Jennifer Roberson (32 page)

His mother’s callused hand brushed the hair back from his face. “Jean is gone, Alasdair.”

The words were wholly foreign. “Gone?” Dair echoed.

Lady Glencoe’s eyes—his own her legacy—were kind. “Come into the house with me, and I’ll tell you why.”

 

It gave Cat immense pleasure to explain to the earl what had become of his heir. She was not at first certain he understood a word, so concerned was he with other matters, and so she repeated the heart of the issue: Duncan Campbell was gone, and with him Marjorie.

She did not tell Breadalbane immediately upon the departure of the lovers, choosing instead to hoard the knowledge so Duncan would have opportunity to get as far from his father as possible before pursuit was levied, and when she did at last tell Breadalbane she did so collectedly, admitting no knowledge of the moment of elopement.

“And so I am shamed,” she said dutifully, standing beside the fire the earl’s gillie tended. What Sandy thought she did not know, but a flicker in blue eyes betrayed his private amusement.

The earl finished his task, folding and sealing several sheets of parchment, then putting them away into a leather wallet. It was the treaty, she knew, signed by the others earlier in the wake of MacDonald departure. Cat wondered how much of the general acquiescence came from a desire to poke a stick at MacIain, who inspired tremendous loyalty and equally marked dislike.

“Shamed,” Breadalbane murmured. “But not particularly despondent, if one marks your tone.” His gray eyes were opaque as he looked up at her at last. “If anything, somewhat cheerful for a woman so insulted.”

Cat smiled serenely.
Let him make what he will of it.

“Aye, well . . . he will come back sooner rather than later, when his silver runs out.” He rose and tugged his English suit into order. “We’ll have you wed yet. In the meantime—”

“In the meantime, let me go home,” she said. “Let me tend my broken heart among people who care for me.”

“And do you think I, his father and your kinsman, do not care?”

“Oh, aye,” she answered promptly. “For the things—and people—you need.”

The ice of his eyes thawed. There was, for the first time, a hint of humor in the shape of the earl’s mouth. “You would be wasted on Duncan.”

That, she knew. “Then I may go home?”

“For now,” he agreed. “I must go first to London, then to the king in Flanders. But you need not despair; you will be a countess yet.”

Cat laughed. “Do you think it will be so simple a thing to bring him back? He is your son; he may have grown a spine at last.”

“ ’Tis possible,” he acceded. “And it maybe that John becomes earl in his brother’s place. That would not displease me.”

She had known that. Everyone knew that, even Duncan. Especially Duncan.

“But you would still be a countess,” Breadalbane said.

It made no sense. “John is wed already.”

The humor, now, was more marked. “But I am not dead yet.”

“No, but—” And then she knew. She understood at once. “I will
not!”

For the first time in her life she saw the earl smile. “I am desolate,” he said dryly, “to know I am held in such low repute. You must be the only lass in all of Scotland who would spurn my wealth.”

“You,” she said in shock and equal parts horror. It was all she could manage.

“I’ve buried three wives,” he said. “I wouldna mind another.”

“To bury?”

Indeed, the ice of his eyes had thawed.
“Wasted
on Duncan . . . but a worthy match for me, aye?—and one your father would welcome.”

What did one say to a man so powerful, the man who ruled the Highlands? One who understood so well the working of a mind, and certainly her father’s.

“It would be worth it,” Breadalbane said, “to see MacDonald’s face.”

Illumination.
“That
is why,” she blurted.

He took the cup of whisky extended by his gillie. “Among other things.”

 

John Hill set down the quill and capped the inkhorn. His hand shook as he did so; his health yet again deteriorated. He took off the spectacles, set them aside, and rubbed at hollowed sockets to ease the tension away. So much responsibility—

The knock at the door was diffident, as if the aide suspected the governor might be asleep. But Hill had not blown out a lamp before midnight for too many evenings, and raised his voice in permission to enter.

The aide came into the light, features severe. “That Scot,” he said. “I’ve told him to wait until morning, sir. He has the effrontery to decline.”

‘That Scot’ could apply to anyone. “Which Scot?” Hill asked mildly.

“The boy. The Cameron boy. He says he bears a message, sir. Shall I tell him again to wait?”

Hill tensed. “Have him in at once.”

“Sir.” The aide saluted crisply and shut the door. A moment later he returned, gesturing the “Cameron boy” to present himself to the governor.

