I knew she must, but I waited for her to nod her head in acknowledgment.
“Good.” I squeezed her wrist, reassuringly I hoped, but did not relinquish it. “Well then, we have talked about this, Will and I, since you”—I floundered for a moment, then pressed on—“since you became with child. And in fact we first talked about it soon after the raids along the border lands, when word came back that Tam Elliott the weaver had had his hamstring cut during the fighting at Selkirk town. Do you remember that?”
She nodded soberly. “I do, because his wife had just had twin baby boys, an’ it near killed her. All o’ it, I mean—the birth o’ the bairns and then the word that Tam had lost his leg.”
“Aye. Well, Will and I talked about what was to be done for them, and the talk turned to you and Will and what might happen to you were he ever crippled or, God forbid, killed in a fight. I know now that Will has been thinking deeply about it ever since, and he has made a decision that, quite frankly, I would not have believed three months ago.”
She did not ask, although her eyes grew even wider. She merely waited, unmoving, until I continued.
“Will has decided that his duty—but even more than that, his heart—lies with you and your child, Mirren. He has told me that you and his son, or the daughter you will bear him, are more valuable and far more important to him than anything else could ever be.”
She asked in a tiny voice, “What does that mean?”
I had to smile at her, at the tremulous hope in her voice, the halfformed awareness that her fears might yet prove groundless.
“It means that your man has decided that you and the child you carry, and the others you will bear him in the years ahead, are his world and his life. And he has chosen to believe that nothing else, especially not the political haverings and squabbling of men who would not deign to bid him the time of day in person, can ever be permitted to threaten the love and the esteem he has for you and what you mean to him. Those other men may think of themselves as Will’s betters, his superiors, his masters—poor benighted creatures that they are—but you know and I know that not a one of them approaches Will Wallace in stature or dignity or goodness. And the strange part is that, somewhere deep inside himself, Will is beginning to see that, too. Strange, I mean, because he is a modest, self-effacing man, with little idea of how highly other men esteem him.
But be that as it may, Mistress Wallace, I believe you can dry your tears, for Will is going nowhere that will grieve you.” Her eyes flared again with something resembling panic. “But he’s in wi’ the Bishop now. What if—?”
“Bishop Wishart will not change Will’s mind, no matter how persuasively he tries, and we all know how persuasive he can be. But Will has made his decision, and you know your goodman. Once his mind is made up, nothing, not even you, can change it.”
As I finished speaking, someone knocked at the door, and Mirren answered immediately.
“Come in.”
Ewan leaned inside, his face lighting with pleasure as he saw me. “Ah, there y’ are. God bless this house and good day to you, Mirren. Jamie, the Bishop sent me to fetch you.”
“Aye, I’ll be right there, Ewan.” I turned back to Mirren. “I have to leave for home tomorrow morning, so you and I should talk about this again later, perhaps before dinner. Will that be possible?”
She smiled at me then, the most open and friendly smile she had ever bestowed on me, and crossed her hands over her belly. “Aye, or perhaps after we eat. After all, I have to play the hostess and entertain the Bishop and his … companion.”
“He’s a canon, Canon Lamberton, chancellor of Glasgow Cathedral. You’ll like him.”
“Thank you for this, Jamie. You have eased my soul.”
I blessed her quickly and left.
3
The three faces grouped around the smallest of the tables in the hut that served as an assembly hall were all serious when I walked in, and the greetings we exchanged were no more than perfunctory nods. “Did someone die?” I asked and immediately regretted my levity. “Your pardon, my lord Bishop, I meant no disrespect.”
Wishart turned his gaze on me, his eyes distinctly unfriendly. “No, Father James,” he said, so quietly that I almost had to strain to hear him. I had worked closely with him for almost two full years by then, and I knew that Bishop Wishart whispering straight-faced was the equivalent of other men raving while they destroyed buildings and slaughtered innocents. “No one has yet died today. But preparations are afoot in numerous places that should see a profusion of death in times to come. We are entering dire times here in Scotland, times that will test the mettle of each one of us, and now your cousin has informed us that he will be removing himself from any possibility of conflict.”