The Guardian

by Jack Whyte

  He must have been about forty years old, and there was something exotic about him—a hint of foreignness despite the fact that his family had never left Scotland since arriving there from France some two hundred years earlier. And then it came to me that he resembled someone I had once met, a bishop from the Basque kingdom of Navarre, who had visited us in Glasgow a few years earlier. He had been sent to Scotland on a diplomatic mission, to entreat King John’s assistance in the war against the Moors who threatened to overrun the Iberian peninsula, and he was the only Spaniard I had ever seen—though when I said so to him he grew offended, insisting that he was a Basque, possessed of a proud, pre-Roman heritage that precluded any possibility of his being Spanish.

  I could see the Navarrese bishop clearly in my mind, and he had had the same physical attributes as the striking Scots magnate across from me. James Stewart was as dark skinned and different looking as the Basque bishop had been, with a long, narrow face framed by straight, perfectly coiffed dark hair and neatly trimmed beard and moustaches. Large, dark, expressive eyes gazed straightforwardly at the world, and the teeth that gleamed frequently in his smiling mouth suggested strength of character and quiet determination. He was soft-spoken in that way of strong men who know they have no need to raise their voice, and his entire bearing exuded self-assurance and the great confidence of being high-born and wealthy beyond the ken of ordinary men.

  This was not the first time I had seen Sir James, of course. He was the Stewart, the chief of all his namesakes, liege lord to all us Wallaces as had been his father before him, and even the Noble Robert, the Earl of Carrick’s grandsire and former Lord of Annandale, had bowed the knee in fealty and service to him and to his father before him. This was, however, the first occasion on which I had sat at table with the great man, and it was also the first time I had had the pleasure of being able to watch him at my leisure without appearing to be ill-mannered or impertinent.

  There were fourteen people present, and although I did not realize it for some time, being newly arrived and abysmally ignorant of recent developments while I had lain convalescing, the occasion was a meeting of some of the principal figures directing the general uprising that was on the point of erupting throughout Scotland that summer of 1297. The gathering was held in the great hall of Castle Turnberry, which had been partitioned to fashion a room a quarter of its size, and the attendees, myself among them, were arranged casually along the outer rim of a grouping of tables that formed three sides of a rectangle, the open side permitting access for the serving staff.

  The Earl of Carrick presided at the meal as nominal host, since Turnberry was his even though he had been away from it for years, and he was flanked by the Steward on his right and Bishop Wishart, the mastermind behind what I was coming to think of as the general insurrection, on his left. The fourth place at the head table, on Wishart’s left, was occupied by Sir William Douglas, the Hardy as he was known, a dark-faced, glowering man who spoke little and frowned constantly.

  The remaining diners sat at the two flanking tables and consisted of five clerics and five knights. The man on my right, closest to the head table, was Alpin of Strathearn, the recently consecrated Bishop of Dunblane. I knew him well by repute, though I had never set eyes on him until that day, and I knew that Bishop Wishart held him in high regard. I also knew that he had only recently returned to Scotland to take up his episcopal duties and was therefore one of the few Scottish bishops who had been able to avoid swearing fealty to Edward the previous year. He had been in Rome, being consecrated as bishop, when John Balliol was robbed of his kingship and the land first felt the weight of Edward’s iron-shod heel. I spoke with him several times in the course of that dinner—he was hugely intelligent and immensely likeable—but I never saw him again after that day.

