The Forest Laird(71)

We sat happily and watched her as she filled our mugs and meandered away in search of other drinkers, and as she went, Ewan turned to me, waggling a finger at her departing form.

“I know you’re not a priest yet, but does that—?”

“Not even slightly,” I said, smiling at the tone in his voice as I waved his question aside. “Now tell me what Will did when he found out about this game the English were playing.”

Ewan grinned wolfishly, the girl already forgotten. “Why would you even think he might do something, a quiet lad like our Will?”

“Because that’s the way he is—quiet and shy and bashful and loath to speak his mind. Tell me, what did he do?”

“Will stripped off his green tunic and cloak and pulled on a plain homespun shirt that he borrowed from one of the men in the marketplace. Then he laid his bow case down, and I set aside my quarterstaff and picked up his instead. We left the weapons and the rest of our belongings with Nichol and his people—we’d told them what we were going to do—and we went looking for English bully boys.”

“And found them, no doubt.”

“Oh yes. On the far side of the town, away from the main road. The forest grows right to the edge of the town there—one minute you’re among buildings, the next you’re in the deep forest. Anyway, it was the right kind of place for what the English wanted. There were men-at-arms aplenty there, but most of them were archers, which surprised us at first. We found out later that they were attached to a force brought up from the Welsh borders by the English baron John de Vescy, a crony of Bishop Bek. Anyway, by the time we caught up with them, they had herded a group of locals into a clearing in the woods and were taunting them, defying them to pick up the cudgels and try their luck against an unarmed Englishman. I simply marched Will up to them, holding him by the arm as though I had taken him by force, and pushed him into the middle of the clearing.”

“Just like that? And no one challenged you?”

Ewan looked all innocence. “Why would anyone challenge me? They took me for one of themselves, dressed as they were and carrying a quarterstaff, a cased longbow, and a quiver of arrows. The only two who spoke to me did so in Welsh, and I answered them in Welsh, telling them I was a newcomer, arrived that day. Who was to doubt me? Besides, I had brought them a victim for their amusement. He stood there mute, glaring around him like an angry bull. Everyone was impressed by the size of him at first, but then they saw that he was weaponless, and none too clean, and ill dressed in a tattered old tunic, with bare, dirt-crusted legs and ruined sandals. So they dismissed him and began again as though he wasn’t there.

“But as they talked and harangued their prisoners and explained what they were proposing, he appeared to take an interest, and his interest grew until he began to nod his head and shamble about—not saying a word, mind—and gesturing with his hands to indicate that he wanted to try one of the staffs.”

“And eventually they gave in and let him,” I said.

“They did. When it was plain that no one else wanted to take up the challenge, he was their only chance for amusement. And so the party with the doctored staves came forward and dropped them on the ground, so that he could pick one. No one noticed that I stepped forward with them and dropped mine at the same time. But of course, it was not mine at all. It was Will’s, and he picked it out of the pile, peering at it as though he had never seen such a thing before, and swinging it awkwardly as though that, too, was new to him. I backed away quietly and made my way to where I could take up a covering position to guard his escape, for I knew he would soon be heading towards me, and moving quickly.

“Sure enough, I saw the biggest man among them take up his stance and prepare for Will’s blow. He was armoured heavily enough, with a metal cuirass over a quilted leather jerkin, and his arms were well guarded against injury, and it was plain from the way he swaggered up that he was prepared for what was to follow.

“Well, he was not prepared at all. Who could prepare against a hard-swung staff from Will Wallace? The blow landed like a falling tree and knocked the fool right off his feet, flying arse over end until he smashed into the nearest tree and fell unconscious. And then, before anyone could react, Will took out the two men standing next to him, with two hard chops, side to side, his staff barely moving a foot in either direction, dropping them both where they stood. The first man hit was lucky, though the blow probably cost him a few broken ribs, even with the armour. But Will broke heads that day, and three of the men he struck down stayed down for good. In all, he disabled seven men—and I mean he disabled them—before anyone could even begin to rally against him. And by the time anyone did, he was already racing towards me, the other locals scattering in all directions.