The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (10 page)

The boys descended the stairs to the armory and found
James’s father honing his weapons and his servant Dickson testing the straps on
the livery.

“You leave this morning?” James asked.

“Wallace intends to reach Selkirk by nightfall.”

James’s voice cracked with emotion. “I want to go with you.”

“Heed me on this! I’ll not have you disobey me again as you
did at …” Wil cut himself short, regretting the outburst.

James choked up. His father had never spoken to him of
Gibbie’s death, for the tragedy at Berwick was still too painful for them both.

Robert made a move to leave them alone.

“Rob, lad, stay.” Wil ran an oilcloth down the broadsword
that he had carried for decades. “Sit you both down here, aside me.”

Handed the hallowed weapon that had drawn infidel blood,
Robert marveled at its workmanship. James nodded for him to test it, but
Robert, eyes downcast, returned the blade, considering himself unworthy.

Wil braced Robert with an arm to his shoulder. “Your
grandfather is a great man, Rob.” Seeing the boy tear up with doubt, the elder
Douglas asked him, “Has he told you of our campaigns in the Holy Land?” When
Robert shook his head, Wil leaned against the blackened stones that he had mortared
with his own hands. His gaze turned distant as Dickson came to his side; the
elderly servant’s role in confirming the details of his master’s stories was
time-honored. He primed Dickson for the setting. “Was it not the siege of Acre,
Tom?”

Dickson stiffened his creaking bones to attention, as if
they were back again in Palestine facing the Moorish ramparts. “A sweltering
day it was, my lord. Fit not for any loch-loving Scotsman.”

Wil swept his hand across an imaginary range of parapets.
“We weren’t much older than you, Rob. Walls thrice the height of this tower.
And mangonels. Christ as my witness, heinous machines with devious workings the
likes I hope never to see again. But on we came. The infidels heaved cauldrons
of boiling pitch on us and launched arrows so thick that the sun was blotted.”

James and Robert, enthralled, held their breaths.

“Your grandfather and the Earl of Carrick led our advance,”
Wil said. “And on our flank stood the knights of the Red Cross.”

James dropped to his knees in anticipation. “Templars?”

Wil’s eyes blazed upon the ladders thrown against the walls
of Acre. “God-fearing monks trained to kill the Devil himself. But none fought
with more courage than Bruce the Competitor. Aye, Scotland carried itself proud
that day.” Flinching from the memory of a blow, Wil clenched Robert’s wrist, as
if to insist what next he would reveal must be felt in the flesh. “Carrick died
a hero’s death, Rob. With his last breath, he bade your grandfather sail for
Ireland to assure Dame Carrick that he had gained the Lord’s salvation.”

“Grandpa fulfilled the oath?” Robert asked hopefully.

Wil nodded wistfully. “And your grandfather fell in love with
Carrick’s widow the moment he laid eyes on her. There was grief, to be sure,
but the Almighty had a greater purpose in mind.” He smiled as he looked into
Robert’s liquid eyes. “Carrick’s widow became your grandmother. You and Jamie
both run with the maternal blood of those who first walked this Isle. Your
grandfather is no coward. You must never think it so.” Pulled back to the
present by a neighing in the stables, Wil looked up to see his servant slumped
with nostalgia. “Tom, tell them what we learned in those days bygone.”

Old Dickson had to clear a lump in his throat. “There be
nothing stronger than a man’s bond with his comrade in battle.”

Wil grasped Dickson’s forearm to honor again their
unshakable brotherhood, forged under fire. “Aye, nothing. Forget it not, lads.
Nothing stronger.”

The tale had accomplished the intended effect of raising
Robert’s spirits, but it had also saddened James, who was now even more
convinced that he had let down Gibbie, his only true friend.

Seeing his son so distressed, Wil finally summoned the
courage to discuss the subject that he had avoided for too long. “Jamie, you
were given no choice at Berwick. Gibbie died for Scotland. Many have suffered
the same fate. Many others will. You mustn’t let this fester in you.”

At the door, William Wallace, listening in the shadows,
revealed his presence. “Wil, we’d best cross before first light.”

The half-blind Dickson left his master’s side and returned
from the stables with two saddled mounts. “I’ve packed enough meal for a
fortnight.”

