‘Aye, ye would ken that well enow,’ Wallace answered blackly, and Bruce’s smile had no mirth in it that any of the other two could see.
‘Percy and Clifford do not like Edward’s foreign wars,’ Bruce said bitterly. ‘But this is not a foreign war. Edward treats these lands not as another realm but as part of his own – so Percy and Clifford cannot avoid raising forces to put down a home rebellion, no matter how it makes grandda De Warenne look. To do otherwise is treason. Besides – Edward is coming and none of his lords in the north will want to face him without having done something. Even the Earl of Surrey will have to lever himself off his De Warenne arse and play the soldier once more.’
Wishart looked miserably at the floor, then straightened, blew out of pursed, fleshy lips and nodded.
‘Aye, right enough,’ he said. ‘It was a misjudgement. Now we have to deal with it.’
‘Deal with it?’ Bruce bellowed. ‘How do manage that, d’ye think? Even allowing for your spies seeing triple, the English have too many men, it appears. A fifth of fifty thousand would be enough, for nothing I have seen persuades me that this rabble Wallace leads will stand in the open field against them.’
He broke off, breathing heavily, then nodded grimly at Wallace.
‘No offence.’
‘None ta’en,’ Wallace replied, suddenly cheerful. ‘You have the right of it, for sure – mine are men best fighting out of the hills and woods, my lords. So that is where we will go.’
Wishart looked as if he would protest and Bruce felt a sharp stab of anger at the presumption of Wallace, about to up and go without so much as a by-your-leave bow – but he swallowed the bile of it and nodded soberly.
‘Aye, that will be the way of it – but you should go with what men you have and what will go with you who are free of obligation to myself and the other nobles.’
Wallace turned narrowed eyes and gazed at Bruce from under lowered brows.
‘And yourself, lord of Carrick?’
‘I will gather up the Douglas, the Bishop here and others and we will make what resistance we can from our fortresses. The English will have to deal with us and that will buy you time to cause havoc.’
Wallace stared at Bruce a long time, then slowly nodded.
‘Longshanks is coming. This will cost you dear,’ he said, looking from Wishart to Bruce and back.
‘In the noble cause,’ Wishart declared and Wallace clasped them both, wrist to wrist, then went out, silent as a wraith for all his bulk. It suddenly seemed to the others that the room had doubled in size. No-one spoke for a moment, then Wishart cleared his throat.
‘And the truth?’ he demanded. Bruce looked coldly at him.
‘My purpose in joining this now-failed enterprise has already been achieved,’ he said pointedly. ‘The mason is buried anew.’
Wishart nodded weary agreement.
‘So we will get ourselves to Irvine with what men we have and prepare to negotiate,’ Bruce added. Wishart’s belly quivered under the armour as he dragged himself haughtily upright. ‘Ye’d yield? Without a fight?’
Bruce’s bottom lip stuck out like a shovel and Wishart, who knew the sign well, found some caution.
‘The king himself will come north,’ Bruce growled angrily. ‘Like the black wind he is. Wallace will fight – he has to, for he has no lands to his own name and is an outlaw, no more. You lose nothing bar some dignity for having to kneel and kiss Edward’s ring, for the Church lands are sacrosanct.’
He thrust his mace of a face into Wishart’s own.
‘But we,’ he said, slapping the chevroned jupon, ‘risk losing everything. We, the community of the realm you depend on to free it. Edward will come north with his scowl and his evil eye – I could lose Carrick and my father Annandale. God’s Blood, Wishart, I place my rights to the crown in jeopardy here. Douglas will lose his Lanark lands – do you want us all fastened up in Berwick, or the Tower?’
More to the point of it, Wishart thought bitterly, is that Buchan and the rest of the Comyn, ostensibly supporting Edward but covertly allowing Moray’s rebels free rein, would come out smelling as if they’d been dipped in crushed rose petals. They play this game of kings more skilfully than the young Bruce, he saw, who needed some cunning heads round him.
‘Of course,’ he said, bowing to the inevitable, ‘negotiation is tricky business. Involved and sometimes lengthy. And what of Wallace?’
Bruce grunted sourly.
‘Wallace owes nothing save allegiance to a deposed king who wishes nothing to do with his kingdom,’ he growled. ‘He owns no lands, suffers the worry of no tenant and looks down his sword at each man he meets, asking only if he is for The Wallace. If not, he is against him.’
‘No bad thing in these days,’ Wishart countered defiantly.
‘Simplistic,’ Bruce spat back over his shoulder as headed for the door. ‘And probably brief. Whether negotiations are long or short, it will come out as it always does – with us on our knees.’
He paused and turned.