by Glen Craney
“A prisoner?” James protested. “What do you expect me to do with him?”
Randolph dragged the captive from the saddle. “He came to us demanding to speak to the Black Douglas. Apparently he couldn’t find you on his own.”
Suspecting another prank, James waved off that claim and prepared to return to his seat at the fire. “I’ve had my fill of your amusements for one night.”
“I carry a message from the King of England,” the prisoner said.
James spun on his heels at hearing that familiar voice.
The Lanark raiders tightened a circle around the imperious Englishman. But despite their glares of intimidation, the blindfolded captive remained adamant in his demand. “What I have to say is for the ear of Douglas only.”
James confronted him. “I have nothing to hide from these men.”
“I must first confirm that you are Douglas.”
Ledhouse pressed a dagger to the prisoner’s throat. “No Englishman sees the Douglas in Ettrick and lives to tell of it.”
When the messenger refused to retract his condition, James yanked off his blindfold. Before him stood John Webton, the knight whose life he had spared in the attack on Castle Douglas. “Your letter-writing lady is well, I trust.”
Webton displayed a betrothal band on his finger. “She sends her regards.”
“I hope you didn’t come all this way expecting a wedding gift.”
Webton lowered his voice to soften the impact of what he next related, “You are to come to Melrose Abbey on morrow eve. Alone and unarmed.”
“By whose demand?”
“On that I have been sworn to secrecy.” Webton was reluctant to finish his report. “I was also commanded to tell you … if you wish to see the Countess of Buchan again, you will be there.”
Ledhouse drove the Englishman against a tree. “Let’s string him up!”
Impressed by Webton’s courage, James held his men at bay while he tried to divine the purpose of such a strange message. After mulling the risk, he cut the bindings on Webton’s wrists and led him back to his horse.
Webton mounted. “What answer shall I convey?”
James slapped the flanks of the horse and sent his former deskmate galloping off without a reply.
“I’ll follow him,” McClurg said.
“No,” James ordered.
Randolph glared at him with a slack jaw. “You’re not thinking of going?”
James turned over in his mind all of the reasons the English might have for seeking such a meeting. He had recaptured many of the castles in the south, but Clifford still held Stirling, Bothwell, Jedburgh, Dunbar, and Berwick. If one of the garrison commanders sought the parlay on his own initiative, Caernervon’s army would not yet have launched its invasion. Could this be a ruse to capture him? Or confirm that he was still in the Borders? No, Clifford would never expect him to walk alone into such a trap. Something else had to be afoot. Perhaps Lancaster was signaling a desire to join Robert in the war against Caernervon.
“Jamie?” Randolph said, reminding him that they were all waiting.
James wrapped his arm around Randolph’s shoulder and led his rival below a limb where their battle gear was hung. “Tom, I suspect your life has been a long series of disappointments since that day you traipsed into Inverurie playing me. I’m going to give you an opportunity to experience the thrill again.”
Randolph turned to the other Lanark raiders for an explanation. “I’ve heard about these daft spells of his.”
James sized up Randolph’s height and measured him with his own black hauberk imprinted with the robin-blue Douglas crest. Marveling at how well it fit Randolph, he now understood how Robert could have made the mistake of identity at Inverurie. “With your scrawny frame, you may buckle under its weight, but hopefully you’ll find a way to manage.”
“You going to let us in this cockeyed plan?” Ledhouse asked.
James rifled through one of the bedrolls. Finding a monk’s cowl, he slipped it over his shoulders for a disguise. “Tomorrow night, the Black Douglas attacks Jedburgh. Too bad I won’t be there to enjoy it.” He playfully thumped Randolph’s chest with his fist. “Try not to ruin my reputation.”
