The Forest Laird (11 page)

“Who’s that?” I asked, and both of the others looked to see who I was talking about. I heard Murray inhale sharply.

“Shit!” he said, from the side of his mouth. “It’s Wishart. The Bishop.” He bowed towards the distant figure, and Will and I awkwardly followed his example. The Bishop nodded in acknowledgment, then came sweeping towards us.

“Master de Moray,” he said as he approached, emphasizing the French pronunciation and then continuing in the same language. “I am pleased to see you have been able to find friends with whom to amuse yourself while you are here.” The words were addressed to Andrew, but the Bishop’s eyes were scanning Will and me, taking note of everything about us, including our quarterstaffs and the bows strung from our shoulders. Andrew drew himself up and responded in the same language, gesturing courteously with one hand.

“I have, my lord. I met them yesterday, by accident. They are local lads, as you can see, but I have enjoyed their company during what might otherwise have been a tedious time.” His French was fluent and polished, and it was clear that neither he nor the Bishop expected Will or me to understand it.

I was about to speak up, but decided suddenly to hold my peace and give no indication that I understood them. Will, I knew, would barely have registered a word of what they said, for he lacked my facility with languages. I looked at him and found him gazing back at me, his face blank. Wishart, in the meantime, had turned to look more openly at Will, taking in the size of him and looking up and down the thick length of the quarterstaff in his hand and the heavy bow that dangled from his shoulder. I in turn took the opportunity to look more closely at the Bishop himself.

I could not even guess at his age, for he was one of those rare men whose appearance changes little with the passing of years. I could see he was not young, but whether he was forty or seventy I could not say with any confidence. His face was gaunt and weathered, swarthy and deeply lined beneath the sparse covering of a wispy, square-cut beard, and he had a high, broad forehead, emphasized by a close-cropped widow’s peak of dark brown hair that he wore short and cut bluntly at the back, well above his shoulders. Dark, intelligent eyes gleamed keenly beneath his bushy brows, and a large, bony beak of a nose made his entire appearance fierce and hawk-like. His lips appeared to be smiling, but I could see no humour in his eyes.

“Unless I miss my guess,” he said in Latin, “and judging merely by the size of you and the bow you carry, you must be Sir Malcolm Wallace’s nephew, William. Am I correct?” The Bishop’s smile grew wider, and this time the warmth of it reached his eyes. “I am no mind reader,” he continued, his voice deep and level. “Nor, I fear, has fame yet marked you as being worthy of compelling notice. I come directly from a meeting with your uncle Father Peter, and he spoke to me about you, describing you and your longbow and telling me of how you keep the brotherhood supplied with the best of meat. My sole surprise was in finding you in the company of Master Murray.” His eyes came back to me. “And you must be James Wallace, the cousin who is such an asset to Brother Duncan in the library.”

It was a flattering moment but an awkward one, for neither Will nor I knew how to respond properly to such an informal approach from the man who was the senior prelate of Scotland and personal confessor to King Alexander himself, but somehow we found ourselves strangely at ease in speaking casually with one of the most powerful men in the realm. I noticed, nonetheless, that Andrew Murray stood wide-eyed, his eyes darting from one to the other of us as Bishop Wishart catechized us closely for the next quarter of an hour about our lives in the Abbey, our feelings for our Elderslie kin, my own deceased family, and the slaughter of Will’s family. He even asked us about our tutor, Ewan, and our studies with the bow. He included me graciously in everything he said, but it was plain to me that his consuming interest lay with Will and that he was not showing such interest out of simple courtesy.

And then suddenly he nodded, grunted deep in his chest, and bade all three of us farewell, informing Andrew at the last that Lord John was still deep in his discussions with the Father Abbot and was unlikely to require his services for at least another hour and perhaps even longer. With that, he walked away, already deep in thoughts of something else, leaving us staring after him.

“What was all that about, I wonder?” Murray sounded troubled, and Will cocked his head.

“What d’you mean?”

“That friendliness. I have never seen the old man behave so … so
amicably
. The revered Bishop Wishart is not a friendly man. Not like that, with utter strangers.”

