by Glen Craney
The specks, she saw, formed an image that resembled the Douglas herald. She brightened with hope. “Is Jamie alive?”
The spider arched and retracted its legs, as if in confirmation—but a stone whistled through the prongs and sent the spider tumbling. She lunged to save her newfound friend, too late.
“Witch!” screamed a voice from the mob below. “You killed him!”
She crawled to the far side of the cage to find the source of that condemnation. Across the bridge, a procession of English knights led a gurney laden with a coffin wrapped in gold cloth and emblazoned with the heraldry of a red shield and three rearing lions. The lone rider following the cart wore a crown. She squinted, trying to identify him—and her heart leapt with hope. She followed the progress of the procession as it reached the bridge and threaded along the river toward a flotilla of ships anchored in the harbor. Peasants walked behind the casket, sobbing and clamoring to touch it. When the gurney passed under the cage, Caernervon halted his caparisoned horse and looked up at her. She pulled to her feet to demonstrate that her prophecy that day in Lanercost—that she would survive Longshanks—had come to pass.
Caernervon announced to the gathering crowd: “I am compelled by tradition to show mercy to all who look upon my father’s body before its burial.” He gazed back up at Belle. “Renounce the rebels Bruce and Douglas, woman, and this day I shall set you free.”
The mob hushed to hear her answer.
She gripped the bars, fearful that her weakened legs would betray her. At that moment, she saw the spider climbing back to the cage on a thread that dangled from the bottom plank. Tears filled her eyes. Her companion had not been crushed in the fall, after all. A strange lightness suddenly came over her, and she then understood the spider’s message: She was not alone. Drawing a painful breath, she sang the final stanza of her ballad:
“I will range through the wilds
And the deep land so dreary
and return with the spoils
to the bower o’ my dearie
Will ye go lassie go?”
Exhausted, she rested her head against the rails and reached through the prongs to assist the struggling spider to her side.
Caernervon’s upper lip quivered as he stared up at her. Could this pig-headed woman not see that he was now king? Within the week, he would marry Isabella in Westminster with the full array of the kingdom’s nobility in attendance. He could not let this Highland shrew defy him in front of his new subjects, or it would be the talk of London. He pointed his finger at her in threat and prepared to—
Belle turned away to ignore him.
Humiliated in his public act as monarch, Caernervon could not summon words sufficient to bring the Scotswoman to heel. He sat impotent in the saddle, burned by the judging stares of his subjects. Finally, he cursed to his officers, “God damn that woman! Let her rot up there, then.” He spat at her, but the wind drove his spittle back into his face. As the crowds rippled with derisive laughter, the new king angrily wiped his eyes and lashed his horse toward the ships that would carry the remains of his father to Westminster.
The transplanted English inhabitants of Berwick, embittered by what fate had brought them to succeed Longshanks on the throne, gathered up more rocks and renewed their assault on the cage.
Belle hovered over the spider to protect it. When the procession had passed, she risked rising to her feet again, and saw a Latin epigraph inscribed on the rear of the coffin being transported by the gurney:
Edward Primus
Scottorum Malleus
Pactum Serva
She sent the long-legged English devil to his tomb with a scream, “Aye, you were the Hammer! But the Anvil has outlasted you!”
The mourning throngs rushed back at the cage and launched a second volley of stones at her. Amid the debris raining down on the cage floor, she found a small package tied with string. She shielded her discovery from the onslaught and carefully unwrapped it.
A loaf of bread!
She dug her teeth into it and bit upon something hard.
A tiny cross of St. Bride and a rolled slither of parchment fell out. Baffled, she unfolded the ribbon of lambskin and found a message scribbled on it:
An ancient oak at Methven blooms this spring.
Keep faith.
Dodging more rocks, she searched the mob for her benefactor, but she saw only angry faces staring up at her. Beyond them, a hundred yards to the south, a hooded woman hurried away along the river’s edge.
She studied the note again. The script was embossed with Latin flourishes, evidence that it had been written by a learned cleric. The “T” had been formed using the Saltire of St. Andrew. Below the words in a different ink had been sketched a pair of spurs. She brought the parchment to her nose. That rare lavender perfume she would never forget. She had encountered it once before, on the dance floor of Berwick’s great hall.
