CHAPTER 5: SANCTUARY OF SORTS

CHAPTER 5: SANCTUARY OF SORTS

Copyright: Thomas Hoskyns Leonard, Edinburgh, October 2017

                                                                      

When Sir Richard reached home he headed straight for the barn behind his house. There he discovered his old and ever faithful retainer, the sturdy Shetlander Colin Skink watering the highly alert horses.

“Your loved ones' bodies have been taken to Grey Friars for burial,” wailed Skink, shedding the tears of a paid mourner. “We thought they were alive when we discovered them, only to realise that they were jerking in each other's arms due to their rigor mortis.”

“There is not a moment to be lost, Colin,” Sir Richard brusquely replied. “Please saddle up Xanthos and prepare him for a long journey. Then bring him with all speed to the back gate as if my life depended on it.”

Sir Richard promptly staggered to the dovecot by the grassy knoll, and managed to unearth the tiny gravestone of Lord Janus McTaggart (AD 1252-1278), Traitor to the King, Blackguard of Inverary, Disowned by his Ancestors 1267, which was set into the foot of its rear limestone wall.

Sir Richard endeavoured, using a dexterous trick, to slide the small tombstone sideways. He was relieved to see that the ancient circular dial was still intact, the one which had been designed by Mator of Corinth in 444 BC.

The code was engrained in Sir Richard's memory: kappa, delta, nu, omega. With four deft twists of the dial, he was therefore able to gain access to the inside of his treasure chest, where he'd stashed a bundle of loot over the years. Lord Janus's jawbone was also kept in the chest for good luck, his remaining bones having long since been burnt for the phosphorus by a Portobello soap-maker.

Sir Richard quickly removed his leather St. Christopher bag from the chest. He'd packed it with coins and jewellery a few years previously after the raid into County Durham when he seduced the ubiquitous Countess of Sedgefield and her two delightfully willing, flat-chested daughters, all in the same haystack.

That should be enough to feed me for a few years, thought Sir Richard, strapping the bag to his waist, and there's plenty more to come back to when fortune permits it.

Skink was waiting at the back gate with Xanthos when Sir Richard emerged from behind the grassy knoll, whereupon the agitated knight threw him four gold nobles.

“Care for my house and chattels until I return, faithful servant,” cried Sir Richard, mounting his steed.

“You are all that is worthy in a knight,” replied Skink, with a wry look.

“And all that is unworthy too,” conceded Sir Richard, whilst Xanthos galloped off with his sights and senses set on the Soutra.

I'll remember the code to his treasure chest too, thought Skink, with a Shetland snigger.

I will not henceforth play the role of a knight, decided Sir Richard, but rather that of an honest yeoman.

Richard, the frequently truthful yeoman, slowed down briefly in the village of Dalkeith to watch a massive white bear from Iceland being baited in a ring. One of the fighting bulldogs leapt out of the ring and rolled over on its back with its legs in the air. Several giggling children tickled its chest, and two more bulldogs quit the baiting to join in the fun. That stirred a faint feeling of good humour in Richard's mind. He waved his salutations to the disorientated bear, and rode on.

A flock of geese seemed to follow overhead whilst complicated thoughts about a ham-a-haddie of crafty plots and supposed treason infested Richard's cranium, and colourful images of a cast of characters flashed through his sleepy and somewhat delirious mind: the half-wit Rim Spit and his chubby, wolf-skinned companion, the lute-strumming Troubadour of Arbroath, and the two mean-faced retainers from Dalhousie Castle.

Thereupon a door to a silver staircase opened under the roof of Richard's skull, and out popped the evil Sir Leofric de Liddell, Sir Brodie Crichton-Cruikshank, and the ghastly Father Kelp MacDonald himself. The Goddess Asherah explored Richard's colourful visions, and pondered.

But who is the wild herring and where is the prize shark? wondered poor Richard, exploring the deep cavities of his mind.

Thereupon, the good Lord himself appeared in a Mammatus cloud above the Lammermuirs, in golden manifestation and next to the very Saltire of Scotland that Óengus the Pict had seen over East-Lothian in AD 832.

