The Guardian (6 page)

“Why not? I confess it has surprised me.”

Busy man. More to fret over than me.

He sniffed, unimpressed, and I added,
He will be glad to know I am safe—and grateful. And yes, I must return to Glasgow.

“I agree. I will send Brother Dominic to you as soon as he returns. It might be a week from now, or within the hour, or any time in between.” He grinned, ruefully, I thought. “Brother Dominic obeys no orders but his own and God’s, the only man in this entire place whose duties I cannot dictate. He comes and goes as he pleases, driven only by his own perceptions of his obligations to the sick and ailing. And yet I thank God daily that he is one of us, for his very presence here is a benediction. But I will insist that he examine you as soon as he returns and that those wires be taken out as soon as may be safe.” Prior Richard surged to his feet. “And now I must leave you, for despite what you may think of our small place, there is always much to be done here.” He raised his hand and blessed me with the sign of the cross, then turned and blessed Gaptooth before leaving.

“You look better,” Brother Dominic said by way of introduction four days later, his voice low and deep and unmistakably Scots. Then he looked towards my roommate. “And you do not.”

Gaptooth merely gaped at him, and Brother Dominic ignored him from then on, coming to stand at the foot of my cot, where he scanned my face and then my tightly wrapped torso. From the way Prior Richard had spoken of the man, I had known he would be old, and he clearly was, but I had also expected to see in him all the accompanying signs of advanced age: the cadaverous face and stooped shoulders and the ragged, food-stained cassock of an elderly cloistered monk who cared nothing for worldly values or standards of dress.

I could not have been farther off the mark. The man glaring at me
now showed none of those attributes. He looked younger and stronger than his years should have dictated; he was burly and deeply tanned, his tonsured scalp fringed with thick, white, clean, and carefully tended hair. His thick black woollen cassock was spotless, as though it had been cleaned and brushed mere moments earlier. A girdle of whitened rope circled his waist, and above it, made of wood and painted starkly white, the distinctive wedge-armed cross of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller hung from a white string looped about his neck.

He stepped around the foot of the bed and came closer, stretching out his hand. I felt him take hold of my face, spreading his thumb and fingers over my jaw, and then his grip tightened, moving my head this way and that as though it were a clay pot that he was contemplating buying. His fingers gripped me harder and I stiffened, waiting for the pain to come, but he ignored my reaction, simply tilting my head to one side, pushing, it seemed to me, against my jaw.

“That hurt?” His voice was a low growl.

I tried to shake my head, indicating that it did not, but he plainly had no interest in my answer. Instead he forced my head around to the other side with one hand while the fingers of the other dug deep into my neck from the back, as though trying to push my jaw forward, and all the while he was frowning fiercely in concentration.

“That?”

I made no move to respond this time, and he released me, stepping slightly back to look down at my chest.

“Cough.”

I hesitated, remembering the last time I had coughed. It was not an experience I wished to repeat.

“Cough, damn it.”

I coughed, tentatively, and felt nothing.

“Again! Harder this time. Cough hard.”

He looked into my eyes for the first time and watched me closely as I obeyed, reluctantly at first and then with more confidence as I began to believe the agonizing pain from my broken ribs
had vanished. Four more times he made me cough, each time harder than before. Then he grunted and stepped away to the foot of the bed again, his arms folded over his broad chest, obscuring his white cross.

“I came back this morning and Prior Richard sent for me as soon as he heard. He wants you out o’ here an’ back to Glasgow as quick as may be. To be truthfu’, when I first heard that, I thought he was mad, thought it was too soon. But ye’re young an’ strong and healthy, for a priest, an’ ye’ve healed well and arena’ showin’ any pain, so it may be I was wrong. It wouldna be the first time, God knows. We’ll get ye out o’ that shell about your ribs this afternoon, see how ye fare wi’ that. We can aey strap ye up again gin we need to. But gin they’re sound, an’ gin I’m
satisfied
they’re sound, then fine, the jawbone might be mended, too, and we’ll think about the wires. But I’ll tak nae chances, for once thae wires are out, there’ll be nae puttin’ them back. An’ if they come out too soon, the jaw could break apart again, an’ then ye’d really be in trouble. D’ye understand?”

