The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace

Prologue

It pains me to hear people say nowadays that William Wallace died defiant, a heroic patriot, with a shout of Freedom! on his lips, because it is a lie. William Wallace died slowly and brutally in silence, to my sure knowledge, for I was there in London’s Smithfield Square that morning of August 24th in 1305, and all I heard of defiance was the final, demented scream of a broken, tortured man driven beyond endurance long before he died.

I was the last of our race to see him alive and to speak with him, the sole Scot among the crowd that watched his end and the only one there to mark and mourn his passing. I did not really see him die, though, because my eyes were screwed shut against the tears that blinded me. When I was able to breathe again and wiped my eyes to look, they were already quartering his corpse, the chief executioner proclaiming his death and holding aloft the severed head of the Scotch Ogre who had terrified all England.

Sir William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland, my friend, my blood cousin, and my lifelong nemesis, would never terrify another soul.

But, by the living God, he had terrified enough within his lifetime for his name to live on, in Scotland at least, long after his death, a grim reminder of the punishment for disloyalty, treachery, and disobedience.

As I watched the executioners dismember his remains, I accepted the reality of his death as I had accepted its inevitability two weeks earlier, when word reached me that he had been taken by Sir John Menteith and handed over to the justice of the English King. I had known that was coming—not that Menteith would arrest him, but that someone would, and soon, for William Wallace’s time had passed and he had fallen from grace in the eyes of the people he had led and inspired just a few years earlier. He had become an embarrassment; a source of discomfort to all of them; a thorny, disapproving, uncompromising reminder of all that they had fought for and then abandoned. For they had come to terms, nobles, clerics, and commoners, with England’s Edward Plantagenet, and the English King was being regally lenient, exercising forbearance towards all Scots rebels who would join his Peace, save only the outlawed traitor, Wallace. The price of that forbearance was the surrender of the brigand Wallace to Edward’s justice. Every noble, sheriff, and justiciar in the realm of Scotland was charged with the duty of apprehending the former Guardian on sight and dispatching him to London as a common criminal.

I was in England when I heard the news, bearing documents from my superior, Walter the Abbot of Paisley, to the Bishop of York and the Bishop of London. I had stopped to rest at the Priory of Reading, and there found the sole topic of conversation among the brethren to be the recent capture of Wallace. Everyone knew he would be tried summarily and executed out of hand, but the manner of his death was a matter for debate and conjecture among the jaded monks, who seldom had open cause to speculate upon such worldly things. I listened to their prattling, and thought about how different was the man I knew from the monster they were all decrying.

I resolved then and there to see him, somehow, while I was in London. I had powerful friends there among the clergy, and I promised myself that I would use them to find him wherever he was being held and, if it were possible, to visit him and offer whatever small comfort I could in his final, friendless hours among an alien people who loathed and feared him.

In the event, I had no trouble finding where he was imprisoned, for the whole city of London was agog with the news, and with the help of a trusted friend, Father Antony Latreque, Sub-abbot of Westminster, I was admitted to the prisoner’s cell on his last night, to hear his last confession.

The tears I would later shed in Smithfield Square, blinding me to his final moments, would have nothing to do with the barbarity that I was witnessing that bright, late-August morning. They would surge instead from a sudden memory of Wallace’s own tears earlier, long before dawn and before they came to lead him out to death. The sight of those tears had shaken me, for I had never seen Will Wallace weep since the day our childhood ended, and the anguish in his eyes there in his darkened cell had been as keen and unbearable as the pain he and I had endured together on that long-ago, far-off day.

He did not recognize me when I entered, for it had been four full years since he and I had last seen each other. He saw only a cowled priest accompanying a portly, mitred Abbot. The jailer had seen the same thing, ignoring the priest while he whined to the Abbot about his orders to permit the prisoner no visitors.

"We are not visitors, Abbot Antony replied disdainfully. We are of Holy Mother Church and our presence marks a last attempt to make this felon repent the error of his ways and confess himself before God. Now provide us with some light and open up this door."

The fellow slouched away to bring each of us a freshly lit torch, then unlocked the heavy door, set his shoulder to it, and pushed it open. My first glance showed me a broad, flagstoned floor, dimly lit by one flickering flambeau in an iron sconce on the left wall. I saw no sign of the prisoner, but he spoke before we had crossed the threshold, his words accompanied by a single brief clash of chains.

I need none of your English mouthings, Priest, so get you gone and take your acolyte with you. He spoke in Latin, and the Abbot turned to me, brows raised in surprise. I merely gestured with a cupped hand, bidding him continue as we had rehearsed. The Latin was no surprise to me, although I had not thought to speak of it to my companion earlier. Wallace and I had learned the tongue together as students at the same Paisley Abbey that was now my home.

