The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (37 page)

Sobbing, the women shrank from the bloody stump.

“Kildrummy’s blacksmith. He sold you out for gold. I always
pay my debts. I had his throat filled with his reward.”

Belle turned from the dangling sinews, struggling to
maintain her wits. If Longshanks inflicted such horror on these men, what
diabolical tortures would he devise for James and Robert? She saw a scalpel on
the bed stand, three paces away. Calculating each movement required to capture
the blade and plunge it into the king’s chest, she looked across the room. As
if sensing her plan, Princess Isabella edged in front of the guards, watching
the aim of her eyes.

Longshanks limped and lurched around Belle. “I suggest you
speak, woman, while I am still in the mood to listen. … Where are Bruce and
Douglas?”

She tensed to lunge for the scalpel, and—

Longshanks erupted in another coughing spell. He staggered
into the table, sending the surgical instruments flying across the floor.

Denied, she glanced helplessly at Isabella, who closed her
eyes in defeat.

Steadying against a
bedpost, Longshanks nodded to the door watchman.

The Comyn cousins were
escorted into the room.

Tabhann had to be
restrained from rushing at Belle. “Faithless cur!”

“Now, then, is that forgiveness?” Longshanks chided between
hacking coughs. “She is of the weaker sex, a victim of temptation. We must
allow her to redeem her soul.” The king looked to the Dominican Lagny for
confirmation. “Is this not the Christian way, Abbot?”

The inquisitor inspected Belle with a long-snouted sneer.
“This harlot takes orders from the Devil’s henchman, the Bishop of St. Andrews.
Scotland must be cleansed anew of heresy and brought again under Rome’s
authority. Cut off the head of the dragon, and the body will die.”

Longshanks placed an
unsteady hand on the inquisitor’s bony shoulder for balance. “Fear not, friar.
That Fife warlock now conducts his black Masses in Winchester dungeon for a
congregation of rats.” The king glared at Belle as if plumbing her resolve.
“Being a godly ruler, I am inclined to give this fallen woman another chance
for redemption.” He grasped her arm and led her to a large wooden chest that
sat below the windowsill. “Place your hand on this stone and renounce the
coronation of Bruce. Confess that you were coerced and agree to return to your
husband. Do this, and I will be merciful.”

Belle stared at the ugly lump of limestone that had been
transported from London for viewing in York cathedral. The block still held the
scars that the English king had inflicted on it during the signing of the
Ragman Rolls. What harm would be caused by speaking the oath over it? After
all, this was not the true Stone of Destiny, even if Longshanks believed
otherwise. She could plead ignorance of the import of Robert’s coronation and
claim that she had acted out of passion. Yet if she complied with the demand,
Tabhann would contend that Robert had been crowned illegally, and the few clans
that still remained loyal to the rebellion would turn their allegiance. If that
happened, the sacrifices that she and James had accepted to bring Robert to the
throne would be in vain.

Elizabeth, shaking uncontrollably, looked up from her knees
at her, trying to divine what she intended to do.

One of them would suffer the king’s wrath, Belle knew.
Elizabeth’s womb held Scotland’s only hope; the queen had only a few
childbearing years left, and if she were left to die in England or, God forbid,
be executed, Robert’s dream of uniting the clans under a new line of succession
would fail, dooming their country to English dominion forever. She prayed to
St. Bride for courage; then, taking a step forward before she could lose
resolve, she challenged Longshanks, “Bring me the true Stone, and I will name
the true king.”

The king’s patchy brows narrowed. “This
is
your
Stone.”

She pressed his hand to the rock. “Why then does it not
scream?”

Longshanks repulsed her grasp and shoved her to the floor.
“Throw her in a Welsh nunnery! She can listen to her own screams!”

The soldiers were about to drag Belle away when Caernervon
delayed them. “Father, Robert Bruce is too cowardly to care what happens to his
women. But his fellow conspirator has always labored under a foolish code of
chivalry.

“Speak plainly, damn you!”

The prince shot an evil glance at Belle. “By all accounts,
James Douglas alone has kept Bruce alive.”

The king glowered at his
son. “I need no lessons in surveillance from you.”

