The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (56 page)

For the first time, he confronted the logistical chaos
spawned by his order to wheel the army east of the Scot encampment. Thousands
of hooves and boots had churned the muddy ground around him into a morass of
manure and piss, requiring the engineers to dismantle every shack in the nearby
village to lay planks for footing. Weighed down by their soaked gambesons, his
conscripts, forced to choose between sleeping in the muck and standing all
night in their battle gear, stared up at him with the deadened eyes of
cadavers. The victual wagons remained halted on the far side of the river to
allow the baggage trains carrying the livery of his knights to cross first. The
few sacks of oats ferried across to feed the infantry had become drenched, and
those who had risked eating the rancid meal were now doubled over with the
scours. The entire army stank from rot and the runs. 

He slogged through the camp until he found his officers.

Slumped with fatigue, Clifford, Gloucester, Cam Comyn, and
D’Argentin sat at the ready on their loam-spackled steeds.

“In God’s name! Why have you not taken Stirling?”

“Our rear echelons have not yet come up,” Gloucester told
the king.

“And pray tell, why not?”

“Only one ford is passable.”

Caernervon slung the remnants of his wine at the earl,
spooking the horses and setting off a chain reaction of curses and jostling
through the crowded ranks. “You don’t need the entire army! The castle is right
over
there
!”

Clifford managed to calm his skittish mount. “Bruce waits on
the high ground, Majesty.”

“He waits! And he will continue to wait!” Caernervon turned
to Cam Comyn for his opinion. “What say you on this, Scot?”

Cam shrugged, confident. “Bruce is no Wallace. When he sees
our knights on the move, he’ll run for the Isles.”

Gloucester had become alarmed by the king’s recent
transformation. As a young man, Caernervon had shown no interest in military
affairs, leaving tactical decisions to his father’s officers. But on this
campaign, he had fallen under the grandiose delusion that his father’s genius
had spontaneously blossomed in him. The unexpected—and in some quarters,
unexplained—birth of a son seemed to have filled him with a sense of
invincibility. “The men and horses are fatigued, Sire. If we rest a day and
gather strength, the ground will firm.”

“Look!” Caernervon pointed to Dryfield, where the Scots had
descended to their knees. “Did I not tell you? They beg for mercy!”

“Mercy from God,” Gloucester said. “Not you, my lord.”

“If you are too craven to fight, I will order Clifford to
lead the advance!”

His honor besmirched, Gloucester unbuckled his breastplate
and threw it to the ground. Caernervon smiled with the presumption that the
troublesome earl had just relinquished his command, but Gloucester slammed down
his visor and spurred to the fore of the waiting knights. The monarch was about
to wave off the baron’s bluffing theatrics when he heard a distant roar. He
turned to his French mercenary and inquired, “What is that commotion at their
center?”

D’Argentin nodded with pride. “Douglas has been knighted.”

The king laughed. “Then both he
and
Bruce will retreat in grand style.”

“I have never met this Robert Bruce. But I assure you, Sire,
Douglas will not run.”

“What makes you so certain?”

D’Argentin tightened the bindings on his breastplate. “I
trained him.”

As the French knight rode off to join Gloucester, Caernervon
saw Despenser sauntering out of the tent to take a piss. “Hah! Instructed by a
Parisian, Hugh! All the more reason we have nothing to fear from that rabble.
Where is my cook? I cannot ride without breaking my fast.” From the corner of
his eye, he saw James Douglas on the far ridge being mobbed with
congratulations. With a scheming gleam, he retrieved a sword and approached
Clifford. “You and this Douglas have been like Cain and Abel, no?”

Clifford kept his steely gaze fixed on the Scot army in the
distance. “I am no brother to that man, my lord.”

“Still, Douglas should not enjoy all the glory this day.”
The king flippantly buffeted the officer on each shoulder. “Sir Robert
Clifford.” He tossed the sword to the mud and renewed his search for a repast.

Clifford smoldered at the bitter irony. The knighthood
unjustly denied him all of these years had been granted as an afterthought, not
in recognition for his accomplishments, but as a meaningless parry to Douglas.
Empty accolades from this frivolous monarch meant nothing to him. He should
have received the honor from Longshanks years ago. Now, too old to prosper
under the rank, he lived only to gain revenge against that Scotsman who had
ruined his career.

