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

by Glen Craney

  “The Scots have contested the entry, Majesty.”

  Caernervon angrily stripped his soaked cloak and threw it to the ground. His servants rushed to shield him with a canopy, causing the runoff to fall on his officers. The king turned on Clifford again and demanded an explanation. “You have not flanked them?”

  “The river blocks our approach,”

  “River? You call that offal trench a river?”

  Cam spoke up to warn the king against any attempt to cross the ground that lay between them and Stirling. “Those vales are impassable.”

  Caernervon slogged a raging circle around his drenched officers. “Am I to understand that all that stands between me and the capture of Bruce and Douglas is mud? My treasury spent on the largest army ever assembled this side of the Channel! Months of suffering this miserable hellhole to be denied by mud?” He kicked up globs of muck onto Gloucester’s breeches.

  Gloucester was forced to suffer the smirks of Hugh Despenser, who was clever enough to remain in the shadows when the king was in one of his black moods. The earl tried to reason with Caernervon. “Sire, the heavy armor—”

  “You will take our horse across that stream!” Caernervon shouted at the earl. “By dawn, we will stand between the Scots and Stirling Bridge!”

  Gloucester looked to the other lords for support in his protest, but none in the royal council were willing to come to his defense. He knew that his standing with this incompetent monarch could never be repaired; it was England he now hoped to save. “Such a position will expose us needlessly. The river would be to our backs. Should we need to retreat—”

  “Do as I command! Or I will have you arrested!”

  While the king ranted on, Clifford pulled Cam aside and whispered, “You’re familiar with this ground?” Receiving a nod, Clifford looked out across the dark carse and ordered the turncoat Scot, “Meet me at the picket line in an hour.”

  UNABLE TO SLEEP, JAMES LAY on his bedroll and rehearsed in his mind the order in which the next morning’s battle might unfold. The day’s unlikely victory had bonded their men into an army, but he was under no illusion that the morrow would offer up another Bohun to lay waste to Clifford’s cautious tactics. Assured that his division had been fed and given its orders, he arose and walked the ridges along the New Park, where hundreds of desultory fires flickered through the swirling shrouds of rain and mist. He was not a praying man, but on this night he felt the need.

  He came up the hill to St. Ninian’s kirk, and entered the sanctuary. Inside, he found Robert, still in his muddied battle gear, bent over the kneeler under an icon of the kingdom’s patron saint. “You should get some rest.”

  “Do you ever think about Hell, Jamie?”

  Alarmed by that tone of flagging resolve, James offered him his cloak for warmth. “I think about what Belle endures. And I know God could not surpass the English in devising torments.”

  Robert dropped his head in weariness as he draped his shoulders with the cloak. “I’m not as strong as your lass.”

  “You’re strong enough.”

  Robert lifted himself from the kneeler, wincing from the ache in his joints, and walked to a crude crucifix above the altar to study the mutilated image of Christ. “The churchmen say if we die denied the grace of God, we will burn for eternity.”

  James had seen that same tortured look of doubt in Robert’s eyes on the night of their Turnberry invasion. He backed against the wall and slid to his haunches. “Do they not also promise that every man is to be given his Day of Judgment? I’ll take eternal damnation, provided I can confront the Almighty and ask Him why a good woman is caused to suffer so. If you go to the fires, Rob, you’ll go surrounded by the best men God ever fashioned. And Satan will have an army that will make the archangels tremble.”

  Robert’s pugnacious jaw still led, but his shoulders had become rounded from the burdens of the war, and a slight paunch now hung above his belt. On this night, he had a soulful urgency that verged on desperation, a crisis of resolve that surpassed even their darkest days on Arran. They both knew that, if captured, they would face the same fate dealt to Wallace.

  “We could still make for the Isles. Cross Stirling Bridge and burn it.” Ashamed of his weakening resolve, Robert could not bring himself to look up.