  The three remaining clerics in attendance were priests—Father Vincent, who had been chaplain at Turnberry since the time of Countess Marjorie, the earl’s mother, Father Martin, and another newcomer to Turnberry like myself, who, I quickly discovered, was renowned and far more accomplished in all manner of things than I would ever be. His name was Father David de Moravia, and until very recently he had been the pastor of the rich estates of Bothwell, which were owned and administered by his first cousin, William de Moravia, a magnate so wealthy that he was commonly spoken of as William le Riche. I had met the priest briefly on my arrival and liked him immediately, for although he had been introduced to me as Father de Moravia, he had quickly waved the name away as though sweeping it behind him. “Call me Davie,” he said quietly, adding with a wink, “Plain Davie Murray, but Father in front o’ the servants and the high mucky-mucks.” He was a tallish, brisk-looking fellow, heavily muscled, with an open, friendly face and an easy, engaging smile. Had I met him under different circumstances I would have taken him for a soldier far more readily than I might have a priest. Priest he was, though, and, as Bishop Wishart had quietly observed to me, his living in Bothwell was one of the wealthiest in Scotland. But he was also a lively and amusing companion, with much to say on a wide range of topics, and I felt sure he and I were destined to become close friends.

  Across from us, at the facing table, sat five knights, two of whom were followers of Sir William Douglas and were, like their employer, dour, taciturn, and generally unfriendly. The other three, however, were of greatly different stuff, and one of them, to my utter astonishment, turned out to be related to me.

  When Will and I had first arrived in Elderslie, more than a decade earlier, Malcolm Wallace, the eldest son and namesake of my boyhood benefactor, Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, had been a squire, and would later become a knight in the service of Lord Robert Bruce of Annandale. Years later, after Lord Bruce’s withdrawal from public life and his departure to England, Sir Malcolm had transferred his allegiance to Lord James Stewart. He was four years older than me, and though I had, of course, known all about him since the age of ten, he and I had never met each other. A four-year difference in age is a far wider gap during boyhood, of course, than at any other time in life, and our differing duties and responsibilities while growing up and working had kept us far apart. He knew me as well as I knew him, of course, and so our first meeting, unexpected as it was to both of us, was amiable and mutually cordial, even while we had nothing in common beyond shared blood.

  Senior as he undoubtedly was by then in Lord James’s retinue, however, Sir Malcolm was by no means the senior of the group at his table. That status was held by Sir John Stewart, who sat to Malcolm’s right and was the Steward’s younger brother, renowned as something of a hothead but generally acknowledged to be brave, chivalrous, and loyal and honest in his friendships. He, too, I had liked instinctively on first meeting. Beside him sat another young knight who, like me, had met the Earl of Carrick for the first time that day. He was Sir Alexander Lindsay, another liegeman to Lord James.

  Thus we were a small party, and because of that the conversation was much more general and far more equally shared than would have been the case otherwise. Everyone listened openly to what was being said at the head table, and aware of that overt attention, Bishop Wishart and the Steward responded graciously, speaking out more loudly and more frankly than they might have in other circumstances. While his companions addressed themselves to their listeners in general, speaking candidly about the events of the previous weeks and the forthcoming arrival of the English force under Henry Percy and Robert Clifford, Sir William Douglas, to no one’s surprise, said nothing. He merely scowled ferociously and incessantly, fulfilling everyone’s expectations of him.

  To that point at least, the Steward remarked, no physical contact had been reported between the approaching English and any of the militant bands of Scots that were roaming the countryside. That led one of Douglas’s two adherents, a knight called Thomas of Lariston, to ask the Steward what had become of Wallace, claiming that no one seemed to have seen or heard of the former forester since his return from the raid on Perth. It was the bishop who answered him, th
ough, after a single, swift glance at Lord James. In a low, clear voice he explained that Wallace had returned to Selkirk Forest and his people there, where he was busy training the hundreds of new followers he had attracted to him in the aftermath of the Perth escapade. Wallace would be ready, the bishop said, when next Scotland had need of him, but as to when that might be, he would say no more than that it would be soon and that it greatly depended on the behaviour of the approaching English army.

  “Are we to fight, then?” Lariston’s question was truculent, but the bishop demurred, glancing towards the Steward before responding.

  “We have talked much on that,” he said noncommittally, “and our feeling is that the time is not yet right for fighting. We will not surrender, though, nor will we disband our army and scuttle meekly to our homes to disappear.”