It was as Hill suspected: Ewan Cameron’s lad, bonnet doffed and rusty hair mussed. His jaw, as before, was stubbled. Hill rose. “Come in.” He gestured for the aide to leave them alone.

The boy was hollow-cheeked and gaunt. Either he grew too fast for the food he ate, or there was not enough. “I am come with a message,” he said huskily. “The laird has said you’re a fair man withal, despite your Sassenach ways.”

It was an admission Hill found gratifying as well as surprising. “I believe we are all the same in the Lord’s eyes,” he said. “Sassenach and Highlander; God makes no judgment of names or birth.”

“You’ve guns on the walls,” the boy said bluntly. “And boats off the Isles.”

“And soldiers in the heather, and a patrol boat on Loch Linnhe,” Hill elaborated. He put out a hand to steady himself against his writing desk.

The boy saw it. “I’ll sit,” he said, as if understanding that Hill offered unprecedented respect by not seating himself in his presence. “This bench will do, aye?” And hooked it over from the wall with a bare foot, though he did not sit at once.

The governor seated himself. This was nothing like the meeting they had shared but three weeks before. “How may I help you?”

“I’ve a message from Lochiel, though not of his making.” The young man reached into his scrip and pulled forth a crumpled paper. “ ’Twas sent to him, aye?—from Charles Edwards. Dundee’s chaplain.”

Viscount Dundee was dead two years, killed at Killiecrankie even as victory was assured. That his chaplain saw fit now to write Lochiel was indeed news, and possibly distressing in view of the fact Lochiel sent word of it to William’s governor.

Hill accepted the letter as the Highlander sat down upon the bench. He did not read it immediately. “Do you know what it concerns?”

The grin was quick and fleeting, but wholly disarming. “I’m the laird’s son, aye?—he does tell me what he’s about.”

Lochiel’s son. There was more to the message, then, than simple courtesy. “Will you tell me?” Hill invited. It was a mark of confidence to trust the Cameron’s word, rather than reading in his presence.

It satisfied. Ewan Cameron’s boy smiled again, but it faded away too quickly into an unwonted severity at odds with his features. “Edwards says the promises made at Achallader mean naught. That Breadalbane intends to ruin the clans, and the lies of indemnity are part of it.”

Hill drew in a shallow breath; it hurt too much to breathe deeply. “It is not indemnity,” he said. “It is a truce only, an agreement lasting until October.” Two months left. Only two months.

The boy agreed. “I ken that. ’Tis part of the plan, aye?”

“Then Lochiel is certain the earl plots deceit?”

“Breadalbane serves himself, no’ the Highlands. The letter says the Pope has given King James silver; we would do better, my father says, to trust the word of Dundee’s man than the word of Breadalbane.”

It struck Hill as ironic that the Highlanders would disparage Catholics while accepting that their Stuart king was one, as well as Papist coin. But they were nothing if not realistic. It was, after all, an identical attitude that had shaped Breadalbane.

Hill looked at the crumpled letter in his hands. Idly he smoothed it, grooming the creases away. “Why does he send word to me?”

“Because you have guns on the walls and boats off the Isles,” came the prompt and obvious answer. “And soldiers in the heather, and a patrol boat on Loch Linnhe.”

He smiled at the boy; bald honesty. This lad and his father were not of Breadalbane’s house. “Tell Lochiel I am grateful.”

The laird’s son rose. “He said you’re a fair man, aye?—and deserving to ken the truth of what is said of Achallader.” He nodded at the letter. “He’s sent it to all, ye ken. Edwards. To all the chiefs and lairds.”

Stunned, Hill pushed to his feet.
“This
has been sent? To everyone?”

Lochiel’s son nodded, perplexed by the reaction.

Hill’s breath ran fast. “May God in Heaven have mercy on us all . . .” His lips were dry; he had not drunk usquabae. “Tell your father—tell him I am grateful. And tell him also that if he has word with others, it might behoove the clans to put no trust in this letter.”

Deep-set eyes narrowed. “He was Dundee’s man. His chaplain.”

It was warning, and Hill accepted it as such. “I understand,” he said. “But if there is to be a truce, no matter the duration, there must first be trust. Whatever you think of the earl, he must be given a chance.”

He had lost the boy’s respect. That was blatantly clear in the arrogant posture.

