The Forest Laird(177)

Mirren’s father was one of the Scots merchants most direly affected by these outrageous taxes, because they obliterated his commercial enterprises almost overnight. Hugh Braidfoot had become a prosperous wool trader and broker and a wealthy, respected burgess of Lanark, where his enterprises were headquartered, but his eastern operations, all of them involving the warehousing of wool and its transportation from the eastern Scottish ports to the countries across the North Sea, were vulnerable to Cressingham’s most punitive taxes, and Braidfoot was rendered close to penury within months of the treasurer’s arrival in Scotland.

However, Braidfoot was neither fool nor craven. He determined to fight what he saw as this Englishman’s fiduciary madness, and he set off for Berwick to confront the treasurer, making no secret of his purpose or of his anger and frustration. His intent was to present his case to Cressingham in person and to sue for some kind of reasonable accommodation, some compromise, that would permit him to remain active in his business affairs while continuing to generate taxable revenue in the years ahead.

According to Cressingham and his staff, however, Master Braidfoot never arrived in Berwick, and an extensive search of the town and its environs failed to find anyone who had witnessed him entering the town, though many witnesses elsewhere attested to that having been his destination, and swore to have heard him say he had important business with Cressingham. Hugh Braidfoot vanished without trace on that journey, never to be seen or heard from again, and all his holdings became forfeit to the English administration for non-payment of taxes.

Word of this iniquity was brought to us eventually in Glasgow by a monk from Jedburgh Abbey who had been sent specifically to inform Bishop Wishart of the merchant’s death and the storm of controversy that it had stirred up in and around Berwick. He arrived with his tidings in the middle of March, by which time Braidfoot had been missing for more than a month. The Bishop, not knowing if word of these events would have penetrated Selkirk Forest, dispatched me immediately to take the news to Will and Mirren. I rode my horse hard to get there before either of my friends heard the tidings from any other source, but by the time I arrived the word had flown ahead of me.

Will saw at once that I was disappointed at having brought the news too late and tried to put me at my ease, but I could not be at ease until I had seen Mirren, to gauge with my own eyes how great a toll this occurrence had demanded of her, and to offer her any solace and comfort that I could, as former chaplain to her and her people. She had loved her father deeply, I knew, and would be in great need of support and sympathy, for he had earned her love throughout her life, constantly affording her his encouragement in everything she did.

In the end, it was Mirren who ended up consoling me in my misery over having come so late, offering to pray with me before I ever got around to making the suggestion, and generally making me feel more at ease about her peace of mind.

Already within months of completing her term, she was blithely certain that this time she was carrying a daughter, describing the child to me as a sweet little pippin who would act as a natural braking force upon her ebullient and irrepressible son, whom she was preparing for bed as we spoke. She had even named the child already, she told me, having dreamed of seeing her as a fully grown young woman, beautiful, elegant, and self-possessed. Her daughter would be called Eleanor, in honour of Mirren’s own heroine, the long-dead but greatly revered Duchess of Aquitaine, and Mirren’s mind was made up on the matter. Eleanor Wallace would be as strong a woman as the one after whom she would be named. I listened to her speaking of the child who would be, and I saw how steadfastly she held her own loss at bay, and my heart swelled up with pride and affection for her. Will truly had chosen a pearl beyond price, as the scriptures described.

In the meantime, she said, she was preparing to go home to visit her mother in Lamington, but several matters involving Will had to be settled first, so they had not yet been able to set a departure date.

I knew that Mirren’s mother had never recovered from the wasting illness that had stricken her during the year when Mirren and Will first met. For a long time, everyone had thought she was going to die, but Miriam Braidfoot had surprised everyone with her tenacity. That had been in 1289, and for the ensuing eight years, Mirren’s mother had been confined to her home and, much of that time, to her bed. But she had lived happily enough, sustained by the love of her husband and the friends who surrounded her. Now, though, with her husband’s disappearance and probable death, no one could tell what would happen to the old lady, and Mirren fretted constantly over not being able to rush to her mother’s bedside.