“Should I beware, then?” Will drew the backs of his fingers along the soft down on his jawbone, smiling. “Does he like boys?”

“What? Oh, no, I meant nothing like that. Sweet Jesus, no! But he is …” Murray searched for words. “This is the fifth time I have travelled in the company of Bishop Wishart, as part of Lord John’s train. It’s also the briefest. I rode with him for three months last year and I know him to be a notedly silent man, solitary and self-guarded. He has few friends. He is no man’s puppet and I’m told he was once a fearsome warrior. But he is dour and largely without humour, close-mouthed and famed for being niggardly with words.”

“Mayhap he likes me, sees me for what I truly am. Had you thought of that? Just because it took you an hour and more to grow to love me, that doesna mean that more gifted folk shouldna see the gold in me sooner.”

Murray nodded judiciously. Then he gently took the quarterstaff from Will and removed the long yew bow from where it hung on his shoulder. He handed both to me along with his own weapons. Then he hooked his arm about Will’s neck and tripped him with one leg, dropping him to the ground and leaping on top of him to rub a handful of dirt into Will’s hair. Will, with a roar of mock rage, heaved valiantly against the weight pinning him and managed to turn on his side while keeping Murray’s arms away from his throat and the chokehold the other was trying to assert. I cannot say how long the struggle might have gone on had not Brother Brian, one of the brawniest of the Abbey brethren, emerged from the main door of the church and caught all three of us in sacrilegious ignominy. He dragged the two wrestlers apart and preached us a stern warning on the evils of fighting, then growled that we should get ourselves well out of sight.

We contrived somehow to suffer straight-faced through the dressing-down, but by then the fight had gone out of both contestants, and so we collected our bows and staves and for the following hour we merely walked and talked about whatever came into our minds. Andrew mentioned his lady love, a beautiful young woman from his own lands called Siobhan. He pronounced it
Shivonn
, and from the moment I heard it I was enamoured by the name’s beautiful sound. Her full name was Siobhan MacDiormid—I heard it as Shivonn Macdermid—and she was the niece of Alexander Comyn, the Earl of Buchan, from whom Andrew’s father held the lordship of Petty. It was plain that our new friend saw in her the sun and moon of his existence, and from the self-same moment both Will and I were captivated by what we heard.

There was nothing prurient or even mildly provocative in anything Andrew had to say of the young woman; on the contrary, he spoke of her in terms that rendered her almost superhuman in her virtues and ethereal in her beauty, his voice ringing with that ardour and conviction that is the shining characteristic of young men in the flush of first love. And Will and I listened, entranced because we had never heard the like of it. To us, girls were alien creatures, seldom if ever seen within the Abbey precincts. The mere sight of a woman, it was feared, might induce sinful thoughts among the brethren, and therefore women were forbidden entry to the community, save to attend services in the Abbey church, at which times they were heavily swathed, their faces, heads, and bodies covered, and they were accompanied by their God-fearing menfolk. Femininity was anathema within the Abbey precincts, even when the women concerned were old or middle-aged, shapeless and unattractive. Girls and young women inhabited the outside world, and they were matter for endless conjecture among the body of students at the Abbey school.

I knew beyond a doubt that, at almost sixteen, William Wallace had never known, nor spoken more than a few words to, any young woman who was not related to him by blood. Nor had I. But neither of us had ever suffered by that. Our lives were governed in every aspect by the rule of the Abbey community and the activities that filled our daily life, in school by day and away from it by night, and it never occurred to either one of us that we might ever fall into the company of young, attractive women. The key word, of course, was
attractive
. The two elderly women who ran our household on the farm were simply
there
, shapeless, sexless creatures whose sole purpose was to cater to our comfort and whom we scarcely noticed. Similarly, the young women who sometimes came to visit them, their daughters, nieces, and neighbours, were all but invisible to us. Plain, largely unwashed and sour smelling, ill dressed and unkempt, coarse spoken and generally repellent, they possessed none of the attributes that might have attracted our eyes or our thoughts.

