The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (34 page)

Gaveston kissed the prince and then watched for a reaction
from Tabhann. “Has the Scottie lost his bride?”

Caernervon nuzzled and conversed intimately with his
favourite, as if Tabhann were not present. “It seems she prefers the company of
that Douglas cad. You remember him, Piers. He was the thick-tongued bumpkin who
danced like a bear.”

“The one with the firm derrière?”

Caernervon, stung with jealousy, wriggled away from
Gaveston’s arms.

The Gascon knight reassured the insecure prince with a
pointed glance aimed at his buttocks. “Not as fine as yours, Poppy.”

Mollified, Caernervon
rested his head on Gaveston’s chest. “I too have suffered the pangs of lost
love. We must do all we can to see the Scottie reunited with his lady.”

Gaveston leapt from the
bed and donned the prince’s breastplate, leaving exposed his lower extremities
where a codpiece would be attached. He scampered around mimicking a joust with
his lance. “Your wish is my command, my lord! Where is the poor damsel held? In
London Tower? On some brigand ship?”

Caernervon rollicked across the sheets, toasting the
performance.

“My wife!” Tabhann shouted, incensed by the mockery at his
expense.

Wiping tears of mirth, Caernervon finally regained breath
enough to report, “She is indeed inside those walls.”

Tabhann took an impatient step toward the bed. “Then it is
true—” He stopped when Caernervon laid back the covers, as if to make room for
three.

Primping his curls, Caernervon studied his own reflection in
the goblet’s jeweled neck. “There is even more good news. This Douglas traitor
who cuckolded you now seems to have turned his affections toward Robert Bruce.”
The prince shot a wicked glance at Gaveston, as if savoring the possibility of
a physical bond between the two Scot rebels. “Bruce and Douglas have abandoned
those conniving cunts they dragged west with them. Now they share a bed sack on
the moors! How scandalous!” He winked with devilish intent at Gaveston, who was
prancing around in glee at the irony. “It would be such a shame if such
depravity became widely known. That might destroy their reputations.”

“Who defends the tower with Nigel Bruce?” Tabhann asked.

Tired of toying with the humorless Scot, Caernervon
suspended Gaveston’s taunting with an upturned hand. Adopting the practiced
façade of the serious monarch that he would soon become, the prince reported,
“He is being suckled by that fat sow, Atholl. I intend to roast
their loins for ham hocks. They have a small garrison, but Bruce’s brother is putting
up a stiff resistance. I fear it will be a month, perhaps more, before you are
back in your lady’s arms.” He winked at Piers, betraying that neither was in a
rush to end their secret tryst in this wilderness. “These primitive siege guns
commissioned by my father are not worth the kindling.”

“A
month?
That is time enough for Bruce to restock his rebel army in
the Isles and send a relief force!”

Caernervon waved off the warning. “Do you know what they are
calling Robert Bruce in London? King Hob. He hobbles over here and he hobbles
over there. That smelly MacDougall oaf reports that the turncoat now resembles
a recluse with a beard falling to his belt and his ribs poking out of rags
ripped to shreds by hounds. Even by your primitive standards of hygiene, Comyn,
that must be something frightful to behold. You needn’t worry about King Hob.
He can’t even scare up a rabbit to roast.”

“Even if Bruce remains
in hiding, Douglas will come for her.”

Caernervon drained his wine goblet. “What can one man do to
us?”

Tabhann paced and
stewed, desperate to get his hands on Belle before Douglas discovered where she
was hiding. He scoured his memory of Kildrummy’s layout. One oddity of its
architecture, he remembered, had always drawn complaints from the vassal
assigned by his uncle Red to hold it years ago. A small chamber situated
between the kitchen and the dining hall had been converted into a corn bin. The
room had once been used as a waiting station to pass heated victuals, but the
aperture had been boarded up rather than refilled with stone and mortar. He
asked the English prince, “Is the castle provisioned?”

With affected dejection, Caernervon sank into his pillow and
bemoaned his plight. “Alas, it seems so. My spies confirm the granary is full.”

Tabhann rushed from the pavilion.

