Jennifer Roberson (49 page)

“—mean to keep her drunk for a week or more?”

“If I must.”

“She will rouse, Glenlyon.”

“So she will, aye.”

“You cannot keep her here.”

“I mean to take her to Chesthill. ’Tis home.”

No. Not Chesthill. She had left Chesthill.

“—no, Cat . . . let be. Let be.”

She licked whisky-painted lips. “—Glencoe . . .
home—”

“Do you see?” a voice asked.

“I will take her home.”

“And keep her drunk forever?”

“What we did was under orders, Captain Drummond.”

“Oh, aye. And if there were no survivors to tell the tale of it, ’twould be naught to trouble us. But there are survivors, Captain Campbell . . . and they will tell the tale.”

“To whom?” the other asked. “To men of other clans?—aye, well, let them! No one will speak against us for fear we will do the same to them.”

Silence. Cat stirred, murmured. The droning began again.

There was a sound of disgust. “Can you not keep her silenced?” “Captain Drummond, if you dinna care for her noise, you might well go elsewhere.”

“There are no other houses left standing. Nor will this one be once we leave it.” A pause. “We had best march within the hour, Captain.”

“Then I give you a duty, Captain Drummond—have a litter prepared, and a detail of men to carry it. I will take my daughter home.”

“Duncanson will not like this.”

“Aye, well, Duncanson wasna here when he said he would be. He’s naught to say about how I tend my kinfolk.”

There was a pause. Then Drummond said, tightly, “I thought she was a man.”

“Woman or man, you would have shot anyway, aye?” The tone was bitter. “See to the litter and detail.”

Cat’s eyes flickered open. She saw her father’s face, and the face of another: a pockmarked man whose expression was baleful. But she did not know him, and her eyes closed again.

Sound. Someone withdrew. The fingers were on her brow again, stroking back her hair. “Aye, Cat, I’ll take you home. You’ll be in your own good bed again by nightfall.”

 

His throat burned. It was razed by flame as a house was, his house; all the houses in the glen. That much he knew, even from within, where no one else existed save himself. Glencoe had been set afire by flame and blood, so much blood . . . and now he suffered it as well, flame and blood corroding his flesh and spirit. He twitched, then jerked against it, feeling the bite of stone into his skull.

Hands came upon him then, hands with iron. The chime of chain was lost in the murmuring of voices, the taut tone of orders given; and they chained him, chained his wrists to the floor; stretched his arms over his head and knelt upon them. Then iron upon his ankles, even as he tried to jerk away.

“—dinna let him move—”

“—he is half-dead, but still fighting . . .”

“Aye, well, so would I fight—he’s no sense in his head, forbye.”

“Sense enough,” someone said tautly. “Sense enough to ken he doesna want to be imprisoned.”

“Aye, well, we’ve no choice—hold him, now . . . I’ve to cut that wee lump of lead out—and then you must turn him onto his face so I may pour usquabae into the wound where the ball went in.”

He felt the knife then, biting into flesh. He stiffened, hissing in shocked outrage, then expelled all the air in a rush that deflated his chest.

“—aye, not so hard . . . Alasdair, you’re free of the musket ball, aye?—turn him
now—”

They turned him then, flopping him over and into such pain that he cried out. The wee lump of lead was naught, naught at all compared to this.

Fire. It pierced the underside of his thigh, then took up residence. He cried out again, though it was muffled against stone; he scraped his cheek and jaw, trying to find air that he might breathe again.

“—dinna bandage it, Murdo—it must drain to banish the poison. Now, over again—
aye
—”

He shouted with outrage, in protest of such torture.

“—och, aye, I ken it, Alasdair—
Murdo!
The wood, aye—and now the wrappings . . . ”

They put sticks on either side of his right leg, then began to wrap it. Around and around, jostling the offended bone mercilessly.

He came to then fully, in shock and fury, and saw the faces gathered, all taut and pale in the gloom. One wild look gave him his brother and a handful of other MacDonalds, among them Murdo, one of his father’s gillies.

His father was dead.

There was no iron on him, only flesh. Hands. They pressed him down against the stone floor of the cave. “John—” he said breathlessly. “—Mother—”

John’s face was grim as he worked. He offered no answer.

And then he knew again the truth, heard again the voice telling him the truth: Lady Glencoe was dead.

“Here.” Murdo leaned down. “We’ve usquabae, now, Alasdair Og.”

How had they come by whisky? “Where—?” But he was too weak, too ill to ask more.

Murdo smiled faintly. “I snooved down a bit ago. The soldiers are leaving. I found a flask fallen away—’tisn’t MacDonald whisky, forbye, but whisky . . . here. A swallow or two remains. Will ye drink?”

