He sat listening to the nearby men chaffering each other, arguing about this and that, fixing leather straps, honing the points of the great long spears. He had been watching the spearmen, fascinated, for days; they were being drilled in how to work together, hundreds and more in a block. Level pikes. Ground pikes. Support pikes. Butt pikes. Charge pikes. The Dog Boy had watched them stagger round, clashing into each other, cursing and spitting and tangling up.
Some, he saw, were more advanced than others – the men of Moray’s army – and these were a joy, moving and turning like a clever toy. Wallace’s kerns did not like the work, but were whipped to it by the lash of his great booming voice and the expert eye of Moray’s commanders.
Hal sat nearby and watched the Dog Boy watching the flames of cookfires flatten and flicker in the wind up on Abbey Craig. He was waiting to speak to Wallace and curiosity -Christ, now there was a curse on him – had driven him within earshot of the tent, where he could hear the arrived lords try to persuade Wallace and Moray to give in.
‘So you stand with the English,’ Wallace said and Hal heard Lennox and John the Steward splutter their denials through the canvas.
‘So you stand with us.’
This time there as silence and then Moray’s bland, calming voice broke a silence so uncomfortable Hal could feel it from where he sat.
‘You have our thanks, my lords,’ he said in French. ‘Take to Surrey our fervent wish that he withdraws from here and the realm.’
‘Surrey is not the power here,’ John the Steward answered, ‘Cressingham will lead the army in the morning.’
Wallace’s laugh was a bitter bark.
‘He is no leader of men. He is a scrievin’ wee scribbler, who would skin a louse for the profit of the hide,’ he growled. ‘Tell him that, if ye like – but mark me, nobiles, there will be no repeat of Irvine here.’
‘Those negotiations held the English there. Bought you the time for all this,’ Lennox answered sullenly in French, and Hal heard Wallace clear his throat, could almost see the scowl as he made it plain he wanted no more French here, which he could understand much less than English. Quietly, Moray translated.
‘You bought your lands back,’ Wallace answered bluntly. ‘With a liar’s kiss and betrayals. Soon, my lords, you will have to choose – tak’ tent with this; those come last to the feast get the trencher only.’
‘We will not fight with ye, Wallace,’ the Steward said defiantly, preferring to irgnore the insults. ‘It is the belief of the community of the realm that a peaceful settlement is by far the best, no matter the considerations.’
‘That will never be from my hand,’ Wallace answered, bland as mushed meal and speaking in carefully modulated English. ‘I wish you well of your own capitulation. May your chains sit lightly on you, my lords, as you kneel to lick the hand. And may posterity forget you once claimed our kinship.’
There was silence, thick as gruel, then a voice thicker still with anger; the Steward, Hal recognised, barely leashed.
‘You have nothin’ to lose, Wallace, so casting the dice is hardly risk from your cup.’
‘And from mine?’ Moray asked lightly. There was silence.
‘We will not stand against ye,’ Lennox persisted.
‘So declared another of your brood, Sir Richard Lundie, afore he leaped the fence to the English,’ Wallace answered, his voice bitter. ‘He now thinks Edward is the braw lad to put this realm in order and has joined them to fight us. That is what came of your antics at Irvine. If you fine folk persist in grovelling, there will be a wheen more like him.’
‘By God, I’ll not be lectured by the likes of you,’ the Steward thundered. ‘You’re a come-lately man, a landless jurrocks with a strong arm and no idea of what to do with it until your betters tell ye . . .’
‘Enough.’
Moray’s voice was a harsh blade and the silence fell so suddenly that Hal could hear the ragged bull-breathing through the canvas.
‘Go back and tell the Earl of Surrey, Cressingham and all the rest that we await their pleasure, my lords,’ Moray added, gentle and grim. ‘If he wishes us gone from here, let him extend himself and make it so.’
Movement and rustle told Hal that Lennox and the Steward had gone. There was silence, then Wallace rumbled the rheum out of his throat.
‘Ye see how it is?’ he declared bitterly. ‘Apart from yourself, the community of the realm spits on me. We can never mak’ Wishart’s plans work if there is only us pushin the plough of it.’
‘Never fash,’ Moray said. ‘For all they think it, it is not the community of the realm who fight here the morn. It is the commonality of the realm and you are their man. Besides – the nobiles of this kingdom follow us because neither the Bruce nor the Comyn can walk in the same plough trace. In the end all we have is a king, for Longshanks has broken Scotland’s Seal, stolen the Rood and purloined the very Stone of kings. There is no-one else to dig the furrow, so we must.’