The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (47 page)

James was suddenly more interested. “Go on.”

“The king intends to bring your countess in her cage to
Roxburgh. To further humiliate you and the Bruce.”

James nodded to her in
gratitude, realizing that he had been too hasty in dismissing the information.
When she reined up to leave, he made a strike for her sword, but she deftly
parried his thrust. He grinned, remembering that quick maneuver. “I’m not
certain I could have taken you.”

“I’ve had little time for practice.”

“You still owe me a rematch.”

“I pray we both live long to see that wish granted.”

He had expected to be answered by the same old brashness that he had witnessed from her on the tourney field in Paris, but he found only despair in her face. He squeezed her hand to instill her with hope. “When you reach Kintyre, ask for Christiana of the Isles. She is not particularly fond of me, but she has a compassionate heart. She’ll not turn you away.”

“Do you know what they’re saying about you in London?”

“Whatever it is,” he
said with a smirk, “I suspect it’s not fit for a lady’s ears.”

“Mothers sing lullabies warning their children that the
Black Douglas will come take them if they misbehave. You have all of England in
a fret. Wagering parlors on Market Street are even taking coin on when you will
raid York.”

“What odds are they offering?”

“Two to one, within the year.”

“Maybe you should have
laid some of your Templar gold on the table.”

“If I placed a bet, it would be on Roxburgh, not York.”

James grinned at her confidence that he could carry off the
seemingly impossible task of rescuing Belle. He sent her on her way with a slap
to her horse’s flanks. After lingering on her as she rode off, he turned to
find his men confronting him with frowns. “You lads have a grievance with me?”

Ledhouse stepped forward. “Some of us think you’ve gone
soft. Every time a lass shows up, we seem to get the worst of it.”

James locked onto the blacksmith in a match of glares.
“Speak what’s on your mind.”

Ledhouse spat a phlegm wad at James’s feet. “We could be
setting Northumbria and Yorkshire aflame, but instead you keep us holed up in
this forest for months while you scheme to save Buchan’s wife. Now you let
these Templars ride off in with their French whore to report our position to
Clifford.”

The Trinity brothers drew their swords and came standing
aside James, prepared to defend him.

James shoved the mutinous blacksmith back from breathing
down his neck. “You and me, Ledhouse. Leave the others out of it.”

Ledhouse ran his fingers down the buttons of James’s jerkin
in an old Highland challenge. “I don’t give a damn if you are the king’s
drinking mate.” He swung his Lochaber ax and narrowly missed James’s shoulder.
“When I’m finished with you, I’m going after those feckin’ monks who killed my
brother.”

On the ridge, Jeanne and the Templars had turned on hearing
the shouts. They delayed their departure to watch the fight between the two
Scots.

F
ORCED TO KEEP MOVING TO
avoid freezing, Belle crawled to
the far corner of the cage and turned her back against the night’s shifting
wind. As she had done each night for the past four years, she pulled herself to
standing and offered a prayer of gratitude to St. Bride for allowing her to
survive another day. This time, however, she knifed back to her knees, too weak
to sing the defiant ballad that she always offered up to bless the setting sun.

The English townsfolk attributed her survival in such harsh
conditions to witchery. But in truth, Caernervon had become so determined to
keep her alive as a hostage that he had secretly ordered two concessions made
to her confinement: She had been given an extra woolen blanket, and once a
week, veiled nuns were allowed to enter the cage to bathe her. The townspeople
had become so accustomed to her hovering presence that now they mostly ignored
her.

This eve, the guard arrived tardy as usual with her gruel.
“Special treat, wench. A bit of Bruce’s flesh in it.” He slung the slop at her
feet.

She sniffed the wretched pulp and fired it back at him. “You
English don’t know lion flank from hen meat. It tastes like Caernervon’s
breast. Perfumed and tenderized from too much handling.”

The guard rattled the prongs of her cage with his pike. “You
may be wasted to the bone, but you still wag a fat tongue. I’m guessing by your
sass you ain’t heard what happened to your Scot rooster.”

