The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (73 page)

With his face glowing from the heat of the now-raging fire,
he turned away from Berwick for the last time. As he rode off for Scotland, the
English inhabitants who had abused Belle for seven years stood aside to form a
path, lowering their heads in shame.

N
O LONGER WILLING TO STAND
aside and watch the king
struggle to rise from his litter, Jeanne rushed up to assist him. “My lord, you
have not been off a bed in months. Allow us at least to carry you to the
shore.”

 Wrapped in linen strips greased with comfrey
balm, Robert winced to his unsteady feet, gripping the French lass’s wrist in
gratitude for her courage. It had not passed his notice that even his
physicians now hesitated to approach him for fear of contracting his
flesh-eating disease. Tremoring from just that small effort, he removed her
hand from his scabbed elbow and renewed his excruciating attempt to accomplish
this last duty by his own power.

Word
had spread across Galloway that he was making his long-delayed pilgrimage to
Whithorn, and hundreds of men, women, and children, some from as far away as
his birth land of Ayrshire, had hurried to this desolate peninsula on the southwest
coast to join him on his last quest. On the eve of Bannockburn, kneeling in the
saint’s kirk overlooking that battlefield, he had vowed one day to pray in the
cave where St. Ninian had sought seclusion a thousand years ago. The nine-day
journey in the gurney from Cardross had been torturous, but he had suffered it
without complaint.

The
end, he knew, was drawing near.

Bishop
Lamberton and the lords of the Privy Council followed him as he made halting
progress down a wooded path toward the arch of rocks that marked the final
descent on the Pilgrim’s Way. The common folk formed a gauntlet along the track
and fell to their knees as he passed, some reaching to touch his velvet cloak,
others shouting the names of his victories. Overwhelmed by their outpouring of
affection, he stumbled and nearly fell.

The
royal guards tried to push back the adoring throngs, but he put a stop to their
effort to shield him, and beckoned his subjects to his side. On this day, his
entourage would be formed by the children and grandchildren of those who had
served him in the schiltrons.

At last, he emerged from the tunnel of overhanging oaks. The
briny gusts howling inland off the sea nearly blew him over. Steadying against
the shoulder of one of his guards, he peered through the mists and found the
saint’s cave carved on a scarp overlooking the Irish Sea. His spirit sagged,
for he saw that to reach those heights would require a climb strenuous even for
a young man. He had not felt so weak since he had crawled half-dead into the
Arran cave twenty-three years ago. This dune-mottled beach reminded him of that
desolate isle, where he had survived those desperate days on hope alone. But
there is no hope in old age. No angel of mercy like Christiana would appear to
save him now. Elizabeth, Edward, Angus, Fraser … all were gone.

His cherishing subjects mobbed him, and yet he had never
felt so alone.

Ah, Jamie, I miss you.

Fighting the grip in his throat, he resolved not to reveal
how womanly in emotion he had become during these past months. He squared his
jaw in defiance of cruel fate, as he had done at Loudon Hill and Bannockburn
and Scawton Moor, and called up the bishop to his side.

Lamberton, relying on his cane, hurried forward as swiftly
as his crippled legs would allow.

Robert threaded arms with his confessor to accomplish these
last steps together. He meant the gesture as a declaration: The Protector of
St. Andrews had played an equal role in gaining their nation’s freedom. As the
two old comrades shuffled with bated steps across the wet sand, only the crash
of waves could be heard above the muted coughs and muffled sobs around them.

After an hour of agonizing effort, they finally reached the
hermit’s lair.

Robert crumpled down against a boulder, and motioned the
bishop to rest aside him. No larger than a servant’s room, the dank chamber had
been charred black from thousands of fires set by pilgrims who had come there
to petition miracles. Respectful of their privacy, the commoners held back at
the cave’s entrance while Jeanne covered the two men with blankets. She lit a
fire for their warmth and then retired to the beach.

Robert gazed out at the fading light across Ireland. His
brother Edward’s headless corpse lay over there in some unmarked hole. Andrew,
Nigel, and Thomas languished in potter’s fields somewhere in England, denied
shriven burials. If the pope’s churchmen spoke true, his brothers had forfeited
their excommunicated souls for him. No, for Scotland. He had to believe that,
else he could not bear the burden. He muttered in anguish, “Will it last?”

Lamberton cupped his ear to aid his failing hearing. “My
lord?”

“This peace. When we are gone, what will prevent the English
from waging war on us anew? The lad on their throne reminds me of Longshanks.
Full of the blood lust.”

Lamberton squinted toward the shore, trying to make out the
weathered faces of their fellow countrymen pressing shoulder-to-shoulder to
stay warm. Many of them he had baptized as babes. “Look upon your proud
subjects. You have given them a legacy more precious than a fleeting truce. For
the first time, they know that they can defeat the English. Will there be more
wars? Aye, the world has known nothing else. But our struggle will not have
been in vain. Never has so wee a nation subdued such a haught oppressor.”

Robert sighed wearily, haunted by the same questions that
had dogged him for years. Had that oracle spider on Arran been a figment of his
fevered mind? How had Christiana discovered him so close to death’s door? Did
an angel light that fire on Turnberry’s coast to bring him home?

It all seemed a shadowy dream now. In recent months, the
border between reality and phantasmagoria had become more difficult for him to
discern, and during the early morning hours in particular, he would become
entrapped in visions so vivid that they dredged up more emotion than did waking
life. He would fight the battles again, giving different orders and this time
suffering defeats. The worst was a recurring nightmare in which he was captured
and executed while all three Edward Plantagenets watched. When snared in these
nightly struggles within his own mind, he was visited with a gnawing sense that
he was being shown how his life might have played out had it not been directed
by the hand of God. As he pondered these vexing mysteries, he became groggy,
and slowly he slipped into a fitful sleep.

