Insurrection

Insurrection Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Insurrection Read Online Free PDF
Author: Robyn Young
Dalmeny, buffeted by the gusts coming off the estuary, they dismounted outside the ferry-master’s lodgings. It was fully dark now. While Adam banged on the door, the king stared out across the two-mile stretch of swollen, inky water. Lightning pulsed above the distant hills and thunder came rolling like a wave towards him. The storm was moving north over Fife.
    The ferry-master opened the door, holding a lantern. ‘Yes?’ he said in gruff Scots. ‘Ah, it’s you again.’ Peering past Adam, the ferry-master looked taken aback when he saw the king’s face in the glow from his light. ‘My lord!’ He pulled the door wider. ‘I beg your pardon. Please, come in from the rain.’
    ‘I’m headed for Kinghorn,’ said Alexander, switching briskly from the French he had been speaking all day in council into the blunt Scots-English dialect.
    ‘In this gale?’ The ferry-master looked worriedly down the slip of sand beyond his house to where the broad shadow of the ferry rocked in the black. ‘I wouldn’t say that would be wise.’
    ‘Your king has given you a command,’ responded Adam sharply. ‘He doesn’t need to know what you think of it.’
    Pulling up his hood against the rain, the ferry-master moved past Adam to the king. ‘My lord, I implore you, wait until morning. I can provide lodgings here for you and your men. It won’t be well fit, but it will be dry.’
    ‘You were happy enough to row my man across earlier.’
    ‘That was long before this storm blew in proper. Now – well, my lord, it is simply too perilous.’
    Alexander’s impatience erupted. At every step he seemed to be thwarted in his attempts to reach his wife. ‘If you are afraid then I will have my squires take the oars. But either way, I will cross tonight!’
    The ferry-master bowed his head in consternation. ‘Yes, my lord.’ He went to head into his lodgings, then turned back. ‘Our Lord God knows I could not die better than in the company of your father’s son.’
    Alexander clenched his jaw as the ferry-master disappeared inside.
    He returned shortly with six men, all of them monks from Dunfermline Abbey that had owned the right to run the ferry from the distant days of St Margaret. Their woollen habits and sandals must have afforded little protection from the biting wind, but they didn’t complain as they guided the king down to the water’s edge. Behind came Brice and Adam, who had looped the iron stirrups of the horses through the leather straps to keep them from swinging against the animals on the voyage.
    The crossing was long and uncomfortable, the men bowed beneath the ceaseless pounding of the rain on their hoods, the horses disturbed by the vessel’s erratic motion. Spray skimmed off the choppy surface and coated their lips with salt as the ferry rose and fell. Alexander sat hunched at the stern, wrapped in a sodden fur which the ferry-master had offered to keep him warm. The thunder had faded to distant growls, but the wind showed no sign of decreasing and the monks’ mournful song as they rowed through the darkness was barely audible above its moans. Despite the ferry-master’s concern, however, the vessel made safe landfall at the royal burgh of Inverkeithing.
    ‘We’ll take the path along the shore,’ said Alexander, as Adam led Winter off the ferry and up the wet sand. There was firelight in some of the houses beyond the beach, winking invitingly. ‘It will be more sheltered.’
    ‘Not tonight, my lord,’ warned the ferry-master, taking the wet fur the king handed to him. ‘The spring tides are washing the water right to the cliffs in places. You could find yourself cut off.’
    ‘We’ll take the high track, Sire,’ called Adam, tugging down the king’s stirrups. ‘It will be quicker.’
    Their course set, the king and his squires rode their horses along the track that led up the wooded slopes beyond Inverkeithing to the cliff path. The going was slow in the rushing blackness beneath the canopy of
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