I nodded.
“Therefore, on hearing what I have just told you, your mind must have filled with ill-imagined visions of that same carnality, with me among them in my priestly robes. Am I correct?”
Again I nodded, unable to speak.
“Aye, well, nothing could be further from the truth, I swear to you. No slightest trace, not the merest tinge of carnality entered my mind—I was too afraid to think of anything other than what I must do to save the lives of that woman and her child, and the other woman, too. I was so unworldly, I did not even know what was happening with the child until the woman slapped me and told me what I had to do. And from that moment on, I behaved as though I were in a dream. There was nothing remotely sexual or sinful in what ensued. The world inside that shattered carriage was a seething cauldron of pain and fear and blood and anguish—and the terrifying awareness that one careless move by me could cost at least one life and possibly more. And yet, in the midst of all that horror, all the fear, instead of death and tragedy I saw the mystery of God’s creation being enacted right in front of me, and I received a newborn child into my hands, covered in blood and watery fluids and howling in protest at being thrust into this sinful world …”
He fell silent, gazing into the fire for a while, but then he straightened. “I can say to you honestly, Father James, there is nothing to be gained by fretting over the time or circumstances of a birth. God has decreed that it will take place, and He alone will decide when and where it does, and how it proceeds. What hope, then, does a mere man, any man, have of influencing any tittle of what will be?”
He saw me still gazing at him slack-mouthed, and he grinned. “What I am telling you, my friend in Christ, is that with women, as with everything else, you merely need to have faith and place your trust in God. I swear, Father, sinful as it may be, I sometimes find it helpful to think of women as another species altogether. They resemble men in no way at all, and men will never come to understand them. It matters not if they be nuns or one’s own closest kin or honest wives or bawds—they all have an infallible propensity to make all of us men feel, and appear, and be as ineffectual as mewling babes in arms.”
The obvious truth of what he had said left me floundering, until he saved me by changing the subject.
“Tell me about your cousin.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I have a hunger to know all there is to know about this man, for I believe he is remarkable. I have heard the Bishop speak of him many times, but always using both his names, naming him William Wallace. And I have met others who have met Wallace, but no one who speaks of him the way you do, as plain Will. You, Father James, are the one who has been closest to him throughout his life, so I would like to know what you know about him, as a cousin and a friend.”
“Well,” I began, “he is more like a brother than a cousin, to be truthful. From around the time of my eighth birthday, for the next eight years until Will was eighteen, we lived together, most of the time with Ewan the archer, and shared everything we did every day. We learned to use a quarterstaff together, and though I was never good enough or strong enough to beat him, there was a time when I could hold my own against him, for a while at least, until he wore me down …”
I talked incessantly for an hour or more, aware that he replenished the fire twice while I was regaling him with all my favourite recollections of Will and the boyhood we had shared. When eventually I fell silent, he was still sitting across the fire from me, smiling at me.
“You love the man. That is plain to see. And I find it heartening because it speaks to his humanity.”
“There’s much about our Will to love,” I answered. “Yet I know there is no lack of folk who would disagree with me. He can be wild, I’ll grant, and that is all some ever seem to see in him. And when he’s crossed—particularly in things he believes to be right and necessary—he can be hard, and even violent if he perceives that violence is called for. In addition to that, he has no love for Englishmen—indeed he hates them, for good and sufficient reason in his own eyes and, truth to tell, in the eyes of others. But with his friends and loved ones he is the gentlest of creatures.”
“You have the same reasons for hating the English that he has, Father, but you do not hate them.”
His inflection made a question of the statement. “No, I do not, but neither do I love them greatly. I am a priest, though. Turning the other cheek is part of my life. Will, on the other hand, is a warrior and an avenger.”
“Hmm … Think you he will return tomorrow, this warrior cousin of yours?”