XXV
IN THE KITCHEN OF THE old Douglas tower, Eleanor Douglas removed a pot from the hearth to silence its boiling so that she could follow the footsteps creaking the ceiling boards above her. On the ramparts, Robert Clifford was inspecting the walls, and with him walked John Webton, an inexperienced Sussex knight appointed castellan, and Thomas Randolph, the former Bruce ally who had been forced to join the English after his capture at Methven.
She could no longer make out faces from afar, but her hearing was still sharp, and she had put that faculty to good use in gathering surveillance. Longshanks’s death had proved a mixed blessing for the few villagers who remained in Douglasdale; Caernervon’s abandonment of his father’s invasion with a new army had allowed them to gather the first full harvest in ten years, but it had also freed Clifford to come north to collect on back rents. She placed her ear near the air vent to overhear Clifford giving orders.
“Take ten men out tomorrow and cut some timbers,” the officer told his subordinate, Webton. “I intend to reinforce these foundations.”
“My scouts tell me that Bruce and his mossers still lurk in Carrick.”
“You needn’t worry about Bruce,” Clifford assured Webton. “He fled north after that dolt Pembroke was replaced by Richmond in command of the army.”
“The king intends to renew the campaign?”
Clifford snorted. “Edward campaigns only to Piers Gaveston’s ass. But Bruce will be brought to heel soon enough. The lords will see to that. Until then, we will fortify this keep to use as a bolt hole for scouting raids.”
Randolph reminded the two Englishmen, “You’ve forgotten about James Douglas. You will come to regret the day you hung his woman in that cage.”
In the kitchen below, Eleanor, learning of Belle’s plight for the first time, stifled a cry of anguish just as Thomas Dickson, her late husband’s elderly servant, entered the kitchen to gather plates for breakfast. Wiping tears, she motioned him over to attempt to listen with her, despite his hardness of hearing.
Clifford’s laughed off Randolph’s warning. “Douglas never leaves Bruce’s side. His whore has been languishing in Berwick for over a year. If he intended to launch a raid to save her, he would have attempted it by now.”
Eleanor slumped against the wall. Although Robert Bruce had returned to Scotland eleven months ago, her stepson had not come back to Douglasdale, and she had become resigned to the permanency of the occupation. She had not seen her youngest son, Archie, since sending him off nine years ago to be cared for by kinsmen in the North. She looked out through the window toward the valley. How many times had she stood here in despair, thinking about jumping to her death? Below the village, several soldiers from Clifford’s garrison were entering St. Bride’s kirk to attend Mass. Farther north, across the Leith water, a woman, hooded and cloaked against the harsh wind, drove a herd of scrawny cattle toward a communal pen. Clifford must have seen the cattle, too, because she now heard him comment that a beefsteak would make a fine Sunday repast.
Webton protested that plan. “These people here depend upon the milk.�
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“I am beginning to question if you have the resolve to serve me.”
“I’ll fight any man of arms,” Webton told Clifford. “But to commit thievery on starving womenfolk and children—”
“Send two men to take that herd at once. I want a flank cut delivered to the kitchen within the hour. And if the wench is comely, bring her along as well. There’s nothing more satisfying than a Highland cow, eh Randolph?”
Eleanor whispered a curse on the English officer, as if another malediction added to the previous thousand might tip the balance of God’s favor.
IN THE GREAT HALL, CLIFFORD watched with amusement as the lame Dickson floundered out of the kitchen dragging his bad leg while balancing goblets of wine on a tray. Laughing at his pathetic effort to hurry, Clifford stuck out his boot and sent the feeble servant sprawling across the floor amid spilt wine and shattered glass. “There’s a Douglas for you! At home on all fours.”
Helpless to halt to the abuse, Randolph assisted Dickson to his feet while Cull and Chullan, mangy and half-starved, snarled at Clifford from their tethers. The miserable dogs were approaching the age when most mastiffs broke down and died, and Randolph marveled at how they hung on despite their sporadic feedings, as if fueled by a sheer hatred for Clifford and nothing else.
