Jack Whyte: Order in Chaos

Now the prisoner turned his eyes towards me for the first time, and though he was merely a shape stirring among blackness, I could tell from the way his head moved forward that he was squinting to see me better. I stood motionless, holding my flaring torch out to one side but making no attempt to push back my cowl.

“What is a Scots priest doing here?”

I said nothing, and Antony answered. “His duty; comforting the afflicted. Will you speak with him? If so, I will leave the two of you alone.”

Wallace stood silent for a long time, gazing at me as though wondering what I was about, and then he shrugged and nodded, the movements easily visible now that my eyes were adjusting to the darkness. “I’ll talk with him, if only to hear my own tongue. Who are you, Priest? Where are you from?”

“Thank you, Father Abbott,” I said quietly, and Antony nodded and turned quietly away towards the still-open door. I heard him speak to the jailer outside, and then the man appeared, frowning dubiously, and hauled at the massive door until it scraped shut, leaving me alone with the prisoner, to whom I now turned. “Where am I from? I am from Paisley, from the abbey there. Do you not know me, Will?”

The shadowy figure straightened up as though he had been struck. “ Jamie? Jamie Wallace, is that you? What in God’s name are you doing here? Your very name could hoist you to the gallows alongside me.”

I pushed my cowl back off my head and let him see my smile. “Plain Father James? I doubt that, Will. The Wallace part of me is unknown, here in England.”

“Then pray you to God it stays that way. This is madness, Jamie. But, man, it’s good to see your face.”

“And to see yours, Cousin, though God Himself knows I had never thought to see you in such straits.” I moved towards him, to embrace him, but as the light from my torch fell upon him I stopped short, gazing at him in consternation.

“What kind of barbarism is this?”

To his credit, he grinned at me and drew himself up to his full, imposing height before lapsing into our own tongue. “D’ ye no’ ken, I’m a dangerous chiel?* They ca’ me the Scotch Ogre and they a’ believe I eat bairns †whene’er I get the chance.”

His hair and beard were wild, matted, and unshorn, and he wore only a ragged shirt, one arm of which had been torn from his shoulder, exposing the massive knots of corded muscle there, but I paid little attention to those things. I was staring at the harness that bound him. “Can you sit?”

His grin widened, but there was no humor in his eyes. “Sit? Sit on what? It takes me a’ my time to stand, wi’out cowpin’* sideways. I ha’e to stand spread-legged and lean my back against the wa’, else I’ll fa’, and these chains winna even let me dae that.”

The chains that bound him, wrists and ankles, were thick and heavy, the manacles tautly fastened to a thick, leather belt that circled his waist at the level of his lower ribs. The girdle in turn was fastened right and left to short lengths of chain, with very little slack, which were secured to a heavy iron ring mounted on the wall at his back. He could not fall, nor could he turn; all he could do was stand upright or allow his weight to sag into the harness around his waist, but there would be no comfort there, either, for now I saw that the two lengths of chain from the belt were of different lengths, the shorter one attached beneath his right shoulder, ensuring that he could only hang tilted to one side.

He was watching me quizzically, and his beard moved while one side of his mouth twitched upwards in a half grin as he read the consternation in my face.

“How long have you been held there like that?”

“Three days.” He spoke still in Scots. “Ye’ll pardon the stink, I hope, for they havena let me loose since they strapped me in here.” He was unbelievably filthy, and at his mention of it the appalling stench of him hit me like a blow, making me wonder how I could not have been aware of it ’til then. I lowered my torch, looking down at his bare and befouled legs beneath the tattered shirt he wore. They were crusted with feces, and the ground at his feet was a stinking puddle.

“Sweet Jesus,” I said, my senses reeling. “Who is responsible for this? This is—” I stopped, unable to find words.

“This is Edward’s vengeance, or the start o’ it, for a’ the grief I’ve caused him these past years. Tomorrow … no, today, he’ll make an end o’ it. But ere he’s done, I think I’ll be yearnin’ for the comfort o’ just standin’ here, dandlin’ my chains … D’ ye ken he wouldna even come to look at me, Jamie? Ye’d think he’d want to look, at least, would ye no? To gloat a wee bit, wag a finger at me … But no. He left it a’ to his judges … And they’ll pass me to his executioners, come break o’ day.” I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out, and as I stood there searching for words, he continued. “It’ll be a fine day, the jailers tell me. A grand summer’s day to die on. But this London’s a dirty, smelly place, Jamie … A sad and dirty place to die, wi’ the whole populace cranin’ their necks to watch. I’d gi’e anything to hear the birds singin’ to welcome the dawn in the Tor Wood one last time.” He snorted in self derision. “But I hae nothin’ now to gi’e, and we’re a long way frae Ettrick Forest …”

And at that moment, a moment I can recall with absolute clarity all these years later, a miracle occurred.

Somewhere beyond the high, barred window in the outer wall above our heads, a bird began to sing, and the clarity and volume of the sound stunned both of us into silent immobility. The song was liquid, brilliant in its welling beauty, the notes rising and falling with limpid perfection so that it seemed the creature producing them was here in the cell with us instead of outside in the pitch blackness of the night. I watched Wallace’s eyes widen and fill with a kind of superstitious fear as he listened, transfixed, and I must admit that I, too, was awestruck by the coincidence of his expressed wish and the sudden eruption of the birdsong.

“Mother of God,” he whispered. “What kind o’ sorcery is this? It lacks three full hours ’til dawn. What kind of creature makes such a sound in the blackness of the night?”

I realized then that he had never heard a nightingale before, and it came to me that I had never heard one either before first coming to England’s southern parts.

“It’s only a bird, Will, nothing more. They call it a nightingale because it sings at night. I think there are none in all Scotland, though I may be wrong. I’ve certainly never heard one there, and it’s not the sort of thing you could easily forget. Is it not wonderful?”

He listened, making no move to answer me, but I could see the tension drain from him, and eventually he flexed his knees and allowed his weight to settle slightly into his restraints, though not far enough to tip him sideways. “Aye,” he murmured, “it is that, a thing o’ wonder. How big would it be, this … nightingale, you said?”

“Aye. It’s a tiny thing, smaller than a blackbird, brown and plain with no outward finery at all to mark it. Save for that voice.”

He grunted and said no more, and I have no idea how long we stood there listening to it before the bird apparently took flight again and the silence of the night returned.

“He’s gone. Will he come back, think ye?”

“I know not. Your guess would be as good as mine.

But he answered your wish. That was like a miracle.”

“Aye …” His voice fell away to nothing, and he stood there, gazing into nothingness and, I thought, evidently seeing things that existed in his mind alone. But I was wrong.