This is an EXTREMELY graphic tale of love and Death. You have been forewarned.
It is late April of 1302. Spring has gradually unfolded in both England and Scotland, though that often means storms and only a slight improvement to the cold snap in the air. William Wallace and his closest followers are still in Paris, trying to gauge French assistance in the matter with England. King Edward entertains various lords in London who are trying to convince him to terminate Scotland outright and invade without prejudice.
All of this ways heavily on Robert de Brus and his conscience. It weighs so heavily that he can no longer sleep.
It is late. The castle is mostly quiet, though I can hear a steady spring rain outside. It’s a whisper to the world, cautious and delicate. It reminds me of home. Scotland does not contain such whispers. When the spring rains come to my homeland, they roar in the countryside and echo like banshees in the hills. I have begun to appreciate the simple differences England offers, yet scarce can I think of anything these days without being reminded of my home.
Every day it becomes more apparent that I will never be one of these English fools. They are pretentious and gaudy, opulent beyond belief. These lords grovel at King Edward’s feet, praying for some small favor, some small boon that he might grant. They plot behind him when he turns to his devoted wife, but the moment he looks their direction with his piercing steel eyes, they drop to their knees to kiss the ground he walks on. It brings bile to my throat to even think about it. I detest them.
Yet here I am. Trapped in England, restless at the witching hour, awake far too late to be mindful of the weather and such petty thoughts. My mind should turn to the more important matters. Ah, but those are the matters I try most fervently to escape.
Scotland. My home. My war torn home. I feel as though I am their only hope, with William still away and the rest of my own clan clamoring for a piece of the kingdom. I know, even as I struggle, that this is where I must be. I must be in London, defending my country with words instead of actions. I must remain locked in this city for but a moment longer, so my homebound people may continue to plant crops and live in peace. It is those visions that keep me alive when I am at my most weary.
Every day I think of what the people on my father’s land would be doing. It is late April now. They must be planting, running rough highland cattle through the fields with plows and seed. MacGregor’s daughters must be of marrying age now. I wonder if he will have a new son in law to take over by the time I get back? If I get back. This is what keeps me going on all of these lone nights when I am awake too late.
When my thoughts turn again to wars and demon battles, I make the effort to remember the farmers and their simple lives. That is what I am here to rescue. Not the warriors, not the wastrels, but the home folk who live and die on the fields and create a world for us when we arrive home. These are the people who matter most when I am lost. And I am lost tonight.
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(Optional Song - “No One Is Alone” from Into the Woods)
I remember that day. It feels so close. The twenty second of July of 1298, just a few short years ago. We were at Falkirk. We knew the English were sending an army, but we did not know until they crested the hill just how large of an army it was. They kept coming and coming, floods of them, on horses and on foot. A full 15,000 men were there and they looked terrifying. William did not seem phased. He actually seemed excited.
We once hoped to starve the English out. They had ventured so far into Scottish territory that they were already short on supplies by the time they were within distance for our spies to make sight of them. William thought that if we just waited long enough the army would starve to death and we could catch them in retreat. It worked better than we had dreamed through most of July. There was even a riot amongst their troops.
Near the end of the month an English spy slipped through our ranks. We knew they would be coming soon and made ready as best we could. We were outnumbered, but William was the brilliant tactician we needed. We all rallied around him and he gave another one of his masterful speeches. By the time the English had hit the swamp which made up our encampment we were already in formation.
The hot breath of death was on me, near me, all around me. We fought for most of the day and for quite a while it seemed we were winning. The English could not penetrate the pikes we held at angles to keep us safe, and our archers were taking them down in droves. We held fast in four packed groups and we were winning. We were going to defeat the English.
Then the arrows came. Welshmen with longbows had finally made it past the marshes and, with Edward at the command, showered us with death. Our archers shot still, but for as much as we loosed they were twice as fast and a hundred times more deadly. When the rain of arrows fell, we knew we were defeated. I still do not know how those of us who survived made it out of that bloodbath alive.
