A Cruel Courtship

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For this execution the gallows in the bailey of Stirling Castle would not suffice; a special one was set up in the market square so that the townsfolk would find it difficult to avoid. Huchon Allan was a traitor. He’d been caught about to ford the River Forth with more weapons than one man could reasonably use — William Wallace and Andrew Murray were gathering their Scottish rabble on the far side of the river and the English accused Huchon of intending to take the weapons to them. His hanging would serve as a warning to the Scots of Stirling that King Edward of England would not turn the other cheek.

Johanna had never known such fear as she suffered now, nor such a debilitating guilt. She did not doubt the righteousness of her cause, to return King John Balliol to the throne that King Edward of England had stolen, but the danger for her and for her lover, Rob, had never been so real, so clear. She knew from Rob, a soldier at the castle and her unwitting informant, that the English were furious about the raiding of Inverness and Dundee by Murray and Wallace, and that they were expecting reinforcements soon. They were abandoning their earlier efforts to keep peace in the town, convinced that their generosity had simply bred rebellion.

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