THE NEXT NIGHT, JAMES STALKED the roofless hull of Melrose Abbey, a Cistercian monastery abandoned after repeated English raids. He slipped alone into the ashlar ruins and searched the dark nave, moving with stealth from pillar to pillar. By now, if the English had taken the bait, Randolph and the lads would be drawing Clifford toward Jedburgh with their diversionary raid. Whoever was meeting him here would expect him to approach from Ettrick in the west, so he had come in from the direction of the coast, but he had seen no tracks or fresh horse chips around the grounds.
Pipistrelle bats squealed from their perches on the vaulting and dived at him. He spun around with his hand on the dagger under his cloak. From the shadows at the high altar, the silhouette of a draped figure appeared. He halted and waited for an indication of the man’s intent.
A black-robed figure walked into the diffused light. “I bring a proposal.”
He couldn’t see the face receded in the hood. “From whom?”
The messenger hesitated. “The King of England.”
Why did that voice sound familiar? He turned and scanned the colonnades to insure again that no one was lurking behind him. Taking a step closer, he saw from the messenger’s garb that he was a monk. “Churchmen now conduct England’s diplomacy?”
“Your lady will be delivered.”
He closed in on the monk. “Edward Caernervon is not so generous.”
The monk retreated a step to avoid being identified. “Keep your distance. … Someone dear to the king is in danger. You will give him refuge.”
He narrowed his blinking gaze, astonished by the extraordinary demand and its peremptory tone. “And if I refuse?”
“The Countess of Buchan will not survive another winter.”
He drove the insolent monk against the altar and ripped off the knave’s hood, exposing his face.
Staring up at him was the Dominican Lagny, the inquisitor he had first encountered as a young man in Paris. The monk signaled with a weak turn of his head at the shadows behind the altar. From the protection of a column walked a skeleton of a man wheezing with labored breaths. The Dominican brought the half-dead wretch forward. “The king wishes him protected.”
Several seconds passed before James recognized the invalid. Hollow-eyed and pale as a ghost, Piers Gaveston no longer resembled the blustering scoundrel who had sat laughing at him during the signing of the Ragman Rolls, when his fellow countrymen had been forced to submit in humiliation to Longshanks.
His mind raced with the implications of this astonishing offer. Although installed as the Earl of Cornwall, the Gascon had to be in grave danger with the other earls if Caernervon was resorting to such risky measures. If Lancaster were to discover that Caernervon was negotiating to place the safety of his favourite over the interests of the realm, the foundations of the Plantagenet house would certainly crumble. Still, he sensed that this monk’s plea for sanctuary rang true. His own spies had reported rumors from Yorkshire that Caernervon could not sleep and was refusing food for fear of ingesting more poison intended for Gaveston. He had initially dismissed such reports as scurrilous gossip planted by enemies of the Plantagenet intent on removing Gaveston from his position of influence in the court. But now, seeing the Gascon so deteriorated …
“Robert Bruce takes the credit for your victories,” the Dominican said. “His queen enjoys the warmth of a nunnery while your lady languishes in torment. You can still save her.”
He cocked his ear toward the dark recesses. Caernervon might be desperate, but would that coward really send this cleric skulking across the border without an armed escort? He glared at Gaveston and tried to find some quality in the cretin justifying such loyalty. “Caernervon risks his crown for him?”
The monk did not break his cold, emotionless gaze. “The king has
instructed me to ask you a question.”
“And what would that be?”
“Have you ever known a love for which you would abandon all?”
He came nose to nose with the supercilious inquisitor. “Aye, I have known two. And both have suffered at Caernervon’s pasty hand.”
The Dominican flinched as if expecting a blow. “The king asks only that you take Gaveston into your custody until he can consolidate his forces against Lancaster. The Bruce need not know of the arrangement.”
James held back his cocked fist. “The countess will be released?”
The inquisitor nodded. “She will be taken to a nunnery and nursed to health. Within the year, on Lord Gaveston’s safe return, she will be delivered to you.”