  James stood to leave him to his prayers. He had dealt with Robert’s low moods too many times to count, but the irony of this night did not escape him. He had shaped the very strategy that Robert was now proposing—the slash and burn, the patience to fight another day. All that had been fine when they were young. But he could no longer endure the thought of running across the Isles again, lurking from cave to cave and surviving on hope alone. “Aye, we could fight from the mountains, come out at night like we have since we were lads. And our sons and grandsons could do the same. And it would never end.”

  Robert returned the loaned cloak. “Jamie …”

  James saw a hesitant look in his eyes. “Rob, what is wrong?”

  Robert turned away, as if thinking better of uttering what he had nearly revealed. “Be careful tomorrow.”

  JAMES LEFT THE KIRK TROUBLED by a frisson of foreboding. Had there been a hint of clairvoyance in Robert’s voice? Or was his own gut warning him of something more ominous? He crossed the crown of the Dryfield in the drizzle, memorizing every swale and copse for the coming battle. When he neared one of the burn’s offshoots, an arrow landed near his feet. A spooked sentry, most likely.

  He walked guardedly toward the direction of the arrow’s firing.

  “We can avoid this,” a voice called out through the fog.

  He risked a few steps closer. As the shrouds of mist slowly cleared, he saw Clifford and Cam standing across the Pelstream. He reached for his dagger, but they were too far for an accurate throw. He tried to coax them closer. “Come over here. I can barely hear you.”

  Clifford laughed. “After all these years, you think we’d fall for that?”

  “Join us, Douglas,” Cam said, “and all is forgiven.”

  He suspected a trap. “Your bribes are nothing to me. Ask Caernervon.”

  “The Bruces intend to abandon you,” Clifford warned. “My scouts say their baggage wagons are loaded for a retreat to the Campsies. They will leave you to fight while they escape to the Isles.”

  He couldn’t help but wonder if that distant look in Robert’s eyes had indeed been betrayal. Why had Robert placed the royal standard on Coxet Hill, which sat near the only escape route to the West? In battles past, Robert had always been in the middle of the fray. Determined not to let Clifford and Cam detect his doubt, he picked up a stone and hurled it across the burn, then retraced his steps back into the fog.

  Clifford edged closer to the stream. “I have convinced the king that imprisoning your woman no longer serves our purpose!”

  Hopeful, he stopped and turned back.

  Clifford grinned at the silence, having exposed his old rival’s weakness. “Tomorrow, my courier will deliver an order to Berwick … for her execution.”

  Cam laughed. “She lost her head once when she crowned Bruce. We’d not see her lose it again, eh Douglas?”

  “You can still save her,” Clifford offered. “Bruce need not know. When we move for Stirling in the morning, hold back your division until we gain the high ground. It will be over before you engage. I will see to it that the execution order never arrives.”

  James dived into the burn and swam furiously to overtake the two scoundrels. When he reached the far bank, he pulled his dagger for the kill, but they had disappeared into the mists.

  XXXI

  “BRING HER.”

  That command, from somewhere in the morning’s darkness, startled Belle out of a fevered sleep. Lifted off the cage floor, she went rigid with fear. Had Caernervon finally ordered her to the execution block? Nearly blind from the hunger glaze that had hardened over her eyes, she could make out only flashes and shadows as she was removed from the cage and carried up the tower stairs. />
  The howling of the sea wind silenced suddenly.

  She heard the crackling of a hearth. Tears of bitter irony stung her swollen lids. She had languished in the harsh elements for seven years, freezing during the winters and sweltering during the summers, but now she would meet her end under a dry roof in a chamber heated for comfort. The soldiers laid her on what felt like piles of straw, no doubt strewn to soak up her blood. Even at death’s approach, she couldn’t help but sink into the luxurious softness of the matting. Deprivation had heightened what she had once taken for granted. This nesting, better suited for mules, felt as heavenly as a feather bed.

