Episode 7: For the Stone, Chapter 1

The Library was a hive of activity. The central desk on the lower floor of the office had been taken over by a large map of Scotland and a similarly sized map of the world. There were pins in both. Cassandra and Jacob shared the large desk in the corner of the office. Baird sat at the desk she shared with Flynn. Ezekiel and Jenkins worked together up at the reading desks in the mezzanine. Flynn stood amidst the hustle and bustle beside the central desk, book in one hand and pin in the other.

"I've got a reference here to Tara in Ireland!" Stone called out.

"Ignore it!" Jenkins called down. "The Irish had their own Lia Fail. Got the idea from Colum in passing. Nothing more than an ancient PR stunt that became a legend."

"It would help to have an idea if what we're looking for," called up Cassandra. "So far all we've got is black meteorite with handles."

"And carvings," added Stone.

"And remind me who Colum is?" Baird asked.

"Colum MacFhelin MacFergus," replied Jenkins, "also known as Colum Cille, also known as Columba, now only known, apparently, as Saint Columba. A man so convinced of the veracity of his own opinions he got himself kicked out of his own country!"

"And took the stone of destiny with him to Iona, right," Baird nodded. "And did what with it? There were no kings crowned at Iona, were there?"

"No," said Jenkins, leaning over the railing to go through the tale. "The stone was sacred. Precious. It had been brought from the Holy Land and had passed into his keeping in France, I believe. He never did tell me all the details. Tours was mentioned though. I think it's the reason he abandoned his own pilgrimage and returned to Ireland. He used it as an altar. He would not let it out of his sight, even when he slept, hence the legend of the stone that became 'Columba's Pillow'. He did tell me that the stone had been sent from Heaven, and that it had provided its original owner with strange and prophetic visions. The original owner he told me, when pressed, was Jacob and one of the visions the famous ladder of angels. When he laid his head to rest on it, he said he could hear it whispering in his dreams. Those dreams became his prophecies. Some he shared with the world, others with me alone, others with no-one but himself."

"Did you know him well?" Jones asked, joining Jenkins at the balcony.

"Well enough," Jenkins nodded. "He travelled with me for a while, or I with him. He helped me move one or two items to the Library. Would never let me take the stone though. It was a gift from God that had been placed in his keeping, he said, and it had work to do before it could be locked away forever."

"One or two items such as what?" Flynn enquired, head tipped quizzically to one side as he looked up at the Caretaker.

"Well," smirked Jenkins, pushing himself up off the rail. "I believe you've met our resident plesiosaur."

Jones looked at the old man's receding back with something akin to awe. "No way!"

Flynn rubbed his chin and watched the pair disappear. He turned back to the others. "Did I tell you about the time I killed Dracula..."

"Doesn't beat catching Nessie," laughed Eve.

"Ooh, I've got one!" Cassandra blurted, pointing at the book in her hand. "Isle of Skye, in a cave!"

"That's a big island, relatively speaking," said Flynn, finding the island in question on the map of Scotland. "Can you narrow it down a bit?"

"There's a mention of something called the Cuillins," she replied, shaking her head, "but nothing more specific. Are there villages there called Cuillin?"

"No," called down Jenkins. "That's the name of the mountain range there."

"It's also from the same root as the name Culzean," mused Flynn. "I think we have our link."

"Good, because I'm coming up blank on our other theory," called out Jones, who had been given the task, shared with Baird as the only two qualified divers of the team, of tracking down the possible relics at the Viking wreck.

"Keep looking," ordered Baird. "It doesn't have to link to the castle to link to someone at the wedding there."

"Here's something," cut in Stone. "This manuscript says 'and the stone was hid beneath the castle' it looks like 'wall' next, but the page is burnt and that's all I've got."

"What manuscript is that?" Baird asked.

"Annals of the Kings of Scotland, in Gaelic and Old Scots, lastly in Middle English," Stone replied.

"Date?" Flynn asked.

"Variable," shrugged Stone. "It's been added to over centuries. I'd say this entry dated from somewhere in the late mediaeval period. Anywhere from the time of the crusades up to around the start of the fifteenth century."

"That's a sizeable time-slot," winced Flynn. "Still it's the latest we've got bar modern legends."

"It's also the last from my pile," sighed the art historian.

"I've got nothing older," said Cassandra, from the other side of their desk. "I gave anything I couldn't read to Jacob. All my texts are in modern English. Most of them are talking about different stones entirely. This one mentions the Stone of Scone, but it seems to be talking about the one we know about, in Edinburgh castle. This is the one that talks about the cave on Skye. This one is a history of the Wars of Independence. I thought that was us?"

"Many countries have wanted independence from England before we came along," Baird informed her. "I think Scotland probably wins the prize for sheer determination though."

