The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas

by Glen Craney

  Tabhann rushed from the pavilion.

  BELLE HAD DREAMED FOR WEEKS OF a night in a warm bed, but now that she had gained the protection of Kildrummy, she could not sleep. She climbed from her straw mattress and knelt next to Elizabeth, who lay shivering under quilts near the altar. Nigel had lodged them here in the chapel for safety, trusting that the English would not aim their slings at holy ground. She placed her palm on the queen’s splotched forehead. The fevered chills had not eased.

  Elizabeth opened her swollen eyes. “Marjorie?”

  “The child is asleep in the kitchen with Mary and Christian,” Belle assured her. “There is more heat from the ovens.”

  She marveled at how well the queen had stood up under the rigors of their ordeal. Growing up in Fife, she had become inured to the brutal northern winters, but Elizabeth had never spent a day outside the London court or her father’s castle in Ireland. She recalled the first time she had laid eyes upon Richard de Burgh’s daughter, in Berwick city. She had formed an immediate dislike for Robert’s new wife, for there had been condescension in Elizabeth’s manner, a legacy of her Irish heritage, no doubt. Ulstermen and their women, after all, would stand in rags on Judgment Day and declare all other races inferior. And yet, she conceded, God must have chosen Elizabeth for the role, knowing that Robert would require a queen with a deep reservoir of stubbornness and tenacity.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Elizabeth looked up at her with a contrite smile and whispered, “I have never properly thanked you.”

  Belle turned aside. As an only daughter, she had never enjoyed a close bond with another woman so near her age. Finding it difficult to share her deepest feelings, she deflected Elizabeth’s attempt at intimacy by pretending to tend to the hearth.

  Elizabeth persisted in trying to draw her out. “There is something I have never told you. The first time I encountered James, I found him infuriating.”

  Belle could not stifle a rueful chuckle. “Perhaps you and I are more alike than we thought.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  She stirred the fire. “I stumbled into him.”

  “No, in truth.”

  “I bounced off his chest like a tossed chestnut. A force seemed to have pushed me into him. I turned to see what I had danged. He looked at me with those daunton black eyes …”

  “And?”

  “He kissed me.”

  Elizabeth struggled to her elbow. “Without even knowing your name?”

  “Aye, I should have slapped him, but …”

  “What did you do?”

  “He bolted from me before I could do anything.” Several seconds passed before Belle found the resolve to ask Elizabeth the question that had haunted her these many months. “Have you ever wondered if the patterns of our lives might be foretold in a lone encounter?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since that day, Jamie has been running from me, or I from him.”

  Elizabeth shook her head in disapproval. “One would think you were the Irish of the two of us, spouting such mystical nonsense.”

  “You don’t believe that you and the king were destined to be together?”

  Elizabeth lowered her gaze as she thought a moment. “Ours is a different bond. Marjorie’s mother was Robert’s true love. He and I share a respect, a deep affection even. But I know there is a part of him I will never have.”

  “You wedded him knowing this?”

  “Robert proposed, and I accepted. I did not ask his reasons. I sensed in him some great purpose, and I felt duty bound to my father’s approval. Do you judge me harshly for that?”

  “Me? A married lady who violates her vows is in no position to judge? But surely love can grow. The seed lies dormant until the spring and—” Belle looked down and saw that Elizabeth had fallen asleep. She tucked the blankets around the queen’s neck and quietly prepared to leave the chapel to check upon Nigel. At the threshold, she heard faintly …

  “He always returns.”

  She turned back, questioning if her imagination had spoken those words.

  The queen opened her eyes slightly. “James runs from you. But has he not always returned?”

  Her heart surged. “Aye, he has.”

  “Then perhaps there is your pattern,” the queen said, her voice trailing off as she slipped back into sleep.

  Smiling with a swell of hope, Belle closed the door and made her way through the darkness across the rock-strewn bailey. The English had suspended the bombardment for the night, and the weary Scot defenders on the walls were stealing a few minutes of slumber. The tapers cast flickering shadows across her approach to the great hall. Near the granary, she saw a cloaked figure. She haled the man, who seemed to be in a hurry. “Sir, can you tell me where I might find Lord Bruce?”