Abbot Antony spoke to the prisoner as we had agreed, but now in Latin.

I have heard of your hatred for all things English, William Wallace, but although I deplore both that and your wilful intransigence, I find myself constrained, through simple Christian charity, to offer you the benefit of God’s sacraments in the hope that, in the end, His clemency will absolve you of your many sins.

Seek your own people, then, Priest, beginning with your King, and absolve them, for their sins are greater than mine have ever been. The voice was flinty with scorn. Shrive you the slaughterers who slew my family and friends. Pray with the drunken animals who raped me and savaged my people. Mumble a Mass with your grasping earls and barons, who despoiled my home and sought to rip it asunder to sate their own lusts for land and power. But leave me to my God. He knows my sins and what drove me to commit them. I need no English translator to poison my words before they reach God’s ears.

They were not the exact words I had expected, but I had estimated precisely the tone and content. Abbot Antony was mortified, and it showed clearly on his face. To hear such venom in a single voice, directed not merely at him but at his entire Church and his people, left the poor man speechless, but not addled. I had warned him that he might hear appalling things when he confronted this prisoner, and so he pulled himself together quickly and returned to the script we had prepared against the risk that others might hear us.

I had heard, Antony said, that you were obdurate in your hatred of my kind, but it is my Christian obligation as a man of God to do all in my power to help you towards salvation. And so… He hesitated. And so I have taken pains to bring you an intermediary, twixt you and God, to whom you may speak in your own tongue. Father James is of your folk. I will leave him to commune with you and hear your confession.

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 that he was squinting to see me better.

What is a Scots priest doing here?

His duty, Antony answered, comforting the afflicted. Will you speak with him? If so, I will leave the two of you alone.

Wallace shrugged, the movement 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 turned away towards the still-open door. I heard him speak to the jailer outside, and then the man hauled at the massive door until it scraped shut, leaving me alone with the prisoner. Where am I from? I am from Paisley, from the Abbey. Do you not know me, Will?

The shadowy figure straightened up as though he had been struck. "Jamie? Jamie Wallace? 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 stepped forward to embrace him, but as the light from my torch fell upon him I stopped short. What kind of barbarism is this?

He grinned at me and drew himself up to his full, imposing height. D’ye no’ ken, he said in our own tongue, 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 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 humour 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. The girdle was fastened right and left to short lengths of chain that 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 chains from the belt were of different lengths, ensuring that he could only hang tilted to one side.

How long have you been held 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. I lowered my torch, looking down at his 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, danglin’ frae 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…

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

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. I’d gi’e anything to hear the birds singin’ to welcome the dawn in the Tor Wood one last time. He snorted. "But I hae nothin’ now to gi’e, and we’re a long way frae Ettrick Forest."

And at that moment, a miracle occurred.

Somewhere beyond the high, barred window above our heads, a bird began to sing, and the clarity and volume of the sound stunned both of us into silence. 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.

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

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, and I could see the tension drain from him. Eventually he allowed his weight to settle slightly into his restraints. Aye, he murmured. It is that, a thing o’ wonder.

I have no idea how long we stood there listening to it before the silence of the night returned.

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

Your guess would be as good as mine. But he answered your wish. That was like a miracle.

Aye… He stood gazing into nothingness. D’ye remember that day in Dalfinnon Woods, Jamie, before they caught us? Remember we hid from them, amang the brambles on our hands and knees? It was so quiet and we listened so hard for the sounds o’ them comin’ and then the only thing we could hear was a lintie singin’ in a tree above our heids? God, yon bird could sing. Like a lintie, they say—he could sing like a lintie. But unless you kent what a lintie sounded like, you’d never be able to tell if that was true or no’. It was wee Jenny who tell’t me that day that the bird was a lintie, for I didna ken. How was I to know? Poor wee Jenny… He squeezed his eyes shut and flicked his head.

Seven, she was, and yon big English whoreson killed her wi’ a flick o’ his wrist. Didna even look at what he’d done, didna even turn his heid to see. Just cut her wee, thin neck the way ye would a stoat. Jesus, Jamie, I saw that in my dreams for years, her head rollin’ and bouncin’ like a bairn’s ba’ kicked into the bushes, its mouth open and its eyes wide, as if she was wonderin’ what had happened. What they did to you and me afterwards was cause enough to hate them a’ and want to see them deid, but poor wee Jenny…

He straightened up again, leaning his shoulders back against the wall, and reverted to Latin. His name was Percy, did you know that? The man who killed Jenny? William Percy. Some base-born relative of the English Earl. I met him again, years later, after Stirling Bridge, when I recognized him among the prisoners. He didn’t know me, but I had carried his face in my mind ever since that day. I hanged him by the heels and reminded him what he had done to us, and to my little sister. He denied everything, but he could not deny the scar that had marked his face that day and marked it still. I spilt his guts with my dirk and let them hang down over his face, and when he stopped screaming I cut off his head. Not as cleanly as he had cut off Jenny’s, though, for it took me three blows, because of the way he was hanging.