"The Stone of Scone, the fake stone," called down Jenkins, "was removed by Edward Longshanks in twelve ninety six, when he deposed John Balliol, the last king of Scots to be crowned on the real Stone, and looted Scone Abbey. Balliol was held in the tower for three years then exiled to Normandy. He died there the same year as his 'Competitor's' grandson, Robert the Bruce, claimed his victory over Longshanks' son, Edward the second, at Bannockburn. Bruce had been crowned eight years previously at Scone, but it took another ten before he was officially recognised by the Pope."

"If he was crowned at Scone," said Flynn, leaning back against the central desk and resting his chin on his hand, "and we know that the real Stone of Destiny was in Scone just ten years previously, would it be reasonable to conclude that somebody living knew where it was? And that that someone may have brought it back to Scone for Bruce's coronation?"

"Reasonable," Jenkins nodded. "By no means certain. Guerilla warfare was rampant throughout Scotland in those ten years. Wallace leading the rebellion in the south, and Moray in the North, at least until he joined Wallace at Stirling Brig and got himself killed. There were battles and skirmishes throughout the rest of the intervening decade. Many lives were lost, on both sides."

"Let us hypothesise that the stone was returned to Scone for Bruce's coronation," began Flynn, pushing himself up off the desk and gesticulating like some ancient professor in his lecture theatre. "Bruce is crowned. The stone is taken back into hiding. But for some reason its old hiding place is no longer secure. There's still a war going on. Where would Bruce send it? He's in charge now. He's a seasoned warrior. Well, he's on his way to being one anyway. Where did he go after he was crowned? What castles would he have considered safe?"

"I have here that he went to the Hebrides," said Cassandra. "That would fit with the Skye theory. Dunvegan castle, Caisteal Maol, and Duntulm castle all date back that far, if not in their present forms. Dunvegan castle is the oldest continually inhabited castle in Scotland, with eight hundred years of being the main seat of the chief of the Clan MacLeod."

"Sounds safe to me," murmured Baird.

"Then they turned up at Turnberry castle in Ayrshire," Cassandra continued.

"Just down the coast from Culzean," interjected Flynn, looking at the map and placing another pin.

"Then up to Inverlochy castle, which he captured," she went on.

"Not safe," interrupted Baird.

"Same at Urquart castle," Cassandra continued. "Then he burned Inverness castle and went on to take bunch of other Scottish castles."

"Okay, so our two main possibilities so far are Dunvegan castle and Turnberry castle," nodded Flynn. "What about once things had settled down? Who did he trust?"

"His main allies were Andrew Moray, son of the Andrew Moray who died at Stirling Brig," said Jenkins from above, "and James Douglas, who burned his own castle to the ground for Bruce's cause. He was known as Good Sir James by Scots and the Black Douglas by the English he harried, and quite the character he was too!"

"I have here a record of one Joanna Murray marrying an Archibald Douglas in thirteen sixty two," said Stone, looking up from a book of Scottish clan histories. "Looks like she was descended from your Andrew Moray, and he from James Douglas. Once he married her he built a bunch of castles with her money, but the main two that get mentioned are her ancestral home at Bothwell castle, where they mostly lived, and Threave castle, where he died."

"The descendants of Bruce's two great supporters," mused Jenkins. "It can't be a coincidence, surely. I say we add Threave and Bothwell to the list."

"Done and done," said Flynn adding pins to the Scottish map. "That's four sites to check out between six of us," he continued. "One each if Eve and Ezekiel continue working on the Viking angle."

"No way!" Eve responded, dropping her book onto the table with a loud thud. "Not when we know there are other players out there! Nobody goes out alone on this one. Jones and I will take one, then we're free if the Viking thing needs looking into again. Stone and Cassandra can take one, you and Jenkins another, then whoever is done first can head for the fourth."

"Well, the furthest out is Dunvegan up on the isle of Skye," sighed Flynn, knowing better than to argue. "The other three are all on the mainland and in the lowlands, Threave being the furthest South of the trio and Bothwell the furthest North, almost due North in fact. Turnberry is off to the West of both of them and about equidistant between them."

"Jones and I will take Dunvegan. You and Jenkins take Threave. Cassandra and Stone take Bothwell," Baird decided. "Whoever is done first can take Turnberry. Not that it should matter if da Vinci is up for resetting the door whenever we call, but if we do need to use public transport I'd rather make the distance to the last one the shortest."

XXXX

The room was small, but so were all rooms of that period. The echoing effect of the spiral staircase meant that any additional feet or voices would be heard long before they reached the room. That was why they had chosen to meet there, after all. Through the narrow window, the cloudless sky above was turning a deep azure, fading to a pale gold near the horizon.

"Are you sure it was wise, allowing them to leave with such information," asked one voice from the growing shadows.

"Wise enough," said another from the window. "Librarians are curious creatures, and difficult to kill. Leave them be and they'll find our prize for us. They know someone else is after the stone. There are too many places it could be. They'll divide their forces to find it and then, when they do, there will be fewer successful Librarians to worry about when we take it off them."