The Forest Laird(115)
His answer was a loud, splintering blow. “Aye, it’s open now. Sweet Jesu!”
Will pointed at Father Constantine. “You. Come with me. Here, take my hand.” He took the priest’s proffered hand and steadied him across the gap between the Bishops’ wagon and our own, and when he was sure he had him safely across, he took the reins again and moved our vehicle to flank the next one in line.
He did not even have to speak, for the sight in the other wagon needed no words to explain it. Sully’s crew had smashed the lid of the small iron-bound chest that lay in the wagon bed in front of others exactly like it, and in doing so had scattered some of the densely packed coinage that the chest contained, so that large silver coins and smaller golden ones were strewn across the planking, gleaming and glittering in the sunlight that had now penetrated the clearing.
The startled priest began to speak, but he immediately bit down on his outburst, the muscles along his jaw standing out clearly. He turned his head to look at the two Bishops, his expression unreadable. The two Englishmen kneeling side by side in the road glared back at him, wild eyed, but neither one of them dared breathe a word. And finally he turned to me.
“Clearly there are grounds for suspicion here. As to whether what your companion alleges is true, I cannot say with certainty.”
“Then ask yourself why we are here, Father, and how we knew these chests would be here.” Will’s voice was a growl. “And weigh your own response against this one: I learned four days ago that this train would be coming from the south, and I was told what it would be carrying. I was also told how the plan to send it came about. My informant was a prelate of the Church in Scotland, warned by an associate in England who saw the perfidy in what was being done. Not all English bishops, it seems, are as duplicitous as these two. Some understand the difference between right and wrong and between honour and infamy.”
Father Constantine nodded slowly. “It may be as you say, and truth to tell, it looks that way. The fact remains, though, that I knew nothing of this, nor, I am sure, did Bishop Henry.”
He looked at Will again, before addressing the two English Bishops in a voice filled with genuine concern.
“My lords,” he began, “I may not help you here, for this is clearly beyond the scope of my duties to you, even did it not bring my personal honour and my loyalty to my King and realm into question. It does all of those things, though, and I intend to throw myself upon the mercy of King John, even though I know that, in allowing myself to be duped, I have been guilty in my failure to see what was going on beneath my nose. As for you and your case, I would recommend clemency in almost any other circumstances—penance and absolution—but I see no contrition in either one of you, and penance without contrition is pointless. It pains me to say that, my lords, but there is nothing I may do to change it. And so I must wash my hands of you.” He turned away from them and looked Will straight in the eye. “I am now in your hands, Master Woodsman.”
“Hmm. My hands are full, I fear, but I will think on that. In the meantime, come you and sit here, by our good Father James.”
As the priest began to make his way to join me, Will looked down at the two Bishops, who, as he had ordered, had been stripped of their outer garments. The larger man was kneeling dejectedly, staring down at his own knees, but the smaller, older man knelt upright, his head cocked as though he was listening for something.
“Now,” Will said, his voice addressed to no one in particular, “to business, for that is what this is, and let no man mistake it for anything else. We are dealing here with a sordid matter of trade and monies that has nothing to do with churchly offices or duties, save in the deliberate abuse of both.” He turned to the older Bishop. “You there, the Crow. If you are waiting for your mounted escort to come charging from the woods and rescue you, you wait in vain. Young de Presmuir and his scouts lost interest in your cause hours ago. In fact they lost all interest in everything.”
I saw the Bishop’s eyes narrow with bitter disappointment, but my mind was full of the young knight’s name, for my instinct had been correct. I had met the man. Henri de Presmuir, the knight of the Green Lion, had been a guest of Bishop Wishart on an evening soon after my arrival in Glasgow. He had been unarmoured, of course, but I recalled his livery of green on blue, and now I remembered that I had liked the young man, finding him amiable and pleasant to be with. Small wonder, then, that I had not recognized him in the murderous figure who had come charging at me through the misty trees that morning.
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