The Guardian

by Jack Whyte

  “Aye, the redoubtable Robert Wishart …” The high-pitched voice sounded amused. “Rab to his friends, and ‘yon holy whoreson’ to those less kindly inclined towards him. Andrew speaks very highly of him. But—Wallace?” His eyes narrowed to slits. “Yon’s a weighty name, especially down where you come from. Are you any kind of kin to the big fellow?”

  “Close kin,” I said, smiling. “He’s my cousin and my dearest friend.”

  “Ah, then you’ll be the Jamie Wallace I’ve heard Andrew talk about, the one who saved him from drowning in Paisley when he was a lad, squiring King John.”

  I found it easy to laugh at that. “Aye, but the man he was squiring was a lord—not yet King John. And the reason Andrew was in the water—and believe me, we reached him fast enough to be sure there was no chance of him drowning—was that Will had knocked him off a log, and he had hit his head in falling. But yes, that’s me, the same Jamie Wallace, grown up a bit and ordained in the doing of it. Where is Andrew, can you tell me?”

  He shook his head. “No, I canna, for nobody really kens whaur he is. But I can send you to him. Brendan out there”—he jerked his head towards the doorway—“will take ye to him, and even not knowin’ where he is, he’ll find him quicker than anybody else could.”

  “The guard? He’s a tracker?”

  “He is. He’s Irish, and he’s one o’ the best we hae. Fights like a man possessed when need be, and has a brain, forbye … And he kens how to use it, which maks him different frae the run o’ folk about here. He’ll see you safely to wherever Andrew might be. He’s on the move constantly, you understand—Andrew, I mean, no’ Brendan. The English are turning the country upside down tryin’ to find him.”

  “What are you saying? He’s out there alone, a hunted fugitive?”

  “Of course he’s hunted. He’s Andrew Murray, heir to the lordship of Petty and fugitive frae an English prison. Every Englishman in Scotland is looking for him, hoping to claim the price on his head, for it gets bigger every day. But I’m no’ saying he’s alone—nor is he in any danger of being ta’en. There’s nae chance o’ that ava. He’s so far ahead o’ them, they canna come close to him. I think of what he’s doin’ as playin’ the lame hare, temptin’ the hounds to chase him, and they aey do. And when they find him, of course, they hae nae other choice than to fight him, on ground that he chose and on terms he has dictated.”

  “Hold now,” I demurred. “How does a fugitive dictate terms?”

  Pilche laughed outright. “By thinking longer and harder than them he’s up against, afore he commits to anythin’. Andrew aey knows what he’s about and where he’s goin’. He arrives nowhere by accident, and his folk are aey in place, weel hid and ready to fight … What’s the biggest advantage the English have over us in fighting?”

  “Other than having ten times the men we have? Horses, I would think. They have bigger and better horses, and their horsemen are better armed and armoured than we are.”

  “Right you are. And so they harry us on horseback, chasin’ and chivvyin’ us, snappin’ at our heels like dogs, until they round a corner or turn the flank o’ a hill somewhere and find themselves where Andrew wants them.”

  “And where would that be?”

  He barked a laugh—short, sharp, and humourless. “Some place where their horses and their mounted men are useless—in a bog, or thick woods, or a steep, narrow ravine. Andrew maks the land work for him all the time—for him and against them. When he turns to face them, he’ll usually hae a wooded hillside at his back, or a peat moss bog underfoot, or heavy undergrowth ablow an owerhangin’ cliff. Some place where he an’ his canna be outflanked and the English canna fight the way they like to. He’ll hae bowmen waiting on both sides, forbye, above and ahead of whoever’s huntin’ him. And he’ll be waitin’ wi’ his main force drawn up in schiltroms, long spears bristling like hedgehogs, so the English riders canna get at them. He wins every time—canna fail.” He shook his head slowly and barked that laugh again, a strange sound that was part snort, part scoffing derision. “You’d think they’d learn, but they don’t. They aey think to catch him on his own, and when they find themsel’s outnumbered and outflanked, outwitted and outfought, they can never believe what’s happened to them.”

  “Surely they must have learned his tricks by this time.” I could hear the disbelief in my voice. “I mean, I can understand that kind of ruse working once or twice, but all the time? No one can be that stupid, that much lacking in … what would you call it, common sense?”

