Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (28 page)

“Most of them found shelter in Newcastle and Carlisle,” said Will gruffl y.

But his words were hollow.

After the battle at Stirling Bridge the resistance hadn’t stopped. It had grown. News of the incredible victory over the English spread like wildfi re, the fall of the templars

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blazing in the hearts and minds of the Scots. The English were no longer a terrifying, unstoppable force. They were just men, vulnerable men. Even after the death of Andrew de Moray, who succumbed to the wound sustained in the battle, the Scots continued to flock to Wallace’s banner, until, barely weeks later, the scent of blood still fresh, the fierce young giant led his army into England.

Sweeping down over the Tweed into Northumberland, they destroyed crops and livestock, burned monasteries, looted towns, slaughtered inhabitants. The people of northern England, most of whom had taken no part in the sack of their neighbor, paid the price for their king’s brutality. And paid in full.

Those who fled before the marauding Scots returned to their homes once the horde moved on, only to find they had no food or shelter for the coming winter. Newcastle was soon packed to the walls with the homeless and the desti-tute. The Scots stripped the county bare and everything they took was conveyed back across the border to feed the starving families they left behind.

With no one to oppose them, the Scots vented years of pent-up anger on towns and villages. Wallace and his generals attempted to restore order, even resorting to hanging in the worst cases of unnecessary violence, but they had broken a dam at Stirling and unleashed a tide that couldn’t be stopped, until it had drained. Wallace’s men called him William the Conqueror and his name was quickly taken south, rippling through all the shires of England, where the fear and hatred of him and his men grew. But their king was still in Flanders and there was no protection for his subjects. The reprieve for the people of northern England only came at midwinter, when the fi rst snows began to fall, forcing the Scots back across the Tweed.

“You gave me your word you would think about returning with me to France,” said Simon, watching the emotions change on Will’s face. “Robert might be able to get you back into the Temple. You don’t know for sure that Hugues will prevent you. He used to be your friend. But either way you have to make amends for the oaths you have broken. You cannot stay here, pretending you were never a knight. It was all you ever wanted to be. You cannot let your grief for what happened to Elwen ruin everything you ever were. And I know you miss your daughter. I can see it in your eyes every time you see Ysenda embrace Alice, or scold Margaret, or praise David. God damn it,
I
miss Rose! I miss our comrades, our home.”

“I don’t believe she’s mine, Simon.” The words came in a rush and Will looked surprised after he’d uttered them.

Simon was silent. “Garin?” he said finally, following Will with his eyes as 158 robyn

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he turned away. “I wondered after the fire at Andreas’s, with what he was saying. Do you know for certain she is his?”

Will opened his mouth to speak, then pressed his lips together. “I promised to think about returning to France before word came that Edward and his army were on the march. I cannot leave now. I am needed here.”

“You are needed more elsewhere,” the groom called as he walked away. But this time he didn’t follow.

The words ringing in his ears, Will made his way to Wallace’s tent. Following their reconciliation at Stirling, he had found himself glad of Simon’s company, the familiarity of their friendship a relief after so long with strangers. But after the invasion of England, Simon once again started questioning him on when they would return to their old lives, as if it were inevitable. Simon didn’t understand. The groom thought he had left the Temple and fled to Scotland because of grief over Elwen and concern for his family. Will couldn’t tell him the truth, because then he would have to explain about the Brethren and Edward; would have to tell Simon he had been lying to him all these years and that the groom didn’t really know him at all. That it hadn’t been a stray Mamluk arrow that had sent Garin into hell. That it had been his sword.

“Campbell.” Wallace greeted him tersely, as Will approached the circle of tents. He was standing by the fire holding a ragged map. Adam and Gray were poring over it. In the past year since his great victory, Wallace had grown gruffer. The deaths of comrades and enemies were marked in him, visible in his eyes, and in his face and arms, carved with more scars. “We’ve had news.”

“The English?”

“They are headed for Roxburgh. The vanguard should reach it in a matter of days. Their king will not be far behind.”

“Do we know numbers?”

“The scouts reckon seven thousand horse, with large contingents led by Bek and de Warenne.”

“The earl’s no doubt trying to make up for his cowardice at Stirling,” said Adam scornfully.

“And more than twenty thousand foot,” fi nished Wallace.

