CHAPTER 2: THE HOUSE OF THE HOLY TRINITY

CHAPTER 2: THE HOUSE OF THE HOLY TRINITY

Copyright: Thomas Hoskyns Leonard, Edinburgh, October 2017

                                                                    

Sir Richard felt at peace with himself by the time the three riders left Mid-Lothian and approached the northern slopes of the Soutra Hill in Roxburgheshire. He was, as always, impressed by the immense walled citadel that surrounded the summit of the relatively flat hill. Above its walls there arose a lofty church tower and the gables and chimneys of many fine buildings some of which dated to the twelfth century and the reign of the pious King Malcolm the Fourth.

The House of the Holy Trinity contained an Augustinian monastery and a hospital, and stood well over 300 elbows above the level of the sea. The sprawling conurbation on Soutra Hill spread to the south as far as Cross-chain-hill. and included also the village of Sowtry [or Soutra].

The weary riders left the Via Regia and entered the hallowed grounds when they reached the North Gate, in sight of the Ternity Well. Thereupon, they galloped their steeds past several hospital buildings and through the ornate, bronze gateway which protected the entrance to the friary. The elegant building was, according to an imaginative pilgrim en route to Walsingham, dominated by a silver dome, though any resemblance to a Moorish mosque was in the eye of the sacrilegious beholder.

The hospital on the Soutra was financed from the Master, Thomas de Lawedre's vast revenue from lands across the south of Scotland which had been gifted over the centuries by wealthy Scottish families who'd benefited either from treatment there or when one of their rebellious members took refuge in the Iron Age broch.

The riders dismounted at the very moment that a physician with a large, unkempt beard was walking by on his way back to work. Sir Richard respected him as a former student of medicine at the University of Montpellier in Provence and as a skilled barber surgeon.

“Bonjour, Henri,” said Sir Richard, with a courteous wave of his hand. “How fares the brave knight with the green pox in his legs? When I last saw him, the fly maggots did not seem to be eating sufficiently into his flesh.”

“The maggots died of the horrific poison,” replied the genial Henri Lustiger, straightening his kippah, “but the wretched knight recovered after I amputated his legs beneath the knee. He's back riding his steed, and in fine fettle.”

“Shiver my timbers! The surgery must have caused him bundles of grief.”

Henri tugged his side-locks, both together. “Too true, but he was well drugged with opium and a blend of worts, and my long saw was carefully crafted in Genoa. His legs dropped off clean as a whistle.”

“God praise you for your aptitude, cher Henri.”

He's such a fine Jewish scholar, mused Sir Richard, rubbing his forehead, a man of foresight and talent. The prophet at the Ratshead Inn foresaw him correctly, but I wonder whether and when I'll be rescued off the streets by the next two Jews in my life?

                                                                       

Cedric jangled the bronze bell which was hanging from a chain by the sturdy oak door. After a few moments, the door creaked open and an immature girl with curly, blonde hair peered, cowering, at the travellers.

“Brother Stephanus!” she whined. “We have some noble visitors. Do tidy yourself up, and come to greet them.”

A lassie in the friary! thought Sir Richard. How preposterous. I feel like giving this holy brother a generous piece of my mind.

“Hold your horses, Kate Sprat,” cried a shrill voice. “I be alighting the St. Agnes candles.”

The travellers waited in polite silence for a few moments, whereupon a clownish, rusty-haired monk wearing a white cassock, slightly askew around his neck, appeared at the door reeking of ale. He was holding two candles with burnt wicks in his gnarled left hand.

                                                                             

“Good morrow, honourable gentlefolk,” said Brother Stephanus, scratching his snub snout. “Friar Philpott is tending to the chrysanthemums in the Master's gardens, but you have my holy permission to enter this place of divine sanctity, and await his return. Please shed your muddy clogs; Kate, our new Holy Underling, will clean them in the trough like the dutiful scrubber she is. Thereupon, she will wash your feet in the wooden tub, on pain of God's chastisement if she misses a single speck of sinfulness.”

“God's punishment comes when it is least expected,” replied Sir Richard, holding his temper.

“Such is the fate of a wretched orphan born out of wedlock to a Glesca whore,” warbled the cruel brother.

“Who do I have the honour of addressing?” snarled Sir Richard, clenching his fist.

The boss-eyed monk blinked, and straightened his cassock. “I am Brother Stephanus Le Fleming, recently arrived from Melrose Abbey to bring goodness and life to this place.”

“In sackcloths and with a single piece of baggage,” interjected Kate, with a wry smile.

Le Fleming blandly ignored that remark. “I, like you, Sir, am of noble stock, since I am descended from the Norman Le Flemings of Durham-on-Trent.”

Sir Richard twisted the silver ring on his pinkie. They were all a bunch of heathen scoundrels, he recalled. I wouldn't trust this drunken blaggard with a fisherman's pole or a bishop's barge.

“We must be distant cousins then, unless you are in reality a peasant,” replied the assertive knight “Indeed, the de Liddells are related to every mischief-maker who's been knighted by a king.”

Sir Richard was familiar with the main hall of the friary. He'd often wondered whether it'd been a haunt of errant Knights Templar on their run to nowhere. An elaborate Masonic tracing board was hanging from the wall, and the gargoyles on the ceiling depicted the anguished faces of Satan-worshippers and mythological creatures alike.

Brother Stephanus nodded grudgingly while Kate Sprat poured the visitors refreshing beakers of the locally fermented wine Soutfast.

“The nuns squash the grapes with their well-scrubbed feet,” Kate explained, “those who bother to wash, I mean. At least they don't splash holy widdle in it.”

Sir Richard took a cautious sip. “Lady Fiona McLachlan is here to seek sanctuary in this holy house, though for a few days only while I straighten out her concern about her husband in Edinburgh.”

“She is most welcome,” responded Brother Stephanus, with a surly smile. “Many of our fugitives sleep in the hay in the travellers' broch, where we can bar the door for their safe keeping. However, the Master sometimes deigns to let us accommodate errant ladies of nobility in well-furnished rooms in the St. Celicia's Wing, where they are waited on hand, foot, and knee by the peasant novices. But a gift to God in Heaven of two gold nobles a month helps us to feed the ladies in the manner to which they are so righteously accustomed.”

Sir Richard pulled three nobles from his leather pouch. “I hope that God will bless the Lady Fiona as much for this gift as he blessed the widow in the Temple for handing over her two mites.”

Cedric angrily furrowed his brow. “Lady Fiona could be plied with rare lampreys for a year for that. Zeus is more generous than the God who lives in this pox-ridden place.”

Now my squire is behaving like a tactless oaf, lamented Sir Richard. The unsightly cleric doesn't help either. This friary was very congenial before he appeared on the scene.

“Blasphemy!” shrieked Brother Stephanus, with a wild glare. “We flogged the blasphemous rogues against the railings in Melrose for less. Do not violate our holy etiquettes again, paltry squire, or I'll make you a crown of thorns and whip you in the gallows by the curl beam bushes until your flesh is red and raw.”

“Beaucoup de regrets,” exclaimed Sir Richard. “My good squire sometimes doesn't know how he speaks, and a more faithful Christian have I never met.”

“A pox on his pagan house!” yelled the belligerent cleric.

“Humbug!” howled Cedric, throwing a punch which grazed the monk's ugly nose.

Cedric's dire situation was undoubtedly saved by Fortuna, the Goddess of Chance and Fortune. At Fortuna's express command, the striped owl Mordreda hurtled through the window and perched herself on Brother Stephanus's head.                                                                 

At that very moment, Friar Francis Philpott scurried into the room carrying a large sack of oranges over his shoulder.

Francis Philpott was a gaunt and studious man in his early fifties, with a large cauterized hole in his broken left cheek which had been caused by an English arrow during his tempestuous youth. A dark-haired man with striking blue eyes, he walked with a prominent gait.

