“That thought, in turn, reminded me of something else Andrew had said that day. We had been talking about battle tactics and leadership and the worth of infantry as opposed to cavalry and of both together in the face of massed archery. The English use their Welsh archers to great effect, as you know, and in the last twenty years, under Edward, they have been working hard to train their own men in the Welsh techniques. Massed bowmen, properly deployed, can rout the finest army ever fielded, for modern armies have no defence against them.”
He fell silent, and I waited for him to finish, but he was clearly thinking about something else by then.
“So?” I prompted. “What was his point?”
“Eh? Oh, that we have neither sufficient bowmen nor adequate cavalry in Scotland, so any fighting that we have to do in years ahead will be left to our foot soldiers.” He saw the expression on my face and spoke quickly to forestall what I might say. “We have fine bowmen. I’m not denying that. Excellent archers, and I am one of them. But we have nowhere near enough of them, Jamie. Where we can turn out a hundred archers, the English can field a thousand in half the time, and they can keep doing the same for every other hundred we can raise. The same goes for heavy chivalry—armoured knights and the mounts to carry them. We have numerous and noble knights as well, but they wear mail, not solid plate armour, because nowhere, nowhere in all Scotland, do we have a single horse as big as those the English breed and train to fight. They call them destriers. Murray calls them destroyers—destroyers of infantry. I agree with him. Frankly, Cuz, we have nothing we can field against an English army with a hope of winning.”
“And you believe it will come to that, to fielding men against them. Is that what you are saying?”
“Aye, it might. It could. But we would do little fielding, in the true sense of the word. We might find ourselves having to fight them, but we will not be confronting them in battle. That would be madness, self-destructive folly. If we are to fight them with any hope of winning, it will have to be as outlaws and brigands, fighting the way we fight them now, using the land itself against them, then hitting them hard and fast and withdrawing before they can strike back at us.”
“But we do not fight them now, Will.”
“Yes, Cuz, we do. Not often yet, and not to any great extent. But we do fight them. What else would you call the patrols we’ve been sending out since April but fighting? And it is going to get worse. As the English grow more confident in their ability to bully the folk here with impunity, those of us who can will be forced to strike back against them more and more often. And understand this: it will be men like us for the most part, the common folk and the so-called outlaws, who will have to bear the brunt of it, for we can put no trust in the magnates’ willingness to defend us. Some will stand by us, people like Sir William Douglas of Douglasdale—more of an outlaw himself than we are—and Murray, too, in the north. But men like those, whether they be influenced by principles or politics, are few and far between. That leaves common folk like us with but two choices: we can lie down like sheep and let them all, English and Scots nobility alike, trample us under their feet, or we can fight for what we have and what we hold, uncaring who has legal title to the ownership.”
“But, Will, we have nothing. We have no land, we have no rights, and we have no voice.”
My cousin shrugged. “I said both ‘have’ and ‘hold,’ Jamie. We hold the lands in which we live and we will not relinquish them meekly. And until God Himself takes the field against us and stamps us out, we will have our pride, our integrity as men, and our freedom. All of them worth fighting for.”
“And will you lead your folk, Will, beneath the symbol of a sword? This sword?”
His teeth flashed again behind his beard. “Did you not hear a word I said about what I intend to do from this time on? I meant it, Jamie, every word of it. I am not the only man in Selkirk Forest capable of swinging a blade or casting an arrow. I can name you half a score, right here and now, who could step over me and take command were I shot down in battle. Only one man was ever irreplaceable, Jamie, and He died for all of us. As for the rest, the common leaders, kings and generals, there’s always someone, and often someone better, waiting to step in and take command. I will be gone, lost in the forest, and the matter of who will replace me is for God to decide, but I do not believe for a minute that He will abandon us.” He straightened up, head cocked. “Who’s there?”
The door swung open and one of the guards stuck his head inside. “Yon Bishop’s back, Will. Riding in now.”