I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the image he had conjured.

"England has had ample cause to rue that day’s work in Dalfinnon Woods. And this new day will bring an end o’ it, when they hang me up and draw my guts the way I cut out his.

"Some people—Archbishop Lamberton was one—have asked me why I hate the Englishry so much, but I have had so many reasons that I’ve never been able to answer any of them. Christ knows we Scots have never had far to look for reasons to despise these people’s cruelty and arrogance, but that day in Dalfinnon Woods has much to do with all of it. Bad enough that they had already killed my mother and father that morning. But what they did to us in that wood, that earned them my true hatred—as strong today as it was then.

But you forgave them, Jamie, where I never could and never wanted to. He shook his head in perplexity. How could you do that, after what they did to you that day? You forgave them, and I never doubted your sincerity. But I never understood it either. We grew closer after that, we two, but then our ways parted. You took up the Cross and I took up the bow. And yet we remained friends, even while you disapproved of me and everything I did.

I held up my hand to stop him. I seldom disapproved of what you stood for, Will, or what you wanted to achieve. It was the how of it, not the why, that caused me pain. I lauded your objectives, but I deplored the savagery in your achieving them.

Savagery…Aye. But only a fool would turn the other cheek to enemies whom he knew would kill him dead for doing so. Or think you that the English are not savages?

What we saw in Dalfinnon Woods was depravity, Will, committed by a gang of drunken men. They might as easily have been Scots, but for the grace of God.

They were English, Jamie.

Aye, and they were drunk. No man improves with drink. But to hold their crimes, bad as they were, against all England and all Englishmen makes no kind of sense to me.

Well, it’s too late now to argue over it.

Tell me about Cressingham.

Cressingham? My question plainly surprised him, for he cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment. Cressingham was an idiot—a strutting, sneering fool. The most hated Englishman in Scotland.

Aye, but he was also your prisoner, after Stirling Fight. Did you really skin him alive to have a sword belt made for yourself?

He flinched. No, as God is my judge! That is the talk of jealous enemies. I was nowhere near the place when he was killed.

But he was killed. And flayed alive before that.

Aye, he was. It’s one of the reasons they’re going to hang me as a felon. Retribution, they say. But I was not there, and I knew nothing of it until the murder was done. I had too much on my mind that day, after the battle and with Andrew Murray sorely wounded, to pay attention to what my malcontents were up to. But the responsibility was mine, as leader. That lies beyond argument and I accept it.

I turned away, thinking to lecture him about appearances and guilt by association, but when I swung back to face him I found his eyes awash with tears, and the sight turned my self-righteous words to ashes in my mouth. William Wallace had never been known to weep over anything. That was part of his legend among the wild, ungovernable men he had led for so long. But he was weeping now, unashamedly, the tears running down his cheeks and into the thicket of his matted beard.

What is it, Will? What’s wrong? Silly, futile questions, I knew.

He raised up his head and looked directly at me. Was I wrong, Jamie? Have I been a fool, all these years?

I could only gape at him.

I did but what my conscience told me, and I did it for our poor, sad land and for our folk. I knew I had no skill for it and no right to do it, and I set down the Guardian’s flag after Falkirk, when that became plain to all. But the folk were crying with need, and they were never going to find support among Scotland’s nobles. And so I stepped in and agreed to be Guardian, at Wishart’s urging—Wishart and others, the Lords of Scotland’s Church. They, at least, stood loyal to King and realm when the great lords were scrabbling solely for themselves. And so I led them, the Scots folk, against all those who would grind them down—Scots magnates and English parasites—led them to victory at Stirling with Andrew Murray, and then to slaughter at Falkirk. And after that, I walked away and left others to direct the path of the realm.

"There were no others to direct it, Will. You were God’s anointed for the post, and the Falkirk defeat was not your doing. You should have stayed."

