The Guardian

by Jack Whyte

  “No,” he said, frowning more in perplexity than anger. “Of course not.”

  “Well then, what’s wrong with you? Something is stuck in your craw.”

  Instead of answering, Will surged to his feet and looked about him, carefully avoiding eye contact with either one of us. His gaze settled eventually on our horses, hobbled nearby. I had seldom seen my cousin so ill at ease. He was even shifting from foot to foot.

  “You’re not angry at me,” Andrew said. “I know that because I have done nothing to anger you. But you are angry at something about me. Am I right?” He raised a hand to stop any response before it could emerge. “It’s clearly not the smell of me, for after that fight we must both stink like goats, so it must be something else, something more subtle. Could it be … my rank?”

  “Your what?”

  “My rank, I said. My status in this land and among its people. As heir to Bothwell and to Petty, I rank highly among this realm’s nobility, both Scots magnate and Gaelic mormaer. You don’t like magnates, I know—that’s one of the things everyone knows about you—and while I doubt you might ever have known a Highland mormaer, I would guess you hold them in the same contempt. You don’t trust noblemen and you never have, not since you were a boy. That’s why you are the William Wallace you’ve become today.” He looked Will straight in the eye. “I am not saying you are wrong. Your opinions are your own and you are entitled to hold them. But now your lifelong attitudes are bidding you look at me with jaundiced eyes, purely because of where and how I was born and the parents who produced me. And you judge me solely by your prejudices.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Nor should it be, I agree. And I agree as well that it is equally true, and every bit as evident, that horses ever shit.”

  The silence that followed seemed as though it might stretch forever. Andrew stood up, the white stars of his crest bright even in the shade of the hollow. He looked every inch the magnate.

  “Ask yourself this, Will Wallace,” he said at length, his voice emphatic. “Why are we two here, in this place and at this time?” He held up his hand again. “And don’t tell me it’s because Robert Wishart called us here, because that, too, is horseshit. We are here, today and together, because we are the sole leaders in all this realm who still have fighting men in the field and are capable of stopping—or even attempting to stop—Edward Plantagenet from usurping this realm we call ours. Am I right?”

  Will’s frown was still in place, but it was altogether different now, keen and intent rather than bearish. He nodded minutely.

  Andrew nodded, too, but fiercely. “Right,” he said. “There is no one else but us, Wallace and Murray, and the folk we lead between us. We are all that stands in Edward’s way, and as soon as he is rid of us, he’ll conquer all of Scotland. When Balliol led the realm to war, not two years ago, he raised the standards and called the armies out and all the land responded—all the magnates and the mighty of Scotland who thought it unimportant that no Scottish army had fought a battle of any kind in more than ninety years, who assumed that, simply because they were Scots and under arms, they would emerge victorious. And at Dunbar the English armies smashed them beneath the hooves of their horses like baskets of eggs. More than half of all the realm’s nobility imprisoned after that debacle. All the weapons from the battlefield and from the captured men, along with every remaining weapon that could be found in Scotland, impounded by the English for use against us. All hope lost. All pride abandoned … save in Selkirk Forest and in Moray these past few months.”

  One side of his mouth curved up into a half smile. “I know your feelings about magnates, Will Wallace, and I even agree with them to an extent, though for reasons different from yours. But I’m not here today, leading the men I lead, because I am a magnate. I am here because I’m a Scot and it turns my stomach to have to grovel to some ignorant, uneducated English lout for permission to live and breathe the air in my own land—on my own land! I would rather die than put up with that, and the men who follow me know that and march with me because of it. Those among them who followed me from the start did so because they are my folk, but now there are hundreds at my back who are not my folk and never were. Those men, and their families, follow me because they have chosen to do so. Chosen, William Wallace, of their own free will. And that’s why we are who we have become, you and I. We lead the folk, the people of Scotland, and they trust us to lead them and to speak for them. And that, old friend, is something wondrous and new in this land of ours: the folk trust us, you and me, to lead them. And that is as frightening as it is new, for where are we to lead them?” He paused, though only for the briefest of moments. “Have you any ideas? For I confess I have none.”