“I can see no rhyme nor reason to these follies,” opined the Lord Jesus, flashing his purple eyelids. “There is always a plot against an unworthy king, but you, daft Dick, are not part of one, even in your dreams. So saith my virgin mother in Heaven, my saintly wife in Glastonbury, and all the Archangels in Heaven.”

“Gad's horned snozzle,” howled Richard, his mind all awry.

The Lord Jesus opened a hole in his chest, and three bear-eagles flew out.

“And may the seven-fanged creator creature bow and give honour to the divine Magdalene's worldly spirit,” cried the Eternal Messiah, “wherever that strangely formed monster may with Beelzebub be.”

That settles it, decided Richard, rubbing his eyes, and I must be on the road to Damascus.

Richard rode Xanthos across the Tyne Water and up through Pathhead, possibly, he thought, for the last time in ages. A ginger cat leapt out of a cottage and landed on Xanthos's mane. Richard stroked it, and it turned and licked his wrist, before leaping onto the ground and chasing after a vole.

Such is nature, mused Richard. It carries on without us like the blossom on the bushes.

And Father Baldr Sigurdsen appeared on a Nimbus cloud high in the sky, pouring scorn and abuse on the pensive Richard. When Baldr passed water, the mank fluid transformed into sparking crystals which drifted across the pastures of Mid-Lothian below him.

When he was within a half-mile of Fala, Richard felt a pang in his chest and burst into uncontrollable tears, his grief about Ingibiorg and Cedric having returned once again through his body.

But I must also grieve for dear Hamish Douglas, realised Richard. That could be a worse grief, because I may never know what happened to him after he fell so bravely in the Cowgate, whether he is dead as a mouse or as alive as an eagle. If I pray for you, dear Hamish, then let this assuage my eternal sadness for my wife and my Cedric.

Please live to be my next Adonis, Hamish. Please send a dove to say that you have survived your beastly torturers. Please send me a message from Elysium if you are, as I fear greatly, already stone-cold dead at the cruel hands of the sheriff-depute.

During his ascent to the House of the Holy Trinity on the Soutra, Richard's bones began to ache terribly from his beating in the Pretorium, though he'd recovered from his delirium while riding through Fala. He'd felt well enough to recite a couple of verses in Latin out of Matthew, Chapter 25, concerning et ovium, et caprarum (the sheep and the goats), to himself.

Richard rode straight to the friary where he discovered Friar Francis Philpott and Brother Stephanus Le Fleming in earnest conversation. Brother Stephanus had just risen painfully from his bed after his humiliating self-flagellation of a couple of evenings previously.

Friar Francis was effusive in his greeting. “Why, welcome back, fair knight! Dare I imagine that you've returned with more herbs for dear Duncan Cotter? While the lambium spice from your garden had a passing effect, he has slipped once again into his stupor and lies ready to die in the St. Mungus Chapel. It was the stupid St. Agatha nurse's guttium, that she fed him contrary to my instructions, which caused his dreaded sweat to intensify and his ulcer to be ready to burst.

Sir Richard wrung his hands in despair. “A thousand apologies, but I have not. In verity, I return to you not as a knight, but as a humble supplicant begging Christ's sanctuary. I stand falsely accused of poisoning my wife the Lady Ingibiorg to her death, and of treason against His Sacred Majesty, the King.”

The shrill-voiced Brother Stephanus seemed more self-satisfied than upset by that. “You are a hypocrite of the worst kind. You have denied sanctuary to others, and yet you now demand the same for yourself.”

“Only to traitors!” protested Sir Richard. “And I am no traitor.”

“So now you grovel at our feet like the inept, murderous under-skinker that you are, you crass bed-presser,” ranted Brother Stephanus, flourishing his twisted left hand with the menace of a she-devil. “Forsooth! I took you to be a high-bendit, tickle-brained paladin who taunts sinless clerics wherever he roams. Why should we and Christ Jesus feed and protect you when you put at risk so many far worthier fugitives within these confines against whom you are ranked much the abject lesser?”

His bones must be aching more than mine, surmised Richard, jangling the money bag attached to his waist, not altogether accidentally.

