The Forest Laird

by Jack Whyte

  Crestfallen, I made my way to the farmhouse kitchen, where I told my news to Aggie the cook and Maggie the housekeeper, only to have them show even less interest than Will and Ewan.

  “Oh, aye? Poor man,” Aggie said, then looked at Maggie, who laughed and responded, “We’ll ha’e a new King, then.”

  “Aye, nae doubt we will. And soon.”

  Maggie added, “Aye, I wonder will he ask us up to Scone to see him crowned?”

  I closed my mind to their callousness and consoled myself with the wonderful food that Aggie laid in front of me. And as I ate, instead of dwelling upon things I could neither influence nor change, I thought about the new project that had kept Will away from school that day. It was a bow, of course, or it would be eventually, but for the time being and for some time to come it would remain as it was now, a straight length of plain, ordinary-looking timber.

  Yet I knew well that the yew stave that fascinated both my friends was neither plain nor ordinary. It was one of four identical pieces that Ewan had brought back several years earlier from his visit to his uncle Daffyd ap Gryffyth, in the English town of York. Daffyd was a master bowyer, transformed by his skills, within the space of two decades, from an extraordinary Welsh archer into one of the most powerful and respected bow makers in all England. Ewan had been his apprentice at the battle of Lewes, where the boy had almost been killed by the mace blow that disfigured him permanently, and his uncle had developed a great pride in the singleminded determination with which his badly injured nephew had pursued his goal of becoming an archer thereafter. The two then lost touch for years, after Ewan had left Edward of Caernarvon’s army and returned to Scotland.

  Ewan had gone in search of his uncle, of whose success he had heard from time to time, with the underlying intention of purchasing some decent bow staves, but Daffyd ap Gryffyth had refused to sell to him. Instead, the old man took him into the massive warehouse where he kept his finest and most precious materials, supplies of yew imported from Tuscany and the forests southeast of Salerno, and led him straight to four of the finest staves among the thousands stockpiled there, all four lying side by side in their own ventilated space. These, he insisted, were beyond price and would be his personal gift to Ewan, the sole inheritance within his power to bestow, since his sons, now full partners in the enterprise, must take precedence. All four staves had been taken from the same tree, he explained, stroking the fine wood as he spoke of them; a tall, straight tree of Iberian yew. Iberian yew was unobtainable now in its native form, since most of Iberia had fallen to the Moors in the eighth century, but prudent merchants had salvaged a few thousand seedlings and saplings from the largely unoccupied but still contested areas of Galicia and Asturias during the tenth century, and plantations had been established in Italia and had flourished there, precious and close guarded.

  The bole of this particular tree, Daffyd said, had been recognized early for its excellence and tended throughout its life by careful foresters who knew its value. It had grown perfectly straight and virtually free of imperfections until it was almost twenty inches in diameter, and from it the Tuscan sawyers had obtained four magnificent, perfectly straight, and knotless staves, a thing almost unheard of. Each of the four was square in section, four inches to a side and seven feet long, and each appeared to be made of twin laminated strips of reddish-brown colours. But the striations were natural. The darker strip, which would become the inner belly of the bow, was the iron-strong heartwood of the yew, capable of sustaining great compression; the outer, paler side was the sapwood, more pliable than the denser heartwood; it would form the outer “back” of the bow, and its tension, combined with the compression of the heartwood belly, would make the war bow that sprang from it the most powerful weapon of its kind for a single man in all the world.

  Ewan had brought the four staves home to Scotland with great care, for they were truly priceless and irreplaceable, but he had brought others with him, too, staves of lesser quality, perhaps, yet cleaner, finer, and less knotty than any native yew remaining today in England.

  Will had been practising the bowyer’s craft for years, working until all hours of the night under Ewan’s tutelage, the size of each ash or elm bow he made increasing as his body and strength grew. He had graduated, with great but private ceremony, to fashion his current bow from one of these lesser staves of yew, slowly and patiently perfecting the art of using the bowyer’s razor-sharp, double-handed drawknives to pare down the wood and taper the bow’s length under the proud but watchful eye of Ewan Scrymgeour.