He pulled out the order for Belle’s execution and took grim
solace in its contents, having convinced the king to sign it as a precaution
should one of the rebellious barons back in Yorkshire attempt to abduct her. He
handed the order to Cam Comyn. “On my signal, deliver it to Berwick.”

J
AMES WATCHED AS
C
LIFFORD,
D
'ARGENTIN,
and Gloucester led
their knights out from the English camp in single file and fell into a faster
pace along the bridle path that ran parallel to the old Roman road. He held his
breath in rising hope: Just as he had predicted, Clifford appeared intent on
making for Stirling Castle rather than forming up battle lines. He had read his
old enemies perfectly: Caernervon had positioned his infantry to the far side
of his cavalry, where they could offer no protection.

The whoresons had taken the bait.

Three blasts from the horn sounded by Robert’s herald sent
Randolph and Edward Bruce hurling down the escarpment.

Clifford and his knights wheeled left in a stunning
maneuver.

James lurched
forward in his saddle.
Damn him! It’s a feint!

He tried to stall the other schiltrons, but he was too late.
Clifford had only mimicked the attempt for Stirling to draw them out. The
English knights lowered their lances and drove their chargers toward the Carse.

Both armies were locked in a desperate race for the
Dryfield.

The Lanarkshire men waited for his order to join in the
charge, but James sat motionless in the saddle. He spotted the Comyn banner at
the royal pavilion. Why was Clifford keeping Cam in the rear?

Comyn is the courier to Berwick.

“Jamie?” Ledhouse shouted. “On them, or the lads will be
turned!”

James heard his name called out by a hundred pleading
voices, but one rose above the others. He looked to his right, where a dead oak
had been splintered and blackened by lightning. A solitary bloom sprouted on
one of its pocked branches.

“Jamie! I love you! Give the order, Jamie!”

Belle’s voice seemed to inhabit the hollowed tree trunk.

Perplexed, he rode closer to the log to examine it.

A raven crawled from the detritus and pecked at the bloom
until the last vestige of life in the oak was destroyed. The raven
shape-shifted into the goddess Morgainne, who confronted him with a fearsome
glare. “You plot to deny me?”

“Away!” James screamed at the death hag. “Not this day!”

“Aye, this day it is. I
will
have a soul dear to
thee.”

“Not her!”

Morgainne shot him a wicked smile, and before he could
accost her again, she melded back into the raven’s form and flew off.

All around him, the men were staring, as if questioning his
sanity.

Randolph and Edward Bruce’s divisions careened into
Clifford’s knights across the Carse, their long-necked axes and claymores
clashed against the English armor with a rat-a-tat-tat that was overtaken by
screams and groans. The sky exploded with splinters as the Scots rushed to the
underbellies of the English horses and hacked at their fetlocks. The field
erupted into a bedlam of flailing limbs, agonized neighing, dying curses,
bleeding horseflesh, thumping cudgels, and hurdling maces.

On the summit, Robert watched James from afar, vexed by his
delay.

I
N HIS TENT,
C
AERNERVON'S ATTENDANTS
attired him in the black hammered armour that his father had worn in
the French and Welsh campaigns. He had ordered the breastplate tailored to his
specifications for this long-awaited day. Within the hour, he would ride into
Stirling and finally silence the insults that he had suffered since childhood.
He was about to prove beyond all doubt that he was indeed the son of Edward the
First, conqueror of Wales. He would accomplish what even his even father had
failed to attain: The complete subjugation of Scotland.

Of course, he would have to chase Bruce into the Highlands
to finish him off, but the fickle clans would deliver up that ungrateful brood
with Douglas rather than suffer the consequences, just as they had done with
Wallace. For years he had dreamt of marching the two cutthroats back to England
in a triumphant procession reminiscent of Caesar’s return to Rome with the
Gaulish savages. He had promised to hold Douglas’s execution under that
Scotswoman’s cage. But he would save Robert Bruce for a public quartering at
London Tower.

He peered through his tent flaps and saw Cam Comyn waiting
on a horse. “How goes Clifford’s progress?”

