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

by Glen Craney

  Randolph challenged Edward to explain his actions. “You convinced the king to attack? Without first sending word to the Borders?”

  Edward glanced worriedly at Robert, who lay writhing near a fire, blind and paralyzed and with pus-weeping blotches inflaming his skin. “I feared delay would allow the Comyns to escape. Those whoresons sent David Brechin into our camp this morning to offer terms for our surrender. I agreed to the meeting only in the hope that it would quash the rumors of my brother’s death.”

  “And?”

  “Rob could not form a coherent word.”

  “Then the Comyns will attack on the morrow, for certain.”

  Edward shrugged like a man resigned to the gallows. “We will fight to the death rather than relinquish the crown.”

  Randolph shook his head, dismayed at discovering that he had ridden hundreds of miles north to escape execution, only to be penned in with a disgruntled army whose demise appeared imminent.

  “Jamie!” came a cry from the far side of the encampment.

  The men turned toward Robert, who lay shivering under a cloak near a fire.

  “Bring Jamie to me!”

  They were stunned to hear the first words from his mouth in three days.

  Relieved to see his brother conscious, Edward prodded Randolph forward, determined to disabuse Robert of the mistaken identity and have him mete out severe punishment for their nephew’s treason.

  Soaked in fever sweat, Robert looked up at Randolph with tears of delirious joy. “I knew you’d come!” He crawled closer and reached out. “Forgive me, Jamie! I had to attack! There was no time to lose!”

  Randolph was shocked by the king’s ghastly appearance. “My lord …”

  Robert clawed for Randolph’s hand. “God has answered my prayers. Tell me of the Marches, Jamie! No, you must sleep first! On the morrow we renew the siege.”

  Edward had never noticed the striking resemblance between Randolph and Douglas. Indeed, they were the same height, and could even pass for brothers. Signaling to the other men for silence, he whisked Randolph away before Robert could come to his senses. “Rob, get your rest,” he told his brother as he hurried off. “Douglas and I will make plans for the assault.”

  Levering to his elbows, Robert searched the camp to count how many were still with him. “Jamie, you’ll lead the left flank! We’ll give them Loudon Hill again! To see the look on Comyn’s face when he finds you at my side!” He fell back to a fitful sleep as his voice trailed off.

  Edward summoned a monk warming his hands over a fire and told him to bring his needle and thread. He led the two men to the edge of the camp, out of earshot of the others. Sizing up his prisoner’s face, he smeared a dollop of boot black on his palms and whispered to Randolph, “Do as I say, and you may yet save your neck from the block.”

  INSIDE THE DEFENDED CITY OF Inverurie, David Brechin returned from his parlay with the Bruces and found the Comyn cousins pacing the allures while studying the distant fires of the royal encampment. “Bruce has one foot in the grave,” Brechin assured them. “A fever has curdled his mind to mush. I give him no more than a day.”

  Tabhann tempered his elation. He had seen Robert falter on the field with his own eyes, but his old nemesis had overcome so many legendary hardships and near deaths that he found it difficult to believe that fate could turn so capriciously. “You are certain of this?”

  “I could smell the death rot on his breath.”

  Cam was hot to attack. “We should strike before Douglas arrives.”

  “Edward Bruce leads in the king’s stead,” Tabhann reminded them.

  Cam grinned. “And he’ll come bulling right into our slaughter pen.”

  AT DAWN'S FIRST LIGHT, TABHANN and Cam led their three thousand men from Inverurie and into the open pastures below Meldrum. Certain of victory, they took their time forming up ranks and parading across the lines, promising booty and titles when the throne was filled with a Comyn. Their troops fell silent on seeing the Bruce ranks emerge from the far grove.

  Tabhann rode into the gap between the two armies to confront Edward Bruce. “Give up the crown, Bruce, and your men will be spared!”

  “The crown lies where it belongs.”

  Tabhann laughed. “You didn’t bury it with your brother’s corpse, I hope. Are we going to have to dig him up?”

