The Forest Laird

by Jack Whyte

  I opened my mouth to respond but he cut me off with a short chop of his hand. “Abomination, I said, and I meant it. And we brought it upon ourselves. We have been dancing wi’ the Devil for too long, Father James, and now I fear we’ll have to pay a high price for our dalliance. We invited the Plantagenet to come here, and he came. I fear he will not leave as eagerly when we ask him to retire.”

  He rose abruptly from his chair and crossed to the open window, where he stood staring down into the courtyard below, one hand holding the window’s metal edge, the other hooked by the thumb into the white rope girdle at his waist. The thrush I had heard in the distance was no longer singing.

  “I blame myself,” he said quietly, speaking into the emptiness in front of him, so that I had to listen hard to hear the words that drifted back over his shoulder. “It came to me that this might happen, but I put the thought aside and allowed myself to be gulled by the man’s reputation as the foremost knight in Christendom, the arbiter of justice and confidant of kings and popes.” He turned to look back at me, and rested his shoulders against the wall beside the window. “He was all of those things once, and widely honoured for it. But of late he has kept himself at home, nursing a growing hunger to increase his lands and his power.”

  He seated himself with an aging man’s care for his comfort and appearance, arranging his clothes carefully before he spoke again. “He engineered the war against the Welsh, you know.” The hesitation that followed was barely noticeable. “You did know that, I hope.”

  I nodded.

  “Aye, but he did it consummately, with great skill. The Welsh fell to him like lambs to a rabid wolf. And now I fear he plans the same fate for Scotland.”

  Hearing him say that so matter-of-factly startled me out of my silence.

  “But King John will never put up with that.”

  His back straightened again and he stared at me for a moment, expressionless. “I forget, sometimes, how young you are,” he said eventually, “because you seldom show your inexperience. But then when you do, your youth leaps out at me. You are almost right, though. King John will attempt to prevent it. There is no doubt of that. But the damage that’s already done is irreparable, and he will fail. It is already too late to counteract that. England’s King is no man’s fool and he has worn his crown for many years. He has also shown himself to be ten times the man John Balliol is.”

  He reached up and removed the crimson skullcap of his office, something I had never seen him do before, and then he fell silent, kneading the silken fabric between his fingers as he stared at it with narrowed eyes, and suddenly the crimson cap disappeared within his large, clenched fist.

  “Balliol looks like a king, I’ll grant you that. He has all that’s necessary there—the bearing, the appearance and the posture and the gait. On top of that, he is affable and amiable, amusing and engaging, with great charm. And he has a regal air of dignitas about him, too. But he is weak, for all that. He is too compliant, too accommodating and too much at pains to be ingratiating. He lacks the iron, the savagery a true king must own, though he use it but seldom. Our King wants people to like him, and that is a fatal flaw in any leader, be he king or bandit chief.

  “Edward knew all that when he had his myrmidons choose John. He knew he could control him, bend him to his will. Bruce he could never have controlled, and I believe that fact alone barred Robert Bruce from ever being elected to the Crown. Balliol, though … Edward never had any doubt that he could control King John of Scotland, and through him he could control the realm.”

  The Bishop placed the back of his fist on the oak tabletop and slowly opened his fingers, allowing the red silken cap to open up and cover his palm. He smoothed it into shape, then replaced it on the crown of his head and turned to look me in the eye.

  “The Plantagenet is ruthless and calculating, and I see clearly now that he laid his plans for us long before we even knew he had a plan. We were too concerned with keeping order among our own … we being the Bishops, Fraser of St. Andrews, myself, Dunkeld, and a few others, along with the Abbots of Dunfermline, Dunblane, Kelso, Arbroath, and Cambuskenneth, and a few of the lesser magnates. We sought to avoid the crush of civil war between the Bruces and the Balliol-Comyn alliance, and initially we thought we had succeeded. Instead, though, we delivered ourselves into the hands of the English.”

