The Guardian (42 page)

I noted the use of the honorific. “I did,” I said, “but solely because I have read some of the records of the Abbey at Cambuskenneth describing some early efforts of the monks to reclaim arable land from the carse when the abbey was built, more than a hundred years ago.”

“That’s my cousin Jamie,” Will said fondly, smiling at Andrew. “He has never been there, but he knows everything there is to know about the place.” I had heard this song before and knew it was useless to attempt to contradict him. “He carries so much knowledge
in his head that I am constantly expecting it to overflow, but it never seems to fill up.

“Anyway,” he continued. “Thank God for a level road underfoot, eh? But what I wanted to say was that the most important section of the carse is what the locals call the Yett, the Gate. It’s a narrowing passage, like a funnel, that runs south to north between the two big crags that flank the river there—the one the castle’s built on, and Abbey Craig, about a mile and a half west. That mile-and-a-halfwide space is, quite genuinely, the solitary gateway by land to the Highland north. Any army—no,
every
army—marching north has to pass through it, crossing the carse, with the Forth River in the middle of it. Once through the Yett, the entire country opens up ahead, so if an invading army is to be stopped at all, then it’s there, in that narrow gap.”

Andrew’s expression was thoughtful. “So all the English garrisons in the north today came up that way?”

“They did. Every last man of them. But no one disputed their passage.”

“What difference would that have made?” When Will did not reply, Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “I asked the question hoping for an answer. Would it, could it, have made a difference?”

Will shrugged. “Beyond question. As I’ve said already, I’ve never been there, but there’s not a doubt in my mind. Had the right man been at the Yett to meet them, the English would never have passed the Forth.”

“None of them? That seems like wishful thinking, Will.”

“Mayhap it does, but I know what I’m talking about and it’s the truth.”

“Hmm … The right man, you said. And who would that have been? You, William Wallace?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I told you, I’ve never been there. The right man would have been a man determined to deny them passage—a local commander, with followers who know and understand the nature of the place, who know and understand that the carse is the valley of the Forth River. So we ought to talk about the
river, you and I. That bridge you crossed? Well, it’s the only means there is of crossing the river and the carse in safety.” He stopped suddenly. “No, pardon me, that’s not quite true. You can cross on foot. It’s muddy and difficult, and dangerous in places, but the local folk do it all the time. What you can
not
do, though, is cross the carse on horseback, unless you do it by the road that crosses the bridge. That narrow bridge. One farm cart at a time, or two mounted men side by side. The bridge will hold no more.”

“Of course it will hold more,” Andrew said. “How long is the bridge deck? Two mounted men abreast, and say six more pairs behind them, would make fourteen men and horses on the bridge at a time, plus those behind them, waiting to cross, and those already across ahead of them. That’s a fair strength.”

“That it is,” Will said, nodding judiciously. “But going where?”

Andrew blinked at that. “Why, going across the bridge, of course.”

“And what then?”

Andrew threw me a look of pure exasperation and spread his hands. “What
then
? Then all the others follow behind them and they’ve crossed the bridge.”

“Why, so they do,” Will said, grinning broadly like a man who knew a juicy secret. “And they find themselves on the path on the far side. I’m enjoying this, so be patient with me … And so they find themselves on the far side, on the causeway that’s the same width as the bridge deck and stretches for half a mile in front of them, just as it did for half a mile behind them. A long, narrow roadway, built up to keep merchants, farmers, and honest travellers safe above the deadly bogs on either side.”

Andrew nodded slowly. “All right, I understand that,” he said. “What I do
not
understand is your insistence upon talking about it.”

“I’m saying nothing other than the simple truth,” Will said. “Think about it. Once they have crossed the bridge, they will still be on the causeway, two by two abreast in the middle of the carse. You might recall, my young lord of Murray, my mentioning that the bog is not impossible to cross, because the local people do it all the time. They follow pathways where the mud is firmer.”

Andrew had his head cocked now. “Go on,” he said quietly.

“Remember that I am speculating here.” Will glanced at me again, his eyes twinkling. “Now I know
that
is the proper word,” he said, then turned back to Andrew. “I am speculating … imagining possibilities.”

“Yes, yes. Continue.”

