The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (65 page)

“That is the Gnostic deviancy!” Robert protested.

D’Aumont glanced toward the door, as if fearful that the
Dominicans may have infiltrated agents into the court here. Raising his hands
in a plea for the king to lower his voice, he explained, “Our Lord warned that
priests would try to twist his words. The scrolls speak of a cosmic war fought
again and again by souls who reincarnate into this world. The Nasoreans called
it a war between the forces of Darkness and Light. The Cathari of Occitania
also possessed copies of these scrolls.”

“The Cathari were exterminated as heretics,” James reminded
him.

“For good reason,” d’Aumont said. “The Occitan martyrs were
spiritual descendants of these same Nasoreans. And hence they knew the truth.”

Robert shot his councilors a questioning glance, as if
convinced they had all fallen into the company of the deranged.

But James had already connected the strands: The Templars,
Culdees, and Cathari were striplings nurtured from the same seed, all
eliminated by the Church for the same crime: knowledge of the truth. He turned
back to d’Aumont and asked, “Did these scrolls say who will prevail in this
war?”

“The forces of the Light. But only if a New Jerusalem is
first built.”

James bored in on the Templar. “Built
where
?”

Jeanne stepped forward to answer for her reticent comrade.
“Across the sea, beyond Ireland. In a land protected by a goddess and her
star.”

A stunned silence extended
across the chamber, until Robert snorted with disbelief. “That’s nothing more
than a bard’s fable. Any fool knows the world drops off beyond Ireland.”

Jeanne retreated to rolled blanket that had been placed on a
table. She opened it and brought forth what appeared to be some form of exotic
vegetation. She pealed the husks on one of the plants and displayed rows of
what appeared to be yellow teeth.

Robert examined the odd kernels. “This grows in Palestine?”

D’Aumont impaled the oblong plant on the tip of his sword
and held its core over the fire. After roasting its teeth brown, he carved off
a row of the kernels for the Scots to taste. “Five years ago, we sent a fleet
west from the Orkneys. Navigating under the constellation of the Virgin, we
came upon a new land that resembles your Isle in both climate and landscape.
The natives there, dark-skinned as Arabs, call this plant ‘maze.’ The other they
call ‘aloe.’ Its juice provides a healing balm for wounds. Our brothers brought
back planting seeds from the vegetation.”

“These scrolls you discovered,” James said. “Where are they
now?”

D’Aumont maintained a stony glare. “
That
we cannot
reveal.”

Robert flushed at the curt refusal to answer. “Do you forget
that you address a king?”

“Not
our
king,” d’Aumont insisted with steeled
defiance. “We serve only the Blessed Virgin, the queen who rules over all
kings.”

James suspected these Templars were revealing just enough of
their mysterious arcana to serve their ulterior designs. He studied Jeanne,
wondering what other secrets she had withheld from him. If the monks
had
discovered a new land of bounty, why did they return to Scotland? There was
nothing here but strife and barren moors. And then it came to him: Why had the
papal missionaries rowed across the Channel to conquer the Culdees? Why had
England nearly bankrupted its treasury to conquer the North? Why did any
foreigner with designs of subjugation ever come to Scotland? With a knowing
glare, he challenged d’Aumont with a theory, “You came back for the Stone of
Destiny.”

The Scots tightened their circle, finally driving the monk to an answer. “We came back to see your war won. … And to insure the safety of your Stone.”

“What possible purpose could the Stone serve for you?” James
asked.

Jeanne shook her head, exasperated at his persistence in
delving into such esoteric matters. Knowing that he would not be dissuaded from
an answer, she reluctantly revealed, “Your coronation Stone held the Ark of the
Covenant in Solomon’s Temple. The New Jerusalem cannot be built until all of
the relics from the Israelite tabernacle are reunited.”

“If you seek the foundation Stone,” James said in a sharp
cross-examination, “then you have already found the Ark.”

When the Templars did not deny that charge, Robert turned to
the man responsible for bringing these French heretic monks to Scotland. “Do
you believe this wild tale, Bishop?”

