Виктория Холт - The Hammer of the Scots

‘But ’twill be easier for you to give your mind to greater matters, sir, if I do things for you. I was fishing this afternoon and I have good fish with me. Let me cook it for you and you shall taste my skills.’

William was amused. ‘Why not? We should like a tasty meal, eh Karlé?’

Karlé was thoughtful. He was too apprehensive about everything, thought William. He looked for danger in every pool and tree.

‘Come! The fish, Jack Short, and you shall stay with me and be my servant. How like you that?’

Jack Short knelt and kissed William’s hand.

* * *

He was good. There was no question of that. Life was easier with him. He had a talent for catching and cooking fish. He would go into the town and come with provisions they needed.

‘It saves our taking risks,’ even Karlé admitted.

One day Jack Short said to William, ‘My lord, you should never go into Glasgow. Your leman should come to you.’

He knew of course why William made his nocturnal visits. Jack Short could be trusted to know everything.

‘What,’ cried William, ‘would you have us all betrayed?’

‘God forbid that that should ever come to pass. I would but make it easier for my lord.’

‘You do make life easier for me, Jack,’ said William. ‘I am sorry for what I did to your brother.’

‘’Twas his fault. No … not his fault … his folly. Forget it, my lord. For I have found joy in serving you.’

Jack would lie at his master’s feet and talk about what news he picked up in Glasgow. He told of the women he saw there. ‘There is one,’ he said, ‘fair of hair and rosy of cheek with sparkling blue eyes and a ready tongue. I noted her specially.’

He watched his master. He knew by Sir William’s smile that she was the one. He had discovered where she lived. If he could but follow Wallace there one night that would be good but he had to take care, for Karlé was a most suspicious man.

What he had to find out now was when Wallace was visiting the woman and he did not always say. Jack Short asked his questions slyly, obliquely. But he had to find the exact time. There must be no mistake. If anything went wrong and he was betrayed as the spy he was, Menteith would kill him, even if Wallace’s men did not, and he would never enjoy that reward which had been promised him.

He went fishing and was late coming in with the catch. The fire was slow in burning.

‘Hurry, man,’ said Wallace, ‘I am going to the town this night.’

Jack’s heart beat fast. Serve them with fish … then take one of the horses and gallop into town. He knew what he had to do. Menteith and his men had been waiting in the town ready for the day.

He slipped away, leading the horse at first lest they should hear him.

In the town Menteith was glad to see him.

‘Tonight,’ cried Jack Short. ‘He is coming tonight.’

Menteith said: ‘To the woman’s? We will take him as he comes in.’

* * *

Karlé had a sixth sense where his master was concerned.

‘I like not these trips into the town,’ he said.

‘I like them,’ answered William.

‘Can you not do without women?’

‘No, Karlé. They revive me. They lighten this dreary exile.’

‘They have been your downfall before.’

‘Never. I escaped narrowly from Ellen’s house I know. And Marion … It was because of her that we took Lanark, remember.’

‘Have a care.’

‘It is safe enough.’

‘Don’t go tonight.’

‘I must. I have said I will. She will be waiting.’

‘Perhaps she can find another friend.’

‘Tonight is my night. She is faithful to me when I am there.’

Karlé laughed and said, ‘Then I shall come with you.’

This was not unusual. Often when he visited the woman Karlé would come. He would sit below and talk to the servant, and usually drink some of her home-brewed ale and perhaps eat a piece of bread and bacon.

So they rode towards the town, leaving their horses tethered in the woods. Quietly and swiftly they went to the woman’s house.

The door was open but they did not see anything strange in this. William presumed that expecting him she had left it ajar.

He pushed it open. They were surrounded. Karlé reached for his dagger but he was too late. He fell bleeding to the floor. Wallace was seized. They did not want to kill him.

Edward wanted him alive.

* * *

It was the complete humiliation to ride in the midst of Menteith’s men, his hands shackled – a prisoner.

