Braveheart Page 8

  But then he tried to pull back, his scram muffled; she was biting off the end of his tongue! He pulled away, clawing at his mangled mouth. Now his thoughts of rape were forgotten; he pulled back his huge fist to crush it against her face . . .

  But the hand was caught—by William! He jabbed the soldier’s elbow in a direction it was never meant to bend. The soldier, his mouth already bloody, howled in new agony, but William still wouldn’t let him go; he swung the soldier by his rubbery arm into his comrades.

  Two of the soldiers leapt forward, swinging their short swords; William ducked and knocked their ale cask into their knees, then lifted the whole table where they were sitting and rammed it into the faces of two more attackers.

  “William!” Murron yelled.

  Her shout was too late to warn him; as he was facing one soldier with a knife, another grabbed his neck from behind. But William’s strength was great and his adrenalin greater; as the soldier in front stabbed, William whirled and the knife sunk into the soldier holding him. William snatched a leg from the shattered table and crushed the stabber’s skull. All the rapists, the whole gang of them, were bleeding on the ground.

  “William Wallace! William Wallace!” a woman in the marketplace yelled.

  But there was no time for celebration. One of the fallen soldiers had begun to scream out. “Rebels! Rebels! Help!”

  More soldiers heard the call and came running. But the village fold who had cowered before the brandished weapons of the rapists had been transformed by the sight of a single Scot decimating the whole gang. A woman shoved a broom across the shins of the first new soldier to run up, tripping him onto his chin; others in the crowd bunched together to delay the other reinforcements. “Run, William! Run!” the woman with the broom yelled.

  But William was gripping Murron. “Are you all right?”

  “Go, William! Get away!” she pleaded.

  Two new soldiers fell on William. Murron plunged her thumb into the eye of one and raked her fingernails across the face of the other; William spun and crushed their heads together like pecans and grabbed at the loose traces of the horse that pulled the flower cart. “Take the horse!” he said.

  “You take it!”

  “They’ll chase me! Then you take the horse! I’ll meet you at the grove!” He darted off through the crowd as Hesselrig, the magistrate, and more of his garrison arrived. They seemed to swarm in from every direction, dozens of them! None stopped to ask what had happened, they instinctively gave chase to the blood-splattered Scot who ran the instant they appeared. William weaved through the narrow streets of the village, knocking over baskets, jumping carts, scrambling over low rooftops as the soldiers stumbled after him, and the townspeople blocked their way.

  Murron saw that all the soldiers had gone after William; she was clear! She darted toward the cart horse, but someone grabbed her leg. It was the soldier with the bloody mouth, whose tongue she had bitten off, whose arm William had broken. With his good hand, he had gotten her ankle in a death grip.

  She couldn’t get free. She stumbled and tried to kick him, and still he held on with his one hand. Grotesquely, through his mangled mouth, he shouted at the others. “Stop this one! She’s with him!”

  Two soldiers heard him and started back. Frantically, Murron stomped her free foot against the soldier’s face and finally broke free. She jumped on the horse, kicked its flanks, and the horse ran.

  William, hopping from roof to roof across the narrow streets of the village, saw her escaping. He slipped down into an empty alley, scrambled low across a deserted stall, and ran for the brush of the river.

  Murron galloped the horse down the narrow twisting lanes. Free! But the town wasn’t made for a steeplechase. As she looked back to be sure William had made it, the low hanging sign of a tavern caught her and raked her off the horse.

  William reached the edge of the town and slipped into the trees by the river; the magistrate and his soldiers were running every which way, but they had lost him. Smiling at the thought that Murron had made it, too, William headed deeper into the trees.

  At that moment Murron’s head was clearing; she was in one piece, nothing broken! She started to get up, but the soldiers’ pikes appeared over her, and then the face of Hesselrig came into view. It was red with too much exertion after too much drink. He was furious, and he was leering. “So this is the little whore he was fighting for,” he said.