A
S DUSK APPROACHED,
T
HOMAS
R
ANDOLPH
risked a cautious
approach into the cave. He gently jostled the slumbering king’s shoulder. “My
liege, the light recedes. We must return you to the priory soon.”

Roused
from his troubled slumber, Robert wiped the sleep from his eyes and struggled
to his knees. “A moment more, Tom.”

Recovering from his own nap, Lamberton understood what the
king now wished. The bishop brought forth the holy water from his sacramental
pouch and wrapped his shoulders with the frayed penitential stole that he had
carried in every campaign since Methven. He had long ago sidestepped the papal
nuncio forbidding the sacraments in Scotland by offering his own Culdee rites. This
hour, he would do so again. “Shall I order the others away?”

Robert shook his head. “Beckon them closer.”

The bishop hesitated. “If you are to give your confession—”

“What I say to God, I will say to them.”

Lamberton motioned the barons into the cave, and the
commoners on the beach surged nearer and knelt near the mouth.

Robert signed his breast. “I have placed the salvation of us
all in doubt.”

“No, my lord!” the Scots on the beach shouted. “No pope
rules us!”

Robert raised a quivering hand to acknowledge their fealty.
“I have made two sacred vows in my life. This day, by the grace of the
Almighty, I have fulfilled one. The second I will not live long enough to
accomplish. I must petition the aid of others to assist me in seeing that task
finished. … When I die, I wish my heart taken to Jerusalem.”

A mournful silence met that astounding request.

The Scots could not bear the thought of the heart that won
Bannockburn resting forever in a foreign land. Yet not even Lamberton could
dissuade the king from the conviction that the Curse of Malachy would continue
to blacken his clan and the realm if he did not fulfill his grandfather’s dying
request: That he go to Jerusalem in penance for their forefather’s hanging of
the thief in violation of the saint’s plea for mercy.

After a hesitation, Randolph stepped forward. “Sire, tell us
who you wish to perform the deed, and it will be done.”

“I would have my council decide.”

These noblemen charged with the momentous decision shared
uncertain glances. Randolph was clearly the most capable of accomplishing such
an arduous and dangerous journey. But others exceeded him in rank, including
Duncan of Fife, Patrick of Dunbar, Hugh of Ross, and Donald of Mar. The Culdee
monks also had a claim to the honor, and although Lamberton was too feeble, the
younger clerics attached to his office would argue their prerogative. As the
men huddled and debated the best candidate, word of the king’s request was
passed, whisper to whisper, through the crowds below the cave.

A distant voice from the shoreline shouted, “Douglas!”

The commoners took up the chant, until not even the roar of
the sea could drown out their pleas. “Douglas! Douglas!”

Lamberton smiled with pride as he palmed Robert’s forehead
to seal the sacrament. “Your subjects have chosen for you.”

Robert enlivened on hearing their preference, but just as
swiftly, he turned aside, full of despair. “I could not ask another such
sacrifice of Lord Douglas.”

“No one deserves the honor more,” Randolph said.

Robert could not bring himself to look at his councilors.
“He holds me in ill esteem, for I have cost him dearly. Nothing could sway him
to accept.”

Lamberton knew the hard
truth in that assessment. During the passage of years, he had repeatedly failed
to persuade James to abandon his bitterness and reconcile with Robert. The
bishop shook his head, and both lords and commoners, denied in their hope,
slumped in disappointment.

Prisoner to a dilemma, Jeanne had stood on the periphery,
listening to the debate. She threaded the ranks of noblemen and came before the
king. “Lord Douglas will perform this deed.”

The men waited to hear an explanation for that unlikely
prediction, but Jeanne merely drew the cloak over her head and walked out of
the cave.

J
AMES WANDERED THROUGH THE GRAVEYARD
of St. Bride’s kirk,
studying the faded headstones and contemplating their dark irony. He had fought
for decades to gain freedom from England, and now, with the peace treaty
finally signed, he found himself without a purpose. Ever since joining Robert’s
cause that fateful day outside Dumfries, he had dreamed of retiring to the life
of a gentleman in leisure. But having attained it, he had no one to share in
the bounty of victory. He often rode here from Lintalee to while away the days,
even though all that remained of Douglasdale were this kirk and the ruins of
his father’s tower. He picked two handfuls of goldenrod and placed them on the
graves of his stepmother and his father’s servant, Dickson. Then, he entered
the chapel and knelt at the front pew.

This is where I wish to rest.

Alas, he would rest there alone. Resisting Robert’s petulant
demands, he had never taken a wife. Jeanne had not returned to Lintalee after
Elizabeth’s death. He had been too proud to send for her. It was during low
times like this that Sweenie would have raised his spirits with a taunt. He
wondered what the little monk was up to in the spirit world. No doubt looping a
snare of trouble for some unsuspecting Weardale shepherd.

He heard his dog, Mungo, whining below the window of the
kirk. The old hound, bred from Chullan’s bloodline, was as old as the twin
mastiffs had been at Bannockburn. Chullan had died soon after that battle, his
destiny fulfilled after sending Robert Clifford to a muddy grave. Mungo had
been out of sorts lately. The dog still chased Northumbrian rabbits that
treaded across the border, but at night it whimpered and pined for the men in
the army, who were now long gone. He had considered finding a new companion for
the mastiff, but he feared a pup would just run them both to death and—

“Are you the Black Douglas?”

He turned from his kneeler with his dagger drawn. How many
times in his life had he heard that
challenge? Every knave in England seemed bent on hunting him down to earn fame
in a duel. Were they now stalking him even to his clan’s kirk? He squinted in
the dim light, and at the chapel’s entrance saw a dark-skinned boy with agate
eyes bathed in sadness.