FARTHER BACK ALONG THE ENGLISH COLUMN, BARTHOLEME DE Challon watched the melee with growing impatience. The entire army had floundered to a halt, and only the clumsiest efforts were being made to deploy the various divisions into proper battle order.
The French knights were caught between the brigades of Sir Robert Clifford and Sir Henry Beaumont. The latter could only look on as his fellow nobles in the vanguard continued to charge the Scottish spears. The road ahead was too clogged for them to join the fray. The restive stamping and snorting of the horses seemed to echo the evident frustration of their masters.
“The Scots have rendered the direct route to Stirling impassable,” Bartholeme said aside to Count Rodolphe. “If the English are to prevail, they must adopt a different approach.”
To the west lay the dense woodland of the New Park, manifestly unsuitable for cavalry.
“There is open ground to the east,” Rodolphe noted, pointing to the far side of the burn. “And it appears to be quite undefended.”
“So it does,” Bartholeme replied.
Wheeling his horse around, he forced his way to the side of Sir Robert Clifford.
“What is the point of this skirmishing on the road?” he demanded. “To the east, the way to the castle lies clear.”
Clifford regarded the French knight with disdain. “We must keep to the road,” he said. “How else are the wagons to reach the castle?”
“Devil take the wagons!” Bartholeme replied. “None of us will reach the castle unless we put the Scots to flight. We must use our superiority in cavalry to envelop them.”
“The ground is difficult in that quarter,” said Sir Thomas Grey, one of the other senior knights. “And there is no safe ford across the Bannockburn except where the road and the stream intersect.”
“We are not riding Highland ponies,” Bartholeme reminded the Englishman. “Is this trickle of water a sufficient obstacle to unman you?”
Clifford considered but a moment before throwing caution to the winds.
“Very well, let’s hazard it,” he said. “With luck, we may strike the Scots in their underbelly.”
* * *
King Robert’s schiltron still held the road through the New Park, despite repeated attacks by the Earl of Gloucester. Temporarily exhausted by their efforts, the English at last abandoned the assault. Casualties among the Scots had been light. A mood of jubilation took hold of the men of the schiltron, to see the enemy turned back at so little cost to themselves.
“This fight is well won!” Abbot Bernard of Arbroath declared. Bruce’s friend and chancellor, he had joined Arnault and Ninian at the king’s side.
“We’ve broken Edward’s nose all right,” Bruce said, “but he can still punch and kick.”
“I think there’s a punch coming now,” Arnault warned.
He pointed to the east. At some distance from the ford, a force of English knights were braving the deeper waters of the Bannockburn. The other members of the king’s entourage took a closer look.
“Are they just scouting, do you think?” Ninian ventured.
“No, there must be a good three hundred horse in that band,” Arnault replied, and scowled at the strategic implications. “They probably hope to outflank us and attack our left wing.”
“It’s what I’d do,” Bruce agreed. “There’s no getting past us through the woods, so what other route lies open to them?”
“They could just turn around and go home,” Bernard said dryly.
“Aren’t you going to meet them before they bring more troops over?” Ninian asked.
Bruce shook his head. “I’ll not let them force my hand before I’m ready. They’re just feeling their way as yet, and I trust Randolph to act as my shield.”
* * *
The men of Randolph’s brigade had taken up position among the trees adjoining St. Ninian’s Church. From a vantage point of high ground, Torquil had a comprehensive view of the flatland between the Bannockburn and the Pelstream Burn to the north of it. After crossing the Bannockburn, the English chivalry wheeled aside to avoid the boggy flats of the Carse, a stretch of uncertain ground broken up by meandering rivulets—which did not surprise Torquil, for the Carse was difficult country for men and horses alike.
Brother Ciaran stood nearby, his dark eyes narrowed in concentration as he leaned on the staff of Randolph’s standard.
“Do you sense anything out of the ordinary?” Torquil asked.
The wiry cleric knotted his dark brows. “I’m not sure,” he whispered, almost as if he feared an enemy might be listening in.
Uneasy, Torquil moved to Randolph’s side.
“Is it your intention to let them go by?”
“No, but surprise is a weapon, and we must use it as best we can,” Randolph said. “We’ll let them get as far from their own army as possible before we show ourselves.”
He passed a hushed order along his lines for his men to make ready. The English completed their crossing and set off north, with the boggy ground to the east. Randolph waited until the enemy came abreast of their position. Then, satisfied that he had them pinned, he drew his sword.
“Up, lads, and at them!” he yelled.
The Scots poured out of the wooded churchyard like water from a sluice. As they sped across the open ground, they held their spears high to keep them from becoming entangled with their feet, for speed was vital. If the English found room to charge before the Scots could re-form, the latter would be cut to ribbons.
* * *
The possibility of a Scottish infantry charge was the furthest thing from Sir Robert Clifford’s mind as he reined closer beside his counterpart, Sir Henry Beaumont. Having mustered nearly three hundred heavy cavalry troops between them, he was confident that they would be able to achieve their objective.
“Not far to go now,” Clifford declared, peering ahead with satisfaction. “When we reach the castle, we can lead a sally that will take Bruce in the rear and drive him out of the woods.”
Skirting the Pelstream Burn, they struck a stretch of solid ground and lengthened stride. As the troupe set off north toward Stirling Castle, amid the thunder of heavy, steel-shod hooves, Beaumont wondered how the earls of Gloucester and Hereford were faring. The spire of St. Ninian’s Church caught his eye, but even as he reined back for a second look, a dense wave of Scots burst from cover and came pelting across the open ground straight toward him.
Clifford saw them, too, and reined short in sudden consternation.
“What madness is this?” he exclaimed. “Common footmen charging knights?”
“Mad or not, they’ll regret their rashness,” Beaumont cried, as he wheeled his mount to face the onrushing Scots.
An incredulous murmur swept the English ranks as they prepared to mount a counterattack. But Beaumont knew that nothing less than a massed assault would sweep the Scots away before them.
“Hold!” he cried, calling out to his men to restrain them. “Let them come on! Give them some ground. We must draw back, the better to charge.”
With the distance shortening, Randolph, too, called his Scots to a halt, for they had run forward far enough to challenge their enemy’s progress, and were close enough to rob him of valuable maneuvering room. His lieutenants directed their soldiers this way and that, shoving and kicking them when necessary, until they had packed together to form a new schiltron, bristling with rank upon rank of spears in every direction, ready to receive the enemy’s attack.
And amid the advancing enemy ranks, Sir Thomas Grey confronted Beaumont in angry tones.
“They are only low churls, and nothing to us! Why attack, when we can easily bypass them and proceed to the castle?”
“Flee, then, if you’re afraid!” Beaumont replied with a sneer.
Grey bristled at the affront to his honor. For a nobleman born and bred, there could be only one answer to such a challenge.
“Fear will not make me flee,” he retorted hotly.
Lowering his lance, he spurred his horse forward and galloped headlong at the Scots. Other knights from all along the English line immediately followed suit, pennons fluttering, hooves drumming the earth, making a bold but ragged charge.
On the Scottish side of the field, Randolph watched the enemy converge—and watched his schiltron brace to receive the charge.
“Spit ’em, boys! Spit ’em like rabbits!” he urged.
Grey was the first to dash himself against the schiltron. His horse was skewered by spears in throat and belly. As he slid from the saddle, greedy hands seized him and dragged him into the midst of his enemies, and those who followed him also foundered or were driven back by the barbed array of steel.
Realizing that there was no time now to form up properly, Beaumont and the rest of the knights joined the charge his rebuff had incited. They crashed into the schiltron, only to be driven back, leaving mangled horses and slain men littering the ground at the feet of the Scots.
Clifford rallied his cavalry as best he could and led them in another charge, but once more their momentum could not break the Scots. The knights rode in circles around the schiltron, probing it as they would a fortress, seeking a weak point in the defenses where they might break in. Unable to close with their enemy, they flung knives, axes, and even swords at the Scots as they swept past the forest of spears.
But the Scots held firm beneath the fruitless hail of enemy missiles. Whenever a man fell in the front rank, another stepped forward to take his place, keeping the spear wall unbroken and impenetrable as ever.
The knights charged again. Again the Scottish spears ran red with blood. In desperation, the English redoubled their attack, kicking up a cloud of dust that only added to their confusion.
In the midst of the English chivalry, Bartholeme signaled his own men to hold back.
“We must take a hand in this,” he told Rodolphe. “We cannot allow our allies’ incompetence to compromise our own intentions.”
Forming the other Black Knights into a circle around him, he drew rein in their midst and rummaged in a pouch at his belt, bringing forth a handful of dust which he cupped in his left hand while he recited an incantation. With a final imprecation, he blew the dust from his fingers and watched it fly across the intervening ground to mingle with the dirt kicked up by the horses. As the dust cloud expanded, it swept across the field toward Randolph’s schiltron.
* * *
Sir Robert Clifford was wondering whether to abandon the field when his bridle was suddenly seized by a masterful hand. Whirling, he found the French knight, Bartholeme de Challon, staring across at him, a determined glint sparkling in his cold blue eyes.
“You have one last chance to destroy your enemies,” Bartholeme told him, releasing his reins, “but you must seize it now. Form up your men for another attack.”
Gesturing, he directed Clifford’s attention toward the Scots, where a huge wall of dust was billowing up to engulf them. Answering howls of dismay echoed across the field from the Scottish spear ranks.
“Very well,” Clifford said, renewed hope banishing his weariness. “Again, my friends! Come to me, and ready the charge!”
* * *
From his vantage point on the high ground, Bruce was keeping a wary eye on the action to his left. He had watched Randolph’s men fling back a succession of English attacks, and was satisfied that they would hold their position. But a beating of hooves heralded the arrival of James Douglas, who drew up beside the king in some consternation.
“Randolph is hard-pressed!” he announced urgently. “Let me take my men down there to help him.”
“We’ll all be hard-pressed before the day is won,” Bruce replied. “Randolph knows his task is to hold the flank, and that is what he will do.”
“Am I to stand and do nothing, then?” Douglas demanded, his dark face flushed.
“You’ll go where you’re needed and when you’re needed,” Bruce snapped. “Now, hold fast!”
A startled exclamation from Arnault made both men look round. To their amazement, they saw the dust raised by the English horses congealing into a single black cloud that rushed down on Randolph’s schiltron as though driven by a gale. Forming a line behind it, the English knights galloped forward to attack the Scots once more.
“What devilry is this?” Douglas growled. “Do the very elements rise up against us?”
“There is nothing natural here,” Bruce muttered.
Arnault knew he was right. Fixing his gaze on the cloud, his right hand drifting to the slight bulge of the Shard beneath his hauberk, he summoned up his deeper faculties of perception and gradually penetrated the sorcerous murk. With terrible clarity, he saw the contingent of Black Knights advancing through the swirling dust.
Fingers curling harder over the bulge that was the Shard, Arnault called upon its powers—the first time he had so presumed since the Templar assault on Castle Montaigre.
“Lord,” he whispered, “by the power of Thy Word, grant me the strength to break the enchantments of our enemies before it is too late.”
* * *
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Randolph, Torquil was fully alive to the danger. As the cloud bore down on them, the swirling dust formed wicked, leering faces, and an eerie keening dinned in their ears like the lamentations of the damned. Superstitious dread struck fear into the hearts of many Scottish spearmen, and the schiltron ranks began to waver.
White-faced and wild-eyed, Randolph tried to hold his men together.
“Trust your courage and your spears, men!” he shouted. “Don’t let this damnable illusion overwhelm you!”
Even as he spoke, the cloud rolled over them, plunging the schiltron into screeching darkness. At Randolph’s side, Brother Ciaran grasped the standard tightly and muttered a prayer invoking the aid of Columba and Saint Bride. Even as the words left his lips, a wing of shadow swept over him like an icy wave.
Hearing the Columban brother cry out, Torquil tried to grope his way toward him, but in the next instant, the English charge struck the outer fringes of the schiltron in a catastrophic clang, like sheet metal struck with a hammer. Torquil sensed, rather than saw the Scottish ranks begin to buckle as English heavy cavalry broke into the schiltron like men driving their horses through the surf into a turbulent, hostile sea.
“Cra-gheal, shield and defend us!” he cried out, lunging at a glimpse of heaving horse, for only the English were mounted in this fray.
The press of bodies was too dense for lance play. The English knights used the advantage of height to lay about them with maces and swords, cracking skulls and carving through sinew. The Scots fought back, dragging knights from their saddles and dispatching them with the quick stroke of a dirk or the savage blow of an axe. All around them swirled the inky cloud, stinging their eyes and choking their throats.
No sooner did Torquil aim a blow at an adversary than his target was masked in darkness. Randolph shouted hoarsely at his men to fill the gaps in their ranks and tried to discern through the murk just where the enemy were strongest. A great, dark horse burst suddenly between them. Again Torquil thrust out his sword, but the next instant the enemy had gone.