Jack Short had betrayed them. He had been deceived by that simple ruse. He had always been careless. But the biggest traitor of all was Menteith. He should not rave against Jack Short who was of little account. Menteith was the criminal. He had betrayed Scotland. That was what was important. And Karlé – beloved Karlé – had died because he had insisted on coming with him.

He himself was the prisoner of mighty Edward, who would never let him go.

He fears me, thought Wallace exultantly. He fears me as he fears no other. He knows that he can never be safe in Scotland while I live.

So they brought him to London and he was lodged in a house in Fenchurch Street.

They did not leave him there long and soon there came the day when he was taken to Westminster Hall to answer the charges brought against him.

His trial was brief. He was judged a traitor to King Edward.

‘I have never been that,’ he said, ‘for I have never acknowledged him as my lord.’

He made a brave show. His strength, his vitality, his aura of greatness must impress all who saw him. But he was Edward’s prisoner and Edward was determined that he should never again raise an army against him.

There came the day of his sentence. His crimes were enumerated. Sedition, homicide, depredations, fires and felonies. He had attacked the King’s officers and slain Sir William Heselrig, Sheriff of Lanark. He had invaded the King’s territories of Cumberland and Westmorland.

‘Your sentence is that you shall be carried from Westminster to the Tower and from the Tower to Aldgate and so through the City to the Elms at Smithfield, and for your homicides and felonies in England and Scotland you shall be hanged and drawn and as an outlaw beheaded, and afterwards your heart, liver and lungs shall be burned and your head placed on London Bridge in sight of land and water travellers, and your quarters hung on gibbets at Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth to the terror of all those who pass by.’

William listened almost impassively. It was the death accorded traitors to the King and the King would say, ‘This man was to me one of the greatest traitors who ever lived.’

Edward would say he was just and in his own lights doubtless he was.

* * *

On the twenty-third day of August the barbarous sentence was carried out with revolting cruelty. Many gathered at the Elms in Smithfield to see it.

No cry escaped from William Wallace. He knew he was not defeated. He knew his fame would live on after him and be an inspiration to all those who cared for the freedom of Scotland.

Wallace was dead. None should guess how relieved Edward was. Because a traitor had met his just deserts there should be little said. Edward feared the spirit of Wallace for he knew the Scots would continue to sing of him; he would still be their hero. But he was dead and one did not fear the dead – however death glorified them – as one feared the living.

He would arrange for a tournament. There should be rejoicing. They would have a feast of the Round Table and the great chivalry of the land would be present. Any of those who might remember the gory sight they had witnessed at Smithfield would forget it as they joined the merry party at Westminster.

True the head of the hero looked down on them. But all must know that he was a traitor. In Scotland it would be different. He wondered what people thought in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth where parts of the once-great Wallace were shown.

But he would not think of it. There was reason for rejoicing. Marguerite was pregnant again. He thanked God for his Queen. She was always so gentle, so sympathetic, so understanding. Last year her beautiful sister, that Blanche on whom he had set his heart, had died and he had commanded that prayers be said in Canterbury for her soul, because she was the sister of his dearly loved consort. How glad he was that fate had been kind and given him Marguerite. He might have been mourning for his Queen now if he had married Blanche.

The tournament delighted all who took part in it and in the following May Marguerite gave birth to another child.

This time it was a girl, and Edward declared himself delighted. They had their two boys and now he wanted a girl, and his dear kind obliging Marguerite had given her to him.

‘I have a boon to ask,’ he said as he sat by her bedside. ‘Will you grant it, little Queen?’

‘It is granted before it is asked,’ she answered.

‘It might not please you.’

‘If it pleases you, my lord, I am sure it will please me.’

How docile she was! How eager to make him happy! Oh happy day which had sent him Marguerite!

He said: ‘Should you mind if we called this child Eleanor?’

She hesitated and he thought, Ah, I have asked too much.

Then she said, ‘Would it not sadden you to remember …?’

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘How could I be sad when I have the best woman in the world?’