“I was saying that
people
can cross the carse on foot, Andrew. But horses and mounted men cannot. Once on that causeway, horses and mounted men can go nowhere but forward along it to the end … even should they be under attack from all sides.”

“Sweet Jesus!” the young Highlander said. “Are you actually proposing such a thing? An attack while they are on the causeway? It would be murder.”

“No, it would be legitimate warfare, a trick to cut down the outrageous advantages cavalry has over foot soldiers. Of course, the trick would be to lure them into committing themselves to crossing the causeway in the first place. But if they remain unaware that men on foot can cross the bog, that should cause us little difficulty. If they even suspected we might be able to reach them across the mud flats, they’d never risk an unguarded crossing. They’d find a ford somewhere upstream, then send an advance guard to secure the ground on the far side of the causeway, so we would have to find some way of concealing our presence on the northern side until they commit to the bridge crossing … But it’s an interesting idea, is it not? Since we were talking earlier today about the need to damage Edward’s men of substance.” He reached behind him to draw the big blade that hung at his back and he held it out, point towards us, in a two-handed grip. “Were we able to carry out some such attack, it would take us far along the route towards that goal, do you not agree?”

Andrew released an explosive breath. “It would, beyond a doubt … But it’s no more than a dream, is it? You don’t really believe anything resembling the situation you describe is possible, do you?”

Will shook his head. “No, I don’t. I would pray for it on my knees all night and all day from now until then if I thought there was
the slightest chance that any army would be so suicidal as to put itself in that kind of peril, but it is no more than wishful thinking at its worst.”

“Then hold! Let us accept that and dream a little longer, if you will, because now I am curious. What
would
it take to get those horsemen up onto that causeway?”

“Idiocy on their part, pure and simple,” Will said. He looked over and waved a hand towards me. “Ask Jamie. He knows more about what it would need than I do, for it involves his specialty, as a priest. You are asking about miracles, my friend, and not merely one of them, because one alone would be of little use to you. To bring about what you’re imagining would require simultaneous miracles of incompetence, stupidity, gross carelessness, and military neglect amounting to dereliction of duty. That’s four miracles we need already, and we’ve barely begun to count. But we’ll be facing an army commanded by Henry Percy and his cohort Robert Clifford, both of them knighted for their prowess in battle during Edward’s Welsh wars. They are young men, young paladins, eager, ambitious, and hungry for glory, and I can’t see either one of them being guilty of any of the weaknesses I named.”

Andrew sniffed, looking slightly crestfallen. “I suppose you’re right. And it’s a great pity. I would have enjoyed storming that causeway … So, it seems we have no other option than to find another
modus operandi
.”

“And we will, in time,” Will answered.

We had turned inland about an hour earlier, striking southwestward, and the coast was now a good three miles behind us, the hills ahead of us gentler and more rolling and well treed. Will waved to where a knot of men had emerged into view on the crest of the ridge we were climbing.

“There’s Ewan, with Big Andrew and Long John,” he said. “I knew we must be getting close by now. The camp’s just over that rise, in what used to be an ancient forest. There’s plenty of space for both our armies to stretch out and be at ease for a day or two. There’s more fresh water running down from the hills than we need,
and there are enough old shade trees to make it a comfortable place. The first thing facing us right now, though, is the matter of melding your men smoothly with mine.” He glanced sidelong at Andrew. “D’you foresee any difficulty there?”

Andrew turned down his lips and shook his head.

“Well, I wish I could say the same for myself,” Will said, “but the truth is I can’t. I’m told that most of your men are ordinary folk, evicted from their homes and deprived of their livelihood by the English—a common story throughout Scotland nowadays. So they’re all honest men and women, not outlaws at all except in English eyes.” He cleared his throat noisily. “And so I need to tell you this: most of the men who follow me
are
outlaws. There’s nothing wrong with that today, God knows, for I am one myself, outlawed like hundreds, mayhap thousands more, by the English.” He grimaced. “But I have some wild and ungovernable wretches among my ranks, hard men who need a hard hand on the leash that holds them. A few among these men are beyond salvage, in this world or the next. They keep their heads down out of my sight most of the time, but I know every one of them, and when they do come into view—and they always do, sooner or later—I show them no mercy. I’ve warned them all I’ll take no stupidities from any of them when your folk arrive, and if anyone causes trouble I’ll take an eye for an eye, regardless of whose eye is involved.” He dipped his head to one side. “So what I am saying is, don’t be surprised if you see the odd man hanged while you’re here. It’s the only language some of these people understand.”

