Disclaimer: My characters are my own. Rowling owns the Founders and their school.
Author's Note: To my relief, new canon (book five) has not greatly altered my plans for this story. So, little need be mentioned of it. However, Mungo, we have learned, is someone different than my own character. Yeah, well…does anyone really pay that much attention to fanfiction? For all intents and purposes for this story, Mungo will continue to be Helga's son and the good monk.
"Sir," said they, "a marvelous adventure that may not be brought to an end but by him that passeth of bounty and knighthood all them of the Round Table."
- Sir Thomas Malory
'Morte Darthur', 'The Miracle of Galahad'
Chapter Five
A Means To An End
She scarce could breathe for all of the fear that weighed upon her. It almost bled from her veins and sucked her will to stand from her legs. She weaved and fought a wave of panic that felt like nausea.
Rowena clutched at the broken pieces of the bowl in her hand and with the other reached out to steady herself against the wall. After she had been sure Salazar had gone she looked tentatively—almost apologetically at the man that lay in state in that same room. His son had delivered the last rights and only just had exited the room. Now it was her task to prepare the body as Helga seemed unable, or unwilling for the task.
Rowena fought hard not to meet her eyes accusingly when Helga entered. Of all the insidious and disgusting displays, taking up with her sister's husband when her own was not yet cold in death. She could not have thought it so, had she not played witness to the very act.
Almost as soon as she had thought the name, the woman appeared in the doorway scrutinizing her. Rowena did not seem affronted, though Helga was remiss in discerning how much of the scene in the room across the hall she had been privy to. Rowena would let her continue guessing and did not make an effort to assuage her curiosity. She said nothing to her. Moving to the body she dutifully sponged it, unconsciously careful of the wounds (as if she could hurt him). She pretended not to see Helga pull her robes tighter around her and shift guiltily from one foot to the next. Her attention for the moment was with the dead husband, so soon betrayed. It almost looked premeditated. But she immediately banished the thought and prayed that her mind would venture no further into presumptuous and unholy surmising.
"I am come to tend my dead. Dear friend, you may rest a while. I thank you," came the shaking voice of the offender.
Rowena looked up in astonishment at such a brazen attempt at play-acting.
"Pray, dear friend, did you rest well?" Rowena asked bitingly, leaving Helga with no other impression but that she knew.
Helga's expression fell, pleasantly to Rowena. "Let us speak in truths, Rowena," she said solemnly.
"Non, dear Helga," Rowena answered hastily, holding a hand up to halt the other woman. "I will speak plainly. But I will have none of your truths, as you would call them. There is no way in which you could explain things to me, no conclusions that I have not already arrived at on my own." Folding a cloth that she had been sponging the dead man with, she walked silently to the door. Before quitting the room completely she turned and said, "You would do well to remember that your actions harm more than just you and your sister's lord. We are all tied up in this. I go to tend your stepdaughter. Perhaps you ought to send a servant for her brother's body in London, if you have not already made the necessary preparations, that is."
The insinuation was duly noted on Helga's face.
Rowena swept up the stairs in a raging, strange satisfaction.
Perhaps it is wise she thought as she went; neither of the guilty pair was at all aware that Verina was by her side with Sir Guy through the night. Her triumph waned at the thought and she became sorry for Verina.
She closed the heavy oak partition to leave her alone with her dead husband.
She told her nothing. Left her alone. She hurried up the north staircase to spell Verina from Azria's bedside.
Verina was there, sleeping with her head against a chiseled stonework edge to the frosted window.
She was not, however, asleep as Rowena had thought her. Resting her eyes, perhaps; hiding from scrutinizing questions, maybe; avoiding those who would pretend for her. But as she saw Rowena enter, Verina opened her eyes slowly and sat up, properly upright, and smiled serenely.
"I am sorry to have awakened you." Rowena moved fully into the room and swept the door shut silently behind her.
"It is of no matter," Verina replied easily. "She sleeps still." She indicated Azria lain out upon her bed.
Rowena was glad to see that her injuries were neither swollen, nor livid as she had seen them last night. "Has Mungo come, then?" she asked, knowing this to be true. There were three that could heal. Azria was one, and surely unable to help herself. Helga did not seem aware of her child's ordeal or her present suffering. And that left only good Mungo.
"And he could not persuade her to talk?" Rowena continued, uneasily studying the pale and worn face of Verina and the steady breathing of her charge upon the bed.
"She was not awake for the whole of his visit," Verina answered, rubbing her sore neck.
Rowena wanted to ask more, and not anything concerning Azria. Verina had been with her through the night attending to the dead lord she had just left. It seemed to have taken her less—much less—time to guess what was going on across the hall. She calmly performed her duties to the dead; not stirring during her prayer, though Rowena was in no doubt that she had discovered her husband's betrayal. Unearthly calm, she continued to kneel like the practiced novice she was, guiding the soul of the departed husband, betrayed as well. With the commencement of these duties, Rowena had witnessed her rise regally to her feet, steadied a bit by the table supporting the corpse.
For a moment, Rowena thought she would put an end to Helga's foolish and selfish deeds. It would have been what she herself would have done.
But no, not Verina! She swept silently from the room to attend Azria.
Rowena had only to reproach herself. She would have done it differently—they would not have been allowed to keep their shame to themselves. She would have made it public. And in so doing, she would have failed to reach Verina's unattainable regions of goodness, forgiveness, grace even.
But Salazar had come in that morning and threatened her. Rowena would have kept silent on that count if for nothing else but that Verina should be the one to voice her disgust first—if, indeed, such a woman felt such a primal urge. For her part, Rowena would feel it acutely if Verina was too good to feel so.
She was too much a penitent for Salazar's personal use. Verina would take his sins on herself just as Christ had, and take them as duty, while Salazar would feel nothing of them.
"You may tend to other things," Rowena said delicately. "I will sit with her for a while."
"Are you certain?" Verina said doubtfully. "You were attending the good lord, Sir Guy, until morning just as I had. Do you not want to see your child?"
Rowena smiled at the mention of her daughter, Maren. A brief flutter of pride and good fortune passed over her, remembering how doted upon Maren was by all. "She is, at present, with Faramir from the village and with your own daughter hunting."
