The Guardian (40 page)

Will inhaled deeply, then reached down blindly to grope for the stone on which he had sat earlier, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s. His outstretched fingers touched the stone and he sat down on it. “To freedom,” he said eventually, his voice pitched low so that I had to lean forward to be sure of hearing him. “We need to lead them to freedom.”

“
Freedom
’s a big word,” Andrew said slowly, speaking as though he were musing aloud. “It calls for a whole new world. But what does the word even mean? I’ve thought about it, and I’m sure you have, too, and to me it is a condition, a state of existence. And I believe, too, that it means something different to every man who dreams of it. Freedom. Men love the thought of it, the idea of it, and they will fight and die in the hope of winning it. And yet, even though you can know it and enjoy it, you can’t touch it. You can’t caress it and you can’t buy it. Nor will it sustain you physically, for you can’t eat it or drink it. It’s an abstraction, and one that invites questions: Freedom from what? Freedom to do what?”

For a moment Will’s mouth pursed into a pout, but then he answered, “Freedom from threats, to start with. From Edward of England or anyone else who might think to threaten us again.”

“
Again?
We’re being threatened
now
, Will. Our land is occupied by invaders. And so far, we have achieved nothing in the way of united resistance, let alone counter-threat.”

Will flicked a hand impatiently. “We are not being threatened. We’re being persecuted—and invaded. But that will pass, once we’ve killed a few more hundreds of Englishry.”

“I see, or I think I see, what you’re saying.” Andrew tilted his head. “But what if we can’t do that?”

“Can’t do what?”

“Kill a few more hundred Englishmen.”

Will’s frown deepened. “We can, and we will. We have no choice. We have to kill them, and keep killing them until England accepts that we won’t be trampled on.”

“And do you think England will stand meekly by while we do that?”

Will shrugged. “They’ll be like us—they’ll have no choice.”

“Perhaps not, but d’you think that will suffice?”

Will cocked his head. “I don’t follow you. Will what suffice?”

“The kind of killing that you’ve been inflicting on them.”

“Killing is killing. And forbye, I thought there were two of us, that you were playing this game, too.”

“Oh, I am, have no fear of that. But nearly all the men we have killed until now between the two of us have been foot soldiers.”

“Englishmen, every one.”

“Aye, but insignificant Englishmen.”

“Insignificant? What does that mean? They’re dead, and they were all Englishmen, bone deep. They bled and died as all men do, and they were English.”

“Aye, they were and they did. But they were not knights, or barons, or dukes. They were not men of
substance
, Will, and we won’t impress Edward Plantagenet until we start damaging his men of substance. He could watch every last foot soldier in his armies fall in a single battle and he would be unmoved, because foot soldiers are less than human in his eyes. They are not real people.”

“That’s nonsense.” Will threw a glance at me. “And blasphemous, to boot.”

“No, it is not, not from the viewpoint of the King of England, and his viewpoint always originates within the royal treasury. Edward can afford to lose five hundred foot soldiers a day without even noticing the cost of replacing them. We cannot afford even to think about losing that many men in a month here in Scotland, but to Edward, with ten times our populace to draw upon, such losses are negligible. They are nothing. But a knight of repute lost in battle, or
a baron, or even, may God forbid, a duke? Now there would be an enormous loss, its cost scarcely calculable.

“There are no more than a dozen dukes in all of England, Will, and each one of them is directly related by blood to the King himself: his brothers, sons, uncles, and first cousins. Among them they share the entire land holdings of the realm. Ask yourself what the loss of one such man in battle would be worth to England, not merely in terms of money, but in loss of prestige? How would a loss like that be seen, a death inflicted by an enemy in an armed conflict? How would it affect people’s perceptions of the safety, welfare, and even the stability of the kingdom? To anyone ignorant of how to begin calculating such a thing—which would include every person I know and probably everyone you know, too—I would point out that even a well-horsed man-at-arms, an armed and armoured mounted soldier of no significant rank, is of incalculable value if you weigh him in the balance against ordinary foot soldiers, taking into account the costs of his horse, armour, weaponry, equipment, and years of training. And I fear that example alone, modest as it is, illustrates Edward’s perception of the damage that you and I combined have inflicted upon his forces in Scotland to this day.”