  The surly questioner was unimpressed. “So, gin we dinna fight, and we winna quit the field, what’s to be done? Your Englishry winna thole that, us shufflin’ aboot like folk that hae lost their wits.”

  “We will talk, negotiate.”

  Lariston scoffed. “Negotiate? Wi’ yon crew? Ye’ll hae high hopes, I jalouse. I dinna ken who this Clifford is, nor where he bides, but I’ve heard much o’ this other yin, this Percy, an’ ye’ll no’ get him to gie up, meek an’ mild, an’ walk awa.”

  “I think we might, Lariston. I know Percy.” There came a deathly silence as every eye in the room turned on the Earl of Carrick. He sniffed the air, as though detecting the evident skepticism and hostility, and then smiled tentatively, the tips of his ears growing red in the only sign of discomfiture he betrayed. “Henry Percy and I have been friends for years,” he continued. “Close friends, I can say with confidence. We trained for knighthood together in more settled times, as joint protégés of King Edward. He is a good man, Percy— hard-headed, stubborn in his beliefs, but just and reasonable nonetheless. I will talk with him.”

  “Hmm.” Lariston’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Be sure ye tak a long spoon wi’ ye, gin ye dine wi’ the Auld Beast.”

  Bruce merely looked back at him, one eyebrow quirked slightly, and the youngest knight, Sir Alexander Lindsay, changed the subject smoothly.

  “To what ends will you negotiate with them, my lord bishop?”

  The bishop shrugged. “To the ends of time,” he replied, and smiled broadly. “Time being all-important at this point, ye’ll understand. We’ll keep our army in the field for as long as we may, holding the English in debate over our terms, and every day we can debate will allow time for our allies in the north and the midlands to broaden their activities against the English.” He held up a hand. “And before you ask who our allies are, I’ll tell you they are many. MacDuff, the Earl of Fife, has roused his people on the east coast, and here in the south and centre we have Wallace and his army—”

  “Army?” Lariston spat out the word as he sneered at the head table. “Wallace has nae army, my lords. Percy has an army— knights and mounted men-at-arms supported wi’ archers and siege artillery and trained, well-equipped infantry. We here dinna hae an army that could face them. Wallace has a rabble o’ thieves and outlaws like himsel’ and nary a hope o’ fieldin’ any o’ them against a well-trained army.”

  Lord James raised a single finger, as though seeking permission to speak, and when the silence that followed had become profound, he asked mildly, “Tell me something, Sir Thomas, if you will. Why is it, think you, that William Wallace, single-handedly, has been the only man in all this region of Scotland to win any kind of substantial success against the English?”

  He waited, watching as angry colour flooded Lariston’s face. “Can you answer the question? No? Then I shall tell you. It is because the fellow is a natural, inspiring leader whose men—that rabble of thieves and outlaws, as you so aptly name them—will follow him gladly wheresoever he chooses to lead them. That willingness of theirs—that blind trust, if you will—stems from one simple, fundamental truth: they believe he offers them something that none of us here, the magnates and knights and nobles in this room, ever has.”

  The High Steward paused, allowing that thought to settle. “The folk who follow Wallace so loyally regard him as a commoner, like them, but we know—much as some of us may dislike it—that he is rather one of us, bred of knightly stock. But Wallace offers them something of which we have never considered them worthy or deserving: basic dignity and the right to fight, as free men, for themselves and their families.”

  He paused again, then repeated his last point. “For themselves, Sir Thomas. Not for their liege lords or the magnate who owns and controls the land on which they live. For themselves, the folk of Scotland. Now I know that sounds appalling—treasonous and threatening. I am completely aware of that. We in this room are bound to find that idea offensive, for at first sight it threatens our privilege and everything we stand for. But I, for one, after long hours and weeks of discussion of this very point with Bishop Wishart here and several of his colleagues, as well as others of my own rank and station, have come to believe that there is no such threat. There is a seeming threat, but no real peril, I am convinced, in according common men the respect they earn and deserve. And for men like those who follow William Wallace, such consideration is a gift beyond price. And in return for that consideration—something new and unthinkable to folk like us—they will follow Wallace into Hell itself.”

