Braveheart (18 page)

“Cheltham,” Mornay said, “this is William Wallace.”

Cheltham refused to look at Wallace again. “Her are the king’s terms,” he said brusquely. “Lead this army off the field, and he will give you each an estate in Yorkshire, including hereditary title, from which you will pay him an annual duty of –“

Wallace pulled his broadsword and snapped its point to within an inch of Cheltham’s throat. “I said I have an offer for you!” Wallace shouted, and Cheltham’s eyes flashed in fury and disbelief at this violation of their protocol.

“You disrespect a banner of truce?!” Lochlan sputtered in similar outrage.

“From his king”! Wallace asked. “Absolutely. Here are Scotland’s terms. Lower your flags and march straight to England, stopping at every Scottish home you pass to beg forgiveness for a hundred years of theft, rape, and murder. Do that, and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today.”

Cheltham barked at the Scottish nobles, “You are outmatched! You haven’t even any cavalry! In two centuries no army has won without it!”

”I’m not finished!” Wallace roared, “Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that bridge, stand before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own ass!”

The outraged Englishman wheeled his horse around and led the rest of the negotiating contingent in a gallop back to the English battle line.

Wallace galloped to the center of the Scottish line and dismounted where his men were breaking out new fourteen-foot spears. Hamish, eyebrows raised, looked expectantly at Wallace: had he done as they planned? Wallace smiled faintly and nodded.

“I wish I could see the noble lord’s face when he tells him,” Hamish said.

Over on the English side of the field, within the shadow of the castle, Lord Talmadge’s blood boiled from Cheltham’s report. His eyes narrowing with rising fury, he glared toward his enemy and saw Wallace’s spearmen taking up a position on the far side of the bridge. And at that very moment the Scots turned, lifted their kilts, and pointed their bare backsides at the English! To Talmadge it seemed they had aimed the demonstration at him personally!

“Insolent bastard! Full attack! Give no quarter! And I want this Wallace’s heart brought to me on a plate!” Talmadge ordered.

Cheltham spurred his horse to form up the attack. The English army moved forward toward the bridge, so narrow that only a single file of riders could move across it at any time. The English cavalry, two hundred knights, crossed the bridge quickly and formed up on the other side of the river.

And with that one simple repositioning of his forces, Talmadge had put the Scots in the most dangerous situation they could have faced. The cavalry was his most formidable threat, the one for which no army had a counter. The Scots’ only hope would have been to try to stop the riders at the narrow bridge, where, had the Scots resisted, an assault of archers and infantry would have been required to get the horsemen across. But the Scots had not even contested the maneuver! It was clear to Talmadge that Wallace was not only insolent but a fool.

Things looked terrible to the Scots themselves. And it was then that Stephen turned to Wallace and said, “The Lord tells me He can get e out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re fooked.”

Talmadge and his men started across the river in dismay. Still the Scots were doing nothing. “Amateurs!” Talmadge spat in disgust and dismay. “They are neither wise enough to contest us or smart enough to flee! Send across the infantry!”

“M’lord, the bridge is so narrow—“ Cheltham began.

“The Scots just stand in their formations! Our cavalry will ride them down like grass. Get the infantry across so they can finish the slaughter!” Talmadge demanded.

The English leaders shouted orders and kept their en moving across the bridge. Talmadge gestured for the attack flag.

The cavalry on the other side of the bridge saw the signal banners commanding their attack. They took the lances from their squires and lowered the visors of their helmets. They were proud, plumed, glimmering; their huge horses, draped in scarlet and purple, held them high above the mortals who stood on mere earth. They looked invincible.

With a great shout, the knights charged.

To the Scots who stood and watched them come on, the noise of the horses’ hooves was like thunder of a storm that no army could weather. No one on the battlefield had ever seen anyone even try. Formations of men, feeding on each other’s will to fight or poisoned by each other’s panic, had always scattered, for there was no known weapon for footsoldiers to resist the charge on open ground and no amount of courage to stand and face it.

Wallace jumped to the front of his clan. “Steady!” he shouted. “Hold….hold….
now!”

The Scots snatched their fourteen-foot spears from the ground and snapped them up in unison, thrust forward in ranks, the first line of men bracing their spears at an angle three feet above the ground, the men behind them jabbing theirs at a five-foot level, the men behind holding theirs at seven feet.

The English knights had never seen such a formation. Their lances were useless—too short! —and it was too late to stop. The momentum that was to carry the horses smashing through the men on foot now became suicidal force; knights and horses impaled themselves on the long spears like beef on skewers.

Talmadge could see it; but worse was the sound, the scorching screams of dying men and horses, carried to him across the battlefield.

Wallace and his men now stood protected behind a literal wall of fallen chargers and knights. Wallace drew his broadsword and led his swordsmen out onto the field where they attacked knights that were still alive. Most were off their horses; a few had managed to pull up their mounts. But the armored knights moved like turtles; the Scots swarmed around them, and the field ran with blood.

Suddenly all was quiet. Wallace lifted his huge, blood-stained sword, faced Talmadge in the distance, and bellowed, “Here I am, English coward! Come and get me!!”

Talmadge was even more enraged –and his judgment was gone. “Press the infantry across!” he barked at Cheltham.

“But m’lord!”

“
Press them!”

Cheltham gave a wave, and the vanguard of the English infantry began to stream onto the bridge.

