Prince Across the Water (8 page)

I remembered the first time my father had sent me alone to round up the cows and drive them into the byre for winter. I was so afraid I would lose count, that one of them would wander off and break her leg in a ditch, my stomach ached the whole time I did my work. When the task had been completed, I retched up my breakfast behind the byre and then had to go and lie down for an hour until my heart stopped racing.

How much harder it must be to be a herder of men. Granda wanted me to go home and take care of our wee family while Da was away. But the prince had so much more to worry about than that.

He sighed, never hearing me behind him.

And then I thought,
What has he to sigh about?
He was rich, after all. He didn't have to worry about the harvest or the rainfall. He didn't have to think about a daftie daughter or a son with the falling fits.

And, of course, that made
me
think about my fits and how wonderful it would be to be rid of them forever. If I left the prince's presence and went back home, would I still feel so well? Ma had said the prince could cure any illness with his touch. After all, he himself had promised us happiness.
If I feel well now
, I thought,
a touch from the prince will let me feel this way forever
. It would mean nothing to him, and everything to me and my family. So, step by step, I moved closer, the heather muffling my tread.

Just a wee touch
.

I stretched out my arm, straining my fingers toward him. I was so close, I could brush his shoulder as lightly as a thistledown, and he wouldn't have to feel it. My whole vision narrowed down till all I could see was that one small patch of cloth, the part of his coat that covered his shoulder. It was now only a hairsbreadth away from my trembling fingertips.

I reached out a bit more and …

Without warning someone loomed out of the darkness and thumped me in the belly with the butt of his musket. I was thrown backward and thudded painfully to the ground.

“Back off there!” barked a voice. “Whatever mischief yer up to, we'll have none of it!”

The breath had been punched out of me and I was gasping so hard for air, I sounded as if I were choking. I looked up and saw a man in Lochiel's colors.

Behind him the prince stood, a quizzical look on his face. “I see no harm in him,” he said mildly in his strange accent. “He's but a boy.”

“King George would pay a pretty penny to see ye brought down, Highness,” the guard warned. “And there's many in these parts poor enough to be tempted.”

“Surely not,” said the prince. “He's very small, even for this makeshift army. He was probably just curious.”

I tried to sit up but my stomach hurt as though I had been stabbed. I slumped back, still panting.

“What's amiss here?” asked a new voice. From the corner of my eye I saw another man hurrying toward us, his hand clasping the basket hilt of his broadsword. He had a strange outline of light around him, from the campfires below.

“Do not worry yourself, gentle Lochiel,” the prince assured him. “The guard you set to watch over me, he has just knocked down this boy.”

“He was sneaking about,” the soldier said gruffly. “He looked like he was up to nae good.”

“I only wanted to …” I managed to say, but every word caused pain to lance through my stomach. I held up my hand, examining it for trembles.

The prince took a step toward me and extended a hand to help me up. I reached for it, my fingers trembling.
Just a touch
, I thought.

Then Lochiel moved between us, pushing my hand away.

“Come, Yer Highness,” he said, “I've been going over the maps and I have some plans to discuss.”

The prince drew back his hand. His right eyebrow raised in surprise. “Now? Do you not intend to sleep tonight at all?”

“We'll have all the time in the world for sleep if we dinna steal a march on General Cope and his men,” said Lochiel.

The prince sighed, then spoke to the guard. “See the boy gets back to his people,” he ordered. “It's the least you can do after treating him so brutally. If we had a hundred hundred more like him, young and strong and eager …”

“Dinna go,” I tried to say. But I still had so little breath, the words came out as a feeble whisper and he did not hear me at all.

As soon as Lochiel and the prince had disappeared into the darkness, the soldier grabbed my arm and yanked me roughly to my feet. “Be off with ye, laddie,” he commanded. “And dinna let me catch ye sneaking around again or it will go badly for ye.”

I did not wait to find out what he meant but scrambled down the hillside to find Granda.

