The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace

by Jack Whyte

  It was now a situation in which neither side could hope to make progress, and in a very short time, the English reorganized themselves, set up defensive formations, and made ready to leave, watched by the eight Scots archers who had bested them at odds of five to one.

  Even in defeat, though, the English won, for Ewan saw two of them snatch Mirren up from where she lay beside me and throw her unceremoniously across the back of a horse belonging to one of Redvers’s two dead companions. He could have shot them dead from where he stood, but they would simply have been replaced by others, and he was afraid of hitting Mirren, the boy, or me by mischance. Besides, as he told me later, he only had two arrows left in his quiver.

  They loaded her and her son hurriedly into the larger of our two wagons, and then they led the wagon to the litter and quickly loaded Mirren’s mother onto it as well. Keeping an eye on the distant Scots, they smashed the smaller wagon’s wheels and killed its team of horses. They then moved out and away, taking the road to Lanark and leaving their dead behind them, though no one had any doubt that they would return in strength within the hour to bury their own and hang any Scot foolish enough to be within reach.

  Throughout it all, I lay unconscious in the junction of the crossroads, bleeding from my ears.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1

  In the general discussion surrounding the disappearance of Hugh Braidfoot, we learned later, someone in Lanark had let slip that the missing man was the same Braidfoot whose daughter Mirren had married the outlaw William Wallace. That story had very soon reached the ears of the sheriff, William Hazelrig.

  Hazelrig had been singularly unsuccessful in putting down any of the local Scots outlaws or even interfering with their illegal activities, which consisted mainly of poaching venison, and because he had been unable to stop them—they insisted upon some imagined right to refuse to die of starvation—he was afraid people were laughing at him, and so he pounced on this new information as a means of salvaging his name. He anticipated that the dutiful daughter might at this difficult time be tempted to return to visit her ailing mother, and it seemed likely to him that she might even be accompanied on such a visit by her outlawed husband. And so he had dispatched Sir Lionel Redvers to take the mother into custody.

  What Hazelrig had hoped to achieve by doing that was unclear to me at the time, and even now, decades afterwards, it still makes me shake my head in disbelief. Had he chosen to keep a discreet watch on the Braidfoot household, he would easily have taken Mirren when she arrived, and even had Will not been with her, he might thus have been able to lure him out of the forest on a mission of rescue. But by instead arresting the blameless Miriam Braidfoot, the sheriff was giving clear warning to Will and his wife to stay well away from Lanark if they valued their freedom. Had Sir Lionel Redvers’s little expedition passed by that crossroads even one-quarter of an hour earlier, we might never have encountered them, and much might have been different. We would have turned towards Lamington and discovered that the lady Miriam had been taken, and we would then have returned to Will in the forest, to initiate inquiries through Bishop Wishart. But Fate decided to abet Hazelrig’s efforts.

  As soon as the English left, Ewan ran over to where I lay, expecting to find me gravely wounded because of the blood he could see on the side of my head, but he found me to be merely unconscious, with a strong pulse and breathing easily. He made me as comfortable as could be and set Andrew and Father Jacobus to watch over me while he and the other six archers hurried after Redvers’s departing force, to be within sight of them before the enemy had any chance to do anything further with Mirren and her mother. He had lost custody of Mirren, he would tell me long afterwards, but he was prepared to die before losing track of her altogether.

  By the time Ewan arrived back, I had regained consciousness, though I could barely move against the pain of my broken ribs. It hurt even to breathe shallowly. Besides which the pain in my head was like a throbbing drum beat, and my vision had not yet returned to normal, so I still saw two of whatever I happened to be looking at. Despite all of that, though, I was fully compos mentis and I was pleased to see Ewan step into the light from our fire that night. It was to be the last pleasure I experienced for months, and it was snuffed the instant I saw the look on his face.

