White Rose Rebel (18 page)

‘Aye, sir,’ the cook nodded. ‘We’ll move it up.’

He left them banging pots about, serving soup.

It was a relief to reach his quarters. But even there, he couldn’t be alone. Forbes waited inside. He had a lantern lit. In its light, the old judge’s eyes looked more rheumy than usual.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d be back, M
^c
Intosh,’ he said. ‘Since you are, you might want this.’ He pushed a fresh decanter of whisky across the table.

‘What are you doing here, Forbes?’

‘I noticed you’d emptied the last one.’

‘What is it you want?’

The old man got up. There was a definite wateriness in his eyes.

‘I believe in this Union, M
^c
Intosh,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘It’s not perfect, but it is the only way forward.’

‘Tell that to the Jacobites.’ Aeneas poured himself a drink. ‘We were defeated.’

‘And now you must think! There is a world beyond here that has much to offer. Colonies are opening up. Who knows what Britain might achieve? But Scotland by itself? England on its own? France or Spain will simply gobble us up and spit out the pips.’

‘So you came to talk politics?’

‘We can do more together than apart.’

Aeneas swallowed a mouthful of whisky. Whatever the old fox was after, he was talking to the wrong man. The fate of nations was not his immediate concern. His wife had aimed a loaded pistol at him, in defence of MacGillivray.

‘Right at the moment, Forbes,’ he said. ‘I’m a stranger to togetherness.
Tha mi sgìth
, and tomorrow I must sit down with my company and try to make a listing of our dead. So, if you’ll excuse me.’ He held open the door.

‘My apologies.’ The judge picked up his hat. ‘You’ll want sleep.’ On his way out, he drew an envelope from his pocket. ‘I brought this for you.’ He gave it to the chief and went out. In the doorway, he turned. ‘I’m sorry, Aeneas.’ He put his hat on and walked away into the night.

Aeneas shut the door. There was no point speculating. At the table he sat down and drew the lantern nearer so he could see. He took the
sgian dhubh
from inside his shirt, slit open the envelope and withdrew the papers. Half-way down the top sheet, he had to start again, unsure if he’d read it right. It was the full deed and title to Moy Hall and, he turned the page, all the land currently held. It was the release from the clan’s obligation, debt discharged, mortgage clear. It was cause for celebration, at quite the wrong time, and no one to share it with. Tomorrow, instead of writing to the mothers of their dead, he could march the living out of here, back to their families. He could speak to the bereaved, if he chose to leave. He could return to being their chief.

Was that why Forbes was sorry? Sorry to see him go or, and to his credit, for the price paid in young blood, a futile loss that could have been avoided? Or was he sorry for what this action had cost
Aeneas, the respect of his people, the fidelity of his wife? Carefully, he folded the papers and put them back into the envelope. Then he doubled it into his sporran, tossed back his drink, lay down on his bunk and went to sleep.

In the morning, he gathered the remains of his troop, and they went over the action, dredging their memories. He could vouch for Duncan Shaw’s death himself, no doubt buried now at Prestonpans despite his order to the lad’s brother that his body be taken home.

‘Lachlan Fraser got it in the back,’ one of the boys said. ‘I was looking to see if he was following after me when it happened.’

‘How bad?’ The blacksmith’s son would be the whole clan’s loss.

‘Split from shoulder to hip, Chief.’

Aeneas let the slip pass. The list went on. M
^c
Thomas shot in the face, Howling Robbie with an arm taken off, the M
^c
Intosh lad called Shameless running the wrong way from the field, Macpherson run through the gut. When they’d exhausted what they could recall for certain, the list stood at nineteen, and some of those might be captive injured. Of the other missing forty-two, they knew nothing. He would do two forms of letter. Injured during action, presumed killed. Those could be done that evening. The missing in action, unaccounted for, would keep.

In the afternoon, he requisitioned a horse and rode to Moy. The land spread out before him as he came over Drumossie, heather- and forest-clad, with the turf cott fires smoking through their roofs, the burns splashing over rocks, roaring as they foamed down waterfalls, the loch sparkling in the autumn sun. He would have more stone cottages built, clear some of the bracken and heather, put the best farmers among the clan into them. Self-sufficiency, that was the way forward. Dependency was in no one’s best interests. He was making plans for the future, a future that Anne had no part in.