“Methinks that's because I still walk with the Lord and do good deeds in his Holy name,” replied Richard. “I do humbly and abjectly hope.”

Brother Stephanus fingered his rusty hair.

“I trust that you are able to pay for your own sustenance,” he added, with his excellent sense of alertness. “Otherwise it will be the quinkins, sheep's tripe and sour milk for you.”

Sir Richard went tight-lipped at that. “Perhaps ten pieces of silver from my stomach pouch would victual a dozen or so of your supplicants with more than ample nourishment for a goodly while.”

“How generous of you, my son!” enthused Friar Philpott. “But it will be necessary to bed you in a quiet and isolated place, lest the King's spies ferret you out. There is a disused barn on the other side of the hill behind the St. Mungus Chapel. We will put a straw mattress and a couple of buckets there for you. I am sure that you will feel as comfortable as did La Vièrge Marie when she was great with child in Bethlehem.”

“Thank you for your kind hospitality, dear Francis, and I will thereby be able to tend to the dear shepherd Duncan Cotter during his last days. Perchance we could devise a better blend of medicine for him.”

“Excellent! I will bring a bound volume of a hundred Lilium Medicinae manuscripts to the chapel after Vespers.”.

“The Spanish-Jewish refugees at Montpellier were such wonderful students of medicine,” replied Richard, from out of the depths of his cantankerous mind. “Their trusses for hernias were devised by Yahweh himself.”

Richard sat on an oak stool outside his barn on the Soutra surveying the glowing sunset beyond the source of the Tweed, as a beautiful southerly view, veering to the east, of the countryside before Lauder and the iconic hills on the horizon permeated his sub-consciousness. After taking a sip of water from a broken beaker, he hobbled to the St. Mungus Chapel wearing a surgeon's face-mask for disguise.

Francis Philpott was waiting outside the Chapel to accompany Richard to Duncan's bedside, with the devoted Holy Underling Kate Sprat. Next to Duncan lay a wizened elderly crone on a mattress; she was suffering intensely from the elfshot and looked as if she was born in the Elven Hills herself.

Friar Francis sat down at a small mahogany desk, and scanned through several pages of his beautifully illustrated volume of manuscripts.

“Let's check what le professeur Bernard de Gordon had to say in Lilium Medicinae about treating Duncan's condition,” he said. “Here we are now, Oderit Sacramentum Ovium Sudore. Do you know what that means, Kate?”

Kate twisted her pigtail around her ear.

“Of course, I do!” she protested. “It means 'dreaded sheep sweat', It's an apt name for the nasty malady, since I've seen many a skinny sheep and baa-lamb on the Soutra with black eschars, and nasty ulcers too.”

“Two extra sweetmeats for you tonight! And my memory is in all verity correct. De Gordon recommends a strong purgative together with hearty blood-letting as the best form of treatment. But we've already emptied Duncan's bowels several times with antimony, and taken ten jars of blood from his chest.”

“I have a suggestion,” responded Richard, a touch nervously. “The White Witches of Aberlady use a milder concoction as a purgative. They give it the quaint name taxuslupus de Minto since it mixes the bile of foxes and brocks tracked to their dens with a secret, pagan flux from Minto village in Aberdeenshire. We could prescribe that with a sipping of lambium, though not of the poisonous guttium. It would be interesting to see how Duncan fares with that proscription, along with a few further jars of blood-letting.”

Friar Francis stayed pensively silent for several seconds with his twisted chin on his clenched fist.

“A wise suggestion given the dire circumstances, despite the pagan influences. I'll ask our minion Bink Quick to ride her broomstick to Sowtry during the wee sma' 'oors to purchase a bottle of the evil brew from her cousin the midwife. Either both of those besoms are white witches or my mushrooms have gone to my head.”

“I'll invite the barber-surgeon from Koblenz to come here after Morning Mass with a knife and a bull's horn,” said Kate, squeezing and twisting her nose, “but I won't be here for the mighty shedding of blood and shit. It might bespoil my new frock.”

“Tell the highly proficient Rhinelander that I sent you,” said Friar Francis, with a weary smile, “but be sure to filter the excess blood into the metal tank.”