“Dear God,” murmured Will.

Gray nodded. “The bastard means to teach us a lesson.”

“We’ve also had word,” continued Wallace, looking at Will, “that the Templars are to allow the army to rest at their preceptory at Liston. Knights from England, under the command of Brian le Jay, are coming north with him.”

Will felt a heaviness enter him.

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“The loyalty of the bishop of Durham and the earl of Surrey is unquestion-able. But you told me when we first met that the Templars were compelled by Edward to aid his invasion. Will they fight for him willingly in this campaign?”

Will nodded reluctantly. “If the grand master has commanded Brian le Jay then, yes, the Templars will fi ght.”

“More heavy cavalry than we can shake our sticks at,” muttered Adam.

“And we’ve fewer than a thousand horse.”

Wallace’s blue eyes went to him. “We knew this day would come. What do you think we have spent the past year raising troops and training our spearmen for? None of this changes anything. We keep to the plan.” Wallace turned to Will. “I want you with Gray to supervise the razing of the lands south and east. Most of the inhabitants of the towns there have made it into the forest.

We gave them enough warning. Those who linger will soon make haste when you lay waste to their fields and homes.” Wallace’s jaw was set. “I want every grain of corn burned, every drop of water poisoned, every beast of the fi elds herded into the woods. I want the very earth where Edward leads his army to be scorched and dead. When you are done, ride north. We will be camped near Stirling.”

“Are you sure Edward will lead his army that way?” asked Gray.

Will answered before Wallace. “The Temple’s preceptory at Liston lies on the route north. If Edward means to camp there it is almost certain Stirling is his goal. Not only is it strategically vital, it is the site of his worst defeat. He will want to avenge himself.”

“We will let hunger and thirst do their work in this heat,” murmured Wallace, staring into the leaden blue sky. “When his army is weakened and de-moralized, we will strike.”

“And then let the rest of our kingdom’s nobility fall at your feet in gratitude,” said Gray fi ercely.

Wallace didn’t answer.

Will, watching him, wasn’t sure whether he would welcome this. Wallace seemed uncomfortable with his reputation, which had grown so great after Stirling that even the powerful magnates of Scotland were forced to acknowledge his success, and to reward him for it, in the form of a knighthood.

Robert Bruce, the earl of Carrick, performed the ceremony. This young man had defied his father, who held Carlisle for Edward, and changed sides to fight for the Scottish cause. A number of lords and bishops, following Bruce’s example, proclaimed Wallace as guardian of the realm, but even with his newfound rank he remained in Selkirk Forest, living rough with his men. When 160 robyn

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Will asked him why, Wallace said the trappings of nobility were a dangerous thing, for it was this love of wealth and possessions that had led the nobles of Scotland to forsake their country, and he would not make the same mistake.

His righteous defiance did not endear him to all the nobility. Many of them, it was widely known, resented his rise to their ranks and feared his power and the growing army of men under his command.

“We had better get going if we’re to outrun the English,” Gray said.

Will hung back as Wallace called to him.

“Are you going to be able to fight your Templar brothers?”

Will paused, surprised by the question and the sternness with which it was spoken. “Are you questioning my loyalty?”

“I know you are loyal to me, Campbell. You have proven that more than once this past year. But you were a Templar far longer than you have been a man in my army. I would understand if warring against men you swore your life to would cause you to waver.”

Will thought of the battlefield to come. But all he could see was Edward’s arrogant face. All he could feel was a rising sense of anticipation, eagerness even, to meet him on that field. He shook his head. “I know where my allegiance lies.”

temple liston, scotland, july 21, 1298 ad

Edward closed his eyes and tried to rest. Sweat trickled in lines down his back and his silk robes clung to his skin. The air coming through the window was oven hot. Beyond the preceptory wall, sounds of men and beasts were a constant drone. Closer, the jangling notes of a harp climbed and fell. The music was supposed to soothe him, but he found it intrusive. After a moment, Edward rose from the bed. “Enough.”

The music stopped.

“A drink, my lord?” A page came forward with a goblet of wine.

Edward grimaced as he sipped. “This is hot.”

“I’m sorry, my lord. The casks were in the sun too long.”

