CHAPTER 4: BACK TO THE PRETORIUM

CHAPTER 4: BACK TO THE PRETORIUM

Copyright, Thomas Hoskyns Leonard, Edinburgh, October 2017

                                                                        

An hour or so later, Sir Richard was lying between the dead bodies of his wife and squire, his head embroiled in a trance and bespeckled with black flies, when he was distracted by a noise by the wardrobe. When he looked up, none other than the vagabond Rim Spit was standing there all alone in his filthy brown tunic.

“Away with ye, peeping Tam of the nicht!” howled Sir Richard, and Rim tumbled frantically down the stairs and out into the night.

Sir Richard feverishly drank from a tumbler of murky water, spat out a frantic fly, and threw himself onto the chaise-longue where he remained transfixed for hours on end.

And the rabbi of Dene appeared in a shining silver tallit in Richard's dreams.

“You live a life of violence in a world full of violence, my son,” declared the rabbi, “but if you truly follow the teachings of Matthew, you will live in peace and help bring the world to peace. In the words of Basil of Caesarea, 'A tree is known by his fruit, a man by his deeds.'”

“Thank you, kind rabbi,” replied the sleeping Richard, from the depths of his inner self. “I will try to remember that. But who poisoned my beloved Ingibiorg, and my darling Cedric too?”

“You will resolve that mystery in your mind after you have travelled across the Sea of Atlantis to the lands of divine consciousness, brave knight. In the meantime, you will encounter great anguish, great joy, and abject misery.”

“I understand, Father,” said Richard, as the rabbi vanished in a cloud of golden dust.

The grief-stricken knight was awoken, as the light began to creep through the quarter-pane window, by a slow stomping coming up the stairs. To his surprise, the gaunt, parrot-faced figure of his neighbour Father Kelp Haggart, the custodian of St. Ninian's Chapel near the West Port, emerged into the boudoir dressed in his priestly garb and holding aloft the Cross of Christ as if to temper his own inadequacies.

“It is true, foul knight!” howled Haggart, upon witnessing the horrific scene. “You have in all verity murdered your good wife and her wicked lover too. And now the maggots run roost around their bodies. Our good Lord will send you to rot in the Styx with insects eating your belly.”

“I don't need to hear this claptrap from a craven bloodsucker like you,” growled Sir Richard. “My dear Ingibiorg and delightful Cedric were poisoned before I arrived, and they died, entwined as one, in my arms in perfect trinity.”

“Out of your own mouth, evil perjurer!” yelled the piskie-like Haggart, now completely besides himself. “Delightful Cedric indeed! You have committed abomination upon outrageous anathema. I will report you to the Bishop for excommunication and to the Sheriff for a long lingering death.”

Sir Richard rose to his feet, maggot-ridden, and threw the adulterous cleric down the stairs, from whence the dishevelled fellow retreated in haste to the decadence of his rectory next door.

Maybe it would be best to stay for a while in my retainer Colin Skink's tiny cottage by Bruchton Market, deliberated Sir Richard, slowly dressing himself. Yes, I will hide there for a few days until the truth of this dire situation reveals itself. I will travel afoot, and return for Xanthos when aged Colin tells me that all is safe.

The mortified knight was fleeing up Queen Maud's Walk at lightning speed, rivalling even Pheidippedes of Athens, when the furtive figure of the Troubadour of Arbroath appeared yet again by Kitty Corner, strumming his lute.

It must be a ghastly ghost, concluded Sir Richard. Not even Fortuna can twist chance with such preciseness in time.

Sir Richard descended the Steps of Eidyn into the Cowgate and ascended the Rameses ramp onto the steep High Street, with the city gateway looming under the Netherbow Port about twenty yards down to his right.

Instead of taking the more publicly visible route off the volcanic escarpment through the port, Sir Richard stumbled across the street and pursued a dirt track down to the Nor Loch (where the city was not defended by walls because of the protection afforded by the noxious waters of the loch). The track wended around the eastern end of the loch and took him onto the Chanoine Road, with the straw pagan edifices on the top of Calton Hill looming above him.

Two lassies appeared in Sir Richard's way near a junction in the road, playing with hoops.

