“Isabella?” Nicolette asked, moving forward.
The princess lifted her head. Tears were flowing from her eyes, and her mouth was smiling.
She had heard already.
56
LONGSHANKS AND EDWARD WERE IN THE ROYAL GARDENS, resplendent with the spring. Longshanks pulled a new flower and crushed it in his yellowed hand. “His legend grows! It will be worse than before!”
“You let Wallace escape your whole army. You cannot blame me for this, “Edward shot back.
Longshanks glowered at his son, then saw the princess crossing the grass toward them in quick, determined steps. These days everything about the woman struck Longshanks as decisive. He approved of her in a way he had never approved of his son.
“Good day to you, m’lords,” the princess greeted them.
“You mock us with a smile?” Edward said.
“I am cheerful with a plan to soothe your miseries. All of England shudders with the news of renewed rebellion,” she said.
“Wallace’s followers,” Edward said wanting to dismiss her. He had come to despise the way his father listed carefully to everything she said and only poured derision on whatever sprang for his mouth.
Isabella’s response was prompt, almost curt. “Wallace himself. If you wise to pretend a ghost rallies new volunteers in very Scottish town, I leave you to your haunting. However, if you wish to take him, I know a way.
Edward snickered, but this wife was steel.
“I have faced him. Have you?” she demanded.
Prince Edward’s eyes flared, but Longshanks lifted a hand before him. “Let her speak,” the king commanded.
“He will fight you forever. But what does he fight for? Freedom first and peace. So grant them,” the princess explained.
“The little cow is insane—“ Edward argued to his father.
But Isabella went on as if he as not there. “Grant as you do everything else, with treachery. Offer him a truce to discuss terms, and send me to my castle at Locharmbie as your emissary. He trusts me. Pick thirty of you finest assassins for me to take along.” She looked from king to prince back to king. “And I will set the meeting and the ambush.”
Longshanks studied her. Her eyes were steely; she would not look away. “You see, my delicate son?” Longshanks said, “I have picked you a queen.”
57
THE PRINCESS’S FORTRESS IN THE ENGLISH NORTHERN BORDERlands was a small, picturesque castle clinging to the coastal rocks of eastern Britain. Its walls were rough and considered ancient, even in the year 1305, great siege towers that kings like Longshanks had brought into fashion. Its moat was shallow and fringed with moss; ducks and the petals of wildflowers floated in its once-forbidding waters. But Isabella could stand atop its bannered keep and look across the sea channel toward France.
Yet she was not thinking of France as her entourage moved through the gates and they closed behind her. She stepped out of the carriage and moved into the castle’s great hall, where there stood thirty killers. Isabella stopped and stood before them, studying their faces. Many had been in the army, where they had acquired personal reputations for exacting the king’s vengeance with particular enthusiasm; others were private assassins and had never belonged to any organization apart from the bloodthirsty brotherhood they shared with those around them. The princess, allowed by Longshanks to have complete discretion in all the details of the plot against Wallace, had given the king’s advisors specific criteria for how these men should be chose, and she looked around her, she saw that her directives had been faithfully followed.
The corps was led by Longshanks’s chief assassin, a cutthroat with a mangled eye. He tilted his head toward her in what was meant to pass a bow of respect and said, “ We came in small groups, so the rebels would not suspect.”
“And you have reached Wallace’s men?” the princess asked.
“We tell the villagers, and the traitors pass it on. All that’s left is for you to say where the ambush will take plane.”
“Where…..” the princess mused. “Where. Yes, I have been thinking about that.
58
WALLACE SAT IN THE GROVE OF TREES WHERE MURRON WAS BURIED. The sun, dappling through the budded trees, was warm upon his shoulders. He had not eaten for longer than he could remember and was aware that he must, but it was only a thought in a corner of his brain, not a need like this was, to be here and drink in the silence of Murron’s memory.
He needed to dream of her. She had not been in his dreams for many nights. He missed her there.
He heard a rustle behind him and spun around, drawing the broadsword instinctively, before he saw—
Hamish and Stephen!
Hamish started forward, then lurched to a stop, unsure if he had done the right thing in coming here to Williams’s holy , secret place and bringing Stephen along as well. But his fears flew away as Wallace moved up and threw his arms around both of his friends.
They spent that night in the old secret cave, where their fathers had come to plan their own raids, with no more support than they had now. They felt at home within the dark stone walls; rain was falling outside, but it was dry inside the cave, with a campfire that smoldered at its entrance, so that the smoke stayed out and the heat drifted in. they shared a fine meal — lamb that Hamish had brought and a cask of ale provided by Stephen and his close associate, the Almighty. William told them about France and his visit with the pope. His friends listened in silence. He left out details of the princess but told them of his efforts—and disappointments—to enlist outside help for Scotland. He concluded, “So that is all. There is no one outside to help us.”
Still Hamish and Stephen said nothing. They stared at the fire and poked their boots with sticks; they listened to the rain fall; they sat with William and would haven content to stay that way forever.
