The Forest Laird by Jack Whyte Read Free Book Online

entire day’s work while you lay snoring there. Up, now, and down to the stream and wash the mess from your arses, quick. I need you to help me cut this up, and then we’re going to visit my mother, so up with you and scamper about!”
    If we were bleary eyed at all, that vanished at once, for the gutted carcass of a small deer was draped on a rough cloth spread across his shoulders, its pointed hooves held together at his chest in one massive fist. We sprang from our ferny beds as he lowered the dead beast to the ground and we ran the short distance to the burn with his hectoring voice in our ears all the way.
    The stream was narrower and faster than I had thought the previous night, and it swept around us in a bow, the outer edge of which followed a steep, treed bank every bit as high and sheer as the one at our backs. The only way to see the sky was by looking straight up through a narrow, open strip between the overhead branches, and I saw at once that Ewan’s camp was as safe as it could possibly be, for anyone finding it would have to do so by accident. Not even the smell of woodsmoke would betray it, for by the time the smoke reached anyone it would have been dissipated by the thick foliage on the slopes above.
    The water didn’t seem as cold as it had the night before, either, and we washed the remains of Ewan’s poultice from our bodies quickly, remarking to each other that we could no longer feel the throbbing ache that had seemed interminable the day before.
    Ewan had almost finished skinning the small deer when we got back to the banked fire pit, where heat still smouldered under a covering of crusted earth. We watched him sever the head and lower legs—I was amazed by the colour and the sharpness of the curved blade he used—and wrap them in the still-steaming hide. He then lifted the entire bundle into the centre of the cloth that had covered his shoulders.
    “Here,” he said, tying the corners together. “One of you take that shovel and the other the pickaxe, then go and bury this along the bank of the stream. But bring back the cloth. And mind you take it as far from here as you can carry it. Dinna think to bury it close by. Bury it deep and stamp down the ground and pile stones over it. We dinna want to be attracting scavengers, animal or otherwise. Then get back here as quick as you can.”
    It took us some time to follow his instructions, and we barely spoke a word to each other, so intent were we on doing exactly as he had said. As we made our way back, we walked into the delicious aroma of cooking. Ewan had rekindled the dormant fire, and a flat iron skillet filled with fresh meat and some kind of onion was sizzling on the coals.
    We ate voraciously, as though we had not fed in weeks. Those two days of running had whetted our appetites to the point of insatiability. The deer liver was perfect, coated in flour and salt and lightly fried with the succulent wild onions, and when the last fragment was devoured we sat back happily.
    “How’s your bum?”
    The question, addressed to both of us, was asked casually as Ewan wiped his knife carefully, removing any signs of food from its gleaming, bluish blade. We both assured him that we were much better.
    “Good.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder to where the deer carcass lay covered with fresh ferns. “I’ll cut some of this up into bits that we can carry, and leave the rest here to smoke later. You can help me carry my mother’s share to her.”
    “Does she live far from here?” Will asked.
    The big outlaw shook his head. “Not far, a two-hour walk. Far enough away to be safe when anyone comes here hunting me. Laird William suspects I’m still around, so every now and then patrols come looking. But they haven’t found me yet.”
    “Are you no’ afeared they’ll find your mother?” Will asked.
    “She’s to the north o’ here, across the hills, on the far edge o’ William’s land. I leave signs to the south and southeast