The Lion Rampant Read Online Free PDF

they did not laugh at the rabble; they would all depend on each other when push came to thrust.
    Hal moved through this misty, half-remembered world of noise and stink and death, made more grotesque by the shattering bright of banners and tents and surcotes dotting it like blooms.
    Brightest of all was the Earl of Moray’s flag, big as a bedsheet, fluttering in the dank breeze. It did not show the arms Hal remembered, but the old lessons dinned into him by his father surfaced like leaping salmon: or, three cushions within a double tressure flory counterflory gules . It was the arms of Randolph, right enough, but new-wrapped in the red and gold royal trappings of Scotland.
    He saw Jamie Douglas jerk at his reins, black-browed, but then order his own banner dipped; Sim Craw, knee to knee with Hal, gave a quiet coughing bark of laughter and touched Hal’s arm as the entrance of the rich yellow panoply parted to reveal Randolph himself.
    ‘The paint is scarce dry on his new earl’s arms,’ Sim whispered hoarsely. ‘Jamie resents having to hand Randolph his due as Earl o’ Moray, him being a mere lord of Douglas. Resents, too, the royal mark in that shield that reminds folk Randolph claims the King’s kinship.’
    ‘Good Sir James,’ Randolph called in French, sweet as milk so that the grue in it was almost masked. ‘I hear you have triumphed at Roxburgh. Bigod, you are a byword for trickery, certes.’
    Hal expected wildness and ranting, but Jamie lost his black brow almost at once and threw back his head; the mock of laughter he flung out was more stinging than any curse.
    ‘Bigod, Thomas, are you still sittin’ here?’ he lisped back. ‘Would you like some ideas on taking fortresses?’
    Flushing, Randolph managed a twist of smile.
    ‘His Grace the King, of course, demands to see the Good Sir James – and the rescued Sir Henry of Herdmanston. Welcome, my lord. Seven years gone from us and now plucked forth like a plum from a pie.’
    Hal, taken aback by the sudden focus on himself, managed only a weak nod, but Randolph had never been part of the circle round Bruce seven years ago, so neither man knew the other save by repute – and Hal’s had moss on it.
    The moment was broken by a distant thud and all the heads swivelled and craned skywards.
    ‘There.’
    Hal saw the shaped stone arc downwards, scurf up a huge wad of mud and bounce harmlessly almost to the foot of the hurdles; a protesting smoke of crows rose up off their old feasts.
    ‘They are trying lighter stones out of the fortress,’ Sim muttered. ‘You will note what is absent on our side of the siege.’
    Engines. Not a trebuchet nor a mangonel – not so much as a springald. No towers or rams. Nothing.
    Jamie Douglas inclined his head in a curt, mocking bow to Randolph.
    ‘You have sat here since last winter, my lord earl,’ he noted with mock sadness. ‘Shame there does not seem to be a balk of timber that can be laid one on the other, or any trickery to supplant it. Still, I have it that you will persevere, certes, though it is my fervent hope that your lordship manages it before a big stone rolls over your curly pow. It is no good look for an earl, that. God be praised, my lord.’
    He went off, laughing and chattering either side to the adoring, trailing everyone after him and leaving the thundercloud of Randolph in his wake. They quit the dripping sour of the camp, cavalcading down from under the black rock along the sullen mile of cramped houses and wynds that led to the peace and dry of Holyrood Abbey, where the King demanded to see the darling captor of Roxburgh.
    The way of matters, Sim explained on the way, is not as it was. Randolph and Douglas and the last brother, Edward Bruce, were mighty captains, seasoned in the wars with the Buchan and Comyn which had finally exterminated all Bruce’s enemies.
    ‘A sore slaughter that,’ Sim declared, grimed with the memory of it and shaking his head in sorrow. ‘The Comyn are harrowed and