  Was Caernervon watching her from the balustrade? Aye, he would expect her to break and beg a chance to renounce her allegiance to Robert Bruce. But she would not give him the satisfaction. She lifted to her knees, struggling against the faintness to remain upright. She stretched her neck to offer the executioner a better target and shouted at the English king, “Come strike the blow, eunuch!”

  A door slammed.

  She shuddered and collapsed—but her head still pounded horribly. She risked opening her eyes and saw the same swirl of blurs that only seconds before she thought would be her last view of this world. Her heart sank. She was still alive. She reach up and felt for the wound on her neck, but found none.

  Incompetent swordsman! Why does he not finish me?

  A bowl of warm liquid redolent of honey and cinnamon came to her lips. She tried to sip it, but her throat was too swollen to swallow. She coughed and retched with spasms. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire. They are reviving me only to suffer the blade again. She shoved away the bowl in a rage. Her thrashing arms were restrained.

  “You are safe here,” a woman’s voice whispered.

  Smooth hands caressed her forehead … and then a blurred face, framed in blonde hair, came hovering over her.

  The English queen?

  She reached out, clawing at the softness under her, and found that she was not on execution straw, but a bed. She sobbed, undone by the discovery. “You must take me back. If your husband learns—”

  “You needn’t worry about him,” Isabella of France said. “At least for this night. He has taken an army north to fight your people.”

  Alarmed, Belle tried to arise. “Jamie must be warned.”

  Isabella eased her back to the pillow and brought more tea to her lips. “There is nothing you can do for him now.”

  Belle tried to marshal her fragmented thoughts. More and more, her mind now lapsed into periods of forgetfulness, and each time it happened, she feared that she would not return to sanity. She fought against these involuntary retreats from the world, worried she might not recognize Jamie when he came for her. Having lost track again of the months again, she had to ask, “What year is it?”

  “1314. The 24th of June.”

  “Midsummer day?”

  The queen nodded wistfully. “When I lived in Paris, I so looked forward to the festival. I’d stroll the gardens picking roses to offer to my beau.”

  Belle smiled. “I’d swim naked in the sea like Aphrodite.”

  “You Scots are mad!” Isabella covered her mouth immediately, concerned that she might have given offense.

  A burst of frantic chirping came from outside the window.

  Belle turned at the sound, realizing that the larks that nested atop her cage had been thrown into perturbation by her disappearance. “Aye, I suppose we are mad. But only a Frenchwoman touched in the head by glamourie dust would risk her position with king and Parliament to keep a Scot prisoner alive.”

  The two women shared a nervous laugh that died with a sad silence.

  “I do have one quibble with you,” Belle added, wishing to chase the melancholy that had overtaken the moment. “That loaf of bread you tossed me on the day of Longshanks’s funeral was week-old and moldy.”

  “The harder the crust, the easier the throw.”

  Belle sensed that the queen was examining her wasted condition, trying to fathom how she had managed to stay alive. They were nothing alike in features or temperament, but their lives had taken parallel paths. Both had been thrust into the same foreign land and made prisoner to the same despicable monarch. Her suffering in that cage was nearly unbearable. Yet she would not trade it for Isabella’s fate; to be cast off for another woman would be crushing enough, but to be abandoned for another man’s bed with no hope of enjoying the intimacy of passion was a cruelty that only the Plantagenets could design.

  She remembered the first time they had spoken, on the dance floor of this very tower. She had always wondered why the presumptuous French girl came to her rescue that day. How angry Jamie had been at them both; she could still feel the heat from his wild eyes. The Almighty’s ways were passing mysterious. Had Isabella not contrived that reunion with James, she would never have rushed to Scone to place the crown on—

  A wail startled her.

  A matron stood at the door with a crying infant. “Mum, it is the hour.”

  Isabella untied her bodice and took the swaddled child to suckle it. She indicated for the matron to leave, but before doing so, the matron retracted the curtains in a protest against the French practice of coddling babes.

  Belle was stunned. “Your husband has proven a man, after all?”