"Shite! It was my doing, Jamie. Andrew Murray would never have let what happened there take place. He would have found a way to make it work. His death after Stirling Bridge was Scotland’s greatest loss, and mine. And what would I have done, had I stayed? Led another thousand men to death in some other slaughter? No, Jamie, no…"

He cleared his throat and pressed his shoulders back against the wall in search of comfort. I could not do that, not after what I’d learned, watching those whoreson horsemen run away, fleeing the field and leaving us behind like beasts for the slaughter. Scotland’s pride! Faugh! That travesty at Falkirk taught me that Scotland will never be free until her own lords and magnates decide to turn themselves around, till they see that their own freedom, their personal honour—and few of them have any of that left, in the eyes of the folk—must be torn from England. As long as they sit on their arses arguing, giving more time and thought to the welfare of their lands in England than they do to matters at home, Scotland will be a wasteland, its folk slaughtered by the nobility on both sides while their magnates make bargains for their own enrichment.

Come, Will, it’s not that bleak. There are some among the nobility who show great loyalty to the realm.

"Aye, but damn few and nowhere near enough. The others are loyal to themselves alone. I saw it clear that day at Falkirk, and that’s when I knew I could stand no more. I washed my hands clean of the whole mess, like Pontius Pilate, and it turns out they hated me for it. And so now I am to die when the sun rises and I ask myself—No, that’s not true, Jamie. I ask you, was I mistaken in the path I chose?"

He stood up straight and rattled the chains on his arms, looking down at them before he raised his tormented eyes to me. Did I wrong Scotland? God knows, I have committed sins aplenty in the eyes of men like yourself, and none of them have bothered me since I saw my duty clear ahead of me. But it would grieve me now to think I had been wrong for all these years, or that I had shirked my duty in the end. He lapsed from the churchly Latin back into Scots. Ye’ve never lied to me, Jamie. Ye’ve confronted me, ye’ve shouted at me and defied me, but ye hae never lied to me. So tell me now. Have I been wrong?

I cannot answer that, Will. Only God can. Tell me, are you afraid of what they will do to you?

He raised his eyebrows. The executioners? Are ye daft? Of course I am. They’re gaun to kill me, Jamie, to gut me and cut me into bits, and I’m no’ like to enjoy any part o’ it. God knows I’m no’ feared to die, though. There were times, right after Falkirk, when I would ha’e welcomed death, frae any quarter, and every day God sent for years prior to that, I thought to die in one tulzie or another. It’s no’ the dyin’ that worries me, it’s the manner o’ it, for I wouldna like to die badly, bawlin’ like a bairn that’s had his arse skelped. Will you be there?

You mean among the crowd? No, God forbid. Suffice that I’m here now.

Would you come if I asked you to, Jamie? To be there as my witness? There’ll be naebody else.

To watch you die? That’s something I have no desire to see, Will.

Aye, but no’ just to see it—to bear witness to it afterwards. An’ forbye, your being there wad stop me frae girnin’ an’ makin’ a fool o’ mysel’.

It was easy to smile at that, I found.

I think there’s little chance o’ that, Will. No Guardian of Scotland was ever any man’s fool.

Aye, but I failed as Guardian. He gazed at me soberly. Will ye come, for me?

I closed my eyes and then nodded. I will, Sir William. I will be your witness, and I will honour your trust and be honoured by it. Will you confess yourself now? Are you prepared for that?

His slow nod of agreement lifted a weight from my soul.

Aye, Father James, I will. I’m ready…both to talk to God and to meet Him.

And so I stood in Smithfield Square and bore silent witness to the death of the man whom I believe to have been Scotland’s greatest and most loyal son. He was thirty-five years old, two years my senior. I remember, because that day was my thirty-third birthday, and almost as many have gone by again since then.

Young Robert Bruce, the Earl of Carrick, seized the throne the following year, in 1306, and over the course of the next two decades ousted the English finally from Scottish soil and built a single, unified country out of a feudal chaos. He it was who brought our land the unity, peace, and prosperity of which my cousin William had dared to dream.

But it was not until recently, when these new rumours of The Wallace’s heroic and defiant death began to circulate, that I recalled Will’s insistence that I serve as his witness and speak out on his behalf. It had not entered his mind that he might be lionized; he was concerned about being defamed and demeaned in death. And now the opposite is happening, and that strikes me as being even more ominous than his dying fears. He is being recreated, and falsely, by people who seek to use his greatness for their own ends.

And so, the time has come for me to write of the William Wallace I knew, for the man these empty rumours would put in his place is painted in false and garish colours, portraying a hero of the ancients, without sin, without flaw, without remorse, and, worst of all, without the beguiling, infuriating mixture of lovable strength and deplorable faults that made my cousin Will the man he was.

Chapter One

1

Even now, when more than fifty years have passed, I find it difficult to imagine a less likely paladin. Yet paladin he was, to us, for he saved our lives, our sense of purpose, and our peace of mind, restoring our shattered dignity when we were at our lowest depth. Possibly the least attractive-looking man I ever saw, he quickly became one of the strongest anchors of my young life. But on that first evening when he startled us from an exhausted sleep, we saw only the monstrous, green-framed, and hairless face of a leering devil looming over us.