Wil Douglas grasped his servant’s shoulders to soften the
news. “Thomas, you have been with me in every battle since my father gained his
heavenly reward. But this time, I need you here.” He broke away with difficulty
and walked out with Wallace. Near the door, he saw the Dun Eadainn ax hanging
on its tenders. He took the relic down from its display and smiled sadly, as if
recounting the many memories it had brought him through the years.

“Take it with you,” James begged.

Wil smiled and replaced the ax on its hooks. “It’s yours
now. Keep watch on your stepmother. I’ll be home when the troubles are over.”

In the bailey, Wallace mounted and, with one foot in the
stirrup, stared down at James and Robert, as if attempting to divine their
future. Whatever he saw in them, he chose not to share it, but instead slung
his massive broadsword over his shoulder and rode off with the elder Douglas.

Until that moment, James had held in check all the shame and
pain that had welled up in his heart since Gibbie’s death. Now, as his father
departed for battle yet again without him, he fell to his knees, inconsolable
and ashamed that Robert was witnessing his unmanly display.

Yet Robert was weighed down by his own humiliation. Watching
his grandfather in the bailey prepare the horses for their return north to
Turnberry, he lifted James from his knees. “I intend to take the Cross one
day. I’d be honored to have you by my side when I do.”

“You’ll not want me,” James protested.

Refusing to be denied, Robert offered his hand to seal the
promise, just as James’s father had done with Wallace during the meeting that
night. Going off on crusade to the Holy Land would now become the driving
purpose of their lives. If they couldn’t go fight for Scotland, at least they
would one day gain glory on the sands walked by Christ. “To the Tomb of our
Lord together,” Robert vowed. “No Moor will ever stop a Bruce and a Douglas.”

James firmed his clench. “An oath it is.”

A
FTER A WEEK HAD PASSED
with no word from his father, James
was torn between his duty to guard the tower and his promise to meet Belle. All
had been quiet, and the English were reported more than a two-days march away.
He was confident that he could make it back before dusk.

When midnight came, he cracked the door to his stepmother’s bedchamber. Finding her asleep, he slithered out the tower and tiptoed past the slumbering Dickson. He pocketed his homemade flute, threw the Dun Eaddain ax over his shoulder, and rappelled down the wall on the rope he had hidden in a barrel.

He ran as fast as his sore ribs allowed. After several
hours, he reached Kilbride just as the sun broke over the tawny Lanarkshire
horizon and revealed the tips of the Comyn towers. Eager for another kiss, he
rushed breathless into the thicket near the river.

Belle wasn’t there.

Caressing the heart-stone hanging from his neck, he asked
the sprites for a sign. Why hadn’t she come? If he went near the castle, he
would risk an arrest for trespassing. … He saw no smoke rising from the
turrets.

Alarmed, he raced along
the riverbank. As he neared the moors north of Kilbride, he heard the faint
braying of horses. He scampered up to the brow of the next hill and gazed down at
the trail.

The Comyns were riding north—and Belle was with them.

The path doubled back for nearly a league to avoid the high
ground. If he hurried, he might catch them at the bend. He kept out of sight as
he dashed along the ridge that ran parallel to the route on the far side of the
valley. Maneuvering in this blind swire prevented him from gauging the speed of
their advance, so he would have to guess when to make his move.

After several more lengths, he clambered up a rocky upthrow
where two scrub-covered humps funneled the path into a defile. He pressed his
ear to the ground and heard the distant thumps of hooves. Belle was on the
sixth horse, he remembered, with Red in the lead. If he timed his jump, he
could be away with her before the bastards knew she was gone.

He counted off ten seconds—two for each horse—and scaled the
hillock. He had guessed right. Belle was riding a few paces ahead,
with Cam on her far side. He ran for her.

She turned, hearing footsteps, and shook her head for him to
go back.

He ignored her and,
reaching the horse at last, knocked Cam from the saddle. Mounting behind her,
he lashed the garron into a tight turn, and when they reached a clearing, he
kicked the garron in gallop toward Douglasdale. She tried to look back, but he
kept her head facing forward. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Red still
riding north, unaware of the ambush. Cam lay on the ground, stunned. He laughed
and congratulated himself on outsmarting the fools.

