Braveheart Page 6

  William never flinched. The people cheered.

  “Brave show!” old Campbell called out.

  Hamish was miffed; it was as if William had won. But what ad he done except stand there? “I threw longer than last time!” Hamish shouted and glared first at William, then at his father and the other elders.

  “An ox is strong but not clever,” his father boomed back.

  “An ox is stupid enough to just stand in one place!” Hamish countered. Everyone considered this, while Hamish seemed both surprised and particularly proud of his reply.

  “That’s not the point,” William said. He turned, walked double the distance Hamish threw, turned again, and hurled the rock he held! It whistled through the air, hit Hamish in the forehead, and dropped him like a shot. “That is,” William said.

  Everybody cheered and laughed. They surrounded William. “A fine display, young Wallace!” Campbell shouted.

  William took a tankard of ale from a farmer, walked over, and tossed the cold liquid into Hamish’s face. He awoke and, his eyes uncrossing, saw William’s hand outstretched to him. Hamish accepted it, and William groaned, pulling his huge friend to his feet.

  “Good to see you again,” William said.

  “I should’a remembered the eggs,” Hamish said.

  They grinned and embraced. Music played and the dancing began again. For several minutes William accepted the greetings of his father’s old friends, nodding to each. Then, when he had paid respects to all, he began to move across the clearing to the knot of young ladies.

  Again he drew nearer and nearer to Murron—then passed her and moved to the girl with the missing teeth.

  “Would you honor me with a dance?” William asked.

  The girl was thrilled. The young handsome man danced with the girl with the missing teeth.

  “You’ve taken over your father’s farm?” the girl asked as they went spinning along in the dance called strip-the-widow.

  William nodded.

  “They say he died long ago. Fighting the English,” the girl said.

  “He died in an accident with my brother. Their cart turned over,” William said.

  The music ended, and William gave the girl a gracious bow of thanks. She glowed. As he escorted the girl back to her beaming mother, it started to rain. Everyone gathered up the food and scrambled for shelter.

  Everyone but William. He stood out alone in the rain and watched it fall.

  14

  THAT NIGHT, WILLIAM WALLACE STOOD IN THE DOOR OF the farmhouse where he had slept as a boy, where he had kept his last vigil waiting for his father and brother, the place he had left long years ago with his uncle Argyle. In the time since then the place had been used by a succession of tenant farmers, and several of the more prosperous of the local farmers had wished to buy it. Uncle Argyle had refused the first two offer without telling William, but the most recent one, coming two years ago, caused the old man to sit William down, tell him about the previous bids for the house and lands, and let him choose for himself what to do with his inheritance. William had refused the offer, sending word that he planned to work the land himself. His return seeming imminent, all the tenants had vacated. The house had been empty since that time; William’s return was delayed for reasons that the select group of local farmers who received communications from Uncle Argyle (through the village priest) never heard explained and found mysterious.

  Now one wall, needing daubing, admitted the wind. The table where William had once laid out the dinner of stew that his father and brother would never eat was still there; constructed by his father, it had survived the years of use, and the scars upon its surface made it look sturdier than ever, but it was the only furnishing that seemed usable. The straw sleeping mats were filthy; William had already carried them outside and replaced them with clean straw from the barn. The bedsteads had long ago been removed; he didn’t know who had them, but he was sure that Uncle Argyle or old Campbell had seen to it that someone worthy had them. Other than the wall, the house seemed in good enough repair. Ah, well, the roof leaked, a trickle of cold water had begun to fall on William’s neck. The roof needed thatch, that was to be expected.

  None of that was important. He could take care of all that. But now something else occupied his thoughts—or rather drew all his thoughts away, so he couldn’t think at all.

  He stood at the open door of the farmhouse and gazed out at the rain.

  Hard again a steep hillside, beside a meadow ringed with trees, stood the MacClannough house, a thatched cottage with wood plank windows closed against the storm. The aromatic smoke from a cozy fire in its hearth curled up out of its chimney and mingled with the rain. Inside the house, the old man was in the chair, the wife was sewing, their daughter Murron was embroidering something, and there was knock at the door.

  “Who can that be in this rain?” Mrs. MacClannough wondered.

  Her husband stood and opened the door to—a horse! The animal stood just outside his doorway as if the beast wished to come in! then the farmer recovered from his surprise and saw that the horse had a rider: none other than William Wallace.

  Both man and horse were drenched with rain; huge steady drops exploded over them. Young Wallace smiled as if he had just come calling on a bright, warm Sunday and said, “Good evening, sir. May I speak with your daughter?”

  Mrs. MacClannough stood bug-eyed at her husband’s shoulder, and then Murron appeared behind her stunned parents.

  Wallace persisted. “Murron, would you like to go for a ride on this fine evening?”

  “The boy’s …the boy’s insane!” Murron’s mother sputtered.

  “It’s good Scottish weather, madam. The rain is fallin’ straight down,” William said and grinned again, but he was losing hope.

  Farmer MacClannough was still stunned, but his wife’s words were all the quicker. “She absolutely may not, she’ll—Murron!”

