The Green Man (36 page)

Someone moved – I guessed from the size and shape of him that it was the groom, John Tullo – and left the chapel to search for a suitable instrument of death. My death! The truth seemed to strike me afresh.

I strained frantically against my bonds, but I could have saved myself the effort. I was bound too tightly.

Albany shook his head.

‘Don't struggle, Roger,' he said reproachfully. ‘Accept death as a stepping-stone to the world of the hollow hills, where you will live and feast forever, rejoicing in the knowledge that you have given Scotland her greatest king; greater even than Robert le Brus. For surely I shall have bigger and better triumphs than Bannockburn.'

‘And … And this was why you asked for me to accompany you to Scotland?' I stuttered. ‘To use me as a human sacrifice if you didn't become king?' Even now, I couldn't really believe it. Surely I would suddenly wake up and find that it was all a dream.

Albany nodded. ‘I suspected treachery on the part of the English. Or at least let us just say that I judged it wise to take precautions. I remembered from our first encounter, someone – maybe yourself – telling me that you were thought to have the sight, so I knew you to be one of us.'

‘I'm not one of you!' I shouted, hoarse now with desperation. ‘You're mad, all of you! Heretics! Blasphemers!'

I heard again the intake of breath, like the hiss of a snake. The mood was turning ugly. Uglier, I should say; for what could be nastier or more terrifying than a man who believed that the ritual killing of a fellow human being could win him his heart's desire? And yet … And yet … Wasn't the spilling of blood at the heart of most religious beliefs? Christianity, Judaism, Mithraism …

‘And all those apparent attempts on your life were false?' I croaked.

‘To keep you from absconding,' the duke agreed. ‘To prevent you from suspecting the truth. And in the end, of course, you proved to be worth your weight in gold, worth all the effort to keep you by my side, when it came to assisting my friend, Rab Sinclair. A pity that you stumbled on the truth, but it really doesn't matter, does it? No one will ever hear it from you now.' He turned petulantly to look about him. ‘Where's that fool gone? What's taking him so long? Surely by this time he could have found a good, stout branch that would do the job?'

‘Perhaps your groom doesn't approve of what you plan to do,' I said, although I had little hope of that. I had just felt a draught as the chapel door opened once more. Nevertheless, I went on, ‘Perhaps he's the one of your followers – the man in the Green Man mask – who kept trying to warn me that my life was in danger; who kept urging me to watch my back.'

Albany looked as though I'd struck him. He went red and began to breathe heavily.

‘If I thought that—' he was beginning.

‘He wasn't the man who warned you, Roger,' said a familiar voice, as Timothy Plummer emerged out of the candlelit shadows. ‘I did.' He turned and beckoned, and half a dozen foot-soldiers – big, brawny fellows with a no-nonsense look about them – marched in, two of them holding the struggling John Tullo, minus his mask, between them. He added, pointing at Albany and his followers, ‘Arrest these men.'

Do I need to tell you that, in the short, sharp skirmish that followed, Albany somehow mysteriously vanished? Was allowed to vanish, you can be sure of that. It was no part of Timothy's brief to arrest the King of Scotland's brother so that he could publicly be accused of witchcraft and sorcery. These things were better dealt with in the dark, as the Earl of Mar's death had been. But the other five were arrested and taken back to Edinburgh under armed guard. I was cut free of the so-called apprentice's pillar, and a sorry state I was in for a couple of days afterwards as I recuperated in the castle under Timothy's watchful eye. He proved to be a surprisingly good nurse.

‘What made you suspicious of Albany's real intentions?' was one of the first questions I asked him.

He snorted indignantly. ‘For heaven's sweet sake, Roger, I'm a spy! I know all sorts of things about people that I daresay I shouldn't. I knew, for instance, that that bevy of beauties who had fled to France to join him, had been deeply implicated in the charges of sorcery that had been levied – although never, of course, proved – against Mar. I knew, too of Albany's deep interest in the cult of the Green Man. It was he who requested – no, insisted – on the masque of the Green Man and Mother Earth at Fotheringay. That was where I stole one of the mummers' masks and wore it when I tried to warn you.'

Deeply grateful as I was for my eleventh-hour rescue, I couldn't help asking bitterly, ‘Why, in God's Name, didn't you just come out and tell me, man to man, what you suspected?'

‘Because,' he snapped back, ‘I didn't really know what it was that I did suspect. Only that you might be in some sort of danger. Which you wouldn't have been if things had gone according to plan and Albany crowned King of Scotland. I didn't want you rampaging off home, or storming off to confront Albany, or, worse still, my lord of Gloucester, all on the strength of my unfounded suspicions. I repeat, unfounded. I should have been in the shit up to my neck.'

I agreed he had a point. ‘And what will happen to Albany? The others must be for the fire or the hangman's noose.'

Once again, Timothy snorted. ‘That one will dig his own grave without any help from me. Meanwhile—' he clapped me on the shoulder – ‘news has come that the citadel at Berwick has surrendered. We're for the homeward march, my lad, the day after tomorrow. Negotiations here are completed.'

And so we were. But before I shook the dust of Edinburgh and its castle off my feet, I went to give thanks and homage to my fellow west countrywoman, that descendant of the kings of Wessex, Saint Margaret of Scotland.