We were gibbering with terror, both of us, and our fear was real, because for two full days we had been running in terror, uphill and down, stumbling and falling and blinded with tears and grief, sobbing and incoherent most of the time and utterly convinced we would be caught and killed at any moment by the men pursuing us. We had no notion of the miles falling behind us or the distance we had covered. We knew only that we had to keep running. At times, rendered helpless by exhaustion, we had stopped to rest, huddling together in whatever place we had found that offered a hint of concealment, but we never dared stop for long, because the men hunting us had legs far longer than ours and they knew we could condemn them for the crimes we had seen them commit. And so, as soon as we could find the strength to run for our lives again, we ran. We drank whenever we found a stream, but we dared not stop to hunt or fish. We could not even steal food, because we fled through open country, avoiding people and places that might house our pursuers.

We had arrived at the top of a long moorland gradient and crouched there behind a tall clump of bracken ferns, looking back down the way we had come and astonished to discover that we could see for miles and that no one was chasing us. We strained our eyes for signs of movement on the sloping moor, but all we saw were hares and what might have been a wild boar, more than a mile below us. We finally accepted that no ravening murderers were hunting us.

Ahead of us, the hillside swept gently down for half a mile towards a grassy plain that was bounded on the right by the deep-cut, tree-filled gully of a mountain stream.

Will pointed towards the trees. We’ll go down there. No one will see us there and we can sleep.

As we set off, I felt myself reeling drunkenly, unable to think of anything except the fact that we would soon be able to sleep. It was late afternoon by then, and the sun was throwing our shadows far ahead of us. The grass beneath our feet was short and cropped here, and the going was easy. We soon reached the edge of the defile and jumped down into the first depression we found, a high-sided, grass-filled hollow enclosed by the tops of the trees that stretched up from below us in the steep, sheltered cleft. Within moments we were both asleep.

How long we slept I do not know. But something struck my foot, and I opened my eyes to see the most hideous face I had ever seen, glaring down at me, and I screamed, startling Will awake and sending us both scrambling to escape up the steep bank behind us, but the monster caught us easily, snatching me up to tuck me beneath one arm while pinning Will to the ground with a massive, booted foot. He silenced us with a mighty bellow of what I took to be raging blood lust, and then he thrust me down to huddle at his feet, after which he stepped back a pace and eyed both of us together. I reached out for Will and he squeezed my hand tightly, and we both prepared for the mutilation and death the apparition would surely visit upon us. But then the gargoyle turned its back on us, and we heard it speak.

I thought you were thieves at first, bent upon robbing me. I was far away from you and thought you men.

It was a strange voice, unexpectedly gentle, and the words were carefully articulated. He spoke in Scots, but with an alien lilt. We knew not what to think, and, still gripped by terror, stared at each other wild-eyed. Now that the giant’s back was to us, though, I was able to see that there was nothing supernatural about him. From behind, he was a man like any other, though enormous in his bulk. It was only when he faced you squarely that you saw him as hideous. He was dressed from head to foot in shades of green, his head concealed by a hooded cap that was a part of his tunic, and as I watched now, my heart beginning to slow down, he reached up and tugged, it appeared, at his forehead.

When he turned back to us, his face was covered by a mask of green cloth that he must have pulled down from his hooded cap. It was drawn tight beneath what chin he had, its only openings three ragged-edged holes, one for breathing and one for each eye. The right eye gleamed at me from its opening.

There, he said. That’s better, no?

Better? My voice was no more than a squeak.

My face. It’s one to frighten children. So I keep it hidden—most of the time. He tilted his head so he could look at Will. So now that I can tell ye’re no’ here to rob me, I have some questions to ask you. He bent suddenly and grasped my ankle and I stiffened with fear, but all he did was twist it gently and pull it up so he could look at the back of my leg. Your legs are covered wi’ dried blood, caked with it. And so are yours, he added, nodding at Will. Why just your legs, and why just the backs of them?

You know fine well. Will’s voice was little louder than my own, but I could hear defiance in it. You did it—you and your friends. Used us like women…like sheep.

"I did what? The giant stood for a moment, opening and closing one massive, craggy fist, and then he quickly stooped and grasped Will’s ankle as he had mine. Lie still, he growled as Will started to kick. I’ll no’ hurt you."