  Now, however, Will was close to outgrowing his own bow, and the time had come for him to make another, a longer, thicker, stronger bow that he would be hard set to pull. I knew that, but I knew, too, that his massive muscles would grow larger yet to master its challenge. And I knew that the pride both my friends would take—had already begun to take—in making Will’s new bow from one of Daffyd ap Gryffyth’s finest staves would be fully justified. But I wondered how it could justify their lack of concern over the death of their King.

  Ewan and Will came into the kitchen while I was still sitting there mulling. The aroma of fresh-baked bread and of the spicy stew in the pot was still strong in the room, and they helped themselves hungrily to more food while Aggie poured them each a pot of ale from the large, covered wooden jug she kept beneath the stone sink in the corner farthest from the fire. It was still light outside, but the winter-weak March sun was lost in heavy cloud and sinking swiftly, and Aggie left us to our own devices as she bustled away to the quarters she shared with Maggie.

  The two talked incessantly about the scale and measurements they had been applying to the stave, and I sat watching and listening until Ewan shovelled the last of his broth-soaked bread into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it, then lounged back in his chair with a contented sigh and took a big gulp of ale. I waited for the inevitable belch that always followed such a draught, and when it had subsided I asked him, “Will you really pray for the King tonight?”

  He pulled his bowstring-callused fingers pensively down along the ruined bowl of his cheek, tracing the concave curve of its toothless emptiness.

  “I will,” he said in his soft, lisping voice. “I said I would. But, Jamie, what do you suppose this means, this death of a King? What do you think will happen now?”

  I did not have to think about my response. “I know what will happen. There is an heir, the King’s grand-daughter Margaret, born to his daughter the Queen of Norway. Brother Duncan says she is an infant, and she will need guidance, but they will bring her home and crown her Queen.”

  “Guidance?” Ewan’s face crumpled in what I knew to be a rueful grin. “And who will do this guiding that you speak of? How old is this princess?”

  “Three, Brother Duncan said.”

  “Three … A child of three, and a lass at that, forbye a foreigner. They won’t like that.”

  “Who won’t?” This was Will, speaking for the first time.

  “The magnates, lad. The men who think they themselves have the right to rule this land.”

  The Scots magnates were the men of power in the realm. They were of varying ranks, from earls to barons and chiefs, and of different bloods, some of them Gaels, a few of Danish and Norwegian stock, and others Norman French. Collectively they called themselves the magnates and individually they each looked after their own interests.

  “The magnates,” Will said with a sneer. “Ravens, you mean. They’re carrion eaters, all of them. Only the lawful King has the right to rule this land.”

  “Aye, and each o’ your magnates will seek to claim that right. You wait and see.” Ewan’s voice had quieted. “They willna settle for a wee lass Norwegian-born. It has been but twenty and three years since the fight at Largs, when Alexander himself threw the last of the Norwegians out of the Isles. There are men alive today who fought there and still mind that well. They’ll not take the risk of courting that again.”

  “And who stands foremost among these magnates?”
Will asked. “They can’t all expect to become the next King, surely? Some of them must have stronger claims than others.”

  “Some have,” Ewan said mildly. “You spoke with one o’ them yourself, less than a month ago—Lord John Balliol. He’ll claim direct descent from David I, King of Scots, whose grandson, Balliol’s own grandsire, was David, Earl of Huntingdon. He has the lineage, no doubt of that. And besides, his mother, Devorguilla, rules all of Galloway in her own ancient Gaelic right.”

  Will looked at me wide-eyed, and I stared back at him, astonished that we two had met, and Will had bested, this man who was now named a potential King of Scots.

  “And then there’s Bruce of Annandale,” Ewan continued. “He is an old man now, but his claim is near as strong as Balliol’s. And there are the Comyns of Buchan and Badenoch, though they’re related to the Balliols. Aye, I’m thinking there will be no shortage of claimants. Mark my words, lads, this Scotland will be shaken by wild storms before that matter’s settled.”

