Insurrection: Renegade [02] (56 page)

He passed it to MacDouall who turned to Menteith. ‘Deliver Wallace to the English garrison at Lochmaben.’ He handed him the bag. ‘Give them this. Tell them it was found on him. Understood?’

‘What’s in it?’ Menteith asked, taking it. The bag felt light.

‘Nothing you need concern yourself with. Remember, Menteith, you alone captured William Wallace. My men and I were not here.’

Chapter 46

West Smithfield, London, 1305 AD

The late August afternoon was humid and overcast, the sky threatening rain as Robert and his men made their way west through the Outer Liberties. Ahead, London’s walls dominated the view, rising over the houses, churches and workshops that clustered close along their stone line before gradually giving way to marshland and meadows interspersed by hamlets, leper hospitals and imposing religious houses through which the road curved its way down towards Westminster. Smoke from bakehouses, chimneys and open fires rose to mingle in a grey fog that hung in the muggy air, tainted by the briny stink of the marshes.

The road on which they travelled was strangely empty and the villages quiet. Robert caught sounds of cheering that seemed to swell from beyond the walls and he wondered if there was some kind of festival going on that had drawn the residents of the suburbs into the city proper. The speculation was brief, overshadowed by more internal preoccupations.

The death of the king’s daughter had cast a terrible gloom over Christ Mass, lingering into the new year, at which point the court finally left Yorkshire and made its way south, down through Lincoln, towards Westminster. To Robert it had seemed as though Scotland’s fate was being pulled along by the same inexorable march south, to be set, at the autumn parliament, in the stone of law. His hope, heading for Writtle in late spring, had been that the news he had been waiting for would be there to greet him. But he had found only incomplete accounts, buildings in need of repair and confused tenants who had long needed the attentions of a sober lord.

As spring gave way to summer, his impatience for an answer from John Comyn had intensified to the point where the sound of hoof-beats approaching the manor would have him at the nearest window. Still, no word had come. Now, after two months in Essex, dealing with the remnants of his father’s affairs, Robert was returning to the king’s court, the grim parliament upon him. After tomorrow, Scotland’s new constitution would be drawn up and the council established, subordinate to their English masters.

A burst of harsh laughter drew him from his thoughts. He looked round to see four youths running fast along the verge. A fifth, younger than the others, was lagging behind, struggling to keep up. The older boys took little notice of the mounted company, but the youngest halted with a grin as Fionn bounded over to him.

‘You’ll miss him swing, Stephen!’ shouted one of the others, glancing back.

After patting the hound, the lad sprinted after his comrades. ‘We should’ve gone by Newgate,’ he panted, his English broad and thick, as if he’d never spoken anything else.

‘Dullard! The streets are packed. This way’s quicker. We’ll get ourselves a place on Bartholomew’s wall. From there we’ll see him spill his guts!’

More rough laughter rose as the youths ran on. Robert heard another cheer swell from somewhere, louder than before. He realised he could hear the low hum of a multitude of voices, punctuated occasionally by incoherent shouts. Ahead, the road turned sharply left at the same angle as the city walls, which veered south at Cripplegate. Robert’s company, following its curve, soon saw the grand buildings of the Priory of St Bartholomew, less than half a mile distant. Beyond, the smooth plain of West Smithfield stretched into the dull haze of the afternoon. The sight that greeted him caused Robert to pull his horse to a halt.

The green expanse, cut by the waters of the Fleet, was covered with a seething mass of people – hundreds upon hundreds. Even as Robert watched, more joined them, funnelling out of the city from Newgate and Aldersgate like a dark oozing tide flowing to pool on Smithfield’s plain. The cause of the suburbs’ quiet and the empty road was suddenly clear. It was as if all of London was gathered on the fields before him. His first thought was the August Fair, which Humphrey had introduced him to years earlier. But as his gaze moved across the shifting crowds he realised there were no stalls selling wares, no horse-racing, no roasting spits.

‘What is this?’

