The deserting Scots whispered among themselves. The young soldier who, without knowing or intending to, had started it all now frowned a the veteran and wondered, “Could that be William Wallace?”
“Couldn’t be. Too young. Not big enough,” the veteran told him.
The common soldiers, already having broken ranks, drifted in clusters up the hill to see the confrontation. As Wallace and his mounted captains reached the nobles, Stephen of Ireland, riding beside him, laughed. “The Almighty says this must be a fashionable fight, it’s drawn the finest people,” Stephen said.
Lochlan and his noble friends stared at the tall, powerful commoner before them. So this was William Wallace. Wallace started back. “Where is thy salute?” Lochlan said, his noble pride already stinging from the defiance of the rabble.
“For presenting yourselves on this battlefield, I give you thanks,” Wallace said.
“This is our army. To join it, you give homage,” Lochlan demanded.
“I give homage to Scotland. And if this is your army why does it go?!” Wallace reined his horse around to face the mob of sullen men, all ready to desert. For a long moment he said nothing, just sat on his horse and looked down in awe at this thing that had grown beyond anyone’s imagination.
He glanced at his friends: Campbell, Hamish, Stephen. They had no suggestions; they were just as awed as he was.
Then a shout came from a grizzled veteran, deep within the ranks of the deserters. “We didn’t come to fight for them!”
And another man called, “Home! The English are too many!”
There was a rising clamor of agreement. Wallace raised his hand, and the army fell silent. “Sons of Scotland!” he shouted. “I am William Wallace!”
“William Wallace is seven feet tall!” the young soldier called.
“Yes I have heard!” William shouted back. “He kills men by the hundreds! And if he were here, he’d consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and blots of lightning from his ass!”
Laughter rumbled through the Scottish ranks. It was not a noise that anyone on the battlefield had expected to hear that day. Wallace was smiling, but now the smile left his face.
“I am William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen, here in defiance of tyranny! You have come to fight as free men. And free men you are! What will you do with freedom? Will you fight?”
“Two thousand against ten?” the veteran shouted.
“No! We will run — and live!”
“Yes!” Wallace shouted back. “Fight and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in you bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom?”
And the army of common Scotsmen, who only moments before had been trudging away from the battlefield, united in a shout that made the ground shudder. The sound — not the noise of many small creatures but the roar of one great one — quivered in the chest of every man and made him feel a part of something too big to control.
Down on the plain, English emissaries in all their regal finery galloped over the bridge under a banner of truce. The Scots grew silent watching them come.
The veteran, ashamed of what he had been doing five minutes before and wishing to justify his actions, pointed out to the bridge and yelled to his comrades, “Look! The English come to barter with our nobles for castles and titles. And our nobles will not be in front of the battle!”
“No! They will not!” Wallace boomed. He dismounted and drew his sword. “But I will.”
Slowly the chant began and kept building louder and louder: “Wal-lace! Wal-lace! Wal-lace!”
The bagpipers played and pulled the mob back into the clan units. They lifted their weapons — spears and hoes, short swords and axes — toward the overwhelming numbers of the enemy army, and they stood.
Old Campbell, Hamish, and Stephen moved up beside William. The two Scots, father and son, were inward and quiet, but the Irishman’s tongue was quick, and he said what they were all thinking: “Fine speech. Now what do we do?”
“Bring out our spearmen and set them in the field,” Wallace said and watched his three friends gallop to the center of the front row of the Scottish battle line, where their clan had taken up a position.
Mornay rode over to Wallace bringing the horse he had dismounted and extended its reins to him, an invitation to join the prebattle talks. Wallace mounted up and rode out with the Scottish nobles to the near end of the bridge, where the English contingent was waiting.
The two groups of riders met. Cheltham, a black-bearded noble whose square face bore the scars of previous battles and who would be expected to lead the English charge should this confrontation result in actual battle, glared at Wallace; Could this fierce-looking commoner be who Cheltham thought he was? Cheltham knew the others: “Mornay. Lochlan. Inverness,” he said, nodding to each.
“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—”
“I have an offer for you,” Wallace broke in.
Cheltham tried to ignore this crude interruption.
“—From which you will pay the king an annual duty—”
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 and the Scottish nobles watched them go.
Mornay was the first to break their silence. “I’d say that was rather less cordial than he was used to.”
“Be ready, and do exactly as I say,” Wallace told them and reined his horse back to the Scottish army.
The noblemen looked around at each other and then followed.
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!