Cam could barely sputter the reply. “Slow, my lord.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“The Bruce … ” Cam had trouble finishing the report. “… has
attacked.”

Caernervon rushed out of the pavilion. Instead of
retreating, the Scots were charging down the sloping ground toward his
encampment. Stunned, he commandeered his mount and, after several awkward stabs
at the stirrups, leveraged to the saddle. As he spurred toward the lines, his
frown of confusion became a broad grin. “Bruce, you fool! This is even better
than I could have imagined! I will destroy you before the hour is up!” He saw
the Lanarkshire division still holding its first position. “Does Douglas not
engage?”

Cam followed the king on the precipitous ride toward the
front. “He is learning a rough lesson from Clifford!”

“Indeed?” cried the king, laughing. “What lesson would that
be?”

On their rush to victory, Cam reached under his gambeson and
felt for Belle’s execution order. “Never go to battle pining for a wench!”

R
OBERT GALLOPED DOWN FROM
Coxet Hill and hurled an ax into
the sky.

James deflected the falling weapon with his forearm. He
looked at the trampled grass and could barely believe his eyes. During the
night, Robert had recovered the splintered remnants of the Dun Eadainn relic
and had cobbled its handle with twine and nails. The ax still bore the markings
where Belle had retraced his name to preserve the memory of his boyhood
victory.

Rob or Belle, again.

How many times had he been forced to make that choice?

He took a deep breath and brought Belle’s face to his
memory. One soul was what Morgainne demanded this day. By God, he would give it
to her! If he could never see Belle again, he would make certain she would not
be the one to die.

Nodding sternly to Robert, he led his division into the
Dryfield.

On the run, he found Randolph and Edward Bruce being thrown
back into their outnumbered hedgehog formations. Clifford’s knights were trying
to break their schiltrons by hurling maces at them. Gloucester, unidentifiable
without his heraldic armor, was swallowed up in the scramble of English knights
and pike-thrusting Scots. The earl’s helmet was ripped from his head. He fought
bravely, but there was a wearied resignation in his eyes. As the Scots dragged
him from his horse, he left his chest exposed, as if wishing to die.

James shouted, “Spare that man!”

The din of the battle drowned out his plea.

He fought a path toward Gloucester, but the baron fell to
the bottom of the bloody scrum.

J
AMES STOOD IN THE CENTER OF
his mangled schiltron, barking
orders and whipsawing maces while Cull and Chullan attacked any Englishman who
had the misfortune of breaking through. Hours had passed since the first clash
of arms that morning, but the sun now seemed locked at its apex, turning the
battle into a desperate struggle of endurance. Stout legs and hearts would win
this day, he knew, not more tactics.

Clifford’s banner suddenly appeared above a pack of English
knights trying to hack a path through the Yorkshire conscripts pressed upon its
rear. Ledhouse was about to reach for Clifford and hammer him from his horse,
but James pushed his officer aside and lunged to strike the deathblow.

Cull sprang over his master’s head and dug his fangs into
Clifford’s biceps. Wrangled from his saddle, Clifford pummeled the mastiff with
his spiked arm-guards. The old hound, gushing blood from its nose, dropped
lifeless. Clifford heaved James to the muck and shouted for more English
reinforcements to pour through the breach and drive back the schiltrons.

James sank deeper into the loam, trampled by the rush of
boots.

Clifford dug a heel into James’s neck and shouted, “Bring up
the longbows!”

A thousand Welsh archers blazoned with the crosses of St.
George formed a wedged herce across from the Lanark division. With practiced
precision, they impaled their staves into the ground for quick loading and
leveraged their tall yew bows by malleting them into holes. The masters threw
tufts of grass to judge the wind and then barked orders for their bowmen to
error on the side of overshooting to increase the odds of hitting deserters.

The Scot ranks groaned with despair, bracing to suffer
deadly volleys from the same sharp-eyed mercenaries who had brought down
Wallace at Falkirk.

With a slight incline of their heads, the Welsh archers
leaned into their bows and filled the sky with a shrill whistling. Seconds
later, both Scots and English knights fell impaled. The schiltrons lurched back
and crumbled, and some of the men threw down their pikes and ran.