  The man drew his hood over his head and refused to answer her.

  She shivered from a foreboding. “Have we met?” When the man kept his face covered, she backed away in alarm and screamed, “Nigel!”

  On the allures, the soldiers leapt to their feet and gripped their weapons.

  Nigel came running from the tower and found her shaking, in a panic. Bracing her shoulders, he asked, “What is wrong?”

  She needed several breaths to find her voice. “That man.”

  The cloaked phantom lowered his hood. The defenders on the walls sheathed their swords and muttered curses for having their rest needlessly disturbed.

  Nigel calmed her. “It is only Callahan the blacksmith.”

  The blacksmith bowed stiffly to her, but kept his eyes cast down.

  Belle was sick with embarrassment. “Forgive me. I am so tired. My mind must be playing tricks. I thought he was an intruder.”

  Nigel dismissed the blacksmith to his intended destination, and then escorted Belle back to the chapel. “You must get some rest.” “You must get some rest.”

  “Is there no word from the king?” she asked.

  Nigel smiled to reassure her. “We have enough grain to hold out for two months. Caernervon does not have that kind of patience. You needn’t worry.”

  Relieved, she sank into his arms. Since their escape from Glen Dochart, she had formed an abiding affection for the youngest Bruce brother. Unlike the rash Edward and the ambitious Robert, Nigel was selfless and sensitive. More slender in build and fair in features than his siblings, he reminded her of Galahad, the chaste knight of Arthur’s Round Table. He emulated his oldest brother with such devotion that the others called him “Little Rob.” He would do anything to further Robert’s cause, of that she had seen evidence enough, and there was no one, other than James, in whose protection she felt more secure. She kissed his cheek to send him back to his duties.

  When Nigel had departed, she glanced back toward the granary and saw the blacksmith lingering near its door. Had the poor man been trembling? She offered up a prayer for him, thinking how tragic it must be for one trained in the use of his hands to suffer from the palsy.

  SOMETIME LATER THAT NIGHT, BELLE awoke to the acrid sting of peppery smoke in her nostrils. She leapt up from the floor and pulled the dazed Elizabeth through the door. Marjorie, blackened with soot, crawled from the kitchen just before a crackling beam landed behind her.

  The castle was an inferno.

  Outside, Nigel was mustering his men to defend the burning gate. He warned her back. “The granary has been fired! You must get away at once!”

  She rushed to the well for buckets. “We can’t leave you!”

  Nigel intercepted her and pressed a loop of rope into her hands. “I’ll lead an attack from the south gate to divert the English.” He gathered the other women together and hurried them toward the wall. “Go north to Tain! Seek sanctuary with St. Duthac’s monks!”

  She heard the shouts of the English massing for an assault. Powerless to help him, she kissed his forehead. “You are every breath the knight your brother is. God be with you.”

  Her blessing drew his tears. “And with you, my lady.”
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br />   He warned her away, and she hurried Elizabeth, Marjorie, and the king’s sisters to the north ramparts. Climbing to the allures, she looped the rope around a crenellation and ordered Elizabeth to go down first. The drop was more than twenty feet, and when Elizabeth hesitated, she had to push the queen to the rope. “You can do it!”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and slid down the rope, crying out from the burn. Little Marjorie, who had inherited the agility of her father, easily rappelled down. Belle hurried Mary and Christian to the task while she watched Nigel prepare to meet the onslaught of the rams hammering the main gate.

  Seeing them safely on the ground, she prepared to leap across the wall when a horrid thought came to mind: How would James find her? She picked up a shard of charcoal and debated the risk.

  Elizabeth shouted at her from below. “I see their torches! Hurry!”

  Belle scribbled on the wall: Sanctuary.