  Murron had grabbed a cloak off the back of the door; she ran out and hopped up behind William, and they galloped away. Her parents stood in the doorway and looked at each other.

  In a long, wordless, exhilarating gallop, William and Murron raced along the heather, up hills, and through streams swollen with the rain. Then the rain stopped; the moon came out behind broken clouds, and a billion stars, washed clean by the storm, shone in the black depth of heaven. William pulled the sodden reins, drawing the horse to a halt, and they sat there together on the warm horse’s back, the mare breathing and blowing yet seeming to feel the sudden beauty of the night, and Murron still pressed against William’s back. They just sat there together, the two of them, neither saying anything, neither feeling the need to.

  Then, at last, William spoke without turning to face her.

  “Thank you for accepting,” he said.

  “Thank you for inviting,” she said.

  “I’ll invite you again. But your father thinks I’m crazy.”

  “You are,” she said. “And when you invite again, I’ll come again!”

  He lingered; he seemed to want to say something more, or perhaps it was just that he didn’t want the night to end. Finally he nudged the horse with his heels, and the mare made her way back down into the valley.

  They reached the door of her house. William hopped off the horse and reached up to help her down.

  The moment she touched the ground, they looked into each other’s eyes…

  But the cottage door was snatched open so quickly that there was no time for a kiss. “Murron, come in!” Mrs. MacClannough snapped.

  William walked Murron closer to the door. They turned and looked at each other again. She waited for him to kiss her.

  “Murron, come in!” Mrs. MacClannough said even louder.

  Still Murron hesitated, and when even then he did not kiss her, she knew he was not going to. She lowered her eyes and started into the cabin, but then William grabbed her hand and into it he put something he had taken from deep inside the long woolen fabric wrapped around his body. It was so
mething small and long, wrapped carefully in flannel. He hopped on his horse, glanced at her, and galloped away.

  She stood in the open doorway and looked down at what he left her. Her mother stood beside her, all reproach gone, two kindred souls bounded in womanhood, both staring in wonder at the curious gift.

  Murron unwrapped the flannel.

  Hidden within its folds was a dried thistle flower, the one she had given him at the graveside many years before.

  15

  THE NEXT DAY DAWNED CLEAR AND FOUND WILLIAM rethatching the roof of his house. Standing there on the high bracing timbers, he could see off in the distance a column of English soldiers marching through the countryside, training. He stared at them a moment, then went back to work, spreading out the long yellow strands of thatching grass. He heard a rider approach and looked down to see that it was MacClannough.

  “Young Wallace—“ MacClannough said.

  “Sir, I know it was strange of me to invite Murron to ride last night. I assure you, I—“

  “My daughter is another matter. I came to fetch you to a meeting.”

  “What kind of meeting would that be, sir?”

  “The secret kind.”

  There was a pause then of barely two seconds, yet it seemed long to both of them. “I’ll get my horse,” William said.

  They rode together deep into the hills and reached a cave tucked in a corner sheltered by trees and shadow. They looked to be sure they weren’t watched, and then dismounted, leading their horses with them as they entered.

  The inside of the cave was very dark, but as William and MacClannough got in, someone struck a match, then lit a candle. Its flame illuminated twenty men, farmers of the shire.

  “You all know William Wallace,” MacClannough told them.

  They did. Among the men were Hamish and Campbell, his father, who seemed to be the leader here. “We risk our lives bringing you here, because we are willing to risk our lives for the son of Malcolm Wallace. You understand?” Campbell asked him.

  William nodded. He knew rebels when he saw them.

  “Every day, they send in more troops. Our country becomes an English playground, a place to harvest our sons as soldiers and our daughters as whores,” Campbell explained.

  “That’s a bit too vivid, Campbell!” MacClannough bristled.

  “Vivid but true! When Malcolm Wallace was alive, we met here for every raid.” He turned his wild gray eyes on William. “Your coming back made us remember your father. And made us ask if we are still men.”

  William looked around the group, lastly at MacClannough.

  “I came back home to raise crops. And, God willing, a family. If I can live in peace, I will,” William said. He looked once more at old Campbell, then at Hamish, and walked out of the cave, leading his horse with him.

  Campbell shook his head. No one else spoke. Then MacClannough followed William.

  The two rode back in silence; they reached the crossroads on the ridge above the Wallace farm. As they were about to part, MacClannough stopped his horse and spoke. “If you can keep your intention to stay out of the troubles, you may court my daughter. If you break your intention, I’ll kill you.”

  MacClannough rode away. William rode down to his farm. But along the lane, he stopped and looked for a long time at the graves of his father and brother.

  16

  THEY DID NOT SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN FOR TWO WEEKS. BUT when one of the MacClannoughs wed his daughter to the son of another local farmer, he sent out a runner to announce the event and invite friends to the celebration. Young Wallace was included in the circle—scarcely anyone was left out, and yet he took the invitation as a sign of acceptance by his old neighbors. So on a Saturday afternoon in late summer he found himself beside Murron, strolling through grass up to their kneetops, in a field beside the church. All the farm families had turned out, but very few of the villagers, as the bride’s family, being tenents on the land of a nobleman, was not prosperous enough to invite and feed them all. Yet there was ample food and flowers full of spirits followed the nuptial couple about and serenaded them with bawdy songs.

