Randall Wallace - Braveheart

“He just arrives, asking for an audience?” Philip asked Deroux. It was considered a breach of protocol for anyone, no matter how prominent, to request a royal audience simply by arriving; one was expected to make arrangements through carefully worked out channels.

“Yes sire.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Since this morning.” Philip then understood the delay. Deroux didn’t want to grant the audience and didn’t want to deny it either. It was clear he even doubted for a time whether the visitor was in fact the legendary Scotsman. The king saw other advisors, men he had already dismissed for the day, filtering back into the room; Deroux must have solicited their advice and they wanted to see the outcome.

“Send him in,” Philip ordered.

Deroux waved to the guard at the door, and he admitted William Wallace. King Philip saw immediately the reason for Deroux’s reluctance and the evidence of how wrong he had been to doubt this man was who he claimed to be. The warrior before them was ragged and scarred. His clothes were plain. If not for his stature, the obvious power in his arms, the breadth of his shoulders, and the handsomeness of his face, scarred though it was, he would have passed for a simple commoner. But she could not conceal the force within him; it was in his posture, his stride; he was a man who would yield to nothing. His facial expression was frightening in that it looked dead. But his eyes were not. They burned. The man nodded to the king — no bow, just a simple tilt of his head.

“Sir William,” the king acknowledged.

“Thank you for receiving me” Wallace said in decent though heavily accented French.

He stood there in a long awkward silence, the king and two dozen of his richly attired gentlemen of the court all gazing at the warrior with the wild hair and the wilder eyes. And then the king surprised everyone, “ It looks like a fine evening,” he said, glancing out toward his gardens. “Come and walk with me.”

They moved along the raked gravel of the garden, surrounded by high manicured hedges. The flower beds were barren, spaded up and lying fallow for the plantings, and yet it was a calming place, all quiet and serene. Wallace took long slow steps, his gaze lowered, this thoughts seemingly distant. The king studied him as they walked. “You seek asylum,” Philip supposed.

“No,” Wallace said. “I did not come to hide. I came to fight.

Several of the royal advisors, among them Deroux, were trailing along behind. They pretended to be enjoying the stroll but were straining to catch every word, and now they looked all around at each other.

“To fight for me?” King Philip asked.

“If I say that, you’ll know I lie. I respect you as an enemy of my enemy, but I am not here to become your subject.”

“ So you hate Longshanks that much that you would fight him anywhere you can.”

“I love my country so much that I will fight for it, even when it does not fight for itself.”

They had come to a stone bench. The king stopped and motioned for Wallace to take a seat beside him. This caused some confusion among the advisors, who had to stop ten paces and pretend they were keenly interested in patterns of the gravel walkway. The king smiled and said to Wallace, “You know there is a price on your head. Well, of course, you do. But I heard that with interest, for it proved you were real and not just a fanciful concoction of your countrymen. Longshanks would not offer money for a phantom. You can, I hope, understand the doubts we had about you. We heard such takes here. That you had killed a hundred men with your own sword at Stirling. That you had the English commander flayed and his hide turned into a belt three feet long….” The king shook his dead and shrugged.

“That was a lie, “ Wallace said. “It was four feet long.”

The king burst out laughing. Wallace smiled himself — and to the king the Scot’s face seemed surprised at what it was doing, as if the feeling of a smile was unfamiliar.

“Where have you been, Sir William?” the king asked. “Hiding?”

Wallace nodded. “But not from them. Let my enemies find me. Let them come on —anywhere, everywhere, I am ready. But yes, I have been hiding. From myself.”

“And now you wish to fight again.”

“I do,” Wallace said.

“Your Majesty…,” Deroux said, stepping forward. “Could we please take a moment to confer?”

“There is no need to confer. Monsieur Deroux. Arrange lodgings for our visitor. Provide him with money. No,” he added quickly, for he saw Wallace glower, “not as a mercenary, but to secure proper food, rest, and weapons, for my generals should be at their best to do their best.”

“Your… general, sire?”

“You heard me, Deroux,” said Philip the Fair.

Paris in the year 1300 was already a great city, a place of trade and knowledge, an object of pride to the French, a people never considered to be lacking in their opinion of themselves or their sensitivity to the opinion of others about them. Their city possessed large inns serving fine food, and it was in the best of these that William Wallace was found that night, sitting alone in a corner by the fire, dining upon a joint of roasted meat presented by the inn’s owner who took special pains to provide for this guest in the knowledge that he was extending the hospitality of the king himself.

No one within the inn knew the identity of the visitor; they knew he was a Scot by his accent, and it was apparent from his stature and the scars visible upon his face and hands that he must be a warrior. Many other Scots had some across to serve as mercenaries; it was assumed by the other men eating and drinking at the inn that night that his man must be a mercenary himself — and one of extreme proficiency if the king was seeing to his keep. So the innkeeper’s other patrons — aristocrats all, for this was one of Paris’s finest establishments — kept their distance and watched with a mixture of curiosity and vague suspicion as the strange visitor sat silently in his corner, chewing his supper and staring into the flames of the fire.

The subdued atmosphere of the inn’s tavern room was instantly dispelled by Claude’de Bouchard, whose voice flew through the door several moments before his body did. “Where is he?” he shouted, already drunk. “Is he hiding? Let me look at him!” Bouchard stomped in, his boot heels heavy upon the plank floor, and everyone, except Wallace, turned to look at him. Bouchard was a tall, slender man with the prominent, straight nose of Gallic nobility and luxurious black hair falling in curls to his shoulders. He was a nephew of the king and wore the rich blue sash belt that designated him as a general in the king’s army. Everyone knew him and on one cared for him, but all tried to show him deference; the king had a great may relatives, but no one thought it is a good idea to offend any of them.

Bouchard was frequently loud and drunk, and this night he was exceptionally so. “A general they tell me!” he bellowed. “Ha! Someone who will give us advice? Is that his purpose? Where is —“.

Then his reddened eyes fell upon Wallace, who still had not looked up at him. Bouchard seemed to find something in Wallace’s presence or appearance to be terribly amusing. He began to laugh and glance around at the others as if to see if everyone else got the joke. “This?” he chuckles. “This is someone who will teach the men of France how to do battle?”

“Please Claude…..” one of the other aristocrats said quietly, moving to Bouchard and placing a hand on his shoulder. “The kin—”

Bouchard threw the man’s hand off. “The kind invites him to join us, yes I know!” He staggered to Wallace’s table and bumped into it before he could stop himself. “Are you the man?” he demanded.