The Forest Laird(172)

The voice that came back was stronger this time. “My name is common enough, but I am a fugitive, a wanted man.”

“Wanted by whom?”

“By England.”

“By England? That sounds very grand. Have you offended the entire country, then? Or do you mean England’s King, in person?”

“I do. Edward Plantagenet of ill renown. Is Robert Wishart yet Bishop here?”

“He is, and has been for years. Where have you been, that you should wonder such a thing?”

“In England. Imprisoned. Can you inform him that I am here?”

“I can. But not if you are nameless.”

“Tell him Andrew Murray of Petty seeks audience with him. Murray the Younger.”

It seemed to me then that I actually felt my heart knock, physically, against my chest. “Andrew?” I asked, stunned. “You are supposed to be in England, in prison.”

“And I was. Have you not been listening? And who are you, to know me by my name?”

“Jamie Wallace. Will’s cousin. We met in Paisley years ago, you and I.”

“Aye, when Will broke my head and you pulled me from the river. I remember. Well met, then, Father James. Will told me you were to be ordained the last time we two spoke. I thought you would still be in Paisley.”

The blackness moved and he stepped forward, pushing back a hood to bare his head and show the paleness of his face, and I saw why I had not been able to see him before. Like the huge man who now moved up to stand silently by his side, he was wearing the black robe of a Dominican friar, a single, cowled garment that covered him from head to foot and rendered him invisible on a night like this. But the shock of seeing his face revealed reminded me sharply that he was indeed a fugitive and that it would be best to take him and his man indoors and out of sight as quickly as possible.

The two hours that followed passed by very quickly, notwithstanding that Bishop Wishart required a full hour of it alone with Andrew. I had plenty to do in the interim, though, organizing hot food and dry clothing and airing fresh bedding for our unheralded guests. By the time Andrew emerged from the Bishop’s quarters, and despite my own busyness, I had grown acquainted with his travelling companion, a gentle soul whose name, he told me, was Wee Mungo. Mungo himself appeared to see nothing incongruous in his name, but he was even taller and broader and thicker through the chest than my cousin Will, and I had only ever met three men that big. I had no doubt he was a warrior, probably impressive in his wrath if he were provoked, and I knew he would not otherwise be accompanying Andrew Murray under such dire circumstances. But he was a simple soul, with the gentle disposition and demeanour of a backward child. I enjoyed the way his eyes grew wide when I told him that this great cathedral was named after the saint who had first settled here and built the first church by the side of the Molendinar Burn, his own patron, Saint Mungo, whom the Islesmen called Kentigern. It was Mungo the saint, I told him, who had named this place, calling it Glasgow, which meant “the dear, green place” in the old tongue.

The big man sat enraptured while I told him the story, and when Andrew Murray joined us and stood quietly by the fire, he tousled the big man’s hair fondly and asked him if he had enjoyed the tale. Wee Mungo nodded, still wide-eyed with the wonder of what he had heard, and then went obediently to bed when Murray dispatched him as quietly and firmly as a fond father would a beloved son.

“Wine, Jamie Wallace,” Murray said as soon as we were alone. “I’ll sell you my birthright for a cup of wine.”

“There’s a mess of pottage involved, too,” I said, grinning at him. “I raided the kitchens and fed myself and Wee Mungo while you were with His Lordship. There’s a pot of stew on the hob there, and some fresh bread. Serve yourself and I’ll go and rob the sacramental wine store.”

“You won’t!” The shock in his voice was real, and I felt my grin grow wider.

“Of course I won’t. We keep the good stuff in the Bishop’s pantry. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Later, while we disposed of half a jug of excellent wine between us, I learned that he had been detained in Chester Castle in north Wales, more than a hundred miles from the Tower of London where his father was imprisoned. Once the hostilities had died down, however, his guards’ initial vigilance and zeal had changed into laxity bred of the awareness that their stronghold was the oldest in England, built as the headquarters of the 22nd Legion in the time of the Caesars, and occupied continuously by garrisons thereafter. No one ever escaped from Chester. That truth was so universally accepted that Murray had found it easy to plan his escape.