by Glen Craney
In the bailey outside, he found McKie, McClurg, and his other veterans mounted and waiting for him. He strode down the stairs and was about to raise his boot to the stirrup of his Arabian horse when he discovered a second saddlebag hanging from his pommel. He looked at his men for an indication of how the small rucksack had been placed there, but they sat mute and unforthcoming.
He raised the bag and, sniffing a familiar perfume, unwrapped its straps. From its folds he brought forth a sealed letter that was frayed and stained with what looked like drops of tears. He carefully broke the wax imprint and unfolded the letter’s torn creases. As he read the cursive script written in French, his heart nearly stopped:
14 June in the Year of Our Lord, 1314
Dearest Jamie,
The English queen has offered to take down my words. She tells me you are reported near Stirling, where a great battle approaches. She has promised to do all in her power to see that this letter reaches you. She has shown great kindness to me. I regret the jealousy I once nurtured against her.
Jamie, you must not hold Robert responsible for my fate. I chose the path to Scone willingly. We are all placed on this earth for a purpose that we cannot know until the end is near. Freedom is an empty prize if it costs the loss of treasured friendship.
I have dreamt each night of being in your arms again. The wee monk at Glen Dochart promised me that we are not doomed to one fleeting life, but that we shall all return to this world to reunite with those who have shared our joys and tribulations.
Keep watch on Columba’s star. I will find you.
Love, Belle
The afternoon light began to fade as he read the last line again. Through filming eyes, he looked up at a tower window and saw Isabella lurking behind the curtains. Dipping his head to her in gratitude, he folded the letter and placed it under his vest. He mounted, fighting the weakness in his legs, and rode toward the bridge over the Tweed with his entourage.
He was nearly through the city’s gate when a spider hurdled down on a thread and spooked his horse. The creature could have been the twin to the one he had found in the Arran cave years ago. The spider twirled and climbed the thread to lead his gaze skyward.
Above him hung a creaking cage.
Hundreds of townsfolk had rushed from their market shops to enjoy his discovery, a small revenge for the humiliating defeat that he had dealt them. When he reached behind his back, the gawkers recoiled, certain that he was drawing his ax in a fit of rage.
Instead, he brought to his chest a mandolin that he carried on his backpack. He had promised Belle that he would sing the last verse of her favourite ballad on their wedding day. After her death, he had not found the strength to even utter those words again. Could he remember them? His voice cracked as he strummed a chord and sang:
“On quiet glen where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow
That I have loved not as I should
A creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay she’ll lose
Her wings at the dawn of day.”
Its vigil finished, the spider sprang from the thread and landed on the mane of the horse to be taken home.
Fighting to hold his emotions in check, James pulled the heart-stone from under his shirt and hung it on the bottom rung of the cage. He found a torch on the wall and, yanking it from its bolting, heaved it into the cage. The flames quickly erupted, and within just minutes the cage crumbled, dropping the elf-stone into the currents of the Tweed that flowed toward Scotland.
With his face glowing from the heat of the now-raging fire, he turned away from Berwick for the last time. As he rode off for Scotland, the English inhabitants who had abused Belle for seven years stood aside to form a path, lowering their heads in shame.
XL
NO LONGER WILLING TO STAND aside and watch the king struggle to rise from his litter, Jeanne rushed up to assist him. “My lord, you have not been off a bed in months. Allow us at least to carry you to the shore.”
Wrapped in linen strips greased with comfrey balm, Robert winced to his unsteady feet, gripping the French lass’s wrist in gratitude for her courage. It had not passed his notice that even his physicians now hesitated to approach him for fear of contracting his flesh-eating disease. Tremoring from just that small effort, he removed her hand from his scabbed elbow and renewed his excruciating attempt to accomplish this last duty by his own power.