  At the grove above the precipice, William moved into the shelter of the trees, expecting to see Murron. She was not there. He spoke her name softly, thinking she must be hiding: “Murron . . .” He listened and heard only the rustling of the wind through the treetops.

  “Murron!” he yelled.

  Nothing except the wind.

  20

  INSIDE THE ROYAL MAGISTRATE’S HEADQUARTERS, MURron was tied in a seated position on the floor, an oak staff behind her elbows, her mouth stuffed with burlap and bound with cord. Soldiers stood at the doors and windows; Hesselrig stood over her. Her eyes were frightened, and yet they were defiant. How can she look at me that way? the magistrate wondered. Just a girl . . . Doesn’t she fear us at all? He thought about what she was seeing. He was himself an English soldier, promoted through the ranks to become an officer; he had led men in battle, the scars that marked his face and hands testified that he had spilled much blood—his own, and that of many enemies—on his way to what he wanted. Don’t I look serious? He asked himself. Don’t I frighten her?

  His corporal entered. “Nothing,” the corporal said, shaking his head.

  From outside they heard drunken shouting. “English! English!” They looked outside and saw the village drunk weaving in the shadows, calling out to them. “Not so strong, huh? One Scot buggers six of you!”

  One of the English soldiers standing guard outside threw a stone all the drunk; it clattered across the paving stones of the square, and the drunk chuckled and stagger off into the darkness.

  The soldiers inside were edgy. One of them grabbed Murron by the hair and jerked her head back. “I’ll show you what an Englishman can do—“

  “Leave her! I want her unmarked,” Hesselrig ordered.

  The corporal moved closer to him and spoke in a low voice. “Our informants tell us his name is William Wallace. Has a farm out in the valley. I say we burn it.”

  “Not his farm. I want him,” Hesselrig said.

  “But how, if we can’t find him?” the corporal wondered. None of Hesselrig’s other subordinates would have pressed him this way, but the magistrate and his second-in-command were veterans in this ugly business of suppression. “You know how these people are. Once he’s into the hill country, we can look for our whole lives and never find a trace of him.”

  But Hesselrig, his attention wandering back to Murron, had noticed something peeking out at the top edge of her dress. He reached down to her, slid his finger to the bare skin below her throat, and fished out the strip of tartan tied around her neck and concealed beneath her smock. She squirmed as if to bite or kick him, but trussed up as she was, she could move but little.

  Hesselrig united the strip of cloth and held it up, so the corporal could see it better. “These Highlanders, they weave this cloth into special patterns. They give them as . . .” And then it hit him. He looked down at Murron with a smile of pleasant surprise. “You’re married! Aren’t you, girl.”

  Hesselrig looked from Murron to the cloth to Murron to the corporal. “We make him come to us,” Hesselrig said.

  At the head of his entire garrison. Hesselrig led Murron, her arms still bound behind her, into the village square. His soldiers tied her to one of the posts of the central well that served the whole village. The townspeople didn’t want to be near the soldiers, but they hung on the fringes of the square, too curious to pull away.

  Hesselrig looked all around at them and shouted to the people. “An assault on the king’s soldiers is the same as assaulting the king!” he shouted.

  He looked down at Murron, her
mouth bound, her eyes defiant.

  “So under the authority of my king—and yours—I exercise his rightful power!”

  He pulled his dagger from his belt, and as calmly as a man might sign his name in a letter to a stranger, he drew the blade across Murron’s throat.

  Her eyes sprang open like a doe’s; she tried to cough. Blood wept from the gash across her throat. In but a moment, she sagged dead.

  The townspeople were struck dumb. Even some of the soldiers gaped in mute horror.

  Hesselrig turned calmly to his men. “Now,” he said. “Let this scrapper come to me.”

  William slid through the shadows and reached the barn at the Campbell farm. He slipped inside, and there he found a half-dozen men, gathered in the narrow light of a shielded lantern; among them were Campbell and Hamish, who spotted William first, and cried out, “William!”