“I do. You know that I have always believed we Scots were given a great task in God’s plan. The angels were with us at Bannockburn. Our freedom, and the freedom of those who will follow us, depends upon our refusal to bend to papist calumny. If we stand defiant, others may gain courage to do the same.”

James watched Robert closely as he walked a few steps away to weigh the bishop’s proposal to defy the pope. The wrangling of churchmen always left Robert enervated; he had never understood why all Christians could not accept the teachings of the Church without striving to twist them into some worldly advantage. He was no doubt also worried that his grandfather now languished in Purgatory because he had failed to fulfill their vow to go to Jerusalem. If he brazenly rejected the spiritual legitimacy of the excommunication as the bishop now counseled, they would never be permitted to take up the Cross and make good on their boyhood oath.

Either you are the heretic, or the pope is.

There was harsh truth in that cold assessment of their situation. These Templars, not the pope, had stood with them at Bannockburn, and if he and Robert had to throw their lots with Satan’s legions, at least they would stand with those who had demonstrated loyalty in the face of death. What Scotsman worth his salt would choose theological righteousness over steadfastness in battle? He nodded firmly at Robert to spur him to the right decision.

Prodded on despite his misgivings, Robert sighed and crossed his breast after finishing a silent prayer for guidance. “This declaration you seek, Bishop. You have some phrasing in mind?”

Lamberton quickened with hope. “Aye, my lord.”

Robert shot a nettled glare at James, convinced that his old friend
enjoyed watching him suffer under such dilemmas. “If I go to Hell’s fires for
this, you’ll not be far behind me.”

“When have I ever been behind you? I dragged your
London-coddled ass up Ben Lomond to put it on that throne out there.”

Robert shook his head in
dismay. Was it any wonder the Church refused to recognize his kingship when his
own subjects spoke to him so cavalierly? He walked toward the door and, without
turning, ordered the bishop, “Draft your writ. If it moves me, I will consider
its promulgation.”

A
ND SO, DURING THE WEEKS
that followed, Bishop Lamberton
labored day and night on Scotland’s reply to the new pope. To assist him, he
recruited an old comrade, Abbot Bernard of Arbroath Abbey, who had carried the
relics of St. Columba at Bannockburn and was a renowned Latinist, more skilled
than any Scotsman in the art of rhetoric. After many hours of heated debate
over whether to take a strident or conciliatory tone, the two clerics finally
reached an accord.

Lamberton acquiesced in the obsequious formalities that Bernard insisted should be included for diplomatic salve. He also accepted certain odious references that tacitly recognized the pope as the arbiter of the Faith, for Bernard had rightly calculated that their demand to choose their own king without interference by the Church was radical enough; an attack upon the pontiff’s legitimacy in spiritual matters would be left for another day. In exchange for these concessions, he had extracted the one condition that he considered more crucial than all the legalities combined: Bernard promised not to lay down his quill until he had summoned language so poetic and powerful that it would hearken music from the angelic realm when read to John XXII and his Curia.

Thus, in April of
that year, 1320, Robert stood before Parliament in Arbroath Abbey and watched
as the barons filed by to press their clan seals to Lamberton’s unprecedented
document. Soules, Mowbray, and Brechin held back, but they too were finally
driven to sign by the king’s judging glare. Brechin appeared particularly
agitated, his brow damped with perspiration and his eyes in constant motion.
After the young knight finally committed the deed, Robert examined the relief
of his seal and observed, “That is the imprint of your wife’s clan, if I am not
mistaken, Lord Brechin?”

Brechin glanced nervously at Soules. “Aye, my lord. I
carelessly neglected to bring my signet.”

“For a man who fought in Palestine, you seem a bit ajar,”
Robert observed dryly. “I trust you did not tremble so when you faced the
Saracens?”

Brechin daubed sweat from his forehead. “I have not been
well.”

James waited at the rear of the line to be the last to lay
his mark on what many were affectionately calling the Scottish Declaration of
Freedom. As his turn came and he pressed his ring to the parchment wax with a
flourish of his wrist, he smiled at Lamberton in congratulations. Finding one
paragraph particularly to his liking, he dipped the quill and emboldened its
words to emphasize to the Holy Father that he would personally see to its
enforcement:

For so long as there shall but one hundred of us remain
alive we will never give consent to subject ourselves to the dominion of the
English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honours, but it
is liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose
but with his life.

