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Douglasdale, Scotland Late March 1307
Only a handful of men were brave enough to join James on this senseless scheme. But if he played his strategy right, he would only need a handful.
James studied the stout tower, drab and gray against the cloudy sky. The seat of his clan, his birthright, stood as dark and subdued as he felt. As dismal as his life had been for the past several years hiding in France.
He wasn’t focused on the stones of the tower that called him home like a siren called sailors to their doom. Instead, his aloof gray eyes, harder than the stone of the tower and as gray as the skies that hid the bright sun from those undeserving, studied the men surrounding the keep — those pathetic English soldiers who couldn’t fight their way out of a burlap sack. Lazy, skinny, encased in overly large metal plates and mail that prevented them from running or fighting like true warriors.
Hell, half couldn’t even raise a sword over their heads if needed.
Fools.
Two men (James couldn’t bring himself to call them soldiers) stepped inside the gate, leaving it open, exposed.
Were these English so assured of their presence, of their prowess, that they left the open gate defenseless? He shook his raven-haired head.
Of course they were. James had watched them do it time and again over the past several days. The English were nothing if not predictable.
Two of James’s own men joined him at the edge of the Selkirk forest brush line. They perched a few meters east of Douglasdale — his old friend and tenant farmer, Thomas Dickson with hair as black as his own, and his loyal confidant and paladin from France, the Moor Shabib, whose rich brown skin was reminiscent of the mountains in his homeland of Hispania.
“What are ye thinking, James?” Thomas asked in a whisper as he crouched behind his bush.
The man was devoutly loyal, having joined with James Douglas shortly after he watched helplessly as the English burned his crops, barn, and croft house to the ground. He’d fled with his wife and son to live with her Scott kin near Rutherford, then left to seek out the Douglas.
Shabib squatted on James’s other side, his rich azure robes pooling on the ground as he peered through the bushes from under the edges of his turban-wrapped hood.
“You have mentioned that your people have a holiday soon. Is there a dictate that prevents you from military action on that date? If these English celebrate it, then their guard might be even more lax.”
Ahh, James thought as he nodded. Shabib is always one to see the larger picture.
“Aye. The Lenten season ends with Easter and ‘tis Palm Sunday in two days. Their commander, Clifford — the foul besom — is gone from the tower already for the season. Only a shell guard remains. Your idea has merit. They will no’ expect an attack on one of the Lord’s most holy days.”
“James,” Thomas’s low voice dropped lower. “Ye canna do such a thing on the Lord’s day. ‘Tis sin upon sin. Some things must remain sacred even in times of war.”
James’s gray eyes hardened to slate, cutting Thomas in a murderous glare.
“Thomas, I love ye like a brother, but ye must understand. These English have stolen and desecrated my birthright, slaughtered my kin and clan, your kin and clan, and are using it as an English stronghold against the Scots. And when I forfeited my pride, shamed myself to crawl like a lowly dog and beg the English king to return my lands, he had me removed from his grounds and threatened my life if I ever dared return. I tell ye, Thomas, if I canna be personally responsible for Edward Longshanks’s death, then by God himself, I will slaughter every last English soldier I can get my hands on. Including those whose horrendous English asses sit in my keep, sin or no’!”
Chastised, Thomas bowed his head. As a tenant farmer with distant kin, he’d never had a strong connection to the seat of the Douglas lands. He couldn’t judge James for the actions he was compelled to take, but that didn’t make an invasion on the day the Lord entered Jerusalem any more palatable. ‘Twas an abuse of a sacrament, in Thomas’s lowly opinion.
And in the opinion of most.
“Aye, James,” Thomas whispered.
“Your friend has a solid argument, James. Nothing good is to be had when one offends his God.”
James swiveled on his toes to face Shabib. Beads of dew had formed on his tightly curled hairline that escaped his hood and the shoulders of his robe, creating a shimmering aura on the man.
“These words may be sharp on your ears, Shabib, and I mean no offense to your relationship to your God, but my God, perchance He has abandoned the Douglases, and probably all of Scotland. There’s no one left to offend. And even if He’s still present, we have the saying that God helps those who help themselves.”
James shifted his harsh gaze to Thomas, who had the good sense to hang his head at James’s sound argument.
Shabib’s face never shifted, not even a twitch of his cheek — ‘twas one of the reasons James found the man so agreeable. He wore no emotion, keeping those useless feelings in check. Feelings, emotions, those were as useless as a one-winged bee in James’s estimation, and Shabib never bothered James with such petty inconveniences.
Thomas, on the other hand . . .
“If you believe that, James, then we must accept it,” Shabib intoned. “Even Allah permits fighting during sacred months in response to acts of aggression. And what these English have done, aggression is too light a word. So if you have no qualms about an invasion, then neither do I.”
“Shabib,” Thomas pleaded, “I would hope ye might talk some sense into this man. His compulsion knows no bounds.”
“We all have a calling, Thomas. If this is James’s, then I will assist him as he needs.” Shabib shifted his doleful brown eyes to James. “That does not mean I won’t pray for your soul, James. Allah knows, someone must.”