“Would you like to play Jump the Hoop with us?” asked the girl with the pigtail.

“I'm already trying to jump through a few, fair lassie,” replied Sir Richard, with a start.

The straggly girl with the skinny ribs blinked. “You could have fooled me. You're too fat for that.”

“Buy yourself a hairnet,” he replied, throwing her a coin.

When Sir Richard looked back to his right, he saw four horseman coming at speed towards him from the direction of Holyrood.

This can't be my Apocalypse, he agonised. Kelp Haggart wouldn't have been able to raise the alarm quickly enough, and it surely can't have been the cowardly Rim Spit.

When the horsemen drew up, Sir Richard recognized them from their purple ermine as Crown Agents, representing the interests of the king.

“Sir Richard de Liddell,”announced the prosperous Sir Cuthbert Arbuthnot, with aplomb. “I arrest you for the murder of the noble Lady Ingibiorg de Liddell, and for foul treason against the King.”

Sir Richard drew Vindicta, in a frenzy, and waved the proud sword aloft.

“Not me!” he howled. “I am no wife slayer, as I stand true to Almighty God and my king.”

“Try telling that to bloody Brodie when he bores holes into your head,” retorted Sir Peregrine Flynn, dampening Sir Richard's ardour with a swinging blow of his mace.

“Please, father dear, don't hurt this poor knight,” pleaded the girl with the pigtail, running up. “He wouldn't harm a rabbit, or a mouse.”

“Almighty God will be the judge of that, my precious one,” replied Sir Peregrine, blowing his daughter a tender kiss.

They threw a large enmeshing net, imported from a Teutonic castle in Poland, around Sir Richard, and dragged him behind their horses with his face scraping the ground, back down to Holyrood, up the cobbly Canongate, under the Netherbow Port, and through the sludge up to St. Giles.

When they reached the Pretorium, a crowd was pelting a thief hanging from a hook in the wall with stones, and the heads of two traitors were impaled on a single spike.

Three eager minions hauled Sir Richard all the way down through the rock to the Crimsonwood Chamber, and fastened him, spread like an eagle to the top of a shining metal table. There they beat him with iron chains, and left him for trepanning at such time that the sheriff and his depute might return, at their pleasure, from their hunt for the human prey that lurked in the Forest of Morningside.

This has indeed been a journey towards jeopardy, lamented Sir Richard, feeling fit to burst free from his bruised torso, and the last thing I want is burrs in my head.

“Ingibiorg, Cedric, Ingibiorg, Cedric,...,” mumbled Sir Richard, awhile later, trying to keep his mind lucid whilst the pain from Sir Peregrine's mace ripped through his gut.

The wretched knight looked upwards when two sheriff's officers hauled a slender, black-haired youth into the torture chamber. The new prisoner was dressed in the mud-splattered attire of a nobleman.

The officers threw the unfortunate youth into the stone wall, beat him with unbecoming relish, and hung him in chains from the wall in front of Sir Richard with his tunic well-ripped and blood dripping from his ears and nose.

“You won't be wearing those fancy boots for much longer, Hamish Douglas,” said the surlier of the officers, spitting venom. “We'll be back in a trifle to shave off your villainous hair for your crown of thorns, and to boil your dainty feet in oil.”

“My noble ancestors hung jerks like you from their lances,” seethed Hamish.

“I'll slice your pretty nuts like a pair of rosy apples for that attempt at an insult,” replied the redder-faced of the officers, with a cruel grimace, as he left for the guardroom and yet another tankard of ale.

Sir Richard knew, in his capacity as a judge, that sixteen year old Hamish was a cousin of Archibald, the fifth Earl of Douglas, the Lieutenant-General of Scotland. However, Hamish had fallen foul of his powerful relative by eloping with Lord Archibald's thirteen year old ward and wounding an ogle-eyed henchman who was in hot pursuit by crashing a chandelier onto his head.

Sir Richard recalled that when the zealous henchman withered away and died from his infected injuries, Hamish escaped at pace over the English border. But he'd returned following the birth of his baby daughter, in the hope of marrying his one true love who was being kept under lock and key in Balvenie Castle well away from her illegitimate bairn.