Clifford taunted the wet noses of the hounds with his cutting knife. “Ale, Scottie!” he demanded of Dickson while hissing at the dogs. “No more of that insufferable French piss water!”
Dickson gathered up the goblet shards. “Aye, my lord. Clumsy, I am.”
Eleanor rushed in to see what had caused the commotion.
“Well, woman?” Clifford barked. “I’ll not wait all day!”
She pursed her lips in anger, but then quickly retreated into an affectation of submission. “Cooking, my lord. Cooking.”
“Make certain the beefsteak cut is generous.”
She turned back in confusion. “I’ve been delivered no meat.”
Clifford marred the table with his knife. “You will be, soon enough. And I’d best not find a sliver of the flank missing.”
ELEANOR RETURNED TO THE KITCHEN grumbling curses. The door slammed—and a hand reached from behind to cover her mouth. She struggled to escape, until an old woman in a hood and herder rags pressed a kiss to her cheek. The widow made out the blurred features of three men at the rear entry, with blood dripping from their daggers. She recoiled with fright, and turned back to the strange hag who had invaded her kitchen with the men.
The female intruder shed her outer garments.
Eleanor gasped, her eyes flooding with tears. She reached out for an embrace to confirm that it was really her stepson in the flesh.
James looked over her shoulder and nodded for the Trinity brothers to drag in the side of beef they had just carved from the butchered heifer. He glanced through the window to insure that the English guards had been dispatched and their places taken by two of his raiders. Then, he hung the beef on a ceiling hook and motioned for his stepmother to carve off a cut for Clifford’s steak.
Eleanor suddenly realized that James had been the cloaked woman herding the cattle across the vale. His men had stolen upon the castle with the migrating cows, a ruse her husband had often used. She made a move to ask what was happening, but at that moment Dickson limped into the kitchen with his head lowered. The old servant looked up and stiffened as if seeing a ghost.
Before James could muffle his reaction, Dickson dropped the tray in shock.
IN THE GREAT HALL, THE LOUD report from the kitchen drove Clifford to his feet. The officer rushed to the window and gazed down at the bailey. The cow’s carcass was draining from a butcher’s hoist, and his guards stood at their posts. Still suspicious, Clifford drew his blade and motioned for Webton and Randolph to watch for intruders at the front door. He burst into the kitchen.
Carving on the hanging side of beef, Eleanor turned with a glare of disgust at the intrusion. “Did you expect the steak to jump to the spit on its own?”
Clifford clamped a hand to her throat. “You do rattle on, don’t you? That useless stepson of yours suffers from the same malady. Did I ever tell you how I laid him on his bony rump at Berwick?” He shoved her toward the hacking block. “If I’m not fed soon, I may fall into a foul mood.” He kicked Dickson as he marched back into the hall.
When the kitchen door slammed shut, James leapt down from his perch on the rafters and drove his fist into the beef slab to vent his anger. He stared at the steak that Eleanor had just cut. Then, struck by a thought, he whispered, “This meat won’t do for such a fine English gentleman.” He pulled the ax from behind his back and told Dickson, “Tom, keep our guests drinking.”
ELEANOR AND DICKSON CARRIED THREE sizzling steaks into the hall. After serving Webton and Randolph, the widow delivered the largest cut to Clifford. “Rare, my lord. Just as you like it.”
Clifford impaled his knife into the steaming strip and took a bite. After several chews, he pointed the blade at Eleanor. “Not bad for a cow raised on Scot shit.” He stuffed his mouth with another morsel and studied her with a look of suspicion. “What is this flavoring?”
“Rosemary. Mixed with thyme and cinnamon.”
Clifford savored the beefsteak’s juices. “By God, this is succulent.” He turned to Randolph and Webton. “Does yours have an unusual bite to it?”
Randolph shrugged as he kept his eyes on his plate, his appetite ruined by the loss of the cow for some poor fellow countryman.
In the corner, the mastiffs whined, tortured by the aroma.
