The Forest Laird

by Jack Whyte

  Will Wallace was free to come home to Elderslie. But he did not do so.

  I grew accustomed to his absence, although I often thought of him and wondered how he and Ewan were faring in their southern forest sojourn. We discovered in time that he was well, whatever he was doing, because twice that autumn, gifts arrived from him for Lady Margaret, brought by those itinerant traders who travel the length and breadth of the country, mending pots and pans and selling posies and herbal potions wherever they can find a purchaser. Both men had the same story: they had been stopped on a forest path by a stranger who had paid them well to deliver the packages however and whenever they could come to the Paisley district.

  And then, as I rode along a woodland path on a bright summer afternoon the following year, I heard my name being called from a clump of brambles, and I almost fell from my old horse in fright. I spun around to see Ewan watching me from the thick foliage at the side of the path. I could not see him clearly, merely the bulk of his shape among the shadows, but I recognized him instantly by the green of his clothing and the mask that obscured his face, and I gasped his name in disbelief as I swung my leg over my beast’s back.

  “No! Stay!”

  I froze where I was, half on and half off my mount, one foot in the stirrup, the other dangling behind me, and gaping towards where he stood with one hand raised, holding me there.

  “Are you alone? Is anyone behind you?”

  “No,” I twisted in the stirrup nevertheless to look along the path at my back. “I’m alone. What are you doing in there? Are you hiding?”

  There came a swell of movement as the big man pushed away the hanging fronds of bramble with his long staff and stepped towards me, the sound of thorns being ripped from his clothing clearly audible. I watched as he pulled his long cloak free of the last of them and then deftly tucked his mask up into his hood and stepped forward to look up at me, his ruined, beloved face creased into its old, lopsided grin.

  “Aye, hiding—from you, until I knew there were no strangers with you. I saw you coming from a mile away, but you had others with you.”

  “I did, but they were on their way to visit old Friar Thomas. They turned off the path some time ago.”

  “Good. Now you can greet me properly.”

  I swung down and embraced him, inhaling the warm, wellremembered scent of him happily before he pushed me away to sweep me up and down with his eyes, taking note of my plain grey monk’s habit.

  “You’re not a priest yet?”

  “No, not yet, but soon now. My ordination—everybody’s—was postponed after the Maid died, when we came close to war.” Princess Margaret of Norway, the seven-year-old heir to Scotland’s throne, had died in September 1290 of natural but unexplained causes. She had been living still in Orkney, where her father, King Eric II of Norway, had lodged her for safety.

  “Where’s Will?” I was looking around as I asked him.

  “Not here,” he said. “He couldn’t come. Sent me instead, to tell you he is well. Content with married life and hoping you might visit us in the south. I was on my way to the Abbey, but from where I was it looked as though these other people were with you, or following you. What brings you to Elderslie in the middle of the week?”

  “I’m on my way to visit Aunt Margaret. Isabelle is to be married in a few days, so between them they have conscripted me to help with the arrangements for the wedding. Aunt Margaret has been unwell since Uncle Malcolm died.”

  Ewan drew himself up as though I had slapped him. “Sir Malcolm’s dead? God rest his soul.” He crossed himself. “When did he die?”

  “Six months ago, of dropsy, though he had been unwell for a year before that. But that is why young Isabelle’s marriage has taken so long to arrange. She was supposed to have been wed soon after you left, you may recall, to a young fellow of good family from Paisley, James Morton. I know you’ve met him.”

  Ewan nodded. “Aye. His father holds extensive lands out there.”

  “He did, but he died, too, last year. Young James is master now.”

  Ewan whistled softly. “Master of his own lands! He must be what? Nineteen now? And he has waited two years for the girl?”

  “He has, and I admire him for it, but Isabelle refused to wed while her father was sick, so he had little option, if he truly wanted her. Now that Sir Malcolm has been dead for half a year, Aunt Margaret has insisted that they go ahead and wed.” I smiled. “She has three grandchildren, from Anne, but she is hungry for more.”

  Ewan’s gaze was distant. “Will’s going to be upset. We had no idea.”

  “I know. But no one knew where you were. The messengers we sent turned Selkirk Forest inside out looking for you. Where have you been?”

  “Farther south this past year and more, near Jedburgh. Can I come with you to Elderslie?”

  I nodded and began to walk with him, leading my horse and quizzing him as we went about what he and Will had been up to for the past two years, but in the mile or so that lay between us and our destination he parried all my questions patiently. He pleaded fatigue—he had been on the road all day and most of the previous night, he said—and asked my leave to put off his tale for a single telling, to my aunt and me together. I could see that he was determined to have his way and so I did not press him, though I doubted Lady Margaret would be capable of joining us in any lengthy session. Since Sir Malcolm’s death she had been retiring earlier, it seemed, with each passing day and rising earlier each morning, hours before dawn, to prepare for the coming day. With Isabelle’s nuptials less than a week away, I knew that all her energies would be tightly focused on women’s things.