Kate Sprat brought Richard a handsome platter of cooked breakfast in the St. Mungus Chapel the following morning, and he enjoyed polishing off the hard-boiled eggs and roast ham while gulping down his mug of ale.

Kate had checked that Xanthos was being well cared for in the Friary stable, and she asked Richard, with an endearing pout, whether she could ride the massive horse around the countryside at her leisure.

Richard was agreeable to this as long as Kate put a donkey's ploughing mask over Xanthos's eyes and replaced his saddle and harness by gear less extravagantly aristocratic. He did not, of course, want his steed to be recognised as his own by some meddlesome villager or passing minstrel or nimble busy-body.

While Richard was taking a carefree munch of his hot bread roll, the master barber surgeon arrived to treat Duncan Cotter. The wretched patient roused himself out of his sleep fog, with a loud howl, when the barber surgeon from Koblenz stuck a knife into his crimson chest and close to his unholy ulcer.

Thereupon, Duncan was persuaded to ingest three spoonfuls of hot mead containing his prescribed labium down his throat, while the blood was flowing lush out of the open wound.

While Duncan was still blubbering, two muscular monks lifted his legs in the air, and the barber surgeon thrust in his bull's horn, as might precede a regal assassination on a dark night in Pontefract, and a sour-faced monk poured in the hot White Witches' purgative taxuslupus de Minto upon sticking in the spout of a steaming kettle. Duncan shrieked noisily, and slid back into unconsciousness, while the monks and the surgeon rushed for cover.

A few minutes later, the old crone with the elfshot withered quietly away after the tenth jar of her blood was poured into the drain in three days.

Such was the medical state of the art, to some good approximation, in Scotland during the early to mid-fifteenth century.

Later that morning, Richard took a brisk stroll around the high ground of the Soutra, where the farmland was interspersed with dark woods and there were magnificent panoramic views of land and sea which changed into further enticing views at every twist and turn.

To his surprise, Richard suddenly bumped into his friend, the Jewish physician Henri Lustiger, who was taking a lengthy walk for his constitution.

“Good morrow, Sir Richard,” said Henri, quietly passing wind. “I'm surprised to see you back on the Soutra so soon. Have you discovered a new remedy for one of our ailments?”

“I am in hiding,” Richard nervously replied, feeling unexpectedly sweaty. “In verity I am taking sanctuary here because of a terrible crime I did not commit. Please don't report me to the sheriffs.”

Henri tilted his head,“I'm sure that you are innocent of any crime that is at all serious. Maybe you should consider setting sail for Provence. The culture in my home city of Montpellier is outstanding, and the French are your allies.”

“That's an idea worth considering,” said Richard, “but I'm planning to stay on the Soutra for several months, to see what life brings in Scotland.”

“What life brings can be sheer happen-stance, my dear friend. Maybe the Wizard of Meusdenhead is waiting for you in yonder forest to chase you to Nouveau Jerusalem.”

A quarter-hour later, Richard clambered over a style and encountered, by chance, a homely lass with a pitchfork who was cautiously observing a sow on heat. The straggly-haired girl proffered several broken teeth, a half torn face, and her limbs were as thin as a giant grasshopper's.

“A good morrow to you, fair lass,” said Richard, with a gentle smile. “Will you be boiling bacon for your supper?”

“Only gnat-ridden turnips, Sir,” moaned the lass, lolling her tongue. “My Uncle Muttle beats my legs for no Christian reason, and lets Slig and Slug run all over me.”

“Here's a coin for your pains. You could spend it on a fish or some bread.”

“Why thank you, Sir. The fish may even multiply. Are you a gentleman of repute?”

“I'm Dick of Yester, no longer a gentleman,” said Richard, drooping his head sideways, “and no longer of repute.”

“That makes me regard you fondly, Dick,” said the lass, with a pleasant enough grin, “I'm Pigfoot McEigg, and I'm pancake-chested. Will that be of disadvantage when I marry?”

“Not if you're sturdy enough to carry bairns. You'll find a handsome husband who will marry you true.”

“Are you married, Dick? How many bairns have you spawned?”

