Amanda Scott (41 page)

“Now, that’s sound thinking,” Stonefield said, pouring himself more wine.

“Yes, it is,” Ian said warmly, “and I can—”

“You hold your tongue,” Duncan snapped. “I meant what I said, you know. You are not to go near Maclean House unless you want to answer to me. We’ll learn all we need to know without putting your hide at risk.”

“Aye, that we will, and soon, I’m thinking,” Balcardane said with a look of satisfaction. He leaned forward as if he were about to elaborate, but as he did, he caught Duncan’s eye. Flushing, he pressed his lips tightly together again.

“What do you expect to learn, sir?” Rory asked.

“Maybe nothing,” Duncan said before Balcardane could answer. “If we do, Stonefield and you will be the first to hear of it.”

“Very well,” Rory said, “but, uncle, I heard that you ordered your men to search James’s house after his arrest. Surely you know that the lord advocate can’t use any evidence in his indictment that was obtained without a proper warrant.”

“Don’t fret yourself,” Balcardane said. “We’ve got our warrant. I received it today from the lord justice clerk, and it’s dated for Saturday last, so our arrest of James Stewart is as legal as can be. I’ve got no patience with these juristic subtleties of yours, nephew. This investigation will proceed as it should proceed.”

Horrified by such an attitude but unable to think how he could combat it, since the Barons’ Court had no jurisdiction over murder, Rory did not object when the others changed the subject. Late the following day he discovered what else his uncle had done, when Balcardane came in, chuckling, holding a letter in his hand.

“Now we’ll do,” he said.

“What have you got there, sir?”

“A message I’ve been expecting from the governor at Fort William, that’s what. You’ll recall that one of James’s servants was arrested with him.”

“I remember.”

“Well, the governor put that chap in a cell with a condemned man, hoping the affinity would soften him up. Then he offered him a wee bribe to tell what he knows about James Stewart’s weapons, and the lad cracked like a walnut. Admitted that he and another fellow, Maccoll, hid their master’s weapons up the brae after the shooting. I’ve sent for Patrick Campbell, so we’ll go and collect them tonight.”

“Then I shall go with you,” Rory said.

“Suit yourself, lad. Suit yourself.”

They approached Aucharn well after dark, but Rory knew Patrick had sent men ahead to watch the hill above the farmhouse. Balcardane’s men dismounted some distance away and moved forward on foot. As they surrounded the house, Rory and the earl heard shouts from the hillside and hurried toward them, to find several of Patrick’s men holding a burly man whom he recognized as John Maccoll.

“Look there, my lord.” A soldier pointed to the hole full of weapons that Maccoll had apparently just uncovered.

Patrick Campbell knelt by the cache for a moment, then turned and said, “Two muskets, four broadswords. The long gun is loaded, the short one not.”

“Have they been fired?” Balcardane demanded.

“Aye, sir, both, but I’d say the short one’s the one we want. It’s got a larger bore, and can easily hold the two balls the doctor mentioned.” Inserting a finger into the muzzle, he withdrew it and held it up for the others to see. It was black.

Rory said, “You cannot know when they were fired, Patrick, and would not any gun stored in such a dirty place be likely to blacken your finger?”

“I don’t know, Rory. I’m unused to seeing weapons treated this way.”

“Captain,” a soldier shouted from up the hill, “we’ve caught another one!”

Two men hurried down with Neil Maclean struggling between them.

“Caught this lad sneaking about up above, most likely trying to get away,” one of the men said. “Doubtless, he were helping that one move yon weapons.”

“That’s nonsense,” Neil snapped. “We just heard the ruckus and came to see what it was all about.”

“A likely tale,” Duncan said, striding forward. “The Macleans have been hand in glove with these conspirators from the start.”

“You’re daft,” Neil said, trying again without success to free himself.

“Who is ‘we’?” Rory asked calmly.

“Katherine Maccoll and I, not that it’s any of your business.”

“The dairymaid?”

“Aye, that’s her father you’ve got there.”

“We found him in possession of illegal weapons,” Rory said, “and by the look of things, you knew they were here.”

“Even if I did, that’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Young Maclean’s been missing since the shooting,” Balcardane said grimly. “That argues strongly that he was art and part of it. Arrest him.”

