Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (25 page)

The men were hushed. “It is said you died,” ventured a comrade of Stephen’s.

“It’s true,” responded Adam soberly.

“Whether I did or not, the English thought I had,” said Wallace, taking a waterskin one of the men passed to him. “They tossed me in a dung heap.”

“Bastards,” growled one soldier.

“As fortune would have it,” said Adam, picking up the story, “an old woman who was a friend of William’s mother heard of his death, for the English were crowing about it. She found his body and had her sons put him on a cart to take him for burial. But as she was laying William out in his shroud, she saw his eyes moving. She took him into her house and nursed him back to health, her and her young daughter.” He grinned at Wallace. “Tell them, cousin.”

Wallace took a swig from the skin. “The old woman tried to feed me, but I was too weak to take a spoon, so she had her daughter do it.” His own mouth began to twitch. “She’d just had a baby and was still suckling.”

Gray roared with laughter and some of the others joined in, guessing what was coming.

“Let us say I woke up with a mouthful,” fi nished Wallace.

“What did she do?”

“She gave a start, then smiled down at me, told me she was almost drained and popped the other one in.”

“God, but you’re a hook for the women, Wallace,” complained Stephen.

“How is it they all love such a brute?”

“It’s the size of his sword,” said Adam, nodding to the enormous claymore propped against the tree beside Wallace. The blade, almost six feet from pommel to tip, was taller than most of the men in the camp.

There were more roars, but Wallace had gone silent at Stephen’s comment.

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His fading smile was like the sun going in behind a cloud, his face drawing in on itself. He got to his feet, took up a couple of skins and moved off, leaving the men to continue the conversation.

After a pause, Will followed, heading in a wide circle around the tents, so as to avoid the notice of the others. Quickening his pace, he caught up with Wallace, who was headed for the river.

Wallace turned swiftly, reaching for his dirk, then relaxed. “What do you want?”

“To talk.” When Wallace kept on walking, Will went after him. “You have a lot of stories, you and your men, tales of courage and skill.”

“They aren’t stories.”

“Oh, I believe they happened. But perhaps you have all come to rely on your past accomplishments too much?”

“You should get back to your training, Campbell. The English Army won’t be long in coming and you’ve been out of the field for some time, so your nephew tells me.”

“Listen to me,” said Will, moving around in front of Wallace, forcing him to stop. “Beating guards in a street brawl is not the same as commanding an army on a field. I do not think your men fully understand what they will be asked to face in this war, or the sacrifices they might have to make.”

“Sacrifi ces?” demanded Wallace, anger leaping into his eyes. “It is you who does not understand. We tell the stories that hearten us, sustain us. You have not heard the others, the ones that wake us in the night, clawing at our souls.

I had a wife once. I used to visit her in Lanark in disguise after I was outlawed for killing an Englishman who tried to take my uncle’s horse. Marion understood. Her brother had been killed by English soldiers, as had my father. She was eighteen and heir to her father’s estate, but I wed her for her spirit, not for any dowry as the English put about.” His voice was glacial. “After we married in secret she bore me a daughter. During one of our meetings, I was followed by soldiers and Marion helped me escape. When she refused to give me up to the sheriff of Lanark, he had her and my daughter killed and so I broke into his house and slew him in his bed. You do not know me, Templar, me or my men.”

“I’m not a knight,” said Will quietly, fi nding no comfort in the similarities between his life and Wallace’s.

“You think shaving your beard changes who you are?” Wallace shook his head. “You’re still a Templar who has lost his way and I’m still the widowed son of a nobleman who died trying to free his country. The forest hides these the fall of the templars

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things, but it does not alter them. When you’ve been in here long enough you’ll discover that.”

As he walked away, Will went after him. “You and your men haven’t faced the English in full force. You have three thousand. They will have twenty, at least. Do you really believe you can beat them? Or is this just revenge?”

“Even before Balliol was stripped of his arms, even before he rebelled against the English, Edward’s men were ravaging our lands. While you have been fighting for God on foreign sands, we have been at war for seven years.”