“An occasional love child, methinks, scattered about. My dear wife lies dead in her coffin.”

“How sad you must be! I'd like a love child too. Would you care to pick apples with me in the Orchard of Goleg?”

“Another day, if God permits it, Pigfoot. Perchance I'll climb this stile again on Thursday when the cuckoo coos ten.”

Pigfoot stood tiptoe on her hoof-like feet, and pointed to the south. “I'll remember that tryst. I live in the white hut in the forest in the Lindean Gorge, which winds down yonder to the plains as if it were descending to its confluence with the River Jordan, where the headless Baptizer blessed Isa.”

“Farewell, beautiful child in Christ Jesus, until we meet once again!”

When Richard returned to his barn, a huge monk was resting on the stool outside, panting like an overweight caber tosser.

Brother Marmaduke wiped his snout with his spotted handkerchief.

“Good morrow, Richard. I've climbed all this way to beg a favour from you. We are hoping to making a goodly profit from our recipe for marmelada jelly, which Friar Philpott and I discussed with you and your squire a couple of days ago.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” replied Richard. “Verily, it was poor Cedric who coined the name marmelada, the very day before he died.”

Brother Marmaduke nodded like a mannequin with a bolt through its neck.

“All praise to Cedric de Porthos to Eternity for suggesting the name. I am so sad to learn that he is dead. In the meantime, we have already chopped up and boiled a basket of orange skins from Seville, well soaked in ever more spice sherry, with oodles of honey, and turned the paste into a rich sort of quince.”

“Superb! Are you planning to sell jars of it as a delicacy from your market stall in Lauder?”

“I'm not sure that I should. While the peasants may wish to spread it on their bread, butter is, methinks, too good for them already. Methinks the new quince may be better suited for merchants and gentle folk of a delicate palate, and I am therefore planning to open a stall by the Tweed in Melrose, starting in a couple of weeks, where we will also sell our coloured gloves and hats.”

“Methinks that will be a profitable enterprise.”

“Thank you for the encouragement,” replied Brother Marmaduke, with a smile. “Might you be interested in helping me to tend the stall? I would certainly enjoy your high class company along the way. I'm a Wartle of Meikle Wartle, you see.”

“Good for you! They're a saintly lot. Yes, I'd like to come along, Marmaduke Wartle, pioneer of marmelada, but I would need to disguise myself in a monk's hooded cloak, and converse only in French.”

“I'll bring a Mask of Zeus from the St. Cecilia's Wing to cover your knightly face. That should add to the jollity.”

Duncan Cotter did not stir before lunchtime, but by supper his crimson pallor had paled somewhat, the ulcer on his chest looked a mite less angry, the St. Miriam fungus had vanished to below his knees, and a couple of his black eschars had turned grey and less gristly. He eventually returned from out of his abyss while Richard was dining on his shallot and smout, washed down with a good vintage.

“Ale for my fever, dear friends,' begged poor Duncan.

“As it is the Cumberland fever, we should give him a mug of malt wine,” said Kate, grabbing hold of a well-filled flagon, whereupon Duncan grunted for an extra pillow and tried to sit up in his bed.

By morning, Duncan was able to hold light conversation, and he and Richard engaged in some gentle tittle tattle. But, in next to no time, the barber surgeon appeared once again with his bull's horn and his well-preserved knife.

Duncan had left his leather wallet on the table by his bed. It contained several documents including an affidavit, signed by and sealed by the Lord Sheriff Simon Paton, high head yin of Haddington in 1421, which firmly established that:

Duncan Gregor Cotter, a shepherd boy of good standing, was, on the testimony of the mid-wife Mary Roberts, born in Linton on 21st, June 1409, to one Jeremiah Cotter, joiner, and Sarah Cotter, seamstress.

Friar Francis Philpott took a glance at the yellow parchment during Duncan's blood-letting, and slipped it, very craftily indeed, into his waist pouch.

The following afternoon, the sprightly Kate Sprat rode Xanthos into Carfraemill to purchase new breeks, a tunic and a gown for Richard (from a travelling merchant who set up his weekly stall outside the solitary inn). She'd studiously measured the knight of her dreams for size with her long blue tape without batting her eyelids.

