Chapter 19 #3
Magda knew horses—any number of expensive mounts had been at her disposal as a young Deacon family heir—and this was a fine stallion. He was surely a rare animal by Scottish standards if all those Highland ponies were any indication.
She turned, knowing already what she would find.
A leather bridle, just cleaned, hanging from a hook to the side of the door.
No saddle was in sight, but an old woolen blanket was folded neatly beneath.
Excitement pricked at the back of her mind.
She looked around quickly. The half door had drifted shut behind her.
The paddock was at the far end of the stable, and enclosed by a low wooden fence.
She’d jumped higher in her time, and would bet this horse had too.
Magda cursed herself—she’d been in a daze when they’d arrived— and she hoped now that she remembered correctly, that the stables stood along the edge of the castle compound and that the only other gate she’d need to jump would be the stone wall surrounding the compound.
Though she recalled seeing portions that were low enough to clear, she hoped they weren’t too wide.
Magda had been quite the equestrienne in her time, but jumping bareback was a killer, and her leg muscles were already thrashed.
It took a moment to slip the bridle over the horse’s head. Magda imagined that he knew what was coming; she sensed his anticipation as he readily took the bit into his mouth and stood still while she settled the dusty blanket in place of a saddle.
With a grudging thank-you to her horse-loving parents, Magda hauled herself onto his back. She might kill herself trying this, she thought, but it beat anything that Campbell had in store for her.
The horse pranced, his muscles coiled, tense with ready energy. “Oh, yeah,” Magda purred, remembering what it was like to ride a horse of this caliber.
She wove the reins lightly around her fingers, and he responded with a nervous side step, his mouth sensitive to her every move.
A slight tensing of her thighs and he was off like a shot.
Magda had to swallow her cry of joy, feeling this animal beneath her, imagining her freedom just over the fence.
She kicked him into a gallop, and he began to hesitate at the last moment, the fence higher than it had seemed from the far end of the pasture.
Magda pulled her knees as high as she could, gripping tightly with her legs.
She girded herself; without stirrups to stand from, the horse’s leap over the fence would slam her into the hard ridge of his withers.
She loosened the reins to give the horse as much of his head as he’d need to clear the fence. Tangling her fingers high and tight into his mane, Magda shrieked, “Heeya!” and with one last crush of her knees into his sides, they flew over the fence, and galloped away.
“Nay, nay, I’d ken the Marquis of Montrose anywhere,” the man said. He walked next to James, his wife bobbing her head at his side.
“I’m not the marquis,” James said evenly.
James, Rollo, and Sibbald had been on the road for ten days, and the going had gotten increasingly dangerous.
Crossing the southern border into Scotland brought them onto roads littered with broken men and Covenanter patrols.
James refused to trade his horse for an animal more suited to his disguise, and they’d been getting more skeptical looks the farther north they rode.
So much so that James was considering traveling by night instead, at least until they reached the safer Highland territory.
“But whyever are you dressed so, m’lord?” The villager looked back and forth between the well-dressed men and James, clothed as a groom in threadbare trews and bonnet, riding ten paces behind Rollo and Sibbald.
“I’m not the marquis, good man.” His voice was steady and slow. “Although, I am certain the marquis would be touched by your loyalty.” James nodded sagely to the villager, allowing himself a small smile at the man’s joy at this last bit of information.
Giving a wink to the man’s wife, James kicked his horse into a trot to catch up to his companions. His smile broadened to hear the woman’s gasp behind him, scandalized by the familiar gesture.
“We approach Dumfries,” Sibbald said. “A cup of ale and a proper bed at the Globe Inn has much to recommend it.”
“And sleep the night in a Covenanting burgh?” Rollo asked.
“Aye,” James jested, “you could buy your bed with that king’s commission sewn into your saddle, and awaken to the sight of some of those red-coated Parliament soldiers.”
“We press on then,” Sibbald grumbled. “And easy it will be for you, lad. You’ve a younger arse than I.”
“Don’t fear, old man, if your arse can hold you just an hour or so longer, I know of a hunter’s bothy on Maxwell land. I can’t promise ale, but we’ll spend the night dry at least.”
A small farmhouse appeared to their left, the shutters slamming closed at their passing. James and Rollo exchanged a silent look.
“I’d push as far as we can every day now,” James added. “It grieves me to see our country torn so.”
“Is Clan Maxwell Royalist or Covenanter?” Rollo asked.
“Let’s hope we’ll not have the opportunity to ask, aye?” James replied, and spurred his horse into an easy canter.