Undeterred by the dismissal of his competence, Caernervon
persisted in spinning out his proposed scheme. “Bruce will let his wife rot
first before he shows his face to us.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Caernervon removed the gold chain from around his neck and
swung it in front of Belle. “Douglas is a different cut of cloth. If his wench
here will not lead us to the rebel, why not let
her
lead the rebel to
us
?”

Princess Isabella, alarmed, stepped forth from the shadows. “Sire,
these ladies have no choice but to follow the orders of their lords.”

Longshanks patted his daughter-in-law’s hand with mock
compassion. “Then I would have you, my young French swallow, follow
my
order by holding your insufferable tongue!” He released her hand with a rough
snap of his wrist.

Shaken, Isabella retreated with her head bowed.

Longshanks pulled
Elizabeth from her knees and into his vulturous embrace. “A propitious change
of fortune, darling. I have decided that you, not your treasonous accomplice
here, will be housed with the nuns of St. Catherine. Holderness should be far
enough from the Borders, don’t you think?”

Elizabeth looked rattled, uncertain if she should be
grateful or distraught. “My stepdaughter and attendants. I beg you show them
equal mercy.”

“Your treacherous husband’s brood will be held in secure
confines.” The king turned on Belle, forcing her to wait to hear her fate. He
slithered his fleshless arm across Caernervon’s shoulder to acknowledge a
nascent maturity developing in his son. “You speak true about this one, Eddie.
She deserves special treatment. Was it not in Berwick where we dealt old man
Douglas his defeat?”

“I was there with you,” Caernervon reminded him with an
unctuous grin.

“That city must hold fond
memories for the son. Perhaps we should give young Douglas a reason to visit it
again.” The king then posed to Tabhann a question that was more of a threat,
“You don’t mind if I borrow your wife?”

Tabhann glared revenge at Belle. “Do with her what you
will.”

“How generous of you.”
With a smirk, the king circled Belle while thinking. Then, he turned to his
officers and ordered, “Lodge our crown-toting traitoress here in an open cage
from Berwick tower. Raise it high enough so her countrymen can see the reason
for the chastisement they are about to suffer.”

Belle stood numbed, unable to comprehend the sentence.

Horrified, Elizabeth reached for her, but the guards pulled
them apart.

Longshanks lapsed into another fit of coughing. When he
recovered his breath enough to speak, he taunted Belle, “Berwick offers a
splendid view of the Tweed valley. You’ll be first to see Douglas coming for
you.”

Suddenly she remembered
what Idonea Comyn had told her on the day they had first met:
To
survive, you must make the whoresons believe you possess the power to conjure
the spirits.
Consumed with a fury, she
escaped the guards and stole a candle from its holder. Before she could be
wrestled back, she dripped wax on the king’s chest, evoking an old Highland
sorcerer’s ritual used to predict who next would die among all persons present
in a room.

The royal councilors
merely looked at each other in bafflement, but the Earl of Ross retreated a
step in alarm, having seen crazed Scot widows perform this pagan soothsaying
incantation for troops on nights before battle.

A dozen hands clutched
at Belle, pummeling her to the floor. Wrestled away from the king, she shouted
at him, “Burgh upon the sand!”

His chest hairs singed, Longshanks lurched back in
confusion.

The guards threw Belle to the floor again. She rose clawing to her
knees and screamed the rest of her death fey at the monarch, “I will outlive
you! I will see Scotland freed of your tyranny! You will take your last breath
in the burgh upon the sand! At that hour, God shall reveal on whose side He
fights!”

Longshanks staggered until he found his balance. He looked to his councilors for an explanation of the incoherent curse, but none dared offer one.

Finally, the inquisitor Lagny broke the disconcerting silence. “The
burgh upon on the sand, Majesty, can be none other than Jerusalem. The witch
has just predicted that you will one day again take up the Cross in the Holy
Land. Let us rejoice that you will live many more years.”

Reassured by that exegesis, Longshanks laughed and raised
his goblet in a toast to the women being dragged from his presence. “I vow that
I will bring these heathen Scots to justice before I kneel at the Tomb of Our
Lord.”

