Randall Wallace - Braveheart

She reined her horse back to the French guards, who surrounded her quickly and galloped away without looking back.

Wallace watched them go and thought of her who sent them.

Then he turned and walked quickly back to join Hamish and the others. “I need Stephen,” Wallace said, “as quickly as you can find him.”

THE PRINCESS SAT AT THE WINDOW SEAT OR A PALACE room. Her fingers held half-finished embroidery; she was looking distractedly at the dark, cold winter day outside. Across the room, Longshanks was at his worktable, discussing logistics with his advisors. Edward sat sullenly at the table with them. His father had demanded that he attend but insisted that the princess be there also, telling his son it was clear he could never rule without his wife to help him. ("The woman has fire in her,” Longshanks had told his advisors. “She is the only hope that my line will continue when I am gone.")

So now the prince sat, his eyes glazed and only half alive, as Longshanks stormed at his advisors. “Why am I the only one who sees how simple this is?! Our army needs food! They can’t fight without it, for the Scots will burn everything, even their own food, rather than let us have it. The Vikings have fish. They lack wool. We have wool. So trade them our wool for the fish, you fools!”

None of the advisors responded. But young Edward perked up. He knew the reason the advisors were silent. They didn’t wish to be the bearers of unpleasant news. Edward, on the other hand, couldn’t wait. He placed his delicate hand before his mouth to hide the smirk there. “The Viking traders have just informed us that the Scots have promised to sell them wool,” Edward said, “at a lower price than ours.”

“The Scots have no ships to deliver wool to the Vikings!” Longshanks said.

“The Vikings provide the ships,” Edward said.

“What do the Scots get from the Vikings in return for the wool?” Longshanks demanded to know.

“Lumber — for building ships,” Edward said. “Apparently, someone in Scotland intends to establish it as a trading nation. And…”—Edward drew this out, savoring the moment — “since the Scots have never pursued trade so aggressively before, it is only reasonable to suppose the originator of this effort is some new character among their leaders. Someone like… William Wallace, perhaps.”

Prince Edward failed to conceal his satisfaction at seeing his father bested. Longshanks flushed with anger — whether more at Wallace or at his son, it was impossible to tell.

By the window, the princess looked down at her sewing, so that no one could see her smile.

EASTERN SCOTLAND LAY BENEATH THE SAME GRAY, COLD sky as did London. Inside Edinburgh Castle, Wallace paced a room full of merchants, seamen, and landowners, all summoned to discuss Scotland’s daily trade. Wallace told them about the arrangements with the Vikings of Norway. He spoke to them about the need to establish independence of trade and told them of the pact he had just made with the merchants of France to trade whiskey for wine.

One of the farmers laughed and said, “We don’t drink wine!”

“No, but the Danes do,” Wallace said. “And they will swap for pottery and tar. Some we keep. Some we trade with Spain for their sour fruits. Then all our children will have solid teeth and straight bones.”

No one knew quite what to say. No one had ever discussed such matters with these men before. They were excited by the ideas and frightened, too. Suddenly they had a hundred questions about how it would work, and they began to ask them all at once. Wallace smiled and lifted his hands to quiet them. “I don’t know all the answers,” he said. “We must work them out together. I only ask you to consider whether the result of new trade would be worth the effort.”

They began talking with each other — farmer to merchant, merchant to seaman. Wallace watched for a moment in satisfaction ad moved over to old Craig, who has seen everything from a spot beside the huge hearth. The old man was frowning, Wallace looked at him, knowing already what he wished to say. “The king will not like it,” was the old man’s comment.

“We don’t have a king yet,” Wallace said. “But when we do, he will have trade.”

“I meant Longshanks,” old Craig said. “This will antagonize him further.”

“He is not our king. And we could not possibly make him hate us more that he already does.”

Hamish moved in and whispered to Wallace, “Stephen is back.”

Wallace and Hamish hurried into the stables, where they found Stephen, tattered but smiling. They clasped forearms in greeting, Wallace delighted to see his friend alive.

“Irish! You look hungry!” Wallace said.

“H\”How should I look after a month in the saddle?”

“Did you get it?”

“Did we get it, he asks us, Father!” Stephen babbled to the Almighty. “Does he not know the scripture, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive’?” He punctuated the biblical verse by brushing away some hay in the corner, uncovering a large object wrapped in hides. He pulled them back and revealed a new crossbow with a small box of bolts.

Wallace lifted and examined the instrument. He felt its heft, tried its shoulder position, tested the tension of its string, and tried it crank. When he looked back at his friends again, his face was grave. “Hamish,” he said, “order the council assembled!… Yes, order it!”

Since his return to Edinburgh weeks before, Wallace had said nothing whatsoever to the council of nobles. When they issued proclamations praising his victory at York, he sent word that he was too busy seeking alliances with foreign powers to attend the council protested –not openly, but through Craig, who tried to visit Wallace personally but got only as far as Hamish — that diplomacy was a power belonging to the council, Wallace replied — through Hamish—that as guardian, the security of Scotland was his responsibility. Hamish even reminded the council, in words that rang like William Wallace’s that in making Wallace the guardian they had asked him to swear to be faithful the protection of Scotland, and so help him God he would be faithful now. The council knew — knew because he passed along to them copies after he had already sent the letter — which Wallace had written the king of France, proposing a military alliance with Scotland. They also knew he had written the pope; Hamish told them he had. But Wallace did not reveal to the council the text of that letter; Hamish declared he had not read it himself and that the letter had the privacy of the confessional. Such actions troubled the council, not just because Wallace took them without consulting with them but because he thought of such actions without their advice. A military alliance with France could save Scotland; recognition from the pope of the independence of Scotland could bring support not only from France but from other nations as well. Wallace was a man of action, and he made men of politics uncomfortable.

When he ordered them to assemble on a secluded field outside Edinburgh, they grew more troubled still. Hamish has brought not only the inner council, comprise of noble family leaders, but also all the prominent relations he could gather, especially those with battlefield experience. Wallace had told him the more the better, and Hamish has pulled together everyone within a day’s ride of the capital city, more than thirty nobles. Among them was Robert the Bruce.

It was a day of unusually flat light, the entire sky a mass of slate gray clouds. The nobles stood in clumps of three or four, whispering among themselves. “What does he want with us?” young Mornay inquired of Bruce and Craig the moment he walked up to them.