“On what charge?” Rory asked.

The earl shot him a wry smirk. “Illegal weapons and consorting with felons,” he said smugly. “Any objection, nephew?”

Rory shook his head. The law required no warrant for either charge, and had not done so since the weapons ban six years before. Moreover, since Patrick’s men had found illegal weapons, they had every right to search for more, so he could not object when they joined forces with Balcardane’s to ransack the house.

In any case, Neil Maclean’s arrest provided a much greater worry, because Rory did not imagine for one minute that Diana would allow her brother to languish for long in a cell at Fort William without making every effort to free him.

“How do I look?” Diana asked Mary early the following Monday morning, as she turned to give her cousin the full effect of her disguise.

“Like a gaberlunzie man,” Mary said, chuckling. “That floppy hat covers nearly all your face, but just wait until Aunt Anne sees you in those men’s clothes.”

“I don’t mean to wait,” Diana told her. “Mam would feel obliged to stop me from going, even to save Neil, and we simply cannot leave him in Campbell hands.”

“They’ll only catch him again.”

“They must not. He will just have to go to France with Allan, that’s all.”

“Oh, Diana, I don’t think he will. Allan has asked him before, many times.”

“He’ll go if his only other choice is to let them hang him,” Diana said grimly.

“You are not going to Fort William alone, are you?”

“No, Morag’s brother Gordy is going with me, and Bardie will come, too.”

“But Bardie hates to ride,” Mary protested, “and it’s too far for him to walk.”

“We’re not walking
or
riding,” Diana said with a grin. “We are taking Neil’s sailboat. Here’s Bardie now,” she added, hearing the scullery door bang shut.

The dwarf lumbered in a moment later, took one look at her, and chuckled. “Ye’ll do, lass,” he said. “Ha’ ye got a pair o’ shoon that look new cobbled?”

“Yes, they were Papa’s, resoled before he left to follow the prince. His feet were bigger than Neil’s, but Neil kept them, hoping he would grow into them someday.” She went to fetch them, and when she returned, she found Bardie sitting silently on his favorite stool, watching Mary frown thoughtfully into space.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Mary said. “I felt a chill, the sort they say means a goose has walked over one’s grave. I don’t think this venture will prosper, Diana.”

“Will it fail?”

Mary hesitated. “I cannot say that. What I feel is like a sense of doom, but in truth, when you talk of your plan to free Neil, the feeling does not alter. Usually, such feelings grow stronger when you speak of what you mean to do. This one feels detached from Neil, as if it is connected to you or to something else altogether.”

“Most likely it’s just dread because of the danger and everything else that’s been happening,” Diana said practically. “After all, James is in grave jeopardy, Ian hasn’t been to see you since the murder, and now Neil is in prison.”

“That must be it,” she said with a shiver. “I felt another wave of it just then as you were talking. Do take care, Diana. Bardie, look after her.”

“Aye, I’ll do that, right enough.”

Soon they were off in the little sailboat, but they had scarcely left Cuil Bay when Diana saw Bardie hunker down in the bottom of the boat, looking green.

“Bardie, I forgot how much you fear the water! Why did you not insist that we travel some other way?”

“Pay me no heed,” he muttered. “I’ll do well enough if yon lout Gordy can keep this pea shell from turning keel over topsail. Thing is, lass, I canna swim.”

“But your arms and shoulders are so strong! I’d have thought swimming would be easy for you.”

“I sink like a stone.”

“Then you are very brave to have come, Bardie,” she said, truly moved.

“Ye canna do it alone, just the pair o’ ye. Someone must stay wi’ the boat, and someone else must be at hand tae bring the lad back after they let him out. Ye willna be with him then, most like, ye ken.”

“That’s true,” she said, “and the safest escape is by water if we can time it so that darkness falls soon after we get Neil out. You are a dear friend, Bardie.”

Bardie blushed and looked down.

Morag’s brother Gordy, a tall lean man with shaggy brown hair, was, like most men living on the loch, an excellent sailor. Nevertheless, it took them the best part of the day to reach Fort William. The tide was with them most of the way, but the winds were capricious.

They landed below Maryburgh, because they knew better than to land any nearer to the fort, where men kept a constant lookout for trouble from the sea.

