The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (6 page)

The weapon hurdled across the ravine and held its bite on
the dragon. He laughed, now certain of victory. Those nearsighted Comyns
couldn’t hit a church door from the top step. He thought about stopping to
enjoy their shocked discovery, but took off for the brow of the crag where the
path descended to open ground and—

His feet gave out from under him.

Tumbling headfirst to the rocks, he felt a sharp pain swell
up in his nose. Groggy, he reached up and found a wet gash on his forehead. He
climbed to his knees and, looking around with watering eyes, saw a rope pulled
across the path. Distant laughter was followed by the pounding of approaching
feet. He tried to stand, but his ankles buckled. A heel slammed into his ribs,
and he rolled across the ground fighting for breath. He looked up and saw
Tabhann pressing a foot against his chest.

“We heard how you gave up Gib Duncan to save your old man.”

Another thump sent him rolling toward the cliff.

Tabhann threw his ax and hit his mark on the tree. Laughing,
he took off down the crag while the other runners came behind him, abusing
James with kicks as they ran past and fired their axes. James slid down the scarp and broke his fall by catching a
briar. The raven perched on a rock and watched impassively while he clung to
the branch. He blinked the sweat from his eyes.

Was he visioning from the pain?

The raven dipped its beak and shape-shifted into a woman
draped in black robes. Wielding a sickle, she had wild hair the shade of
fresh-drawn blood, and her skin was so white that she looked anemic. She glared
at him with dilating, almond-shaped eyes as green as a Galloway hillock after a
rainstorm.

He hadn’t felt such chilling fear since Gibbie jumped to his
death. Then he remembered—he
had
seen this hag once before, when he was
bedridden years ago with the weakness in his lungs. His stepmother had screamed
her name: Morgainne, the Raven Goddess of Death. He cried out to her, “Help
me!”

The goddess was unmoved. “I tolled your crossing once.”

He looked down at the sharp rocks below. “I don’t want to
die!”

“Come now, what follows after this life is not as horrid as
you mortals make it to be.” The goddess snapped her sleeves and conjured up a
vision of Gibbie against the roiling clouds. At her stern nod, Gibbie’s
apparition reached forth and begged James to come to the other side.

When the goddess turned to await his decision, James saw
Gibbie shake his head in warning. He felt his grip slipping. “I’ll do
anything!”

“You barter with me? You who could not fight off that pack
of pups?”

“To Hell with you, then!” He closed his eyes and braced for
a fatal fall.

Morgainne weighed his plea. “Impertinence, even in as I draw
nigh. That is rare enough. … The cost shall be two souls for the salvation of
one. Of my choosing. At my time. Until then, you serve me.”

Before James could protest the bargain, the death goddess
melded back into the raven and flew off. The branch’s roots ripped from the cliff, and he fell down
the long jag of rocks. When he finally came to a stop at the base of the pog,
he groaned and flexed his arms and legs. Miraculously, he had suffered just a
few scrapes.

A
ROAR OF DISCOVERY RUMBLED
across the valley.

Seeing the first runners emerge from the woods, and now only
five hundred paces away, the clansmen rushed to the finish line.

Belle elbowed her way into the human funnel that would soon
engulf the runners. In the distance, she saw Tabhann leading the pack with a
confident pace. He pumped his fists in celebration as he outpaced the others by
several lengths, easing his way down the winding path on the last half-mile
sprint across the heather. She narrowed her eyes in disbelief. The Douglas boy
was nowhere to be found. She turned on Red Comyn with an accusing glare, but he
just smirked and slapped the backs of the confused clansmen.

“All’s right with the world again, lads,” Red announced with
a sinister grin.

Disappointed that an upset was not to be witnessed, the
clansmen retreated to the ale casks to replenish their mugs and rejoin their
war arguments.