Clifford teased the hounds with another slither before stuffing it into his mouth. “What would you know about delicacies, Randolph? I’m telling you, this has a hint of the Continent, maybe Sussex even. My sensibilities are so keen that I can identify the shire where the heifer has grazed.” His nostrils flared. “I’ll wager a week’s pay that this cow was stolen from Yorkshire.”
Eleanor asked him, “Will there be anything else, my lord?”
Clifford searched his plate. “Did I not order artichokes with this?”
“Artichokes? You said nothing about—”
Clifford slung the grease in his plate at her. “I’d best be tasting marinated artichokes before I finish!”
Splattered, Eleanor bowed and hurried back to the kitchen with Dickson.
James had been watching the encounter from the cracked door. He wiped the grease from his stepmother’s face with a rag and hurried her toward the back entry. “The Trinity lads will take you north.”
Eleanor held back. “Your father built this tower, Jamie. Don’t let them defile his memory.”
Her plea took him by surprise. “I haven’t the men to hold it.”
She glared at him fiercely. “I don’t mean for you to hold it.”
Suddenly taking her meaning, James was stunned.
At the rear door, McClurg reappeared. “The English are coming back from the kirk.”
James saw that his stepmother was resolved not to leave until he agreed to her request. With a heavy sigh, he ordered McClurg, “Get her to safety. Then draw Clifford out from the tower.”
CLIFFORD BELCHED, LEANED BACK, AND loosened his belt. “That old hizzie may be blinder than a cross-eyed bat, but she can still work a stove.”
Disgusted by the officer’s boorishness, Randolph cracked, “I’m surprised you managed to get it down without your artichokes.”
Clifford angrily spat out a cud of gristle, reminded of his absent side order. “Damn that dotaged bitch! Where is she with those artichokes?” He clanged a flagon with his knife. “Woman! Get out here!”
Receiving no answer, the officer erupted to his feet and charged into the kitchen. His eyes bulged with a ghastly discovery.
Two of his guards hung from hooks—with the flesh hacked from their ribs. The pot was still boiling over the hearth. Human bones and sinews lay on the butcher’s block, and a message had been written in blood on the table:
Bon Appetit, this is
only the first course.
James of Douglas
Clifford staggered out into the bailey and vomited. Taking the bait, he rushed to his horse and led his garrison out the gate, hell-bent on gaining the blue Douglas banner that fluttered near the kirk.
HIDING ON THE RAMPARTS, JAMES hoped the Trinity lads would run Clifford in circles for a few hours. When all was clear, he quietly descended the stairway into the great hall and found his father’s herald still hung over the hearth, slashed and pierced with arrows. He ran his hand across the trestle table where the Guardians had held their meetings when he was a boy. A wisp of cold wind creaked open the door, and he was now staring at Wallace’s ghost in the shadows.
With honor comes duty, lad.
He walked to a window and stared down at the spot where Clifford had shackled his father on the day he was dragged to London Tower.
A bloodied face looked up at him.
Remember, you are a Douglas. You bend to none but God and your conscience.
His nostrils stung from the putrid smell of camphor lingering from the pomander that Clifford wore on his belt. He had never been able to rid his head that noxious odor in the Berwick breeze that swung Gibbie to his death.
His stepmother was right. Too many dark memories lingered here now.
He hammered at the table with his ax, until nothing was left but a pile of kindling, and then he removed his clan’s herald from the wall. He threw it onto the stack of broken wood and was about to fire the wood when a whimpering came from the darkness. He stalked the pining sound into an antechamber. Gripping his ax, he threw open the door.
Cull and Chullan, too weak to bark, stared up at him with pained eyes. Pocked with scab wounds from Clifford’s beatings, the mastiffs struggled from their haunches to greet their old master.
He knelt to cut the hounds loose and brought them into his embrace. He looked around and remembered this room had been the old study, where his father had planned the muster of the army at Berwick. In the corner, on the writing stand, he spied a black lock box. He had never seen that here before. He pried it open with his dagger and found military orders, coins—and a letter perfumed with a nutmeg fragrance. He opened the letter and read:
