by Robyn Young
Urging his horse into a brisk trot, Robert led his company along the road as the first drops of rain began to fall from the sullen sky. The noise of the crowds intensified the closer they drew to Smithfield and shortly the road became clogged with people flowing out from Aldersgate, forcing Robert and his men to a walk, guiding their horses through the throng. The people were a mix of commoners in coarse tunics and wooden clogs, sturdy-looking tradesmen – some still wearing aprons stained by a day’s labour – and a few wealthier sorts in feathered hats and embroidered cloaks. Robert, clad in a brocaded mantle and soft hide boots, his broadsword at his hip and his escort of knights and servants, stood out like a jewel on a rough strand of pebbles. Nes, he noticed, was keeping close at his side, the squire’s eyes darting suspiciously at the passing lines of Londoners.
‘We should go around them, sir,’ called Matthew, scowling at a couple of pimple-faced boys who tried to touch his shying horse. ‘Head north to the Bar and go down through Holborn.’
‘Agreed,’ shouted another of the knights, turning his horse against the quickening tide. Fionn went with him, barking agitatedly.
Reaching down, Robert grabbed one of the pimpled youths by the scruff of his collar. ‘Whose execution is this?’ The boy tried to pull away, but Robert kept tight hold. ‘Tell me!’
‘William Wallace,’ blurted the youth. ‘The ogre of the north!’
Robert let him go, barely noticing the boy spit an insult at him before he ducked into the crowd.
‘Sir!’
Robert paid Matthew no heed, turning instead to Nes. ‘Take my horse,’ he shouted to his squire, kicking his feet free of the stirrups and swinging down. Ignoring Nes’s call of warning, he pushed his way through the press, his height and strength allowing him to force his way forward.
On the verge, he glimpsed the ragged forms of beggars, hands outstretched to the people who flowed past. Beneath the din of conversation, all of it English, he heard the tap-tap of clacker bowls proffered by lepers. There were minstrels and jugglers, quacks with their bags of cures and pardoners with their relics, drawn to the multitude as flies to honey. It was like a festival, only this wasn’t a crowd eager for games, feasting and dancing. This crowd was hungry for blood. They pushed and shoved one another to get as near as they could to the gibbet, all wanting to find a space where they could best observe the proceedings.
Robert pressed on, needing to see for himself, catching Wallace’s name in stray snatches of conversation. How had they caught him? When? Rain misted the air, darkening the heads and shoulders of the crowd. He stepped on someone’s foot and felt a shove in his back. A woman twisted into his path, hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She smiled, looking him up and down appreciatively. With one hand, she tugged down the front of her thin dress, baring her breasts. The other she held out, uncurling a dirt-streaked palm.
‘A penny for a suck on them, my lord.’
Robert felt himself caught in the surging crowd, hemmed in on all sides. He smelled the stink of stale breath as a toothless old man turned to grin lewdly at him, felt his ears assaulted as two youths pinned in beside him roared with appreciation at the glimpse of flesh. He saw the woman turn her gaze on the young men, saw a line of dark moles on her breasts as she struggled her way towards the eager men. As she was swallowed by the surging crowd, Robert was pushed along on a new current, mud and refuse squelching underfoot. He felt a tug at his side and knew his purse had gone, but couldn’t move enough in the crush to look for the thief. He trod on something soft and pulpy – perhaps the corpse of some animal – that gave way with a sickening crunch beneath his boot. A pervading stench of sweat, greasy hair, smoke and excrement clogged the air, as if all the rot of the city had been boiled up in this seething cauldron of humanity.
Ahead, not far now, the gibbet loomed against the ashen sky. Some of the men who thronged its platform wore the king’s scarlet livery. The others were dressed in black. A vast cheer went up from some other part of the crowd, towards the city walls, the sound rising then falling like a wave. Beneath it, Robert heard the thud of drums.
‘He’s on his way,’ called a chubby blond boy, perched on a larger man’s shoulders. His cherub-like face was sweaty with excitement. ‘I can see the king’s men!’
‘I hear he’s a giant,’ said a brawny man wedged in beside them. ‘Ten foot tall.’
