Insurrection Read Online Free Page A

once.’
    ‘As you wish, my lord.’
    ‘Has something happened?’ enquired the Bishop of St Andrews, as the squire hastened across the dais. ‘The queen, she is  . . .?’
    ‘The queen is well,’ said Alexander, smiling fully now. ‘She requests my company.’ He got to his feet. There was a loud scraping of benches and shuffling of feet as all the occupants of the hall rose with him, some nudging drink-addled neighbours to follow suit. The king raised his hands and voice to address them. ‘Please, be seated. I must take my leave. But stay, all of you, enjoy the festivities.’ He gestured to his harper, who at once began to play, the metallic notes climbing over the roar of the wind.
    As the king stepped from the table, James Stewart moved in front of him. ‘My lord, wait until morning,’ he murmured. ‘It is a foul day for travel, especially on that road.’
    The king paused at the concern in the steward’s face. Glancing back, he saw the same worry in the eyes of the other men at his table, with the exception of John Comyn who had leaned over to talk quietly with his kinsman, the Earl of Buchan. For a moment the king hesitated, on the brink of returning to his seat and calling Guthred back with more wine. But something stronger compelled him. That last thing Comyn had said remained with him like a bitter aftertaste. Surely you can understand their plight? Alexander could, all too well, for the matter of succession had plagued him for two long years, ever since the day when the heir in whom all his hopes had been placed had followed his wife, his daughter and his youngest son to the grave with devastating finality. With the death of his eldest boy, Alexander’s line had been cut short, like a song halted before the chorus. It continued now only as a faint echo across the North Sea, in the form of his three-year-old granddaughter, Margaret, child of his dead daughter and the King of Norway. Yes, Alexander understood very clearly the unpalatable choice that had faced the people of Galloway fifty years ago, when their lord had died without male issue.
    ‘I must go, James.’ The king’s voice was quiet, but firm. ‘It is almost six months since my wedding night and still Yolande is without child, not for want of trying. If she takes my seed tonight, God willing, I could have an heir by this time next year. I can chance a storm for that.’ Removing the gold circlet he had been wearing through the council and the feast, Alexander handed it to the steward. He pushed a hand through his hair, flattened where the band had lain. ‘I will return soon.’ He paused, his eyes on John Comyn. ‘In the meantime, you can tell the Lord of Badenoch I will grant his brother-in-law’s request.’ Alexander’s eyes glinted. ‘But wait until tomorrow.’
    James’s mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile. ‘My lord.’
    Alexander strode across the dais, following in the squire’s muddy footsteps, the gold on his scarlet robe glittering. As the doorward bowed and pushed open the hall’s double doors, the king swept through, the notes of the harp fading behind him.
    Once outside, the force of the storm struck the king like a fist. Icy rain stung his face, half blinding him as he made his way down the steps to the courtyard. He flinched as lightning ripped through the sullen sky. The clouds were so low they seemed to skim the rooftops of the buildings that stretched before him to the inner walls, below which the ground fell sharply away to the outer defences. From his high vantage point, the king could look right over the line of the outer walls to the royal town of Edinburgh that tumbled eastwards down the spine of the great rock on which the castle perched.
    In the distance, at the foot of the hill, he made out the pale silhouette of Holyrood Abbey, behind which black slabs of rock reared into windswept cliffs that disappeared in cloud. To the north, the land levelled out into grazing pastures and crop fields, then