The Forest Laird (35 page)

Will and I stood side by side in the bed of the cart, Will shrugging and twisting to settle a long, ragged cloak about his shoulders. It altered his appearance miraculously, because it had been made to do precisely that. Someone, working with great skill, had sewn a construct of woven willow twigs into the voluminous garment so that when it was properly in place, it turned its wearer into a grotesque hunchback. I watched him as he shifted and hauled for a few moments until he had the garment comfortably draped over his shoulders, and although I had seen him wearing it several times in the previous few days, I was amazed anew by how effective it was.

Ahead of us, emerging from the woods and running straight north towards where we waited, the road from England stretched like the shaft of a spear. Hardly anyone among the hundred standing in the grass moved at all, I noticed, and the air of tense expectancy was almost palpable. Eventually, though, a runner appeared at the far end of the path, waving to announce the imminent arrival of the quarry. Will gave a last signal, and everyone except him and me sank into the waist-high grass and disappeared from view.

He and I moved to the driver’s bench then and sat down, lounging comfortably and facing west, our backs towards the steep, rocky face of the escarpment we had just left. We made ourselves comfortable and I opened a cloth-wrapped bundle of bread and hard cheese, which we began to eat as though we had earned it, and there we remained as the first of the Bishops’ wagons, carrying the two prelates themselves, emerged from the forest and began to approach us.

As it drew closer and its accompanying party continued to spill out from the forest behind it, Will pretended to hear them coming and sat up straight, turning and leaning towards them. I followed his lead, both of us striving to look like dullards, uncomprehending but reverent and slightly awestruck by the richness of the train coming towards us so unexpectedly.

The leading wagon creaked to a halt about ten paces from where we sat, and for a moment nothing happened. But then the driver raised his voice, addressing us in passable Scots, though with a heavy, broad-vowelled, English intonation.

“Well? Are you going to sit there all day and do nothing? Move your cart aside and let us through. Didn’t the soldiers ahead of us tell you to clear the way?”

Beside me Will raised his eyebrows and his face became a portrait of innocent astonishment. “No,” he answered. “They tell’t me to move, right enough, and I said I wad, but they didna say onythin’ about you comin’ ahent them. Haud ye there, now, and I’ll move.” He stood up stiffly, muttering under his breath and bundling the remainder of our food clumsily into its cloth before setting it on the driver’s bench between us, seeming to ignore me completely. “Stay here,” he murmured so that only I heard him, and then he lowered himself over the cart’s side and moved deliberately to collect the grazing horses and lead them back by their halters, mumbling all the time to himself in a voice that was barely audible. He took his time about lifting the heavy draft collars over the animals’ heads before backing the team into place and starting to attach its harness. I watched in silence as the occupants of the other wagon fought to contain their impatience. There were three of them there, the one in the rear plainly a priest and the two in front even more evidently Bishops. None of them even deigned to glance in my direction.

The two Bishops were almost laughably dissimilar to each other in every respect. One of them was much younger than his companion, taller and with a red face and a big belly. His faceconcealing beard yet failed to hide a pouting, petulant mouth. It was plain at a glance that this lord of the Church, whoever he was, had no intention of being mistaken for anything less. His robes were imperially striking, heavy and opulent with texture and bright colours, and the fingers of his big, meaty hands were festooned with heavily jewelled rings. I decided, without ever looking into his eyes or hearing him speak, that I disliked him intensely.

I disliked his companion even more, though, and I also assumed him to be the superior in rank, if for no other reason than the disparity in their ages. In the older man’s eyes, naked and undisguised, was unmistakable contempt for anyone he considered beneath him, and it was clear he thought us far, far beneath him. This man wore black edged with crimson, and though the stuff of his vestments was probably no whit less costly than the younger man’s, the cut of it combined with the severity of its blackness to suggest a cynical attempt to appear austere and perhaps even thrifty. He wore no rings, save for a single episcopal ruby, and the crimson-edged black velvet of his pileolus, or bishop’s cap—a recent innovation from Rome, larger, heavier, and thicker than the traditional red silk skullcap, that had caused much discussion before being rejected by our community in Glasgow—marked him as a man who paid close attention to the drifting currents of theology and Church politics. Beneath the cap, his face was gaunt and devoid of humour. He never took his eyes off Will, from the moment he leapt down from the driver’s bench until he had the team properly harnessed and had pulled himself up to sit beside me again.

