Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

G owan Hepburn was tired of merely existing. He spent most of his time hiding in the woods trying to survive, living off rabbits and birds that he managed to trap or hunt, and fishing in the loch for trout. He foraged for wild mushrooms and kept a tiny vegetable garden and a few hens for eggs. Occasionally he traded for goods with an itinerant peddler, but otherwise he spoke to nobody.

Once in a while, when the chestnuts and hazelnuts dropped in the autumn, he was able to eat something sweet and flavourful, but his diet remained bland and uninteresting. It did, however, contain plenty of meat and fish, which kept him satisfied, and for that he was thankful. It was more than many people had. He had become a complete recluse, however. He had no wish for anyone to see his disfigurement and pity him because of it, and neither did he wish to become involved with them again. Yet strangely, although he was by nature a quiet and secretive person, he missed their company.

Although he did not seek human companionship, he enjoyed listening to people. It had been a long time since he had spoken a word to anyone, and sometimes he had long conversations with himself just to make sure that he could still talk. On fine evenings he often crept into the village to hide in the shadows and watch the villagers as they sat around a big fire just to hear their gossip, opinions, and concerns. Two things were discussed more than anything else; how evil the Laird was, and by contrast, how kind his sister was. They were very thankful when she came to visit them, and called her ‘their savior'.

One evening towards the end of summer he was hiding in his usual spot in the woods when he came upon a group of people sitting around the fire in the middle of the little town square discussing Jamie Darroch's latest escapade.

"The Laird is a nasty bit o' work," one old lady said, as she sipped her ale. Her face was marked with lines of not only age, but anxiety, and she shook her head slowly, frowning. "I dinnae know how I would have survived without his sister. I cannae believe those two came fae the same family."

"Aye, but I dinnae know how much longer she can keep daein' it," another, much younger woman said regretfully, sighing. "She must be gettin' some help from somewhere, an' I am always afeart for her, but she is a very brave lady."

"An' beautiful," said a strapping young man, smiling as he raised his eyebrows and laughed, holding up his cup of ale in a toast. His wife, who was nursing a baby beside him, frowned at him and nudged him in the ribs. "Ow! I was only jestin'!" he cried.

There was a chorus of laughter before another gray-haired man in his middle years said grimly: "my young Agnes is just o' the age when she needs tae find some work. We need her tae start earnin' for the household, but I am no' sendin' her up tae the castle. That Laird is an evil man, an' I dinnae want my innocent daughter tae become his prey. She says she can look after hersel', but that is what they a' say. I thought that last Laird, his father, was bad, an' he was a mean old swine, but at least he left the lassies alone." He shook his head despairingly.

For a moment there was silence, then the first old lady spoke again. "I wish we could get past that creature in the woods, then we could maybe hunt some rabbits, but -" she broke off, shrugging and sighing. "I dinnae know what tae dae any more."

"Dae ye think it is really the devil?" another old lady asked. She looked less gentle than the first, almost witch-like in appearance, and Gowan grinned as he saw a gray cat coming up to rub itself against her. It was lucky not to be black, he thought, laughing inwardly, or it might have been accused of being the devil itself.

"I dinnae believe that," one of the men said. "Them devil shapes are just piles o' stones."

"Aye, well if you are sae brave, you go in there an' get some rabbits!" the old woman urged.

The man fell silent. A few days after Gowan had fled from his attackers he had placed stones arranged in pentangle shapes every few yards around the forest to keep the extremely superstitious villagers away. After that he had been left alone.

However, from time to time one of them would claim to have seen a figure with no face clothed in a dark hooded cloak. This was what Gowan wore when moving around the forest, and the sight of the apparition added to the villagers' fear. His strategy seemed to have worked. No-one would come near the woods now.

Gowan was not sure how long he had been living like a savage in the woods, since he had lost track of the days, but he knew it must be some years. He had found a little ramshackle wooden hut among the trees that might once have been used as a storeroom for firewood. Its thatched roof had collapsed, but he had mended it straight away, and although it was only big enough for him to sleep in, the little cabin kept him warm and dry, and there was always plenty of fuel for his fire. He slept on the ground on a carpet of fir leaves, and despite it having taken him a few weeks to become used to it, he now found it to be as comfortable as a mattress.

Clothes were a different matter. He knew he had grown, since he had been a youth when he had been forced to run away. After a while, the one set of clothes he possessed were too small for him, as well as being ragged with constant wear. He could have stolen from the villagers, but he could not bear to deprive them of what little they had.

After a few days of debating with himself, he decided to walk into Dundee and find a job as a laborer for a while. He had grown his hair long so that it hid his scar sometimes, but he could not keep it concealed all the time, and he was often the object of much ridicule.

