The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (41 page)

After positioning his men in their lairs at the bottom of
the glen, he sent the three sons of the Galloway crone ahead to scout. The
elusive lads had earned the nickname “the Trinity” because they seemed
everywhere at once; Murdoch, the fastest and quietest runner of the three, had
been dubbed the Unholy Ghost.

Minutes later, the Trinity brothers returned from their
reconnaissance and hightailed it around a bend where the loch angled sharply. They
found their comrades hidden behind the brush on the mountain’s side of the
path.

“Three hundred yards,” Murdoch whispered to James. “Clifford
leads the column in full armour.”

James grinned. Just as he had hoped, Pembroke and Clifford
had divided their forces and were now marching down both sides of the loch.
Now, he needed one more break to fall his way. Pembroke was too clever to bring
his knights into such a narrow confine without infantry at his front, but
Clifford did not have the patience to be slowed by a large number of foot
soldiers. With a series of prearranged hand signals, he set the rest of his men
in the brush on the steepest side of the path. Satisfied with their
concealment, James abandoned his hiding and walked casually down the path toward
the sounds of clanging breastplates and pikes.

Clifford, riding at the head of the knights, kept his
attention locked on the high ridges overhead. Behind him, two hundred
infantrymen marched warily, two abreast. The English officer rode several more
paces down the path before discovering a bearded man in buckskins standing with
his fists set on his waist. He cantered closer—and lurched forward from sudden
recognition.

James retreated in a slow run back up the glen.

Clifford dug in his spurs and charged. “A hundred pounds to
the man who takes Douglas alive!”

The single line of mounted English knights imploded in a
greed-fueled rush to fight for advantage on the narrow path. Pinned by the loch
on one side and the wooded rise on the other, several drove their mounts into
the water in search of a shortcut.

Luring them closer, James ran along the banks while looking
over his shoulder. Clifford was gaining on him. He counted off the
seconds to estimate how many more English had passed the position of his hidden
men. When Clifford came within a lance’s throw of him, he darted off into the
thicket.

“Don’t let him escape!” Clifford shouted. “Leave the
horses!”

Screams rang out from the rear of the English column.

Clifford spun in his saddle.

The Trinity lads were ambushing his stragglers and slicing
the throats of those who could not move forward. Thwarted from going to their
rescue by the mash of his own column, the officer had no choice but to drive
deeper into the glen. A rumbling shook the ridge above him—felled trees and
boulders came crashing down the slope. He and his English knights leapt from
their horses and dived into the loch to avoid the avalanche.

From behind the trees, James jumped out and flogged the
abandoned horses up the path toward their Scot camp while the Trinity lads
hacked away at the rear echelon of the trapped foot levies. Satisfied at last
that enough carnage had been inflicted, he blew his horn to signal the retreat.
After his men disappeared up the ridge, he captured a horse and rode headlong
toward Clifford, who was thrashing the water in a frantic effort to discard his
slogged armour.

On the far side of the loch, Pembroke and his two thousand
infantry could only stand by and watch as Clifford’s mangled force retreated in
a panic. Suddenly, sounds of thunder shook the wooded scarp above
Pembroke.

“Get out!” Clifford shouted at him from across the
loch.

The English earl looked up and saw boulders hurling down the ridge. Edward Bruce and his men rushed from their hiding behind the
high trees and came charging down the embankment at Pembroke’s troops.

On the near side of the loch, James drove his stolen horse
into the water and fought off the English infantry who came swimming into his
path. He reared the animal in an effort to stomp on Clifford. “Where is she?”

Clifford stole a sword from one of his drowning knights and
slashed at the attacking horse’s forelegs. James leapt from the saddle to
finish his old rival, but the survivors of the decimated English infantry
turned from their retreat and closed in on him, itching to claim their bounty.

“Come on!” Clifford taunted him. “I’ll take you to her!”

James pulled his ax from behind his back. He heaved the
death stroke—but his collar was captured from the rear, causing his swipe to
miss Clifford’s jaw.

The Unholy Ghost was dragging James to the safety of the woods.

A
MONTH AFTER THEIR AMBUSH
of the English army at Glen Troon, James stood with Robert atop Loudon Hill and surveyed the pog that had been used as a fort by the ancient Dalradian kings many centuries ago. Around them lay hundreds of dead English conscripts, cut down during their second improbable victory over Clifford and Pembroke.

Amid the stench of second-day blood, spring
rhododendrons had exploded in purple all over the Galloway valley, auguring a
new season in Robert’s fortunes. In the eleven months since their invasion from
Arran, his destitute band of refugees had driven the English back across the
border to Carlisle. The Culdee monks in the North were now spreading news of
the miracle and reminding the clans of Merlin’s ancient prophesy: Upon the
death of Le Roy Coveytous, a new king of the Celts would unite Wales and
Scotland and win a peace that would last until the end of the world. As a
result, nearly two thousand more volunteers had poured south to join the insurrection.

Despite these remarkable successes, Robert remained sullen and down in the mouth. Stirling, Berwick, Edinburgh, and Inverness were still in English hands, and Clifford continued to prosecute his reign of terror in the Borders. Their small invasion force had merely turned back the vanguard of the English onslaught. “We’ve gained success too soon,” he warned James. “We should have waited until Longshanks was dead. Now he’ll come at us again with everything, and soon.”

James never failed to be amazed by his insistence on seeing good fortune as a dire portent. “Then let’s go at him first.”

“Still you clutch to that fantasy of invading England?”

“It would gain us time to bring in a harvest. Lanark and
Annandale are burned out. Why not let the burghers of Carlisle and York suffer
the privations for a season?”