A
WEEK LATER, AS
J
AMES
rode back north toward Dunfermline,
he consulted Robert’s baffling new order again. Only a few days after his
return to Lintalee, he had been commanded to arrest David Brechin in Roxburgh
and, engaging in no conversation with him, deliver the prisoner with all haste
to the king’s judiciary. Now, reaching the palace, he dismounted and
escorted Brechin into the abbey where the Parliament was in session. He found
Soules, Mowbray, and seven former Comyn allies standing chained in the docks.

Robert shot to his feet on seeing Brechin shuffle
down the aisle in leg irons. “Traitor! Has he confessed, Lord Douglas?”

James was taken aback by the accusation. “My liege,
confessed to what?”

“Are you not charged with the surveillance of my
enemies?”

James was confounded by both the indictment of
treason and Robert’s implication that he had played a role in whatever had
happened. He turned to Brechin for an explanation.

The former Comyn knight kept
his eyes lowered. “I did not partake of the act.”

“Did not
partake!
Robert screamed. “You absolve yourself by sitting idle while these traitors
thrust the knife?”

“They swore me to secrecy before revealing their plans,”
Brechin said. “I did nothing but abide by my vow to God.”

“You would see the crown stolen from me!”

“Not stolen. Rightly placed on a legitimate head.”

Robert shouted so vehemently that he doused Brechin with
spittle. “What harm did I ever cause to be done to you?”

“I took the Cross,” Brechin said. “I cannot give allegiance
to an excommunicate without darkening my soul.”

“Damn your base pride!” Robert shouted. “I have heard my
fill of your exploits in foreign lands! You toured Palestine garnering laurels
while I crawled on my belly in an Arran cave to keep your fiefs safe!”

“You ask me to turn against my faith,” Brechin reminded him.

“You are a Scotsman!”

“I am a Christian first.”

Robert flailed his arms as he strode fulminating before the
other prisoners. “Soules, your rank saves you from the block! You can
contemplate the fate you’ve brought down upon your fellow conspirators while
you rot in Dumbarton prison! They are condemned to death because of your
preening ambition!” He turned on Brechin and drove the young knight a step back
with a punishing finger. “And you, crusader!”—he parsed that word with syllabic
disdain—“you who twice swore a personal bond of loyalty to me! You shall be
dragged through the streets of Perth, then drawn and quartered! That should
satisfy your heated lust for Heaven’s reward!”

James dared not question Robert’s judgment in front of the
barons. Instead, he came aside the king’s ear and, with a tight-lipped whisper,
begged, “Rob, a word alone with you.”

Robert, shaking and sweating profusely, wheeled wild-eyed on
him. “And you, Lord Douglas, shall henceforth address me as a king!” He marched
out of the council session to gain the seclusion of his privy chamber.

Stunned by the outburst, James followed on Robert’s heels
and pushed his way inside before the door could be barred. When Robert had
finally stopped throwing anything within his reach, James sought to douse the
fit with calmness. “What has happened?”

Eyes bloodshot and darting, Robert paced in an
ever-tightening circle. He picked up the stoker at the hearth and drove it
against the stones in the wall. “Soules’s jilted mistress came to Liz and
revealed the plot! That snake was scheming my murder!”

“Then hang Soules. But Brechin has only followed his
conscience.”

“Are you in league with them?”

James was driven to his heels by the charge. “Have you gone
mad?”

“Why do you oppose me on this?”

“Brechin is beloved by all,” James reminded him. “You’ll
only blacken your good name by his execution. It is not worthy of you. Gain
Brechin’s fealty by earning it with mercy.”

Robert clawed frantically at the weeping lesions on his
arms. Only weeks ago, the sores had appeared healed, but now they had returned
with these manic rages. “I will tell you what is not worthy of me! You sleeping
with that French nun outside the bonds of matrimony! Bringing ridicule and divine
curses down upon my rule! That is why the pope denies my petitions! You will
marry that woman at once!”