Verina attempted to hide a slight cringe. She wished her daughter were not so wild. But, however, so much like her father Eowyn was that Verina could not find a fault in her.
"As you wish for it to be," Verina said, slowly rising from her chair she had kept to most of the late night and morning. "I shall find Helga and see if I can be of use to her."
Rowena immediately disliked this proclamation. "You ought to lie down in the next room. For you have little color and what I imagine must be very thin nerves. Helga can very well help herself. She has servants enough. She will not be wanting you." It sounded harsher than she had meant it to be.
Verina's expression fell at the prospect of not being useful. "I know what you would say—," she began.
Rowena had not the patience herself for this. "Put my mind to ease, at least, good Verina. You take too much upon you. Do not seek Helga out. Please take the morning to recover. I will not have you trouble yourself for one so wholly undeserving of it."
Verina nodded. "But you speak unkindly of my sister, Rowena. She has had a trying time of her husband's death—" Again she was cut off.
"You are too much the angel for your own well-being. Darling, promise to me that you will take rest now; you may make yourself useful later in the day," Rowena ordered.
Verina was too good to disobey. "If I may not be needed here I will not trespass longer."
Rowena was firm. "You will rest here. I will not have you going home to a husband who will not give you a moment to yourself." She was indignant and afraid that it sounded so in her tone.
Bowing her head before ducking quietly out, Verina had already made a silent half-vow in her mind: She would remove herself from this place. This was a place she loved truly—and loved the people here as well. But she had failed to make Salazar happy in the way that she had hoped she might. After all of these years, she was realizing that he still only loved Helga. And she was…well, she was in the way.
Instead of doing as Rowena bid, Verina turned down the twisted stone staircase and bent her sights on the small refuge of a chapel that the Slytherins had built in the avenue of pines and oaks on the far side of the river.
"They say they will support Wallace, father," Eowyn said, intimating with little ceremony the meeting of Godric, Rowena, Mungo and Eomer. "My brother has said that he will support their decision as well."
Salazar walked silently next to his daughter—quiet, to observe even those details of voice that Eowyn herself might be unaware of.
Eowyn noticed the unchangingly calm air of her father. He was not brooding, but in a peculiar state. She gave him a cautionary glance and then continued forward down the small path crowded by saplings and undergrowth. Really, the only person who cared to keep this path in good use was her mother. Normally, she would not come this way. It only led to the tiny chapel that was Verina's most solitary haven. She could not guess why her father was to come this way; only in search of her mother, she dared to think. But even that was queer as neither of them was in the habit of speaking to each other often.
"And have they set down any course of action?" Salazar replied after some time and waning of conversation.
"There was a lot of talk of Wallace and of a trap. I believe Lord Godric said that he had sent his son and Galahad to the rebels in the north to warn them. Did you speak to the king while you were in town?" Eowyn asked, turning adoring eyes to him. This did not go unnoticed, nor did he appear to mark the glance at all.
"And what part has Eomer to play in all this?" Salazar demanded coolly, avoiding the answer that Eowyn was so eager for. He removed his eyes from the path in front of him and came to rest them on his daughter. She could not deny him the information that he wanted. She was so much like him, and yet so eager to please him. It was the only mark of Verina on her. He felt a sharp stab at the connection between them. His eyes turned immediately to the path again, lowered in guilty recollection.
A twig snapped on the path just ahead of them and Salazar looked up.
Verina stood in the path above them, just having come from the chapel.
She looked to her daughter with a brief smile that the gaining wind seemed to sweep from her face.
Eowyn closely examined both mother and father in only a matter of seconds left to her before her father ordered her from the wood.
"Eowyn," he said without meeting her eyes. "Leave us."
"But father, they plan—"
"Leave us child!" he commanded.
Eowyn fell silent and turned down the path, not turning to catch a last curious glimpse of the scene.
Once she had rounded the bend Verina spoke. "It is not like you to be harsh to her. She has always been your favorite."
"And Eomer. Has he not followed you in every respect?"
To Verina was added another layer of gravity. "What do you mean?"
Salazar slowed his intake of breath until it became a methodical rhythm, a tool for calming his tense nerves. "He has defied me, cast off everything, become useless to all but God. Oh, but let us not forget that he is now plotting against me, with my trusted friends, might I add. Perhaps you are as well."
The fall in temperature of Verina's once warm eyes (he had remembered them being warm once, he thought) was nearly palpable. She stood more erect, though never intimidating at five foot three inches.
"You push me into it," Verina muttered to herself, "So be it."
"I beg your pardon, lady?" Salazar answered, moving closer, as if to hear her better.
"I should have liked to spare both of us this conversation, but I can see it will be unavoidable. I have been long at prayer in my chapel, as you see. I can auger no conclusion for myself other than to take the council of Jesu Christ, for there is none other to be had," she looked up discretely and then back down to her clasped hands. "That is, none that I can trust. I am leaving, dear husband. I am leaving you, your school—"
"Your children," Salazar added icily, sounding for the world as if someone else was speaking for him.
"My son who has grown and my daughter who is yours," Verina corrected gently.
"Then you just throw your children away? Fine mother," Salazar spat contemptuously.
Verina looked at him and did not move her eyes from their place until she had finished. "You took her from me. You alienated her from me. Made her up so that she would not know me. She believes me to be helpless and infirm of mind and dim-witted because I am not you. I have agonized over the decision that I have made long ago to leave the church. Long hours I have spent in meditation in my rooms over the matter. You would have her believe that I am ill and mentally unsound and you bid her come and watch me and take care of me. 'See to it that she eats something,' you say to her. I am not a child. I am not a lunatic."
"You would leave because I care for your well being?" Salazar said in a clam and unfeeling tone.
"I would leave because…" She stopped and made to walk past him. She could not tell him why. She did not want to cause more pain than leaving would already cause for both of them.
Deftly Salazar reached out a hand and pulled her back to him by her arm.
She stared, quietly alarmed, as he did so. He had never become violent with her. She did not resist and made no further attempt to walk away.