  I was flat on my back, lying close to the fire, and for the first few moments he ignored me, speaking quietly to Andrew, and the tone of his voice told me he thought I was still unconscious. When he finally asked if my condition had improved at all, the little man nodded towards me. “See for yourself,” he said. “He’s been awake for more than an hour. But he can’t talk and he can’t move. His jaw’s broken, along with several other things. Nothing too serious, but he’s not going to be running around for a month or two.”

  A moment later, Ewan was kneeling above me.

  “How are you? Can you get up?”

  “No.” I was as startled as he was to hear my voice emerge in a cracked, feathery whisper, but it was the first sound I had made since being injured and I could not believe how much pain and effort it had caused me to utter that single syllable. I tried to grit my teeth and regretted it immediately. Then, when my heartbeat had slowed down again and I thought I could control myself, I forced myself to speak gently, whispering, almost breathing the words as I asked, “What’s wrong?” It emerged, almost inaudibly, as Oss ong?

  He had been peering at me with concern, but now he scowled. “What’s wrong with what? With your face? You’ve been worked over with heavy boots. I’m surprised you can even open your eyes, let alone whisper.”

  I closed my eyes and the pain started to dissipate immediately, but I forced myself to look at him again, seeing the agony in him, and mouthed, “Where’s Mirren?”

  I saw panic grow and blossom in his eyes as he struggled to put into words what should never have needed to be said. Finally, though, he found his voice, and for the next half-hour I lay and listened, appalled, to what he had to say.

  “Everything’s gone to Hell, Jamie,” he began. “In the space o’ an hour, it a’ went bad … We went after the English, to keep an eye on whatever they might do wi’ Mirren, but we hadna been going for a quarter of an hour before one o’ Robertson’s bowmen found the body of wee Willie lying at the side of the road. It was an accident that he found it—he had moved off the road into the underbrush wi’ everybody else when word came back from the man in front that somebody was comin’, and he almost knelt on the wee boy before he saw him. There were no wounds on the body. Nothin’ to show what had killed him. He was just dead, and somebody had thrown him aside, into the bushes …”

  I felt my heart threatening to burst, but I could neither move nor make a sound. But Ewan was far from finished.

  “That was the start of it,” Ewan continued. “But once it had started, there was no stoppin’ it. I couldn’t even take time to bury the poor child, for fear I’d lose track o’ Mirren, so we set him aside and left him there until we could come back. When we reached Lanark, I left Robertson and his men to wait for me in the woods, and I went into the town to see what I could find out about the women. I went to the archers’ company attached to the garrison and spoke to the man in charge there. It was safe enough. None o’ the garrison archers would ha’e been out on the road that day.

  “He was a Welshman, and I told him who I was, and that I’d served in Edward’s campaigns in England and France in the days before Edward became the King. His name was Gareth Owens, and we got along, and I fed him drink in a tavern later that night, then picked his brains on the sheriff and that knight called Redvers. I asked him what had happened to the women prisoners brought in that morning …”

  There was roaring in my ears, and my head was still filled with images of the beautiful, laughing child who had been Will’s firstborn, but I could still hear Ewan talking, and later, when the pain and emptiness in my soul had receded for a while, I had no difficulty remembering what he had told me.

  Owens had looked at
him strangely when he asked about the women, and to disarm the fellow Ewan had chuckled lewdly and said he had seen them being brought in. Something in the look of the younger one, he told the man, had made him think she was a toothsome piece, even heavily pregnant as she was. She had roused his curiosity as well as his lust, and now he wanted to know if she would be held for long, or if he would be wasting his time lingering in town in hopes of seeing her when she was freed.

  Owens sat staring at Ewan for long moments, as though trying to decide whether or not to believe what he had said, but then he twisted right around in his seat and called to a man sitting a few tables behind him.