* * *
Up on the hill overlooking the field, not far from where Bruce and Arnault also watched, James Douglas tugged furiously at his thick black beard as he tried to make out what was happening below. The cloud of dust had entirely enveloped Randolph’s brigade, totally obscuring the action, but the shrieks and howls and clash of weaponry told their own tale of a desperate struggle in progress.
“Sire, let me go to their aid!” he pleaded of Bruce.
The king glanced at Arnault, whose attempts to engage the power of the Shard were not succeeding.
“Go, then,” Bruce ordered.
Douglas sped away. Arnault, seized by desperation, turned to Brother Ninian, who had the Brecbennach clasped against his chest.
“This isn’t working the way it has in the past,” Arnault murmured, urgently fumbling inside the neck of his hauberk to draw out the Shard in its leather pouch. “Maybe I need to touch it directly.”
“Or,” said Ninian, “perhaps it requires contact with the Stone, or something linked to it, since this work is on Bruce’s behalf. No doubt Father Columba can sort it out.” He thrust the saint’s reliquary between them, in which also lay the Urim.
“Take the Shard in your right hand, and lay the other one on the Brecbennach!” Ninian instructed.
Arnault obeyed. As he did so, a tingle of power communicated itself through his fingers—from the Brecbennach, not the Shard.
“Father Columba,” Ninian said in a conversational tone, “we ask you to speak for the Stone, so that the Light of the Law may drive away the darkness.”
An answering fire quickened in Arnault’s heart and in what dwelt inside the Brecbennach, expanding to make his living body a channel of divine light. Energy flowed from the casket, through his hand, and into the Shard, which came to life in response. Before his entranced gaze, the fragment of the Law began to glow, so brilliant a blue that it put to shame the fire of the midsummer sun; and yet, he sensed that it was not with mortal eyes that he perceived it.
Quivering with the flow of energy, Arnault directed the power of the Shard toward the cloud below, piercing it like a sword cleaving rotten fruit. Disintegrating patches of cloud dispersed like guttering rags of burnt cloth to reveal the Scottish schiltron still intact at its center.
There where the cloud had been, momentarily bewildered, Randolph glanced around him for the Scots standard—and seized it from where it lay on the ground. He could see no sign of Brother Ciaran, but he hoisted the banner high in defiance of their enemies.
“For Scotland and King Robert!” he shouted.
His cry enflamed the Scots, rousing them as from a sleep. The sudden evaporation of the cloud had revealed the English knights isolated in small pockets that left them dangerously exposed to attack. At once they began to pull back out of range of the Scottish spears, but seeing them disorganized and demoralized by the failure of their last attack, Randolph seized his opportunity.
“Forward!” he yelled, waving the banner again. “Drive them from the field!”
With a roar, the Scots moved onto the attack, jabbing their spears at any knight who did not spur his horse out of danger in time. Like a great spiny beast, the schiltron began to advance.
The English were stricken with dismay. Never before had they been thrown on the defensive by mere footmen. It had taken weeks of constant drilling to instill the Scottish troops with the necessary discipline to advance in such a fashion without falling into disorder. Now they rolled unstoppably forward, driving through the center of the beaten knights and forcing them to take to their heels.
Approaching from the right flank, a relieved Douglas saw that the enemy was in flight, and ordered his own troops to halt.
“Let Randolph have the glory of this moment,” he told them. “He and his men have done more than enough to earn it.”
Himself relieved, and sweating with exertion, Torquil gazed after their scattered enemies. Some fled back to the main body of their army. Others, cut off from that avenue of escape, rode for their lives toward the safety of Stirling Castle, bellowing at the garrison to open the gates to them.
He sheathed his sword and went to help Randolph regroup his cheering forces. Only gradually did it occur to him that he had not seen Brother Ciaran for some time.
THE SCOTTISH ARMY WITHDREW FOR THE NIGHT TO THE forested security of the New Park. After defeating the English on two fronts in one day, the troops were almost giddy with jubilation.
The tale of how Robert Bruce had personally slain the nephew of the Earl of Hereford spread like wildfire throughout the ranks, raising the men’s spirits to new heights of faith in their king and their cause. But for Bruce and his inner circle of advisors, the successes of the day were overshadowed by a matter of grave uncertainty.
“Brother Ciaran has disappeared,” Torquil reported grimly. “We’ve searched the battleground three times over without finding any trace of him, alive or dead.”
“The last anyone remembers seeing him was just before that dust cloud swept the battleground,” Ninian said. “Whatever has befallen him, it seems to have happened then.”
“Which does not bode well for Ciaran,” Breville said. “Most assuredly, that cloud was conjured up by the Knights of the Black Swan.”
“Why would they bother to capture a monk?” Torquil said.
“I doubt that was their original intent,” Arnault replied. “If they took Ciaran prisoner, it was probably only as an afterthought, when their main gambit failed.”
“Either that, or this Lord Bartholeme has deduced the affinity between the Templars and the Columbans,” Breville said.
“So what are we to do?” Torquil asked.
“Pray,” Bruce recommended curtly.
“Surely that isn’t all, Sire?” Fionn blurted.
“I understand and share your fears,” the king said, “but the painful truth is this: If Brother Ciaran has been taken prisoner by the Black Knights, the only folk who might be able to aid him are those I can least afford to spare.”
Ninian seconded this view. “His Majesty is right. We can’t risk throwing everything away for the sake of one man—however dear to us he may be.”
A bleak silence set in. All present knew only too well the crucial stakes for which this war was being waged.
“Can we not at least try to make mystical contact with Ciaran?” Fionn begged.
Arnault shook his head. “Too risky. If Ciaran has been captured by our enemies, they will try to use him as a weapon against us.”
“Ciaran would never consent to betray us!” Fionn protested.
“Consent will not have entered into the matter,” Breville warned grimly. “From this point onward, we must be doubly on our guard against sorcerous attack.”
* * *
Uncertainties of an entirely different order dominated the spirits of the English nobility. Exhausted and sweating, still reeling from the shock of their losses, they retired from the field to rest and regroup as best they could. Scouts were dispersed to search for a suitable camping place.
Selection fell upon a spread of level ground a few furlongs to the north of the abandoned peasant village of Bannock, encompassed on either side by branching tributaries of the burn giving the village its name. The streams offered not only ample water to refresh the army’s thirsty cavalry mounts and dray animals, but also a protective barrier against the threat of a night attack.
Rude bridges of planks, plundered from the village, were flung across the southern branch of the burn to afford safe transit for the English horses and baggage wagons. Company by company, the various contingents of the army filed across. Tents and cook fires sprang up. All but one of the bridges were then withdrawn, leaving the English host encamped in bristling isolation, like castaways on an island set in monster-infested waters.
While he waited for his servants to prepare his evening meal, King Edward listened sullenly as Gloucester and the other nobles discussed their various failures and setbacks of the day.
“I remind you, gentlemen, that in seven hundred years, no king of England has met defeat on Scottish soil,” he said at last.
“Nor shall it happen tomorrow, Sire,” Gloucester vowed. “We shall array our forces to overwhelm and destroy these rebels. And there will be no quarter given.”
The long midsummer twilight set in, bringing some relief from the earlier heat of the day. The English chivalry spent the evening resentfully contemplating the mortification they had suffered earlier in the day. The English infantry were similarly restless and uneasy. Many resorted to drink and ribaldry in an effort to fortify their spirits, but only added a further element of discord to the already-unsettled atmosphere.
Far on the northern fringe of the encampment, Bartholeme and the other Knights of the Black Swan established their own enclave, their pavilions erected in a semicircle overlooking the burn—a deployment designed to shield them from view of the rest of the camp. With full night still an hour away, Bartholeme called Mercurius to his side.
“How is our prisoner?” he asked.
The dwarf’s misaligned features twisted in a malignant grin. “Wishing with all his heart he was back in his holy sanctuary.”
“And what does our little man of God have to say for himself?”
“He doesn’t respond very well to direct questioning,” Mercurius admitted, “but it’s clear he’s had dealings with the Templars in Bruce’s camp. I could smell it on him, the moment you brought him in.”
“Were you able to gain any impression of their numbers?”
Mercurius nodded. “There are not many of them. But those who remain have considerable power at their command.”
“That was made manifest earlier today,” Bartholeme snapped, though he reined in his temper. “Keep questioning the little monk. At the very least, it would be useful to know what relics our enemies hold in reserve. But be careful not to kill him. Even if he refuses to play the role of informant, he can still serve as a Judas goat.”
A little later, hearing what their leader had in mind, both Rodolphe and Thibault registered strong interest in the proposal.
“You certainly don’t lack invention,” Rodolphe acknowledged.
“Not only that,” Thibault pointed out, “if we’re successful, the results should win not only the battle, but the war itself! It will appear that Bruce and his companions have been struck down by a hand of judgment.”
“Precisely my intention,” Bartholeme replied. “Come. We have preparations to make.”
He nominated Rodolphe, Thibault, and Mercurius to serve as his acolytes, though all of the Black Knights save those on watch would witness and support the working. Before beginning, each of them donned a protective amulet to render them immune to their own destructive enchantments.
On the space of open ground in the midst of their pavilions, the men marked out a sorcerous triangle, fixing its points with staves of ashwood. This was circumscribed, in turn, by a shallow circular trench into which the alchemists set shallow containers of incendiary oils.
The long twilight deepened. As the sun finally dipped toward the horizon, they carefully noted its vanishing point.
“The light of the world has departed!” Bartholeme finally proclaimed, on a note of predatory satisfaction. “Fetch the prisoner! We must make the most of our few hours of darkness.”
Wrists trussed behind him and tied to his bound ankles, the captured monk lay shivering in the corner of Mercurius’s tent, his white habit besmirched with blood and hanging in tatters about his wiry frame. Chuckling under his breath, Mercurius flung a halter of braided rope around the prisoner’s neck and, with the help of two of his master’s men-at-arms, dragged his victim outside into the open air.
Bartholeme beckoned them toward the alchemist’s circle. Ignoring the prisoner’s feeble resistance, his handlers carried him across the trench into the middle of the triangle, where they tethered him by his neck halter to an iron stake driven into the ground at the center of the configuration.
The halter was secured by a loose slipknot that tightened sharply when the captive attempted to struggle, and backed off when the struggles subsided. Choked nearly to unconsciousness, the monk lay curled on his side with closed eyes, his bloodless lips moving in silent prayer.
“Don’t think that pious words will save you,” Mercurius jeered, making sure of the bonds. “You’re already a dead man—the first of many!”
Ordering the subordinate members of their retinue to retreat to a safe distance outside the trench circle, Bartholeme supplied each of his chosen acolytes with a hollow globe of alchemical glass, each containing a different mixture of sorcerous chemicals. He kept one for himself as well, as the four of them dispersed to the four cardinal points of the compass. The three acolytes abased themselves as Bartholeme set his glass globe at his feet and spread his arms wide in a gesture of summoning.
“Great Lucifer, confer upon us, we beseech you, the powers of desecration!” he said. “Let our enemies feel the might of your hand, which brings eternal Darkness!”
He spat into the trench. The oil ignited with a rush, encircling the prisoner in a flickering annulus of fire.
“Behold the Ring of Desolation, the First Mystery of Zosimos!” Bartholeme declared. “Let its boundaries extend to all who profess themselves servants or friends of the Temple.”
He indicated the prisoner with a stab of his hand, then stooped to pick up his globe, cupping it in his right hand as he sketched an arcane symbol in the air above it with his left. The gray liquid sealed within the globe began to bubble and change hue, fluctuating from livid blue to venomous green.
“I call upon Gzul, bane of water,” Bartholeme said. “By the tears of Kaa, I summon and bind you in accordance with the Third Mystery of Zosimos. Send forth an effusion of vapors from the river of death!”
With these words, he dashed the globe to the ground within the compass of the circle. It shattered on impact, splattering the turf with a greasy rainbow of color that gradually resolved into thin tendrils of fog. Like hungry worms, the tendrils began reaching out toward the prisoner in the circle’s center, who recoiled ineffectually, only to be choked short by the noose around his neck.
Rodolphe smiled coldly at his distress, executing a ritual gesture over the sphere in his hand as he cried, “I call upon Zoath, bane of earth. By the spittle of Kuum, I summon and bind you in accordance with the Fifth Mystery of Zosimos. Send forth a contagion of dust from the plain of Sodom!”
He shattered his globe against the ground. From the midst of its shards, a fine scattering of sand spilled across the earth. Like a plague of tiny insects, the grains began to creep toward the prisoner. The monk tried to roll to the limits of his tether, wide-eyed with horror as they continued to advance, his lips still moving feverishly in prayer.
Thibault was the next to speak, lifting his sphere in salute to what they called as he, too, sketched a mystic sign.