"Because wherefore?" Salazar spoke slowly. His grip did not abate but grew steadily fiercer as his patience waned. "Why would you leave me?"
Verina raised her eyes slowly from his fingers wrapped mercilessly around her arm at the elbow to his piercing and angry stare. "My decision to marry you has ruined all."
In shock he let go.
He could not reply. Not ask her to elaborate. Nor demand of her further explanation.
She did not offer any.
Her eyes lingered with his until she had disappeared, leaving him alone on the path.
The voice and the words remained in the air like the ringing voice of a bishop imparting orders to a sinful flock.
He lowered the hand that had released her and stared dumbly at the spot where she had stood.
She knew of it.
She knew of him and Helga.
She knew and she was leaving him.
How long had he stood there repeating it to himself when Eowyn had appeared in the path again? This time with a messenger of the Royal Guard.
He took the proffered message distractedly and flicked open the seal without care.
Salazar read the lines twice before the sting could duly set in:
"Psalms 17:11. I have a proposition that might tempt you to heed me as you ought."
"Psalms 17:11?" Eowyn asked, bending her head sideways to read the letter that Salazar clenched in his hand that had dropped to his side.
"An evil man is bent only on rebellion, a merciless official will be sent against him. The impertinence! Who is he to quote scripture at me?" Salazar seethed under his breath as the messenger rode off at once.
Eowyn looked up from the letter to her father who stared intently after the rider.
"All is lost now. Loyalty be damned!" He crumbled the letter in hand stormed back up the avenue, Eowyn close at his heels.
Galahad stood with Isaiah outside of a tent among many other tents. The sound of many battle weary men diverted themselves with raucous stories and singing around a large fire.
In this atmosphere the two foreigners were fairly unanimously ignored. One curious boy had come over from the fire with an offering of ale. Asking, "Are you spies?" the youth handed the cup to Galahad tentatively.
Passing it off to Isaiah without a drink, Galahad smiled amusedly and replied, "Would you expect us to tell you if we were?"
"I expected that very answer," the youth replied returning the smile. "But will you give the king a message from me when you see him next?"
Galahad nodded and leaned closer to the boy. "You are an acquaintance of his."
"Of course," the youth answered with a crooked grin. "He will know it is I who sent this word with you."
"Speak then," Galahad commanded as Isaiah laughed beside him.
"You can tell him to kiss his own arse, for if I or any other Scot were ever close enough to do so he should feel the scourge of a red hot poker instead of our lips."
This pledge solicited from Galahad the response: "I should be pleased to be the bearer of such a message."
"Aye," the youth grinned. "As should anyone."
A moment more and the youth was scrutinizing Galahad's powerful build and manner of dress and speech. It was clear to Isaiah that his companion had a new convert to his own hero worship. Galahad would never admit to being admired, but Isaiah knew that he was the favorite of the riding school at Hogwarts and the champion of the lists.
For his part, Galahad remained ignorant of the admiration. Isaiah alone remained aware of it. It was he even, that had been the first to find the admiration of Galahad worth the practice.
"Irelander, Englishman!" Wallace stood from his place at the fire where the storytelling and singing wafted on the evening gusts.
The youth followed Galahad and Isaiah from the flap of the map tent where they had stood.
Wallace motioned for them to sit.
But Isaiah's eye was caught by one of Wallace's most trusted of companions. He singled Isaiah out especially, his expressive eyes and slight motion of a hand beckoned Isaiah to him discreetly while Galahad took a place near the fire next to his brother, Theoderic.
"Lord Hufflepuff and the Earl of Bruce will be here before dawn. Will you speak with them?" asked John Blair, a Benedictine monk from a very early acquaintance with the now famed Wallace.
"Why, brother, do you single me out especially?" Isaiah asked carefully.
"It is so odd to me that a nobleman of English title and land should throw in with the Scottish ruffians, as we are," he explained, pausing to stare humbly at his feet, mud trodden in thick leather boots.
"Is it because you doubt the cause that I have ridden under the banner of?" Isaiah asked.
"No," the monk answered quickly. "We do not doubt the sincerity of your cause. I feel that the more noble influence we have on our side…" he paused yet again, unsure of how to phrase what it was he was trying to say. "Well, like attracts like, as they say. We need the nobles, we need Lochland, Morland, the Bruces. I hoped that you could persuade by your example."
"I am for the cause that these good men labor and bleed for," Isaiah said finally. "I cannot see how any noblemen could not be inspired by their example. I can speak for the Lord Hufflepuff, of whom I know well. He will fight for Scotland, with me, with you, with Wallace. Have you reason to doubt the others?"
John Blair shrugged in his dark monk's cowl. "It has been in vain that William has rallied the nobles. He says we do not need them. I say peasants and farmers do not own cavalry. We need cavalry to prevail against the English. In nearly two hundred years no one has defeated the English force. We will not, either. Not in the form as you see us now."
"What do you propose I should say to convince them?" Isaiah asked while scanning the scene of fraternity and joviality among the warriors.
"Tell them of the circumstances of your school. Convince them that Longshank's offer of nobility under the English is as repressive and lackluster as that of present Scottish nobility. Convince them that to live within that kingdom we fight against will be of no advantage to them. To fight for freedom must seem to them the only option."
Isaiah thought on this in some considerable moment's silence. "They risk much if they help us…my family and that of my companion have risked much to support this cause."
"And those men there that sing with Wallace, do they risk less? They have only blood to give to the cause, but they give it, give it freely for a chance at liberty. But they alone cannot win liberty for Scotland. Help me, brother." John Blair's eyes became sharp and intense.
Isaiah looked into them and felt the option to decline burn away from him. There really was no other choice laid before him than to perform this task. And he would.
"But it is curious," Eomer murmured with a finger to his lips. He stooped distractedly near a bench to retrieve a discarded notebook, bound in leather and sown together with heavy twine, on the floor.
"What is?" Godric Gryffindor asked removing his cloak and gloves, tossing them to a chair and missing. He was distracted by Eomer's somber tone. For an instant, he had thought that Eomer's limit to genius had arrived.