  “Sit ye down,” he said when the newcomer reached their table. “This man is Ewan Scrymgeour, one of us, though half Scotch, and an archer for years with Edward when he was still prince. Ewan, this is Dyllan. He is from south Wales and has never handled a bow in his life, and thanks be to God for that. The only thing this one is fit to handle is a ring of keys, but he handles those very well, don’t you, boyo? Dyllan is head jailer here, so he’s the one you need to talk with.” Ewan nodded a greeting at Dyllan, who was tall and cadaverously thin, with deep-set eyes over heavy, dark pouches. “Drink some beer with us, Dyllan. Ewan has some questions for you and talking is thirsty work.”

  He waved an arm to one of the tavern wenches, signalling her to bring more beer, and when he turned back he found Dyllan staring at Ewan’s face.

  “What happened to you?”

  Ewan sniffed. “War club. A mace. At Lewes, against de Montfort and the barons. I was a boy, my bones still soft. Lucky, I was told.”

  “Jesus,” the jailer said in a hushed voice, but then he fell silent as their fresh beer was brought to the table, and when the serving woman left he raised his pot in a silent salute and drank deeply, then belched appreciatively and sat back.

  “What is it you want to know?” he asked. “Gareth’s not a man to waste another’s time, and if he says you’re good, then you’re good to me, so ask away.”

  Ewan hesitated, seeking the best way to frame his question, but before he could speak at all, Gareth interjected. “There was two women taken in today, into your place. One of them was young, Ewan says, and comely. What can ye tell us about ’er?”

  Dyllan was looking at Ewan strangely. “You find that attractive, her being big and ready to whelp any minute?”

  Ewan made himself grin. “No, but when she does whelp she’ll be over it soon and ready to go again. Who is she, d’ you know?”

  The jailer shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m only the jailer. They don’t tell me things like that. My job’s to keep ’em penned up. I don’t need to know who they are. But I know the one you’re askin’ after’s mad. She’s crazed and out of ’er mind, she is. The other one was ’er mother.”

  “Was?” Ewan told me afterwards how difficult it had been for him to keep his face from betraying him. “Y’ mean she’s dead?”

  “Aye. She were dead when they brung ’er in. Didn’t find out, though, till we tried to lift ’er out o’ the wagon she was in. She were gettin’ cold by then.”

  “Then it’s no wonder the daughter’s mad with grief.”

  The jailer shrugged. “Aye, mayhap. But that aren’t all. I tell you, I was glad to get out o’ that place at the end o’ my shift t’day. That’s the wust day I c’n recall in there, and I’ve seen some bad uns.”

  “Ah,” said Ewan. “Then let’s not talk about it. All I really want to know is, when will she get out?”

  “When will she what?”

  Gareth spoke up again. “’E wants to know whether ’e should stay ’ere for a few days, looking to meet up with ’er when she gets out, or whether he’d best be on his way and forget it.”

  “Oh …” Dyllan’s headshake was slow and ponderous. “No. Best move on, friend. She won’t be coming out again, that one. And even if she did, she wouldn’t be no use to you. She were screamin’ about some snapper, some little ’un what ’ad got lost. I never saw no youngster there, but she was screamin’ mad, cryin’ is name and howlin’, throwin’ ’erself around. And then she found out the other woman was dead, and that made her worse. Went proper mad then, she did, and flew at big Simon, tryin’ to scratch his eyes out. Wrong thing to do, that was. Big Simon’s not too clever, and ’e’s got a nasty temper. Smacked her in the head with his ring of keys, he did, and then kicked ’er in the belly when she went down. ’E only kicked her the once, but that was enough. It shut ’er up for a while, but then she started pukin’ an’ bleedin’ all over the place.”

  Ewan grunted. He told me it took all of his strength not to reach out and choke the jailer, but he knew he had to remain calm. “What happened then?”

  “Well, she was ’avin’ ’er baby. All we could do was watch till it were done.”

  He made himself grimace. “She had her baby?”

  “Aye, but it was dead when it come out.” The jailer shook his head in what might have been regret, then picked up his beer and took another long drink. “Jesus,” he said, “I’ve never seen so much blood.”