Word had spread across Galloway that he was making his long-delayed pilgrimage to Whithorn, and hundreds of men, women, and children, some from as far away as his birth land of Ayrshire, had hurried to this desolate peninsula on the southwest coast to join him on his last quest. On the eve of Bannockburn, kneeling in the saint’s kirk overlooking that battlefield, he had vowed one day to pray in the cave where St. Ninian had sought seclusion a thousand years ago. The nine-day journey in the gurney from Cardross had been torturous, but he had suffered it without complaint.
The end, he knew, was drawing near.
Bishop Lamberton and the lords of the Privy Council followed him as he made halting progress down a wooded path toward the arch of rocks that marked the final descent on the Pilgrim’s Way. The common folk formed a gauntlet along the track and fell to their knees as he passed, some reaching to touch his velvet cloak, others shouting the names of his victories. Overwhelmed by their outpouring of affection, he stumbled and nearly fell.
The royal guards tried to push back the adoring throngs, but he put a stop to their effort to shield him, and beckoned his subjects to his side. On this day, his entourage would be formed by the children and grandchildren of those who had served him in the schiltrons.
At last, he emerged from the tunnel of overhanging oaks. The briny gusts howling inland off the sea nearly blew him over. Steadying against the shoulder of one of his guards, he peered through the mists and found the saint’s cave carved on a scarp overlooking the Irish Sea. His spirit sagged, for he saw that to reach those heights would require a climb strenuous even for a young man. He had not felt so weak since he had crawled half-dead into the Arran cave twenty-three years ago. This dune-mottled beach reminded him of that desolate isle, where he had survived those desperate days on hope alone. But there is no hope in old age. No angel of mercy like Christiana would appear to save him now. Elizabeth, Edward, Angus, Fraser … all were gone.
His cherishing subjects mobbed him, and yet he had never felt so alone.
Ah, Jamie, I miss you.
Fighting the grip in his throat, he resolved not to reveal how womanly in emotion he had become during these past months. He squared his jaw in defiance of cruel fate, as he had done at Loudon Hill and Bannockburn and Scawton Moor, and called up the bishop to his side.
Lamberton, relying on his cane, hurried forward as swiftly as his crippled legs would allow.
Robert threaded arms with his confessor to accomplish these last steps together. He meant the gesture as a declaration: The Protector of St. Andrews had played an equal role in gaining their nation’s freedom. As the two old comrades shuffled with bated steps across the wet sand, only the crash of waves could be heard above the muted coughs and muffled sobs around them.
After an hour of agonizing effort, they finally reached the hermit’s lair.
Robert crumpled down against a boulder, and motioned the bishop to rest aside him. No larger than a servant’s room, the dank chamber had been charred black from thousands of fires set by pilgrims who had come there to petition miracles. Respectful of their privacy, the commoners held back at the cave’s entrance while Jeanne covered the two men with blankets. She lit a fire for their warmth and then retired to the beach.
Robert gazed out at the fading light across Ireland. His brother Edward’s headless corpse lay over there in some unmarked hole. Andrew, Nigel, and Thomas languished in potter’s fields somewhere in England, denied shriven burials. If the pope’s churchmen spoke true
, his brothers had forfeited their excommunicated souls for him. No, for Scotland. He had to believe that, else he could not bear the burden. He muttered in anguish, “Will it last?”
Lamberton cupped his ear to aid his failing hearing. “My lord?”
“This peace. When we are gone, what will prevent the English from waging war on us anew? The lad on their throne reminds me of Longshanks. Full of the blood lust.”
Lamberton squinted toward the shore, trying to make out the weathered faces of their fellow countrymen pressing shoulder-to-shoulder to stay warm. Many of them he had baptized as babes. “Look upon your proud subjects. You have given them a legacy more precious than a fleeting truce. For the first time, they know that they can defeat the English. Will there be more wars? Aye, the world has known nothing else. But our struggle will not have been in vain. Never has so wee a nation subdued such a haught oppressor.”
Robert sighed wearily, haunted by the same questions that had dogged him for years. Had that oracle spider on Arran been a figment of his fevered mind? How had Christiana discovered him so close to death’s door? Did an angel light that fire on Turnberry’s coast to bring him home?