  William moved into the light; he was scratched and bruised, worn from running, sick with worry. And the sight of these men gathered there did nothing to soothe his fears. “Have you seen Murron?” he asked them. His friends stared at him mutely. “She got away! I saw her! I saw her!” William insisted. When still they said nothing, he turned to dash out the door again, but Hamish was ready for that, and he and another stout fellow gripped William’s arms, as old Campbell closed in and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “We heard a rumor. Only a rumor!” Campbell said. “We’ve sent a man to—“

  But then he was interrupted by the sound of a horse galloping up. Campbell peered through a crack in the wall and saw their rider returning. “That’s him!” Campbell said.

  They pushed the doors and the rider, Liam Little, galloped in. He was pale; he started to speak, then faltered as he saw William.

  “What is it? What?!” William pleaded.

  “Tell us, man!” Campbell ordered.

  “The magistrate . . . he tied her to a post in the town square,” Little said. His face was already red from the hard riding, but now it grew more flushed as he worked to get the next words out. Finally he added, “And cut her throat.”

  William dragged his holders across the barn and pulled Little to the ground. “You’re lying!” William shouted.

  But when William saw the bloodshot horror in Little’s eyes, he knew the story was true.

  Outside that barn were stars, above a Scottish valley, where grew heather and purple thistles, and waters of crystal streams tumbled into depthless lochs. But on that night, as William Wallace’s cries of grief tore from within that barn and across that empty valley, the stars stopped singing, the thistles faded, the brooks ceased their laughter, and the once-beautiful lochs, at least for him, became but great puddles of tears.

  21

  THE MEN INSIDE THE BARN HAD WRESTLED WILLIAM DOWN to a seat on the hay. Hamish stood close and kept an eye on him. Campbell mumbled with a knot of friends in the corner.

  “Has MacClannough heard?” Campbell wondered to Little.

  “He must’ve. The villagers went running, as if they could get away from the sight of it,” Little said.

  “We’ll see to him,” Campbell said. “But first we’ve got to hide young Wallace.” He moved over to William and spoke softly, gently. “Laddie . . . we’ve got to get you someplace safe. The soldiers’ll be comin’.”

  William said nothing; but Hamish said, “Let ‘em come.”

  “You bite your tongue!” his father snapped. “We’ll strike back, but not now!” He turned back to William again, leaned down to him, lowered his voice. “William, it’s . . . awful. But like the loss of your father and brother, the pain will shrink in time.”

  William stared. Campbell patted him, then said to Hamish, “Get him up to the cave. We’ll—“

  William darted before Campbell could react and jumped to Little’s horse. He was already up onto its back before Hamish could grab the reins in a grip that no man or horse could have broken. “Not yet, William!” Hamish boomed. “That’s what the magistrate wants! He killed her to have you!” For Hamish, though the strongest man there, was not a mere brute, he was also his clever father’s son.

  “Then he shall have me,” William said.

  William started down at Hamish. Hamish stared up at William and still held the reins of the horse. But something passed between them in their looks.

  Hamish let go.

  William wheeled the horse instantly and galloped out, breaking right through the latch of the door.

  Campbell slapped his son hard and shouted, “You let him go!”

  “Because I’m going, too,” Hamish said quietly.

  “And I,” Stewart joined in.

  “And I,” Little said.

  “I’ll get the bloody weapons,” Campbell said.

  William rode to town, alone on the galloping horse. Tears for Murron spilled from his eyes and tore across his face, pushed by the wind. He made one stop, at his farmhouse, and from a spot beneath the thatch of his roof, he removed the broadsword that had once belonged to his father.

  All through the valley, the farmers who had been in the barn streamed after him, along every road, path, and trail that lead into the village. At every farmhouse they shouted. “The magistrate’s murdered Murron MacClannough! And William Wallace is on his way to town!”

