Read Online The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas by Glen Craney - Free Book Online

put
up a weak struggle, warning, “If we get caught …”
    He rested her head on his chest and stroked her long hair.
“They already showed they can’t run fast enough to catch me.”
    She leapt to her feet, nearly head-butting his chin. “You’re as crouse as a new washed louse! What woman would marry you?”
    He tickled her sides until she relented by sliding into his
embrace again. “So, you’ve been thinking about marrying me?”
    Angered by his presumption and her own reckless
indiscretion, she fought to escape his grasp. “You need some sisters to show
you how to court.”
    “You were pulling for me yesterday.”
    “I certainly was not !”
    “Aye, you were.”
    “What if I was?” She turned serious, fending off his
tickles. “There’s something you should know. … My father intends me to marry
Tabhann Comyn.”
    His flirting grin turned upside down. “They’ll have me to deal with first!”
    “Red Comyn says I’ll be a queen.”
    “That’s a fool’s hope! The Bruces hold the
true right to the throne.”
    Peeved by his curt dismissal of her possible royal ascent,
she said, “I’m told the Bruces would sell us out to the English.”
    “The Comyns have already addled your head with their lies.”
    “And what do you know about it?” she demanded.
    “My father is loyal to the Bruces. If Scotland is to be
saved, it will be by the Bruces, not those Comyn traitors.”
    She set her teeth; here was another man, just like her father and brothers, lecturing her on matters deemed too complicated for her to understand. “If you’re so clever, then tell me why Robert Bruce is held in such fondness by Edward Longshanks?” She waited for a rebuttal to that troubling point, but he could offer her none. The Bruce clan’s service to the English king, and young Robert’s schooling in London in particular, caused all Scots consternation, she knew. Yet this Douglas lad apparently labored under the delusion that his father would never become allied to a clan that might betray Scotland. She had witnessed enough treachery in her own family to question such guilelessness. She was about to tell him so when she heard distant shouts. She quickly gathered up her basket. “I have to go.”
    “I’ll make you queen of Castle Douglas.”
    “I don’t want to be queen of anything!”
    “We’ll jump a galley to Dublin.”
    “And do what? Starve? A man can make his own destiny. A
woman is bound by the dictates of others.”
    “I can provide for you. I’m to inherit all of this land.”
    “As a Scot? Or as an English vassal of the Bruces?”
    “A lassie’s head shouldn’t be filled with concerns about
statecraft.” He stole another kiss. “You’re meant for other things.”
    This time, she shoved him away, incensed that he had
dismissed her views so flippantly. “You’re no different than the Comyns!”
Unable to find the words sufficient to vent all the rage that had built up
inside her these past days, she retreated up the path toward the castle, crying
and yanking down the laundry from the branches as she ran.
    “A week from this night!” he yelled at her. “Meet me
here!”
    W HEN OUT OF HIS SIGHT, Belle stopped running and crumpled
to the ground, torn with confused emotions. This Douglas boy was infuriating,
but he possessed a strange hold on her. She looked down and saw a smooth rock
in the shape of a heart, with a tiny hole eroded by water through its center.
The old folk called such sculpted rocks elf cups, for fairies left them as
omens of fated love. Rely upon shrouded
images that are not direct —wasn’t that what the crone had told her?
    She picked up the heart-stone and heaved it through the
mists. That would be his
answer. If his feelings for her were true, the Little People would help him
find it.
    J AMES HEARD A MUFFLED WHISTLING through the fog. He
dived just in time to avoid being brained by a stone that splashed the water.
He looked down at the ripples and saw a heart-shaped stone