This girl whom our new friend now depicted so eloquently came to us therefore as a revelation. We were enraptured, hanging dewy eyed on Andrew’s every word as we strove to picture the radiant beauty he described. Small wonder, then, that our reaction was less than courteous when a voice from behind us interrupted our fantasies, speaking Andrew’s name.

Will and I both spun around peevishly, prepared to send this interloper packing, but our first sight of the newcomer struck us mute.

To say that he was splendid is simply inadequate. The man was magnificent, dressed entirely in white and red, from knee-high, red-dyed boots and matching leather breeches, to a lustrous, blindingly white tunic surmounted by a white, open-fronted surcoat with a plain red shield, inset with a smaller outline of another, in white, on the left breast.

“Lord John!”

I had not needed to hear Andrew’s shocked response to know at whom I was gaping. Sir John Balliol, King Alexander’s personal envoy and an heir to the kingdom in his own right, was unmistakably a man of power, with wealth and privilege stamped into his every feature. He had come to a sudden halt, looking at us with one fine dark eyebrow raised high in surprise, occasioned, I had no doubt, by the ferocity with which Will and I had spun to face him.

“Forgive me, my lords,” he said in a voice that matched his smile. “I had no wish to impose myself, merely to speak a moment with Master Murray. But since he is clearly occupied, I will return later.” And with that he turned on his heel as though to walk away.

Will and I were speechless, appalled by our own ill manners, but fortunately that was not the case with Andrew. “My lord,” he said quickly, his voice tinged with desperation. “My lord, forgive me. We were deep in talk and did not see you coming.”

Lord John swung back towards us, still smiling. “That much was obvious,” he said. “But I find myself wondering about what you found so engrossing. When I was your age, the only topic that could inspire such dedication and reverence was consideration of the beauties of young women.”

None of us was capable of responding to that, but from the corner of my eye I could see the wave of colour that engulfed Andrew’s face as his mouth opened and closed. Balliol, however, was merciful and allowed his squire to slip easily off the gaff.

“I am new come from a meeting with the Abbott and his staff, which means I have spent the entire day talking about affairs of state and bruising my backside through a too-thin cushion, and so I thought to take some fresh air.” He reached behind him and kneaded his buttocks. “I had been thinking about you, young Andrew—guiltily, I suppose—imagining you waiting and fretting somewhere and no doubt cursing me, and so when I saw you here I thought to bid you good day and tender my regrets for having summoned you only to leave you waiting, since even a squire has the right to a little freedom.” He glanced sideways at Will, who had finally managed to close his open mouth. “You have made friends, I see.”

“Yes, my lord, I have.” Close to stammering, Andrew made us known to his master, who extended his hand to each of us in turn, nodding and smiling and making us feel at ease, a feat I would not have thought possible mere moments earlier. He was neither as tall nor as broad as Will, but such was the impression of confidence that radiated from the man that he seemed to occupy no less an amount of space, and I noticed now that he was eyeing Will’s staff.

“That looks like a quarterstaff,” he said. “Or is it simply a big walking stick?”

Will actually smiled. “My tutor tells me it is a quarterstaff, my lord.”

“And who is your tutor?”

“A man called Ewan Scrymgeour.”

“Scrymgeour … A Scots name.”

“Aye, sir, but his mother’s family is Welsh. He was an archer with King Edward, until the Welsh wars.”

“Hmm.” Lord John glanced at Murray, then looked quickly over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the deserted forecourt behind him. “Good. Then walk with me, if you will, to where the air is even fresher.”

The three of us fell in behind him as he walked steadily towards the fringe of mature elms and oaks that began some hundred paces from where we had been standing. He seemed to float ahead of us, moving easily and gracefully with long, confident strides, the red and nested white shields of the great House of Balliol emblazoned across his wide shoulders and the wind of his passage making the long skirts of his surcoat billow at his heels. None of us spoke, though all three of us boys exchanged curious looks as we followed him. He led us into the trees until we were concealed from any eyes that might be watching from the Abbey behind, then stopped in a clear space between the boles of two enormous elms. There he shrugged out of his beautiful white surcoat, allowing it to fall from his shoulders. He caught it in one hand and threw it aside, all the while smiling at Will.