  Will inhaled deeply, then reached down blindly to grope for the stone on which he had sat earlier, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s. His outstretched fingers touched the stone and he sat down on it. “To freedom,” he said eventually, his voice pitched low so that I had to lean forward to be sure of hearing him. “We need to lead them to freedom.”

  “Freedom’s a big word,” Andrew said slowly, speaking as though he were musing aloud. “It calls for a whole new world. But what does the word even mean? I’ve thought about it, and I’m sure you have, too, and to me it is a condition, a state of existence. And I believe, too, that it means something different to every man who dreams of it. Freedom. Men love the thought of it, the idea of it, and they will fight and die in the hope of winning it. And yet, even though you can know it and enjoy it, you can’t touch it. You can’t caress it and you can’t buy it. Nor will it sustain you physically, for you can’t eat it or drink it. It’s an abstraction, and one that invites questions: Freedom from what? Freedom to do what?”

  For a moment Will’s mouth pursed into a pout, but then he answered, “Freedom from threats, to start with. From Edward of England or anyone else who might think to threaten us again.”

  “Again? We’re being threatened now, Will. Our land is occupied by invaders. And so far, we have achieved nothing in the way of united resistance, let alone counter-threat.”

  Will flicked a hand impatiently. “We are not being threatened. We’re being persecuted—and invaded. But that will pass, once we’ve killed a few more hundreds of Englishry.”

  “I see, or I think I see, what you’re saying.” Andrew tilted his head. “But what if we can’t do that?”

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Kill a few more hundred Englishmen.”

  Will’s frown deepened. “We can, and we will. We have no choice. We have to kill them, and keep killing them until England accepts that we won’t be trampled on.”

  “And do you think England will stand meekly by while we do that?”

  Will shrugged. “They’ll be like us—they’ll have no choice.”

  “Perhaps not, but d’you think that will suffice?”

  Will cocked his head. “I don’t follow you. Will what suffice?”

  “The kind of killing that you’ve been inflicting on them.”

  “Killing is killing. And forbye, I thought there were two of us, that you were playing this game, too.”

  “Oh, I am, have no fear of that. But nearly all the men we have killed until now between the two of us have been foot soldiers.”

  “Englishmen, every one.”

  “Aye, but insignificant Englishmen.”

  “Insignificant? What does that mean? They’re dead, and they were all Englishmen, bone deep. They bled and died as all men do, and they were English.”

  “Aye, they were and they did. But they were not knights, or barons, or dukes. They were not men of substance, Will, and we won’t impress Edward Plantagenet until we start damaging his men of substance. He could watch every last foot soldier in his armies fall in a single battle and he would be unmoved, because foot soldiers are less than human in his eyes. They are not real people.”

  “That’s nonsense.” Will threw a glance at me. “And blasphemous, to boot.”

 
“No, it is not, not from the viewpoint of the King of England, and his viewpoint always originates within the royal treasury. Edward can afford to lose five hundred foot soldiers a day without even noticing the cost of replacing them. We cannot afford even to think about losing that many men in a month here in Scotland, but to Edward, with ten times our populace to draw upon, such losses are negligible. They are nothing. But a knight of repute lost in battle, or a baron, or even, may God forbid, a duke? Now there would be an enormous loss, its cost scarcely calculable.