“We must eat these oranges quickly,” announced the good friar. “They have just arrived from Seville soaked in spice sherry.”

“Is the skin poisonous?” asked Kate, squeezing her nose. “May I eat it?”

“Of course not, silly child. We'll boil it up with some honey and turn it into a paste.”

“I'll tell Brother Marmaduke to collect the skins after Evensong,” said Brother Stephanus, only for the owl to hop onto his shoulder and take a peck at his right ear.

“Maybe we should call it Marmaduke jelly and serve it with bread and cloves,” said Lady Fiona, with a haughty smile. “It will taste like quince.”

“May I suggest melimelon?” suggested Sir Richard. “That's Greek for honey fruit.”

“It would be pleasanter to my ear to call it marmelada,” added Cedric, touching his privies for good luck. “My Uncle Aloisio might be interested in hawking a quince of that name around Portugal.”

“We'll name it marmelada, crass, blasphemous fleshmonger that you are,” Brother Stephanus grudgingly conceded. “The Portuguese consul is one of our patrons, and he will, methinks, welcome the compliment.”

“God's zooks!” exclaimed Sir Richard, touching his forehead. “Be wary lest the cantankerous rogue steals your recipe and sells it in Lisbon.”

                                                                            

Friar Philpott cleared his nostrils, peered frostily at Cedric, and turned his attention to Lady Fiona. “Who is this delicate child, Sir Richard? I'm sure she's blessed with the wisdom of the Queen of Sheba, and Elisheba of the Temple too.”

“That queen had hairy legs, and I'm the smooth-skinned Lady Fiona McLachan of Comely Brae,” replied the sprightly gentlewoman, with a pout. “I plan to stay with your nuns until my dear husband recovers from his lurge and I can return to Edinburgh in good order.”

Friar Francis smiled benignly. “A couple of heavy bolsters and a stout pillow would not go amiss. Please accompany Her Ladyship to St. Cecilia's Wing, Kate, and pay heed to her every whim.”

“Y-Yes, Friar Francis,” stammered Kate, with a clumsy curtsey. “Hummm… m-may I have a new, blue woollen dress for St. Matthew's Day, Your Reverence?”

“Why don't yer wear plaid breeks and clogs?” suggested Brother Stephanus, sardonically. “Yer'd be prettier to the eye as a silly mannie rather than a homely lassie.”

Kate promptly kicked the monk in his shins, while Mordreda took a peck at his eyebrow.

“How could you be so ever more cruel?” shrieked Kate. “May Saint Mary Magdalene curse you to an early grave.”

Brother Stephanus grabbed Kate's hair, and pulled her head backwards.

“How dare you take vent on me, ignorant changeling that you are?” he raged. “You'll be boiled as a black witch for your foul behaviour!”

“Brother Stephanus!” exclaimed Friar Philpott, flashing his bright blue eyes. “You have been drinking a muchness of Donkey's Brew again. Retire to your cell immediately, you cag-brained mule, and recite two hundred Hail Mary’s.”

                                                                    

The monk let Kate go, but seized Mordreda by her outstretched wings.

“Not until I've strangled this God-dammed owl,” he howled. “I wouldn't care if she was the never to be blessed Vièrge Marie herself.”

“What!!” yelled the friar, in utter indignation. “Prepare thyself for self-flagellation during Evensong, foul, blaspheming heretic that you are. We'll sing the Sanctus while you suffer your painful indignities.”

“Un pour tous et tous pour un, enfant terrible,” chanted Cedric, euphorically.

The French tongue was, malheureusement, too much for Brother Stephanus to handle. He was not as well educated as might have been anticipated from the manner in which he displayed himself, despite the fine background of the family who despaired of him.

“Not THAT!” he shrieked, clutching his crotch.

“Foreign vulgarity!” exclaimed Friar Francis, the blood rising in his neck. “We don't use red hot pincers here. I'll ask the Papal Inquisitor to bring his sjambok though.”

Their lack of comprehension of the French language is utterly laughable! surmised Sir Richard, with a chuckle. They're confused by too much Latin.

“I'll enjoy every part of it,” snarled the evil monk, fleeing for the door, “and may I be struck by Almighty God with the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi himself.”

I hope that he shreds his sinews, thought Sir Richard. He transfigures Cedric into a saint.

“May I lend you a helping hand, dear Brother Stephanus?” asked Cedric, in sarcastic jest.

“I'll be the death of you, French clown!” roared the rude monk, as Mordreda escaped, much befuzzled, through the window.

A threat of death, mused Sir Richard. That does not portend well for the spirit.

A suggestion of death? wondered Cedric. Maybe I'm on a tightrope to Heaven.

I need to take a quiet pee in a china chamberpot, thought Lady Fiona, wringing her hands.

“My sincere regrets to one and all,” announced Friar Francis, after a full minute of breath-taking silence. “Stephanus can be a man of God when he is sober, but a clay-brained chump when he takes to drink. Notwithstanding his deplorable indiscretions in the Abbey in Melrose, I live in hope that he will become a man of honour, rather than a scheming Iscariot, in this far better place.”

Cedric sighed like a chimp. “There do seem to be a preponderance of algolagniacs in these parts nowadays. In all verity, I sometimes become a bit feisty myself. Maybe it isn't just the Norman influence. It could be the effect of Christianity too.”

Sir Richard heaved his chest. “Jesus forgives us all our sins, except when we blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, though I can scarcely ever fathom when a sin is unpardonable and when it is not.”

Friar Francis fingered the cauterized hole in his cheek.

“That is for Christ to decide, my son,” he cautiously replied. “Our good Lord did indeed teach that it would be better for an evil-doer who hurts children if he were thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”

Thereupon, Kate performed the Sign of the Cross. “By our Lady! Jesus is a goodly friend to me.”

“That verse was reliably recorded by the Apostle Mark,” said Sir Richard. “He, Matthew, and Luke were among the finest liturgists and writers of their time.”

“Unlike Jesu's sanctimonious pipsqueak John who grew ever increasingly confused while he decayed with age on Patmos,” replied Friar Francis, with an encouraging nod.

“And the false Apostle, Paul of Tarsus, who forever distorted the word of the living God,” continued Sir Richard.

Friar Francis hesitated on St. Paul, before smiling benignly. “Hummm…the liturgists of Ariel's New Way were undoubtedly a fine band of Jewish revolutionaries who cared much for the poor and sick. They rose head and shoulders above the crass orthodoxies of Pharisees and the scribes of the Temple. Unfortunately, many Christians have since interpreted the Gospels much too literally. Some enlightened scholars regard this as heresy.”

“And some say that Christianity went wrong soon after it deviated from its Jewish roots,” concluded Sir Richard.

Kate chuckled at that. “Just look at us now!” she declared.

                                                                            

When Kate delivered Lady Fiona to St. Celicia's Wing, they were warmly greeted by the novice nuns. The novices gave the noble lady the room with the goose feather bed, and ran in, one after the other, to show off their home-sewn, green petticoats.

Her Ladyship took a pee in a brass bucket, drank a couple of strong brandies and a Soutfast, and joined in the highly comical horseplay.

Back in the friary, Francis Philpott was keen to discuss the herbs which Sir Richard had brought with him from St. Clotilde's Garden.

“The ergot fungus and juniper seeds you brought last time were most generous,” the friar said. “We have used them to induce the birth of three babies. The ragged wretches from beyond the Tweed had remained much too long in desperate labour.”

“Praise the Lord!” exclaimed Sir Richard, as Cedric produced three pouches from under his shirt tails. “And today we have brought you some tormentilla for parasites, and watercress for fastening and securing teeth. I hope that the hemlock has worked well when mixed with henbane seeds and opium poppy.”

“Extravagantly well. The concoction killed the pain when we amputated an arm and a leg from a peasant from Jedburghe, and it made him considerably comatose.”

“And does the plilucium sooth the fierce agonies endured by your mothers while they give birth to their cherished babies?” inquired Sir Richard.