  As it transpired, I was both right and wrong. The house, when we arrived, was full of young women, all of them busy either sewing or working on long lists of details that had to be attended to, and Aunt Margaret was delighted to see Ewan again after such a long absence. She banished all the young women to another part of the house with their fabrics and their endless lists and chatter, and then she settled down with us in the family room, voracious in her appetite for all the news she could possibly hear of Will and his doings, and about Mirren and the home she had set up for and with him.

  It was only after listening to her questions for some time that I began to see that the information she was seeking had absolutely nothing to do with what I wanted to hear. Aunt Margaret was solely concerned with her beloved nephew and his new wife and the life they shared together, the details of their house and its furnishings, the likelihood of their having children, how Mirren spent her time while Will was away. I tried several times to intervene, seeking answers of my own, but Ewan turned my queries aside with ease and virtually ignored me, focusing all his attention solicitously upon my aunt while I sat silent. Not a word was said about the reasons for Will’s departure two years earlier.

  Eventually, though it was still daylight outside, her ladyship announced that she would soon retire to bed, but had no doubt that Ewan and I would have much we wanted to talk about without the constraints of an old woman’s presence. We stood and bowed to her, and she went bustling off.

  Fergus the steward fed us royally but simply on fresh-baked bread and the broiled, succulent meat of a months-old calf that had been fattened up for the wedding feast but had broken a leg two days earlier. The meat, though fresh and tender, was bland, but Fergus had prepared a mixture of berries and fruits into a sauce that transformed its plainness into something fitting for the palate of a god, and we devoured everything he placed in front of us, washing it down with the household’s wonderful ale. Throughout the meal we talked of generalities, mutually consenting to discuss nothing of importance until the board had been cleared, Fergus had retired, and we were once more alone.

  2

  Ewan got up eventually from the table and threw two fresh logs on the big fire, then poured us both more ale and settled himself in Sir Malcolm’s large, padded armchair by the fire. I moved to join him, sitting in my aunt’s smaller chair. He was at ease, and it
was clear he had decided it was time for me to know what he knew. I can hear his voice today in my mind as clearly as I did then.

  “Right, lad. You’ve been very patient, and I thank you for it. What I have to tell you now is for your ears alone. So where do you want me to start?”

  “Where do you think? Right at the outset, from the last time I saw you two, riding away on your trip south, two years ago.”

  “We didn’t go south. Not that day.” My surprise must have been obvious on my face. “That’s right, you didn’t know, did you? Will didn’t tell you, and I couldn’t.”

  “What d’you mean, you couldn’t?”

  “I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know any more than you did. I thought we were heading southeast, too, until we reached the road and Will turned west. That’s when he told me he had changed his mind. He’d decided to take the blood price.”

  “The blood price?” “Aye. It’s an ancient judgment, a penalty levied in return for blood shed or attempted.”

  “I know what a blood price is, Ewan. I want to know about this blood price. What’s that about?”

  “Ah, well. The one he was owed. Or decided he was owed.”

  “By Graham, you mean.”

  “Aye.”

  “How did he come to that, in God’s name?”

  He twisted his mouth into a wry expression that was not quite a grin. “He didn’t. It came to him, that morning, while he was looking at the bales of wool used to buy Masses for old Graham’s passing. Will looked at those two bales and saw a ransom paid to God to redeem the soul of an old thief who should have been beyond redemption. He saw that they had come out of the son’s riches, though through someone else’s impulse, and that they would never be missed among the wealth young Graham inherited. And that set him thinking about justice and retribution and, of course, blood prices.” His voice became more reflective. “It had become clear to him, while he was standing there with you and Father Peter—and I could not fault his reasoning—that Graham’s scheming had threatened his life. Not merely his livelihood but his life itself. Had the plot succeeded, Will would have hanged and Graham would have owed an unsuspected blood price to Sir Malcolm. But it had failed, through sheerest chance, and although Will had avoided the hangman, he and I were headed into exile while Graham was walking free.” He hesitated. “Where is Graham now? And did they ever find the other fellow, the Englishman?”

  “The verderer, Tidwell.” I shook my head. “No, never. We believe he was murdered by Graham. But Graham’s dead, too.”

  “He is? Since when?”

  “Since the autumn of that year. Bruce had him hanged, for plotting murder and sedition. Uncle Malcolm sent word to you, but you were nowhere to be found.”

  “Aye, so you mentioned. Damnation. We’ve been skulking around for two years, not knowing that.” He shook his head. “Ah well, even had we known, it would ha’e made but little difference. Will had his duties to see to, on several fronts. Still, it makes me feel better just to know he’s dead. He was a nasty whoreson, that one, despite all his mild airs and seeming gentle ways. A murderous animal.”

  “So you knew nothing?”

  “How could we? We didn’t know anything after we left.”

  “Come, Ewan, that’s a weak excuse. We didn’t know where you had gone, but you knew where to find us. You could have sent home for word, failing all else. It’s been two years.”

  “We couldn’t contact you. Will didna dare. We didna know the threat had been removed. We knew only that Graham’s treachery had left Will in danger of his life, under threat from assassins. And hand in glove wi’ that went the threat of danger to his family from the same people. It was a risk Will didna want to take.”