It all seemed a shadowy dream now. In recent months, the border between reality and phantasmagoria had become more difficult for him to discern, and during the early morning hours in particular, he would become entrapped in visions so vivid that they dredged up more emotion than did waking life. He would fight the battles again, giving different orders and this time suffering defeats. The worst was a recurring nightmare in which he was captured and executed while all three Edward Plantagenets watched. When snared in these nightly struggles within his own mind, he was visited with a gnawing sense that he was being shown how his life might have played out had it not been directed by the hand of God. As he pondered these vexing mysteries, he became groggy, and slowly he slipped into a fitful sleep.
AS DUSK APPROACHED, THOMAS RANDOLPH risked a cautious approach into the cave. He gently jostled the slumbering king’s shoulder. “My liege, the light recedes. We must return you to the priory soon.”
Roused from his troubled slumber, Robert wiped the sleep from his eyes and struggled to his knees. “A moment more, Tom.”
Recovering from his own nap, Lamberton understood what the king now wished. The bishop brought forth the holy water from his sacramental pouch and wrapped his shoulders with the frayed penitential stole that he had carried in every campaign since Methven. He had long ago sidestepped the papal nuncio forbidding the sacraments in Scotland by offering his own Culdee rites. This hour, he would do so again. “Shall I order the others away?”
Robert shook his head. “Beckon them closer.”
The bishop hesitated. “If you are to give your confession—”
“What I say to God, I will say to them.”
Lamberton motioned the barons into the cave, and the commoners on the beach surged nearer and knelt near the mouth.
Robert signed his breast. “I have placed the salvation of us all in doubt.”
“No, my lord!” the Scots on the beach shouted. “No pope rules us!”
Robert raised a quivering hand to acknowledge their fealty. “I have made two sacred vows in my life. This day, by the grace of the Almighty, I have fulfilled one. The second I will not live long enough to accomplish. I must petition the aid of others to assist me in seeing that task finished. … When I die, I wish my heart taken to Jerusalem.”
A mournful silence met that astounding request.
The Scots could not bear the thought of the heart that won Bannockburn resting forever in a foreign land. Yet not even Lamberton could dissuade the king from the conviction that the Curse of Malachy would continue to blacken his clan and the realm if he did not fulfill his grandfather’s dying request: That he go to Jerusalem in penance for their forefather’s hanging of the thief in violation of the saint’s plea for mercy.
After a hesitation, Randolph stepped forward. “Sire, tell us who you wish to perform the deed, and it will be done.”
“I would have my council decide.”
These noblemen charged with the momentous decision shared uncertain glances. Randolph was clearly the most capable of accomplishing such an arduous and dangerous journey. But others exceeded him in rank, including Duncan of Fife, Patrick of Dunbar, Hugh of Ross, and Donald of Mar. The Culdee monks also had a claim to the honor, and although Lamberton was too feeble, the younger clerics attached to his office would argue their prerogative. As the men huddled and debated the best candidate, word of the king’s request was passed, whisper to whisper, through the crowds below the cave.
A distant voice from the shoreline shouted, “Douglas!”
The commoners took up the chant, until not even the roar of the sea could drown out their pleas. “Douglas! Douglas!”
Lamberton smiled with pride as he palmed Robert’s forehead to seal the sacrament. “Your subjects have chosen for you.”
Robert enlivened on hearing their preference, but just as swiftly, he turned aside, full of despair. “I could not ask another such sacrifice of Lord Douglas.”
“No one deserves the honor more,” Randolph said.
Robert could not bring himself to look at his councilors. “He holds me in ill esteem, for I have cost him dearly. Nothing could sway him to accept.”
Lamberton knew the hard truth in that assessment. During the passage of years, he had repeatedly failed to persuade James to abandon his bitterness and reconcile with Robert. The bishop shook his head, and both lords and commoners, denied in their hope, slumped in disappointment.
Prisoner to a dilemma, Jeanne had stood on the periphery, listening to the debate. She threaded the ranks of noblemen and came before the king. “Lord Douglas will perform this deed.”
