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

floating back toward
him with the current.
    Had the heavens dropped it on him?
    He fished the stone from the stream and studied it.
Gathering his clothes on the bank, he quickly dressed and, pulling a leather
cord from his leggings, threaded the stone and hung it around his neck. He
scampered to a nearby oak and retrieved the crude flute that he had hidden with
his prized ax. He played a few notes and sang an old ballad that his stepmother
had taught him:
    “On Raglan Road on an August day
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might one day rue.
I saw the danger yet I walked
Along the enchanted way
And I said, ‘Let grief be a fallen leaf
At the dawning of the day.”
    Falling leaves showered him with a warning that the season
would soon turn cold and dark. He waited, hoping for Belle’s response, but the
glen remained silent. “A week hence, we meet here again!” he called out through
the mists. “If you say nothing, it’s a promise!”
    Only the cackaws in the treetops answered him.
    R ACING THE SUN IN A dash for home, he slowed his approach
as he came upon a dark tunnel called Ninian’s Faint. This winding shepherd’s
path bordered by steep limestone scarps was the last difficult stretch before
the Lanark hills opened up into the wide vales of Douglasdale. Above him, a
precarious ridge of cracked rocks crowned the notorious ravine.
    His father had once told him how the Druids of old believed that
malignant spirits congregated in these swires. Legend had it that St.
Ninian proved Christ’s superiority over the tree-hung god of the ancients by
walking the scree alone at night. The saint never revealed the trials he had
suffered here, but it was said he always marked the anniversary of his feat
with a resounding sermon on Our Lord’s temptations in the Judean desert.
    The light was fading fast, and to go around the cranny would
delay him an hour. Cull and Chullan held back, but he whistled them up and
walked into the defile, turning sideways to avoid the jagged corners. After
several minutes, the ravine splayed open toward the low sun. He shielded his
eyes and turned toward a fleeting sweep of shadows.
    The pups yelped a warning—seconds before a rock hammered his forehead.
    “I thought I told you to stay away from her.”
    Hearing that voice distantly, he reached to his scalp and
felt blood oozing down his brow. Dazed, he lifted to his knees and forced his
eyes to focus.
    Tabhann, twirling Belle’s nightgown, stood over him.
    Cam and the MacDuff brothers were with Tabhann, seven in all.
    He cursed his carelessness. He had fallen for the oldest
Highland trick, the ambush in an enclosed pass. He glanced over his shoulder
and saw one of the MacDuffs, armed with a rod, blocking the defile to his rear.
Firming his grip on the ax, he vowed to take a couple of them down with him,
and Tabhann would be the first. He charged at the oldest Comyn, but his blow
was glancing and the ax slid from his hand. Tabhann and his mates took turns
pummeling him. He slowly slipped into blackness—until a rustling shook the
brush above him. Bloodied, he revived and rolled to his knees.
    Tabhann and his gang were staring up at the bluff, where an
older boy sat mounted on white steed as sleek and fine as a racehorse. The
rider was attired in the saffron regalia of noble birth and had a square jaw
and a broad, noble forehead.
    “Keep moving,” Tabhann warned the traveler. “This is none of
your concern.”
    The rider ignored the order and edged his horse down into
the ravine. His dark blue eyes, lustrous but sensitive to light, swam with an
aqueous film that gave him a pained expression. He looked around the swale in
mock confusion. “Am I not in Scotland?”
    Cam balled his fists. “Are you brain addled?”
    “Maybe he can’t hear,” Tabhann suggested, “with all those
baubles jangling from his shirt.”
    The traveler dismounted and sniffed the air. “I can certainly smell
Comyn dung, so this