The Forest Laird (23 page)

“It
was
theft, then. So where did you go?”

“To Glasgow, to Bishop Wishart. He heard Will’s confession and granted him absolution once he’d heard the entire tale. Restitution received for harm done, he said—all right and proper. And then he sent us north with the wool, to Sir Andrew Murray.”

“In
Moray
? Why would he send you all the way up there?”

Ewan rearranged his long legs, crossing one over the other. “Because he is a bishop and God works in mysterious ways. You should know that, and you almost a priest.”

“I’m serious, Ewan. Why?”

Ewan looked at me directly then, no trace of humour in his eyes. “Because he is the senior Bishop of Scotland at this time and he believed, for reasons he didna see fit to explain to us, that sending Will up there would be for the good of this realm. There were fell things happening at that time. Edward of England had named Bishop Bek of Durham his deputy in Scotland, for one thing. Bek is a dour and humourless man devoted to his King before his Church. Wishart had no love for Bek then and has even less now.

“He required Will to make contact with the younger Murray and renew their acquaintance while delivering certain … matters—several documents of what he termed ‘some delicacy’—directly to Sir Andrew’s attention. He left us in no doubt of the importance of what he required of us.”

“Wait. Are you saying Wishart included
you
in his designs?”

“Aye, but only because I was already there with Will and Will vouched for me. But in return for Will’s services, and very much to the point at the time, Wishart offered rich payment. He would speak personally, he said, with Mirren’s father, whom he knew well, on Will’s behalf. And the blood-price wool would be of use to Murray, he said, for there had been a blight of some kind among the sheep in the north, and we would be well paid for it. The money gained from that would enable Will to offer Master Braidfoot a suitable bridal price for his only daughter, and the Bishop would then grant Will a position as a verderer, with a good, strong house, on the Wishart family lands near Jedburgh.” He looked at me from beneath his arched right eyebrow. “Ye’ll see, I think, it wasna an offer Will could refuse.”

I felt slightly abashed. “Yes, I can see that. Especially in his frame of mind at the time. And so you travelled north. I’m guessing it went well there, for you’ve said Will is married and living and working in the south now.”

He nodded. “Aye. It took us eight days to reach Murray’s lands, and it was an interesting journey. Scotland is a wild place nowadays, much changed since King Alexander died, and there were times when we were glad there were seven of us, for had we been fewer in number we would have been plucked like fowl along the road and left wi’ nothing.”

“What d’you mean? You would have been robbed?”

“Robbed and killed, lad. None of us doubted that, once we saw how it was out there. There’s no law beyond the burghs today. Once out of the towns and into the countryside, it’s every man for himself and God help the unprepared. The whole world is out of balance. Without a king to hold them in check, the nobles—or so they like to call themselves—are all become savages, every petty rogue of them looking out for himself alone. Each one of them treats his holdings as his own wee kingdom, to be ruled as he sees fit, using whatever private army he can afford to hire. Which means that there’s no order anywhere—no discipline, no loyalty, no honour—and a traveller moving through the land runs a gamut of risks at every turn, like to lose everything he possesses each time he meets a stranger. They are all bandits, Jamie, soldiery as well as outlaws, and common, decent folk live in terror of their lives.

“Three times we encountered what might have been serious trouble on the road. Three times in eight days. And on one of them, north of Stirling, we had no other choice than to fight. We left eight dead men behind us, eight out o’ nigh on twenty who attacked us, but thank God none of them were ours. We took down five o’ those early, with our bows—me and Robertson and Will—and Big Andrew’s crossbow. By that time, though, the others had come too close for bow work, but Long John and Shoomy killed three more of them before they could blink, and the rest ran away.”

I could only shake my head, unable to believe that the situation could be as bad as Ewan was saying.

“Anyway, we found Sir Andrew where he was supposed to be, and young Andrew was with him. Between the pair o’ them, they gave us a chieftain’s welcome. I couldna believe how happy your friend Andrew was to see Will, and it seemed to be mutual—Will was brighter than I had seen him since before he fell foul o’ the Graham fellow.” He lapsed into silence, staring into the fire, and I saw his eyelids starting to droop.