“In all verity,” replied the grateful friar, “and also the suffering of a sinful woman while we were removing her foetus.”

Sir Richard pressed his hands together, as if in prayer. “I hope that she has now mended her ways. I also have a herb which is not yet well tried by gentlefolk, but which I name lambium. I hear that the white witches call it the 'Spice of the Seven-Horned Lamb', and it is said that they once used it to cure a wizard from la maladie de Bradford Beck after the fool had eaten the kidneys of an uncooked sheep.”

“This is most timely!” exclaimed Francis Philpott, in delight. “One of our deadly sick visitors is suffering from the very same sheep sweat. We've had to hide our very own shepherd Duncan Cotter in the St. Mungus Chapel because his black eschar is gross to the eye, his crimson pallor has spread to much of his skin, and the St. Miriam fungus has begun to creep up his legs.”

“That does indeed sound like the Cumberland fever, as the malady is also called.”

“Yes, a fierce fever of a strange sort, for fully three days now. Maybe your lambium will unboil his head.”

“I recommend mixing three large spoonfuls in hot mead. Here, take this pouch. It contains sufficient lambium for ten days further.”

“Thank you, Sir Richard. We'll try this straightaway, and I'll take you and your noble squire to visit poor Duncan after Evensong to see how he's coming along.”

Sir Richard spent the afternoon in prayer and light-hearted conversation with the monks, while Friar Francis and the highly energetic Kate Sprat paid goodwill visits on the indigenous and infirm people in the surrounding district, of whom many were in need of a loaf of bread or a piece of cake. They were also keen to give generous portions of heath pea to the hungry and starving, and several poor souls dropped to their knees in gratitude.

Later on, Sir Richard and his shifty-bottomed squire sat next to Brother Marmaduke at Evensong in St. Andrew's Chapel. There was enough time to exchange a few words about the possibility of boiling the skins of the oranges from Seville with honey. The eagle-eyed brother was very keen on the idea, and wondered whether to sell the new jelly at his market stall in Lauder.

“The peasants could spread it on their bread, to mix with the lard or supplement the butter,” suggested Brother Marmaduke, with a flick of his jet black eyebrows.

Maybe it will become a new fashion, mused Sir Richard, only to be distracted by a pair of shady characters seated in the next pew. The fair-haired one was wearing a yellow tunic, and the chubby one with the long-nose was attired in wolf skins.

Why do they peer at me? wondered Sir Richard. Zounds! They could be the pair of rascals who escaped hotfooted from Edinburgh with the Spanish Ambassador's jewel box. Methinks they're taking sanctuary here. This should not be allowed!

But before the bold knight could inquire the names of the interlopers, his thoughts were disturbed by a hearty rendering of Anima Christi by the assembled monks and clerics.

What a lovely chant, mused Cedric. Methinks this Jesu really existed.

The music was relaxing to Sir Richard's ears. I can see a bit of Jesus in my squire Cedric, he realised, which isn't surprising since there is a piece of my good Lord in all who call upon his Holy Name.

After two further inspiring hymns and a prayer, the Papal Inquisitor, a crusty-faced Highlander from Inverness, strolled towards the altar, wearing his peacock feather hat. He was followed by the abject, snub-nosed Brother Stephanus, sweating at the gills and wearing nought but a sheepskin around his shoulders.

The Inquisitor handed the blasphemous monk a St. Acacius sjambok (a rhino-hide whip resembling a long, thick snake), and nodded sternly, whereupon the errant brother's painful self-flagellation began to the sounds of the Sanctus.

Gracious me, the Holy brother is turning into a giant beetroot, thought Sir Richard.

Le Fleming's turning into a plum pudding, mused Cedric. Perchance he'll one day be bishop.

Brother Stephanus is too limp-wristed to give himself a sound whipping, thought the not-so-holy Inquisitor from Dingwall, reaching for his birch rod

When the singing was complete, the cruel Highlander followed up with six crisp strokes of the St. Typasius birch. The wicked cleric fainted in fright and agony, and Cedric felt like puking over the floor.

The Inquisitor licked his lips and gave Cedric the glad eye, whereupon Friar Francis encouraged the still retching squire and his protective knight to beat a hasty retreat. They all headed to a remote meadow beyond the walls behind the summit of the hill, and dodged and skipped through the Blackface sheep while trying to find their way.

                                                                    

Cedric was relieved to see a lamp shining by a doorway in the distance. The tiny, windowless St. Mungus Chapel was hidden behind a massive oak tree at the far end of the meadow.

The ancient chapel was empty, apart from a bunk by the candle-lit altar. On the bunk lay a thickset man with a haggard face. A huge ulcer with a black centre bespoiled his abdomen, his chest was heaving, and large swathes of his skin were glowing bright red. He smelt like rotten horse's flesh.
                                                                            

The St. Agatha nurse was dressed in a white gown, her face was partly concealed by a black hood, and her body was slightly stooped. She reeked of the quicklime which also spattered the bed sheets.

“Cotter's fever has lessened a bit since he consumed the new potion from Edinburgh,” she hissed, sprinkling Holy water into her patient's face.

What a strange creature of the night she is, thought Sir Richard. Maybe she is baobhan sith from Callanish whose magical powers to transmogrify into a maiden of beauty have been lost to posterity.

I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark corridor, thought Cedric. Perhaps Brother Stephanus and the nurse are descended from the same she-devil.

“Give the unfortunate fellow the lambium for ten days more and the fever might completely abate,” said Sir Richard.

The seriously sick Duncan Cotter stirred, opened his eyes, and slavered.

“Thank you, kind knight,” he panted, “for helping a mere peasant like me.”

Sir Richard rubbed the good shepherd's brow with a sodden cloth.

“We are all equal in Jesu's eyes, my good man,” replied the kind knight. “I would gladly become a peasant like you, if you a healthy knight could be.”

“Thank you, good Lord,” gurgled Duncan, as his limbs shuddered all together.

The St. Agatha nurse pulled a dirty white packet from beneath her black hood.

“Here's another potion for the peasant's ills,” she seethed. “It's called guttium since it's distilled from the black seaweed ludactus gutache. The starving beggars eat it on the beach at Berwick while the Flemish merchants mix it with their bread.”

“Has it been tried as a medicine before?” asked Sir Richard, with a quizzical flick of his eyebrows.

Friar Francis nodded, somewhat indecisively. “Only with cattle, and with scant success. Neverthebyes, the seaweed closely resembles well-burnt intestines. God went to great pains, when creating the appearance of plants, to show mankind what each herb will be useful for, and this includes seaweeds, according, as I remember, to Galen of Pergamon. If Duncan's illness started in his intestines, then the guttium will undoubtedly cure him.”

“According to Dioscorides' doctrine of signatures, if that Greek pagan's voluminous De Materia Medica is to be believed,” added the scholarly Sir Richard. “But prithee! I beg you to wait a few days more to see whether the Spice of the Seven-Horned Lamb takes fuller effect. I fear that the twain will not mix well together.”

The unusually strange nurse bared her teeth like a she-wolf.

“Do not interfere!” she growled. “God is the arbiter!”

Friar Francis heaved a hefty sigh. “According to a tenth century decree by Pope Anastasius the Third, the infallible truths recorded in De Materia Medica remain the word of the living God. Nevertheless, I think, on reflection, that we should wait and see whether the fever abates with the lambium, before we seek misadventure with the foul brew from Berwick.”

“The Papal Inquisitor will pour scorn on this turn of events,” hissed the nurse.

“Do you ever wipe your fangs, shrewish hussy, or take off your hood?” asked Cedric, with a flick of his forefinger. “You could be a werewolf, for all I know.”

“Forthsooth, I am a vampire, you coot,” screeched the nurse. “I'll drain your blood during the wee small hours until your flesh turns ghastly white. I'll pour it down the sewer along with the rest of the foul blood in our tanks.”