  I could barely bring myself to ask the question in my mind. “Do you truly believe things to be that bad, my lord?”

  He looked at me with eyes that seemed close to pitying. “I do, my son. And you will, too, once you have considered all the details I will add today. You might even ask yourself how much worse it could be. We have been betrayed by those we implored to save us. Our country is now occupied by a foreign force. Occupied, Father, by an army that no one can doubt is hostile. Anyone who cannot see the truth of that is a blind fool, bemused by wishful thinking. English armies rule this land, and their leadership knows no restraint. And for reasons of politics and expediency our own so-called leaders—not the Church, but the civil leadership, including our new King—do nothing. They think they have too much to lose if they complain, beginning with the forfeiture of all their lands and holdings in England. They believe that would leave them impoverished. They cannot see that it would leave them free. They cannot see the value of this realm in which they live. They have no wish even to consider such a thing. They think of themselves as Englishmen and Frenchmen living in exile here in the north.”

  “Aye,” I said quietly, unable to find a single point in his outpouring with which to disagree. “And the damnable part of that is that they ignore their people. They do not think about the Scots folk at all, and that tells me that they themselves cannot lay claim to being Scots.”

  That brought His Grace’s head up quickly. “Do you truly believe that, Father James? Surely not.”

  “Believe that they are not truly Scots? No, for they clearly are. But that their abuse and neglect is destructive? How can I not believe that, my lord? It is all around us, everywhere I look, in the arrogance of the English sneers and the suffering of our Scots folk. Were it not so, the Greens would not exist. The Greens were born of desperation, bred out of the people’s neglect, if not abuse, by the very leaders who should have been protecting them.”

  “Your cousin and his Greens are protecting them. The people, I mean.”

  “Perhaps so,” I concurred, too agitated to realize I was talking to the Bishop as though I were his equal. “But too few of them to really count, and not sufficiently to make a difference. Will is but one man, and a commoner to boot. His men are loyal and brave, but they are all outlawed, and no one in authority will heed him.”

  “Not so. Will Wallace has his own authority. The English are heeding him, Jamie. And the Scots folk are heeding him.”

  “Aye, but that’s not what is needed. What’s needed is for other, more powerful folk, here in the realm, to look at what he is doing and see that it’s a necessary thing. The magnates need to see what he is doing, and then they need to aid him in achieving it.”

  The Bishop raised a hand, almost wearily. “They will, eventually, Father. The time is not yet right.” He looked back towards the window as the tolling of a bell began to echo outside. “It is midday, and I’m hungry and I need to empty my bladder, so go you and send someone to fetch us something to eat, but come directly back.”

  3

  Ireturned quickly, but to an empty room, and so I finished composing the letter I had been working on when the Bishop and I had begun to talk, and while I was doing so, two lay brothers from the kitchens brought in refreshments for us: a jug of small ale and a platter of bread and cold sliced beef, with crushed horseradish root in sweet whipped cream, and onions pickled in brine. I resisted the temptation to serve myself until my mentor returned. When he did, he was frowning.

  “Forgive me, Father James,” he muttered as he bustled in. “I detest being kept waiting, and I detest keeping others waiting for me even more. Three times
I was waylaid by bustling busybodies on my way back from the latrines, and I sent a fourth accoster reeling with a flea in his ear when he sought to stop me over some petty grievance that he could have dealt with himself when it arose. What is wrong with people today? No one seems to dare to risk making a decision on his own without gaining approval from someone else first. Ah! We have food, I see. Excellent. Then let us eat.”

  We ate in appreciative silence, but as soon as he had devoured a second wedge of bread stuffed with beef and fiery horseradish and washed it down with a deep draft of ale, my mentor pushed away his platter and sat back, belching discreetly into his sleeve.

  “We have talked about your gift many times,” he began then, “and about how I first came to notice you. But why was it, think you, that I took such an interest in your cousin Will from the first time I saw him? Can you guess?”

  I pushed away my bowl and shook my head. “Because he used a bow?”