“I see,” Andrew said in a quiet voice. “So how, in fact, do you normally maintain order within your host? Do you have deputies?”

Will released a sharp bark of laughter, then raised a placatory hand, smiling. “Forgive me, my friend, but that struck me as being laughable, considering who and what we are here. We are forest outlaws, Andrew—broken men, they call us, which is another way of saying we are proscribed criminals with prices on our heads … my price outstripping any other’s.”

“Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.” A flush of colour had infused Andrew’s cheeks.

“I know you did,” Will said. “But to tell you the truth, besides the occasional brawl or falling-out, the men are normally well behaved, just as they would be were they at home in civilized surroundings. It helps that they all look up to Wallace, and that some of them have to tilt back their heads to do it. It helps, too, that I’m bigger than most of them. The rest tend to fear me, and I encourage that. I take no disrespect, and I extend no favours. So they heed me.”

“Aye, I can see that.” Andrew was looking up the ridge, at the group watching us. “Well, will we join the throng?”

As matters transpired, the two armies blended peacefully. Both armies knew what they were hoping to achieve together against the English, so there was a sense of shared expectations from the start.

There was, however, one incidence of violent disagreement that marred the melding, and I was there to witness it, as, indeed, were all the principals of the gathering. It began innocuously, with a collision that I knew beyond a trace of doubt was accidental, because I had watched it happen.

It was mid-afternoon, and we had been in Will’s encampment for perhaps an hour, finally beginning to accept that our long march was over, our supplies of arms and armour had been replenished, and we were finally free to start to unwind. I was anticipating a hearty meal and an evening of music and song before we moved to the quarters set up for us on the edge of Will’s main camp. While we were still on the road, we had sent a magnificently large, freshly killed hart to Will’s camp ahead of us, and Will’s own hunting parties had been busy for two days, roaming far and wide throughout the surrounding country and gathering enough meat and fish—both salmon and mountain trout—to feed the multitude, and the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread filled the air everywhere. The initial greetings and speeches of welcome were over, and the men had been dismissed to mingle and meet one another.

Being a priest with nothing to contribute to the discussions of strategy and tactics that were unfolding all around me, I had been left to my own devices and I was having a fine time. The men of the
two armies surrounding me were all deeply involved in trying to assess the knowledge and experience of the strangers with whom they would now be associated, and no one was paying a jot of attention to me as I sat in solitary splendour, perched on a high stool I had found by the fire in front of Will’s tent. I was enjoying the novelty of reading my daily breviary in comfort for once, as opposed to crouching in a stiffening huddle in my saddle, straining my eyes in the gathering dark at the end of a long day’s march and trying to complete my dutiful reading before the oncoming night blinded me completely and ensured that I would have to finish my reading by candlelight later, when I ought to be sleeping.

The danger in the daily reading of the breviary, for every priest in every land, is that familiarity breeds the temptation to idle and to gloss over the content of the prayers, and that temptation grows increasingly potent as the years slip by and the daily exercise grows more and more familiar.

On that particular occasion, I was floating on the narrow margin separating conscientious reading from the much more worldly pastime of daydreaming. I was paying no particular attention to what was happening around me, but at the same time I was aware that Will and Andrew were talking together in the open space off to my right, surrounded by a number of their lieutenants. I was vaguely aware, too, that opposite them on my left, on the other side of the fire, there was a raucous gathering of some of Will’s men, close by Will’s tent. There were nine of them, and they appeared to be English archers, for they all appeared to have that unmistakable archer’s bulk of chest, broad back, and heavy shoulders. I was mildly curious about how a group of English archers might end up in the middle of an army of Scots outlaws. The probability was, of course, that they were there because of the love of archery shared by Will himself and our early teacher and mentor Ewan Scrymgeour. I guessed, therefore, that they were either Welsh mercenaries or deserters from some English baron’s entourage. But that reminded me of a harrowing experience Will and I had shared together as mere boys, and remembering his violent aversion to English
soldiers, and to deserters in particular, I decided these men must be Welsh mercenaries.