  He snorted again. “I care no’ what you call it, Faither James. I’m too busy thankin’ God that it keeps happenin’.” He saw the expression on my face then and shrugged his wide shoulders, dipping his head to one side. “If you’re really asking me what I believe, I think they’re just boneheaded. It’s nae mair than stubborn pride, bred o’ their ain arrogance. The English commanders here winna even talk to ane anither. They’re weeks and months awa by sea and road frae England, and frae their ain overlords, and so ilka man o’ them, be he in charge o’ a castle or a garrisoned toun, thinks that his wee bit o’ Scotland is his ain fiefdom for him to rule or govern as he sees fit.”

  “Under the rules set out for him, you mean.”

  “No, I mean what I said. As he sees fit. If there’s rules set out, they’re bein’ ignored.” He threw up a hand. “Dinna look at me like that, man. I hae naught to dae wi’ it. And I ken how daft it sounds to say they take nae heed o’ what the high folk in England think or want, but it’s what I mean when I talk about their arrogance. And though it seems daft to the likes o’ us, it’s the truth for a’ that, and it’ll keep on bein’ true until somebody puts a stop to it in Edward’s name. An’ ye’ll pardon me if I sound as though I’m hopin’ somebody will put a stop to it, for that’s no’ what I mean at a’. I like it just fine the way things are. It makes the English easier to kill, and I’m glad o’ anythin’ that does that.

  “But aside frae anythin’ else, the dunghill cockerels wha rule the roost up here ken fine that Edward has ither things on his mind right now, this war wi’ France the biggest o’ them. But that state o’ affairs winna last, though they canna seem tae see that. One o’ these days, some clerk will tak note that there’s no’ as much money comin’ in frae north o’ the Forth as there’s supposed to be, and when that happens some high an’ mighty body will be sent up here to clean the shite out o’ the pigsty and set things in their proper English order, to make sure that Edward gets every siller groat out o’ us that he thinks is due to him. There’s going to be a wheen o’ whey-faced, sorry-lookin’ English knights and lordlings in these parts when that day comes.”

  “You may be right, Master Pilche, but we’ve changed tack here.”

  “Call me Sandy, if you will,” he said. “When ye say Master Pilche like that ye mak me feel as if I wis guilty o’ somethin’.”

  I grinned at him. “Sandy. So be it. But tell me this: how does what you’ve said explain the English leadership’s not talking to one another, or not combining to fight Andrew’s people?”

  He looked at me as though I had missed some important aspect of what he had been saying. “Precisely because o’ what I’ve just finished tellin’ you.” He managed to sound pedantic, despite his Highland way of speaking. “The Englishry here—the knights and lordlings in charge—hae nae trust in ane anither. Ilka man o’ them sees a’ the ithers as a threat to him—to his plans for the future. And so they avoid ane anither, keepin’ to themsel’s and sharin’ neither secrets nor information. That’s why Andrew keeps movin’ a’ the time. He’s keepin’ them off balance, spreadin’ confusion an’ unrest an’ leavin’ them wi’ nae time to organize themsel’s or to plan a campaign against him. The only bad part o’ that is that him movin’ about so much sometimes maks it hard for us to know exactly where to find him gin we need to. How quickly do you need to talk to him?”

  “Today is the most honest answer. But urgently.” I hesitated. In the few months since Andrew Murra
y’s return home, all Scotland had come to know of the remarkable bond formed between him and Alexander Pilche of Inverness. Within days of their first meeting, it seemed, Pilche had earned the young lord’s absolute trust and loyalty in a fusion of wills and mutual intent that no one seemed inclined to doubt. I decided to be completely open with him. “I’m carrying instructions for him from the Council of Guardians,” I said.

  He looked at me quickly, his eyebrows rising. “What council? There’s nae council. There’s but twa Guardians left in the entire realm.”