“Enough of this dour ribaldry, fools of Christendom!” begged Friar Francis, straining his brow.

Sir Richard glanced sideways at the belligerent nurse. “We will return soon with all manner of herbs to cure brave Duncan Cotter further.”

Cedric stepped forwards and kissed the sick shepherd's cheek. “In the meantime, may the angels and archangels protect your eternal soul.”

“What a merry triangle of love,” murmured Duncan, with a semblance of a smile.

                                                                            

“Do take a taste of these Hebridean mushrooms, Sir Richard,” requested the sly nurse, with a strange gleam. “They will add delicious pleasantries to your slumbers.”

Sir Richard licked one of the mushrooms with the tip of his tongue. “That's unbelievable! Are they in season?”

“They were freshly picked in the chapel grove yesterday,” whined the nurse, “and dried overnight in the dovecot. When mixed with the pidgeon droppings, they are good for cleansing the blood.”

“Thank you, I'll try one,” said Cedric, coldly, consuming the largest of the mushrooms in a single gulp.

“And a magic toadstool from Wick, perhaps?” inquired the crafty St. Agatha nurse,

“Not tonight, Witch of Babylon,” retorted the foolhardy squire. “They're too rich for my tender stomach.”

                                                                             

Meanwhile, the assembled nuns and their minions were leading a merry dance in St. Celicia's Wing, under the supervision of the raven-haired mother superior from Iona. The holy mother was wearing a flamboyant, multi-coloured kaftan, which had been brought to her from Mesopotamia by a dashing admirer. Lady Fiona thoroughly enjoyed the 'Charade of the Wenceslas Candles', and was left tingling with joy. Everybody joined in the 'Game of the Saintly Sirens', and ended up in one big heap.

Despite a more comfortable opportunity in the friary, Sir Richard decided to sleep between his steed Xanthos and his squire Cedric in the visitors' stable, since Xanthos was prone to fret in strange places during the darkness of night and needed to be comforted.

But Cedric felt a touch light in the head, and took a stroll to St. Cecilia's Wing, in the hope of catching a gloriously saucy glance at Lady Fiona McLachlan in her silk finery through the window of her bedchamber. To his displeasure, his desires went unfulfilled, since the shutters were already firmly closed.

After leaving for the stables, Cedric felt increasingly dizzy, and was, moreover, surprised to hear a strange snorting sound from behind Cupid's Well. To add to his confusion, a tall thin apparition resembling the Grim Reaper seemed to leap from behind the well.

“Bloody Nora!” howled Cedric. “Consarn it!”

“All manner of woe to you, de Porthos, for your traitorous deeds,” seethed the apparition. “Before the loony diver bird coos midnight one more time, you will be poisoned like Socrates from this Earth while your true love to her death you do ride.”

Cedric stared the apparition straight in the face, and saw death itself. Thereupon, he took haste towards the stables, raving like a madman.

“Sir Richard, Sir Richard, pray for me Sir Richard, for the morrow I of hemlock die!” he pleaded, falling to his knees. “Thus the Grim Reaper speaks, has spoken, and will to Charon speak.”

Sir Richard licked his fingers on the last of his Hebridean mushrooms.

“Do take control of yourself, dear Cedric,” he calmly replied. “Twas merely a false vision or perchance a passing dream. Now come and sleep between Xanthos's hoofs, and cuddle me to sleep. I will alter my position for your own special comfort.”

At that, Cedric threw himself into his master's all-enveloping arms.

“My lady, I mean your lady, will also surely die,” raved the deranged squire, “while she in love is tempted.”

“I know all there is to know about the triangle of love that moves between us,” replied Sir Richard, with a welcoming grin. “and no foul death will ever overtake it.”

“Take me, dear Richard,” howled Cedric, in full frenzy, “as if I your dear Ingibiorg were, before she and me in Hellfire meet.”

“But how should I take you?” asked Sir Richard, sounding perplexed.

Cedric waved to and fro like a branch hovering in the wind.

“I, as Jonathan, bow to you, David, my illustrious king.”

Sir Richard felt his head spinning from within his heart, and lost control of his senses. He grabbed Cedric's feet, in a mixture of anguish, lust, and desire, pulled them into the air, and kissed his squire's toes. And the handsome Frenchman deliquesced into the hay.

“And now I will make our triangle complete,” roared Sir Richard, “while the Devil within me makes my love replete.”

“Hey nonino!!”

                                                                             

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                                                           CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3: JOURNEY INTO JEOPARDY

CHAPTER 3: JOURNEY INTO JEOPARDY

Copyright: Thomas Hoskyns Leonard, Edinburgh, October 2017

                                                                        

When Friar Francis took Sir Richard and Cedric their bread and ale early the next morning, he discovered his guests nestled cosily together with their heads resting against Xanthos's protective right foreleg.

While Cedric was taking a bite of his bread, his pony Augustus stirred, and opened his deep purple eyes.

“I must apologize for the Saint Agatha nurse's rude behaviour last night,” said the congenial friar. “She'd eaten a few too many of her Hebridean mushrooms. When we found the weird bizzom dancing the Tarantella with the sheep, we had to muzzle her and put her to bed in the cowshed.”

“Your nurse is particularly well-educated for a woman,” Sir Richard tactfully replied. “Dancing the Tarantella is a superb therapy for victims of bites.”

“Perchance the vixen had been bitten by a fox,” replied Friar Francis, with a sly look.

“I also ate too many mushrooms,” said Cedric, bleary eyed, “and I saw a frightening apparition leaping out of the Cupidian Well. But I've since dreamt wonderful dreams during the night, as if I were the Archangel Gabriel in love with a poltergeist. And now the pleasantest of all feelings consumes my entire body.”

Sir Richard raised his knightly eyebrows. “You're lucky the mushrooms didn't give you the Herod's Revenge. I feel a touch queasy in the gut myself.”

                                                                                         

“Forsooth!” exclaimed Friar Francis. “If the apparition emerging from the well resembled the Grim Reaper, it could have been a monk on a sleepwalk, or perchance one of our creepy guests from Rannoch Moor. Since many of our visitors partake of spices and potions, all manner of crass and cranky things can happen in this isolated place.”

Sir Richard gave Cedric a bird-like peck on his lips before replying. “All's well that wends well, as Saint Christopher is ever ready to remind us. After bidding our fond farewells to Lady Fiona, we'll aways to sweet Edinburgh, where my loving wife Ingibiorg is arising early to prepare our favourite, cordon bleu pot roast.”

“Tu est magnifique, but there's nought like a dame!” exclaimed Cedric, wiping the saliva off his sloppy chops.

“You taste like une belle fille to me,” retorted Sir Richard, with a smirk.

The worthy friar chuckled like a court jester. “God speed, fine gentlemen! You are goodness itself.”

“Take care, kind friends,” squealed wholesome Kate, flourishing her sweet smelling hands as she came through the door. “You may be embarking upon a journey towards jeopardy.”

“If so then Christ Jesus will take care of us,” replied Sir Richard, with a wholesome grin.

Sir Richard's hair stood on end when he and Cedric set off from the Soutra astride Xanthos and Augustus. He feared that the journey might become iconic in his memory for some reason or other, and he dreaded that the apparition's terrible death prophecy of the night before might have some rhyme or reason about it.

The riders were approaching Fala along the Via Regia when a tiny bird fluttered down from a weeping willow tree, landed on Xanthos's tousled mane, and performed a merry dance. The Goddess Asherah, who was treading water on the Sea of Yam, realised that it was a golden speckled crowned kinglet, a very rare breed of wren which nested on the Isle of May.

It may be of small stature, mused Sir Richard, but the bird that can fly to the highest loftiness will be made king, according to some ancient Teutonic fable methinks,

A black and white mottled bird with massively long wings suddenly appeared from out of a dense pine forest, and circled overhead.

“Is it a sparrowhawk or an osprey,” wondered Sir Richard, peering upwards, “or the legendary falcon of Fólkvangr sent by Freya herself? Perchance the double-headed eagle of Valhalla will follow in its wake.”

