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

the celebration and saw James waving.
    Was he trying to say something to her?

IV

    A S HER GARRON CLOPPED ONTO the narrow wooden bridge that
crossed the River Clyde, Belle swallowed her fear and reined closer to the
railing. Praying the currents would be swift enough to sweep her away, she
slipped her toes from the stirrups and—
    A hand reach out from behind her and captured her arm.
    “Steady there, lass,” Red Comyn said. “We wouldn’t want to
lose you.”
    Disconsolate, she slumped over the saddle, her last chance to escape thwarted. The Comyn chieftain now sensed her desperation and would likely keep her under guard when they arrived at Kilbride, his southernmost fortress.
    Red drew a deep, satisfied breath as he led her pony across the bridge and onto Comyn land. “That Douglas stench is nearly gone us, eh?” After glaring a warning at her against scheming more such foolishness, he rejoined her father at the head of the column to renew their negotiations over her dowry.
    She choked back tears. Within the week, she would be bound forever to this detestable clan. Resigned to her fate, she resolved to learn all that she could about the two Comyn boys who rode several lengths ahead. Only a study of these men who would rule her, and the manipulation of their weaknesses, might offer her hope for a tolerable existence. But whom could she consult in confidence? She scanned the wind-burnt faces of the Comyn womenfolk bringing up the rear of the train. One old hag, so listless that she appeared on the brink of tumbling from her mule, seemed the most harmless of the lot. When a bevy of quail distracted the men ahead, she slowed her pony to gain some distance from the others. Then, she came aside the wizened woman and attempted to make conversation. “My lady, are you chilled? I have a spare cloak in my roll here that you are welcome to use.”
    The crone peered out from her frayed shawl with a suspicious
eye, looking astonished that anyone would care a whit about her condition. “And
you be?”
    “Isabelle MacDuff of Fife.”
    The woman bared her gums and screeched a throaty cackle. “Another one tossed into the boiling pot!”
    Belle suspected that the poor woman had slid past the borders of sanity. To test that possibility, she decided to answer her babbling with equivalent nonsense. Loosening the shawl from her neck despite the stiff headwind, she observed, “Boil indeed. A day this hot would cause Hell to complain.”
    The woman inched her mole-tipped nose out a bit farther, until discovering that her ruse of playing senile had been exposed. She retreated into her shawl muttering a flurry of Gaelic curses. Moments later, her crinkled face reappeared like a turtle’s head from a shell, and she nodded with grudging admiration. “You play the actor better than you jump the rail. I can see those questions burning a hole in that pretty little head. Out with them, then.”
    Belle was stunned to discover that the crone had somehow divined her intent to escape on the bridge. Yet her clairvoyance was at best undependable, for she had fallen for the nonsense trap. Careful not to glance at the Comyn boys, Belle silently asked herself which of the two cretins she would be forced to—
    “The cousin,” the crone answered before Belle had even finished her thought. “Red will save his depraved son as bait for bigger fish.”
    Belle grimaced as she watched Tabhann whipping the bloodied
flanks of his horse. She could not bear the thought of sharing his bed. Cam was
uncouth, but at least he was too stupid to be capable of intrigue. Tabhann, on
the other hand, seemed malevolent and conniving, having perfected the art of
exploiting the weaknesses of those around him with cruel efficiency.
    “Now who’s looking sickly,” the crone sniggered.
    “Why me?”
    Disgusted by Belle’s cry of self-pity, the crone shot a wad of bile over her hackney’s nose. “Only foolish virgins wail on so. Come now, lass. Think of a chessboard.