Eomer seemed not to hear him and began flipping through the pages filled with both his own hurried writing and Mungo's more deliberate hand. They had been working for days, losing sleep, experimenting, corresponding with wizarding merchants in London. But with Mungo gone to Hufflepuff castle to care for his sister, Eomer was left at the monastery's laboratory without anyone to puzzle out his newest theory with.
"Eomer?" Godric tried. He sat and waited, resigned to let Eomer answer when he had gotten all of his thoughts neatly situated, or at least enough to explain. For once, Godric wished that Mungo were here. He was never one for elaborate speech. In fact, Godric had spent many of Mungo's earliest years believing that he was mute. But it was not so. Mungo just happened to communicate enough to pass; an intelligent mind, of course, but not in the habit of verbosity. It gave him a very cool air at times that Godric, joviality being in his veins like a birthright, found unnerving.
But Eomer seemed to suffer from a lack of comprehensible speech at times. Today seemed to be the Goliath of these occasions. Godric was apprehensive. His inability to explain the "curious" must mean that there was a hopeless error, or he had found something.
Eomer brushed his ink-stained hands on his black robes.
He had had duties in the scriptorium earlier today, Godric noted dully.
Looking up brightly, nearly excitedly, Eomer exclaimed, "Incredible!"
"I'm not sure I have the privilege of understanding you," Godric intoned, running the edge of a knife over his thumbnail. "Can the wards that the merchants employ in London help us here?"
"Oh yes," Eomer answered immediately, looking over the cramped table to his guest. Brushing a few Nordic blond strands of hair from his eyes, he said, "Your wards can be set. They must be maintained every moon cycle, I believe. But they can be set."
Godric began to rise and leave. "I'll be departing tomorrow for the Ravenclaw estate in Eire. The Lady Ravenclaw will accompany me. Will you also?"
Eomer looked briefly as if he would protest, but did not. He threw down his book again and accompanied Lord Gryffindor from the monastic grounds.
"Mungo has seen to his sister, has he not?" Godric asked, glancing sideways as he did to gage the look of his companion.
"He has," Eomer answered with a stony ring.
"What is his assessment of her?" Godric pried.
"He tells me nothing of her," Eomer answered.
And Godric felt that his answer was quite right. Monks do not discuss ladies in their leisure hours, if there were any to be had.
"She will not return to London," Godric continued. At this he failed too, to elicit a response other than indifference.
Eomer answered with no timbre of surprise, no hint of interest, "Likely not. Her condition must be a very nervous one now. Town is not the place for her."
Godric nodded and left the monk on the steps of his monastery. He could not help the smile that had come across his face at the inclination he felt that the boy was still very much in love. It pleased him to see a young man burn with tragic passion. He had once felt that way, though he could not decide if he yearned for it still, or was he merely contented with steady and undying affection in his married state. Everyone must yearn to be young again.
Eomer felt a rage heat his face, scowled, looked to the castle across the river and turned back to his solitary study and his new and curious find.
The fire began to die long before the voices of drunken fraternity had. Wallace was becoming weary of the party spirit, and Galahad had felt for some time that he was desirous of a few private words with him. Just as well, he thought. He would want to know if there was a spy in the midst of his men and could not fault Wallace's long and piercing looks at him.
Theoderic had been overjoyed to learn of his brother's liberation from the school and was looking forward to their many days of glorious battle fought side by side. He would want it no other way. But his was never a spirit inclined to be merry and went early to sleep, as he would be a part of the riding party that would make for Edinburgh. There the nobles had gathered again to bluster about birthright and privilege, having to protect interests, in all: tucking tail like all good noblemen did. His mind was heavy with how to persuade them that their chances at prosperity lay with Wallace and Scotland liberated.
But it was not as easy as persuasion. There was The Hammer of the Scots. Edward I would not let any piece if the island alone. It was the same with Ireland, yet they were a more hopeless and scattered case. With Scotland, its nobles' loyalty lay with the King of England and all of the prosperity that was his to promise. Then, of course, there were alliances with individual clans to contend with. The Balliols had had a king endorsed by England. And he was a faithful subject to the crown—a quiet beggar dog at the table in London. But when it fell to him to raise money for England's war with France from his poor country of farmers, turning to France was John Balliol's answer.
Edward I summarily cornered him, decimated his tiny Scottish force, arrested him and let him die rotting in prison: A fine future for a king who had won his crown by shaking hands with England.
No, it was certainly clear that the crown would be bought the costly way: with blood, good, honest Scottish blood (And a little Irish blood too, if it came to that). And the one with whom Theoderic rested this promise was in the House of Bruce. They, like the Balliols, had claim of blood through David I, son of Alexander I. But unlike the Balliol clan, Robert the XVII Earl of Bruce would not likely seek to gain endorsement of his crown through English favor and bribes.
Theoderic had seen him personally. And he caught in him a thread of the passion that William Wallace had for this cause. He was infected by it. It was plain when Wallace was around him that he wanted nothing more than to ride off and to fight with them. But the well-lain perimeter of unsympathetic nobles was something else to contend with altogether. The pressure on the young man to see to the nobles' interests before the country's was powerful. And they all wanted a share in supporting him so that they might have a claim on him later. Wallace would ride out at first light to meet them. Theoderic was eager for this chance. He would see his old friend, now the Lord of Hufflepuff, Aaron.
Galahad watched from his warm spot on a wide log next to the fire. Isaiah had returned to the throng some time ago with John Blair, the monk that was Wallace's closest companion.
"Irisher," Galahad heard from some distance behind him. He turned from the fire to see the vague outline of Wallace behind him. "A moment, if you would be so kind."
Galahad looked forward briefly and caught Isaiah's look. He seemed to ask if he wanted him to go along. Galahad gave a short nod, communicating that he did not think Wallace would do him any harm and stood, leaving his friend in the care of the monk.
"The blaze could be no warmer than the hospitality," Galahad said as he and Wallace passed slowly on foot more tirelessly crooning men, some bloody and battle-weary, and out of the camp in the Leglen Woods on the banks of the River Ayr.
"These men love their country and each other. They have bled with each other. They have suffered. That is a powerful tie."