Wallace smiled. He grabbed Hamish by the shoulder. “Tell Mornay to ride to the flank and cross upstream. Wait! Tell him to be sure the English see him ride away!”

Hamish hurried off with the message.

The Scottish nobles watched from their position on the abbey hill as the English infantry began moving across the little bridge. Behind them were their personal contingents of cavalry, a few dozen riders lightly armed. Having had not part in the first great shock of the battle, they felt unable or unwilling to do anything more than watch – and criticize.

“If he wait much longer, he will squander the brief advantage he gained,” Lochlan was saying as Hamish galloped up.

“Ride around and ford behind them!” Hamish ordered.

The nobles did not challenge Hamish’s insolence; rather they questioned the wisdom of the instruction that they knew had come from Wallace. “We should not divide our forces!” Mornay protested.

Hamish exploded. “Wallace says
do it!
And he says for you to let the English see you!”

“You listen to me, you common bastard!” Lochlan spat, but Mornay understood the strategy and put his hand on Lochlan’s arm.

“They shall think we run away,” Mornay said. “He has got them. He has planned everything from the first moment.” He looked at Hamish. “Tell Wallace we will do it.”

Mornay stood high in his stirrups, waved grandly to his men, and led them in a gallop around the back side of the hill.

Lord Talmadge saw the Scottish nobles ride off and shouted to Cheltham, “See! Every Scott with a horse is fleeing! Hurry! Hurry! Press them! Lead them yourself!”

Cheltham spurred his horse forward and herded half the English arm across the fiver.

Wallace lifted his sword,
“FOR SCOTLAND!”

The English soldiers on the Scottish side of the bridge could not stand against the ferocity of the attack. They were outfought, outled, and outnumbered. They were thrown back toward the bridge itself, their only lifeline.

Talmadge was shocked at the butchery of his forces. It seemed impossible to him. It was a scene so horrible, so unthinkable to him that he could barely look, and yet he could not pull his eyes away. He felt his other field commanders at his shoulder, wanting instructions. It was hard to think. “Press reinforcements across!” he ordered them.

The flagmen signaled; the English infantry leaders, desperate to save their friends on the other side, tried to herd more of their footsoldiers onto the bridge, turning the already jammed passage into a plug of writhing humanity.

On the other side of the bridge, Wallace and his men were carving through the English vanguard. The Scots had already reached the bridge itself. Now everything was chaos. The English footsoldiers on the bridge who tried to shove their way forward to fight were pressed back by those trying to flee the hacking Scottish blades. Talmadge’s cavalry was gone. His archers, with fiend and foe so tightly packed, were useless. And his infantry had a deathgrip on itself.

But Wallace and his men moved only in one direction; forward. They hacked at anything they could reach: necks, faces, backs, it didn’t matter. The waters below the bridge ran red with blood.

“Use –use the archers!” Talmadge sputtered.

But the archers saw that they were useless now, and they had begun to smell the stink of panic rolling through the army; they were edging back, looking for a route to flee.

On the bridge, the Scots kept carving their way through the English soldiers – nothing could stop them. Wallace was relentless; each time he swung, a head flew of an arm. Hamish and Stephen fought beside him and swung the broadsword with both hands. Old Campbell lost his shield in the grappling; and English swordsman whacked at him and took off his left hand, but Campbell battered him to the ground with his right one and stabbed him.

The Scots reached the English side of the bridge and began to build a barrier with the dead bodies.

The English were not without courage. Cheltham, rallying the infantry blocked on the castle side of the bridge, led the desperate counterattack. The Scots made an impenetrable barrier of slashing blades, yet still Cheltham kept coming. As his men reeled back, he urged his horse into a gallop, intending to punch a hole through the Scottish barricade…

And Wallace stood to his full height, swung the broadsword, and hit Cheltham with a vertical slash that parted his helmet, his hair, and his brain.

Talmadge had seen enough; he wheeled his horse about and galloped away.

“Bloody coward!” his remaining general spat. But there was no time for that; he had to save the army. “We are still five thousand!” he shouted. “Rally! Make a stand!”

The English forces below the castle were trying to form up for a second counterattack, just a Mornay and the Scottish horsemen, having forded the river high upstream, came crashing into the English flank. The English reinforcements were taken completely by surprise.

Wallace looked at the aftermath of the battle: bodies on the field, soldiers lying impaled, stacks of bodies on the bridge, the bridge slicked with blood.

Before it could all sink in, William was lifted on the shoulders of his men. And even the noblemen took up the chant, alongside the commoners…

“Wal—lace!
Wal—lace!
WAL—LACE!”
the Scots chanted.

31

ON A FIELD IN FRANCE, THE CONTINENTAL ARMY OF Longshanks the King was encamped on a field of grass, yellow in the dry summer. Longshanks was in his command pavilion, looking at maps and deriding his generals. His campaign to dominate France had worked itself into a maddening stalemate. Some of the French nobles remained loyal to their king, saying the crown of France should be worn by a Frenchman. Other nobles accepted Longshanks’s argument that, as a Plantagenet, he
was
a Frenchman. This was not quite true, of course, but thrones were contested throughout Europe on shakier claims. Even if Longshanks was not properly in line for the French throne, his daughter-in-law was, and his future grandchildren would be. So the struggle in France, like royal wars everywhere, became a contest of bluff and bribery, with bits of fighting and military action lumped among great layers of political maneuver. It was maddening for Longshanks. He felt the age in his bones. His joints ached in the cold night dampness and he had developed a persistent cough.