Meanwhile, scruffy Richard discovered the whereabouts of Pigfoot McEigg's hut in that iconic forest in the Lindean Gorge, which descends to the south, along the burn that flows from Soutra Hill.

Richard was startled when Pigfoot's cousin Slug answered his knock. Slug was a brawny,

unbecoming youth with a head like a lizard's and a body like a beetle's.

“Is Miss Pigfoot at home?” Richard courteously inquired, “I wish to recite her a verse about the piskies and goblins on Calton Hill.”

“Go frig an ox, dizzie-eyed bugbear,” snarled Slug, with remarkable eloquence for a serf.

Uncle Muttle appeared through the wall like a dancing toad.

“Why do you want to bother my ugly niece with a stupid poem?” inquired the man, swishing a stick of birch. “You look like a slovenly, lust-breathed cozenor yourself.”

Richard didn't bat an eyelid at that. “Verily because I might wish to give you a silver piece.”

Maybe it's because Pigfoot has the humanity of which the handsome and more beautiful are in short measure, deliberated Richard, unless, of course, my mind and perceptions are twisted beyond repair.

Slug chortled his head off. “For our Pigfoot? You must be a court jester.”

“That I am,” replied Richard, “though my heart is solemn and in earnest for the poor, sickly child.”

“She's in the shack at the back, but Slig is away to the woods by now,” explained Uncle Muttle, raising an eyebrow. “You may unlock her ankles with this key.”

And so Richard got to recite his ballad to Pigfoot, and then they partook of a walk together through the Orchard of Goleg. When an apple fell from a tree, Pigfoot picked it up and smiled one of her ungainly, half torn smiles.

“Did Adam and Eve beget only Cain, Abel and Seth?” she asked.

“Moses tells us in his Apocalypse that they spawned thirty more sons and thirty daughters,” replied Richard, tilting his head. “They included a daughter called Sansa who, according to at least one hungry Greek scholar, mothered the Earth when Eve was lost to the Devil.”

Pigfoot blinked furiously. “Thus will I name my daughter and my son: Sansa and Seth.”

“Good for you! Now tell me more about yourself. How do you spend your spare time?”

“I play piggy back with the kelpies in the glens and chase the faery folk through the tuffets.”

I wonder whether she's a fledgling witch? deliberated Richard. Maybe she's still learning to fly her broomstick.

“How thrilling!” he replied. “Maybe we could play whist with a pair of kelpies some time.”

A couple of evenings later, Richard was surprised to hear the sound of monks chanting as he approached the chapel; for some reason, Vespers was being celebrated there once again. Richard crept through the oak door and stumbled onto the back pew just in time for the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

“We are about to bless the sacrament, once more according to the ancient Carmelite, rather than our Augustinian tradition, dear friends,” announced Friar Francis Philpott, with a broad grin, “but before we begin I wish to anoint our dear Duncan with the Sacred Oil of St. Clotilde, purchased in Rheims and of the same antiquity as the coronation oil of St. Remigius himself.'

“For today Duncan rose out of his bed like Lazarus, as if from death itself. See how Jesus loves him! Duncan has been cured by divine miracle from his Cumberland fever, the ulcer on his chest and his eschars have vanished, and his skin is as clear as the Christ-child's once again. All praise to Almighty God in Heaven above!”

Richard couldn't believe his ears, but when he looked up, Duncan Cotter was standing there, arms outstretched by the font, as fine a clean-limbed young man as the erstwhile knight had ever seen.

Does anybody ever recover from the dreaded sheep sweat? wondered Richard, in utter bewilderment. What in Jesu's name has happened? Methinks it was, in all verity, a miracle from Heaven. Or perchance, my spices contain ingredients whose qualities are only known to the White Witch of the Esk Burn herself.

After Vespers, the monks brought in a crate of vintage wine, and the celebrations began.

On Friday o'er a fortnicht later and at crack of dawn, the hefty Brother Marmaduke Wartle left for Melrose straddling his favourite white pony, Rosie. The jolly fellow was accompanied by Richard de Liddell, who was hooded as a monk, and the genial Kate Sprat. Richard rode on Xanthos, who was drooping at the ears and no longer such a proud steed, and Kate followed mischievously on a grey donkey called Oxtail.