Leaving Bardie with the boat, Diana and Gordy speedily made their way through the village to the main gate, where Gordy left her and walked on as if they had merely kept each other company for a time. Diana approached the gate alone, striding as much as she could like the man she pretended to be.

“I have a pair of shoes I have repaired for the prisoner Sir Neil Maclean,” she said in Gaelic, pitching her voice as low as it would go. “He ordered them before they arrested him, and they said I could deliver them to him here.”

“Who said?”

“I have a letter. Can you read English?”

“I speak a bit,” he said in that language, “but I canna read English writing.”

“D’ ye ken Lord Calder’s signature, then?” she asked, switching to English herself and aping his accent. “He’s a Baron o’ the Exchequer’s Court.”

“Nay, then, d’ ye say his lordship signed yon bit o’ paper?”

“Aye, look,” she said, showing him. She had worked the signature with care, adding an impressive red wax seal. With satisfaction, she saw his eyes widen.

“If that’s real, ye’ll ha’ no trouble delivering your shoes, I’m thinking,” he said. “Come along this way.”

Pulling her hat lower, she obeyed, surprised but grateful that he had accepted her word. She felt guilty using Rory’s name in such a way, but she had been afraid to use Balcardane’s or Patrick Campbell’s, and she had not thought a made-up one would serve to fool the governor. She had half expected the guard to insist upon showing it to him, and was profoundly relieved that he had not.

They kept no female prisoners at Fort William, so she was nearly certain they would not arrest her when they discovered Neil’s escape. In the event that she was wrong, and they did, Bardie had sworn he would go instantly to Rory for help.

If he refused—and since he had warned her many times not to meddle, she rather feared that he might—Bardie would send for MacDrumin, Dugald, even for Lord Rothwell if necessary. Diana was certain they would easily manage to rescue her when the authorities tried to move her from Fort William to Inverness or Edinburgh. She felt confident now, almost smug, enjoying the familiar sense of euphoria that nearly always accompanied one of her more daring ventures.

Her intention was to change clothes with Neil just as she had done so successfully with her mother. Following her instructions, Neil would then start shouting at her, and she would shout back, producing a regular slanging match until the guards flung open the doors to see what was amiss. Neil would walk out then, carrying the shoes, his face hidden by the hat. Growling and muttering expletives about his supposedly dissatisfied customer, he would stride forth to freedom.

The jailers would soon tumble to the trick, of course, but hopefully not before Neil was safe aboard the sailboat, out on the loch. With luck, darkness and even a mist would cover his flight.

Her guide had stopped before a heavy wooden door. “Here, cobby, nay doot ye’ll soon be shut o’ them shoon.”

Clearly a hitch, she thought, keeping her head lowered so that her hat would conceal her face. Apparently, she was to see the prison governor first, after all.

The door swung open to reveal a threadbare green carpet on the floor, then the dark square legs of a wooden desk. Her first fleeting thought as she crossed the threshold was gratitude that she did not know the governor personally, but the thought had barely formed before the guard said, “Here be the cobbler tae see young Maclean, my lord, wi’ the wee bit o’ paper ye signed, saying he might.”

Tattered remnants of her euphoria disappeared in a blink, and she wished the thin green carpet were a magic one that could whisk her instantly far, far away.

Through a roaring in her ears, she heard Rory’s voice say calmly, “Thank you, guard. You may go.”

The door shut with an ominous thud.

F
OR A LONG MOMENT
silence reigned, while Diana tried to think of something to say. Clinging to a feeble hope that he would not know at once who she was, she kept her eyes lowered and her head tilted downward.

The floppy hat blocked her view, and the carpet muffled his footsteps, so she did not realize he had crossed the room until she saw his feet right in front of her.

She gasped when he snatched the hat from her head.

“If I had any sense, I’d put you across my knee and beat your backside till it ached for a month,” he said evenly.

A tremor shot through her, and she knew from his tone that if she were not very careful, he would carry out his threat. “H-how did you know?”

“I didn’t. I knew you would try something, so I had Thomas MacKellar keep a watch. When he said that you had set out in a boat this morning, I rode here as fast as Rosinante could carry me and told the governor I wanted to interview any visitors who asked to see the new prisoners. I didn’t expect you to invoke my name in a forged letter, however. For that alone, I ought to make you smart.”