The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (57 page)

Half buried in the mud, James slipped from consciousness.

Clifford left him for dead and rushed ahead to lead the
charge that would win the day.

My time. Not yours.

Morgainne’s command in his ear revived James. He resurrected
from the mire with his face streaked in loam. Coughing and gasping, he turned
and found Robert galloping across the Dryfield, leading Keith’s cavalry in a
frantic effort to rally the survivors back to the New Park.

Clifford drove his panting levies up the Dryfield slope.

Just as the last of the Scot squares were about to break, an
unnatural stillness overtook the field. Both armies lowered their weapons and
gazed toward Giles Hill, behind the Scot lines, where a hundred mounted knights
now appeared on the horizon. Framed by the crimson sun, the riders unrolled the
packs from their saddles and donned white mantles blazoned with red crosses.
One of the knights raised a banner with a black square adjacent to a white
square.

Clifford spotted the Beausant insignia. Breaking a
triumphant grin, he shouted Longshanks’s famous quip from the Berwick tourney
years ago. “The Templars always pick the winning side!”

Those Scots who were still holding the lines now backed
away, stricken by the unexpected arrival of the crusader monks.

James’s heart sank. Here was Falkirk all over again.

Clifford signaled for his archers to close ranks and move
forward. “Finish them!”

The Templars lashed to the charge, taking aim at the Scot
schiltrons.

Trapped, James quickly revamped his depleted squares and
ordered his survivors to face both directions. He had no choice but to
sacrifice a few to save many. “Those in front! At my command, fall on those
behind you!”

His men in the front row turned ashen glares on him, stunned
that he was ordering the veterans to take the brunt of the arrows.

Now even more confident of victory, the Welsh archers
methodically notched their bows and waited for the Templars to drive the Scots
from the squares and expose the enemy to their murderous fire. A few lengths
from the schiltrons, the Templars veered to their left and charged instead at
the Welsh.

The archers, panicking, wavered and broke without firing
their bodkins.

Undone by the Templar perfidy, Clifford clambered across the
wounded in a desperate effort to marshal his retreating archers. “No! Damn you!
Hold!”

James thrilled at his sudden turn of fortune. The Templars
had merely dissembled an attack on his Scots in a ruse to escape the range of
the Welsh arrows. The crusader monks drove into the phalanx of archers shouting
the names of their brethren who had been murdered by the Roman Church and its
allies, the French and English monarchs.

Peter d’Aumont and Jeanne de Rouen threw off their helmets,
gasping for breath in the stifling air. Riding hard, they took aim at
Caernervon’s encampment, where a cadre of Dominican friars had congregated in
preparation to take over the Scot abbeys. As Jeanne raced past the crumbling
Scot schiltrons, she glanced fiercely at James to spur him to the promise of
the moment.

James rallied his survivors back down the scarp. The English
infantry, no longer certain who they were fighting, broke for the protection of
their camp and swept up Clifford and his knights in the retreat.

“On them!” James screamed. “They fail!”

Clifford stumbled in the quagmire. On his knees, he looked
up to see James swinging his ax. The officer rolled and kicked James’s feet
from under him, then crawled toward the burn.

James dropped to his knees, too exhausted to give chase.

Chullan, circling his dead twin in grief, pinned its ears
back on hearing Clifford’s shout. As if inspirited with a miracle of returned
youth, the old mastiff darted through the whirlpool of legs and dived into the
burn. Slowed by his armour, Clifford tried to escape. Chullan paddled furiously
across the burn and pounced for the officer’s jugular. Clifford thrashed to
parry the attack, but the mastiff latched onto his neck and dragged him under
the water.

Moments later, Clifford’s head—torn from its neck—bobbed to
the surface.

C
AERNERVON WATCHED IN DISBELIEF AS
his army stampeded back
toward him. The Scots were driving his infantry into the burn; those levies who
could not swim sank under the weight of their padded doublets.

D’Argentin high-stepped his charger over the crawling mass
of panic to reach the royal pavilion. “Sire, I must remove you to safety at
once!”

Caernervon threw off his helmet and tore at his hair. “Rally
them!”

“You must flee!” d’Argentin warned. “Else England will pay a
ransom it can ill afford!”

