Rivals for the Crown (53 page)

But her prayers were answered. Rory arrived the next morning, haggard but driven, his father with him. Gannon told Rachel later that he'd dreamed that Rory needed to be home. And by that afternoon, September 7, 1296, Margaret Rachel MacGannon entered the world with a lusty cry. Rachel wept with joy, embracing Margaret and Nell and Gannon and finally Rory and Isabel when she could, seeing Rory's pride and tenderness, and Isabel's fierce and instant love for that tiny babe.

When she held the child she looked at all of them, and for the first time, felt like she had begun to heal and that perhaps life would go on. But she wondered, late in the night, when all was still, whether she and her sister would ever be reunited. And Kieran. She prayed for peace. But there was no peace outside Loch Gannon.

It was as Gannon had dreamed all those years ago. He was going to war with his sons. Margaret tried to come to terms with it, telling herself that Gannon had not dreamed of their deaths. Or had he, and not told her?

It was a bittersweet time, to have her granddaughter come into the world and see her son go off to war. He looked so young, this tall and handsome man that her boy had become. A father himself now, a proud father, who she now had to share with Isabel and the babe. And she was pleased to do so, for she had grown to love this daughter-in-law of hers, beautiful on the exterior and as strong as steel within. And devoted to Rory—so different from Jocelyn, who had never looked at Magnus as Isabel looked at Rory. Who had never wept when Magnus had departed. Who had never borne him a child.

It was amazing to hold the baby in her arms and remember Rory and Magnus at that age. How long ago it seemed. And yet it was but yesterday.

And now war. For what? What would all this death and expense prove? Even if Edward defeated the Scottish forces, he would never tame Scotland. And while she was proud of the defiance of the Scots, she feared it as well. Loch Gannon might be far from

Edinburgh and a world away from London, but it was not far enough to guarantee their safety.

She went to the chapel and prayed for the safety of her men, for Gannon, Magnus, and Rory. And her brother Davey and Kieran, and Liam, and so very many more, their faces passing before her in a steady stream. How many other women had prayed the same prayer over the centuries, and how many more would pray it after her, when all of this was only a distant memory? Bring my men home safely to me. There was no answer.

She was not alone in her suffering, she realized when she found Isabel crying one morning. Margaret sat with her and patted her shoulder.

"How do you go on, Margaret?" Isabel asked. "How do you do it, find such strength? I thought I was strong, but this waiting, wondering, is too much to bear."

"Ye are strong, lass. But ye are a woman, and that means ye are not invincible. How does one go on? How does one get up and face another day? Another night in the dark without sleep? I have no answer, nor even a hint of how it is done. We women are doomed, by the sin of Eve we are told, but who could ever have fathomed such punishment for the sin of knowledge, this suffering the loss of those we love and no end to the suffering but death? Those of us who have others depending on us to be strong, to feed and clothe them, to lead them, to mother them, to protect them, we have not the luxury of finding oblivion. And so we rise each day, and find a way through the endless hours to put food on the table and clean sheets on the beds, and then we wait for the next dawn and do it all again. Here we are, the two of us, united by the love we bear for one man, both of us fearing that each day will bring news we canna bear to hear."

"Is this war worth the suffering?"

"Is any war worth the suffering, lass? I dinna ken. It is a wondrous thing to be free, and we Scots will never be free under the yoke of a king such as Edward."

She sighed. "The
cruellest
thing is to be the one who waits. We will go on, ye and I, if for no other reason than for the babe ye just bore. She is our link to eternity. And to the past. She is all of us and I welcome her. And no matter what happens, Isabel, I beg ye to stay here with us and make this yer home. It is all we have to offer, Gannon and I, our home and our hearts."

Isabel's tears streamed down her face. "Oh, yes, I will stay, and I will thank you with each breath I take."

Margaret laughed softly. "Oh, please dinna do that. There are so many other things we have to talk on." She drew Isabel into her embrace. "We will go on, lass. I dinna ken how, but we will go on. And God willing, they will be home soon."