“You mean he’ll ignore us. Or swat at us as he would a horsefly.”

Andrew’s mouth twisted into a bitter little grin. “That’s a good comparison. And yes, that’s exactly what I mean. His lesser men, the ones we attack and fight, will pay attention to us, but as far as Edward the King of England is concerned, we are a minor annoyance to be brushed aside in passing.”

“Then we have to change his perceptions.”

I was on the point of chuckling at the naivety of that, but I held my peace when I saw that Andrew did not look amused at all.

“Agreed,” he said. “That is
precisely
what we have to do. But I hope you have some strong ideas on how to go about it, for once again, I have been thinking about ways for months now, and I have nothing to suggest. Nothing.”

“It’s obvious,” Will said. “We attack his knights.”

Andrew’s entire tone of voice changed instantly. “Of course! That is exactly what we have to do. So how do you suggest we do it?”

Will noticed the heavy irony in his voice at the same moment I did and his eyebrows shot high on his forehead. “You’re mocking me.”

“No, I swear I’m not.” Andrew raised both hands, palms forward. “Edward won’t fight us, Will. Not you, and not me.”

“He will if we force his hand hard enough, or fly in his face until he can’t ignore us.”

“No, believe me, Will, he will not. The laws of chivalry forbid that. To fight us head-to-head would be to acknowledge us as a bona fide enemy force. It would grant us a legitimacy that Edward could never concede. In his eyes we are rebels and outlaws. You are a proscribed brigand, to be stamped out like vermin or hanged immediately if captured alive. In addition to which, your knightly family notwithstanding, he deems you a base-born commoner. Edward would never field a military force to meet you face to face in a straightforward fight.” He shrugged. “As for me, I’m but a landless boy, not even a bannered knight. No more than a hopeful heir and hence, for the time being, of negligible import.”

“Fine. So be it. Then we will go after his knights and men-at-arms, one by one if we have to. We’ve killed a few of those already.”

“Aye, you have. But it has done your cause little good, proving merely that the charges of brigandage lodged against you are justified.”

“Then we’ll …” My cousin was beginning to look angry. “We’ll enlist some of our own Scots knights to aid us and lend us legit—”

“No, Master Wallace, you won’t do that, either.”

Will blinked at him in astonishment. “Are you suggesting—?”

“I am suggesting—I am
insisting
—that such a thing is not going to happen. Not as matters stand today. Think about what you’re saying, Will, and think who you are saying it about. Do you believe Edward and his English nobles are the
only
people who resent you for being a commoner whom other commoners respect and admire?
Think you only Englishmen are envious of your success in spite of your low birth?”

“They won’t help us,” Will said. “The Scots magnates. Is that what you are saying?”

Andrew gave a slight shrug. “Some will, but many won’t, I fear. And most of those who won’t will withhold their support through simple fear and jealousy. They see you as a threat to their way of life, and until you convince them otherwise, they’ll ignore you as an upstart and a fomenter of strife and trouble. Wishart and the Stewart are the two main exceptions, the two sole Guardians left in Scotland. The others … well, I doubt the others will do anything to help you.”

“It’s not me who needs their help, Andrew. It’s the realm!” Will turned to me for the first time. “Isn’t that so, Jamie?”

“Leave Jamie out of this, Will. He’s but a messenger here, and powerless to change a thing. You talk about the realm as though it were a living thing, and so it is. But no living thing can survive without a head. And our realm lost its head when John Balliol abdicated from the kingship.”

“He didn’t abdicate! It was forced upon him, by Edward.”

Andrew dipped his head as if in agreement. “When he was first deposed, yes, that was true,” he said. “But I know Lord Balliol well, Will. You know that, for you fought a clash of staves with him at the abbey when you and I first met. I was his squire then and I served him for years. I liked the man. I still like him, if truth be told. But he was not the king this country needed, and Edward knew that when he named him heir to the throne. He abused and flouted him thereafter as he would never have been able to use Bruce, and he finally stripped the man completely of his outward powers. But anyone who understands a shred of canon law knows, too, that the humiliation John endured was nothing more than that—humiliation. Not true dispossession. No earthly king has the power to un-king God’s anointed.