“Don’t nod off now, Ewan,” I said, afraid of losing him and the story both. “They were still friends, then?”

He blinked owlishly. “Oh aye! It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. You know Will, he seldom mixes well wi’ strangers, and there they were, after five or six years, embracing each other and laughing together like brothers who had been apart for no more than an hour. Brotherly, though God knows there’s little resemblance between them apart from size. And yet there’s something each of them has that’s reflected in the other. Don’t ask me what it is, for I can’t say. The closest I can come to it is that they share a common …
light
.” He winced. “That sounds daft, I know, but each of them has this
glow
about him that seems to spill out whenever they’re excited, and those two get each other stirred up all the time. You can almost see it—their excitement, I mean—everyone around them feels it.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “That’s it, lad. I barely know what I’m saying, but I know I have to sleep. I’ve been on the road since before dawn, and now that I’m old, I need my rest.” He looked across at me. “An hour or two wouldna hurt you, either.”

“But I want to ask you about—”

“Ask me tomorrow. I’ll be in better fettle for talking once I’ve slept.”

There was no point in arguing, and so we went to find our beds. Whereas I have no doubt that Ewan was asleep before he even lay flat, I lay awake for a long time, thinking about all that he had told me. And then, just as I was drifting to sleep at last, I tensed, my mind suddenly crystal clear again.

Ewan had been hiding as he waited for me to reach him that day. Ewan, masked and unexpectedly returned after two full years away from Elderslie, should have had no reason to hide himself in a clump of brambles. Reason to be cautious, yes, but to hide from the whole world?

3

P
eople had already started arriving from neighbouring houses and hamlets by the time I rolled out of bed soon after daybreak, and more kept coming throughout the morning, turning the entire household and the grounds into a frenzy of preparations. Cousin Anne arrived before mid-morning with her husband and her three children, and Aunt Margaret conscripted me to take the children for a walk in the grounds, to keep them out of the way of the work ongoing everywhere, so I did not even set eyes on Ewan until after the midday meal had been served. Trays and platters of cold meats, pickled roots and onions, and slabs of fresh bread with jugs of cold spring water from the well were carried out from the kitchens and set on tables for people to help themselves however and whenever they wished.

I had already eaten by the time Ewan appeared, and when I saw the long tube of the bow case hanging from his shoulder I guessed he had been practising in the nearby woods. He winked at me as he approached the serving tables, then unslung the bow case and set it down beside his quarterstaff before beginning to load a wooden platter for himself. I went to fetch us a couple of mugs of ale from the kitchens, then crossed to where he had found a seat at an unoccupied table under a tree, against the wall of one of the outbuildings. He nodded his thanks as he took the ale, and I sat sipping at my own as he wolfed down his food. When he had swallowed the last mouthful, he leaned back and quaffed off what seemed like half of his ale. Then, typically, he belched.

“That was good,” he said. “But you don’t look happy. What’s on your mind?”

“Questions,” I murmured. “More questions.”

He looked around us casually “Ask, then. We’re alone. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why you were hiding yesterday when we met, because I don’t believe it had anything to do with your being cautious about Graham of Kilbarchan.” He didn’t stir and his expression betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. “Whatever you were hiding from, whatever it was about, it’s much more recent than the trouble that sent you away from here two years ago. Is it not?”

He tilted his head slightly to one side, and then he nodded. “Aye, it is. I was going to tell you about it.” He glanced around again. “Will wants to come home. Sent me to see if it was safe.”

“He wants to—? What’s stopping him? Let him come! Go back and tell him we’re waiting for him, then bring him back, wife and all.”

The big archer ducked his head. “Not quite that simple, Jamie. That’s why he sent me up alone. To check out the possibilities, see what’s to be seen.”

“In what sense? What are you looking for?”

“Englishry.”

“In
Elderslie
?” I made no attempt to hide my scorn.

“Why not? They’re everywhere else.”

“Not here, they’re not. Not yet.”

“Are they in Paisley?”