He weighed the desperate offer. Holing up Gaveston in one of his Ettrick hideaways would not be difficult, but if the Gascon were forced to remain at Caernervon’s side, the English lords would be too preoccupied with scheming their king’s demise to unite and mount an invasion. Such a delay, even for just a few months, would give Robert precious time to strengthen his army and drive the English garrisons from Stirling and Berwick. If he accepted this arrangement to save Belle, he might well be dooming Robert’s kingship.
Rob or Belle, again.
A JOLT SHOOK BELLE FROM her stupor.
She lifted her head, cursing at her mind’s tricks. She could no longer make it through the nights without being attacked by hallucinations of falling into the river and drowning. Half blind, she levered to her elbows and crawled in the darkness to the bars, navigating by the flickering of the distant flames on the rampart tapers.
Yet this time it was no nightmare—the cage was being cranked down.
The blurred outline of a towering form came rising toward the gate. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw Jamie’s face. Her heart leapt. Had he come to take her home? She folded her hands to St. Bride in gratitude. Yet she dared not utter his name for fear that any act of desperation to rush to him might cause the English to reconsider.
She had not touched the ground in years. How she had dreamt of whisking her toes again through the wet grass. Then, she remembered her weakened condition. She could not let Jamie see her in such a frightful state. She poured what little water remained in her drinking cup down her face to cleanse the sea salt from her rough cheeks. She ran a hand across her forehead, knowing that she must be hideous with her skin so windswept and cracked. Would he still love her looking like this?
A new angle on the world came into her vaporous view—and the cage halted, several feet yet from the ground.
Caernervon, in armour, rode up on a charger and sat staring at her.
The king’s altered appearance stunned her. He had lost several stones in weight, and his drawn eyes were bloodshot and full of bitterness. She tried to make out what moved beyond his shoulders. A long column of soldiers, including Gloucester and Clifford, sat arrayed in mounted formation with banners flying. She searched their blurred faces in vain to find the man she loved.
“No song for me this morning?” Caernervon asked her. “I was looking forward to a performance. What has it been since you last serenaded me? Five years?”
She squinted again at the mounted men behind him. Where was Jamie? And why had Caernervon traveled here to Berwick with such a large entourage? Of course! Jamie had refused to cross into enemy land. The English were preparing to escort her to the border for an exchange of prisoners. She pulled up from her knees, determined to walk out just as she had walked in. The river was lined with townspeople who had come to see her depart.
Caernervon extended his hand to her through the prongs.
As his reach came closer to her blinking eyes, she realized that he was offering her the key to the cage latch. She smiled through tears. It was just like Jamie to demand that she be allowed to open the door herself. He would suffer no Englishman to boast of that deed. She reached for her freedom—
The king pulled back the key, inches from her grasp. “They beheaded him.”
She collapsed to her knees. Please God, no!
“On Blacklow Hill. Lancaster and Warwick dragged him from his bed in dead of night. Thousands packed picnic lunches and blew horns as he was led to the block. I am told it was like a festival.”
She fell back and, sinking in grief, drew her wasted legs to her elbows. She heard soft weeping, and looked up. Tears were streaming down the king’s cheeks. Why was he crying?
They executed his favourite—not Jamie!
She pulled back onto her knees in numbing relief. She was not leaving England, after all, but she didn’t care. Jamie was still alive.
“You will see Douglas soon enough,” Caernervon promised her. “I will not return from Scotland until I have him at the end of a rope. Here, under your gaze, he will meet the same end that Piers suffered. I should think you would want to live long enough to witness that.”
In her periphery, a sudden movement high on the tower caught her attention. She shielded her failing eyes from the harsh sunlight and forced as much distance as she could into her sight. A hand quickly pulled the covering over the window. The royal chamber, she remembered, was in that section of the tower. Had Isabella been watching her speak to her husband? Why, she wondered, had the English queen remained here in Berwick instead of returning to more hospitable accommodations in London or York? She shuddered with a horrid thought: Had Isabella conspired with Lancaster to murder Gaveston? She drew strength from knowing that the plucky Frenchwoman had learned to survive among these English, who despised her also. Turning back to Caernervon, she locked onto his vengeful eyes and asked him, “Does it not seem strange?”