I had tensed, too, at his sudden move, ready to hurl myself to Will’s defence, but then I remained still, sensing that there was no malice now in the man’s intent. And so I watched as he flipped Will over to lie face down, then pinned him in place with a hand between his shoulders while he pulled up the hem of my cousin’s single garment, exposing his lower back and buttocks and the ravages of what had been done to him. I had not seen what now lay exposed to me, for neither of us had spoken of what had happened, but I knew that what I was seeing was a mirror image of my own backside. I vomited painfully, hearing the giant say again, Lie still, lad, lie still.

When I finished wiping my mouth they were both watching me, Will sitting up, ashen faced, and the giant leaning back, his shoulders against the steep bank at his back.

Sweet Jesus, our captor said, in what we would come to know as his curious soft-edged and sometimes lisping voice. Listen to me now, both of you. I know the sight of me frightened you. That happens often and I’ve grown used to it. But know this as well. I had no part in what was done to you, and no friend of mine would ever do such a thing. I know not who you are, nor where you came from, and I never saw you before you came across that ridge up there. He flicked a finger at Will. When did this happen?

Yesterday. Will’s voice was a whisper.

When? Daytime or night?

Daytime. In the morning.

Where?

At home, near Ellerslie.

"Near Ellerslie? That’s in Kyle, is it no’?"

Will nodded. Aye, near Ayr.

Carrick land. Bruce country. But that’s thirty miles and more from here. How did you get here?

We ran.

"You ran? Thirty miles in two days? Bairns?"

Aye, we ran, Will snapped. They were chasing us. Sometimes we hid, but mostly we ran.

Who was chasing you?

The ones who—The ones who murdered my father, Alan Wallace of Ellerslie. And my mother. My wee sister Jenny, too. Now the tears were pouring down Will’s cheeks, etching clean channels through the caked-on dirt.

Christ! The green mask swung back to face me. And who are you? His brother?

I shook my head, feeling the tears trembling in my own eyes. No, I’m his cousin Jamie, from Auchincruive. I came to live with Will when my family all died of the fever, two years ago.

Aha. He looked back at Will. Your name’s Will Wallace?

William.

Ah. William Wallace, then. My name is Ewan Scrymgeour. Archer Ewan, men call me. You can call me Ewan. So tell me then, exactly, what happened yesterday to start all this.

It was a good thing he asked Will that and not me, for I had no idea what had happened. Everything had been too sudden and too violent, and all of it had fallen on me like a stone from a clear blue sky. Will, however, was two years older, and more than accustomed to being able to think for himself, since he had been taught for years, by both his parents, that knowledge and the ability to read and write are the greatest strengths a free man can possess. Will came from a clan of fighting men and women, as did I, but his father’s branch of our family had a natural ability for clerical things, and two of his uncles, as well as several of his cousins, were monks.

They were Englishmen, Will said, his voice still low, his brow furrowed as he sought to recall the events.

"Englishmen? They couldn’t have been. There are no English soldiery in Scotland."

"I saw them! And I heard them talking. But I could tell from their armour even before I heard them growling at each other."

Jesus, that makes no kind of sense at all. We have no war with England and they have no soldiers here. Unless they were deserters, come north in search of booty and safety. But if that’s the case, they’d have been safer to stay in England. King Alec’s men will hunt them down like wolves. How many were there?

Ten on foot and a mounted knight in command of them. He had a white thing on his surcoat. A turret or a tower. Some kind of castle.

And what happened?

I don’t know. Will wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. We were down by the old watchtower hunting squirrels, Jamie and me. We heard the noise and ran to see what was happening and we met my sister Jenny running away. She was witless, out o’ her mind wi’ terror. She couldna speak, didna even try. She just wailed, keenin’ like an old wife at a death. I knew something terrible had happened. So I left her there wi’ Jamie and ran to see. He fell silent, staring into emptiness, and a bleak look settled on his face.

They were all dead, he said in a dulled voice I’d never heard before, scattered in the gate yard. Jessie the cook, Angus the groom. Timothy and Charlie and Roddy and Daft Sammy. All dead…split open and covered in blood an’… He sobbed then, a single, wrenching sound. My da was sitting against the wall by the door with his head to one side and his eyes wide open, and I thought he was just lookin’ at them, but then I saw the blood on him, too, all down his front…And then I saw that his head was almost off, hangin’ to one side. My mother was beside him, lyin’ on her face, wi’ a big spear sticking up between her shoulders. I could see her bare legs, high up. I’d never seen them before. He hiccupped and shuddered. The ones alive were a’ strangers, what the English call men-at-arms, a’ wearin’ helmets and jerkins and mail, forbye a knight on a horse. The men were a’ talkin’ and laughin’, but the knight was just sittin’ on his horse, cleanin’ his sword on something yellow. And then one o’ them saw me watchin’ and gave a shout and I ran as fast as I could back to where I’d left Jamie and Jenny.

