A Trust Betrayed Read Online Free PDF Page B

emptiness seemed diminished and ugly. It felt as if the market had been reduced to its other function—the place of execution—yet even the gallows tilted drunkenly.
     
    “Where are the people?”
     
    “In their houses,” said Andrew.
     
    Celia stumbled as she craned her neck to gaze up at the battlements. “It is a dreary place.”
     
    Margaret wished they had entered the town on the far end, away from the castle. Murdoch Kerr’s inn was at the bottom of High Street, just before Netherbow and the Leith road across which the burgh of Canongate began, in which Holyrood Abbey ruled. But Andrew had said the English might be suspicious if they skirted Edinburgh coming from Dalmeny, which was the direction they watched most carefully.
     
    His anxiety heightened Celia’s and spread to her horse, who whinnied and danced. The town was eerily silent. Margaret imagined every head in every house glancing toward the horse’s whinny, though the wind and the rain might muffle much of their passing. She was glad when Matthew took the reins and steadied the animal, quieting it.
     
    Many houses below the castle were damaged, some blackened and stinking of charred wood, others lacking doors or shutters. Bits of furniture lay strewn about the doorway of one of the burned houses. The front wall of another was stained with blood. A baby’s cry sent chills down Margaret’s back. This was no place for a child. Armed men moved about their business, as did some townsfolk, though Margaret saw no children and few women.
     
    At St. Giles Kirk she handed her horse’s reins to Matthew and invited Andrew to step within to say a prayer of thanksgiving for their arrival.
     
    “We are not yet at the inn. You can walk up to the kirk later,” Andrew said with a shake of his cloak as if to remind her that he, too, was soaked to the skin. “Move on, Matthew.”
     
    Margaret could walk here, true enough, if she could still stand once she felt some heat. And if she dared venture out again so soon.
     
    A few hardy souls huddling beneath the eaves against the north wall of St. Giles called out their wares as the four travelers passed, but otherwise the street was deserted.
     
    Though it was mid-afternoon, none of the shop front counters had been unhooked from the houses to display goods. From the looks of them, Margaret guessed the shop fronts had not been opened for a while. A shutter off one of its hinges hung down over one of the shop fronts, on another house a counter hung askew and cracked. A pile of refuse rose too high to allow the neighboring shop front to open. None of the doors stood ajar to invite custom.
     
    In Perth and Dunfermline the shops had stayed closed for a time after the English had come through, but within a month or so trade had resumed, albeit modestly. Margaret had not considered how much worse it would be here, with the garrison in the castle above the town. She had not considered whether her uncle would have food for two more.
     
    Andrew brought them to a halt just before the arch of Netherbow. Tw o tall, weather-beaten houses leaned slightly toward each other across an alley. A pole decorated with leaves projected above the ground-floor door of the house nearest Netherbow, letting passersby know they could find wine and ale within.
     
    “Will there be soldiers in there?” Celia asked.
     
    “No, they have been ordered to keep well away from this lot,” said Andrew. He handed the reins of all four horses to Matthew. “I’ll ask Murdoch to have his groom help you down to Holyrood with the horses.”
     
    The young man’s shoulders slumped.
     
    “Surely Matthew deserves a cup of ale first,” Margaret said.
     
    “A tavern is no place for a cloistered lad,” Andrew said.
     
    “Still, he needn’t go thirsty. I’ll ask Uncle to bring ale to the stable,” Margaret said, and entered the tavern.
     
    At first she welcomed its warmth, the still air, the roof shielding her from the incessant rain. But two