“I call upon Ythkar, bane of air. By the breath of Pta, I summon and bind you in accordance with the Seventh Mystery of Zosimos! Send forth an affliction of cries from the mouths of the children of Lilith!”
The splintering of his sphere released neither fog nor dust, but a ghostly keening that set the teeth on edge. The shrilling mingled with the sand and fog, forming a contained storm of elements.
“I call upon Oa, bane of fire,” Mercurius rasped in his rough voice, lifting his sphere in stubby hands. “By the blood of Shak, I summon and bind you in accordance with the Ninth Mystery of Zosimos! Send forth a malediction of fevers from the well of the inferno!”
His globe, upon shattering, released a swarm of fiery motes that, like burning wasps, joined the wailing storm. As the swirl of elemental evil spiraled inward to overwhelm the captive monk, he managed only a choking sob of mortal despair. None present could be certain whether the victim heard Bartholeme’s final words:
“I name you Shuel, the plague-carrier! Through you shall a mortal pestilence be released upon the Templars and all who stand by them!”
* * *
In the leafy depths of the New Park, the greater part of the Scottish rebel army lay in fitful sleep, catching what rest they could while the darkness lasted. Arnault was dozing uneasily when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and roused at once to see Torquil bending over him.
“A deserter has arrived from the English camp, claiming to have urgent information for the king,” Torquil said quietly. “I thought you should be present to hear what he has to say.”
Arnault flung off his blanket and stood up, buckling on his sword as he followed Torquil to Bruce’s tent. Closeted with the king was a grizzled nobleman whose accents proclaimed his Scottish origins.
“There’s devilry afoot in the English camp,” the man was muttering. “If I hadna seen it with my own eyes . . .”
As the man shuddered and crossed himself, Bruce caught Arnault’s eye.
“This is Sir Alexander Seton,” he said. “He was with us at Turnberry, but then he lost faith in our cause for a while, and has been serving the English—as have many good Scots. But he has just been telling me about a band of French knights who joined King Edward’s service under the banner of a black swan. I very much doubt that he was meant to see what he saw, but—tell them, Seton, exactly what you told me.”
Seton gave a nervous nod, hugging his shoulders to suppress another shudder. “It was God-awful,” he whispered. “I hope never to see its likes again. I think they were conducting some kind of sorcerous ceremony. They were tormenting a prisoner. From where I was standing, he looked to be a monk of some kind. He was wearing white robes. Or at least, they were meant to be white.”
Arnault glanced sharply at Torquil, his blood running cold, for there was no doubt in his mind that Seton was describing Brother Ciaran.
“Three of those Black Swan Knights were muttering charms over a fire pit,” Seton continued. “And there was a dwarf with them; he was muttering, too, and the poor monk was writhing on the ground, with a halter around his neck that was choking him if he moved—but he couldn’t not move, because he was in such pain. If this is how King Edward hopes to win his victory, I want no part in his cause.”
He drew a steadying breath and fixed his gaze on Bruce. “My lord King, now is the time, if ever you mean to win Scotland. The English have lost heart. They are discomfited, and expect nothing but a sudden and open attack. I swear, on my head and on pain of being hanged and drawn, that if you attack them in the morning, you will defeat them easily, without loss of—”
At that moment, racing footbeats heralded the arrival of one of the schiltron captains.
“Trouble, Sire,” he gasped. “Where is Father Ninian? Our chaplain, Brother Fionn, has taken a fit of some kind! It—don’t look natural to me!”
Arnault and Torquil set off on the run, Bruce close behind. They found the Columban brother writhing on the ground, his eyes wide-open, staring blankly at nothing. His skin had an uncanny, phosphorescent pallor, and when Arnault bent to examine him, he discovered the other man’s pulse was racing.
Other denizens of the camp were drifting over, peering and muttering.
“Keep everyone else away!” Arnault ordered, with a glance up at Torquil. “This is no natural illness.”
As Torquil moved to disperse the onlookers, also waving the king back, Father Ninian arrived, white and breathless, the Brecbennach under one arm.
“Someone told me that Brother Fionn—dear God!” he breathed, as his eyes lit on the stricken monk. He dropped to his knees and gingerly touched Fionn’s forehead, then crossed himself quickly.
“We must seal the area immediately,” he murmured. “There is great evil about.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Arnault said. “See what you can do for Fionn. Sire, stay well back—please!”
Yielding his place to the Columban abbot, he helped Torquil set the necessary wards in place. By the time they rejoined Ninian, Breville had also arrived and Fionn’s condition had worsened alarmingly. A rash of blisters erupted across his skin, swelling and cracking before their very eyes. He was burning with fever. Blind to their presence, the stricken monk thrashed from side to side groaning in anguish.
“If only we had kept that healing talisman,” Torquil murmured, appalled.
“Aye, it’s like a disease, but it’s advancing far too quickly,” Breville agreed. “It’s as if some deadly plague were devouring him before our very—”
He stopped short as a dread possibility occurred to him, but Ninian spoke his thoughts aloud.
“It is a plague—a plague set upon us by our enemies!” he whispered, signing himself in blessing. “And it must be contained before it spreads to every soul within this camp.”
From the folds of his robe he produced the Brecbennach reliquary. This he touched reverently to his lips before setting it on Fionn’s chest, laying his hands flat upon the peaked lid to hold it in place as he offered up a petition for assistance from the one whose relics were contained therein.
“Father Columba, again we have need of your aid.
Speak for us in the councils of heaven.
From flood and fire,
From wind and rain,
From woundings and fevers,
Deliver this, your servant.”
The others joined their prayers with his. Just when Arnault feared they must surely fail, he suddenly felt the breath of a fresh and fragrant breeze brush past his cheek. An unearthly brightness suffused the air in the clearing, and a shimmering Presence took shape.
Or rather, two Presences.
In the lesser of the two, Arnault sensed the luminous likeness of Brother Ciaran. The greater Presence he recognized with awe as Saint Columba, who had presided over Bruce’s mystical enthronement. As Ciaran looked on, the saint stooped gracefully over Fionn’s ravaged body. Hands translucent as pearl reached out in a gesture of welcoming summons.
Like a child awaking to the sound of a loving voice, Fionn’s soul arose from its corporeal frame. Graceful as a dove, it ascended into the embrace of its summoner, who received it with a kiss of peace. A fragrance like roses filled the glade, erasing the corruption of disease. The next instant, a shimmering blaze of white fire descended and enveloped Fionn’s mortal remains.
A blinding light filled the glade, masking the spiritual forms of Columba and his disciples. The blaze scoured the ground and purified the air, forcing all present to avert their dazzled eyes. When the light abated, there was nothing left of Fionn’s corpse but a feathery tracery of harmless ash.
* * *
From their encampment on the edge of the Carse, Bartholeme sensed the sudden change in the air and knew, in that instant, that their attack had been thwarted. With a curse, he ordered his men to leap back from the boundaries of their working triangle, himself remaining only long enough to hurl a nullifying alchemical powder over the circle of fire.
The next instant, a blast of invisible energy came searing down like a thunderbolt. The disease-ridden corpse of their prisoner vanished in a rainbow flash of raw power.
Like a blast from a furnace, the same cleansing power roared outward to the boundaries of the enclosing circle, sweeping away the last of Bartholeme’s enchantment. The knights nearest the center of the explosion were bowled off their feet. When the air stopped ringing, they found that their working ground had been scorched to the bare earth.
Shaken, Rodolphe turned to confront Bartholeme, who was picking himself up off the ground.
“It seems you underestimated the resources of our enemies.”
Bartholeme shrugged, brushing ash from his clothing and stilling the trembling of his hand. “If we fell short of the success we hoped for, we still had the best of the encounter: The Templars and their allies have lost at least a few lives they could ill afford to spare. And we are still at full strength.”
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Thibault asked.
Bartholeme’s eyes narrowed, and his teeth showed in a feral grin. “To let the English chivalry bear the brunt of the battle. And then, when the time is ripe, we will strike at the very heart of the Scottish army: Robert Bruce himself.”
A FEW FAINT STARS LINGERED AS THE BRIEF SUMMER NIGHT faded into dawn and the Scottish soldiers were roused from their rest by the insistent voices and boot prods of their captains. When the men had eaten a frugal morning meal of oat bannocks washed down with ladles of stream water, they began arming themselves to prepare for battle.
It was Saint John’s Day, the true deadline for the English relief of Stirling Castle. Here and there, the priests who marched with the army celebrated Mass for soldiers and camp followers alike, the former already in their harness. In the slender ranks of the Scottish cavalry, while the army prayed, saddles were flung over the backs of the horses as they fed.
Amid the encampment of those close to the king, Arnault and Torquil also roused in the predawn hour, groggy from all too little sleep, to douse their faces with cold water and arm before hearing Mass. Joining Bruce for a last briefing while they broke their fast, neither Templar said much, for both were grimly conscious of what had happened the night before, and what was expected of them today, not only by Bruce but also by their absent Templar brethren.
Breville joined them when they had nearly finished eating, returned from scouting along the forward lines.
“They’re arming, as one would expect, but I didn’t note anything out of the ordinary,” he reported, drawing the two aside. “What are your orders for today, Maître?”
Touching the bulge of the Shard beneath his mail, Arnault glanced back at the king, who was arming for the day’s affray. “Be our eyes and ears, Armand,” he said quietly. “The Black Knights have struck at us twice now. A third blow, the heaviest of all, is sure to follow. Torquil and I must be at the king’s side, come what may—for if he falls, all is lost, for us as well as for Scotland.”
“I’ll not fail you,” Breville vowed.
Shortly thereafter, the army began forming up on the edge of the camp. Cooks, servants, and those too infirm to fight were placed to the rear in the shadow of Coxet Hill. To guard them, Bruce had appointed a band of Highland ghillies, wild warriors from the far north who were too headstrong and undisciplined to be part of the highly trained schiltrons. Shock-haired and brawny in their rough plaids, they fingered their weapons and muttered among themselves as Bruce’s standing army marched out to take to the field.
Once again the Scots were arrayed in four divisions. This time the king’s brother Edward Bruce had the vanguard, with Randolph off his left flank and James Douglas as the third forward unit.
Robert Bruce himself, mounted on his favorite gray pony, commanded the rear guard, from which point he could best discern where and how to commit his men. Posted among the members of the king’s personal retinue, Arnault and Torquil had likewise taken to horse for this second day of fighting. The remainder of the lightly mounted Scottish horse had been placed behind them as a reserve, well back in the trees, with orders to attack only on Bruce’s direct order.
Standing in his stirrups, Bruce cast an approving eye over his followers.
“They’ve sharpened their weapons as best they can,” he said to Arnault and Torquil. “Now it’s time to sharpen their hearts.”
Followed by the pair of them, his battle-axe firmly in hand, Bruce rode down into their midst. Abbot Ninian had already gone among them with the Brecbennach, imparting its blessing, and held it aloft for Bruce to touch before addressing the army. Behind them, Edward Bruce stood beside a man who held a banner of Saint Andrew, white saltire on a blue field, and another bearing the rampant Scottish lion.
“Men of Scotland,” Bruce cried, “you who are accustomed to enjoy that full freedom for which, in times gone by, the kings of Scotland have fought many a battle! For eight years and more, I have struggled with much labor for my right to the kingdom and for honorable liberty. I have lost brothers, friends, and kinsmen. Your own kinsmen have been made captive, and bishops and priests are locked in prison. Our country’s nobility has poured forth its blood in war.”
He gestured toward the clustering tents and smoky fires of the English encampment, so large it was clearly visible from the wooded slope. The sheer size of the enemy army was only too apparent, but Bruce radiated an infectious confidence born of the righteousness of his cause.
“Those barons you can see before you, clad in mail, are bent upon destroying me and obliterating my kingdom—nay, our whole nation,” he continued, his voice rising in challenge. “They do not believe that we can survive. They glory in their warhorses and equipment.
“For us, the name of the Lord must be our hope of victory in battle. This day is a day of rejoicing: the birthday of John the Baptist. With our Lord Jesus as commander, Saint Andrew and the martyr Saint Thomas shall fight today with the saints of Scotland for the honor of their country and their nation. If you heartily repent of your sins, you will be victorious under God’s command. As for any offenses committed against the Crown, I proclaim a pardon, by virtue of my royal power, to all those who fight manfully for the kingdom of our fathers.”
With those last words Bruce swung his axe aloft in salute. The army returned the gesture with a cheer that shook the branches of the trees. After their king’s example of personal valor of the previous day, they were ready to follow this man wherever he chose to lead.
Flanked by Arnault and Torquil, the king rode back to his own brigade, waiting in the trees. Marching orders were given, and the four brigades moved out of cover in disciplined formation, starting down the slope toward the enemy.
“You know that you’re giving up the advantage of the high ground,” Torquil said to Bruce, as the three forward brigades passed off the slope onto the flat.
