Randall Wallace - Braveheart

“There is…..one thing, William, “ Hamish said. “Longshanks is offering a truce. He has dispatched his daughter-in-law as his emissary, and she has sent word that she wishes to met you.”

Wallace’s green eyes were fixed on Hamish, whose red brows furrowed like a pensive sunset. He knew William was wondering why he had take so long too mention this—but the details were just so troubling! “The instructions were passed along to us with great care,” Hamish said. “The man who told me was told by her messengers that he must remember the invitation exactly.”

“Yes?” William said, growing impatient. “Go on.”

“Well…. She says she know you would not wish to discuss a truce in her castle at Locharmbie, since that would not seem secure to you. Therefore she proposes that you meet here in a neutral, common place, where you can discuss the truce in absolute safety.”

“And what is this place?” Wallace asked, wondering why Hamish was so troubled by it.

“It…it’s a barn.”

THE BARN STOOD IN A FLAT CLEARING BORDERED ON THREE SIDES BY A THICK FOREST OF FIR TREES AND ON THE OTHER BY THE ABANDONED FARM WHOSE OTHER BUILDINGS had already been cleared away. The barn itself looked sturdy, its stone side walls still sound, its timbers supporting a thickly thatched roof in fresh repair.

Wallace, Hamish, and Stephen rode in from the farm side. They stopped for along moment and surveyed the barn and the woods around it; night was falling, and all was quiet. Before the main door of the barn, stood two men dressed in the blue fleur-de-lis tunics of the French guards who had accompanied the princess on her last mission of truce. A white flag sagged from a pole thrust into the roof thatch, and the sight of it, hanging above a barn in peaceful summons, seemed to give Wallace a chill! But in full view of the barn, he handed Hamish his sword and rode forward.

Within the dark shadows of the bar, the assassins waited, their killing knives ready. Their leader was peering out a crack in the wooden planking above the stone side walls. “It’s William Wallace, sure !” he whispered sharply to the other. “And….. he’s given up his sword! Be ready!”

They positioned themselves along the side walls, backing and squatting into the deepest shadows and clustering around both doors and even the single window so that nothing could come in from any direction without encountering a swarm of blades.

Outside the barn, Wallace and his two friends dismounted, tied their horses to a scrub tree, and moved toward the door. The two men in the blue tunics nodded to him, and Wallace said, “You first.”

They hesitated only a moment and did not argue, proceeding through the door.

Wallace, instead of entering, grabbed the heavy bar and sealed the door! At this motion, Scots sprung from the woods in all direction.

The assassins inside had prepared for everything but this. The back door was blocked just as the front had been before they realized the ambush was being turned on them. Then when the window was chocked full of dead wood and all was suddenly dark inside, they began to panic.

But the Scots outside, scrambling up form their hiding places among the trees, did not notice the shouting from within the barn and the pounding on its doors. They placed tinder-dry brush and pitch against the barn and set it on fire. In moments the entire barn was blazing. The Scots stood back and watched the barn burn, their faces lit by the flames. After a while, there were no more screams from within.

From her castle, the princess saw the burning off in the distance, like a bonfire. She stood in a window of the old keep, staring out at the far-off glow. And then she saw, on a near hillside, silhouetted against the night and the fire, a rider.

He sat there motionless in his saddle, looking up at the castle.

Isabella ran from her room, up one staircase, then another, and still another, and still another, until she stood on the pinnacle of the castle, so that she too was silhouetted backed by the rising moon, praying that he could see her,

The lone rider was William Wallace.

On the northern side of the castle, the land fell away sharply form the castle’s rocky foundations and it was on that side of the compound that the stables stood. Beside them, built into the outer wall, was a cottage, intended as living quarters for the chief groom. But no groom was in residence since the princess had not yet stocked her stables, and it was in a window of this cottage that she placed a candle, backed by a brass reflector, that burned into the night like a tiny beacon.

For two hours the princess sat along beside that candle, wondering if her signal was going to work. It was a twenty-foot climb, hand over, hand up the mortared stones, to reach the cottage’s window; she knew that would not deter him if he was going to come.

At last she heard the faint noise outside. She drew back from the window and waited.

He reached the safety of the window cove and knelt on the ledge. He looked through the window and saw her inside.

For a long, long moment the two of them looked at each other. Then in one more quick movement he pressed his shoulders through the window opening and was inside.

They faced each other in the faint glow of the candle.

“A meeting in a barn. It had to be a trap. And only you would know I would be aware of it,” he said.

“It does me good to see you,” she told him.

“I am much diminished since we met.”

She wanted to say something — tell him that, yes, he looked hungrier, wilder, than he had looked before and that the very sight of him made her heart pound in her chest and her face burn, but instead she looked away and muttered, “There will be a new shipment of supplies coming north next month. Food and weapons. They will trav—”

“No stop. I didn’t come here for that.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Why did you?”

“Because of the way you’re looking at me now. The same way… as when we met.”

He turned his face away. She moved to him, touched his check gently, and pulled his face toward her again. “I know,” she said. “You looked at me… and saw her.”

He twisted suddenly back toward the window. He was leaving.

“You must forgive me what I feel!” she said. “No man has ever looked at me as you did.”

He stopped and looked back to her.

“You have… you have a husband,” he said.

“I have taken vows. More than one. I’ve vowed faithfulness to by husband and sworn to give him a son. And I cannot keep both promises.”

Slowly, he began to realize just what she was asking of him, and an unexpected smile played at his lips. Her smile lit up also. “you understand,” she said. “Consider, before you laugh and say no. You will never own a throne, though you deserve one. But just as the sun will rise tomorrow, some man will rule England. And what if his veins ran not with the blood of Longshanks but with that of a true king?”

“I cannot love you for a sake of revenge,” he said quietly.

“No. But can you love me for the sake of all you loved and lost? Or simply love me… because I love you?”

Slowly, he reached to the candleflame and pinched it out.

THE FIRST RAYS OF MORNING SPREAD YELLOW LIGHT through the room and across their faces, their bodies limp and entwined upon the warm and tousled blankets of the straw-mattressed bed. Wallace awoke with a start: sunlight!

He grabbed for his clothes, as she, too, awoke suddenly; she covered herself with the blanket and jumped out of bed, rushing to the window to look out, then drawing back quickly. “No one! Hurry!” she said.

He hurried to the window, leaned out, and saw a clear path down the wall to safety. He saw no guards along the base of the wall, no one between the castle foundation and the far rill where he had hidden his horse—and yet it was past dawn, already fully day!