But Belle held back. She glanced over her shoulder, and from
the corner of her eye, she saw something stagger from the brush on the heights.
Young Douglas, bleeding and heaving, was running toward the camp as if his life
depended on every stride. She rushed beyond the finish line and yelled, “Come
on!”

The men spun again at her shout, and Red Comyn shoved his
way to the front. He bellowed a warning at Tabhann, who had slowed his approach
to a victory jog.

Tabhann risked a glance over his shoulder and then forced
his legs into an unexpected trial. The Douglas lad was still running, even after his
beating.

And he was gaining ground.

Their excitement ignited
again, the clansmen jostled back to their positions on the finish line and
haggled over last-minute wagers.

A hundred paces from the
waiting scrum, Tabhann’s legs buckled.

James caught up with him
and returned the elbow he’d received at the start of the race. Nose and nose
they came, careening, their neck veins bulging and their faces crimson. The
clansmen tightened the finish rope.

James thrust a hip into Tabhann’s side and lunged across the
line first.

Tabhann crawled in second, yelling and cursing as Red kicked
at him like a butcher driving a hog to the slaughter pen. One by one, Cam and
the other boys staggered across the line behind him.

Risking her father’s wrath again, Belle ran to the collapsed
Douglas boy and cradled his head in her lap. Could this really be the same
carefree lad who had kissed her at the start of the race?

The rules judge—a local priest from St. Bride’s kirk—mounted
a Shetland pony and cantered off toward the pog to confirm the accuracy of the
ax throws against the dragon mark on the tree across the ravine. The clansmen
waited in tense silence for his signal. When the priest whistled to verify that
James had indeed hit his mark, they erupted again in raucous celebration.

 Enraged, Red Comyn
fought a path through the cheering throngs to challenge Wil Douglas. “There’s
devilry in this!”

“Aye, by your doing,” the elder Douglas said. “Hand it
over.”

Red felt for his dagger, but several clansmen countered his
threat by drawing their weapons. Finding no allies for his protest, the
chieftain could only nod angrily for his kinsmen to bring up a packhorse. He
reached into his saddlebag and pulled out Scotland’s most coveted prize, a
rusted ax featuring a handle carved with the names of past winners. He slung
the Dun Eaddain ax at James’s feet. “You won’t have it long.” He
led his kinsmen in a huffing march from the camp. “Our business in this pigsty
is done.”

“The Guardians meet here
on the morrow,” Wil Douglas reminded his old rival. “Attend, or lose your
vote.”

As the jubilant clansmen hoisted James onto their shoulders
and carried him across the field, Red slapped the back of
Tabhann’s head in punishment and hurried his family away, muttering threats
under his breath.

Caught in her father’s grasp, Belle was forced to leave with
the Comyns. She risked a glance back at the celebration and saw James waving.

Was he trying to say something to her?

A
S HER GARRON CLOPPED ONTO
the narrow wooden bridge that
crossed the River Clyde, Belle swallowed her fear and reined closer to the
railing. Praying the currents would be swift enough to sweep her away, she
slipped her toes from the stirrups and—

A hand reach out from behind her and captured her arm.

“Steady there, lass,” Red Comyn said. “We wouldn’t want to
lose you.”

Disconsolate, she slumped over the saddle, her last chance to escape thwarted. The Comyn chieftain now sensed her desperation and would likely keep her under guard when they arrived at Kilbride, his southernmost fortress.

Red drew a deep, satisfied breath as he led her pony across the bridge and onto Comyn land. “That Douglas stench is nearly gone us, eh?” After glaring a warning at her against scheming more such foolishness, he rejoined her father at the head of the column to renew their negotiations over her dowry.