“Aye,” Bruce said. “Yesterday we held our ground. Today, we’ll take theirs.”
“This is no small risk, Sire,” Arnault said.
“And it is no small victory we seek,” Bruce replied. “Today everything hangs on this one fight, and it will be no chivalrous field of honor.” He gripped the haft of his axe with renewed determination, and continued on a lower note.
“I have told you before, my friends: forward is the only way left open to me. It will be a bloody day, one way or the other. But at its end, I will have driven our enemies from Scotland—or I will lie dead upon the field. It is in God’s hands.”
He drew rein with them to watch the banners advancing. Ahead of Edward Bruce’s brigade, they could see the banner of Saint Andrew, and Abbot Ninian beside it with the Brecbennach in his hands. When the whole Scottish army was arrayed on the flat, a prearranged signal brought them to a halt where, as one man, they fell to their knees and bowed their heads, planting their spear butts on the grass. Then, in voices rough, noble, and humble, they recited the one prayer they all knew best.
“Pater noster, qui est in caelis . . .”
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as the words of the Lord’s Prayer whispered in the morning stillness and mingled with the gentle stirring of the banners above their heads. As well as decent, honest men, the Scots army had its share of rogues, drunkards, and cattle thieves; but in that instant, the best part of every soul among them was kindled to a blazing fire, touched by Bruce’s courage and the Spirit of the God Whose protection they now relied upon to bring them victory over the host that opposed them.
* * *
The sight of the Scots emerging rashly from of their hiding place was met with astonishment and derision by the English, who had stood to arms all through the night, lest the Scots attempt raids during the brief hours of darkness. Come the day, Edward had determined to form a battle line and advance against any Scots foolish enough still to block his way to Stirling. He had, however, anticipated eating a proper breakfast and assembling his troops in battle order before driving back any resistance.
“What?” Edward exclaimed, upon hearing of the Scots’ advance. “Will those Scots fight?”
“Evidently, my lord, they intend to,” said Sir Ingram de Umfraville, a Scot who had once been guardian of Scotland, now loyal to Edward.
“Well, they are mad to invite us to destroy them,” Edward said. “But it would be churlish to refuse the invitation.”
He smiled as he languidly stretched out his arms to allow his sword belt to be buckled on, watching the Scottish advance, half-turning in some annoyance as Gloucester rode up on his charger at impetuous speed, not yet armed, and reined in with such vigor that the king had to step back to avoid being showered with dirt and sand.
“The rebels have appeared, my lord,” Gloucester reported.
“I can see that,” Edward snapped. He was drawing breath for a further comment when, after advancing so far, the whole Scottish army halted in its tracks, the men dropping to their knees like supplicants.
“What is this?” the king declared. “These men kneel to ask me for mercy.”
“Aye, they ask for mercy,” Umfraville said, “but not from you. They ask it of God, for their sins.”
“Well, that’s a pretty piece of arrogance for an excommunicate king,” Edward replied, with a curl of his lip. “The cheek! God has better things to do with His time than listen to the false penitence of that black-hearted villain Bruce.”
But he resumed arming with rather more alacrity as the Scottish army rose and continued forward once more. Watching them, Umfraville began to perceive Bruce’s intent—for the English were caught in a restricted position that would not allow them to take full advantage of their numbers. To their right, spread along the river, lay the broad, marshy flatlands of the Carse of Stirling, while the area to their left was honeycombed with holes—treacherous footing for man and beast.
“My lord, perhaps we should consider our position,” Umfraville suggested to the king.
“Our position?” Edward echoed, somewhat derisively. “They have thrown down a challenge, and we must answer it!”
“What are your orders, Sire?” Gloucester asked.
The king gave a derisive snort. “We attack, of course, you idiot!”
The English ranks were still stirring sluggishly. Individual commanders were doing their best to muster their followings, but the lack of any formal battle array was evident. Umfraville cast a worried look at the advancing Scots’ vanguard. With the Bannockburn right at their backs, the English would have a difficult time withdrawing.
“If we are to attack, then it must be soon,” he said, “while there is still sufficient distance to charge.”
“We have ample ground yet,” Gloucester said belligerently.
“Then go!” Edward shrilled. “I have braggarts aplenty, but I look about me for warriors!”
Stung by the rebuke, Gloucester spurred his horse back to his men to finish arming. Eight hundred strong, the largest of ten English cavalry squadrons, his company had the distinction of forming the English vanguard—already standing mounted and ready while the other squadrons were still readying their mounts. Still scowling, Gloucester beckoned curtly to one of his equerries, omitting to don the surcoat that would identify him in armor.
“Tell Tiptoft to get his men in order and support us,” he ordered. “I mean to smash these upstart Scots at a single blow.”
The man galloped off. Gloucester snatched his lance from his esquire and rode to the front of his line of horsemen. Open ground lay before them, and nothing to stand between them and revenge for yesterday’s defeat.
A small force of English bowmen, readier than the rest, were sent forward to form a skirmish line—which brought Scottish archers darting out of the ranks to counter them. Flurries of arrows flew in both directions, but the Scots were swiftly outmatched by the power of the English longbows. As the exchange continued, the English arrows ripped through the Scots’ padded jerkins as though they were made of parchment, sowing red ruin in their ranks.
Still the Scottish archers tried to hold their ground and keep the enemy bowmen out of range of the schiltrons. But before the English bowmen could follow up their advantage, the heavy rumble of hooves to their rear warned that the cavalry was advancing. Abandoning their fire, the bowmen broke ranks and scattered to avoid being caught in the way of the horses. The Scottish archers, likewise, scurried back to the protection of Edward Bruce’s schiltron to await the first attack.
The English chivalry converged in three long lines. Those of noblest birth had claimed the places to the fore: Gloucester, Clifford, and highborn Scottish vassals of Edward like John Comyn, the lord of Badenoch. Lances gleaming and harness jangling, they commenced their advance at a measured pace, flaunting their wealth and power as though they were at a tournament.
They made a daunting sight, for these mailed warriors had been schooled from birth to do only one thing, and do it with supreme efficiency: to smash through the ranks of mere footmen and trample them beneath an unstoppable tidal wave of hooves and steel, grinding their broken bones into the mud. This they knew, as surely as they believed in God and their Saviour.
A blare of trumpets prompted the cavalry to a trot, and the cadence of hoofbeats quickened to a rumbling tattoo. Battle cries rang out, and lances swung downward in glittering arcs as, in a final surge, the destriers broke from a trot to a canter, sweeping across the flat like a rush of boulders spilling off a mountainside.
A sense of godlike power swelled the hearts of the knights. Clad in their heavy steel armor and mounted upon their huge, ferocious warhorses, they felt gigantic and invincible, regarding the ragged spearmen who stood in their path as no more of an obstacle than a weather-beaten hedge on the edge of a field.
Edward Bruce’s schiltron drew together and stood their ground, shoulder to shoulder, in bristling, tight-packed array. Scattered throughout the ranks were the armored nobility of Scotland who, in defiance of the pride of chivalry, had chosen to meet their counterparts on foot. Bracing the line with their own devoted men-at-arms, they stood side by side with peasants and herders to face off the fearsome charge.
The English knights closed at the gallop, bellowing and roaring as they braced their lances for the impact. Their great destriers laid back their ears and bared their teeth as their riders spurred them closer, the ground shaking with the rumble of hooves.
Then the enemy struck home.
THE SCHILTRON SHUDDERED AT THE IMPACT, LIKE A SHIELD ringing under the crash of a mace. The destriers plunged and screamed and lashed out with steel-shod hooves; the knights rammed their lances at the enemy. Skulls were cracked and footmen stabbed, but the Scots thrust their spears cruelly into the bellies of the horses, gutting them and bringing them crashing to the ground. Equine screams rent the air along with the mortal groans of dying men. Those fallen knights who were not pinned under their mounts struggled to their feet and drew their swords.
Skirmishers lunged out from the Scots’ line, wielding long-hafted Lochaber axes. With sweeps of their heavy blades, they carved through shields and chain mail, cleaving ribs and lopping limbs. Knights trapped on the ground or injured were stabbed or clubbed to death. Those who could still stand had to fight for their lives against spear and axe.
Gloucester drove hard against the forest of spears. He had lost his lance and was laying about him with his sword when he realized he had been cut off from his household knights. His wounded horse buckled beneath him, pitching him forward into a sea of enemy soldiers—without the surcoat that would have marked him for capture and ransom rather than death. The Scots engulfed him, and he disappeared under a rain of killing blows.
Sir Robert Clifford called on his men to avenge the fallen earl, and threw himself at the schiltron in a fury of martial courage. Other knights joined the attack, but the Scots refused to give ground. Clifford shoved his lance straight through the unprotected breast of the nearest spearman, but it gave him only scant respite before he, too, was engulfed and dragged down to his doom.
Randolph’s schiltron closed ranks with Edward Bruce’s, and Douglas moved up to support him. Thus closely aligned, the three schiltrons formed a continuous wall of sharpened steel. Only the king’s division held back, waiting to reinforce any of the schiltrons that began to give way.
The other English squadrons re-formed into battle array. One after another they rushed full tilt into the fray. The huge mass of armored chivalry, nearly three thousand strong, assailed the Scots’ line like a colossal mailed fist pounding at a stout wooden door.
When their spearpoints snapped or shafts cracked, the men of the schiltrons drew swords and axes to continue the fight. Troops from the rear pressed forward into the front ranks to replace the dead and wounded. The turf grew slick with the blood of slain knights and the entrails of disemboweled horses. The hands of the Scottish spearmen were dyed with the gore that poured down the length of their spears.
Brutality as much as courage was the order of the day. Highborn nobles entangled in the line were torn from their mounts to be butchered by vengeful peasants. Knives and axes hacked them apart, then the spears rose up again to confront the next wave of knights.
With the failure of the first assault, the English chivalry began to lose their momentum. Every time the tide of horsemen withdrew, the Scots pressed forward, seizing more ground and leaving the knights less and less room to gather the impetus for a charge.
The English infantry formed an improvised line with their backs to the Bannockburn. Many were still eager to join the fray and seize the chance of booty. Others hung back, reluctant to test their mettle against the Scots when they could clearly hear the crazed din of battle and the screams of the dying. But whichever way their feelings ran, there was no way for them to enter the fight unless and until the knights withdrew.
But for the English chivalry, withdrawal was unthinkable. It would amount to an admission of defeat and—even worse—would leave them open to accusations of cowardice. They prized their honor too highly to allow it to be tainted, so they wheeled their horses about, ordered themselves as best they could, and attacked again.
By now, the English dead presented a grisly barrier of their own. The knights rode roughshod over the corpses, trampling the dead into the earth, blind to everything but their hated foes. Umfraville could see that the knights needed assistance, and galloped back to confront the English infantry, galled that they should be standing uselessly to the rear.
“Bowmen!” he yelled. “Bowmen to the fore!”
Given the chance to deploy properly, he knew that the English would have worn the enemy down with missile fire before committing the cavalry. But perhaps it was not too late to give the Scots a taste of the dreaded English longbow.
Most of the archers were stuck at the rear, however, without space to push their way through; and the scattered ranks who could be brought into line were unable to see the Scots over the heads of their own cavalry. They held their arrows nocked to the bowstring, peering through the dust clouds and the surging mass of horses in search of targets.
“Fire!” Umfraville bawled at them. “You came here to fight, so fire, damn you!”
The bowmen obeyed, but with less effect than Umfraville would have liked. Some of the bowmen aimed high and launched their arrows in a lofty arc over the heads of the chivalry. Others knew that such shots would drop on the Scots without sufficient force to do any injury, and tried to shoot straight through the gaps in their own line, hoping to exploit the penetrating power of the longbow, which could snap chain mail and kill an armored man as easily as if he were naked.
Here and there a shaft struck home and felled an unlucky spearman. But just as often, in the murk and confusion of battle, it was an English knight or his mount that fell victim to the deadly missiles. Some of the nobles wheeled about and rode into the midst of the bowmen, cursing them for ill-begotten curs. Flushed with rage, they bellowed at them to desist or be killed on the spot as traitors.
Meanwhile, from their place in Bruce’s own brigade, Arnault and Torquil watched the king’s battle plan unfold. Elation mounted among the men of the rear guard as the schiltrons up front continued to press slowly, steadily forward.
“This will be a far cry from what King Edward expected,” Torquil noted with satisfaction.
“Aye, but our enemies are far from beaten,” Arnault replied. “The English still have an infantry of ten thousand in reserve. And we’ve yet to see the Knights of the Black Swan make their move.”
“It’s coming,” Breville muttered ominously. “I can feel it in the air.”
Torquil merely rumbled low in his throat, for all of them had spotted individual members of the Decuria taking part in the fighting, and knew they would not accept defeat gladly.
Gray eyes glinting like Lochaber steel, Robert Bruce drew his companions’ attention to the eastern front of the fighting.