Alerted by her distraction, Caernervon glared at the now-abandoned window in the tower. “Strange, you say?”
“That God places inferior men on thrones.”
Caernervon seemed to take refuge in an inward glare of hatred for the world. “Do you still love James Douglas? After what he has done to you?”
“More each passing day.”
“That is what strikes me as truly strange. Considering that he could have had you removed from this misery.”
She steeled her reaction. But inside, she was shaking with confusion.
Caernervon motioned his entourage off, out of hearing range. Clifford delayed his departure, concerned that the Scotswoman might strike out at the king with her nails if he came too close to the cage, but Caernervon demanded that the officer peel off toward the bridge with the others.
Alone with Belle, Caernervon whispered through the prongs, “Last month, I offered Douglas your release. He refused to respond to my merciful proposal for an exchange.”
“Liar!”
“Nay, in truth, he told me my envoy that he considered you dead. Robert Bruce is all he cares about now. But fear not, my lady. I intend to defend your honor. The man who jilted you will soon suffer the agony that I now endure when Bruce climbs to the block.”
She saw him waiting for her to crack with emotion, but she turned away, refusing to give him the satisfaction.
He slammed his fist against the cage. Punishing his mount with the reins, he wheeled and galloped north across the bridge.
Clifford circled back and came up, alone, to the lowered cage. Glancing over his shoulder as the royal column crossed the Tweed into Scotland, the officer curled a treacherous smile at her. “I must commend you, my lady. Your stubbornness to stay alive has served us admirably.”
“I have never served you! And never will!”
“You must not sell yourself so short in your influence. You have proven more valuable to England than a dozen divisions, for you have accomplished what none of my countrymen could manage. You have turned our king into a warrior.”
She squinted at Caernervon riding over the distant hills. Had she unwittingly doomed Robert and James to annihilation, as the officer claimed? Sensing her doubt, Clifford grinned at her and bowed his head with mock courtesy. As he rode off to rejoin the invasion force, the guards
on the ramparts hoisted her cage back into the drizzling sky.
XXX
TETHERED TOGETHER BY ROPES AT their waists, three hundred volunteers from the western Isles waited anxiously in their hollow-square formation, uncertain if the attack would come from the Torwood at their front or across Giles Hill behind them. In the hazy distance to the north, a besieged English garrison stood atop the ramparts of Stirling Castle, shouting taunts and placing wagers on whether the Scot infantry would run.
A low rumbling from the south sent rabbits scurrying up the old Roman road that led to the small milling village of Bannock. Moments later, a frothing herd of long-horned Angus broke through the Torwood pines and stampeded toward the raw Scot recruits.
The officers in the center of the schiltron shouted orders for pikes to be lowered in a practiced maneuver that resembled a giant hedgehog bristling to repulse a predator. When the thundering cattle closed within a stone’s throw of the front ranks, the volunteers abandoned their sharpened poles and broke for the cover of the burn. Those veterans stationed behind them struggled to hold the line, but they too were finally dragged off in the panicked scramble.
Punished by the hoots of the Stirling defenders, Robert Keith the Marishal led his small contingent of Scot cavalry down the ridge and rustled the cattle back to their pens.
Watching from Coxet Hill, Robert Bruce bit off a flurry of curses at the shameful result of the drill that he had devised to harden his green troops. He lashed his palfrey into the midst of the hangdog volunteers and flayed them with a stinging critique. “God’s blood! Shall I send sheep upon you next? If you won’t stand up to thirty heifers, how do you expect to face down English knights?”
“We’ve had our fill of this foolishness!”
He turned in the saddle to find the source of that challenge in the fractured ranks. “Show your face!”
A thick-bearded Islesman armed with a spiked targe stepped forward. “I’ll fight the damned Angles! But I’ll not stand idle for bovine to gore me!”
