Barely a week later, the delegates King John had sent to France on his behalf months earlier signed a treaty of alliance with Philip IV and the realm of France. It was a treaty of mutual support and assistance in all things military, commercial, and diplomatic, designed to bring the two realms together in mutual amity and interests. To mark the grandeur and historic significance of the treaty, the parties agreed that Prince Edward Balliol, King John’s eldest son, would marry the Princess Jeanne de Valois, whose father was Charles Capet, Count de Valois, brother to King Philip IV and titular Emperor of Constantinople. The treaty would have to go before the Scots parliament to be ratified, and until it had done so nothing could yet be certain, but no one doubted that the ratification would occur.
Edward Longshanks, of course, was incensed. And when that happened, someone—or someplace—invariably was made to suffer.
The news of his rage had barely been spread when more word arrived from the south, unconfirmed but barely questioned, since it merely added flesh to the stories that had been filtering up from England since September. Edward, according to these reports, was assembling an enormous army in northern England, at Newcastle on the River Tyne. No one doubted the tidings, for that was the historic gathering point for any army planning to march north into Scotland.
Yuletide came and went, as did the start of the New Year, 1296. That winter was a cold and brutal one for soldiers under tents, for it was windy and sleety and sustainedly miserable, never quite cold enough for snow or freezing temperatures but never warming up sufficiently to dry out sodden clothing and footwear. But since the soldiers enduring the misery and freezing in their rusting armour were Englishmen preparing to invade us, no one felt any sympathy for their plight, and those who thought of it at all might reasonably have wished for the weather to deteriorate even further.
In the meantime, little William was the delight of his parents and admirers, including his priestly godfather. His long, black tresses had vanished soon after his birth to be replaced by a thicker, more substantial growth, tinged this time with a fiery chestnut red that emphasized his deep blue eyes and drew involuntary gasps of delight from every woman encountering him for the first time. Added to that, his ready grin, infectious in its appeal and challenging in its bright-eyed directness, attracted everyone who encountered it, men and women both, cajoling them to come and play with him and pay no attention to the tiresome details of what was transpiring in the unseen world beyond the iron-hinged doors of solid oaken planks that kept him and his family safe.
He was industriously studying locomotion, crawling everywhere before he was fully six months old and endlessly exploring the wonders of every place where he was not supposed to venture, so that, one morning in January, after early Mass, I found him at the entrance to the byre, eyeing the cattle with delight. He had escaped, somehow, out from under the eye of his mother or the cook in whose charge he had been left, and, clad in nothing but a loincloth, had made his way right across the inner yard, which was inches deep in icy muck. I stopped short, because he was doing something I had never seen him do before. He had pulled himself upright, using the chinks in the rough, narrow logging of the door, and was standing on his own, barefoot but heedless of discomfort and swaying slightly as he peered into the beast-warmed gloom of the cowshed, gurgling to himself in enjoyment. He caught sight of me from the corner of his eye and swung to face me, crowing ecstatically over his own cleverness. But even as I began to move towards him he tottered alarmingly, fighting to retain his balance for at least two steps before landing flush in a pile of wet dung. His howls of outrage were spectacular. I carried him home very carefully, attempting to keep him at arm’s length to protect my priestly robes, but it was a hopeless task, because he was so slippery with mud and dung that I had to hold him close to prevent him from slipping right through my fingers.
A very different kind of crisis occurred the following month, when Bishop Wishart and Canon Lamberton once again turned up unexpectedly on our doorstep. Will was the first to see them coming, and he set aside the arrow he was fletching and strode into the middle of the clearing that served us as a village square. He gave a shout of welcome and stood awaiting them, hands on hips and a broad grin on his face. I had heard his shout and come outside to see what had occasioned it, and I was in time to watch his face settle into lines of apprehension and even trepidation to match the look on our visitors’ faces.
We stood silent as they dismounted with the merest nod of greeting, and then Will gestured wordlessly and spun on his heel to lead us into his hut. As soon as we were all inside, he closed the door and leaned against it.