Sir Richard felt a touch angry when he remembered that Hamish had accidentally killed an adventurous knight of the realm who attempted to climb after him when he tried to scale the castle walls. The foolish youth dislodged a brick which struck the wretched fellow square on his nose. That put Hamish in cart-loads of trouble.

Nevertheless, Sir Richard decided to address the unpredictable Douglas with a measure of civility. “I am a Judge of the Royal Court, though unfortunately temporarily detained, kind Sir, and I believe from my knowledge of your case that you have been treated unjustifiably for the mistakes you have made during the haze of youth. I hope that His Majesty now pardons you and gives you permission to marry the sweetheart of your choice, for the greater good of us all.”

Poor Hamish's body was aching just like it did when they thrashed him over the statue of Pegasus, for insolence to the highly strung Latin teacher at the Grammar School of the Church of Edinburgh.

“I thank you for your benevolence, kind Sir,” he muttered. “Should we ever encounter each other in another place, I will love you like my dear deceased father.”

“I remember your father well. He was verily a Douglas of probity and honour.”

Sheriff-Depute Crichton-Cruikshank entered the interrogation chamber with a pair of mean-looking underlings in crimson tunics.

“Why, good morrow, Sir Richard,” sneered the sheriff-depute. “There's no such thing as a good Douglas, Lord Archibald of course excepted, and this traitorous youth's as evil as they come. We caught him skulking like a scared hare under a bush in the Forest of Morningside. He betrayed our divinely-appointed king to the Earl of Westmorland, to a Neville would you countenance?”

“There's no evidence of that,” retorted Sir Richard. “It's a rumour put about by the crafty English.”

“I'm sure that Brodie and I will be able to find a mutually satisfying accommodation,” interjected the craftily flirtatious Hamish, with an insolent sideways twitch, much bruised as he was.

I learnt that trick at my grammar school, recalled Sir Richard, and it's certainly worth a try. My priestly headmaster took full advantage, of course.

But the sheriff-depute was no priest. When he threatened Hamish with the St. Magnus pincers, the youth screamed in horror.

“There will be ample evidence of treason, Sir Richard,” explained Sir Brodie, “when we've dissected this puppy-headed baggage from his neck down to his knees, and extracted his full confession. But prithee, once handsome knight. Let me first mark your eyebrows for my physician's drill.”

“I beg you to spare the lad,” pleaded Sir Richard, shedding tears.

“Please call me Chick,” retorted the sheriff-depute, with an inane grin.

“Chick?” raged Sir Richard. “Hawk methinks!”

The sheriff-depute giggled like a mad jester and scratched two red ink circles on Sir Richard's forehead with his quill.

“Spoken like a true scholar, de Liddell, and I'll let the twain of you sweat yourselves rank-scented for an hour or even two, while I take tea with the Lieutenant General and tiny Prince James, God bless his woollen socks, in the Great Hall of the Castle. Feel free to take a pish, pigeon-livered fowls that you are.”

A pate-headed sheriff's officer came in a half-hour later with a large jug and a marlinespike.

“Let's pour hot oil up their noses,” he said, pricking Sir Richard's shoulder blades with the marlinspike. “It's a perfect balm for brain fever.”

“Good idea, Yoric,” replied his rug-headed companion, “though a draught of hemlock would be better for the white-livered lad.”

“I'm feeling tired, Splat,” said Yoric, fast losing interest. “I need to take a nap.”

“I'm clapped out too,” Splat drowsily replied. “It must be the ale.”

“Let's go for a rest in the Wound Festering room,” mumbled Yoric, even more drowsily. “I need to recover my senses.”

“Great stuff,” muttered Splat, by now barely awake.

Ten minutes later, the sheriff-depute's Polish retainer Grimy Grunwald came into the Crimsonwood Chamber happily jangling a bunch of keys. He was accompanied by a decrepit old fogey who was wielding a mallet and a chisel.

What a relief! enthused Sir Richard. I knew that my old friend Grimy wouldn't let me down.

“We do not have much time, Sir Richard,” announced Grimy, with a big grin. “The guards have been drugged with their own medicine, but they could bestir themselves within the quarter-hour.”

