The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (74 page)

He took a step closer to the intruder. “What is it you
want?”

“I bring a message from the king.”

“Toy with me, whelp, and I’ll cut out that lying tongue.” He
stole a glance through the window and saw a dappled hobbin tied to a tree. How
had this lad come upon him so easily? “Has Robert Bruce turned so skinflint
that he refuses to pay couriers now? Does he wish me to win another battle for
him? Arrest another of his subjects so he can enjoy watching him drawn and
quartered?”

“The king is dying.”

He braced on the pew and steeled his emotions, refusing to
give Robert the comfort of a report detailing his grief. “What do I care? Leave
me be!”

The boy retreated to the door, then turned back. “I was told
to say something more.” When James marched down the aisle to speed him away,
the boy pressed his eyes closed and braced for the blow. As the shadow of a
punishing arm came over him, he sputtered the words that he had memorized,
“There be nothing stronger than a man’s bond with his comrade in battle.”

James held back his raised hand, stunned to hear the
admonition that had been spoken years ago by his father on the morning he had
left this very ground to go fight with Wallace. “Who told you that?”

“My mother.”

“And she would be?”

“Her name is Jeanne.”

James angled closer for the light streaming through the slit
window. Only then did he see a younger version of his own face staring back at
him.

“B
RING UP THE LIGHT HORSE!”
Robert cried. “The Welsh are on
our flank!”

As the king ranted
orders, the barons stood around his bed, helpless to ease his delirium. He had
fallen into another abyss of dementia, this one lasting three days, and his
fevered rages were now so violent that the physicians had ordered his wrists
tethered to the posts. Those who had been with him at Methven remembered how
the disease first struck him on the field against the Comyns. Now, with the ink
barely dried on their new treaty with England, the fragile peace was already
imperiled. The king’s heir, David, was too young to rule, and if the English
learned of this approaching death, Edward III would declare the treaty invalid
and rush his army across the border again.

Randolph pleaded, “My lord, you must calm yourself.”

Robert fought against the restraints, his manic eyes darting
at imaginary enemies. “Clifford masses! Where is Jamie?”

Randolph pressed a
compress to the king’s scabbed face. “Sire, Lord Douglas is not—”

“Douglas is on the field,” said a voice at the door.

The men turned in shock.

Randolph rushed to grasp James’s hand in gratitude for
coming.

Robert, hearing the report to duty, cried, “Jamie! Your
schiltrons to the fore, else we are turned!”

As the barons and clerics
filed out to leave James alone with the dying king, the wind slammed the door
shut, and the windows rattled with a report as loud as the first clash of pikes
at Bannockburn.

Robert thrashed at blows
being landed on him in battle.

James untied his wrists
and jangled a sword near his old friend’s ear to mimic the receding clash of
arms. “The English break.”

Robert eased his agitation. “Don’t leave me.”

“I am here, my lord.”

Robert dragged the compress from his suddenly lucid eyes.
“Lord? Must it be that, Jamie? Am I nothing but a king to you now?” He reached
for his wrist to bring him nearer. “As always, you arrive at the battle’s
climax.”

“And, as always, you have positioned me there.”

Robert sank into the bed, reassured. He swallowed hard to
muster the strength to speak. This rare gift of sanity, he knew, would not last
long. “The Templars must be afforded perpetual refuge. Order them to keep the
Stone hidden until David is rid of his regency.”

“The monks are safe in the Isles. Sinclair commands them
under the guise of a new guild. The Dominicans will not lay hands on them.”

“This lad on England’s throne will come at you when I’m
gone.”

“Let him come.” James pressed a hand against Robert’s chest
to aid his breathing. Could this faint beat truly be driven by the lion’s heart
that had led them through so many travails?

“Do you remember our vow?”

“Aye, but that matters nothing-—”

“Last night, I had a dream.” Robert heaved with shallowing
pants. “We were riding together again… in a foreign land… Columba’s star led us
to Our Lord’s tomb… Jamie, will you …” He turned away, unable to finish the
request.

“I will take you, Rob.”

Robert lay staring into the distance as if locked upon the
star.

