‘How?’
‘I walked over, undid my breeks and pissed into his ale cup.’
‘Oh lord,’ Wayland groaned. He stole a look at Malcolm and his cronies. ‘What did he do? What did his friends do?’
‘Bought me drinks. Clapped me on the back and said I was a champion slanderer.’ Raul spluttered with laughter. ‘See your face,’ he said, his head sinking to the table. He cocked his eyes up like an evil toad. ‘Don’t you see? It was a game. Insulting people is a sport around here. Flyting, they call it.’ Raul drained his ale and pointed at Wayland’s cup. ‘Same again?’
‘No,’ Wayland said faintly. He jumped up with his hands clenched by his side. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘It’s still pissing down.’
‘We’re out of here.’
But as Wayland turned to go, the door wrenched open to a peal of thunder and three laughing gallants entered, shaking rain from their cloaks. The doorman bowed and scraped before them, making no attempt to relieve them of their swords. Customers on all sides hoisted their cups with cries of welcome. The arrivals were men of consequence. Their leader, tall and swarthily handsome, wore his long black hair dressed in oiled ringlets. Down his back hung a cape of indigo wool hemmed with gilt brocade and fastened at the neck with a clasp, beautifully worked, depicting serpents eating their tails. Gold ringed his fingers and silver bangles as big as quoits dangled on his wrists. His sword hilt was of carved ivory wrapped with silver wire, its pommel fashioned into the shape of a beaked monster. His arrival was a signal for celebration. Conversations grew livelier and a fiddler who played for drinks took up his rebeck and began to saw away.
‘A Scottish chieftain?’ Wayland whispered.
‘Irish swells. Don’t rush away just yet. Let’s find out what brings them to this burgh.’
On his progress to the bar, the dashing leader noticed Wayland’s dog and drew his companions’ attention to it. When the taverner had served them, they leaned with their backs against the counter, reviewing the clientele as if it were a troupe recruited for their entertainment. The leader drank from his silver-mounted beaker and looked Wayland and Raul over with insolent intensity. He wiped suds from his lip and flashed square white teeth. ‘Lachlan’s the name,’ he said. ‘And these bucks are my associates, O’Neil and Regan. You’ll be the traders from England.’
‘Aye,’ Raul said. ‘We’re nearly done in this port. There’s precious little worth buying.’
Lachlan strolled over. ‘I’m a merchant myself. Headed for London.’
‘Oh yes?’ Raul said. ‘What goods do you trade in?’
‘Slaves. Mainly slaves.’
Raul made a stealthy survey of the drinkers. ‘You sell Scottish slaves to the English?’
Lachlan parked himself at the end of their bench and smiled. ‘The very opposite. I sell English slaves to the Scots and Norwegians, but I
save the best for the mart in Dublin.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Taverner, two cups of corn ale for my English friends.’
‘Thank you,’ Wayland said. ‘We were just leaving.’ His dog heaved up and shook itself.
Lachlan waved in its direction. ‘That’s a fine hound you’ve got.’
Wayland dipped his head in acknowledgement.
Lachlan sauntered towards the dog. It looked to Wayland for instruction and stood still, its eyes following Lachlan as he circled it, assessing its points and passing on his appraisal to his companions.
‘There’s wolf in that hound. And Irish, too, if I’m not mistaken. Where did you come by it?’
‘My father bred it in Northumberland.’
‘What do you call him?’
‘He doesn’t have a name.’
Lachlan spluttered into his ale. ‘You must value your dog very low if he’s not worth a name.’
Raul stepped in. ‘Wayland couldn’t name the dog because he lost his tongue, and when he found it again, it had learned to do his bidding without a word being spoken.’
‘You’re jesting.’
‘Cross my heart. It’s uncanny.’
Lachlan regarded Wayland. ‘Do you pit it?’
‘What?’
Lachlan enunciated as if addressing a half-wit. ‘Does it fight other dogs for wagers?’
‘No.’
‘Nor with bears or bulls or other beasts?’
‘No, it doesn’t fight.’
The news saddened Lachlan. ‘That’s a good dog going to waste,’ he told O’Neil and Regan. He turned back to Wayland. ‘How much will you take for it?’
‘It’s not for sale.’
Lachlan clucked his tongue. ‘Everything’s for sale, lad. You’ll find that out when you’re better acquainted with life.’
‘I don’t want to sell it.’
‘I won’t even haggle. Name your price.’
Wayland swallowed and shook his head.
‘You’re called “Wayland” if I heard a’right.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Wayland hated that craven ‘sir’, but there was something about the rich Irish slaver that made him feel like a bumpkin.