  William and Murron had sat on opposite sides of the aisle during the wedding, she with her family, he alone. The words of the Latin mass, mysterious to most of the congregation, had bathed the ceremony with a majesty; and Murron, who had seen so many of her friends make the solemn journey into marriage and had turned down so many offers to take the trip herself, felt the spirit of the wedding in a way she had never felt it before, as if those holy words had been shaped at the dawn of time and sent down the ages specifically for her.

  Then she and William had met at the door of the church as the congregation had filed out behind the bride and groom to begin the real celebration. As Murron and William came face to face, they scanned each other’s features suddenly and desperately, as if afraid that in the days since they’d last met everything had changed, they’d gotten it all wrong somehow, the face that had been filling their waking thoughts and their sleeping dreams was really just like every other. But once their eyes met, they saw the same dreams, the same promise, the same gleam, like looking into the face of someone who is gazing through the door of heaven.

  So now they walked side by side, their steps matched, not daring to hold hands though their knuckles brushed as they matched steps. It seemed to them that everyone was watching them. And yet that didn’t seem to matter.

  “Your father doesn’t like me, does he?” William said, smiling.

  “It’s not you,” she said. “He dislikes that you’re a Wallace. He just says . . . the Wallaces don’t seem to live for very long.”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. His father, his brother, his grandfather . . . Death was a part of life; diseases and accidents seemed to take someone every day. But only William’s mother had died in her bed of what was known as a natural cause. The men –well, with the Wallaces it seemed that death in battle was a natural cause. And yet as William walked beside Murron and looked at her auburn hair drawing in the warmth of the sunlight and her eyes absorbing the green of the grass and the blue of the sky, he wanted his hands to know nothing but the touch of her skin and the feel of a plow in his hands. He wanted life. Babies. Crops. Life! Here, forever, in peace.

  And just as he drifted in the sweet flow of those vital dreams, he heard the horses. A group of riders appeared—mounted knights with banners and flying colors. At the head of the group rode an English nobleman, plumed and polished.

  The wedding guests grew quiet. What could this be, the presentation of a gift? Would the noble grant the young couple a plot of land of their own? Would he give money as dowry? The bride’s father had been a good tenant, helping to fill the noble’s barn year after year. Surely such a surprise visit could only mean something extraordinary. The bride, a girl named Helen, with hair the color of a flaming sky, held tight to Robbie, her beloved, and watched them come.

  The riders stopped in front of the bride and groom. The nobleman was gray, in his fifties. His face plump, his cheeks red and puffy above his beard. He rose in his stirrups and announced, “I have come to claim the right of prima noctes! As the lord of these lands, I will bless this marriage by taking the bride into my bed on the first night of her union!”

  The warm breeze rattled through the trees; the horses shook their necks in their bridles, but no one could make a sound. Yes, the noble had such a right. He owned the land; in effect he owned the people, for he could require every able-bodied man to fight in any campaign he wished for up to one month out of every twelve. Yet in recent years the right of prima noctes had seldom been invoked. It created hatred, it destroyed families. Perhaps that was the whole point.

  Stewart, the father of the bride, lunged forward. “No, by God!” he yelled.

  The knights carried short battle pikes, and they were ready for this; in an instant their pikes were pointed down at the unarmed Scots. “It is my noble right,” the nobleman said quietly. “I have recently come into possessi
on of these lands. Perhaps you have not been made sensible of late of the honors due to your lord. I am here to remind you.”

  The bride, Helen, felt her husband’s arm go taut; even unarmed, Robbie and Stewart, his new father-in-law, were about to duck beneath the pike points, grab at the horses’ bridles, pull a few knights down, and kill as many as they could before they were killed themselves. But Helen was already reacting, holding Robbie tight, snatching at her father’s shoulder, pulling them both back, away from the blades and the confrontation. Perhaps she thought faster, or perhaps seeing the nobleman coming, she had already anticipated what the others there had not.

  Everyone watched as she held them both close and whispered to them, frantically yet steadily. Their faces were red with fury, and they kept glancing u with eyes that blazed at the nobleman, and each time they did she whispered faster. And there was no one there that day, English or Scot, who doubted what she was telling them: that she would sooner do anything for only one night with that nobleman than lose the two of them—and God knew how many others—forever.

  Then Helen stepped away from her new husband and her old father and held back tears as she allowed herself to be pulled up behind one of the horsemen. They rode away, her flaming red hair bouncing behind her, and she did not look back.

  The Scots were left sickened. The bride’s mother was weeping among her friends; the groom and his father-in-law stared at the ground, their jaws clenched.

  And William Wallace watched it all and kept his thoughts to himself.

  17

  MURRON LAY SLEEPLESS UPON THE STRAW MATS OF HER bed. All night she had thought of Helen. She kept seeing Helen’s eyes—those eyes refusing tears—as she stepped to the nobleman and consented to go with him. Every time she closed her own eyes, she saw Helen’s.