He would. He did. But it did nothing to slake the thirst. “Water—”

John tied off the knots. “We’ll send a man down to the river when we can, Alasdair.”

Dair’s jaws ached from the clenching of his teeth. “How many—?”

“How many dead?—or how many alive?” John grimaced. “I canna say, Alasdair. We’ve a dozen of us here. Alive. Two dead.”

One of them their mother.

“Who else—?”

John’s face was a rigid mask of restrained grief. “The bairn was born early.”

“Eiblin’s
bairn?”

“Aye.” John made a futile gesture. “The cord was wrapped around its neck. It didna survive.”

“Oh—Christ. . .” Bound in wood and wool, the leg now was stiff. He could not move it, could not search for a position more comfortable than the one he inhabited, sprawled against cold stone.

“Here.” John pressed something against his palm.

Dair shut his hand upon it, feeling a pelletlike thing, small and hard. He lifted it into the air so he might look upon it, and saw the misshapen lump of lead. Once it had been round, a perfectly round musket ball, but it had struck thick bone in his leg and no longer retained its shape.

The thought was ironic—
nor does the bone. . . .

Cat, too, had been shot.

Irony spilled away. He shut his eyes. The hand, clutching the ball, flopped back down aross his chest. Easier, he thought, to let the darkness take him again . . . but it would not. This time it was inflexible.

He lay bound by wood and wool, sweating in pain, unremitting in recollection, while a woman cried softly of a bairn born dead.

So many dead. Too many.

Even Glenlyon’s daughter.

 

C
at remembered little of the journey from Glencoe to Glen Lyon, save it hurt desperately and she was sick so much of the time from fever and too much whisky that most of it was naught but a blur, albeit edged with the lurid red-gold flames she could not get out of her head.

Her litter bearers had not been pleased by the duty, soldiers wholly appalled by the order to carry Glenlyon’s daughter all the way to Chesthill by way of ice-rimed Rannoch Moor. Though the blizzard had stopped and even the snows were momentarily banished, the journey had been difficult, made worse by the moaning of their burden and its frequent need to vomit. She recalled something of their disgust, their bitten-off mutters and sibilant oaths as she spewed liquor-soaked biscuit over the edge of the litter.

Now she was able to wish she might have pointed out they should have been grateful she missed their feet, but they were gone, and she was no longer in the litter but in her old bed at Chesthill, the narrow creaking bed in her tiny room, and such things as vomiting were no longer an issue. Una fed her porridge in place of usquabae, and she kept it in her belly.

She could not count the days. She had lost too many of them to fever. But that had broken at last, giving her body peace, and her mind too much time to conjure memories of what had happened before Drummond shot her.

Cat yearned to hate him for it, but she could not. Had she been untouched because she was Glenlyon’s daughter, it would have been far worse. At least this way she suffered the same wounds and losses as other innocents, and no man need say she escaped hardship because she was a Campbell. She knew the truths far better than anyone else, the brutalities rendered unto everyone regardless of age, despite gender, levied only because they were Glencoe MacDonalds. And she was one as well.

She wanted to die at first, but realized that when she had wit enough to wish it, she would not. The wound was painful but healing, the fever broken; she was in no danger. She was spared, while others were not.

How many others
—?

She stared blindly up at the roof. She recalled deaths, the dying; recalled MacIain’s body and ruined face; recalled the shooting, the shouts, the screams, the barking, the shrieking—and the flames, always the flames, consuming the flesh of Glencoe, blistering away the skin to display the bones beneath before consuming those as well, altering timber to blackened, smoking rubble like a pile of discarded splinters thrown down with hoof-scattered stones.

—
so much snow and wind . . .
And pockets of livid flame blazing throughout the valley from the icy Devil’s Staircase to the wind-whipped loch itself, one flame copulating with another until they reproduced an endless family of burning bairns, vicious children leaping from dwelling to dwelling. So
much
flame.

So much death.

She recalled little after Drummond’s shot, but much beforehand, and in detail: her father’s visit to Dair’s house, speaking of his wish that she would leave Glencoe and go home.

And his wasted face, the desperation in his eyes, the pleading in his tone.

He knew what he would do. He knew. And ordered it.

Drummond she could not hate. Glenlyon she would.

 

From the sentry walk of the fort, John Hill gazed out on the milling cluster of cattle, sheep, and goats kept near the burial yard. He thought the location perversely meet; the livestock had been driven up ten days before from Glencoe, plundered from dead MacDonalds by Argyll’s Campbell soldiers under Glenlyon’s command.