Edward flung the goblet aside, splattering the wall and another page in red wine. “The royal menagerie would have been more use to me! Get out of my sight!”

Needing little encouragement, the pages hastened out, leaving Edward pacing the stifling chamber. His mind was tormented. Worries crowded in on top the fall of the templars

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of one another, clogging his thoughts. He didn’t understand how events could have taken such a turn. Only a month ago, he had been marching at the head of a vast army, filled with fervent conviction.

Edward had pulled the support of his entire kingdom behind him for this war; almost a holy war with the zeal his clerics and criers had stirred up. While he conscripted foot soldiers and archers from Wales and Ireland, called horsemen and crossbowmen from Gascony and summoned his vassals, they whipped his subjects into a frenzy of hatred. The clerics sent word to every corner of the realm, telling of the evil of Wallace and his men. The Scots were ogres. They ate babies, molested nuns, butchered priests. By the time Edward and his army were on the move, the prayers of all England were with them. They would crush the hated Scots, avenge the atrocities of Northumberland and Cumbria.

Kill the monster Wallace and his devil followers.

Once over the border, they advanced toward Edinburgh, one of only a handful of castles that had withstood the Scots’ insurrection. But instead of terrified populations to slake their vengeance on and towns to loot for plunder, the king and his men found an empty, desolate land. At first it surprised them. Then, as the days dragged beneath the scorching sun, with the aching drudgery of long marches, it came to disturb and then to madden them.

From Roxburgh to Temple Liston, every village the host passed through was abandoned. Little wattle-and-daub houses stood empty, doors open on silent interiors. English soldiers barged in, kicking over furniture, upending barrels, opening chests. Finding nothing of value and nothing to eat, they moved on through barren fields where poppies bloomed like blood, mailed boots scuffing up dust. Men sweated and toiled under the metal-blue sky. Armor chafed, lips cracked and bled, blisters bubbled up on feet. Rations ran low, then ran out. Sometimes they passed smoking remains of farmsteads, the cornfields scorched and black. Archers shot crows circling the rotting corpses of a few cattle and the bitter meat was divided surreptitiously between a few lucky companies. But for most men, each exhausting march ended with a hollow belly and increasingly fitful dreams of food.

None of them knew where the enemy was, for there were no people to offer information on Wallace’s location. Scouts were sent out and returned without news. Many men spent sleepless nights, staring into the darkness beyond the campfires, waiting for the glint of steel in the starlight. Two days before they reached Edinburgh, thunderheads built in the north and a searing wind whipped grit in their faces. That evening they watched as lightning ripped across the sky, mirrored in the distant sea. Edward had organized a fleet of ves-162 robyn

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sels to follow them up the east coast, due to meet them at Leith to deliver much needed supplies. But when the army reached Edinburgh, instead of ships fi lled with grain and meat, they found the docks deserted. Word fi ltered through that the storm had forced them to turn back and starvation loomed like a specter. The next day, three cogs limped into the port, but other than a few sacks of grain, which went straight to the royal guards and commanders, their holds were just filled with casks of wine. As the troops moved on to Temple Liston, men began to sicken. The Welsh and Irish, who had been surviving on the barest of rations even before these ran out, were forced to eat grass and bark from trees. The king had sent Anthony Bek to besiege two nearby castles that threatened their flank, but that was almost a week ago and he had heard no word from the bishop.

Edward stopped pacing and sank onto his bed, transported from his headquarters at York and erected inside the Templars’ manor. Everyone had been stunned by the defeat at Stirling last year; no one had expected that. But it was barely months later that events at Flanders had unfolded like a nightmare before his eyes.

On arriving in Ghent the previous autumn, Edward had met with Guy de Dampierre to form the alliance against the French. When King Philippe’s soldiers were reported to be marching on Flanders, this Anglo-Flemish force had set out to meet them at Vyve-Saint-Bavon. In less than an hour they had been utterly routed by the French. Shortly afterward, with survivors still limping back into Ghent, Edward learned of the battle at Stirling. Leaving Guy de Dampierre to face the victorious French alone, the wedding proposal terminated, he returned to England to avenge his loss. But he was painfully aware how incompetent he was beginning to look. The barons had rallied around him for this campaign, but he feared, unless he could offer them a decisive victory, their earlier murmurs of discontent would swiftly grow louder.