The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (7 page)

“And the black?”

“The Bruces.”

Belle had heard only passing references to that Southern
clan. “The Bruces of England?”

“Of Scotland, as well. That clan holds fiefs on both sides of the border. The eldest, Bruce the Competitor, was King Alexander’s fealt comrade. He’s now even longer in the tooth than me.”

“The Competitor claims the throne against Red?”

The crone nodded. “The two are like cats in a sack.”

Belle waited to hear the significance of that observation. “Aye, and … ?”

“Edward Longshanks pulls the drawstring.”

Belle failed to see what relevance all of this political
intrigue bore upon
her
problem. In two days, her father would depart
for Fife, leaving her at the mercy of the Comyns. Would she ever see St.
Andrews again? What would become of her diary? She had left it in her
bedchamber under lock. Nothing would prevent her brothers from prying it open
and—

The crone snapped two bony fingers to regain Belle's wandering
attention. “The destiny of the branch can be read in the roots. The time of
both the Competitor and the Red is fast passing. Old Bruce’s feckless son has
turned recluse in Norway. It is the grandson, Robert, who was born under
auspicious stars. I have scryed his future in the black glass. He will vie for
the throne against Red’s pups. Only a malevolent aspect with Saturnia can keep
him from his fate. Melancholy will be his crown of thorns. But the English King
has seers, too, and he will try to keep young Bruce under his spell in London.”

Belle’s head was pounding from trying to follow the woman's strange
manner of speech. She watched, confused, as the crone played imaginary
chess moves upon the pommel of her saddle, tossing aside invisible knights and
queens with building vehemence.

“The Bruces and the Comyns scheme to checkmate each other,”
the crone explained in a running commentary. “For every Bruce castle, you will
find a Comyn keep in the next square. To win the kingship, a Bruce must leap a
Comyn and a Comyn must leap a Bruce.”

At her wits' end, Belle finally went off like a steam cork. “But what does any
of this have to do with
me
?”

The other women riding just ahead turned at her loud burst
of exasperation.

The crone recoiled into her hood, feigning lack of interest.
When the women were finally disarmed of their suspicions, she turned and glared
at Belle for the dangerous indiscretion. Lowering her voice in a signal for her
young companion to do the same, she revealed, “Fife is the last square. And you
are the final piece protecting the king. Ready to be jumped?”

Belle’s face twisted at the crude sexual innuendo.

“There are two branches of the clan. The Red is patriarch of
the Badenoch line. He governs all Comyn lands. His cousin Tabhann will become
the earl of Buchan and Red’s most powerful vassal. The Comyns are conniving to
surround the Bruces by arranging bonds with the earls of Strathearn, Angus,
Dunbar, Ross and Balliol.”

“What about Fife?”

“Only the allegiance of your father’s domains is left to be bargained off. Both the Red and the Competitor were distantly related to King Alexander. Bruce is a generation closer, so he holds the truer claim to the throne, if only by the breadth of a bald priest’s hair. But Ian MacDuff is a clever player of the game. He has held off both the Bruces and the Comyns until the stakes have risen.”

“What stakes?”

The old woman gaped her toothless gums, astonished at
Belle’s ignorance of her father’s motives. “Can ye not see the nose on your own
face, child? When the Comyns have you, they will have the crown in their
grasp.”

The ancient clan motto—
No
MacDuff, no King!
—rang like a judge’s sentence in Belle’s head. Only now
did she understand the full extent of her father’s plotting during these past months. She quickly
calculated the line of succession of the Comyn clan. After Red, Cam would be
first in line, then Tabhann. If Tabhann survived Cam, she might one day be
queen. And she would not put it past Tabhann to speed the matter by allowing
Cam to encounter some accident. “Why does Red not betroth me to Cam?”

“He hopes Longshanks will sire another daughter.”

After an agonized silence, Belle whimpered, “What am I to do?”

The crone scoffed at her lament. “Does the rook command the player? Of course not! You’ll wait to be played like the pawn you were born to be.”