“Look you, there between the battle line and the bog! There’s enough open space for the English to overrun our flank, if they’ve got the presence of mind to seize their chance. I think it’s time to commit this division as well: one last throw of the dice.”
At his command, his standard-bearer inclined the royal banner in that direction. With Father Ninian bearing the Brecbennach before him, Bruce led his troops forward. A roar of welcome went up from Douglas’s men, as the royal schiltron moved up into position at their side.
At the sight of Bruce’s standard, a squadron of English knights launched a fresh attack, knowing that if they could reach the rebel king, they might break the whole Scottish army. The men of the schiltron presented their weapons in defense of their lord, grimly determined in the face of the charge. There came again the ruinous clangor of weaponry against armor as the squadron hurled itself into the wall of spears, but once again, the cavalry broke apart like a wave smashing onto an immovable rock.
The English pulled back and attempted to rally.
“Forward!” Bruce yelled above the tumult of battle. “Take the fight to them!”
The men of his schiltron advanced to meet the next English charge. The morning sun witnessed a prolonged and bitter struggle as mounted knights probed and circled while the Scottish infantry grimly held their formation.
Men on both sides were drenched in sweat, muscles aching under the weight of their weapons. Their eyes blurred with the strain of their exertions, and their ears rang with the din of combat. Yet still they remained locked in combat, trampling heedlessly over the dead to grapple afresh with the living foe.
Observing a momentary lull in the fighting, Rodolphe sought out Bartholeme, dipping his helmeted head close.
“These English are in danger of throwing the battle away,” he said. “We must act soon, or not at all.”
“Would you have me unleash the puissance of the ring on mere foot soldiers,” Bartholeme countered, “and have nothing in reserve when we come face-to-face with the Templars? No, we will win the day as warriors, if we can!”
Beating men aside with the flat of his sword, and with Rodolphe close behind, he forced his charger through the packed English infantry to where companies of archers waited at the rear, impotently fingering their bows.
“You men!” he called, singling out the English captains. “Follow me, if you would strike a blow for England and your king!”
The battered squadrons of English cavalry had pulled together to try yet another assault on the center of the Scots’ formation, hoping to break the schiltrons, which had opened several chinks in the English ranks. Urged on by Bartholeme, a number of archers surged forward before the gaps could close again, skirting the English right flank to take possession of a shallow rise that provided them a clear field of fire.
Again, clouds of English arrows blackened the sky. A score of men on the Scots’ left flank fell wounded or dying, with goose-feathered barbs protruding from their flesh. Seeing the devastation, Arnault bit back an oath and pressed close to the king’s side.
“Look you there,” he said, pointing. “The enemy have brought some of their bowmen to bear.”
Even as he spoke, the bowmen loosed a second deadly volley. Instinctively Arnault flung up his shield to protect Bruce—and in doing so, opened himself to another shaft that grazed the edge of the shield and embedded beneath his own left collarbone.
The shock of his recoil ripped the barb loose, blood streaming down his shield arm, and the shield sank as he curled forward over his pony’s neck, gasping from the pain. But a strong hand seized his sword arm and kept him from falling—Bruce’s hand.
“Steady, I’ve got you!” the king said.
Torquil, too, was crowding his pony close to seize the reins of Arnault’s mount.
“Hang on!” he ordered. “I’ll bear you to the rear.”
“No!” Arnault jerked his reins from Torquil and tried to straighten. “Stay with the king. I’ll go by myself.”
“You can’t—”
“Stay here!” Arnault insisted. “Keep fighting.”
Bruce resolved the issue by seizing upon two of his nearest retainers.
“Escort Brother Arnault from the field,” he ordered curtly. “Find someone competent to tend to his injury. I can’t afford to lose this man.”
Reluctantly, Torquil surrendered Arnault into their charge, ducking with a grimace as more arrows hissed and thudded about them.
“I want those English archers put out of action,” Bruce said to him, gesturing with his axe. “Go slip Keith from his leash. Tell him to set the hounds on the rabbits.”
Arrows continued to pepper the schiltron at his back as Torquil turned and galloped back through the trees to where Sir Robert Keith and his five hundred horsemen were mustered.
“The king’s orders!” he announced, and pointed toward the formation of archers. “Remove that thorn from his side!”
The Scottish cavalry had been chafing for the chance to join the battle. At Keith’s command, they bolted forward like starving men falling upon a banquet. Torquil whipped his own mount around to join the charge. Baying like bloodhounds, the mounted Scots erupted from cover and streamed in a wave toward the enemy archers.
Coarsely bred and undersized by English cavalry standards, their wiry Scottish ponies nimbly covered the broken ground. Seeing them come on, the archer captains frantically ordered their men to redirect and redouble their fire.
The English longbows loosed their shafts with a sound like the wind booming through a cave. A dozen riders fell at the first volley, but the Scots opened ranks to present more scattered targets, for all knew that they must close the distance swiftly, or be killed trying.
Keith urged his men to even greater speed. Shafts continued to rain down on them, claiming men and horses at every round, but the Scottish charge never slackened, and seconds later they were within striking range of the enemy.
The archers had not been able to fortify their position by planting stakes in the ground. With no knights or spearmen to defend them, they had nothing to stand between them and the murderous spears and blades of the Scottish riders. A scattered few stood their ground and fired off a last desperate volley, but most knew they were staring certain death in the face. Flinging down their heavy bows and quivers, they turned and made a panic-stricken bolt for safety.
Some dashed back toward their own ranks. Others floundered across the boggy ground toward the bend of the River Forth, their unprotected backs presenting easy targets to the pursuing horsemen. Unrelentingly, the Scots swept after them, stabbing and slashing, so that soon the field was clear of all but the dead.
With the archers’ threat neutralized, Torquil reined short and turned back to report their success to the king.
“If Edward had brought those bowmen forward earlier in the day, we might have found ourselves in trouble,” Bruce commented with a wolfish show of teeth.
“Aye, and it isn’t over yet,” Torquil agreed. “But if you can spare me, I’d better go see how Arnault is faring.”
“Go,” Bruce said with a nod. “That arrow that struck him down was meant for me. Let’s hope it doesn’t prove our undoing.”
NO LONGER MENACED BY THE LETHAL THREAT OF LONGBOW fire, Bruce’s army resumed its advance. The English, first to their chagrin and then to their dismay, were forced to give ground. The schiltrons solidified into a single bristling wall, thrusting inexorably forward. With the battle shifting in their favor, fierce cries rang out from the Scots’ ranks.
“On them! On them! Push on!”
The English vanguard steadily disintegrated. Caught between the gorge of the Bannockburn and the treacherous Carse, Edward’s forces were further hemmed in by the River Forth. Chaos broke out among the troops to the rear as they found themselves trapped within the shrinking confines of their previous night’s encampment—and on the verge of defeat.
From the extreme left of the English army, Bartholeme and his Knights of the Black Swan surveyed the ongoing slaughter of the English chivalry with growing disdain. Mutilated corpses littered the field, with here and there a still-living body twitching and groaning in the bloody mire. Riderless horses careered this way and that in wild-eyed panic, adding to the pandemonium.
“Who would have thought England’s king would be such a fool as to squander his every advantage?” Rodolphe said with contempt.
Thibault turned to Bartholeme.
“Why are we here?” he asked. “This battle is as good as lost. Leave the English to their humiliation. There are better ways, surely, to finish off the Templars than to remain and risk being slaughtered by ignorant peasants.”
Bartholeme rounded on him with tight-jawed fury.
“The Templars are fewer and weaker now than they have been since their earliest beginnings! If we let this opportunity slip through our fingers, we may not get another. If you fear death so greatly, then be gone! Your departure will not hinder the rest of the Decuria from triumph.”
An angry flush suffused Thibault’s face, but the response came from Rodolphe.
“The time to prove your words is now, Bartholeme. If this Scottish rabble wins the day, the Templars will be forever beyond our reach.”
“They will not win,” Bartholeme said coldly. “Scotland stands or falls by her king. I know a spell that will kill a man dead in his tracks. I mean to unleash it at Robert Bruce.”
Several of the knights recoiled uneasily, and Rodolphe’s expression hardened as he lifted his gaze to Bartholeme’s.
“I also know that spell,” he said. “The cost is the life of the alchemist who casts it.”
“Or some equal indemnity of power,” Bartholeme countered. “Why else do you suppose I have been holding the Ring of Ialdabaeoth in reserve until now?”
He glared at each of his men in turn, inviting further challenge. None came. Satisfied that he had made his point, he went on.
“For this spell to succeed, I must have Bruce in my line of sight. After remaining to the rear all the morning, he has since advanced to the fore, the better to be seen by his men. That ridge over there presents a good eminence. From there, Bruce should be plainly visible to me.”
It was the same high ground that the English archers had briefly occupied earlier.
“Getting there could pose a problem,” said Guy de Vitry, a recently inducted member of the Decuria. “The Scots have overrun the area. If we must fight our way through, there’s no guarantee that any of us would survive.”
“Oh yes, there is,” Bartholeme said. “Mercurius?”
Hitherto silent, the dwarf today was riding pillion behind his master. Keeping a grip on Bartholeme’s belt with one hand, he thrust the other into his belt pouch and produced a yellow glass vial. Inside was a thick, bilious-looking liquid.
“All of you know of the demon that dwells in this ring,” Bartholeme said, holding up his left hand, where the dark stone glittered like blood. “A bargain has been struck. None who drink of that elixir can be slain in battle, for Ialdabaeoth will protect him.”
“And what is the price for such a victory?” one of the men asked.
“The price was paid after Castle Montaigre, when I brought the demon back from certain annihilation. You need not fear to partake of its gratitude.”
Eagerly the Black Knights crowded closer to take the vial from Mercurius and sip from it. When all had done so, Bartholeme stood in his stirrups and brandished his sword.
“Now, Brethren of the Black Swan, are you as keen for killing as I am?” he cried. “Then, let’s be off!”
Scarcely had they set out when they clashed with a roving band of Scottish cavalry. The Black Knights were fresh, skilled, and could take no wound, so they cut a swath through the Scots, reveling in their own butchery, leaving carnage in their wake. By the time they reached the foot of the ridge, they had claimed nearly a hundred lives.
“Now for our main objective!” Bartholeme said, as they plunged up the hillside.
Drawing rein at the summit, Bartholeme bade his Black Knights form a circle around him as he thrust his bloodied weapon toward the sky.
“Now throw wide the gates of hell, great Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, and set free the demon hounds of fear!” he cried. “Cast down the vassals of your enemy! Harrow them with visions of your terrible wrath!”
A gust of sulfurous wind swept the hilltop, and a shadow passed over the sun. The Scots attempting to scale the hill were suddenly stricken with unreasoning fear. Riders were thrown to the ground as ponies bolted in panic. Spearmen turned tail and fled as if from the gaping mouth of an inferno. At the sight, a harsh bark of laughter burst from Bartholeme’s lips.
“You see?” he proclaimed triumphantly. “We are masters here!”
Casting his gaze farther afield, he scanned the battlefield until he spotted a tall figure on a gray pony, recklessly distinguished by the circlet of gold around his helmet.
“Excellent,” he murmured. “Now maintain the interdict of fear, while I prepare the death bolt that will slay the Templars’ precious King of Scots!”
* * *
Torquil reached the top of Coxet Hill to find the Scottish camp abuzz with excitement.
“What’s going on?” he demanded of one of the wagon drivers, as he swung down from his weary pony.
The man grinned.
“We’ve just been joined by reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?” Torquil echoed blankly.
“Aye, Templars—lots of them!” The man pointed beyond, where scores of men in the Temple’s white surcoats with red crosses were adjusting white bardings on tall, clean-limbed steeds that bore the stamp of Templar breeding. Mixed among them, here and there, were men wearing the brown of Templar serjeants.
“Who—?” Torquil began.
“Their officers have been taken to report to Sir Arnault,” the wagoner informed him, as Torquil thrust his pony’s reins into the man’s hand and started in the direction of the Templars.
At that, Torquil headed instead in the direction of the hospital tents, where he found Arnault lying in the shade of one of the supply carts, stripped to the waist and having his shoulder bandaged. Crouched across from the infirmarer were two mailed figures in white surcoats, who looked around as Torquil pounded toward them: Flannan Fraser and Aubrey Saint Clair.
“Sweet Jesu, am I glad to see you!” he exclaimed, as the two rose to exchange hearty handshakes with him. Arnault looked a little pale, but considerably heartened by the presence of their brother knights.
“We’d have been here sooner,” Aubrey said with a grin, “but we ran into a little interference on the way. I believe the fellow’s name was Macdougall of Lorn.”
“Lorn?!” Torquil said, looking concerned.
“Aye.” Flannan grinned. “He wasn’t so tough. The idiot actually tried to work magic against us.”
