“Did your uncle tell you to think such things?” old Campbell wondered, peering at William from beneath a thicket of red bushy brows.
“He mused upon it,” William answered.
“And what did he conclude?” old Campbell demanded.
“That we would be slaughtered,” William said, smiling.
Old Campbell, satisfied, took a long pull at the whiskey jug.
But William was staring up at treetops stretching into the night sky like spikes to skewer the stars.
“We have carpenters among he men that have joined us?” William asked.
Hamish shrugged; sure, they must have.
“I want them to make a hundred spears. Fourteen feet long.”
“Fourteen?” Hamish began.
But before he could question William further, they were interrupted by a cry from the sentries: “Volunteers coming in!”
They looked to see half-dozen new volunteers being led in, blindfolded. William stood, flanked by Hamish and old Campbell. Ever since the action at Lanark, they had been receiving volunteers, who came to them through the old clan networks of Scottish resistance. More and more young men had been trying to join them as the story of William Wallace’s revolt was told and retold. Handling so many would-be rebels was becoming a problem for the secret network of trusted men in each village, who supplied William and his roving band with food, shelter, and information as they darted from place to place to stay ahead of the pursuit of the soldiers and the potential betrayal of any Scot who might be tempted by the ever-increasing reward money to sell information of Wallace’s whereabouts to the English. Old Campbell had had set up the security procedures; any man wishing to join Wallace’s band had to be know to the trusted villager who vouched for him, this was not foolproof, of course; men who could be counted on to stand beside in a fight or face torture without blurting your name to a captor might not be the best judges of character. The singleness of heart that made some men instinctively loyal made them blind to duplicity in other. Old Campbell knew there could be flaws in his network; William knew it, too.
So they looked over the volunteers the sentries brought in. All looked fit; none looked so fell fed that his sympathies might be suspect. Finally old Campbell gave a nod, and the sentries removed the blindfolds.
As the new recruits saw William Wallace for the first time, their faces glowed like the firelight. He was dirty like the others, his hair wet and tangles with leaves, his arms scratched, his skin pale from hiding by day and raiding by night. But they saw the fire inside him.
They recognized it. It was what they had come to follow. They rushed to him.
One of them, a tall slender man with the thick accent of western Scotland, fill upon his knees at William’s feet. “William Wallace!” the new recruit said, almost weeping with joy. “I have come to fight and die for you!”
“Stand up man. I’m not the pope,” William said.
“I am Faudron!” the new man spouted. “My sword is yours! And –and I bring you this tartan—”
He reached into his cloak, but before he could produce whatever he had there, both Hamish and Campbell had drawn their swords and put the points to his neck.
“We checked them for arms,” the sentry told them.
Carefully, Faudron pulled out a beautiful tartan scarf and stretched it out to William. “It’s your family tartan! My wife wove it with her own hands.”
William looked down at the checked cloth — newer, more deeply colored, but the same design as the strip of cloth he had given Murron. For a moment all of William’s thoughts drained from his mind; his head felt like a bell struck by a phantom hammer, ringing with the echoes of his lost love. He stood mute as Faudron untied the tattered old woolen cloth that William had used for so long to keep the rain off the back of his neck and then urged the new one around his shoulders in replacement. Finally William found his voice. “Thank your wife for me,” he said to Faudron, and the new man seemed moved to see the gift so fondly accepted.
Then a new voice broke in. “Him? That can’t be William Wallace! I’m prettier than this man!”
They all looked at a slender, handsome young speaker, who spoke with the lilt of Ireland. He seemed to be talking not to any of them but to himself. The Irishman paused for a moment, frowned as if hearing instructions he could scarcely believe, and then burst forth again as if in reluctant compliance: “All right, Father, I’ll ask him!” The Irishman stared suddenly at William and demanded, “If I risk my neck for you, will I get a chance to kill Englishmen?”
“Is your poppa a ghost, or do you converse with God Almighty?” Hamish asked scowling.