I nodded, trying to conceal the excitement that was leaping in me. I would be out of the rib splints today and I wanted to crow with joy, but I was strangely anxious not to annoy the man in front of me. And he looked capable of being annoyed quickly and effortlessly.

“Fine, then,” he growled. “But hear me clearly now, for this is important. Even gin we remove everythin’ and all the bones prove sound, don’t be thinkin’ ye can go runnin’ to Glasgow right away. Ye canna. It’ll tak at least a week, and like as no’ twice that, before ye’re ready to leave here.” He saw my eyes widen and raised a hand. “Listen to me now. Listen. For one thing, even though ye disagree, ye’re too weak to go anywhere. Ye’ve been flat on your back for more than a month, so your whole body’s useless and ye’re goin’ to hae to learn to walk again. Ye’ve had enough nourishment to keep ye alive, but nowhere near enough to keep up your strength, let alone to
build
strength. That’s goin’ to tak time and hard work, just to get back the strength ye had before. An’ forbye that, ye’ll have to learn to talk again, because your mouth’s different now from the
way it was before it was kicked in. We’ll no’ ken how well the jaw’s shaped until ye try it—it might hae knitted differently frae what it was. Even if it’s perfect, though, ye’ll find it different beyond belief at first. Ye’ve nae teeth left in front, for one thing, so ye’re goin’ to feel stupit when ye try to say some o’ the things ye’ve been sayin’ all your life. Ye’ll no’ be able to say ess ever again. It’ll be eth for you from here on. Can ye whistle?”

I nodded.

“No’ now, ye canna. Ye need teeth to whistle. And ye’ll hae to cut up your food into bits afore ye try to eat it, for ye canna bite now an’ ye canna chew—no’ in the front o’ your mouth, anyway. Forbye, it’ll tak days for ye to learn to stomach food o’ any kind, for there’s been nothin’ solid in your belly since ye took that beatin’.” His eyes narrowed again. “Are ye startin’ to understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded again, trying to disguise the pain of what I was hearing. My mood had changed, in mere moments, from raging elation to profound dismay as I listened to his litany of all the things I could no longer do.

“I’ll come back after nones,” he grunted, then swung away and left without another word, leaving me to rail at him in silence for his ill-tempered words and his brusque unfriendliness.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ROAD TO AYR

I
t was to be almost six full weeks more before I left the priory and set out for Glasgow, and they were among the most difficult weeks of my life. Everything that Brother Dominic had warned me about proved true. On that first day, and for a week after my restraints were removed, Prior Richard, may God rest his soul, assigned Harald Gaptooth to another room, affording me the dignity of being able to recover in privacy.

My face felt strangely different, because my remaining teeth had been realigned by the resetting of my jawbone. I was appalled by the enormous size of the emptiness where my front teeth had been—the bare gums there felt grotesque. It was I who would be known as Gaptooth from then on, I believed in those early days. At first, no words would come to my lips at all, and later, when they did, I mangled them so badly that I could not bear to listen to my efforts. To call my new impediment a lisp was ludicrous, for the sounds I mouthed were unintelligible.

Of course I soon overcame my difficulties, and my confidence increased rapidly once I realized that people could understand what I was saying. For a long time, though, racking, shame-laden dreams would startle me awake, humiliating nightmares in which folk howled with disbelieving laughter each time I opened my mouth.

The first time I tried to swing my legs off the bed, I discovered that I could not make them move. I had to fight down a flood of despair. I was twenty-four years old, and until my present misfortune I had been in fine condition, strong as a beast of burden despite, or perhaps because of, my priestly calling, for my extra-clerical
duties had kept me moving constantly, travelling the length and breadth of southern Scotland in all weathers, and mainly afoot. I knew I could regain my earlier strength, although I did not deceive myself that it would take time.

It wasn’t long before I could stand up from my bed without swaying and falling, and I remember well the excitement that filled me as I took my first unsteady steps. Within the week I was outside, walking for almost a full hour one day in the cloisters that enclosed the small priory. The day after that, I went out into the world beyond the gates again for the first time. I walked very slowly at first, no more than a few hundred steps, and I tired quickly, but I was filled with restless joy. A few days later I walked again, counting my footsteps carefully until I reached five hundred paces, then retracing my steps to where I had begun, exulting in the knowledge that I had walked a full Roman mile.