Again, the other women in the column turned on them with
disapproving glances. This time, wearied of playing the imbecile to their gossip mongering, the crone twirled her middle finger at them, mocking the conjuring ritual of a witch. Horrified, the women increased their distance and crossed themselves to ward off the evil influences.

Belle couldn’t help but admire the old bag. She might be crude and queer, but her defiance was refreshing. “What may I call you?”

The crone hesitated, as if at a momentary loss. “Idonea … I’d near forgotten my own name. It’s been so long since anyone has inquired.”

“Why do the others treat you like a leper?”

Idonea set her eyes coldly on a distant memory. “I too
was once meant to be a queen. Forty years ago, I was married off to the Red’s
eldest brother. Three weeks after the wedding, my husband got himself hacked to
death in a haggle over ten heifers.” She screwed her face into a stony
indifference. “There is nothing more useless in this country than a woman who
has lost her man.”

Belle tried to imagine a crown on the widow’s grey head.
“Still, the Red keeps you in his household. Is that not better than a cold
nunnery?”

Idonea snorted at the
suggestion that the Comyn chieftain might possess a shiver of compassion. “He
threw me into the tower at Dundarg to make certain I didn’t take my womb to
another clan. Only when I turned fallow did he unlock the door.”

“But if you are no use to him now?”

“He thinks I gained the power to blacken fates during my
time in the darkness. Else, he would have turned me out to the moors long ago.
The Comyns shun me, but they daren’t harm me. Small blessing. None of them is
worth the breath of a word exchanged.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what, child?”

“Gain the power to blacken fates?”

Idonea turned toward the tawny belt of dusk that hung over
the distant Western Isles, where the magic of the ancients was still practiced despite
Rome’s threats. With a heavy sigh, she counseled,
“When one is shut away for half of one’s life, one discovers that others beyond
the veil walk with you. But what truly matters, lass, what your survival will
depend upon … You must make those whoresons
believe
that you command the spirits.”

B
ELLE WAS CERTAIN FROM HER
father’s evasive manner that he
had agreed to the terms of the marital contract and was delaying telling her of its ratification until after the secret meeting of the guardians. Earlier that morning, after locking her in a room in Kilbride’s tower, he had gone to Dumfries with the Comyns, no doubt to have the document sealed by the magistrate. Red had left orders for her brothers to keep her inside the castle. But when she complained that the lads reeked horribly, they retaliated by demanding that she wash their laundry at the river. She had put up a strenuous protest, arguing that such a menial task was not befitting a MacDuff princess. The simpletons had taken the bait, shoving her out of the castle with the loaded basket.

She treasured this rare moment of solitude, her first in
nearly a week. As she walked the forested path with arrows of light shooting
through the low autumn mist, she fantasized about escaping. It might take hours
in this thick fog for her brothers to find her tracks. But how would she feed
herself? Winter was approaching, and no village owing vassalage to the Comyns
would take her in. She might seek refuge in a convent, but the nuns would
likely ransom her for an endowment. Despite her troubles, she began to feel
lighter, as if she might levitate even. If only Our Lord would transport her to
Heaven like the Virgin and take her away from these problems.

A rustling startled her.

She stifled a shriek. Twenty paces away, a young roe had
staggered into a tree. The creature rebounded, bloodied from the bark, and
struck another trunk, repeating the strange ritual over and again. She saw that
its hide was splotched with raw patches from neck to tail. Although winter was
approaching, the animal was molting, and a bulbous mass of flesh and soft bone
striated with veins had grown down from its forehead to blind its eyes. She had
heard the witches who plied the craft of
da-shealladh
,
the Second Sight, call such rare creatures “wiggers.” Abandoned by its herd,
the poor thing was caked with dried blood, having been attacked and castrated
by wild dogs while its antlers were in velvet.

The appearance of a wigger was deemed a dolorous omen. Yet she approached the blind roe and, capturing its battered head, offered it some of the berries that she had brought for lunch. As the roe whimpered in gratitude, she whispered to its ear, “St. Bride will heal you.” With that blessing received, the roe scampered off into the grove.

Shaken by the encounter, she walked on until she reached the
river’s bank. She pulled the basket off her back and turned it over on the
pounding rocks.

The basket was empty.