11 THE ROAD HOME

I must have made my way back all right, and fallen dead asleep, because when I woke in the morning, my plaid was still belted about me, and the August sun full in my face. My stomach no longer ached from the guard's blow, but my head was hammering as if the giants of Loch Lochy had been throwing it about all night long.

Granda was shaking me. “Get up, laddie. The men are leaving.”

And, indeed, all around the clans had begun to gather into their marching groups and the low rumbling, wheezing drones of the pipes were just beginning. They made my heart leap and I scrambled to my feet. Adjusting my plaid, I started toward the MacDonalds' banner.

Granda's hand on my shoulder stopped me. “We're for home, Duncan,” he said. “Remember—we've a crop to bring in and mouths to feed.”

I said a foul word.

Granda gave me such a look then, I shut my mouth. But inside, my anger roiled. And my sorrow. I shrugged off his hand. “I have to say good-bye to Da.”

“Ye just want to beg him to let you stay,” Granda said. “But he willna do it.”

I knew that. But I couldn't let him go without trying.

I found him in a bubble of Glenroy men, and burst through. He was talking about where they were going next, on to Fassefern and Moy, then on down to Edinburgh, which he said was back the way we had come. So, for a little bit, I had hope that Granda and I might go with them. But when Da and I were face-to-face, I didn't ask. I just held out my hand. He took it in his, and then we looked deep into each other's eyes, his the color of slate slicked with rain.

“I know ye'll work hard, Duncan,” he said, “and bring in our crops, what there is of them. Kiss yer ma for me.” Then he turned back to his duty and I to mine.

Granda and I set out at once, but an army takes longer to get on the move than two humblies. We soon left them far behind, even though Granda's lame leg slowed us some.

“It's a harder journey back,” he warned me, “without the promise of spying the prince.”

So I spilled it all out, how I'd almost talked to the prince and how he said a hundred hundred more like me would win him back his throne.

Granda loved that, and said I was a storyteller for sure. But after that, we had little more to say for miles. And Granda had been right. It was harder going home than coming. Now there was nothing new to see, for we'd already been past the rich farms along the loch and seen the spread of the land between the hills, the cows and sheep on the green pastures.

And I had no hope of the prince to lure me on. No hope that Da would let me go along to the war. We had no pipers playing to stir the heart. It was just one foot after the other and only our small farm at the end.

Luckily, near nightfall, we fell in with a family of tinkers—a husband, wife, and two wee ones, twins just walking. They were traveling across the country, selling their pots, needles, and trinkets from a horse-drawn cart.

We greeted them pleasantly, which many folk don't do, and they shared their food with us. In exchange, for we had neither coin nor scrip to purchase anything, Granda told them some of his tales. Tinkers are great collectors of such stories, which they use to cozen housewives to buy their wares.

We took turns riding in the cart and walking by its side, and so outpaced the army behind us.

When night truly fell, we were well along the loch. It was the kind of black night without moon or stars, for dark clouds hid everything and promised rain. We drew tightly together around a big campfire, the little ones sleeping curled up in their mother's arms. That was when we began speaking of the Rising and what the bonnie prince looked like.

“The prince is strong,” I said. “Scotland will no find him wanting, whatever lies ahead.”

The tinker and Granda nodded, and I added, “And the one they call ‘gentle Lochiel' seems hardly gentle at all. He's a fighting man for sure.”

“Ye see well, lad,” said the tinker.

Granda told him, “There were thousands of men to watch the prince land and thousands more promised. Frenchmen, too, it's said. They'll all rise up at his bidding.”

Suddenly, the tinker man said in a strange, soft voice, as if he were dreaming, “There's nae good to come of it.”

“Wheesht,” his wife cautioned. “These be two strong Jacobite gentlemen.”

“What's that?” I asked, never having heard the word before.

“Jacobite,” the tinker said, “is the name given to those who support King James Over the Water. From the Latin tongue, where he is called King Jacobus.”

His wife added, “A tinker knows many tongues. It is part of our trade.”