Belle finally regained her breath. “Jamie, no!”

He covered her face with
her shawl to muffle her shouts. Headstrong lass! He had saved her from the clutches of the Comyns, and here she was
criticizing his horsemanship.

She struggled against his restraint. “Go back!”

A sharp blow hammered the back of his head, driving it into
her shoulder.

He regained consciousness
on the ground—with Tabhann, on a horse, circling him. He cursed himself for
failing to anticipate that Red would station a rider far in the column’s rear.
Several paces away, he saw Belle struggling to regain control of her spooked
pony. He shouted at her, “Run!”

Tabhann whipped his mount to and fro, debating whether to
ride him down or prevent Belle from escaping.

Belle circled her garron and came rushing back toward them.

James reached behind his back for the ax, but it was gone.
He must have lost it on the run. He shouted at Belle again, “Go back!”

Tabhann thundered down
the ridge and careened into James. Rolling from the painful blow, James
struggled to his knees and looked up to see the Comyns galloping back toward
him. Tabhann dismounted and found the ax in the high grass. He raised the
weapon over James’s head for the finishing blow.

“Tabhann!” Belle screamed. “Leave him! There may be more!”

James froze in confusion.
She is warning Tabhann?

Grinning at Belle’s altered allegiance, Tabhann leapt on the
pony behind her and rode north to catch up with his kinsmen.

James rushed after them—until Red came storming back over the ridge.

The chieftain drove him
across the heather on his hands and knees. “You’re on my ground now, Douglas!”
Red pulled Cam to his saddle and rode north to catch up with Tabhann. “Come
near that lass again and I’ll show you Comyn justice!”

On the horizon, Tabhann circled back and waved the stolen ax
over Belle’s head in a taunt.

J
AMES LIMPED HOME, TRYING TO
make sense of Belle’s betrayal.
Why hadn’t she escaped with him when she had the chance? Had she pitted him
against the Comyns all along just to curry their favor? He clutched at the
heart-stone pounding at his chest, wondering if its message had just a figment
of his imagination. Before he could come up with an answer to those questions,
an acrid rush of smoke attacked his nostrils. He rushed toward the spine of a
braeside that descended into Douglasdale. An orange glow flickered through the
leafless birches above the night’s horizon.

Castle Douglas was engulfed in flames.

With his vantage obscured by the billowing smoke, he dived
into the Douglas Water and swam furiously for the far side. When he surfaced,
twenty English troopers on horse surrounded him. He tried to retreat to the far
bank, but the soldiers flushed him out, lashing him with whips and laughing as
he bobbed and dived to avoid drowning. He fought and kicked at the hooves of an
English mosstrooper’s horse, trying to stave off its thumps.

“Have you men been fishing again?” asked the mounted officer
prodding him from the water. “This minnow is so puny you ought to throw it
back.”

James shivered with doubled fear. He had never forgotten that
haughty Herefordshire tongue that sounded so Welsh—it belonged to Robert
Clifford, Longshanks’s cutthroat who had presided over Gibbie’s death at
Berwick.

Clifford dismounted and dragged up Eleanor Douglas from the
middle of a scrum that was abusing her with taunts and snaps of their reins. He
clamped her chin and forced her to look at James, who was still on his hands
and knees. “Is this who you’ve been looking for?”

Eleanor averted her eyes. “I don’t know this lad.”

Clifford pressed a heel against James’s neck to inspect his
face more closely.

“My father rides here within the hour!” James blurted as his
head was being crushed against the ground. “You’ll pay for this!” From an
angle, he saw his stepmother close her eyes in anguish, and realized too late
from her slumped reaction that she had been trying to hide his identity from
the English. He had given himself away by his sheer rage.

His memory of Berwick revived, Clifford grinned and signaled
for his troopers on the walls to drag out another prisoner. “He beat you to
us.”

Bloodied and half-conscious from a beating, Wil Douglas was
hauled through the gate. He looked up in despair to find that James had again
disobeyed his order to remain home.

Clifford enjoyed watching their mutual humiliation. “This
castle is forfeited to England. Its lord, a traitor, will be delivered to
London Tower.”