Part 28 (1/2)
”From what I hear, it is a dangerous business to tempt Edward's wrath these days,” Torquil said.
”With advancing years some men grow in wisdom,” the bishop observed. ”Others, however, grow in bitterness-and the fruit of that bitterness is all too often an unreasoning cruelty, all the more unbridled if it is wedded to power.”
”Yet Edward now has nearly all that he wishes,” Arnault said. ”Surely there remains no need to vent any sort of rage.”
Lamberton allowed himself a shrug and a bitter smile. ”Given the ma.s.s surrenders and submissions of this past year, there are few candidates left for his revenge. Accordingly, those few who remain must suffer doubly for it-and young Oliphant, sadly, is one of the latter. Trapped inside Stirling Castle with only a few score of men, he has become the focus of all of the king's long-simmering frustration.”
”So we are given to understand,” Torquil said. ”We have heard that Oliphant wished to send to John de Soules in France, to learn whether the Guardian would allow him to surrender. They say that he does not deem himself of sufficient authority to authorize surrender, since it was the Guardian who gave him Stirling, to hold for the crown and community of Scotland.”
Lamberton lifted a ringed hand in impatient denial. ”It was not allowed. Edward's patience is at an end.
He no longer has interest in negotiating any terms for surrender, however favorable they might be to him.
Since rumor has it that this is the last battle of the war, he has decided to use young Oliphant's honorable resistance as an excuse to try out all his new siege engines. Perhaps you have seen some of the results of these past weeks' work. The defenders cannot last much longer, I fear-and G.o.d help them all, when surrender eventually comes, as it must.”
”War is ever a brutal business,” Arnault said. ”But surely Edward does not mean to take retribution beyond the brutality of the siege itself. Surely the rules of chivalry still apply.”
”Perhaps you have not been to the English camp, as I have been,” Lamberton said with a curl of his lip.
”But you both were at Berwick. The king's outbursts of savagery have spread fear among his own people, and this siege looks likely to end in a ma.s.sacre unless he can be restrained by some of the cooler and more chivalrous heads who surround him.”
”If you have asked us here to avert such an outcome, I fear you will be disappointed,” Torquil said.
”Tolerance is the best we can hope for from Edward, and no appeal for leniency from us will carry any weight.”
The bishop turned his face toward the Rood cross, his face still and taut in the dimness. ”May G.o.d forgive me if I say it is not the fate of the castle and its garrison that mainly concerns me, though I pray it will not come to the worst. It is what happens after that, for Scotland-whether this is, indeed, our final and irrevocable defeat, or whether something can yet be salvaged, even if it is no more than the tenuous flame of a single candle to relight the fire of freedom.”
”There is one spark which still burns, however faintly,” Arnault said.
Lamberton turned to look at him, well aware that Arnault referred to the Stone of Destiny, and how the Stone pertained to their present discourse. That King Edward had come to doubt the authenticity of the stone being held at Westminster was almost certainly a contributing cause for his vindictive malice against all remaining Scottish rebels in recent years.
Mere weeks after the battle of Falkirk, he had sent a band of knights to Scone again, with orders to strip it bare of any and all remaining treasures. They had found no trace of the true Stone, of course. But after Lamberton's return from his consecration in Rome the following year-which had been spent trying to recruit support for Scotland's cause-Arnault and Torquil had enlisted the new bishop in the service of the Stone, though they had withheld that vital connection of its mystical link with Wallace.
Now, clearly, Lamberton took Arnault's meaning regarding the symbolism of the Stone, but his head shook almost imperceptibly.
”What we need is not a symbol of kings.h.i.+p, but a man we can crown upon it.”
His words came as some surprise, for Lamberton had long been a staunch ally of Wallace, and a firm supporter of John Balliol as king.
”John Balliol was crowned upon that Stone,” Arnault said slowly. ”Are you saying that you have abandoned his cause?”
”With some disquiet-yes, I have,” the bishop admitted, looking away with a sigh. ”With Balliol as our absent king, we have come to this: humiliation and surrender. And Balliol now has lain in exile in France for five years and more, too spineless to take back his throne, and has said he will never return. If we can find no more suitable ruler, then perhaps we should simply accept Edward as our liege lord and be done with it.”