It was his responsibility now to dispose of the livestock, to parcel them out fairly for slaughtering so his soldiers might eat, and to sell some to the Lowlanders who cherished Highland beef. But he had no heart for it.

Wearily, Hill shut his eyes. Despite the lowing of cattle intermixed with the bleating of sheep and goats, he detached himself from the present and conjured the past, recalling the image of the huge old laird come to him but weeks before, willing to swear the oath that would free his people from royal reprisal.

So many oaths made and broken. . . .
Including Hill’s own oath by letter to MacIain afterward that Glencoe would be safe now that he had signed. And yet MacIain was dead, and too many of the very people he intended to keep safe by swearing allegiance to William.

“Governor Hill, sir.”

His eyes snapped open, banished recollection. He turned to his aide, nodding permission for his report.

“There is a Highlander come down, sir. He claims he is a chiefs son and wishes to swear the oath at once. He is ill, and has had himself carried here by stretcher.”

Hill tensed. Reports claimed both of MacIain’s sons had escaped; his visitor could even be John MacDonald, now Laird of Glencoe in his father’s place. The oath would be required of him also, now that he was MacIain.

If the new MacIain should come
—With as much alacrity as was circumspect, Hill had himself escorted to his small quarters.

Before the door waited a clutch of Highlanders with wary eyes and the tense posture of those who expected hardship. Hill’s expectation grew; if John MacDonald came down and swore the oath, all survivors would be free of the king’s order. There would be no more killing.

He greeted them absently, saw startled glances, then went by them and through the door. Other Highlanders waited within, guarding the man they had brought to Fort William on a stretcher.

With a prayer of thanks, Hill made his way through the men and then stopped short.

He was no longer on a stretcher but sat in Hill’s own chair, as it was the sturdiest in the room. He was thin, hollow-eyed, clearly ill. But even illness did not disguise the insolent glitter of his eyes, or the ironic hook of his mouth.

“You are not John MacDonald,” Hill blurted.

The mouth broadened. “I am not. But you ken who I am, aye?—’twas I who was guested in your finest cell.”

Not John MacDonald. Not even Alasdair Og.

Robert Stewart of Appin.

Stewart shifted in the chair and winced faintly, as if his very bones ached, then smiled again. “Did you expect John MacDonald?”

“I hoped,” Hill admitted honestly and without hesitation. “I have no wish to see any more of Glencoe harmed.”

“Och, well, you’ve done enough harm, aye?” The stubbled jaw, despite its fever-thinned flesh, remained firm. “We all ken what was done . . . only a muckle-headed fool would believe such a tale might remain secret.”

“Is he alive?—John MacDonald? And his brother?”

Stewart raised a shoulder in a slight hitch. “I canna say.”

“
Will
not say,” Hill corrected. He supposed he could not blame him. “I did not welcome those orders, Stewart. I would as soon it had never happened—and I would as soon MacIain’s heir came down and agreed to swear the oath anew. He is laird now.”

“And would like to remain alive so he might be laird,” Stewart said softly. “Does a hound beaten near to death come back to the hand wi’ the stick?”

“If he does not,” Hill answered as softly, “I cannot say what might be levied as punishment.”

“Punishment?” Sandy brows arched up. “Glencoe has been burned to the ground, aye?—and even now
you
hold the livestock that once pastured near the houses. ’Tis a glen of sorrows, an empty place of blood and broken stone, of charred timber and burial cairns—is there anything
left
to punish?”

Hill was aware of movement behind him, a subtle tense shifting among the men who waited for Robert Stewart. No one spoke; he heard no metallic scrape of drawn dirk, but knew there was no need. They as much as he understood the repercussions of Sassenach wishes disobeyed.

He looked Stewart in the eye. “What there is left to punish should remain
un
punished—so long as I am given good and sufficient reason to stay my hand.”

“Aye, well . . .” Stewart’s defiant insolence faded, replaced with a pallor offset by the high color in his cheeks and an overbright glitter in his eyes. “Well, I am somewhat aware of that, Governor Hill—and so I have come down to offer Appin’s oath.”

“From your sickbed.”

“Och, aye . . . I’ve no wish to be Glencoed.”

Hill felt the muscles of his face tauten. Already they had made a word of the killings, replete with implicit threat. “Then I shall be pleased to accept your offer, Stewart, but I will give to you such answer as I gave MacIain: you must swear the oath before Ardkinglas in Inveraray.”

“I kent that,” Stewart said, “but ’twasn’t
his
soldiers who snooved their way under MacDonald roofs and killed them, aye?”

Hill supposed he deserved such rebuke as that. “Then I shall write you a pass, so no detachment that you may meet can detain you.”