I shrugged. “At the Abbey, aye, sometimes. There’s always bishops coming and going, and the English ones have taken to riding with escorts ever since Pope Gregory gave Edward the right to appoint Scottish bishops last year.”

Ewan grunted. “Aye, Bishop Wishart wasna pleased about that at all. Said—and he was right—it undermined the entire authority of the Church in Scotland. A foreign pope granting a foreign king authority over the Scots clergy. ’Gin I were an English bishop in Scotland today, I’d travel wi’ an escort, too, lest my holy arse got booted back into England.”

“Then … has Will crossed the English?”

Ewan hesitated. “Aye, you might say that.”

“What did he do?”

His huge shoulders flexed beneath his clothing. “Nothing you wouldna ha’e expected him to do, knowing Will.”

“Tell me, then.”

“He hit an English soldier.”

“He
hit
an English soldier. In a brawl, you mean.”

Ewan sighed. “No,” he said, in a strange, tight voice. “It was no brawl. But there’s background to it that you need to know in order to understand it. Last year was bad, Jamie, all upheavals, as I’m sure you know from living at the Abbey, filled wi’ politics and posturing and praying and positioning by folk of every stripe, and all of it shaped to suit the dreams and schemes of the men who would call themselves great. And it culminated last May and June, we’re told, with Edward Plantagenet being named overlord of Scotland. That was his price for agreeing to serve as judge in the matter of the kingship, overseeing Balliol and Bruce, and none of the magnates seemed inclined to argue with him at the time.” He shrugged. “Mind you, how could they, really? As Bishop Wishart made clear to us at the time, they all hold great and prosperous lands in England, through Edward’s goodwill and at his royal pleasure. Lord John Balliol himself owns fifteen vast estates in England, many of them in the richest, southern areas, did you know that? And Bruce holds almost as many—at least ten that Wishart knows of—and both men openly pay homage to Edward as their feudal lord and benefactor in England. Their
feudal lord
.”

Ewan unclenched his fist, flexing his fingers slowly, and continued in a quieter voice. “And so Edward was named feudal overlord of Scotland in May last year—and within days there was an English army at Norham and all the Scots royal castles were surrendered to the English.” He turned his head to look directly into my eyes. “According to the lawyers on both sides, they were handed over temporarily, to be returned later, of course, once a new King of Scots has been crowned. But in the meantime, Edward holds them and we lack them, and their strength looms over us, manned by English garrisons.

“And then in June, less than a month after that, all the Guardians resigned and were reappointed by Edward the same day, and two days after that they all swore fealty to Edward—but not as feudal overlord, as was agreed at Norham. Oh, no. This time they swore their allegiance and fealty to Edward Plantagenet, Lord Paramount of Scotland. God help us all!”

“Ewan,” I said, “I know all that, knew it while it was happening. But you. You were never this political before.”

“No, I was not.” He leaned forward. “You’re right. Not even when Edward was doing to my homeland of Wales what he is now preparing to do to Scotland.”

“Oh come, Ewan,” I said, close to scoffing. “That was war, and Wales was his enemy. I would hardly say it’s as bad as that here.”

“Oh, would you not?” He raised his chin until he was almost looking down his boneless nose at me. “Then you will have to pardon me, Master James. How old are you now?”

I hesitated, dismayed by the hostility in his tone. “Twenty, as you know.”

“Aye, twenty …” He managed to make it sound like an infantile age.

“It’s clear you have a point to make and I am missing it. Explain it again, if you will.”

“It’s nothing you would know, Jamie,” he said in a kinder tone. “You’re a priest, or as near as can be, living in an Abbey. Everything you hear is filtered for the Church’s ears. It’s those of us who live outside who know what’s really going on. The south is full of English soldiery nowadays. They’re everywhere around us, like a coating of slimy, foul-smelling moss, and there’s no way to stay clear of them. They lord it over everyone, and there seems to be no one to whom they are accountable. At the lowest level, the common men-at-arms are ruled by knights and sergeants. Those in turn are commanded by bailiffs and petty officers, who are appointed to various duties by sheriffs and justiciars, who hold
their
power through the various barons Edward has brought with him to Scotland. And the barons serve the earls—”