  “Aye, good man. It was precisely that. He used a bow. But not merely a flat bow. Those are commonplace. He had a bow of English yew, a longbow. In Scotland, and with him so young, that was remarkable, and I took note of it.”

  “So did Andrew Murray, my lord.”

  “Aye, so he did. But Andrew’s awe of Will came from Will’s skill with the quarterstaff, if I remember rightly. Andrew was obsessed with that weapon, and it served him well enough, if truth be told, but he was ever an indifferent bowman.”

  “Were you ever a bowman, my lord?”

  “Me?” His laugh was a single bark, and he gestured towards the window corner closest to him, where his long, well-used old sword stood propped in the angle of the wall. “No, not I. Old Grey-Tongue there was the only weapon I ever needed when the time came to the do the Lord’s work. Why would you ask me that?”

  “I don’t know, my lord. Perhaps because I thought that might be the reason you took note of Will.”

  “Hmm. No, I noticed your cousin purely because he was a Scot, in Scotland, carrying an English bow. It marked him either as a fool or as a man to watch. Some men will carry a weapon like that solely in the hope of setting themselves apart from the herd of their fellows, imagining that the mere appearance of being different will indicate that they are dangerous. Such men are fools, for anyone who cares to look will see right through their pretense. It was obvious from the outset that your cousin was not one of those. The very ease and casual respect with which he bore the weapon proclaimed his familiarity with its use. And that made him doubly impressive.”

  I waited, but he said no more, and so I prompted him. “Forgive me, my lord, but doubly impressive in what way?”

  “His youth, and his indubitable prowess.” He saw that I was still not following. “Think of what I said of the fool who carries such a bow for pure effect. His foolishness is evident in that he must lack the physique to use it properly. There is but one way to acquire those mighty archer’s thews, that width and depth of back and shoulders so enormous in your cousin and his friend Ewan. They come from years of discipline and practice; hours and hours of repetitive pulling, day after day and month after month. Your cousin had those muscles when I first set eyes on him, and he was yet but a boy. That told me he had great and admirable self-discipline, but even more, it told me that young Wallace, boy though he might be, was yet his own man. It told me he possessed sufficient pride and confidence to care nothing for what others thought of him, and would bow his head to no man other than those he chose to acknowledge as being worthy. I saw all that in my first glimpse of him, the way he stood, and the manner in which his unstrung bow stave hung in a case from his shoulder. Owning and using such a weapon, and such an English weapon, would set him apart from all his fellows and practically force him to walk alone in every endeavour to which he turned his hand and mind, and he would turn to nothing lightly. It crossed my mind then and there that our realm would always have need of men like him.

  “And now I would bid you go and find him for me, to take my blessing to him and to deliver a message, assuring him of my support and encouragement in what he is achieving. And tell me now, if you will, why you are scowling at me with so much disapproval.”

  I had not been aware that I was frowning. “Forgive me again, my lord. I am having difficulty understanding your point of view. What is it, precisely, that you see my cousin achieving?”

  He gazed at me levelly. “Not quite accurate, Father, if I may say so. You understand clearly enough what I am saying, I believe. Your difficulty springs from being unable to believe that your Bishop could hold such unlawful, even sinful opinions, let alone give voice to them. Am I not right?”

  “Yes, my lord. That is true.”

  “Of course it is. Listen—” He stopped short, plainly thinking about what he was about to say, then sat back. “Look you, I am a bishop, but that makes me no less a man. As a bishop, I am pastor to my flock and bound by my God-given duty to protect that flock with all my power. That means using my skills and my influence to ensure that their welfare is protected and their corporeal needs are as well tended as their spiritual ones. The soul, we are taught, is everlasting; the body merely temporal and therefore less important, its needs and requirements to be given less urgency than those of the soul. That is all well and good and theoretically splendid, but that is where my own opinions tend to diverge from those of my colleagues—more accurately, from those of my English colleagues.

