The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace

I just finished reading The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace by Jack Whyte about 5 minutes ago... before I go on though I must warn that this post will contain a serious spoiler for the book so if you are interested in reading the book then don't read any further. I will point out when I'm going to say the spoiler but I'm afraid even so it'll be too obvious what it is.

Today I went to work and everyone noticed a certain air about me. Someone thought I was sick; another asked me why I look so tired today. I was, in fact, tired but that wasn't why I looked so horrible at work today. The reason was this aforementioned book.

The book tells the tale of William Wallace: a figure a lot of people know from the Hollywood movie Braveheart. He is actually a historical figure though and while various accounts of him exist, a certain shroud of mystery still revolves around him. It is said that most accounts of him were written by his enemies; it's not hard to see how those might be biased. I'll be completely honest and say that I neither knew of William Wallace before nor ever watched the Hollywood movie. This book was the first time I had ever "encountered" him.

It is written from the perspective of Jamie (James) Wallace, William Wallace's cousin. I'm pretty sure this character is a fake one... it's hard to say really since there's just so many different accounts of WW's family on the internet. Jamie is "writing" the book in memory of his cousin Will so that he does not become twisted and misrepresented (like he ended up becoming in real life).  Anyways, Jamie and Will grow up together and Jamie eventually becomes a priest and Will becomes a verdurer (a person who is in charge of regulating the forests and their bounty on an estate). Certain events lead Will to become a rebel who defends Scotland against the English. I won't go into what events... that would take far far too long.

Even though this book is about William Wallace, I never felt very attached to Will as a character. As strange as this may sound though, I think that is a good thing. William Wallace is like a legendary figure, a hero. Jamie strives to show William Wallace as human but you cannot regard him as just that. You feel the distance between you and Will and somehow it feels appropriate. Like as if you're a peasant and William is a king. Instead you bond with Jamie which is a lot more "appropriate" as Jamie feels like he's on "my level" of status. Even though I bond with Jamie while reading, I never really felt anything for Jamie and this I attribute to the fact that nothing serious happens to him. Instead he's just a vessel through which you experience Will's story because you're too common to actually get the story first hand from Will's point of view or even just an omniscient narrative. Part of this non-feeling for Jamie also comes from the fact that I know he's fine. He's the one writing it! I know he survives to tell the tale.

Between these two characters are... well, a lot of important yet minor characters. You don't ever really bond with the other characters. Sure, I like Ewan but you don't really get to know him well. Bishop Wishart? Again, too distant. Andrew Murray? You hardly ever meet the guy.

Then there's Mirren Braidfoot. Or Marion Wallace. William Wallace's wife. Now, historically, I don't think it's clear that Will ever had her as a wife. I say "I don't think" because I'm not sure really. As I've said, I didn't know anything about William Wallace before and what I know of him now historically come from short little searches on the internet. In the book though, Marion Braidfute is named Mirren Braidfoot and marries Will pretty early in the story. At first she's just someone Will is smitten with and then Will's wife. You never get to know her well either. Much later on in the book, as Jamie himself gets closer to Mirren, you finally get to learn more about her. You learn that she's a very strong willed, no non-sense type of woman. I didn't like her very much. Probably because at the beginning she didn't really like Jamie and Jamie didn't particularly like her much (only due to the fact that he didn't know her well and she appeared to dislike him) either.

*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT*
Mirren bears a child for William (named William after his father and called Willie) and later gets pregnant again with their second child. Disaster strikes though and Mirren, now heavily pregnant, must go to her mother but Will cannot go as he must see to his rebels. So instead, Jamie and Ewan, among other rebels, go with her. Things go horribly wrong on the road though and Mirren and Willie become captured by the English while Jamie gets beaten badly to the point of broken bones all over his body. While Mirren is being transported, Willie dies. One of the rebel archers found him in the forest at the side of the road where the English chucked him after his death. He was only a year and a half old.

Now, this is the beginning of the part which truly affected me in this book. It mystifies me because I thought I felt so distant from Will. Putting that aside for now, let's go on. Mirren gets taken to a prison where she is raving like a mad woman because Willie is dead and was left behind. Not only that but her mother is dead as well. I never really liked her much but here I could not help but feel intensely for Mirren. Jamie described the events of that day as something like a nightmare where he can only watch helplessly and cannot stop; can only live through it and be subjected to it without any power. Strangely enough, reading this, that is exactly how I felt. I felt such horror for Mirren and felt so helpless and powerless.

But the horrors had only begun for Mirren. At the jail, the cruel guard hits her over the head to make her shut up. She falls to the ground, no doubt completely dazed by the blow... then the guard gives her a hard kick to her belly. Her pregnant belly. She goes into labor due to the blow and the baby comes out still-born. The guard feeds the dead baby to the pigs. Mirren, herself, is lying on the floor in a bloody mess. No one helped her through the labor and no one helps her now as she continues to bleed. The jailer checks on her before leaving for the night and she's still on the floor. Later, he checks again and she is dead.

All this time I felt distant from the characters yet suddenly here I was, in utter horror at this part of the story. No, not just horror... I was affected. Moved. I felt such despair. I felt helpless. I wanted to make it not have happened. To rewind time back to when she was alive, back to when Willie was alive. I felt like Jamie: grieving for Mirren and the children and feeling absolute sorrow for William. Perhaps you might think that I'm just "being a woman". You know, women tend to get very upset over the idea of pregnant women being abused, losing babies, babies dying, etc. But no... I actually do not care for babies/children and things like this in other books or movies have not bothered me so much. At most they got a cringe out of me at the cruelty. But it is rare for me to grieve so for a character I did not feel attached to. That part of the book left me very depressed and somehow insecure. Like as if things could go wrong at any moment like it did for Mirren and Will. It made me want to go and gather my loved ones and hold them tight to feel safe.

I'm still confused as to why it affected me so. I think a part of it might be the knowledge that although this is a work of fiction, the base plot of the story is derived from historical events. The English invasion of Scotland *did* happen. People like King John Balliol, Robert Bruce, and King Edward were real and the political figures were mostly real. I know full well that the account of Mirren and her death is complete fiction but I can't help but feel that similar cruelties must have happened in real life. Probably still do happen in some places in the world. It's not even that I am blind to the cruelties of the world. In fact, I'm one of those people whose YouTube related panel is filled with news stories of cruelties because I've watched so many of them as I jump from one video to the next in a continuing cycle of "what the hell happened here? I must know!" I've heard of real life news stories of babies being killed by their own mother and dumped in the garbage without so much feeling as I felt for Mirren.

Shortly after reading this part of the book I went to work where I was utterly stone faced. Stone faced yet inside I still felt volatile. Coincidentally, someone whom we were serving ran off with the entire tip jar today. I think I had left over emotions from the tale of Mirren as after that happened I felt like crying and felt highly vulnerable. It's like as if the incident proved to me that sometimes you're just a victim of misfortune and people can be cruel. I'm not so naive as to think that someone making off with our tip jar is a big deal nor to think that it's a great act of cruelty. There was, at most, ten dollars in there and what I personally lost is probably around 75 cents at most. It was more of a symbolic thing. There are people out there who are victims of injustices and cruelty that happen just as spontaneously as that guy running off with the tip jar. Except those victims lose not 75 cents but maybe their livelihood, their life, the life of a loved one... Perhaps I should add here that I have a long, on-going issue with anxiety. Perhaps that contributed to my gloom and doom feeling today. In any case, The Forest Laird is now one of the few books which has made me feel like I wanted to turn back time and make everything right again.