At last William said, “Thanks for the food and the drink. And for bringing”em yourselves.”
“We’re not leaving,” Hamish said.
“No. somebody has to stay alive,” Wallace said.
“We’ve already talked about it,” Hamish said, glancing at Stephen, who nodded and grinned.
“We don’t want to stay alive if we can’t fight beside ya” the Irishman said. “and there’s many more like us! Though we hardly need ‘em with you, Hamish, me, and the Almighty, we’ve got everybody outnumbered” From a hidden pocket of his cloak he pulled a jug of whiskey. He took a swig and handed it to Hamish, who took a chug and passed the whiskey along to Wallace, who declined, but smiled for the first time in many weeks.
“There is…..one thing, William, “ Hamish said. “Longshanks is offering a truce. He has dispatched his daughter-in-law as his emissary, and she has sent word that she wishes to met you.”
Wallace’s green eyes were fixed on Hamish, whose red brows furrowed like a pensive sunset. He knew William was wondering why he had take so long too mention this—but the details were just so troubling! “The instructions were passed along to us with great care,” Hamish said. “The man who told me was told by her messengers that he must remember the invitation exactly.”
“Yes?” William said, growing impatient. “Go on.”
“Well…. She says she know you would not wish to discuss a truce in her castle at Locharmbie, since that would not seem secure to you. Therefore she proposes that you meet here in a neutral, common place, where you can discuss the truce in absolute safety.”
“And what is this place?” Wallace asked, wondering why Hamish was so troubled by it.
“It…it’s a barn.”
59
THE BARN STOOD IN A FLAT CLEARING BORDERED ON THREE SIDES BY A THICK FOREST OF FIR TREES AND ON THE OTHER BY THE ABANDONED FARM WHOSE OTHER BUILDINGS had already been cleared away. The barn itself looked sturdy, its stone side walls still sound, its timbers supporting a thickly thatched roof in fresh repair.
Wallace, Hamish, and Stephen rode in from the farm side. They stopped for along moment and surveyed the bar
n and the woods around it; night was falling, and all was quiet. Before the main door of the barn, stood two men dressed in the blue fleur-de-lis tunics of the French guards who had accompanied the princess on her last mission of truce. A white flag sagged from a pole thrust into the roof thatch, and the sight of it, hanging above a barn in peaceful summons, seemed to give Wallace a chill! But in full view of the barn, he handed Hamish his sword and rode forward.
Within the dark shadows of the bar, the assassins waited, their killing knives ready. Their leader was peering out a crack in the wooden planking above the stone side walls. “It’s William Wallace, sure !” he whispered sharply to the other. “And….. he’s given up his sword! Be ready!”
They positioned themselves along the side walls, backing and squatting into the deepest shadows and clustering around both doors and even the single window so that nothing could come in from any direction without encountering a swarm of blades.
Outside the barn, Wallace and his two friends dismounted, tied their horses to a scrub tree, and moved toward the door. The two men in the blue tunics nodded to him, and Wallace said, “You first.”
They hesitated only a moment and did not argue, proceeding through the door.
Wallace, instead of entering, grabbed the heavy bar and sealed the door! At this motion, Scots sprung from the woods in all direction.
The assassins inside had prepared for everything but this. The back door was blocked just as the front had been before they realized the ambush was being turned on them. Then when the window was chocked full of dead wood and all was suddenly dark inside, they began to panic.
But the Scots outside, scrambling up form their hiding places among the trees, did not notice the shouting from within the barn and the pounding on its doors. They placed tinder-dry brush and pitch against the barn and set it on fire. In moments the entire barn was blazing. The Scots stood back and watched the barn burn, their faces lit by the flames. After a while, there were no more screams from within.
From her castle, the princess saw the burning off in the distance, like a bonfire. She stood in a window of the old keep, staring out at the far-off glow. And then she saw, on a near hillside, silhouetted against the night and the fire, a rider.
He sat there motionless in his saddle, looking up at the castle.
Isabella ran from her room, up one staircase, then another, and still another, and still another, until she stood on the pinnacle of the castle, so that she too was silhouetted backed by the rising moon, praying that he could see her,
The lone rider was William Wallace.
On the northern side of the castle, the land fell away sharply form the castle’s rocky foundations and it was on that side of the compound that the stables stood. Beside them, built into the outer wall, was a cottage, intended as living quarters for the chief groom. But no groom was in residence since the princess had not yet stocked her stables, and it was in a window of this cottage that she placed a candle, backed by a brass reflector, that burned into the night like a tiny beacon.
For two hours the princess sat along beside that candle, wondering if her signal was going to work. It was a twenty-foot climb, hand over, hand up the mortared stones, to reach the cottage’s window; she knew that would not deter him if he was going to come.
At last she heard the faint noise outside. She drew back from the window and waited.
He reached the safety of the window cove and knelt on the ledge. He looked through the window and saw her inside.
For a long, long moment the two of them looked at each other. Then in one more quick movement he pressed his shoulders through the window opening and was inside.
They faced each other in the faint glow of the candle.
