Part 25 (2/2)

”It is true that I am no Scot by birth,” he said boldly. ”I am Breton. But know that I am also a Knight of the Temple of Jerusalem, Frre Arnault de Saint Clair, sent here to protect the rights of your lawful king and the freedom of your nation-and the life of Wallace.”

An uneasy muttering rippled among them, and Comyn seemed clearly taken aback-much more so than Arnault would have expected. A knight sitting his horse near Atholl proved less rattled-or perhaps more thick-skinned-and called out scornfully, ”When did the Templars ever care for anything other than their own wealth?”

”Aye,” another mumbled. ”And if you were sent to fight for Scotland, why does your Master fight for Edward?”

”Take yourself off to your prayers and your accounts,” another said with feeling, to a sullen mutter of agreement. ”We did not invite you to meddle in our business.”

Refusing to be baited, Arnault addressed them with head held high.

”You need not heed my words,” he said. ”Your own conscience calls you back to the field of battle-and to your duty-as surely as any trumpet summoning men to war.”

Comyn seemed to have overcome his initial discomfiture, and shouldered his horse hard against Arnault's, belligerent and arrogant.

”How dares a Templar call us to battle?” he demanded. ”You have not answered why your brother-knights, led by their English Master, fight on Edward's side. Have they sent you here to lure us back, and thus ensure the slaughter of Scotland's chivalry? We are, none of us, so foolhardy as to throw our lives away, when we may yet win the day upon another field!”

Comyn's suggestion of treachery on the part of the Master of England made Arnault suddenly wonder whether it could have been Brian de Jay whom Comyn had gone to meet the night before-Jay, who, if Torquil had been apprehended spying on such a meeting, would have had no compunctions about killing a man he could later claim he had thought was an apostate from the Order. There was no time to speculate upon the details of any bargain struck by Jay and Comyn, but the very possibility of such an alliance made it doubly important that this betrayal should not succeed.

”I will not speak against a brother of my Order,” Arnault said evenly, ”and I cannot speak for his reasons in choosing to raise sword against fellow Christians. I can tell you that I answer to a higher superior than the Master of England- and that I am commanded to fight and die for a country that is not my own, but is favored of G.o.d. If I must ride back alone, I shall do so; but I will not leave Scotland's Guardian to stand without at least one more sword at his side.”

”Two more swords at least,” said a voice Arnault recognized, as James the Stewart kneed his horse forward from the ranks with half a dozen mounted men-at-arms at his back. ”When these fled the field around me,” he went on, gesturing toward Comyn and his men, ”I a.s.sumed that our cause must be lost, and could see no reason to remain behind. I see now that I was wrong, and there is much yet to fight for, whatever the outcome of this battle may be. I do not speak for my men in this, but I and any who choose to follow are yours, for Wallace.”

A muscle ticked in Comyn's tight-clenched jaw, and he jerked his horse around with a muttered oath, reining it hard so that it plunged and fought the bit as he glared at Stewart.

”And if you return now to find Edward victorious, and Wallace already dead, what then?” He gave a contemptuous snort. ”Will you sue for terms, or give yourself up as a prisoner to be ransomed? I'll not entrust myself to Edward's mercy, while the road northward lies open!”

With that, he set spurs to his horse and galloped off, followed by his own men and most of the rest of the knights. Only a few peeled off to join Arnault and Stewart. When the others had gone, the pair were left with scarcely a score of men to lead back to the beleaguered army.

”We are few enough in number,” James Stewart observed, following Arnault's a.s.sessing glance at their little band, ”but having turned tail once, we'll not do so again, I promise you.”

”G.o.d grant we may be enough,” Arnault replied, ”and pray we are not too late.”

And clapping spurs to his steed, Arnault led them back the way they all had come, suddenly aware that, without consciously thinking it through, he had reached a fateful decision. For all that, hitherto, he had avoided shedding a drop of Christian blood, he could no longer avoid taking active part in the battle. The fate of the Temple was bound too closely to that of Scotland; and Scotland was bound too closely to Wallace for Arnault to hold back in any way. If fight he must, to keep the Guardian safe to fulfil his destiny, then he would have to trust in G.o.d to guide his sword.

With Arnault and Stewart at their head, the knights galloped back toward the sounds of battle, skirting the edge of the wood as they rounded the summit of Slamman Hill. The sight that awaited them brought them up sharply, for the field of battle had become a field of slaughter. The broken remnants of the great schiltrons were retreating as best they could, harried savagely by bands of English knights while the English foot advanced in their wake, cutting down stragglers and finis.h.i.+ng off the wounded.

The dead were everywhere, amid b.l.o.o.d.y evidence of horrible wounds taken by arrows, lances, and swords. Drunk with blood l.u.s.t, the English n.o.bles careered to and fro amid the fleeing Scots, cutting down men who were struggling to join the remaining spear formations or scrambling desperately uphill toward the trees. Many of the surviving Scots were even driven downhill, to fall to the swords and arrows of the English footmen or drown in the muddy waters of the marsh.

”G.o.d, have mercy!” James Stewart murmured in a strangled tone, for somewhere amid this carnage was his brother, John, who had commanded the bowmen of Ettrick Forest- whether alive or dead, he did not know.

Mutters of consternation came from his men, as well. Honor had brought them back; but now, faced with the near suicidal prospect of actually reentering a battle so obviously gone wrong, they looked doubtfully at the man who had led them here.

But Arnault was standing in his stirrups, looking desperately for some sign of Wallace amid the pockets of furious fighting still in progress on the field before them-until suddenly a voice to his right warned, ”Horseman, coming this way!”