James drew on the ground with a stick. The air was thick with mist, yet still dry. No rain, yet. James poked at two shapes in the damp dirt, then lifted his face to the skies. Those watching him might say his expression was prayerful, but Thomas and Shabib knew otherwise. What James was searching for was a hint as to the weather the next day. James sniffed, trying to sense if a storm was eminent.
The strategy would still go on as planned, regardless. ‘Twould only be easier if the rain held back. James might have prayed if he were a godly man. As it were, he tasked Thomas and Shabib with any prayers.
“Tomorrow. Early. Most men will be at the kirk, for mass. We’ll start here, at the gate, with two men.” James drew lines in the dirt. “The rest will come from here, in a surprise Highland charge that ‘twill overwhelm those few at the gate. Once we are inside, gather everything, everything, as I have told ye, here.” He stuck the stick in the ground.
“What point is there to putting everyone in the cellar? What will ye do once ye move back into the tower?” the young Douglas warrior, Gabriel asked, his light hair bright against the gray skies.
James’s stare cut that innocent brightness to shreds.
“We aren’t moving back in, Gabe. No one is. I have alternate plans.”
The difference in the skies between prime and sunrise brightened in a thin thread of sunlight that pierced the clouds. ‘Twas more dark than light as James Douglas and his men crept to the stronghold. No guards kept watch, and they could have walked up in the noontime sun.
Thomas and Gabriel pressed forward to the gate. The rest of James’s men tucked along the edge of the palisade, waiting for Thomas’s high-pitched whistle, signaling the rest of the Highlanders to attack.
The thread of light widened, and with it, Thomas’s whistle. With only the sounds of their feet in the muck, they moved as one being, blending into the stone and set with one singular focus. Destruction.
They slipped into the inner Bailey. No horses, no villeins, ‘twas emptier than even James, in his most optimistic self, was surprised to see. Truly, the hubris of these English was boundless.
James tipped his head to his men, indicating it was time to take the church. A moue of guilt clenched James’s chest at attacking a church on the Lord’s day, but he flung it aside like a gnawed bone. Guilt would gain him nothing, certainly not his keep.
They reached the church, and James flung the sturdy oak doors open wide where they banged against the stone in announcement. Dim early-morning light filtered through the high window slits and illuminated the men who spun in their pews at the intrusion. James flicked his eyes to the priest-less altar. Figures.
“End them,” he commanded, and his men melted between the pews with their broadswords drawn, striking down the defenseless men. A couple of Englishmen managed to unsheathe their swords, but not in enough time to save their lives.
Or their souls. They might be praying to God, and perchance God hadn’t abandoned the English as He had the Douglases and the Scots, but these English demons were wasting their breaths. Heaven had no seat at its table for these unshriven souls.
One man wasn’t exactly dead, and with a weak, bloodied arm, tried to drag his punctured body to the wall, as though he might escape his inevitable death. James didn’t blink. He flipped his sword expertly in his hand and brought the blade across in a smooth arc, splitting the man’s neck. The Englishman shuddered once and stopped, his neck’s blood running in a river on the stones.
James wiped his blade on the man’s tunic then rose to face his soldiers.
“Drag them out. Follow me.”
Wrapping his hand in the dead man’s tunic, James then dragged the man he’d finished off past the wide doors, down the steps, and into the dirt. His men followed his trail of blood to the main keep. James kicked in the door, searching for the knight that Lord Robert Clifford had left in charge. The lazy fool wasn’t in the church.
Probably couldn’t be bothered to rise that early. They dragged the dead men to the stronghold’s cellar, then spread out into the tower. Some of the men then found, they killed immediately. Others they bound. All were dragged to the cellars as well. James raced to the upper floors of the tower with Thomas and Shabib, until they found the second-in-command hiding in a plush, decorated chamber room.
My parent’s chambers. James’s head flashed red with blood and fury, and he raised his sword. Instead of using his blade that screamed for this man’s death, James cracked the hilt of his sword against the man’s head, and he dropped like a stone.
“Ye dinna want him dead?” Thomas asked.
James ripped a cord from a nearby tapestry, whipping it round his hand.
“He will be dead soon enough. I only lament that Clifford is not here. My vengeance will never be complete until that man is dead. These sassenach will have to do. They have their own culpability to account for.”
James bound the man’s hands behind his back until they turned purple, then dragged him down the steps to join his brethren in the cellar.
“Now, everything in the keep that is not tacked down, peat, hay, food, wine, tapestries, bedding, everything ye can find. Bring it here.”
James started for the steps when Shabib grabbed his arm, his eyes blazing into James’s soul. “James, friend. This is a dark path upon which you tread. ‘Twill blacken your soul. Are you sure you wish to set onto this path? Otherwise, ye can leave, stand guard at the gate.”
James’s washed-out eyes searched his dear friend’s face. His eyes were as empty as his chest, as empty as his soul.
“My soul is already blackened, my old friend. I’ve been walking this path too long for any other outcome.”
Shabib placed a long-fingered hand on James’s wide, weary shoulder. “’Tis never too late to step off the path. No matter how black your soul. If not today, perchance one day you will find the redemption you desire.”