We retreated into Torwood, the forest our companion and fiercest ally that day. When the light was cracking across the horizon at dawn on the third day, I knew we had lost completely. There were remnants of units, and remnants of men, scattered about. I had to get him out of there. He had to be gone before the King’s horses tracked us down.
“You have to leave, William! Ye have to go!” I was pleading with him, though I knew what little good it would do.
“I will not! Robert, they’re my people!”
“They’re my people too, Will! All they’ll do is capture you! They’ll torture ye and kill ye and put your head on a pike somewhere. I canna let that happen! Gwyneth, Duncan, talk some sense into him?”
Duncan spoke first.
“All of my friends are dead on this field, Robert. Malcolm is dead. My brothers are dead. I am with Will. I am na gonna leave and let those dead lie there and rot!” He had a point and we all knew it. If we left, the dead would remain.
“I do not care what happens to me!” Will was going to start giving another one of his epic speeches. “I lead these people here! It is my duty, my honor, to die by their side today!”
“Not today, Will! They need you! We need you! Ye canna stay here. You’re the cause, Will.” He fixed his odd blue eyes on me. They’re not even a real color until you see them next to a sky. I pressed forward. It was the hardest thing I ever had to say to him, to convince him to leave.
“Will, we lost a lot of men today - good men at that. Great men. And we’ll remember them, all of them. But we need to be here to remember them. We need ye alive, Will. We need William Wallace to be here to inspire those who are left. Now more than ever. We lost this one, Will, but we won’t lose the war. Not with you leading us. Now go.”
“He’s right, Will. We’ve got to move you. It’s not safe here anymore.” Even when he didn’t listen to me, Will always listened to Gwyneth. With her behind me, he was finally convinced to move.
“I didna come to a war to run away.”
“You inspired them to fight. Honor them, Will. Honor what they stand for. Be what they stood for. We’ll need you again soon. Gwyneth, take him by the tree road. I’ll stay and keep an eye on things.”
We grasped forearms for a moment. He looked at me with his odd blue eyes, that piercing look that meant what he would say next was as sincere as any prayer ever spoken in church.
“Good luck Robert.”
I watched him leave. The mist was still clearing the field, and the English surrounding us, searching. I watched him leave and never looked back. It’s been years since we’ve spoken. I don’t know if he still trusts me or not. But to this day I have never believed another man’s vision as much as I believed - and still believe - in that of William Wallace.
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The rain runs down the castle walls. It reaches beyond the witching hour, to the time which I detest most. It is the cold, damp time of night when sleep will not come and I face all of the demons and failures I have courted in the last decade. All of them are ghosts and I feel the responsibility and weight of each one as they creep out from my psyche.
One is Scotland herself, dressed in all her finery. She parades about like pipers, so beautiful and loud, the most insistent and frustrating. She insists I can do better, do more to assist my people. But with the treaty as it stands, I cannot be sure if better is possible. I have put all of my efforts toward peace, but they are thwarted by those who wish war, and the King who wishes control.
Then there is my love, my Bella, who was taken from me too soon. We have one child, my dear sweet Marjory, who waits for me, as she always has, with her mother’s pleading eyes, begging me not to go to war again. I have been kept apart from her for almost a year now, and it still hurts me that I have not seen her grow. I send her dresses and pretty blooms pressed into frozen memories in the hopes she’ll think of me fondly. We correspond as best we can, but I am constantly drawn away. I miss her chestnut hair and the way it perpetually smells of honeysuckle.
My Marjory is the ghost in my head who tells me I have failed her as a father. That her mother would have been better served with another lord by her side.
The wind howls for a moment. It feels so close. It’s not the wall shaking wind that has kept me awake nights in February. No, it’s like an old friend, a ghost, trying to whisper to me in the dark. I do not know what it is saying. I am straining to hear the words but they are garbled, confused. I suddenly feel desperate. This burden on my heart and mind is driving me insane. I have to know! I must know what the wind is saying!
I rush from my chambers, clamor onto the battlements in the rain. The stones are slick under my feet. Rain sloshes down in whistling sheets, racing down the walls in small rivers. It is a steady, chill rain and I will surely become ill if I remain too long in the cold. My mind tells me these things. I do not heed them.