Stewart smiled again, though it faded. “D’ye mind if I wait in your chair while you write it? I’m gey indisposed to move.”

Hill inked quill and pulled parchment, laboring to write clearly despite his awkward position at the writing table. He was very aware of Stewart watching every mark he made on the paper; did he wonder if Hill wrote lies and sentenced him to death? Surely no Highlander would trust him now, not even Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, who had sent his heir so often.

Trust was banished. Threat stood in its place.

Hill set down the quill, sanded the paper, then folded and sealed it. He offered it to Stewart, who accepted it in an overwarm, trembling hand.

“I am sorry,” Hill said. “I know that you and Alasdair Og were friends.”

Stewart stilled. “Once.”

“Despite such orders as called for his death, I hope he survived.”

“Aye, well . . . for myself, I dinna care.” Stewart flashed a hollow echo of his usually charming, impudent smile. “I have a personal reason for hoping the Campbells killed him.” He handed the paper over to one of his Highlanders, then thrust his spine against the back of Hill’s chair, clutching the armrests. His mouth was hard as stone. “Will you stay and watch a sick man be carried forth like a dead one? It may prove gey amusing to a Sassenach.”

But Hill, who had heard too many reports of dead Highlanders, did not care to see such. He turned on his heel and left.

 

Dair was propped against the cold bones of the cave wall, his own bones wary of such posture as the one he chose, spine set rigidly against ancient, unworked stone, but he paid the protests of his body little mind. It had been favored too long, his body, given too much latitude in the ordering of his life; time now for him to set aside illness, weakness, and pain and look to the present in order to shape the future, despite the grief of the past.

He was no longer so naked; he wore now the blood-blackened shirt of a dead man and his scorched, crusted plaid, for they had buried Lady Glencoe in her youngest son’s shirt and plaid. His broken leg was for the moment settled in its awkward splints.

Dair smiled at his brother. He knew the expression, the stubborn set of the jaw. “You must, John. Surely you can see ’tis the only way.”

John MacDonald was unconvinced. He stood in the center of the cave and glowered down at his brother. “D’ye think I could do such a thing?”

“You must,” Dair repeated. “I canna travel yet myself, but you canna wait for that.”

“This is foolishness, Alasdair—”

“You canna
stay
here, John, as you well ken. ’Tis too dangerous. The soldiers will come back. Would you have what few folk remain to us treated as the others were?”

It was a telling if painful argument, and he would use it as he had to. There was no choice. He appreciated John’s loyalty, his wish to remain with his brother, but it was senseless to jeopardize the others.

“We have no food,” Dair said evenly, “save what we can catch. The stores are burned, the livestock driven away to fill the bellies of Sas-sanachs and Lowlanders, even Argyll murderers. But there are caves in Appin as well, and men there who will aid you as they may. ’Twill be gey difficult, but not so impossible as what you propose in wishing to stay here.”

John’s voice cracked. “This is our home, Alasdair!”

“Our home is burned,” he answered. “Our home is naught but a burial yard, now . . . too many MacDonald bones lie beneath the cairns.” Including their mother’s, their father’s, and his brother’s stillborn daughter’s, who might, God willing, one day be interred on the sacred isle of Eilean Munde. “You have Eiblin and Young Sandy, and the others to lead. You are MacIain, now. Lead them from here, John. Take them over the mountains to Appin, and make a clan out of what is left of our father’s loins.”

The others waited in the shadows, holding silence. John was Maclain, John was laird. They would do as he would have them do.

But Dair was not a man who refused an argument with any man, even his father for all that man might clout him over the lug-hole; and his father was dead now anyway, and John stood in his place. With John he could argue, and win. With John he need fear no clout, especially now. And he would weave strong fabric of the yarn of his injury.

“If you stay here, you will die,” Dair said quietly. “You will die of hardship, or you will be killed by soldiers.”

John’s pale face was shadowed by dark stubble thickening to beard. “We will take you with us.”

Dair laughed. “ ’Twill be difficult enough for a two-legged man to make his way to Appin . . . you have women and children, John. No one can carry me so far.”

“You canna stay here, Alasdair!”

“Not alone, no,” Dair agreed. “Leave me Murdo. Let him serve one of the old laird’s sons as he served his father, aye?—and when I am healed enough, we shall come to Appin.”

Murdo stepped forward from the shadows. He was a man of middling height and frame, fined down now by grief and hardship. Tousled dark hair was flecked with gray, for he was not a young man, though not as old as his laird had been. His eyes were a clear, unclouded blue, piercing beneath heavy brows. Like all of them he had forgone shaving, and the beginnings of a thick beard shrouded half of his face.