“We withdraw,” William said. ” But don’t think this is over.”
38
PRINCESS ISABELLA, HE SPINE STRAIGHT, HER HEAD LIFTED high, moved into the great hall of the London palace where Longshanks was conducting his council of war. She curtsied deeply to the king, then to her husband, Prince Edward, still marked from his beating.
“My son’s loyal wife returns, unkilled by the barbarian!” Longshanks said. “So Wallace accepted our bribe?”
“No, he did not,” the princes said, still standing before the council table. The kind provided no chair for her, she was expected only to report and leave them to their business. The other advisors — even Hamilton, already there at the table with Longshanks —looked at her as if she was but a model, there to receive their approval of a gown.
Longshanks glanced at Hamilton and looked back to Princess Isabella. “The why does he stay? My scouts say he has not advanced.”
“He waits, For you. He says he will attack no more towns — if you are man enough to come fight him.” She said this with here eyes lowered to the floor, afraid that if she looked directly at the king, he would see her defiance.
But instead of exploding in fury at Wallace’s challenge, Longshanks’s voice sounded strangely pleased “He waits. And the longer he waits, the hungrier his army grows. His own nobles will not support him. He will return to Scotland. He must.”
“So you will not fight him?” the princess asked.
“You may return to your embroidery,” Longshanks said.
“Humbly, m’lord.”
She curtsied again and turned to leave. Longshanks called, “You brought back the money, of course?”
She looked at the king. Clearly he already knew the answer with Hamilton sitting so close to him. The old crony would not even raise his eyes. Isabella knew he must have rushed in to tell the king everything he knew the moment they had arrived.
“No,” she said. “I gave it to the children of this war — in token of your greatness as a king.”
“Little fool,” he said, half under his breath, yet not caring who else heard — even her.
She felt the words like a dagger but forced herself toward the door.
Longshanks had already begun addressing his council. Isabella, her ears burning with her own anger, was again surprised by the king’s tone. She had expected — to be honest, had desired — the king to be cut by Wallace’s courage. But Longshanks seemed so unconcerned. He was speaking loudly with a tone of boasting, proud of what he had done. And before she reached the door, Isabella put aside her own anger and listened to exactly what the king was saying”
“So the Welsh bowmen will not be detected, moving so far around his flank up the western coast. The main force from our armies in France can land here, on the east of Scotland.”
Isabella froze at the door. Troops from Wales and France, all being sent around to attack the Scottish army from the direction it lest expected?
Prince Edward spoke up. He had not uttered a word to his father since the horrible day when Longshanks had beaten him after throwing Peter from the window. But the old man seemed to be growing senile; his planning was so flawed that Edward could not resist the chance to point it out. “Welsh bowmen?” he sneered. “Your troops from France? Even if you dispatched them today, they’d take weeks to assemble!”
“I dispatched them before I sent your wife,” Longshanks said.
Isabella, forgotten at the door, felt the blood go cold in her chest. Longshanks had used her for this treachery! Her earnestness, her sincerity, her very innocence had made her the perfect tool for this deception. She had sworn to Wallace that the king desired peace, exactly as Longshanks had known she would do. Even though Wallace didn’t believe it — and had Longshanks anticipated that as well? — the whole effort was to draw the Scotsman’s attention away from the attacks coming at him from behind.
From that moment, any spark of loyalty Isabella of France had felt for her father-in-law, King Edward I of England, died within her heart.
Longshanks was still speaking in a loud, commanding voice. The success of his deception and the demonstration that his spirit to rule was still greater than his son’s had given the old king new animation.
“I want a thousand crossbows!” he commanded his generals. “If our craftsmen can’t make that many, then deal with the Dutch!”
Prince Edward, still stinging and anxious to redeem any shred of pride, protested, “The weapon has been outlawed by the pope himself!”
“So the Scots will have none of them, will they? See to it!” Longshanks barked.
Isabella closed the door softly and drifted back to her rooms, her feet moving silently on the stone floors as if she no longer had any weight at all.
39
A STIFF WIND CHASED THE BROWN REMNANTS OF AUTUMN through the clattering tree branches in the England countryside. It seemed that the moment the army set off north, toward Scotland, the winter had come. A light dusting of snow swirled in the barren fields as Wallace led his army through the bitter could of twilight back to Scotland.
Wallace, lost in thought, seemed to trust the horse to know the way home. For the first hours of the march, Hamish had ridden back in the ranks; now he nudged his horse up besides William’s. Their horse walked along together for a while, Hamish saying nothing. Finally William pressed him, “What is it? What’s on your mind?”
“There is some grumbling in the ranks,” Hamish said quietly. “They don’t like the retreat. They’re saying we came all this way for nothing.”
“They’re saying? Or you’re saying?’
“I’m with you, William. But now we’re cold and hungry again as we have been for most of a year. And when my soldiers ask what for, what do I say?”
“You say we stood and dared the English to fight, and they would not.” William looked over at his friend and saw Hamish’s great freckled brow wrinkled in a frown above eyes that struggled to see the significance of all this and couldn’t. “Hamish, half of any fight is to prove your honor to yourself. The other half is to prove your honor to your enemy. Without both, there is no victory.”
Too deep for Hamish. He shook his head and smiled. “Whatever you say, William.”
But William wanted Hamish to understand; it was as if he needed for his friend to believe the same thing, to help him have the faith to keep going. “When our enemies understand that we deserve to be free, that’s when we’ll truly be free.”
Hamish rubbed his nose the way a Scotsman does when he thinks the logic of an argument is just so much manure. “When our enemies are dead,” he said, “that’s when we’ll be truly free.”
William laughed deeply from his belly. “Maybe you’re right, Hamish. Maybe I think too much. But I tell you this: our enemies are not the problem. Our friends back in Edinburgh, they are the problem. Men who fight each other openly may find the honor in each other and establish respect; men who pretend support but sell their soul — and try to sell yours — only make hatred.
Hamish nodded. If he had any more thoughts, he kept them to himself.
40
ISABELLA HAD JUST FINISHED A LETTER TO HER FATHER. SHE had struggled to sound happy, writing of the flower gardens she had been designing for the spring planting and the herb patch she hoped to include. Toward the end of her letter she had mentioned her trip north on the king’s mission to the Scottish invaders, but she did not disclose to her father any knowledge of Longshanks’s true intent.