White Rose Rebel (6 page)

Anne gave up waiting. She put her hands on each side of his head and her mouth on his. A great cheer went up from outside.

Around the house, dozens from both clans leapt and cheered and hugged. Others, having further to come, were still running to be there. A woman pulled a small drawstring bag from inside her dress, opened it and took out the one coin it contained as if it were the greatest treasure in the world. She glanced at her husband.
Money was rare in the Highlands, where even chiefs made payment in kind. Proudly, the woman went to the doorway, to where a small wooden chest sat near the budding white rose. She propped the lid open and tossed the coin into it.

Inside, where the stillness was broken only by Lady Farquharson exclaiming her shock, the kiss came to an end.

‘You surprise me, again,’ Aeneas said. ‘I thought you might say no.’

‘I surprise myself,’ Anne said.

Needing to do something physical, Aeneas turned to MacGillivray. He gripped the younger man’s shoulder, offering his right hand. MacGillivray swallowed hard. Apart from Aeneas, there wasn’t a person in the room or the mountains who wouldn’t know his disappointment, but he took his mentor’s hand and shook it warmly.

Aeneas frowned. He withdrew his hand and spread it out to look at the palm. It was smeared stickily with egg yolk and shell. Anne snorted with laughter. Aeneas looked at MacGillivray’s horrified face, and he, too, began to laugh. The tension that strung the younger chief taut like a harp string was released. MacGillivray joined in, the three of them united by their laughter. All around the room the others chuckled and hooted, everyone except Lady Farquharson who was now bemoaning the waste of a good egg.

Out on the doorstep, where the Jacobite rose would soon spread its white, perfumed petals, the small wooden box filled with the coins being tossed in. Whisky and ale mysteriously appeared to toast the couple, the new clan union and, as always when toasts were made among them, the king across the water.

Far away, across that water, at the court of Louis X V, King of France, a much larger chest also filled with coin. Nearby, a tall, elegant young prince leant over an ornately carved table, poring over maps and charts with his naval commanders.

Across Raigbeg ford, the M
^c
Intosh guard of honour waited: six warriors on foot, one on horseback, and the piper. Seeing them ahead, Anne drew Pibroch, the bridal pony Aeneas had gifted her on the day of his proposal, to a halt. Her kinsmen had wreathed the pony’s halter with white roses, plaited them into its tail. Her kinswomen had sewn others on to her white lawn dress. Half-opened buds nestled in her hair. Every breath she took was filled with their perfume, a reminder of her Jacobite heritage and the memory of her father.

On the other side of the mountains, the fields and cotts of Invercauld she had left behind were near empty. All those fit to walk were determined to see her wed. The slow had set off days before, on foot or in carts. The warriors and those who could match the horses for pace marched behind the mounted party. At the bridge of Carr, where they’d broken the journey for the night, the people celebrated with a wild generosity they could ill afford. Even her stepmother, riding next to Elizabeth in the party behind, had finally thawed. She would have a more amenable household to run with Anne gone. It seemed every person in the Highlands wanted this wedding. All, but one.

As Anne hesitated at the ford, her cousin, Francis of Monaltrie, pulled up beside her. He would guess why she halted. Lord George Murray reined in at her other side. Her deceased mother’s cousin and the Murrays’ most notable warrior, he was there as custom demanded, to ensure Anne was doing as she wished and not bending to the will of others. Women did as they pleased in tribal society, and their menfolk made sure of it.

‘Is it this far and no further, Anne?’ he asked.

Behind them, her brother, James, the box with her wedding tocher strapped on his horse, had stopped the advance. Across the
water, the stewards waited, the sun glinting on the one rider’s red hair.

‘It’s MacGillivray,’ she said.

She hadn’t seen him since the day Aeneas proposed. But she should have expected this. It was Alexander’s right, and his duty, to be at the right hand of Clan Chattan’s chief. That duty included protecting his chief’s bride. Yet surely Aeneas knew by now. Was he taunting or testing them?

‘The choice is still yours,’ George Murray reminded her.

Anne smiled at him. He was twice her age, wise and serious, yet would uphold her decision however temperamental or capricious.

‘I’ve already made it,’ she said, and urged Pibroch forward into the shallow Findhorn waters, through its clear wash to the other side.

