The Forest Laird(83)
Will dipped his head in acknowledgment. “He is unable, my lord. He is grown old in recent years and is now unfit to travel.”
I held my breath. If Bek knew who Will was, and knew of Sir Malcolm’s death, we were within moments of being arrested.
The Bishop nodded. “Go on, then. Voice your complaint. What does this concern?”
Will told him, delivering the only lie in his story right at the outset, when he claimed to be head verderer on his uncle’s lands who had taken his wife into Paisley to visit her family there. From that point onwards, he related events exactly as they had occurred. Bek sat down in his big chair shortly after Will began talking, and rested his chin on his cupped hand, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts. When the tale was told, he sighed and sat up straighter, his gaze returning to Will.
“So … Let me see if I understand what you are saying. Some women were molested in your town and you set out to find the miscreants. After weltering around in torrential rain for half a day and miles from anywhere, you found some muddy footprints—how many? three?—that may have been made by hobnailed boots. Am I correct? And based upon that … that startling observation, you deduced that these footprints had been made by soldiers. English soldiers, of course. After that, it must have been the work of mere moments to arrive at the conviction that those soldiers must be mine, since I appear to be the only English commander with troopers in this area, and that, by association, the responsibility for the carnage in Paisley yesterday must be mine, too. Correct?” He made no pretense of waiting for an answer. “Excellently reasoned, though the logic involved is unmistakably Scots. So how may we proceed from here? Shall I assemble my entire force on the parade ground and have them flogged? And how many of them would you like me to hang afterwards? Will you have time to wait for us to build a gibbet?”
He stopped short, then added, “Who discovered these three footprints? To whom should I be expressing my gratitude for such a swift solution to these heinous crimes?”
Will turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised high in shock at what he was hearing.
“You?” Bek said, misinterpreting the look and gazing at me in disbelief. “You are responsible for this outrage? An ordained priest, accusing me of this atrocity? How dare you?” His voice remained level, but there was no mistaking the fury it contained. He turned to his acolyte, who had been standing in the background all this time. “Call de Vrecy and his guard. Now! Bring them here immediately.”
The Bishop’s glare returned to me, and when he spoke again his voice dripped disgust and loathing. “You will leave this camp at once and under guard. You”—he pointed a quivering finger at Will—“you will stay here. You and I have much to talk about concerning the responsibilities of leadership and governing men.”
“Not so, Bishop. You have no power to hold me here. Father James came in with me, and I will leave with him.”
“No, you will not. If you do, it will be as a rebel and an outlaw, and if I have to, I will have my men break your legs. I am King Edward’s deputy in this accursed place, and you will be bound by what I tell you to do. I have words for you, and even as an upstart, contumacious Scot, you will be bound by them, so bide you there.”
We had already heard the steady tramp of mailed feet approaching, and then someone held the flap of the great tent open while a dozen men marched in, accompanied by two sergeants and an armoured, surcoated knight. Bek pointed at me and spoke to the knight. “This one, the priest. Take two men and see him off the grounds—forcibly if he does not move quickly enough to please you. He will wait outside the gates for his friend. The rest of you, have an eye to the big one. I doubt he will have much to say, but attend us while he listens to what I have to say to him.” Bek pointed at me again. “Do not think this affair is over, priest. I know your name and I promise you, wherever you may go from here, you and I will meet again and you will answer for this in curia, before a tribunal of your superiors.” He flicked a finger at de Vrecy. “Out of my sight with him.”
There was no point in resisting, and so I went quietly enough, with one burly guard’s hand on each shoulder as they pushed me along between them. My escort marched me briskly through the outer gate and past the sergeant guardsman’s post to the seat where Will and I had waited earlier. There they barked an order at me to halt, and one of them pushed me roughly down onto the bench, warning me that I should stay there unless I wanted to be flogged.
I sat and fumed and waited for what must have been an hour, and then I finally heard them coming from behind the hedge, shouting at each other, laughing and high spirited like any group of young men with idle time on their hands. But when they came into view in the gateway I could only stand and stare, stupefied. They carried Will out through the gates on his back, head down, feet raised behind them as they came. He was unconscious and dripping blood from his backward-hanging head, and six of them held him in a cradle of interlocked arms, like pallbearers, though it was clear from their expressions that they were neither mourning him nor enjoying the strain of carrying his weight. Four more men walked close behind them, men I knew immediately were archers, since all four were unarmoured and carried quarterstaves, and it was they who were shouting and laughing, though none of the hilarity appeared to be directed towards my unconscious cousin.