Braveheart (20 page)

The nobles had stopped breathing.

"Invade?!" Craig sputtered. "That is impossible, it --"

Wallace slung out his broadsword and moved down the length of the table, bashing the succession documents into the laps of the nobles! "
Listen to me!"
he shouted. " Longshanks understands this! This!" Wallace thrust his massive broadsword high in the air.

Some of the nobles, when they had heard Mornay's tale of Wallace arriving on the battlefield and rallying the entire army when it had already begun to desert, had doubted the story. But seeing the fire in Wallace's face, the passion in his voice, the power of his presence as he gripped the handle of the double -edged claymore and shook the steel at their faces, made them know every word had been true.

"There is a difference between us," Wallace said with quiet fervor. "You think the people of this country exist to provide the people with freedom. And I go to make sure they have it."

Wallace banged through the door. His friends suppressed smiles and marched out behind him

Wallace and his men were striding down the stone corridor of the castle, away from the council chamber, as Robert the Bruce ran out after them.

"Wait! Sir William! Please!" Bruce caught up with Wallace. He struggled for a moment, then took Wallace's arm and urged him to step into an alcove so that his words could be overheard by no one, even Wallace's lieutenants. "I… I admire what you said. But you can't talk to them that way. They are fat cowards, most of them, but we need them."

Wallace turned away, but Robert caught his arm again.

"You despise us, "Robert said, "I can't blame you; I've heard what you've been through. But remember, my brave friend. These men have lands castles. Much to risk."

"And the common man who bleeds on the battlefield, does he risk less" Wallace asked.

"No, But nobles … can help…"

But even as Robert the Bruce was struggling. Wallace was pouncing. "Nobles? What does that mean -- to be noble?"

Robert found himself without a ready answer.

Wallace leaned closer and shook his fist between them, like a big brother telling a younger one to be brave. "Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country!" Wallace said. "But men don't follow titles, they follow courage! Your arm speaks louder than your tongue. Our people know you. Noble and common, they respect you. If you would lead them toward freedom, they would follow you. And so would I."

William Wallace walked away, leaving Robert the Bruce alone in the alcove of Edinburgh Castle.

33

YORKSHIRE SPREADS ACROSS ENGLAND LIKE A CROWN OF nature upon the nation's head. Lying almost at the center of the island of Britain and in the upper region of England, its rolling hills of heather, grass, and flowers and its skies of fluffy clouds prompt a dreaminess in people and have inspired a whole tradition of stories of enchantment.

At the heart of this heartland stands York. In the late thirteenth century, it was a fortress city, completely surrounded by a towering wall. The rich commerce of the lush region moved in and out of York's commanding gates in confident vitality, all under the watchful eye of the royal governor, who commanded a standing army of defenders that guarantee the collection of the king's taxes and kept the king's peace. For as long as men believed in fortress cities, York was the stronghold not only of Yorkshire but of all of northern England.

The royal governor of medieval York was the nephew of Longshanks himself. This nephew was everything Longshanks wanted in a son, if what he truly wanted was a son to mirror his father. He was ruthless and ambitious; he reacted to threats with aggression. He knew that power and the will to use it produced rewards; it certainly had in his case, for to be the royal governor of a jewel like York was to be in possession of the king's full confidence and blessing.

And yet the first few weeks of autumn had been anything but pleasant for the governor. Word of the disaster at Stirling had spread through the country-side, such as assault on predictability and reason that hysterical thinking began to affect even his magistrates throughout he shire. Almost every day he received panicky message of alarm; Scottish raiders were on the move, they said. Some of them reported an entire Scottish army on the march! Of course no one could pinpoint an exact location of this phantom army; reports of night marches were being made by the same kind of peasants who reported stumbling on conventions of warlocks and gatherings of the undead.

Yet as the reports persisted, the governor began to believe that the Scots might be making exploratory forays into Yorkshire. Highland Scots had raided the Lowlands for centuries, stealing cattle. It was possible that the Scottish luck at Stirling -- for certainly it was only luck -- had encouraged the foolhardy to raid into England itself.

Still the reports persisted from more and more reasonable sources. Mayors and magistrates began requesting troops to reassure their frightened citizenry. The governor sent our scouts. The scouts did not return.

He sent out more scouts. One of them got back alive, shouting that the entire Scottish army was indeed on the move, led by William Wallace, in Yorkshire itself.

The governor convened his military advisors in the map room of the central tower of the fortress city. Choosing from the shire maps that lined the wall shelves, the governor had maps spread on every table, and he ordered his aides to assemble all the appeals for help they had received in recent days. The sought to find a pattern in Wallace's travel. But the written appeals for help seemed to show no direction of Wallace's movements. Their work was interrupted as the governor's captain of defenses strode in with another note and said, "M'lord, a message from your cousin, the prince. He says London has no more troops to send us."

"Doesn't he understand that every town in northern England is begging for help?!" the governor erupted and then held his tongue. He was miffed at young Edward, miffed that he had no fondness for war, miffed that in spite of this his father had given him authority to direct domestic troop movements during Longshanks's absence in France, and miffed -- the truth be told -- that if was Edward and not himself in line to be the next king. But the young Edward had not ascended to the throne yet, and from the rumors coming up from London, it was by no means certain that he would. Yes, Edward was Longshanks's only son, but there was horrible bitterness between them, and while heredity was supposed to be the only channel of transmission of the divine right of kings, Longshanks was a man to change history to suit his will. Wasn't he doing exactly that in Scotland? Or at least that's what he was about to do until he stumbled over this stone named William Wallace.

The governor looked back to his maps and wondered aloud, "Where will Wallace strike first?"

"I should think these smaller settlements along the border …," the captain guessed.

They heard shouts form the courtyard below their tower and looked out to see a rider dismount from a lathered, mud-spattered horse. "What news?" the captain called out.