“Since then, though, Balliol has fled to France, and there, unthreatened by Edward’s claws, he speaks of voluntarily resigning his kingship, with the assistance and concurrence of the Pope and
the King of France. John Balliol is no longer our King. He will not be coming back, and that means he is not the king that Scotland needs today. That is the truth, whether we like it or not, and it means that the
realm
of Scotland, as it once existed under King Alexander, and briefly under John, is headless again until a new, strong king comes along to revive it.”

He gazed narrow-eyed at Will, who looked deflated. But as I watched my cousin anxiously, alarmed at the curious uncertainty that seemed to have overcome his natural buoyancy, I saw him straighten up.

“They’ll fight for Scotland, though,” he said, his voice fierce and defiant.

“Aye, that they will,” Andrew agreed. “The magnates will fight to win it for themselves. But they won’t fight on behalf of Scotland in the way you imply. They’ll fight
over
it, for ownership, because in their minds, as magnates, they
are
Scotland, and Scotland is theirs. So they’ll be fighting for themselves, each and every one of them.

“You mark me, we are about to see the buildup to the Great Cause all over again, with each house vying for supremacy, and we’ll see Bruce and Comyn rise up to face each other again. And believe me, too, when I say they’ll have no place in any of their schemes for you or me.” He paused, then added, “And that is where I share your views on the magnates in general.”

“How so?”

Andrew shrugged. “They are my peers and my brethren in chivalry, but I distrust them, to a man, with few exceptions. They are all too self-absorbed and self-important, and it is plain to me they have no sense of patriotism.”

“Patriotism,” Will repeated. “You mean they have no love of their country?” He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think you’re wrong there. God knows I have no love for them, but even I would not accuse them of that.”

The white flash of Andrew’s grin caught me by surprise. “Oh,” he said warmly, “the chorus of plaints would deafen all of us were
that opinion of mine to be heard spoken. They would all be outraged at the mere suggestion, but that’s their weakness and their folly and, in the end, their undoing. They’ll fight to demonstrate that they love their country, and they’ll fight among themselves for any advantage that might give them dominance in the struggle for the empty throne, but they’ll join hands and present a united front to prevent you, a commoner, from waging war on any of their knightly class, be he English or Scots. That kind of thing lies beyond the bounds of patriotism and invokes self-interest and self-preservation.”

He held up both hands and clenched and unclenched both fists twice. “I doubt if there’s a score of magnates in all Scotland who do
not
hold more lands in England, and draw more revenues from them, than they have here at home. And that is why I say they are not patriots. As long as they take profit from their holdings in England, they’ll be dependent upon the King of England’s goodwill to retain those revenues, and they’ll suffer from divided loyalties. No man can serve two masters, and not a man among them, whether he calls himself magnate or mormaer, can honestly claim to be a patriot, or a Scot at all, until he has surrendered his obligations to the King of England.
All
his obligations, including his lands and properties in England. I believe that only then, impoverished as he may be by English standards, may a man of conscience in this country claim to be a patriot.

“We Murrays held few possessions in England, but I wrote to Edward when I came home last year, renouncing all of them on behalf of my family.” He smiled diffidently. “It was not difficult to do, and we will scarcely feel the loss of what we have resigned, but there was principle involved, and that was what dictated my actions.”

He held up one hand in mock penitence. “I know what I have said flies in the face of centuries of usage and tradition, but times change and customs change with them. The old feudal ways are no longer suited to this world in which we live. I have examined my conscience with great care and I can find no good reason for believing, in the depths of my heart, that Edward of England has
even the slightest, most minute claim on my fealty—not on my personal life, not on my life as a free-born Scot. And that entirely spurious question of ancient feudal loyalty is the cause of our country becoming mired in this politically engendered swamp in the first place, when our noble families, my own prominent among them, recognized the Plantagenet as feudal overlord and Lord Paramount of Scotland, according to arcane and obscure criteria unused for hundreds of years. In doing that, they jeopardized their own future existence and gelded our land’s new King before he was even crowned. And we all know how things have progressed since then.”