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"What?"
"They say that Mary has been taken to Roxburgh Castle, and Lady Isabel to Berwick," Thomas said
miserably. "The cages are suspended outside the walls-in this weather! On display like so many wild
beasts in a menagerie!"
Torquil's shock was mirrored in the king's stunned expression. For a moment no one said anything. Then
Bruce got blindly to his feet.
"Scripture says that all the kingdoms of the earth are the Devil's, to dispose of as he wills," he said
dazedly, his gaze vaguely turned toward the ?re. "Have we been guilty of the basest folly, in seeking to
claim this kingdom for our own? Has God, in truth, abandoned us? If so, what hope have we of
withstanding the powers of Darkness, if we are left to stand alone?"
"Robert-" his brother Alexander began.
"No, make me no excuses!" Bruce said hotly. "For four months I have played the monk to no good
purpose, while Edward visits on my family and friends the vengeance he would like to vent on me.
Perhaps the only attribute bestowed on me by the Stone of Destiny was the pride of self-delusion.
Perhaps the power to shape our country's future rests in hands other than mine. I owe it to those who
have died, no less than to those yet unborn, to confront the truth."
With these bitter words, he snatched up his cloak and made for the door.
"Robert, wait!" Thomas called after him. "Where are you going?"
"To wrestle, like Jacob, with the angel of the Lord!" Bruce shouted back ?ercely. "Now leave me to it!"
There came the sound of swiftly receding footsteps, followed by the bang of the outer door. Resolutely,
Torquil seized his own cloak and headed after the king.
"The rest of you stay here!" he ordered over his shoulder. "I'll be certain he does himself no harm."
Chapter Fourteen
February, 1307
OUTSIDE, THE SNOW WAS FALLING THICK AND FAST, AND AN early twilight had set in. A
dark line of footprints pointed the way to the garden gate, but they were fast ?lling with snow.
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Throwing his cloak around his shoulders and pulling up the hood, Torquil followed the footprints through
the gateway and down the slope in the direction of the shore. Out in front of him, barely visible in the
white blizzard gloom, he caught a glimpse of the dark blur of Bruce's receding ?gure.
Torquil charged after him, calling his name. Deaf to his shouts, Bruce plunged into the storm with the
determination of a man possessed. Torquil quickened his pace, casting caution to the winds as he
?oundered through the deepening drifts, ?ghting to keep the king in sight.
There followed a blind, headlong chase with many zigzags and doublings. Bruce moved as though he
were at one with the storm itself, and Torquil toiled along behind him, with the wind and snow whipping
about him in freezing sheets. As he trailed the king down a slope made more treacherous by snow
muf?ing hidden rocks and holes, Bruce suddenly disappeared before his very eyes.
Torquil continued in that direction, calling for Bruce, but could see no trace of him. He yelled into the
wind, but to no avail. It was as if the earth had swallowed Bruce up.
Now concerned that the king had suffered some fall or injury, Torquil plunged ahead even faster-and
tripped and stumbled, to slide down the remainder of the slope in the grip of a minor avalanche, arms and
legs ?ailing.
He came to rest with a bone-bruising jolt, lying atop a sharp stone that was digging into his side. As he
spat out a mouthful of frozen grit and levered himself painfully onto his elbow, testing for broken bones,
he realized he was lying next to a rough cairn of stones, its outlines all but buried in the snow.
Still a little shaken, he struggled to his knees and then to his feet, casting for his bearings in the driving
snow, which was worsening by the second. Feeling his way toward the lee of the cairn, he guessed it
marked one of three makeshift shelters on the island that the monks occupied during lambing season.
Face averted from the stinging drive of the snow, he probed his way into an opening-and came abruptly
face-to-face with Bruce.
"Damn it, Torquil, is there no getting away from you?" the king demanded, as the two men recoiled onto
their haunches and stared at one another.
Torquil's ribs hurt, and he was still short of breath, so he mutely shook his head.
"Well, since you're here, you might as well come in," the king said testily. "I've already got enough on my
conscience, without leaving you outside to freeze in the storm."
Torquil scrambled the rest of the way inside without need for further invitation, shaking the snow from his
cloak and hood as he eyed what he could see of their refuge. The space was cramped and ripely
redolent of sheep droppings, with an underscent of old camp?res-hardly wider than the span of a man's
outstretched arms-but it was refuge from the storm, and almost warm compared to outside. Its walls
were freestone, with moss stuffed into the chinks, and its lowhanging roof was fashioned of stone slabs
overlaid with turf. As Torquil wrapped his cloak around him and hunkered into a cross-legged position,
he wiped the snowmelt from his face and beard and drew a deep breath.
"I was worried for your safety, Sire. It's lucky you managed to ?nd shelter."
"Luck had nothing to do with it," Bruce said tartly.
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"You meant to come here?"
"I've come to know every inch of this island. I could ?nd my way here blindfolded, in the dark of a
moonless night."
Something in his tone warned Torquil not to answer. After a long silence, punctuated only by their
breathing and the howl of the storm outside, Bruce said, "I felt the need to be alone with my own
thoughts. I told you not to follow. Whatever possessed you to disobey?"
"It goes against higher orders, Sire, to let you risk losing yourself in a blizzard."
"I only wish I could see my own duty as plainly," Bruce said. He cocked his head to listen to the gale
outside, howling around the cairn like a banshee. "At least I'm not apt to have any more well-meaning
intruders-and I won't send you back out into that. We'll be safe enough here. We can even build a ?re."
At Torquil's grunt of question, he gestured farther into the shelter.
"There's a hearth here somewhere, and turf and dry kindling stored farther back. The brothers leave
these shielings stocked for emergencies. I have tinder and ?int in my pouch."
Torquil's questing hands soon located a hollowed-out hearthstone, where he and Bruce quickly built a
small turf ?re. The peat was slow to kindle, but eventually its smoldering ember glow suffused the little
shelter's interior with much-needed warmth and light along with the distinctive aroma of the burning turf.
The pair of them settled into companionable silence, broken only by the wailing of the storm outside.
Wisely, Torquil did not attempt further conversation, well aware that he was there on sufferance. For a
time, both men merely huddled close before the ?re, cold hands outsplayed to catch the rising heat. Then,
all unexpectedly, a chuckle bubbled up from Bruce.
"Hullo, what's this?"
"Sire?"
"It seems we are not the only tenants of this humble abode."
Bruce directed Torquil's gaze toward a shadowed cranny near a corner of the roof. Craning closer,
Torquil was surprised to see a small gray spider suspended from the midst of a half-?nished web. Even
as he looked, she anchored the strand to part of the web, then scuttled busily to another, spinning another
strand to add to her creation. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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