Brave words, Margaret told herself in the night. Brave words. She rose from her bed and went to the chapel.

Within six months Edward had decimated Balliol's army, and at Montrose he humiliated Balliol once again, tearing his coat of arms from his clothing and saying that henceforth Scotland had no king but him. He appointed an English viceroy to govern. At Scone he pillaged the Stone of Destiny, where every Scottish king had been crowned for centuries, and stole the most sacred relic in Scotland, the Black Rood of St. Margaret. As Edward crossed the border into England, he was said to be pleased with his success.

"A man does good business," he was quoted as saying, "when he rids himself of a turd."

Scotland was now an occupied land, English soldiers in every city, castle, and port. There was no one to threaten Edward's control. For a while.

TWENTY-FOUR

MAY 1297

OUTSIDE LANARK, SCOTLAND

She's dead," Kieran said.

Rory looked from his cousin to William, across the glade. "What happened?"

"We couldna stop him from going to see her again, even after what happened last time," Kieran whispered. "The English were watching her. When William arrived, they engaged him. He fought them and escaped, but when he went back for her, he found that they had slit her throat and burnt the house down around her."

"Jesu," Rory said. William had gone to Lanark to see his wife, Marion Braidfute, yet again, despite the danger. Only a short time before William had had to fight his way out of the town, and they'd warned him not to return to her. But he had, as Rory himself would have. He remembered William laughing at him, years ago now, for being in love with Isabel and his telling William that

someday he, too, would be in love. He wished now that it had never come to be.

"It was Hazelrig."

"The soldier who was trying to marry Marion to his son?"

"Aye," Kieran said. "And tonight we're going after him."

Rory wiped his hand over his face and lay back, staring up at the ancient oak tree. Oak, he thought. It had been more than a year since Berwick had fallen, a year of fighting and losing. He had not been captured in the defeat at Dunbar, but many Scots had been. Some had been ransomed, but many still languished in prison, in England, in homes around England, or in the Tower. He thought of his time in Newcastle and sent strength to those who had lost their freedom.

His father had stayed closer to home, incensed that English troops were quartered all too close to his lands. Liam had gone back to Ayrshire to protect his home there. And Magnus, alone now, had done the same. Jocelyn had left him when Gannon had refused to fight alongside John Comyn. She'd given Magnus a choice: join her family or lose her, and when he'd refused, she'd left. His brother was bitter, saying she expected him to go after her and beg her forgiveness. And this time he wouldn't. It was hard to imagine Magnus without Jocelyn. Or himself without Isabel.

Or William without Marion.

It had been amusing at first to see the big man fall in love and celebrate with him when he'd married her. Rory had spent a great deal of time accompanying William to Lanark so he could be with Marion, and in return he'd enjoyed William's blessing when he'd ridden across the country to see Isabel. And his daughter. His little Maggie. Just her name brought him joy, and he conjured that wee face with the bright blue eyes. He'd been altered forever when he had held his tiny daughter for the first time. They were a family now, separated temporarily by the madness of war and defeat, but not forever, he swore. Not forever.

He'd been with William and Kieran since her birth. In Ayrshire for part of the time, close enough to occasionally go home to Loch Gannon and see Isabel. Kieran often came with him, for Rachel was there as well, but she was different now, withdrawn most of the time. Kieran had taken her back to Berwick a month after it had been taken, sneaking into the fortified city in disguise. Her parents and Gilbert were dead but not yet buried, and Kieran had done that, digging the graves himself in the yard behind the inn. Kieran had told Rory that bodies still lay in buildings everywhere, and that the inn had been too damaged to repair. They'd found Mosheh as well, and buried him, too. Rachel had been inconsolable, but she'd let Kieran bring her back to Loch Gannon. He hoped for more, but he told Rory he was content to wait.

