Albany laughed at what must have been my shocked expression.
‘Eloise was my late brother’s mistress,’ he explained. ‘She stayed with the others after his death and came to France to serve me. She preferred to pass as a boy, so we disguised her as my page. She may well stay a boy, even when I am king. She likes it … But we are wasting time.’ The duke was suddenly serious. He glanced over his shoulder at the slim, straight figure standing behind him, the face hidden by the grotesque Green Man mask so that I had no means of knowing what Davey — or Eloise as I must now try to think of her — was feeling. ‘Don’t be afraid, my dear. Take his knife from his belt and stab him cleanly through the heart, as Murdo has shown you.’
The girl nodded.
‘Saint Margaret,’ I prayed fervently, ‘help me! You are my countrywoman. You are of the royal house of Wessex. Aid me now in this moment of my greatest danger. Saint Dunstan! Child of Somerset, Abbot of Glastonbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, intercede for the life of a fellow Englishman.’
The words went babbling stupidly through my head, without making any sense, as I saw the slight figure advance resolutely towards me. I believe that at that point my mind was completely numb with terror. I tried desperately to think of Adela and my children, my home, but images of them wouldn’t come. All I could see was a great pit of darkness opening up at my feet …
‘Wait!’ No one was more surprised to hear my voice, loud, strong and authoritative than me. For a brief moment, I even wondered who it was that had spoken and why my would-be killer had stopped dead in her tracks.
‘Go on!’ urged Albany. ‘Eloise, go on! Let’s get this over with. The sooner he’s dead, the sooner the gods will move to have me accepted as king.’
‘Wait,’ I shouted again, and looked at Albany, the only one who had removed his mask. It was easier to address a human face. ‘You say I must be killed with my own knife. Is that part of the ritual?’
‘Well, what of it?’
‘This is not my knife.’ I jerked my head, the only free part of me, downwards to the weapon tucked in my belt.
‘What do you mean?’ Albany was growing angry. He suspected a trick.
‘This is Donald’s knife,’ I said. ‘He lent it to me yesterday when I was attacked in the street. Murdo was present. He can confirm it.’
The duke swore violently and swung round on one of the two taller figures at his side.
‘Is this true?’ he demanded. The green mask dipped in acknowledgement, calling forth another colourful string of curses that might, in different circumstances, have provoked my admiration. Albany spun back to me. ‘Where’s your own knife?’ he yelled. ‘The one you use for meat?’
‘I left it behind. I noticed at dinner that it’s grown blunt and needs sharpening. I thought Donald wouldn’t mind if I used his for a while. He didn’t seem in any hurry to have it back.’
‘You fool!’ the duke screamed at his unfortunate squire. ‘You stupid, feckless, unthinking idiot!’
‘What are we to do?’ asked the familiar voice of ‘Davey’. Knowing the truth, I wondered how I could ever have thought it the voice of a man.
‘Be quiet and let me think.’ Albany was chewing his knuckles in frustration. After what seemed to me to be the longest few moments of my life, he said, ‘The apprentice who built this pillar was killed by a blow to the head. We’ll use the same method. Find something one of you. Quickly! We still have to dispose of his body, and that will take time. I must be back in Edinburgh by this evening.’
‘And how will you explain my absence?’ I asked.
Albany grunted. ‘Nothing easier. You gave us the slip. You deserted, as you’ve been wanting to do for weeks now, and are probably making your own way back to England.’ He shrugged. ‘If, that is, anyone cares where you’ve gone.’
‘His Grace of Gloucester will care,’ I said, hoping to God and all the saints that I was right.
The duke slowly shook his head. ‘I’ve already prepared my cousin’s mind, these few days past, for the idea that you’re ripe for desertion. In any case, I don’t think the notion was new to him. He’s a fair man and realizes that you’ve fulfilled the purpose you were hired for. So he won’t send after you or trouble his head with where you’ve gone until he needs your services again, which may be many months ahead. Perhaps longer.’ He rounded furiously on his henchmen. ‘Why are you standing there like so many dolts? Don’t pretend you can’t understand English! Find a bludgeon of some sort. Anything so long as it’s heavy enough to kill him with a single blow. And pray to Mother Earth that the blood spilt thus, rather than with his own cold steel, is acceptable enough to secure her and her consort’s intervention to make me king.’
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.’