“Wait—” Hill took a step toward the young Cameron; he did not know why it was so important the boy understand, but it was. “You must see it . . . you must understand—”

“I’ve brought it,” the boy said, and turned to the door. “You must do as ye will.”

Indictment in the words. Hill tried once more. “I have no power,” he said, “but in the orders of my king. And he is not yours.”

“I ken that,” the Cameron declared.

Hill put a trembling hand on the boy’s arm. It was stiff beneath his touch, rigid as wood. A Sassenach touched a Highlander. “If any chief acts on this letter, the treaty is nullified. And the orders I am given may not be kindly ones.” He gripped the arm more tightly. “You serve your father,” he said, “and I serve my king. It is duty. It is honor.
No matter what I may prefer.
”

B
readalbane likened it to a meeting of royalty, save neither of them were kings. They were merely men, and Scots, but the power of a realm was theirs. It was he who fashioned the future, he and the Master of Stair; between them they would determine who died, and who survived.

The preliminaries were over. King William had been apprised of Breadalbane’s Achallader Treaty, though details were not mentioned; William, despite his ancestry, was no true Scot and understood little of them. He need be told nothing but what their efforts wrought, he and Stair, so the Dutchman could yea or nay them. Could extend his royal blessing.

Flanders, the earl felt, was no more congenial than the Highlands, with autumn approaching. But the room was warmer, as was Stair’s welcome.

Sir James Dalrymple, Master of Stair, was now Secretary of Scotland and sole possessor of the position. Stair was much in favor with the king, and Breadalbane, who disliked the Lowland Scot for his pretentious manner of speaking as well as other faults, nonetheless admired him for securing a place so close to the king. While he himself labored in Scotland, Stair walked the halls of Parliament and of Kensington Palace. Just now he was in Approbaix, accompanying the king.

They sat near a mullioned window, full in the light of a fading sunset. Each held a fine Venetian glass filled with brandywine. Stair was a short man but fleshy, with small dark eyes. The preposterous wig he wore was not in proportion to his size, and gave him, Breadalbane felt, the look of an imbecile. Until one heard his words.

“We will have to give them something,” Stair said quietly, swirling brandywine in his glass. “I know enough of Highlanders to be certain they will demand payment for anything approaching peace.”

Breadalbane, himself Highland-born, forbore to answer.

“If we are to expect them to come forward of their own volition and accept King William as sovereign in place of James, we must promise them something.” Stair looked at his visitor. “You are a Highlander. What is your suggestion of a thing they will value, and count it worth the doing?”

The earl sipped meticulously, then carried the glass away. Less robust than whisky, the liquor nontheless warmed him. “Silver,” he said succinctly, and added other conditions as Stair gestured impatience. “Time for consideration, for travel in poor weather. And indemnities.”

“Against what?”

“Past crimes,” he answered easily. “The clans are riddled with thieves and murderers, and as many of them are chiefs as they are loyal tacksmen. ’Tis the lairds and chiefs we must appeal to; the others will follow them.”

“Very well. Money. Time. Indemnities.” Stair looked out the window. The setting sun painted his sallow face gilt and gold. “Twelve thousand pounds sterling to the landowners, thus lifting from the chiefs their need to support such men. A pardon of such things as we warrant are crimes, so no man may be hanged in his effort to sign the Oath of Allegiance. And a Proclamation of Indemnity, pardoning even the worst of the offenders, under the Great Seal of the King.”

Breadalbane smiled appreciation.

“Post it at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and copies in such other burghs as will be appropriate.” The Secretary of Scotland tapped an idle fingernail against Venetian glass. “They shall have through the end of the year to make good their faith. They are to understand that if they fail to come forth and sign the Oath of Allegiance by the first of the new year, the pardon shall expire, and any man withholding himself shall be punished to the utmost extremity of the law.” He looked blandly at the earl. “Will this be sufficient?”

It was opportunity, and Breadalbane took it. “For a wise man, aye.”

After a moment of silence, Stair nodded comprehension. “
Un
wise men can be troublesome. Therefore, it may be necessary to prove to the clans the full measure of our power and the seriousness of our intent.” He pursed his lips. “One must provide an example to others not as certain of the wisdom of their course.”

The earl’s answer was judicious, but no less telling for its diplomacy. “Surely hesitation or delay must be construed as treason, and punished accordingly.”

Stair did not smile, though something of amusement glinted briefly in dark eyes. “And who among them, in your experience, is the least likely to be wise?”