Robert glanced round as one of the Essex knights, a man called Matthew, spoke. Matthew’s gaze, like that of the rest of the company, was transfixed by the sight. Looking back, Robert’s eyes came to rest on the skeletal frame of the gibbet that thrust above the crowds. Often, bodies could be seen hanging there. Today, it was thronged not by the dead, but by the living, men standing on the platform beneath a row of empty nooses. The snatched conversation of the London youths came back to him with disquieting sense. ‘It’s an execution.’

Urging his horse into a brisk trot, Robert led his company along the road as the first drops of rain began to fall from the sullen sky. The noise of the crowds intensified the closer they drew to Smithfield and shortly the road became clogged with people flowing out from Aldersgate, forcing Robert and his men to a walk, guiding their horses through the throng. The people were a mix of commoners in coarse tunics and wooden clogs, sturdy-looking tradesmen – some still wearing aprons stained by a day’s labour – and a few wealthier sorts in feathered hats and embroidered cloaks. Robert, clad in a brocaded mantle and soft hide boots, his broadsword at his hip and his escort of knights and servants, stood out like a jewel on a rough strand of pebbles. Nes, he noticed, was keeping close at his side, the squire’s eyes darting suspiciously at the passing lines of Londoners.

‘We should go around them, sir,’ called Matthew, scowling at a couple of pimple-faced boys who tried to touch his shying horse. ‘Head north to the Bar and go down through Holborn.’

‘Agreed,’ shouted another of the knights, turning his horse against the quickening tide. Fionn went with him, barking agitatedly.

Reaching down, Robert grabbed one of the pimpled youths by the scruff of his collar. ‘Whose execution is this?’ The boy tried to pull away, but Robert kept tight hold. ‘Tell me!’

‘William Wallace,’ blurted the youth. ‘The ogre of the north!’

Robert let him go, barely noticing the boy spit an insult at him before he ducked into the crowd.

‘Sir!’

Robert paid Matthew no heed, turning instead to Nes. ‘Take my horse,’ he shouted to his squire, kicking his feet free of the stirrups and swinging down. Ignoring Nes’s call of warning, he pushed his way through the press, his height and strength allowing him to force his way forward.

On the verge, he glimpsed the ragged forms of beggars, hands outstretched to the people who flowed past. Beneath the din of conversation, all of it English, he heard the tap-tap of clacker bowls proffered by lepers. There were minstrels and jugglers, quacks with their bags of cures and pardoners with their relics, drawn to the multitude as flies to honey. It was like a festival, only this wasn’t a crowd eager for games, feasting and dancing. This crowd was hungry for blood. They pushed and shoved one another to get as near as they could to the gibbet, all wanting to find a space where they could best observe the proceedings.

Robert pressed on, needing to see for himself, catching Wallace’s name in stray snatches of conversation. How had they caught him? When? Rain misted the air, darkening the heads and shoulders of the crowd. He stepped on someone’s foot and felt a shove in his back. A woman twisted into his path, hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She smiled, looking him up and down appreciatively. With one hand, she tugged down the front of her thin dress, baring her breasts. The other she held out, uncurling a dirt-streaked palm.

‘A penny for a suck on them, my lord.’

Robert felt himself caught in the surging crowd, hemmed in on all sides. He smelled the stink of stale breath as a toothless old man turned to grin lewdly at him, felt his ears assaulted as two youths pinned in beside him roared with appreciation at the glimpse of flesh. He saw the woman turn her gaze on the young men, saw a line of dark moles on her breasts as she struggled her way towards the eager men. As she was swallowed by the surging crowd, Robert was pushed along on a new current, mud and refuse squelching underfoot. He felt a tug at his side and knew his purse had gone, but couldn’t move enough in the crush to look for the thief. He trod on something soft and pulpy – perhaps the corpse of some animal – that gave way with a sickening crunch beneath his boot. A pervading stench of sweat, greasy hair, smoke and excrement clogged the air, as if all the rot of the city had been boiled up in this seething cauldron of humanity.

Ahead, not far now, the gibbet loomed against the ashen sky. Some of the men who thronged its platform wore the king’s scarlet livery. The others were dressed in black. A vast cheer went up from some other part of the crowd, towards the city walls, the sound rising then falling like a wave. Beneath it, Robert heard the thud of drums.

‘He’s on his way,’ called a chubby blond boy, perched on a larger man’s shoulders. His cherub-like face was sweaty with excitement. ‘I can see the king’s men!’