I walked faster and farther every day thereafter, and one day I felt the urge to run, whereupon I quickly discovered the shortcomings of priestly robes. Feeling quite rebellious, I bought a warm woollen tunic and thick leggings from one of the local weavers, to replace my constrictive cassock, and I moved unencumbered from then on. I cut myself a thick, straight, heavy sapling, too, to use as both a walking stick and a makeshift quarterstaff. On one of my walks I had a recollection from boyhood, of emerging from a swimming hole with my cousin Will and seeing for the first time the clean-cut muscles that were starting to fill out his body after months of training with our boy-sized quarterstaves. I found myself smiling at the recollection of how mercilessly our tutor, Ewan Scrymgeour, had driven us in those early days, and I saw no reason why those selfsame exercises could not benefit me now. It had been several years since last I swung a quarterstaff, but I knew I could quickly recapture the skill. Now, swinging my stick with more and more confidence as my arm, chest, and back muscles remembered the once-familiar disciplines, I belaboured trees and standing posts wherever I found them in my travels, enjoying the increasing control of those fighting techniques that came back to me quickly as I practised.
A full five weeks of such activity reshaped me and gave me back my strength and stamina, but I felt no urgency now to return to Glasgow, being content for the moment to remain in Lanark, in what had become my sanctuary.

Then, on a bright, warm morning at the beginning of June, a visitor arrived at our priory doors, and his tidings left me in no doubt of where my duties lay. I was invited to join Prior Richard in his quarters to meet with his guest, and I recognized the newcomer immediately. Father William Lamberton was the youngest canon of Glasgow Cathedral, appointed to the post soon after his return to Scotland three years earlier by Bishop Wishart himself, in recognition of the young priest’s brilliant academic prowess in Paris, where he had attended university for several years. We knew each other, having met several times when he and Bishop Wishart had come to Selkirk Forest to visit Will in his outlaw days there, but I was flattered nonetheless when he greeted me with evident pleasure. He had come expressly to see me, he told me, to ascertain the state of my health and, provided I was able, to summon me back to work. Bishop Wishart, he said, had need of me.

I assured him I was well enough and improving daily, and he cocked an eyebrow.

“What about talking, though? Is it very difficult?” He raised an open palm as though in apology. “I know it must be greatly
different
, of course, but that’s not what I mean. I am speaking of forming actual words, given that you have lost all your teeth.”

I pursed my lips as I thought of how no one else had dared—or thought—to ask me such a question. I had always liked Father Lamberton, and I liked him yet, particularly now that his direct question had disarmed me.

“I didn’t lothe them all,” I said. “I thtill have a few on each thide. It’th only in the front tha’ I have trouble.”

He smiled. “And not too much of that. You sound much as you did before—though a bit more oothy than toothy.”

I asked him at once for news of Will, and he told me the same news that Prior Richard had related earlier—that after his daring
raid on Lanark, Will had marched south to join forces with Sir William Douglas, who was out again in open defiance of Edward and had reportedly threatened to drive the English out of Scotland. I could see from the set of his face as he spoke, though, that there was more to the story, and so I probed gently, and he told me that Will and Lord Douglas had left Douglasdale some time before and marched northwest, leading a large number of men towards Ayr and Irvine, where they had been joined by Bishop Wishart and James Stewart, the hereditary Steward of Scotland, one of the most powerful magnates of the realm. That surprised me greatly, because the Stewart, as he was known, was a very significant personage, and I could not easily see him choosing to align himself publicly with such an ill-regarded ruffian as William Douglas, whose knightly ranking was, if anything, an affront to the order of chivalry. There in Ayr, Lamberton said, in the Stewart’s home territories, everyone was awaiting the advent of Edward’s new enforcers for Scotland. I asked him why he had used that word
enforcers
, and he eyed me sombrely. “Because that’s what they are,” he said, his voice low and level. “Enforcers. Edward is furious and not merely angry and enraged, but vengeful. And, by his own reasoning, not without cause. He has declared Scotland to be in a state of revolt—against himself, its overlord and lawful liege.”