-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
it requires on your part, beyond what you have already offered, is the bond of your blood with mine."
As he held out the hilt of the dagger, Wallace slowly closed his fist around it, the other hand gently laying
the keekstane in Arnault's blood. In an instant his own hand was bleeding, and he handed back the
dagger.
"This will be a bond between us?" he murmured, as Arnault sheathed the blade.
The Templar held out his hand, with the keekstane lying in his blood, never wavering from Wallace's
searching gaze.
"I will be with you in spirit, I will know when you are taken, and I will know when you have need of me.
on that day."
"Jesu help us both," Wallace murmured, closing his eyes as he set his bleeding hand atop Arnault's, with
the keekstane between them, trembling as the Templar's hand closed around his and then drew him
closer. A strong arm circled his shoulders and drew his forehead against a white-clad shoulder, and a
peacefulness enfolded him as the other wove ties between them that would only be broken in death.
He wept as Arnault held him: for the pain he knew was coming, for this beloved land he was giving his life
to secure, for the sunrises and sunsets he would never see, for the anguish this white-clad man must bear
with him. And after a while he had no more tears, and raised his head in faint self-consciousness, and
flexed fingers stiff with blood, his own and Arnault's mingled. The Templar merely smiled minutely and
wrapped the bloody keekstane in a piece of clean cloth he had pulled from his scrip, then tucked both
back into its recesses.
"If there was ever any doubt that you are the one," he said quietly, "all doubt ended just now. The prize
will be worth the cost, my friend. Believe that, no matter what else may befall."
Wallace sighed, then slowly nodded. "Thank you. I will carry that thought with me. It will help lighten my
journey."
"Where do you propose to go from here?" Arnault asked.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"South and west, toward Glasgow. A friend has offered me the shelter of his house. For the time being,
anyway."
After a slight pause, he drew a deep breath and continued. "I don't doubt I've a spy or two in my
company, just waiting for the chance to set the hounds on me. There are lords enough in the south, eager
to win Edward's favor. If one of them doesn't get me, another will. Someone loyal to me will send word
to you, when the time comes."
Heavyhearted, Arnault nodded. "They shall find me at Balantrodoch. There may be many battles ahead,
but I promise you that one day, Scotland shall have a true king."
Wallace almost smiled. "King Robert Bruce. It has a good ring. What a pity I didn't see it sooner. I've
spent too much time in the past seven years fighting for the wrong man."
"You were Scotland's champion, not Balliol's," Arnault reminded him.
"And shall be Bruce's, from this moment onward," Wallace replied. "Though distant, the blood of the
Canmores does flow in his veins. He is-has always been-the rightful heir to the Scottish throne. And heir
to the power of the Stone of Destiny. I am ready to do what I must, to ensure that its power is restored."
His expression turned wistful. "I just wish I could be there to see it," he said softly. "I wish faith need not
be blind. But if we saw things clearly, I suppose it wouldn't be faith."
July yielded to August, and the waiting intensified. Arnault, waiting at Balantrodoch, dreamed of
Wallace's capture the night it happened, two days after Lammas, and on the strength of that dream sent a
trusted messenger off to Paris the next morning to fetch Gaspar-Flannan Fraser, himself now a member
of le Cercle, albeit a very junior one. Brother Christoph and Father Bertrand he sent to Scone, to alert
the others. Confirmation of the long dreaded news came three days later, by way of the messenger
Wallace had promised.
"Near Dumbarton," an exhausted Glaswegian tanner reported, between gulps of wine in Luc's office at
Balantrodoch, as Luc, Arnault, and Torquil listened soberly. "Men in the service of Sir John Menteith
burst into a house where he was staying-one of our own must have betrayed him. The king's constable
has him now. They will take him to London by easy stages, to show him off along the way."
"Dear God, it begins," Luc whispered, when the man had gone, as Arnault stared numbly at the door that
had just closed and Torquil stared at both of them, stunned.
The three Templars left that very day for Scone, to join the others keeping vigil in preparation for even
worse to come.
News of the capture reached John Comyn of Badenoch at about the same time the guardians of the
Stone were gathering at Scone, and brought a smile to the lips of the man who, since the death of his
father, now headed the powerful Comyn family. After a day's indifferent hunting from one of his castles
near Elgin, Red John Comyn had been dining amid his retainers with an elder kinsman, Alexander
Comyn, brother to the Earl of Buchan and, therefore, a cousin of the Comyn himself. More scholar than
soldier, in recent years Alexander had taken over most of the running of the Comyn estates.
"Your work?" he asked, gnawing on a meaty beef bone, when the messenger had bowed himself out of
their presence and the buzz of speculation filled the hall around them.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Comyn only drained his cup, smiling as he filled it again. "Let us merely say that I am well served. Tell
me, cousin, how stand the accounts in my Galloway estates?"
With a shrug, Alexander tossed his gnawed bone to one of the wolfhounds lying in the rushes at their feet [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- zambezia2013.opx.pl