After much huffing and puffing, Grimy and the old fogey managed to release Sir Richard from the locks which restrained him to the metal table. Thereupon, they ushered the ever so grateful knight through a low doorway which led to a closet-shaped room.

“This is where we store the stinking clothes and the chattels of all of our prisoners,” said Grimy, pointing to Sir Richard's muddied attire in the corner. “Your reeking underwear was full of holes and beyond repair.”

While Sir Richard was endeavouring to dress himself like a gentleman, the old fogey quite miraculously retrieved the bold knight's sword Vindicta from a cupboard.

Sir Richard wiped Vindicta's blade clean of the slime. “All praise to the Lord, and thank you.”

The old fogey slavered like an aging lunatic.

“I will prise open that grating with my chisel, Sire. That will permit you to enter the victualling stairwell, which descends from the Armenius Turret all the way down past the High Street to a lane leading to the Cowgate. You will need to negotiate the guards inside the lower postern door if you are to achieve your freedom.”

“Thank you, but I cannot leave without my brother in Christ, Hamish Douglas. Please help me to save him from his tortuous fate.”

Grimy was gravely disappointed at that.

“But I was planning to impale the traitorous lassie snatcher on the seven foot Pike of Xerxes my very self, Sire, and to grind him to tiny mince,” he protested, with the face of an Inquisitor in full radge.

“I must insist, Grimy,” Sir Richard calmly replied, “and I remind you of my past favours to you and your family.”

“In that case, Sire, you should descend to the second stair-head below us,” Grimy conceded, with a hefty sigh, “and thereupon wait by the arrow-slit in the curtain wall which lights your way.”

“We will release the rump-fed Black Douglas as quickly as we can,” added the old fogey, rattling his teeth. “But begone before that should you hear any suspicious noises.”

Sir Richard sighed in relief. “Thank you, gentlemen, and may the Holy Spirit move forever within you.”

A long quarter-hour later, Sir Richard was standing patiently by the arrow slit in the wall, as pre-arranged, when he heard a blood-curdling cry from above. He decided, on impulse, to stand his ground, and, moments later, he was rewarded by an eagle-like peck on his right ear and a sweaty embrace.

“I splattered Splat and Grimy crunched Yoric,” announced the badly battered Master Hamish Douglas, fastening his blood-sodden breeks.

“Well done, my son,” replied Sir Richard, with a fond caress. “Now be prepared for more trouble at the postern door.”

After tottering down through seven more stair-heads, Sir Richard and Master Hamish found themselves staring at the lower postern door at the foot of the escarpment. Two guards were sitting nestled in a cubby-hole inside the door. One of them heard the escapees coming. He turned around, picked up a pike, and threw it at Sir Richard, grazing his left cheek.

Sir Richard struggled forwards and chopped off the wretched fellow's squat nose with a single swish of his sword. The other guard attacked Hamish with a steel spike, but the brave Douglas dodged out of the way, before returning to knock the fellow out cold with a thumping blow on his chin.

Minutes later, Sir Richard and Master Hamish were escaping east along the Cowgate, to the cheers of the householders, pimps and prostitutes all together.

But when Sir Richard staggered ahead towards the foot of the Myrddin Wynd, a pimp dressed like a jester was holding court on the bottom steps with his highly amusing jokes.

To the brave knight's shock and surprise, the jester suddenly fell gurgling to the ground with an arrow through his throat. Looking back, Sir Richard saw a Royal archer, who'd emerged at speed from the postern door, firing a second arrow from his longbow.

“Save yourself, Hamish!” shrieked Sir Richard, but the crafty youth staggered the wrong way and fell to the ground writhing like a conger eel with the arrow firmly imbedded into his thigh.

When Sir Richard struggled back towards Hamish in utter dismay, the black-haired Douglas shouted, “Run Richard! I'm grisly grist.”

A third arrow grazed Sir Richard's left calf.

“Farewell, sweet brother!” howled Sir Richard, struggling towards the Wynd. He had barely achieved safety when another arrow rattled up the cobblestones behind him.

Alas, poor Cedric, poor Hamish, agonised the ever more grief-stricken knight, heading miserably for none too sweet home.

                                                                BACK TO CONTENTS
                                                      CHAPTER 5