He rode past the blacksmith’s stone-built forge. If Donald had been there, he would have stopped, offered his condolences on the loss of their son. But the forge was cold, the blacksmith gone. Donald was in Edinburgh, if he’d survived the battle, and Aeneas
couldn’t face Màiri and the younger children yet, not without the letter, not without something for her to hold on to.

At Moy Hall, Will and Jessie ran out to greet him.

‘It’s good to have you home,’ Will said.

‘And all of a piece,’ Jessie added.

‘It’s good to be home,’ he told them, and it was, if he ignored what was missing – Anne calling from the bedroom window or rushing out to meet him.

His aunt was relieved to see him, relieved he was unhurt, amazed by the papers from Forbes.

‘By all that’s blest,’ she said. ‘Then you’re free.’

He nodded. The word itself was a gift, like the sun in the sky, the wind sweeping rain down from the hills or the snow that frosted the mountains. Gifts that were kind and cutting, that brought good out of bad, growth from destruction, peace out of pain.

‘So you brought the boys home?’ the Dowager asked.

‘No.’ He knew now why Forbes expressed his sorrow. Free of debt did not mean free to choose. The old judge was a peacemaker, but he’d known Aeneas couldn’t profit then sit this out. He’d guessed Aeneas would join the Jacobites. He was wrong.

‘But they needn’t stay in the Watch.’ His aunt was perplexed. ‘The debt is paid.’

‘They chose to stay, with me.’ Forbes was wrong, too, about the Union. It was not the best choice Scotland had ever made. Power had to be equally shared, nation to nation, not given over to the greater population, the louder voice. Whether by intent or not, England swamped Scotland with its different ways. Too much that was good was being lost, crushed or thrown away. The people grew ashamed. That had to change. Somehow, someday, and in some other way, that change would be made. But Charles Edward Stuart didn’t offer it. Aeneas had heard him on the field, shouting at Anne not to shoot, screaming at all the Jacobites to stop killing his subjects. He would use the Scots to take England, if he could. Whatever he promised, he wanted the Union intact. The face on the coin was all the difference he would make.

‘One defeat doesn’t finish this,’ he went on. ‘The debt we pay
now is to ourselves, to keep Moy for the clan. I won’t jeopardize their future.’

‘If you won’t join the rising, you could stay out of it.’

‘Neutrality would look like I colluded with my wife.’

‘Then we’re at odds now too, Aeneas,’ his aunt said. ‘You’ve chosen like a man without a woman to give you balance. Did you not see Anne?’

‘I did. We didn’t speak. She made her point with a loaded pistol. Our differences are clear. We’ve nothing to say to each other.’

‘Then you both lose.’

‘Aunt –’ his temper was rising ‘– she’s chosen MacGillivray.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Aeneas. She’s a young woman with a healthy appetite. What difference does that make? She’ll come home again. Where else would she go?’

‘If she thinks to make a MacQueen of me in my own house, she should think better of it and can make her home at Dunmaglas!’

‘You’d put her out? You can’t do that. She leads the clan now. It will be their choice. You don’t have the right.’

‘Then maybe I’m learning something from the English.’ It was his last word. He gave her the deeds to secure, called Will to bring his horse and rode away.

While Aeneas was out of the fort, Louden had returned, his forces even more pitifully reduced. There was a considerable toing and froing, a lot of new English uniforms about the place. Aeneas took himself off to his quarters and set about the painful task of writing the official letters to the next of kin. By the time he signed off the last one, his lantern was lit and the braziers were burning outside. The guttering light from the tallow cast strange shadows in his room. Night came early, now October was almost here.

His door was knocked and thrown open. The dark silhouette of a thin man in a black frock-coat and three-cornered hat was framed in the opening against the bluish back-lit smoke outside, skinny arms spread to grip the jambs, like some giant spider in its web. Death, Aeneas thought, death had come to visit. The man-spider put its forearms behind its back and stalked into the room. Louden
followed it in, substantial as ever. The thing was a man then, not a supernatural, and looked about, not speaking, ignoring Aeneas seated at the table.

‘Do intrude,’ Aeneas said, putting his quill down.

‘Sorry, Aeneas,’ Louden said. ‘This is General Hawley.’

‘I’m not sure I like Scotch manners, Captain M
^c
Intosh,’ Hawley said. The rank was sneered out, meant to put down.

‘No more than I like English timekeeping,’ Aeneas said. ‘We lost at least five hundred men, fifteen hundred taken prisoner.’