Torquil snorted. “Well, you’re here, so he can’t have been very good at it. We think he was one of Bartholeme de Challon’s pawns.”
“If so, he’s a broken pawn now,” said Flannan. “He got away with his life, but that’s about all I can say for him.”
Torquil only shook his head, turning his attention to Arnault. “Are you all right?”
“I will be.”
“Hmmm, yes, so he says,” Aubrey quipped. “Keeping our esteemed Maître out of trouble is clearly too much work for one man alone to handle.”
“Aye, well, keeping Bruce out of trouble is a full-time occupation as well,” Torquil retorted. “How many men have you brought?”
“Nearly fourscore,” Flannan replied. “And more than half of those are knights.”
“Excellent!” said Torquil. “Let’s get them into action, then.”
“We’re ready,” Aubrey said, producing two white bundles from under his arm. “Would you care to put on proper attire? We may never get another chance.”
What unfurled from the bundles was a pair of white surcoats like the ones he and Flannan wore, with the red Templar cross bold across front and back. Torquil grinned as he took one, casting a sharp look at Arnault, who was struggling to his feet.
“Now, just a minute, you! I don’t think—”
Even as he spoke, there came a shout from the outskirts of the encampment as Armand Breville came riding up, spurring his horse in their direction as he spotted them, reining short, then, and leaping to the ground.
“I think the Black Knights are about to make their move!” he cried breathlessly. “Somehow, they fought through our lines and gained a position on one of the heights. Militarily, it does them no good, but it’s a perfect spot from which to launch a sorcerous attack.”
Arnault felt a shiver up his spine, for here, at last, was the full manifestation of the threat he had been fearing throughout the day. Motioning to Torquil to help him rearm, he turned to Aubrey and Flannan.
“Have you any mounts to spare? Good! Summon the rest of your men to join us. We must ride to the defense of the king.”
“But, your injury—” Flannan began.
“—is of no account,” Arnault said sharply. “Bruce is in deadly danger, and only the power of the Shard can save him.”
His subordinates leapt into action. While Templar serjeants ran to fetch horses, Arnault let Torquil rearm him, wincing as he eased back into his bloodstained hauberk and mail.
“How much use have you got in your left arm?” Torquil asked, as he slipped a Templar surcoat over everything.
Arnault flexed the fingers of his left hand and repressed a grimace, but pulled the pouch with the Shard out from under the surcoat.
“Enough,” he assured his friend. “I doubt I could manage a normal shield, but I don’t think I’ll need to, with this. Don’t worry. Nothing’s broken. It’s a flesh wound, and it hurts like hell, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I have to be able to ride.”
He squared his shoulders, deriving comfort from wearing Templar livery again, and found himself grinning as he walked over to the barded horse a serjeant had brought him, for he had not ridden such a steed for several years. The breath hissed between his teeth as he let the serjeant give him a leg up, but he drew himself upright in the saddle, glancing at the other Templars sitting their barded horses around him as he lifted the pouch that held the sacred Shard.
“My brothers, this and our faith are now our greatest weapons,” he told them. “This is the Shard of the Law, by which we shall strive to be the guardians of God Law today. And may He be our guide and our strength in the coming test.”
He touched the pouch briefly to his lips before tucking it back into the breast of his gambeson so that it rested secure against his heart, nodding to Sir Hamish Kerr to unfurl their battle standard.
“Now we must issue a challenge to our enemies—force ourselves on their attention,” he declared for the benefit of all, as the Order’s standard unfurled in a billow of black and white. “Raise our banner high, and let Beaucéant proclaim our presence for all to see!”
THE RUMBLE OF A GROWING CHEER FROM THE SCOTS’ LINE penetrated the sorcerous barricade the Knights of the Black Swan had erected around themselves. The sound of it yanked Bartholeme back to awareness, out of the depths of his ensorceled trance.
Snarling at the interruption, he made a sweeping survey of the battlefield below—and suddenly stood in his stirrups to stare at the black-and-white billow of a new banner entering the field above a body of white-clad horsemen, moving in disciplined formation along the northernmost fringe of the fighting. The horses, too, were barded in white—tall, clean-limbed horses proudly carrying a contingent of the most renowned fighting men in the known world.
“Templars!” He fairly spat the name, sitting back hard in his saddle with a venomous hiss.
Around him, the other Black Knights muttered and stared in kindred disbelief.
“Where the devil did they come from?” Thibault said, sounding vexed.
“Wherever they came from,” Rodolphe said scathingly, “it’s clear that your precious Lorn failed in what he was ordered to do. I knew it was a mistake to place much faith in that ignorant lout.”
“Be silent!” Bartholeme snapped. “While you grope for explanations, our enemies are gaining ground.”
“And whose fault is that?” Rodolphe countered. “Don’t make the same mistake Nogaret made. Use the power of the ring now, to wipe them out!”
Fury flared briefly in Bartholeme’s eyes, but then he mastered himself.
“I will do whatever it takes to destroy these self-styled monks of war,” he said coldly. “Let all those who are like-minded come with me, and let us put our mettle to the test.”
* * *
Three quarters of a mile away, the ghillies and the small-folk who supported Bruce’s army had been watching the battle from the top of Coxet Hill where, for two whole days, they had respected the king’s command to guard the baggage wagons. Now, fired by the example of the Templars, they could no longer contain their zeal for battle.
Yelling and brandishing whatever rude weapons they could lay hands upon, they swarmed down off the hilltop toward the battlefront, others from the encampment following suit. Ghillies and laborers alike hurled themselves in a ragged frenzy at the wavering English battle line, even some of the camp followers snatching up cloths to wave as banners, and pots with which to bang on heads. Faced with a new wave of Scottish fighters, fronted by the hard-driving line of charging Templars, King Edward’s army lost what little coherence remained to it. Infantry and cavalry alike flung down their weapons and attempted to flee.
Arnault sensed the beginnings of the rout, but riding in the forefront of the Templar charge, his attention remained focused on the occluded hilltop occupied by their adversaries. English and Scots might stand opposed amid the passing fortunes of war, but the conflict between the Templars and the Knights of the Black Swan was age-old, a clash between good and evil, Light and Darkness.
Not to us, Lord, not to us, he prayed fervently, but to Thy name give the glory. . . .
The utterance of this age-old prayer brought the Shard to life. He felt it warming against his heart, filling his whole body with energizing force and banishing both his fatigue and his pain. The foot of the enemy hill loomed ahead, its slopes sheathed in demonic murk, but he was oblivious now to his own condition as he shouted aloud, “Non nobis, Domine . . . !”
The Black Knights leveled their swords at the charging Templars, buttressing their position on the high ground with a sorcerous aura of fear. In their midst, their leader raised his left hand, displaying the fiery glint of a ruby ring on his third finger. Power emanated from the ring in baleful waves—the same infernal influence that had darkened the air of Nogaret’s secret citadel—but the Templars kept coming. Riding at Arnault’s side, Torquil knew the wielder of the ring for the same who had sent the demonic bird against Bruce, so many years before.
And Bartholeme, for his part, recognized in Torquil the Templar knight who had struck him the almost-mortal blow of seven years before, green-eyed and freckle-faced, thwarting the attack that should have taken Bruce’s soul. But he sensed that the darker man riding at his side posed the greater danger, and turned his head to mouth an order to the dwarf still perched behind him on the saddle, clinging like a monkey—for the demon ring had yet to reach its full power.
The Templars had reached the hilltop, and surged around the packed mass of Black Knights, now feinting, now striking. Each meeting of blades caused a ringing explosion of sparks. Lighter and fleeter than their counterparts, the Templar horses danced away from the bared teeth and striking hooves of the Black Knights’ destriers. Dust clouded the air amid the dissonant clangor of combat; and into this, the dwarf cast a pinch of crystalline sand, at the same time muttering a charm.
The falling sand resolved itself into a filmy curtain, isolating Bartholeme and the dwarf from the general melee. Thus screened, the Magister of the Decuria renewed the deadly invocation interrupted by the Templars’ attack.
“I call upon the fury of Gzul the Slayer!” he declared. “I call upon the hunger of Zoath the Devourer! I call upon the lust of Ukur the Ravager! I call upon the pride of Lucifer, the Unhallowed and Unconquered! Let all the powers of Darkness make me gifts of fire. Let that fire be as an arrow from the bow that cannot miss!”
The ring on his hand glowed brighter with each phrase of invocation. The infusion of power made his blood sing. On the battlefield below, King Robert Bruce fought on, oblivious to the imminence of death. Breathless, Bartholeme awaited the moment of climax when he would unleash the forces at his command.
Beyond the sorcerous veil, the battle between Black Knights and Templars raged on. Men had begun to fall on both sides, neither giving quarter. Arnault had the Shard and his reins in his left hand and his sword in his right, and was peering urgently into the swirling dust.
“What’s become of Bartholeme?” Torquil panted, from Arnault’s left side. “I know I saw him! You don’t suppose he’s bolted?”
“No, he’s here somewhere,” Arnault returned. “I have a strong sense of his presence.”
“Then find him!” Torquil cried. “I’ll watch your back.”
Wrenching his horse around, he stationed himself on guard at Arnault’s left and slightly behind him, ready to fight off all comers as Arnault sheathed his sword and shifted the Shard into his right hand, silently commending himself to the protection of Saint Michael as he summoned up all his deeper powers of perception. Casting his augmented sight this way and that, he at once became aware of an uncanny disturbance in the air some thirty paces back from the hilltop, as if the very light of day were being bent or twisted awry.
Lifting the Shard to his lips, Arnault invoked its power and bent his gaze on the heart of the disturbance—and Saw, beyond the veil, Bartholeme de Challon and his dwarf-familiar mounted together on one horse, in unconscious parody of the knights depicted on the Templar seal. Even as Arnault espied the black magician, a fiery glow began to shimmer around the Frenchman’s upraised ring hand in visible token of a killing bolt of energy about to be launched.
Spurring his horse to a gallop, praying he would not lose the Shard, Arnault leveled it like a lance and burst through the alchemical curtain. The Black Knight’s diminutive companion shrilled a warning, but Arnault was already upon them, his horse colliding hard enough with Bartholeme’s to jar the dwarf from his perch, screaming as he tumbled to the ground and vanished beneath the weight of trampling hooves. Arnault shouldered hard against Bartholeme and knocked him flying as well, just as the Black Knight pronounced his last syllable of interdiction.
There was a thunderous blast. The field of Bannockburn with all its butchery vanished in a hurricane roar. When the chaos subsided, Arnault found himself crouched on hands and knees in the midst of a far-flung landscape of fire and rock, where volcanic cinder cones rumbled and smoked in the distance and the air was harsh with poisonous fumes. But the Shard was still locked in his fingers—which was as well, because Bartholeme was also there, a few yards away, likewise picking himself up to round on Arnault in fury.
“You pious meddler!” he seethed. “Lucifer’s vultures shall devour your soul!”
He made a summoning gesture with his ring hand, and a great airborne shape materialized on the burning horizon, half-bird and half-serpent, striking out across the fire-eaten landscape with massive beats of its leathery wings. Arnault scrambled for safety in the shelter of a nest of boulders as the monster swooped to attack, its fanged jaws gaping wide. A hot gust of carrion breath wafted over him as the creature rammed its snout against the rocks.
Heart hammering against his ribs, Arnault lifted the Shard toward the creature. A blue-white radiance blazed forth in a pure, unsullied beam.
The serpent-bird drew back with a roar, spitting bile and venom. Brandishing the Shard before him, Arnault rose from cover and thrust the light in the monster’s face.
The creature’s retreat was only momentary. Rearing up to its full height, it mantled its wings and attacked. In desperation, Arnault thrust the Shard toward it again, to fend it off.
This time, like a sword in Arnault’s hand, the beam of the Shard’s light sheared a slash in one looming wing, carving shadow like substance. Each cut left behind a gaping wound, but the creature itself remained undiminished.
He was dimly aware of Bartholeme inciting the creature to attack, with raving curses. The Shard’s light remained his only weapon, and seemed to be growing dimmer as he continued to hold the monster at bay. Watching it flicker and wane, Arnault could only pray for fresh inspiration.
—and was answered by the sudden image in his mind of a rough block of stone: the Stone of Destiny!
Calling upon the sacrificial blood bond he once had shared with William Wallace, Arnault reached beyond himself, tapping into the far-off reservoirs of the Stone’s power. At once, fresh energy flowed back into the Shard, which shone forth brighter than ever. And then, in further inspiration, Arnault directed the beam, not at the demon serpent-bird but at the ring on Bartholeme’s hand.
The move caught Bartholeme off guard. He recoiled with a howl, but not soon enough, for the beam of holy light lanced through the arid air of the demon realm to strike the demon-ring with a searing crack.