“Begone, sinister Raptor of Infernal Hades!” howled Cedric.

“Caw, baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” shrieked the bird, as if out of the bowels of Hell.

“I beseech thee to leave us,” roared Sir Richard, drawing Vindicta from its scabbard.

The eyes of the winged beast turned fiery red, emitting two silver beams which struck Vindicta's blade in full swing, causing Sir Richard to shudder and shake like a goblin on Rannoch Moor.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!” shrieked the noble knight as his sword fell to the ground, hitting a granite stone and causing multitudinous sparks to fly into the undergrowth.

Without further ado, the bird dived at Xanthos, picked up the wren in its beak, and soared towards the heavens.

It took Sir Richard and Cedric several minutes to recover from that totally bizarre assault from above.

Maybe the strange bird and the wren will fly higher than the eagles, pondered Sir Richard, but which of them will be king?

When they reached Gala, a mischievous-looking minstrel was sitting on a bench outside the Church, plucking the strings of his lute. He took a sniff of Cedric's scent while the squire was dismounting from his pony.

The wiry fellow coughed.“I can smell a Frenchman from six furlongs off.”

Cedric snorted. “What stinking bog did you leap out of?”

The impudent minstrel laughed at that. “I hope that all fares well with thee, Cedric de Porthos.”

“Declare yourself in the King's name!” snorted Sir Richard.

“Me?” chortled the somewhat sinister lute-fiddler, fingering his blonde locks. “I'm the Troubadour of Arbroath, though my mother came from fair Aquitaine to marry the master blacksmith who she loved.”

“I find that hard to believe,” said Cedric, peering down his handsome nose. “How do you know my name?”

“But forsooth, I am a soothsayer, snotty laddie,” said the troubadour, with a snigger. “Prithee! I take thee for a smellfungus. But let me ask thee three questions, and I will sing thy life in song to thee.”

“What questions?” Cedric brusquely replied.

“Have you ever sowed the corn and gathered the wheat?”

“Aye. In Pau when I was a child. The stones blistered my feet.”

“When did thee last a fair lass haul into the hay?”

“Last week, when the wine went to our heads.”

“Have you ever walked on eggs?”

“Yes. I stamped on grapes and raw eggs while we were manufacturing Cardinal Santiago's Advocaat in Lourdes.”

The troubadour fiddled with his lute and gulped like a Natterjack toad. Just then, Sir Richard noticed a chubby, long-nosed fellow dressed in wolfskins tying his horse to the branch of an elm tree at the far end of the rose garden.

That's one of the shady rapscallions I saw in Evensong last night, deliberated Sir Richard, rubbing his jaw, but where's his fair-haired accomplice? I suspected them of theft on the Canongate. I wonder whether this ragamuffin has been trailing me from the Soutra for some daft reason or other? He's heading for a whipping with the harlots in the stocks on Calton Hill.

“Music heals the disorders of the mind,” proclaimed the troubadour, plucking his lute, “as can the sound of water rippling, the shrill of sparrows chirping, and the echoes of dragonflies buzzing, and crickets hopping. Such has been known since the beginning of time.”

How profound for a vagrant, thought Sir Richard. He has some qualities about him.

                                                                              

Without further ado, the Troubadour of Arbroath strummed a fine tune and began to sing:

I declare to ye, my fellow men,

Kind Cedric is so sweet

And he ties his gown so neat;

He sows the corn and gathers the wheat

But beware, fair Cedric when you next bed a bizzom

Or you may end in God's prison.

Do not walk on eggs or you will lose your legs.

I forewarn thee of the mug from which you sup;

Do not drink witch's potions from your cup.

And close to your pony cuddle

And protect yourself in your manly huddle;

Beware sad deaths in a putrid puddle!

Cedric extracted a coin from his purse. “Here's a copper groat for your efforts, paltry heidbanger from Arbroath, though I can fit no logique to your paroles folles.”

“Why, merci monsieur,” the troubadour dryly replied. “If you watch the curious colour of your skin when you next haul a besom o'er a bed, then you may see some wit in the manner of my crassness.”

“Away with thee, feeble soothsayer!” raged Sir Richard. “We're aways from thee to retrieve our sanity in dear auld reeking Embro, the city of the knights of Loth and Arthur bold.”

When Sir Richard and Cedric resumed their journey, the chubby, long-nosed man in wolfskins leapt onto his horse, threw the happy go lucky troubadour a silver piece, and headed north at a pace which was undoubtedly fit for his grand purposes and schemes.

                                                                               

The village of Pathhead consisted of about thirty hovels and thatched cottages stretching either side of the Via Regia as it headed downhill towards the shaky wooden bridge over the Tyne Water. The last time Sir Richard had passed through the drab village he'd been pelted with eggs and tomatoes at the Alpin well by a pair of scruffy wizards from Athelstaneford. It was therefore with some trepidation that the travellers stopped at the well to refresh their proud steeds Xanthos and Augustus. They also needed to take a pish, a task they endeavoured to accomplish, side-saddle, without taking the trouble to even dismount.

Cedric's stomach churned inside when he saw two slovenly fellows emerging from the blacksmithy with pursed expressions on their ugly faces. They were the retainers who'd ridden out of Dalhousie Castle on his way down from Edinburgh, no less. They'd gotten him into trouble with his dear Richard by calling him a snoop, before rudely demanding his presence in the Grassmarket on Saturday next.

What in the name of Beelzebub is my cousin Leofric up to now? wondered Sir Richard, re-buttoning his codpiece. I'll give these fishy miscreants short shrift.

The retainer with almond-shaped eyes cleared his nostrils. “Greetings, unholy Knight of the Sacred Orb. Your worthy cousin of Dalhousie wishes you to detour to his castle, so that he may discuss with you matters of consequence affecting James, our King.”

Sir Richard grasped his sword Vindicta by its hilt. “I recognise you for the gaping holes in your teeth, and I am no plotter or infamous traitor. How did you know I was coming?”

The chubby man in wolfskins who'd accosted Sir Richard in Gala scurried up with his fair-haired garçon rouet, who'd spilt something green and ugly down his yellow tunic.

“That's because I told them,” explained the chubby man, “Rim and I have been tracking you to and from the Soutra, with the help of the wandering minstrel from Arbroath of course.”

“Traitors!” howled Sir Richard, brandishing his hefty fist. “The troubadour too! Logger-headed Judas's, all five of you.”

“I'm no traitor,” moaned Rim Spit. “I'm for King Harry.”

“That half-bred dolt's King of England,” retorted Sir Richard, “tripe-visaged idiot-worshipper that you are!”

The retainer with the strange Northern accent leapt onto his white donkey.

“You do not seem to fully understand, Sir Richard,” he announced, with a flourish of his hefty mace. “Should you fail to parley with Sir Leofric today, evil forces will involve you in a plot that could, after much agony and gnashing of teeth, leave your festering body impaled on a spike on Calton Hill.”

Cedric de Porthos drew his dagger from its leather pouch and waved it around his head.

“How dare you thus threaten my Lord and Master!” he shrieked. “Your face is veritably as ugly as an ape's rump. Go forth and die in the stinking Tranent sewer, foul usurper of the peace!”

The man in wolfskins peered down his very long nose. “It is you who will die first, tight-limbed garçon. Does Sir Richard know that you are paid ten silver pieces each month as a secret agent for the Lord of the Isles, double dealing delinquent that you are?”

“I'm no Viking's lackey and no Judas either!” howled Cedric, leaping from his pony. “I'll flay the skin off your arm for a new Janus mask, yes I will!”

Cedric landed flat on his backside during the intense brouhaha that ensued, but leapt stridently to his feet and eventually succeeded in throwing the scroundrel in wolfskins headlong into a horse's trough. Thereupon the retainer with dirty teeth seized Cedric around his throat and attempted to strangle him.