  At a barrier across the main road into the center of Lanark Village were twenty professional soldiers, entrenched, fully armed with bows, pikes, swords. Their senses were alert; they knew the danger. Then one of them heard a horse’s snort and peered out into the moonlit darkness.

  There, at the far turning of the road, just over a bow shot away, sat William Wallace upon his horse. He had stopped, rock still. He was staring at them, all twenty of them, and he sat there all alone, and yet there was absolutely no fear in his face. The soldier knew the look of fear—even the bravest men had it before battle—but this was a different look, and the soldier had seen it before, but only rarely. It was the face of a man readying himself for slaughter—not his own, but that of others.

  He saw Wallace lift his broadsword. Its great flat edge caught the moonlight. It looked huge. It was huge—nearly five feet long. It would take an expert to use such a sword; a strong man, with balance and timing, could swing it so its massive blade could cut through anything.

  Wallace leaned forward to spur the horse, then heard a shout.

  “Wait!” Hamish shouted.

  Hamish, Campbell, and four others rode up.

  Again William and Hamish exchanged a look. “All right,” Hamish said. “Now we’re ready.”

  William raised his sword. He screamed and charged.

  His horse pounded toward the barricade, closer and closer to the English soldiers, their eyes grown wide and white with fear. For a moment they seemed to freeze; then half of them stood, raising bows. Not all at once, but like the sharp spattering of hail upon a stone fence, their bowstrings twanged.

  The arrows cut through the air, toward William. They sliced the air around his head, they tore his clothes, but none caught his flesh; almost all were fired high in haste, and there was no time for a second volley. He charged through them, his horse leaping the barrier as William simultaneously swung the broadsword. The soldier who had first seen William and judged his heart for battle by the stillness of his face now saw that he was not just good with the sword, he was an expert and more. The stroke was smooth, appearing effortless and unhurried, and the tip, at the end of a huge arc, whistled faster than the arrows. The blade bit through the corporal’s helmet and took off the upper half of his head.

  The soldiers tried to rally to shoot him in the back as his horse leaped over them—one of them had sighted William’s back—but the other Scots crashed into them. William’s charge had mesmerized them; they had forgotten about the others. Now, as all fights become, it turned into a melee, the soldiers trying to rely on their training while the Scots gave themselves to wild fury. Old Campbell took an arrow through the shoulder but kept hacking with his sword. Hamish battered down two men with a huge a
x. Still it was but a few against more than twenty, and no force in battle is greater than the confidence that one’s own side will prevail. The soldiers, overcoming their first urge to flee, saw their advantage in numbers and had just begun to swarm over their outnumbered attackers when more Scots arrived. Carrying hoes, hay scythes, and hammers, they charged into the backs of the soldiers and overwhelmed them.

  William raced on through the village, spurring his horse, dodging obstacles in the narrow streets—chickens, carts, barrels. Soldiers popped up: the first he galloped straight over; the next he cut down with a forward stroke, and another he chopped down on his left side with a backhand. With each swing of his broadsword, a man died.

  A village woman shouted from her doorway, “William Wallace! Go, William! Go!” He galloped on, his farmer neighbors and people from the village following in his wake.

  Hesselrig heard the approaching shouts. He and thirty more of his men were barricaded around the village square. The sounds were not comforting; they heard the panicked cries of English soldiers and the frenzied screams of the Scots drawing nearer. He called out to his men, “Don’t look so surprised! We knew he’d bring friends! They’re no match for professional soldiers!”

  They saw Wallace gallop into sight, then suddenly stop and rein his horse into a side street.

  Hesselrig and his men didn’t like this: Where did he go? Which way would he come from? And then they heard the horses and saw the other Scots at the top of the main street. The soldiers unleashed a volley of arrows in their direction.

  They were fitting a second volley of arrows to their bowstrings when Wallace ran in—on foot—and cut down two soldiers. At the same time the other Scots were charging. The startled soldiers broke and ran in every direction.