‘He’ll be taller still when he’s stretched,’ replied a third, causing sniggers to rise around him.
Robert fought back an urge to draw his sword and hack through their red, laughing mouths. He gripped the pommel.
‘No – I tell you, my cousin is a clerk of the Chancery. He heard it himself at the trial yesterday. William Wallace admitted all the crimes levelled at him, except treason. He said he couldn’t be accused of treason since he’d never recognised Edward as his king.’
Robert turned his head to see two older men, better dressed than most around and more serious of face.
‘And what did King Edward say to that?’ asked the speaker’s comrade, arching an eyebrow.
‘Apparently the king went hunting. He wasn’t there at the trial.’
The cheering rose into a shuddering roar. Now, Robert could see mounted knights dressed in scarlet surcoats riding through the crowds, which parted before them, surging like a sea. In their midst, two carthorses were being led, the beasts tossing their heads agitatedly. As a gap appeared between the shoulders of those in front, Robert saw the horses were dragging a hurdle behind them, to which was bound a naked man, face to the rain, arms outstretched like Christ on His cross.
By his stature, Robert knew it was Wallace, though he was scarcely recognisable. His body was covered with filth – night soil and offal, rotten fruit, horse dung – anything London’s citizens could snatch from the streets to hurl at him as he was dragged through their city. His face was bloodied and livid red marks covered his chest and thighs, where sticks and stones had struck him. His body jerked with the motion of the horses, his bare feet jolting along the muddy ground. The mob greeted the rebel leader with roars of hate, then the gap in front of Robert closed and Wallace was gone from view.
The king’s men halted by the gibbet. There was a pause, the crowds around the scaffold chanting and shouting, as Wallace was unbound from the hurdle. Moments later, held between two guards, he was forced to mount the platform, his hands now tied behind his back. The people jeered as he stood naked before them, hurling insults like they’d hurled the shit and the stones. Robert had a memory of Wallace standing in a clearing in the Forest, addressing the men of Scotland, his voice full of strength and authority, his blue eyes studying each of them in turn. He had knighted this man with his own sword. He wanted to shout – to stop what was about to happen. But he might as well try to stop the incoming tide.
A noose was pulled down from the gibbet’s beam and looped around Wallace’s neck. The crowd quietened as it was drawn tight by one of the black-clad executioners, the knot carefully positioned at the side so his neck wouldn’t break and bring death too early in the proceedings. The punishment for treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The threefold death it was called, for victims were said to die three times over. The executioner stepped back and nodded to his fellows. Robert saw Wallace close his eyes. He seemed to take a breath. Then, three men hauled on the other end of the rope, drawing it up and over the beam. The noose tightened suddenly around Wallace’s neck, twisting his head to one side. As his feet, bruised and bloodied by London’s streets, left the platform, the mob erupted with a cheer. The men at the rope strained as they hoisted him higher, all seven feet of him. Wallace’s ashen face reddened, his eyes widening as the breath was squeezed from him. The crowd continued to applaud noisily as the moments crawled by, Wallace’s feet starting to kick and jerk. His eyes bulged obscenely, his neck stretched and his face turned purple, veins protruding on his brow. His tongue thrust out from between his lips as his body convulsed. Robert, realising he had been holding his own br
eath, let it out in a rush.
Slowly, the applause died away. A few women averted their eyes, unable to watch this slow, agonising expiration of life. Finally, one of the black-clad executioners, studying Wallace closely, nodded to the three men at the end of the rope, all of whom were breathing hard and sweating profusely. They let go together and Wallace collapsed on the platform with a thud. One of the men came forward and tossed a bucket of water over him to revive him. Moments later, strangled gasps of breath could clearly be heard over the almost silent crowd. A strange sense of relief seemed to rise, people beginning to laugh and talk again. Wallace was helped to his feet and led to a trestle that had been erected on the platform. There he was laid out and strapped down for the second death. The rain was falling harder now, causing people to huddle together under the downpour. On the gibbet, the curved-bladed knives and tools in the hands of the executioners gleamed.