She crawled closer. “You have news of James Douglas?”

The guard grinned at her
desperation. “He’s dead as that rat in your stew.”

“I don’t believe you!”

The guard was amused by her plunge into despair. Only when
she turned away, unwilling to be the object of his torment, did he finish his
report. “One of our spies saw your fancy get into a scrap. He was gutted like a
perch by another Scottie named Ledhouse. There’s a fine end for him. Won’t be
long before your King Hob gets the same treatment.”

Ledhouse.

She raked her memory.
Hadn’t she heard the English fishermen curse that name? The report rang
horribly true. She looked west for some sign from the heavens to negate Jamie’s
death, but her eyes had so weakened that she could no longer make out even the
ships coming up the Tweed. Of all the maladies she suffered, this was the
cruelest. The first three years had been tolerable only because she could watch
the horizon for Jamie. But now, all that appeared to her distant field of
vision was a blur of greens and browns. She looked up at the ceiling for solace
from her only friend.

The spider’s web was empty.

She frantically searched the cage. The spider had
miraculously survived three winters with her, appearing again each spring to
spin another home in the corner of the cage. She had always sensed that its
return held a mystical connection with Jamie. Below her, the market din in the
city had quieted with the onset of night, and she could hear the townspeople
reveling in a celebration near the sparks of a bonfire in the square. She
cocked her ear toward a woman’s voice that sang out from one of the corbelled
houses on the bluffs:

“Hush ye, hush ye,
little child ye,
do not fret ye,
no more can
the Black Douglas
come and get ye.”

Hope for Jamie’s arrival was all that had sustained her.
Now, even that had been wrenched away. She curled her legs into her chest, too
distraught to maintain the façade of courage. On the tower above her, she heard
the guards placing bets on what hour they would find her dead.

S
EATED AT THE FAR END OF
the royal table in Roxburgh’s great
hall, Queen Isabella made a silent wager on how long it would take for her
temperamental husband to erupt with his usual explosion of childish rage. She
guessed it would be within the minute, given how Tabhann Comyn was now edging
up next to the king, nudging him like a wet-nosed hound and demanding an answer
to the same question that he had been blathering the entire night.

“You are certain Douglas was killed?”

Caernervon ignored the
annoying Scot and applauded the next course of his birthday feast being carried
in. “Cockentrice!” He squeezed Gaveston’s hand with excitement. “What a
marvelous surprise, Piers!”

Isabella turned aside to hide the flush in her cheeks. She
dared not reveal her grief at the news of James’s death, not even to
Gloucester. Although there was no reason to doubt the Templar informant’s
account, Caernervon had ordered him racked to confirm his veracity. Under
torture, the monk had insisted that he saw the Black Douglas fall under the ax
of another man in his troop.

She fought back a tear for James as she looked down the table. Tabhann, forced to endure yet
another of Caernervon’s drunken theatrical fetes, was tapping his fingers with
simmering impatience. After his Inverurie defeat two years ago, the Comyn
chieftain had taken asylum here with the English court to press for renewal of the
Scotland campaign while his cousin Cam remained in the North, trying to rally
their scattered allies. The Bruces were burning every Comyn castle and barn in
Fife, and Tabhann warbled on incessantly that if he did not return soon with
English reinforcements, there would be nothing left of his domains to salvage.
But her husband, she knew, would not move without Gaveston, and the royal
favourite, recently installed as the Earl of Cornwall, saw no reason now to
endure the hardships of the Scot frontier.

She scooted her chair to gain a better vantage of Thomas
Lancaster and the other barons who had been commanded to attend to this feast,
ostensibly to honor the king’s birthday, but in truth to put
their loyalty to the test. On this night, she sensed a heightened tension in
the hall. Clifford seemed more edgy than usual as he patrolled the outer
walkway surrounding the tower. The sentinels had been doubled, a precaution
against the danger created by the removal of half the garrison to Jedburgh to
make room for the festivities. She noticed that with each pass, Clifford peered
through the window at Lancaster, who in turn met the officer’s eyes coldly.