When he stopped this time, I thought he would say no more.

What happened then? Archer Ewan prodded.

What?

What happened after you ran back to Jamie and your sister?

Oh…We ran back the way we had come, but I had to carry Jenny and they caught us near the old watchtower. Five o’ them. One o’ them killed Jenny. Chopped off her head and didna even look at what he’d done. He was watchin’ Jamie, wi’ a terrible look on his face. And then they…they did what they did to us and then they tied us up and left us there, in some bushes against the tower wall. They said they’d be back.

How did you escape? You did, didn’t you?

Will nodded. Aye. I kept a wee knife for skinnin’ squirrels under a stone by the tower door, close by where they left us. Jamie was closer to it than me, so I told him to get it for me. He rolled over and got it, then he crawled back, holdin’ it behind his back, and I took it and managed to cut his wrists free. It took a long time. Then he cut the ropes on his legs and set me loose. And then we ran.

And are you sure they chased you?

Will looked up at the giant in surprise. Oh, aye, they chased us, and they would ha’e caught us, too, except that there was a thunderstorm and you could hardly see through the rain and the dark. But we knew where we were going and they didna. So we gave them the slip and kept movin’ into the woods, deeper and deeper until we didna even know where we were. We ran all day. Then when it got dark we slept for a wee while and then got up and ran again. But they found our tracks and we could hear them comin’ after us, shoutin’ to us to gi’e up, for a long time.

Hmm. The big man sat mulling that for a time, studying each of us closely with his one good eye, and I began to fear that he doubted all that Will had said, even though he must surely see our terror and exhaustion were real. Well, he said eventually, all that matters is that you escaped and you’re here now and well away from them. Who were they working for, do you know?

Will frowned. "Who were they workin’ for? They werena workin’ for anybody. They were Englishmen! There’s no Englishmen in Carrick. The men there are all Bruce men. My da’s been the Countess o’ Carrick’s man all his life. He’s fierce proud o’ that."

Aye, no doubt. Then if you’re right, and they were Englishry, they must have been deserters, as I jaloused. Either that or your father must have crossed someone important. And powerful. Was he rich?

My da? Will blinked. No, he wasna rich. But he wasna poor, either. We’ve a fine herd o’ cattle.

That might have been what they were after. But whether yea or nay, those cattle winna be there now. He sighed loudly and then clapped his hands together. Fine, then, here’s what we’re going to do. I have a camp close by, down at the bottom of the gully, by the stream. We’ll go down there, where there’s a fine, sheltered fire, and I’ll make us a bite to eat, and then you two can wash yourselves in the burn and I’ll show you how to make a bed of bracken ferns. In the morning we’ll decide what you should do from here onwards. Away with you now.

2

The water was frigid, but the rushing coldness of it against my heated body was intense enough to dull the worst of the searing pain in my backside. I gritted my eight-year-old teeth and grimly set about washing away the evidence of my shame and the sin I had endured. I could hear Will splashing close by, and hear his muttered curses, for he ever had a blazing, blistering way with words. When I could feel that my legs and buttocks were clean again, I did a brave thing. I knelt in the stream, bending forward to splash water over my face and head and scrub at both until I felt they too must be clean.

I’m finished, Will called to me as I was shaking the water from my hair, and we made our way together back towards the bank, stooped forward and fumbling with outstretched hands for river stones that could trip us.

Ewan’s campfire was well concealed in a stone-lined pit, but we could see the glow of it reflected up into the branches overhead, and soon we were sitting beside it, each wrapped in one of the two old blankets he had tossed to us with a single rough cloth towel on our return.

Eat, he said, and brought each of us a small tin pot of food. I have no idea what it contained, other than the whipped eggs that held it together, but there was delicious meat in there, in bite-sized pieces, and some kind of spicy root that might have been turnip. He had something else cooking, too, in a shallow pan, but it had nothing to do with what we ate that night. He had raised his mask and tucked it back into his hood, perhaps so that he could see better, and was carefully keeping his back to us as he worked. The stuff in the pan was a soggy, black mess of plants and herbs mixed with some kind of powder that he shook liberally into it from a bag he pulled out of a pocket in his tunic. He kept the mixture simmering over the coals in a tiny amount of water, stirring it with a stick and testing its heat with a finger from time to time—though I noticed he never tasted it—until he removed it from the heat and set it aside to cool. Still keeping his back to us while Will and I gorged ourselves on our stew, he then set about ripping up what I took to be a good shirt, tearing it into two large pieces and a number of long, thin strips. Will and I watched his every move, chewing avidly and wondering what he was about.

Will cleared his throat. Can I ask you something?

The big man glanced up, the ruined side of his face masked in shadow. Aye, ask away.

