The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (35 page)

Yet never had she dreamed she might one day require its
protection.

Faint with hunger, she peered above the hull of their creaky
bark. She hadn’t expected a grand church, but St. Duthac’s chapel, off high in
the misty distance, was little more than a stone hut perched on a knoll above
the turbulent waters of Dornoch Firth. A muddy path, overgrown with brambles,
spiraled up to its entrance nearly a half-league away. She had lost count of
the days since they had made their way by foot to Inverness, where she and the
Bruce women had found transport around the tip of Tarbot Ness to Tain. Now, as
their bark floated toward the beach, she braced for the perilous run they would
have to navigate across the open dunes and through the wooded bluffs. Even if
they managed to reach the chapel, the English chasing them might surround the
kirk and try to starve them out.

The old fisherman who
had risked his life to ferry them across the firth assisted her and the other women from the currach. He waded with them through the freezing waters until
they reached the banks. “This is the Earl of Ross’s country,” he warned. “The
Comyns pay him handsomely for his dirty allegiance. His mossers are always out
and about. You’d best be scarce.”

“We’ve nothing to offer you in payment.”

The fisherman shrugged off her expression of regret.
“Remember me to our king, m’lady. When he comes here pray, I’d be honored to
row him.”

She pressed a kiss to his hand. “The name MacKleish shall
one day grace a herald.”

The old man’s eyes watered as he climbed back into his
currach and pushed off into the mists.

Left to their own wiles,
Belle led the Bruce women on a forced run through the dunes and up the winding
stairs carved into the limestone juts. They waited there until darkness to
avoid being seen by the Ross constables and brigands who lurked in the woods.
The debtors, heretics, and other criminals who came here by the hundreds each
month were required to carry money or valuables for the donations. Those who
could not afford bodyguards or pay for documents of safe passage were easy
prey. Unescorted women in particular were always in danger.

When the light finally
faded, they made their way with difficulty up the sea cliffs. After an
hour of slinking from tree to tree, she caught sight of the girth crosses that
marked the sanctuary’s boundaries. A large iron ring hung from the door of the
ancient kirk. Was it abandoned? Nigel had not told her what act was required to
complete the immunity. Would her grasping of the ring be enough? Could they all
keep their hands on the handle at once?

After ordering the other women to remain crouched behind a
stone fence, she crawled along the fence to avoid being seen and took aim for
the portal, which stood twenty paces away. Offering up a prayer, she rushed for
the ring and pounded it against the worn plate below the grill slot.

A sleepy Culdee monk with gaunt eyes and no teeth cracked
open the door. He closed it just as abruptly, nearly crushing her fingers.

Fighting faintness, Belle knocked again. “We seek
sanctuary!”

The monk poked his head out. “Sanctuary from whom?”

She signaled for her companions to hurry to the kirk, and
when they staggered up, she brought Elizabeth into her embrace and told the
monk, “This is your queen. The English seek to capture us. You are our last
hope.”

The monk looked beyond her shoulders and searched the dunes. He shook his head and tried to close the door. “I have trouble enough with the abbeys.”

Belle thrust her foot onto the threshold. The monk, she realized, had mistaken her whispering for irresolution. If they were going to be turned away, she decided her muted voice would be of little use now. She forced the door wider with her knee and shouted, “I was told that the Culdees were the true descendants of Christ! I now see that I was misinformed!”

The monk recoiled from her sudden fury. “Who told you such
thing?”

“A brethren of yours. Ned Sween of Glen Dochart.”

The monk broke a gummy grin. “You know the Wee-kneed?” He scanned the grounds behind her. “Is that half-devil with you?”

She was taken aback by
the swift alteration of his temperament. “He is in the West risking his life to
save your king. But I shall advise him of the base hospitality you showed us.”
She huffed off, taking the women with her.

“Wait!”

She turned, praying he would reconsider. The monk debated the risk, then finally, with a roll of the eyes toward the heavens, waved her and the other women into the kirk. She was first to step into the enclosed darkness. The sanctuary’s floor of pounded dirt didn’t even have a chair or table: it made Sweenie’s hovel at Glen Dochart look like a palace. She looked around and wondered how many thousands of criminals and desperate refugees had trod in there.

The monk locked the
latch behind them. Settling on the straw mat in the corner to resume his holy
contemplation, he said flatly, “What I have is yours.”

The Bruce women dropped to their knees and rolled to their
sides in exhaustion. After covering them with robes, Belle slid against the
dusky wall and slipped into a deep sleep.

H
OURS LATER—JUST HOW MANY
she did not know—she heard the
ballad that James had always sung to her:

“On quiet glen
where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow …”

She staggered to her feet and rushed to the window. Was that him walking up the causeway? What was he carrying? She threw open the sanctuary’s door and ran to him until her legs nearly failed. He held a swaddled infant in his arms. She reached for him and looked down at the child. It was a baby boy with dark skin and—

A pounding at the door wrenched her from a vivid dream.

Disoriented, she climbed to her knees. The other women were
still asleep, but the Culdee monk was not in the sanctuary. The torches had
gone out, and it was night.

The door pounded again.

James’s distant voice still lingered in her ear.

Her heart leapt. He had found her at last! She crawled to the entry, whispering a prayer of gratitude
to St. Duthac for sending her the prophetic dream to announce that James had
come to take her home. She pushed back her hair and wiped the grime from her
face, then she drew back the bolt and threw open the door, desperate to fall into
his safe embrace.

D
ESPITE HAVING SEARCHED THE MAINLAND
for all of a fortnight, James had
found no trace of Belle and the Bruce women. Now, chased west through Argyll
and Kintyre to this desolate isle of Arran, he was growing more desperate by
the hour. The English galleys had anchored at Brodrick Castle, less than a mile
away, and Clifford was sweeping the headlands with two pincer columns of foot
soldiers to flush him out. Famished to the edge of losing consciousness, he had
no choice but to abandon the cover of the forested cliffs and attempt a
dangerous run for the beach.