This time on the
officer’s circuit, the scullion serving the king also returned Clifford’s
furtive glance. Clifford nodded to the server and then swiveled his gaze toward
Lancaster, who seemed to answer him with a half smile.

Throughout these
enigmatic exchanges, Tabhann, oblivious, continued to prattle on. “My lord,
your own officer told me he harbors doubts about—”

Caernervon threw a ladle of gravy at the Comyn chieftain to
shut him up. “If I am required to suffer your presence, Scotsman, do me the
privilege of leaving off with the incessant nagging! I am finally rid of this
Douglas miscreant! And I intend to celebrate!”

After calming Caernervon with a peck on the cheek, Gaveston
aimed his carving knife at Tabhann. “Persist in perturbing the king, Comyn, and
we will feed
your
boiled tongue to your wife.” The Gascon made a
motion with his head toward the ramparts. “Shouldn’t you be out there
comforting her? I can arrange for you to spend the night in her lodgings.”

Tabhann was too stupefied to wipe the gravy from his shirt.

With the pesky Scot finally silenced, Isabella turned her
attention back to the kitchen entry and the scullion who had just dished the
king’s victuals. The man careened clumsily, nearly dropping the empty tray
while displaying all the grace and refinement of a chimneysweep. For
surveillance purposes, she had made it her practice to know every member of the
royal staff, and she found it odd that an inexperienced newcomer would be added
to the kitchen retinue for such an important occasion. She locked onto the
ham-handed cretin and saw him shoot another nervous glance at Clifford who,
standing outside, looked through the passageway window as Gaveston was dished a
slice from the roasted pig.

“I’ve not tasted such divinity since Paris!” Gaveston purred,
nuzzling Edward’s cheek. “Did you change your cookery staff as I asked,
Poppie?”

The king nodded while he stuffed his mouth with creamed
dates.

Isabella saw Lancaster wave the wine steward aside for a
better view of the chattering Gascon. The choleric earl, ascetic in personal
tastes, rarely touched spirits or wine, but on this night he was indulging
freely. How strange, she thought. The baron had made no secret of his hatred
for the king’s favourite. And yet now Lancaster was calm and good-humored, as if
a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He even seemed to be enjoying the
wisecracks that Gaveston hurled at every hapless person who came within his
sight.

The new scullion
returned again from the kitchen, this time with a platter of basted deer steak.
When it was presented to the royal table, Caernervon ignored the offering and
instead stuck his nose into Gaveston’s serving. “You’ve convinced me, Piers. I
must have some of your spiced piglet.” The king dug his knife into Gaveston’s
plate and extracted a steaming slither of pork.

The waiting scullion turned toward Lancaster with a look of
alarm.

The earl lost his expectant smile as Caernervon brought the
loaded knife to his drooling mouth. Lancaster signaled the servant with a sharp
thrust of his chin—and the scullion dropped his tray into the king’s lap.

J
AMES CROUCHED AT THE FOOT
of Roxburgh’s walls and counted
the lit tapers on the crenellations above him. He had gained a stealthy
approach with his time-tested tactic of walking in the middle of a herd of
cattle. The castle appeared less heavily garrisoned than usual, just as the
French lass with the Templars had predicted. He nodded for McClurg to pass the
word to the other men.

They would make the attempt.

His plan to rescue Belle
depended upon the success of two tasks. The first had already been
accomplished. Months earlier, he had contrived a ruse to be acted out whenever
they encountered the English on raids: Ledhouse would incite a fight and feign
killing him. He and his raiders had even choreographed the blows to make their
struggle appear more realistic. During their ambush of the Templars, he had
sensed that one of the monks was disloyal to d’Aumont. The traitorous Templar,
taking the bait, had reported his contrived death to Caernervon in the hope of
being given sanctuary.