  Lord James produced a kerchief from his sleeve and wiped something fastidiously from the corner of his left eye. He peered at the kerchief, inspecting the result, then tucked the cloth back whence it had come. “So sneer at him and his followers if you will, Lariston, from the eminence of your knighthood, but he has put more fear into the English this past half year, and more defiance and spirit into his rabble, than all of us assembled here have been able to achieve together.”

  Lariston sat wordless, his face flushed and sullen.

  The Steward cleared his throat. “I would ask you, Sir Thomas, to consider the alternatives to the negotiation his lordship proposes. There are two, as I perceive things, the first being merely to disband our army at once and melt away into the hillside mists as though we had never been here. We have been here, though, and with an assembled army, and that has caused Percy and his expedition to be sent against us. I suggest to you we would be foolish to hope that, finding us dispersed, Percy would return to his royal master and report that all is well in Scotland.

  “The second alternative open to us if we do not negotiate is to fight, and that is precisely why we will negotiate. We will talk and hold our army ready for as long as we may, because those of us whose charge it is to know such things know that we face an absolute certainty: if we confront Percy in war today, or next week or next month, and come to battle with them as things stand, we will be destroyed.”

  His eyes moved from face to face among his listeners. “We will be slaughtered because we have no hope of prevailing. Because we lack the horseflesh that the English have in such abundance. Because we lack the armour and fine weaponry that the English have in such abundance. Because we lack the manpower that the English have in such abundance. Because we lack the trained longbow archers that the English have in such abundance. Because we lack the hundreds of thousands of fresh-made, long-shafted arrows that the English produce systematically, as required by law, and so have in such abundance.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “And believe me when I tell you, Lariston, that those reasons are but the first few of the dozens that swarm in my mind as a Guardian of this realm and the commander of our Scots forces. What you said about our army earlier is correct. We would be slaughtered were we to fight Percy’s host—no, we will be slaughtered, like sheep. That is an absolute truth, and one that I have no desire to test.

  “One more question,” he continued, appearing to relax slightly, “and it is one for you to ask yourself, Sir Thomas, before we leave this topic. Had you been in command these past three months of this same army that we have here today, could you have achieved what
Wallace achieved in Perth, or in Lanark?” He gazed levelly at Lariston. “Yes, you’ll say. You could have. Well, I disagree. And so would you if you but thought about it logically, without feeling insulted.”

  The Douglas knight opened his mouth to protest.

  “With an army at your back,” the Steward said, ignoring him, “you would have had to lay siege to Perth, and the English would have known of your intentions—or mine, or those of anyone leading such an army—a week and more before you passed Stirling and entered their territory. They would have had time to entrench themselves, provision the town, and prepare for your attack, and Perth is a strong place, with stout walls built to withstand a siege. You would have failed—any of us would—and Ormsby’s treasure train would have been spirited away while you were yet days distant to the south.

  “But Wallace’s rabble captured Lanark, and he it was who commanded the raid on Perth. That raid succeeded because it was Wallace who led it, and because he has a reputation for fighting in a way no one else fights. It is common knowledge today that he and his folk know the land they live on and fight on, and they know it better and more intimately than any of those who come against them—they use it as a weapon, effortlessly, without having to think about it. The enemy they fight can do nothing to counter their kind of warfare, because Wallace’s folk behave like water, fluid and practically impossible to attack to any lasting effect. They go where they can by the simplest route, whereas English armies are like rock formations, inflexible and massive. But a stream of water, if it is strong enough and properly directed, can wash away the largest boulders and bring down the stoutest walls. To my way of thinking, William Wallace is like a river, harnessed while in spate. He is a force of nature, unlike any leader this part of Scotland has seen to date.”