  He took another long swallow of his ale. “But I doubt any of it will be o’ great concern to us. We’ll get on with our lives and leave the affairs o’ state to them that deal in them.”

  3

  For several months it seemed that Ewan would be right in his assessment of how little we would be affected by the affairs of kings and magnates. Life continued as it always had, and after no more than a few weeks had passed, people began to forget about the death of King Alexander. Will and I did not forget, but that was solely because of our kinsmen Father Peter and Brother Duncan, both of whom used us as a conduit to pass on tidings and information from the Abbey to Sir Malcolm in Elderslie. Thus as couriers we knew that there were grave and deep-set stirrings beneath the fabric of the country’s daily life.

  It began most noticeably with a sudden increase in the number of religious colloquies and hurried assemblies all across the land, several of which were held in Paisley and all of which involved senior churchmen. Several of these took place at our own Abbey, and I remember one in particular that threw all of us into disarray because it was hastily summoned and included the Abbots of Holyrood, Dunfermline, Melrose, and Kelso as well as Bishop Wishart of Glasgow and William Fraser, the powerful Bishop of St. Andrews. Such men did not travel alone. They progressed like the lords they were, lords of Mother Church, and each had his retinue of followers, including secretaries, scribes, acolytes, servants, bodyguards, and camp followers, so that we were hard put to accommodate all of them within the precincts.

  As unofficial messengers, we soon came to see that the churchmen had valid concerns, not always solely for the welfare of the Church. The word had come out, within a month of the King’s death, that Queen Yolande had been pregnant before he died. As such rumours often do, it spread like windblown fire and captured the attention of the entire land. If it were true, though, and the Queen bore Scotland a new heir, be it boy or girl, there could be repercussions, for the accepted word in those early days, also unconfirmed, was that the magnates had closed ranks surprisingly quickly at the King’s funeral, despite Ewan’s pessimism that first night, and had accepted the young Norwegian Princess Margaret. Some people even said they had acknowledged her as the official heir, but that, too, was merely hearsay. Nothing, according to our sources, had yet been formally declared. If this latest rumour proved true, however, the magnates would have no choice but to declare in favour of the new child.

  Rumour, of course, led to counter-rumour, and many whispered that the Queen, a Frenchwoman closely related to France’s young and ambitious King Philip Capet IV, was not pregnant at all and intended to present some base-born upstart as her own in order to maintain her position as Queen of Scots and to bring the Scots realm under the influence of the Crown of France.

  In the last week of April, barely forty days after Alexander’s death, our Abbot left for a great gathering at Scone Abbey, in the course of which the realm’s most powerful and important men—the earls, barons, bishops, abbots, and priors—intended to deal with the situation of the interregnum. When he returned, less than two weeks later, Will and I were sent by Father Peter to inform Sir Malcolm that the matter had been settled. In the course of the Scone parliament, as men were calling it, it was revealed that no heir was yet forthcoming, and the magnates had formally sworn their loyalty to the young Norwegian Princess as the official heir, taking a solemn oath, on penalty of excommunication, to guard the realm for her and to keep the peace of her land.

  In support of that oath and in earnest of their open goodwill, the parliament had also dispatched three emissaries to find the King of England, who was campaigning in Gascony against the French, to seek his advice and protection on the rights of the young heir. That done, and for the interim governance of the land, the parliament had appointed a council of six custodians, called Guardians, chosen from what they termed the community of the realm. Two of these six, Alexander Comyn of Buchan and Duncan MacDuff of Fife, were earls; two were barons, John Comyn the Red, Lord of Badenoch, and James, the hereditary Steward or Stewart; and the final two were bishops, William Fraser of St. Andrews and Robert Wishart of Glasgow.

  Sir Malcolm listened carefully to me and Will as we reported all of this, and then he nodded in satisfaction. “Three from north of Forth and three from south,” he rumbled. “Two o’ the ancient earldoms. The senior bishops, north and south. And two Comyns representing the barons, one in the north and the other in the south. Aye, cunningly done.”