She choked back tears. Within the week, she would be bound forever to this detestable clan. Resigned to her fate, she resolved to learn all that she could about the two Comyn boys who rode several lengths ahead. Only a study of these men who would rule her, and the manipulation of their weaknesses, might offer her hope for a tolerable existence. But whom could she consult in confidence? She scanned the wind-burnt faces of the Comyn womenfolk bringing up the rear of the train. One old hag, so listless that she appeared on the brink of tumbling from her mule, seemed the most harmless of the lot. When a bevy of quail distracted the men ahead, she slowed her pony to gain some distance from the others. Then, she came aside the wizened woman and attempted to make conversation. “My lady, are you chilled? I have a spare cloak in my roll here that you are welcome to use.”

The crone peered out from her frayed shawl with a suspicious
eye, looking astonished that anyone would care a whit about her condition. “And
you be?”

“Isabelle MacDuff of Fife.”

The woman bared her gums and screeched a throaty cackle. “Another one tossed into the boiling pot!”

Belle suspected that the poor woman had slid past the borders of sanity. To test that possibility, she decided to answer her babbling with equivalent nonsense. Loosening the shawl from her neck despite the stiff headwind, she observed, “Boil indeed. A day this hot would cause Hell to complain.”

The woman inched her mole-tipped nose out a bit farther, until discovering that her ruse of playing senile had been exposed. She retreated into her shawl muttering a flurry of Gaelic curses. Moments later, her crinkled face reappeared like a turtle’s head from a shell, and she nodded with grudging admiration. “You play the actor better than you jump the rail. I can see those questions burning a hole in that pretty little head. Out with them, then.”

Belle was stunned to discover that the crone had somehow divined her intent to escape on the bridge. Yet her clairvoyance was at best undependable, for she had fallen for the nonsense trap. Careful not to glance at the Comyn boys, Belle silently asked herself which of the two cretins she would be forced to—

“The cousin,” the crone answered before Belle had even finished her thought. “Red will save his depraved son as bait for bigger fish.”

Belle grimaced as she watched Tabhann whipping the bloodied
flanks of his horse. She could not bear the thought of sharing his bed. Cam was
uncouth, but at least he was too stupid to be capable of intrigue. Tabhann, on
the other hand, seemed malevolent and conniving, having perfected the art of
exploiting the weaknesses of those around him with cruel efficiency.

“Now who’s looking sickly,” the crone sniggered.

“Why me?”

Disgusted by Belle’s cry of self-pity, the crone shot a wad of bile over her hackney’s nose. “Only foolish virgins wail on so. Come now, lass. Think of a chessboard. What strikes you apt about that plain of strategy?”

Belle now regretted her decision to make conversation. Hoping to
find a graceful excuse to beg off, she blurted the only answer that came to
mind. “It has two colors, but what is—”

“How is it arranged?”

“In squares. Still, I do not see what this has to do with my
question?”

“Blessed me, but airen’t you the clever one!”

Angered at being the brunt of a joke that she didn’t even understand, Belle whipped her hood over her head and prepared to leave the old bat to stew in her bile.

The crone captured her hand to delay her. “Forgive me. I’ve lost all manners. It’s been months since I’ve held discourse with anyone. I tend to rail against the spirits when …” She pursed her lips, having nearly revealed some dark secret.

“Then I would then have you address me directly,” Belle
insisted. “If I am to be cast into this despicable betrothal, I must know what
awaits me.”

“Directness is not always the best choice. Forget ye that
direct is the path of the ax upon the neck? You must learn to look sideways and
speak in shrouded ways.” The crone glowered at the Comyn boys ahead, as if
conjuring up a fitting spell for their demise. “Scotland is the chessboard, and
each clan a square. None be the same color as that upon its borders, aye?”

Belle nodded slightly, uncertain where all of this chess
talk was leading.

“If the red squares were all in the north and the black in the south, peace would be granted us.” The woman spat again through her toothless gums in a gesture of malediction. “But the Almighty in His inscrutable wisdom has determined it not to be. And we suffer for it.” Finding Belle too baffled to form a question, the woman shook her head, frustrated at her failure to communicate the critical point. “Think of the Comyns and their domains as the red squares.”