The end of The Oak and The Ash, Rory thought, and of so many things and people. Scotland was a fiefdom under siege, and Edward was cruel in his victory. They had thought the earlier occupation had been harsh, but it had been nothing compared to this. There was no one to stop the abuses. Except them—he and

William and Kieran and the others. And that is what he'd been doing since Berwick fell. They had raided forts, attacked supply trains, and ambushed troops coming to replenish men at outposts. Rory and Kieran had been all over Scotland, talking to clans and nobles, their visits welcomed but often fruitless.

"Where's their child?" Rory asked as the thought came to him. He sat up. "Where is William and Marion's bairn, the wee lass?"

"With her cousin, thank God, or she would be dead as well."

"Thank God indeed," Rory said.

"Tonight," Kieran said, "we'll go for Hazelrig."

Rory nodded. And they did.

William was never the same after Marion's death. In the past his moods had fluctuated, as all theirs had, from sadness over Scotland's plight, to anger at the king who had engineered it with the acquiescence of their own king and nobles, and fervent belief that this was only temporary. But after Marion's murder, William was a man possessed. No Englishman who came into his path, even those who had committed no act against him, was left alive. No one who supported the English went unpunished. William was driven. Relentless.

In the north, Andrew Moray—whose father had been a prisoner in the Tower since Dunbar—raised troops in rebellion, but few joined him. William had more success among the ordinary men of the southwest, who flocked to him. There were skirmishes and some routings, many more triumphs. And as their successes grew, the English ratched up the pressure to find William Wallace and his men and destroy them.

In April, 360 of the leading Scots of Ayr were summoned by the circuit court to a meeting at the Barns of Ayr, as the barracks there were called, Sir Ranald Crawford, Liam and William's uncle, among them. One by one the men were admitted. And one by one, hanged. Sir Ranald was the first to die. Kennedys, Campbells, Barclays, Boyds, Stewarts, Sir Bruce Blair, Sir Neil Montgomery, all murdered. William had been summoned as well, but he had refused to go. And lived to avenge the dead, attacking the Barns of Ayr and taking it and the castle in bloody revenge.

The next months were a frenzy of battles as William continued to succeed and men flocked to him from every part of the country. His cousins, both Wallace and Crawford, were with him, including Sir Ranald's sons. And Liam was there through it all. By June so were Gannon and Magnus.

They killed Lord Percy and threatened to take Bishop Bek. Edward of England raised the bounty on William's head, and the nobles of Scotland vacillated between paying homage to Edward and supporting William—but only with words. It was the ordinary men who fought with William at Glasgow and Ormsby, where Sir William Douglas joined him, among the first of the nobles to do so. And slowly the tide turned. With each success William experienced, more men joined him, and the greater the attention

the nobles paid him. None more than Robert the Bruce, Earl of Carrick.

When Edward heard that Douglas had joined the rebels, he sent orders to Robert Bruce to take a force and seize Douglas's castle. Before Bruce was to leave, he was to swear, yet again, his fealty to Edward. Robert refused. Instead, he left Carlisle and rode through Annandale, summoning his father's vassals to join him in taking up arms. At an assembly of his knights, he said, "No man holds his own flesh and blood in hatred and I am no exception. I must join my own people and the nation in which I was born. Choose then, whether you go with me or return to your homes."

Many stayed with him, but not all. He had better fortune in Carrick, where they joined him almost to a man. He met the Scottish forces, led by a contingent of nobles, in Irvine. William, with his own troops farther west, was not among them; he welcomed Robert's newfound patriotism with wariness.

The army led by the nobles of Scotland enjoined Edward's troops on July 7. And were defeated. Many were forced to produce hostages to prove their good faith. Robert the Bruce was told to surrender his infant daughter, Maijorie, but he refused, and the die was cast. He would not return to Edward's good graces again. William did not surrender, nor did he agree to produce any hostages, and he and his men continued to defy Edward in Balliol's name.

And then, just when the Scots needed it, Edward left England, sailing to Flanders on August 22, to lead his troops there, leaving his army in Scotland under the leadership of the aging and infirm John de Warenne and Edward's treasurer, Hugh Cressingham, a brutal but effective leader. Warenne went north, to Stirling, to meet Cressingham.