B
ELLE HAD DREAMED FOR WEEKS OF
a night in a warm bed, but
now that she had gained the protection of Kildrummy, she could not sleep. She
climbed from her straw mattress and knelt next to Elizabeth, who lay shivering
under quilts near the altar. Nigel had lodged them here in the chapel for
safety, trusting that the English would not aim their slings at holy ground.
She placed her palm on the queen’s splotched forehead. The fevered chills had
not eased.

Elizabeth opened her swollen eyes. “Marjorie?”

“The child is asleep in the kitchen with Mary and
Christian,” Belle assured her. “There is more heat from the ovens.”

She marveled at how well the queen had stood up under the
rigors of their ordeal. Growing up in Fife, she had become inured to the brutal
northern winters, but Elizabeth had never spent a day outside the London court
or her father’s castle in Ireland. She recalled the first time she had laid
eyes upon Richard de Burgh’s daughter, in Berwick city. She had formed an
immediate dislike for Robert’s new wife, for there had been condescension in
Elizabeth’s manner, a legacy of her Irish heritage, no doubt. Ulstermen and
their women, after all, would stand in rags on Judgment Day and declare all
other races inferior. And yet, she conceded, God must have chosen Elizabeth for
the role, knowing that Robert would require a queen with a deep reservoir of
stubbornness and tenacity.

As if sensing her thoughts, Elizabeth looked up at her with
a contrite smile and whispered, “I have never properly thanked you.”

Belle turned aside. As an only daughter, she had never
enjoyed a close bond with another woman so near her age. Finding it difficult
to share her deepest feelings, she deflected Elizabeth’s attempt at intimacy by
pretending to tend to the hearth.

Elizabeth persisted in trying to draw her out. “There is
something I have never told you. The first time I encountered James, I found
him infuriating.”

Belle could not stifle a rueful chuckle. “Perhaps you and I
are more alike than we thought.”

“How did you meet him?”

She stirred the fire. “I stumbled into him.”

“No, in truth.”

“I bounced off his chest like a tossed chestnut. A force
seemed to have pushed me into him. I turned to see what I had danged. He looked
at me with those daunton black eyes …”

“And?”

“He kissed me.”

Elizabeth struggled to
her elbow. “Without even knowing your name?”

“Aye, I should have slapped him, but …”

“What
did
you do?”

“He bolted from me before I could do anything.” Several
seconds passed before Belle found the resolve to ask Elizabeth the question
that had haunted her these many months. “Have you ever wondered if the patterns
of our lives might be foretold in a lone encounter?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since that day, Jamie has been running from me, or I
from him.”

Elizabeth shook her head in disapproval. “One would think
you
were the Irish of the two of us,
spouting such mystical nonsense.”

“You don’t believe that
you and the king were destined to be together?”

Elizabeth lowered her gaze as she thought a moment. “Ours is
a different bond. Marjorie’s mother was Robert’s true love. He and I share a
respect, a deep affection even. But I know there is a part of him I will never
have.”

“You wedded him knowing this?”

“Robert proposed, and I accepted. I did not ask his reasons.
I sensed in him some great purpose, and I felt duty bound to my father’s
approval. Do you judge me harshly for that?”

“Me? A married lady who violates her vows is in no position
to judge? But surely love can grow. The seed lies dormant until the spring
and—” Belle looked down and saw that Elizabeth had fallen asleep. She tucked
the blankets around the queen’s neck and quietly prepared to leave the chapel
to check upon Nigel. At the threshold, she heard faintly …

“He always returns.”

She turned back,
questioning if her imagination had spoken those words.

The queen opened her eyes slightly. “James runs from you.
But has he not always returned?”

Her heart surged. “Aye, he has.”

“Then perhaps
there
is your pattern,” the queen said, her voice trailing off as she slipped back
into sleep.

Smiling with a swell of hope, Belle closed the door and made
her way through the darkness across the rock-strewn bailey. The English had
suspended the bombardment for the night, and the weary Scot defenders on the
walls were stealing a few minutes of slumber. The tapers cast flickering
shadows across her approach to the great hall. Near the granary, she saw a
cloaked figure. She haled the man, who seemed to be in a hurry. “Sir, can you
tell me where I might find Lord Bruce?”

The man drew his hood over his head and refused to answer her.

She shivered from a foreboding. “Have we met?” When the man
kept his face covered, she backed away in alarm and screamed, “Nigel!”