His only hope was to find an abandoned bark and try for
Ireland.

One last time, he
shouted Robert’s name. Cupping his ear against the crashing waves, he prayed
for an answer to the call that he had aimed at every cranny and grove between
here and Kildrummy. He thought he heard the weak blare of the royal ram’s horn
in response, but when it was not followed up with a second blast, he dismissed
it as just another hunger hallucination.

Burning with a fever, he arose unsteadily and staggered
toward the shoreline while holding the aching shoulder that had become infected
with an aching mass of pus. He knelt behind
a dune, breathing hard to gather strength for the effort. In recent days,
an enemy more insidious than Clifford had begun dogging him—his own traitorous
mind. Everywhere he went, he caught fleeting glimpses of Belle and Robert, only
to be cruelly disappointed.

That damnable horn of his imagination sounded in his ear
again. Half-crazed, he banged his head against the ground to chase the torment.
He crawled over another dune to find shelter from the howling wind and—

Robert’s death mask, shining ghoulishly in the moonlight,
stared up at him.

This time, the demonic vision did not recede. He tried to plunge his dagger into the demon’s heart, but a tremoring hand restrained his wrist.

“Roland would have come sooner.”

No wispy spectre of his mind had spoken
those
words. Robert, in the flesh, lay half-buried before him under a
crest in seaweed and sand.

Still not quite believing his eyes, he resurrected
Robert from the detritus and brought his wasted frame into his arms. “Roland
didn’t have half of England on his heels.” Seeing Robert’s lids swollen nearly
shut and his hands shaking terribly, he pulled out the last slither of his
salted rabbit meat and brought it to Robert’s lips.

Robert shoved the morsel
aside. “What has happened?”

James finally gave him the bad news. “Kildrummy is burned.”

Robert slumped, aggrieved by the loss of his invaluable
northern castle. Yet he took refuge in hope. “Nigel must have escaped and fled
north.”

James chose to let him think that for now. Given Robert’s
fragile mental state, he thought it best not to reveal that he had discovered
discarded wine casks from Brittany and tins of spiced meats outside Kildrummy.
The campsite had served as headquarters for someone with more refined tastes
than those cultivated by the Comyns. He felt confident that if Belle
had
been at Kildrummy, she would have left him some indication of her destination.
He had searched the burned castle for evidence of her presence, but the walls
had been charred and the rooms ransacked of any documents. Seeing Robert’s eyes
fluttering, he gently slapped his cheeks to revive him. “Edward abandoned you
here?”

Robert licked his cracked lips, searching for moisture.
“Percy and Clifford attacked us at Dunaverty. Angus set sail to save his
galleys and divert the English to Ireland. Eddie has gone west to God knows—”

Voices shouted out on the bluffs. Overhead, hooves pounded
the ridges.

James motioned for him to remain silent. “We can’t stay
here.”

“My legs … I can’t move them. What’s happening to me?”

James waited for the
English search party on the bluffs to pass by. Then, he lifted Robert to his
shoulder and gagged his mouth with a slither of bark to stifle his delirium
screams. The drizzle was threatening to turn into a hard, chilling rain, and he
feared if he did not find shelter soon, Robert would not last through the
night. Despite the danger, he dragged him down the beach, praying that Clifford
would suspend his search until the storm passed.

A
CRY ECHOING THROUGH THE
cave raised Robert from an
unsettled sleep. He rolled over and, wincing, levered to his elbows. “How long
have I been out?”

Hovering over a pitiful fire, James bit down on his sleeve and held a scalded knife to his festering shoulder to cauterize the inflamed
gash that now threatened the use of his arm.

“Jamie … how long?”

In pain, James muttered through gritted teeth, “Three days.”

Robert stared at his own
shaking hands, white as those of a corpse. “Am I dying?” Receiving no answer,
he crawled toward James, his fingernails raking at the dirt. “Promise me you’ll
not let me die an excommunicate.”

A raven flew into the cave and alighted on a boulder near the entrance. James recoiled into the shadows. Morgainne was stalking her two souls again. He hurled a stone at the death harbinger, remembering that she had followed him all the way from Kildrummy. When the blood-lusting bitch did not move, he lurched toward the entrance to chase her away. The wily goddess merely laughed at him. His stomach burned from hunger. By God, if they were going to die, they’d have a last meal, at least. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to roast that taunting harpy and gnaw on her bones. He reached behind his haunches and gathered up another sharp rock. The raven remained on her perch, daring him. He lifted to his knees and fired, but the raven dodged the rock and danced away with a taunting screech.

He sank in defeat, but then remembered that Robert was watching his every move. “You’ll not meet your Judgment Day on my watch,” he promised. “We still have that journey to make.”

The reminder of their boyhood pact galvanized Robert. “Aye,
the Holy Land. Once we’ve mended, I say we take one of MacDonald’s galleys and
dry our feet in the sands of the Lord.”

James sat back against the dank cave wall to steady against
the dizziness. “You think the Moors ever laid eyes on a Lochaber ax?”

Robert closed his eyes. “The first time would be their
last.”

“That it would.”

Wearied from just that brief exchange of false bravado, James became silent, laid low by the realization that in truth they had forfeited the chance of ever fulfilling their dream of taking the Cross. If they could not defeat the English and protect their own womenfolk, how would they throw back the infidels? They were likely being derided as incompetents in courts all over Christendom. The King of Jerusalem would never welcome into his service two excommunicated traitors turned beggars. Robert had always been the melancholic one, but now he felt himself falling into the black abyss of hopelessness.