‘Well, Wayland, you’ll find that when Lachlan takes a fancy to something, he won’t be shaken loose.’ He opened a silver-mesh purse and laid pennies on the table coin by coin until Wayland stopped counting and looked away as if he were being shown something obscene. Lachlan sprinkled another few coins for good measure. ‘No man can say I’m a stinter. That’s as much as I’d pay for a slave.’
Wayland stood mute and miserable.
‘Go on, lad, pick it up.’
‘You’d be wasting your money. The dog won’t go with you.’
Lachlan’s voice was soothing. ‘I don’t want it for a pet. I won’t gentle it. Just give me care of it for a week and I swear it will know me for its master. By god, there’s not a dog whelped that I can’t man.’ He raised his beaker. ‘Am I right, boys?’
The dog clacked its teeth and made for Wayland.
Lachlan laughed. ‘I fancy he’d like to sink his chops into me.’ He struck his thigh. ‘Damn, it’s a crime to have such a game beast and not make sport with it.’
‘Come on,’ Wayland told Raul. ‘Vallon will be wondering what’s keeping us.’
‘Is Vallon your master?’
Wayland kept going and was halfway to the door when Lachlan said his name again. Wayland stopped.
Lachlan’s hand fell on his shoulder. He spoke into Wayland’s ear. ‘I’ve bought virgins from their mothers who fell to their knees and kissed my hand in gratitude. You can’t argue with silver. If I were to go to your master Vallon, I guarantee that by midnight you and your dog would be my legal property.’
Wayland could see the gold gleaming on Lachlan’s fingers. ‘I told you. The dog’s not for sale.’
Lachlan flicked Wayland’s scalp. ‘Away with you then, and take your nameless cur with you. I was being over-generous. The glim flattered it. Now it stands in clearer light, I can see it’s too long-boned to make a fighting dog.’
They would have left unscathed if Raul hadn’t tried to get in the last word. ‘That dog’s no cur.’
Lachlan had already turned away and seemed to have dismissed the matter. ‘What else do you call a dog that’s too gutless to fight?’
‘It doesn’t fight because it doesn’t need to.’
‘Shut up,’ Wayland hissed.
Lachlan appealed to his friends. ‘A pair of riddlers. A dog that does what it’s told without being told and doesn’t fight because it doesn’t have to.’
Raul’s face was flushed. ‘The dog kills whatever stands in its way. It doesn’t fight them. It just kills them.’
Wayland groaned.
Lachlan caressed his jaw. ‘Does that go for dogs?’
Raul shrugged. ‘I ain’t seen one yet that would stand up to it.’
Lachlan grinned. ‘Fetch Dormarth,’ he said, and Regan hurried out. ‘Do you know that name?’ he asked Wayland. ‘In Ireland’s old religion, Dormarth is the hound that guards the gate of hell.’
Lachlan picked up a coin and let it drop back on to the pile. ‘My offer still stands. Your dog won’t be worth a penny dead.’
Wayland’s breath shuddered in his throat. ‘Nor yours.’
Lachlan cocked a brow. ‘If you fancy it that highly, you’ll want to wager on the outcome.’
‘I don’t have any money to gamble.’
Lachlan laughed. ‘Hazard your own person. A lad as comely as you would fetch a pot of silver in Dublin town.’ He reached out to pat Wayland’s face.
Raul pushed between them. ‘What odds are you offering?’
‘Three to one suit you?’
‘Done.’
Raul shook out the few coins left over from his debauches. Lachlan eyed them with contempt. He made a showman’s gesture to the rest of the room. ‘Step up and place your bets.’
A few tipplers impressed by the size of Wayland’s dog chanced a penny on it, but Lachlan’s reputation as a connoisseur of fighting dogs was generally known, and he had to double the odds before people began to unbelt their purses.
‘Why are you so miffed?’ Raul muttered to Wayland. ‘We ain’t going to wriggle out of it, so we might as well make some money.’
Wayland shoved him away. ‘I’ve had it with you.’
News of the contest had spread and citizens were flooding into the alehouse. Lachlan told the taverner to broach a keg at his own expense and the atmosphere in the hall grew rowdy. A pair of prostitutes linked at the elbow circled the crowd like overblown roses. Over by the door the taverner was charging a farthing admission, his assistant laying pennies on a block and chopping them in quarters with a cleaver. Lachlan presided over the festivities, glad-handing the new arrivals and encouraging them to bet. Wayland laid a soothing hand on his dog. Both of them hated crushes. More and more people pressed in, until only the space cleared for the fight was empty and even the rafters had been occupied. The table holding the stakes was heaped with coins minted in every country in Europe and principalities far beyond.
