Part 34 (1/2)
Arnault dared to relax just a little, cautiously sheathing his sword, but the affair was not yet over. The din had alerted the abbot, who came jogging breathlessly into the church by a side door, attended by two of his friars. At the b.l.o.o.d.y scene before the altar, all three clerics stopped short, faces aghast as they crossed themselves.
”You swore there would be no violence committed in this holy place!” the abbot said accusingly to Bruce.
”That was never my intention,” Bruce managed to whisper. ”Comyn-had other plans.”
”There have been dark forces at work here, Father Abbot,” Arnault said in Bruce's support, declining to specify what particular dark forces had been involved. ”Comyn was the first to draw steel. Bruce had no choice but to slay or be slain.”
”That may be, but the vilest sacrilege has been committed!” the abbot retorted, as his friars knelt beside Comyn's body to whisper prayers for the departed soul. The one crouching closest to the head looked up in surprise.
”This man yet lives!”
Startled, the abbot bent close to feel the pulse at Comyn's throat as Arnault moved warily closer.
”So he does,” the abbot confirmed, ”but not for long, I warrant. Carry him into the sacristy. We can at least give him what solace the sacraments may afford him, in what little time remains to him.”
”Father Abbot,” Arnault said sharply. ”There are dangers here you do not understand.”
”I understand my duty as a servant of Christ,” the abbot replied, giving Arnault a hard look as his two friars lifted Comyn's body by the arms and legs. ”I cannot undo the sin committed here, but at least I can ensure that it is followed by one act of charity.”
Arnault looked doubtfully at the stain of Comyn's blood on the altar steps, smearing across the floor as the friars half dragged him toward the sacristy doorway. Realizing there was no way he could prevent the abbot from doing what he felt was right, he glanced back up the nave, where Bruce had withdrawn to remonstrate with Roger de Kirkpatrick in the open doorway. Beyond them, he could see Torquil at guard behind the Bruce, and out in the yard, Comyn's men mounting up under the bristling guard of Bruce's remaining kinsmen.
He started up the nave to join them. He reached them as Kirkpatrick was turning to rejoin the others in the yard- seeing off the Comyns, who had the body of the slain Robert Comyn draped across the front of one of their saddles. Bruce favored Arnault with a nervous nod as he came back inside and glanced toward the altar, and the smear of blood on the altar steps.
”You were right to warn me not to treat with Comyn,” he said to the Templar. ”In place of unity, I have found bloodshed, and I fear there must be more of it before this business is finished.”
”I fear you have the right of it,” Arnault agreed, ”not merely because the Comyns will not let this go unchallenged. Now do you believe what I told you of the other?”
”I cannot deal with that now,” Bruce said hastily.
”There will be some successor to take up those powers-”
”Later!” Bruce said, beckoning to Thomas and Neil, who came running. ”Now that my hand has been forced, I must secure my position as best I can.
”Gather our men,” he instructed his brothers, as he walked with them back toward the doorway, ”and see that they secure the castle and the great hall of Dumfries. Then send word to our supporters that the time has come to rise up and drive the English from our cities and castles. Let the fiery cross be carried all across Scotland, to signal that our time of servitude is at an end. I could have wished for more time to prepare, but after what has taken place here, I have no choice but to move against Edward now, and let the dice all fall where they may.”
”And the Comyn territories in Galloway?” Thomas said.
”Those must be taken as quickly as possible, before they have time to ready a defense,” Bruce replied.
As Neil and Thomas mounted up and hurried off to carry out their instructions, Bruce next addressed Humphrey Seton.
”Send word by secret messenger to Bishop Lamberton at Berwick, informing him of what has taken place. Tell him to stay in Edward's confidence for as long as he can, but to be prepared to join me, when I summon him. I will go to Bishop Wishart in Glasgow, and beg for absolution. Please G.o.d, we may all meet soon thereafter for my coronation at Scone.”
Bruce was recovering quickly, taking matters in hand, already organizing his uprising, already with the bearing of a true king.
”What you have told me of the Stone of Destiny had best be true,” Bruce said to his Templar ally. ”I will need every source of aid I can muster in these coming weeks.”
”We will see that you are crowned upon the Stone as soon as it can be arranged,” Arnault responded.
”Thereafter, no one can challenge your kings.h.i.+p.”
”I can guarantee you that some will,” Bruce replied, ”and Longshanks will be at their head.”
Before he could comment further, a terrified shriek came from inside the church. As he and Arnault ducked back inside, the sacristy door flew open and the abbot and one of his friars came bursting out, eyes wide and terrified, faces deathly pale and distorted with dread. Arnault bolted toward them, but was nearly bowled over as the panic-stricken men shouldered past him-and fetched up short as a blast of arctic air gusted after them.
”Torquil, to me!” Arnault shouted urgently.