Wallace’s voice grew rough and impassioned. “When the magnates of Scotland swore fealty to Edward as their overlord, they let a wolf into our lands. A hungry, savage wolf. English soldiers crowded into the towns and castles. They treated it as their land and us as slaves. They called us coarse, uncivilized. We complained and they silenced us, with threats, then fists, then swords. The magnates of Scotland looked the other way as the violence grew, unwilling to endanger their fortunes.

“Six years ago, near my family’s home in Ayrshire, some children were throwing stones at a castle where English troops were garrisoned. The English knights on the battlements shot them. Four boys and a girl. The oldest was twelve. That night a force of men, including my father and brother, overpowered a company of knights from the castle. Some of them managed to fl ee, but five were caught. They were hanged from a tree in the middle of the town.

After that, the English pursued us in strength. There was a battle at a place called Loudoun Hill. In the struggle, my father was killed, his legs cut away from under him.” Wallace paused. “You do not know what it is we fi ght for.

How could you? You haven’t been here.”

Some distance behind them, they heard the pounding of hooves and the calls of men. Wallace pushed his way back through the undergrowth, Will close behind him. Ahead, they saw two men dismounting from horses, surrounded by Gray and the others.

“What is it?” called Wallace.

“We have news of the English,” said Adam, heading over, with a suspicious look at Will. “The English Army under the treacherer and John de Warenne are headed for Stirling.”

“They will cross the Forth there,” said Wallace, nodding, “head north to try to undo what we have done. I imagine they will attempt to win Perth fi rst, then relieve Dundee.” He drew a breath, his voice steady again. “Then Stirling is where we shall meet them.”

“The scouts bring other tidings,” continued Adam, his scarred face fi lling 142 robyn

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with exhilarated triumph. “Andrew de Moray and his army wish to join forces with us against them.”

A fierce smile broke across Wallace’s face. “Gather the men, cousin.” He glanced back at Will. “We ride out.”

14

The English Camp, Stirling, Scotland

september 11, 1297 ad

John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, frowned across the land from the saddle of his destrier. The morning was glowing, golden. The grass beneath his horse’s hooves sparkled and the glints of light playing on the deep waters of the Forth dazzled him. There was a freshness in the air that hinted at autumn and the earl was glad of the heavy mantle of blue and gold brocade he wore over his surcoat and armor. He felt the cold more these days, since coming down with a fever during a hunting expedition. It had developed into a sickness in his lungs he hadn’t fully recovered from and the last place he wanted to be was astride his horse in this accursed country, the English Army restless at his back.

“The Dominicans should have returned,” rang a loud voice. “We cannot delay any longer.”

De Warenne’s brow knotted further as Hugh Cressingham pulled up alongside on a bay-colored stallion. It was a sturdy, thick-legged beast, which it needed to be considering its charge.

In the time since his appointment as treasurer of Scotland, Cressingham had turned from a pudgy, pompous clerk into an obese, arrogant offi cial. It had taken four men to hoist him onto the horse, a group of sniggering Welsh archers watching as the squires heaved and strained. Stuffed in the oversized saddle in his bright mail hauberk, Cressingham looked like an enormous, shiny slug. His face was oily with sweat despite the cool, and the strap of his helmet had disappeared between two of his chins. De Warenne himself wasn’t the wiry man he had been in his youth, but beneath his old man’s paunch he the fall of the templars

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was still slabbed with muscle. The flabby toad beside him had no business wearing the garb of a warrior, let alone sharing command of the thousands who crowded the plains between the banks of the Forth and the royal burgh of Stirling.

“We go when I give the order,” the earl said gruffl y.

Cressingham arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? Because I was under the impression you had already given that?”

De Warenne scowled, but couldn’t argue; Cressingham was right, he had given the order last night, and that morning, as dawn broke, the fi rst ranks passed dutifully over the wooden bridge that spanned the river. Three hundred Welsh archers were followed by five thousand infantry, all stomping across the long, narrow bridge above the inky waters. By the time they had crossed, the sun had risen, but de Warenne was still at rest in his tent. With no sign of support from the bulk of the army, the advance had turned around and marched back across, the men muttering, irritable.