Two jaunty novice monks had travelled through the night with a cartload of merchandise including a large bowl and fifty jars of the delicious new marmelada, to set up stall by the ever lusciously flowing Tweed.

After a long and arduous journey, the three riders skirted the famed triple pinnacles of the Trimontium Hills, whereupon Melrose, the town of the mason's hammer and the rose appeared wondrously before them, with St. Mary's Abbey at its epicentre.

Kate and Brother Marmaduke retreated inside the sprawling abbey to pray, while Richard felt forced to stay outside since he was wearing his Mask of Zeus in subtle disguise. Richard took the opportunity to admire the stone marking the spot where the heart of King Robert the Bruce was laid to rest, after a brave Douglas brought it back from the Holy Land as far as Moorish Spain.

The victor of Bannockburn murdered far too many Comyns across the land to be thus honoured, mused Richard. Including the rightful king of Scotland, Red John of Badenoch, who he slew, in blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, before the high altar in Dumfries. Alas, brave and bold knight, to what dark depths did your nobility then sink! And how deep has my own confidence sunk in comparison?

When Marmaduke, Richard and Kate reached their stall, several children were running gaily along the north bank of the Tweed playing with their kites. The two novice monks departed to the woods to smoke mushroom dust, and Richard offered free spoonfuls of marmelada from the huge bowl on the food table when the gentlefolk and wealthier citizens began to arrive in force.

Thirty jars of marmelada were sold in the flash of an eyelid, since its intoxicatingly good flavour was enjoyed by one and all. Kate also endeavoured to sell an abundance of colourful apparel, at a sizeable profit.

“God bless you, God nurture you!” chanted Brother Marmaduke, flourishing his robes in the breeze, as the happy customers came and went.

But Richard suddenly heard a rip-roaring sound, a yowling with which he was all too familiar. When his eleven year old nephew Lulach came bounding up, Richard knew that he was in for a scene from a mystery play.

Upon deciding to play the a deaf-mute, Richard offered Lulach a spoonful of marmelada from the bowl. His rude nephew took a gulp of the rich quince, gurgled, and farted.

Lulach's bumptious father, Callum de Liddell, Lord of Roslands was sandy-haired with a swarthy, pimpled face. A black wart disfigured his once handsome nose.

“Would you like me to buy you a jar of that orange paste from these ignorant peasants, my son?” he inquired.

Lulach was wiry and black haired, and resembled a hungry gnome from the Trossachs.

“I want the whole bowl,” he screeched, grabbing three jars at once.

“You deserve a hard leathering,” shrieked Kate Sprat, in a flounce. “Go away and eat nuts.”

Richard's cousin, Sir Leofric de Liddell, was as fair-haired as a Viking and as sallow-faced as a hangman.

“That's no way to speak to a noble lad, you nook-shotten baggage,” he snorted, snatching the bowl off the table.

“How dare you insult our Sister in Christ!” howled Brother Marmaduke, in his fury. “Please leave this sacred space and a recite a thousand Hail Mary's!”

“Silence, portly priest!” roared Sir Leofric, “or I'll stuff this large basin down your very own throat.”

Richard straightened his Mask of Zeus, walked up to Sir Leofric, acted as if he was about to butt him in the head, grabbed the bowl of marmelada from his grasp, and replaced it firmly on the table.

“You must be the Devil Incarnate,” raged Sir Leofric, drawing his sword.

Richard shook in his boots, and was most relieved when his uncivilised cousin decided against cutting his head off. He felt even happier when all three of his offensive relatives (who were staying for a few days with their grandma in the Charter House) saw the funny side of the situation and retreated through the white gorse and curl beam bushes into the pasture beyond.

After a short while, all the remaining twenty jars of marmelada had been gainfully sold, and Richard moreover contrived to persuade an aging lady from Jedburghe to purchase a frilly dress with a full set of corsets. He thereupon decided to take a stroll along the lush, green banks of the Tweed while his companions rid themselves of the rest of their fancy merchandise.

