The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (12 page)

James gazed south past the shimmering waters of Loch Fynne,
unable to make sense of it all. Longshanks had already stolen the Stone of
Destiny. How long would it be before he pilfered these sacred menhirs, as well?
“It’s clear to me why we’re fighting. To drive out the English.”

Lamberton sized up his new student, as if judging whether he
was capable of keeping a confidence. Deeming the risk worth the price, the
cleric asked him, “You have heard of the Culdees?”

“The wizards who cower in the Highlands?”

Lamberton bristled at that slander spread by the Roman monks. “The Culdees are not pagan soothsayers. They are descendants of the first saints in this land, disciples who brought Christ’s teachings back to these shores long before the conniving Italians had ever heard an Apostle’s sermon.”

“Back here? What do you mean?”

“Our Lord came to this land as a young man.”

“Why?”

“To study with the Druids. Christianity was not brought to
this Isle. It was
born
here.” Seeing
James frown skeptically, the bishop persisted. “Do you know the name of the
Druid god?” He did not wait for an answer. “Hesus. The name meant ‘He who
survived death upon a tree’”

“I thought St. Patrick brought the Holy Word.”

The bishop scowled to
belie that myth. “Rome claims to be the ordained ruler over all Christians, but
the Culdees knew the truth. Their lineage reached back to the first believers
in Jerusalem. When the missionaries from the Roman abbeys in France crossed the
Channel, they discovered that the Culdees had been teaching Christ’s message
for centuries. Rome tried to destroy the Culdees, but some of them survived by
hiding in the caves and forests.”

James regarded him with renewed intrigue. “How do
you
know this?”

After a hesitation, Lamberton revealed, “I am one of them.”

James’s jaw dropped.

Lamberton smiled with cold revenge on his lips as he gazed
across the sacred horizon. “Aye, I wear the robes of the Roman church. I have
no choice. But I carry on the Culdee fight to preserve God’s truth. That cause
and Scotland’s freedom are bound together. Until our countrymen understand
this, we will never be rid of our slavery to the Pope or to England. For now,
it is a war that must be fought in the shadows.”

James wondered if this bishop had gone bampot in the head.
“I still don’t see what this church dispute has to do with our rebellion.”

“There is always a deeper principle at stake than the one
told the common soldier. Scotland is the last refuge of a much older faith, one
that knows all men to be gods in the example of Christ the teacher.”

“That’s blasphemy!”

“Did Our Lord not promise that we would perform miracles
even greater than His? Did He not say that we would only find Heaven by asking
and seeking? His was not a command for blind allegiance to dogma, but a quest
for one’s own truth.”

Confused, James shook his head. “And that is why England
seeks to conquer us? To suppress Christ’s true teachings?”

The bishop rubbed his fists to ease the aching ague that had
twisted his meaty fingers. “Longshanks lusts for dominion over France. He will
do the pope’s bidding so long as Rome wields the balance in diplomacy. If we
are to survive, and the true Church of Scotland is to survive with us, we must
find a king with the heart of Wallace and the wiles of Edward Plantagenet.”

“What man could manage all of that?”

The bishop stood from his sitting and, with a tight-lipped
smile that suggested he indeed had a candidate in mind, began walking back down
the crag.

Left alone on the summit with no answer to his inquiry, James removed his boots and stood barefoot on the altar where the soothsayers of those Sons of Light had once uttered their oracles. He bent down to kiss the etching of the boar, the ancient Scot symbol of sacrifice and courage. There was so much about the future he desperately wanted to know. When would his father return home? Would Scotland survive this war with England? If he agreed to sail with the bishop across the Channel to France, would he ever see Douglasdale again? And whom did the bishop have in mind for their new king?

Yet one question above all others burned in his heart.

He leaned to the altar and whispered the plea for a
divination, “Did Belle ever love me?”

He waited for an answer, but he heard only the wind
whistling through the dolmens in the glen below him.

I
DONEA
C
OMYN SLIPPED UNNOTICED INTO
the chapel of Dundarg
castle, a dismal old keep that guarded the cliffs of Aberdour Bay on the
northern border of Comyn country. Approaching the altar with trepidation, she
interrupted Belle’s morning prayers. “Child, your father …”

Bell opened her eyes, her heart sinking. “Has he returned so
soon?”

“He is dead.”

She felt neither shock nor grief, only a disturbing elation.
By God’s grace, her father had delayed her betrothal to Tabhann that spring to
rush south and join William Wallace’s army. Yet his procrastination in
bartering her off to the Comyns had nothing to do with paternal compassion.
Wallace’s stunning victory at Stirling Bridge had so weakened Red Comyn’s claim
to the throne that some of their countrymen had called for the new rebel leader
to be named Protector of Scotland. Cunning as always, her father had decided to
delay the marriage until the shift of clan power played out, leaving her in the
custody of the Comyns with the promise that her dowry would be paid and the
bonding formalized at the end of the summer campaign.

“There was a battle at Falkirk,” Idonea said. “Wallace has
been routed.”

Belle erupted from her kneeler. “And my brother?”

“His body was not found.
But if he had been captured, there would be a ransom demand. I have heard talk
…” The widow ground her rotted molars when, as now, she became agitated,
producing a sound similar to that of rats gnawing on wood. “Longshanks
personally commanded the English army. There are some who say Red held back his
forces to save his own neck.”

Belle hesitated before asking her next question, fearful the
widow would only scold her again for still pining for the lad from Lanarkshire.
“Is there word of the Douglases?”

Idonea grinned grimly at Belle’s concern for the welfare of
her clan’s enemy over her father’s demise “The Hardi has been taken to London
Tower.”