Bewildered, she reexamined her route and saw a saffron shirt
hanging from a branch. How did
that
happen? Across the glen, steam
ascended eerily from the cold water heated by the hidden sun. Had she stumbled
into a sacred domain of the roguish Little People? She retraced her steps through
the mists and found blouses and leggings dotting the trees like blossoms.

A loud splash broke the calm. She turned toward an offshoot of the Clyde and saw circles of ripples expanding. A hand broke surfaced, as if the Lady of the Lake was offering up Excalibur. She screamed—the fist held one of her intimate garments.

A dark face—with an insufferable smirk—followed the hand up
from the water. “Looking for this?”

Her jaw dropped. The Douglas boy had been stalking her all this time,
stealing the laundry piece by piece. Infuriated, she knelt with the stillness
of a hunter and scooped a handful of rocks. When he swam closer, she
demonstrated how fast a Fife maid could launch missiles. His puckish grin
vanished as he dove into the water to avoid being brained. Each time he
surfaced, she sent him down again.

But this time, his head did not reappear. Only a few bubbles
percolated as the ripples settled.

I’ve drowned him!

She rushed into the water, splashing to find him as her
skirt floated to her waist. Thwarted by its buoyancy, she ripped it off,
leaving her in linen under-leggings. She drew a deep breath and dived under,
but the water was too murky. She prepared to give up the attempt—

A water creature clamped on
her legs. Her scream died to a gurgle as the beast's claws pulled her under. The scaly monster had devoured the Douglas boy and was now about to swallow her! She fought to the surface, but the serpent dragged her under again. Finally, struggling mightily, she managed to raise her chin above the water. Smelling blood, she closed her eyes for fear of seeing his detached limbs. The creature released its grip, and she risked a look behind her.

A mischievous grin hovered just a breath away from her nose.

Before she could retreat, the Douglas boy pressed his lips to hers. A rush of panic and pleasure swept over her. And then, the strangest of thoughts
came to her:
Will I ever be kissed
without danger as its companion?
Her first had been in full view of the
clans, followed by her father’s punishing hand. This boy had thoroughly enjoyed
that
conquest, while she had been forced to suffer the consequences.
This second kiss had been equally unacceptable.

I will be smouriched my way.
She dove into his arms.
Let’s see how he likes that!

She pressed her soaked bosom to his chest and demonstrated a proper Fife bussing on him—long, languorous and soft. In the midst of the lesson, she made a disconcerting discovery: he was wearing not a stitch of clothing. She pushed him away, but he swam toward her, eager for another embrace. She thrust his head into the water and paddled for the bank, kicking away his pawing hands. Dripping wet, she scampered out with her backside revealed by the clinging linens.

“Come back in!” he shouted as he took a step
closer, the water dropping to his waist. “Or I’ll come out.”

“Don’t you dare! Put your things on!”

“I seem to have lost them.”

She covered her eyes and, after several groping lunges,
retrieved the nearest item of scattered laundry, a nightgown. She wrapped it
around a stone and threw it at him.

He slipped the frilly chemise over his head and walked out
of the water resembling some mythical half-lad, half-lassie.

Her anger melted into a rolling laugh, the first she had
enjoyed since leaving Fife. “You’ve got hazel nuts rattling in that skull of
yours!”

While he sunned on a rock, she hopped from tree to tree to
recover the laundry. She finally gave up the doomed effort and returned in mock
brooding. She plopped upon the large boulder next to him and squeezed the water
from her long black hair back, whipping it deftly to ensure that his face
suffered a lashing. She turned to find him staring at her wet bodice.

“I’m thinking I didn’t get all of my rewards for winning the
race.”

She caressed his head, bringing his eyes closer to the
object of their lustful gaze—and pushed him into the water. “My father was
right! You Douglases are full of yourselves.”

James bobbed up spewing. He was about to retaliate by
dragging her back in with him, but suddenly he doubled over, his breath stolen
by the pain from the injuries he had suffered during the race.

Alarmed, she helped him back to the boulder and examined his
bruised ribs. As she tended to him, he brought her to his embrace, and she put
up a weak struggle, warning, “If we get caught …”