Braveheart (24 page)

"So why does she tell me now?" Wallace interrupted.

Nicolette's eyes lingered on him for a long moment; her lips curled slightly, almost but not quite smiling.

"Ah, monsieur," she said, "why
does
she tell you now? That is for you to answer." The flirty and brave little handmaiden went back to her recitation. "The attack against you will come soon. There is little time to waste. You must choose your own course -- whether flight or compromise. But fighting is foolish."

"Then she knows already that I am a fool."

"Please! You interrupt, monsieur, and I must tell you this exactly. Where was I? Let's see… Little time … choose your own course … Fighting foolish … Ah, yes! Here is the rest: Crossbows are coming from Holland. Overland from Dover. At least a thousand." Nicolette smiled, curtsied, and moved to her horse, holding out her hand in Wallace's direction. Taking the hint, he tossed her up onto the saddle. She nodded her thanks, then looked into Wallace's eyes one last time, As if she had been instructed to take in every detail of him to discuss with her mistress later.

"By the way," she added, "should it become known that you and I have talked, I will say that I was intercepted on my way to Castle Bonchamps, to which I have been dispatched on an architectural survey for my mistress, the castle's owner. I will say that I was interrogated, found to be peaceful, and released. I suggest you tell your men the same story -- since it is true."

She reined her horse back to the French guards, who surrounded her quickly and galloped away without looking back.

Wallace watched them go and thought of her who sent them.

Then he turned and walked quickly back to join Hamish and the others. "I need Stephen," Wallace said, "as quickly as you can find him."

42

THE PRINCESS SAT AT THE WINDOW SEAT OR A PALACE room. Her fingers held half-finished embroidery; she was looking distractedly at the dark, cold winter day outside. Across the room, Longshanks was at his worktable, discussing logistics with his advisors. Edward sat sullenly at the table with them. His father had demanded that he attend but insisted that the princess be there also, telling his son it was clear he could never rule without his wife to help him. ("The woman has fire in her," Longshanks had told his advisors. "She is the only hope that my line will continue when I am gone.")

So now the prince sat, his eyes glazed and only half alive, as Longshanks stormed at his advisors. "Why am I the only one who sees how simple this is?! Our army needs food! They can't fight without it, for the Scots will burn everything, even their own food, rather than let us have it. The Vikings have fish. They lack wool. We have wool. So trade them our wool for the fish, you fools!"

None of the advisors responded. But young Edward perked up. He knew the reason the advisors were silent. They didn't wish to be the bearers of unpleasant news. Edward, on the other hand, couldn't wait. He placed his delicate hand before his mouth to hide the smirk there. "The Viking traders have just informed us that the Scots have promised to sell them wool," Edward said, "at a lower price than ours."

"The Scots have no ships to deliver wool to the Vikings!" Longshanks said.

"The Vikings provide the ships," Edward said.

“What do the Scots get from the Vikings in return for the wool?” Longshanks demanded to know.

“Lumber – for building ships,” Edward said.. “Apparently, someone in Scotland intends to establish it as a trading nation. And …”---Edward drew this out, savoring the moment – “since the Scots have never pursued trade so aggressively before, it is only reasonable to suppose the originator of this effort is some new character among their leaders. Someone like… William Wallace, perhaps.”

Prince Edward failed to conceal his satisfaction at seeing his father bested. Longshanks flushed with anger – whether more at Wallace or at his son, it was impossible to tell.

By the window, the princess looked down at her sewing, so that no one could see her smile.

43

One of the farmers laughed and said, “We don’t drink wine!”

“No, but the Danes do,” Wallace said. “And they will swap for pottery and tar. Some we keep. Some we trade with Spain for their sour fruits. Then all our children will have solid teeth and straight bones.”

No one knew quite what to say. No one had ever discussed such matters with these men before. They were excited by the ideas and frightened, too. Suddenly they had a hundred questions about how it would work, and they began to ask them all at once. Wallace smiled and lifted his hands to quiet them. “I don’t know all the answers,” he said. “We must work them out together. I only ask you to consider whether the result of new trade would be worth the effort.”

They began talking with each other – farmer to merchant, merchant to seaman. Wallace watched for a moment in satisfaction ad moved over to old Craig, who has seen everything from a spot beside the huge hearth. The old man was frowning, Wallace looked at him, knowing already what he wished to say. “The king will not like it,” was the old man’s comment.

Wallace and Hamish hurried into the stables, where they found Stephen, tattered but smiling. They clasped forearms in greeting, Wallace delighted to see his friend alive.

“Did we get it, he asks us, Father!” Stephen babbled to the Almighty. “Does he not know the scripture, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive’?” He punctuated the biblical verse by brushing away some hay in the corner, uncovering a large object wrapped in hides. He pulled them back and revealed a new crossbow with a small box of bolts.

Wallace lifted and examined the instrument. He felt its heft, tried its shoulder position, tested the tension of its string, and tried it crank. When he looked back at his friends again, his face was grave. “Hamish,” he said, “order the council assembled! … Yes,
order
it!”

