He drew a long, deep breath as he looked deliberately around the gathering, meeting each man’s eye. I saw, with a shock of recognition, that he was consciously moulding these people to his will for his own purposes, and I realized for the first time that my cousin, during his two-year absence from my life, had become an adept leader of men. I felt my skin ripple with a stirring of gooseflesh and I found myself looking at this man, whom I had thought I knew well, in an entirely different way.
“But …,” he said again. “I said you willna be able to return to your homes, but I didna say you would never see your families again. I canna tell you that. How could I? That all depends on you—on who you are, each and every man o’ you. You can go home tomorrow, those o’ ye who want to run the risk, and find your wives and bairns and tak’ them wi’ you when you leave, ’gin they’ll go wi’ ye. But then ye’ll be faced wi’ the matter o’ where to take them. For ye are all outlaws now, like it or no’. It’s the truth, and it has already changed your whole life, frae the minute they marched you away. So where will ye go? Now that you canna show your face where folk might recognize it? And how will ye keep yourselves alive, if ye find a place that’s safe enough to stay in?”
He paused again, and they hung on his words, waiting for him to tell them what they needed to hear.
“Look at yourselves,” he told them. “Go on an’ tak’ a good look. Fourteen o’ you were headed for jail this morning, maybe for worse. They would ha’e tortured you, to get you to confess to whatever they needed from you. I ha’e nae doubt o’ that. Fourteen of you, and only two of you had ever seen each other before. You were prisoners, wearing iron collars and being led like sheep to whatever they intended to do wi’ you. But now ye’re free men again, and we’ll ha’e those collars off you before mornin’.”
There was a chorus of muttering at that, and when it had died down he waved a hand towards his own men, grouped together on one side of the fire.
“The rest of us here number nine: myself, my dear wife, and my close friends. Come daylight tomorrow, we will be going home to Selkirk Forest.” He glanced back at Rab Coulter. “Aye, Selkirk Forest.”
His eyes moved again, and now he was smiling, though the bruises on his face masked most of his expression. “Dear God, you’re probably thinkin’, but yon’s a big place, yon forest—it covers half the country, and it’s wild. Well, it is, I’ll grant ye. It is vast, and it is wild. But there are places in there that are no’ wild at a’, places so beautiful they’d make you cry wi’ wonder, and the very hugeness o’ the place makes people feared to go into it, for fear o’ gettin’ lost. And that suits us. Selkirk Forest is our home, teemin’ wi’ game and fowl, and every burn and river full o’ fish. No one need ever starve in there. The place is one great larder.”
There was silence again until someone asked, “Are ye sayin’ we could go with ye, into the forest?”
“I don’t see why not. There’s plenty o’ room.”
“But what about our families, our wives and bairns?”
“What about them? Have you not been listening to me? Bring them wi’ you.”
“But will it be safe?” This was a different voice, from one of the men at the back, and it had a ring of panic to it.
“Will it be safe? I canna tell you that. But I can say wi’ certainty it will be at least as safe as it was where you were living before you were arrested, and it could be a lot less dangerous. At least ye’d have no trouble wi’ the English there, in the depths o’ the greenwood. It’s no’ friendly country for armies in there.” He drew a deep breath and began again, this time in a louder voice, speaking slowly and clearly.
“Look, I don’t know what to tell ye, other than that things are changing here every day. Ye must have seen it for yourselves, and ye must know that if it werena so, none o’ the things ye’ve been through in the last wheen o’ days would ha’e happened. None o’ ye would be outlawed, and ye’d all be livin’ under your own roofs. Things are awfu’ different here in Scotland since King Alexander died. When he was King, we lived well. We were at peace and folk kenned who they were and what the law demanded o’ them. But that’s a’ different now. We ha’e changed in the space o’ a few years frae a solid realm into a contested kingdom. The Bruces and the Balliols, the Comyns and the other magnates—the Buchans and the Stewarts and a’ the rest o’ them who’d like to wear the crown—ha’e set our country on its arse wi’ their bickerin’ and squabblin’, and it’s common folk like us who aey bear the brunt o’ such foolery—except that this time it’s no’ foolery. Now they’ve brought in the English, and we’re payin’ the costs o’ that, too. We’ve aey had to live wi’ the Scots nobility and their pride and stupidity, but now we have the English to contend wi’, too, lordin’ it over us all, and these English are movin’ a’ the time, marchin’ armies here and yonder and robbin’ ordinary folk blind to keep their people and their horses fed.