Galahad was silent a moment thinking about what it would be like to be a part of this fraternity. "I feel like a foreigner here. And it is more than my accent and manners, I fear."
"I once felt like you. A stranger in my home was I. I was raised in a monastery and had a monk's education. My father was a knight, a low knight, mind you. Sir Malcolm Wallace, a great man as I remember him. He was killed when I was fourteen. I was sent to live with my uncle, a priest. That is where I met Blair." Wallace pointed back at camp to indicate his friend he had left there with Isaiah. He looked down and continued, "I killed a soldier one day, when I returned home after my education. I was never taught by my father to turn a blind eye when someone was being mistreated. I intervened on an unarmed farmer's behalf and became an outlaw. An outlawed leader to a force of less than five hundred men armed with farm equipment and weapons centuries old." He smiled at the thought of his army.
"But I am home now. I belong here. This is what I was meant to do," Wallace said finally.
"Why do you tell me this?" Galahad asked, a lack of a more eloquent reply made him restless.
"I see courage in you. There was a moment in your past, like the death of my father; that makes you want to battle your enemy bloody."
"I nearly killed my father once," Galahad mumbled, looking at his feet as they beat the cold mud frozen solid.
Wallace said no more. They walked in silence a way further until the sun broke the dark horizon and then turned back from the river to camp.
"Galahad Ravenclaw," Wallace said as the sounds of the camp grew nearer.
"Yes?" Galahad answered.
"Will you come to Edinburgh with us this day? You and the Englishman?"
She saw Salazar turn away from his path to the estate; he had seen her and she knew that he had not had all his say yet.
"I will go with you as far as Wilton. From there I must to Eire with Lady Rowena," Eomer was saying to her.
Verina hardly heard the last part of what he had just spoken. She continued to watch her husband's progress up to the bridge and secretly prepared herself for battle.
"Mother?" Eomer asked. He followed her gaze over his shoulder and yonder to see his father's coming as he was almost to the bridge.
"I will be grateful for your company to Wilton, son," she said, lowering her voice now as her husband approached hearing distance.
"Would you like for me to stay?" Eomer asked, glancing back at his father without a word for him.
"No, my son. You may return to your duties at the monastery. I thank you," Verina said quickly.
"Ah," Salazar said, his voice ringing with displeasure, "the bitter fruit of my loins. Have I interrupted your talks of conspiracy?"
"I have no words to say to you. So I depart." Eomer leaned close to kiss his mother and said, "Until I see you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, my love," Verina said with a smile and let her son leave, waiting until he had left the bridge to turn to Salazar. "Unfeeling father!" she said with strict control not to show her contempt of his treatment.
Her stern words excited in him a strange feeling. It was as though she was completely transformed so that her beauty became god-like. He began to worship her from afar, as had been his practice. It was not a passionate love he had for her, but more an awe-like burning in him to see what was unattainable. How odd that one mother could produce two such children as wholly different as Helga and Verina.
But then, he was reminded of his own children. Their binary characteristics must have come from the blood they shared with this woman.
He loved this woman, was excited by her, intrigued, enthralled… Why had he not seen this, known this as a natural law of the earth, like when the sun sets it is sure to rise again after the moon dies? Why had he forgotten this truth and turned to worship the moon? Pestilential moon!
"Why must you torture your own child? Leave him in peace!" she said calmly.
"My son would know what is expected of him." Salazar took a step closer. "No, he is your son. He has taken sides against me; against his country."
"He is my son. Forget not that the blood of my clan also runs in him, and in our daughter. Hate me. Revile me. But do not be cruel to your children. He feels his countrymen's struggle keenly; keenly as he feels your displeasure." Verina could not help the sting that came into her words. And for once, she did not control the ring in her tone.
"I do not revile you. I ache with quite the opposite feeling, in fact," Salazar answered. As if to guard against the impulse of begging her that seemed to surge through his veins at precisely that moment, he changed the subject. "I must to London, almost this moment. Do you know where Eowyn has got to? I will take her with me."
"Take our child to that wild Babylon? No, you must not." Verina was alarmed. She knew just who would be the company that her husband would be seeking there. She would not trust her daughter to his kin, the royals in London.
"Do not leave. Stay and I will grant you that wish," Salazar said finally.
Verina lowered her eyes from him to the wooden boards underfoot, white water churned beneath them. "I must leave, Salazar. You cannot understand. But I have to. I know that you believe me to be seeking retribution for what you have done. Please turn that thought aside. I understand you as you have never allowed yourself to understand me. I do not want to be the woman who would be second in your heart. I see now that you cannot respect me when I am so much the object in the way of your happiness." She looked up to him. There seemed to be a dam of patience finally beached and she began to weep. "If you but let me be your wife instead of an object of worship assigned to a lofty pedestal…"
"You regret me?" Salazar said softly, the words almost spoken under his breath. "You regret that I took you from your holy life."
"I regret that I could not see that your love for Helga was eternal," Verina answered.
Salazar spoke in shaky voice. Fear, anger, panic came to his face and manner. "It was a sin! A moment of weakness! I am by day giving myself to you and to God and by night sharing myself with Satan. Oh, Verina! Save me!" He found that he had grabbed her wildly by the arms and frightened her.
She shook her head pityingly. "Had you not left me on that pedestal I could have been the wife you wanted. But I cannot save you."
He backed away as if she had physically delivered a sting to him, or a dizzying blow. "I would burn in hell to save you from pain. Now that I have hurt you I find hell a cold place."
She moved toward him, unable to stay her pity. She reached a hand up to his cheek and felt that it was, indeed, very cold. "If you will but stay from London, I will reconsider leaving."
Salazar looked away from her regrettably. He remembered the messenger and the letter tucked into his doublet. He could not afford to ignore this. And such a price would he pay for answering the letter. She would leave him. He could not stop her. He took a step back. They were parted. "I cannot."
"Then I must go," Verina whispered.
"Lady Verina!" A voice on the bridge behind her shouted.
Verina jumped, startled.
Salazar winced briefly and spoke to the intruder over her shoulder. "How now friend? Sadly, I cannot stay for conversation. I must to London immediately."