Sir Richard promptly jumped to the ground wielding Vindicta, and cut off the evil-smelling assailant's left hand with an exquisite flourish. That accomplished, the bold knight pulled the mace-wielding retainer off his donkey by the scruff of his pimply neck and sent him squelching into the mud.

                                                                                 

“All praise to thee, St. Peter the Rock,” exclaimed Cedric, struggling clumsily to his feet, “and to all pious Bishops of Rome.”

Sir Richard performed the Sign of the Cross. “God bless Eugenius Quartus, God's Vicar on Earth!”

“I'm not an enemy agent, I'm really not,” howled Cedric. “They must be confusing me with the rakish clerk for the queen, even if he has a longer nose and a bunion, and shorter legs than myself.”

“You're no spy for the Norse Demon of Cara, sweet Cedric,” replied Sir Richard, blowing the lad a kiss, “and I can make neither head nor tail of the plot these oafs have contrived to invent.”

Cedric grinned like an algolagniacal tiger and stuck in the boot, and the lazy villagers and the serfs from the fields roundly applauded knight and squire together.

“Let us away to your fair lady in sweet Edwin's Burgh, gentle Sire,” said Cedric, as his three swag-bellied victims writhed yowling on the ground.

“Rot in shit!” wailed Rim Spit, hiding his head in a bucket.

Sir Richard grinned at Cedric like a Manx cat. “Do remember to re-lace your codpiece, fair squire. You would not wish to take a chill in it.”

And moments later, the partners in love were away across the bridge over the Tyne Water and heading for the comforts of home.

                                                                           

When the two horsemen arrived, in full jollity, at Óengus House, the de Liddell mansion on Edinburgh's Queen Maud Walk, Cedric imagined that the archaic gargoyle on the parapet was smiling at him and then thought that it was scowling.

“Home sweet home,” exclaimed Sir Richard. “What pleasures will the rest of the day bring?”

In the flash of an eyelid, Lady Ingibiorg appeared at the ornate window above the doorway and merrily waved her fists, one at each of the horsemen.

How thought provoking, mused Cedric, feeling unusually defensive.

No rolling pin waiting for us then, enthused Sir Richard, as he and Cedric ran up the smoothly carpeted stairs, and we've arrived in time for lunch.

Saturnic kisses from and for one and all? wondered Lady Ingibiorg, with her hand on a delightful thigh. That would make twelve altogether, methinks.

What a wonderful display of emotion, mused the Goddess Asherah in the Heavens, as Yahweh swam towards her with a red rose between his teeth.

When the brave companions entered the good lady's boudoir, Sir Richard was surprised to see his good wife lounging nestled on the Angevin chaise-longue with a curvaceous lass who was wearing nought but a familiar looking lace petticoat around her neck, and an Orcadian spider brooch pinned to her loins.

It's the delightful Adaira, observed Cedric. The lass I frolicked with in the Hermitage of Braid during our journey to the Soutra. Methinks her mother's a drowned witch and her father a burnt wizard.

The bizzom may not be the giglet she appears, mused Sir Richard. She may have some mysterious talents about her.

“Don't look at me,” said Lady Ingibiorg, twirling her pearl necklace. “I deserve my morsel of fun too.”

“How delightful, darling,” replied Sir Richard, showing due tact. “I am sure that you and this kindly lass have been reading The Dream of Aengus together.”

“I found her sleeping in the doorway. She was a stranger, and so I took her in.”

“Balderdash! I sent her to show herself off to you because of her excellent talents in poetry and the arts.”

Adaira McTaggart glanced fleetingly at Cedric. While her body movements were not particularly subtle, they sent him sublime messages.

“I'm not interested in legend, and there are no singing birds in my head,” she cooed, “but I'd love to be part of your cosy family.”

That made Cedric feel as concupiscible as an archbishop on heat, indeed almost to the point of incontinence. “I'll toast to that! Why don't we all take lunch together in the Saint Margaret Glaschambre, and eat elderberries for dessert? A glass of parsley wine would not go amiss.”

Perchance I should ask the hawk-nosed Bishop of Edinburgh to celebrate my marriage to three wives at once, deliberated Sir Richard, somewhat frivolously, though that arrogant doubting Thomas might want to be betrothed to me too!

Adaira smiled strangely. “Parsley wine is good for my head. It makes it ache.”

Lady Ingibiorg blinked. “Unfortunately, we've run out of partridge.”

“Perhaps we should open the malmsey-butt later,” suggested Sir Richard. “The old vintage is good for the digestion.”

While they were devouring the roast duck and rabbit, Sir Richard took his eyes off the delightful Adaira and peered through the quarter-pane window and across the meadow beyond.

Firkins! he agonized. I do believe that I recognize the minstrel who fiddles beneath that oak tree. It's the wandering Troubadour from Arbroath who we recently encountered in Fala, and he's said to be part of my traitorous cousin Leofric's desperate ring of spies. How did the knotty-pated jack-a-nape spirit himself here so quickly?

Cedric smirked. At least something's distracted Richard from the immediate desires of my burning heart, he mused. I'll plan to splice the knot with Adaira in the roof of the dovecot later.

Sir Richard glanced towards his absolutely riveting wife. “What else have you been doing while we've been away, darling? Have you been mixing with our good neighbours in the Church rectory?”

“Those heathen creatures are up to absolutely no good, dearest,” replied Lady Ingibiorg, with a wry smile. “Indeed, the priest with the two vertical scars and a knob for a nose knocked on our door only this morning, and invited me to attend Father Kelp Haggart's Saturnic orgy in the rectory at midnight. I told the ugly inebriate that he was the Devil Incarnate.”

“An apt riposte!”

“Since then, I'll been knitting you a new pair of sheeps wool pantaloons. I'm already halfway down the second leg, though I will need to knit a generous pouch for the rest.”

Cedric choked, sniggered, and touched himself in jest.

“You have a wondrous sense of humour, dearest,” replied Sir Richard, “With that in mind, let us now drink a toast to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.”

“Yes let's!” replied Cedric, his eyes rolling avec nerversement in all directions at once.

“And here's to us!” announced Sir Richard, in true Scottish style.

“Who's like us?” asked Adaira, gulping her wine.

“Very few,” replied Lady Ingibiorg, “and they're all dead.”

Sir Richard grinned. “Let us, this afternoon, a walk across the meadow partake.”

“Methinks we'll play a game,” said Cedric, relaxing his eyes. “You three are the foxes, and I'll be the snake.”

The four companions spent a wonderful time on the meadow. They played Ring around the Mulberry Bush and Lasses and Knaves together. After much moaning and groaning, Cedric got his wish, and pursued the three 'foxes' through a rhododendron bush, wriggling like a crocodile. When he got his face heartily slapped, they repaired to the lily pond and all fell asleep while the faeries and goblins snipped at their feet.

                                                                    

Since Xanthos and Augustus were well bedded in the barn, Sir Richard decided, after eating a lightly poached egg for supper, to take a stroll to Edinburgh's High Street. This elegant thoroughfare stretched from the lofty forecourt of the Castle down the ridge of the escarpment to the Netherbow Port, the fabulously designed eastern gateway where the wall separated the city from the Royal Burgh of Canongate (which sprawled over the foot of the escarpment).
                                                 

The purpose of Sir Richard's trip was a previously arranged appointment with the indomitable Sheriff-Depute Brodie Crichton-Cruikshank in the Pretorium, a well-turreted building of several storeys on the High Street which housed the burghal offices of Edinburgh together with the municipal torture chambers and an extremely smelly prison in the dungeons below.

Sir Richard knew that the Cruikshank-Crichtons of the haunted Castle Trilloch in Dingwall practised Druidic sorcery and child sacrifices on the nearby barrows, while exploiting all good Scots with their self-aggrandising skulduggery. But he assumed that the Crichton-Cruikshanks were a different kettle of fish.

