the exhausted people. ‘Do we know what happened?’ she asked.
‘I have spoken to the men,’ Merrivale said. ‘All tell the same story. They followed the Scots at a safe distance, with your husband and the other three well out to the front. At Linbriggs, where the valley narrows, they rode through a dense cloud of smoke. When the smoke cleared, there was no sign of Sir Gilbert or his companions. The men at once abandoned the pursuit and searched the area, but no bodies were found.’
‘Could they track the horses?’
Merrivale shook his head. ‘The ground was badly churned up by the passage of so many animals.’
Lady Joan bit her lip. ‘They must have been taken prisoner,’ she said.
The herald watched her, wondering how much she knew. ‘That is certainly possible,’ he said. ‘The Scots may have laid an ambush on the far side of the smoke.’
‘What is to be done now?’
‘Open negotiations,’ Merrivale said. He touched his tabard. ‘I will find Douglas and Bruce and confirm whether your husband and the others have been captured. If they have, I will bring you the terms of their ransom.’
Her head went down at this; any ransom for a man as important as Umfraville was likely to be costly, more perhaps than his entire estate was worth. Something is wrong here, the herald thought. Why would the Scots go to the trouble of bribing the Disinherited and then take them prisoner? Unless they knew already that Umfraville and the others were going to refuse? And if so, how did they know?
Predictably, Peter wanted to come with him. Mauro and Warin looked unhappy as well. ‘No,’ said Merrivale. He did not want to take Peter with him, and he could hardly take his two servants and leave Peter behind. ‘If there is trouble, it is best I face it alone.’
‘I hope there is trouble, sir,’ Peter said fiercely. ‘I’d like to pay a few of them back, for Davy Harkness.’
Fifteen years old, and yet he had already killed two men in the past few days and was looking forward to killing more. If ever there was a reason why this war had to end, this was it. ‘You are thinking like a man-at-arms now, Peter, and not like a herald,’ he said. ‘You cannot be both. You must choose which course you will follow.’
The boy subsided. Merrivale put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Patience is one of the virtues of an ambassador,’ he said. ‘I will return soon.’
Riding up the valley, his herald’s tabard a bright splash of colour in the grey and dun landscape, he wondered if he had done the right thing by taking on Peter as an apprentice. He makes me feel about a hundred years old, he thought, acting the role of an ancient sage passing on wisdom to the young. It is a role I do not yet feel ready to play. Tiphaine sometimes makes me feel the same.
Last night’s rain and the passage of hundreds of hooves had churned the ground to mud. He passed farms, the same farms he had helped to evacuate yesterday, now piles of charred timbers still leaking smoke. The hills grew higher and steeper. He came to Linbriggs and paused for a while, surveying the ruins and listening to the roar of the river in its stony bed, and crows cawing around the silent heights. There was no sign of what might have happened to the four men. He nudged the horse with his heels and rode on.
At Barrow Burn, where the hills crowded close and steep, he heard a clink of metal on stone and reined in, looking around and waiting. The crows cawed again, their voices harsh with warning. He heard the clink again and looked up to see a lone horseman riding down the valley, his surcoat and shield bearing the device of a red lion rampant on a field of gold. Merrivale’s hands clenched tight on the reins.
He sat motionless on his horse, waiting. Niall Bruce, Lord of Carrick, reined in a dozen paces away and raised the visor of his bascinet. He was a big man, broad-shouldered with dark eyes and a full black beard, armoured in mail and plate with a lance in one hand and a sword at his belt. ‘What are you doing here, herald?’ he demanded.
‘Surprised to see me?’ Merrivale asked.
‘No. One of the rearguard spotted you following us.’
‘And you decided to investigate. Shall we get down to business? Did you take any prisoners during this morning’s raid?’
Bruce grinned at him. ‘Sir Gilbert d’Umfraville, Sir Thomas Clennell, Sir Walter Selby and Thomas Wake, Lord of Liddell. They are in our hands.’ He paused, clearly enjoying himself. ‘They will be taken before the king, where they will be tried and executed.’
The herald’s eyebrows raised. ‘And what would be their crime?’
‘They claim lands in Scotland, but refuse to do homage for those lands to King David. They are foresworn, and they must die.’
Merrivale thought for a moment. ‘I see. What would persuade your king to change his mind?’
‘All four must submit to him, along with all their tenants and their families. They must do homage to him, and fight for him as his loyal retainers.’
‘Which is what you asked them to do when you tried to bribe them,’ Merrivale said. ‘You raided Umfraville’s lands to increase the pressure on him, I understand that. But why take them prisoner today?’
The other man grinned again. ‘Why not? If we can compel them to our will, we have no need to bribe them. Think of the money we shall save.’
‘But it looks uncommonly like bad faith,’ the herald said. ‘You need them to enter your service willingly, not through force. This all sounds rather clumsy, don’t you think? A bit like sending those men to ambush me in Tynedale three days ago.’
Bruce’s smile faded. ‘Strong words. Killing a herald is a serious offence.’
‘Not one I imagine you would shrink from,’ Merrivale said. ‘Did you not wonder, my lord, when your men never came home?’
‘How do you know they were my men?’ Bruce demanded.
Too late, the herald realised his mistake. ‘One of them told me before he died,’ he said.
The lance came down, its point aimed at Merrivale’s chest. Shouting with anger, Bruce spurred his horse straight towards Merrivale. A second before the lance point reached him, Merrivale slipped out of the saddle and the lance passed through empty air above him. Bruce hauled on the reins, pulling up his mount, and as he did so Merrivale stepped out from behind his own horse and launched himself at the other man, seizing his arm and dragging him out of the saddle. Bruce hit the ground hard, crashing down on his back with a clash of metal and lying winded. His bascinet fell off, rolling in the mud. Standing over him, Merrivale ripped Bruce’s sword out of its scabbard and threw it into the nearby river. The lance lay useless behind him. The herald planted a foot on his chest, pushing him back down as he tried to rise.
‘Two things,’ he said. ‘First, just because heralds are unarmed doesn’t mean they can’t fight. Remember that. Second, everything you’ve just told me is a pack of lies. If you’d really taken Sir Gilbert and his friends prisoner, would you really drag them all the way back to Jedburgh? No, you would be outside the walls of Harbottle now, threatening to kill all four of them unless the castle surrendered. Harbottle is the key to Coquetdale, and once you have Coquetdale you can control most of Northumberland. Douglas is smart enough to realise that, even if you are not.’
Bruce tried to push himself up from the ground again, and the herald stamped on his armoured chest, driving him down again. ‘You engineered their disappearance,’ he said, ‘and then tried to sell me this ridiculous story in hopes of throwing me off the scent. When you saw I wasn’t buying, you decided to attack me. Tell Brus if he wants to kill me, come and do it himself. Don’t send his cousin’s second-rate bastard in his place.’
He stepped back. Roaring, Bruce clambered to his feet, but before he could gain his balance, Merrivale hit him on the point of the chin with a force that snapped his head back and sent him tumbling down the bank into the river where he lay, half in and half out of the water. The herald watched him for a moment to endure that he was in no imminent danger of drowning, and mounted his horse and rode away down the devastated valley.