"Sad, indeed," Godric answered, frowning in thought. His two daughters accompanied him on his outing from the castle-school.
Salazar noted the two with astonishment. Had he not seen his closest friend's children in so long? The eldest girl was nearing the age Verina had been when she had consented to marry him. And she was nearly as beautiful, darker in hair and constitution. Was she called Isabelle or Isaidore? Vaguely Salazar felt ashamed that he did not know.
He turned to leave. "I go. You and my wife have business and have long been desiring me to leave. I go to find my daughter. Pleasant journey to you both."
"Pleasant journey and dry roads for you, my friend," Godric answered back cheerfully. Turning to Verina he continued, "Lady, I have had word from your son that you will also join us as far as Salisbury."
"Yes. I wish to make a journey to my former convent. I have long been desirous of returning there." Verina could not say more. She knew that Godric's decision to support the wars for Scotland had estranged him from her husband, but still could not be sure that he would favor her wish to leave if he had known the true circumstances. But, in a way, they had all become estranged from Salazar, had not they?
"Have you any news of the battlefront?" she asked, being put in mind of it when her thoughts had wandered. "Has not your son and Rowena's youngest joined them up now?"
Godric became a little stony. "I have sent riders. One has returned. Battle is on at dawn; that seems to be a fairly likely hour. I have no fear for my son. A man watches his son grow, teaches him all he can, and then hopes he turns out. No, with Isaiah it is different. He always outstrips my expectations of him. He will come home to me. But casualties are, indeed, expected to be high. This will be the fight that decides the freedom of this land."
Isaidore stood a way off from the conversation. She held the soft hand of her sister, only a child of seven. She did not let on that she was paying attention to the words spoken, but she listened with a calculating mind. As she listened, her eyes located a man moving to the fields of the monastery across the river. The wind picked up and whipped her hair into her face. Impatiently she brushed it aside with her free hand and her sister chuckled childishly at the man in a black monk's cowl whose paper had been plucked from his hand by the sudden wind.
Isaidore did not laugh. The mannerisms of the monk gave his identity away immediately as he chased after the scattered pages of his notes. It was who she sought: Mungo. She followed him with her eyes until he disappeared behind the wall.
"God bless and preserve those brave souls. Helga has a son involved, does she not?" Verina asked.
"She does. Aaron is with the nobles, the few that will commit to battle. They have been hard to persuade. He has been doing the lion's share of converting their opinion." Godric gave a tentative glance over his shoulder at his daughters. Isaidore seemed lost in thoughts of her own and Isabelle was amusing herself with the water below the bridge.
"And your daughter's betrothed lord? He is in this?" Verina pressed.
"Yes. Theoderic was always the brightest knight in the lists. I have every confidence in his return. Rowena's younger son, Galahad is with him. They make a stronger fight together than apart."
When he had glanced back at his daughters again, Isaidore had gone. Young Isabelle stood alone watching the white swirling eddy underfoot. He looked about for her and could not see where she had gone.
"Well, I must leave you and attend to my abandoned child," Godric smiled. "We leave at dawn. Edward's soldiers should have cleared the roads south by the mid of night."
"'Till tomorrow then, Lord Godric," Verina said and watched him and Isabelle leave the bridge and return to the school.
She said a quiet prayer for the soldiers who would fight at sunrise.
In the low and dimly-lit stone rooms where the nobles met, discord rang like a bell on a crisp December day. Aaron acted the mediating judge; Robert the Bruce did not say one word but listened to every one spoken.
"As wholly as I am English, I am with you," Isaiah stood arguing at John Blair's behest. "The Scots are not the only people who are hammered by the tyranny of Longshanks. And if my birth origins make my case and that of the school of my family and my kind untrustworthy to you, the noble fathers of this country; who are you to speak of trust when you will not support your people?" Isaiah drew breath for the first time it seemed since he had begun. A roar went up at his words.
"You will not gain anything to stand with him. You only gain to fall, I swear to you. By God, he will sell you into the slavery of his kingdom." Isaiah was drowned in a sea of shouting once more.
"I have sacked York, and you still will not support us," Wallace answered in monstrous tones, taking a stand next to Isaiah. Galahad stood to the opposite side of him.
"We give everything we have, our blood if need be. You give nothing but words. Are you men?" Galahad said. Theoderic put a hand to his arm.
"Insulting them will not win them, they are impervious to the injury," he whispered to his brother.
"Taking on the English on their own ground looks like madness," the noble Craig opined.
Wallace stood before him. Craig stood and faced his condemner.
"You busy yourself with the scraps of Longshanks table and have missed your God-given right to something better. Stand with us as men. As countrymen," Wallace fervently pleaded. "My men have won at Sterling and at York and still you tuck tail and hide under title and land. Help us." These words were spoken directly to Bruce. "Unite us. Unite the Balliols, the Bruces, the McGregors. Unite the clans."
"There is much to risk," argued Craig.
"The nobles will not commit to battle," replied Lochland, a Balliol and an arrant opponent of Wallace's campaign. He was Longshanks' bought man.
Aaron moved toward Theoderic and Galahad and whispered between them, "Mornay is not here. What folly might he be bringing on us?"
"Let us not worry about the lesser and the cowardly. Will Bruce commit?" Theoderic asked.
"I cannot tell," Aaron answered tensely.
"There is much to risk?" Wallace said, moving deliberately toward the two offending nobles. "And the men that bleed on the battlefield; those countrymen that you do not have the right to call your own, do they risk less?"
Bruce stood. "Sir William," he said.
"If you are the measure of a Scotsman then I am ashamed to call myself one," Wallace continued.
"Sir William," Bruce pleaded, moving towards the doorway. "Speak with me alone."
Wallace turned and followed him.
The room left a wake of turbulent speech in their absence.
"Castles, lands, titles…There is much at stake," Bruce said diplomatically.
"My father, Malcolm Wallace, and many others who believed in freedom died to support the levy to gather a force for the Bruces. I still support you today." Wallace's eyes were bright with excited fervor.
"Why?" Bruce asked. His eyes grew wide and astonished.
