The Guardian by Jack Whyte

it.”
    “Just as well, perhaps. But although the elder Bruce’s reputation in Scotland did not suffer much overall, the grandson is another matter, I’ll grant you that. I, too, have heard that young Carrick has grown into a feckless English fop, spoiled beyond recognition by the King, who seems to dote upon him like an addled grandsire. I find that hard to believe, but the boy had lived at the English court in Westminster for years before the family moved there, so there might be something more to it than spite and jealousy. On the whole, though, I do not really care. I would rather concern myself with the memory of a truly admirable old man than waste my time wondering about a young dandy I’ve never met and am unlikely to meet any time soon.”
    We lapsed into a silence broken only by the sounds of our progress: the hard, crisp clack of the heels of my new boots and the papery shuffle of his sandals’ soles. I began to pay attention to my surroundings and to think more carefully about my rapidly approaching meeting with my mentor and employer, Bishop Robert Wishart, and as though by magic, the mere idea of meeting him again had the effect of loosening my bowels. There was no reason why it should have, for I had no fear of the bishop and my conscience was clear, so it might have been mere coincidence that the stomach spasm hit me when it did, but there was no doubting the urgency of the summons. I quickly lowered my pack and dashed into a dense clump of shrubs.
    A thought occurred to me while I was alone, and I was mulling it over as I made my way back to the roadway to collect my pack and my staff.
    “Forgive me, Father James,” Martin said, “but you look … preoccupied. Is something wrong?”
    “No,” I said, surprised that my distraction had been so easy to see. “No, there is nothing wrong.” And I had to laugh, thinking of the comical way in which the mind could make connections. “It’s merely that in doing my business I was reminded of somethingEdward Plantagenet supposedly said to Antony Bek after having— again supposedly—conquered Scotland last year.”
    “ Supposedly conquered Scotland? Why would you say that? He did conquer it.”
    “I said it because it’s the truth. They were returning, victorious, to England, and it was last August—less than ten months ago. Yet now, with the majority of the Scottish leadership safely shut up in English jails, English armies are being ordered back to Scotland. Had Edward’s conquest last year been as real as he supposed it to be, there would be no possibility of uprisings this soon. Edward’s armies beat us in a sore fight at Dunbar and took many nobles prisoner. But the truth is they came nowhere close to conquering the Scots people, the ordinary folk. That’s why this whole country is in an uproar now—because Edward failed to make sure that the task he thought was done had really been completed. He left a crew of ruthless, venal cutthroats to administer his interests, and now he’s paying the price of underestimating his enemy.”
    Martin had been listening closely, his brow furrowed. “That makes sense,” he said. “And I believe you’re right … So what was it Edward said to Bek?”
    “Oh, that. They had been discussing the conduct of their campaign and the success of their banishment of Balliol, delivering all of Scotland into the absolute power of England’s rule. ‘A man does good business,’ Edward is reported to have said, ‘when he rids himself of a turd.’”

CHAPTER SIX
    REBELS AND MISCREANTS
    F ather Martin and I walked in companionable silence for a long time after that, and several miles elapsed as the landscape surrounding us changed gradually from a sparse scattering of hawthorn and hazel, more shrubbery than trees, to hardy, dense clumps of shallow-rooted gorse and broom. These we watched die away completely within about an hour to leave us walking through a pale green countryside of low, rolling hills coated in