The Forest Laird(120)

I nodded, content with the authority he had granted me. The two priests he had named were respectively the youngest and the eldest in the cathedral chapter, and both would undoubtedly benefit from escaping the daily sameness of the cathedral’s regimen. Father Declan had been ordained with me. He was two years older than I was, but there were years of difference between us in experience and temperament, for Declan, orphaned since birth, had been cloistered all his life. He was a true Innocent, his most heinous sin, I would have wagered, no more serious than a sometime tendency to daydream. Now, however, he needed to learn to deal with real, living people, the sheep for whom God had made him responsible as a shepherd, charging him to lead them to Salvation.

Father Jacobus had been crippled for decades by a mysterious infirmity that had barred him physically from serving as a normal priest, making it impossible for him to mix with people and share their daily lives. And then his affliction had miraculously vanished, between one day and the next, shortly before I came to Glasgow. His return to health had been complete, so that now he positively glowed with vigour and devotion, but like Declan, he had been immured for many years, and the time had come for him, too, to step beyond the bounds of a regulated, monastic existence and reacquaint himself with the bountiful and wondrous world of God’s creation.

“When do you wish us to leave, my lord?”

“As soon as you can. Gather all you think you might need, including medicines and supplies, and have it loaded on a wagon—two wagons, if you need them—but don’t tell me or any of my people what you take, or how much you take, or where it’s going. That way, no one will be able to betray anything, even by accident. As soon as you are ready, come and find me. By then I will have written a reply to your cousin, and you can take it with you.”

“Of course, my lord. How long will we be gone?”

He had already started to look about him, his attention shifting to his next task, but now he looked back at me, his eyes showing his surprise. He gave a grunt, then answered in Scots. “For as long as ye’re needed. So dinna fret about returnin’. ’Gin I ha’e need o’ you i’ the interim, I’ll send for you. But until then, think o’ the Selkirk Forest as your kirk.”

He smiled then, a small sideways twisting of his mouth accompanying the softening of his fierce old eyes, and reverted to Latin. “A vast, green cathedral of your own, Father James … I know you will not abuse it, and I will pray for your success and happiness among the beauties of God’s wilderness.” He paused again, then added, “I envy you this, you know, this freedom you now have. Were I much younger, I would jump at the chance to do what I am now instructing you to do. Ah, well … We are what and who we are and we live in the here and now, so there’s an end of that nonsense. Go now, with my blessing, and make a start on what you have to do.”

I knelt quickly, and as he made the sign of the cross over my bent head, I was aware of a sensation of lightness in my chest.

2

The guards at the turnoff point recognized me as I approached and remained hidden, only one of them stepping out from his hiding place to wave us forward. He was one of Will’s sergeants, as they were known, soldier leaders chosen from among the ranks, who wore a coloured shoulder patch to mark their status. They were responsible for maintaining discipline among the wild men who formed Will’s active units. He threw me a casual salute as I passed by, running his eye over my loaded pack horse and the wagon at my back. I knew that he had already passed the signal on to the watchers at his back that we were friends. Without that signal, we would not have survived the first mile beyond his post.

From where we had turned, a long, narrow, tightly winding path protected Will’s main encampment from attack. It took an hour to travel, twisting and turning through evil-looking bogs that threatened to suck our wheels down into the mud, and sometimes snaking between impenetrable thickets of tangled blackthorn and hawthorn. These thorn thickets were not high, but they were dense and unyielding, forcing everyone who came this way to keep to the narrow path.

I knew, without ever setting eyes on any of them, that we were being watched constantly as we rode by within arrow shot of evervigilant guards, and I knew beyond doubt that men were also watching us from the high branches of the scattered, massive trees that towered above the growth on both sides. And so we rode in silence until the path emerged into a spacious water meadow, straightening into a long, grassy avenue that led directly to the cluster of solid-looking log buildings along the edge of a small lake.