"I see courage in you. You and you alone can unite the warring clans. Lead us!" Wallace shouted.
"I am no coward. I want what you want, but—," Bruce began.
"Men do not follow titles, they follow courage. And if you would just lead them they would follow you." Wallace burst back through the doors and into the hall and its torrent of disordered malcontent. He motioned to his men as Bruce followed him back into the hall. "The men would follow you. And so would I."
He could do no more convincing than that.
Robert the Bruce stood frozen to the spot and realization broke over him and shattered his illusions. No one could lead this country to liberty and sovereignty but him. Now he had to act.
Eomer returned to the school vexed at his father's words without being hurt by them. They preoccupied him to the very steps where he met and nearly toppled Azria as she was on her way down them.
"I beg pardon. I am a clumsy fool," Eomer said immediately.
"It is nothing. I have not seen you since my return," Azria said. She immediately saw his unease around her. She looked from his sad habit of plain monk black to his eyes that were sadder. She waited for him to speak, remembering that he was not well with words when he was around her. That was when they were all love and sentiments. She told herself that he has probably not burned such a blush since she had left. Why did she leave?
"Lady, are you well?" he stammered.
She recalled herself and answered instantly. "Yea, at present I am well."
He looked down for fear that a blush of impropriety would come into his check unbidden. He only looked up when he was sure of its passing. "I scarce know how to communicate how sorry I am—," Eomer began, catching sight of her once again, a sad sight.
"Say no more," she answered. "I understand and thank you for your sympathy."
He nodded and looked to the books in his hand. He could find no polite way to excuse himself, though he did have a session to teach, having left her in such a way as to have turned her cold toward him. But, he hoped, that was long ago.
"And have you found a life of contemplation and peace as a man of the church?" Azria continued boldly, pointing to his habit and the modest cross around his neck.
"A man may be devoted to one thing alone," he said, almost immediately regretting his forwardness.
"And have you duly devoted yourself, as a man of the Lord ought?" she asked, smiling sweetly.
Eomer felt that he could not turn back now. She must know that he had not forgotten her. He would leave once she knew and he would be absolved of her. "Nay," he said timidly, "my meditations have been secretly obligated toward cursing the miles separating you from me."
She made to say something, but was silently surprised.
Whatever her reply would be, Eomer would not know. Mungo arrived at that moment, winded as if he had run all the way from the monastery.
"Azria," he said. She turned breaking the thread of understanding that he was sure she must have known as well.
Eomer continued up the stairs. Mungo's voice and Azria's died to his ears as he put distance between them. Always distance.
"Will you come?" Mungo asked. "The battle comes to Falkirk. Swords fall at dawn. I go with Isaidore and Faramir. Will you come? We would not be at a loss if we had your skill."
"I will come," Azria said, looking behind her up the empty stair.
"And will Bruce commit?" Edward I paced evenly through one of his elaborate halls. The man that he interrogated rose and gave an answer in the negative. "Robert the Bruce knows the value of England's endorsement of his crown. He will not commit without the support of the other nobles. Lochland and Craig will lull Wallace into their confidence by first opposing him and then coming to his aid. Tomorrow they shall have a cavalry of three hundred heavy horse; all that can be gotten from our lands. And when given the signal to ride, they will desert. They will leave Wallace to bleed and the field will be yours, my liege." The man who spoke was Mornay, a duke in the clan of Balliols.
A third man sat silently in the corner and caught every word, gesture and meaning.
The herald was expected.
Edward knew his kin well. His cousin will be arriving now. What he did not expect, and a pleasant surprise, was that Salazar had brought a guest with him. His daughter walked into the room silently beside him.
She was a healthy and regal-looking child of about sixteen. Her flaxen hair matched that of her father, her carriage was so much like his without sacrificing any femininity. She was altogether pleasing, and what would be acceptable to the king as a relation.
"I take it that you have come to accept my offer?" Edward said, waving the herald out of the room. The doors shut and the room echoed.
Salazar stopped and his daughter did beside him. "I have come to end this ridiculous correspondence over many a rough road, either by hearing your proposal and agreeing, or hearing you out and leaving verily."
Edward nodded and came to stand before his cousin. "I do not think I have met this intriguing creature. Will you introduce me?"
Salazar looked to Eowyn and answered, "This is my daughter and inheritor of my lands, Eowyn of the house of Slytherin." He motioned to Eowyn who answered by installing herself in an out of the way corner of the hall with a quick bow to her king.
Edward turned to Salazar again. "You call me ridiculous and plan to hear my offer and leave? Are you yet young and foolish? I can have you sent to the Tower for defying me."
Salazar stood a little straighter, a little taller than his cousin. "Be not fooled by my ever-youthful appearance. Forget not that I am in possession of a shrewd mind."
"And I the charge of a kingdom which your very existence threatens!" Edward raged, bringing him into a famous coughing fit, nearly doubling him over.
"I alone, or those like me?" Salazar asked when his king had finished, wiping his blood-spattered lips on a white linen cloth.
"Do not play with words. You lead, teach, encourage. And now your school supports the Barbarians of the North!" His eyes drifted to Eowyn once more. "Tell me," continued he, "Does she bear the affliction of your kind?"
"She possesses my gifts and talents, yes. I have not pledged myself to one side or the other." Salazar became tense. He looked to the two guests seated at the other end of the hall.
"You think me a simpleton, then?" Edward turned to share a moment of unspoken connection with these two men.
Salazar followed his eyes, but was sure he recognized neither man.
Edward continued, "I am the premiere of this country. I concern myself with those subjects of mine."
Salazar breathed evenly. "I understand your concerns. But what are they to me? I am well aware that you are king. Do you merely bring me all this way to remind me?"
Edward loosened his stride. He turned and surveyed his kin. "Merely to warn you, cousin."
"Warn me?" asked Salazar.
Striding from him to the end of the hall, Edward indicated his guests and continued as though he had not heard the impatience, and far more the small sound of alarm hidden under layers of conceit in Salazar. He endeavored to control his desire to overcome his cousin's wits just once, and was so close he could taste the victory.