Torquil was already racing down the nave, sword in hand; but as he reached Arnault's side, a pulsing blackness filled the sacristy doorway, dissolving then to reveal John Comyn clinging to the door frame, apparently heedless of the blood drenching his robe. The Lord of Badenoch looked to have aged a century in the mere minutes since his presumed death. Though he was hardly older than Torquil or Bruce, his hair had gone completely gray. The sunken eyes were red-rimmed, lit with a brooding gleam of lambent green, and the skin of his face seemed to have no flesh behind it, as if the ent.i.ty possessing him was sucking away the last vestiges of his vitality, to give itself a few more precious minutes of animation.
The abbot shrank back behind Arnault. His friar had continued running up the nave.
”I was placing the chrism on his brow, when suddenly he rose up in ghastly life!” the abbot babbled.
”Black flames sprang from his body and engulfed the room with choking, stinging vapor. I fear that Brother Mark is dead. We had no choice but to flee for-”
He broke off with a cry as the ensorcelled figure lumbered forward, making for the front of the altar.
Bruce and his remaining men had surged into the church behind the two Templars, but pulled up short at the sight. The abbot scuttled to supposed safety behind a statue of the Virgin, in an alcove near the door, where the other friar was already cowering in terror. In pa.s.sing, Arnault noted that the faces and hands of both men were dappled with scorch marks.
Shouting for Bruce to stay back, Christopher Seton boldly advanced toward Comyn, sword in hand. His two brothers rushed forward to support him, but all three of them stopped dead as an ear-splitting howl burst from the corpse's lips, shredding the air with its harshness and intensity.
An icy blast of wind roared up the nave, tumbling the Setons backward. Bruce and the Templars were also buffeted off balance, and had to struggle to stay on their feet as Comyn bestrode the stain of his blood and lifted both arms above his head in a gesture of summoning.
A grating voice burst from his throat in harsh command, and a nimbus of black flame burst forth around his desiccated frame. As if in answer, to fill the void of that blackness, a whining wind invaded the church, bringing with it a maelstrom of invisible energies. Precious candlesticks toppled from the altar with a clang of metal against stone, and a weighty Gospel book was hurled aloft in a flurry of loosened pages, as if to show disdain for such items of piety.
Arnault could have no doubt that Comyn-or his patron-was the source of the tempest; and only extraordinary measures would suffice to stop him. Bracing himself against the storm, squinting against the biting gale, Arnault handed off his sword to Torquil and closed his fist around the hilt of the dagger he had used to empower the Stone, forged in the land of Christ's birth from a blade broken in holy crusade, made trebly sacred by the blood of Wallace. s.h.i.+fting to grasp it by the blade, he c.o.c.ked back his arm and summoned all his remaining strength in a muttered prayer for divine aid-then threw the weapon with all his might.
Time seemed to slow as the dagger tumbled point and pommel and point and pommel, releasing a rainbow-burst of radiance as it embedded itself point-first in Comyn's heart. Comyn's body staggered back with a ululating wail, and lambent eyes gaped incredulously at the cruciform hilt protruding from the shattered chest. With a final strident howl, the possessing ent.i.ty fled the body of its host, leaving the corpse itself to crumple before the altar, like a deflated air-bladder. The storm departed with it, leaving behind an incongruous silence that was broken only by the harsh breathing of those who had barely survived this fresh horror.
Arnault was the first to approach Comyn's body, bending cautiously to set his hand on his dagger, confirming that this time Red John Comyn of Badenoch was truly dead. As he pulled the dagger free, he turned to glance back up the nave, where Torquil was holding Bruce and his men from approaching any closer.
”We should pray for Comyn's soul,” he announced, as he straightened up from cleaning the dagger on a corner of Comyn's cloak, ”that he will find whatever rest there may be for one such as he.”
Diffidently the abbot advanced to his side, Bruce and the other friar approaching more warily. The abbot clutched his crucifix tightly in his still-trembling hands as he chanted a brief prayer in a hushed tone. Bruce gazed down at his old rival with an expression still betokening disbelief, and slowly shook his head.
”For all that I disliked the man,” he muttered to Arnault, ”I still can scarcely credit that he came to this.”
”The powers of corruption take their toll of victims,” Arnault said. ”These have held sway for many centuries.”
Bruce's eyes flashed with righteous determination. ”They shall do so no longer in a land that has me for its king,” he vowed.
Arnault faced him squarely. ”Then allow me to act as your agent. The evil you have witnessed today is rooted at a place called Burghead, far to the north. If you will grant me the authority to act in your name, I know what must be done.”
”I grant it willingly, and my prayers go with you,” Bruce replied. ”I will not rest easy until I know that such an abomination no longer darkens our land.”
Arnault gave him a curt nod, then turned to Torquil.