The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas by Glen Craney Page B

answer. “Hesus. The name meant ‘He who
survived death upon a tree’”
    “I thought St. Patrick brought the Holy Word.”
    The bishop scowled to
belie that myth. “Rome claims to be the ordained ruler over all Christians, but
the Culdees knew the truth. Their lineage reached back to the first believers
in Jerusalem. When the missionaries from the Roman abbeys in France crossed the
Channel, they discovered that the Culdees had been teaching Christ’s message
for centuries. Rome tried to destroy the Culdees, but some of them survived by
hiding in the caves and forests.”
    James regarded him with renewed intrigue. “How do you know this?”
    After a hesitation, Lamberton revealed, “I am one of them.”
    James’s jaw dropped.
    Lamberton smiled with cold revenge on his lips as he gazed
across the sacred horizon. “Aye, I wear the robes of the Roman church. I have
no choice. But I carry on the Culdee fight to preserve God’s truth. That cause
and Scotland’s freedom are bound together. Until our countrymen understand
this, we will never be rid of our slavery to the Pope or to England. For now,
it is a war that must be fought in the shadows.”
    James wondered if this bishop had gone bampot in the head.
“I still don’t see what this church dispute has to do with our rebellion.”
    “There is always a deeper principle at stake than the one
told the common soldier. Scotland is the last refuge of a much older faith, one
that knows all men to be gods in the example of Christ the teacher.”
    “That’s blasphemy!”
    “Did Our Lord not promise that we would perform miracles
even greater than His? Did He not say that we would only find Heaven by asking
and seeking? His was not a command for blind allegiance to dogma, but a quest
for one’s own truth.”
    Confused, James shook his head. “And that is why England
seeks to conquer us? To suppress Christ’s true teachings?”
    The bishop rubbed his fists to ease the aching ague that had
twisted his meaty fingers. “Longshanks lusts for dominion over France. He will
do the pope’s bidding so long as Rome wields the balance in diplomacy. If we
are to survive, and the true Church of Scotland is to survive with us, we must
find a king with the heart of Wallace and the wiles of Edward Plantagenet.”
    “What man could manage all of that?”
    The bishop stood from his sitting and, with a tight-lipped
smile that suggested he indeed had a candidate in mind, began walking back down
the crag.
    Left alone on the summit with no answer to his inquiry, James removed his boots and stood barefoot on the altar where the soothsayers of those Sons of Light had once uttered their oracles. He bent down to kiss the etching of the boar, the ancient Scot symbol of sacrifice and courage. There was so much about the future he desperately wanted to know. When would his father return home? Would Scotland survive this war with England? If he agreed to sail with the bishop across the Channel to France, would he ever see Douglasdale again? And whom did the bishop have in mind for their new king?
    Yet one question above all others burned in his heart.
    He leaned to the altar and whispered the plea for a
divination, “Did Belle ever love me?”
    He waited for an answer, but he heard only the wind
whistling through the dolmens in the glen below him.

VII

    I DONEA C OMYN SLIPPED UNNOTICED INTO the chapel of Dundarg
castle, a dismal old keep that guarded the cliffs of Aberdour Bay on the
northern border of Comyn country. Approaching the altar with trepidation, she
interrupted Belle’s morning prayers. “Child, your father …”
    Bell opened her eyes, her heart sinking. “Has he returned so
soon?”
    “He is dead.”
    She felt neither shock nor grief, only a disturbing elation.
By God’s grace, her father had delayed her betrothal to Tabhann that spring to
rush south and join William Wallace’s army. Yet his procrastination in
bartering her off to the Comyns had nothing to do with paternal