The Forest Laird(6)

“I heard all about it the next morning, and I went directly in search of her and got there just as they were going to hang her from a tree. I was too far away to stop them, too far away even to shout at them and be heard. I couldna believe what I was seein’. They put a rope around her neck and threw the other end over a high branch, and then three men gathered up the other end of the rope, meaning to run with it, hoisting her up into the air.”

He stopped talking, and I had to bite my tongue to keep still and wait, but it was Will who spoke up.

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? I used my bow and shot them a’ when they started to run, before they could hoist her off the ground. The rope burnt her neck, but they dropped her before she was even in the air. I was already running towards them. When I saw Laird William, I took a shot at him, but he was running to hide behind a tree and I took him in the shoulder. Sent him flying, but didna kill him. By the time I reached my mother there was just me and her and the three men I had killed. Everyone else had scattered.”

He drew a deep breath and blew it out mightily. “That was two years ago, the end of my life as it had been. I took my mother up on my horse with me and we escaped, but we could not go home again, for they put a price on my head for murder, for the murder of the three men and the attempted murder of Laird William. I knew they would, but by the time the word got out we were far away, my mother and I. I took her into the forest and we stayed there for a few months, but then when the hullabaloo had died down I brought her back here, close enough to her own land to be familiar, but far enough away from everywhere to be out of harm’s way.

“We hid in the woods here for a month or two longer, while I looked for a place for her to live that would be safe and comfortable, and one day I found the cave she lives in now. It’s hard to find at the best o’ times, and she’s happy enough, but the ground below the hillside at the entrance to her place is boggy, and it’s too easy to leave tracks that might be followed. That’s why I stay away most of the time.”

“Except when you think she needs more food,” I said.

“Aye, that’s right. She has a few goats that run wild but come to her call, and that gives her milk and cheese. And she grows her own small crops in the clearings among the trees. I bring her oats and fresh meat from time to time, meat that I smoke out here so that it will keep.”

“What kind of meat?”

“Deer meat. From Laird William’s deer. I’m a poacher and a thief o’ his deer. It’s thanks to him that I’m an outlaw and so I show my gratitude by killing and eating his deer.”

“What’s it like to be an outlaw?” I asked him.

The big man smiled at me and I saw his face clearly, but saw nothing ugly there now. “It’s like being sleepy. You learn to accept it and you hope it won’t last.” He nodded towards Will. “Your cousin’s asleep already. Now let’s get you both to bed. We can talk more tomorrow.”

We awoke the next morning to the sight of Ewan standing beside the fire pit, gazing down at us with what passed for a smile.

“Will you sleep all day then, you two? I’ve done an entire day’s work while you lay snoring there. Up, now, and down to the stream and wash the mess from your arses, quick. I need you to help me cut this up, and then we’re going to visit my mother, so up with you and scamper about!”

If we were bleary eyed at all, that vanished at once, for the gutted carcass of a small deer was draped on a rough cloth spread across his shoulders, its pointed hooves held together at his chest in one massive fist. We sprang from our ferny beds as he lowered the dead beast to the ground and we ran the short distance to the burn with his hectoring voice in our ears all the way.

The stream was narrower and faster than I had thought the previous night, and it swept around us in a bow, the outer edge of which followed a steep, treed bank every bit as high and sheer as the one at our backs. The only way to see the sky was by looking straight up through a narrow, open strip between the overhead branches, and I saw at once that Ewan’s camp was as safe as it could possibly be, for anyone finding it would have to do so by accident. Not even the smell of woodsmoke would betray it, for by the time the smoke reached anyone it would have been dissipated by the thick foliage on the slopes above.

The water didn’t seem as cold as it had the night before, either, and we washed the remains of Ewan’s poultice from our bodies quickly, remarking to each other that we could no longer feel the throbbing ache that had seemed interminable the day before.