James tested Robert’s wrist for a pulse, and found the hand
was cold. He pressed a finger to close the king’s lips in death and stood to go
report his death to the waiting councilors.

“Roland.”

At the door, James turned. Had his imagination conjured that
whispered name? But it was true—Robert was still breathing, and his half-lidded
eyes angled toward the bed table. On it sat the volume of chansons recounting
the adventures of their favorite French knights, Roland and Oliver. He had long
ago forgotten both the book and their promise to save the last chapter for
their final victory. He turned to the first page and studied the inscription
that Belle had written during their last moments together. “Where did you find
this?”

Even in his weakened state, Robert managed a slight smile.

“You stole it again?”

“Read.”

James pulled up a chair and thumbed through the fragile
pages. Each chapter had marked a turning point in their conjoined destinies,
inspiring them to carry on when all had seemed hopeless. The book had been with
them on their miraculous crossing at Loch Lomond, in the cave on Arran, at
their near-disastrous invasion at Turnberry, on the heights of Loudon Hill, and
at their glorious victory at Bannockburn. Now, it had miraculously reappeared
again.

“Where did we stop?” Robert asked, his voice but a faint
whisper.

James coughed to clear the clutch from his throat. “The
Saracens had the Franks surrounded in Spain.”

“Aye, the Vale of Thorns. Roland is searching for Oliver.”

James found the place he
had marked with a fir needle. “No, Roland has already found him.”

“Found him?” Robert protested. “That is not as I remember
it.”

“Would you have me tell it, or not?”

Robert smiled through tears; even in this final hour, they
could not avoid a quarrel.

Mollified with that concession, James returned to the story.
“Oliver is mortally wounded in the eyes. But he fights on, blinded. He strikes
Roland upon the head by mistake.”

Robert begged, barely audible, “Not Roland.”

James hesitated as he turned to the last page; it was
stained with the mud of Bannockburn. Now it all came flooding back to him. In a
fit of despairing rage, he had cast the book aside on the night that he had
learned of Belle’s death. Robert must have recovered it in Cambuskenneth Abbey
and saved it for him.

He looked down at Robert. “You did not read ahead?”

Robert’s eyes remained closed. “I waited … for you.”

James opened the buttons on Robert’s sweat-drenched shirt.
There, on his chest, was the scar from Clifford’s sword at Methven. And on his
forearm, the gnarled fracture from the blow at Moss Raploch. Beneath his proud,
intractable bearing had walked a broken body. Why had he allowed their last
years to be wasted? They should have been spent together, enjoying their
victories over a warm fire and good drink. It all seemed faded now, the nursed
wounds and perceived slights. He had failed to heed Belle’s dying request, and
had let down the two persons he most loved in the world. Now, all that was left
to finish was this foolish tale. He drew a reluctant breath and began:

“‘Roland looks at Oliver’s face
Which is pale, discoloured and grayish;
Blood runs down his body, clots
Form on the ground. Roland says: ‘God!
I do not know what I shall do,
Old comrade, if I must lose you.’
Roland looks at Oliver with much
Affection and says tranquilly:
‘Surely, that was not meant for me?
It is I, Roland, your old friend
Who wants only to make amends.’
Oliver says: “Now I hear you speak.
I cannot see you. I am too weak.
May God see you. I am sorry,
When I struck you I struck blindly.’
Roland answers: ‘No harm done,
And before God, I wish you none.’
They bow to one another and so
Part with great love between the two.’”

 “I’m sorry,” Robert
gasped.

“No matter,” James said. “I would have just lost the book
again if you had-—”

“Your lass.” Robert forced open his swollen eyes. “I’m sorry
I took her from you.”

Before James could regain his composure, Robert stopped
breathing.

That last act of contrition had released him. Even in death,
he had insisted on the last word. Thinking the chanson finished, he had given
up his spirit without allowing the forgiveness to be reciprocated.

Ah, Rob, you have charged on without me.

