Highland Princess
Chapter One
Near the eastern coast of Isla, a fortnight
later
Dense fog blanketed the sea, flattening the waves and creating a
world of eerie silence where water, land, and sky merged into
impenetrable grayness. That fog was stealing the last hours of Ian
Burk's life.
Each passing minute drew the hangman's noose nearer, but without
wind, the slender royal galley bearing his hopeful rescuer could
only drift with the tide. Its great square sail was useless and its
eighteen oarsmen, unable to judge their exact location or course,
had long since stopped rowing. They and their three passengers sat
in silence as thick and heavy as the fog-muffled surroundings,
listening intently.
Seventeen-year-old Lady Mairi of Isla pulled her hooded, fur-lined
crimson cloak more snugly around her, stifling impatience. Even her
father, the most powerful man in the Isles if not in all Scotland,
could not successfully order fog to dissipate.
Beside her, her woman Meg Raith muttered, "'Tis cruel o' the fog t'
blind us after the stars and wind we had when we left Dunyvaig. In
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