Braveheart Read Free Page B

seen the gesture; it even stopped the local priest in the middle of his droning. As the girl moved back to her mother’s side, the priest had lost his place in the liturgy of death and could only mutter, “Amen. Rest in peace.”
    As the grave diggers shoveled dirt over the coffins, Campbell and his son Hamish moved to William and took his shoulders.
    “ Come on, lad. Come on…,” Campbell said.
    They all filtered back toward the house. Outside the house, Campbell slipped the undertaker some coins as final payment. The undertaker climbed up into the wagon box and lifted the reins; but before he could snap them a figure appeared riding toward them. A lone, stiff figure that made everyone pause.
    The figure drew closer. It was Argyle Wallace in black clerical priestly garb. He looked like a human buzzard; his face was craggy, permanently furious.
    “ You must be the relative of the deceased, “ the priest said.
    Argyle only glowered at the man who retreated. Argyle dismounted and glared at William.
    “ Uncle Argyle?” William said.
    “ We’ll sleep here tonight. You’ll come home with me. We’ll let the house and the lands, too – plenty of willing neighbors.”
    “ I don’t want to leave,” William said.
    “ Didn’t want your father to die either, did ya? But it happened.
    The people wanted to stay and eat the food they had brought, but a contingent of English soldiers rode up, a dozed mounted men carrying lances. The leader of the soldiers looked down at the funeral bunting.
    “ Someone dead from this household?” the leader asked.
    “ We just had a funeral, isn’t that what it means in England as well?” Argyle said.
    “ What it means in England – and in Scotland, too – is that rebels have forfeited their lands,” the leader answered. The mounted soldiers behind him shifted their pikes and eyed the unarmed farmers.
    “ My brother and nephew died two days ago when their hay cart turned over,” Argyle said. “Their graves have been consecrated, and any man who disturbs them now incurs eternal damnation.” Argyle’s eyes burned like the hell fires he spoke of. “So please. Dig them up.”
    Outmaneuvered, the leader reined his horse away. Several of the farmers spat on the ground. Argyle glared at them.
    “ Funeral’s over. Go home,” Argyle said.
     
    That night inside the kitchen, William and Argyle sat together at the table. Argyle had laid out a proper meal with exact place settings.
    “ Not that spoon, that one’s for soup,” Argyle told the boy. “Dip away from you. And don’t slurp.” They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Uncle Argyle asked, “Did the priest say anything about the Resurrection? Or was it all about Judgment?”
    “ It was in Latin, sir.”
    “ Non loqis Latinum? You don’t speak Latin? We shall have to fix that, wont we? Did he give the poetic benediction? The Lord bless thee and keep thee? Patris benefactum et … It was Malcolm’s favorite?
    Argyle knew nothing about tucking a boy in bed; that was clear in William’s bedroom that night when he stood awkwardly idle as William scrubbed his face at the washstand and crawled into bed. His bushy eyebrows and narrow lips move toward each other as if to join in a kiss somewhere at the tip of his hawkish nose, and his eyes blinked so rapidly that he gave the appearance of a bird who has just been raped in the face and now has no idea what to do next, which in fact was very much Uncle Argyle’s situation at the moment. All day long he had know exactly what to say and do, but now he was baffled. “Had enough to eat?” he demanded of William, and the boy nodded. “You’ve washed your face? Yes, of course, you just did that.” His eyes narrowed as if he’d caught the boy trying to get away with something.
    “ I always say them as I’m falling asleep, so my dreams will be open to God all night long,” the boy said.
    “ Who told you that?”
    “ My father.”
    There was a long pause. William wondered