The Guardian

by Jack Whyte

  He sighed, a gentle sound, before eyeing the guards who crowded around us. “It’s back there,” he said, jerking his head in the direction from which he must have come. “Safe hidden. When folk around here see a big bow like mine, they tend to think ‘Englishman’ and behave badly.”

  He looked at big Fergus, the man in charge of the guard that afternoon, picking him out as leader as easily as though Fergus had been wearing a sign. “I am a Scot,” he explained. “Or my father was, so I’m half. My mother was Welsh and I was trained in Wales as a longbow archer. I fought for Edward of England once, years ago, but when he turned to steal Wales from beneath our feet, I left and came here.”

  I picked up where he left off, for I knew he was too modest to finish, and I spoke for all to hear. “And since he came to Scotland, more than a decade ago, he has been the closest thing to a brother and a father that my cousin William Wallace has ever had. This is the man who taught Will Wallace how to string and use a longbow.”

  Will’s name was nowhere near as well known in these northeastern parts as Andrew Murray’s was, but it was known nonetheless, and I knew the mere mention of it in connection with the towering newcomer would be enough to accord Ewan a high measure of respect among the battle-hardened men who heard me.

  “Now, let us go and collect your bow before we do anything else.”

  We barely spoke as I followed him back along the path, because I was scanning the land ahead of us all the way, watching for either a dense clump of bushes or a patch of boulders and rank grass. We were looking for a longbow case, a solid, four-fingers-wide tube of highly polished, waterproofed bull hide, six feet long and arrow straight, and there are few places where you can hide such an unnatural thing effectively in open country. In the end, about eight hundred paces from the camp, we came to a spot that featured a profusion of hazel bushes—they were too small to deserve to be called trees—growing among a jumble of rocks that had fallen at the foot of a low, much-eroded cliff of soft shale and now mostly obscured by tall grasses. I was faced with a choice: where would Ewan have concealed his precious bow? In the ranks of straight hazel saplings, or in the mix of boulders and long grass? I opted for the stony ground and long grass half a heartbeat before Ewan stooped to reach into the grass, moving a few heavy boulders out of the way and retrieving the long case, wrapped in a loose sleeve of old, dirty, grass-stained homespun cloth. Beside it, no more than two paces away, lay another shrouded shape, containing the case that held the longbow’s yard-long arrows.

  “I was wondering if you would still have those old clouts,” I said. “Are they the same ones? If they are, they must be close to falling apart by now.”

  “Same ones,” he murmured, stretching them out individually before folding them carefully and stuffing them into his shoulder bag. “Only ones I’ve ever had.”

  “That is amazing,” I said, shaking my head in wonder as I watched the care he bestowed on such old and insignificant rags. “How old must they be, then?”

  “Old enough to look the part and do the job I ask of them, though I can’t say how long I’ve had them. I’m surprised you’d remember them.”

  “Ah, but I’ve never forgotten them, Ewan. I especially remember how when you wrap one around your case like that, and place it on the ground among stones and long, rank grass, both clout and case disappear completely. The loose cloth blurs the case’s edges, and the old, green-stained colours blend perfectly into the long grass. In fact I had a wager with myself that we’d find the case here.”

  He grinned that sunken grin of his. “Then you’re still as clever as ever you were, boyo.” He picked up his arrow bag and slung it across his back, the feathered ends projecting high above his right shoulder, and then stooped to pick up the longbow case. “Will we be able to talk at your camp without being overheard, or should we go for a walk first?”

  “Let’s walk,” I said. “It’s a grand summer evening and we have an hour and more before dinner is anywhere near being ready. So tell me, what brings you here? Have you tidings from Glasgow? Has anything changed in the southwest?”

  He seemed about to say something but then frowned and shook his head. “No,” he said, “nothing’s changed and nothing’s different, as far as I know.” He looked about him. “I passed an open meadow on my way here, about half a mile back,” he said. “There was a thin dead tree in a patch of open sward and I took note of it as a place to practise. I’ve barely drawn my bow in more than a week, with all the running around I’ve been doing. So I can practise there and we can talk without being overheard.”