“Tell me! Tell me what I must do! I have to know!”
I am screaming at the wind whispering between the fall of rain. The guards look at me curiously. I am so tired it does not even occur to me that I am using my native tongue. Native languages are forbidden in Edward’s castle. Even his own wife cannot speak her country’s French, though I have caught her slipping it in his ear during their chess matches like a lover’s caress.
“Get out of the rain, you daft idiot!” A voice in the darkness, with a lilt not unlike Marjory’s, but lighter. It calls to me in my tongue. Mine.
“...Elizabeth?”
“You’ll die of cold out here, my lord. Wait, let me speak to the guards.” She leaves for a moment, flowing like the water draining down the castle walls. I hear her saying something to the guards in her proper English. I think she tells them I’m mad with the rain. She approaches again and takes my hand.
“There, Robert de Brus, let us return to the warmth.” Her voice in Gaelic is like a kiss to my burning mind. I cannot help but follow.
We return to my chamber and she starts to order me around as though she is my mother, all in Gaelic. Not Scottish Gaelic, but close enough for me to understand.
“Take your clothes off and lay them by the fire. I’ll see they’re hung to dry. Put on a dry dressing gown and see yourself to stoking that fire with more wood.”
I dutifully obey. I’m too tired to question anything. Occasionally I glance her way to show my confusion and she rephrases a word or two. “Stockings” and “bashful” do not translate as well as one might think, but the rest I catch onto like sucking in air after drowning for months.
Once I am finally settled as she commands, she pours me a glass of strong wine that she has warmed by the fire and perfumed with something she carries in a purse by her hip. It’s some kind of healing herbs, or poison for all I know, but I feel safe with her. I trust enough to quaff the cup with the kind of enthusiasm a young boy holds for his first draught snuck from his father’s stores. She drinks a bit as well, and I can tell she is tired but her eyes glow in the fire as if they are more alive than her own frail body can handle. We look at each other for a moment, her grayish blue eyes capturing my blue like nets on an ocean. She starts to speak first, and then the torrents of words come.
I cannot remember ever feeling so connected. The words flow out of us like water, like wine. We bleed words to each other and we know that no other humans here can understand us. The rocks and trees believe our words, our truth. Not another human soul can understand us as we speak our ancient tongue.
I have not spoken to anyone in Gaelic since my wife died. It just felt wrong, a sort of dishonor. I do not know why I was so afraid of it before. Now it feels freeing and childishly wonderful, like a secret kept between best friends. I have not felt this way in a long, long time. It is thrilling.
An hour passes, though it feels like moments. Wonderful snatched moments in time that I can scarce believe have occurred have passed between us and I do not want to let them go - to let her go. Yet the hour is late and she must be ready to attend the queen on the morrow.
She is leaving, or standing to leave, and I kiss her hand, then hold it to my chest. I know she can feel my heart beating beneath the linen. It is a rapid beat, like a bird in a cage fluttering to be set free.
“Elizabeth...thank you. See me again, this way.”
“Robert...I do not know if that is wise.”
“I am a man consumed by thoughts of wisdom and folly. I am forever weighing the balance of those thoughts against what is best for my people and the greater good of the whole.”
“Please, Elizabeth -” I am begging her with all the strength I have ever possessed. I hope my eyes are like William’s. I want her to believe every word as the most honest truth any man can ever possess.
“Please, let this be my one indulgence in a sea of trials.”
“I...shall...I...” She is confused, but the feverish light in her eyes is not diminished by her distance from the fire. “I...shall see you tomorrow, Robert.” Everything in Gaelic. She will return.
She lets me kiss her hand once more and I catch her closing those storm sky eyes in a twist of emotion - ecstasy or fear or joy or anger I cannot tell - and then she walks away. I close my eyes and listen at the door as her quiet feet sweep down the hall.
I am alone again in my chamber, as I started the evening. I feel so much lighter now. Uplifted. All from her. The Irish girl with eyes of storms and rust colored hair.
When I finally open my eyes again, I am yet alone, though the world hurts less for me. For the first time in months I shall sleep soundly.
