The Forest Laird(34)

The farm we tended for Sir Malcolm lay a mile beyond the Abbey precincts, on the far edge of Paisley town, and I ran the entire way, bursting with the import of my message. Will had stayed home that day, too enthralled by the new project that Ewan had set him even to consider going to school, and I ran directly to the stone cottage that he and Ewan had converted into a bowyer’s workshop.

They were huddled together, almost head to head in the dim little room, their attention focused tightly on the object that lay before them on the table, and so great was their concentration that they barely looked up when I burst through the door.

“The King’s been killed,” I blurted. “King Alexander’s dead, fallen from a cliff.”

Ewan had been in the act of picking up the object on the table in front of him when I charged into the room and had scarce accorded me a glance, so I knew that they had seen me from the open window, running across the yard. Now he raised the long, regular block of wood to his good eye and held it towards the shaft of pale sunlight from the window, squinting along the perfectly squared length of it and turning it until he had compared all four edges. Will had half turned to look at me, but he said nothing, merely turning back to watch Ewan with the length of wood. It was, I knew, the single most precious item—in the eyes of Ewan and Will at least—in the entire household, but at that moment it meant nothing to me, and I found it incredible that Ewan and Will had both ignored my announcement.

“Didn’t you hear me? King Alexander’s dead.”

“Is that why you’re home so early?” Ewan lowered his arms and turned to me, holding the heavy wooden batten easily.

“Aye. Word came from the Bishop in Glasgow not an hour ago.”

“Ah, then it must be true.” He laid his burden carefully back on the table and ran a finger across the tiny guide marks that had been inscribed into the piece at varying distances, then glanced at Will. “And what would you have us do, Jamie, now that we know?”

“What?” I felt utterly deflated, having run so far and so fast to shock them, only to find them indifferent. “What did you say?”

Ewan shrugged. “I asked what you would have us do, about the King.”

My mouth opened and closed. There was nothing any of us could do, but I felt a great lump swelling in my throat and fought to speak through it.

“We could pray for his soul and wish him well on his way.”

“We could, and we will, later, once I have finished this.” His fingers stroked the length of wood on the table, and he spoke down towards it, splaying his fingers to span several of the incised lines on its surface. “We’ll pray for him together, all of us, tonight, for I have a thought that every monk in the Abbey will be praying for him at this moment. If that’s true, God will not miss us if we are tardy by an hour or two. In the meantime, though, Will and I have been working on these measurements all morning and we need to finish them ere we forget what we’re about and have to start again at the beginning.” And then he swung towards me with a great smile on his face and reached out to tousle my hair. “So away you go now and leave us to it. Aggie has some fine stew in the kitchens, fresh made, and Will and I are stuffed with it. Fresh bread, too, with the smell of it rich enough to draw the moisture from your very soul. We’ll finish here within the hour, God willing, and we’ll come and find you.”

Crestfallen, I made my way to the farmhouse kitchen, where I told my news to Aggie the cook and Maggie the housekeeper, only to have them show even less interest than Will and Ewan.

“Oh, aye? Poor man,” Aggie said, then looked at Maggie, who laughed and responded, “We’ll ha’e a new King, then.”

“Aye, nae doubt we will. And soon.”

Maggie added, “Aye, I wonder will he ask us up to Scone to see him crowned?”

I closed my mind to their callousness and consoled myself with the wonderful food that Aggie laid in front of me. And as I ate, instead of dwelling upon things I could neither influence nor change, I thought about the new project that had kept Will away from school that day. It was a bow, of course, or it would be eventually, but for the time being and for some time to come it would remain as it was now, a straight length of plain, ordinary-looking timber.

Yet I knew well that the yew stave that fascinated both my friends was neither plain nor ordinary. It was one of four identical pieces that Ewan had brought back several years earlier from his visit to his uncle Daffyd ap Gryffyth, in the English town of York. Daffyd was a master bowyer, transformed by his skills, within the space of two decades, from an extraordinary Welsh archer into one of the most powerful and respected bow makers in all England. Ewan had been his apprentice at the battle of Lewes, where the boy had almost been killed by the mace blow that disfigured him permanently, and his uncle had developed a great pride in the singleminded determination with which his badly injured nephew had pursued his goal of becoming an archer thereafter. The two then lost touch for years, after Ewan had left Edward of Caernarvon’s army and returned to Scotland.