  When the queen did not answer her, Belle raised her head to examine the infant cocooned in strips of linen and lace. She caressed its downy head and saw from the embroidery of the cloth that it was a boy. These cruel English imprisoned their children with such bonds in the belief that the natural act of crawling was insubordinate. Was it any wonder that their men turned ravenous for war?

  As if to confirm that judgment, the infant lunged at Isabella’s nipple.

  Belle was suddenly swept by a wave of revulsion. This birth meant that the Plantagenet house would survive for another generation. How many more of her countrymen would die under the watch of this child? And then, a revelation came: Had God asked her to endure this diabolical confinement to bring her to this moment of opportunity? She turned an ear. The floorboards were no longer creaking—the guards must have departed with the matron.

  A stream of golden light revealed the location of the window.

  She had not walked that far in seven years. Could she summon the strength to commit the deed? Deprived of his heir, Caernervon would lose the flagging support of the earls, and the English invasion would be rendered stillborn.

  “He is ten months old,” Isabella said.

  Belle struggled to her elbows, shifting nearer to the edge of the bed while continuing to talk to disarm Isabella. “Have you named him?”

  “Edward.”

  Belle winced at hearing the surname that had been a curse on Scot lips for two generations, and now a third. Malevolent fate. A woman who did not love her husband had been given a child whose destiny marked it for the oppression of thousands. How many times had she replayed that night in Methven, when she and Jamie had talked of raising a family? Her best years had been wasted in that cage, and she feared from the dead feeling in her womb that she could never provide him with those children.

  “Would you like to hold him?”

  Before Belle could answer, she felt the infant placed in her wasted arms. The boy stopped crying and grinned up at her, as if daring her to do it. The shutters on the window rapped against the stones. Could the guards on the ramparts see her through the open panes? Her hands were shaking. If Caernervon discovered that she had been allowed to hold his heir, the queen would suffer gravely. Why does she take such wanton risk? She saw Isabella’s drawn face staring down at her with a look of desperate expectation.

  She wants me to kill it.

  Was this why she brought her in from the cage?

  Aye, she also abhors the thought of Caernervon’s progeny ascending the throne. It all made sense now. If Isabella committed the deed, her husband would have his justification for ridding himself of the marriage that he despised and thus freeing England from it
s treaty with France. If, on the other hand, an imprisoned Scot woman was the culprit, Isabella would be vilified for weakness and negligence in showing mercy to a fellow lady of noble rank, but the English barons would never permit her to be exiled or executed, not after she had proven capable of bearing children with the unreliable Caernervon. His preference for men was now widely rumored across the Continent. Longshanks had beguiled Phillip into the marriage when his son had still been a callow youth. No monarch would risk bonding a daughter to Caernervon now.

  She felt the infant’s head pressing against her shriveled bosom. The wind was rising, and the first rays of dawn were forming on the horizon. The wind was rising, and the first rays of dawn were forming on the horizon. The matron might return any moment to close the rattling shutters. She covered the babe’s head with the corner of the blanket. Why did I do that? The infant nuzzled closer to her and fell asleep in her arms. She tried to quell the trembling in her hands. “My eyes are poor. May I take him to the light?”

  Isabella assisted her to her feet and helped her walk with unsteady steps toward the bay window. She felt the queen’s hands trembling against her elbows as she ran a finger across the child’s matted sprouts of hair. A blast of sunlight suddenly hit her face, warning her that she had reached the ledge. This wee monster that ran with the ancestral blood of Longshanks reached for her breast. As she tightened her hold, her long nails brushed the infant’s pink neck, and its mucous-rimmed eyes looked up at her in accusation. The queen eased the grasp on her elbow, allowing her the required freedom of movement to lean into the window. One more step and—

  Heavy boot steps came thudding down the hall outside.

  Isabella quickly took the child back, a moment before the chancellor of the royal household, accompanied by the sneering matron, entered the chamber.

  The official took the infant from her. “The prince must be returned to the nursery. And you will be kind enough to join us, madam.”