The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (23 page)

James debated the request, then motioned him past the
portcullis and led his old friend in silence through the shambled castle.

Robert turned a corner
and found the ghostly specter of Eleanor Douglas lying near a sputtering fire.
Cull and Chullan, now long-nosed mastiffs, snarled at him when he reached for
the widow’s hand. She crawled away, screaming and fighting off his
attempts to assist her to her feet. He realized to his
horror that the poor woman had mistaken him for one of Clifford’s henchmen. He
had barely managed to hold up under the pressure, and now this discovery of the
suffering his own unwitting complicity had inflicted on James’s family was too
much to bear. He dropped his hands to his knees, fighting back the emotion.
“Jamie, they’ve given me no choice.”

James led him through the ruins into the old armory where
they had vowed their friendship years ago. “I surrendered this castle to the
English once. I’ll not do it again.”

“Clifford will string up the villagers if you resist. Give
me governance of the tower. I will see you and your stepmother escorted away
under safe conduct.”

“To where? An English dungeon?”

Having not slept for days, Robert half-staggered to the
window and looked down at the approach to the tower. He gripped the stone sill
while he watched Clifford abuse Dickson, pinning a target on the old servant’s
shirt for a rock-throwing contest. “We could escape from the north wall. We’d
be away before Clifford discovered us. Sail for the Holy Land, like we once
said we would.”

“If it is God’s enemy
you wish to fight, the Devil has come to you.”

Robert lowered to a perch stone to rest his legs. A moment
passed before he remembered that this was the same block on which he had sat
listening to Wil Douglas tell stories of his grandfather’s glory in the Levant.
He could not bear to look at James. “You heard what they did to Wallace?” When
James turned aside, Robert persisted in trying to draw him out, even though he
knew that James’s father had likely suffered similar torture in London Tower.
“Do you ever think about what Wallace endured? The bishop said the man never
cried out. I don’t have that kind of strength.”

James kicked at the dying embers in the hearth. “Do you
believe we live but once?”

Robert lifted his head-slung gaze from the ground, annoyed
to find that his old friend still had the infuriating knack for going off on
wild tangents. “Of course I do. The churchmen say we lie fallow until the Day
of Judgment, when all unstained souls shall be raised.”

“The Culdees say different.”

“You give credence to the ravings of those madmen?”

“The Highland hermits may know more than you give them
credit.”

Robert huffed. “I have no time for a discussion of theology,
damn you!”

James drew a circle on
the wall with a shard of stone. “What if we return to this world again and
again? What if all that the priests have taught us is a lie?”

Robert stood to pace. “Jamie, for the love of Christ.”

James held a distant look, full of premonition. “The old
ones are all dying off. They came into this world together. Now they’re leaving
together. My father. Your grandfather, Fraser, Moray, Wallace … and soon
Longshanks.”

“What in Finian’s name are you driving at?”

“The war is being passed on to us. To know our fate, the
Culdees say we need only look to the character of our enemies.”

“You mean … Caernervon?”

James carried his sword to a whetstone set up near the wall.
As he sharpened the blade, he watched Clifford through an archer slit in the
wall. Bored with tormenting Dickson, the English officer and his mossers were
now practicing for the razing of the tower by throwing their hooks into the
trees and pulling down the limbs that he had climbed as a boy. “I can’t bring myself
to believe that we were born to bow down to the likes of Caernervon and
Clifford. Our time is at hand.”

Robert shook his head, dismayed by James’s heretical musings
and weakness for the nonsense of the old ways about reincarnation and the
circling of time. He himself was a religious man, not given to questioning the
Church or dabbling in pagan mysticism. After near a minute of anguished debate,
he stood and departed without another word.

James took up the sword and followed him through the gate.

Outside the walls, Robert retrieved his mount and ordered
Clifford, “Bring up two horses.”

“Horses?” Clifford
protested. “What in Hell’s name do you intend?”

Levering to his saddle, Robert announced to the soldiers and
townsfolk, “This tower presents no danger to England. It is apparent to me that
the king has been misinformed.”

Clifford captured Robert’s reins to restrain him. “This is
treason!”

Robert drew his blade. “Slander me again, Clifford, and one
of those stones will mark your grave.”

Clifford tried to stare him down, to no avail. Finally, he
chose not to press the confrontation and angrily signaled for his sergeant to
deliver the horses.

Robert fixed a pleading glare on James while he finished
declaring his judicial decision on the matter. “I will take the inhabitants of
this castle into my custody until the king sends more instructions.” He knew he was testing the limits of James’s trust; if cast
into the same predicament, he would never surrender Lochmaben. And even if
James submitted, the odds were long that he could keep him out of an English
prison. But one thing was certain: If James resisted, all hope of a Bruce
ascending to the throne would be forever dashed.

James retreated into the tower and slammed the gate. Amused by James’s refusal to heed Bruce’s request, Clifford
signaled for his mosstroopers to surround the walls and commence pulling down
the topmost stones.

Robert dropped his head in defeat. As the grappling hooks
flew over the ramparts, he turned away, unwilling to witness the tower’s
destruction.

The gates swung open again.

James walked out with his stepmother on his arm. He lifted
Eleanor onto one of the horses and whispered orders to his two mastiffs to
remain at the tower until he returned. He mounted, refusing to look at Robert, and
waited to be led away, just as his father had been arrested and taken into
exile by Englishmen under the shadows of this same tower.

A
THUDDING OF HOOVES ENTERING
entering the bailey of Dalswinton Castle woke Belle in the middle of the night. She hurried from her bed in the upper
reach of the tower and peeked down through the crack between the window
coverings at a gathering of shadows near the stable.

Was that Robert Clifford with an unmarked escort?