  AS A CHILD, SHE HAD always wanted to travel to Tain and see the Culdee shrine that marked the birthplace of St. Duthac. A lover of all God’s lesser creatures, Duthac had saved a herd of runaway cattle from slaughter by coaxing them into the stone fence that surrounded his hut, insisting that the Old Testament required all beasts in the shade of a holy temple be spared for forty days. Word of this Scottish St. Francis of Assisi had spread so quickly that his humble abode soon became crowded with human fugitives from justice. Two hundred years later, King Malcolm III granted legal standing to Duthac’s tradition, and ever since, Scot monarchs had made the pilgrimage here to affirm the sanctity of the sanctuary law.

  Yet never had she dreamed she might one day require its protection.

  Faint with hunger, she peered above the hull of their creaky bark. She hadn’t expected a grand church, but St. Duthac’s chapel, off high in the misty distance, was little more than a stone hut perched on a knoll above the turbulent waters of Dornoch Firth. A muddy path, overgrown with brambles, spiraled up to its entrance nearly a half-league away. She had lost count of the days since they had made their way by foot to Inverness, where she and the Bruce women had found transport around the tip of Tarbot Ness to Tain. Now, as their bark floated toward the beach, she braced for the perilous run they would have to navigate across the open dunes and through the wooded bluffs. Even if they managed to reach the chapel, the English chasing them might surround the kirk and try to starve them out.

  The old fisherman who had risked his life to ferry them across the firth assisted her and the other women from the currach. He waded with them through the freezing waters until they reached the banks. “This is the Earl of Ross’s country,” he warned. “The Comyns pay him handsomely for his dirty allegiance. His mossers are always out and about. You’d best be scarce.”

  “We’ve nothing to offer you in payment.”

  The fisherman shrugged off her expression of regret. “Remember me to our king, m’lady. When he comes here pray, I’d be honored to row him.”

  She pressed a kiss to his hand. “The name MacKleish shall one day grace a herald.”

  The old man’s eyes watered as he climbed back into his currach and pushed off into the mists.

  Left to their own wiles, Belle led the Bruce women on a forced run through the dunes and up the winding stairs carved into the limestone juts. They waited there until darkness to avoid being seen by the Ross constables and brigands who lurked in the woods. The debtors, heretics, and other criminals who came here by the hundreds each month were required to carry money or valuables for the donations. Those who could not afford bodyguards or pay for documents of safe passage were easy prey. Unescorted women in particular were always in danger.

  When the light finally faded, they made their way with difficulty up the sea cliffs. After an hour of slinking from tree to tree, she caught sight of the girth crosses that marked the sanctuary’s boundaries. A large iron ring hung from the door of the ancient kirk. Was it abandoned? Nigel had not told her what act was required to complete the immunity. Would her grasping of the ring be enough? Could they all keep their hands on the handle at once?

  After ordering the other women to remain crouched behind a stone fence, she crawled along the fence to avoid being seen and took aim for the portal, which stood twenty paces away. Offering up a prayer, she rushed for the ring and pounded it against the worn plate below the grill slot.

  A sleepy Culdee monk with gaunt eyes and no teeth cracked open the door. He closed it just as abruptly, nearly crushing her fingers.

  Fighting faintness, Belle knocked again. “We seek sanctuary!”

  The monk poked his head out. “Sanctuary from whom?”

  She signaled for her companions to hurry to the kirk, and when they staggered up, she brought Elizabeth into her embrace and told the monk, “This is your queen. The English seek to capture us. You are our last hope.”

  The monk looked beyond her shoulders and searched the dunes. He shook his head and tried to close the door. “I have trouble enough with the abbeys.”

  Belle thrust her foot onto the threshold. The monk, she realized, had mistaken her whispering for irresolution. If they were going to be turned away, she decided her muted voice would be of little use now. She forced the door wider with her knee and shouted, “I was told that the Culdees were the true descendants of Christ! I now see that I was misinformed!”

  The monk recoiled from her sudden fury. “Who told you such thing?”

  “A brethren of yours. Ned Sween of Glen Dochart.”

  The monk broke a gummy grin. “You know the Wee-kneed?” He scanned the grounds behind her. “Is that half-devil with you?”