44

Since his return to Edinburgh weeks before, Wallace had said nothing whatsoever to the council of nobles. When they issued proclamations praising his victory at York, he sent word that he was too busy seeking alliances with foreign powers to attend the council protested –not openly, but through Craig, who tried to visit Wallace personally but got only as far as Hamish – that diplomacy was a power belonging to the council, Wallace replied – through Hamish—that as guardian, the security of Scotland was his responsibility. Hamish even reminded the council, in words that rang like William Wallace’s that in making Wallace the guardian they had asked him to swear to be faithful the protection of Scotland, and so help him God he would be faithful now. The council knew – knew because he passed along to them copies after he had already sent the letter – which Wallace had written the king of France, proposing a military alliance with Scotland. They also knew he had written the pope; Hamish told them he had. But Wallace did not reveal to the council the text of that letter; Hamish declared he had not read it himself and that the letter had the privacy of the confessional. Such actions troubled the council, not just because Wallace took them without consulting with them but because he thought of such actions without their advice. A military alliance with France could save Scotland; recognition from the pope of the independence of Scotland could bring support not only from France but from other nations as well. Wallace was a man of action, and he made men of politics uncomfortable.

When he ordered them to assemble on a secluded field outside Edinburgh, they grew more troubled still. Hamish has brought not only the inner council, comprise of noble family leaders, but also all the prominent relations he could gather, especially those with battlefield experience. Wallace had told him the more the better, and Hamish has pulled together everyone within a day’s ride of the capital city, more than thirty nobles. Among them was Robert the Bruce.

It was a day of unusually flat light, the entire sky a mass of slate gray clouds. The nobles stood in clumps of three or four, whispering among themselves. “What does he want with us?” young Mornay inquired of Bruce and Craig the moment he walked up to them.

Old Craig shook his head. “No one knows.”

“Who does he think he is, with this order that we come?” Mornay muttered to the Bruce. “He invades England without our instructions. He writes the king of France; he writes the pope! What is he trying to do?”

“I can’t say for sure,” the Bruce answered his friend, “but I can tell you what he’s done already. Look around you. Instead of whispering about each other, now we’re all whispering about him.” Both Mornay and Craig looked around and saw that what the Bruce said was true. “Maybe his most remarkable achievement is that he has brought us together.”

Wallace appeared, marching up in long, powerful strides. All the nobles and been declaring to each other the questions they meant to ask him, the explanations they meant to demand, but when they saw the look on Wallace’s face, they said nothing. Hamish, old Campbell, and Stephen moved along quickly behind Wallace; when he stopped and faced the noblemen, the two big Scots took positions on his left and right, like lions guarding the gates of a mythical city, while Stephen wandered silently in and out among the crowd. As deterrents to physical attack, both were amazingly effective: anyone wild enough to think of assaulting Wallace hand to hand would be sobered by the sight of the massive men at his shoulders; and yet Stephen was perhaps even more unsettling, weaving among the nobles with that saintly smile of his lips and devilish fire in his eyes and making their backs crawl and itch whenever he was behind them.

Wallace said nothing at first, just looked off toward the tree more than fifty paces away, where Highlanders were setting up a Scottish spearman’s shield against a bale of hay. They tucked a melon behind the shield. Then Wallace uncovered the crossbow he had brought, wrapped in the skins, and held it up for all of them to see. The nobles gazed at the strange new weapon of war, looking so scientific, with its short, powerful bow fixed rigidly on its side at right angles to it's stock, completed with a trigger mechanism and a crank for drawing back the thick, strong string. They watched in stony silence as Wallace cranked the crossbow to its full cocked position, placed a bolt in its slot and fired at the armor.

The bolt slashed through the air and punched right through the armor and the melon, leaving no doubt what it would do to a man’s heart.

Old Craig turned pale. “That is why the pope outlawed the weapon! It makes war too terrible!” the old nobleman said. He wondered if this weapon, specifically forbidden by the Vatican for use in warfare was the subject if Wallace’s letter to the pope.

“And this is not all. He is bringing his army over from France to reinforce the new army he has mustered from England. In addition, he will force Welsh bowmen into service and possibly Irish conscripts as well.”

“How do you know this?” Craig asked in amazement.

Again Wallace ignored him. “I brought you all here so you could see what is facing us. This weapon will be used against us. It will shoot through our schiltrons with great accuracy. Longshanks will not respect the pope’s bans, not if he can use the weapon to destroy the strategy that wrecked his army at Stirling.”

“It is useless to resist him!” Craig sputtered.

Wallace erupted. “No! Not useless! We can beat this! With cavalry – light, fast horsemen, like you nobles employ – we could maneuver their bowmen. Look a the weapon!” Wallace said, holding the crossbow up, shaking it at them. “Yes, it is accurate and powerful, but it is heavy and clumsy, too. It is one thing to fire it coldly at a target, but it's something again to try to shoot it when you are being charged head on by Highlander on foot and by horsemen from you flanks and rear, all screaming like berserkers!”

“You wish us to be insane?” Mornay asked.

“I wish you to be Scotsmen,” Wallace said.

There was a long silence. Wallace looked at Robert the Bruce, who did not avert his gaze but still did not speak up. At last old Craig said, “With such a weapon and such a force arrayed against us, perhaps it is time to discuss other options.”

“Other options?” Wallace asked. “Don’t you wish at lease to bring your men to the field, so you can barter a better deal from Longshanks before cover and run?”

“
Sir William!”
the Bruce said with even greater vehemence.