The two infantries, Scottish and English, slammed together. For a few moments the momentum of battle wobbled like a giddy drunkard with one foot in the air having just stepped from a hot tavern into an icy wind. The English footmen were young, terrified and far from home; and even those who had served in the French campaigns had never seen fighting like this. The Scots had won at Stirling and at York; they were outnumbered now, but they had been outnumbered before; and they were fighting alongside William Wallace. They became the frozen wind, hurling the drunkard back in search of shelter.
“Damn them!” Longshanks screamed. And even as he saw his infantry beaten back, he saw the mists shifting again, drifting to mask the battle before him. This was awful; Longshanks still had the force of numbers; his other corps were still attacking. The last thing he wanted was a gray cloud to cloak the field. He turned to the knight behind him, a nobleman with light cavalry held as a last reserve. “Go,” he ordered.
“Wallace is their heart! Take him!” When the knight hesitated, the king shouted, “See, our reserves are attacking — our archers, fresh infantry! The battle is ours! But Wallace must not escape! All I have promised I will double, just bring him to me!”
The knight spurred his horse forward.
Wallace, through the broken banks of mist, saw them coming. “A charge! Form up! Form up!” he shouted to his men. The Scots pulled up spears and hastily formed another schiltron. The spears bristled out, ready. The English horsemen thundered in. But before the spears impaled the horses, another flight of crossbow bolts cut down half the Scots.
Still Wallace fought back, meeting the English charge. The Scots held their own. The knight who had led the English charge and had already cut his way through several Highlanders tried to override Wallace. Wallace knocked the knight’s lance aside, and though the horse slammed into him, Wallace grabbed the man’s leg and dragged him from the saddle.
The rider rolled to his feet. Wallace struggled up to meet him — and came face to face with Robert the Bruce.
The shock and recognition stunned Wallace. In that moment, when he looked at the Bruce’s guilt-ridden face, he understood everything: the betrayal, the hopelessness of Scotland.
Bruce stared back at Wallace and saw a look of shock and despair that he would never forget, no matter how many lifetimes he might live.
Bruce snatched his sword from the ground, where it had fallen. He feinted; Wallace didn’t respond. Bruce battered at Wallace’s sword as if its use would give him absolution. “Fight me! Fight me!” Robert shouted.
But Wallace could only stagger back. Bruce’s voice grew ragged as he screamed. “Fight me!”
All around, the battle had delayed; the Scots were being slaughtered. Men were streaming in; Wallace would be cut down at any second — but suddenly Stephen came through on Robert’s horse! He hit Robert from behind, knocked him onto his chest, and dragged Wallace onto the horse. He could not pull him onto the saddle without help, and Wallace gave him none. It was as if the knot of hope that held his strength in place had suddenly slipped and left him feeble. Stephen held his limp body with one hand and spurred the horse, half carrying, half dragging Wallace from the field.
Robert the Bruce lifted his face. He saw Wallace escaping. All around him were dying Scots. The Bruce lowered his eyes to the earth, muddy with the blood of his countrymen.
47
The rays of the dying sun soaked the leaden mists like blood upon tarnished armor as remnants of the defeated army straggled along the roads, moving north, away from Falkirk. William Wallace stumbled blindly forward, supported by Stephen on one side, and trying, in turn, to support Hamish, who carried his huge father like a child within his arms. No one knew how long it had been since the battle ended; it was as if the world had stopped turning then, with the dying doomed to stagger on forever, away from those already dead.
Old Campbell’s eyes came open and rolled up toward Hamish. “Son…..,” he said, “I want to die on the ground.”
They stopped, and William and Stephen tried to help Hamish lower his father to the earth. But as they tilted him to prop him against a fallen tree, old Campbell grabbed at something that started to fall from the wound in his stomach. For so long he had seemed oblivious to pain, but now it scorched his face. Then, s he has always done before, he willed it away. “Whew,” he said. “That’ll clear your head.”
His chin dropped upon his great chest, and he took a huge breath, finding strength from somewhere. His head came up again, and he looked around at each face. “Good-bye, boys,” he said.
“No. You’re going to live,” Hamish tried to tell him.
“I don’t think I can do without one of those,” old Campbell said, glancing down at where his hand was restraining some organ from sliding out of his wound, “whatever it is.”
Hamish was too grief stricken to speak.
William wanted to touch Campbell, even raised his hand, looking or a place to rest it, but every spot on the old man’s body seemed sore. Then William saw that old Campbell was looking a him with eyes that were steady and soft, the same way they had looked when old Campbell had brought him the new of the deaths of William’s father and brother. They looked at each other without speaking, then William said, “You…….were like my father.
Old Campbell rallied one more time and said, “And glad to die like him…. So you could be the men you are. All of ya.”
His last words were to Hamish. The old man let go of his guts and reached his bloody hand to his son. Hamish took it, and his father died in peace.
48
At sunset the next day, William Wallace, still bloody and in his battered armor, walked into the council chamber of Edinburgh Castle. Hamish and Stephen, the filth and gore of battle still upon them, strode in behind him and stood at his back as Wallace removed the chain of office from beneath his breastplate and laid it onto the table in front of Craig and the other nobles.
Wallace turned without a word and walked from the room. Hamish and Stephen lingered just long enough to see the satisfaction on the nobles’ face and followed William out. They moved out into the hallway after Wallace –but he was gone.
“William!” Hamish called out.
No answer; they moved to the great stone staircase.
“William!” Stephen called down.
But there was no answer. They headed downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase, they looked in both directions but saw no sigh of Wallace. Both men were troubled; there were men here who would have been happy to plunge a dagger into their friend’s back, and they meant to be watching it. Without a word, Stephen and Hamish split up and move off to search for him.
Several minutes later, Hamish moved into the stables, just as Stephen wandered in from the opposite side. A groom was there, currying the horses.
“Have you seen Wallace?” Hamish asked.
“Just now took his horse and left,” the groom told them
Hamish and Stephen moved to the door of the stables and looked out. A gray rain was falling in sheets.
Hamish and Stephen sat down on the wet hay and watched the rain. They watched for a long time. Then Hamish stood slowly and reached for his saddle.
“He’ll come back,” Stephen said. “Surely he will.”
“No. he won’t.”
“Where will you go?”
“Back to my farm till them come to hang me. You?”
Stephen shook his head. He had no idea.
Even when Hamish rode away, Stephen was still sitting at the door, staring out at the rain.