The answer was obvious, and as easily declared. “MacDonalds,” the earl said. “MacIain, of Glencoe.”

 

MacIain’s huge hand closed on his son’s shoulder. Dair winced. “Aye,” the father said, “you’d do well to recall it. I’ll have you do as I say, aye?—not pleasing yourself where Breadalbane might see.”

The pressure increased, then relaxed. It was a squeeze of affection, not punishment. “Aye,” Dair said, “but I wasna thinking of the earl just at that moment—”

“No. That Campbell bizzem . . .” But MacIain amended it as he sat down at the table across from his son. “Lass,” he said. “What is her name?”

Dair tensed. “Catriona. Cat.”

“Cat.” MacIain raised his silver-rimmed glass, brought from Paris years before, and downed his whisky.

He had defeated his youngest at chess but moments before and was in good humor. They inhabited the fine stone house at Carnoch companionably, with Lady Glencoe across the glen at Achtriachtan to visit her grandson, Young Sandy. It was dusk, and the lamps were lighted, lending an ocherous wash to the wood-panelled room.

“Jean was a likely lass,” MacIain observed blandly, as if he moved a pawn.

Dair recognized the gambit and refused to play. Instead he poured his glass full again and drank his own usquabae.

Yet idly: “Will ye go and fetch her back?”

“I will not.”

“You have before. Or she’s come for you.” MacIain set down his glass. “ ’Tis something to have a lass like that in your bed.”

“I will go to her,” Dair explained with commendable mildness, “to tell her this parting is for good. I owe her that much, aye?”

“And will you tell her of the Campbell bizzem?” This time MacIain did not amend the term.

“She kens it already,” Dair said, while the whisky churned in his belly. “There was a question, my mother said, of looking into a mirror . . . but I had carried it to Cat. And Jean learned of it.” “From your mother.” In the awkward silence the sound of his father’s inhalation was loud. “That French mirror?”

Dair flicked a wary glance at the huge man. “She gave it freely to me, when I told her the tale.” He drank the remains of his whisky and set the cup down with a thump of finality. “We are much to blame for their losses.”

“Whose losses? Campbell losses? Faugh!” The idle curiosity bled away from MacIain’s tone. “They’ve lifted enough of MacDonalds over the years. Dinna spill so many tears for them, Alasdair!”

“She would spit in your face as soon as cry,” Dair said plainly. “You’ll no’ blame her for her father’s foolishness.”

“I will do as I will,” MacIain said softly. “As you will do as I say.”

The bruises had faded, save for one upon his jaw that still smudged sickly yellow. The split lip was healed, and the broken tooth caused him no pain. But Dair recalled very well the thundering in his head after his father was done with his skelping.

“You have an heir,” he said. “And
he
has an heir. What am I but another body?”

MacIain’s teeth showed briefly in the thicket of beard and moustaches. “By
my
body, ye ken? Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, bone of my bone . . . ’tis my seed gave you life.”

Dair waited tensely. He did not know what he would do until his father set him to it.

MacIain reached into his scrip and took from it a crumpled letter. He unfolded it and put it onto the table, spreading the paper flat beneath massive hands. “ ’Tis from Dundee’s man, Edwards. A word to the wise, ye ken?—that we are not to put trust in Breadalbane.”

Dair’s breath stilled.

“I dinna doubt he kens ’tis not a warning
Glencoe
is in need of, aye?—but ’tis appreciated all the same. Confirmation, Alasdair. There’s no good to come of that treaty.” With care and precision, he folded the paper again. “I fear mischief from no man so much as the Earl of Breadalbane.”

Dair’s palms were damp.

One massive hand lingered over the chess game, closed upon the queen. “You are my son,” the deep voice rumbled. “Blood of my blood, bone of my bone—and you will do whatever is necessary to impede the earl’s game.”

 

Wind blew down the moor, luring hair from leather binding. Beneath Cat the garron shook its head, perplexed by what it viewed as annoying indecision; for her there was no indecision, merely patience, uncharacteristic patience, as the memory overtook her.

—
images
—

And sounds. Smells. The overwhelming fear. Her own as well as his.

Cat let it play out as the wind gusted in her face: images, sounds, and smells, the recollection of fear so great it nearly broke her soul—then at last dismounted and left the garron to wander in its idle pursuit of forage.