  “All right. So instead of going east to Selkirk you went south to Jedburgh. Are you at the Abbey?”

  “No. Close by, though, on Wishart’s lands.”

  “The Bishop’s?”

  He nodded.

  “And how did you come to be there?”

  He arched an eyebrow at me. “Because that was the way things happened. We’ll get to that. Right now let me tell you what Will was thinking when first we left here.

  “He had been left with no choice but to quit his employment, his home, and his family, and to take me with him, which, as he saw it, deprived me of my livelihood as well. Nothing I could say would change his mind on that. And besides, in his eyes, he had lost his hopes of winning Mirren. He believed Hugh Braidfoot would never consent to having his daughter wed to a penniless forester who was under suspicion in a hanging crime—the selfsame man, mind, who had deprived her of a wealthy husband in the first place.”

  “But that is nonsense. Will was guilty of no crime.”

  “Under suspicion, I said. And he was. Think of it from Will’s view. He couldna bear the thought of losing Mirren. And so he decided Graham should—what were the words he used? Something he learned in school … Graham should make reparations. That was it. And I agreed with him. Still do.”

  “I see. And what were these reparations?”

  Ewan hooked one long leg over a padded arm and stretched his other foot towards the fire. “Restitution. And before you ask me, I’ll tell you. Restitution for the threat to his life in the first place and the malice that bred it. Restitution, too, for lost opportunity—to woo, wed, and live a normal life as an honest man. Restitution for lost time in which to live up to obligations to employer and charges. Restitution for monies lost in recompense for filling those obligations. And restitution for losses other than those that can’t easily be replaced—good name and reputation being first among them.” He laid his head back against his chair, watching me levelly. “I’ll tell you how we made the tally, too.” He held up one hand, forefinger extended, preparing to count the points off on his fingers, but I interrupted him.

  “We, you said. You were involved in this tallying?”

  “Of course I was. Will had seen the two bales of prime wool proffered for a year of Masses to shorten the old man’s years in Purgatory. That cleared his mind wondrously and set a value on his thoughts concerning how he had been wronged and how much he had lost thereby, in forfeiture. He would have made a canny merchant, our Will. And once I saw the way his mind was set, I helped him out. So …”

  He began to count on his fingers. “For the two major offences against him, threat of death and loss of marriage prospects, two bales each. For the loss of work, wage, and good name, one bale apiece, making seven bales in all. But then, as any good merchant will, he included his costs. He added in the costs of transportation—two wagons with teams and drivers, he thought—and covered those with two more bales, making nine altogether.”

  “You stole nine bales of wool?”

  “Nine bales of prime wool, Jamie. But we didna steal it and it wasna really nine, as things turned out. We just claimed nine as due to us. Or as owed to Will. The whole thing was”—he thought for a moment—“straightforward. Bar a few earlier arrangements.”

  I sat there immobile, my mind consumed with the thought that my cousin had become a thief and placed himself beyond the law. No wonder, then, that he had stayed away so long and that Ewan had been alert to the presence of others.

  “Tell me exactly what took place,” I said, “because all you’ve done to this point is confuse me. Start again at the beginning.”

  “It’s a gospel you want, then.” He sighed, then took a long swallow of ale. “Well, if I fall asleep in the telling, in God’s name don’t wake me.

  “It started at the main road. I made to turn right and Will went left instead, as though towards Glasgow. When I asked him where he was going, he said Kilbarchan and pointed west. I kept my mouth shut and followed him for the next while until we reached the village.

  “It’s a strange wee place, a cluster of cottages, less than ten, I think, and all the folk are weavers. The houses all have looms in them, sometimes more than one, so there’s hardly any room left for the folk to sleep. We stopped at one house a
nd asked how we would find the Graham place, and the weaver pointed out the way to us. It was another mile distant. He said we couldn’t miss it, and he was right, there it was.

  “I said Kilbarchan was a strange wee place, but Graham’s property was a strange big place. Four stone buildings in a walled enclosure. Prosperous, as you’d expect. One of the four was the main house and the other three were warehouses, we discovered. We sat on the crest, looking down at it, and counted the people moving about down there. There weren’t many. I counted eight of them, and they were all around the main house. I thought we would leave then, but Will kicked his horse forward, and we rode down.”

  He pulled thoughtfully at his ale again. “Some self-important fellow met us at the front of the house, asking to know our business. He was the household steward, but with the old man dead, he thought himself in charge of everything. Your cousin amazed me by presenting himself as a well-bred man of affairs, addressing the fellow in Latin until it became clear that the man could not understand a word. From then on, he spoke plain Scots, saying he had been sent to make inquiries by his master, Lord Ormiston of Dumfries, regarding a contract that Sir Thomas had with Alexander Graham the wool merchant for the purchase of raw wool. Told the fellow that Sir Thomas had paid in advance months earlier but that upon reaching Paisley the previous day, with the intent of taking delivery, he had been informed of the merchant’s untimely death and, not wishing to trespass upon the family’s grief, had sent us two to ask when we might return to complete our business to everyone’s satisfaction. That impressed even me—to everyone’s satisfaction.”