“Good,” he said quietly as he settled himself on the bench. “They’re all here.”

As indeed they were. In the time it had taken Will to harness the dray’s team, the rear elements of the Bishops’ train, the monks and servants, had had time to assemble around the wagons. Will stood up then and gathered the reins of our team in one hand while picking up the whip from its holder by his seat, preparing to drive us out of the way. But on the point of cracking the whip, he hesitated and turned towards the Bishops again.

“Ye’ll be Bishops, then, I’m thinkin’, by the dress o’ ye. English Bishops?”

No one deigned to answer him, but he had not expected a response. He half turned and indicated me with his whip. “This is a Scots priest. A priest, mind ye, no’ a monk. A
real
priest. Said Mass for us this mornin’, before dawn. And we had nothin’ to pay him wi’ for his services. But we fed him. He disna’ need much else. He’s a priest. He kens God will look after him, ye ken?”

I had to stifle the urge to smile at Will’s acting the dimwit. His mix of English and simple Scots should have been intelligible even to an Englishman, but both Bishops were staring at him blankly, the younger in astonishment, the elder in disgust. The priest in the back seat leaned forward and spoke to me in Latin, not even glancing at Will.

“Have your man move aside, Father. Their lordships here are not to be kept waiting by the likes of him or you. Quickly now.”

The peremptory, intolerant snap of his voice released something inside me and permitted me to smile openly at the man, who was tall and clean shaven, balding yet broad shouldered and fit looking, with narrowed, pale blue eyes and a stern, humourless look about him.

“You are a Scot,” I said courteously in the same tongue, permitting but a hint of my surprise to show through.

“Of course I am. What has that to do with anything? I am here to serve as translator for their lordships.”

“In their dealings with the untutored savages, you mean.”

“You are impertinent, Father.”

“No, I am merely truthful … and powerless here, Father, as are you. In the first place, this man is not mine to command. He is very much his own keeper. And if their lordships are to be kept waiting at all, I doubt they could improve upon being kept by the likes of him. Look at him, Father. This man speaks for Scotland.”

“You’ve been away from civilization for too long. Your wits are scattered!” The glance the priest threw at Will was withering. “A hunchback woodcutter, to speak for Scotland?”

“Aye,” Will said in English, suddenly and clearly. “If need be, for it seems no one else will.” Then, ignoring the slack-jawed expression of surprise that had sprung to the priest’s face, he raised his voice to a shout, in the command his hundred had been waiting for among the grass. “Up, Greens!”

Within the space of two heartbeats the train on the road was surrounded by a ring of standing bowmen, and every monk, priest, and bishop in the gathering was the target of at least one levelled arrow. Will’s men had risen up in utter silence from the chest-high grass, their weapons at the ready, and their appearance wrung a chorus of dismay from the clerics as the threat sank home. Without being ordered to, men everywhere in the throng began raising their hands in bewildered surrender. Will watched them until there was no one, monk, priest, or servant, who did not have his hands in the air, and then he said, still in English, “Everyone down from the wagons. Now.”

As the Bishops’ driver and his bench companion scrambled down and away, their passengers moved to follow them, but Will waved them back into their padded seats. “Not you three. You stay there for now.” All movement had ceased on the other two wagons as people watched to see what would happen next, but Will merely waved a pointing finger. “The rest of you, off. Move!”

To his credit, the elder of the Bishops was the first to regain his composure. As his servants and retainers began clambering down from the wagons at his back, he stood up again quickly and stepped forward as far as he could in the confined space of the wagon. There he raised a peremptory hand, pointing at Will. “Take heed, Hunchback, lest you imperil your immortal soul! Would you dare molest and rob God’s servants in the solemn execution of their duty?”