  “Well, yes and no …” I was acutely aware at that moment of my status, not merely as a priest of the Church but as the personal representative of my bishop in his official, political capacity as Guardian of the realm, and so I spoke in my most priestly voice as I continued, while trying to avoid offending my listener by pontificating too much. “It’s true, as you say, that there are but the two Guardians left in the land nowadays. But between the pair of them, Wishart and the Steward, they now embody the full power of the council at its peak capacity of twelve. Four earls there were not so long ago, plus four barons and four bishops, two of each rank from north and south of the Firth of Forth. Bishop Fraser of St. Andrews and Lord John de Soulis are in France at the court of King Phillip, negotiating on the realm’s behalf, and eight others are imprisoned in England. All of them retain their status as Guardians but, in effect, they are unable to function. Nevertheless it is the two remaining councillors who have sent me to make contact with Sir Andrew and to bring him south into Angus and Dundee.”

  “And why,” my listener asked me, “would Andrew de Moray leave his home lands at anyone’s behest when he has a war to wage here?”

  I deliberately put an edge of impatience into my voice. “Because the fight for Scotland is bigger and more important than the local upheavals in Moray, no matter how much import those appear to have to the folk who live here. Sandy, I am the direct representative of the Council of Guardians. They deem the presence of the army of de Moray in the south to be essential to what has become a struggle for the very existence of the Scots realm.”

  He sat still for a few moments, digesting that, then asked, “What do they have in mind, Wishart and the Steward?”

  “They want to drive Edward and the English out of Scotland for good. I can say that with certainty. How they intend to achieve it, what their plans are, I have no idea. I know as much as they have told me, certainly not enough to encourage me to guess at probabilities. But I will tell you what I know to be true.”

  I launched then into the tale of how I had come to be in Moray, including what the bishop had told me about the plans he and the Steward had to hold the enemy in negotiations in the hope of gaining sufficient time for Wallace, Murray, and others like them to consolidate their activities against the English.

  When I finally fell silent, Sandy Pilche nodded and sat thinking for a while, then rose and looked about him as though wondering where he was, turning his body from side to side as he scanned the room and the welter of papers and parchments it contained, and looking as though he had forgotten something and expected to see it appear by magic at any moment. But then he stepped across the floor and took down the belted sword I had noticed earlier. He hefted it wistfully in his hand before replacing it and turning to peer out through the small window.

  “Ye’re right,” he said over his shoulder as he gazed out through the narrow slit. “Ye need to see Andrew right away. I’ll send you wi’ Brendan and his four friends. They’re all Irish, an’ they hae noses like hounds. They’ll find him afore I ever could. I’d come wi’ you mysel’ but I need to be here for the next two days at least.” He rose on tiptoe, leaning farther forward into the embrasure and peering up at the sky, his voice pitching upwards with the strain of it. “Mind you, it’s gettin’ late in the day to be starting for anywhere. There’s nae mair than six hours of daylight left. But we havena much choice.”

  He pushed himself back from the wall and turned to me, rubbing the dust off his hands. “Ye’ll no’ have eaten yet, eh?” I shook my head, heartened at the thought of food, for I had eaten only a handful of roasted oats bound with honey aboard ship at dawn and now discovered that I was famished.

  He grunted. “I thought so. We’ll get some food into ye, then, and ye can be on the road within the hour. Can ye ride a horse? Ye can? Good. Ye’ll make better time on a horse. Brendan an’ his crew dinna ride. They run everywhere, an’ I jalouse that wi’out a horse ye’d be hard pressed to keep them in sight for more than a minute at a time. Well-mounted, though, ye’ll be able to keep up wi’ them.

  “Ride north and west for four or five hours and ye’ll come to Balconie. That used to be the seat o’ the Earl o’ Buchan, but Andrew took it after the countess sided wi’ the English against him at Castle Urquhart, and now we use it as our base in Ross. That’s where Andrew was goin’ when he left here last, but that was a week ago and I don’t know if he’ll be there still. Brendan’ll find a place for ye to sleep. Ye winna be able to light a fire, though—there’s too many Englishmen out there. Come mornin’, God willin’, ye’ll find word o’ Andrew’s whereabouts. Now, let’s go and eat.” We could not have timed our arrival in the kitchens better, for the household steward fed us freshly baked bread and a brace of roasted rabbits, fresh from the spit, with flagons of cool ale from a newly broached cask. While we were fortifying ourselves in the kitchen, the Irishman called Brendan was gathering his companions and making ready for our journey.