She was barefoot in the summer, as most Highlanders. She strode across terrain hazardous to those unaccustomed to its sly hostilities, and climbed the swelling crown to the twisted scepter atop it. Here the wind was braver, whipping at hair and skirts. Cat let it have its way as she studied the tree, marking its wracked shape and naked, barren roots upthrust from pockets of turf, knotted and twined against the soil like an ornate Celt-made brooch.

She moved beneath the tree, stood below one sturdy branch. Shut her eyes against the daylight, against the insidious sun, and imagined herself Dair MacDonald with a rope around his neck.

The rope that yet hung from the twisted branch, sliced in two by one sweep of her father’s claymore.

She let wind and memory take her, lost in conjuration. For her it was not difficult; she had always been able to summon stories within her head, such as the braw and bonnie prince on his way to rescue his lass . . .

—
with silver in his hair, and white teeth a’gleaming
—

Her eyes sprang open. Without thought for the doing of it, with no deference to her skirts, she turned and mounted the tree, then clambered up its branches. When she could reach the knot she drew from her belt the dirk she had brought and, with grim determination, cut the rope from the branch.

It fell. From her perch above the ground, she gazed down upon it. A coil of faded hemp, half-hidden against the turf.

With less grace and nothing of dignity, she climbed down again. Her body betrayed her in womanhood; she had lost the ease of girlhood when she had no breasts, no hips. Skirts caught, tore. An ankle banged a branch. Hair caught in the twigs. But she was free at last, and jumped to the ground.

Memories crowded afresh. A body, there, spilling blood from an opened throat . . . The knot of Campbell men serving her father’s interests, through which she had fought her way shouting the Campbell slogan . . . Another body, more meat on the tree, until it was taken down and replaced with another MacDonald.

No blood now . . .
No bodies left to rot. From Glencoe had come MacDonalds to bear home their Campbell-killed men.

Cat sat down upon the turf. From the scrip lifted from her father’s things, she took two items and placed them on the ground.

Rope. Mirror. Bonnet. All she had of him.

And the memory of his words:
‘Come home with me to Glencoe.’

 

Dair knew, as he rode across the hills toward the cloud-bound lands of Appin, that courage came in as many coats as cowardice, and only the man wearing one could name the proper cut. But he was not at all certain which he wore as he rode to Jean Stewart, bricked apart on the tiny island playing chatelaine to Castle Stalker, where he would go this time not to offer persuasion that they had not yet spent the spark burning in their bodies, but to explain it was truly extinguished.

“God save me,” he muttered to the wind, “but I think I felt less fear as the war-pipes at Killiecrankie called us into battle!”

But that was true battle withal, for the good of Scotland and her true Stuart king. This was a war of words he would survive battered more in spirit than in body, the more so for her bitter comprehension of its cause. He would never have lied to her, but now she would hear him speak his words with her own design in mind, a sett of false imaginings as well as false assumptions, no matter the truth of them.

Not another woman, not initially. But she would see it as such.

And if she would have of him the truth of his feelings
now,
she had indeed been supplanted by a woman. But Jean would never believe he had grown apart from her without interference, that he longed for Cat as much for her company as for her body; that he had not in fact already shared a bed with her.

Jean did not understand that the needs of the spirit compounded the needs of the body. Jean would believe her place had been usurped. Jean would believe whatever she felt she must, to reconcile rejection.
And Cat will bear the blame. . . .

Preoccupied, Dair reined in his garron. The track wound its way through tumbled rocks, stands of trees, lush-grown heather and gorse, crossing countless burns and trickles of mountain-bred water. He swung a leg over and stepped off the sturdy pony, giving it rein to drink as he himself knelt to scoop up a handful of water.

Stone and grit bit into bare knees as he bent, and the garron pulled rein against his hand. When it whickered a greeting, Dair glanced up to see mounted men approaching. The tartan’s sett, though worn by any, was the Stewart most closely associated with those bred of Appin: deep blue and rich forest green, striped alternatingly with narrow black and vivid red.

His mood plunged instantly.
Trust Robbie to come for me before I can see Jean.
. . . Dair rose, water trickling across his right palm and falling from slack fingers. Sunlight glinted off badge and brooch as the men wound through stones and burns, gleamed more dully on the sandy gold cap of Robbie’s hair. He was bonnetless in the day, as if to mock Dair’s gift to Cat.