  “There are no more than a dozen dukes in all of England, Will, and each one of them is directly related by blood to the King himself: his brothers, sons, uncles, and first cousins. Among them they share the entire land holdings of the realm. Ask yourself what the loss of one such man in battle would be worth to England, not merely in terms of money, but in loss of prestige? How would a loss like that be seen, a death inflicted by an enemy in an armed conflict? How would it affect people’s perceptions of the safety, welfare, and even the stability of the kingdom? To anyone ignorant of how to begin calculating such a thing—which would include every person I know and probably everyone you know, too—I would point out that even a well-horsed man-at-arms, an armed and armoured mounted soldier of no significant rank, is of incalculable value if you weigh him in the balance against ordinary foot soldiers, taking into account the costs of his horse, armour, weaponry, equipment, and years of training. And I fear that example alone, modest as it is, illustrates Edward’s perception of the damage that you and I combined have inflicted upon his forces in Scotland to this day.”

  “You mean he’ll ignore us. Or swat at us as he would a horsefly.”

  Andrew’s mouth twisted into a bitter little grin. “That’s a good comparison. And yes, that’s exactly what I mean. His lesser men, the ones we attack and fight, will pay attention to us, but as far as Edward the King of England is concerned, we are a minor annoyance to be brushed aside in passing.”

  “Then we have to change his perceptions.”

  I was on the point of chuckling at the naivety of that, but I held my peace when I saw that Andrew did not look amused at all.

  “Agreed,” he said. “That is precisely what we have to do. But I hope you have some strong ideas on how to go about it, for once again, I have been thinking about ways for months now, and I have nothing to suggest. Nothing.”

  “It’s obvious,” Will said. “We attack his knights.”

  Andrew’s entire tone of voice changed instantly. “Of course! That is exactly what we have to do. So how do you suggest we do it?”

  Will noticed the heavy irony in his voice at the same moment I did and his eyebrows shot high on his forehead. “You’re mocking me.”

  “No, I swear I’m not.” Andrew raised both hands, palms forward. “Edward won’t fight us, Will. Not you, and not me.”

  “He will if we force his hand hard enough, or fly in his face until he can’t ignore us.”

  “No, believe me, Will, he will not. The laws of chivalry forbid that. To fight us head-to-head would be to acknowledge us as a bona fide enemy force. It would grant us a legitimacy that Edward could never concede. In his eyes we are rebels and outlaws. You are a proscribed brigand, to be stamped out like vermin or hanged immediately if captured alive. In addition to which, your knightly family notwithstanding, he deems you a base-born commoner. Edward would never field a military force to meet you face to face in a straightforward fight.” He shrugged. “As for me, I’m but a landless boy, not even a bannered knight. No more than a hopeful heir and hence, for the time being, of negligible import.”

  “Fine. So be it. Then we will go after his knights and men-at-arms, one by one if we have to. We’ve killed a few of those already.”

  “Aye, you have. But it has done your cause little good, proving merely that the charges of brigandage lodged against you are justified.”

  “Then we’ll …” My cousin was beginning to look angry. “We’ll enlist some of our own Scots knights to aid us and lend us legit—”

  “No, Master Wallace, you won’t do that, either.”

  Will blinked at him in astonishment. “Are you suggesting—?”

  “I am suggesting—I am insisting—that such a thing is not going to happen. Not as matters stand today. Think about what you’re saying, Will, and think who you are saying it about. Do you believe Edward and his English nobles are the only people who resent you for being a commoner whom other commoners respect and admire? Think you only Englishmen are envious of your success in spite of your low birth?”

  “They won’t help us,” Will said. “The Scots magnates. Is that what you are saying?”

  Andrew gave a slight shrug. “Some will, but many won’t, I fear. And most of those who won’t will withhold their support through simple fear and jealousy. They see you as a threat to their way of life, and until you convince them otherwise, they’ll ignore you as an upstart and a fomenter of strife and trouble. Wishart and the Stewart are the two main exceptions, the two sole Guardians left in Scotland. The others … well, I doubt the others will do anything to help you.”

  “It’s not me who needs their help, Andrew. It’s the realm!” Will turned to me for the first time. “Isn’t that so, Jamie?”