“A meeting in a barn. It had to be a trap. And only you would know I would be aware of it,” he said.
“It does me good to see you,” she told him.
“I am much diminished since we met.”
She wanted to say something — tell him that, yes, he looked hungrier, wilder, than he had looked before and that the very sight of him made her heart pound in her chest and her face burn, but instead she looked away and muttered, “There will be a new shipment of supplies coming north next month. Food and weapons. They will trav—”
“No stop. I didn’t come here for that.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Why did you?”
“Because of the way you’re looking at me now. The same way… as when we met.”
He turned his face away. She moved to him, touched his check gently, and pulled his face toward her again. “I know,” she said. “You looked at me… and saw her.”
He twisted suddenly back toward the window. He was leaving.
“You must forgive me what I feel!” she said. “No man has ever looked at me as you did.”
He stopped and looked back to her.
“You have… you have a husband,” he said.
“I have taken vows. More than one. I’ve vowed faithfulness to by husband and sworn to give him a son. And I cannot keep both promises.”
Slowly, he began to realize just what she was asking of him, and an unexpected smile played at his lips. Her smile lit up also. “you understand,” she said. “Consider, before you laugh and say no. You will never own a throne, though you deserve one. But just as the sun will rise tomorrow, some man will rule England. And what if his veins ran not with the blood of Longshanks but with that of a true king?”
“I cannot love you for a sake of revenge,” he said quietly.
“No. But can you love me for the sake of all you loved and lost? Or simply love me… because I love you?”
Slowly, he reached to the candleflame and pinched it out.
60
THE FIRST RAYS OF MORNING SPREAD YELLOW LIGHT through the room and across their faces, their bodies limp and entwined upon the warm and tousled blankets of the straw-mattressed bed. Wallace awoke with a start: sunlight!
He grabbed for his clothes, as she, too, awoke suddenly; she covered herself with the blanket and jumped out of bed, rushing to the window to look out, then drawing back quickly. “No one! Hurry!” she said.
He hurried to the window, leaned out, and saw a clear path down the wall to safety. He saw no guards along the base of the wall, no one between the castle foundation and the far rill where he had hidden his horse—and yet it was past dawn, already fully day!
In her arms he had lost all sense of danger, all sense of anything but her. And as much as he needed now to hurry, he stopped and turned to her and touched her face one last time.
He climbed out onto the ledge of the window. She touched his arm, and he lingered again. She had to ask him: “When we… did you think of her?”
He looked straight into her eyes and kissed her, not Murron—and climbed out.
She stood in the window and watched him all the way down the wall, across the heather, to the rill, until he was out of sight.
On his way back from the castle, William stopped at the secret grove where Murron lay. He remained there alone for many hours.
Night had fallen when he reached the cave and found Hamish and Stephen huddled by the fire, drinking whisky. They watched as he tied his horse beside theirs and took his place at the fire. He said nothing.
“Scouting?” Hamish asked, though he knew where his friend had gone.
Still Wallace said nothing. Stephen offered him the jug, but Wallace shook his head and stared at the fire.
When the fire had burned to smoldering ash, and Hamish and Stephen lay asleep, Wallace still sat awake. Without sleep and without dreams.
When Hamish heard a rustling and opened his eyes to the chill gray light of dawn, he saw William saddling his horse. Hamish punched Stephen, who opened his bleary eyes and squinted painfully at the same sight. Instinctively both men lurched to their feet, staggering with their hangover.
“Too fookin’ early!” Stephen groaned.
“Tell it ta God,” Hamish mumbled.
&
nbsp; “He ain’t up yet,” Stephen said.
Wallace mounted and rode off; Hamish and Stephen had to scramble to catch him.
61
THAT VERY AFTERNOON THEY ATTACKED AN ENGLISH TAXAtion post, though it was broad daylight and the post was guarded by a dozen soldiers. Only a few stood to fight; the rest ran in all directions, recognizing the figure who charged them as the unkillable Scottish terror, William Wallace.
With the post still flaming behind them, Wallace led them on toward the garrison where the tax collectors were headquartered, reaching it before any of the escaped soldiers could and burning it to the ground as well. William, Hamish, and Stephen had more help than they needed; the villagers, when they saw Wallace riding past, his blond hair flying and his broad-sword bright with blood, dropped what they were doing and ran to follow him.
They attacked for two days without sleep, zigzagging through the countryside, striking out at everything that represented Longshanks and his royal domination. On the second night Hamish and Stephen convinced William to steal a few hours sleep in the wool shed of a farmer they had known for many years, a clansman who had fought beside them at Stirling. But again William was up before the dawn, seeking more royal soldiers to attack and drive from his country.
They camped in the forest that night, bone weary, eating the few bits of bread and dried meat the farmer had been able to spare them. And once again, Wallace sat staring at the fire.
“Rest, William,” Hamish pleaded.
“I rest,” William said.
“Your rest is making me exhausted.”
Stephen offered the jug; Wallace shook his head. “Come,” Stephen urged, “it’ll help you sleep.”
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