The earl blamed his illness for his torpor, but although this was true in part, there had been a more prevailing factor in his delay in sending the rest of the force across. For the past two days since their arrival at Stirling the weather had been drizzly, the land wreathed in mists that clung to the hills, obscuring the view. With this crisp morning had come a clearer picture of the terrain that faced them, and de Warenne’s resolve had faltered.

On the flat plains beneath Stirling Castle, soaring high on its rock, the ground was firm and level. But once over the bridge, itself a difficulty in terms of how few men could cross at once, the fi elds by the broad, looping river became soft and spongy, unsuitable for heavy cavalry. From the head of the bridge a causeway ran across these boggy fi elds, all the way to a rocky outcrop known as Abbey Craig, visible in the near distance. On this causeway there was room for only four horsemen to ride abreast. As the sun had begun to flash on the distant tips of spearheads and helmets, it became clear that the Scots had positioned themselves on some shallow slopes less than a mile to the north, just left of Abbey Craig. Rising behind the Scottish Army, the dark mass of the Ochil Hills were bald and scarred in the morning light. To reach their enemy, de Warenne’s army would have to funnel itself over the bridge, make its way across the exposed, narrow causeway surrounded by waterlogged meadows, then fight uphill. It was an unenviable prospect.

“The longer we dally, the more resources are drained,” said Cressingham, into de Warenne’s taut silence. “Lord Edward wants this rebellion crushed 144 robyn

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quickly, so he can concentrate his efforts in Flanders. Those were our orders.

Besides, the men are impatient.” He flung a stubby hand behind him. “The youngbloods are keen to fight. Let us loosen their leashes.”

The earl wanted nothing more than to kick the fat treasurer from his saddle, but he bit back his temper. Cressingham had launched himself with gusto into his appointment, and even with rumors that he was scraping a percentage off the revenues his sheriffs collected, he was still favored by Edward. De Warenne, on the other hand, had spent most of his time as lieutenant of Scotland on his Yorkshire estates, hunting and feasting, with little thought for the realm he was governing. In his notable absence, Cressingham had become Edward’s eyes and ears in Scotland, and however much he loathed the offi cial, de Warenne now had no choice but to heed his counsel. Cressingham had already sent a company of reinforcements back to Berwick to save funds. He had the authority to do more damage, if pushed.

“We will give it another hour. If the Dominicans haven’t returned by then, we cross.” Not allowing Cressingham time to reply, John de Warenne wheeled his destrier around and rode back to where his knights were waiting. Despite his tension, he was confident that the two friars he had sent to parley with the Scots would return. He was also confident of the answer they would bring and that this would settle any further debate. The Scots were outnumbered and outmatched. They were peasants, led by outlaws and thieves. What contest were they against the cream of England’s nobility? They would surrender.

But although the Dominicans did return, their ragged robes whipping about them as they crossed the causeway like birds of ill omen, they did not bear the tidings the earl of Surrey expected.

The generals of the English Army gathered on foot outside de Warenne’s tent to hear the verdict, the wet grass staining the hems of their surcoats and glistening on their mailed boots.

“Well?” demanded Cressingham, as the friars approached. “What did the brigands say?”

“The Scots will not surrender,” replied one of the friars grimly. “They want to fi ght.”

One voice rose above the exclamations of angry surprise. “
Want
to fi ght?”

scoffed Henry Percy, an ambitious young lord, whose star was rising in the English royal court, along with his fortunes. “Do the churls even know what faces them?”

“They know,” replied the second friar. “But their leader, Wallace, said they would rather die than live another day under English rule.”

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This time, along with the mutters, were snorts of laughter.

“Wallace said they were there to avenge their country and their dead,” continued the Dominican gravely, “not to make peace with tyrants. He said he would prove this to our very beards.”

The snorts died away. A couple of younger lords spoke up.

“Then let us give them what they want!”

“Prove it to our beards? We’ll prove it in their gullets!”