  A helmeted knight wearing a gold band and brandishing the royal herald rode forth from behind the Bruce line. He called out through the air slits of his faceplate to Tabhann, “Come take it!”

  Tabhann cantered closer, determined to expose the trickery. “If that’s the Bruce, then I am the queen of England!”

  The approaching knight halted and removed his helmet. “I am certain Caernervon will gladly make room for you in his bed.”

  Robert sat in the saddle.

  Tabhann stared gape-jawed at his old nemesis; then, he turned a punishing scowl on Brechin for the erroneous report about Robert’s health. Still, he was confident. Edward had managed to hoist his brother onto a horse, but clearly Robert, swaying and groggy, could do no more than watch his ragged army be annihilated. He decided to call their bluff on this desperate ploy to make the royal troops believe that their king was in fighting condition. “Why should we force Scots to kill Scots, Bruce? Let us settle this between us in single combat!”

  Robert fought against his debilitating vertigo to remain upright. “As Brechin no doubt advised you, I am recovering from the ague. I shall offer you my second, as the code allows.”

  Another knight on a black stallion split the tree line. In full armor, this second, unidentified rider carried on his lance a pennon featuring a blue field and three silver stars. A gasp of disbelief cascaded across the Comyn ranks—that was the Douglas herald.

  Tabhann looked back at Cam and Brechin, demanding an explanation for the apparition.

  “They are so desperate,” Cam scoffed, “they resort to blatant fakery!”

  From a hundred yards away, Tabhann saw the knight briefly remove his helmet to adjust his flowing hair. A familiar dark face glared back at him in the faint light before the helmet was returned to its head. His mannerisms were those of Douglas, for certain: The askew way he sat in the saddle, the high grip on the reins, the haughty arch of the head. But how could Douglas have made it this far north so quickly? When the knight cantered across the lines and motioned for a challenger, Tabhann ordered up his most accomplished mercenary, Robert Bingham, a brutish malcontent from Northumbria. “Kill that man,” Tabhann told the English cutthroat, “and this land you now ride on is yours.”

  Both armies backed off to allow a clear field for the single combat.

  Without the usual ceremony and mutual signal of attack, Bingham lashed his steed toward his opponent, who sat waiting without a flicker of motion. Nearing the collision, the Bruce champion spun his horse in a deft maneuver to avoid being impaled. He whipped an ax from behind his back and hammered Bingham with a stroke to the crease between his shoulders and neck. The Northumbrian mercenary hurled to the ground and thudded in a cloud of dust.

  Blood oozed from the vents of Bingham’s writhing helmet.

  Tabhann reined back—he had witnessed that death stroke before.

  The ax-wielding champion came riding up aside Robert, and together they led their ranks forward. A hundred paces from their lines giving battle, Tabhann and Cam turned tail and galloped south.

  Abandoned, the Comyn troops broke into a disorganized retreat.

  FIVE HOURS LATER, THE VICTORIOUS royal army escorted Robert through the deserted streets of Inverurie. Reaching the tower, the king slumped over his saddle in exhaustion. Edward Bruce and his officers untied the tethers that had been used to strap Robert upright to the hidden flange and lifted him from the restraints. They carried the king into the hall and placed him on a blanket that had been set out near a warming fire.

  “Jamie!” Robert muttered, half-conscious. “Bring Jamie to me!”

  The men were uncertain how to re
spond. Reluctantly, Edward motioned his brother’s champion that day to the bed. The knight who wore the Douglas insignia on his breastplate removed his helmet.

  Randolph, not James, knelt at Robert’s side.

  This time, Robert was not fooled. He burned his nephew with a wrathful glare. “Traitor! You fought with Comyn this day?”

  “No, my lord,” Randolph said. “With you.”

  Robert searched the faces around him, fearing that the illness was still twisting his mind.

  Edward finally admitted, “Douglas remains in the South. He sent Randolph north to you as a prisoner. Our kinsman agreed to disguise himself as Douglas during the battle.”

