Read The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce for Free Online

his mount towards the close to sheer incline. The animal’s ears flicked at the insistence of the reins, then it turned obediently and launched itself at the steep slope, hooves digging firmly into the crumbling earth of the shale bank as it fought its way towards the crest. Its rider bent forward and murmured encouragement, his feet firmly braced in the stirrups, enjoying the thrust of the beast’s powerful haunches as it bounded upward, four and then five mighty surges before it gained the top of the incline and stamped its feet triumphantly on the heather-clad summit.
    “Good beast!” the boy on its back cried in Gaelic, clapping his hand on its neck appreciatively. The animal arched its neck and snorted, stamping its feet again as its rider turned to grin at the man who had been waiting for him on the hilltop.
    The man dipped his head slightly in acknowledgment. “It took you long enough. I thought for a minute there I was going to have to come looking for you.” The liquid, rippling Gaelic rolled off his tongue, its lilt perfectly capturing the raillery implied in the comment.
    “I’m here, am I not?”
    “Aye, you are. And you did well, that last wee bit. You could have taken the easy way.”
    “Why would I do that? You didn’t,” the boy answered. “I saw where you came up.”
    “Aye … ” His companion’s voice faded away, and he sat straight-backed, his narrowed eyes moving constantly as he scanned the bleak landscape of the moor that stretched around them on all sides. “But then I’m a man grown. You’re just a wee boy.”
    “I am not.” There was just the slightest tinge of protest in the boy’s voice. “I’ll be ten tomorrow. That’s more than halfway to being a man grown.”
    The beginnings of a smile flickered at the edges of the other’s mouth. “Right enough, I suppose. But you still have a way to go along that path. Still, you show promise. Faint, mind you, faint, but there none the less.”
    “Where are we going, anyway, Uncle Nicol?”
    The man turned in his saddle, his smile widening until it made his eyes crinkle. “Well now, I was hoping you could tell me that, seeing that you’re nearly a man and all. Where do you think we’re going?”
    The boy sat straighter, his face turning thoughtful. He twisted to one side and then the other, looking back the way he had come and then gazing at the hills of the western horizon. “To the coast, I know,” he said, almost to himself. Then, in a louder, more confident tone, “We left Dalmellington at daybreak and we’ve been riding ever since. That’s more than four hours, so we’ve come nigh on twenty miles, heading west the whole way. Maybole’s to the north, so we must have passed that already and … ” He hesitated. “And we’re heading southwest now, so we can’t be going to Turnberry. We’re going to Girvan.”
    “There,” his uncle grunted. “I knew you would tell me. And you’re nearly right. We’re going close to Girvan, to the north of it, to a place I know.”
    “What for?” No answer was forthcoming, so the boy persisted. “Uncle Nicol? Why are we going to this place that you know?”
    “To meet a man, a friend of mine, though in truth he was a friend of my brother, your grandfather, God rest his soul.” Nicol’s grin had vanished, his face now wearing his normal expression of calm thoughtfulness, and even the tone of his voice changed, as the tenor of his Gaelic words became more reverent. “His name is MacDonald, Angus Mohr MacDonald, and he calls himself the Lord of Islay.”
    “Is he old, then?”
    “Old enough, I suppose, but don’t ever let him think you think that. He’s far from being a doddering old fool. His lineage stretches back forever and he wields great power in the west, especially since Haakon, the King o’ Norway, quit the Western Isles after the sea fight at Largs thirty years ago and withdrew to Orkney. There have been great changes in the Isles ever since then, with the Scots