  Until that moment I had not given a single moment’s thought to the composition of the Council of Guardians, but now I saw what my uncle had perceived immediately: the new council was an inspired piece of political juggling, masterminded by I knew not whom, but aimed unequivocally at unifying and protecting the integrity of the Scots realm by emphasizing its differences north and south of the River Forth and ensuring that both halves were equal in voice and influence. The Forth had great significance in the eyes of all Scots. It was the river that partitioned the land into its two halves, the mountainous northern Celtic portion known as Scotia and the southern, more English- and Norman-speaking half. Along its short length from the North Sea to Edinburgh and Stirling it provided the only access routes for heavy traffic travelling between north and south.

  “What’s wrong, lad?” The question startled me, but it was not directed at me. Uncle Malcolm’s eyes were on Will, who sat frowning into the fire. We were in the main room of the house, just the three of us, and Lady Margaret, who was about her needlework and seemingly paying no attention to what we had been saying. Will jerked upright and flushed.

  “Nothing, sir. There’s nothing wrong. I was but …” His voice tailed away.

  “But what, lad? Speak up. Is there something that troubles you?”

  “No, sir. Not troubles me. Not exactly.” He was still red faced. “But it seems senseless.”

  Sir Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “Senseless? Yon’s a word that could provoke an argument. What seems senseless?”

  Will jutted his jaw and charged ahead. “It insults the Bruce,” he said. “Makes no recognition of his rank or status. The Lord of Annandale will take that ill, from what I’ve heard of him.”

  Sir Malcolm scratched idly at his beard. “Aye, he might,” he said. “You make a good point, young Will. One worth considering.” He bent forward and struck a small bronze bell on the table by his chair, and when a servant responded he sent the man to fetch a jug of ale.

  “What think you, Jamie?” he said then. “Will the Bruce be vexed?”

  I could only shake my head, for the possibility had not occurred to me. Lady Margaret came to my rescue.

  “How could the boy know that?” she asked her husband amiably, looking up from her work. “He spends most of his life shut up in that great library. How could he possibly know what Robert Bruce is like to do?”

  “He is as like to know as I am, my dear,” her husband replied mildly. “Jamie has a long head on him, and not all his life is spent among his books.” He loo
ked back to me. “So, lad, what think you?”

  I shook my head again. “I have never met or seen Sir Robert Bruce, Uncle. But Will’s father, Uncle Alan, was his man, and though I only heard him speak of his master once, he said he pitied any fool who dared to offend Annandale. That said, I agree with Will.”

  The manservant came in bearing a heavy jug of the household’s weak, home-brewed ale, known as small beer. He crossed to a table in the corner that held a pile of earthen mugs, and we watched in silence as he poured four measures and then served each of us, beginning with Lady Margaret and Sir Malcolm.

  “Good,” the knight said once the door had closed again at the man’s back. “Your support of your cousin’s opinion pleases me. It shows loyalty, as well as reason, though I confess I hoped you might point out that Lord John Balliol and his House have also been neglected here. So let us look at this senselessness, as Will calls it, for what it truly is.” He glanced at each of us in turn. “Are you ready?”

  We both nodded.

  “Let us suppose, though God forbid it should, that everything goes wrong from this day forth. The Queen fails to produce an heir and, even worse, some tragedy befalls young Princess Margaret. What would happen then?” He did not wait for an answer. “There would be dire competition for the throne among the magnates. And among those, who would have the paramount claim?”

  “Balliol and Bruce,” Will said immediately, for he and I had discussed this very matter the previous week.

  “Exactly. Balliol and Bruce. And which would take precedence?” When neither of us responded, he nodded. “Wise lads,” he said. “For no one knows the answer to that question. Both men have valid claims and both are descendants of David II, though one claims through the female side and the other through a male but arguably less direct descent. The settlement of their dispute would require abler and more subtle minds than ours to arbitrate. And seen from that viewpoint, it would clearly be madness to appoint either of them to serve as a Guardian.