Free The Lion Rampant by Robert Low Page A

soaking the sail would not gain them much; they were moving, but slowly. Now would be the time, he thought bitterly, when the Red Rover would appear out of yon fog, with myself close behind, to pluck some becalmed chick.
    But the pirate scourge de Longueville, better known as the Red Rover, had long since thrown in his lot and was now married into the nobiles of Scotland and calling himself Charteris. While his auld captains, Pegy thought bitterly, were left scrambling for the favour of kings. I liked life better when I was a wee raider – though he crossed himself piously for the heresy of such thinking.
    As if in answer, a sepulchral voice boomed out from above.
    ‘Sail ho, babord quarter.’
    It was not God, it was Niall Silkie high in the nest, but even as Pegy sprang for the sterncastle for a better look, he knew that the De’il’s hand was in this.

 
     
     
    ISABEL
    My God, You have chastised me by this man’s hand and I have learned submission, I swear it on Your mother’s life. I have suffered and learned about the power of the body over us and how, by way of it, the soul is branded. Grant me, O Lord, that I have learned, that I may not have to bring this branded body to You broken also, as this Malise would wish, given away by him as waste goods. Your will has compassed me round, O Lord, and closed all other ways to me.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Irish Sea
    Octave of St Benedict of Montecassino, March 1314
    A white flag with a red cross, that was what Niall Silkie, squinting furiously, declared he could see. On his mother’s eyes he swore it. Fluttering – limply – from the topmost mast of another cog. The pegy mast, ironically, which was what John of Balgownie was ekenamed after.
    ‘A Templar flag?’ Kirkpatrick demanded, and the black-robed figures looked at one another and chewed their drooping moustaches. The English flew three golden pards on red, so it was not them.
    Finally, de Grafton stared meaningfully at Rossal de Bissot.
    ‘We sent out decoy ships, Brother, did we not?’
    Rossal, stroking his close-cropped chin, nodded uneasily.
    ‘Two from Leith and another, the Maryculter , two days before we sailed ourselves,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘It could be the Maryculter .’ He looked at Pegy Balgownie. ‘Can you tell from here?’
    ‘A cog is a cog,’ Pegy said, after a pause. ‘Twenty-five guid Scots ells long, six wide, with fighting castles and a sail – they look much similar, yin to another. Nor do we fly any flag … but the captain of the Maryculter is Glymyne Ledow, as smart a sailor as ever tarred his palms on a rope. He might ken me and my Bon Accord .’
    Hal did not see how, since the one that approached them was the same as the one he was on: an ugly, deep oval bowl with a pointed bow and a squared stern and two fighting castles of wood rearing at both ends. The prospect of a fight on it did not fill him with confidence.
    ‘Mind ye, he would ken it as the Agnes ,’ Pegy went on, peering furiously up at ropes and sails, as if to spring something to life, ‘though it is presently named Bon Accord .’
    He paused and beamed at Kirkpatrick.
    ‘After the watchword on the night our goodly king took Aberdeen.’
    ‘Very apt and loyal,’ growled Kirkpatrick dryly, ‘but of little help.’
    ‘I named it Agnes ,’ Pegy went on, almost to himself, ‘after my wife.’
    He paused again, before bellowing a long string of instructions which sent men scurrying. Then he hammered a meaty fist on the sterncastle.
    ‘She was also a wallowing sow who could not be made to move her useless fat arse,’ he roared at the top of his voice. Someone snickered.
    Rossal’s quiet, calm voice cracked in like a slap on a plank.
    ‘Mantlets to the babord,’ he said and the black-robed figures sprang to life. Rossal smiled, almost sadly, at Hal.
    ‘Assume that this is not the Maryculter and not friendly,’ he said in French. ‘Brother Widikind, please to escort the lady to the safety of below and