  Ewan ground his teeth together fiercely and asked quietly, “And what about the woman? Did she live?”

  “Oh aye. At least, she was alive when I left. I threw ’er the blankets off the old woman’s litter, but she wouldn’t move off the floor, so I just covered ’er up and left ’er there.”

  “On the floor. You left her there …”

  “Aye.”

  “And what happened to the baby?”

  “It were dead.”

  “I know it was dead, Dyllan. I asked what happened to it.”

  Dyllan looked down into his pot of ale, and then he said, in a very quiet voice, “Simon fed it to the pigs with the rest of the mess.”

  Ewan drew a great breath and stood up from the table, gripping his left thumb in his right fist to keep himself from lashing out. “Well, then,” he said calmly, “no point in waiting around to see her. I doubt she’ll look as good again as she did this day.” He forced himself to nod to the jailer and then looked at Gareth Owens.

  “I’ll be on my way, then. Mayhap our paths will cross again someday.” He reached into his scrip and laid a silver coin on the table. “The drinks are on me until this runs out. I thank you for your time and kindness.”

  Gareth stared down at the silver coin and then grinned widely. “We’ll drink to your good health, Archer, and you’re welcome back here any time.”

  2

  By the time Ewan finished, his face was streaked with tracks where the tears had scoured runnels through the dirt and road dust caked on his sunken cheeks, and I was racked in agony from the sobs that wrenched me and which I was powerless to resist. I could not find a single word to say that would serve any purpose other than to break the silence between us. I have no memory of how long we remained there, immersed in our grief, but it seemed to me afterwards that it must have been a long time. Finally, though, Ewan raised his head and looked at me, scrubbing fiercely at his eyes with the sleeve of his rough tunic.

  He bent over me then, bringing his ear close to my mouth and being extremely careful not to touch me in any way.

  “Talk to me. Can you do that, if I stay like this?”

  “I don’t know,” I wheezed, unable to move my jaw. “I’ll try.”

  “What do we do now, Jamie?” I said nothing, and he added, “We have to do something. We can’t do nothing. But what do we do? We have to tell Will, and how will we do that? This will kill him, kill him.”

  “No.” I could barely get the small word out, and Ewan stooped quickly again to place his ear close to my lips. I breathed slowly, then tried again, hearing my own words mangled by my inability to move my broken jaw. “No. He won’t die …” That emerged as “Ee owned eye,” but Ewan jerked away and looked at me and I knew he had understood. I took several steady breaths before I tried again, articulating each word as slowly and clearly as I could. “You’ll have to tell him, Ewan. I can’t. I can’t talk.”
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br />   He nodded, and then he asked, “What’ll we do with you now? I can’t take you back in that shape. You’d die on the road. You might die anyway, if you can’t eat anything.”

  “Yakobus,” I whispered. “There are monks in Lanark. Yakobus will ge’ me there … ’morrow … An’ they’ll ge’ me to G’asgow …”

  Ewan prepared to stand up, but I hissed at him. “No!”

  “What?” He bent to my lips again.

  “Can’t go … can’t go back wi’out knowing … Back to Lanark, about Mirren … Can’t tell Will he’s lost his children and not know how his wife is. You have to go back and make sure she … she’s well.”

  “Jesus, Jamie, how can she be well? She’s lost her bairns and her mother.”

  “Not her life, though … Not her life, pray God. Find out, Ewan.”

  This time his headshake was decisive. “All right. We will. We’ll make a bier for you tonight, from bits of the wagon, then we’ll leave first thing in the morning and we’ll take you with us. There’s eight of us, not counting Jacobus, so we can take turns carrying you in teams of four. It’s only three miles. We’ll leave you with the monks and I’ll go back into Lanark. When I know how Mirren is, I’ll go and tell Will. You’ll get to Glasgow in the meantime, as soon as you can travel, and get your friend Wishart started on setting Mirren free. There must be something he can do, otherwise what’s the point of being a bishop?”