I smiled at her then for calling me a gentleman.

Shaking his head, the tinker repeated, “There's nae good to come of it. War makes thieves and peace hangs 'em.” It was something Ma had said often enough.

But Granda held up his hands. “Peace, man, we dinna mean ye harm.” At that moment the fire sent out crackling sparks as if it were warring with us.

“Nobody ever means harm,” the tinker said, “but wars harm the helpless nonetheless.” He picked up one of the sleeping twins and carried him to the cart.

“My man means nae offense,” said the tinker woman.

“None taken,” said Granda, and I nodded.

A thin shred of cloud suddenly uncovered what was left of the moon, and then I could see the mountains far south of the loch. They were a dark, brooding presence. I began to shiver, and not from the cold, either. The tinker's hard words had been like a sword to the heart.

A while later, after we'd traded some more tales, we all got ready for sleep. The children were both bedded down in the cart, bundled together, but as Granda and I lay down on the ground next to the tinker and his wife, a sudden whooping noise made me sit up again.

“What was that?” I gasped. “A wolf?” The stories had made me uneasy, as had the tinker man's strange look into the future.

Granda patted me on the shoulder. “Rest easy, Duncan. It was just an owl hooting.”

The tinker added, “There's nae wolves left in the Highlands, laddie. I saw the last one killed with my own eyes. There's only the foxes left, who some call their children, and they're nae threat to the likes of us.”

Strangely, as soon as he had mentioned foxes, we heard the yipping cries of one on a hunt. So, without more of a beginning, the tinker told us a tale of a vixen fox who loved a man and what came of it, both good and bad.

After that I slept well and without dreams.

A small rain had begun to fall as we parted company with the tinkers at the head of the loch. They were going south to Fort William and its market, and we were headed north and east to our glen. There was a redcoat garrison at the fort, according to Granda, but as the tinker man said, “The redcoats' coin is just as good as yers.”

Looking grim, Granda answered, “Only if ye dinna count the Scottish blood on it.”

The tinker shook his head. “There's nae coin that doesna come with blood on it, but it all spends the same.” He embraced us both, as did his wife, which made me blush.

Then the cart moved off down the road, its wheels splashing up puddles. Granda and I were left to contemplate the long and lonely way home.

Now the rain came down slantwise, churning the loch behind us into a lumpy grey mass. I hunched my shoulders against the wet, knowing it would be little help. Soon I would be soaked clear through.

Granda limped by my side, as soaked as I. To loft our spirits, he started a conversation. “I expect the prince will be marching on Fort William soon enough. Our tinker friends might even sell him a pot or two.”

I couldn't help laughing out loud at the thought.

Granda gave me a steely look. “If the English garrison at Fort William have a dram of sense among them, they'll be long gone by now.”

I bent to pick up a rain-slicked stone and flung it from me, listening for the sound of it landing in the yellow gorse along the roadside. “It's a grand army the prince has,” I said. “Surely our men will easily rout the English.”

“Aye, surely,” Granda replied slowly, “though it's no a patch on the one we had in '15.”

“Oh?” The army at Glenfinnan had looked big enough to me. And we had already captured redcoats. “Bigger than all that?”

Granda said, “Much bigger.” Then he saw my face, creased with worry, and quickly added, “But more and more clans will flock to the prince's banner once they see which way the wind is blowing.” He grinned.

“Other Jacobite gentlemen?” I said, grinning back.

“Aye, though some will come for other reasons.”

“What ‘other' reasons? Not just for the prince? Not just to get back the throne?” We were walking slowly now, but the hardest of the rain had passed by and if we were lucky, there'd be sunshine soon. Scotland was like that, rain and then rainbows.

“That's enough for some,” Granda said, nodding. “And for others the possibility that Scotland could be free of England forever brings them out. Some hate only the English government and want us to have our own parliament in Scotland again, as we did before the traitors in Edinburgh sold it for English gold. They want to get back what was so wickedly taken.”