“Dare to molest and rob God’s servants in the doing of their duty?” replied Will in Latin as clear and fluent. The Bishop’s skeletal face registered sheer disbelief. “No, Bishop, I would not. But dare to rob thieving rogues and lying scoundrels who usurp God’s good name and privilege unlawfully in the name of England’s King within the realm of Scotland? Aye, that I will, and with pleasure. Those I would molest and rob at any opportunity, and I thank you for this one.”

“You blaspheme, woodsman!”

Will had not moved since this exchange began, holding the reins in his left hand while the other gripped the teamster’s whip loosely, but now he raised the long whip and pointed its drooping end at the black-clad Bishop, and his voice took on a biting, steely edge.

“No, Churchman, I do not.
You
are the blasphemous party here, wearing the robes of sanctity and episcopal privilege while playing the serpent. Your very
presence
here is a lie that turns to blasphemy as you pursue it.” He glanced down at his own men and indicated the black-clad prelate with a jerk of the head. “Watch him. Watch all of them. If any of them tries to speak again, pull him down and stifle him.”

A number of his own men, several of them his lieutenants, had already approached the Bishops’ wagon, and now some raised their bows at full extension towards the trio in the cart while others lowered theirs to rest their arms. As they did so, Will shook out the reins and cracked his whip expertly between the heads of his team. The animals leaned forward instantly into their harness and Will handled them surely, bringing them around easily until the two vehicles were wheel to wheel, though facing in opposite directions. The younger Bishop opened his mouth to speak, but Will cut him off.

“Did you not hear what I ordered done to you if you dare to speak? I meant it. Shut your mouth, Englishman, and keep it shut.”

The man froze, his mouth gaping, and he made no other attempt to speak, though his face writhed with fury and loathing. Will’s eyes moved to the Scots priest on the rear bench.

“You,” he said. “In God’s name, man, what are you doing? Have you no honour, no self-worth? How can you lend yourself to such a travesty as this and yet call yourself a Scot, let alone a priest?” He tilted his head sharply to one side as he saw something in the man’s eyes, something I had not seen because I had been watching Will.

The other man’s answer was swift and forceful. “I do not know what you are talking about, fellow, but I have done nothing other than my duty. I was dispatched by my superior, Bishop Henry of Galloway, to meet their lordships when they arrived in Berwick, my function to assist them in their dealings with whomever they might meet upon the road from there to Whithorn. You are the first person we have met since then, and it shames me to be named a fellow Scot with such as you.” He looked around him at the faces of the crowd staring up at him. “It’s evident that you are thieves and outlaws—the Greens of whom I have heard spoken. But most of you are masked and unrecognizable, and to this point you have done nothing irremediable. You are misguided, and I regret having witnessed your folly, but you might yet escape from this error without blood being shed.” He looked back at Will. “Let me ask you once again to stand aside and permit us to pass unmolested.”

I could see Will nibbling at his inner cheek, an indication that he was thinking rapidly, and when he spoke again his tone was less accusatory.

“You’re no craven, Priest, I’ll grant you that. But do you truly not know what’s afoot here? Is that possible?” He watched the Scots priest, and then nodded. “Aye, it would appear it is. Well, listen closely, Father. What’s your name? Father what?”

It looked for a moment as though the priest would refuse to answer, but then he shrugged slightly. “Constantine.”

“Constantine … A distinguished and imperious name. Listen then, Father Constantine, and do not interrupt me until you have heard everything I have to say. You will know when you have, because I will inform you. Do you understand me?”

The priest inclined his head and Will returned the gesture.

“Good. Scotland is teeming with English soldiery. You were aware o’ that, of course. They swarm like fleas on a hedgehog and they are causing us Scots much grief. They should not be here at all, no matter how the English try to justify their presence, for we have a King of our own again, King John of Scotland, of whom you must have heard, since he is from your own diocese of Galloway, as was his mother, Devorguilla. Well, see you, the fact that John now rules in Scotland means that Edward of England has no lawful place here, save as an invited guest bound by, and beholden to, the laws of hospitality. Yet Edward maintains an army on our soil and in defiance of our country’s ancient laws.”