‘Yet left the Jacobites barely scratched,’ Hawley taunted.

‘General Hawley is to replace General Cope,’ Louden told Aeneas.

‘Then you’re two hundred miles too far north, General,’ Aeneas said. ‘Cope rode to England.’

‘This woman the rebels have with them…’ Hawley drew a copy of the caricature sketch from inside his jacket and laid it on the table, sliding it over to Aeneas.

The drawing told Aeneas nothing, but the name under it jolted him. So that was why the general graced his quarters. Covering his shock, he looked up and considered Hawley.

‘I’ve never seen such a woman,’ he said.

Hawley lifted the caricature, carefully, with his fingertips, as if it might contaminate him, and handed it to Louden, an eyebrow raised in question.

‘Anne Farquharson,’ Louden read out. Before he finished, Hawley cut in.

‘Is she the Pretender’s plaything?’

Louden cleared his throat, visibly nervous. ‘Colonel Anne is, as it says –’

‘Colonel?’ Hawley interrupted again. ‘The rebels rank their tarts rather highly.’

Louden winced. Aeneas pushed his chair back and stood.

‘Colonel Anne is the Lady M
^c
Intosh,’ he said, tightly. ‘My wife, General.’

Hawley did not appear surprised. Instead, he had the air of a man about to lay down the winning hand.

‘Wife or no –’ he smiled a sly, thin smile ‘– your loyalty to the government won’t save her from the rope.’

‘We don’t hang our adversaries.’ Louden was shocked at the idea.

‘Not even in defeat,’ Aeneas added, ‘if defeat occurs.’

‘Traitors,’ Hawley said, ‘we hang traitors.’

It was too much for Louden. The earl was a soldier, well used to brutality and death but he baulked at the thought of hanging a defeated enemy, and a woman to boot. He put an arm round Aeneas’s shoulder.

‘Come,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘We’re dining in my quarters.’

Hawley leant against the table, crossed his ankles and waited till Louden had the door open and Aeneas was in the doorway.

‘I expect the rebels celebrate more wantonly,’ he sneered.

Aeneas tensed. Rage, that familiar burning jealous rage, welled up in his chest. Now it had a target. His fingers gripped the door jamb ready to propel him round on to this obnoxious man. He imagined snapping him over his knee, throwing the broken pieces, clattering, into the corner.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Louden said, under his breath.

Carefully, Aeneas let go the door frame and turned to face Hawley.

‘No doubt they do,’ he said, with apparent calmness. ‘They have cause to.’

He went out then, Louden with him, leaving Hawley to prowl about his quarters and rifle his few possessions, if he cared to.

Outside, Louden fell into step with him.

‘Sorry about that,’ he apologized. ‘They must be scraping the barrel.’

‘I have to warn my wife,’ Aeneas said. He had hoped he would no longer care. Obviously, he did, at least for her life.

‘Amazing how deaf one becomes,’ Louden responded, ‘must be from riding behind the piper.’ At forty, he couldn’t yet claim advancing years. ‘Aeneas, if you’re chasing two hares, with a foot in each scrape, I don’t want to know. But Hawley has ordered all
letters in or out intercepted for scrutiny. Don’t risk the firing squad.’ They were passing the cells. ‘Which reminds me,’ he stopped and had the guard open one. ‘We picked up this man on our way back. Deserter, I think. Didn’t want to come with us, but then he said you could vouch for him.’

It was Lieutenant Ray the guard hauled out into the brazier light. Aeneas considered him. The man trembled, his eyes pleading. He had left the field before retreat sounded.

‘He’s my lieutenant,’ he told Louden then, knowing he lied, ‘and no deserter.’

Relieved, Ray stepped forward to Aeneas and snapped off a salute.

‘Thank you, Captain. You won’t regret it, sir.’

Aeneas was not done. The night before the battle, Ray said he’d met Anne twice, had twice almost put a shot in her. He’d realized then this was the man who shot Calum M
^c
Cay in Anne’s arms at the cotts. The night before a battle had not been the time to deal with it. He clenched his fist. Late was better than never. Now would do.

‘This is for Calum,’ he said. He drew his fist back and punched Ray full in the face.

The lieutenant fell back, arms flailing, on to the ground.

Aeneas bent, took his arm, helping him up, brushing him down. ‘Are you fit, Lieutenant?’ he asked.

‘Aye, sir,’ Ray spluttered, dribbling blood from nose and mouth.