“In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God!” the newcomer declared. Then, apparently hearing more instructions unperceived by everyone else, he shouted, “Yes Father!” Turning back to William, he announced, “The Almighty says don’t change the subject, just answer the fookin’ question.”
“Insane Irish –“ Campbell said.
The newcomer whipped a dagger from his sleeve, and with a speed that surprised everyone, he put the blade against Campbell’s throat. “Smart enough to get a dagger past your guards old man,” the Irishman said. But then he froze as he felt the steel of a broadsword against his own neck. Not daring to twitch, for the edge of the sword was already biting into his flesh and the sword had slipped from it’s scabbard with such speed it was frightening, the Irishman’s eyes traced the steel into the hard, hungry hand of William Wallace. Behind the sword’s hilt, Wallace was smiling.
“That’s my friend, Irishman!” Wallace said. “And the answer’s yes. You fight fro me, you kill the English.”
“Excellent!” the Irishman said, lifting his dagger away from old Campbell’s throat and stepping back from him. “Stephen is my name. I’m the most wanted man on Emerald Isle. Except I’m not on the Emerald Isle, of course, more’s the pity.”
“A common thief,” Hamish said in disgust.
“A patriot!” Stephen protested.
“Give me your dagger,” Wallace said and stretched his hand out for it. The Irishman stared back at him.
“Now.”
The Irishman shrugged and handed the blade over, handle first. Wallace shook his head and moved back to the fire. “When you prove you can last through the cold and the hunger and the lack of sleep, we’ll give you a chance to prove you can fight as well as you talk,” he said, and the sentries took the newcomers to find their own spaces.
27
A COLUMN OF ENGLISH LIGHT CAVALRY — A HUNDRED riders — moved in ordered formation across a field of bluebells, lush in the Scottish summer. At the head of the column was English Lord Dolecroft, and as he rode, he twisted in his saddle to admire the precision he had maintained among his men. For three cool wet months they had pursued William Wallace and his band of rebels through the counties between Edinburgh and Glasgow. They had felt themselves so close to their enemy, they had found fires still smoldering. Only a week before they had come upon a campsight so hastily abandoned that they discovered meat cooked but uneaten and knew, here in this hungry land, just how close that meant they had come. But they had never seen their prey. Still his men maintained their discipline; they kept their horses healthy, their weapons sharp; they did not straggle. Dolecroft knew that sooner or later this would pay off. It had to.
Just as he had this thought, the scout at the head of his column gave a low whistle, and Dolecroft spun back to see five Scots trudge out of the forest up ahead. Even at that distance Dolecroft could see they were exhausted men. They walked on wobbly legs, clearly weakened from hunger; they hadn’t even lifted their eyes to see the English column. Even so, they were in a formation of their own, a huge redheaded brute at the center of a V formation, as if they were the vanguard of a larger band. Dolecroft stared, scarcely able to breathe. It was as if he could halt his men right there on the road, and the spent Scottish outlaws would march right onto the points of the English spears.
Then the
Scots saw them; the big redhead staggered, spun round, snatched at the men on either side of him, and virtually hurled them back toward the forest from which they’d come. The startled Scots ran like frightened deer, and Dolecroft know instantly that they had just made their second blunder — this one fatal –for in tier surprise they were leading him straight back to their main band, possibly even to Wallace himself!
The scout was waving wildly, but it was unnecessary; every rider in the column had seen the Scots already. “After them!” Dolecroft shouted and spurred his horse.
Hamish and his men –for it was Hamish that Dolecroft had seen — changed direction, but the English scout spotted them crossing a hilltop and led the column after them.
Scrambling over rocks, tripping and falling, tumbling downhill and clawing their way up again, the emaciated Scots ran for their lives. The English horsemen galloped in pursuit, closing the gap quickly. The Scots changed direction onto rockier ground. Dolecroft shouted the order, “Patience! Mind the footing!” and his experienced rides slowed their pace so their horses could handle the harder footing without danger and still drew nearer their prey.