He slept in a stable and worked among a group of half-a-dozen men. Most of them were decent enough fellows, but there was one who taunted him constantly and made his life a misery.

He was a huge fellow who was only a little smaller than Gowan called Hugh Devine, and his favorite pastime was poking fun at Gowan's scar and calling him all kinds of obscene names.

"Hey, Scabby!" he shouted one day when they had paused their labors for a drink of ale. "Come an' tell us how ye got them ugly things on your face. Was it your missus? Did she chuck a candle at ye? Dip your head in the fire?"

Before, Gowan had found that the best solution to hearing the familiar, unending litany of taunts was to keep quiet, but after days and days of abuse he could not stand it any more.

Hugh might have been a big man, but he was fat, and there was very little useful muscle on him, and Gowan suddenly saw a way to do it. The crew had been building a wall for a new church, and a great number of dressed stones were stacked against a wall waiting to be cemented into place.

Gowan walked over to a spot that was halfway between Hugh and the stones then threw his ale into the big man's face. Hugh spluttered with outrage.

"You swine!" he roared, before launching himself off the wall behind him towards Gowan.

However, Gowan, with very little effort, had picked up one of the rocks and calmly walked forward to press it against Hugh's stomach, pinning him to the half-built wall. He leaned his full weight against it, then gave the big man a smile that chilled him to the marrow of his bones. "I have had enough of you," he said in a voice that was dangerously quiet and throbbing with fury. His deep dark eyes were like polished black pebbles as they blazed into Hugh's.

The big man was now gasping for air, and his eyes were full of terror, but all Gowan could see were the eyes of the soldiers who dragged his mother away the last time he had seen her. This great lump of flesh was a great bully who enjoyed making life a misery for those who could not defend themselves. He had obviously mistaken Gowan for one of them.

"That was the last time you ever insulted me," Gowan hissed. "Today I feel merciful, but do not test me again, or I will give you even worse scars than the ones I have. Don't think I am jesting. I never make promises I can't keep. Understand?"

Hugh nodded frantically, absolutely terrified of the dark fury in Gowan's gaze.

Gowan stepped back and the stone fell, barely missing Hugh's feet. The big man was shaking with fear and relief. A blow with the stone would have shattered his toes.

Neither Hugh nor any of the other men ever bothered Gowan again. He was treated with a wary respect, but he did not make any friends, which was just the way he preferred it.

After a short while Gowan had earned enough money to buy himself some clothes and a few warm blankets for the winter, as well as a few other essentials. He worked for two more weeks, then he walked back to Cairndene, and never ventured out of the forest again except to go fishing and buy a little bit of food. His need for human companionship had been more than satisfied for the time being.

When Gowan came back to his little refuge he brought with him a few bottles of good wine and one of whisky, and although he knew that he could not keep the wine long, he made it last as long as he could. He was saving the whisky for winter, when he would need something to keep him warm during the long cold nights.

He thought long and hard about the game in the forest too. If the villagers of Cairndene were really as hungry as they said then perhaps he should do something to help them. However, picking up the stones so that the ‘devil' would disappear was not an option. Gowan needed them to be afraid of the woods, so he had to try to help them in some other way.

A deer would last the village for a while, but the deer belonged to the Laird, even though he would never be able to eat the entire herd. They were merely a symbol of his prestige, and after his feasts most of their heads were stuffed and hung on the wall of the Great Hall and dining room to impress his guests. Most Lairds did the same.

Still, Gowan thought bitterly, he should have been the Laird, so the deer were rightly his anyway. He was an expert archer, having been brought up with the expectation that he would be a landowner and therefore a kind of gamekeeper one day. Accordingly, having practiced for a few days to sharpen his skills, he brought down a doe a few days later at the new moon, when conditions were just right. It was a big, well-fed animal, and although it took him hours, Gowan dragged it into the village and left it in the square next to the town well during the darkest part of the night.

"Eat well, my friends," he said quietly, before creeping back among the trees again.

When the villagers found the animal in the morning, the rejoicing lasted for hours. It had been discovered by one of the children, a seven-year-old called William Tate, who whooped with delight as he stroked the carcass.

He ran inside to inform his parents and soon the whole village was out in the square exclaiming over the feast. The whole of Cairndene numbered about forty people, so the meat would not last long if eaten fresh, but many of them would dry and pickle it for winter. The hide would no doubt be used to make shoes, the bones boiled with vegetables for soup, so not a scrap would be wasted.

Watching them, Gowan smiled. His heart was warm inside, knowing that he had done a good thing, and as he looked at the delighted faces of the villagers, he knew that this would not be his last gift to them.