Free The Forest Laird by Jack Whyte Page A

came to know them more than passing well, for they became my life as Duncan passed his great love of them on to me.
    His cousin, Father Peter, was a priest at the Abbey, as open and friendly as Brother Duncan seemed aloof and distant, and Will and I both liked him immediately. He welcomed us with wide-stretched arms, and then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he invited us to walk with him around his brother’s grounds, and there he spoke to us of Will’s parents and the happy times he had shared with them. By the time we arrived back at the house, both of us felt we had known Father Peter all our lives.
    The family gathering that followed was precisely that: a gathering of Sir Malcolm’s family, with ourselves as the new additions. Lady Margaret was there— presiding was the word that occurred to me immediately upon seeing her matronly presence—as were her two younger sons, Henry and Malcolm, aged fourteen and twelve. The eldest son, Steven, was squire to a knight in Lanercost, we learned, and had not been home for a year. The family’s two daughters were also in attendance, Isabelle, the younger at seven, being firmly kept in her place by her older sister Anne, who, even at eleven, showed signs of becoming a beauty. In addition to these, clustered around the table were Sir Malcolm, his brother Peter, his cousin Duncan, myself and Will. Ewan attended as Sir Malcolm’s guest and stood at the rear of the room, close by the doors, leaning back against the wall with his hands clasped loosely in front of him as he watched.
    This was only the second time I had ever seen Ewan without his longbow and quiver—even when they were not hanging from his body, they were usually within his reach. But this was also the first time I had ever seen him around children other than myself and Will. It was obvious that the children, especially the girls, had been severely warned about their behaviour, but children are children, and I had seen the fearful glances they cast in Ewan’s direction. He had seen them too, of course, and carefully avoided making eye contact with either little girl and kept his face expressionless—insofar as that was possible—at all times.
    The wide-eyed children often turned to stare at Will and me as Sir Malcolm told them, in a greatly simplified version, the story of what had befallen us in Ellerslie and later on the road. That we would join the family as adopted sons was not disputed, but there was more to be decided concerning our futures. Will and I could have happily blended into the family’s life, working on the farm to earn our keep, but Father Peter and Brother Duncan were firm in their opinion that we should be educated as befitted our stations as the sons of a landowner and the adopted sons of a belted knight. Father Peter suggested that we be sent to Paisley Abbey as students, where he and Brother Duncan could oversee our studies. Sir Malcolm glanced at Lady Margaret, who nodded, and then he thumped his fist upon the table and declared it should be so.
    I was excited at the prospect of going to school in the Abbey. Even in the far west, in Kyle, we had heard tell of the great Cluniac Priory of Paisley that had been famed for a hundred years before being raised to the exalted status of an Abbey. It was one of the wonders of the realm, as grand as the famed sanctuaries at St. Andrews, Glasgow, York, and London.
    Will, though, was far from happy with what was transpiring. I could see both misery and panic in his eyes as he tried to come up with a sound reason for objecting to the elders’ proposal. Paisley lay seven miles from Elderslie, a mere two-hour walk at a fast pace. But that time doubled if you had to return within the day, and we already knew that Will’s scholastic life as a student in Paisley would be too full to permit any such effort. He would not have four clear hours and more in any day—and that fact eclipsed any possibility of his being able to work with