Sir Richard well-realised that Sir Brodie deputised for his cousin the fearsome Sheriff of Edinburgh. Sir Richard was as scared of the canny Sir William Crichton as he was of Sir Brodie.

Soon after setting off, Sir Richard fell into a zombie-like trance during which he imagined harpy eagles flying through his mansion from the rectory next door. When he emerged from his trance, he'd already turned off Queen Maud Walk onto Myrddin Wynd, a narrow cobbled lane between drab buildings, apparently with no windows, which took him ever downwards until he emerged onto the Cowgate, a prosperous street on a lower level of Edinburgh where visiting pimps and prostitutes thrived amongst the wealthy householders and their inquisitive international guests and which ran parallel to the High Street way above on the other side.

Sir Richard took a few moments on the Cowgate to take a puff of opium with a mousey-haired and remarkably slender, scruffy lassie from Penicuik, before throwing her a coin and heading for Mungo Wynd. He speedily ascended the dank and very narrow passageway to the High Street on the volcanic escarpment above, and emerged outside the much celebrated Stag and Hornet Inn, just as a widow threw a bucketful of shit from an attic window onto the merry-makers below.

Sir Richard wiped his face with his silk handkerchief and gagged. After puking into the gutter, he hurried up the High Street in the direction of the Castle, dodging along his way between a myriad of townspeople as they scurried in and out of the town-houses and hostelries. As he approached St. Giles Cathedral he saw two bodies with their throats cut, stinking in the stanks.

And lo and behold! When Sir Richard reached the market place, he saw a familiar face peering at him from behind a fruit stall. It was Rim Spit, the fair-haired vagabond he'd recently encountered on the Soutra and in Pathhead, but now wearing a filthy brown tunic. Spit was the friend of the fat miscreant in wolfskins whose hand Sir Richard had so brutally severed during the brouhaha with Cedric.

Spit backed away, shaking in fright, fell over a sack of turnips, picked himself up, and fled down Constantine the Second's Close towards the Nor Loch.

I must be caught up in some outrageously broad plot, mused Sir Richard. I will need to keep a calm head on my shoulders when I talk to the sheriff-depute. I wonder whether the slick lute-player from Arbroath is still skulking around too?

Sir Richard paused for a few minutes to recall what he knew about Sir Brodie Crichton-Cruikshank. The sheriff-depute had worked as a young man as a physician in St. Leonard's Hospital in St. Andrews where he'd experimented at leisure on some of his less fortunate patients. He'd written several learned manuscripts concerning disorders of the mind and advocated trepanning as an excellent way of releasing the evil spirits from inside his patients' heads.
                                                                                  

Unfortunately, the burr holes which Sir Brodie drilled into their skulls usually brought about an agonising death, recalled Sir Richard, and often sooner rather than later. What a brute of a monster! And Crichton-Cruikshank lost his accreditation as a physician following his several valiant attempts to silence the voices inside Lady Pamela Carstairs' wrinkled noddle. His fall from grace occurred after she leapt, sans ses culottes and with blood pouring from her ears, onto the high altar of St. Athernase Church in Leuchars. What a tragic joke!

Sir Richard was appalled to think that as one of Edinburgh's top law officials, Crichton-Cruikshank was able to use his previous knowledge as a physician and his expertise on 'disorders of the mind' to good effect when questioning and torturing criminals and potential witnesses.

“A combination of trepanning and Lackland's Revenge is the best way of putting paid to traitors to the king,” Sir Brodie would say. “The fools are left bereft of their balls as well as their senses.”

                                                                                

The Pretorium, sometimes referred to as the Tollbooth, was attached to the north-west corner of St. Giles Cathedral, to give easy access for the Holy Inquisitors wishing to observe the frolics in the Crimsonwood Chamber below.

Grimwald 'Grimy' Grunwald, one of the Sheriff-Depute's heftiest retainers, ushered Sir Richard straight up the marble staircase to Crichton-Cruikshank's third floor office.

“I still have fond memories of the time we met in Cracow, Sire,” said Grimy, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “After partaking of the enormously strong Polish ale, we fell head over heels into a drunken heap.”

“I don't know how the Polaks manage to keep their heads straight,” replied Sir Richard, with a gracious smile. “I'm glad that I persuaded you to become a Scottish one.”

“And all the better for it,” replied Grimy, squeezing his crucifix.

Sheriff-Depute Brodie Crichton-Cruikshank was a clean-shaven, pink-skinned, portly, pate-headed man in his early fifties whose lips seemed fixated in a permanent sneer. Visitors could be forgiven for wondering whether he possessed the mind of a pig, since his snout bore a passing resemblance to the tail of one of the sweaty beasts.

Sir Richard thought that the sheriff-depute was a parody of the politicians and oligarchs of that foul nature who had abused the more sensitive throughout the ages.

His personality is so gushing, recalled the kindly knight, that the mannies veer away and keep their backs to the wall in fear of a squall.

When Sir Richard entered Sir Brodie's spartan 'Orchard of Eden Room,' he did so with a feeling of distaste, because of all the scandalous events which had reportedly occurred there.

Crichton-Cruikshank's sneer turned briefly into a frosty smile.

“Why it's the Knight of the Hospice at Soutra,” spieled the loquacious sheriff-depute, cutting a chunk off his stuffed lamprey. “Give me the names of ten more evil fugitives from justice, and I'll ask the king to appoint you to the Order of the Mighty Doom. But methinks you may be one of the doomed yourself.”

What's the sly bugger getting at? wondered Sir Richard, with a twitch of his ears. He thinks in terms of rings within rings and plots within plots.

“You jest, I would hope, Sir,” replied the courteous knight. “I remain a faithful servant to the king, and may God protect the right. However, only slender pickings during my most recent trip to the House of the Holy Trinity, I'm afraid. A shady, long-nosed gulsh wearing stinking wolfskins and his ugly, fair-haired sidekick. They trailed me and my good squire back as far as Pathhead. The gulsh is now bereft of his left hand.”

“The Lord be praised,” responded the sheriff-depute, somewhat surlily. “The gulsh is the Roller of Shotts and his sidekick is Rim Spit of Lanark. They're spies for the foul Burgundians, and we're still waiting for their foolish plot to broaden.”

“I'm sure that they will be drawn and quartered in the Grassmarket before the fall of the Autumn leaves.”

The portly sheriff-depute spat an eye of the lamprey out onto the barren boards of the floor and took a munch of a rosy River Eden apple. “I will devour their offal myself. But did you and your fancy squire discover anything else of interest while you were frolicking with the nuns at Soutra? I would have enjoyed watching your sturdy Cedric de Porthos getting his cod-pouch twisted around his neck by the raven-headed mother superior.”

“Scant else,” replied Sir Richard, “though I was honoured by the company of the fair Lady Fiona McLachlan. Her noble husband is bestricken with St. Cornelius's Lurge, and I promised to represent her interests to you on her behalf.”

Crichton-Cruikshank's cruel eyes narrowed. “That evil bizzom poisoned her husband's boiled goose with a spider and snail potion. The Lord of Comely Brae is a faithful Knight of the Royal Bedchamber, and our gracious King James sits and pines for his grovelling Schlosshund's fast fading life. Lady Fiona will burn at the stake for her abominations after her own guts have been packed with lice!”

“I'm sure there has been a mistake. She's a wondrous lady.”

“She associates with your evil, scheming cousin Sir Leofric de Liddell at Dalhousie Castle. I'll throw all of your confounded relatives to rot in a cesspit as soon as I can set my hands on them.”

Sir Richard gulped, and almost choked. “Methinks the worthy lord caught his malady from the tarts in the Cowgate, with whom he did to my knowledge frequently frequent.”

“Beware stupid knight lest we fill you with slugs and worms, for all the plots and intrigue that besmirch your unholy life!”

“How dare you, Sir! My only loyalties are to Almighty God, the King, and to Scotland, a proud nation before God and of the Sang Royale itself.”