First, they sliced off his genitals, causing a howl to tear from his lips. Then, the blood spurting dark across his thighs, the executioners began to cut through the flesh of his stomach, opening him up to get at his bowels. Robert turned his gaze to the blond boy who had been so excited by the prospect of seeing the outlaw die. Still perched on the man’s shoulders, he had twisted his face away. His eyes were screwed up, his hands pressed over his ears to block out Wallace’s inhuman screams, unable to bear the sight and sound of a man being opened up while still alive, his insides ripped out to be tossed into a smoking brazier, where they hissed and spat. Many more were still watching the spectacle, silent now in the main. Soon would come the last death. Merciful beheading. The rain dripping down his cheeks, Robert turned and pushed his way through the crowd.
Westminster, London, 1305 AD
Sir John Segrave stood waiting outside Westminster Hall as King Edward and his men rode into the courtyard, the legs of their horses caked with mud from the Middlesex Forest. Behind the lords, knights and squires who accompanied the king, trundled a cart laden with the corpses of half a dozen stags. One, a beast of fourteen tines, had already been unmade in the field, its carcass divided into portions. Its great head, crowned with huge, scarred antlers, was being carried on a pole by one of the huntsmen, blood dripping down the shaft. Hounds ran among the horses, barking excitedly.
Segrave made his way stiffly across the yard, his limp – a legacy from the battle with Comyn’s forces near Roslin – always worse in wet weather. He had a battered leather bag gripped in his hand as he headed purposefully towards the king, past pages who took spears and helms from the knights as they dismounted, faces glistening with rain. King Edward, standing tall among them in a green hunting cloak, seemed in unusually high spirits, laughing at something his son-in-law, Ralph de Monthermer was saying. Guy de Beauchamp and Henry Percy were with them. Segrave steeled himself, praying the king wouldn’t blame the messenger.
As Edward saw Segrave approaching, his smile vanished, replaced by keen question. He strode over to the lieutenant, sliding off his kid-skin gloves. ‘Is it done?’
Knowing what he meant, Segrave nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. William Wallace was led to Smithfield’s gibbet this afternoon, where he was dealt with in accordance with your instructions.’
Edward breathed through his nostrils, nodding slowly as if savouring the news. ‘And the traitor’s corpse?’
‘The body has been quartered. Once the crowds around Smithfield have dispersed, the limbs will be ready for transport. The head has been dipped in pitch to preserve it. It will be set on London Bridge before vespers.’
‘Good.’
‘My lord.’ Aymer headed over. His voice was flat, his spirits markedly different to the other men of the party. ‘The master huntsman asks if you will have the honour of the unmaking.’
Segrave noticed the knight didn’t look the king in the eye when he spoke. He’d heard men say Valence’s obsession with Robert Bruce had caused him to fall out of favour with the king. Segrave gripped the bag tighter, acutely aware of what he was about to unleash.
Edward rubbed his hands together with a rare smile. ‘Indeed I will.’
‘My lord,’ interrupted Segrave. ‘There is something else.’
Edward frowned at Segrave’s tone. ‘Yes?’
‘This was just given to me, along with the clothes and weapons taken from Wallace at the time of his capture.’ The lieutenant lifted the bag. ‘According to my men John of Menteith found it on the outlaw.’ Reaching into the bag, he drew out a roll of parchment. ‘This was inside.’
Edward took it. While the huntsmen began dragging the bodies of the stags from the cart, the nobles talking animatedly, he unrolled the parchment and read. Segrave watched the king’s face change, the hale flush of colour slowly draining from it.
‘What is it, my lord?’ questioned Aymer, his brow furrowing at his cousin’s expression.
Edward looked up, his eyes smouldering. ‘Where is Robert Bruce?’
Chapter 47
Westminster Abbey towered over the precinct, a pale giant against the leaden sky, its pointed arches and buttresses gleaming in the wet. Water gushed from the yawning mouths of gargoyles and trickled down the uplifted faces of angels. The red stained glass of the rose window seemed to bleed with threads of rain. Far below, lines of men and women filed in through the colossal arched doors, heads bowed under the deluge.