The demon-stone shattered in a cascading shower of crimson flecks that exploded outward from the shards. Caught in the backlash, without even a chance to cry out, Bartholeme disappeared in a web of corrosive energies that consumed him down to the bone, leaving only a shadow of ash. The ground heaved and cracked, sulfurous smoke belching from the rifts. Then came a rumbling roar, just before fire roared upward with a catastrophic boom.
The infernal plain broke apart in flames, and Arnault found himself suddenly spinning through space. Broken images cartwheeled around him in a dizzying whirl. Vertigo took his breath away, and darkness overwhelmed him.
An eternity of numb, ringing silence passed. Floating weightless in a sea of night, Arnault gradually became aware of a distant dawning light that steadily broadened, banishing the darkness to the void whence it had sprung. Then voices began to penetrate the silence, tantalizing snatches of conversation, ebbing and flowing.
“. . . English are fleeing. Let me go after them . . .”
“Take sixty knights, no more . . . don’t want to risk the enemy regrouping . . .”
“. . . found the dwarf trampled to pulp. I doubt any of them escaped. . . .”
Arnault drew a deep breath and smelled the familiar camp reek of cooking, wet blankets, and horse manure. Cracking his lids, he glimpsed ordinary firelight.
“I think he’s coming round,” said a voice he recognized as Torquil’s. “Arnault, are you with us?”
Arnault forced a nod, raking at dry lips with a furry tongue.
“The king—?” he managed to croak.
“The king, thanks to you, is not only uninjured, but victorious,” said a second voice—that of Bruce himself.
Arnault forced his eyes wide open, though it was almost too much effort. He was lying, he discovered, in one of the hospital tents—and his right hand was still locked around the Shard. The darkness outside suggested that many hours had passed since the Templars’ encounter with their enemies on the hilltop.
“The battle’s over?” he asked.
“Not only the battle, but probably the war itself,” Bruce said. “The English are utterly routed. From this day, Scotland is once again a free nation—and if you’ll pardon me, I have kingly duties to perform.”
He took his leave. Arnault turned his head to Torquil. “What about our men?”
“Three killed, a dozen more wounded,” Torquil supplied. “The good news is that the Black Knights have been all but eliminated. The few that escaped are on the run. Aubrey, Flannan, and Breville have gone after them, to see them off.”
Arnault drew a deep breath, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted off his chest. “I feel as if I could sleep for a week,” he murmured.
“Rest easy then,” Torquil advised. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Leaving his superior sleeping, Torquil went in search of Robert Bruce. He was told that the king had repaired to St. Ninian’s Church, where he found a dozen men from Bruce’s retinue keeping watch outside. Entering, he discovered the king kneeling in prayer beside the body of his late adversary, the Earl of Gloucester.
“Sire?” Torquil called softly, before approaching closer.
Crossing himself, Bruce rose and greeted Torquil with a grim smile. Motioning the Templar to remain, he gestured with his chin toward the still figure laid out on a makeshift bier.
“He was only twenty-three years old,” he noted reflectively, “a rash, hotblooded youth with more romance than sense in his soul. I’m sorry he died so young. I regret that we had to fight this battle—but Edward’s pride and obstinacy left us no choice.”
He drew a breath. “For eight long years, I have told the Scottish people that as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any condition be brought under English rule. I have told them that it is not in truth for glory, nor riches, nor honor that we fight, but for freedom—which no honest man gives up but with life itself. I mean to nurture and cherish that freedom as much from this day onward as ever in any time in the past.”
June 25–November 30, 1314
WHILE NEWS OF BRUCE’S VICTORY AT BANNOCKBURN WAS flying to the ends of Scotland, the battered and humiliated remnants of the English army fled south toward the Border.
King Edward’s defeat was abject and total. Harried from behind by the newly knighted Sir James Douglas and a band of Scottish cavalry, the English monarch and his escort at last reached the temporary safety of Dunbar, whence they were able to escape by sea to Berwick. But there was no escaping the fact that the Scots had struck the deciding blow in their hard-fought struggle for freedom.
The aftermath of the battle saw a rapid realignment of loyalties. The astute Sir Philip Moubray surrendered Stirling Castle, and was allowed to renounce his fealty to Edward in favor of King Robert. The English Earl of Hereford and his following applied for sanctuary at Bothwell Castle on the Clyde, only to be taken prisoner by Walter Gilbertson, the constable. When Gilbertson subsequently handed his eminent captives over to King Robert, he also was permitted to change his allegiance.
Many English knights were allowed to go home free of ransom, and the bodies of the Earl of Gloucester and Sir Robert Clifford were restored to their families without any conditions or demands. Aubrey Saint Clair and Flannan Fraser were sent on Bruce’s behalf to return King Edward’s shield and his privy seal, which had been lost in the latter’s precipitous retreat.
“I hope Edward appreciates the courtesy,” Arnault remarked to Bruce on the morning of their departure.
Bruce shrugged. “He may as well have the baubles back. God knows they’re scant use to me.”
The King of Scots had another diplomatic commission for his Templar allies. This time the selection fell on Torquil.
“Here’s a test of your bartering abilities,” Bruce informed him. “The Earl of Hereford seems to think he’s worth a great deal to his friends back home. See how many of our own folk you can redeem as the price of his release.”
Torquil grinned. “I’ll do my best to drive a hard bargain.”
He proved as good as his word. By October, he had secured the release of Bruce’s queen, his daughter Marjorie, his sister Mary, and Bishop Robert Wishart in exchange for Hereford.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t persuade them to let Countess Isabel return home,” Torquil told the king, “but I did get them to agree to change the conditions of her captivity. Henceforth, she’ll be decently treated while we continue negotiating for her freedom.”
With so much work to be done, and so many diplomatic imperatives to fulfill, it was early November before Bruce was once again able to convene the Scottish parliament. But then, satisfied that the work of government was now advancing smoothly, his Templar advisors at last were able to turn their attention to their own imperative: the erecting of the Fifth Temple. As soon as parliament was in session, Arnault and Torquil retired to Dunkeld, where Ninian had been communing with the Stone of Destiny since shortly after the victory at Bannockburn. They found him in the crypt where the Stone was kept, kneeling at a prie-dieu set before it, chin resting on folded hands. Atop the Stone were set the High Priest’s Breastplate and the Urim and Thummin, with the Brecbennach on a stand a little to one side.
“In case you had any doubt,” Ninian said, not looking up as they approached from behind, “we were entirely right to separate the Urim and Thummin. They called to one another during battle,” he went on, “and carried the messages of the Stone, but now they are glad to be reunited.”
He roused and stood at that, turning to exchange a fraternal embrace with each of them, smiling at their looks of wonderment.
“You speak as if the Urim and the Thummin were alive,” Arnault said.
“Of course. I told you they were but sleeping. And with the destruction of the demon-ring, the Breastplate, too, was revived. Father Columba introduced me to them, when I brought the Brecbennach back to Dunkeld. We have become well acquainted in the past few months. I believe you wished to consult with them regarding the placement of the Fifth Temple’s cornerstone?”
Arnault and Torquil exchanged amazed glances, but by now, they had become somewhat accustomed to the Columban abbot’s easy and informal relationship with his saintly patron. Still, Arnault had expected that guidance would be rather more dearly bought than merely given for the asking.
“Er, yes,” he said tentatively. He gave Torquil a puzzled look. “Ah, just ask?”
Ninian gestured toward the Stone, with the Hallows lying atop it. “You are in the presence of old friends,” he said quietly. “You have but to speak from your heart. And I would invite the Shard to attend, as well. You carry it with you, do you not?”
Nodding, wordless, Arnault withdrew the Shard’s leather pouch bag from the front of his hauberk and removed the Shard, laying it between the Urim and Thummin, just above the Breastplate, as he knelt before the Stone. Torquil sank to his knees beside Ninian, wide-eyed.
A little awkwardly, Arnault inclined his head to the Brecbennach as if Saint Columba did, indeed, reside in its symbol in some real way. Gently, tentatively, he laid his hands over the Urim and Thummin, forefingers touching the Shard and thumbs lying along the top edge of the Breastplate, so that it lay within the compass of his arms. Unbidden, words came to his lips, which he allowed himself to utter.
“Thank you, Father Columba, for being the friend of the Stone, and the Breastplate, and the Urim and Thummin,” he found himself saying. “You know that we need guidance today. I have been instructed that the Stone of Destiny is to become the cornerstone for the Fifth Temple, to be erected here in Scotland. Now that Scotland is free, I have come to ask where we should lay this cornerstone, to provide the strongest possible foundation for God’s Holy Temple.”
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then the Shard began to glow, until its brightness filled the room. At the same time, a warm tingling began under Arnault’s fingertips, spreading up his arms and throughout his whole body, infusing every nerve with vibrant energy and surrounding the Breastplate with that energy.
His body became a living vessel, his arms a living bridge. Kindling to his touch, the magnetic properties of the Urim and Thummin began to assert themselves, diverting the flow of energy so that, like empty vessels, the twin stones began to fill with power. As this occurred, the gems of the High Priest’s Breastplate awoke to radiant new life.
Instinctively, Arnault slid his hands around it and lifted it up as an oblation and a thanksgiving. As he did so, a sense of rapture stole over him, centering on his heart and then spreading through all his being as the gemstones of the Breastplate blazed forth in twelve rays of bright light. They converged in a rainbow beam that splashed across the ceiling above their heads, forming moving images.
First came the jagged silhouette of a rude hill fort scowling over the brooding waters of a long and narrow loch. He heard Torquil’s soft gasp of wonder at a group of Pictish warriors gathering on the shore of the loch, blue-stained with woad, watching as a white-clad monk stepped out upon a rock just above the water. A monstrous, serpentine head broke the surface of the loch, rearing up with hostile intent; but at a stern injunction from the cleric, the creature bowed its head in submission and withdrew into the depths. This image faded as the ripples of the creature’s descent spread outward.
Then a second set of images took form: Arnault himself, standing on the deck of a small galley, the Stone of Destiny before him and the Shard of the Law in his hands, kneeling to raise it above the Stone in both his hands, point downward—and lowering the Shard to press it into the very rock until it disappeared from sight. Then this image, too, faded.
When it had gone completely, the rainbow beam died away and Arnault slowly lowered the Breastplate, a look of wonder on his face as he turned to glance at Ninian and Torquil.
“What do you make of that?” he asked softly.
“Which part?” the Columban abbot answered, with a whimsical smile. “The first is clear enough, I think. We all know the tale of how Father Columba dispelled a faerie water-beast that had been troubling King Brude of the Picts. By this sign, I would say that we are to take the stone to Urquhart Castle and commit it to the waters of Loch Ness.”
“We’re to sink it in the loch?” Torquil asked incredulously. “Beyond retrieval?”
“What better place to keep it safe until the end of time?” Ninian replied. “It is Scotland’s anchorstone, and the Temple’s cornerstone. Guarded by the secrets of the loch, none shall dare to try and take it from us, ever again.
“As for the second part,” he went on, again resting his chin on his folded hands to gaze at the artifacts spread atop the Stone, “the image of the Shard piercing the Stone recalls for me the legends of the sword in the stone. In English, the very word for sword embodies the Word. Thus it seems to me that the Shard, which is the very Word of God, is to be united with the Stone of Destiny before it is sent to its watery resting place. Thus will the Word of God help to anchor His Fifth Temple here in Scotland.”
His brow furrowing, Arnault picked up the Shard and looked at it, then touched its point to the Stone.
“I don’t understand. How is this to be done?”
“I can only assume,” said Ninian, “that this will be made clear at the appropriate time, as have other things. I suggest that the Feast of Saint Andrew would be the most auspicious time to carry out this task.”
“That’s less than a month away,” Torquil said. “And it’s a long way to Loch Ness.”
“Aye, the first snows already lie on the hills,” Arnault said, looking at Ninian in question. “But you obviously have something in mind, or you wouldn’t have suggested so near a date.”
Ninian summoned a faint smile. “I have had several months to prepare, my friends,” he said, “and Brother Flannan was most helpful. Two of your Templar galleys will be at Dundee by the time we can transport the Stone south.”
His listeners only nodded, by now well accustomed not to question anything that had to do with the abilities or information sources of the Columban brethren.
The next day, they began the slow process of bringing the Stone out of its hiding place in the crypt below the cathedral and transporting it down from Dunkeld by wagon, by way of Scone, Perth, and the River Tay. True to Ninian’s promise, the galleys were waiting for them, one for transporting the Stone and one to provide an armed escort. All of the remaining Templars of le Cercle still in Scotland were part of the escort party—Aubrey, Flannan, Hamish Kerr, and Breville, along with Arnault and Torquil—and even Luc, who had come over from Argyll, where the rest of their brethren had retired after Bannokburn.
“It’s good to see you, old friend,” Arnault told him, as they clasped hands on making the rendezvous at Dundee. “You and I are the only ones left who were present at that council on Cyprus. It’s only fitting that we both should witness the fulfillment of that prophecy.”