  I found myself liking Alexander Pilche increasingly as I grew more familiar with him. We talked easily and openly and, in the course of sucking the flesh off a rabbit bone, I asked him about the friendship that had sprung so quickly into being between him and Andrew Murray.

  He grinned and bobbed his head. “You’re the first person ever to come out and ask me that directly,” he said. “It’s been near three months now since Andrew an’ me started workin’ wi’ each other here, and folk still canna believe it. And I canna say I blame them, for even I can see that the odds are long against the likes o’ me an’ him ever comin’ to be allies, never mind friends, and in sic a short time. There’s mair rumours goin’ around about it than about anything else I can think o’. You say ye’ve heard o’ me, and that surprises me, but I believe ye. I hae nae idea what’s being said down there where you come from, but I ken the story spread up here like a fire in summer grass. A jocose pairing, eh, the Inverness burgess and the high-born lord? The merchant and the magnate? Come on now, I’m serious, how do you think it happened?”

  “I have no idea,” I told him straightforwardly. “But I think I’m glad it did happen …”

  He pushed away his platter and wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. “I’ll tell you, then. What few folk ken is that Andrew and me have kent ane anither for years. Ten year at least. And at the start o’ that time we was close for a while. But then we grew up. Andrew went away to be a squire to some knight down near Edinburgh, to get ready for his ain knighthood, and my da, who was a wool merchant, apprenticed me to a trader in Inverness.”

  “And now you’re a prominent merchant burgess. You’ve done well, in a mere ten years.”

  He waved my comment aside. “I liked the work and I was good at it, an’ I wis lucky, forbye. I wed the trader’s dochter near five years ago, and her da died o’ an apoplexy the year after that, liftin’ a bale o’ hides. I took ower the place and we did weel. Until the English came.”

  “How old were you back then, when you first met Andrew?”

  “That was ten years ago. I’d hae been fourteen, thereabouts. The same age as him. Mayhap fifteen.”

  “Still an unlikely pairing. And what brought you together in the first place?”

  “Love.” He smiled mischievously. “No’ that kind o’ love, Faither. There’s nae need to be scandalized.”

  I coughed and swallowed awkwardly, trying to pretend that I had not really been thinking anything untoward, but he ignored my react
ion.

  “I had a twin sister, Meg. She was older than me by an hour, and she and Andrew liked each other frae the first time they met. And once they had met, they kept on meeting, nigh on every day after that, and I aey had to be there wi’ them, to keep them …” He laughed. “I don’t know what I was supposed to keep them. Respectable, or chaste, I jalouse. But there was never any need, for friends was all they were—close and affectionate, but nae mair than that. But that’s how Andrew an’ me came to ken each ither. An’ then he met Meg’s other friend, a lass called Eleanor. That was the end o’ whatever o’ man-to-woman love might hae been atwixt him an’ Meg. But they a’ stayed friends, that was the strangest bit o’ it. Andrew finally was wed to Eleanor just ower a year ago, afore he got captured an’ sent to Chester.”

  “Where is Meg now?”

  He dipped his head to one side. “She’s deid.” He said it flatly, his voice devoid of emphasis.

  “Ah. Forgive me for asking.”

  “No need, Faither. She died last year, while Andrew was away in the south. She’d got wed, ye see, to a young blacksmith. Kenny MacFarlane was his name, an’ for a while they was happy. She soon got pregnant, which was nae surprise, but as the months went by she swole up like a mare in foal, and Kenny started frettin’. Twins run in our family, ye see, and frae the size o’ Meg’s belly anybody could see that’s what she was carryin’.”

  He lapsed into a silence, then cleared his throat fiercely. “Well, that winter came early and it was the worst we’d had in years. There was a bad snowstorm early in November, and the day after that, it froze hard and stayed like that for weeks. Meg collapsed early on in that cold spell, nigh on three weeks afore she was supposed to hae the bairns. Kenny had been frettin’ for months that somethin’ bad might happen, and so he had arranged for some midwives from Inverness, an old woman and her dochter, to come an’ stay wi’ them and see to the delivery. But the women werena due for another week, so everythin’ went wrong and Kenny was at his wits’ end. He made Meg as comfortable as he could an’ then went for to fetch the midwives. He left her wi’ his young brother Tam, who was just sixteen but was able to keep the fires burnin’ and see to it that she and the animals was well fed.”