The Forest Laird(88)

Watching his listeners, I could see more than a few unhappy faces. Will was watching them too, though, and now he asked if any of them wished to speak. One fellow, who had been scowling ferociously since soon after Will began talking, thrust his hand in the air.

“Aye,” he said, and there was no mistaking the truculence in his voice. “I want to say somethin’.” He looked around him, and I thought that he seemed slightly surprised at his own temerity, as though afraid of having said too much already.

“Say away, then,” Will said, smiling slowly at him before lowering himself back down on the log. “What’s troubling you?”

“Troublin’ me? You mean besides your telling me I’ll never see my wife and bairns again?” He fixed his wide eyes on Will’s. “Aye, well, there is one thing troublin’ me … It’s you, Maister Wallace. You’re troublin’ me. You’re troublin’ the shite out o’ me.”

He looked quickly around at the men flanking him and gulped a quick breath before turning back to Will again. “Who are you, maister? What makes you so special, and why should we pay you any heed? We’re no’ outlaws—at least we werena before now—but I think you’re different frae us. You seem to be awfu’ well set up here in the woods … for an honest man, that is.”

He cast another nervous glance around the silent assembly. I could see the fear in his eyes, but he had plainly decided to speak out, even if he should die for it.

“I mean, I ken ye cut us free this mornin’ and gave us the chance to run, and I ken ye’ve asked nothin’ o’ us since, and ye’ve fed us here and gi’en us tents for to sleep under, but what do ye want frae us? What ha’e we got that you need? What is it—?” He stopped abruptly and threw up his hands. “There. That’s enough,” he mumbled. “That’s what I wanted to say. Ye asked us, and I tell’t ye.”

Will sat slightly hunched, his face unreadable as he looked at the speaker. “You’re right,” he said at last. “Right in your questions and right in your concerns, so let me try to answer each of them, for all of you.” He looked around the fire pit at the faces staring back at him. “Because I think ye might all ha’e been thinking the same thoughts as our friend here … What was your name again? Rab, was it no’?”

“Aye, Rab Coulter.”

“That was it. I’ll no’ forget it again. Well, Rab Coulter, as for who I am, I am plain William Wallace, from right here in Elderslie. I’m a forester, and I used to work these very woods, which were owned by my uncle Sir Malcolm Wallace. The hut there, and this clearing, were where I worked most of the time, as head forester. That’s why I’m so familiar wi’ them—so well set up, as you said. Ewan Scrymgeour, sitting over there, used to work with me, but we moved on a few years back. I got married and took Mirren here, my wife, to live down near Jedburgh, and then my uncle died last year. This was to have been the first time I brought my wife home, but when we reached Paisley yesterday morning, we discovered that her aunt and her cousins who lived there had been attacked and ravaged earlier that day, on their way to Mass, by a passing pack of soldiers. No local men would have dared attempt such a thing, and we found evidence—tracks of hobnailed boots—to back our claim that it was the English, and so I journeyed to meet with Bishop Bek of Durham, who leads the force you were being taken to join this morning.”

“Bek. I ken that name. Is he no’ the English King’s lieutenant in Scotland?”

Will nodded to the man who had spoken. “Aye, that’s his title. And he knows mine. Well, he knows my name. I ha’e nae title. But I met wi’ the Bishop-lieutenant in his camp this morning to explain to him what had happened in Paisley and ask for his aid in dealin’ wi’ the crimes that had occurred, and I named mysel’ to him openly, as nephew to Sir Malcolm Wallace o’ Elderslie.” He grimaced. “I’m beginnin’ to think that might no’ ha’e been the cleverest thing I ever did.”

He waited for the outbreak of grim laughter to die down, then continued. “It’s obvious to me now he didna like what I was sayin’, because minutes after I left him I was jumped by some of his bully boys. They did a fine job o’ stampin’ on me, as ye can see. I dinna remember much about it, but when they had finished they threw me out into the roadway in front o’ their camp. I ha’e no idea what they planned after that, but my cousin Jamie here swears that they would ha’e killed both him and me had the rest o’ my friends here decided to pay no heed to what I’d told them and followed me anyway. The rest you ken—you were there and saw it for yourselves. But I didna cut you free and I didna bring you here. Nor did I feed you. I was unconscious the whole time that was going on. The decision to free you was made by Ewan, and you are free—free to join us, to stay here, or to go as you please. But …”