Free Lion at Bay by Robert Low Page A

them, would not be woken, though she doubted a shrieking Devil could have stirred them.
    ‘I have no need to lick your piss, or cast your astrology,’ she told Wallace, smiling the while, ‘for it would still come out the same – yon wound had black bile in it. If ye keep the cloths clean and take rest, ye will be none the worse in a few days.’
    He experimented and grinned admiringly at her.
    ‘Och, the pain is vanished entire already. I will sleep the night a bit an’ be gone away by mornin’.’
    ‘You need more rest than that,’ she argued. ‘Some decent meals would not go amiss either.’
    He frowned and shook his infested tangle of hair.
    ‘I have not far to go. Tam Halliday at Moffat is a safe place. We go there when all else has failed us.’
    She looked sharply at him.
    ‘You should not be tellin’ me that, where other ears can hear. That said in a kitchen is told in a hall, sir.’
    He shrugged and gave her back a lopsided smile.
    ‘Yer husband kens fine I am headed for there. He is safe now – I am here, am I not, at his instruction?’
    ‘Is he so safe, then?’
    The words were out before she could stop them and he cocked his head on one side.
    ‘Give yer tongue more Fair days than yer head, lady,’ he replied, his smile robbing it of sting. ‘He has good points, has yer husband.’
    She flushed at his chiding and he sighed a little and waved one hand.
    ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘the man is a lion in his own cause.’
    ‘His cause is himself,’ Isabel persisted warningly and Wallace nodded.
    ‘Exactly so – and so it is that he has need o’ me. His cause is the spoiling of Bruce, ever the Comyn way, which is why he needs me, to keep Bruce dangling on declaring a kingship that belongs to John Balliol.’
    He paused and the smile grew broader.
    ‘Mind, I would not be as sure o’ the new wee Lord o’ Badenoch, Comyn though he is.’
    She nodded, knowing Red John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch since his father’s death, had his own claims to the throne. A cousin to her husband and more important because of his lineage, that wee red-headed lord could be tempted – save that he was still currently imprisoned for his part in the rebellion. She had no doubt that he would wheedle his way out, as everyone else had.
    She thought of Hal and wondered where he was.
    ‘I will let you sleep, Sir William,’ she answered, turning away with the light.
    ‘Have ye seen ony o’ yer man?’ he asked, soft, gentle – and vicious as a slap. It made her turn and put one hand to her throat at the sudden rush of memories. All she could do was shake her head and he gave a long, slow series of nods in answer.
    ‘A good man is Hal o’ Herdmanston,’ he went on, speaking low, his face almost vanished in the dim beyond her light.
    ‘Not a name welcomed by some in this house,’ she managed.
    ‘Blue’s beauty, red’s all taken, green is grief and yellow forsaken,’ he replied, half to himself and she heard his chuckle. ‘I still have memory o’ the words o’ love, ye see, for all that it seems to have passed me by.’
    ‘Leave,’ she said suddenly, flooded with sadness for the man. ‘Leave this land. Find a life elsewhere. Peace …’
    The chuckle was dry, rasping as talons on a wall.
    ‘Too late.’
    His eyes glazed and she knew he was looking to a future that might have been.
    ‘Is John Balliol worth this?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Is any king?’
    Wallace snapped from his reverie.
    ‘There speaks the Eden serpent’s yin true friend,’ he replied, though his grin took any venom from it. He leaned forward a little, his face set, his eyes hot.
    ‘John Balliol is our liege-lord,’ he said. ‘To fight for anything else in this riven kingdom is simply to forge your own chains on behalf of some usurping tyrant.’
    He leaned back on the pillow and managed a tired smile.
    ‘And if that is too fine coming from the brigand likes of me, then settle for this – too many men would bid me to a roast an’