Lachlan came over to Wayland. ‘Leash your dog. Do you know how to scratch?’
‘The dog has never felt a leash and doesn’t care for rules.’
‘Fair play. We’ll let them scrap until only one of them’s left standing.’
‘Wayland!’
The cry had come from the entrance. The taverner and his assistant were trying to force the door shut against a mob of latecomers. Wayland glimpsed Syth’s face bobbing up and down behind the scrum.
‘Get Vallon!’
Lachlan heard the exchange and took a step forward, but Syth had already gone and the taverner was shoving the door shut.
The room quietened in anticipation. Wayland’s dog panted in distress. ‘Let’s have some air in here,’ said Lachlan. His order was relayed through the crowd until shutters were opened and a sluggish draught flowed through the hall. Thunder trundled away in the distance.
Wayland heard strangulated grunts and the sound of scrabbling feet.
‘Unbar the door,’ Regan shouted from outside. ‘I can hardly hold him.’
Lachlan smiled at Wayland. ‘Open up,’ he called. ‘Make way. Watch yourselves. This one bites.’
Wayland and his dog exchanged looks. The door barged open and the crowd in front of it shrank away on each side. Down the aisle charged a pale block of bone and muscle, towing Regan on his heels.
Everyone cringed from such unbridled ferocity. As Lachlan turned to view the arena, Wayland’s dog disappeared into the startled spectators.
Amid the buzz of disappointment, Dormarth tore loose and went rampaging round the pit, whimpering as he sucked up the smell of his vanished opponent. Wayland had never countenanced such a hideous brute. It was smaller than a mastiff in height, yet it carried on its squat limbs and bull neck a skull as large as the head of his own giant hound. With its high-set slitted eyes, ears cropped to the bone, and huge teeth curving up from underslung bottom jaw, it reminded him of some monster fished up from depths where sunlight never reached. Ropes of scar tissue braided its muzzle and from its rump twirled a rat-like tail that seemed to have been added as an obscene joke. Dormarth picked up the scent of his dog on him and lunged against his waist with unhinged jaws. Wayland could determine the minds of dogs as well as other men could fathom their fellows, but there was nothing to plumb in this beast’s brain except an insane lust to kill its own kind.
Lachlan gave Dormarth a kick that would have crippled gentler breeds and walked up to Wayland. ‘Did you order your dog to turn tail?’
‘I told you it doesn’t fight.’
‘Call it back.’
‘I will not.’
‘Your dog wins by forfeit,’ Raul said, with a reproachful look at Wayland.
Lachlan stood with legs akimbo, his hand on his sword. ‘We agreed on a contest and you defaulted. I never overlook a broken contract.’
‘I agreed nothing.’
Blood rose in a tide up Lachlan’s face. He appealed to the crowd. ‘What say you? You paid to see a fight. Say aye if you want your money’s worth.’
The mob bayed and pounded tables.
‘Give him your sword,’ Lachlan told Regan. Wayland took it. He had no choice. Raul had realised where things were heading and his face was drawn in the rictus of a man contemplating a disaster of his own making. Lachlan wandered to the other side of the circle and began swishing his sword as if trying to unstick it from his hand. Wayland heard the engorged breathing of the spectators. A breath of night air wafted through the open windows. He whistled.
As Lachlan sank into a combat stance, the spectators against one wall shuddered. Two standing at the front toppled like skittles and the dog hurtled past them into the arena. Before anyone had registered its return, it smashed into Dormarth, bowling him over like a keg. Dormarth rolled into the fire and sizzled in the coals before springing up in a stench of singed hair. While he was still unsighted, Wayland’s dog seized him by a front haunch and swung him against the table holding the stake money. Silver sprayed across the room. Dormarth arched as if double-jointed and buried his teeth in the dog’s left shoulder. He clung like a horrible parasite as Wayland’s dog whirled. Both dogs let go simultaneously and went for each other’s muzzles, their teeth meeting with a clash. The dog reared on its hind legs, forcing Dormarth up, and they went steepling around the arena in a stiff-legged gavotte until the dog imposed its greater height and weight and forced Dormarth over. Dormarth released his hold and lunged for the dog’s throat, but the dog was quicker and knew no rules. It barged Dormarth’s head away, followed up with the full weight of its body and clamped its jaws across Dormarth’s spine. It lifted him like a sack and swung him to the ground with a ‘whumph’ that drew sickened groans from the spectators. Again and again the dog smashed its opponent to the floor, Lachlan dancing from foot to foot around the battle.