  “Leave Jamie out of this, Will. He’s but a messenger here, and powerless to change a thing. You talk about the realm as though it were a living thing, and so it is. But no living thing can survive without a head. And our realm lost its head when John Balliol abdicated from the kingship.”

  “He didn’t abdicate! It was forced upon him, by Edward.”

  Andrew dipped his head as if in agreement. “When he was first deposed, yes, that was true,” he said. “But I know Lord Balliol well, Will. You know that, for you fought a clash of staves with him at the abbey when you and I first met. I was his squire then and I served him for years. I liked the man. I still like him, if truth be told. But he was not the king this country needed, and Edward knew that when he named him heir to the throne. He abused and flouted him thereafter as he would never have been able to use Bruce, and he finally stripped the man completely of his outward powers. But anyone who understands a shred of canon law knows, too, that the humiliation John endured was nothing more than that—humiliation. Not true dispossession. No earthly king has the power to un-king God’s anointed.

  “Since then, though, Balliol has fled to France, and there, unthreatened by Edward’s claws, he speaks of voluntarily resigning his kingship, with the assistance and concurrence of the Pope and the King of France. John Balliol is no longer our King. He will not be coming back, and that means he is not the king that Scotland needs today. That is the truth, whether we like it or not, and it means that the realm of Scotland, as it once existed under King Alexander, and briefly under John, is headless again until a new, strong king comes along to revive it.”

  He gazed narrow-eyed at Will, who looked deflated. But as I watched my cousin anxiously, alarmed at the curious uncertainty that seemed to have overcome his natural buoyancy, I saw him straighten up.

  “They’ll fight for Scotland, though,” he said, his voice fierce and defiant.

  “Aye, that they will,” Andrew agreed. “The magnates will fight to win it for themselves. But they won’t fight on behalf of Scotland in the way you imply. They’ll fight over it, for ownership, because in their minds, as magnates, they are Scotland, and Scotland is theirs. So they’ll be fighting for themselves, each and every one of them.

  “You mark me, we are about to see the buildup to the Great Cause all over again, with each house vying for supremacy, and we’ll see Bruce and Comyn rise up to face each other again. And believe me, too, when I say they’ll have no place in any of their schemes for you or me.” He paused, then added, “And that is where I share your views on the magnates in general.”

  “How so?”

  Andrew shrugged. “They are my peers and my brethren in chivalry, but I distrust them, to a man, with few exceptions. They are all too self
-absorbed and self-important, and it is plain to me they have no sense of patriotism.”

  “Patriotism,” Will repeated. “You mean they have no love of their country?” He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think you’re wrong there. God knows I have no love for them, but even I would not accuse them of that.”

  The white flash of Andrew’s grin caught me by surprise. “Oh,” he said warmly, “the chorus of plaints would deafen all of us were that opinion of mine to be heard spoken. They would all be outraged at the mere suggestion, but that’s their weakness and their folly and, in the end, their undoing. They’ll fight to demonstrate that they love their country, and they’ll fight among themselves for any advantage that might give them dominance in the struggle for the empty throne, but they’ll join hands and present a united front to prevent you, a commoner, from waging war on any of their knightly class, be he English or Scots. That kind of thing lies beyond the bounds of patriotism and invokes self-interest and self-preservation.”

  He held up both hands and clenched and unclenched both fists twice. “I doubt if there’s a score of magnates in all Scotland who do not hold more lands in England, and draw more revenues from them, than they have here at home. And that is why I say they are not patriots. As long as they take profit from their holdings in England, they’ll be dependent upon the King of England’s goodwill to retain those revenues, and they’ll suffer from divided loyalties. No man can serve two masters, and not a man among them, whether he calls himself magnate or mormaer, can honestly claim to be a patriot, or a Scot at all, until he has surrendered his obligations to the King of England. All his obligations, including his lands and properties in England. I believe that only then, impoverished as he may be by English standards, may a man of conscience in this country claim to be a patriot.