Belle grasped the chancel railing for support. Knowing all
too well what horrors awaited Jamie’s father in that devil’s pit, she offered
up a prayer for the gallant Crusader who had come to her defense in
Douglasdale.

God forbid, was Jamie among the captured or killed?

It would have been just like him to run off to join the
rebels. She had heard nothing from him since that day he had tried to save her
in Kilbride, and even if he were still alive, he had likely sworn off all
feelings for her, convinced that she had betrayed him. She had written him
letters explaining that she went with the Comyns to prevent them from murdering
him, but her correspondence was always intercepted, and she had paid the price
with beatings. She knew she should be distraught over her father’s death. Yet
all she could now think about was Jamie. If the Comyns ever caught her speaking
his name again, even in her sleep, they would flog ever ounce of blood from—

Alarums in the bailey broke the morning calm.

She shuddered with a sudden thought: If Wallace’s army was
crushed and scattered, nothing now stood between the English army and Fife.

As if reading her mind, Idonea retracted the fabric screen that covered the window, offering a vantage into the valley. “Longshanks has wasted no time.”

Belle hurried to the slit and saw Red and his kinsmen, caked
with the mud of battle, galloping through the gate, chased by a hail of arrows.
She rushed from the chapel and climbed to the top floor. Below her, on the
moors, hundreds of English besiegers were surging toward the ramparts.

Following her, Idonea
shouted with diabolical glee, “Rabbits in the skillet!”

Belle was stunned to hear the widow reveling in the spectacle of disaster, apparently not the least concerned that they were also trapped. Idonea seemed to harbor such a fervent death wish that she would gladly give up her life to see the Comyns dragged to perdition with her.

“This time the Hammer
won’t stop until he reaches the Isles!”

Belle abandoned the callous widow to her manic ranting and
ran down the stairs of the tower. In the bailey, she found Red running about
the grounds like a madman, trying to direct set his outmanned defenses.

Red saw her at the entry. “Get back inside!”

Belle stood her ground. “I know what you did to Wallace!”

The chieftain took a
threatening step toward her. “I’ll rip that sassing tongue from your throat!”

“Longshanks will have yours first!” Idonea shouted down from
the high tower.

Withered by the hag’s witching eye, Red took out his
frustration by slapping the nearest of his soldiers toward the ramparts. As the
screech of the approaching English siege gun grew louder, he paced and slashed
at the ground with his broadsword, as if the very earth under his feet had
betrayed him.

From the allures, Cam warned his uncle, “We can’t hold them
off!”

Tabhann pulled Red aside. “We don’t want another Caeverlock.
Longshanks hung every defender in that keep for the trouble they caused him.”

“But he knows we took up with Wallace.”

“We can negotiate terms,”
Tabhann insisted. “Clifford will never find Wallace in the Selkirk, and
Longshanks knows it. Offer to set up a meeting with Wallace. No one will
suspect us.”

Red pulled at his own beard. “If the clans discovered we
gave him up …”

“Wallace is finished,” Tabhann promised. “If we don’t settle
a pact with the English here, Bruce will take the advantage and move against
us.”

R
ED AND HIS KINSMEN RODE
rode out from Dundarg’s gate under a
flag of parlay, and Clifford led them into the English camp, passing under the
shadow of a trebuchet whose arm had been cut whole from the tallest fir found
in Brittany and ferried across the Channel. Escorted into the royal pavilion,
the Comyns were forced to wait in silence as Longshanks bandied with the ladies
of his court and tasted an array of appetizers prepared for his approval.

At last, Clifford brought an end to their humiliating
penance. “My lord, the Earls of Buchan and Badendoch beg an audience.”

Longshanks turned in mock surprise. “Whom did you say?”

Clifford shoved Red forward. “These Scot defenders who put
up a valiant defense for all of an hour.”

Longshanks spat a slither of lime rind and held out his
flagon to an attendant for refilling. “Make haste, Comyn. I haven’t all day.”

Red tried to affect confidence. “I have come to discuss
terms.”

The king flung his flagon at Red’s forehead. “You speak to
me
of terms?”

Red staggered on his heels, his brow wet with wine and trickling blood. Spurred on by Tabhann’s pressing hand to his back, the chieftain mumbled, “I can offer you Wallace.”

“You
will
provide me with that miscreant,” Longshanks
ordered. “Within the month.”

“In return—”

“You and those wretched varlets you call vassals will swear
fealty to me.”

Longshanks dismissed the ladies from his presence and ordered up another flagon of wine. He fingered the cup ominously while circling the trembling Scot chieftain. At his nod, Clifford pressed the Comyns to their knees.

Fearful of being cold-cocked again, Red flinched as Longshanks
passed behind him. “By your grace, when this deed is done, I trust my kinsmen
and I shall retain our other castles.”

Longshanks coughed up a ball of phlegm and shot it through
his puckered lips at Red’s battered face. “I’d sooner have castrated dogs guard
them.”

Streaked in spittle, Red glanced with alarm at Tabhann, who
had edged away, leaving the chieftain more exposed. Red pleaded with the king,
“My lord does remember that I am the ranking noble in this realm?”

Longshanks snatched a letter from the grasp of a French
envoy who stood in the corner. He handed the document to Red to read.
“Evidently you’ve not heard the latest news from Paris. The Flemish have
smacked Philip about quite roughly.” He asked Clifford, “Where was it he met
his comeuppance?”

“Coutrai, my lord.”

“Undone by burghers armed with brooms!”

From the corner of his stinging eye, Red saw the Capetian
diplomat seething at the king’s exultation over France’s recent misfortune. Yet
the envoy was wise enough to play the part required by his circumstance, for
all foreign dignitaries to the Plantagenet court knew that the monarch had once
flailed his own servant so horribly in a fit of rage that Parliament had
ordered royal damages paid to the victim’s family.