Robert gazed south toward the Solway Firth coast, where St.
Ninian had first stepped foot on Scotland to live as a hermit in a seaside
cave. “I can’t win this war with the Comyns biting at my rear from Mar and
Fife. So long as they persist in their claim for the throne, half the country
will refuse to join me. I must bring the Comyns to heel before I challenge
Longshanks.”

“You mean to abandon all we’ve gained down here?”

“I cannot fathom going north without you, but you’ve given me more than any friend could ask. Take as many men as you need and go save your lady. Her return would do more for the morale of our people than a dozen victories. Perhaps if you cause enough mischief in the Borders, Longshanks will be less inclined to send reinforcements to the Comyns.”

James brightened at the prospect of finally attempting
Belle’s long-delayed rescue. “Give me Sweenie and the Trinity lads. I’ll
recruit the rest in Lanarkshire. But you must promise me one thing.”

“Name it.”

“You’ll not let Tabhann Comyn meet his end until I return to
join you. He’s mine for the gutting.”

Robert grasped James’s hand to seal the vow. “Be careful,
Jamie. Clifford will have his spies out.”

“And soon enough, I’ll have mine.”

James hurried down the crag, eager to return to Douglasdale
and see what remained of his home. Stopping, he clambered back up the hill and
held out his palm at Robert in a demand.

With a guilty shrug that was becoming all too familiar,
Robert reached under his hauberk and tossed over the purloined
Chanson of
Fierabras
.

S
UMMONED BACK TO
C
ARLISLE TO
answer charges of incompetence for their defeat in the Galloway campaign, Clifford and Pembroke stood with what remained of their army on the tourney field below the castle and watched as a crane lowered a set of armour onto a white Arabian whose livery had been rigged with four wooden flanges. Loaded with its burden, the steed was led by a squire toward the waiting troops. Walking behind it came a procession that included Caernervon, Gloucester, the Dominican Lagny, and a host of physicians and court minions. Every few paces, the saddled armour wavered and threatened to fall, requiring attendants to rush forward and set it aright. When this faltering entourage at last reached the field, Gloucester removed the helmet from the stooped torso that sat astride the horse.

A gasp swept across the waiting ranks.

Longshanks, completely bald and so pale that he appeared embalmed, accepted a vial from the royal surgeon. He struggled to bring its greenish liquid to his lips and managed to swallow a third of the contents before spilling the rest down his chest. He spat out the medicinal, convulsing with painful coughs, and gagged, “What is this wretched poison?”

“Amber and jacinth, liege,” his physician said. “Marinated in silver.”

Unsteady on the skittish mount, Longshanks bent over and lifted his bony buttocks, fouling the air with a loud fart. “If I have to drink all the silver in my treasury, I may as well shit out what remains of it!” He glared at Clifford and Pembroke. “That is what my officers do!”

The king thrashed and cursed, struggling but unable to raise his forehead from the pommel. At Gloucester’s command, the royal retainers attached cords to the back of the king’s breastplate and levered him aloft like a tent pole. When upright again, Longshanks became transfixed on the barren Cumberland horizon spread out before him to the
north. He slapped at his thigh in a frenetic attempt to find his absent sword.
“Hold the cavalry! Gloucester! Where are my archers?”

Alarmed by the king’s worsening dementia, Gloucester
signaled for the standard bearers to raise their heralds, hoping the sight
would revive the old man’s memory. “My lord, these are our troops. You called
them back for an inquest.”

“Bring the Scot traitor to me! Where is Bruce?”

Clifford saw Pembroke glaring at him from across the ranks, refusing to make the first move. Being inferior to the earl in rank, he knew that delay would only bring more ire down upon him, so he reluctantly stepped forward. “Sire, we don’t have the Bruce.”

“Where is he?”

“We do not know, Majesty.”

That admission jolted the king to a chilling lucidity. “He
always seems to know where
you
are!”

Clifford bowed, hoping to deflect the king’s glare of recrimination. “Bruce and Douglas now fight like common bandits. They crawl upon us at night and burn all that stands in their wake, even their own castles and fields.”

Restricted by his armour, Longshanks turned to and fro in a
frantic effort to locate Gloucester, who was standing only a few paces away.
The king kicked at his horse to make the angling maneuver for him, and finally
he found the target of his wrath. “Gloucester! Cursed traitor! This is your
knavery! You protect your kinsman!”

Gloucester seethed, burned by the haughty smirks of
Caernervon and the other court lackeys. “More than once I have placed my life
in harm’s way for the sake of the Realm. And still Your Majesty questions my loyalty?”

Caernervon seized the opportunity to stir his father’s bile
against the baron who had supported Gaveston’s banishment from England. “Is it
not odd, father, that Lord Gloucester has not once requested permission to take
the field against his cousin? As I recall, he also advised leniency for that
Scot woman at Berwick.”

Longshanks growled and drooled as he punished the flanks of
his faithful mount with his mailed fist. The aged warhorse, which had survived
campaigns from Wales to France, fell into a hesitant trot. The attendants tried
to halt the confused animal, but the king, convinced that he was being rushed
upon in battle, drove them back with blows to their heads.

Gloucester captured the king's reins. “Sire, where are you going?”

“If these fools cannot defeat Bruce, I will do it myself!” Longshanks cudgeled the earl from his path and
rode roughshod through the flustered soldiers, who did not know whether to fall
out or risk being trampled.

As the king trotted past them, the men cast their gazes down, saddened by the pitiful deterioration of their once-feared warlord. He had launched his impromptu invasion not on the main route that skirted east of the Solway Firth toward Dumfries, but down a sheep trail that snaked through the rolling gorse fields and led to the Irish Sea. Of those present, only Caernervon was of sufficient stature to countermand his father’s confusion, but he chose to let the spectacle proceed for his own amusement.