The Forest Laird(8)

He laughed again. “I was born bald, young Jamie. And I have never grown a single hair anywhere on my body. Look.”

He stretched out a hand towards me, exposing the skin on his forearm. It was perfectly smooth, tanned, and heavily corded with muscle but innocent of any trace of hair.

“No hair at all?” I asked.

“Not a single strand. That’s another reason for the mask, and the hood. My bare head makes me too easy to notice. Folk will remember a hooded, masked outlaw, but they won’t be able to describe him. But a bald and beardless man is another matter altogether.”

My mind raced to absorb what he had said. “Did you not wear a hood, then, before you were an outlaw?”

“No, why would I? I didna need one. I had no reason to fear people knowing who I was. I had nothing to hide and nothing to protect. But that’s all different now. And what about you two? Where will you go next?”

“I don’t know,” Will said quietly. He had been listening closely to our conversation. “I think we ought to go and see the Countess.”

“The Countess? In Kyle? That’s back where you came from, thirty miles away. How will you get there? And what will you do when you are there? Have you other kin close by?”

“No. There was only us, and Jamie’s folk in Auchincruive, but they’re all dead, too. I ha’e two brothers, but Malcolm’s training to be knighted and John was knighted two years ago and they’re both with the Bruce forces, somewhere in Annandale. I don’t know how to find them, to let them know what’s happened. But they’ll ha’e to be told. But that leaves just Jamie and me.”

“And ye’ve no other kin anywhere?”

Will shrugged. “Oh aye. There’s my father’s brother Malcolm. The one my brother’s named for. He lives in Elderslie, near Paisley.”

The big archer blinked. “Ellerslie and Elderslie? There’s two places with the same name?”

“They’re no’ exactly the same,” Will answered. “They just sound the same. I don’t think there’s any connection.”

“Except they both ha’e knightly tenants called Wallace.”

“My father wasna a knight, but my uncle Malcolm is. He has lands there, and a house.”

“And how did he and your father get along? Are they friends?”

“I … think so. They’re brothers, and I know they like each other. Or liked each other …” His voice faltered only slightly, but he ploughed ahead. “And I’ve another two uncles, or an uncle and a cousin, close by there. At least I think they’re close by. Peter and Duncan Wallace. My mother talks—talked about them a’ the time. They’re both at Paisley Abbey, one a priest, the other a monk.”

Ewan sat up straight. “Then you have a whole clan there, in this Elderslie, even if they be all men. Are there no women there?”

Will shrugged. “I think so. My uncle Malcolm has a wife called Margaret.”

“That’s where you should go, then, to your kinsmen there. There’s nothing left for you where you came from. The Countess would not let you run your farm yourselves, two young boys, mere bairns. And besides, if the men who killed your family found out you were back, they’d finish what they started. I think the two o’ you should go to Paisley, to your kin in the Abbey. They’ll take you to this Elderslie place.”

“But Paisley’s miles away,” I said, hearing the dismay in my own voice, and Ewan swung his big head to look at me.

“Miles away? God bless you, laddie, it’s a lot closer than the place you came from. That’s thirty miles and more back, but Paisley’s less than twenty miles from here.”

I looked to Will, but he just shook his head, as ignorant as I was, and big Ewan took that as a sign that he was right.

“That’s what we’ll do, then,” he said, his voice filled with certainty. “My mother will find you something to wear, to cover your bare arses, and she’ll wrap up some food for you. And then she’ll tell you the best way to go and we’ll set you on the road. You’ll see, it will be easy, and you’ll be in Elderslie in no time, chapping at your uncle’s door.”

3

From that day onwards, each time I have heard that kind of certainty in someone’s voice, I have held my breath and braced myself for the worst that could happen, for the days that followed were far from being easy for any of us.

It began that afternoon as we reached the base of the low, forested range of hills that Ewan told us contained his mother’s cave. The land there was heavily treed, but there were great stretches of open meadow too, dotted with dense copses in the low-lying lands in the approach to the hills, and they were home to herds of deer. We had been walking for almost three hours on a rambling route, skirting the open glades and keeping to the edges of the woodlands because Ewan had warned us that it was not only unsafe but foolish to risk crossing the open meadows, where we might be seen by anyone from any direction. The deer, which were plentiful and grazed in small herds of eight or ten, ignored us for the most part, aware of our presence as we passed but seeming to sense no danger from us.