Just when Richard was feeling at his most relaxed and effervescent, he saw a motley group of his relatives sitting picnicking by the fierce rapids which drove the mill-wheel, while the sparrows chirped merrily around them in the trees. His brother Lord Callum and cousin Sir Leofric, their wives, and his brattish nephew Lulach were savouring claret and cheese together around a light blue tablecloth, while Lord Callum's tiny daughters played families with their even tinier dolls and their wrinkle-faced grandma a few yards beyond. Richard noticed a thick beech bush behind the noisy group and to their left.

Richard therefore crept to the back of the bush, stuck his masked head halfway through it, and listened intently.

“And our stupid king is, even now, jealous of his nobles,” asserted Lord Callum, with a snooty frown, “and not only of those who left him to rot for eighteen years in the English Court.”

“With good reason,” snorted Sir Leofric, “since so many good knights feel contempt for him, pale-hearted coxcomb that he is.”

“His kingdom will shrink like a withered hand when the Lord of the Isles takes control of the whole of Dalraida,” said Sir Leofric's wife Amanda, with a chuckle, rubbing even more St. Agnes lotion into her pink breasts.

“And that bustling bizzom Queen Joan will burst her spleen when the Burgundian spies poison her silly little princeling with hemlock,” added Lord Callum's stern, hard-chested wife, the Lady Matilda.

“Poison all the frigging English Beauforts, that's what I say,” enjoined Sir Leofric, with a grin.

“They should poison smelly Prince James' guts with arsenic and let beetles gnaw at his tiny feet!” howled Lulach, to nods and pats of approval from all adults present.

“Speaking of poison,” said Lord Callum, tilting his head. “my dear brother Richard remains an outlaw and on the loose, following the outrageous débâcle in Óengus House when his ménage á trois fell head over each other's sordid heels in their throes of murderous death.”

“The sheriff and his depute will cook his goose,” said Sir Leofric, with a cruel snigger.

“Preferably on a spit,” added Lord Callum, with a narcissistic sneer.

“You have already secured occupancy of Malbork House in Bothans,” continued Sir Leofric, unabated. “Methinks that you should move quickly to gain ownership of your cowardly brother's mansion on Queen Maud Walk before the bailiffs take it for the Crown.”

“I've already filed a claim for Óengus House in the Court Session,” replied Lord Callum, “while also casting doubt about the ownership of the herb garden on Calton Hill.”

“I want the herb garden!” yowled Lulach, with an ear-shattering fart. “I want to pile the faeries and piskies from the hill in one big dung heap and to pounce on them like an archbishop with devil's horns!”

“What a clever idea, Lulach,” said his mother, the Lady Matilda, in a tone which mixed sarcasm with causticity. “The garden would serve you in good stead should you ever have the nous to train as a physician, though your spelling and lack of clarity does not augur well for that, half-witted delinquent that you are.”

“Firkins!”

“Speaking about delinquents,” interjected Lord Leofric, while Lulach was recoiling from a motherly clip around his bright pink ear, “I wonder how we should next advise our sodden-witted retainers to spy against the king?”

“What objectives do we have in mind?” asked Lord Callum, “We can't continue to plot willy nilly, just for the hellish fun of it.”

“According to a Chinese general called Sun Soo or whatever, it's best not to have any strategic objectives,” replied Sir Leofric, with a twirl of his tongue, “since they only serve to confuse. It's more important to keep your own head unsevered from your neck by ultimately backing the winner, whichever of the foul scroundrels he turns out to be.”

“Begad, you're right!” agreed Lord Callum, cosying up to his strong, sturdy wife.

At that juncture, Richard had it in mind to knock his dear brother to smithereens with a single blow, to throw the devil-child Lulach, yowling and smelly rump first, into a white gorse bush, and to fell the evil Sir Leofric with a mighty kick in the knackers.

However, Richard thought better of it.

“Treason! Treason against the King!” he instead plaintively croaked, before retreating, barely noticed or bothered about and feeling like a squashed frog, to the relative safety of his market stall.

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                                              CHAPTER 6