  “I believe our capacity for prayer, our very ability to worship God, depends heavily upon our having the time and opportunity to place our duties to Him ahead of everything else we do. And there is where my voice as a man overwhelms my voice as a bishop. I believe deeply that we cannot pay God His due when we are beset by worries about the welfare of our families, when we live in fear of being evicted or imprisoned or hanged at the whim of some passing stranger who assumes the power of life and death over us. Few decent men can live with such threats and still conscientiously donate their time and their attention to the worship of God. Those very few who can we call saints, and they seldom stay long on this earth. Most men, though, lack that kind of sanctity. They are too concerned with being decent husbands and fathers, friends and neighbours.

  “That single realization—that awareness—has set me apart from most of my brethren and placed me in a moral situation the like of which I had never imagined. And it has led me to a reluctant acceptance of the fact that all the sheep in my flock are Scots sheep, Father James. I had never thought of that until a few weeks ago, but I know now that it is true. Two months ago, had I been asked about my flock, I would have said they were all equal in God’s eyes, each soul of them indistinguishable from the others. It would never have crossed my mind to look at them as Scots souls or English souls. To me they were all God’s children, pure and simple.

  “But my mind has been changed on that, and forcibly. I’ve been made to see a new reality, through English eyes—even the eyes of English churchmen—and to accept that they perceive us as being different, and inferior. And so I say now, all my flock are Scots. They are like the sheep of our local hills, wiry and sturdy, dark faced, largely silent, and easily shorn of the little wool they possess. That they should be cruelly shorn and abused as they are today by outlanders, English interlopers, grieves me more than I can say. It also infuriates me, though, and it has pushed me to a point where I had never thought to find myself. It has forced me to make a choice no bishop should ever have to make: to choose between being a Catholic and being a Scots Catholic, when there should be no such difference. But the choice is real. And I have made it. And having made it, I must now live with the consequences, one of which is that I may speak of it now to no one, other than you. You understand why that is so, do you not?”

  I nodded, but he went on anyway, saying the words more for his own ears, I felt, than for mine.

  “Aye. Were the word to get out that I have made this choice, taken sides where no one will admit that opposing sides exist, I would quickly be removed from my Bishop’s Chair
and from my responsibilities to my flock, and I cannot allow that to happen. As I am, in place here and able to act as an intermediary even if only to a limited extent, I can serve my people and look out for their interests for as long as I am permitted to remain Bishop of Glasgow. Were I to be removed, some English bishop would be installed in my place and my people would be in vastly greater peril than they are.”

  It was true, I knew, for by papal dispensation only a few years earlier, in 1291, Edward of England had been empowered to appoint bishops to the Church in Scotland, thereby seizing yet another advantage from the interregnum. Neither Wishart nor I had the slightest doubt that, were he to be removed, his replacement would be an Englishman chosen and appointed, in all probability, by Bishop Antony Bek of Durham.

  “So now perhaps you can understand, to some extent, why I need you to find Will Wallace for me. He is become one of the few men in Scotland I can trust to look to Scotland’s affairs ahead of his own advantage. There are others, similarly trustworthy, but very few of them, I fear, and I have not the time to go hunting for them one at a time. My hope—my devout and prayerful hope—is that men like your cousin Will here in the south and Andrew Murray in the north will be strong enough and clear enough in their summons, when the time comes, to unite others behind them in ways that I could not and dare not. This country of ours is hell-bent for war and slaughter, Father James. We were afeared for the longest time it would be between Bruce and Balliol, civil war setting kinsmen at each other’s throats, but I hope we are beyond that now—or nearly so.

  “The nobles shilly-shally still, and I make shift to understand that. They are like coy young women, flirting with strutting suitors, withholding favours and denying commitment in the hope of coming to understand in full the proposals being made. But the time must come, sooner now than later, when the scales will fall from their eyes and permit them to perceive Edward for what he is.” His gaze sharpened. “You have a question.”