”Surely, that is not what you propose to do?” Torquil blurted out, appalled.
The bishop stayed him with a gesture. ”Fear not, Brother Torquil, I am not yet come to that,” he said.
”Oh, I will bow the knee to Edward for now, as I have done before, since that is a necessary strategy to gain time. But we can hardly strike back, can we, if all our leaders are dead, imprisoned, or in exile in France?”
”What of Wallace?” Arnault asked. ”Have you spoken to him of this?”
Lamberton let out a heavy sigh. ”I owe my episcopal see to Wallace-and there is no man more n.o.ble in all of Scotland, and none who loves this country more. Yet, we have come to such a pa.s.s that his best qualities now work against him-and Scotland.”
”How so?” Torquil asked.
Lamberton clearly was ill at ease in discussing this topic, and toyed with his crucifix as he spoke.
”He will not abandon Balliol, no matter what. To him, the point of honor is a simple one: Balliol has been rightfully crowned king, and so he will remain, even unto death. Wallace cannot abandon that principle, nor can he feign obeisance to Edward-not even to buy the time we need to muster our strength once more.”
”He would find no mercy from Edward, even if he did,” Arnault pointed out. ”Edward has made an official decree that there is to be no peace offered to Wallace unless he delivers himself utterly and unconditionally-into his will, not his mercy or his grace.”
”He would be safer placing his head inside the mouth of a starved lion,” Torquil muttered.
”Precisely,” Lamberton agreed. ”There is no safety for Wallace here, and yet he will not leave the country again, whatever the danger. John de Soules and others of our leaders-the Stewart, Umfraville-are not to be granted safe conducts to return from France until Wallace is given up- and worst of all, Edward has personally charged various of the earls and barons with Wallace's capture.”
”Surely they will not agree to such an undertaking,” Torquil said disgustedly.
Lamberton shrugged. ”They must, to secure their lands from threat of seizure-and who can blame them?
Moreover, some of them say it is Wallace himself who has brought Edward's wrath down upon us, and that if he is delivered, Edward will leave Scotland in peace.”
”If they truly believe that, then they deceive themselves,” Arnault declared.
”Men with their own worldly interests at heart are ever their own dupes,” Lamberton said. ”However, the sum of all this is that we must have a leader and we must have a king. Above all they must be one and the same man, not a struggling Guardian and an absent, powerless figurehead.”
The bishop's distress made clear how much it grieved him to speak thus of parting company with a man whom he so admired and to whom he owed so much. Arnault saw there was nothing to be gained from arguing the point, and he knew that Lamberton, as always, had Scotland's best interests at heart.
”What course is it, then, that you intend to pursue?” he asked.
”We must have a fresh candidate for the throne,” Lamberton replied, ”one who can do all that Balliol was incapable of doing and who, unlike Wallace, can claim the kings.h.i.+p by right. There is only one such man.
Comyn yet has designs upon the throne, but he is tainted with an evil I can scarce contemplate without feeling my flesh grow cold. He was the ruin of every effort at joint guardians.h.i.+p, and he will be the ruin of Scotland, if he is given the chance.”
”You speak of Bruce, then,” Torquil said.
It was offered quietly, but something in his tone caught the bishop's attention.
”That is more than an intelligent guess on your part,” he said.
Torquil's hand had drifted to the hilt of the sword Bruce had given him, and he looked to Arnault, who nodded for him to continue.
”He is the senior Bruce heir, since his father's death two months ago,” Torquil said.
”And?”
Torquil exhaled slowly, not taking his eyes from the bishop's. ”When I encountered Bruce some years ago, on the very day of the battle of Falkirk, I had an intimation that he was destined to be king. Even though it might have been only a trick of the light as I beheld him, the more I pondered it, the more it seemed a true sign.”
”I pray G.o.d that it was,” Lamberton murmured.
”Even so,” Torquil went on, ”it makes me uneasy that Bruce submitted two years ago, and has served Edward ever since.”