The Forest Laird(12)

CHAPTER TWO

1

“Now sit down, all of you, and tell me again. Will, you tell me. And this time, take your time. Tell me all of it and leave nothing out. Sit.”

Sir Malcolm Wallace’s voice was a deep, rumbling roll of sound, his mouth hidden beneath a bushy, greying beard. He was nowhere near as large as the archer Ewan, but he somehow conveyed the impression of being much larger than he was. I suspected that had more than a little to do with the fine quality of his clothing, which even I could see had been tailored to emphasize the width of his chest and shoulders. He had dropped into what was obviously his own chair by the unlit fireplace, one side of his head and upper body bathed in light from the window in the wall. Will, Ewan, and I stood in what felt to me like darkness in the middle of the large, wood-panelled room.

All three of us moved obediently to sit facing him on three straight-backed wooden chairs, and as Will cleared his throat nervously, I looked about me, noting the richness with which I was surrounded. Sir William’s house was as big and solid as its owner, built of sandstone and far more grand than the house in Ellerslie where I had lived for the past two years with his brother’s family. The room in which we now sat had two windows and housed a heavy table with eight plain wooden chairs. The room’s only other furnishings were a massive sideboard against the rear wall and a slightly smaller armchair, padded with brightly coloured cushions, that sat across the fireplace from Sir Malcolm’s. His wife, Lady Margaret, had gone to the kitchens to prepare food for us.

Will cleared his throat a second time, then launched into his tale—our tale—from the start of it on that already distant-seeming day in Ellerslie a week earlier. Sir Malcolm had already heard it once, a garbled, blurted version, but now he sat stock-still, his fingers in his beard, and listened closely. Will stumbled in his description of what the men had done to the two of us, unsure how much to say or how to phrase it, but Sir Malcolm asked no questions and sat stone-faced throughout the recitation. Only once did his eyes move from Will, and that was to gaze speculatively at Ewan Scrymgeour when Will spoke of how we had come to meet, and eventually his eyes returned to his nephew, who was already talking about the final stage of our journey, leading to our arrival here half an hour earlier. The knight waited until he was sure Will had no more to say, then turned to Ewan.

“You have my gratitude, Master Scrymgeour, but you’ll forgive me if I ask a few questions.” Ewan’s nod of agreement was barely perceptible as Sir Malcolm continued. “Forbye the tragic matter of the murders committed here, which remains to be dealt with but canna be changed, it’s clear you saved the boys from further harm and brought them safely here. But I have to ask myself why. Why would a grown man leave his life and walk away from everything he knows to help two lost and hapless stripling boys? Few men I know would do that.”

Will had said nothing at all about Ewan’s background and had left out the episode of the Ormiston slaughter, because we had decided, he and I, that we owed too much to the archer ever to name him outlaw. Ewan’s plan, which we boys had decided to subvert so we could remain with him, had been to deliver us close by Sir Malcolm’s house, then continue on his way to Selkirk Forest, where he hoped to join a band of others like himself, living in the greenwood. As it turned out, though, we had been discovered by a large group of Sir Malcolm’s own workers, who had brought us to the home farm to meet their master face to face.

“Aye, yon’s a fair question and I’ll answer it fairly.” There was no hint of subservience in Ewan’s voice. He spoke as a free man addressing an equal. The big archer flexed his fingers and sat up straight in his chair. “I buried my mother the day before we left to come here, and there was nothing to hold me there any longer. No friends, no loyalties, nothing to bind me. The boys were alone and helpless, headed for Elderslie or Paisley. I have friends in Selkirk. So it made sense to me to see them safely here in passing.”

A silence filled the room, broken only by the song of a blackbird beyond the windows. Finally Sir Malcolm nodded. “Friends in Selkirk, aye … That would be in the forest there, I’m thinking?”

Ewan dipped his head again. “Aye, Sir Malcolm. In the forest.”

Sir Malcolm rose from his chair and went to stand by the window, gazing out, his hands clasped loosely at his back. “It comes to me that I know no one in all these parts who has friends in Selkirk Forest,” he said softly. “In the town, yes. I have two friends in the town. It is a small place. But in the forest? No. The men there are … different. What did you do to earn their friendship, these men?”