"What is this?" Salazar asked, indicating the men. They were not guards, nor were they advisors.
"A moment of reckoning, Salazar," answered Edward.
Silence spoke Salazar's feelings of dread.
This was not lost on Edward who did not break stride. "May I present to you John Mornay of the Balliols of Scotland, and, of course, Sir Eoin O'Neil of Tyrone in Eire."
"What have these men to do with me or my own?" came Salazar's reply.
"Quite a deal, in truth. Mornay has sat in council with the Bruces. Wallace, in fact, has been guest in those halls on many an occasion. I am informed that he keeps very strange company these days." Edward let the silence hang in the air. He knew Salazar was curious to find out if he knew correctly.
Instead of giving satisfaction to his king, he replied, "You want to tell me whom Wallace has seen and I have no objection to hearing it."
"Why," Edward said, eager to see his cousins face as he had informed correctly of his friends' deceit to their sovereign, "those in very close connection with you; a young Gryffindor knight, the Lord Hufflepuff," he paused, smiling, and turned to one of his companions. An ill-favored Irishman, "and two young men, coincidentally, belonging to this man." He indicated O'Neil.
The Irishman stood and answered the question before Salazar could ask it. "My sons, Theoderic and Galahad Ravenclaw."
Salazar noticed the hard and battle-marked face of the clannish warrior. This was Rowena's husband of whom was never spoken a word, by her or her sons. "I beg pardon," he said contemptuously, "I did not know I sat among such illustrious turncoats."
Edward interrupted, "Turncoat is a mark reserved for those who stand against England, dear Salazar."
Salazar turned cold eyes to the king. "Not against their own mother country? Not against their own family?"
Edward seemed suddenly wearied. "I will speak plainly." He sat heavily.
"Please do. My patience wanes, liege."
The king looked to his brethren, fellow conspirators. "Mornay will gain Wallace's favor by supporting him with cavalry at Falkirk. The battle is three days hence. O'Neil has also lent a conscription of Irish for the fight. For your friends' part in the matter, I will seize their lands. O'Neil shall have the Ravenclaw Estates in Eire. I will have the port at Christchurch. I have a watch on the town already. Support me and you shall have soul possession of your school… and an oath that I will never interfere in your work there."
Salazar continued to stand. "Gryffindor will fight. He will protect his lands. You cannot just march in there. You are already fighting a two front war with France and Scotland. Do not fight us, my lord. We will be forced to fight as well."
Edward seemed to take a moment to consider this. "He has a wife that is not of your kind, correct?" He looked to Salazar. He knew this full well. He needed no reply. "I will lean on her father, Whitehall, and, perhaps, find in him another useful ally."
"Of course," the king replied a moment later, with a cattish smile, "you shall have the Hufflepuff lands. Expand your school. And you will have sole feudal rights to the village of Hogsmeade on that land."
Salazar was disgusted. He could not accept this offer. And yet, the hour was too late in which he could do anything to its contrary. He bowed to his sovereign, motioned for his daughter to come, and left with her.
Edward turned to O'Neil and Mornay. "Gentlemen, we have work to do," he proclaimed.
Dawn broke over the Hebrides. It was crystal clear and brought a hope to the men who would fight on the ground the rays were now blessing.
On a second evaluation of the situation, some of the nobles did send cavalry to aid the tired soldiers, most of who had already seen too much battle.
No one had slept.
A hush was over them. Some busied themselves with one last equipment check; others took spiritual stock in case they meet St. Peter this day.
To the helm of the crowd William Wallace, High Protector of Scotland, rode. Following him on horse came Aaron, Lord of Hufflepuff; Isaiah, Knight of Gryffindor; Knights Theoderic and Galahad of the house of Ravenclaw; and John Blair, William's faithful friend and guidance. He was stopped a way behind the others, giving a last prayer to a frightened boy. The others broke through the fore-ranks.
Wallace wheeled his horse before his men.
"Brothers of Scotland," he proclaimed. His voice glided over the sun-lightened mist on the hills, low-lying under the sleepy mountains; it carried over the plodding of thousands of enemy soldiers' feet as they lined the opposite end of the battlefield.
He turned to his foreign patriots and comrades in arms. "Brothers of liberty, bleed with me."
Galahad's heart swelled with fervent pride and admiration for this man, this poet and warrior.
"If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country honor," Wallace charged down the line, stirring emotions in all of his men, fortifying their hearts with a beam of that courage that burst hopeful from him.
"Bruce has not come," Theoderic observed.
"He will come," Aaron answered, eyes straight ahead, confident. His sword was at his side. He was ready for battle, be it his last, his best.
"Many of our bodies will, no doubt, find a native grave. And, oh valiant bones! You shall be famed. And if forgotten in place, will never forget you in your cause! Do not forget in the dark what you have seen in the light!"
A great cheer punctuated this speech.
Wallace stood down from his steed and took his position at the front of his men, between Aaron (now unhorsed) and Blair.
Aaron spoke a pledge, "I shall serve in your campaign, either until I am dead, or until we have victory."
Wallace nodded. Swords were drawn together.
"War is the water I swim in and the air I breathe," Galahad said, drawing his own blade next to Theoderic.
"Breathe deeply, brother. The hour is upon us. We plunge," Theoderic returned.
As Isaiah's sword was drawn, a prayer issued from his lips, "Lord, make my blade swift and my aim sure, my heart free from the murderer's guilt."
The line plunged into the battleground.
Wallace's voice rang over all: "Pro Liberate!"
They all committed to this creed and to this fight.
And they fought their battle nobly, though the nobles flanked them and put them under.
Still they fought.
For freedom.
*There were some lines, particularly in the meeting of the nobles, which I have adapted from Randall Wallace's version of these events as they appear in the Paramount motion picture Braveheart. But I have taken great care not to use the film as basis for my facts alone. I have done research in depth on Wallace and have found many contradictory theories surrounding these events. If you have grief with them, please let me know.
*Also, some lines were taken from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. The speech Wallace gave at the end was inspired by words from Shakespeare's Henry V, but are entirely of my own construction.
Please, let me know how you are enjoying my story, and any ways you might think I may improve it.