Hamish now made his final blunder, leading his men in panic across an open field surrounded by low hills. The Scots were boxed in; there was no escape. Dolecroft felt a passing pang of disappointment that the feeling men had not led him to the heart of the whole band, but they could still take one or two of these harried men alive, and who could say what a little torture might reveal? Dolecroft spurred his horse on, and his whole column charged into the open field.
The English scout was the first to notice something wrong. His horse was staggering, having difficulty with the footing. “We’re in a bog!” the scout shouted.
And so they were. The Scots, bounding from grassy clump to grassy clump like rabbits through a familiar field, were trotting along with surprising ease, but the horses were miring halfway up their forelegs in the soggy earth. This was not comforting to the hoses; it made them jittery. “Here, it’s firm this way—“ Dolecroft called.
But as soon as they moved toward the firm ground, fifty Scots appeared on he crest of the hill on the far side of the bog. A grizzled redhead –old Campbell —stood at the front, and he was smiling. On the hills to the left and the right more Scots appeared; the English were boxed in the bog. Dolecroft wheeled and looked to his rear; and there stood William Wallace, his broadsword resting on his shoulder, fifty more Scots behind him.
Dolecroft scarcely had time to realize his blunder. Wallace lifted his broadsword, screamed, and led the charge. The Scots swarmed in from all directions; the English horses could barely move, the bog sucked at their hooves. Wallace’s broadsword swung so fast that it blurred in steel and blood.
It was a slaughter.
When Lord Pickering, head of the English occupational army in Stirling Castle, was handed new of the disaster, he was dipping his fingertips into a bowl of berries sent to him by the king himself, who was campaigning in France. Lord Pickering read the message and his face turned as white as the porcelain bowl. “Another ambush! My God!………What about our infiltrator?” he asked his assistant.
“He has already joined them, m’lord,” his assistant told him.
Pickering sat back and calculated. If their infiltrator had already joined the Scottish rebels, then he was with them during the ambush. So they would trust him. He could get close to Wallace. The plan was working.
It would not be so bad to have to tell the king that he had lost so many men to ambushes and raids by these rebels if he could present to the king the head of this man that so many Scots were looking to as their savior.
Pickering felt better. He went back to his berries. After a few minutes, he called for more wine and some cheese.
28
DURING THE TIME HE HAD SPENT WITH HIS UNCLE ARGYLE, William Wallace had studied all of the terrain of Scotland. Uncle Argyle had told him that the survival of any man who fought against outrageously superior numbers would depend on that man’s knowledge of the land through which he would be hunted. William had learned his lessons well. In a time when many people had never left their home village and could never find their way back to it if they were carried but ten miles away, William had crisscrossed his country with his uncle by his side, stopping here and there at the home of one of Uncle Argyle’s follow ecclesiastics to examine a new book or even at a monastery’s library, riding on to discuss the knowledge gleaned from those volumes, but always, always, studying the terrain.
So it was that after the ambush of Dolecroft’s cavalry, William Wallace led his men north into a deep woods, where they would find more shelter and protection. They needed rest and were laden with the booty they had taken from the English cavalry; extra weapons, clothing, food. Many of the men with Wallace, including old Campbell and his son Hamish, were experienced sheep rustlers and were familiar with the north-south trails that led across the ridge tops, but they found these forests that William led them into to be mysterious, mystical places. They did not see the trails that William saw. They didn’t like the unfamiliar noises they heard when they tried to sleep. They didn’t like the way the moon, especially when it was full as it was this night, seemed to be walking with them, looking down on their every move. Wallace realized their discomfort; as Uncle Argyle had told him, men will choose the familiar way, even when it appears less favorable. But they were safe here — or so William thought.
