Randall Wallace - Braveheart

From that moment, any spark of loyalty Isabella of France had felt for her father-in-law, King Edward I of England, died within her heart.

Longshanks was still speaking in a loud, commanding voice. The success of his deception and the demonstration that his spirit to rule was still greater than his son’s had given the old king new animation.

“I want a thousand crossbows!” he commanded his generals. “If our craftsmen can’t make that many, then deal with the Dutch!”

Prince Edward, still stinging and anxious to redeem any shred of pride, protested, “The weapon has been outlawed by the pope himself!”

“So the Scots will have none of them, will they? See to it!” Longshanks barked.

Isabella closed the door softly and drifted back to her rooms, her feet moving silently on the stone floors as if she no longer had any weight at all.

A STIFF WIND CHASED THE BROWN REMNANTS OF AUTUMN through the clattering tree branches in the England countryside. It seemed that the moment the army set off north, toward Scotland, the winter had come. A light dusting of snow swirled in the barren fields as Wallace led his army through the bitter could of twilight back to Scotland.

Wallace, lost in thought, seemed to trust the horse to know the way home. For the first hours of the march, Hamish had ridden back in the ranks; now he nudged his horse up besides William’s. Their horse walked along together for a while, Hamish saying nothing. Finally William pressed him, “What is it? What’s on your mind?”

“There is some grumbling in the ranks,” Hamish said quietly. “They don’t like the retreat. They’re saying we came all this way for nothing.”

“They’re saying? Or you’re saying?’

“I’m with you, William. But now we’re cold and hungry again as we have been for most of a year. And when my soldiers ask what for, what do I say?”

“You say we stood and dared the English to fight, and they would not.” William looked over at his friend and saw Hamish’s great freckled brow wrinkled in a frown above eyes that struggled to see the significance of all this and couldn’t. “Hamish, half of any fight is to prove your honor to yourself. The other half is to prove your honor to your enemy. Without both, there is no victory.”

Too deep for Hamish. He shook his head and smiled. “Whatever you say, William.”

But William wanted Hamish to understand; it was as if he needed for his friend to believe the same thing, to help him have the faith to keep going. “When our enemies understand that we deserve to be free, that’s when we’ll truly be free.”

Hamish rubbed his nose the way a Scotsman does when he thinks the logic of an argument is just so much manure. “When our enemies are dead,” he said, “that’s when we’ll be truly free.”

William laughed deeply from his belly. “Maybe you’re right, Hamish. Maybe I think too much. But I tell you this: our enemies are not the problem. Our friends back in Edinburgh, they are the problem. Men who fight each other openly may find the honor in each other and establish respect; men who pretend support but sell their soul — and try to sell yours — only make hatred.

Hamish nodded. If he had any more thoughts, he kept them to himself.

ISABELLA HAD JUST FINISHED A LETTER TO HER FATHER. SHE had struggled to sound happy, writing of the flower gardens she had been designing for the spring planting and the herb patch she hoped to include. Toward the end of her letter she had mentioned her trip north on the king’s mission to the Scottish invaders, but she did not disclose to her father any knowledge of Longshanks’s true intent.

She had dripped wax onto the final fold of her envelope and had just pressed into it the seal of her ring when there was a knock upon her door. She stopped, surprised and alerted. No one knocked at the door of her private apartments. Her servants came when she rang for them, or if they brought her a summons from the king, they called to her softly from outside the door without knocking. But who could this be?

She opened the door to find her husband, Prince Edward. Seeking to conceal her surprise, she lowered her eyes and curtsied. “My Prince,” she said.

“May I come in?”

The question embarrassed both of them. “Yes, Do, please,” she said quickly. “Come and sit by the fie.”

He entered quickly and found himself standing in the center of an unfamiliar room, he had not been alone with her since the night of their wedding, and now he found himself looking around at the new furnishings; a table from Bordeaux, damask wall hangings the color of a Parisian sky at twilight, a painting of a French field full of wildflowers. Turning round to face her, his eyes looked both lonely and sad. “I had not thought,” he said, “how much you must miss home.”

It was the first kind thing he had ever said to her. She curtsied again, slowly this time, and replied, “My home is here with you.”

She moved to the hearth and the two chairs where she and Nicolette had spent so many hours sharing their thoughts. “Please, do sit,” she said. “Shall I have food and drink brought?”

She was about to ring for a servant when Edward said, “No, no, no, that isn’t necessary. I had just…. Dropped by, that’s all.”

She knew, of course, that this could not be true. Her apartments were in a far wing of the palace, and even if they were not almost strangers to each other, it would be obvious that he had come here with some purpose. Isabella studied him, there in the center of the room, lit by the feeble gray light of the narrow window. He looked unusually sallow, his features lax and translucent, s if his face had been fashioned from the smooth drippings of a candle. His lip, split from one of his father’s kicks, had begun to heal but still looked tender. His cheek still bore a trace of bruise. But it was his eyes that looked most painful. They were rimmed in red, and they appeared so lonely and hopeless, like those of a seawife whose husband’s body has already washed up upon the shore and who stares at the horizon anyway.

Edward was alone, totally alone. She saw that. He had never trusted anyone but Peter, perhaps had never loved anyone except him, and how he was gone. Isabella felt his isolation. It was, in its way, like her own. She wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him someway, to make peace between them. She wanted to say something. She wasn’t sure what, but something that would tell him she wished to trust him and have him trust her. She was just about to try when he said, “Where is Nicolette?”

“Nicolette?” Isabella tried not to hesitate. “I sent her to my castle in the north.”

“The one your father owns? By the Scottish border?”

“He… gave it to me for my use — our use — after we were married. He told me it needed some work but was sound and had fine lands surrounding it, which could produce quite well if properly see after. I had not thought of it for some time, but on my journey to Yorkshire I saw how beautiful the countryside was and I thought the northern castle might be an excellent project to undertake once the Scottish threat is settled. I sent Nicolette to make a survey of the property for me to determine how extensive the work might be.”

She realized she was explaining too much, and she wondered if she was only imagining that Edward looked suspicious as he said, “But you thing it is safe to send your lady-in-waiting with only a half-dozen French guards to protect her to a castle that is scarcely a day’s ride from Scotland? When all of Wallace’s army is still there?”

Isabella’s mind was racing. So Edward knew where she had sent Nicolette, even knew exactly how many of her personal bodyguard she had sent along to protect her. “I felt safe in doing so, m’lord. It was clear to me that, however great a savage this bandit Wallace is, he would not allow any action against a woman entourage, especially one traveling beneath the banners of France, formally neutral in the conflict between Scotland and England. Even without such diplomatic protection, Wallace would have a standing order that women be left alone. He has too much pride to behave otherwise.”