Turning sharply, Arnault caught just a glimpse of a lone rider weaving toward them through the trees. A few of his men were already fingering the hilts of their swords, but something about the coppery glint of hair and beard, the set of the shoulders- ”Those are Bruce bardings on the horse,” Stewart said with some surprise, ”but the rider, I do not recognize.”

”I do!” Arnault declared, relief flooding through him as that rider drew close enough to confirm, beyond all doubt, that Torquil Lennox was not lost after all.

He stood in his stirrups and raised an arm in hail, and Torquil bore down on them with surer focus, bringing his horse to a sliding, snorting halt.

”Thank G.o.d I've found you!” he exclaimed, his relief turning to horror as his gaze caught the carnage beyond. ”Dear G.o.d, I am too late!” From his shock and dismay, he clearly had only just returned from wherever he had been, and knew nothing of the day's battle besides the dreadful slaughter he saw before him.

”And who is this?” Stewart demanded suspiciously.

”A brother in this venture,” Arnault replied. ”A Templar, like myself, and a countryman of yours. I had thought him lost.”

”I nearly was,” Torquil affirmed breathlessly. His handsome features seemed unnaturally pale, and he bore an air of fatigue that bespoke exertions far exceeding the rigors of a strenuous ride. ”Last night, I discovered Scottish traitors selling information to the Master of the English Temple,” he declared, omitting the names that Arnault knew already, and the means by which he had discovered this. ”Jay means to personally hunt down Wallace and kill him.”

As all Arnault's worst fears locked into place-and he knew there was more to the story than Torquil dared tell- he again swept his gaze across the b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield, searching frantically for Wallace.

”Where is he?” Stewart muttered beside him, as all of them strained to penetrate the confusion of battle, looking for that one tall, gallant form.

”Tell me I've not come too late!” Torquil implored.

”Look there!” one of the knights cried.

Following the line of his pointing finger, Arnault and Torquil turned to see not Wallace but the gleaming wedge of a Templar detachment carving a path across the b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield, coursing toward the woods like a pack of snow-white wolves on the scent.

”Now we must wager all, that they head for Wallace-as must we!” Arnault declared. ”We cannot save this battle, my friends, but we must and shall save the Guardian! Ride with me, or abandon all thoughts of Scotland's future freedom!”

So saying, he drew his sword and sent his horse charging forward-not only to save Wallace, but to stop Brian de Jay from committing an act of infamy that would taint the name of the Templar Order for generations yet unknown. Torquil rode with him, and James Stewart and his knights formed a flying column behind them, determined to rescue Wallace and salvage both their honor and Scotland's hope from this day's betrayal.

They lost sight of the Templar column as their own course took them up a wooded ridge and into the trees. The rescue party broke ranks and galloped on, ducking and dodging branches as they rode up and over the spine of the hill. The trees were thinner on the down side of the slope, affording a glimpse of the Templar party breaking toward the open ground beyond.

There, ragged bands of Scots foot soldiers were retreating across the flat, beyond a boggy stretch of ground perhaps chosen by the men of their small rear guard in hopes that this would slow pursuit of their fellows. And in the midst of the band holding that rear guard, conspicuous by his height, was the indomitable form of Wallace.

Pounding down the hill, Arnault and his Scottish rescue party drove their tiring mounts on toward the Templar party, who were now starting to close in on Wallace and his small, desperate band of infantry.

With the men of Jay's following so focused, the rescue party was among them before they realized.

Arnault came up on the flank of one of the younger knights and dealt him a heavy blow to the wrist with the flat of his blade. With a cry, the youngster dropped his lance and reeled back, glaring affrontedly past his nose guard; but by the time he had recovered himself enough to draw his sword, Arnault was already out of reach, moving on in search of a new target.

The attack became a melee as rider closed with rider-too close for lances now-and with the Scottish footmen now joining in with their rescuers, the Templar force found their prospects suddenly less certain.

Torquil seized a serjeant's horse by the shank of the bit and gave it a twist, causing the animal to rear back and overbalance. Its rider fell heavily at the feet of a Scottish spearman, who immediately upended his weapon and rammed the point home through a c.h.i.n.k in his armor.

The man's dying scream rang in Torquil's ears-a fellow Templar, killed because of him-but he wheeled his horse aside as a knight-brother bore down on him with a lance, a sweeping downstroke of Bruce's goodly sword deflecting and shattering the lance shaft, sending his opponent reeling in the saddle. Before the other could renew the a.s.sault with a fresh weapon, Torquil spotted the portly and unmistakable figure of Robert de Sautre and set off in pursuit, leaving James Stewart to take up the other challenge in his place.

Arnault, for his part, was fighting his way purposefully toward Wallace, who had planted himself on an island of firm ground with two of his spearmen. Together, they were just managing to hold off a mounted adversary.

Arnault spurred forward, intent on adding the weight of his own sword to the Guardian's defense, but before he could close with the other knight, his exhausted horse slipped in the mud and went down, half pinning one of his legs under the saddle.

Saved from crus.h.i.+ng injury by the softness of the mud, and desperately holding on to his sword, Arnault struggled free of the stirrups and dragged himself to his feet as his mount clumsily heaved itself up and fled away limping. As he looked around to see how Wallace was faring, he found his way blocked by a white-clad form, unhorsed like himself, sword upraised to strike. He could attach no name to the face beneath the helm, but he knew the man from Balantrodoch, and the man knew him.

”Saint Clair!” he gasped, and swung at Arnault.

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