Could I have influenced any of what occurred, had I planted my feet firmly and objected to what Will was proposing? What might he have done, had I ranted and admonished him, reminding him that he was endangering his immortal soul? Would he have relented? Would he have chosen some other way to proceed in order to achieve his goal?I know, of course, that he would not. He would have done nothing differently and the outcome would have been unchanged. I have always known that, I suppose, even though I have fought against admitting it to myself. Simply by being who and what he was, William Wallace had preordained that he and the Plantagenet King would collide. The ancients would have said that it was written in the stars. They would also have said that I was committing the sin of hubris, overweening pride, by even thinking I might have had the power to alter any vestige of what happened. But it was not hubris. The curiosity I dwelt upon for all those years was merely wishful thinking. The truth is that I was but a humble priest, eclipsed by the titanic figures of Edward Plantagenet and William Wallace, both of whom History already regards as giants.