  Robert took a closer look at Randolph, and sank in sharp disappointment. The victory established his dominion over the northern shires, but his betrayal of James had taken a heavy a toll on him in guilt. He had miraculously recovered his strength only because he thought all had been made right between them. Now he dreaded even more the hour he would have to explain his shameful action to his wronged friend. He stared at Randolph for several tense moments. Perhaps, he prayed, forgiveness would beget forgiveness. “I have wronged Jamie, as you have wronged me. Join me, nephew, and all is forgotten.”

  The men cheered the offer of leniency.

  Yet Randolph remained unrepentant. “I performed this service to repay Douglas’s kindness. I made a grave error in judgment by submitting to the English. For that, I will live forever with the shame. But I shall not do penance for one malfeasance by committing another.”

  Edward spun Randolph by the shoulders to confront him. “Have you lost your senses? The king has just offered you your life.”

  Randolph rebuffed the crass bargain with a contemptuous jaw. “The English are duplicitous, but you Bruces have refined the vice to a fine art. You refuse to fight honorably, and you speak oaths too easily. Douglas and his lady put the crown on your head, my lord. You chose personal glory over the duty of aman friendship.”

  Robert struggled to his feet. “I should have you strung up!”

  “Aye, if by the continuance of terror you would enforce your rule.”

  Robert stumbled, wincing from the ache in his ribs. The men rushed to brace him, but he pushed them aside. He commanded a rope and with trembling hands noosed Randolph’s neck. “You accuse me of waging this war by base means. Do you know who fathered that strategy?”

  Randolph, glancing at the beam above him, shook his head.

  “Our mutual friend for whom you have such high esteem.” Robert waited for his nephew to break. Finding him still defiant, he nodded in a grudging admiration for his principles and removed the noose from around his neck. “You resemble Jamie in more than just features. You’ll stay with me, Thomas. Fight or not, that is your choice. But I’ll not give you the satisfaction of taking leave of this cracked world before I do.”

  XXVII

  JAMES CRAWLED OUT FROM HIS leafy lair in the outskirts of Ettrick Forest and listened for the rustling of Clifford’s patrols. Finding the wilderness trail near Jedburgh deserted, he signaled for his three hundred raiders to join him in the clearing. Pale from weeks of no sun, the men emerged from the cover of the foliage and sprawled along a high ridge south of the Tweed River, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to bask under the warm spring rays.

  As they lounged, James walked among his small band, checking on the condition of their feet and weapons. He had driven them hard during these three years since the Douglas Larder raid, but their punishing sorties against the occupied Borders burghs had prevented the English from sending reinforcements against Robert’s army in the Highlands. Clifford was always predictable in his retaliation, burning the same Scot castles and abbeys and ordering his officers into this wilderness on a fruitless search for prisoners. Inevitably, Clifford would become overconfident, convincing himself that the Scot raiders had finally fled north, and then he and his Lanark men would then strike again at the occupation garrisons, poisoning their wells and ambushing their supply trains.

  Despite these successes, he was growing frustrated with the gadfly role that Robert had assigned him. Berwick remained out of his reach, and he feared Belle would not survive much longer in that miserable cage designed for her humiliation. He had scoured his brain for some way to rescue her, but in the end, he knew an attack on the impregnable port city with such a small force would be suicidal.

  While the others caught up on their sleep, he unrolled his tattered pack and took refuge again in the hope that had always kept him from despair: He and Belle with a dozen children in some manor house above a salmon stream. As he daydreamed, he gazed down at this lush valley lined with oaks, and blinked hard. Before him lay the very landscape that had always appeared in his reveries, accurate to the covering groves that would protect against the harsh winter winds. This rock-strewn clearing guarded the ancient Roman way that offered the only route into England for twenty leagues in either direction. The horse path snaked around the hill and descended into a cranny with steep shoulders. No one could cross the border here without passing through this natural gateway; it would make a perfect spot to situate his headquarters and build a home for Belle. Inspired, he rousted Sweenie from his slumber.

