Arnault parried and gave ground, not wanting to slay a brother-knight, but he knew he must not let that cost him his own life. Sparks flew as he blocked a downstroke intended to sever his sword arm, and he whirled to counterattack, his blade slithering down the other Templar"s to lock at the hilts.
"I am not your enemy!" he managed to spit out between clenched teeth, as he and his adversary strained against each other for a breathless moment. "Jay has betrayed the Order!"
"You are-apostate!" the other gasped.
"But I will not kill you!" said Arnault-and with a wrench, gave ground again and, when his opponent stumbled forward, dealt him a disabling slash to the back of the leg.
The other Templar let out an agonized cry and folded in his tracks, sword flying from his hand. Leaving the wounded man where he lay, Arnault rushed on again in search of Wallace.
Both the spearmen with Wallace had gone down, but Wallace was still on his feet, now fighting off two white-clad Templars, who were closing in on foot from opposite sides. As Arnault struggled toward them, hampered by the mud, he saw with sinking fear that Wallace"s two adversaries were none other than John de Sautre and Jay himself.
"Hold!" he shouted. "It is not the work of the Temple to slay other Christian men!"
Jay turned at the sound of his voice, his features contorting in a snarl when he recognized his challenger.
"So, the renegade rears his head at last!" he sneered. "I swear by all that is holy, you are more Saracen than Christian, Saint Clair!" Aside to John de Sautre he said, "Send him to the h.e.l.l that awaits him! I shall finish this rebellious Scot myself!"
John de Sautre turned on his heel and sprang to attack as Jay closed again with Wallace. Steel clashed against steel as his blade met Arnault"s. The two men exchanged feints, circling warily as de Sautre sought an opening.
"Why do you follow him?" Arnault gasped, between clanging exchanges. "It is not too late for you to turn away from this b.l.o.o.d.y path. G.o.d forgives all things!"
De Sautre panted out a mirthless laugh. "Are you become my conscience? It is you who should look to the state of your soul-for you are about to go to judgment!"
With sudden ferocity, the Master of the Scottish Temple lunged and struck, the violence of his blow nearly disarming Arnault. In that instant, Arnault sensed that de Sautre knew only too well how far he had let Jay lead him into treachery and deceit-that it was the pain of that knowledge that now lent impetus to his attack, as he sought to batter down one of the few who knew him for what he was, their blades clashing and parting in a murderous exchange of blows.
Meanwhile, as Brian de Jay closed with William Wallace, feinting and probing to take his measure, he was finding himself surprised at how nimble the big man was, for all his size. In an instant that could only have been merest chance, the tip of Wallace"s sword flicked under his guard and caught him low under the ribs.
Jay"s armor held, but the blow itself was hard enough to drive the wind from his lungs. As Wallace"s blade rose to press the attack, Jay attempted an impaling thrust, but it fell short and Wallace beat his blade aside.
Backing off, sobbing for breath, Jay raised his sword to block the next blow, but Wallace"s sword came flashing down on his own with such force that the Master of England staggered in his tracks. He retreated again, and this time only narrowly succeeded in making the parry. As Wallace continued to hammer at his defenses, Jay knew with sinking desperation that he was about to be bested by this rough fighting man with no claim to n.o.bility.
It was then, as he glanced in vain for some hint of a.s.sistance from some brother-knight, that a mighty blow from Wallace sent the weapon flying from his hand. The Master of England had only an instant in which to contemplate his death before Wallace brought his sword down in a final stroke that split the Templar"s skull clean through.
The deed went unseen by Arnault, still engaged with John de Sautre and intent on letting the other man"s insensate rage prove his own undoing. When de Sautre finally lunged just too far, leaving himself open to Arnault"s outthrust sword point, his own momentum drove him onto the blade. A choked outcry escaped his lips along with a gush of blood as Arnault pulled his sword free, and in shocked disbelief he looked down to see his life"s blood obliterating the cross on his white surcoat.
"May G.o.d temper justice with mercy!" Arnault murmured, in as much of a prayer as he could muster for the dying man, as de Sautre sank to his knees, eyes already glazing.
But he was already turning to look for Wallace, who was pausing to give the coup to a foundered horse as he looked for his next foe. Behind him lay the crumpled corpse of Brian de Jay.
"You came just in time, my friend, and I thank you for it," Wallace declared, heading toward him. "Alas, I can find little other cause for joy this day."
"Nor I," Arnault replied, looking around for Torquil. "And we must be away from here."
They were somewhat to the side of the fighting, which continued to take its toll, but a possible way to end it came to Arnault as he spotted Torquil making his way toward him, roughly dragging a disarmed Robert de Sautre along with him. Apart from a red weal on his cheek, the younger de Sautre gave little indication of having put up much of a struggle.
With a glance at Wallace, Arnault raised his sword and his voice above the clash of weapons.
"Knights of the Temple, stand and desist!" he cried. "The Masters of England and Scotland are dead! In the name of the Visitor of France, I order you to break off!"
The clashing of weaponry faltered as, all around, the Templars began to disengage, warily flinging glances toward Arnault. In answer, Wallace called to the Scots to fall back. In the uneasy silence that took shape, all eyes turned to the bearded, dark-haired man in plain harness who was standing beside the Guardian of Scotland-and the other plain-harnessed man, a redhead, who was roughly dragging an obviously captive Templar toward them.
One of the Templars, wrenching off his helmet for a closer look at the pair, immediately backed off and thrust his sword into the marshy ground in obedience-a redheaded Scottish knight whom Arnault remembered well from a visit to Paris on behalf of Luc de Brabant-and before that, a long ride to Scone, to see a king crowned. Increasingly in Luc"s service since then, Flannan Fraser would have had no part of Jay"s treachery, but also would have been obliged by his vows of obedience to accompany the Preceptor of Scotland on this expedition with the King of England.
"Listen to him, brothers!" Flannan cried. "I know this man. He is Brother Arnault de Saint Clair-no renegade, but a true knight of Christ"s most holy Temple! I myself know this!"
Blessing Flannan for the courage of his faith, Arnault went on, gasping as he caught his breath.
"Brothers, you have no business on this field of battle. We serve no king but Christ, and no man here is His enemy. Gather up your wounded and your dead and return to our house at Temple Liston. Brother Robert de Sautre will lead you-is that not so, Brother Robert?"
Still in Torquil"s custody, the dazed younger de Sautre could not seem to take his eyes from the sprawled body of his dead brother, lying not far from that of Brian de Jay. He swallowed hard.
"Yes, Brother Arnault," he answered shakily. "It is as you say."
At Arnault"s nod, Wallace"s men moved aside to allow Flannan Fraser and such of his brethren as were still able-bodied to begin gathering up the wounded and the dead.
Torquil, not relinquishing his grip on Robert de Sautre"s elbow, steered the portly knight closer to where Arnault was standing, drawing them both slightly away from Wallace.
"Before we leave the field ourselves," he said in a lowered voice, after glancing around to make sure no one else was within earshot, "there"s something more you need to know about Jay and this one"s brother.
Last night, I saw them give the Comyns, father and son, a casket of pagan artifacts, as payment for betraying Wallace and the Scottish host."
"I had no part in that!" Robert de Sautre blurted.
Torquil shot him a forbearing glare. "It"s true that he wasn"t personally present at the meeting," he confirmed grudgingly, "but I think it highly likely that he was aware of his brother"s. unhealthy interests."
Arnault bent his gaze on the cringing Robert. "Pagan artifacts, Brother de Sautre?"
"I never-"
"Tell me what you know of these artifacts," Arnault said quietly. There was steel and righteous anger in his voice, and Robert quailed visibly before him.
"I was told they were relics of an ancient sorcerer named Briochan," he confessed nervously. "Brother Brian and John secretly performed rituals with them-so John told me later. I did not witness it personally!" he babbled on. "Indeed, it was only recently that John acquainted me with any of these deplorable goings-on. I was appalled to hear of it, yet my vow of obedience to Brother Brian forced me to keep silent."
His sickly, craven attempt at a smile, as he wound down, did little to convince either of his listeners that he was entirely innocent. But nothing could be proved; and by Arnault"s own reading of the other man"s character, he guessed that the younger de Sautre was not one who would willingly choose a difficult path over an easy one. Without Jay to lead the way, he was hardly likely to involve himself in the hazardous business of ancient sorcery-not with the lure before him of vacant offices left in the Scottish and English Temples by the deaths of his brother and Brian de Jay.
"I take it," Arnault stated for de Sautre"s benefit, "that you will see to it that these pagan rites will never again be practiced by any of our brothers."
Robert looked as if he might be physically ill as he raised a trembling right hand. "As G.o.d is my witness,"
he whispered. "There have been too many misunderstandings in the past, Brother Arnault. There need be no enmity between us. We are both of us concerned with nothing other than the good of our Order."
Arnault raked the other man with a hard, appraising look.
"I hope that what you say is true," he said softly. "The future will tell. And if your actions bear out your words, then perhaps no one will ever connect you with the misdeeds of your superiors."
The implied threat of exposure was not lost on Robert de Sautre.
"I a.s.sure you of my complete cooperation in anything which furthers the cause of our faith and the welfare of the Order," he promised, then glanced nervously toward his fellow Templars, who were preparing to depart. "Now, by your leave, I must go and attend to the wounded-and to the burial of my misguided brothers."
Torquil was not minded to let the younger de Sautre leave so easily, but released him at Arnault"s gesture.
With pious words of grat.i.tude, Robert scurried off to join his companions. The Templars gathered their horses and the bodies of their dead and rode off, only Flannan Fraser pausing to salute the two brethren they were leaving behind.
"Thank G.o.d for Flannan Fraser"s level head," Torquil said. "But as for de Sautre, I trust him no more than I did his brother and Jay."
"To expose him would only do the Temple more harm," Arnault replied. "And at least with Jay gone, it should no longer be necessary for us to conceal our ident.i.ties. This schism in the Order is at an end.
"But I think we must ride now, before more English come. Having saved Wallace once, I do not relish the thought of having to do it again today."
The Scots knights were grouped together in subdued celebration of at least this small victory on a day of defeat, exchanging banter with the remaining spearmen they had rescued, none of whom seemed to bear any ill will toward those who had deserted them earlier. Wallace and the Stewart were deep in conversation, the Guardian with his hand on Stewart"s shoulder-and from the grief in the latter"s face, it was evident that he had been told of his brother"s death at the hands of the English knights.
As Arnault made his way toward them, knowing he must urge them back to their horses, to be away from here, he knew that James the Stewart was not the only one who would have cause to mourn this day at Falkirk.
Chapter Twenty-nine.
TO RISE AND BEHOLD THE DAWN WAS LIKE WATCHING CREation at work, which was why Arnault had risen somewhat before it to make his morning devotions. The birth of a new day was a recurring promise of new beginnings that was sorely needed by the men encamped in the hills to the west of Perth. Three days after Falkirk, the Scots were still licking their wounds as they contemplated a future now bearing little prospect for hope.
Ragged remnants of the Scots army had collected here, numbering scarcely more than a thousand men-enough, at least, to carry out ongoing punishing raids, and ensure that the English would not have the leisure to bask in the glow of their victory-but that was small enough consolation. Wallace"s other troops were either dead or scattered, the survivors hiding in cottages and thickets or crawling homeward to try to sleep off memories of the carnage.
Word had filtered back that the Scottish n.o.bles had halted their precipitate flight and established themselves in the north. Already John Comyn was playing the patriotic leader, drawing up plans for continued resistance and blaming Wallace for the defeat. According to their own account, Comyn and his friends had rescued the Scottish cavalry from a disastrous and ill-planned confrontation, and were now prepared to bear the burden of leadership that they believed had been thrust upon them.
No, the prospects were not bright at all; and though Wallace"s premature and futile death had been averted, at least for the moment, it was by no means certain that the ultimate battle could be won. As Arnault knelt before his sword, facing the east, he could almost sense Jerusalem out there, beyond the visible horizon, tugging at his soul like a spiritual lodestone: the Temple of Solomon, the hill of Calvary, and all the other holy places now lost to Christendom. Many still spoke of a new crusade, greater than any that had gone before, but Arnault knew in his heart-and had known since his vision in Cyprus-that the Knights of the Temple were now men in exile, like the people of Israel, and must likewise find their Lord in new and unexpected places.
Surely this place was among the more unlikely. Nothing in this wild and verdant northern land resembled the baked plains and yellow crags of Palestine. Yet Arnault still believed that he and his brethren were being led here to establish themselves anew, for purposes that were still hidden in the mind of G.o.d.
Where clarity of vision failed, it was necessary for faith to light the way. Though this country was not his own, Arnault tried to share the simpler faith of the defeated soldiers he saw around him, most still wrapped in slumber, their sleep haunted yet by dreams of fallen comrades and kinsmen, but also the dream of freedom for their land.
Concluding his prayers, Arnault crossed himself and got to his feet, shaking the stiffness of the chill morning out of his legs before sheathing his sword. Normally, he would have confessed his weariness of soul to Torquil; but he had sent the younger knight off the previous day to bear word of the Scottish defeat to Luc de Brabant-for le Cercle must know of it as soon as possible, especially those details that could never be recorded in any conventional report of the battle.
Soon both of them must return to Paris for further instructions-and with Brian de Jay"s vindictive pursuit now at an end, they could even move openly as Templars again- but for just now, he sensed that the struggle for Scotland"s independence had reached a crucial turning point, and that he must be on hand a while longer to guide the Guardian through the crisis. Exactly how, remained to be seen, but Arnault was content to trust the intuitions that had always stood him in such good stead.
He cast his gaze toward the last place he had seen the Guardian before turning to his devotions, then started slowly in that direction. Even in the gray light of early morning, the tall figure of Wallace was unmistakable, leaning on the tumbledown wall of a ruined field at the edge of the camp, twiddling a stalk of weed between his fingers. Something about the way he was silhouetted against the dawn sky emphasized the man"s immense dignity and, at the same time, lent him an air of loneliness, like a single strong oak rising out of a deserted landscape.
Arnault slowed as he drew nearer, for Wallace was staring out across the empty field with yearning eyes, as though he beheld the whole of the land he loved in this one stretch of ground-a moment that did not invite intrusion. But before he could decide whether or not to return at a more opportune moment, the other man turned and greeted him with a weary smile. Though the Guardian could have s.n.a.t.c.hed only a few scant hours of sleep in nearly a week, he had spent too long as a hunted outlaw to be easily caught unawares.
"You are abroad early, Arnault-or Brother Arnault, I suppose I may call you now," Wallace said, casting aside his bit of weed.
"Arnault alone will do as well now as it did a week ago," the Templar said easily. "I"m sure you have enough to concern you, without troubling over a trivial matter of t.i.tles. As for the hour, I find it"s a good one for prayer."
"Prayer," Wallace repeated. "Of late, I"ve found little enough time for that-too little, if the truth be told. A miracle would serve us well, at this point."
"Sometimes it is G.o.d"s will that we make our own miracles," Arnault said. "And if the world, in all its brokenness, confounds our efforts, G.o.d Himself redeems our failure through the consolation of His grace."
"Aye, you"ve known your own share of defeats, you Templars," Wallace acknowledged bleakly.
"Otherwise, you would still be in the Holy Land-not here, where the enemy have the same faces and the same faith as ourselves."
"Men are men, wherever they are," Arnault said, "but when they fight over matters of faith, the conflict is at least an honest one."
Wallace pulled a jagged pebble from the drystone wall and flung it out over the field, watching it arc through the air and disappear amid a welter of bracken. His expression was meditative and solemn, as though he sought a sign in the falling of the stone that might guide him in this hour of decision.
"When your Templar brethren chased me through the forest, I fought by instinct for survival," he recalled, "and you and those you brought with you were a welcome sight. Now, though, I begin to wonder if I should thank you for saving my life. It might perhaps have been better if I had died on the field of battle, sharing the honor of those who fought to the death, and gaining for myself a peace I have been denied in life."
"Sometimes the price of peace is too high," Arnault reminded him, "as King John Balliol has discovered.
The kind of peace you speak of is also dearly bought, for the price is despair."
Wallace gave the Templar a dark look. "I know only too well that it is a sin to take one"s own life. But it is no disgrace to wish for death in battle."
"And if you had died, who would there be to lead the people of Scotland?"
"Let them lead themselves," Wallace said sharply. "That is what they must do now anyway, for I am resigning the Guardianship. I no longer know what there is to guard, or for whom I should be guarding it."
This unexpected admission caught Arnault unprepared. Small wonder that Wallace had seemed so troubled.
"To give up so high an office after so short a time-one that you have carried out with both wisdom and dedication-surely you cannot mean to do this?" he said.
"I have, on occasion, been accused of speaking too plainly," Wallace allowed, "but never of making my meaning obscure. I was not born to high office, nor did I deliberately seek it out. Not so long ago, I was an outlaw hiding among the caves and trees like a wild beast, depending upon the common folk for my safety. Three days ago, I trusted my fate to the n.o.bles who are the rulers of the land, only to find that they care nothing for what happens to me. Very well, let them have this country to themselves, if that is what they want. It is what they were raised for, after all."
"A pack of squabbling lords is not what Scotland needs," Arnault pointed out. "It needs a king."
"I have given every fiber of my being for that king," Wallace declared vehemently. "I can do no more."
"I am not speaking of Balliol," Arnault said. "Scotland"s king is not the one who surrenders to his enemy and accepts a comfortable captivity, as Balliol has done. The king is one who remains with his kingdom, even to the death."
"We have no such king."
"On the contrary, it seems clear to me that we do, if he will but admit it to himself."
Wallace frowned and looked away. "I have never sought the crown, nor would the n.o.bility grant me it, if I did."
"There is more to kingship than a crown of gold and a fine throne," Arnault said. "While the Stone of Destiny remains, Scotland has a king, even if he is not recognized as such- not even by himself. You served the Stone, and in return have been marked for a singular destiny. Surely you must know this in your heart."
"I know no such thing," Wallace said. "It is all well and good for you and your religious brethren to sermonize about destiny and kingship, but I must deal in the solid realities of my life. I have lost my home, my wife and family, and now I have lost more than a battle; I have lost the promise of victory that was all I could use to persuade my highborn allies to follow me and bring their soldiers to support the cause of Scotland"s freedom."
Arnault did not interrupt, for he knew that he must allow Wallace this moment to give full vent to his grief and frustration, if any sort of healing was to come, in the end.
"The t.i.tle of Guardian is a hollow sham," Wallace continued. "It serves the illusion that this realm yet retains a vestige of its sovereignty, separate from that of England, but let some other man take it up, and make of it what he wants. I"ll go to the farthest north and follow a life of obscurity, until even the name of William Wallace is forgotten. Either that, or I shall travel to France and fight in the service of a king who will be grateful to have a champion. At the very least, I may find my last battlefield."
He turned away from the dawn to face the still benighted sky of the west, throwing his troubled features into shadow.
"You speak lightly of your own death," Arnault said quietly, "yet you would not have it serve the cause you profess to love. The King of Heaven laid down his life for all mankind without being recognized as a king, even by those closest to him."