He walked along through the trackless forest, his heavy sheathed broadsword across his shoulders. They were all on foot; the horses they had taken from the cavalry were already on their way to be sold in the Highlands. William began to think of trade — another topic of discussion with Uncle Argyle. England wanted to control Scotland’s trade with other countries, but here was so much Scotland could produce that traders in other places might—
One of the men close behind Wallace staggered and fell from exhaustion. The men who tried to help him could barely find the strength to lift him to his feet. Angry at himself for forgetting the fatigue of his men, Wallace said to Hamish, “Stop here and rest.”
They collapsed to the leaves and loam and greedily squeezed water from the sheep belly canteens.
Wallace sat down on a pad of moss and leaned back against the trunk of a tree. He tried to think, to remind himself to keep thinking, but he as so tired. He had not realized it before.
Suddenly he froze; a shaft of moonlight illuminated a cloaked woman standing twenty feet ahead of him. Something about her was familiar, and then she pulled off the hood and revealed her auburn hair, cascading in the moonlight. It was—
It couldn’t be! But it was! Murron! Her pale gray eyes held him, watching in absolute peace, a half smile on her lips, as if she had been anticipating his reaction to this surprise and had already played it out in her mind.
“Murron! Is—is it you?” William cried out.
Joy exploded on his face; he heaved himself heavily to his feet and ran to her but stopped before he touched her, as if she might evaporate. But it was Murron without question! Overwhelmed, he clutched her.
“I need you so much!”
She smiled at him, softly, sadly.
“Murron! I love you! I love you! Do you know it? Do you?”
“William…,” a voice said. But it was not Murron’s voice, it was someone at William’s shoulder. “William!” the voice insisted. It sounded like Hamish. And Murron began to fade.
“Stay, Murron! I need you! Stay!” William pleaded.
Murron smiled softly at William, but his arms couldn’t enclose her. He wept as he understood, even before he awoke. He was lying on his new tartan, in camp, as Hamish shook him. Hearts were puddle in William’s eyes, and Hamish didn’t have to ask what he was dreaming.
William looked up into Hamish’s face and saw that his friend was alarmed. “What is it?” William asked, pretending he had not slept, much less dreamed.
“A noise, William! Listen! Hounds!”
Wallace jump
ed up, and heard the distant yipping of a dog pack. Stephen, the new Irish recruit, raced up and said, “We must run in different directions!”
“We don’t split up!” Hamish said sharply.
“They used hounds on us in Ireland. It’s the only way!” Stephen shot back.
“He’s right, Hamish!” Wallace looked around him; old Campbell already had the men roused up. Wallace darted to him and grabbed his arm. “Divide them and run!”
Wallace, Hamish, and old Campbell shoved men in different directions, then ran themselves. Wallace’s group was about a dozen; they raced through the woods, dodging trees, fleeing deeper into the forest. If was hard going, but the dogs were no threat without armed handlers, and if William knew the English, they would not come into this woods without strong numbers. The run would be as hard on them as it was on the Scots, and with so many on them as it was on the Scots, and with so many men scattering, the dogs would soon grow confused and discouraged.
They stopped and listened. The barks were getting closer.
“Split again!” William ordered.
The twelve divided into two groups of six and raced away in opposite directions.
But no matter how they ran and dodged, the barks grew nearer.
Hounds. They had to be following some scent! William looked for a stream to run along to try to mask the smell of the men from the noses of the dogs, but there was no running water near. He jumped up, grabbed a low branch, and pulled himself into a tall tree. He worked himself up the branches and peered into the woods beyond. This high in the tree the hounds sounded louder and more numerous; and through breaks in the tree, he could see the glimmer of many torches. To the English it was like a fox hunt, and William Wallace was the fox.
He scrambled to the ground where Hamish, old Campbell, and several of the others were waiting. William could see that old Campbell was ready to give up on running and make a stand here, but that was hopeless. The hounds would drag them down and the swordsmen that followed would finish what the dogs did not.
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