‘I hear he’s a giant,’ said a brawny man wedged in beside them. ‘Ten foot tall.’

‘He’ll be taller still when he’s stretched,’ replied a third, causing sniggers to rise around him.

Robert fought back an urge to draw his sword and hack through their red, laughing mouths. He gripped the pommel.

‘No – I tell you, my cousin is a clerk of the Chancery. He heard it himself at the trial yesterday. William Wallace admitted all the crimes levelled at him,
except
treason. He said he couldn’t be accused of treason since he’d never recognised Edward as his king.’

Robert turned his head to see two older men, better dressed than most around and more serious of face.

‘And what did King Edward say to that?’ asked the speaker’s comrade, arching an eyebrow.

‘Apparently the king went hunting. He wasn’t there at the trial.’

The cheering rose into a shuddering roar. Now, Robert could see mounted knights dressed in scarlet surcoats riding through the crowds, which parted before them, surging like a sea. In their midst, two carthorses were being led, the beasts tossing their heads agitatedly. As a gap appeared between the shoulders of those in front, Robert saw the horses were dragging a hurdle behind them, to which was bound a naked man, face to the rain, arms outstretched like Christ on His cross.

By his stature, Robert knew it was Wallace, though he was scarcely recognisable. His body was covered with filth – night soil and offal, rotten fruit, horse dung – anything London’s citizens could snatch from the streets to hurl at him as he was dragged through their city. His face was bloodied and livid red marks covered his chest and thighs, where sticks and stones had struck him. His body jerked with the motion of the horses, his bare feet jolting along the muddy ground. The mob greeted the rebel leader with roars of hate, then the gap in front of Robert closed and Wallace was gone from view.

The king’s men halted by the gibbet. There was a pause, the crowds around the scaffold chanting and shouting, as Wallace was unbound from the hurdle. Moments later, held between two guards, he was forced to mount the platform, his hands now tied behind his back. The people jeered as he stood naked before them, hurling insults like they’d hurled the shit and the stones. Robert had a memory of Wallace standing in a clearing in the Forest, addressing the men of Scotland, his voice full of strength and authority, his blue eyes studying each of them in turn. He had knighted this man with his own sword. He wanted to shout – to stop what was about to happen. But he might as well try to stop the incoming tide.

A noose was pulled down from the gibbet’s beam and looped around Wallace’s neck. The crowd quietened as it was drawn tight by one of the black-clad executioners, the knot carefully positioned at the side so his neck wouldn’t break and bring death too early in the proceedings. The punishment for treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The threefold death it was called, for victims were said to die three times over. The executioner stepped back and nodded to his fellows. Robert saw Wallace close his eyes. He seemed to take a breath. Then, three men hauled on the other end of the rope, drawing it up and over the beam. The noose tightened suddenly around Wallace’s neck, twisting his head to one side. As his feet, bruised and bloodied by London’s streets, left the platform, the mob erupted with a cheer. The men at the rope strained as they hoisted him higher, all seven feet of him. Wallace’s ashen face reddened, his eyes widening as the breath was squeezed from him. The crowd continued to applaud noisily as the moments crawled by, Wallace’s feet starting to kick and jerk. His eyes bulged obscenely, his neck stretched and his face turned purple, veins protruding on his brow. His tongue thrust out from between his lips as his body convulsed. Robert, realising he had been holding his own breath, let it out in a rush.

Slowly, the applause died away. A few women averted their eyes, unable to watch this slow, agonising expiration of life. Finally, one of the black-clad executioners, studying Wallace closely, nodded to the three men at the end of the rope, all of whom were breathing hard and sweating profusely. They let go together and Wallace collapsed on the platform with a thud. One of the men came forward and tossed a bucket of water over him to revive him. Moments later, strangled gasps of breath could clearly be heard over the almost silent crowd. A strange sense of relief seemed to rise, people beginning to laugh and talk again. Wallace was helped to his feet and led to a trestle that had been erected on the platform. There he was laid out and strapped down for the second death. The rain was falling harder now, causing people to huddle together under the downpour. On the gibbet, the curved-bladed knives and tools in the hands of the executioners gleamed.