  “That was an hour?” the monk grumbled.

  “What is the name of this place?”

  Rubbing his bleary eyes, Sweenie pulled out the sheepskin map that he kept hidden in his sacerdotal. He ran his stumpy forefinger down the angling line demarking the border and stopped at an insignificant “X” that represented a desolate shepherd’s pass. “Lintalee.”

  “Lintalee? What does that name mean?”

  “It’s Gaelic for the only place in God’s kingdom in which I’ve managed five minutes of sleep since I had the misfortune of encountering you.”

  “Bless this hill,” James told him. “Or do whatever you churchmen need to do to make it mine.”

  “Make it yours?” Sweenie leapt to his feet and stamped his short staff in protest. “What makes you think the Almighty fashioned this landscape for you?”

  “I was just visited with a holy vision.” He captured the little monk by the scruff of his neck and led him down the valley toward the creek. “I’m thinking of building a chapel here, maybe even an abbey.” He winked in conspiracy. “Of course, its abbot will enjoy a rich endowment.”

  Sweenie escaped his hold and harrumphed at the bribe. “You think I’m fool enough to squander away my days of old age under your—”

  A thunder of hooves came rumbling up from the south.

  James whistled the other men back to the woods. Too far away to rejoin them without being seen, he led Sweenie on a run toward the ravine. He gave his dagger to the monk and swept his hand across his own throat to instruct him on the swiftest technique for the kill.

  The approaching patrol galloped into the sunken path with none of the cautious manner typical of Clifford’s troopers.

  James pounced into the crease of the first two riders. He dragged them from their saddles while Sweenie leeched on the third rider’s back and rode him like a snorting bull. James stunned a fourth intruder with a knee blow, then jumped astride a fifth rider and pinned him. In the midst of the scuffle, he felt a strange softness on the man’s chest.

  “Hold off!” one of the unhorsed riders shouted.

  The rest of the Scot raiders jumped down from their hiding in the trees and appeared above the ravine with their notched bows aimed at the trespassers.

  The leader of the mounted patrol stepped forward with his hands raised. “We have no quarrel with brigands. Allow us passage, and you will be well compensated.”

  James collared the man. “Brigands? I’ll sever that slandering tongue!”

  McClurg restrained him from gutting their captive. “At least find out where his lucre is stashed before you render him speechless.”

  “Finian’s teeth!” Sweenie shouted.

  The Scots turned to find the monk still wrestling with his victim, biting and cursing like a la
ndlocked Islesman. Outsized, Sweenie finally ripped away the man’s cloak and exposed a mantle sewn with a splayed red cross.

  James removed the helmet from one of the riders he had just unhorsed. Standing before him was Jeanne de Rouen, the lass who had bested him in swordplay in Paris. He stripped off her riding cloak and discovered that she wore a black mantle stitched with a red, eight-pointed cross.

  Driven to the task by dagger points, her companions removed their own cloaks, revealing splayed red crosses on their mantles.

  “Murderous bastards!” Sim Ledhouse snarled at the crusader monks. “I lost two kinsmen at Falkirk to these conniving Templars. Caernervon sent them slithering up here to do his assassin work. I say we slice them from ear to ear and send their heads back to London.”

  James recognized their leader as Peter d’Aumont, the haughty Auvergne monk who had shouted threats at him in Paris. He twisted the knave’s collar to demand an explanation for this trespassing so far from France. “What skullduggery brings the French Temple to Scotland?”

  “Philip has imprisoned our brothers on false charges of crimes against the Church. Those still alive are now at the mercy of torturers.”

  Ledhouse got into d’Aumont’s face. “This one’s a coward as well as a traitor! He leaves his men behind while he flees to save his own hide.”

  “To fight on!” d’Aumont insisted. “I led what few I could muster into the Orient Forest near Troyes. We made our way by night to La Rochelle and sailed across the Channel.”

  “Longshanks favored the Temple,” James reminded the French monk. “And Caernervon was knighted in your sanctuary.”