  “Lead on, then,” I said, and he turned away without another word.

  Less than half an hour later I lay back on a grassy knoll and watched him string his bow, admiring the practised ease with which he did it, for it was a task that would have defeated most men. But of course, as with all such things, there was a knack to it, and Ewan had learned that knack as a young apprentice, a decade before I was even born. When he was satisfied with the feel of the weapon, he set the bow down and removed the arrow bag from his back, then selected six yard-long bodkins—the arrow of choice for target practice because of their smooth, tapering, cone-shaped heads. Originally designed to pierce armour and mail, they had been so successful that armourers had laboured for decades afterwards to develop steel plate thick enough and smooth enough not only to deflect a bodkin but actually to repel a direct hit. The bodkin might no longer be an effective tool against heavily armoured knights, but it was as fearsome as ever to less strongly protected men, punching cleanly through all but the most expensively wrought mail and plate. The newer broadhead arrow, on the other hand, was useless for target practice because it was triple-bladed and wickedly barbed and so could not be retrieved from a target without risking significant damage to both target and warhead.

  Finally, satisfied with the straightness and fletching of the bodkins he had selected, Ewan stuck them points down and side by side in a row in front of him and turned his single eye on me. “Ready?”

  We had paced the distance from the dead tree together and it was one hundred and eighty long paces from where we now stood, so that the hand’s breadth of space between the two green bands spanning the narrow tree trunk—Ewan’s green clouts again—was now barely visible to me, and I had two good eyes. That narrow strip was Ewan’s target, and any damage to the bordering cloths would be unacceptable.

  I nodded. “Go ahead. Let’s see if you can still impress me.”

  He did. His first arrow struck the side of the tree and glanced off. His next three landed side by side within the tiny band between the cloth strips. He didn’t even bother to use the last two missiles. He simply put them back into his quiver and quickly unstrung his bow, handing the string to me to wind for him. I watched him go through the familiar motions, admiring, as always, his economy of movement and the concentration with which he worked. No true archer ever left his bow strung for a moment longer than was necessary, for the very resilience that made the yew bow such a formidable weapon could be leached out of it by leaving it arched into its bow shape for too long. The wood “learned” the arch of its shape and consequently lost the tension necessary to retain its strength.

  He polished the shaft lovingly with the soft cloth he used solely for that purpose and slid it carefully back into its carrying case, closing the lid securely before slinging the case to hang by his side.

  I handed him back his bowstring, wound precisely the way he had taught me years earlier, then walked with him to the target to collect his arrows and precious cloths.

  “Do you feel like talking to me yet?”

  He looked at me sidelong, saying nothing, and I continued, “You will admit, I hope, that I’ve been very patient. Especially because I am a priest, after all, and therefore naturally curious. But it’s nearing time for us to head back to camp and you still haven’t said a word about why you’re here. Or about what’s bothering you, and something plainly is.”

  We reached the target
and he flicked a finger down and to his right. “See if you can find that first one,” he said, pulling one of the three bodkins from the narrow strip of bark that showed between the strips of cloth.

  I found the arrow by sheerest accident, sticking up almost vertically from a tussock. I brought the missile back and handed it to him, and he held it up to the light and peered along its shaft.

  “Warped,” he murmured. “Just enough to throw it off.” He snapped the shaft across his knee, surprising me. Then he glanced at me, almost furtively. “It’s Will.”

  “What is?”

  He dropped one of the pieces into his scrip and threw the other aside. “Can’t waste a good warhead,” he said.

  “What’s Will, Ewan?”

  “Will’s what’s bothering me.”

  Even though I had used the word first, it sounded alien coming from him. I had seldom known anything to bother this big man unduly.

  “Bothering you … Very well, then, what is it about him that is … bothering you?”

  “His behaviour.” The natural softness of Ewan’s voice and the whistling sound of his slight lisp made the words close to inaudible. “He’s changed, since we left Selkirk to come up here.”

  “Well, of course he has changed,” I said, perhaps just a little relieved. “Who wouldn’t have changed after all that has happened to him?” I hesitated, struck by his expression. “But that’s not what you mean, is it? You’re not talking about Mirren and the children. You’re talking about something else …”

  He shrugged his shoulders hugely but said nothing.

  “Ewan, you have to tell me something more than the little you’ve said. I have no idea what you’re talking about and I can’t even begin to guess at it without some clues. Was it Lothian? Did something happen there? Or did something happen after you attacked Lothian?”

  “We didn’t go to Lothian.”

  That left me floundering for a moment. “But—but the instructions I took to Will from Bishop Wishart were to raise the dragon flag and harry Lothian with fire and sword. He was to spend a month doing that and then come northwards across the Forth from Stirling.”

  “Aye, well, the Bishop changed his mind—him and the Stewart. Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. All I know is it had something to do with all the talk at Irvine, between them and the English under Percy and Clifford. What was the word they used for it? It wasn’t surrender … Something like cap …”

  “Capitulation?”

  “Aye, that’s it. What does it mean?”

  “It means surrender. Just another way of saying it.”

  “Ah! Well anyway, something came up there, in their discussions of that … capit-what-you-said, and Wishart sent word to us, just before we left the forest, to back away from the assault on Lothian, for the time being at least. We were still to head up here at the appointed time, but we were to keep the peace until then.”

  “And how did Will react to that?”

  He looked at me sidewise, his good eyebrow raised in mild surprise. “How did he react?” He shrugged dismissively. “He didn’t react. He was fine. Glad he didn’t have to risk hurting his own folk, I think. Scots folk. He had never felt right about that, even when he raided Lanark, for he felt that even if the townsfolk were helping the English, it was because they had no choice, and he thought Wishart and Stewart were wrong in what they wanted to do in Lothian. But then the word came to hold back and I think we all felt better. Will spent the time training his new men, but harder than before, now that they knew they were close to coming face to face with England.”

  “I see,” I said, though I truly did not. “And what has that to do with what you’re fretting about now?”

  He looked at me sharply, as though I had said something outrageous. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. As I said, we were glad.”

  “Then what are you fretting about now, Ewan? Am I supposed to read your mind? You’re concerned about Will, you say, but you have shown me no slightest reason for saying that.” I stopped, abruptly aware of my mounting frustration, and drew a deep breath, willing myself to remain calm. “Please, then, Ewan, if you will, and if you can, tell me what is going on.”

  “Ach!” He turned on his heel and began to walk away, back in the direction of our camp, and I walked quickly to keep pace with him. He did not go far, though. He stopped suddenly in the middle of the narrow track we were following and turned to face me almost defiantly. “It’s not me, Jamie. Will’s the one who is fretting,” he said sibilantly, his Welsh intonation suddenly very pronounced. “I’m just upset because I am unused to seeing him this way—unsure of himself and doubting his own judgment.”

  “His judgment on what?”

  “On this excursion to Dundee, for one thing, and on Stirling and Andrew Murray for another.”

  “In God’s name, Ewan, he’s going to Dundee to collect a much-needed shipload of weapons and armour. What could be dubious about that? By his own admission he stands in dire need of weaponry. And what nonsense is this about questioning going to Stirling? Wishart’s instructions were clear: collect the weapons, meet up with Murray, and head together towards Stirling.”

  “Aye, but it’s the meeting with Murray, after so long a time, wi’ so much having happened in between. Will is wondering if he should be lending him his support.”

  I was aware of the silence that stretched out before I heard myself asking, “Will is having doubts about Andrew Murray? They’ve been friends since we were boys together.”

  “Aye—and that’s what has him so upset. Is the man Andrew Murray the same person as the boy was? Or has he changed, growing up?”

  I was hearing far more here than I wanted to, and it was not merely unnerving me, it was actually frightening me. I could completely understand why Will might have grave concerns about being so far north of Forth. To the best of my knowledge he had never been in Fife before, nor in Dundee, and so he might well have reservations about being so far removed from his own territories and among people whose language was barely intelligible to him and his folk. It was another thing altogether, however, to hear that Will might be considering abandoning the task set him by Bishop Wishart and returning home to Selkirk Forest. Such a decision threatened not only our own personal endeavours—mine, Andrew’s, and Will’s— but the welfare of Scotland’s realm.

  My heart was thumping against my breastbone and I knew I was gaping. “This will not do,” I said. “I can’t talk about this here, standing in the woods like a witless goatherd who has lost his kine. Both of us need to think, and with great care, about what we are discussing. Because whether we like it or not, we could soon be talking about treason.”

  He nodded, and we walked on together in silence until we came to a place where our path crossed another, wider and deeply rutted by wagon traffic, and we stopped there, hesitating as we heard noises from the encampment close ahead of us. We had barely paused when an errant puff of wind wafted the aroma of fresh spit-roasted meat to where we stood, and Ewan sniffed deeply at it and turned to look at me, cocking his head as he waited for me to make a decision. The area around the crossing itself, while not extensive, was bare of vegetation, and someone had rolled an ancient log close to an equally ancient fire pit. I nodded towards the spot.

  “This will do,” I said. “Close enough to camp that we won’t miss dinner, and we won’t be interrupted because everyone else will be eating.”

  We seated ourselves quickly, and then sat looking at each other. I knew it would be up to me to start the conversation, and so I plunged straight ahead.

  “Right,” I said. “Andrew Murray … Why is Will suddenly doubting him after all these years? You must have some idea.”

  Ewan shrugged. “He’s doubting him not so much for who he is as for what he is … or might be,” he added quietly.

  I waited, but there was no more forthcoming and I snapped back at him in frustration. “And what is that supposed to mean? You make no sense, Ewan.”

  “Of c
ourse I do, Jamie.” There was no trace of argument in his voice. “You know Will even better than I do. When has he ever been comfortable around magnates?”

  “He never has.” I threw the answer out without needing to think. “Doesn’t care for them as a breed and doesn’t trust them.”

  “There you go. And Andrew Murray is a magnate.”

  I opened my mouth to scoff, but the words died on my lips.

  “Aye,” my friend murmured, nodding sagely. “That’s right. He is. One of the most powerful in the land. Or he will be, once his father and his uncle die. He is sole heir to both of them, and they are old men now, locked tightly away in London’s Tower. Since he came home to his northern lands, he has been acting in his father’s stead, as Lord of Petty, and the whole of Scotland knows that de Moray of Petty is one of the proudest, strongest, and most powerful houses in all this realm—bigger, perhaps, than Bruce, and easily as strong as Comyn. And that, vast as it is, is merely Petty,” he continued, unaware of any irony. “But Petty is dwarfed and beggared beside the estates of Andrew’s uncle, William de Moray of Bothwell, William the Rich.” He raised a single finger in warning. “Once Andrew comes into his own, ruling the estates of Bothwell and Petty, there won’t be a magnate in Scotland who can come close to him in wealth or power. And that is what is worrying your cousin. Will doesn’t know whether Andrew Murray remains true to what he believed in when he was younger. He wonders whether he should consider the possibility that even great men tend to grow corrupt with power and riches.”

  I knew, even as I listened to Ewan saying the words, that the archer had captured the heart of Will’s problem. No one—no bishop, lord, or savant—could have expressed it better. And hearing it expressed so simply and cleanly, I knew at once how to deal with it.

  “I need to see him. Now,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “Now? Well … I suppose he’s where I left him this morning, close by Dundee, about twenty miles south of here.”