Robert, riding hard along the King’s Road, made straight for the abbey’s white walls. Spurring his palfrey across the bridge over the Tyburn and through the grand stone archway, he drew the animal to a stamping halt by the entrance to the abbey grounds. As he dismounted, his eyes went to the great roof of Westminster Hall that thrust above the jumbled buildings of the palace behind him: the scene of Wallace’s trial. Robert’s sodden cloak hung heavy on his shoulders and his boots were caked in Smithfield’s filth. His hair dripped water down his cheeks, while his mind was saturated with the image of Wallace on the executioner’s slab. He had seen many men die bloody in battle, ripped apart by sword and axe, their insides turned outside, a feast for crows and worms. But there was something ungodly about what had been done to the rebel leader, a violation not only of flesh, but of soul. That slow degrading of the body was not a warrior’s death. Not a man’s death.
Hoof-beats clattered in behind him as the rest of his company caught up. Nes was the first to dismount, heading straight to him. ‘Sir?’ he questioned, taking the reins of Robert’s palfrey, concern plain in his voice. Nes hesitated. ‘My lord, there was nothing you could do for him.’
Robert turned his gaze to the ragged procession of men and women filing into the abbey. He knew that wasn’t true. Had he acted on his plan, ignored James Stewart and Lamberton, he might now be heading an army raised by Wallace, the two of them fighting to free their kingdom. Instead, he had waited, futilely, for word from Comyn that hadn’t come. What choices were now left to him? To Scotland? He thought of the prophecy, wondering if he had been wrong and it was genuine after all. Was that why all his plans had come to nothing? He had to know. Leaving Nes, Robert ducked through the archway in the abbey wall.
After the spectacle at West Smithfield had ended, the crowds around the gibbet had begun to disperse, some looking for more sport in the city’s inns, others going back to their chores, leaving the rain washing the blood from the scaffold and the steady chop of the executioner’s axe as Wallace’s body was dismembered. Robert, locating his men by Fionn’s barking, had continued to Westminster expecting to leave the hordes behind, only to find the King’s Road teeming with people, many blighted by disfigurements and diseases of the skin, or by poverty, their flesh withered with hunger. Questioning a group of pilgrims, he’d discovered the king had declared special alms to be given to the poor at the shrine of the Confessor. What was more, the pilgrims told him, the relics of Britain were there displayed for all to see.
Robert couldn’t change Wallace’s fate, nor could he will an agreement to come from John Comyn. But he could open that black box. He could seek the truth. Picking
up his pace, he splashed across the waterlogged ground, heading for the abbey doors.
‘Robert?’
He turned abruptly at the familiar voice, to see Humphrey approaching across the yard, hood up to keep off the rain. Robert glanced back; he was almost at the doors, the candlelit gloom of the abbey’s interior glowing faintly beyond. Shambling lines of the poor filed past him to where the almoners were ushering them inside. Several royal guards were there, keeping order and an eye out for thieves.
‘I didn’t know you had returned,’ said Humphrey, coming over.
‘Just now.’
Humphrey cast his eye over Robert’s filthy boots and sodden clothes. ‘You look as if you rode through a river to get here, my friend.’
‘I was at Smithfield.’
Humphrey nodded after a pause. ‘God willing, that will be the last blood shed for this war.’ Despite the optimism of his words, his tone was flat and his green eyes distant. The grief wrought in him the night Bess and his unborn child had died was part of him now, etched in his face. ‘You’re heading inside?’ He fixed on the abbey. ‘I’m going to light a candle for Bess. It’s been almost a year since . . .’ He shook himself. ‘Forgive me. It has been hard these past days. She would have celebrated her birthday last week.’
‘I understand.’
‘On my way here I saw the king returning from his hunt. I’m to see him this evening to discuss tomorrow’s parliament.’ Humphrey gestured to the abbey. ‘Join me in my prayers? I would be glad of the company. Then we will go and see the king together. I know he is keen to hear any final thoughts about the new council before terms are set.’
Robert was deciding how best to answer, when Nes came running across the abbey grounds.
‘Sir Robert! I have a—’ The squire stopped dead as he saw Humphrey, whose hood partially hid his face. ‘Message,’ he finished, fixing meaningfully on Robert. ‘I have a message for you.’