Fighting for his voice, James read the last chanson verses
aloud, for he would never let it be said that he had left any task assigned by
his king undone:

“‘Roland sees his friend in death,
Face down and with dust in his teeth.
Very gently he says good-bye:
‘Oliver, so there you lie!
We have been days and years together
And never either harmed the other;
With you dead, there is nothing in life.’”

T
HAT EVENING,
J
AMES ESCORTED
R
OBERT'S
body to Cambuskenneth Abbey, where it rested for three days
on a bier overlooking the battlefield of Bannockburn. The funeral entourage
then passed to the south of Loch Lomond and lingered at the banks where Sweenie
had ferried them to safety from the MacDougall hounds. An honor guard composed
of McKie, McClurg, and the Templars rode behind the gurney, with the mastiff
Mungo bringing up the rear. The thousands who lined the route threw garlands
and rushed forward to touch the casket. At Dunfermline, the king’s heart was
sealed in a silver reliquary and his body buried in the Abbey next to
Elizabeth. During the solemn ceremony, Walter Stewart, the nation’s new Regent,
hung Robert’s encased heart, threaded with cowhide cords, around James’s neck.

In the bay at St. Andrews, a galley sent by the MacDonalds
waited to take James and the royal honor guard to the Holy Land. On this last
night before his departure, James walked into the country’s hallowed cathedral
there to pay his last respects at Lamberton’s tomb. The beloved bishop had
passed away a few days after Robert’s death. Only weeks before, the cleric had
returned from Avignon, where he had renewed his demand that the spiritual
interdiction against Scotland be lifted. Resigned at last to England’s defeat,
Pope John XXII had reluctantly rescinded the bull of excommunication against
Scotland. The Church had finally been forced to recognize a king crowned by a
Pictish princess, anointed by Culdee monks, and protected by heretical
Templars.

The bishop had finally won his holy war for the old Celtic
Church.

At midnight, the mourners carried torches to the beaches
below the cathedral so that Scotland might watch its king’s heart sail away. As
his small currach was pushed off from the rocks, James saw Jeanne and her son
on the bluffs. Ordering the oars held, he waded back to the dunes and stood
before the boy who had brought him the news of Robert’s impending death.

“I never asked your name.”

The boy pawed at the sand with his foot, afraid to look up.
“Archibald.”

James whistled Mungo from the boat, and when the old hound
bounded through the water toward them, he told the boy, “Take care of Mungo for
me, will you, Archie? We’ll all go hunting when I get back.” He hugged his son
goodbye and repeated the last words that his own father had spoken to him
before being led away to London Tower. “Remember that you are a Douglas. You
bend to none but God and your—”

A collective gasp of alarm interrupted his instruction to
his son.

He looked up at the watery horizon and saw two warships
slicing the fog and sailing up alongside the waiting MacDonald galley. Their
masts had hoisted banners bearing the Plantagenet leopards. The Scots began
retreating to the bluffs to prepare for an English attack, and he was about to
climb the sea wall to muster the defenses when Jeanne grasped his arm to stop
him.

She pointed to a white banner being raised on the foremast
of the lead ship. “They have been sent as safe escort.”

Had Isabella arranged this? He could not believe that she
would risk such a gesture, even though the two kingdoms had suspended
hostilities. Given her precarious position with the English parliament in
London, the offer was as dangerous as it was magnanimous.

He gazed across the moorlands one last time and gave thanks
for the many lasses who had appeared with aid for him at pivotal moments in his
life. Christiana’s prophecy in the Arran cave had indeed come to pass: Belle,
Eleanor, Idonea, Christiana, Elizabeth, Jeanne, Marjorie, the Galloway
crone—all had proven stronger than the men of England. History would not
remember their sacrifices, for the cold-blooded monks who recorded the deeds of
kings and warriors gave scant credit to the lasses who stood with them. But
Christiana’s clairvoyance had proven all too true: Without these women, he and
Robert would never have prevailed in their war for independence.

He filled his lungs with the fresh air of his homeland,
recalling that day years ago when he had sailed off with Lamberton for France.
On his return from Paris, he had vowed never to leave this Isle again.

So much for oaths.

What was it that Isabella had once told him? Aye, never allow yourself to be drawn into the orbit of a
king.