‘God Made Me,’ he muttered.
‘As he did us all,’ the voice answered, gruff and fruited with good living. Wishart, he recognised.
The chanting stopped as all the heads turned; the Prior stumbled forward and knelt while Wishart thrust out one hand to have his ring kissed. The ring was not visible under the armoured gauntlet and the Prior hesitated, then placed his lips on the cold, articulated iron segments.
Wishart hardly looked at him, watching Bruce get up. The Malachy Curse, no doubt, he thought to himself, seeing the grim face on the young lord of Carrick. It had hagged his father all his life, but Wishart had hoped it had passed this one by.
He knew the tale of it, vaguely – something about a previous Annandale Bruce promising a priest that he would release a condemned felon and then hanging him in secret. The said priest was angered and cursed the Bruces – which did not seem very saintly to Wishart, but God moves mysteriously and that is what Malachy eventually became. A saint.
The Bruces had been living under the shadow of it ever since and there was something, Wishart admitted to himself, in young Robert’s assertion that it had unmanned his father completely. Hardly surprising, Wishart thought, when you find that a canting, irritating wee priest you have as a thwarted dinner guest later turns out to be Malachy, one of God’s anointed, with the power of angels at his disposal. At the very least, you would have to question your luck. More seriously, every sick cow, murrained sheep and blighted crop was laid at the door of the Curse, so that the Bruces had sullen and growling commons to constantly appease.
‘I was praying,’ Bruce declared accusingly, and the Bishop blinked, looked down and waved the Prior to his feet.
‘So you were,’ he replied, as cheerfully as he could manage, ‘and I will be joining you afore long, mark me. Prior, your robing room will be perfect for a quiet meeting.’
The Prior bobbed. He was not about to beg for what he knew all the canons wanted – an end to the plunder and pillage and an assurance that no more robed prelates would be killed – for it did not seem the time for it, when the Bishop of Glasgow stood in maille coat and braies and coif. Ironically, the mace dangling from one armoured fist was the only reminder that he was a Bishop of the Church in Scotland and forbidden to use an edge on any man – though not, it seemed, forbidden to bludgeon one to death.
Bruce looked at the warrior Bishop, thinking the old man might expire of apoplexy wearing all that padding and metal in this heat. Thinking, also, that Wishart had the strained look of a man either unable to cope with a bad turd or bad news.
He followed the lumbering Bishop into the cramped, hot robing room and was surprised to find Wallace there, sitting on the only bench and leaning on his hand-and-a-half. He made no move to get up with due deference, which irritated Bruce, though he forgot it the instant Wishart spoke.
‘The Lords Percy and Clifford have raised forces and are marching up through Dumfries,’ Wishart said without preamble. ‘Fifty thousand men, or so I am told.’
Wallace never blinked, but his fists closed tighter on the hilt of the sword and Bruce heard the point of it grind into the stone floor. He saw Wishart’s stricken face and knew the truth of matters at once.
‘You had counted on more time,’ he accused and Wishart nodded grimly.
‘Until next Spring,’ he growled. ‘Edward is far to the south with an army he wants to take to Flanders to fight the French and he and the likes of the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford are in a sulk ower baron rights and tolts on wool. I didnae think there would be a force got ready until too late in the season, so would wait out the winter and come in Spring. I had . . .’
‘You had forgot the English Marcher lords,’ Wallace interrupted, and his stare was cold on Wishart’s red, sweat-sheened face. ‘You had forgot the shadow of Longshanks is long, Bishop, and growing ever closer. How is that from a man who is, folk tell me, a master of cunning?’
Wishart clanked as he flapped one dismissive hand.
‘I did not expect Percy nor Clifford to raise forces,’ he grunted. ‘I thought they would not thole the cost of it, since they made such noises about the money for Edward’s French affair. Besides – Percy is De Warenne’s grandson and would not want to make the old Earl of Surrey look a fool for governing Scotland as Viceroy from his estates in England.’
Bruce laughed, nasty and harsh.
‘Aye, well,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There is you, scheming away and thumping every pulpit about how this is a kingdom, a realm separate from the English and with its own king – so much, it seems, that you have lost sight of what the English think.’