The Templars crewing the galleys were all known to Arnault and Torquil, and asked no questions. Ninian and Brother Seoirse, a young monk from Iona, joined them, their Columban robes most welcome among men so long denied the right to wear the white habit of their own order.
“We expect fair winds, with you along!” Torquil said aside to Ninian, grinning, as they sailed out of the Firth of Tay and headed north.
And fair winds they had, day after day. Skirting the coast past Arbroath and Aberdeen, then along the sandy shoreline to round the points at Peterhead and Kinnaird, the galleys made good time. It was the end of the third week in November as they passed Burghead, where, after the slaying of Red John Comyn, Arnault had led a band of Templars in rooting out what they believed to be the last vestiges of the Comyn family’s links with Scotland’s pagan past. Glancing at Flannan Fraser, standing farther along the rail, Arnault wondered if he, too, was remembering that day, and perhaps reflecting on developments since then.
The wind shifted as they entered the Moray Firth, coming directly from where they wished to go, so they were obliged to drop sail and resort to oars. The weather worsened as the wind rose, and even the prayers of their Columban brothers were to no avail, though Ninian had a thoughtful expression on his face as he came away from the bow of the ship.
They continued up the firth, rowing against the wind and hidden by the rain and the mist. Three days before Saint Andrew’s Day, they pulled into a hidden inlet, where they took an extra turning of the tides to transfer all unnecessary supplies and extraneous crew to the escort vessel, which would not attempt the transit into Loch Ness. There they also winched the Stone up onto the deck, covering it with a heavy blanket of tartan wool. Arnault sat beside it, occasionally reaching out to touch it, for all the long day it took them to row out of the bay and proceed up the firth, with the coasts drawing in on either hand.
They slipped past Inverness that night, under cover of sleet and hail. Dawn found them at the mouth of the narrow sea estuary that connected the firth and the loch, with the Feast of Saint Andrew but two days away. During the night, the temperature had plummeted below freezing, and a rime of ice clung to the rocks inshore and all across a raft of seaweed clogging the mouth of the stream. Ice likewise adorned all the ship’s rigging.
“Are you sure the channel is navigable?” Arnault asked the captain of the transport galley.
“No, not at all sure,” came the response. “But Brother Ninian tells me that Saint Columba will take care of it. Meanwhile, the best time to try it is at the high tide.”
They waited until nearly noon to attempt a transit, more than an hour before the expected high tide. Timbers creaking in protest, the galley nosed her way cautiously into the mouth of the stream, with a crewman sounding the depth from the bow and oarsmen occasionally fending them off from obstacles. The channel was close, the depth variable. Now and again the ship’s keel scraped along a sandbar. They had been at it most of the day when the galley softly grated to a standstill.
“It’s too shallow, and there’s ice clogging the channel ahead,” the captain informed Arnault, before hurrying forward to investigate.
Going with him to peer ahead from the bow, Arnault saw that the previous night’s intense cold had constricted the brackish waters of the stream to an ice-bound trickle midstream.
“Can we cut through with axes?” he asked.
“We could try,” the captain agreed, “but this late in the day, we wouldn’t get very far. The tide’s turned, and the temperature will drop again with nightfall.”
“What can we do?” Torquil whispered to Arnault, as the captain directed men overboard to try with the axes anyway.
Arnault slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what will happen if we miss the appointed time.”
He asked the Stone, laying his hands upon it and offering up his plea for guidance, but none was forthcoming. He knew the Stone was still alive, but he could get no response from it. Nor could any of the others who tried, either Templar or Columban brother.
The short winter day drew to an early close, and they could do nothing more. Again the night was bitterly cold and crystalline clear, the sky bejeweled with stars. Bringing an extra blanket from below, Arnault bedded down beside the Stone, pillowing his head upon it as Jacob had done, worrying and listening to the creak of the ship’s timbers as she squatted aground. Eventually weariness got the better of worry or listening, and he dozed off.
But his sleep was fitful, and after a while he became dimly aware of a far-off rushing sound, like the roar of the sea heard through a seashell. The roaring became mingled with other noises—a strange, deep-throated chorus of hoots and groans that sent a faint tingle up his spine, though it was not the tingle of fear. Puzzled, his dream-self stood up to investigate.
Gone were the wintry stars. The galley lay softly swathed in a blanket of silvery fog, though far at its bow he could sense a white-robed form standing with arms outstretched into the milk-white blankness. Beyond, he sensed huge primordial shapes swimming just at the edge of vision, long serpentine necks cresting and dipping as the creatures converged on the galley in a herd, calling out to one another with eerie, moaning cries.
A broad, glistening back broke the fog off the galley’s port flank; a second creature surfaced to starboard. A series of heavy bumps from below caused the deck to lurch and shudder, and Arnault clutched at the railing as the ship suddenly lifted beneath him—though he could not seem to move farther, or to summon up enough will even to try.
But the ship moved. Borne up on the creatures’ backs, teetering and swaying, the vessel slowly began to edge forward. Other long-necked beasts flanked the ship on either hand, propelling themselves with supple sweeps of their long tails. The rolling surge of their movement was hypnotic, soothing, and carried Arnault back into heavy sleep.
He woke to the cries of excited voices, and rolled free of his blanket to scramble to his feet, hand reaching for his sword. To his astonishment, the galley was floating free on a broad sweep of open water that stretched mirror-silver into predawn mist. Torquil was standing at the railing nearby, and glanced back at him in wonder.
“I have a feeling you won’t be at all surprised,” he said, “but I do believe we’ve found our way into Loch Ness! The captain says that some freakish turn of the tide must have moved the jam of seaweed and ice and carried us through.”
Remembering his curiously vivid dream, Arnault only smiled faintly.
“Stranger things are possible, I suppose.”
They rowed southward down the loch while the daylight lasted. Arnault stayed with the Stone, one hand resting lightly upon it as if in reassurance—whether to it or himself, he could not have said. All the day long, Ninian stood gazing ahead in the bow of the ship like the apparition of the night before, though Arnault sensed it had not been Ninian then, but the saint the Columban brother served.
Toward dusk, they at last caught sight of the slighted towers and walls of ruined Urquhart Castle, emerging from the shadowed shoreline to their right. The water before it was still as a mirror, its bottomless depths reflecting the castle ruins and the snow-covered peaks to the north and east. Behind them, the V of their gentle wake followed like a trail of glory, embellished with the rhythmic ripple the oars made. Gazing out across the water, Arnault could almost imagine that he stood on the brink of some strange rift in the fabric of the material world, where sprites and faeries and other creatures, far stranger, could pass freely back and forth into the realm of spirit. He wondered again what had carried the ship into the loch, and whether it—or they—still followed in the depths below.
Just before sunset, they put the bulk of the crew ashore at Urquhart, retaining only half a dozen to man the oars—Templars, all, the captain among them. From the ship’s stores, preserved against this hour, Torquil brought out two white Templar mantles, which he and Arnault donned after girding on their swords—God’s monks of war once more, ready to do Him service, for the glory of His name. A chill haze was settling above the water as the crew remaining on land gave the galley a push to send it on its way from shore, as winter shadows edged across the loch and the short day began slipping into twilight.
“Not long now,” Ninian murmured to Arnault, gazing out across the black mirror of the water.
Clumsily, those remaining bent to the oars, less than a dozen of them, propelling the big galley slowly into the center of the loch. They reached the appointed position just as the sun was dipping behind the hills. A deep blue twilight rolled across the landscape and the surface of the loch as the rowers shipped their oars to let the craft glide to a halt.
As Arnault and Torquil began winching the Stone high enough to clear the rail, and let it balance there, the crew came from below to line up along the opposite rail—except for the captain, who went to the mast with a bundle of something under his arm and ran up a sea version of Beaucéant: a long, swallow-tailed pennon of black and white, horizontally divided, that lifted briefly on a faint breath of air and then was still.
In the silence, it seemed that all creation held its breath, waiting. Quietly Arnault and Torquil stood to either side of the Stone, hands upon it as they waited for the rising of the moon. Ninian stood between them, behind the Stone, gazing out at the lunar glow building beyond the mountain peaks to the east.
Presently, a shimmer of silvery brightness broke behind the eastern horizon as the disk of the rising moon began to emerge. In that first flush of moonlight, Ninian raised his hands in invocation from their Celtic heritage.
“In name of the Holy Spirit of Grace,
In name of the Father of the City of peace,
In name of Jesus Who took death off us,
In name of the Three Who shield us in every need,
Be thou welcome, thou bright white moon of the seasons.”
In the silence that followed these words, Arnault took the Shard from inside his tunic, clasping it between his hands, point downward, and raising it above the Stone as he likewise lifted his eyes and his heart.
“In the beginning was the Word,” he murmured, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . .” He drew a deep breath and let it out.
“Lord, may Your Holy Word ever be our foundation, and Christ Himself our chief cornerstone.” He slowly brought the Shard down so that its point rested against the center of the Stone.
“Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomine Tua da gloriam,” he said boldly—and was not surprised when the Stone yielded before the Shard of the Law like ice melting under the sun’s warmth, or a bride welcoming her beloved. When he lifted his hands, he could see no sign of the Shard, but when he laid his hands on the Stone again, he could feel the puissance of their union as a quickening that filled his heart with gladness.
He let Torquil help him steady the Stone as they lifted it enough to swing out over the side. His voice rang true and clear as he spoke from the heart.
“Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,” he said, quoting from the Psalms. He could feel the cosmic connection as he lifted his face to the glow that would be the rising moon, as a focus for the prayer he now offered.
“Glorious Chief of chiefs, and captain of my soul—By Your command, the great Solomon raised up the First Temple to be a sign of faith and wisdom. Though physical Temples have come and gone, their ideal has endured down through the ages.
“Now, in accordance with that mandate You gave to Hugues de Payens, our founder, we pledge to raise Your Temple yet again, not by human hands but by faith, and we here lay down the cornerstone of what will become, by Your grace, the foundation for a new Temple, stretching between Heaven and earth. May its walls be an abiding bastion of Light, and its chambers a treasury of wisdom for the ages. And may this Stone of Destiny, which was Jacob’s Pillow—the seat of Scotland’s Sovereignty—no longer be that alone, but Scotland’s anchorstone, as well, and the anchorstone of Your Temple.”
He gave a nod to Torquil, who drew his sword, then turned his face again toward the approaching moonlight.
“Thus saith the Lord,” he declared, again quoting from scripture. “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation . . . and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.”
In that instant, the moon broke free of the line of hills, burnishing the surface of the loch to a silvery sheen. Arnault could feel the Stone throbbing beneath his hand, and he backed away and gave a nod to Torquil, who saluted the Stone with his sword, and murmured, “Non nobis, Domine!”—and slashed the cable.
The strands parted, and the Stone of Destiny plunged toward the water below, breaking the surface in a hollow plunk and an explosion of silver droplets. Just a glimpse they had of the cut end of the cable fluttering after it as it sank into the darkness, accompanied by a trail of tiny bubbles and a brief phosphorescence in the water—and then a brief flurry of coiled tails and sinuous necks that followed it into the unplumbed depths below.
Speechless, Arnault turned his startled glance to Torquil’s, intending to ask what he had seen, but in that instant he became aware that a profound hush had arisen behind the sound of the Stone entering the water, as if time itself held its breath. Torquil looked equally awestruck, as did the crewmen who had just witnessed the Stone’s departure, standing motionless at the opposite rail. Ninian was still gazing at the ripples spreading from where the Stone had disappeared, not so much with awe as expectancy.
An expectancy apparently well justified, for suddenly a diamond-mote of white light erupted from the water amid an explosion of bubbles and a shimmer of silvery bells. More lights whizzed skyward, leaping and sporting like shooting stars. Ribbons and streamers of light followed, soaring toward the moon in radiant arcs.
Soon the whole surface of the loch was dancing with light, as far as the eye could see. Great beams and ribs of light took shape as they watched, enraptured, soaring skyward to shape a luminous edifice of columns and architraves, arches and buttresses, shining against the night sky—a whole divine geometry expressed in angelic form, dazzling and joyful.
As his gaze yearned upward toward the Temple’s soaring vault, Arnault caught a shining, exalted glimpse of a wondrous city of adamant and pearl, encompassed by concentric bands of crystal. A fragrance like roses suffused his senses, and a great melodic paean of joy rang out across the heavens—caught only in echo, by mortal ears, but Arnault knew it for the music of the spheres.
A moment only it lingered, leaving but the whisper of roses on the still night air—that and a memory that no one present would ever forget. Yet even as the vision faded before their dazzled eyes, those privileged to have witnessed it—and to have made it possible—knew that the foundation for a new Temple had, indeed, been laid on this, the Feast of Saint Andrew, and that a new Temple would, indeed, arise to bridge the span between Heaven and earth.