Finding Caernervon too disoriented to move, d’Argentin dragged
him to a horse, leaving behind the royal shield and armory. Accompanied by Cam
Comyn and an escort of twenty knights, the Frenchman led the king across a ford
in the burn and circled the battle in a race to reach Stirling Castle.

Minutes later, the royal entourage reined up under
Stirling’s battlements.

Caernervon, his eyes wild with panic, looked up at the walls
and shouted a demand for sanctuary. “Open these gates!

Philip Mowbray, the English commander of the besieged
castle, had been watching the battle from the ramparts. His scowl betrayed his
disdain for this king who now begged protection under the very law he had
violated in abducting the Scotswomen in Tain. “I gave my word to the Bruce. If
you do not relieve this castle by dusk, I must relinquish it to him.”

“To Hell with your word! I am your liege, damn you!”

Mowbray remained adamant in his refusal to violate his oath
to the Scots.

While the king raved on
with hysterical threats, d’Argentin spied Keith’s cavalry massing near St.
Ninian’s kirk. Seeing that they were about to be trapped, the French knight
ordered Cam, “Take him to Linlithglow without delay.”

“Where are you going?”
Caernervon demanded.

“Back to the battle.”

“I paid for your
protection!”

D’Argentin’s eyes hooded
with revulsion for the sobbing king. “There has been dishonor enough this day.
I do not intend to add to that roll.”

Caernervon reached into his belt pouch, pulled out a gold
groat, and threw the coin at the knight. “Inconstant Frank! Take your Judas pay
with you!”

D’Argentin stared at the king’s profile on the coin, as if
searching an explanation for how he had been seduced into the service of such a
feckless monarch. “All my life I have fought for gold. This day, I will fight
for something else, as do Gloucester and those Scots.” He flung the coin off
the wall and rode off to join the overwhelmed English troops.

R
OBERT SPURRED HIS FROTHING DESTRIER
down the Carse to
exhort his men to finish the victory and leave off taking booty. He found James
below the brow of the scarp, tending to the wounded. “Jamie, are you injured?”

Surrounded by slashed and writhing bodies, James struggled
to his feet to show that he was unscathed. “The field is ours!”

“Aye, but not the prize.” Robert pointed toward a band of
horsemen circling around Stirling crag. “Caernervon escapes!”

Belle’s execution order.

In the heat of battle, he had forgotten about Cam Comyn.

He captured the nearest horse and galloped west along the
burn, accompanied by a contingent of Templars. His only chance to stop Caernervon
and Comyn now would be to head them off before they reached the bridge that led
to the only passable road west. He cut through the bramble of New Park and came
upon the royal entourage hurrying toward the river. The far bank was thick with
English pike men—and Caernervon had already gained the bridge.

Seeing Cam still waiting to cross, James lashed to the
chase. “Comyn!”

Caernervon sped on, but Cam stopped to taunt James with a
finger in the air. James heaved his ax at the turncoat Scot, and Cam laughed as
the weapon bounced short off the bridge. He waved the execution order and
shouted, “Any last words for your Fife whore?”

James leapt from his staggered horse and charged the bridge,
but a hail of arrows stopped his advance. When he lifted his eyes from under
his arm, Cam was halfway across. He shouted at Cam, “I’ll see you in Hell!”

“Save me a place when you—”

Cam stared down at his chest. He ripped open his gambeson to
find an arrow point emerging from his sternum. He held a perplexed look, as if
questioning how a missile had reached him from that distance. With blood
dribbling from his mouth, he tried to hand the order to a sergeant at the
bridge gate. A second arrow whistled through the air and sent his horse
plummeting over the abutment. He was caught in the stirrups and dragged under
the river’s currents.

The order slipped from his grasp and floated away.

At the river’s edge, James searched for the source of the
arrows.

An English knight armed with a spent crossbow rode out from
behind a tree on the far side of the river. James Webton, the officer whose
honor he had spared seven years ago at Castle Douglas, nodded to confirm that
his debt was paid, and then galloped off rejoin his king in the retreat.

F
OR TWO WEEKS,
J
AMES AND
the Templars stalked Caernervon in
a circuitous chase west and south of Stirling. Yet despite fighting a series of
hard-pitched skirmishes, the Scots had been unable to break through the royal
guards, and now Caernervon was approaching the port city of Dunbar, where a galley
waited to take him down the coast to the safety of Berwick’s walls.

