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pan, but it had nothing to do with what we ate that night. He had raised his mask and tucked it back into his hood, perhaps so that he could see better, and was carefully keeping his back to us as he worked. The stuff in the pan was a soggy, black mess of plants and herbs mixed with some kind of powder that he shook liberally into it from a bag he pulled out of a pocket in his tunic. He kept the mixture simmering over the coals in a tiny amount of water, stirring it with a stick and testing its heat with a finger from time to time—though I noticed he never tasted it—until he removed it from the heat and set it aside to cool. Still keeping his back to us while Will and I gorged ourselves on our stew, he then set about ripping up what I took to be a good shirt, tearing it into two large pieces and a number of long, thin strips. Will and I watched his every move, chewing avidly and wondering what he was about.
    Will cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something?”
    The big man glanced up, the ruined side of his face masked in shadow. “Aye, ask away.”
    “What kind of eggs are these? They’re good.”
    “A mixture, but four of them were duck eggs. The rest were wild land fowl—grouse and moorhen.”
    “Are you not having any?”
    “I had mine earlier, while you bathed.”
    Will nodded, then said, “You don’t have to hide your face now. We’re no’ afraid any more.”
    Ewan’s face creased into what I thought might be a smile. “Are you sure about that?”
    “Aye, we’re sure. Aren’t we, Jamie?”
    “Aye, we’re sure, right enough.” Then, emboldened by my youth and the sudden realization that I truly was not afraid of this strange man, I asked, “What happened to it? Your face.”
    The giant drew in a great breath. “How old are you, William Wallace?”
    “Ten.”
    “Well, then, when I was a boy just two years older than you are now, I got hit in the face by a mace. You know what a mace is?”
    “Aye, it’s a club.”
    “It is. A metal-headed club. And it broke my whole face and knocked out my eye and all my teeth on the one side.”
    “Who did it?”
    “I don’t know. It was early in a battle, at a place called Lewes, in Sussex in the south of England.” He went on to tell us about how he had gone, as an apprentice boy to a Welsh archer, to join the army of King Henry, the third of that name, in his war against his rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort. The present King of England, Edward I, Ewan said, had been a prince then, and had commanded the cavalry and archers on the right of King Henry’s battle line, on the high ground above Lewes town, but the enemy, under Simon de Montfort himself, had surprised them from the rear after a daring night march and won control of the heights after a short and vicious fight. In that early-morning skirmish before the battle proper, young Ewan’s company of archers, running to take up new positions, had been caught in the open and ridden down by a squadron of de Montfort’s horsemen, one of whom struck Ewan down in passing.
    “So if you missed the battle,” I said, “why do they call you Archer Ewan?”
    “Because that’s what I am. An archer, trained lifelong on the longbow. They left me for dead on that field, but I wouldna die. And when I recovered I went back to my apprenticeship. I had lost a year and more of training by then, but my apprentice master was my uncle, too. He took me back into his care and I learned well, despite having lost my eye. It changes your sight, you know, having but one eye.” He made a grunting sound that might have been a selfdeprecating laugh. “I adapted to it quickly, though, and learned very well, for I had little else left to divert me from my work. Where other lads went chasing after girls, I found my solace in my bow and in learning the craft of using it better than any other man I knew.”
    He picked up the pan that he’d set by the fireside earlier, testing its heat again with the back of a finger.