“I have no desire for anything, Shabib,” James answered, opening his arms wide. “I welcome this blackness. I will no’ begrudge ye if ye decide to sit out of these final events. But I must finish this. It must come to an end.”
Shabib bobbed his head, then followed James to the main floor with his men. They spent hours throwing all they could lift into the cellars. One man had tipped a bottle of wine to his lips, and James smacked it away. The bottle fell to the stones and shattered in a burgundy mess.
“Dinna drink from this poisoned well,” James commanded. His nostrils flared, and his brow was low, shadowing his eyes. His jaw was set and so sharp it might cut the very stone upon which they stood.
The man leaned to Gabe. “What fire burns in his mind? Why throw everything into the cellar? Like a nightmare larder. Are we going to waste it all?”
Gabriel shrugged as he rolled up another tapestry to toss into the cellar.
“I dinna know, but I’m sure the man has a reason for his madness,” Gabe answered.
“Other than he is just mad?”
“Quit belly aching and help me with this.”
Once the cellar was packed with food and furnishings, dead bodies and live prisoners, Douglas’s men stood around the collection, their backs pressed against the dirty stone walls of the cellar. The pleading cries of the few who still lived sent chills down their spines.
Shabib brought kindling to James, who busied himself with it. He didn’t raise his eyes to the men as he spoke.
“Thomas, ye and Shabib lead the men out of here. Get as far back from the keep as ye can. Back to the tree line.”
The kindling James had been working caught and a slender orange flame lit his face and created a shadow around his head. A black halo.
“James, for the final time, are ye certain? This larder in your family’s cellar may haunt ye all your life. Your castle will be forever destroyed and your soul will never recover,” Thomas pleaded with him.
“I’d rather have a black soul and crumbling debris for a keep if it means the English can never use the lands against the Scots again. As for my soul, well, Thomas, ye well know this path I was on. My soul was already tainted. This will just complete it.”
James nodded to Shabib, who ushered the men up the steps and out of the keep. Then he waited, listening to the sobbing. He didn’t have to harden his heart against the sound, ‘twas already hardened, as black as jet, and he’d accepted that lot. With a flip of his hand, he threw the inflamed kindling into the larder of food and furnishings, and moved closer to the steps, waiting and watching. He wanted assurances that the flames were well entrenched before he left. The wine and mead caught the flames, bringing the fire to life.
Smoke became dense, and James backed up several steps out of the growing, choking cloud. The sobbing in the cellar became screams when those captured smelled the sickeningly thick smoke. Those screams would haunt his nightmares if James let them.
He closed his ears to those dire sounds. The flames in the cellar erupted in bursts, here and there, and his eyes reflected those flames, as if the fire were inside his head, not in the cellar. When he was assured the fire was well established and wouldn’t burn itself out, James ascended to the main floor and departed his childhood home, his birthright, his legacy, leaving it to burn to the ground.
Joining his men outside, he walked to the tree line and stared at the keep, steady with a keen patience only a man truly and unforgivably offended can maintain. The only sounds in the glen were of the popping flames and the low lamentations of those trapped in the cellar. His men drifted off, sat on the grass to eat, to rest, to wait for James to have his recompense. Shabib stood next to him the entire time.
Soon the flames licked out of the stones themselves, and the heavier rocks at the top of the tower slipped as the foundation crumbled to ash. Then the flames ate at those stones, charring them black, as black as James’s soul.
By the time the late afternoon rain started to fall, most of the keep and even some of the surrounding inner bailey had been destroyed. The smoke in the air was thick, so thick even the rain didn’t seem to be able to wash it away. Still, James watched with his arms crossed over his wide chest until the last flame’s light licked out.
“’Tis done,” Shabib told him. “You have destroyed your larder just as certain as the English had, and now they cannot use your castle against you. You must live with this the consequences of this foul deed. Do you feel any sense of remorse?” Shabib asked, his voice edged with a concern James had not heard in his friend’s voice before.
James kept his gaze fixed on the ruined, steaming remains of Douglas Castle. He’d hoped the dark, bleak fury toward the English might have lightened with the destruction of his castle and the men contained therein, but that fury yet lingered. To James, this was a beginning, not an end.
“I feel nothing,” James answered honestly.
Thomas, Gabe, and the other men had perked up at Shabib’s voice, and they moved closer to James, hopeful to learn what they would do next. Especially since it meant spending the night in the rain now that the tower was destroyed.
“Well, then, my Black Douglas,” Shabib asked, his eyebrows high on his forehead. “Did you have a contrivance for after this was accomplished?”
James uncrossed his arms, and with his hard-lined face, too hard for so young a man, he regarded each of those wretched souls who agreed to throw their lot in with him. ‘Twas time think beyond himself.
“We’ve eliminated the English leeches here, but like the fat bloodsuckers, they still suck away at the life of Scotland. Our work is far from done. We will salt the wells, throw any remains in them, too, and pollute it. We shall make the land a black reminder of what the English have wrought on our land. Then we are to join the Bruce.”