The men waited to hear an explanation for that unlikely prediction, but Jeanne merely drew the cloak over her head and walked out of the cave.
JAMES WANDERED THROUGH THE GRAVEYARD of St. Bride’s kirk, studying the faded headstones and contemplating their dark irony. He had fought for decades to gain freedom from England, and now, with the peace treaty finally signed, he found himself without a purpose. Ever since joining Robert’s cause that fateful day outside Dumfries, he had dreamed of retiring to the life of a gentleman in leisure. But having attained it, he had no one to share in the bounty of victory. He often rode here from Lintalee to while away the days, even though all that remained of Douglasdale were this kirk and the ruins of his father’s tower. He picked two handfuls of goldenrod and placed them on the graves of his stepmother and his father’s servant, Dickson. Then, he entered the chapel and knelt at the front pew.
This is where I wish to rest.
Alas, he would rest there alone. Resisting Robert’s petulant demands, he had never taken a wife. Jeanne had not returned to Lintalee after Elizabeth’s death. He had been too proud to send for her. It was during low times like this that Sweenie would have raised his spirits with a taunt. He wondered what the little monk was up to in the spirit world. No doubt looping a snare of trouble for some unsuspecting Weardale shepherd.
He heard his dog, Mungo, whining below the window of the kirk. The old hound, bred from Chullan’s bloodline, was as old as the twin mastiffs had been at Bannockburn. Chullan had died soon after that battle, his destiny fulfilled after sending Robert Clifford to a muddy grave. Mungo had been out of sorts lately. The dog still chased Northumbrian rabbits that treaded across the border, but at night it whimpered and pined for the men in the army, who were now long gone. He had considered finding a new companion for the mastiff, but he feared a pup would just run them both to death and—
“Are you the Black Douglas?”
He turned from his kneeler with his dagger drawn. How many times in his life had he heard that challenge? Every knave in England seemed bent on hunting him down to earn fame in a duel. Were they now stalking him even to his clan’s kirk? He squinted in the dim light, and at the chapel’s entrance saw a dark-skinned boy with agate
eyes bathed in sadness.
He took a step closer to the intruder. “What is it you want?”
“I bring a message from the king.”
“Toy with me, whelp, and I’ll cut out that lying tongue.” He stole a glance through the window and saw a dappled hobbin tied to a tree. How had this lad come upon him so easily? “Has Robert Bruce turned so skinflint that he refuses to pay couriers now? Does he wish me to win another battle for him? Arrest another of his subjects so he can enjoy watching him drawn and quartered?”
“The king is dying.”
He braced on the pew and steeled his emotions, refusing to give Robert the comfort of a report detailing his grief. “What do I care? Leave me be!”
The boy retreated to the door, then turned back. “I was told to say something more.” When James marched down the aisle to speed him away, the boy pressed his eyes closed and braced for the blow. As the shadow of a punishing arm came over him, he sputtered the words that he had memorized, “There be nothing stronger than a man’s bond with his comrade in battle.”
James held back his raised hand, stunned to hear the admonition that had been spoken years ago by his father on the morning he had left this very ground to go fight with Wallace. “Who told you that?”
“My mother.”
“And she would be?”
“Her name is Jeanne.”
James angled closer for the light streaming through the slit window. Only then did he see a younger version of his own face staring back at him.
“BRING UP THE LIGHT HORSE!” Robert cried. “The Welsh are on our flank!”
As the king ranted orders, the barons stood around his bed, helpless to ease his delirium. He had fallen into another abyss of dementia, this one lasting three days, and his fevered rages were now so violent that the physicians had ordered his wrists tethered to the posts. Those who had been with him at Methven remembered how the disease first struck him on the field against the Comyns. Now, with the ink barely dried on their new treaty with England, the fragile peace was already imperiled. The king’s heir, David, was too young to rule, and if the English learned of this approaching death, Edward III would declare the treaty invalid and rush his army across the border again.