  She was taken aback by the swift alteration of his temperament. “He is in the West risking his life to save your king. But I shall advise him of the base hospitality you showed us.” She huffed off, taking the women with her.

  “Wait!”

  She turned, praying he would reconsider. The monk debated the risk, then finally, with a roll of the eyes toward the heavens, waved her and the other women into the kirk. She was first to step into the enclosed darkness. The sanctuary’s floor of pounded dirt didn’t even have a chair or table: it made Sweenie’s hovel at Glen Dochart look like a palace. She looked around and wondered how many thousands of criminals and desperate refugees had trod in there.

  The monk locked the latch behind them. Settling on the straw mat in the corner to resume his holy contemplation, he said flatly, “What I have is yours.”

  The Bruce women dropped to their knees and rolled to their sides in exhaustion. After covering them with robes, Belle slid against the dusky wall and slipped into a deep sleep.

  HOURS LATER—JUST HOW MANY she did not know—she heard the ballad that James had always sung to her:

  “On quiet glen

  where old ghosts meet

  I see her walking now

  Away from me so hurriedly

  My reason must allow …”

  She staggered to her feet and rushed to the window. Was that him walking up the causeway? What was he carrying? She threw open the sanctuary’s door and ran to him until her legs nearly failed. He held a swaddled infant in his arms. She reached for him and looked down at the child. It was a baby boy with dark skin and—

  A pounding at the door wrenched her from a vivid dream.

  Disoriented, she climbed to her knees. The other women were still asleep, but the Culdee monk was not in the sanctuary. The torches had gone out, and it was night.

  The door pounded again.

  James’s distant voice still lingered in her ear.

  Her heart leapt. He had found her at last! She crawled to the entry, whispering a prayer of gratitude to St. Duthac for sending her the prophetic dream to announce that James had come to take her home. She pushed back her hair and wiped the grime from her face, then she drew back the bolt and threw open the door, desperate to fall into his safe embrace.

  XX

  DESPITE HAVING SEARCHED THE MAINLAND for all of a fortnight, James had found no trace of Belle and the Bruce
women. Now, chased west through Argyll and Kintyre to this desolate isle of Arran, he was growing more desperate by the hour. The English galleys had anchored at Brodrick Castle, less than a mile away, and Clifford was sweeping the headlands with two pincer columns of foot soldiers to flush him out. Famished to the edge of losing consciousness, he had no choice but to abandon the cover of the forested cliffs and attempt a dangerous run for the beach.

  His only hope was to find an abandoned bark and try for Ireland.

  One last time, he shouted Robert’s name. Cupping his ear against the crashing waves, he prayed for an answer to the call that he had aimed at every cranny and grove between here and Kildrummy. He thought he heard the weak blare of the royal ram’s horn in response, but when it was not followed up with a second blast, he dismissed it as just another hunger hallucination.

  Burning with a fever, he arose unsteadily and staggered toward the shoreline while holding the aching shoulder that had become infected with an aching mass of pus. He knelt behind a dune, breathing hard to gather strength for the effort. In recent days, an enemy more insidious than Clifford had begun dogging him—his own traitorous mind. Everywhere he went, he caught fleeting glimpses of Belle and Robert, only to be cruelly disappointed.

  That damnable horn of his imagination sounded in his ear again. Half-crazed, he banged his head against the ground to chase the torment. He crawled over another dune to find shelter from the howling wind and—

  Robert’s death mask, shining ghoulishly in the moonlight, stared up at him.

  This time, the demonic vision did not recede. He tried to plunge his dagger into the demon’s heart, but a tremoring hand restrained his wrist.

  “Roland would have come sooner.”

  No wispy spectre of his mind had spoken those words. Robert, in the flesh, lay half-buried before him under a crest in seaweed and sand.

  Still not quite believing his eyes, he resurrected Robert from the detritus and brought his wasted frame into his arms. “Roland didn’t have half of England on his heels.” Seeing Robert’s lids swollen nearly shut and his hands shaking terribly, he pulled out the last slither of his salted rabbit meat and brought it to Robert’s lips.