After the greetings were made, the M
^c
Intosh escort fell in at the side of the bridal party. It was unnecessary security. Their clan, whose lands they were now on, knew they were no raiding party. The cotts were empty, the people already at the house. Taking up his position at the front, the piper pumped his bagpipes and, with music skirling, set off to lead the way. MacGillivray swung his horse round behind the pipes. Careless of protocol, Anne spurred forward to ride at his side.

‘I will arrive beside you,’ she said. Surely he was still her friend and ally?

MacGillivray glanced at her, a look just long enough for her to see pain in his normally untroubled eyes.

‘Does he not know?’ she asked.

‘He hasn’t said. And what would I say when I don’t understand?’

Anne didn’t answer. He was, and always would be, dear as the world to her. The silence between them filled with the thud of walking hooves and the chatter from behind. Then MacGillivray said what was in his mind.

‘We belong together, you and I.’

‘This is my wedding day, Alexander.’

‘That day by the falls.’

‘I was nineteen,’ she protested. The whole world changed in a year.

‘You were in too deep. Skirts gathered round your middle, the water round your thighs. Trying to coax a fish.’

‘He was mine. One flick of the wrist.’

‘You knew I was there, watching. I saw your spine stiffen, your head lift. That’s when I knew you would come to me.’

Anne wouldn’t deny the desire that immobilized her.

‘It seemed like hours, those minutes. I felt the length of that fish slip round my leg and slide away.’

Now he looked over at her again. His blue eyes burned with certainty.

‘You want me still.’

She met his look with her own certainty.

‘Yes, I do.’ Then she laughed, letting the tension out of her. ‘And if Aeneas doesn’t please me, I shall come to you again.’

Frustrated, MacGillivray threw his arm wide to indicate his own clan lands at Dunmaglas, out of sight to the west.

‘We’ll have fat cattle by autumn and a harvest.’ The crop swayed green and tall around them. ‘Look how the barley grows.’

‘With an English malt tax on every bushel, we can’t profit by it.’

‘When our larders are full, my clan will want me wed. A few good years.’

‘It’s settled.’ Her tone was firm, but he could not leave it be.

‘You wouldn’t marry for fortune or favour,’ he said. ‘So why?’

It was a question she had not dared ask herself. Aeneas was a stranger, a closed book, yet from the moment she saw him on the steps of Moy at his adoption, she had wanted him and been shocked and angry with that wanting. He haunted her, an affecting presence that she longed for every wakeful moment. Aye, and no doubt in her sleep too. If a night spent tumbling the blankets with him would have cured her, she would have done that. But this went deeper than between her thighs, though she couldn’t understand or explain.

‘We can’t know why we do things,’ she said. ‘I only know I must do this.’

Around Moy Hall, many hundreds of Highlanders had gathered. The white rose of June bloomed at the great front door and under windows, planted there so its perfume would fill the house. There was a buzz of activity. Men and women set food and drink on long tables: a roast pig, venison, game birds, rabbits, fish, oatcakes, barrels of ale. Hearing the distant skirl of pipes, they hurried to finish.

Inside the main hall, with its twin fireplaces on opposite walls and wide, sweeping staircase, an adolescent girl set out fish and meat delicacies beside brimming stoups of claret. From the open doors in the dining room, Aeneas frowned out at the frantic lastminute preparations. Then he, too, heard the faint skirl and his brow cleared. He was dressed in a fine kilted philabeg, woven specially for this day and made by the clan’s best kiltmaker, plaid pinned over his shoulder with a silver brooch. His favourite silver-handled broadsword and dirk gleamed at his sides. Beside him, Forbes of Culloden, Scotland’s elderly Law Lord, sounded off.

‘The burial costs are not met. Fifteen hundred guests and your clan’s mortgage debt for this hall not cleared. Now this! Hens and oats are not currency, Aeneas. The tax bill alone…’

‘We deal in what the land provides,’ Aeneas cut in. ‘These taxes are your government’s invention.’

‘And fine words might well remove them,’ Forbes agreed. ‘But in parliament, not here, and not today.’

The girl had come in from the hall to set a tray on the already crowded table. Aeneas reached out as she passed and snatched up an oyster. The girl, every bit as quick, smacked his hand. Aeneas pointed across the room, indicating her attention was required. When she turned to look, he slid the oyster into his mouth and swallowed. As he slipped the empty shell back on to her tray, the girl realized the trick and glared at him. He grinned and winked.