What kind of eggs are these? They’re good.

A mixture, but four of them were duck eggs. The rest were wild land fowl—grouse and moorhen.

Are you not having any?

I had mine earlier, while you bathed.

Will nodded, then said, You don’t have to hide your face now. We’re no’ afraid any more.

Ewan’s face creased into what I thought might be a smile. Are you sure about that?

Aye, we’re sure. Aren’t we, Jamie?

Aye, we’re sure, right enough. Then, emboldened by my youth and the sudden realization that I truly was not afraid of this strange man, I asked, What happened to it? Your face.

The giant drew in a great breath. How old are you, William Wallace?

Ten.

Well, then, when I was a boy just two years older than you are now, I got hit in the face by a mace. You know what a mace is?

Aye, it’s a club.

It is. A metal-headed club. And it broke my whole face and knocked out my eye and all my teeth on the one side.

Who did it?

I don’t know. It was early in a battle, at a place called Lewes, in Sussex in the south of England. He went on to tell us about how he had gone, as an apprentice boy to a Welsh archer, to join the army of King Henry, the third of that name, in his war against his rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort. The present King of England, Edward I, Ewan said, had been a prince then, and had commanded the cavalry and archers on the right of King Henry’s battle line, on the high ground above Lewes town, but the enemy, under Simon de Montfort himself, had surprised them from the rear after a daring night march and won control of the heights after a short and vicious fight. In that early-morning skirmish before the battle proper, young Ewan’s company of archers, running to take up new positions, had been caught in the open and ridden down by a squadron of de Montfort’s horsemen, one of whom struck Ewan down in passing.

So if you missed the battle, I said, why do they call you Archer Ewan?

Because that’s what I am. An archer, trained lifelong on the longbow. They left me for dead on that field, but I wouldna die. And when I recovered I went back to my apprenticeship. I had lost a year and more of training by then, but my apprentice master was my uncle, too. He took me back into his care and I learned well, despite having lost my eye. It changes your sight, you know, having but one eye. He made a grunting sound that might have been a self-deprecating laugh. I adapted to it quickly, though, and learned very well, for I had little else left to divert me from my work. Where other lads went chasing after girls, I found my solace in my bow and in learning the craft of using it better than any other man I knew.

He picked up the pan that he’d set by the fireside earlier, testing its heat again with the back of a finger. There, this is ready.

I watched closely as he folded each of the two large pieces of torn shirt into four and then carefully poured half of the mixture in the pan onto each of the pads he had made. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of it.

"What is that?"

It’s a nostrum.

What’s a nostrum?

A cure, made from natural things. This one is a poultice made of burdock leaves and herbs and a special mixture of dried things given me by my mother, who is a famous healer. Usually poultices have to be hot, but this one needn’t be. It’s for you. He glanced up to see how I reacted to that, but I merely stared at the nostrum. There’s one for each of you. What we’ll do is put them into the crack of your arses, where the pain is worst, and bind them into place with those long strips. Then you’ll sleep with them in place, and come morning, you should both be feeling better. You might not be completely without pain by then, but the worst of it will be bye. Now, let’s get them on. They’re cool now, so they’ll not burn you.

Will and I eyed each other fearfully, acutely mindful of what had happened last time a man had come near our backsides, but the big archer was patient and unmistakably concerned for us, and so we suffered the indignity of allowing him to set the things in place and tie them securely. It felt revolting, but I imagined very soon afterwards that the pain of my ravaged backside was subsiding, and I sat still, enjoying the heat from the replenished fire and leaning against Will, who was looking around at the archer’s camp.

I looked then, too, and noticed that what I had thought must be a purely temporary place had signs of permanence about it. The fire pit was well made, its stones blackened with age and soot, and there were several stoutly made wooden boxes, or chests, that looked too solid to be picked up and carried away by one man on a single journey. I peered more closely into the dimness and saw that they were fitted into recesses in the hand-cut bank that ringed the campfire and provided us with seats, and that their sides were hinged and could be closed by a latch.

Do you live here all the time? Will had voiced the question in my mind.

No, Ewan said. But I spend a lot of time here. My mother lives close by.

Why don’t you stay wi’ her?

Because she lives in a cave. Then, seeing the astonishment on our faces, he added, I stay away because I don’t want to leave signs of my being there. I only go to see her when I think she’ll need more food. To go too often would be dangerous.

Why?

The big archer gave a snort of indignation. Because someone might see me coming or going, and if they did they might search and find my mother. And if they find her they’ll kill her.

The enormity of that left us speechless, and Will, having seen his own mother killed mere days before, wiped at his eyes, suddenly brimming with tears. It was left