"He advances?" the rider shouted back.

The governor pushed the captain aside and barked down at the fool, "But to
what town?"

"He comes
here!"

34

WILLIAM WALLACE RODE AT THE HEAD OF HIS ARMY ALONG a hard, dry road through fields grown brown with the autumn and though how ugly a thing panic was, especially among civilians. They were fleeing in terror, some toward the walled city in the distance, some away from it. It was strange to see them moving opposite ways; people were like flocks of birds and tended to flee at once and in the same direction. The fact that the civilians were colliding with each other going to and from York had to be assign: the royal governor had already learned of the Scottish approach and had locked the gates. Those still trying to reach the city were refusing to believe they could be turned away.

But as they saw the main body of Scots on the road, the civilians fled across the farmland, leaving behind a tangle of carts for the army to shove out of the way like a plow cutting through a field.

In camp two nights before, Wallace had asked old Campbell to find him the best carpenters in their army. These men Wallace combined with a group of Highlanders handpicked for their ability to move quickly through hostile ground. He had given these men instructions and sent them off while it was still dark. Now, as they reached the last thick stand of trees before York, one of those same Highlanders ran out to him and led Wallace and his lieutenants into the woods, where they came upon a massive contraption; its wooden wheels were as tall as the carpenters who had made them, and piled above them were thick trees lashed together and covered with layers of tangled brush to screen stones and arrows away from the warriors who would push it all.

Wallace nodded his approval. The battering ram was ready.

Standing on one of the tall stone parapets flanking the entrance of his city, just as night was falling, the governor of York looked down at the people far below him, banging on the thick wooden gate and begging to be let in, and their cries made him angry. He was tempted to order his archers to shoot them. "What is wrong with those people?!" He demanded of the captain who stood next to him, surveying their defenses. "Don't they know this city cannot be taken?"

The captain saw the irony of the question as the citizens who lived outside the wall and were even now pleading and lifting their children in the air, as if showing them to the soldiers lining the parapets would soften their hearts enough to unbar the great gates and allow a few more to rush inside. A professional soldier, the captain saw the danger; the desperate citizens saw the city as secure -- their cries made those already inside feel safer still -- but the truth was the York was vulnerable. The governor has dispatched more than half of the city's potential defenders to the various outlying towns and hamlets that had been calling fro reinforcements. Now York itself was jammed with the governor's supporters, flatterers, favorites, and hangers-on, everyone who fled to the shadow of the great city at the first whiff of trouble and who had the influence to gain admittance. But there were not enough fighting men.

The captain, who made more of Wallace's victory at Stirling than did the governor, knew it was possible that Wallace had intentionally concocted the depletion of the city's forces through a shrewdly planned campaign of raiding to draw the defenders away. Wallace was unpredictable; and these royal relatives who ran the English army, they were
too
predictable. The captain hurried off to direct the preparations for defense against a full assault, walking away even as the royal governor was talking.

"We will not allow a bandit, to panic the greatest city in northern England!" the governor was saying to no one now. And then, looming out of the gray twilight, he saw them, the entire Scottish army coming at the city in a trot. Among the vanguard of foot soldiers rode William Wallace, huge broadsword strapped across his back. Behind him was the ram.

The civilians saw him, too. Their screams grew more frantic, they pounded on the gate with increased panic -- and then suddenly they fled.

The captain appeared again beside the governor, and looking at those who had been shut out, running now to get as far away from the city as possible, he thought,
Do they flee because they know we won't let them in? Or is it because they no longer wish to be inside?

Watching the Scots come on like an endless black cloud building into a relentless storm, the governor turned to the captain and asked, "Find every Scottish civilian in the city -- traders, craftsmen, and their families all of them -- and bring them to me. I especially want the ones wearing the Scottish cloth. Fetch them all.

The captain did not understand the purpose of the order, but he did not challenge it, for he saw on the governor's face a look worthy of his uncle, Longshanks the King.

The battering ram, thrust by two dozen of Wallace's favorite Highlanders, picked up speed and slammed into the wooden gate of the city. With the collision, the battle was on. Flaming arrows sliced through the night; pots of boiling oil splashed down from the parapets onto the attackers who swarmed the gate.

The oil beat the first wave of Scots back, but Wallace rushed forward and grabbed the ram cart with his own hands. The attackers rallied to him and helped him slam the gate again and again. The arrows, stones, and oil from the parapets caught some men, but the ram was well designed and sheltered most. The gates, rising twenty feet high, cracked and then broke altogether, but behind it was an awful tangle of carts, broken sheds, impenetrable rubbish. Wallace grabbed a torch, threw it into the wooden tangle, and shouted, "Black! Wait for it to burn!"

Inside the city, the captain hurried into the tower room where the governor had taken refuge. "M'lord, they've breached the wall!"

"Then do as I ordered."

Outside the walls, the Scots waited, biding their time as the barrier burned. Suddenly they looked up in horror, the English were throwing the bodies of hung Scots over the wall. Men, women, even children, dangling at the ends of nooses.

The Highlanders stared in mute shock. Wallace was frozen; for a moment he was a boy again, back in MacAndrews's barn, staring up at hanged bodies he could scarcely believe were real.

His men charged forward.

"
Stop!"
Wallace screamed. "
Not yet! Listen to me!"
The clansmen heeded the only voice they would have obeyed at that moment. "They wish to frighten us! Or goad us into attacking too soon! But don't look away!
Look!"

The Scots looked at the hanging bodies.

"Behold the enemy we fight!" Wallace thundered. "We will be more merciful than they have been. We will spare women, children, and priests! For all others, no mercy!"

Wallace drew his broadsword. The burning debris inside the gate collapsed and left a tunnel through the fire. Wallace screamed and led the charge.