T
HE WARDEN OF
W
INCHESTER DUNGEON
rattled the bars of the
cell. “Up with you, Scot. Priests to hear your confession.”

Bishop Lamberton tried to stand and come forward, but the manacles on his legs restrained his movement. Through the haze, he saw the grille swing open and two hooded Augustinians enter the cell.

The tallest monk handed a document to the warden who was lingering
at the entry. “The confession is to be private, by order of Canterbury.”

The warden slinked off in a huff, denied the chance to
collect surveillance and hawk it for a few pence.

Lamberton rattled his
chains to chase them. “I’ll give my confession to the Devil before spilling to
Longshanks’s spies!”

The taller monk lowered his hood slightly.

Lamberton blinked hard, not trusting his sight in the dim
light.

Peter d’Aumont, the
Templar he had argued with in Paris, raised a finger to his lips and nodded
toward the door where Jeanne de Rouen, the female student of Giles d’Argentin,
stood watch. They stared at the bishop, stunned by his wasted condition.

D’Aumont clasped the
bishop’s feeble hand and, kneeling aside him, whispered, “Philip has ordered
the arrest of every Templar in France. The Jerusalem and Paris Masters have
been imprisoned in Chinon.”

“Clement does not defend you?”

“The pope is in cohorts with the French king. He affirmed
the arrest order
ex cathedra
in Avignon. The commandery treasuries are
being confiscated, and many of my brothers now endure unspeakable tortures.”

Lamberton was surprised
only because it had taken Philip this long to make his move on the Temple with
the aid of nefarious influences in the Curia. “The Dominicans have finally
played their hand.”

D’Aumont checked the
grille as he hung a purple stole around his neck to act out the confessional
sacrament. While setting out the oils of the sacrament from his pouch, he
revealed under his breath, “A few of us escaped.”

Lamberton bowed to bring
his ear closer to the report. “How many?”

“Fifty from France,” d’Aumont whispered. “Another thirty
from Tomar in Portugal. We pray as many from Spain.”

“Has the edict been issued in London?”

Jeanne hissed a warning as the warden walked past the cell.

D’Aumont signed Lamberton’s forehead with the Cross. Assured that the grille was clear again, he continued his report. “The inquisitor Lagny has infiltrated the Plantagenet court. He presses for our arrests. London Temple has been placed under guard with royal troops.”

“Longshanks may test you, but he won’t enforce the warrants.
He despises Philip too much to do the French bidding. He also owes the Temple
for past support.” Lamberton glanced at the grille. “But the Prince of Wales
comes from a different kettle of fish. If the old man dies, you will be in
grave danger.”

 D’Aumont eyes hooded with shame. “I
was too blinded by pride to heed your warning in Paris. I ask your forgiveness
… and beg your help.”

The bishop displayed his chains. “What assistance could I
offer you?”

“Those brothers who escaped Phillip’s snares have set sail
from La Rochelle. The French royal galleys are in hot pursuit. I must find
refuge for them soon, or they will be captured. We have come to seek your
blessing.”

“Blessing?”

“To hide in Scotland.”

“There is no more
Scotland. The English have the run of our castles. And I have heard nothing
from Robert Bruce in over a year.”

Jeanne abandoned her
watch and hurried to the bishop’s side. “Perhaps we can serve as your eyes and
ears. Our spies in London tell us that your king was last seen with the
chieftain MacDonald near Arran.” She glanced at d’Aumont, uncertain if she
should convey the next piece of news. “Your queen and the Countess of Buchan
have been taken prisoner. Longshanks has ordered the countess displayed for
ridicule in a cage above Berwick tower.”

Shaken by that news, Lamberton whispered a prayer that the
MacDuff lass would find the strength to survive her ordeal. He knew James and
Robert had to be in dire straits if they had abandoned the women on their retreat
to the Isles.

The warden’s footsteps echoed down the stairwell again.

D’Aumont and Jeanne waited for the bishop’s answer.

Lamberton feared that if he conspired with these Templar
emissaries to protect what remained of their Order, Philip would abstain from
offering assistance from France, and the papal edict of excommunication that so
tormented Robert would remain in force. He shook his head to indicate the
futility of their hope. “The Bruce will never grant your request.”