On the allures, the soldiers leapt to their feet and gripped their weapons.

Nigel came running from the tower and found her shaking, in
a panic. Bracing her shoulders, he asked, “What is wrong?”

She needed several breaths to find her voice. “That man.”

The cloaked phantom lowered his hood. The defenders on the walls sheathed their swords and muttered curses for having their rest needlessly disturbed.

Nigel calmed her. “It is only Callahan the blacksmith.”

The blacksmith bowed stiffly to her, but kept his eyes cast
down.

Belle was sick with embarrassment. “Forgive me. I am so
tired. My mind must be playing tricks. I thought he was an intruder.”

Nigel dismissed the blacksmith to his intended destination, and then escorted Belle back to the chapel. “You must get some rest.” “You must get some rest.”

“Is there no word from the king?” she asked.

Nigel smiled to reassure her. “We have enough grain to hold
out for two months. Caernervon does not have that kind of patience. You needn’t
worry.”

Relieved, she sank into his arms. Since their escape from
Glen Dochart, she had formed an abiding affection for the youngest Bruce
brother. Unlike the rash Edward and the ambitious Robert, Nigel was selfless
and sensitive. More slender in build and fair in features than his siblings, he
reminded her of Galahad, the chaste knight of Arthur’s Round Table. He emulated
his oldest brother with such devotion that the others called him “Little Rob.”
He would do anything to further Robert’s cause, of that she had seen evidence
enough, and there was no one, other than James, in whose protection she felt more
secure. She kissed his cheek to send him back to his duties.

When Nigel had departed, she glanced back toward the granary
and saw the blacksmith lingering near its door. Had the poor man been
trembling? She offered up a prayer for him, thinking how tragic it must be for
one trained in the use of his hands to suffer from the palsy.

S
OMETIME LATER THAT NIGHT,
B
ELLE
awoke to the acrid sting of
peppery smoke in her nostrils. She leapt up from the floor and pulled the dazed
Elizabeth through the door. Marjorie, blackened with soot, crawled from the
kitchen just before a crackling beam landed behind her.

The castle was an inferno.

Outside, Nigel was mustering his men to defend the burning
gate. He warned her back. “The granary has been fired! You must get away at
once!”

She rushed to the well for buckets. “We can’t leave you!”

Nigel intercepted her and pressed a loop of rope into her
hands. “I’ll lead an attack from the south gate to divert the English.” He
gathered the other women together and hurried them toward the wall. “Go north
to Tain! Seek sanctuary with St. Duthac’s monks!”

She heard the shouts of the English massing for an assault.
Powerless to help him, she kissed his forehead. “You are every breath the
knight your brother is. God be with you.”

Her blessing drew his tears. “And with you, my lady.”

He warned her away, and she hurried Elizabeth, Marjorie, and
the king’s sisters to the north ramparts. Climbing to the allures, she looped
the rope around a crenellation and ordered Elizabeth to go down first. The drop
was more than twenty feet, and when Elizabeth hesitated, she had to push the
queen to the rope. “You can do it!”

Elizabeth closed her eyes and slid down the rope, crying out
from the burn. Little Marjorie, who had inherited the agility of her father,
easily rappelled down. Belle hurried Mary and Christian to the task while she
watched Nigel prepare to meet the onslaught of the rams hammering the main
gate.

Seeing them safely on the ground, she prepared to leap
across the wall when a horrid thought came to mind: How would James find her?
She picked up a shard of charcoal and debated the risk.

Elizabeth shouted at her from below. “I see their torches!
Hurry!”

Belle scribbled on the wall:
Sanctuary
.

A
S A CHILD, SHE HAD
always wanted to travel to Tain and see
the Culdee shrine that marked the birthplace of St. Duthac. A lover of all
God’s lesser creatures, Duthac had saved a herd of runaway cattle from
slaughter by coaxing them into the stone fence that surrounded his hut,
insisting that the Old Testament required all beasts in the shade of a holy
temple be spared for forty days. Word of this Scottish St. Francis of Assisi
had spread so quickly that his humble abode soon became crowded with human
fugitives from justice. Two hundred years later, King Malcolm III granted legal
standing to Duthac’s tradition, and ever since, Scot monarchs had made the
pilgrimage here to affirm the sanctity of the sanctuary law.