“So Shoomy’s brother made this thing for you?”
“No, not a bit of it! How could he? He had never heard of me, any more than I had of him. I said Shoomy found it in his brother’s forge. He made the hilt and guard, Shoomy said, for that is what he does best. The blade itself, though, was made elsewhere, probably in Germania for one of those Teutonic Knights you sometimes hear about. How it ended up in Malachy’s forge, I don’t know. It lay there for several years, it seems, before Malachy fashioned a new hilt, pommel, and guard for it, and then he discovered he couldn’t sell it. It was too big … bigger than any sword around and made for a giant, folk said. And so it lay there for two years until Shoomy set eyes on it and brought it back for me.”
“I see … And what made Shoomy think you needed a sword—you, the bowman? Or was this a mere whim prompted by the size of the thing?”
My cousin grinned at me, though without much humour. I could see it mostly in the crinkling around his eyes; that was enough, nevertheless, to allow me to imagine the wry quirk of the lips concealed beneath the thick growth of his beard. “You should have been here six weeks ago. Then you’d have no need to ask that question.”
“Why? What happened?”
“We met some strangers in the woods … unfriendly strangers.”
“Englishmen?”
“A few, but most of them were Scots. We know that because we heard them shouting to one another, back and forth, but to this day we don’t know who they were. A score of them, give or take one or two, and all horsed. They had seen us coming. Attacked us from hiding, with crossbows. Killed four of us before we even knew we were being watched.”
“How many were you, against their score?”
“Eight of us, until that first volley—four thereafter. That we got out at all was a miracle. They hit us as we were passing through the edges of a bog, surrounded by thickets of osier willow. We had no room to do anything, least of all to draw a longbow, and the few shots we were able to loose were deflected by the dense growth around us. They, on the other hand, were on higher, drier ground, clear of the bog, unhampered in their aim, and shooting short steel bolts.”
“How did you get out?”
“We ran away, into the bog, and we were fortunate they chose not to follow us. They could have picked us off one by one out there, floundering in the mud as we tried to wade across. I don’t know why they didn’t follow us. They should have. I would have, had I been them. And thanks be to God they didn’t. I’d be dead otherwise.”
“What would you have done if you had this sword with you that day?”
He bared his teeth, white flashing through the darkness of his beard. “I might have charged at our attackers and died trying to reach them before they could shoot me down.”
“That’s what I thought. So why do you now need a sword? To enable you to be killed more easily?”
He smiled again, but this time the smile was genuinely amused, warming his eyes. “No, Cuz. If I wear it at all, it will be as a symbol.”
“A symbol … Very well, then, let’s accept that it could be a symbol. Heaven knows it’s big enough. But a symbol of what? Outlawry?”
His smile did not falter. “No, of leadership. Bear in mind, though, that I said ‘if I wear it at all.’”
“If … Is there doubt that you might?”
“Enormous doubt, Jamie.”
“Enormous is more than merely large. What causes such great doubt, may I ask?”
“Aye, you may ask. It’s caused by the fact that I’m about to be a father. I am to have a son, Jamie, or perhaps a daughter. It matters not which to me, but either one will be a responsibility I’ve never had before. A small wee person, wide-eyed and alive and hungry for knowledge, and dependent upon me for his or her existence. For that reason alone I will be steering well clear of any more leadership in future. If God permits me, I intend to stay here safely in the greenwood with my wife and child, providing for them and getting more of them.”
I found myself grinning at him inanely, wondering where this new Will had come from. In all the years I had known and loved him I had never seen this aspect of him, never even suspected its existence. I had always known he loved Mirren, that he had loved her from the first time he set eyes on her, but I had never suspected that he might love her dearly enough to shut himself off voluntarily from the entire world on her behalf.
“Believe me, Cousin,” I told him, “if you were fortunate enough to be able to do such a thing, I would count myself blessed to be able to travel here from Glasgow to minister to you and your family once each month.”