“Perchance I spoke too fast and should not too quickly associate you with the guilt of your treasonous relatives,” Crichton-Cruikshank ponderously conceded, unslitting his eyes. “I will send a Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Lady Fiona on the Soutra. She will be pinned to the back of the camel Saladin and paraded along the High Street from the Canongate for all to deride and deface.”

“Prithee! Mercy, I beg you.”

“I am merciless to the core, a trait which our good Lord honours me with. The evil temptress will be interrogated in the Crimsonwood Chamber forthwith, and tried by ordeal on the Nor Loch as a witch.”

“May I attend her interrogation? I'm sure that the truth will become evident as soon as she opens her sweet-smelling mouth.”

The sheriff-depute frowned, fleetingly, and snarled. “If you are still in one piece yourself.”

Sir Richard scowled. “On that note, I bid you guten Nacht, König Schweinehund. I am away to my mistress the Lady Ingibiorg whose munificence is that of La Vièrge Marie herself.”

Crichton-Cruikshank, who did not fully comprehend the Deutsch language and thought that schwein translated to princely, grinned sneeringly.

“Await one moment, noble knight. I am about to descend my secret spiral staircase to the Crimsonwood Chamber to interrogate a felon who impaled a worthy citizen on the spiked railings which protect the Grey Friary. Would you, perchance, care to accompany me? You might be able to suggest a question of benefit to the prosecution of this case.”

Sir Richard sighed, heavily. “Perchance I would, but I beg you to ask your questions with all speediness and to spare us the red-hot poker of Pontefract.”

“That English relic will be kept chained to the fireplace,” promised the sheriff-depute, with a throat-warbling chuckle. “Queen Isabella's Revenge and blood-eagling are for regal assassins, not common or garden murderers however felonious they may be.”

“You are a highly educated man,” Sir Richard sardonically replied.

“I attended the High School of Dundee, where Wallace was a pupil before he shafted the English. I am of a pedigree of the highest order.”

                                                                  

The hefty Polak Grimy Grunwald kicked away the rats as Sir Richard and the sheriff-depute descended the damp, limestone hewn spiral staircase which had been part of Loth's Tower before the Pretorium replaced it.

When they arrived in the well-lit Crimsonwood Chamber, once the very deep Dungeon of Aed, a couple of plump sheriff's officers with painted faces and dressed as Pictish priestesses were lazily poking a hairy, pear-shaped prisoner of otherwise non-descript appearance with their pikes. The outrageously noisy fellow was writhing in a pool of his own blood inside a huge, circular, green porcelain-tiled bowl, and there were two gaping burr holes in his forehead.

The sheriff-depute prodded the prisoner with his mahogany walking stick. “Why did you murder the elderly pawnbroker with such nastiness, cretin that you are? It wasn't his fault that he was rich and mean-hearted.”

“He'd kept my pot of pomade,” groaned the prisoner, his nose spewing mucus and his burr holes emitting a thick yellow post-surgical flux.

“Why didn't you pay him his pound and his interest for it?”

“Nought in plate,” gurgled the prisoner

“Sizzling frying pan, Grimy!”

“Here she comes, Sir Brodie, right on the nail,” replied Grimy, waving Robert the Bruce's favourite frying pan around his gargantuan head.

“My best friends call me Chick,” mithered Sir Brodie.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!” shrieked the prisoner, when the pan smacked against his now sizzling belly with a loud clap. .

“Why in Heaven's name was it worth killing one of God's people for the price of a pot of pomade?” inquired Sir Richard, quite sympathetically.

“Sard!” shrieked the prisoner, now nearing the end of his tether.

Sir Brodie licked his chops. “Let's rid one more confounded priest of his misery.”

And after further horrific indignities, the Holy Father died from shock.

“The physicians of the Pharaohs couldn't have done it better, Chick,” exclaimed Grimy, looking most impressed.

Sir Richard borrowed a Hebridean lantern from Grimy to light his way home more clearly. The dark nooks and crannies were alarmingly frightening during the wee small hours when the bog serpents came out to play, and that nicht was no exception.

When the doughty knight emerged onto the largely empty Queen Maud Walk, he began to feel more at ease with the world. But as he approached Kitty Corner, he saw two heads sticking out from behind a large, noxious rubbish box. They were the ubiquitous Troubadour from Arbroath, no less, and Rim Spit, the fair haired, good-for-nothing hempie who Sir Richard had last spotted in the Market Place by St. Giles Cathedral.

“Even though I walk through the Vale of Death, I will not be afraid of the ghouls,” chanted Sir Richard, as the motley duo fled into the shadows of the night, “for you are with me and comfort me with your rod and staff, Lord Jesus.”

Goddam it! he agonized. If only they would translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew. Even Gaelic would be preferable.

When Sir Richard approached his mansion, a party-goer dressed as a Hebridean storm hag ran out of the rectory next door.
                                                                                  

“Come savour the thrills within here, handsome knight,” snarled the hag. “Better to your innards than the chills within there.”

“Begone, devilish besom!” roared Sir Richard, but as he approached his front door, the mysterious lass Adaira McTaggart burst out, hair awry and face white in trance. She ran, totally mute, across the road and away through the dark-outlined trees by the meadow.

Sir Richard hurriedly entered his house, only to hear his good wife groaning in anguish from up the stairs. The bold knight promptly drew his sword Vindicta and ran frantically to the higher floor. When he entered Lady Ingibiorg's boudoir, she was lying on her huge, white feather four-poster bed, her face mottled green and black. On the floor lay an upturned goblet, its spilt contents still tearing holes into the rug, is odour mixing the scent of claret with a much more fearsome smell.

Lady Ingibiorg's fair body was concealed by the sprawling body of Cedric de Porthos, his skin stained with black blotches and red spots from his neck down to his sturdy thighs.

“The sea-monster poisoned poor me,” moaned Lady Ingibiorg, with a flick of her yellowy-brown eyelids.

“Who, dearest one?” wailed Sir Richard, in utter shock.

Cedric bestirred himself from his coma, and raised his head slightly.

“Twas the heathen in the cloak,” he whimpered.

“Please do not die, my precious ones,” howled Sir Richard, dropping his sword. “You are all that there is in the world to me.”

Cedric sobbed, and puckered his now ghoulish, dark green lips. “Kiss me, dearest Zeus.”

Sir Richard twisted Cedric's head in his direction, yelped, “Yes, Aphrodite!” and thrust his tongue into his much-loved squire's poisonous mouth and towards his gaping Aquitanian tonsils.

Cedric quivered, but after a few seconds his throat began to rattle like a timber snake. His body quaked several times in the throes of death, and, all of a sudden, he went limp in his good knight's arms as his soul sped to Elysium.

“Aaaaaarg!” howled Sir Richard, extricating his tongue.

“He's still within me,” moaned Lady Ingibiorg.

“Away with ye, ghoulish prophecies!” howled Sir Richard, tearing his hair.

“Come to me,” begged Lady Ingibiorg.

Sir Richard spewed over the fluffy bolster before standing up and seizing Cedric by his bulging, seriously swollen, crimson ankles. He contrived, with some difficulty, to pull the muscular Frenchman's once beautiful torso back a foot or so, and succeeded in rolling it off his struggling wife until it was beside her, like a sea-demon, on the bed. The smell was excruciating rare.

“Take me,” whispered Lady Ingibiorg, “to Eternity.”

The forbearing knight coughed and spluttered as he ungirded his loins. “I am here for you, my darling.”

Lady Ingibiorg simpered as the juices flowed. But when she screeched in ecstasy, her entire body began to flutter like a butterfly as her husband pressed ever forwards from within.

“What is this darkness?” she groaned, going limp as a stuffed goose, and she was gone to meet Freya in her palace in Fólkvangr.

“Zounds!” screamed Sir Richard.

Where art thou, triangle of love? he lamented.

                                                                       

                                                          BACK TO CONTENTS
                                                  CHAPTER 4