Randolph, hurrying south
from the battlefield, intercepted James and his fellow pursuers riding north
along the Tweed River in a desperate attempt to intercept Caernervon’s fleet
before it reached the sea. “Hold off, Jamie! The king wishes you back to
Stirling! I am to take command here!”

James reined up reluctantly, suspecting Randolph of
instigating the recall so that he could gain all the glory. “Another night and I will have him.”

“His orders were for you to come at once.”

James cursed his failure to capture Caernervon. “How many
men did we lose in the battle?”

“Less than three hundred. Fillan’s miracle, for certain.”

“And the English?”

“Four thousand, maybe more,” Randolph said. “Half of those
sank in the pols or drowned in the burn. Caernervon abandoned his baggage train
with two hundred thousand pounds of gold and silver.”

James could hardly believe his ears. “That’s more than our
entire treasury.”

“Aye, and weapons enough to arm us ten times over.” Randolph
led him several lengths from the others to finish his report. “The king has
fall into one of his black moods. He refuses to break his vigil over
Gloucester’s body.”

“Your uncle has never been able to abide good fortune. He’ll
not be content until he reaches the fires of Hell to confirm the low opinion he
holds of his own soul. Did he say why he required me so urgently?”

Randolph’s eyes flashed a mischievous twinkle. “A prisoner
exchange has been arranged. The English have agreed to hand over our queen for
Hereford and Thweng.”

“You came all this way to tell me that? Why in heaven’s name must I—”

Randolph’s smirk spread into a wide grin, leaving James speechless. “I also recall him mentioning something about another lady being part of the agreement. What was her name? Oh yes, I think he called her the Lass of Scone.”

James repeated those last words silently. Then, he lashed his horse off into a gallop, cursing, “Damn you, Randolph! Why didn’t you say so right off?”

As his old rival rushed north in a heat, Randolph winked at
Jeanne. “Jamie Douglas would never make a Templar, eh? No vows of chastity for
him.”

His cruel withholding of the news did not amuse Jeanne. She
sidled her horse next to him and offered her opinion on the matter. “One thing
is certain. No lady would ever wait seven years for
you.”

For once, the wisecracking Randolph was cast mute as a
stone. Before he could protest that indictment as undeserved, the French
Cistercienne spurred off to catch up with James.

J
AMES AND
J
EANNE CROSSED THE
battlefield below Stirling and
made haste for Cambuskenneth Abbey, an Augustinian monastery ensconced in a
loop of the River Forth. On the lowlands between the Pelstream and the Bannock
burn, the sun had combined with the macabre effects of rigor mortis to disgorge
hundreds of submerged corpses and horse carcasses. Many of the dead soldiers
had been pushed upright from shallow graves, some to their waists, others to
their necks, all serving as carrion for the crows.

James rushed ahead along the Forth’s banks and found the
abbey grounds piled with English shields and abandoned armour.

Robert, haggard and bleary-eyed, walked out from
Cambuskenneth’s doors. His physical deterioration was alarming; his skin had
broken out in the red splotches, and he clawed nervously at an open sore on his
forearm.

Despite these misgivings, James leapt from the saddle before
his horse had even halted and captured Robert by the forearms. “Is it true?”

Robert led him out of earshot of the men-at-arms mingling
along the riverbank. Agitated, he brushed his wild black hair in an attempt to
affect nonchalance, but he could not hide the fact that he was as flustered as
a schoolboy. “We must prepare ourselves. They have no doubt altered greatly in
appearance.”

“Where are they?”

Gesturing with a turn of his head toward the Abbot’s
quarters, Robert held James back from running to its entrance. “We must give
the English no cause to think us too eager to negotiate.”

James closed his eyes,
trying to calm his nerves. His heart was beating so fiercely that he found it
difficult to breathe. At the well, he drew water to wash the grime from his
face and saw his reflection in the bucket. He had been in his mid-twenties when
Belle had last seen him. Deep lines now creased his face, and he slumped
slightly from the aches in his back and knees. He conjured up for the
thousandth time the image of her dark, penetrating eyes and soft lips. The
memory of her radiance that day in Glen Dochart was the only thing that had
kept him from despair.