Why had the Marcher officer traveled here under the cover of
darkness on the eve of Whitsun Sunday? This cold keep in the southwestern
reaches of Scotland, one of several defensive posts held by her husband and Red
Comyn for Longshanks, possessed no military significance for the English
occupation forces, at least none that she knew about. She hurried to the offal chute in the privy closet adjacent
to her bedchamber, which sat directly above the great hall. Placing her ear to
the floor, she heard Red Comyn and her husband greet Clifford warmly and lead
him into the hall below, as if having expected his arrival.

Red’s voice shrilled in disappointment. “The tower still
stands? What about Douglas?”

“Taken prisoner.”

“Fill the man’s flagon!” Tabhann cried, apparently to Cam.
“At least we’ll drink to that whoreson rotting away in Berwick’s dungeon.”

“He’s not in Berwick,” Clifford said. “Bruce placed him
under the watch of your bishop in St. Andrews.”

“That is clear
artifice!” Red protested. “Bruce must be arrested for treason!”

“Gloucester convinced the king to give Bruce a hearing
first.”

Tabhann sounded agitated. “Gloucester plays both sides!”

Clifford lowered his voice, forcing her to strain to hear
his next words. “All the more reason our plan must not fail.”

“We are to meet Bruce at Stirling in a week hence,” Red
said. “But what if Gloucester—”

“Gloucester knows nothing of this,” Clifford assured them.
“It must be in writing. Send it to London by a courier you trust.”

“Even if Bruce agrees,” Tabhann warned, “you’ll not draw him
south of the Borders. He’ll be wary after eluding our first trap.”

“His ambition will bring him,” Clifford promised. “As would
yours.”

After a long silence, Red and Tabhann laughed crudely and clanged flagons.

A
N HOUR BEFORE DAWN,
B
ELLE
heard Tabhann, drunken and
singing incoherently, stagger up the stairwell. When the door flew open, she
sat up in the bed, hopeful he might inadvertently divulge more details about
the mysterious discussion she had overheard earlier that night.

Tabhann floundered in the dark toward the closets. He flung
armfuls of clothes across the floor in search of his riding cloak.

“You are leaving?” she asked him from the shadows.

Startled, Tabhann rammed his forehead into the closet door.
“Damn you, woman! Since when did you become so interested in my goings?”

She climbed from the bed and rubbed the bump above his brow.
“If it is to be long, I would have you miss me.”

Tabhann studied her with a wobbly glare, unaccustomed to
such advances. He dragged her to the window to scrutinize her smiling face in
the light of the moon. When she untied her chemise, he attacked her nipple,
drawing a wince from the burn of his beard. Stoked, he clumsily began loosening
his leggings. “I’ll be king soon enough. Maybe I
should
seed my heir.”

She tried to marshal her thoughts while he tore off her
gown. Both Red and Cam preceded him in the succession. What had Clifford
revealed to make Tabhann believe he would inherit the throne? Crushed under his
weight, she grunted, “You mean … after your cousin.”

He pried her legs apart. “What say you?”

“Cam … he is in line.”

Tabhann was inside her,
thrusting hard. “I’ll take care of Cam in good time.”

“But the Bruce—” She heard the swish of his hand, too late.
Her face burned from the blow. Before she could regain her breath, he began
riding her so violently that she feared she might vomit. Blessedly, his heaves
slowed and his glazed eyes fluttered closed. His chin fell to the pillow,
narrowly missing her chin. With difficulty, she rolled him over and cupped his
groin to revive him. “When will I be queen?”

Rousing, he mumbled, “Bruce signs. Scotland is ours.”

She stroked him harder, trying to pry more details. "He relinquishes his
claim?”

“And his head from his
shoulders, soon enough! Aye, woman, don’t stop!”

She tensed with alarm. Robert
was in danger—that much she suspected, for Clifford had intimated something
earlier that night about baiting the Lord of Annandale to London.

A neighing came from the stables. The horses were being saddled. Was Clifford leaving before dawn? If Jamie was under guard in St. Andrews, she had to find a way warn Robert directly. She escaped the bed and covered herself with the sheet. “I nearly forgot.”

Tabhann tumbled to the floor. Thrashing to find her in the
darkness, he growled, “Damn you! Come back here!”

At the window, she saw Clifford bridling his horse near the
gate. She turned to Tabhann, who still was on his hands and knees, bobbing with
the prospects of retching. “The English princess gave me a set of brass candle
holders when we were in Berwick last. I must reciprocate the gift. It would not
do for the future king of Scotland to be gossiped an ingrate.”

“What in God’s name are you bleating about?”

She searched the closet blindly for anything to write a message on, but then decided that would be too risky. Clifford might inspect it. Defeated, she reached to the top shelf for another chemise to wear back to bed and pricked her finger. Her hand was bleeding from a cut. In a fit of anger, she reached for the offending object and pulled out a pair of rusted spurs that Tabhann had left under her linens. She turned to heave the damnable things out the window—

She stopped, and stared at the spurs.

Tabhann crawled toward her in the darkness. “Where the Hell
are you?”

She hid the spurs behind her back. “I will ask the
Englishman to deliver our gift. Does he leave this hour?”

“Clifford? Aye, but how do you know of …”

“I won’t be long. Will you stay awake for me?” Her question
went unanswered. He was now snoring, spread-eagled on the floor.

Releasing a breath in relief, she wrapped the spurs in a
lambskin cloth, drew two coins from her purse, and inserted them into the
package.

R
OBERT TRIED TO HIDE HIS
disappointment as Longshanks arose
from a table in Westminster Palace and welcomed him with a bear hug. The
reports of the king’s impending death were clearly unfounded. Inexplicably, the
old man’s grip felt stronger than when they had last been together.