‘Too slow, Jessie,’ he said, lifting a glass of wine.

‘A wife will soon have you sorted,’ she told him sternly. Then
her excitement broke as a wide smile. ‘I’m near gone with it all.’ And she hurried off again.

‘A wife might sort many things,’ Forbes said, as he heard the approaching pipes. ‘I hear she brings a healthy tocher. And in coin not corn.’

Aeneas threw back his head and laughed.

‘I’m neither wedded nor bedded yet, Forbes,’ he said. ‘But I daresay the banks would have you feeling my pockets even if I were a corpse.’

‘Which you could be if I report that weapon you’re wearing,’ Forbes nodded at the sword sheathed at Aeneas’s side. ‘In the current climate it would be judged as sedition.’

Aeneas smiled at him, unperturbed. In Europe, England warred with France. Last month, the British army had been defeated. Now there was talk that a French force led by the Jacobite Prince would soon invade England. Several clans had sworn to rise in support and secure Scotland. Forbes suspected M
^c
Intosh might be one of them.

‘My clan land is not public,’ Aeneas corrected, giving nothing away. ‘And I’ll not be half-dressed at my wedding.’ He raised his wine glass.
‘Slàinte,’
he said, and downed it.

Lady M
^c
Intosh hurried in through the glass doors. This would be the last day she’d regard Moy Hall as her home, but she, too, was eager for this wedding.

‘Aeneas,’ she urged, unnecessarily. ‘They’re here!’

‘We’ll settle our business after I’m married,’ Aeneas told Forbes before following his aunt outside.

‘Not with promises, you won’t,’ Forbes retorted. ‘Not this time.’

But promises were the order of the day. So that all could see, a low platform decked with heather, Jacobite roses and white ribbon had been erected for the ceremony. While her family found their positions fronting the large group of Farquharsons, Anne waited with her cousin beyond the edge of the crowd. Until her brother reached twenty-five, Francis was senior and would be her witness. They walked together on to the platform, to where Aeneas stood
waiting, MacGillivray at his right side, before the minister. The three men made an imposing line-up in their different tartan plaids, chiefs’ feathers fluttering, the banned silver-handled weapons glittering at their sides.

Between them, in her billowing white lawn and satin dress, Anne seemed fragile, delicate as a butterfly. It was the first of June, midday. The sun was high overhead. There were no shadows. Into the palpable silence of the crowd, her voice rang clear as she made her vows, the last committing her to his clan.

‘Where you go, I will go. Your home will be my home, and your people will be my people.’

Aeneas was no less certain. He looked into her eyes, steadily, speaking solely to her. They might have been alone rather than surrounded by crowding Highlanders.

‘And where you are, there I will be,’ he said, his voice firm and sure. ‘My sword and clan in your defence, for only death can part us now.’ Then, as they were pronounced married, he cupped his bride’s face with his hands and kissed her.

A great cheer went up from the assembled tribes. The air filled with tossed blue bonnets and whoops of celebration. As the wife of their chief, Anne Farquharson was now the Lady M
^c
Intosh, bound to serve the clan and they her, to the death if necessary. She was a popular choice. Aeneas’s aunt, now the Dowager Lady M
^c
Intosh, was first to congratulate the new couple.

‘You will stay on here with us, won’t you?’ Anne asked.

‘That’s kind of you,
a ghràidh
,’ the Dowager replied. ‘But I’m looking forward to town life in Inverness. It will be less work, more pleasure. Moy needs only one mistress. You’ll do well.’

Determined to be next, Francis loomed forwards. Pushing his sword and dirk behind him, he bent down, kissed Anne thoroughly, then wrapped her in a bear-hug.

‘You made a fine choice,’ he approved. ‘And Aeneas made a better one.’

With the rest of their two families clamouring to shake hands, it was some time before Anne could extricate herself to look for MacGillivray. He stood back from the well-wishers, at the edge of
the platform, his six-foot frame and startling red hair preventing the invisibility he seemed to wish for. Anne put her hand on his arm.

‘I don’t love you any the less,’ she said. ‘And you know that Aeneas loves you like a brother.’

For a moment she thought he would walk away, an action that would forever put them at odds, but he stayed his ground, loyalty to Aeneas and love for her fighting his feeling of loss. He drew a deep breath.